Guardian Saturday Prize Crossword 28,787 by Paul (18 June 2022)

55 comments on “Guardian Saturday Prize Crossword 28,787 by Paul (18 June 2022)”

1. I thought this tough, and perfectly suited to the prize slot, but on reflection the difficulty all depends on how quickly you can crack the code, so to speak. The three works, or creations rather, were clued very cryptically, and the gateway clue 7 in quotes was mysterious, since Paul does this crossreferencing all the time but doesn’t use quotes. What got me in was the H from HAIKU as the middle letter of the 3-letter last word of 1d. THE seemed improbable, so what else could there be? Even guessing that, how do you make Seuss or Geisel fit in 7d? Remember the quotes!

   The best clue by far imo was GROW OLD. Not just the “reverse” use of OR, which was brilliant, but having ‘File in”, which is the synonym of ROW plus the inclusion operator, be semantically related to “head for the exit”, a euphemism for the answer itself. Those mathematically inclined will recognize the commutative diagram here. Sheer genius.

2. Thanks mc-rapper 67. I was left with nearly all of the grid completed apart from the four themed answers which just defied resolution. I was led astray by the inverted commas which had me referring to a dictionary of quotations without success but eventually recognized 8d and that paved the way for the rest. I would have thought there might have been some reference somewhere to the good doctor’s surname. It didn’t help that I had ‘comic books’ penciled in for 23 3, despite the three words of the clue and absence of any explanation. Never did come to terms with ‘laugh’ in 1d, I found there was a playwright, Horton Foote.

3. Not too familiar with the theme but guessed it from DOCTOR. Looked in vain for Cat in the Hat which is all I remembered.
   Thanks both

4. I could not make much headway until I got check buttons today. Then I got the reference for doctor and made some progress. 24 was too clever for me and 22 was unknown. A good Prize and congratulations to the winners. And Paul of course!

5. I too was a bit bemused by the 7 being in quotes. Thought I’d never solve it but then hit on the theme. We had all the books in our house (plus all of Roald Dahl).

6. Not a staple chez mr and mrs ginf, but there were a few about, of which I could only recall The Lorax (made easier by prior cw appearance I think). So, the other titles were a bit hard going. Agree with Dr Wh. re grow old, brilliant, but praps he’ll explain how it’s commutative. The opaque + Io + pi +A was pretty good, too. Enjoyed the workout, ta both.

7. Never read any Doctor Seuss but had heard of him which made this a real struggle. I found “opaque” an unconvincing anagrind for ETHIOPIA.
   I also liked GROW OLD for “head for the exit” but Dr WO @1 has convinced me that it’s even better than I thought. Other favourites were CHOPIN for “I’ll drive you” and WOMBAT just for the Aus reference and a great surface.

8. DOCTOR: Can ‘doubled up?’ lead to ‘play doctor? Said that, is ‘playing doctor’ funny? Kind of, I guess.

9. When I realized that it was a Dr. Seuss theme I knew I had a chance to make progress in this prize. Often I’ll begin a Paul crossword and discard it at the halfway point but this was a bit friendlier. I never got MELA and I needed a look-up for FOX IN SOCKS; I couldn’t parse the clever GROW OLD or 8d but everything else fell into place. My top choices were ANAGRAM, ETHIOPIA, CHOPIN, JAILHOUSE, and WOMBAT. Thanks to both.

10. I made heavy weather of this one but really enjoyed your blog, mc_rapper67, for which much thanks. I was with some other solvers in needing explanations for several parses including both the down long ones, two of the Dr Seuss titles, which I worked out from the enumeration and crossers rather than the word play. So the fact that I didn’t understand them made me feel like I’d failed on this solve. The already-mentioned 15d JITTERBUG and 21d WOMBAT were my favourites. Thanks to Paul for the big challenge.

11. [Sorry if I am stating the obvious here, but I thought there might have been a comment on 27a’s reference to Emmylou Harris as I know a lot of solvers here aren’t really so into country mucic. Just to say she is one of my favourite US artists who I have been lucky enough to see live twice in Australia. Her albums “Red Dirt Girl” and her collaboration with Mark Knopfler on “All the Road Running” are both brilliant. Here is a little more from the net that helps explain the AMERICANA solution:
    Her contribution to music over the years is summed up magnificently in the notes accompanying her 2005 compilation album ‘ The Very Best of Emmylou Harris: Heartaches and Highways ’ as “a cornerstone of the country-rock genre, who led country music back to its roots, who was a trailblazer for female musical collaborations, who prefigured the resurgence of bluegrass, and who became a key artist of the Americana movement”. ]

12. [Julie in Australia: Wrecking Ball by Emmylou Harris was produced by Daniel Lanois, a Canadian musician who inspired U2, Neil Young, Bob Dylan and other artists to create some of their finest works. His own records are worth a listen especially Acadie and Belladonna. His work with Brian Eno on Apollo is outstanding.]

13. Not a theme with which I’m familiar and, like some others, my knowledge of the genre extends to the fact that The Cat in the Hat exists. So I needed plenty of help from Google to identify the themers. And even that resource wasn’t going to help me crack HERE GOES which never came to mind. At least I didn’t need help to get the splendid GROW OLD which deserves the highlighting it’s already received.

    Thanks Paul and mc for a splendid blog.

14. Thanks, mc_rapper67 – always an entertaining blog! I thought Dr. WhatsOn @ 1 caught how I felt about this – not too hard at all IF you know the works in question, but perobably hard going otherwise. How many people would work out 1d from the wordplay, check in Google and say, “Well, what do you know, there really is a book called HORTON HEARS A WHO”? I got in from the ‘E’ that began the second four-letter word in 8d, thought of ‘eggs’ (not sure why), realised that was ‘encourage’, and it all clicked. I read these books so many times to my kids, I can still remember large chunks of them. FOX IN SOCKS took a bit longer than the others; it’s not one I knew that well. Some pretty opaque cluing for the theme answers in places. I thought the Greenham Common reference was clever, but again, I’m sure most people worked out the wordplay after the event. All very entertaining, though. Thanks, Paul.

    As for the other works in question, I’m not a big country fan, but I’m happy to second Ji in A @ 11 and Tony S @ 12 regarding Emmylou Harris, and Wrecking Ball in particular. I was slightly disappointed to see she appeared here only as source of collectable Americana.

15. Thanks for a great blog and grid. mc I think you won the Azed recently, well done, your name was in the paper last Sunday.
    I was glad the theme was only in the Down clues , I could solve the Across in peace. 8 D gave it all away , smooth=SAND is something I always think of , GREENHAM was very neatly clued.
    GROW OLD I did find a little obvious, I see file and think ROW and I see or and think GOLD , years of puzzles have made me too suspicious for my own good.

16. This felt like a proper prize and took a few goes to get it all, but was all satisfying when the pennies did drop.

    My way in was THE LORAX, which I got on the first pass, and led me to FOX IN SOCKS, which is another one I grew up with. My mother subscribed to some scheme that meant one of the books arrived each month to read to my younger sisters for a while (mid 1960s) to help them learn to read and I read the same books to my daughter. GREEN EGGS AND HAM is one I can recite, it’s family shorthand for food people won’t eat, and is a family dish.
    We didn’t have HORTON HEARS A WHO but I know about it. DOCTOR was late in, with a groan.

    Thank you to Paul and manehi

17. Thanks mc_rapper, yes like the Looney Tunes one a while back I think some of the themed clues would have been nigh-on impossible without already knowing the answer, if you know what I mean, though I did get the LORAX in Jorumic fashion. Also the key clue was pretty tricky and didn’t give the game away immediately, which I now appreciate (was cursing through gritted teeth at the time though).
    I was held up by thinking that Horton had heard a “Hoo” and when post-parsing by Sheraton appearing as an anagram there.
    Liked plenty but special mention to JAILHOUSE for its plausible yet utterly misleading surface. I think we have some Emmylou Harris somewhere and this may be the weekend to dust it off for a spin, but first thanks Paul for another very good puzzle.

18. I don’t usually like a theme, and Dr. Seuss’s works are not well known to me. However I thought this crossword was an absolute masterpiece and I enjoyed every moment of it. I did need to check LORAX and HORTON, but everything eventually fell into place very satisfactorily. The DOCTOR/spike was cleverly misleading.
    Difficult to pick out favourites, but here goes:
    CHOPIN (one of my favourite composers, and the HOP IN made me smile).
    JAILHOUSE for reminding me of Jailhouse Rock and the King.
    GROW OLD for the neat clue with the contrast between filing in and exiting.
    Made me think of TS Eliot’s Lovesong of J.Alfred Prufrock “I grow old… I grow old… I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled”.
    And loads more.

    Many thanks Paul and mc-rapper67.

19. [Many thanks Tony Santucci@12 (and also to KeithS@14 for the back-up comment). I haven’t listened to Daniel Lanois in a while though I was lucky enough to see him live at Bluesfest some years ago. I will follow your recommendations and revisit, Tony. BTW re the Neil Young mention @12, I was reminded by the solution for 27a of the Neil Young and Crazy Horse 2012 album “AMERICANA”.]
    [Just tagging on to Roz’s comment @15, mc-rapper I think you also won the 3D Crptic Crosswords comp last month too as I saw your name in the Newsletter – are you on a winning streak or what?]

20. Reading Crossbar@18 and TimC@7 has reminded me that CHOPIN was just brilliant.

21. A very unsatisfactory puzzle for me, with a theme I know nothing about, except (just about) the name Dr Seuss. In 8d I worked out EGGS AND from crossings, and thought the other words might be ‘fried’ and ‘ham’, then through Google got GREEN EGGS AND HAM as one of his books, so used Wiki to get the three others. But still much of the parsing eluded me. DOCTOR was my LOI, and now I understand the clue. And why Emmylou Harris in particular, rather than any other US singer?
    Eventually completed the grid, but having to look so much up made me feel it was almost a DNF.
    Thanks, mc_rapper, for clarifying it all.

22. Just marvellous although I had to google his works. For lovers of AMERICANA, I recommend the Kilkenny Roots Festival, which occurs every May and is visited by people from all over the world. CHOPIN and GROW OLD are gorgeous.

    Ta Paul & mc

23. sjshart @21 – as hinted at by JinA and AlanC, AMERICANA has two meanings:

    1 “any collection of materials and things… characteristic of the United States or of the American people”
    2) a musical genre, also known as American roots music – contemporary, but influenced by folk/blues/country/bluegrass (and other styles). Emmylou has been a leading light in the Americana movement; here she is with Rodney Crowell at the 2013 Americana awards.

    Paul’s clue neatly straddles the two meanings.

    I’m another who liked the HOP IN in CHOPIN, thanks Paul and mc.

24. Nice one eb

25. It’s a long time since I have had to cheat so much to finish a crossword, not helped by putting MURMUR for 7 down. Spike as in heart murmur rum doubled up. I enjoyed what I managed, though.

26. I cracked most of this but failed on MELA. For a while I was hung up on 7D “kind of funny, if doubled up” containing the string AH, as I was going down the route of ‘funny haha’ (as opposed to ‘funny peculiar’) being a kind of funny… but I unlocked the theme via HORTON HEARS A WHO, which I got not from the wordplay but the crossers and a lucky guess at something that looked like it would fit. It fell into place after that.

    I thought the GREENHAM ‘commonplace’ clue was very clever. And weird to see ANAGRAM as an answer!

27. A super puzzle. Found it really tough not knowing Seuss much. But great clues. The splendid GREENHAM construction was a way in. Misled for a long while wanting DRIBBLE rather than TRICKLE. Tried to justify by please = police (loosely) = DIBBLE as in Officer Dibble of Top Cat. Some superb clues. Maybe CHOPIN top of the list? Great thanks Paul. Nice intro, mc_rapper67!

28. Very tough and not very enjoyable for me. I guessed at 8d and 18d from the crossers without having solved 7d. Found 1d and 23/3 in a wikipedia list.

    Failed 22ac, 4d.

    I did not parse
    12ac PALETTE apart from def = board
    16 ac EVASIVE- vasi in eve?
    17ac got stuck on ASH + T in HAG
    25ac GROW OLD?
    1d
    7d apart from def = spike // doctor who + doctor seuss
    23/3 [t]oxins in F O C K S

    Liked JITTERBUG, CHOPIN.

    Thanks, both.

29. I invariably enjoy Paul’s puzzles and this was no exception. a delight which took me several visits and much of the day to complete. I was misled into thinking that the main theme was musical given the references to ROD STEWART, Emmylou Harris, JAILHOUSE (Rock), and AMERICANA, but nothing else fitted. The next problem was trying to make sense of the thematic clues in terms of the letters I had available. They defied logic. It was getting GREEN EGGS AND HAM, thanks to the brilliantly clued Greenham as commonplace, that got me started, though as a phrase it meant nothing to me. Google revealed its origin and the rest of the odd phrases fell readily into place. Dr Seuss has made little progress in the UK and I guess that is the problem: if you are confined to building sentences based upon what a child already knows then you produce phrases and sentences that have no existence outside of the books themselves. HORTON HEARS A WHO, THE LORAX etc make no sense, if you don’t know the books, without recourse to Google. And even then, of course, they continue to be meaningless. So the problem with the books transferred over to the puzzle, though Paul’s brilliant clueing kept me enthralled to the end. LOI was ANAGRAM, which I was able to fit in as a guess, but completely unable to parse.
    Thanks to Paul for another belter, and mc-rapper for the commentary and nice joke.

30. I had a bit of a similar experience to Dr WhatsOn with 1d before cracking the theme. Having got HAIKU, that meant it was a phrase ending with _/_H_. What on earth could that be? Then the answer popped into my head from somewhere. So then I managed to figure out 7d and why 7 had quote marks around it in the theme clues.

    (I remember when Emmylou Harris was on Desert Island Discs years ago, and Sue Lawley asked her about Gram Parsons. Emmylou’s accent is of course that of the southern states, and she pronounced “Gram” exactly like “Graham”. This completely threw Sue Lawley who must have been wondering whether she had got her research wrong, and she then started asking about “Gram, or Graham, Parsons”…)

    Many thanks mc_rapper67 for a great blog (and great joke) and to Paul for an excellent crossword.

31. I enjoyed this after thinking at first that I would never get anywhere. My first themed answer was HORTON HEARS A WHO which I guessed with crossers without being able to parse it, as I thought it was spelled ‘HOO’ in the title, which meant HAIKU was a late entry. Anyway I got there in the end.

    Lots of sharp and sneaky clues I thought, and I liked the fact that the Doctor’s name wasn’t in there. Thanks to Paul and mc_rapper67 for the explanations, of which I needed a few.

32. Interesting puzzle, although fairly impossible if you didn’t know the Dr Seuss books. I knew them all, except unaccountably, HORTON HEARS A WHO.

    I did wonder if Paul had originally thought of Seuss in 3D, although of course that would sacrifice FOX IN SOCKS. And no ‘The Cat in the Hat’ – but that would have needed a different grid. I had ticks for ANAGRAM with an unlikely solution at first, JAILHOUSE for the nice use of cooler, and ETHIOPIA for a well put together charade. CHOPIN was also good for the use of ‘hop in’.

    Thanks Paul and mc.

33. I thought this was hard but satisfying to complete given my ignorance of the theme. I got 7d from the crossers but didn’t parse it until later. I thought the theme must be Doctor Who and almost gave up as I know even less about him but I ploughed on with the unthemed clues and got nearly all. 17a was almost the last and led to EGG and SAND is a chestnut. I had heard of 8d so the rest followed. I was pleased to get 1d and 18d from the wordplay alone.
    22a I checked with Google which meant that I didn’t need to check AMEL or ELAM.
    27a Thanks to JinA and others for the fact that AMERICANA is a kind of music. I had thought it was just a loose definition, like 5d (nice wordplay, though).
    25a I have already GROWn OLD and sometimes feel it but I would rather not be reminded that I’m heading for the exit!
    Thanks to Paul and mc__rapper, especially for the joke.

34. I had never heard of any of these books except GREEN EGGS AND HAM as a mention and had no idea that Dr Seuss was, in reality, only a ‘doctor’. It was only this morning when I had a final crack at the puzzle before coming here for relief, that I solved DOCTOR anyway, in fact, and since it didn’t immediately reveal the theme, I just gave up. I don’t really see how it’s possible to solve this puzzle if you only know what I knew, especially as the clue to the only work I had heard of used the rather unfair “commonplace” to clue GREEN…HAM. Several commenters have called that that brilliant, but there’s no indication “commonplace” needs splitting, a ‘common place’ only means ‘a place with a common’ whimsically and furthermore, of all the myriad places that have a common, why Greenham? It’s been out of the news for about forty years, even if it is in the history books. I’m especially surprised Roz has praised this; I’m sure her idol, Azed, would be most disapproving of it.

    Having said that, I did really enjoy what I could solve and am kicking myself for failing to get HASHTAG and AMERICANA (got hung up on the idea that “a rogue” was ACAD. D’oh!). Another non-themer I didn’t get was ANAGRAM, which was very clever. I’ve seen at least one other clue for ANAGRAM with the same format and I think that also came from Paul.

    Not the puzzle for me, unfortunately. Just my bad luck, I suppose, to be faced with a theme of which I’m almost entirely ignorant, clued in an extremely difficult fashion. Oh, well: next, please!

35. Thanks Paul and MC. Eventually got the theme from listing all the words which fitted *H* and vaguely remembering the (recent?) animation. Had to google the others (but I think I had heard of them). I didn’t realise Dr Seuss was so prolific. Vaguely remember not being allowed to read The Cat In The Hat because of American spellings (don’t know if that is actually true). Sorry cousins across the pond!

36. Great joke, btw, @Mc, but you’re not supposed to put spoilers in the tease line.

    I forgot to say that one boon of this puzzle was that I was reminded of ‘Doctor! Doctor!’ jokes and looked some more up at https://kidadl.com/funnies/jokes/best-doctor-doctor-jokes-sure-to-cause-a-case-of-the-giggles.

    Two of the best, for anyone who can’t be bothered:

    Doctor! Doctor! I’ve got a strawberry stuck up my ear (kidz version).
    Don’t worry, I’ve got some cream for that!

    Doctor! Doctor! I’ve got a piece of broccoli stuck in my ear (adults too, this time)
    You’re clearly not eating properly!

37. Just loved this. Dr Seuss was a staple in our house when my son was young and I can still quote verbatim from the Cat in the Hat… According to wiki, publisher challenged Dr S to write a book children could not put down in less than 250 words, and that was the result (236 words). Favourites were JITTERBUG and GREENHAM. Thanks to mc_r for help with parsing GROW OLD, to Paul for a brilliant cryptic, and to Tony C @36 for making me (mostly) groan, though the two you selected were very funny. And now to try today’s prize…

38. Thanks paul and mc_rapper
    A bit of a struggle – I had only heard of two of his works, and one of those didn’t appear.

    Doctor, doctor, I think I’m a pack of cards!
    Wait over there, I’ll deal with you later.

39. What an interesting challenge! (For many reasons already mentioned.) The only theme works I was familiar with were 1d and 8d, but that was enough to figure out the theme. I was slowed down by 22a as lamPREY = game (why was “fair” needed?).

    I found it interesting that there was more than one way to parse some of the clues.
    – Not having heard of the town of Greenham, but GREEN=common and HAM=place, so it wasn’t needed.
    – For 7d, I thought this was a reference to the Aussie TV series Doctor Doctor (renamed here as The Heart Guy).

40. I thought this was a good Prize crossword. I didn’t know all of Seuss’ works but enjoyed working them out with some online help. Thanks, Paul. Thanks also to mc_rapper. I liked your opening joke as it was based around crosswords. My contribution in a similar vein: Doctor, doctor, I think I’m an anagram. Don’t worry, we’ll soon sort you out.

41. Don’t know anything about the doctor in question, so didn’t get very far.

42. Even if one had got the answer Doctor and put it into quotes as “doctor”, how do you make the leap to Dr (“Doctor”) Seuss?
    I didn’t even get as far as the answer and the themed derivations remain stubbornly blank, even though I am quite familiar with Horton Hears…

    I did enjoy this blog though, thanks @mc_rapper67 and the erudite comments (too many to mention) and also the low banter, thanks @muffin and @TonyCollman @Larry

43. [Eileen, if ur out there, see @17 … jorum has gone generative!]

44. [btw I agree about Emmylou Harris’s Wrecking ball and Red dirt girl – two of the great albumsd even if you aren’t a fan of the “genre”.]

45. Very enjoyable challenge as always from Paul.

46. Felt very pleased to do this with a minimum of Googling.
    Children’s books in my time were A. A. Milne (pre-Pooh- “They’re Changing Guard at Buckingham Palace”, ” James, James, Morrison, Morrison, Wetherby George Dupree, Took great care of his mother, Though he was only Three” & “I do like a little bit of Butter on my Bread”) also Beatrix Potter, so I’ve no idea how Horton and The Lorax had lodged in my ancient brain. Thanks both.

47. Thanks for all the comments and feedback – much appreciated, as usual. Apologies for the late response, but I have been out all day taking ‘Thing Two’ on a university Open Day (Nottingham, Mathematical Physics…looks like a nice place)

    A mixed bag of responses – which is not surprising maybe, given the ‘niche’-ish subject matter…maybe I just happened to be in the target market…if you weren’t, and you didn’t enjoy the puzzle, then it is just one of those things – onwards and upwards… This site doesn’t have any link with the Grauniad or the setters, so I can’t apologise on their behalf, but I expect they do note the feedback.

    (I have to say I didn’t even notice the quotes around the ‘7’ in the linked clues – maybe they were there to indicate the ‘not-proper-doctor’-ness of Theodor.)

    Tony Collman at #36 – I take your point about ‘spoilers’, and I did agonise about that – but I took on board an exchange with Gaufrid a few years ago, where he took the view out that he was more concerned with spoilers on the daily puzzles, where people may not have had a chance to even look at the puzzle, whereas with the week’s delay on a Grauniad prize puzzle, or the ten+ days on an EV, two weeks on a Cyclops, or even a month on a Genius, it is more likely that people will have had the chance to grapple with the puzzle, and if they still haven’t got it after the submission date then their experience is probably not going to be ‘spoilt’ too much. Also, I couldn’t think of any better intro this time round!

    Roz at #15 and Julie in Australia at #19 – yes, I have been a lucky boy recently…although as Camelot(?) used to say, ‘you have to be in it to win it’!

    Larry at #40 – chapeau – your anagram joke trumps mine as a crossword-related Doc Doc joke!

    Otherwise, lots of people with different – and similar – favourites to mine, and some interesting background stuff on Emmylou Harris, although I don’t think I’ll be donning cowboy boots and a leather string tie just yet…see y’all later!

48. Thanks mc_rapper67 and Paul. Those before me have said it all already so I won’t dwell on the puzzle too much, except to say that I’m not familiar with the good doctor’s works and would not have stood an earthly without Google. I am though a strong Emmylou fan (much to my wife’s disgust) and like some others I was disappointed Paul only included her as a random American. What I will say is that, while I agree about Red Dirt Girl and Wrecking Ball, my favourite songs are all from the time when her voice was at its absolute best I.e. before and just after she turned 30. Consequently I listen mainly to her first four albums.

49. Hats off to Paul for a tough puzzle, not enjoyable at first but once we dug in it was an interesting adventure. I certainly know more about the vast collection of Dr Seuss books than I did before. Top favourite has to be 8d ‘GREEN EGGS AND HAM’
    Thx to mc_rapper67 for his comprehensive notes, and to all for their contributions via visuals and videos.

50. Mc@47, Of it was ok by Gaufrid, it’s certainly ok by me…

51. Typo, if course

52. Worth the struggle for CHOPIN alone which, for me, coruscated most brightly of all!

    Many thanks Paul and mc

53. Not at all familiar with these books. Consequently the most impenetrable prize crossword I have encountered in at least 25 years. Had to surrender having completed just over half the grid. Thoroughly ashamed of myself!

54. Mick Norman @53. No need to feel ashamed! I got only two of the “creations” of the “doctor”, and had no idea of the answer for 7d. (Doctor Doctor is a song by The Who, sung entirely in falsetto by the bass guitarist, John Entwistle.) Got everything else, but I only knew two Dr Seuss books from my own childhood, and none were read to my daughters, which proved an insuperable handicap on this occasion.

55. [SH@54, thanks for mentioning The Who’s Doctor, Doctor. I’ve just listened on YouTube and it’s quite driven away the earworm of the same-title-different-song by the Thompson Twins. Very interesting reading in the comments, too, about how The Who were influenced by The Monkees (yes, really, go check it).]

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