I enjoyed the theme for this bumper double-grid bank holiday alphabetical jigsaw puzzle from Maskarade, and it’s another impressive bit of grid construction.
The theme was given names: one of each pair of answers for a letter of the alphabet was a name, and the names beginning A-M went into one grid, and the names beginning N-Z went into the other grid. This was a big help in narrowing down where the answers could go – once you’d got one name in, you roughly cut in half the possible positions of all the other names.
Lots of the definitions of the given names were the meanings of those names (e.g. “Life” defining ZOË), which seemed to be drawn from the list of first names in the back of Chambers. (Annoyingly, these names aren’t in the Chambers app, just the printed version!) I liked this theme largely because so many of of these name meanings were new to me (and this is of particular interest since we’re trying to think of baby names at the moment :))
There are a few answers noted below that I felt were pretty obscure, but overall I thought this was an enjoyable puzzle to work through, and probably about the right difficulty for a holiday puzzle.
I’ve included the completed grids before my attempted parsings of the clues. Sorry for the blurry photo of the second grid – I didn’t notice until after I’d posted it off!
A Incongruously manly, as well as highly gifted, at heart (6)
* ANDREA
AND = “as well as” + [g]REA[t] = “highly gifted, at heart”
Definition: “Incongruously manly” – the name Andrea means “manly”, which, since it’s usually a woman’s name in the UK, accounts for the “incongruously”
A London club’s ancient temple (9)
ATHENAEUM
Double definition: “London club” and “ancient temple” (presumably a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena, but I can’t find an citation for that meaning of Athenaeum)
B We Brits also worked in domestic service (5,6)
BELOW STAIRS
A nice clue: (WE BRITS ALSO)*
Definition: “in domestic service”
B Novel rebrand for French saint as strong as a bear (7)
* BERNARD
(REBRAND)* – “Novel” is the anagram indicator
Definitions: “French saint” (presumably Bernard of Clairvaux), and “as strong as a bear”, which is one meaning of the name Bernard
C Catholic lecturer and secretive folk mentioned monastic arcades (9)
CLOISTERS
C = “Catholic” + L = “lecturer” + OISTERS sounds like “oysters” or “secretive folk”
Definition: “monastic arcades”
C Sentimental song by writer with Roman family name (8)
* CORNELIA
I guess that CORN can be “Sentimental song”? It certainly can be “sentimental”. Then there’s ELIA = “writer” (a name Charles Lamb wrote essays under)
Definition: “Roman family name” – there are various famous Romans called “Cornelia” – hopefully someone better informed than me can say whether it’s a family name
D In warehouse, son in charge is oppressive (8)
DESPOTIC
DEPOT = “warehouse” with S = “son” inside, follwed by IC = “in charge”
Definition: “oppressive”
D World chief in Islamabad on a launch (5)
* DONAL
Hidden in [islamaba]D ON A L[aunch]
Definition: “World chief” – the meaning of the name Donal
E Small fire out in the grate, finally (6)
* EITHNE
(IN THE E)* – the anagram indicator is “out” and the E in the anagram fodder is from “grate, finally”
Definition: “Small fire” – one possible meaning of the name Eithne
E Return report about independent small businessmen (1-7)
E-TAILERS
RELATE = “report” reversed (“Return”) around I = “independent” + S = “small”
Definition: “businessmen”
F Flatter washing item (7)
FLANNEL
Double definition: “Flatter” (to flannel someone is to flatter them) and “washing item”
F Hampshire’s character flourished over half the continent (5)
* FLEUR
FL = “flourished” (a pretty obscure abbreviation to me: it denotes when someone was alive) + EUR(ope) = “half the continent”
Definition: “Hampshire’s character” (apparently Susan Hampshire played Fleur in The Forsyte Saga
G Wizard to become tired, retiring, embracing joiner (7)
GANDALF
FLAG = “to become tired” reversed (“retiring”) around AND = “joiner”
Definition: “Wizard”
G Small peaceful traveller regularly goes away (5)
* GEOFF
G[o]E[s] = “regularly goes” + OFF = “away”
Definition: “Small peaceful traveller” – small indicates it’s short for “Geoffrey” and one of the meanings in Chambers of that name is “traveller-peace” from Old High German
H House ruler accepted thirteen changes to start with (9)
* HENRIETTA
(THIRTEEN)* after A = “accepted”
Definition: “House ruler” – meaning of the name Henry, which Henrietta is derived from
H Praying mantis and a number of youngsters with snack outside half over (10,3)
HOTTENTOT’S GOD
TEN TOTS = “a number of youngsters” with HOT DOG = “snack” on the outside, but with “half over” (i.e. the second word is reversed, to give HOT GOD around the outside)
Definition: “Praying mantis” – “Hottentot God” or “Hottentot’s God” are other names for the Praying mantis, I am astonished to learn.
I Setter – one married old dope (6)
* IMOGEN
I = “one” + M = “married” + O = “old” + GEN = “dope” (both slang for “information”)
Definition: “Setter” referring to another Guardian setter, Imogen, aka Vulcan aka Richard Browne, ex editor of the Times Crossword
I Artisan is turning out decorative inlays (9)
INTARSIAS
(ARTISAN IS)*
Definition: “decorative inlays”
J Black is in fashion, chuck! (8)
JETTISON
JET = “Black” follwed by IS in TON = “fashion” (as in “bon ton”)
Definition: “chuck”
J American apple for all Americans together (8)
* JONATHAN
Double definition: Both definitions here were obscure to the point of making the clue a bit unfair, I think: “American apple” and “all Americans together” – I think this is a reference to “Brother Jonathan”, a precursor to Uncle Sam who represented New England and more broadly the United States
K South African city where Mike and Beryl wander? (9)
* KIMBERLEY
(MIKE BERYL)*
Definition: “South African city” (the origin of the name)
K Passage from paperback or another book (5)
KORAN
Hidden in [paperbac]K OR AN[other]
Definition: “Book”
L Climbing plant in tropical forests with name included – maybe little Julian (6)
* LIANNE
N = “name” in LIANE = “Climbing plant” (I’m more used to the Liana spelling, but both are in Chambers – annoyingly this made the answer ambiguous, since Lianna is also a name)
Definition: “Maybe little Julian” – this name is thought to be derived from Julian
L Grace notes back street after area of London Underground line’s southern terminus (5,8)
LOWER MORDENTS
TS = “back street” (ST reversed) after LOWER MORDEN = “area of London Underground line’s southern terminus” (Morden is the southernmost stop on the Northern Line, and Lower Morden is an area nearby or enclosing that station, depending on the definition you use. The London Borough Ward of Lower Morden doesn’t include Morden tube station.)
Definition: “Grace notes”
M Liqueur and food which the surfer uses (6,5)
MALIBU BOARD
MALIBU = “Liqueur” + BOARD = “food” (as in “room and board”)
Definition: “which the surfer uses” – “A long, light surfing board equipped with fins”, Chambers says.
M Mo having to rue name changes (7)
* MAUREEN
(RUE NAME)*
Definition: “Mo” – short for Maureen
N Brightness of husband leading uprising (5)
* NIAMH
H = “Husband” + MAIN = “leading” all reversed (“uprising”)
Definition: “Brightness” – the meaning of the Irish name Niamh is “bright” or “radiant”
N Illegally acquire gift, we hear – it’s of little value (8)
NICKNACK
NICK = “Illegally acquire” + NACK sounds like “knack” or “gift”
Definition: “it’s of little value”. This is the less common spelling of “knickknack” or “knick-knack”
O Hospital employees tell stories (9)
ORDERLIES
ORDER = “tell” + LIES = “stories”
Definition: “Hospital employees”
O Champion’s very large limo? (5)
* OSCAR
OS (outsize) = “very large”, so an OS CAR might be a limo
Definition: “Champion” – the Irish or Gaelic root of OSCAR means “champion”
P Small ancient page off colour in town near Caerphilly (9)
* PRISCILLA
P = “page” followed by RISCA = “town near Caerphilly”
Definition: “Small ancient” – “small” indicating it’s the dimunitive form of Prisca (so actually longer, but still a diminutive), which means “ancient”
P Rasputin disturbed highly moral folk (8)
PURITANS
(RASPUTIN)*
Definition: “highly moral folk”
Q Fifth query about tune that’s popular (7)
* QUENTIN
Q = “query” + (TUNE)* = “about tune” + IN = “popular” (the “that’s” is superfluous and I don’t think works as a link phrase)
Definition: “Fifth”
Q Oak’s sudden flourish mentioned by American and British composer, Edmund, half-heartedly (7,5)
QUERCUS RUBRA
QUERC sounds like “quirk” = “sudden flourish” + US = “American” + RUB[b]RA = “British composer, Edmund”
Definition: “Oak” – the Northern Red Oak. A classic case where I think the obscure answer would have benefited from easier wordplay. (That definition of “quirk” is not the typical one and Edmund Rubbra is not widely known nowadays.)
R Where real changes are applied for a farthing on a bike? (4,5)
REAR WHEEL
(WHERE REAL)*
Definition: “a farthing on a bike?” – a Penny-Farthing is so-called because the relative sizes of the front and rear wheels looked like a penny and a farthing
R Fame and happiness for a Welshman in the Gunners (6)
* ROWENA
OWEN = “Welshman” in RA (Royal Artillery) = “the Gunners”
Definition: “Fame and happiness” – the meaning of the name Rowena
S Severn basin and a river in flood (7)
* SABRINA
(BASIN A R)*
Definition: “Severn” – the name Sabrina is the Latin name for the River Severn. I think this is the bit of general knowledge I’m happiest to have learned from this crossword!
S Salary and gratuity collected by mail (7)
STIPEND
TIP = “gratuity” in SEND = “mail”
Definition: “Salary”
T Office equipment reps let out around Bury (12)
TELEPRINTERS
(REPS LET)* around INTER = “Bury”
Definition: Office equipment
T Public about to take Rex to Eve (6)
* TREVOR
OVERT = “Public” reversed + R = “Rex”
Definition: “Eve”, referring to Trevor Eve
U Turn that’s surely not odd (3)
UEY
[s]U[r]E[l]Y = “surely not odd”
Definition: “Turn” – Australian slang for a U-turn
U Bloom runs into usual suspect (6)
* URSULA
R = “runs” in (USUAL)*
Definition: “Bloom” – referring to Ursula Bloom
V Could be the true image of wild carnivore having run away (8)
* VERONICA
(CA NIVORE)* – the fodder is from “carnivore” without R = “run”
Definition: “Could be the true image” – Veronica may be from Latin, meaning “true image”
V It measures the capacity of true love Mom gives out (11)
VOLUMOMETER
(TRUE LOVE MOM)*
Definition: “It measures the capacity”
W Small army ruler who acted treacherously at first (3)
* WAT
W[ho] A[cted] T[reacherously] = “who acted treacherously at first”
Definition: “Small army ruler”, referring to Wat Tyler, who led The Peasants’ Revolt.
W Hatbands for mourners (7)
WEEPERS
Double definition: “Hatbands” (“A crape hatband” from Chambers) and “mourners”
X Basque place with cross by a German quartet (6)
* XAVIER
X = “cross” + A + VIER = “German quartet”
Definition: “Basque place” – the origin of the name Xavier is a Basque village where Saint Francis Xavier was born
X Crosses outside one and nineteen (3)
XIX
XX = “crosses” around I = “one”
Definition: “nineteen” – this seems very weak as a crossword answer. Could we have any number expressed in Roman numerals as an answer? It’s also a bit disappointing that the I in the word play is also to be interpreted as a Roman numberal.
Y Period of the Christian era, when eg Cora and Freya revelled (4,2,5)
YEAR OF GRACE
(EG CORA FREYA)*
Definition: “Period of the Christian era” – as I understand it, this might be any year, starting from the conventional date of Christ’s crucifixion
Y God increases firsts among Yale University students — usual feature (5)
* YUSUF
Y[ale] U[niversity] S[tudents] U[sual] F[eature]
Definition: “God increases” – the meaning of the name Yusuf
Z Nick losing head following unknown love (5)
ZILCH
[f]ILCH = “Nick losing head” after Z = “unknown”
Definition: “love” (i.e. nothing in the context of tennis)
Z Not new in the region’s life (3)
* ZOE
This one was my way into the theme: ZONE = “region” without N = “new”
Definition: “life” – the name Zoë means “life”, from Greek
Thanks for the blog, mhl. (You’ve left ILL out of PRISCILLA in your parsing.) I agree that RUB(b)RA is less well known, if indeed he ever was well known. I’d bunged in RUBER from a vague memory of the Latin name for the oak, but recalling the name of the American apple put me right.
I agree with you about XIX, and hope this will not become generally accepted! I almost gave up on the praying mantis, when even a google search didn’t produce an alternative name, but then I finally managed to make sense of the wordplay – it’s a shame that the answer (which I can’t bring myself to type) uses a derogatory term for native Africans, which comes from Dutch settlers making fun of their (to them) incomprehensible language.
I recognised the definition of NIAMH, but I failed totally on EITHNE – never heard of the name, and ‘small fire’? Really? And ETAILERS was new to me, as was the ‘hat band for mourners’, for which I attempted to go with WAILERS, which turned out to be a reggae band instead. 🙂
I think I had solved more than 30 clues before I attempted to enter anything in the grids, and then made a couple of false starts before I got the hang of it. Despite my criticisms above, I found this a generally enjoyable solve.
Thanks to Maskarade for the entertainment and mhl for the hard work.
Forgot to say I agree with mhl’s comment regarding LIANNE. I had written in LIANNA, being aware only of LIANA for the forest plant. This held me up for some time as I was consequently unable to solve ORDERLIES until checking Chambers for the other spelling.
Thanks mhl and Maskarade.
Enjoyed this one…the meanings of names were new to me. Impressive setting, as always.
QUERCUS RUBRA and TELEPRINTERS were my way into the grid fill. It was obviously helpful to have one grid where the 2 long horizontals were 12 long, and then13 in the other.
My thoughts are almost exactly those of sheffield hatter @1 &2, especially about the mantis. Shame, because otherwise I enjoyed the crossword. Living at one time near MORDEN tube station helped, of course, and I do like alphabetical jigsaws.
Many thanks Masksrade and mhl.
Thanks mil. I made good early progress through the A to D clues and so began in faint pencil to map out correctly the first grid. Soon though it became thick bush with Google as guide through a lot of exotica: but the AKA for praying mantis did pop up this way. Irritatingly, like a marathon runner hitting the wall with the finishing line in sight I failed utterly on what I see now (ta) is EITHNE.
Thanks for the blog, like Crossbar@4 having two 12 answers really helped to sort out the grids early on, and the A-M or N-Z instruction meant every word could go in once you found a place for it.
Quibbles with EITHNE? it is in Chambers with the meaning .
I do not usually like having names in puzzles but this seemed to work, my Chambers 93 has a list of names at the back along with their origin , think it is the first time I have used it. Fortunately I had ORDERLIES in before LIANNE.
I think the XIX can be forgiven in a puzzle of this nature and the clue was very fair.
Sheffield hatter @1 – It’s sad to learn that Hottentot, as well as being obsolete, is offensive – though sometimes words which have an offensive origin are embraced (e.g. the term Quaker, I believe).
My sadness is because it spoils a happy memory of the late Bernard Levin, who was once musing on the astonishing ability of the German language to coin words by shoving nouns end to end. He observed that German, unlike any other language, could legitimately have a word for “one who kills a relative of the leader of an African nation” (or something like that) – ein HOTTENTOTTENPOTENTATENTANTENATTENTÄTER.
Oh, and the crossword was fun, too, even though I didn’t finish it and certainly didn’t spot the theme.
Thanks to mhl for the dedicated blog and to Maskarade for what is justly described as an impressive feat of grid construction.
“Cornelia gens” refers to one of the old Roman patrician families. My co-solver and I didn’t know this, but the wordplay and crossers led us to CORNELIA (not entirely happy with CORN for “sentimental song” but decided to be ok with it) and Google led us to the Wikipedia page for Cornelia gens.
Thanks to Maskarade for a very enjoyable puzzle, and to mhl for an excellent blog post.
I am slightly embarrassed to admit this. After we had identified the theme, and had got one of the Gs but not the other, we spent some time wondering whether GANDALF counted as a given name and was the theme answer of the G pair. Our way out of this uncertainty was to try harder to solve the other clue. Between GEOFF and GANDALF the choice was obvious.
Thanks for the comprehensive blog, mhl. I was daunted by this at first, but eventually realised that once you had the theme and enough answers to at least know which clues were themed, you just had two separate alphabetical to solve. And you knew half the clues in each followeda (fairly) straightforward theme. In my case, after my first pass through I has sixteen answers, which included BERNARD. DONAL, GANDALF, KIMBERLEY, and WAT. There seemed to be a few names here, and then when I got JONATHAN (just from knowing it was an American apple) I thought I knew the theme. When I tried to separate the clues, I found I had the wrong number of 5- and 7-letter clues for the first grid, and, like Girabra@9, was forced to conclude GANDALF didn’t count. (Although I see babycenter.com says GANDALF is the 7,521th most popular name in 2022. Which makes you wonder.)
Filling in was the usual mixture of pedantic logic and wild guessing that a word might fit on the basis of length and maybe one matching letter. (I called these ‘Hail Mary’ plays in the past, but really, what are the odds one of the missing solutions of the same length would also fit there?) Only a couple of guesses had to be backtracked, and it’s very satisfying to start to get crossers that lead to a new solution.
I found this one of those puzzles that was both a logical challenge and a search for many things not previously known, and I think that’s part of the fun. I know a lot more now about Oaks, the Praying Mantis, the pronunciation of Irish names, towns near Caerphilly, the meanings of a lot of baby names, musical notation, and much more. I only have the Chambers app, which doesn’t have the names, but the web does, and I finally found EITHNE (my LOI) on babynames.com (a site so comprehensive that it includes ‘Covid’: “Covid is primarily a female name of American origin that means Corona Virus Disease … Covld is currently not in the top 100 on the Baby Names Popularity Charts”).
I have to add that I worked out that the non-themed B answer must be an anagram of ‘We Brits also’, but before I got the right answer I got BASIL TOWERS, which I thought probably wasn’r really associated with domestic service.
For all the entertainment, thanks, Masquerade.
NeilH @7 You’re right of course, but I think we have to take our lead from those at the receiving end of an offensive term as to whether it is still offensive.
Girabra @9 You’re not the only one thinking GANDALF was the name. I expect there are many of us. 🙂
At one point I wondered if all the names were crossword setters. IMOGEN was one of my first.
Thank you mhi for putting me out of my misery with the themed E. I remember giving up after an hour of staring at it, and then a further hour failing to parse the answer that some of the ‘bot’ clue solvers on the web gave for this clue. At least one of which is still proposing ‘Extine’ as the solution, but without an explanation.
As others have said, it’s impressive grid assembly from the setter, but I can’t say I find his clueing style all that enjoyable.
Took me an embarrassingly long time to realise that the two grids were not identical. Then having solved the two 12 letter clues I was able to complete the left hand grid which helped enormously with completing the right hand one and finally cracking the two fiendish 13 letter clues. Would not have been able to complete this without the help of Mr Google. Thanks mhl and Maskarade.
I greatly enjoyed this, and almost completed it – like several others my downfall was EITHNE. So annoying to have E-T-N-, knowing it was a name but totally incapable of completing it! Chambers word-finder did not help…. Never mind, I was pretty pleased with myself for achieving the rest!
Thanks to Maskarade and mhl.
Another very clever gridfill. Not as difficult as it seemed at first – I had about two thirds of the solutions before attempting the jigsaw, but not many of the 11 to 13 letter ones – I pencilled in TELEPRINTERS and enough seemed to be working to get started, and soon had the first grid almost completed before even looking at the second – weirdly the 3 letter solutions helped to narrow down the possibilities for that one.
Quite an enjoyable solve
Thanks to Maskarade and mhl
Mark@12 I use wordfun.ca which suggested both Extine and Eithne (amongst others) as possibilities, but as this was my last answer I thought I would check with one of the bots, and I was surprised as you were that it plumped for Extine.
I stupidly had KORAN and DONAL in the wrong grids so a technical fail for me.
Thanks mhl for reminding me of the instructions, which would have cleared this up. Thanks also Maskarade for an enjoyable time
I thought this was Maskarade’s best ‘speciality’ crossword for some time. It was scrupulously fair which made it an enjoyable solve. Unusually, the two 13 letter words, which would often hold the key to the placement of answers on the grid, were so obscure that they could only be solved when enough of the other clues had been inserted.
Many thanks to mhl and to Maskarade for keeing me quiet over the BH weekend.
Forgot to mention that, as with others, QUERCUS was my way in, but couldn’t decide till much later that RUBRA was the other part: never heard of the composer.
KeithS@10: Regarding your brilliant BASIL TOWERS, I would pay good money for a book of crossword clues that have one intended correct answer and one hilariously wrong answer.
I thought this was an excellent puzzle, and one of the best Prize crosswords this year. At the start, when I downloaded and printed the PDF file, I was pleased to see how well the puzzle fitted on the printed (A4) page. (In fact, the squares in the grids could even have been made a tad smaller, allowing a bit more space for the clues, but I still managed to write down my answers next to or very close to the clues.)
Rather than try and ‘solve all the clues’, I targeted the eight longest words/phrases first. They were not easy – in fact I failed to get the two longest ones, and my answer for the M word was a partial guess: M????? BOARD. However, I was pleased to find that I could place all six pieces, including (what later became) MALIBU BOARD.
I targeted the 9-letter answers next, of which I got all except PRISCILLA, which was hard to get because I had not then worked out how the thematic answers were clued. Those seven pieces also went in, and when the penny finally dropped the puzzle became a lengthy but very enjoyable process of solving all the remaining clues.
I would probably not have finished this puzzle without the supplement on given names in the Chambers dictionary (I have the 2016 print edition).
I admired the whole concept, design and construction of this puzzle. Some of the clues were tough, but I expected that in a puzzle of this nature.
Thanks to Maskarade and mhl.
Thanks Maskarade, a very enjoyable way to pass a few hours on a bank holiday weekend. Certainly had to make use of reference sources for a few answers but I don’t mind that for one of these specials.
And thanks for the blog, mhl. I share your reservations over XIX but agree with Roz @6 that it’s forgivable in a puzzle of this nature.
As well as being another who spent some time thinking GANDALF was the G name before I got GEOFF, surely I can’t be the only one who opted for ACROPOLIS before realising it wouldn’t fit?
ChrisM @13 – the first thing I did after printing this out was look through the enumerations, so I quickly spotted the small variation between the two grids. I then focused on solving the 4×11, 2×12 and 2×13, and once I had six of the eight, I was able to place them in the grids as there was only one possible configuration. This gave me lots of helpful crossing letters for the rest of the solutions. Tip for future reference: this is by far the easiest way to break into a puzzle like this – as KeithS @10 says, it’s a logic puzzle as much as a wordplay puzzle. (As a small person, I was into logic puzzles well before I got into cryptic crosswords, so this kind of thing is right up my street.)
Alan B @20 – you posted while I was still typing… good to see a fellow solver who approaches these things logically!
Thanks Maskarade and mhl. So many left unparsed (until I came here)! Completely failed on both the Es. Anybody else waste time trying to squeeze LEWIS HAMILTON out of the wordplay for L2?
Strange how differently we perceive the difficulty of clues. LOWER MORDENTS is a bit of a write-in for anyone with any music theory knowledge, so my daughter informs me. I ought to have known (grade 5 piano in my youth) but couldn’t bring it to mind for ages despite knowing Morden which should have made it obvious.
I ended this puzzle in two minds — firstly I love the alphabetical jigsaws and enjoyed getting as many answers as possible. It was cleverly constructed. However, after I’d spent a good 30 minutes googling alternative names for praying mantis, without success, I was in a different mood! I almost gave up and then found the answer on a web page about that specific clue… which didn’t seem in keeping with the spirit of the thing. The grace note was similarly difficult.
Thanks to those 2 answers I got there in the end. Couldn’t have done it without the internet. My ideal bank holiday puzzle would be difficult but gettable without Google. But I guess you can’t have everything. Assuming knowledge of the Forsyte Saga was a step too far…
Thanks to Maskerade and mhl for explanations.
Crossbar @24. Indeed. But the problem with the clue for non-theme L was that the definition is obscure for anyone *without* any music theory knowledge, and the wordplay involves what to most people is a pretty obscure part of London.
Contrast this with the clue for theme S, the definition of which our blogger said was a new piece of knowledge for him, though I was able to retrieve it from the memory banks eventually (‘Severn’=SABRINA), which has a fairly friendly anagram as wordplay. Obviously the setter can’t be expected to please everyone, but surely an editor or tester would be able to point out these sorts of inconsistency?
[sheffield hatter@26 I think I’m often equally surprised by what some people do know, as much as by what they don’t. I don’t mean it as a criticism. It’s just interesting the different knowledge we acquire throughout our lives. ]
Widdersbel @22
Thanks for giving my approach to puzzles like this the respectable label ‘logical’. I’ll just point out that for me it’s the only way to solve the damn things!
It took me much too long to get the theme, distracted by a few ecclesiastical references, so thought their definitions very oblique, but was then delighted when I found they were names, and the definitions then fair. Particularly pleasing as I normally dislike the use of proper names in clues.
I did think XIS would have been a good X, without upsetting the rest of the grid, and known to scrabble players.
And agree that ideally we would not have words that Chambers marks as offensive. Particularly racial slurs, which, incidentally, Scrabble has recently removed without too much fuss. I don’t think we need to find someone at whom the slur is targeted before we decide not to use it.
It seemas ages since I did this. Thanks to Maskerade & mhl. Like Giabra @9 I wasted some time on Gandalf as one of the “names” but count of word lengths put me right. I think I must have me Eithne somewhere. Not that many of them were amongst my acquaintances. Icertainly didn’t need Google and Chambers ’93 had all the names. Good fun- though without the 12/13 split goodness knows how long it would have taken.
Awfidius@30 What I was trying to say @11 is if in any doubt we should assume something is offensive unless those at the receiving end tell us otherwise.
This was a perfect BH puzzle. Alphabetical jigsaws were a feature that hooked me in my crossword youth, and this double was perfect for a shared solving experience.
Hats off to Maskarade for the brilliance of its conception, construction and clue-writing. What feats. Thanks, mhl, for parsing TREVOR, which strangely slipped past.
JONATHAN is defined in Chambers as both “the people of the United States, collectively” and as the apple variety, but the former meaning is labelled as archaic.
WEEPERS are not just hatbands; they are also pieces of white linen sewn on to jacket sleeves worn by judges in days like these of national mourning. I noticed that the Speaker was also wearing them in Parliament yesterday.
Crossbar@32 my apologies, I should have read more carefully.
Bravo Maskarade and well done mhl.
I must admit this looked ‘too hard’ and ‘too big’ to be fun at first. But the theme of given names fell out quickly, many of the clues were easy enough to be solved without crossers. The clear rubric and clever grid with both 13-letters in RH side meant one could progress to filling in pretty quickly. I filled one grid at a time, which worked out fine.
Unusually high preponderance of Celtic given names was an unfair advantage for me – EITHNE (sister), NIAMH (niece), DONAL (cousin) and even OSCAR (Labrador belonging to sister!) all added a homely touch.
I solved most of the clues and filled in most of the left hand grid but couldn’t make a start on the right because I couldn’t solve either the long H or M, even after resorting to wiki. Congratulations to those who did.
Pino @37 I struggled to start inserting answers, but got there in the end. Still couldn’t get those 2 long ones though!
Lower Mordents seemed a little unfair to me with an obscure definition and a tube station obscure to most outside London
Just remembered that my last in was TREVOR- couldn’t understand Eve. Then “Shoestring” sprang to mind. Was he also later in “Silent Witness”?
The age of setters can be deduced from actor/MC references. Mine would be Arthur Askey! Who he?
As I said earlier in the week I think Maskarade was sailing close to the wind here by making the two key 13-letter answers in the right- hand grid so obscure. Much as I usually enjoy the Bank Holiday Prizes this one left a sour taste; I could answer most of the other clues but had to blatantly cheat in order to begin filling in the right-hand grid, the alternative being to give up in disgust . The left went in without issue.
Thanks both very enjoyable in the end I was defeated by Eithne
Afraid I found this tedious and time-wasting. I wish Maskarade would concentrate on the entertainment value of clues rather than difficulty compounded by the withholding of information. Nor do I see randomly chosen first names as being a decent ‘theme’. I won’t be hurrying to solve future bank holiday crosswords by this setter.
This version of Araucaria’s Alphabetical Jigsaw puzzles simply reminds me how much better the originals were.
Eithne by the way is the original spelling of the name of Enya, the singer.
We enjoyed this tremendously but couldn’t get the praying mantis, it gave us much entertainment though, and like many others commenting here, love the alphabetical jigsaws.
Thanks to Masquerade and mhl
The praying mantis fortunately suggested itself thanks to Mrs Julia Stitch, of Scoop:
‘Terracotta is too long, madam, and there is no r.’
‘Try hottentot. It’s that kind of word. I can never do anagrams unless I can see them.’
Just found this blog, most enlightening, I got all but 3 solutions and then gave up (including the infamous Eithne). Praying Mantis? I looked up the Wikipaedia entry for them, got interested in the content, and after about ten pages worth came across the reference to the alleged Native African god. I think otherwise I’d still be at it.
And btw, surely F1 is flannel. The annotated solution on Guardian online gives flanges (?).