Guardian Prize 29,069 / Paul

70 comments on “Guardian Prize 29,069 / Paul”

1. I really enjoyed this especially ROME WASN’T BUILT IN A DAY.
   Guessed LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA from “players” and turned out right.
   Thanks Paul and Eileen

2. I got a quick start on this when the D of DECERTIFY led me very quickly to 3, 12, 21a, though I must admit it took me a lot longer to understand how ALSO worked, and I never bothered to parse ROME WASN’T BUILT IN A DAY as I immediately thought of this song by Nick Lowe. Sorry.

   I thought that O PUS was inspired by the Monty Python sketch, Yangtse Kiang. (Peter Shilton at 0.32)

   I enjoyed ‘like a horse’, and MADRID GAL was pretty good too.

   Thanks to Paul and Eileen.

3. Although there were some more straightforward clues, the devious nature of the ROME … clue delayed its answering, and held up crossers, so on the whole this was quite hard. The backdoor to the LSO via ALSO made that one easier to get and hence more helpful. I agree with Eileen, WEAPON was wicked.

   Regarding OPUS, I took the O to be indicating the vocative.

   Tanks P&E

4. …I meant how the reference to ‘1 without 8’ worked, rather than the clue for ALSO.

5. I thought WEAPON was fine but the a shouldn’t be underlined in parsing Eileen.
   Nearly there Hatter.. crazy playoffs.

6. Thank you, Tim the toffee – amended now.

7. I got 15. But more by intuition than intellect. Still baffled by the parsing

8. I found this very difficult and it took all week, but oh the joy when I pressed Check All this morning and it was all right.

   Thank you, Eileen, for a wonderful blog. It must have been a daunting task. But you nailed it. Even with your explanation for building Rome, I can’t quite get my head around the clue. It’s a bit like an Esher painting, when I focus on one bit the rest goes wobbly.

   Thank you, Paul, for a fabulous challenge and the humour along the way. No wonder my head has ached all week – all those teatray moments.

9. Sorry, Jaydee – that was my best shot : I’m going to bed now!

10. Eileen, I think the answer to 12D is FLORA – a collection of plants. Old coin FLOR(in) – the (in)
    + A.

11. Rosella2 @10 – of course it is! – a very silly typo, corrected now, thank you.
    I don’t recognise your name, so, if you’re new to the site, welcome, and if not, my apologies.
    I liked your analogy @8.

12. I’m not sure how the average solver is supposed to get to 15 from the surface alone. Normally I can parse a solution but that was impenetrable.

13. Thanks, Paul for the lovely puzzle and Eileen for the great blog with everything clearly explained.
    Liked ROME WASN’T BUILT IN A DAY, but I share Eileen’s views on this. Also liked LSO and WEAPON.

    Like Eileen, I liked the Esher painting analogy of Rosella2@8.

14. WEAPON:
    Eileen! a couple of typos. ‘A’ before ‘pike’ is missing.
    In the explanation, some minor correction is needed.
    Mazzyg@12
    Difficult to work the solution out from the wordplay. At least, I parsed it after guessing the solution from the definition and the enumeration. One thing was obvious: It was a reverse anagram.

15. This was interesting and I found it easier than the previous week’s prize. I got as far as spotting the anagram and reverse clue bit of ROME WASN’T BUILT IN A DAY and thought close enough, I don’t have to explain it, thank goodness.

    Thank you to Eileen and Paul.

16. I’m not a big Paul fan but I enjoyed this puzzle some Picaroonish surfaces in that lot.

17. After I had a few crossers I saw ROME WASN@T BUILTIN A DAY. I realised it was a reverse anagram but I had too many letters, however amongst them were the ones I needed and that was sufficient for me. I thought LSO was brilliant even though I failed to parse it before finishing the crossword. I kept going back to look at it again.
    Thanks Eileen & Paul. Have a good night’s rest

18. Enjoyed this though couldn’t parse 15a. Did parse the other long one LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA which made me smile once I got it.

    Last ones in were the two 12’s – FLORA and FEIGN. Thought FEIGN was well hidden as was ALSO which took me ages to spot.

    Other favourites: POLARIS, NIGHT, WEAPON

    Thanks Paul and Eileen

19. Even though this slow-going puzzle (for me) proved that ROME WASN’T BUILT IN A DAY, that long one at 15,20,24,22 helped me along a lot – as others have said its enumeration was very helpful once there were a few crossers, though I couldn’t for the life of me see how to parse it (glad I wasn’t alone there). I needed this blog to parse several other solutions as well, as I was left with a few question marks that didn’t resolve themselves when I came back to the grid this morning. No LBMs (light bulb moments) with LSO (3,13,21) for me, for instance. 6d MARY was one of my favourites for the smile it gave me; some other favourites have already been mentioned by others. Didn’t see the repetition of the 8s making the mini-theme. Many thanks to Paul and of course to the indefatiguable Eileen who posts the Prize blogs so promptly and comes back faithfully to respond to contributors.

20. I got the long Rome answer quite early on from a couple of crossers and the enumeration, but was completely baffled by the parsing, other than a feeling something other than Rome was being built in all this. Awesome work, decoding that, Eileen! I did like the little game Paul played with the LSO, along with FLORA and WEAPON, although I too thought Manet-ic was a bit of a stretch. Thanks, Paul.

21. “Nobody likes a smart arse” sort of sums this one up for me, Paul!
    Knight Mary indeed.

    Thanks Eileen for an excellent blog.

22. I failed abjectly to get on Paul’s wavelength for this but eventually wheedled out the answers (admittedly with help in places) and thought it was all quite brilliant, especially POLARIS and my LOI, LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

    Eileen, sterling work as ever on the blog – your parsing for ROME etc seems spot on to me. “A day” = WED, and the anagram of MEANT SWOR is inserted in this. Simples!

23. Much like Paul’s Prize the previous week for me. A slow start, too many guesses for solutions I was unable to parse, but many delights along the way before finally completing. Or nearly completing-on checking I had AMIR rather than AXIS.
    I cottoned on to the theme, but if Madrid girl seemed a bit of a stretch, Moulin Rouge as a clue because it was in Paris certainly was and POLARIS was my LOI.
    Thanks to Eileen for a monumental effort, and I hope she wakes suitably refreshed.
    And to Paul, witty and clever as always.

24. Thanks Eileen. It has all been said, put me down as another who stared for a long time at at 15a knowing what the answer was but not patient enough to work it all out. My printout, and yours, accounted for 3 and 13 but not for 21a. The SE corner held me up, WEAPON came to mind early on but it took longer to sink in and I wasted some time trying to accommodate AU or OR in the answer to 25a. I should know better by now but I’m still not too sure that lace = cord.

25. I’m not sure what I think about clues like ROME WASN’T BUILT IN A DAY and LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA which I get from the definition and enumeration and then parse (or not) afterwards. On the one hand you get two moments of satisfaction; on the other each is slightly spoilt by being only partial.

26. Mixed bag of failed to solve and could not parse for me.

    Failed to solve 12ac, 25ac, 12d, 20d – I still do not understand the A (wicked) – can someone explain please – oh I see, the ‘a’ has gone missing from the clue in the blog.

    I did not parse:
    15ac
    18ac
    5d
    21d O + PUS but had never heard that O = abbreviation of ON.

    Thanks, both.

    NOTE: 12d – def should be underlined as = ‘growing collection’ (not old coin)

27. I thought this was an easier Paul prize this week and the ‘see’ clues, as you mentioned Eileen, didn’t bother me much. I parsed RWBIAD and thought it quite brilliant but I couldn’t parse LSO, so thanks for that. I liked HARRUMPH (great word), SYBARITE and the M clues, MOOCH, MARY, MADRIGAL and MAGNETIC.

    Ta Paul & Eileen.

28. KVa @14 – thanks for that: I don’t know how the gremlins stole the ‘a’ – blog amended now.

29. I couldn’t see CAPITAL until near the end, by which time I had solved all the related clues! I got RWBIAD from the crossers for ROME – and I did then manage to parse it. Very ingenious – pity about the surface, as Eileen remarks.

    ‘Manetic’ is whimsy taken a bit too far. I’d never come across the ‘sponge’ meaning of MOOCH, so this puzzled me. However, I did like the other CAPITAL clues: LSO, MADRIGAL and POLARIS. Other favourites were WEAPON and particularly the short and very sweet ALSO.

    Thanks to JH and Eileen

30. Thank you Paul and Eileen.
    This was quite a challenge. Like Bigles A @24 I wondered about a
    Lace = CORD – perhaps a shoe lace?

31. That’s how I read it, cookie.

32. Looking back at the comments, I see what happened with 20dn WEAPON: following tim the toffee’s comment @5, I hastily deleted the ‘a’ altogether, rather than the underlining!

33. I think, Eileen and Michelle, that the O in Opus is not short for ON, but the beginning of a rhapsody to Purulence: ‘O Pus!’

34. Croc @33 – I think you (and Dr. Whatson @3, now that I read the comments more carefully) are right.

35. Croc@33. That’s what I was trying to say @2, but the word rhapsody wouldn’t come to mind so I had to resort to Monty Python!

36. ‘We meant sword’ seemed like a variation on ‘breban gerad’ for sausage sandwich, with an anagram twist, but I much prefer it when Paul uses real words, as here.

    (Even though, like Eileen, I’m struggling to think of a context where you might slip it into a conversation.
    “Thought you chaps were going to show us Juno Beach before we stop for lunch…??”)

    I wondered about something astronomical going on with DAY following NIGHT as the earth turns on its AXIS, which if you extend it northwards leads us to POLARIS, approximately (but not if you go via MAGNETIC north, I understand?)

    I think a MADRID GAL is an example of a señorita, so maybe the question mark is there because the equivalence is a bit playful/tricksy, or because Paul is aware that the use of ‘Señorita’ (and ‘gal’, for that matter!) may be regarded by some as problematic. Are any 15²-ers currently living in Spain? I found a discussion here, with one contributor summarising: ‘In short, I advise you to avoid “señorita” unless you are really, really sure’.

    Very nice, and not too round. Thanks P & E.

37. Sorry, sheffield hatter @35 – I only skimmed the comments and didn’t follow links, because I was wanting to get to bed!

38. Thanks, michelle @26 – 12dn corrected now.

39. O PUS took me back to Latin lessons – “O mensa” is how to address a table, assuming you would ever want to, in the vocative case (Dr. Whatson@3).
    O PUS would be how you would start off a Latin poem to Purulence. Croc@33
    I checked the declension of pus here:
    https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pus#Latin
    It has all the right cases, “but not necessarily in the right order”. (Eric Morecambe @ Andrew Preview)
    Shouldn’t it be Nominative Vocative Accusative Genitive Dative Ablative?
    When did the poor old vocative drop to the bottom of the table?

40. Thanks to sh, Dr WO and Croc for explaining OPUS. Not the most satisfactory of clues for me, I’m afraid – ‘On Purulence’ doesn’t really indicate a vocative. And ‘purulence’ is too close to ‘pus’ (from Latin ‘purulentus’, from the neuter noun: pus, puris). Perhaps ‘no matter!’ would have been better 🙂

41. FrankieG @39: Wiktionary uses the traditional ordering of Latin cases, still used in most countries. The British order was created by Kennedy for his Latin Primer – it has the virtue of placing cases which often have the same inflections next to one another.

42. FrankieG @39 – perhaps at around the time that people stopped addressing tables. 😉

43. Apologies for the crossing, Gervase.

44. No apology required, O Eileen 🙂

45. Gervase@40. Even without any formal training in Latin – only what I picked up at my mother’s knee, so to speak – I could see how close ‘purulence’ was to PUS. Your idea of “no matter!” is a distinct improvement on the clue as set.

46. Eileen@42 🙂
    Found this Googling – Speaking to a Table From Winston Churchill’s My Early Years:
    https://pluralisticuniverse.wordpress.com/2015/11/22/speaking-to-a-table/

47. I loved the Paul humour not least in the vocative OPUS. Yes, MAGNETIC was a bit of a stretch … but that was a bonus once I twigged.

    But I failed to complete three in the SE corner: inc POLARIS and AXIS. Nice clues, though. Something loose in the head makes me think of a four as a boundary and a six as something else. Thanks for explaining all, Eileen.

48. [There’s some interesting background on the order of cases here. The ‘British’ order, although popularised by Kennedy, actually goes back to the work of 19th century Danish linguists. It’s also used in France – but not in Germany or the USA.]

49. A difficult solve. I realised that ROMEWASNT* was in ‘meant sword’ but that left me with a D, doh! A clever clue but perhaps too clever.

    I liked the reversal to give FEIGN, the MADRId GAL, and the star with a heart of gold.

    Thanks Paul and Eileen.

50. I’m with Frankie G @29. I remember one of my first Latin lessons, it went like this:
    Nominative – the boy loves the girl
    Vocative – forget about it, it’s hardly ever used
    Accusative – the girl loves the boy
    Here a serpent is introduced into Eden
    Genitive – the brother of the boy loves the girl
    Dative – the father of the girl speaks to the boy
    Ablative – the girl runs away from the boy
    It sunk in, I’ve never forgotten it.

51. [essexboy @48: Thanks for the correction. So NVAGDA was a Raskally invention! But at least I was able to explain the rationale for the ‘new’ order without using the (lovely) word syncretism 🙂 ]

52. Eileen, forgive my ignorance, but what are the “see” clues that you mention in your introduction? (When you explain, I shall of course be able to say “Oh, I see!”).

53. Thanks Paul and Eileen. I was mystified by 15a all week. Thanks for the explanation. Love it! I had to cheat for SYBARITE, but don’t mind because I would never have got it otherwise. O Pus! More Nigel Molesworth (or do I mean Fotherington Thomas?) than Monty Python for me, sheffieldhatter!

54. Thank you, FrankieG @46 (that’s a wonderful find!) and essexboy @48 (very interesting – I’ll save that for later: I’m just popping round the corner for a ploughman’s lunch at the church May ‘Fayre’ (shudder).)

    bridgesong @52, four consecutive clues in the puzzle were prefaced by
    ‘see …’, which always irritates me at first sight but, as I said, they weren’t scattered so much as they often are.

55. Thanks to Paul and Eileen.
    Paul presented us with a stunning piece of work.
    It took a while but great sense of satisfaction when the answers were found.
    Favourites were
    ‘LSO’, ‘ROME’, 4d, 11d, 12d, 18,

56. [bridgesong/Eileen: all Sees lead to Rome 🙂
    See more bananas (4) ]

57. The discussion of the vocative reminds me of this from Alice in Wonderland:

    … she began: “O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse!” (Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse: she had never done such a thing before, but she remembered having seen in her brother’s Latin Grammar, “A mouse—of a mouse—to a mouse—a mouse—O mouse!”

58. [Lord Jim @57: Judging from the order of the cases, Alice’s brother wasn’t using Kennedy 🙂 ]

59. Eileen, thank you. I was confused because you group all the related clues together, so I couldn’t see the “sees”! But on referring to my paper copy, I do indeed see what you mean.

60. Gervase@29and 40
    I’m with you about MANET IC and “On” not indicating a vocative.
    I think the reason you hadn’t come across MOOCH = “sponge” or importune is that it seems to be an exclusively North American usage and should perhaps have been indicated as such.
    There were a lot of solve first, parse later clues which are all very well if you solve them but a bit annoying if you don’t. Take 18a for example. I doubt if anyone got MADRID GAL = senorita before they got “song”= MADRIGAL.
    I was fortunate enough to get 3,13, 21a early from the wordplay and it provided several useful crossers.
    KVa@14 I think 20d is a straight reversal (standing) of NO PEW round A. I’m no expert on these matters but wouldn’t an anagram have been indirect and caused a certain amount of tutting in these quarters?
    Thanks to Paul (lots to enjoy as usual) and Eileen..

61. Pino@60
    ROME WASN’T BUILT IN A DAY
    @14 I was referring to the reverse anagram (not an indirect anagram) in response to Mazzyg@12 (nothing to do with WEAPON).

62. Thanks Eileen for doing a lot of hard work in explaining this set! i was prepared to bet that hardly anyone would solve ROME… from wordplay, on the plus side it was clear enough from definition, enumeration and crossers (eventually), and i did enjoy subsequently making sense of the wordplay, and as per essexboy@36 at least it comprised real words only, though admittedly not really a very meaningful permutation. And I liked MA(G)NETIC, a question mark to hint at the eyebrow raise, like ERRIER elsewhere recently. But most of all I enjoyed HARRUMPH as I am sure Old Wilkie must have said/done just that a few times in the Jennings books, though perfunctory research only got me to “I..I..Corwumph!”. Agree Pino@60 on the reversal and thanks for Latin background everyone. Thanks also to Paul of course.

63. I’m a big fan of Paul’s crosswords, and thoroughly enjoyed this one. However, I have to agree that ROME WASN’T BUILT IN A DAY pushes the boundaries. A cryptic clue should be more than just a code, the surface must make sense, and this doesn’t. HARRUMPH might be an appropriate response.
    Classic and not too baroque prize from Picaroon today.

64. For O’ = ON wiktionary gives:
    ‘(obsolete, unstressed) Contraction of on.’ and cites
    Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, [Act I, scene i]: “A pox o’ your throat, you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog!”

65. I must admit that when I finished this (with all parsed (including the surmise that ‘O’ represented the ‘on side in cricket’)) I felt entitled to light a cigarette and lie back. In other words I really enjoyed it. And, for me anyway, Paul is excused all requirement to make sensible surfaces.

    Thanks Eileen – not an easy one to blog.

66. This one was tough but very satisfying. Tough, because for some reason I didn’t see the ROME… solution until near the end, and so I was burned by the “See…” entries.

    In spite of sharing Eileen’s shudder at these clues, the other one, LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, was my favourite amongst many great clues. I ALSO enjoyed 18a MADRIGAL and 16d MAGNETIC, which had just the right amount of whimsy for my taste.

    This was a rare completion of a Paul, although I failed, like others, to parse the ROME clue, as well as 20d WEAPON (I didn’t see NO PEW for standing).

    Thanks, Paul for the challenging fun, and Eileen for the informative and friendly blog – you set a great example for us commenters.

67. KVa@60
    My apologies

68. I quite liked this one. As usual I dabbled at it during the week and completed it by Thursday with no mistakes. I liked MADRIGAL and MAGNETIC, and also AXIS after I finally deleted the unconvincing AMIR (helped by a word fitting site). I couldn’t explain 15ac. After reading the published answer I decided after some reflection that I liked the devious ingenuity of the clue.

69. It took me till Tuesday to get 15etc, ROME WASN’T BUILT IN A DAY, and till Thursday to finish. 15 was infuriatingly impenetrable, but the words “Be patient” kept me at it until I saw ROME as a possibility for _ O _ E, whereupon the penny dropped, and seeing then how it worked did inspire some awe. I would call it a reverse wordplay clue. I.e. the answer can be understood as wordplay for the non-definitional part of the clue: in this case, containment of an anagram (not just a reverse anagram as some seem to suggest). Widdersbel@22 has explained it precisely.

    I didn’t get the wordplay for LSO, so I’m most grateful to Eileen for the enlightenment. I just thought that if you removed the capital (LONDON), you’d still, ALSO, have “players”. A bit of an insult to Paul to think he would use such weak wordplay and gratifying to know the truth was that it was brilliant.

    I agree with Pino@60 that MOOCH, meaning cadge, should have been indicated as American usage. (Is this the explanation of Minnie the Moocher‘s epithet, I wonder?) Paul has form for this, and I think the problem must be that he spends large amounts of time consuming American media and no longer has a sense of what is purely American usage. I didn’t like that clue anyway, because I don’t think MOOCHing and mooning are really the same thing at all, even though they might seem to be to the casual observer. Also, I’m not sure how well-known that slang meaning of ‘bum’, is either.

70. For those of us who got LSO before ALSO, 8 Across looked awfully like ‘ARTICLE’ (which crosses nicely with FINISH), i.e. letter ‘a’. All letters in crosswords are capitals so the correct answer doesn’t distinguish the initial letter. Delayed being certain on HARRUMPH since the N.A. usage of MOOCH was impenetrable. But ‘ROME’, after WASN’T revealed itself from the crossers, was pure entertainment.

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