Guardian Prize 29,428 / Imogen

39 comments on “Guardian Prize 29,428 / Imogen”

1. TROPIC
   To (from the surface) film=PIC

   TISSUE
   Agree with the blog. Have seen a similar clue before.
   POWER
   Liked it but seen the trick before.
   COVER DRIVE was beautiful.

   Thanks Eileen and Imogen!

2. Thanks, KVa – blog amended. I’m going to bed now.

3. Thanks Eileen. I don’t think you need worry about any serious errors/omissions, you’ve put together another comprehensive and accurate blog with some interesting diversions. It was an enjoyable exercise with a variety of difficulty, I had to seek confirmation of ALEPH and CHEESEGRATER. Not sure about cross = defy though, can’t think of an application. LOI was SPEEDO, that’s what it had to be of course but in this part of the world it’s a popular brand of swimwear and I couldn’t get that out of my mind.

4. SPEEDO
   Forgot to mention that the def was great.

   DEFY (Biggles A)
   Don’t cross me works?

5. Thanks KVa. Sure, you’re right but I still think it’s a bit of a stretch.

6. I just do not think I was on the same wavelength as Imogen. It took me a long time to get into this. Once I did the crossers helped and it flowed along better. As Eileen mentioned, a bit too much GK needed for my liking. I will try to remember the Crosswordspeak word SERE. I liked SPEEDO and COVER DRIVE best

   Thanks Imogen and Eileen.

7. I found this a similar solve to Eileen, although I got RUS IN URBE on the first pass, although I had to dig to remind myself of that phrase.

   I enjoyed this.

   Thank you Imogen and Eileen for the blog.

8. This took me several visits to finish, its difficulty and ingenuity surely making it well worthy of its Prize slot. 15ac: I didn’t realise ‘fed’ could be intransitive (‘had dinner’)… but found out that’s ok when referring to animals, so making clever sense of ‘cross yard’ (farmyard) presumably? Thank you Imogen and Eileen, hope you both have a great weekend!

9. TISSUE
   Paper that’s made up of lies? (6) G 29008 Vlad-this was probably better than the clue by Imogen.
   POWERS
   Gives energy to people minimally in debt? (6) G 29089 Brendan. The same idea can, of course, occur to different setters independent of each other.

   DEFY
   Adrian@8
   ‘Had dinner=ATE’ was questioned by grantinfreo yesterday elsewhere. His argument: Had dinner=FED On/Off but not FED. Tho this is not the first time ‘feed’ and ‘eat’ are equated in a clue, it will be good to see someone clarify this.

10. A dnf for me. I didn’t know RUS IN URBE or the second definition of KINGS EVIL and I’d forgotten that SCREW = wages. However the rest was an enjoyable challenge.
    For the parsing, I didn’t see the clever ‘dash’ = ‘dashboard’.
    Favourites were COVER DRIVE and TURNPIKE ROAD.
    Thanks Imogen for the puzzle and Eileen for the clear explanations.

11. 14a RUS IN URBE – Remember being taught this as a jingle, with a tune: “Towns, small islands, DOMUS and RUS | Take no pre-e-positions”.
    Here’s “a very naughty boy” learning what’s wrong with “Romanes eunt DOMUS” – “Blessed are the CHEESEGRATERs”

12. oed.com has ‘FEED 3.a. a1387– intransitive (rarely †reflexive in same sense). To take food; to eat. Of persons now only colloquial…
    1861 No one feeds at the high table except the dons. T. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford vol. I. i. 15′

13. Favourite: TROPIC.

    New for me: KINGS EVIL, GRUBSCREW.

    Thanks, both.

14. I found this more easier than at least 3 of the last 5 weekday puzzles. Favourite was the very first one – TURNPIKE. I think of SERE as a word I come across occasionally away from crosswords but I can’t offhand think of any non-Shakespearean examples. I had no problem with fed=had dinner – colloquially, I might well ask someone who dropped by at mealtime ‘Have you fed?’. And I didn’t notice any problem with fold=flock, though I now agree with Eileen that there could be a mismatch, even if dictionaries say it’s OK.
    Having an amateur interest in botany often helps with crosswords – SPURGE was clear at first sight of the clue.
    Thanks Eileen and Imogen

15. A very satisfying puzzle to solve, with a good variety of clues as Eileen pointed out. CHEESEGRATER was hard for this Brit because I didn’t know of this London building. I liked SENTIMENT, COVER DRIVE, RUS IN URBE and SPEEDO particularly.

    Thanks Imogen and Eileen.

16. Very satisfying puzzle as others have already said and an equally pleasurable blog. TURNPIKE ROAD, COVER DRIVE and SPEEDO were my podium. CHEESEGRATER is interesting: if a building is specifically named after a thing, does that make the double definition rather same-sidey? It would be my only quibble.

    Thanks Imogen and Eileen

17. Loved SPEEDO. Like Biggles A@3, I could see the SPEEDO and wondered about the DASH, until the penny dropped. Speedos, the swimming gear, are also known down here as budgie smugglers, which I remember being clued not so long ago.

    I am more familiar with the meaning of ”fold” as a collective noun for people and animals, family, congregation.

18. It’s cricket not tennis that has been negatively impacting on my solving this week hence missing two blogs but fortunately/sadly no such distraction today. Took me a few visits over the day to complete which is what I like for a prize having the time over a weekend unlike during working week. nho Kings Evil, sere and aleph; Chambers had grubscrew as two words (as does this spellchecker as wiggly red line appeared) but I thought the cluing was absolutely fair. Ticks for many but favourite was tissue which made me chuckle. Had speeds not speedo so fell into that trap. Thank you Eileen and Imogen

19. Thanks Imogen and Eileen. Almost the second week in a row where I only filled in half the grid, but then brain cells returned from holiday and I eventually finished this one, with a little help from t’internet. Except I had SPEEDY instead of SPEEDO, so dnf really.

20. Beautiful puzzle with clever and succinct constructions and no dubious tricks. I’ll go for Eileen’s selection of gems.

    [FrankieG @11: You missed out HUMUS! These Latin nouns retained a locative case – inherited from Proto-Indo-European and still active in the Slavic languages, but replaced for most nouns, by the Classical period, by in + ablative]

21. Great puzzle, struggled through with many visits. Rus in urbe and aleph were new to me. Every day’s a school day! Thanks Imogen and Eileen.

22. Thanks both and a dnf (mainly distraction but also) because had not heretofore encountered the CHEESEGRATER and hence did not get CRUSH grrr. Shudda cudda wudda….

    And really only called by to admire PICKAXE but now also (since you have parsed them for us Eileen) POWER and SPEEDO. (‘Fold’ is a very common word in Christian liturgy (I seem to recall) and gave me no cause for pause.)

23. A nice crossword except for the obscurities.

24. This was a delight. Many thanks to Imogen and Eileen. My favourites SPEEDOS, SENTIMENT, TURNPIKE ROAD and PICKAXE. Happy weekend all 😎.

25. I’d never heard of a GRUBSCREW, but I think I knew most of the others.

    Turnpikes are still common in the US, at least in the East — there are for instance, the New Jersey, the Maine and the Massachusetts Turnpikes, the last usually called the Mass Pike or just the Pike. There are more (differently named) paying highways. And bridges and tunnels will generally cost you anywhere in the country.

    Why should fold = flock? The one is inside the other.

    In the ballad “Matthie Groves,” in which the commoner Matthie sleeps with Lord Arlen’s wife, he thinks he hears a horn as they’re drifting off to sleep.
    “What’s this, what’s this,” cried Mattie Groves, A horn so loud, so clear!
    ‘Tis nothing but Lord Arlen’s men, The ones that I do fear!”

    “Lie down, lie down,” cried Arlen’s wife, “and keep my back from cold.
    ‘Tis nothing but my father’s horn That calls the sheep to fold.”

    And that tells the reader that she isn’t a noble like Lord A. but comes from humbler folk. At least in this version. In another version, after he murders them both, Lord Arlen calls for a grave to be dug for them, and his wife to be above “For she was of noble kin.”

    Thanks to Imogen for the puzzle and Eileen for the wonderful blog with even more than usual of fascinating references. Have a great weekend, Eileen, and enjoy all this when you come back.

26. ‘And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.’ John 10

    Just saying…

27. [Valentine @25: it is possible, though not advisable, to travel from New York to Chicago entirely on toll roads, almost all of which are called turnpikes. Take your pick of the George Washington Bridge or the Lincoln Tunnel (both are tolled) to get from Manhattan to the Jersey Turnpike, which connects northeast of Philly with the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which becomes the Ohio Turnpike when you cross that border. Indiana’s segment is more prosaically called the Indiana Toll Road, and then it’s one last toll on the Chicago Skyway. But like I said, you don’t want that; I-80 is cheaper, more direct, and to most tastes more scenic. But before they built I-80, the all-toll route was in fact the fastest, the PA Tpke being one of the world’s very first superhighways, and most of the other states’ segments also predating the official birth of the Interstate system.]

28. [mrpenney@27 I’ll take the GWBridge then, in memory of its having been, so I have been told, the first bridge I crossed in my life, when my mother took me, age 3 days, to my grandfather’s house in Orange County — New York, that is. And also in memory of the many years in the 50’s when we drove the NJ Turnpike end to end, from our house on the Eastern Shore in Maryland to the same grandfather’s house, at Christmas and in summer. We ate at Howard Johnson’s, because what else was there? The available entertainment was the mile posts, marked by tenths of a mile.]

29. My GK inadequacies produced a triple DNF today. Medical history for 4d KINGS EVIL, Latin urban planning for 14d RUS IN URBE, and as usual, cricket for 13d COVER DRIVE. Once I gave up and revealed those three, the rest went in nicely and was very enjoyable, with excellent surfaces throughout. I also didn’t know the CHEESEGRATER building, but with crossers and the other definition it was easy enough to guess.

    All in all a fun experience, aided greatly by Eileen’s superb blog. Thanks both.

30. Cellomaniac@29: ‘GK inadequacies’ – ‘Medical history for 4d KINGS EVIL’.

    Every schoolchild should be familiarised with King’s Evil if only for cross-reference to its aka: ‘scrofula’, leading to the agile ‘scrofulous’ which is a wonderful amplificator within any imprecation eg ‘scrofulous dimwit’, ‘scrofulous golfer of the year’ etc.

    (It doesn’t always work…)

31. 15a : Surely a yard is normally yd? Couldn’t figure this out but I really hate words being randomly abbreviated to one letter that no one really uses as an abbreviation. Everything else was fine.

32. Simon & Garfunkel’s America (1968) – [from The Concert in Central Park, 1981] – “…Counting the cars on the New Jersey TURNPIKE” – Happy Birthday, Eileen! 🎂
    Thanks I&E

33. Alphalpha@30, thanks for reinforcing my feeling of inadequacy. I know I’m just another ignorant yahoo from the colonies. My GK actually includes scrofula – as you note, it’s a delightfully evocative word – but I had never heard of its other name or the story behind it. That was a TILT.

34. “New Jersey Turnpike in the wee, wee hours
    I was rolling slowly ’cause of drizzling showers
    Here come a flat-top, he was moving up with me…”
    (Chuck Berry: You Can’t Catch Me – incidentally where the Beatles found the opening line for Come Together)

    The one I wasn’t sure of was GRUBSCREW which I had as GRUBSTAKE (a small retainer) for quite a while. Tough but fair, as you would expect from Imogen: I liked the minor debtor, the wry nose and the best guitar.

35. Eileen.
    Happy birthday. If you haven’t seen this poem from the early days of Covid lockdown, you and others might enjoy it.
    [If the link doesn’t work it can be found by Googling
    “I won’t arise and go now and go to Innisfree
    I’ll sanitise the doorknob and make a cup of tea”]

36. Lá breithe shona dhuit Eileen. Hope you enjoy a celebratory, erm, drink later.

    (Cellomaniac@33: Gosh – no such reinforcement intended. Apologies if I hit a bum note. (I know about scrofula etc only from crosswords (I’m fairly sure).))

37. was baffled for a while by 25a, it seemed like it had to be GRUBSTAKE but RUS IN URBE was unquestionable, and “grub screw” seemed like a literal screw–only now typing this out do I realize that a screw can physically be a retainer. I had had to do some, er, internet research to figure out RUS IN URBE and CHEESEGRATER. Fortunately I had already had to look up King’s Evil when I read about it in Hume’s Treatise many years ago, and the story behind the king’s touch had stayed with me.

    Nice chewy puzzle and excellent blog–thanks Imogen and Eileen!

38. I usually forget to read the blog on prizes unless I have something unsolved or unparsed. Doing it now, two days late, I’m staring at an unidentified GRUBSCREW that Mrs B found on the floor in the hallway and probably must be important. So we put it well in evidence just below the computer screen. At least it reminded me of my favourite clue…

39. I wondered about “fold” and “flock” too, but it’s true that the former is used to refer to the latter, especially in a religious context. (I think that’s an example of synecdoche, although I always get that confused with metonymy.)

    In the musical Guys and Dolls, the Salvation-Army-like organization sing a song urging sinners to “follow the fold and stray no more,” which always struck me wrong because the fold, literally, is the structure containing the flock. It can’t go anywhere, so how can you follow it?

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