An alphabetical jigsaw from Paul this week
Kenmac offered to help with this puzzle, but in the event Timon and I solved it in about our usual time. It was easier than it looked, thanks to the grid, which meant that there was only one 11 letter answer (K) and two with 10 letters (F and G) as well as two with 15 letters (A and J). Although the K was one of the last to solve, we managed to place the others correctly, giving us crossers to help place the 8 letter answers. Perhaps to compensate for the additional complexity of filling the grid, several of the clues seemed easier than usual.
Having said that, there are a couple of dubious parsings, so please do let me have your suggestions. Many thanks to Paul: our favourites were the clues to LOTTERY and YOGHURTS.
| A | ANOTHER FINE MESS |
Funny short first name, one she invented (7,4,4)
|
| *(FIRST NAME ONE SHE). As the title suggests, it’s a Laurel and Hardy film. | ||
| B | BRINDISI |
Italian port and toast (8)
|
| Double definition: apparently it’s Italian for a toast or drinking-song. | ||
| C | CUTLASS |
Weapon, end blunted, sailor pushed back in (7)
|
| SALT (rev) inside CUS(p). I’m not entirely convinced that CUSP = end; does anyone have a better parsing? | ||
| D | DUMFRIES |
Scottish town where French author is overheating, as being deported (8)
|
| (Alexandre) DUM(as) FRIES. | ||
| E | ELAN |
Last drops of the powerful Tequila, Mexican spirit (4)
|
| Last letters of “thE powerfuL TequilA MexicaN”. | ||
| F | FELICITATE |
In death, produce salute (10)
|
| ELICIT (produce) inside FATE. | ||
| G | GROUND PLAN |
Design of architect in little bits, factory unfinished (6,4)
|
| GROUND (in little bits) PLAN(t) (factory). | ||
| H | HAFT |
Handle stick after head shaved (4)
|
| (s)HAFT. | ||
| I | IMOGEN |
British princess in French city uncovered deception, finally (6)
|
| (l)IMOGE(s) (deceptio)N. She is the daughter of Cymbeline. | ||
| J | JELLY ROLL MORTON |
Old player in spin, male introduced to setter and playwright (5,4,6)
|
| JELLY (setter – something that sets) ROLL (spin) M(ale) (Joe) ORTON (playwright). | ||
| K | KLEIN BOTTLE |
Manifold, various little bits initially, one below a thousand (5,6)
|
| K (a thousand) *(LITTLE B(its) ONE). I can do no better than quote the Chambers definition in full: “A one-sided four-dimensional surface, which in three dimensions can be represented as a surface obtained by pulling the narrow end of a tapering tube through the wall of the tube and then stretching the narrow end and joining it to the larger end”. One of the meanings of MANIFOLD is “a topological space or surface that is related in a particular way to Euclidean space”. | ||
| L | LOTTERY |
Animal caught by insect with no effin’ chance (7)
|
| OTTER (animal) inside (f)LY. This one made us laugh. | ||
| M | MERINGUE |
Uniform in green, I’m awfully sweet (8)
|
| *(U GREEN IM). | ||
| N | NADER |
Fortification erected for former presidential candidate (5)
|
| REDAN (rev). Ralph Nader was a consumer rights activist who stood for President on no fewer than four occasions. | ||
| O | ONE TENTH |
A part concerned with what borders shelter (3,5)
|
| ON (concerned with), TENT (shelter) inside EH (what). | ||
| P | PLOY |
Vehicle missing Rolls-Royce after parking manoeuvre (4)
|
| P(arking) LO(rr)Y. | ||
| Q | QUININE |
Drug: one popped by mighty character from the sixties, ecstasy (7)
|
| I inside QUINN, E. The Mighty Quinn was a Bob Dylan song covered by Manfred Mann in 1968. | ||
| R | RENNET |
Cheese maker wants money back (6)
|
| TENNER (rev). | ||
| S | SEBUM |
Grease requiring two sponges, the first having removed stink (5)
|
| S(pong)E, BUM. | ||
| T | THRIVING |
Bag hides short tear well (8)
|
| RIV(e) (tear) in THING. I’m not sure why THING should equate to “bag”. | ||
| U | ULCER |
Source of evil embodied by Paul, certainly (5)
|
| Hidden in “Paul certainly”. | ||
| V | VOWELS |
Group of characters very eccentric at first on entering parliament (6)
|
| V(ery), E(ccentric) in OWLS (a collective name for a group of owls is a parliament). | ||
| W | WOMB |
Baby container litter picker found, having dropped the last two (4)
|
| WOMB(le). The Wombles were famously keen on picking up the litter on Wimbledon Common. | ||
| X | XOANON |
Ancient carved image unsigned, upon which animal turned up (6)
|
| OX (rev), ANON. The definition in Chambers is again interesting: “A primitive statue, said to have fallen from heaven…”. | ||
| Y | YOGHURTS |
Why I’ll never stretch out on a mat without a selection of food in pots? (8)
|
| YOG(a) HURTS. As Timon said, “You’re not doing it right, Paul!”. | ||
| Z | ZERO-SUM |
Unknown god I don’t know in win/ lose situation (4-3)
|
| EROS (god) in Z (unknown) UM (I don’t know). |
Thanks bridgesong. I think bag = thing in the sense that both can mean predilection.
Not easy. I figured the way in had to be the 11 letter K answer and that’s how it worked out for me but it was a very difficult first step. I’d got about half the answers before tackling the grid and for once I lucked in and found the right places for most of them quite quickly. After that the remaining answers came quite steadily but even with most of the crossers the two 10 letter ones were among the last to yield. Had to seek Google confirmation of the S and X answers. Quite a workout which I eventually finished with some sense of accomplishment.
How pleasant for an alphabetical for a change.
My way in were ulcer and nader (couldn’t be across solutions as the 5 letter ones didn’t begin with U or N); and for 2nd across solution, possible initial letters CLQZ implied QU. If I hadn’t solved these two, don’t know what I would have done.
MANIFOLD a terrible definition for KLINE BOTTLE – it certainly isn’t the first thing that springs to mind. Otherwise, all good,so thanks Paul for a treat, and thanks bridgesong for the blog (I hesitate to mention it, but you have replaced the U in ZERO SUM with an O in the grid
Another like Biggles A @1 where I got a bit less than half the clues before getting KLEIN BOTTLE which then helped with grid filling. I also took bag, thing to be a predilection, imagining a hippie saying “it’s my bag”.
I also had a ? against Cusp in CUTLASS. It and end aren’t listed in Chambers Crossword Dictionary as being equivalent.
I didn’t parse YOGHURTS which was a bung. I also spent a while wondering why a Wombat was a “litter picker” before the penny dropped about Uncle Bulgaria et al (which have a sort of resemblance to Wombats).
CUTLASS
The Guardian Annotated Solutions has the same hints as the blog.
Dictionaries say:
CUSP=each of the pointed ends of the crescent moon.
Looks okay in a way.
THRIVING
Took ‘bag=THING’ in the same sense as the previous commenters did.
Thanks for the puzzle Paul and the blog bridgesong. I figured CUS(P) but some of the parsings were beyond me–I never have seen “rive” outside of the form “riven” and though WOMB was clear from the W and definition, WOMBLE is a NHO.
I always find doing jigsaw a nice change – I remember doing many of Araucaria’s back in the day. What’s critical is to be able to do enough clues cold to be able to start filling in the grid without fear of backtracking, and this one took a while, but was worth it. Had no problem with KLEIN BOTTLE.
When reading Bridgesong’s description of Ralph Nader, I was reminded that in the UK people stand for office, but in the US they run. And in either case it’s usually a disaster.
Had the 3 fivers – NADER, SEBUM & ULCER – only SEBUM could go across ’cause RENNET ain’t an eighter, That placed MERINGUE.
That sorted out where the 2 tenners – FELICITATE & GROUND PLAN – went, and they, in turn, sorted out where the other 2 fivers – NADER & ULCER – went.
Total £35+VAT(£7)=£42 – call it 40 quid for cash.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cusp
‘1. A sharp point or pointed end.’
Golf just ain’t my bag. It’s not my thing. Not my cup of tea.
Thanks P&b
Loved this. First time I’ve done an alphabet puzzle and thought it was fun.
Was helped by getting one of the long ones first – ANOTHER FINE MESS (which made me laugh). Then I got ZERO-SUM and DUMFRIES which helped me place those three in the grid and get a few more that crossed them. The single 11 character clue was also helpful and, though I’d never heard of KLEIN BOTTLE, managed to work it out – with a little help from crosses and google.
Loved: YOGHURTS (another one that made me laugh) DUMFRIES, JELLY ROLL MORTON, ONE TENTH, PLOY
Thanks Paul and bridgesong
Agree with DrW@6 that the key is to get enough answers to be sure where they go. But I found my initial set of solutions was awkwardly distributed and the only answer I could locate unambiguously was K – which I’d not solved. So I fell back on assuming that if a few answers interlocked they had a good chance of being right and made the ‘Hail Mary’ play of putting in PLOY and YOGHURTS together, which would let me tentatively add GROUNDPLAN. And I went on from there. I think I was very lucky – I kept enough notes to be able to backtrack easily, but never needed to. (I found it helped to write the usual number in the grid, so I could make notes like ‘A=5?’, which I’d never needed to do before.) I was lucky not yet having solved CUTLASS when I put QUININE in the right place just because it was an 8-long word with a second letter U that fitted with ULCER.
I did like YOGHURTS. For a long time I thought the answer for A must be an anagram (funny) of ‘short first name i’ and would be the name of a woman who invented things. I didn’t know BRINDISI meant toast, and I was surprised to discover that XOANON was a word. And I’d forgotten that ‘manifold’ had a mathematical meaning, although I did know that a Klein Bottle was a sort of grown-up Möbius strip (thank you, Martin Gardner’s ‘Mathematical Puzzles and Diversions’ from many years ago). Getting that at the start would have simplified things a lot. As it was, this turned out to be what I expected: a very enjoyable alphabetical. Thanks Paul, and thanks bridgesong for the blog.
A lovely trip down memory lane for me (to Araucaria alphabetical jigsaws of decades ago). Past experience definitely helps to find “ways in”. Great fun for this pencil-on-paper solver and a work of art by Paul. Many thanks!
One (very mild) query was to wonder whether the cryptic bit of ONE TENTH might warrant a question mark when equating “what” to EH.
Thanks for the blog, unusual to have 26 entries for this, usually some letters have to double up. Very unusual to have a single entry for one length (11) , this made it very easy for me.
When I see manifold I can think of about 10, most end in manifold, KLEIN BOTTLE would be my second though after Mobius band. Putting it in gave many entries and opened up each corner.
I liked ONE TENTH and YOGHURTS was very neat.
A KLEIN BOTTLE is a two-dimensional manifold embedded in a 4-D space, It is not possible to construct one completely in 3-D space, I have seen various glass models that show certain aspects. Manigolds are my bag/thing.
Thanks to all those who have explained how CUSP = end and THING = bag. And apologies for the typo in the grid (h/t Dave Ellison @2).
As Roz says, it’s an unusual grid for an alphabetical; normally there are one or two entries that begin with the same letter, which is often a way to get started. It was Araucaria who invented this type of puzzle, but it is now quite commonly used by other setters.
[ Julius in the FT produces them now and then, I will try to alert the Guardian blog next time. ]
Lots of hit and miss for me in putting together this tough but clever jigsaw from Paul. Luckily I had a whole week and that I kept persevering.
I had a go at fitting some answers in once I had solved about half of the clues, hoping they were correct. In the end it was FELICITATE that really helped. But there was still a fair bit of erasing in the north-east before I started to make much purchase. Like some others, I had never heard of KLEIN BOTTLE so it took me ages (and reading the illustrated Wikipedia entry on manifolds) to crack that one – and sadly that felt a lot more like cheating than research, but it did help enormously. There were a couple like SEBUM that I had trouble parsing, though was amused to read how SEBUM/pong worked on coming here.
Another solver here who had big ticks for LOTTERY and YOGHURTS. VOWELS was another favourite.
In the end it was with the same sort of satisfaction that previous posters have expressed, that I got everything to slot in.
Warm thanks to Paul, bridgesong and Timon.
Thanks, bridgesong, for several pieces of parsing which puzzled me. I was fortunate in getting JELLY ROLL MORTON quickly, taking a 50/50 chance that he was 1d, not 5d, and finding PLOY, IMOGEN and YOGHURTS all fitted, so I had guessed right.
KLEIN BOTTLE, unknown to me, took some research for meanings of ‘manifold’, and caused a temporary problem because I had gone for ‘ground work’ (work(s) = factory unfinished), but got PLAN in the end.
Well done, Paul, and done trickily, as more than half the initial letters are uncrossed, which adds to the difficulty.
Having a passionate dislike for alphabeticals & jigsaws wasn’t a great start. YOGHURTS made me laugh
As Father Ted said: down with this sort of thing
Cheers P&B&T
Similar to a few others, I worked out some answers, and eventually bunged and hoped, and was lucky. This was tough, but given comments not long ago that prize crosswords were getting easier, that’s not a complaint.
Thanks to Paul and Bridgesong
I started by cold-solving 14 clues, but they did not include any of the three longest ones (A, J and K). As there was no obvious way to start the jigsaw I made up my mind to try and crack the K clue in order get the phrase down the middle. Discarding the ‘many and varied’ meaning of ‘manifold’, I concentrated on the other meaning, and I was lucky to find an illustration of the Klein bottle staring at me near the top of the Wikipedia article on Manifold (as did JinA @15). It was very satisfying then to build on that and go all the way.
There were some very good clues here, of which my top 5 were ONE TENTH, PLOY, SEBUM, VOWELS and YOGHURTS.
Thanks to Paul and bridgesong.
JinA @ 15. You’re being a bit hard on yourself I think. One of the things I enjoy most about these cryptics is learning about something I didn’t know before and I’d prefer to think of myself as a seeker after knowledge rather than a cheat. I can’t see that there is anything wrong with research and I no longer bother to enter the competition so who is being cheated anyway and how does anyone know whether the winners have not sought assistance?
I love alphabeticals and seem to get on with Paul’s cluing so this was perfect Saturday morning breakfast accompaniment.
Re kleine bottle – it is pretty much the go-to example for every text for a 4d manifold and its 3d projection into our 3d space. It’s the first diagram on Wikipedia entry on manifolds (at least on mobile view) . Paul’s cluing can be idiosyncratic but here at least I going he is straight.
I’m right behind Biggles A @20: I arrived at KLEIN BOTTLE in the same way as JinA and Alan B and had no qualms about it.
It was really good to see a jigsaw puzzle again and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
My favourites were
BRINDISI – those who’ve never heard of it as a drinking song may be familiar with this rather famous one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKNUuTCras
DUMFRIES, which made me laugh
IMOGEN
LOTTERY
WOMB – matt w @5, you should research the Wombles
YOGHURTS, again, for making me laugh.
I learned bag = thing from a crossword, not very long ago.
Many thanks to Paul and to bridgesong and Timon.
This took me back to the good old days when Araucaria used to produce these regularly. I think it was Eileen who coined the description ‘Araubetical’.
As has been pointed out, this was unusual, and particularly satisfying, in not having any initial letters doubled, normally the quick way in. The single 11-letter word ought to have provided a good start, but it was unknown to me and was almost my LOI. I actually got started, like FrankieG @7, by getting the three 5ers.
B for Brindisi was easy for an opera buff, as drinking songs appear in several operas, most popularly La Traviata.
A very enjoyable solve – more please!
Eileen – you beat me to it on the operatic Brindisi!
me @22 -It seems the Royal Opera link didn’t work: try the Glyndebourne one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZvgmpiQCcI
g larsen @24 – my choir sang the BRINDISI at our summer concert last year. 😉
More importantly, I was not the one to coin ‘Araubetical’, although I did promote it whenever I could and always added ‘© Muck’, in recognition of one of our commenters
I had a moan when I saw this, thinking “Araucaria knew how to do these things properly, he would have two crossing with the same first letter which gave you a way in. This looks impossible”. But I thought I’d give it a go and I’m very happy to eat my words. Managing to get the two long ones and a few shorter ones, it soon became apparent what went where, and the rest of the solving process was very entertaining.
Many thanks Paul and bridgesong.
(…Though Araucaria did used to have the clues in rhyming couplets!)
Reading the comments it’s clear that my approach to this maybe wasn’t ideal i.e. cold solve the whole thing and then a couple of minutes to do the jigsaw. Live and learn!
Like Keith @9 I was looking at the wrong fodder and the wrong definition, and never did get ANOTHER FINE MESS. (And I also remember Martin Gardener’s helpful discourse on Mobius strips and Klein bottles.)
My parents had a JELLY ROLL MORTON record when I was a boy, so that’s a phrase that trips off my tongue a little easier than the Laurel & Hardy film.
Thanks to bridgesong for some of the parsing which eluded me. And thanks to Paul for the challenge.
Congrats to Paul for a thoroughly enjoyable alphabetical .
For a long time I could only see KITTY LITTER for the K, but was, unsurprisingly, unable to parse it.
Thanks to bridgesong for filling in some of the parsing.
I enjoyed this, but didn’t achieve much. Like Keiths@9 I went down a rabbit hole with A and I spent ages researching inventions by women which was interesting, but not for this. I got about 8 clues and I’m kicking myself for overlooking a few others which I almost got. It all looks so easy when you have the answers!
Unusual for me to finish by Sunday. I usually like the logic of fitting jigsaw puzzles, and I enjoyed this one, with biggies A and J springing to mind quite quickly. I can still hear the words “Another fine mess you’ve got me into” from black and white TV. K was hard until the cross letters led me to the answer via a word-fitter. Used my spare crossword hours to work on 29,176 from Vlad which I did not enjoy.
Thanks Paul and bridgesong. Had to seek after knowledge to finish this (ie cheat, thanks Biggles @20). [Was that a typo for marigolds, Roz @12? I didn’t know it was possible to enjoy washing up so much.]
[Graham @34 some Klein Bottle manifolds are glass blown in the shape of marigolds ( the flowers) ]
That was fun. I’ve recently been catching up with the Guardian’s Genius series and 3 of the last 4 of those were jigsaws, so I was in the right zone for this. I struggled on the three long ones until I had crossers (and a dictionary) so my eventual way in was via the 4 and 5 letter clues and a process of elimination. Like others I managed to mislead myself on the A clue by assuming ‘funny’ was the anagrind and ‘she invented’ was the definition, so that was my last one in.
Many thanks!
First time I’ve tried one of these. So interesting to see the varied approaches adopted by others. I thought we were ‘supposed ‘ to get the easy (ish) ULCER and then conclude that it was likely to be 8d as it couldn’t be the across 5 and otherwise we’d have a word ending in U and perhaps difficulty placing the Q. Or something like that. K, a NHO, was my last to solve and I admire anyone like Roz who was able to start with it! I thought it was funny that the one clue one knew straightaway where to place was, for me, almost impossibly obscure. Anyway apparently this approach was no less idiosyncratic than anyone else’s. Was chuffed to finish this. All that cold solving! Tx to Paul and bridgesong.
I finally got round to this this morning. Reading the blog, I realized that I never did solve XOANON–I thought I had it in there, but I didn’t. But otherwise, I did manage to finish.
I had exactly the same way into the construction project as KeithS @9: plunk in PLOY and YOGHURTS, and pray that I got it right. Once that opened up some other things, that made it clear that I was on the right track.
NADER is notorious for his role in the 2000 presidential election. You may recall that George Bush defeated Al Gore after disputes and recounts of the vote in Florida. Bush’s ultimate margin of victory in Florida was less than the number of votes received there by Nader, the Green Party candidate that year, who was running to the left of Gore. It is often asserted, therefore, that Nader cost Gore the election. Nader always took issue with that assertion, and to be honest it isn’t entirely fair.
I seem to be in a minority in not enjoying this. I got about three-quarters of the answers but the rest seemed impenetrable. In the past I would have enjoyed the challenge of filling the grid at that stage but, maybe due to decreasing brain power, or increasing laziness, just couldn’t be bothered. Thanks anyway, bridgesong for clearing up the mysteries.
I thought this was going to be very tricky, as you need a lot of information answers before being able to start filling the grid and getting help from crossers. Being something of a nerd I created a spreadsheet to help identify the intersections. I made this a bit harder for myself by being too literal in my interpretation of the clues being in alphabetical order of their solutions. What it actually meant was the answers began with A then B then C, etc. Luckily the clues were easier than usual, and enough answers emerged to get going
Good fun, in the end. Thanks to Paul and bridgesong
Rob T @36
You and I went the same (wrong) way with the A clue at first. It seems that KeithS (@9) did so too. It’s easily done – it was a nice bit of misdirection, and the answer was one of my last in.
I too try the monthly Genius puzzles – it’s a series I like very much with their emphasis on ‘technical’ themes (of which the jigsaw is a familiar example) as opposed to themes on external subjects.
Thought it safer to start this in pencil (as I do very rarely) and I was right. Putting WOMB and BRINDISI where PLOY and YOGHURTS eventually went was not a good start.
I too got BRINDISI fron Verdi.
[Alan B @41 — I only recently started delving into the Genius back catalogue, and I know what you mean about the different kind of challenge… although my favourite recent one managed to include both a technical theme and a subject matter theme rather beautifully – Jack’s #241]
Eileen@22&25:
Here’s the Royal Opera link – it was missing a dash
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK-NUuTCras
My favourite clip of Stan & Ollie – Stan’s Good Idea – from Towed In A Hole)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt0TTZIqFbQ
[Rob T
Good point. That puzzle by Jack was one of the very best of the 28 Genius puzzles I have attempted to date. And it was blogged by bridgesong!]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurel_and_Hardy
‘Catchphrases
Laurel and Hardy’s best-known catchphrase is, “Well, here’s ANOTHER NICE MESS you’ve gotten me into!” It was earlier used by W. S. Gilbert in both The Mikado (1885) and The Grand Duke (1896). It was first used by Hardy in The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case in 1930. In popular culture, the catchphrase is often misquoted as “Well, here’s ANOTHER FINE MESS you’ve gotten me into”, which was never spoken by Hardy – a misunderstanding that stems from the title of their film Another Fine Mess (1930).’
Such a pleasure to have an alphabetical jigsaw again – more please, Paul.
(Like others, my way in was the intersecting ploy/yoghurts; I’d never heard of a Klein bottle, and I’ve a feeling it was my last one in.)
Thanks bridgesong and others for examples of BRINDISI, this was my first alphabetical and loved the combination of challenging clues with some logic needed to begin entering them with confidence. And to see JRM, a Klein bottle and Stan and Ollie in the same grid was wonderful, thanks Paul.
Failed! Couldn’t get K, to get started. Fixated on Knick Knacks (various little bits) which was obviously never going to work – but KLEIN BOTTLE was never going to appear to me.
Though I had more than half the clues solved, I could only definitely place S and M in the grid. I knew they’d all start slotting in if only I could get the K.
But I really enjoyed chewing on it – for about a week!
Full of admiration for those who completed it. Thanks for the explanations all.