53 comments on “Guardian Prize No 28,769 – placeholder”

  1. Thanks for posting bridgesong.
    And the Guardian’s closed the weekend comments so no fun chatting about either today’s Philistine or last week’s Brendan. 🙁

    A well-earned day off for 15sq bloggers and Gaufrid, and Guardian people.
    Always appreciate the work you do to.

  2. I hope the premature closure of the Friday Guardian thread is not going to be a permanent new policy.

  3. gladys@2. I think it’s probably just the holiday in the UK for the jubilee. Fair enough. Everyone deserves a holiday.
    And after an error in Brummie’s on Friday which even he couldn’t get rectified it’s probably for the best to let everyone have a rest.

  4. I thought the Guardian were not doing prizes at the moment?
    Shame. I will have to wait longer for Brendan’s blog, I got nowhere with it.

  5. Hoofit @4: prizes (just a puzzle book) were reinstated by the Guardian several weeks ago.

  6. Now I have blog withdrawal symptoms 😉 Still, a Jubilee Party by the green to look forward to this afternoon, if it doesn’t rain.

  8. I still have 4 to get from last week’s puzzle – two across clues – the oxymoronic one and its pair – and the two 4-letter down clues that cross the two across ones I haven’t got.

    Was hoping to find the answers today – oh well – might try YET AGAIN to solve them….

  9. I’ve got a couple of clues still to do. I think I know what they are but can’t parse them. I shall just have to wait another week.
    What’s this jubilee that others are talking about?
    Here in Helsinki it’s lippujuhlapäivä and there’s a parade to celebrate the Flag and the Armed Defence Forces. It’s one of the dozen-or-so days in the year when you are allowed to fly the national flag. You are supposed to, in fact (though not by law).
    And it’s grey, cloudy, cool. Oh well, Suomen kesä, as they say.

  10. Just finished it this morning. Marvellous and going to miss all the hopefully glowing comments. Will console myself with a few punts at the Epsom Derby.

  11. [Anna@9 It’s the Queen’s platinum jubilee (70 years on the throne. She’s 96, you know!) and we have an extra day’s holiday and everything. 😀 Flags and bunting everywhere. I’m just joining in because I like feeding people and have volunteered to make individual jubilee trifles.]

  13. To Crossbar @ 11 and 12

    Hei, thanks for that info. Hope you’re all having a lovely time.
    Glad you like feeding people. I like eating! I do wish we could buy proper sausages in Finland.
    Hope to visit Britain in september, Covid and Monkey Pox and Mr Putin allowing, of course.
    If you can send me some trifle down the email, that would be great too 🙂

  14. Another week HYD and Fiona Anne , keep going, I have kept my paper copy and it does say entries by Friday !0th June, the Guardian should know better. I never enter because the prize is rubbish, used to be a nice Collins dictionary.
    You are lucky to be out of it in Finland Anna, happy summer to you. It is like the Nuremberg rallies here.

  15. I hope Anna realises you are joking! It’s really not like the Nuremberg rallies. 🙂

  16. Haha, no, I’m sure it’s not quite like the Nuremburg rallies.
    But I do understand what you mean, Roz.
    I have never been a great fan of royalty but I have to say that, since living in (and now as a citizen of) a republic, I am not quite as ‘anti’ as I was. Perhaps I’m just getting old.
    Our prime minister is a stupid, poorly educated little girl, playing in the world of adult politicians. (Of course I’m not saying she’s stupid because she’s a girl, I’m saying she’s stupid and a girl). Our president is a right-wing, very America-orientated old man, who has been delighted at the chance to get our country into NATO. My own view is that Finland has become a much more dangerous country than it was before.
    Finland has a huge amount going for it. But it’s not quite the paradise that British people seem to think it is.
    And I do miss the British sense of humour. And just being able to talk to strangers in the queue, that sort of thing.

  17. [Anna @13 This is what the official Jubilee pudding looks like. I’m cheating of course, not making it all from scratch, and only doing small ones. Sorry I can’t send you the real thing.
    Hope you make it over here soon. Sadly Monkey Pox is probably the least threat of those you mention. ]

  19. Oh, thanks Crossbar. it looks lovely and I’m sure your puddings will be delightful.
    It would be nice to meet some of you in september (do months have a capital letter in English? I’m forgetting). Whereabouts are you all?

  20. Just as an aside Anna, I was playing golf in Fuengirola last week and got chatting to three charming Finnish ladies in a hostelry. They said that there is a big Finnish community in that part of Spain.

  21. Hi Alan. Yes, there are ‘reality programmes’ on the telly here based around Finnish people in Spain.
    There are also quite a lot of Spanish people here in Finland. I am hoping to meet some Basque speakers to practise my language.

  22. Roz @ 14

    I have now definitely got one of the down clues (obvious when you get it of course). So three clues to go…… I think I know two of them but can’t parse them so might be wrong. Until I parse them I don’t regard them as solved. Will have another look later in the week.

  23. Roz @ 14

    I remember once winning a Saturday prize crossword but they refused to send me the prize because I was living in Shetland at the time. I can’t remember which newspaper it was. I do remember I was quite annoyed. they wouldn’t even send me anything else in lieu.

  24. Are you knew to this blog, Anna@19? If so, welcome. We’re pretty much all over the country, I think. And not just the UK. There are many bloggers and posters in Aus, US and other countries.
    I think there used to be an annual get together somewhere pre-covid. I’m sure others will correct me if I’m wrong.

  25. Anna I am afraid Finland cannot begin to compete with the UK for incompetent leadership .
    The Post Office is meant to deliver everywhere in the UK for the same price, anyone know more?
    I am sure Finland has its good points as well and you can swim in the Baltic.

    Fiona Anne I cannot say much obviously , I will just mention that the two across clues do not have a very “tight” definition. Full marks for not entering until you understand the word play, I am exactly the same.

  26. [AlanC – playing golf in Fuengirola ? Hmm more Special Branch code methinks .
    There is actually an old series called Special Branch with George Sewell , shown on Talking Pictures sometimes. I love it, I suspect it would just annoy you. ]

  27. Roz @ 24

    Got the two across ones – fully parsed – – so very neat – made me laugh

    Now just 2dn to go

  28. Fiona Anne@27 – you’ll kick yourself when you get 2D.

    What a contrast today’s prize puzzle is from last week’s.

  29. To Crossbar @ 24

    Thanks for your kind words.
    I’m not new to this blog, have participated for a while. But I was annoyed by someone on here and I stopped looking at it for a while. I have totally forgotten who it was and what it was about, so it couldn’t have been that important. And I tend to forget arguments fairly quickly anyway.
    The reason that I don’t participate much now is just that I tend not to even look at the puzzle until the evening and sometimes don’t get it finished till quite late, by which time everything has been said. And I have had to admit to myself that I am the most boring person in the universe and my overriding passion for foreign languages isn’t shared by many others 🙂
    It’s a miserable day here. Rain, cool.

  30. To Fiona Anne @ 27
    I was wondering if we were stuck on the same ones, but we aren’t. I’ve got 2d but not 24d.

  31. [roz@14 I’m delighted to report that here in NW London there is not a single Union Jack on display in our street]

  32. Anna @19: there are occasional get-togethers (or there were before Covid) organised for “setters and bloggers” – worth keeping an eye on the Announcements section of this website. John Henderson (also known as Elgar, and the editor of the Inquisitor series in the i newspaper) generally organises a whole weekend one in York every October, but I don’t know if that will happen this year.

  33. Bodycheetah will be pleased to know that you are not allowed to fly the national flag here, except on certain days. (By chance, today is one of them)
    You can always fly the thin, tapering penant, but not the proper, rectangular flag.
    It looks very nice on the official Flaggy Days (as I call them) though, with the streets all full of the flags.

  34. To bridgesong @ 32
    Thanks. I shall indeed keep and eye open, though it looks like it will be september when I visit.

  35. Anna @30

    Took me a while to get 24d – only got it this am but when I did I couldn’t believe it had taken me so long – a definite penny drop moment

    Still not got 2dn

  36. Anna@33 that is fascinating. Here in the US it is almost the opposite. The flag (Stars & Stripes) is practically worshipped; displaying it is a kind of virtue signalling, and there is practically no occasion when its use would be disapproved – unless you damage or “insult” it, in which case look out!

  37. Bridgesong
    The funny thing is that they have the annotated solution on the website, just not the check function. I think you are in the clear to post the blog.

  38. HoustonTony @37: I assume that’s an error by The Guardian which will be corrected once someone notices it. I’ll stick with the original publication date.

  39. Completed the Brendan prize last weekend – can’t remember if I fully parsed everything, but the newspaper has long since gone to recycling so difficult to check now. So if the blog is delayed another week I’ll have totally forgotten the whole puzzle and won’t understand the comments, lol !!

  42. Anna@29 I’m sure you’re not the most boring person in the universe! I think I’ve met them already 😀 And I totally understand your love of languages. I only speak 2 fluently, but have a smattering of others. I’m always fascinated how different languages overlap, how words are used, the grammar and how it is often easier to convert the meaning of something in one language rather than another.

  44. HoustonTony – you’ll be glad to hear that, on advice, I’ve decided to go ahead and publish the blog. It’ll be on the site in a few minutes.

  46. …and I love Talking Pictures, especially when Broderick Crawford and Barbara Stanwyk pitch up. Proper icons.

  47. [crossbar@17 . Thanks for the recipe. Looks delicious. But why a Swiss roll and an Italian liqueur for the prize- winning Jubilee Pudding? They’re not even part of the former Empire. ]

  48. AlanC @46 As well as films ( and Laurel and Hardy ) Talking Pictures does show a lot of old Series from the 60s or 70s . At the moment The Outer Limits and Secret Army, great foe something called series record. They should branch out to old music shows.
    Caddie???? Hmmm perhaps just as well I do not know all these Special Branch code words.

  49. Hi all.

    With my newly-acquired administrator’s hat on, can I remind you of my predecessor’s directive that a little off-topic discussion is, of course, allowable. But if it dominates the comments then it should be taken to the General Discussion area.

  50. Point taken kenmac , and thank you so much for all you are doing to keep things going.
    This blog is a little unusual with no actual puzzle so perhaps I and others have strayed off topic too much.

  51. Rox @50

    Yeah, you’re right but I thought this was an ideal opportunity to wave my big stick. For the reason you stated, I was going to let it slide but then … the power, the POWER, the POWER. Bwah-ha-ha-ha-hah!!

  52. kenmac@49. Echo Roz. It was just a bit of fun today. I too thank you for all you do.
    Has Gaufrid retired? I know he had some health problems. Hope all is well.

  53. kenmac @51 I think you let it slide enough for this one and then a gentle reminder about rules for future normal blogs.
    I echo PDM@52 with best wishes for Gaufrid.

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