Guardian Prize 29,356 / Qaos

66 comments on “Guardian Prize 29,356 / Qaos”

1. Thank you Eileen. I also learned cat = retch from crosswords, and was also baffled by looking for a reversal with ”climb” in STRETCHING. Spent sometime trying to justify climbing up on a piece of string, but that didn’t work.
   My guess for AGOG was a horse with a rounded tummy, kind of like a rebus.

   I thought the maths pretty easy-peasy this time, but I noticed there were a lot of additions and subtractions in the clues..
   Favourite ETH.

2. I suppose the cat could be climbing down a small object, as it might do down a branch for example.

3. I took “times” in READ HATS the way you did. If time=t then times=ts seems logical to me as crosswordese. It makes a change from times=x.
   I also saw pregnant in AGOG the way paddymelon @1 did. A sort of visual clue which reminded me of David Astle (Aussie crossword setter) saying that his favourite word was bed because it looked like one.
   It took me ages to dredge up cat=retch in STRETCHING and of course I completely missed the theme.

4. AGOG

   A whimsical wordplay:
   A (about) GG (horse) pregnant (carrying an egg/O). Something similar to what pdm said but more outrageous.
   Alternatively…
   Excited , pregnant (as in ‘the air is agog with rumours’)
   With horse=with heroin? AGOG? Not sure.

   STRETCHING
   RETCH climbing into S TING seems okay without reversal. Of course, I kept trying the same thing others did.

   RED HATS
   T’s for times seems all right as Tim C said.

   Thanks Qaos and Eileen!

5. STRETCHING
   climb into (something)
   To get into something, especially clothes or one’s bed.
   In this sense, I think the ‘climb into’ bit of the bit works all right without
   indicating a reversal.

6. Is the horse (A GG) holding an egg (0) so pregnant for AGOG? It’s how I parsed it. (sorry realised I cross-posted with KVa)

   I came across cat for retching in Stalky & Co – the boys made themselves thoroughly sick smoking cheroots in the furze bushes outside school in one of the stories.

   Really pleased to Qaos as I love the number clues. Thank you to Eileen and Qaos for the crossword.

7. Thanks Eileen for a nice blog

   I must confess up front that building an answer with several fragmentary components is not my sort of clue. I found this difficult overall, but I got there in the end. I too liked SCOTCH, MINI and MASKING. I also had a tick against TICKER, for the clever use of C and K.

   And, here is a long list of firsts for me – basically to show my ignorance. I have never seen times = TS before, and I did not like it much. I was also not familiar with GAFFER as a boss, nor RETCH as a cat (I could not even find it in Chambers, so it must be super-obscure). I was also a bit iffy about $ being S. Is that crossword language? I did not know who DEC is until I looked him up. I agree with your comment on TOTEM. As to AGOG, like Paddymelon@1, I wondered about the rounded tummy too.

   Thanks Quos and thanks especially to Eileen for a super blog.

8. Yeah, boo to STERLING. Exactly the kind of UK-centric clue that I abhor. I got the rest, so I consider this solved, as far as I’m concerned.

9. me@5
   I think the ‘climb into’ bit of the clue works*

10. Oh!

    I@7 misspelled Qaos. Apologies to the setter.

11. A few bits, as well as the theme, went over the head, like retch/cat and the names of the footballer and the emu bloke (tho I have seen the latter … QI maybe?). Otoh, Sugar Ray is old gk, and Ant & Dec are regulars. All good fun, ta Qaos and Eileen.

12. Martyn @7, Chambers 2016 has cat = to vomit.

13. Thanks Tim C – you made the connection. I wonder if anyone here has actually used cat in that way.

14. I confess to not having finished this. I was in New Orleans at the time. I was about three-quarters done, and trying to work out how CLARINETTIST (with a British double T) worked–that had to be the answer–when one of the world’s great cities started beckoning me to do more interesting things. And I never came back around to it. Too bad, because Qaos is one of my favorites, and we don’t see him often enough these days.

15. Enjoyed this puzzle, it was a good challenge but I forgot to look for a theme!

    I could not parse 25d apart from GG = horse, and I still can’t imagine why a=about – can someone give an example please [Chambers dictionary does not work on my laptop].

    Like KVa@5, I parsed 8d as ‘climb into’ like ‘get into’ bed, for example.

    Favourites: MASKING, BRIEFCASES.

    New for me: COT = cotangent (for 11d); footballer Raheem Sterling (for 27ac); Rod Hull with his puppet sidekick, Emu (for 19ac).

    Thanks, both.

16. michelle@15
    AGOG
    a=about (it’s in my Chambers mobile app and several other dictionaries). I’ve seen this abbreviation used in many puzzles.
    However, I don’t know in which context it is used. Someone will enlighten us.

17. Enjoyed this but also forgot to look for a theme

    My favourites: BRIEFCASES, TRANSCENDENT, RUN OFF WITH, CLARINETTIST, TOTEM

    Didn’t know stretch for cat.

    I parsed AGOG like KVa @ 4 and Shane @ 6 i.e. pregnant

    Thanks Qaos and Eileen

18. Gregfromoz@8 “abhor” is a bit strong! If you actually read the UK newspaper which the crossword is in you would know Sterling since he has for some years been a leading England team member, playing for various leading clubs and scoring regularly!

19. Thanks, Eileen. As a UK solver, I picked up the many British references, but I felt those elsewhere might have problems. I completely missed the theme, so thanks for pointing it out.
    I would parse RED HATS as HEARD* + T(ime) + S. I have not met it before, but that makes it original, which is a good thing.
    I had no issue with TOTEM. It is an example of a pole, just as ‘north’ or ‘south’ might be, though not poles themselves.
    I found A=about in my Chambers, but like others I cannot think of an example.
    Thanks also to Qaos.

20. I didn’t like GOG for the pregnant horse. It would only work if mares laid eggs, which I don’t think they do.
    In fact you could even construe GOG as mare with nothing inside, in other words, not pregnant.

21. I’m another who parsed the horse – GG – as holding an egg – O. Eileen, STRETCHING tape would appear to be a Thing of sorts – involved with the stretching of ears – though it is less obvious than the others so might be an unintended themer. There are also ranges of aviation tapes but they are not referred to as AIRCRAFT (alarmingly, one function of aviation tape is temporary repairs – I would not want to be taking to the skies knowing I was relying on sticky-backed-plastic as Blue Peter used to call it)

    TRANSCENDENT, CLARINETTIST and MASKING were my faves. Thanks Qaos and Eileen

22. Anna @20. I parsed GOG as a pregnant horse too, only with the O in the middle as the shape of a pregnant horse’s belly. I’m with you. Mares don’t lay eggs.

    I’d think if the O in the middle was nothing, then it would be a hungry horse! (Which reminds me of that childhood joke. How do you spell hungry horse? MTGG. groan, it was funny at the age of 5, probably my introduction to homophones)

23. 28a SUGAR [ra]Y “Boxer, Leonard” (career 1977-97) could just as easily have been “Boxer, Robinson” (career 1940-65), to be even more out-of-dater.
    27a STERLING was nicely current. ‘There has been criticism of how the British tabloid media, such as The Sun, cover and treat Sterling with articles being deemed unfair and racist by pundits including Ian Wright.’ – Some things never change.

24. paddymelon @ 22
    The O being the shape of the pregnant belly! Yes, I think that works for me too. Nice one!

25. If a mare is pregnant then the pregnancy started with an egg (or ovum) which was fertilised – so I think it works.

26. Thanks Qaos, that was enjoyable. I looked for a theme but didn’t spot one. I needed outside help for STERLING and MEASURES. I had many favourites including TRANSCENDENT, RUN OFF WITH, SUGARY, RARE, PRAWNS, STRETCHING, TOTEM, and MINI. I guessed that ‘retch’ = ‘cat’ because ‘vomit’ = ‘cat’. Thanks Eileen for the blog.

27. PostMark @21, having worked all my life in aerospace engineering, I won;t scare you with details of some things that went on. Duct tape and “builder’s bog” do have their uses in temporary airline repairs if only for non-structural reasons in applying a temporary aerodynamic surface to get “back to base” for a more permanent repair.

28. Re Tim C and words that look like what they mean – do you remember the Ant Bee Cup Dog children’s alphabetic story book?

    I think those four words look very much like their meaning.

29. 25d AGOG – for “A” = “about”, oed.com has ‘ a, ADJECTIVE:
    Indefinite article (determiner). Used only to modify a singular countable noun head (or in some cases, a plural phrase treated as such).
    I. Indicating indefiniteness. …
    I.3.a. c1275– Preceding a quantifier or (now English regional) a numeral, removing its definiteness or expressing an approximate estimate: some, a matter of, about. Now chiefly in a few, a good few, a good many, a great many, and (English regional) a many: see few adj., pron., & n. Phrases P.1c, many pron. & n. B.II.6.
    1562 Stepe them a fiue or sixe dayes in vineger. W. Turner, 2nd Part Herball f. 7
    Very common in the 14th–16th centuries.

30. KVa@16 – thanks for trying to explain about a=about.
    The only thing I can find is that a is an abbreviation for about (never saw that before). I found it here, a long way down:

    a.17
    abbreviation for

    about.
    acre; acres.
    active.
    adjective.
    alto.
    ampere; amperes.
    anonymous.
    answer.
    are; ares.
    Baseball. assist; assists.

    https://www.dictionary.com/browse/a

31. Thanks very much Eileen and agree great to see Qaos again. This took me until about 15 mins ago, NW and SE causing problems and have to say I am not a fan of TS nor AGOG if we understand that correctly ( Thanks Frankie G for confirming A as the epitome of obscure, and carrying an egg is necessary but far from sufficient for pregnancy if I remember my GCSE biology correctly). Maybe I would have preferred “fertile mare”! But I loved lots of the rest eg SUGARY and SCOTCH, thanks Qaos.

32. I don’t remember that book Wylyum @28 but thanks for the heads up. 🙂

33. Where might you find a mare’s egg? In a mare’s nest.
    (I’ll get my COAT(I) – oh no, that was yesterday’s blog.)

34. Thanks for a fun puzzle Qaos and and excellent blog Eileen.

    Can I suggest adding MINI to the theme list – mini tapes were used in journalists’ dictation machines before they went digital?

35. I thought I vaguely remembered “cat” for “vomit” from previous crosswords, but decided to check it, so I googled “cat meaning vomit” and got loads of hits about why my pet cat might be throwing up. Oh well.

    I finished the puzzle with no idea of the theme, but knew there must be one as it was Qaos. I asked my better half if she could see any connection between any of the answers and after a few seconds she said “tapes”. So it didn’t actually help me but was good in retrospect!

    Many thanks Qaos and Eileen.

36. A horse can be fertile, but still not pregnant, and all mares will have eggs, unless they are extremely old. I’m with pdm on this one. A=about, common Inthe 14th and 15th centuries? Ok it’s guessable.
    Cat=puke, have I seen that before, if I have, I’ve forgotten. I had T=time+s, a pretty stretchy Playtex that arrived that way.
    I forgot to look for a theme, but no matter.
    Thanks Qaos and Eileen.

37. If you’re going to complain about Brit centrism, then surely Rod Hull and Emu would be a better target than an International footballer.

38. Qaos’ online hint as to the theme is “Can you evaluate my latespt Guardian crossword?” This is the first time that I have remembered that he gives these hints but, alas, i didn’t help.

39. MinG@18: first, you would need to be interested in football!

40. Eileen@33: you beat me to the mares’ nest! No, I can’t think of a better explanation for AGOG.

41. Got stuck on this at an early stage and forgot to go back to it during the week. A cup of coffee sorted it out this morning, but my gosh it was hard work.

    I didn’t have a problem with the pregnant mare, and Time+S looks fine to me. I really struggled to parse 8d even after I’d got it from the definition and crossers, but finally remembered that old synonym for vomit; ‘not hard’ also perplexed me for a moment, as both THING and RETCH have an H, but I soon saw that it doesn’t matter which one you lose.

    I really didn’t like MEASURES, with all those instructions jumbled together, and the dubious S for ‘dollar’. Yes, I know it’s “in Chambers”, but the dollar symbol comes from the figure 8, from “pieces of eight”, as Long John Silver’s parrot used to say

    Thanks to Qaos and Eileen.

42. Cats do tend to climb into things so maybe that was what it was supposed to be doing.

    Also even British people often have to Google footballers and actors.

43. As ever, a very enjoyable crossword from Qaos.

    As nicbach @36 says, all mares have eggs inside them, whether fertilised or not, so I think pm@1 nailed it with ‘a rounded tummy’. I also thought like sjshart @19 that pole, as a category, is fine for TOTEM, which is an example. The ‘ts’ for times was a bit unusual, probably more likely to have been seen as ‘tt’, like the ‘ff’ for fines in GAFFER (which I liked). However, I didn’t actually object to ts. I also liked the cat burying itself and the gymnast climbing the pole.

    Thanks Qaos and Eileen (I looked for a theme but failed to find it).

44. I disagree about TOTEM. A totem pole is a pole with totems on it; “totem” does not imply “pole”..

45. Couldn’t get into this with too much crosswordese like retch, recipe being r, cot, etc.

    When I was at school the BBC got in touch with one of my Classics teachers (and others) because 1990 was coming up and they weren’t sure whether MXM was acceptable for end credits on programmes. The decision in the end was MCMXC and I’ve always thought that you can’t join figures of different magnitudes, so the Romans would not use IC. Has these come up before?

    And don’t worry, Eileen, we’re still using MLKs dream speech in English lessons now!

46. [Monk
    A rule for “subtractive” Roman numerals is that the “subtractor” must be at least a tenth of the number subtracted from. See here.]

47. Muffin@44. “totem” does not imply “pole” But ‘pole’ is the clue and TOTEM is the answer. Pole implies or suggests or hints at totem, not the other way round. Would you object to ‘pole’ to clue NORTH?

48. Monk@45 & muffin@46. I bet Eileen had thought she had scotched such objections to ‘IC’ by her comment in the blog: {99 – in Crosswordland!}

49. sh
    similarly “pole” does not imply “totem”. The only pole with totems is a totem-pole; neither by themselves implies the other.

50. Monk @45 and sheffield hatter @48, yes, it has come up before – more than once! – and yes, I was hoping to forestall objections (I was looking at you, muffin 😉 ).

    And, Monk, that’s encouraging news about today’s English lessons!

51. Muffin@49. Well, if ‘pole’ doesn’t hint at TOTEM, then I guess none of us will have solved the clue! 🙂

52. Concerning IC (= 99?) in BRIEFCASES, I remember reading Alan Connor’s Guardian article on Qaos on the occasion of his 100th published puzzle, in which C was the thematic letter throughout. In that article Qaos is quoted as follows: “… you know me and numbers. Given that I’m always abusing Roman numerals in my numerical clues, using C felt fitting” [for his 100th puzzle].
    I admired Eileen’s bracketed comment {“… in crosswordland”} in reference to Qaos’s very own IC = 99 in the BRIEFCASES clue.

53. Thank you for that, Alan B @52.

    Here’s the article on Qaos’ 100th puzzle
    https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/crossword-blog/2020/may/18/crossword-blog-100-puzzles-from-qaos

    and here’s the original ‘Meet the Setter’ interview
    https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/crossword-blog/2012/nov/29/crossword-blog-setter-qaos

    Lots of interesting insights.

54. Thanks Qaos and Eileen. Five solutions unentered this week, three of which were ready to go in, if only I could justify them to myself. Badly bruised shins through kicking myself. What type of pole is that? Is it a south pole? Is it a north pole? Is it a totem pole?

55. Very nice puzzle, and as usual I completely missed the theme, even knowing this setter always has one. As an English footy fan I had little problem with STERLING, and don’t consider it as unfair as some seem to have done. There are plenty of puzzles which include composers who are obscure to non-classical music buffs, for example, but as long as the wordplay gets you there then that is fair game so far as I am concerned. And I get to learn something, which is never a bad thing.

56. The thing i find remarkable about the emu and Hull is that someone actually knows Hull’s name, never mind remembers it 40+ years after his moment of fame.

57. Martyn@55: it wasn’t an isolated moment of fame – Rod Hull and Emu were household names for several years. But it was admittedly some time ago.

58. Thanks gladys. Never would I have imagined that

59. We always enjoy a Qaos. RED (1ac) is another theme word, which I don’t think has been mentioned elsewhere here.

60. Dave @59

    Aargh! – the very first word in the grid: talk about ‘hidden in plain sight!
    I’ve highlighted it now.
    Many thanks.

61. M@55 the world’s number one emu-based comedy act was immortalised by HMHB in their classic “Rod Hull is alive – why?”

    It seems my ability to miss themes is surpassed only by my ability to forget Qaos always has one.

    Cheers Q&E

62. Thanks Eileen@53 for the links to the article on Qaos’ 100th puzzle and ‘Meet the Setter’ interview.
    They prompted me to find and solve the crossword – Cryptic crossword No 28,127 – Highly recommended…

63. …and read your blog on it – Also highly recommended.
    Thanks Q&E

64. Dave@59 – Nice Spot! 🙂
    Also liked Bodycheetah@61’s HMHB clip. I must hear more. 🙂

65. POSTCRIPT to the discussion on AGOG. Vulcan, 22 April, 2 down. In suspense as a horse eats nothing.

66. Admin
    You may want to remove 66. It’s clearly a scam.

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