Guardian Prize 29,452 / Paul

70 comments on “Guardian Prize 29,452 / Paul”

1. I don’t think mendicant and tramp are equivalent. All the beggars I see are pretty stationary.

2. Thanks Eileen. Hard. DEFROCKING and STRONGER went in early but I was then left staring at the empty spaces for quite some time. I managed to guess the cake theme fairly soon thereafter but took much too long to understand the construction of 2, had the A and the K but couldn’t explain the C and the E. Tried unsuccessfully to fit Nelson into 12a. I thought 15a was brilliant. Never did really come to terms with BROWN SUGAR so thanks for that; yes, I think it may have been a bridge too far. Brown sugar is a sweet thing though.

3. Too hard for me. I had several goes at it, but only half completed, despite having CAKE very early on.

   Thanks for the explanations, Eileen. I did get BROWN SUGAR but had no idea about the parsing, which is probably a step too far.

   Thanks, Paul – a little easier next time, please.

4. I found this quite approachable, with the exception of STRESSED and TANGELO which I could not parse. Thanks for the expansion Eileen. I was also slowed by writing profits when I should have written MISFITS. Favourites were QUEUEING, AGAINST, TRAMP (I agree the definition may not be 100%,accurate but I liked the clue anyway) and I thought SPIN BOWLER was special.

   GUJARATI Is an example of the sort of clue I dislike – an obscure word, an unhelpful definition and a complicated construction. It is in the running for the coveted worse clue of the year award.

   All in all an enjoyable challenge

   Thanks Paul and Eileen

5. DNF; too tough for me. I couldn’t even parse it all seeing the answers so thank you Eileen for the explanations. I didn’t think that Gujarati was that difficult or too obscure a word

6. The cries of pain and declarations that this was impossible echoed through the Guardian crossword threads until Wednesday, but I really could not see why. The only answer that I could not fully parse was BROWN SUGAR, where I got the BAR and OWNS components but missed syrup=RUG . I cannot share Martyn’s objections @4 to GUJARATI. Sure, it was a toughie, as one would want on a Saturday, but hardly egregiously so. Thanks to you, Eileen, for all the illuminations, and especially for RUG. And to Paul for an excellent puzzle requiring only persistence and, as always with him, a bit of lateral thinking..

7. Thanks Eileen.
   This was one Paul crossword I didn’t mind, none of his usual annoying habits, just a good mental workout.
   No complaints, not even with tramp=beggar , or brown sugar=sweet thing. The cockney rug has come up before, but I’d forgotten it and had to be reminded.

   I was lucky to immediately spot fancy as def for CAKE, also from a previous crossword, which had fortunately stuck in my mind. My query is whether CAKE as anagram for ACE and K(ing) is fair?

   Favs SPIN BOWLER, not being parochial, but a great spot for the anagram for answer from S. WARNE, who is (or was, now deceased) a spin bowler.

8. me@7 cont. Meant to ask …. or is SPIN BOWLER another indirect anagram?

9. That was a work out – all in, and pretty much parsed, other than WILSON (and I should know the LSO, I’ve seen them live) and TANGELO, which it had to be from the crossers and the fruit definition, but I couldn’t work out why.

   I did parse BROWN SUGAR, more convinced by the wordplay and less by the definition there.

   Thank you Eileen and Paul.

10. This puzzle first appeared by mistake two weeks ago, in place of the PDF of Kite’s Prize puzzle, and I needed all that time to complete, filling in the last entries on the left side just befire coming here – and ending with 16D STRESSED, which I had guessed a while back, but needed all the crossers to confirm – even though I have recently made a Tarte Tatin. Congratulations to Paul, and to Eileen for sorting it all out.

11. paddymelon @8 – I had SPIN BOWLER pencilled in for ages, because I could see the SPIN (how to get the letters from answer to S Warne), but couldn’t see the Bowler, because he was both a spin bowler and a bowler. I eventually parsed it the way Eileen did.

12. Beaten all ends up. I managed a handful that I was sure about, but the ones I guessed, I couldn’t parse, which is a bit of a problem when there’s no check button and hardly any crossers. Missing the googly delivered by Paul in SPIN BOWLER didn’t help. Well done to all who completed it.

13. Succulent and enjoyable to the last morsel (as a good cake should be) and it lasted all week. Lovely.

    For polling purposes, I thought BROWN SUGAR was most satisfactory – it had enough crossers for it to be prised open and the parsing was an enjoyable experience in itself. My only concern (and only sparked by pm@7) is that CAKE may be, might be, could be (borderline?) an indirect anagram. But it didn’t bother me at the time.

14. pm@8: If anything it’s an indirect anagrind…?

15. Paul as deft and fresh as ever, from the readily got theme word and my home town to the nearly elusive six-letter crossers in the top left. Between, a host of ‘must be – but why?’ answers like BROWN SUGAR, TOGETHER, ARABIAN, PRESTON: thanks Eileen for revealing these. Re1D, QUEUEING is okay and so too rueing, but suing is iffy while the Guardian insists on cluing; nobody likes pursueing.

16. pdm @8, I’d say no because the anagram fodder swarne (to get answer) is direct in the clue. If the clue was “Response from a spin bowler (6)” to give answer that would be indirect. The fact that it’s a reverse anagram helps I think.
    I found this a real struggle when it first appeared 2 weeks ago and gave up with about half filled in. Had another go when it appeared last week and managed to complete with quite a few unparsed (NHO syrup=rug).
    Enjoyed the nod to my home town in PRESTO.

17. Count me as a vote that BROWN SUGAR was a bit unfair. I put it in–it couldn’t be anything else–but I did not understand it.

    For WILSON I was thinking of Woodrow rather than Harold, but of course you are probably right about which one was meant.

18. My first DNF in a long time, so of course it was a Paul.

19. I’m another who gave up on this, I’m afraid. That’s the first time in quite a while. I got the cake theme and made a reasonable start, but despite coming back a few times I just never really got into it. Thanks for the explanations, Eileen. Having had them explained, I feel I should have done better, but, well, I didn’t. We’ll see how I do next time, Paul…

20. I hope those who long for “proper Prizes like they used to be” found this tricky enough, because if they get any harder, I’ll have to give up. Took me several sessions, and this morning I found I had a wrong’un in LATTICES(D) because I’d failed to parse the clue properly. For 23a, I made the jump from syrup to wig, but got stuck there for ages before making the second step from wig to rug to prove that the answer was indeed BROWN SUGAR as I had suspected all along. ACE+K=CAKE is indeed an indirect anagram, albeit a very short one. I don’t really know why this construction is beyond the pale when equally tricky ones are acceptable, but them’s the rules.

    But I liked all the cakes, and found lots of enjoyable AHA moments too, like AGAINST, the TRAMP in his trap, ST. ROGER Federer, the “upside-down” STRESSED, SPIN BOWLER, DEFROCKING.

    TRAMP=mendicant goes back to the Victorian idea of a tramp as an unemployed “gentleman of the road” who was likely to turn up at the farmhouse door trying to cadge a meal and a cup of tea. Not many of those about nowadays.

21. [23a The Rolling Stones don’t play BROWN SUGAR (1971) anymore, so here’s David Bowie’s Sweet Thing (1974) instead.
    Thanks P&E]

22. Did a few and after much head scratching gave up.
    It’s a prize though, so no complaints.
    Ta both.

23. For once, getting the key word CAKE definitely helped to complete this puzzle, though looking over the blog I see I failed to completely parse BROWN SUGAR. Don’t think I would have managed the leap from ‘syrup’ to ‘wig’ though. I enjoyed the puzzle, though it seemed a change from Paul’s usual style. I half-raised an eyebrow at mendicant=TRAMP, but thought it was close enough for a crossword. I don’t think GUJARATI is obscure these days and I enjoyed the clue, along with PRESTO, CANBERRA and MARKETABLE. Thanks Paul and Eileen.

24. Took me until Tuesday to finish and, like many, didn’t parse BROWN SUGAR. I thought SPIN BOWLER was most ingenious.

25. Agreed this was tough, but much to like. Am I the only person who had a distinct feeling of having done this crossword a few weeks ago? Not that it helped much!

26. @25 – see @10

27. I cut the wrong end off “fairy” to give me “airy” and thus reached an impasse in the SE corner.
    Lots to like though.
    Thanks to blogger and setter.

28. Thanks Eileen for the blog, I had to come here to parse 26 LATTICED precisely only to find that I had got the wrong final letter in not having understood the parsing (same as gladys@20?), which feels the wrong way round i.e. the LED is doing the “lining” of ATTIC and not vice versa? I wait for my “d’oh” when enlightened here.

    Well done for parsing DESSERTS to which I couldn’t see for the life of me.

    I count this crossword as double dnf due to that one letter on LATTICEd and non parsing of DESSERTS which is probably an old trick that I ought to know by now!

    I agree with the blog and a few comments above – molonglo@15, paddymelon@7, Alphalpha@13 that this was a great challenge to have for the prize slot For me, it took a few visits to complete and I liked the way that the theme was woven into the puzzle. The longer I spent on it the more I felt that the puzzle had a CAKE-Y feel.

    For the polling, my favourite clue was actually that for BROWN SUGAR which was obvious from the strong crossers while the parsing was pithy and clever. Not far behind were DEFROCKING and ARABIAN and I loved the reference to the late, great Shane Warne in 13d.

    Enjoy your weekends all, stay cool if in the UK (South only of course).

29. Delighted to have your comment Justin @25. Having solved the puzzle two weeks earlier … when it accidentally appeared (temporarily) and I had taken it to be the prize puzzle for the whole week … I somehow managed to solve it again 2 weeks later without ever QUITE registering I’d solved it before. The mind is bizarre, mine especially.

    First time round I’d marked the puzzle as “Really tough”. Second time round as “Some excellent clues to unravel”. Strangely, I tried to use ATRIAL in place of ACROSS the second time round. Having had the unconscious rehearsal, I struggled but eventually got all the parsing.

    A super puzzle. Many thanks, Paul.

30. Failed on MARKETABLE, which I should have got, and on the horse, which I’d never have seen – I didn’t know that term for someone born under Aries, I didn’t know it was a springtime sign (having zero interest in astrology and only vaguely knowing my own sign), and while I’ve certainly heard of a horse breed called ‘Arab’, I’ve not come across the ARABIAN version. Otherwise a very slow but very satisfying solve. Favourites included PRESTO, AGAINST, SPIN BOWLER and quite a few more. I slightly share Eileen’s disappointment about repetition of device for TOGETHER and HARDEN, but thought both clues very good individually. I had no other quibbles.
    Thanks Eileen and Paul.

31. Thanks Paul for the tasty challenge, and Eileen for explaining both GUJARATI and BROWN SUGAR.
    It was a case of having my cake but not eating all of it, an unresolved confection.
    I’m not sure how ‘nuzzled by’ in ARABIAN works …

32. Thanks for all the comments so far.

    EdTheBall @28 – I remember past discussions re the use of ‘lining’. I don’t really see a problem: the lining of a pocket or bag is on the inside. (Collins: ‘line: to attach an inside covering to (a garment, curtain etc); to cover or fit the inside of’). So ATTIC is the lining for LED in 26ac.
    [Thanks for your weekend wishes: I’m off soon to the Yorkshire Dales for a few days – I know not to expect a heatwave. 😉 ]

    wynsum @31 – I looked a bit sideways at ‘nuzzle’, too but I think Chambers’ ‘to poke, press, burrow, root … with the nose’ just about does it for me.
    I liked your ‘cake’ comment. 😉

33. Thanks Eileen@32 for the extended explanation of the use of “lining” in LATTICED: I can really see how it works with your pocket analogy. I feel now that I will never not see that device in the future.

    [Also, do enjoy the Yorkshire Dales when you go, where you’ll appreciate lack of heatwave too no doubt. I had that feeling when I went walking in the Lake District last weekend when the temperatures were significantly lower than on the previous few days]

34. This was tough – I think we eventually finished on Wednesday – but I didn’t think BROWN SUGAR was unfair. It suggested itself from crossers, and we managed to figure out the parsing. No more convoluted than some others we’ve had this week (eg Harpo!)

35. Distinctly knottier than most recent Prize puzzles, but I got there in the end, with all parsed bar BROWN SUGAR – a late entry because of its rather odd definition.

    CAKE is indeed one of those naughty indirect anagrams, but simple enough to disentangle, particularly since many of the other cakes in the grid were fairly obvious.

    DEFROCKING, AGAINST and SPIN BOWLER were my favourites.

    I’m surprised that Martyn found GUJARATI obscure. He may even have heard it spoken – probably by someone called Patel, an extremely common surname from the Indian state of Gujarat.

    Thanks to Paul and Eileen – enjoy yourself in God’s Own Country (said with a sneer by this Lancastrian 🙂 )

36. Thanks Paul and Eileen
    CAKE was FOI, but not a subject I’m particularly interested in.
    I thought the two-stage syrup>wig>rug was a bit unfair, but I did work it out.
    My usual sort of complaint at 24d, though – a FAIRY isn’t a cake; a FAIRY CAKE is a cake.
    I loved AGAINST when I worked it out.

37. Well, I still think it’s a step too far to go from ‘syrup’ to syrup of figs=wig to RUG. (I wrote in BROWN SUGAR but never even got close to parsing it.) Whereas I don’t see a problem with ‘shuffling’ ACE and K – it may be an indirect anagram but it’s simple and obvious, therefore not unfair.

    ST ROGER was one of very few that I got last weekend, and I still had 10 blanks staring mournfully at me this morning. I got close in the end, but failed to parse LATTICES (for the obvious reason) and had forgotten JUG for ‘cooler’, so no prizes for me this week.

    Spinning S WARNE was brilliant, and I also enjoyed AGAINST, once I managed to get my brain in gear.

    Thanks to Paul for the pummeling and to Eileen for the explication. (Hope you have a lovely time in the Dales.)

38. I found this very difficult, and even after I’d finished there were a few unparsed for a while. I managed to figure out the explanations gradually one by one.

    Having said that I had no problems with CAKE which was one of my first ones in. It is of course an indirect anagram, but it’s quite gettable, which just goes to show that there are in fact no rules (except perhaps the overriding aim that clues should be fair).

    Many thanks Paul and Eileen.

39. [Have a good holiday, Eileen. I know the Dales well – which part are you visiting?]

40. [Wharfedale this time, muffin – usually Wensleydale, where we used to have a mobile home.]

41. Unlike pdm @7, fancy = cake didn’t click, although yes it’s come up before. Like Eileen, only a few at first (one eye on Paris, plus Oz footy) but then the lattice slowly wove. Thanks PnE.

42. DNF despite several sessions. The indirect anagram for CAKE put me in a sour mood. I thought this sort of thing was frowned on, even though it was very gettable. Couldn’t get the extremely obscure clueing for GUJARATI, and don’t see what ‘invariably’ is doing in 7d.

43. poc @42 – re 7dn: I think it’s because a SPONGE is a habitual heavy drinker, while ‘tipsy’ means only ‘slightly drunk’. I tend to associate it with maiden aunts sipping sherry.

44. poc@42. Why frown upon it if it’s “very gettable”? I just solved the clue and moved on.

45. hey sheffield hatter@37, your name suggests you are northern born and bred, unlike myself being a cockney living in Manchester for forty years. This might explain why for you syrup is not a standard synonym for a wig or the more derogatory RUG as used here. I personally like a bit of CRS (though admit it’s not the most enlightened lingo) as exemplified by Ronnie Barker here for example:

    https://youtu.be/ij5mw_eqKuc?si=R5r62CYbr3DZcWD3

    muffin@36: not into cakes!?!

46. [EdTheBall @45
    I rarely eat anything sweet, and never cakes!]

47. Ed@45. No, Luton Town fan but lived in the north for over 50 years! I’m quite familiar with rhyming slang, but wigs have not been a regular topic of conversation in my circles, and has syrup of figs been a thing recently?

    I appreciate that some have said they found this clue ok, but for me it’s not obscurity as such, it’s the double stretch.

    Any road, welcome to the north!

48. DNF, though the ones I managed and ticked were the same as Eileen’s favorites. On mendicant/tramp controversy, medieval mendicant orders were those that swore a vow of poverty and (originally) did not have fixed abodes, so wandered and begged. Not sure if Paul had them in mind..

49. I thought this was superb and well worthy of the prize slot. I got CAKE early and thought it would be a stroll thereafter but Paul soon disavowed me of that notion. Top marks for the late, great Shane Warne & SPIN BOWLER. Both these clues show why the indirect anagram “rule” can be a bit silly at times. I was taught that rules are for people who can’t follow principles 🙂

    Chambers Thesaurus has beggar & tramp as equivalent and one (two ?) degree of separation seems ok to me in a prize puzzle

    Cheers P&E

50. Couldn’t get anywhere near this one, despite getting CAKE straight away and many attempts. First DNF for a while.

51. Well worth the struggle. Lots to like.
    When my son emailed that he couldn’t parse the last two letters of 23a I had another look and changed my LATTICES to LATTICED. I had the same problem as EdheBall@28 with lining but reached the same conclusion as Eileen@32. I still don’t lke it in this case – “lining” implies that something is or can go inside it as in Eileen’s pocket analogy, whereas as here it’s rather like saying that the yolk lines the white of a boiled egg.
    Thanks to Paul and Eileen.

52. Pino@51. Lining can go both ways. A suit is clearly “lined” with a second layer of material. Not sure about your egg.

    The crowd watching cycle races “lines” the road, i.e. they stand outside of the road – or should do!

    And the lines on a football or rugby pitch define the playing area, though sometimes the laws include the line (the ball has to be completely over the line for a goal in soccer), or sometimes not (a score in rugby or American football happens when the ball touches the line, or in the latter, crosses an imaginary vertical plane above the line).

53. Thank you, Eileen. This was hard and I failed on 8a, 13d and 19d. Not nearly as much fun as the previous week’s Soup masterpiece. Thanks for the explanations of the one’s I missed and also of 17a, 23a (knew I had to look for a wig, but forgot about ‘rug’), 26a and 16d. Didn’t twig that “lines” and “cakes” were being used as indicators of an envelope. Overall, no complaints though.

54. sheffieldhatter@52
    Thank you but I still don’t think it works. In the examples you give there is something on both sides of the lining as in Eileen’s pocket analogy. Even when the pocket is empty there’s a space. In 26a ATTIC isn’t the lining it’s the filling.

55. I forgot I hadn’t attempted this last week so only came to it this morning. Bit of a grind, if I’m honest, with a great deal of biffing. Were it not for the check button being available, I’d have given up half way through – and I hate doing that. Thanks, Eileen, for disentangling some of the uncharacteristically tortuous parsing.

56. Brilliant puzzle, brimming with good ideas, just what a prize should be.
    For some reason, the CRS syrup of figs = wigs had completely passed me by, so I had to do the research to justify BROWN SUGAR. HARDEN was probably my favourite clue because of its natural surface and quite different cryptic reading.
    DESSERTS was last in, with the parsing taking a bit longer. Fun to “turn up” the last cake in the process.
    Forest fan @27, good point about AIRY for 24d – a perfectly valid answer in isolation. I quite like finding clues that can lead to two different answers, but I know some people object to this.
    Great fun. Thanks, Eileen and Paul. More like this please, Ed!

57. LATTICED
    ‘lining’ is inside in this clue.
    Indy 11524
    Eleven weaves lining check fabric (9)
    Here ‘lining’ is outside (forming the border).

    Just adding to Sheffield hatter’s post@52.

58. KVa@57
    But ATTIC doesn’t form the outside border of LATTICED. I’m sure everyone’s getting bored with what I only raised as a quibble in an enjoyable puzzle so I’ll stop here.

59. [ Pino@58 how about a mucus membrane lines the trachea . It is inside and fills the space. ]

60. [sheffield hatter@47: now I get the hatter reference in your handle here 🙂 ]

    [muffin@46 so you are a savoury muffin, also popular with me]

    Not to labour the point but Eileen did invite the debate about BROWN SUGAR and my point about syrup being synonymous with rug in this clue is fair for me because the way cockney rhyming slang works is that we don’t need to repeat the whole rhyming phrase every time and inevitably, being as economical with words as we tend to be, we don’t and so:

    apples (and pears) = stairs
    dustbin (lid) = kid etc etc.

    So syrup and rug are synonymous, albeit slang, terms for a wig. As you say sh@47 not the most frequent topic of conversation.

    Anyway, I enjoyed the debate and as I said, I really liked this themed envelope in an envelope of a clue.

61. Picked away at this through the week, managed about two thirds (though not all parsed) and am feeling pretty pleased with that. Hooray for the theme to be something familiar. Thank you Paul, and explanatory blog much appreciated Eileen.

62. SH@44: I frown because we now have to ask ourselves if more indirect anagrams might appear in Paul’s puzzles, or indeed if the editor is now going to allow them from other setters. There are many ways in which Paul could have written this clue, so resorting to a device hitherto regarded as unfair can only have been intentional, and I wonder why. I just hope I’m wrong.

63. Roz@59
    [As I’ve admitted here several times before, my school stopped teaching me science when I was 15 so I can’t understand how, if mucus membrane fills the windpipe, the wind can get through].

64. poc@62. I can understand your argument, but I’m not sure how pertinent it is. In this crossword Paul has used ‘top two cards?’ – clearly the ace and the king, to indicate the letters ACE and K, plus ‘shuffling’ to indicate an anagram of those letters. Unusual, certainly, but is it unfair and does it presage an avalanche of such clues? I don’t think so.

    Also in this crossword he used ‘area gets TV?’ to clue AGAINST, with the definition being the letter V. This seems to be a lot more unfair – or perhaps superdifficult – than the CAKE clue.

    Both clues end with a question mark, to indicate the setter is maybe taking liberties, and that solvers’ expectations with regard to conventions, or what some like to characterise as rules, might not be met.

    Maybe it’s my own slowness that meant it took me half a dozen sessions before getting AGAINST, whereas CAKE was among my first in. In retrospect, I enjoyed solving both these clues. But maybe I enjoyed CAKE because I knew it would rile some people, and AGAINST because I was pleased to have figured it out!

65. SH@64: It’s unfair in a generic sense. As I said, this one is very gettable, but it is unquestionably an indirect anagram, i.e. an anagram of a set of letters that don’t appear in the clue. The fact that it’s easy is immaterial.

66. Dnf despite getting CAKE quite early. Relieved to read that others found it hard. I should have got a few more, now having the benefit of Eileens’s essential blog. I could not justify SPIN BOWLER, but see it now. Crafty. I concluded that some of my failures were hard but cleverly constructed clues (AGAINST), but others were a bit over elaborate (GUJERATI, TOGETHER, BROWN SUGAR). Overall verdict, a toughie, but fair enough.

67. Peter O @10
    Thank goodness for your post – I thought I was going mad!!

68. Very helpful thank you. I think your explanation of 20a is wrong though. Should read: CAN ERR (sometimes right) twinned with Buenos Aires.

69. I am generally not on the same wave-length as Paul, but I thought this was an exceptionally unreasonable solve 🙁
    I got about 30% of the puzzle despite working on it for over a week, and looking at Eileen’s blog here, I’m not sure I’d have gotten any further if I had spent another week on it…

70. Believe 13 is a double definition of “Cricketer” and “How to get answer from S. Warne”
    SPIN BOWLER would fit both!

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