Guardian Prize 28,889 by Tramp

55 comments on “Guardian Prize 28,889 by Tramp”

1. I had the same thought about the wordplay for IMBROGLIO, but I thought it could be justified as deception. Normally you’d expect ‘left’ to indicate L without any need for initially, so it took me a while to put the anagrist together from bits and pieces.

   In ECLIPSE it is ‘runs into’ (as in RTA) that gives us CLIPS; the inclusion indicator is ‘outside’.

   I struggled to make progress after getting only four or five clues at first, with only two crossers in 19, 18 to help with either of the long anagrams. But adding the G from EGYPTIAN to the two others soon gave me BAGGAGE and I was on my way. Tramp is one of the most difficult setters in my opinion. So many of the synonyms are tricky, and things like ‘Amercian to fight’ make you doubt yourself even when ABOUT is staring you in the face.

   Thanks to Tramp & bridgesong

2. I had no chance of the football manager in PEPPER POT so a google search for me revealed a Jonathan Mark Pepper as one. I guess Pep Guardiola is more famous thus requiring the “per” for ‘a’.
   In IMBROGLIO, I took the ‘initially’ to just refer to “left”, the i coming from “i” as a form of “in” according to Chambers (I think I’ve seen this before, maybe Azed?).
   I liked THICKER for the heart bypass, and favourite was BANANA BOAT for the hands below deck.

3. I found this tough too, but had solved and parsed everything to my satisfaction early on in the week, except for SORT, which I’d entered to finish, but couldn’t parse. I was out on a training day all day Saturday which is why solving spilt over into the week.

   Thank you Tramp and bridgesong.

4. Thanks Tramp. I didn’t find this prize very difficult overall though I needed a word finder for ECLIPSE and I couldn’t parse PEPPER POT. I had many ticks for notable clues including BANANA BOAT, EGYPTIAN, CONDOM, IMBROGLIO, SWAPPED, and THICKER. Thanks bridgesong for the blog.

5. This was a little tougher than some recent prize challenges.
   I rarely hear “SPEW” these days…in my youth it was all over the place. Not literally but as a synonym for “go” or “leave” in my Liverpool home.

6. Thanks bridgesong. Too hard for me to enjoy and I only got there through sheer bloody-mindedness and more recourse to Google than I was happy to make. Never heard of the football manager or Denise Van Outen though I did have to admire that ingenious anagram. Not sure either about date = era. In 24a I still don’t understand ‘needs’ is the plural , indeed I think the clue could well do without ‘needs’ or even ‘needs to’. My LOI was 27a, caught again by the simple device.

7. Bridgesong nailed it. Still unsure about IMBROGLIO.

   Sh@1 right about “runs into” in ECLIPSE – otherwise the insertion is indicated twice. BTW wouldn’t have understood his reference to RTA if we hadn’t seen it very recently.

8. Ran an eye over the clues again last night and still found them less than yielding, despite having filled the grid last Saturday. There were a few grimmes, like pillow, about and ceasing, but most needed a bit of ungnarling. Have deffo seen the S or T (and the other one, e.g. S and D) trick before, but didn’t remember it, thinking Oh, Sor is probly some gaming character … d’oh. Ditto Pep the manger, heard of but not coming to mind, so another shrug there, and a bit of a one for imbroglio, but a major one for date = era, as Biggles notes @6. All worth the effort though, thanks Tramp n bridgesong.

9. I had trouble with a few parses like PEPPER POT at 14a but generally liked this Prize Puzzle from Tramp. Thanks to bridgesong for clarifications. I agree with bridgesong and Timon about Tramp’s surfaces as usually they are very good (and many are here in this grid), but I did find the surface for 19a18d EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE here quite clunky. I agree with the thoughts of a couple of others above as I had ticks for 6d CONDOM and 20d THICKER. Thanks to Tramp.

10. In “Eclipse” I wondered if “runs” and “clips” were references to film-making?

11. Thank you bridgesong and Timon. Needed your help with a few here.
    We’ve had either end of, X or Y, a couple of times lately.
    Is it possible that IMBROGLIO is just that, a big mess?
    RTA makes me laugh now that I know the British initialism, Road Traffic Accident. Down here it stands for Road Transport Authority (which has since changed its name, maybe they thought it wasn’t funny.)

    My two favs same as JinA, CONDOM and THICKER. Also liked SWAPPED. While the def for EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE was amusingly misleading, I agree the wordplay was clunky. Can’t believe it took me so long to get TOPSIDE, being a butcher’s daughter.

12. BANANA BOAT another favourite for the definition. I’d always imagined it as a deckless boat, but I now see how wrong I was. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_boat_(ship) And packed with heaps of meaning for the Caribbean and the UK. Made me appreciate the clue even more (all hands below deck) after reading up on this.

    However I was closer to the mark with a contemporary banana boat.
    https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ8hvO1JRcPgr1hqQ2jJvIWUgM6fBeMLWNwCpJL5q56Kg&s

    And today’s earworm is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-Bwc0wcIKA
    from 1956, beautiful sound, but you can get it live at least up until 1997. And he’s still going strong at 95.

13. Just tried to post something about BANANA BOAT, but it’s awaiting moderation.

    In the meantime, enjoy:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-Bwc0wcIKA

14. I thought this was difficult especially the SE and despite returning to it yesterday did not finish

    Liked ECLIPSE, ISOMORPH, TOPSIDE

    Thanks Tramp and bridgesong

15. Thanks for the blog , really enjoyed this, perfect for a Saturday. Both long anagrams are brilliant, I love the word IMBROGLIO , I took it as initially left = L and in=i ( Chambers) . Otherwise the initially should really be just the left, or all three of – left in big. SORT was very neat and BANANA BOAT , ISOMORPH ……
    One possible minor quibble, I can’t really see DWARF=ECLIPSE , looked through a long list for each in Chambers and no real overlap. Any examples of usage ?

16. Good to see PDM@12 , can’t imagine why your post needs moderation ??? I hope your link is Harry Belafonte.

17. Much enjoyed this. TAKE TO TASK and BANANA BOAT especially pleasing once over the diversions of MAKE AT EASE and BALING BOAT. THICKER my favourite. Sadly, I somehow wrote in PEPPER BOX and TOPLINE, so thicker sums it up. [Man City was my dad’s team and I fully knew of Pep Guardi###. Just never considered he could feature in a Guardi## cryptic. What a hash.] Great challenge. Many thanks Tramp and bridgesong.

18. Much enjoyed this. TAKE TO TASK and BANANA BOAT especially pleasing once over the diversions of MAKE AT EASE and BALING BOAT. THICKER my favourite. Sadly, I somehow wrote in PEPPER BOX and TOPLINE, so thicker sums it up. [Man City was my dad’s team and I fully knew of Pep Guardixxx. Just never considered he could feature in a Guardixx cryptic. What a hash.] Great challenge. Many thanks Tramp and bridgesong.

19. Roz@15. Dwarfed = Made to look smaller; Eclipsed = Made to look less important. Near enough for me.

20. Yep, Roz @15. My original post probably had too many links. The link @ 12 is HB, 1956. Beautiful voice.

21. Many thanks Choldunk, I sort of see it although I do equate smaller with more important.

22. Paddymelon @20: I have now approved your original comment, which is now to be found at 12.
    Sheffield hatter @1: I agree with your parsing of ECLIPSE and will amend the blog. And I also think that you’re right about the wordplay for IMBROGLIO.
    Biggles A @6: Chambers has “an important date” as the second definition it gives for ERA. I think “needs” in 24A reflects “returns” and is just there for the surface.

23. I’m firmly in the enjoyment camp and am always chuffed to reach the end of a Tramp with a filled grid. I parsed clips = runs into in the same RTA context as hatter @1 and – somewhat reluctantly – bunged in the i for IMBROGLIO and moved on. It was the only bit I couldn’t satisfactorily parse. Fully agree with Roz that both long anagrams are excellent – the Denise van Outen particularly so for using a real person. I’m wising up to the X OR Y trick and have used it myself once or twice; I certainly picked it up from the nationals and am sure I’ve seen it in G puzzles before. BANANA BOAT lovely with THICKER, ISOMORPH and CONDOM like others. EGYPTIAN up on the podium for a delightful surface.

    Thanks Tramp and bridgesong

24. [Heightest Roz@21. That’s a bit Rishi.]

25. [ Choldunk I was thinking of particle physics, quarks and leptons far more important ]

26. bridgesong @ 22. Thank you, yes, I now understand the relationship between ‘returns’ and ‘needs’ but déja vu all over again, we went through this last week and I still think ‘needs’ is superfluous and I can’t see it does anything at all for the surface.

27. Definitely tough for me. I only had one answer for too long, but eventually only eclipse beat me. I couldn’t parse 27 sort, but nothing else fitted. Surely it should be characters, not character? The device used is rare in the guardian crosswords but I have seen it before, once fairly recently. Perhaps more common in the form “X to y”?

28. @bridgesong – (sorry) a small typo in the notes for ECLIPSE… you have (sp)EE(dy) where the clue says ‘sleepy’

29. The two long anagrams were good, though I always find them hard until I have a few crossers. BANANA BOAT my favourite.

30. Thanks bridgesong, agree both on toughness and a couple of stretchy equivalences.
    Roz@15 I think history may judge Truss’s reputation for muppetry as dwarfing even that of her predecessor but agree that this implies an order of magnitude difference rather than the simple surpassing of eclipse, but both going in same direction.
    Paddymelon@12 thanks for that link as i have happy memories of listening to it on an old 78 with my grandparents, and sang it with friends only last week as we drove past a plantation. 6ft, 7ft, 8ft BUNCH!
    Anyway, I really enjoyed the unpicking of clues like 2d and 22d, where i had to write each word separately and fathom the various possible meanings of each. Thanks for a fine challenge Tramp.

31. I did not parse 14ac PEPPER (never heard of Pep Guardiola), 7d, or 10ac PEW = form.

    LIked CONDOM.

    Thanks, both.

32. CONDOM, THICKER and BANANA BOAT have been mentioned already as favourites, and they were mine too, along with the excellent long anagrams. I liked the trickery everywhere, of the sort I am used to seeing with Tramp. I was conscious that PEP in PEPPER POT would not be known by everyone, but I knew it and it didn’t hold me up.

    Thanks to Tramp and bridgesong.

33. Up to Tramp’s usual high standard.

    I did especially like BANANA BOAT for the definition, EGYPTIAN having the Grand National, IMBROGLIO for the clever surface, and the superb Ms Van Outen anagram.

    Thanks Tramp and bridgesong.

34. Rob T @28: thanks, now corrected.

35. Glad to see others found this tricky. I really didn’t follow the clue for BANANA BOAT at the time, missing the significance of ‘hands’, but having had it pointed out – thanks, bridgesong – I see how clever it is. I’d not heard of Pep the manager, and the best I could do was to think that a manager is someone who ‘peps’ his team and so is a ‘pepper’. It makes more sense now. Thanks, Tramp.

36. Got there in the end, though I had to use a word finder for ECLIPSE and couldn’t parse it. I’m not entirely sure it’s a synonym for DWARF, but hey ho.

    I don’t see the function of NEEDS in 24a. The clue could work just as well without it and I prefer surfaces to avoid redundancy as long as they are grammatical.

37. poc @36 and others. IN ‘needs’ COME in order to make INCOME. Tramp could have used ‘has’ instead. It seems like a fairly common construction to me, though it misled me at first. Which is part of the reason why the setter has used it.

38. Great Saturday puzzle, with a lot of Tramp’s typically good surfaces and constructions.

    I was also a fan of EGYPTIAN, BANANA BOAT and the long anagrams.

    Re INCOME, I agree that the clue doesn’t strictly need ‘needs’. And you could argue that with ‘needs’ as a copula (itself perfectly fine in many contexts) the ‘to’ gets in the way, because ‘to move nearer’ = TO COME. However, the surface reads better as Tramp composed it and I was perfectly happy with it.

    Many thanks to Neil W (see you next Saturday 🙂 ) and bridgesong

39. It didn’t occur to me that Denise van Outen was a real person, I thought she was just a name that the anagrist could form.

    I had to use the check button a lot for this one, letter by letter. Thanks, Tramp and bridgesong.

40. shatter @37 I’ve been trying to think of a concise way to explain “needs” and you’ve just saved me the bother – many thanks 🙂

    I used to to find Tramp quite daunting when I was first learning the cryptic ways – a combination of tenuous definitions and a fondness for spreading anagram fodder throughout the wordplay – nowadays I seem to be more on his wavelength which may or may not be a good thing!

    Bit of a lack of ear-worms today so here’s Natalie IMBROGLIO

41. ps: it wouldn’t surprise me if BOUT has become a verb like medal, summit, and, er, effort etc.

42. 14 completed with a struggle, gave up temporarily, but forgot to return.

    Thanks bridgesong, really needed you. Thanks Trump, too

43. bodycheetah @40
    I’m glad you mentioned the ‘tenuous definitions’ in evidence here. (I would have done so if I had remembered.) The ones I noted were ‘one on bed’, ‘previous issues’, ‘subject’ and ‘cut’. I think it is a fairly recent trend among some Guardian setters, and it’s a good thing, as it raises the pitch of the clue somewhat without sacrificing soundness, and with enough more tractable clues around the puzzle as a whole becomes an enjoyable challenge.

44. bodycheetah@41 🙂 for your “TorN” ear-WorM.

45. I was waiting for Natalie to appear, hoping that Penfold might return.
    Bodycheetah you missed out to podium .
    Alan B@43 makes a good point, setters should try to be a bit less obvious, especially on a Saturday.

46. Brilliant spot pm@44 ! Totally unintentional on my part 🙂

47. Didn’t know PEP. Just took it a football manager is a ‘pepper’ because he peps up his squad (I know!). Couldn’t really parse ECLIPSE either, but the RTA explanation seems to be it.

    Gervase @38, Ximenes thought that a verb could have ‘to’ (as used in translating Latin infinitives) or not, to suit the setter. Likewise articles with nouns just ignored in clues. All setters are happy to follow the example because it’s so convenient when setting. You would think someone who was so pernickety about other things wouldn’t be so sloppy when it comes to ‘a’, ‘the’ and ‘to’, wouldn’t you?

48. I laboured too long on a previous Tramp puzzle before giving up. When I studied the solution, I was annoyed to find several unreasonably obscure Chambers usages (timewasters). Hence, I did not want waste too much time when I was making slow progress with this one. I studied Bridgesong’s explanation with interest, but I had only two minor quibbles, ‘pew’ for ‘form’ and ‘per’. It was hard, but most clues were doable. I should have put in more effort.

49. JohnB, I didn’t know (or perhaps had forgotten) that meaning of ‘form’, but found “19. British a bench, esp one that is long, low, and backless” in Collins. That’s not very like a church pew, but pew, as I was aware, and you may also be, is also used as “2. British informal a seat (esp in the phrase take a pew)” (Collins, again.), which seemed to cover it.

    As for a/per, think of ‘a penny a/per go’. It’s a cryptic standard, in fact.

50. Oh, for the power to edit comments! (Italics end after “informal”.)

51. Thanks Tony. I looked up ‘pew’. I should have looked up ‘form’. That meaning is also in SOED.
    I still don’t get ‘per’. The clue would make sense if it read “football manager for each trophy”. So, all but one clue make sense to me now. Fair enough.

52. JohnJB, I thought I’d explained: saying “a penny a go” means exactly the same thing as “a penny per go” (and, indeed, “a penny for each go”).

    “football manager for each trophy” would work, cryptically, to give PEP + PER + POT, but the surface wouldn’t make sense.

53. PeterO in the parsing of SCATTY you need to capitalize CAT but non IN.

    If I’ve heard of Carla Bruni, I’ve forgotten her. Same for MACRON, which I now recall from Latin class. I didn’t know of another language that used it but a visit to google tells me it appears in Latvian — and Maori, thanks essexboy. It’s also used in transcriptions of various languages, but I don’t think that counts.

    Thanks, Matilda and PeterO.

54. Ooops, I’ve added this comment to the wrong blog. Please ignore!

55. Valentine @39: My preference is for setters to avoid made-up names, and so much more if the name is unusual. Denise van Outen would be unacceptable to me as a name invented for the purpose of being anagram fodder. Since there is a real, well-known person with that name, the clue becomes not just acceptable but rather pleasing.

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