Guardian Prize 28,602 by Brendan

59 comments on “Guardian Prize 28,602 by Brendan”

1. Thanks bridgesong.
   ‘Prince of Lies’ is one of Satan’s epithets, so I thought the clue for SATANICAL fair.
   Cheers Brendan.

2. Enjoyed this, despite my republican inclinations. Came here to discover the parsing of LIABILITY and I was not disappointed— thanks for the lucidity bridgesong.

   And “Arise Sir Brendan, First knight of the Royal Puzzler”

3. Thanks bridgesong. SHEBANG is fairly popular with compilers and sometimes generates discussion, as when Tramp had it in March. Origin unknown, surfaced at time of American Civil War, meaning variously hut or tent (from F chabane?) esp for sly grog (cf shebeen?) or else a vehicle (from charabanc?). A stand-alone word then but now seeming always to need a companion (‘whole … ‘): here ‘situation’ seems an OK definition.

4. ACD

   Thanks to Brendan and bridgesong. I did not parse LIABILITY or ROYAL, took a long time spotting FILIAL (not the first thing that came to mind re Lear and Cordelia), and my LOI was UNEASY even though I know the quote well.

5. Thanks bridgesong. Wasn’t sure about 25. The allusion to the royal ‘we’ was plain enough but I had to look up ‘lability’ to confirm there was such a word. There are three letter is in the answer and it could have been any one or all three of them even if ‘lability’ is the least unlikely. I had to check on King Lear too thinking incorrectly that ‘filial’ referred to the male line.

6. I enjoyed this for the most part, but nothing really stood out. The so-called theme was obvious, but it’s really just a theme for the setter, not the solver, isn’t it?

   I was wondering why it was Cordelia’s response to Lear that was FILIAL, rather than her any-relationship-at-all to him: probably just to align with the word “answer” earlier in the clue, but to me it wasn’t “what’s satisfying”!

   Final point re: MUSED. Victoria may have said “We are not amused”, but didn’t Victoria and Albert together say “We are not a museum”?

7. Enjoyable puzzle with a theme that even I spotted!

   Favourites: PRINCELIEST, ACCOLADE, UNEASY (loi).

   New for me: LABILITY (for 25ac); IMAGO; ROOK = cheat.

   Thanks, both.

8. I enjoyed this, though the top went in a lot quicker than the bottom, and even though royalty is far from my favorite topic. Gonzo @1 – I was thinking Prince of Darkness. I liked YOSEMITE – having failed to bring anything but El Capitan to mind for the park, I tried E TIMES reversed and – eureka! Took a while to turn up the right Henry, or the Cordelia/Lear relationship too, but satisfying penny drops. Thanks, Brendan and bridgesong.

9. Thanks for the blog , I do not like themes in the clues and I cannot abide royalty so I was a bit glum after two clues. However I decided just to treat each clue as an individual and there are many fine clues here and some are terrific.
   ROOK is very neat with a nice chess reference, WEIRDO is great with the WE DO, ELIZA is so deceptive , LIABILITY is nice for the use of lability and the reference to I .
   Minor quibbles for PRINCELIEST , the directions go in separately but no indication and ACCOLADE I like the deception with OLD BOY but the royal is a bit forced in the clue.

10. Roz@9: I wondered about the ‘royal’ in 17 too, but then learnt that the touching-on-both-shoulders-with-a-sword action during the conferring of a knighthood is so called.

11. Another amazing construction by Brendan — every clue or answer was related to all things royal without anything being forced — a tour de force in my opinion. Favourites included IMAGO, PRINCELIEST, LOYALTY, ELIZA, and ENCIPHER. Thanks bridgesong for the blog.

12. Good level of difficulty for a Saturday I think. Some easier clues for the less advanced and them some trickier ones as well. My favourites were LIABILITY (as I’d never really thought about labile in its general sense) SPICERY for its definition, ROOK for its clever chess reference within the overall theme. My only problem was I had not completely parsed 8d and came here for an explanation to find I am a DNF as I had put in YOSEMITI. Oh well. There is always this week.
    Thanks Brendan and bridgesong.

13. Actually I’d put YOSEMETI. So I had all the bits but not in the right order.

14. Thank you Gonzo @ 10 but I still think the clue would be better with royal taken out , it is only there for the theme.

15. Enjoyed this (though found it hard) and several made me smile: WEIRDO, LIABILITY, MUSED.

    Didn’t get ELIZA, FILIAL or UNEASY (which I really like now)

    Thanks Brendan and bridgesong

16. Thank you, bridgesong, and much praise to Brendan. This consumed about the right amount of the weekend.

    The point about Cordelia’s response, DrW@6 and .@4, is that Lear asked how much she loved him, and she responded ‘According to my bond; no more nor less’, ie only as much as to fulfil her filial duty.

    I liked the pun in 21a on ‘rank’ (a row on the chess board). At first I felt it was technically a mistake, as the ROOKs and king start on the same rank but on different files (columns), but then realised they are removed at the ends of the same rank, so it works after all. Also enjoyed the implicit reference to Harry & Meghan (and the newspapers) in 8d.

    I agree with Roz about 17 introducing ‘royal’ to fit the theme, and feel much the same about a few others (LIABILITY at 25, WEIRDO at 1d, ULTIMATELY at 13) where the royal connection seems stretched, but for Brendan to maintain the theme throughout was a triumph, so that may be pardoned.

17. Thank you bridgesong, this required several nibbles and I enjoyed it precisely because of the range per CanberraGirl@12. My last 3, those that stumped Fiona Anne@15, arrived like a sort of triangular Escher staircase – it was especially tricky that these cross and require some general/cultural knowledge to be sure of them, but i enjoyed looking up “potted Shakespeare” and as sjshart points out this led me to further appreciate the clue. Thanks Brendan.

18. For once a Brendan theme did feel a little forced, at least I thought so, still it’s definitely an achievement to get so many references in so many ways. Overall very enjoyable but I did make a meal of it by confidently filling in PAWN instead of ROOK on first read through, lovely PDM when ROOK dropped instead.

    Last three in were Fiona Anne’s missing answers, (my Shakespeare GK is woefully lacking) and I had to check if filial could apply to a daughter which to my surprise it could. I assume that it perhaps didn’t back in the old days of male primogeniture? Anyone know more?

    Thanks Brendan, Bridgesong & Timon.

19. Many thanks all, not least sjshart for precisely explaining why RANK rankled initially to a chess player. Though irrelevant to the clue, I never knew that (Chambers at least) has cheat as another name for chess.

20. Having not encountered a SPICERY before, this puzzle was worth it for that alone. Lovely word and clue though I had suspicions from the start that this mace would be neither battle-hardened nor ceremonial. I enjoyed the definition for IMAGO, WEIRDO made me smile, I had ticks for the simple device employed in LOYALTY and, for once, a double definition in INVESTING. I haven’t encountered a ROYAL before in terms of paper size. (I do love these old collections of scaled terms – rather like the increasing sizes of bottles. Sadly, I don’t think we come up with similar concepts these days – megabytes, terrabytes etc seems pale by comparison).

    Like TassieTim @8 (and not that far from Gonzo @1), I was another Prince of Darkness so SATANICAL didn’t seem at all forced to me.

    Thanks Brendan and bridgesong

21. Yes, I did spot the theme, and I was really impressed by just how ingeniously Brendan managed to get it into every single clue/answer. I learned a few things, such as IMAGO, and that mace could be a spice. And I particularly liked ROOK.
    Thanks Brendan and thanks bridgesong.

22. [ MrPostmark @20 we do have barn, outhouse and shed for collision cross-sections in particle physics, I am trying to get stable added but with little success so far. ]

23. I always enjoy a Brendan crossword and this easy-to-spot themed one was no exception

    Thanks to him and bridgesong

24. Another tour de force from Brendan – my favourites being SPICERY, IMAGO, PRINCELIEST, ISOMORPHIC, and, especially, UNEASY.

    Roz @9 and 14 – In 17dn, far from ‘royal’ being shoehorned in for the sake of the theme, ACCOLADE, as Gonzo points out @10, is the technical term for the bestowal of a knighthood. It was originally an embrace (about the neck, from the Latin ad + collum, neck) – later a kiss, then the tapping on the shoulders with a sword. My SOED has this as the only definition, in fact.

    As for FILIAL, filius is the Latin for son and filia for daughter, so no surprise that filial can apply to either.

    Like others, I assumed Prince of Darkness re SATANICAL. The Devil is also called Prince of the Devils and Prince of the power of the air in the King James Bible.

    And Machiavelli did write a political treatise, ‘The Prince’ – so no complaints about forcedness from me, apart from the rather loosely indicated ‘royal couple’ in 8dn, which no one seems to have mentioned!

    Many thanks to Brendan and to bridgesong (and Timon).

25. Clever but relatively easy for Brendan. Another Prince of Darkness here but alas, a DNF as UNEASY remained that all week. Faves were SPICERY and FILIAL.

    Ta Brendan & bridgesong

26. Eileen @ 24: thanks for making those points about ACCOLADE and FILIAL. I hadn’t thought it necessary to refer to The Prince by Machiavelli – I just assumed that it was the one work by him that everyone would have heard of.

    And I did think long and hard about the “royal couple” in 8 down before deciding to let it pass. But it’s not really fair, is it?

27. Chambers 93 ACCOLADE = high award . Collins , ACCOLADE= award or honour, clue works perfectly without royal , superfluous words should be removed.

28. I’m obviously not of high enough rank to give crossword the ACCOLADE it deserves. I liked the Shakespeare and chess references. I think sjshart is right about FILIAL.

29. bridgesong @26 – my apologies: I certainly didn’t mean to imply any omission on your part. I got so engrossed in the etymology of ACCOLADE that I didn’t look back at the clue for MACHIAVELLI: of course you had underlined ‘about prince’ in the definition. And my comment re surprise at the meaning of FILIAL was in response to Blah @18.

    I’m not sure that the royal couple in 8dn is unfair, exactly – just a bit imprecise, especially for Brendan! I did think that would have been pounced on, rather than some of the other others.

30. Apologies for the redundant ‘other’.

31. [Roz @22: how fascinating. And not the words you might expect for such an advanced science. (That said, why on Earth should bottles be named after biblical figures?) It might be timely to press your case for stable, given its place in the upcoming festive season.]

    Gonzo @10 and Eileen @24: thanks for the insight into ACCOLADE. Roz @27: can’t agree with you on this one. If Brendan’s chosen the knighthood-related definition as his solution, then surely ‘royal’ isn’t superfluous and it fits well with his theme.

32. Roz@27 and above: in the current edition of Chambers, ACCOLADE has 5 definitions, the second of which is “the action used in conferring knighthood…”. I think that’s implicitly royal, justifying the inclusion of the word in the clue. I had a different view about “so-called prince “ in the clue to 5 down, but I accept that I have been overruled there in the court of public opinion (as represented in this blog).

33. Lovely to see all of the Guardian republicans being slightly miffed at the theme, and then warming to the chess and literature references, as well as the general cleverness of Brendan’s clues.
    Lovely, and reassuring too, since these were entirely my sentiments.
    Thanks Brendan for providing such a pleasurable Saturday morning. Your name on a puzzle is a guarantee of intelligence and wit.

34. I am not saying royal is wrong just that it is only there because of the theme, no theme it would be omitted, setters always aim for brevity , partly due to constraints in the newspaper.

    [ MrPostMark @31, a barn is roughly the size of a uranium nucleus – as big as a barn door as we would say. A stable would be a millibarn which is mb and then setters could use it in their wordplay , many words contain mb ]

35. Yes, a tour-de-force of setting.

    I should have spotted lability in 25 but I thought it had something to do with unreliability, but of course that didn’t work. Having looked up Cordelia’s response to Lear and found it was ‘nothing’ I got stuck on that one until FILIAL came into view. I didn’t know the ROYAL page size and had a QM against the royal couple, like Eileen @24, although that is perhaps excusable as a way to continue the theme. I did like IMAGO and several others mentioned above, and overall I found the crossword very enjoyable.

    Thanks Brendan and bridgesong.

36. An entertaining puzzle as usual from Brendan. Thank you. The theme added to the amusement which is not always the case with other setters.
    I thought 8d and 14a were imprecise as did Eileen and Roz respectively.
    26a was definitely a case of solve first then work out which Henry was referred to and acknowledge the misdirection from any royal Henry.
    Thanks too to bridgesong.

37. Thanks Eileen, I’m fairly sure I was taught (incorrectly as it turns out) that filial was only for sons not daughters at school, hence my surprise, I then assumed it had changed due to current gender politics. Again wrong as I found this saying in use for either since the 14th century.

    Perhaps I misremember my school days, or perhaps my old Latin/English master was a tad misogynistic.

38. Eileen @24. Thanks for dealing with some of the minor grumbles, some of which came across as slightly curmudgeonly. I was going to mention the rather loose ‘royal couple’ but you’ve beaten me to it.

    The recurring motif in these comments (almost a theme, really) is about whether or not something ‘royal’ has been forced into the clue or the answer. But isn’t this the whole point of the theme? The solver can never be sure if the references in the clues are relevant to the answer or are somewhat misleading. Roz @34: “setters always aim for brevity”. Really? Some setters, sometimes, but surely not always.

    The best clue for me was for FILIAL, where knowledge of the relevant part of Shakespeare’s play would be helpful (her response is not “nothing”, Robi @35!), but really all that is required is knowing that Cordelia was Lear’s daughter.

    Thanks to Brendan and bridgesong.

39. Choldunk @19: I was intrigued by your suggestion that “cheat” is defined in Chambers as an alternative term for chess. Turns out that it is, but only for chess in its third sense (as listed in Chambers): a kind of grass found growing with wheat!

40. Thanks Brendan and bridgesong. Great puzzle, great blog.

    Like most Guardian readers, I’m no fan of monarchy, but then given Brendan’s background, I’d be very surprised if he considered himself a royalist, so the theme is certainly not to be taken as a tribute.

    Lots of great clues, but nothing much else to add to what has already been said. Except that I kind of agree with Roz’s point on ACCOLADE – although I’m a lot more tolerant of superfluous words for the sake of the surface (as long as they aren’t unfairly misleading, which I don’t think this one was – not least because the definition used is very precise, so the extra words are superfluous without being redundant, if that makes sense).

    [as an aside, I had the strange experience of opening the puzzle on the app this morning, to refresh my mind before checking in on the blog, to see only one solution filled in – then I remembered that I’d only made a brief start on it last weekend before getting sidetracked and completely forgot about it. As a result, I got the bonus of two ‘prize’ puzzles today – one by Paul, one by Brendan. I’m calling that a win!]

41. sh @38 – brevity is a necessity, not a preference, given the limited space available in the print version of the puzzle. Remember the TUMBRIL/TUMBREL problem a few weeks ago? As Brummie himself explained, that was a result of the word count needing to be cut.

    The other very important reason for brevity is to avoid unfairness – superfluous words can mislead the solver, but not in a good way.

42. Oh, one other thing I almost forgot…

    Not exactly an earworm but did 1a remind anyone else of this clown? Or was it only me who had that thought?

43. Many thanks bridgesong @39 for explaining that cheat is a synonym for a subsidiary meaning of the word chess. Typical Choldunk jumping to the wrong conclusion. e2-e4.

44. sh@38; well I’m not an expert on Shakespeare, but this is from Wiki:
    Lear asks her, “What can you say to draw / A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.” (1.1.84-5). Cordelia replies, “Nothing, my lord.” (1.1.86).

45. Hi Robi @44 – your quotation is at line 96 but you need to read on a few lines.

    LEAR …what can you say to draw
    A third more opulent than your sisters’? Speak.
    CORDELIA Nothing, my lord.
    LEAR Nothing?
    CORDELIA Nothing.
    LEAR Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again.
    CORDELIA
    Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
    My heart into my mouth. I love your Majesty
    According to my bond, no more nor less.
    LEAR
    How, how, Cordelia? Mend your speech a little,
    Lest you may mar your fortunes.
    CORDELIA Good my lord,
    You have begot me, bred me, loved me.
    I return those duties back as are right fit:
    Obey you, love you, and most honour you.
    Why have my sisters husbands if they say
    They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
    That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
    Half my love with him, half my care and duty.
    Sure I shall never marry like my sisters,
    To love my father all.

    There’s an explanation here

46. Sorry, Robi – I’ve just looked at the Wikipedia article and found that it’s all there!

47. Robi @44. Good point! But I was referring to the quote alluded to by sjshart @16: “According to my bond; no more nor less”. (In other words, she loves him as a daughter loves her father.) The lines you have quoted lead up to this clarification, ending in a comma rather than a period. Lear (misguidedly, most would say) had tried to tempt his favourite daughter to say more than her sisters had said, in order to get a greater share of his kingdom and wealth. (We have to bear in mind that he must have been somewhat demented, as would be made clear later in the play.)

    Her full response is ”Nothing my lord, I love your majesty according to my bond: no more, nor less.” I apologise for saying @38 that she did not say “nothing” – clearly she did. But she said *that* in response to the question, what could she say to gain more than her third of the kingdom. Her full response was to say that she loved her father as a daughter ought to love her father, and she could not honestly say more, especially with material gain in mind. This is a very painful scene, and my heart bleeds for Lear in his anxiety and lack of confidence, and for Cordelia in her love for her father and inability to honestly go beyond what her love for him as a daughter would allow her to say.

    I’m not an expert in Shakespeare either. 🙂

48. Apologies for not checking for another response (from Eileen) that made mine somewhat unnecessary.

49. Sorry for jumping in, Sheffield Hatter – you’ve explained it better than I did. 🙂

50. Didn’t know ‘lability’.

    Wondered why the accolade was royal, but then learnt the relevant meaning from the dictionary . Obviously, that def (rather than simply “award” or other synonym) was used so that the clue could be part of the theme, Leaving it out would make a busted flush.

    Didn’t know the details of Cordelia’s response (and thanks SH and others for the details), but knew she was Lear’s daughter, which got me there.

    Didn’t know ROYAL was a paper size and didn’t understand the clue, but as Eileen says, it seemed obvious, given the theme. Thanks for the explanation, Eileen.

    So, despite gaps in my GK, I managed to fill the grid enjoyably.

51. Tony Collman @50 – it was bridgesong, not me!

52. Could someone please explain how “princeliest” works for “extremely lavish”? Surely it is a superlative that equates to “the most lavish”, not “extremely”.

53. Honda @52: yes, you’re right, but I don’t think there’s really much difference in meaning between “extremely lavish” and “the most lavish”.

54. Thanks for an enjoyable puzzle, Brendan and thanks to bridgesong for a good deal of explaining.

55. Thanks Brendan and bridgesong.
    DNF for me as several unparsed, even though I mostly guessed correctly, but not always. I think if the royal reference had been omitted from just one clue, some of us would have been complaining about that instead.

56. Thanks Brendan and bridgesong.

    Much has been cleared up here and thanks to all for that. PRINCELIEST must be a word. I can hear “he was the princeliest of men!” but not the argument that someone else was princelier. Ticks for SHEBANG and ACCOLADE but an “Oy!” for the random royal couple.

    Yes, poor Cordelia – if only she’d shmoozed up to Lear. The villain of the piece in many ways.

    Great fun.

57. Looking forward to acclaiming Sir Brendan. I trust he is not as narrow-minded as ‘most Guardian readers’!

58. Honza@52, I would go further than bridgesong@53 and suggest that, if you take “extremely” to mean “to the extreme” (which is one meaning of the word), then there is precise equivalence: extremely lavish = the most lavish = princeliest.

    Too late to comment other than to echo, as usual, Eileen’s delight @24 in another gem from Brendan.

59. Eileen@51, oops! Thanks bridgesong.

    Cellomaniac@58, that’s what I thought, too.

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