Guardian Prize 29,278 by Tramp

58 comments on “Guardian Prize 29,278 by Tramp”

1. Thanks duncanshiell. Got there in the end but rather a mixed bag I thought; the straightforward ACTION-PACKED which was a help, the clever THETA and what I thought was the laborious APPRENTICESHIP are examples. Not too sure about nails = containing and never heard of SATOSHI, which took me far too long to see why.
   I thought in 20a that to enter an against vote in a ballot it would be to x in.

2. Gosh. Well, I finished this eventually but wow! There were seven clues to which I knew I had the right answers but with no idea why! So thank you Tramp for a real head-scratcher and thank you Duncan for filling in the gaps.

3. No real problems that I remember. Didn’t know SATOSHI but it was obviously clued. Favourite was THETA.

4. Liked THETA, TOXIN, APPRENTICESHIP and UTTERANCE.
   Enjoyed the puzzle on the whole and the usual lovely duncanistic blog.
   Thanks Tramp and duncanshiell!

   SHADOW BOX
   (a very slight difference in my parsing)
   (SHOW locks AD) on BOX.

5. Thanks, Duncan, I have not seen your blogs before, and found your way of presenting most helpful. Not an easy puzzle, but completed in a few hours. Thanks to Tramp also.
   CARIOCA was new to me, as well as (like to most others) SATOSHI.
   At 26a, the school’s alumni (I am not one) would point out it’s called Eton College, not School.

6. Not normally a fan of Lego clues but agree with Duncashiell re apprenticeship, very economically put together. Agree, too, re the 2 dnks, csrioca and satoshi. Thanks both, now for today’s.

7. You’ve mistyped SATOSHI as SITOSHA in the preamble.

8. TOXIN
   Found this interesting (An old Guardian headline):
   Vote with a smiley face: electoral guide says X doesn’t have to mark the spot.
   Guidance to returning officers from the Electoral Commission says voters can even mark their choice with a naked woman, preferably smiling.
   🙂

   On a serious note, the ‘vote on ballot’ in the clue under discussion translates to X. X could wither be a ‘for vote’ or an ‘against vote’. I am with the blog on the parsing here.

9. Thanks Tramp. That was hard work but for some reason it didn’t feel like a slog. I needed a word finder for ACTION-PACKED but I managed the rest. Favourites were DISTURBED, SPENT, INSTEAD, UNLOCKS, DEATHTRAP, and HITCH. Thanks duncanshiell for the blog and filling in my parsing gaps.

10. Enjoyed this. Getting the first long anagram was a help.

    My favourites were: EXHAUST, ERADICATE, SHADOW-BOX, UTTERANCE (which took me ages to get)

    Thanks Tramp and duncanshiell

11. This was really fun at just the right level for me, though as a rider 14 made me wince. I enjoy lego clues that are well disguised as APPRENTISHIP was – it looks like you ran out of coloured pencils there Dunc!
    Thanks duncanshiell and Tramp.

12. CARIOCA, ENTERON and SATOSHI were all new to me, but I only had to look them up as a check. I didn’t find this very difficult, but enjoyed it a lot. I was a bit hesitant about the definition of NOTER, but it fitted the word play. I can’t remember how I parsed TOXIN, or the TO bit anyway, but neither suggestions chime.
    Thanks both.

13. When I wrote this last week I was in a particularly nit-picky mood, so please read it with that understanding. I think it was a very good puzzle.

    12a was a good surface, but would have been so much better if English spelled salon with 2 O’s. Too bad.

    Not sure that admit and ENTER are exactly the same – trying to come up with sentences where both will fit runs afoul of active vs. passive, or extra words that one needs and the other doesn’t. Maybe someone can do better than I did.

    In trigonometry, THETA is indeed used commonly for angles, but so are alpha, beta and other Greek letters, and also non-Greek letters – see this for example; moreover, theta is used elsewhere in geometry, in all kinds of branches of mathematics, as well as science, so connecting the two without further qualification seems a bit hopeful to me. I like the intent here, it just needs a bit more precision, I think.

    Thanks

14. I don’t think I did parse TOXIN: couldn’t decide whether the X was an against vote, or a vote on ballot, or even the mathematical x=by, and couldn’t account for any of the rest. Had the same three unknowns as nicbach@12, plus that meaning of THETA: all fairly clued.

    I’m not a fan of APPRENTICESHIP-type clues, but if you like that sort of thing, it’s a very good one of its kind.

15. Thank you duncanshiell, and welcome to the Guardian Prize slot. UTTERANCE my favourite, and admired the construction of APPRENTICESHIP, once I got rid of a pesky L, having biffed enteral for ENTERON.

    I parsed SHADOW-BOX as KVa @4, although I knew it as one word, as most of the online dictionaries have it, not hyphenated. (Small amendment to the blog Duncan, hyphen needed as per Tramp. I don’t have Chambers, so can’t comment.)

    Also couldn’t find a synonym to for against in TOXIN, and don’t find either parsing satisfactory. I was thinking of to put a cross in, but that doesn’t work either.

16. TOXIN
    ‘to=against’ is given in Chambers as well as in Collins. (nicbach@12)
    put the ear to/against the wall

    A couple of sample clues from the archives in which X was clued as ‘vote’: (gladys@14)
    60% of navy vote for Cable (4)
    Record about holding vote for a leaver? (5)

17. paddymelon@15
    Didn’t read your post before posting my comment.
    Anyway, no damage done, I guess.

18. Thanks KVa@17.

19. Thanks for the blog, a lot of very neat and clever clues, PREPARES is beautiful, UTTERANCE flows so nicely and many more. I was glad that SATOSHI was hidden, very fair. Perhaps CARIOCA crossing with LANDING STRIP is not a coincidence.
    THETA I found okay, maybe rotating would be better, I definitely think it is the dominant angle used, for components we always call them cos THETA and sin THETA.
    Two very minor quibbles , HAT for EXHAUST and ACID for ERADICATE , both in the clue and answer, not wrong but I am not keen on this.

20. I am not adding much to KVa for TOXIN , but I thought of nose TO the grindstone, I also think “vote on ballot” is very clear for X . UK ballot instructions do say place an X , other symbols are at the whim of the local electoral officer.

21. Many thanks, duncanshiell. Like Jaydee@2 I needed your help to understand my correct solution.

    Some very challenging indicators of eg putting X inside Y. All a learning curve but there seemed to be a forest of them in the one puzzle.

    Was I alone with wanting the imaginary computer game OVERBATTLESHIP in 27a? The spur being that battle is the new (anagram of) tablet.

    Many thanks to Tramp for the challenge.

22. Thanks Duncan and very happy that your colourful blogs will be a regular feature here. The ever-diminishing region of my brain that recalls my maths degree was happy with THETA but I think the correction mentioned by Tramp would certainly make more sense. Roz@19 do you mean that “Stetson?” or similar instead of hat would be preferable? A bit trickier and we do have to manipulate Hat and Acid before entry. Good spot on the landing strip location! Speaking of hats, I will doff mine to anyone who got APPRENTICESHIP from the definition, I loved the wordplay and surface, and more, thanks Tramp.

23. Tony Collman @ 7

    Thanks – blog introduction corrected

24. Gazzh@22 yes and numerous other possibilities. We have many clues with something about something , maybe even the something reversed. I am not fond of the something being the SAME in clue and answer. Many fine clues here that avoid this.

25. I didn’t know SATOSHI so Googled. It’s apparently the pseudonym of the invenyor of bit coin.

26. A very good puzzle with a lot of clever clues. I liked the way APPRENTICESHIP was clued so economically, although I take Gazzh’s point (@22) about the definition ‘time’. In fact I thought that was a bit too economical, as ‘time’ has so many uses and meanings that I considered this a bit too vague. I got the answer from the checking letters I had at the time and, of course, the wordplay which worked well.

    I had many other highlights very much as mentioned here throughout.

    Thanks Tramp and duncanshiell.

27. Thank you for the blog and kind words, Duncan.

    8a should have used “rotating”: that’s a mistake on my part. I meant to change that after the puzzle was test-solved but didn’t.

    Dr What’s On: anything can be used to denote an argument in a function: it doesn’t even have to be a single character. The question mark at the end suggests the clue uses a definition by example. In my experience, if you open a maths book and it talks about trig functions, it will more often than not use theta as the argument.

28. Favourites: APPRENTICENSHIP, EXHAUST.

    I could not parse 20ac apart from X=vote; TRAP bit of 14d.

    New for me: CARIOCA = a native of Rio de Janeiro; STRIP = the identifying outfit worn by the members of a sports team while playing; SATOSHI =  the smallest denomination of bitcoin; THETA = tip of triangle.

    Thanks, both.

29. Spotted, as Roz@19 the crossing CARIOCA and LANDING STRIP(2)
    Nice puzzle, lovely surfaces. Thanks T&ds.

30. I enjoyed this, chewy enough to keep me entertained for a while including researching new words to me, which is half the fun as far as I’m concerned.

    Thank you to duncanshiell for the clear blog and Tramp.

31. Michelle @28. THETA is the angle. “T” is the tip (first letter) of TRIANGLE

32. Thanks to Tramp and duncanshiell.
    We found it hard but eventually finished which was very satisfying – although by finished I mean a completed grid but still dumbfounded by the parsing of a few. Toxin a mystery apart from the X and needed not only the blog (of which the format is so helpful) but further comments here- thanks KVa and Roz. ‘To’ here is an example of what we call a stretchy synonym in our household; we don’t have a Chambers so are often caught out.
    Very much enjoyed other clues which seemed both classical and classy. Although being relative new to crosswords we thought college for Eton and Harrow for school obligatory! As beginners we welcomed hat and acid in both clue and answer – easier ones for folks like us to get started 🙂

33. Another good ‘un from Tramp.

    I thought 12 might have been tapioca at first with tap = bar = saloon and Brazilian tapioca. Anyway, that was discounted with the crossers. I did like the wordplay of SALAD BAR, the unusual use of nails as a container in PREPARES, the concise charade, as DS pointed out, for APPRENTICESHIP, the definition of DEATHTRAP, and the surface for UTTERANCE.

    Thanks Tramp and DS.

34. A first for me: everything parsed cleanly.
    Three “jora”, but no complaints, as it all good for the GK.
    Thanks D&T

35. Dr WhatsOn @13, English English does refer to saloon cars and bars, although hair and nail salons, and I pronounce them differently.

36. I sometimes feel Tramp and I have wavelengths that don’t exactly overlap, so I wasn’t surprised to end up with some unparsed answers: APPRENTICESHIP, SHADOW BOX. And with ENTERON I could see the bits of the answer but couldn’t quite follow the instructions for assembling them. Still, I got there, (i knew SATOSHI from the Bitcoin inventor’s pseudonym, but had never realised where the name came from) and completing it was rather satisfying. I particularly liked DEATHTRAP. Thanks Tramp and duncanshiell

37. ‘She’s a carioca’ (‘Ela e carioca’) is, I thought, a reasonably well-known song by the extremely well-known Antonio Carlos Jobim. I knew it from Astrud Gilberto’s album, ‘Look to the Rainbow’, which I listened to while going through a Brazilian phase in my mid-teens. As a result it was one of my FOIs. Not great sound quality, but here (I hope) is the link for anyone interested:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-3foYfTRRw

38. Joleroi@32
    Is it the first time you are posting a comment here? Welcome aboard (maybe this is the first time I’ve seen one of your posts) and best wishes!

39. Thanks Tramp and duncanshiell. I had to double check the same three unknown answers as already mentioned by others. If I was to invent a new hairstyle, I might call it “shadow box”. Is there a mini theme here?

40. Finished it without errors. I enjoyed about half of it, but the rest was a bit of a slog. I didn’t understand all the answers, especially APPRENTICESHIP. I was reluctant to enter it until I had all the joiners. A ‘lego clue’ with too many pieces – too clunky.

41. I enjoyed this and completed it with a word finder for Carioca (I was chuffed I worked out the IOCA part!) didn’t quite get action-packed or ceaseless without help and a lot was working out the answer from crossers, aha! then back-parsing; thanks Tramp; I find you easier than Picaroon – and thanks for the lovely blog duncanshiell, it’s so helpful for learning!

42. Well I enjoyed it in defeat so thanks both. CARIOCA was an esotericum too far for my nibs.

    Wellcidered@34: I’m inclined to offer that the plural of ‘jorum’ (since it derives (I think) from the Gaelic for ‘I drink’ (deoirim)) would have to derive from ‘deoirimid’ (we drink) and would therefore be ‘jorumid’. I harbour a vague notion that that might coincidentally align with Greek(?) pluralisation (I’m making up words now) – there are those hereabouts who know about such matters.

43. Regarding Roz’s remark @19 about hat and acid, while it would have been easy to use a dbe instead of hat (eg, ‘Stetson, perhaps?’), it’s hard to see what could have been used for acid without spoiling the surface, which clearly refers to stomach acid.

44. Alphalpha@42, Collins online has:

    Word origin
    C18: probably named after Jorum, who brought vessels of silver, gold, and brass to King David (II Samuel 8:10)

    Whatever its origins, since it’s now an English word, it’s probably best just pluralised, in the standard way, by the addition of an ‘s’.

    “Pluralisation” is fine, btw. See:

    https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/pluralize

45. What some call “Lego clues” are ones we refer to as “eye of newt.” Too many ingredients, we feel. And, yep, Tramp is a master of them. Only knew Carioca as a dance/song from the 1932 Fred & Ginger movie, Flying Down to Rio. (And we have a piano roll of it.)

46. TC@44: Tvm. I never think to look online for these things.

47. Duncanshiell, I really liked the format and the content of your blog – clear, comprehensive, and much needed today.

    Thanks also to Tramp for the excellent puzzle – a cheery combination of challenge and chuckle. Favourite on both counts was 16d UTTERANCE.

    Lots of jorums today – 19d SATOSHI, 10d STRIP for sports kit, and another cricket NHO at 13a ODI – but all meticulously clued, in Tramp’s inimitable style.

48. Biggles A @1, I have no problem with “nails” indicating containment — except that for me it would be REP nailing PARES, rather than the other way around. If “nails” were used in the sense of “attaches” (rather than “penetrates”), then the attachment should come at the beginning or end. I spent some time trying to figure out how “salesperson” could be made to clue PRE…

49. Them Tates@48. Thank you. I agree and am still not very happy with it. If that is the logic then surely the sequence should be ‘salesperson nails trims’. I know that spoils the surface.

50. Can someone explain how the word ‘jorum’ is being used in these comments? The only definitions I have found are the literal (punch bowl, or its contents) and the figurative “a large quantity”. Do cruciverbalists use it to mean “a clue made up of many parts”?

51. ThemTates@50, it’s a local coinage. See FAQ

52. Never heard of ODI cricket matches.

    CLEANSE just doesn’t mean “rid.” If you cleanse the floor do you rid it? You may rid it OF something, but we’d need some more words to make that work.

    ThemTates@50 “Jorum” is a word just used in Guardian blogs, meaning a word you didn’t know but put together from the wordplay, and then found it was a real word. Eileen had that experience once with the word “jorum” in a crossword and it has become our name for that event. It would mean nothing on other crossword blogs.

    Thanks, Tramp and duncansheill.

53. Thanks Tony Collman @51 and Valentine @52, good to know. My fault for failure to RTFM.

    WRT “cleanse” vs. “rid”… I can think of at least one syntax in which they are interchangeable:
    Hercules was tasked to cleanse the Augean stables of their accumulated muck.
    Hercules was tasked to rid the Augean stables of their accumulated muck.
    Is that enough to justify the clue? I have no idea.

54. My appreciation to both Tramp and duncansheill. An excellent puzzle and blog. I learned some new words along the way (cf. Shanne@30), so was in company with some previous posters. It’s all been said really as I’ve come on rather late in the piece, but I have also much enjoyed reading the interesting comments. (P.S. I’d like to echo sjshart@5 et.al. in saying how much I like the way the preamble highlights the solutions under discussion and the different colours assist in the explanations. They make for a very readable blog. Great to have our new blogger Duncan on board to assist us. Sad to lose the ever-helpful mhl though.)

55. ThemTates and Biggles @48/49 nails means arrests or captures so it is like – suspect policewoman arrests. My favourite clue here.

56. Welcome to Duncan. Speaking as a visual person I absolutely love Duncan’s colourful blog. It is helpful, straightforward and very clear. I joy to read really. Thank you Tramp for an entertaining prize crossword and Duncan for a unique style of blogging.

57. ThemTates@53 – RTFM – 😀 – I guessed what it stood for, then STFWed.

58. I’ll STFU, now.

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