Guardian Prize 29,583 by Brummie

59 comments on “Guardian Prize 29,583 by Brummie”

1. When I saw the special instructions I thought I would not be able to do this but a quick skim of the clues gave me RAISE as the answer to 20 ac and I thought that if it was a special clue then LOWER could be the antonym.

   My first special solve was SERIOUS/TRIVIAL which I really liked. Other favourite specials were FAILURE/SUCCESS and IGNORANCE/KNOWLEDGE which helped me get WEEKDAYS and thus confirmed that 20 ac was a special and LOWER went in.

   I took a break with three to go – all of which had to be specials. Returned to the puzzle the next morning and got them straight away: SLOW, WARM, NEW

   In the end I really enjoyed it

   Thanks Brummie and bridgesong

2. Thanks bridgesong. But for 1dn I think to FAST is to diet.

3. Well done on the blog. This was a little hard to get a foothold on, but the pace seemed to pick up after the grid was about half completed. I managed to parse all, except was unsure about 1D (for reasons similar to yours–I was thinking the whole clue was just a cryptic definition for FAST), as well as 15A, since it seems unusual for an “endless” indicator to omit quite that many letters at the end??? A fun change of pace, though.

4. Thanks bridgesong. Like Fiona at first I didn’t think I would bother but eventually I had a letter in every square and then came the task of explaining them all which took some more time. I have to admire the ingenuity here but can’t really say I enjoyed it.

5. Well I enjoyed it and didn’t find it as challenging as some recently. Towards the end I could see some answers from the crossing letters and had to work backwards to understand the definition which was odd

6. Loved it. It was not as impenetrable as I at first feared, but of course not easy, the main ussue being that crossers were not usable in the usual way. If instead of 12, all or most of the entered words were antonyms, then that would have been a much bigger challenge.

   I think 1d FAST is a regular double-definition clue. The “So” looked at first a little weird, but I interpreted that half of the clue to be saying there is a condition whereby something in it is not the right time.

   Tx

7. Similar order to Fiona @1, checked out that 22d could start with w, making raise become lower, and so on. Not normally a huge fan of specials, but this one wasn’t too fussy. Enjoyed, thanks Brum and bridge.

8. It seems like we have had three bank holidays in succession with this imaginative puzzle!

   We took some time to get to grips with the concept and had barely finished the top half in one session, with several doubts, such as how endless should the ‘fun’ be? and how slow we were in going for a song! Thank goodness for a few easy clues, like the (appropriate) GRATIS, WHODUNNIT (?) and LEAF (didn’t see it until later!)
   It’s ‘hard’ to select a favourite, but took a while explaining SLOW, TURPS and EASY. However all was resolved in a second session. Many thanks to B and b.

   Just a tongue-in-cheek afterthought, but do the 4 four-letter down solutions starting at the corners constitute a Nina when read anti-clockwise starting at the NE corner?

9. I wasn’t even going to try with this, but I had a go having spotted 11 & 3 almost at once. I was doing OK til I entered “reject” instead of “refuse” (which I’d say was a better antonym for “accept”) and that got me stuck. So I gave up. Interesting idea though.

10. I wasn’t even going to try with this, but I had a go having spotted 11 & 3 almost at once. I was doing OK til I entered “reject” instead of “refuse” (which I’d say was a better antonym for “accept”) and that got me stuck. So I gave up. Interesting idea though.

11. Sorry – don’t know why that posted twice

12. I looked at the instructions and decided I did not have the time, so I did not even start. Reading the reviews so far I am beginning to regret that decision

13. I pencilled in PERMANENT right away, but then got carried away and wrote in ‘amusing’ for ‘serious’ without thinking too hard, which got in the way for a long time. As I went, there were a few just ‘bunged in from the opposite of the definition’, where I didn’t see the wordplay but there was an obvious same-length pair that worked. Finally at the end I revisited these and worked out the wordplay for all except SLOW, where I simply never thought of inaccurate clocks. But ‘diet’ -> ‘fast’ -> ‘slow’ just had to be right. Thanks for filling that in for me, bridgesong. I was particularly amused by TURPS and thought NEW was cleverly clued. Thanks for the unusual challenge, Brummie.

14. Liked the concept and enjoyed the puzzle. Very good blog.
    Agree with Cineraria@3 on STUDENT. Unless there’s a better explanation, the ENT bit looks a bit weak.
    Just like Cineraria@3, I saw the clue for (or against!!!) SLOW as a CD.
    (like…today is my FAST and) therefore, not the right time to diet (DrWhatson@6 uses the same logic, I think).
    There seems to be some ambiguity as others have pointed out.

    Thanks Brummie and bridgesong.

15. I also thought that FAST might work as an Azed-style clue, to be read as “F AS T,” in which F substitutes for T (or possibly vice versa) for some word indicated by the clue, but I could not make that work. I also thought that “not the right” might indicate that R or RT was supposed to be omitted from (or possibly inserted into) some other word, but I could not make that work either. I still find this clue baffling.

16. Cineraria@15
    SLOW
    F AS T didn’t occur to me but I tried parsing the second way (or something similar) you have mentioned.
    Tried to remove ‘t h e r’ from ‘therefore/therein etc., (then add T). Tried a couple of other similar possibilities
    before settling for the CD option. Someone may have a better explanation.

17. [15a ENT[s] is ‘(informal)’ for entertainments, as in ‘The STUDENT union ents officer…’ (quoting Jason Manford)]

18. [31a ABYSS: The ASS isn’t reversed.]
    My LOi, the very last clue, appropriately enough, 29d: EASY? No, it was HARD because…
    “[s]HARD 1.a. c1275– A fragment, chip, splinter. Now rare except in phrases: see 1b.” …was nho and…
    “1.b. c1275– Phrases. in shivers, broken, in small fragments (so to break, burst, etc. in or into shivers); (all) to shivers, into small fragments; †to go shivers, to be shattered to pieces.” …were all nho, too, and not cited (or sighted) since the 19th century.
    [Join your local (not just UK) library and get free access to oed.com]

19. For 1d “Diet” is the definition leading to “Fast” being the solution isn’t it? Or am I missing something?

20. Just to add, “Slow” doesn’t mean “Diet”?

21. [Oops! @18, line 3 should start with “SHIVER“, of course.]

22. FrankieG – I got the same stuff you got for sHARD/EASY from my Chambers Crossword Dictionary and Chambers (1995). (I’ve even got email proof from an online conversation). My last one in was WARM/Cool because it took me ages to see the parsing of COOL – it was the one I back parsed from possible solutions to the crossers

    I really enjoyed this, found the concept fun and an entertaining, knew ENTS officers from university. It took a couple of sittings

    Thank you to Brummie and bridgesong.

    Richtonard @19/20 – special instructions meant 12 answers to be entered were antonyms / opposites. FAST/SLOW is one of those pairings.

23. For 29d, see Revelation 2.27, King James Version: ‘as the vessel of a potter shall they be broken to shivers”. But I think no modern translation uses the word.
    Thanks, bridgesong. Minor point, in 31d, ASS is around BY; ASS is not reversed.
    I also found it less daunting than I feared on first reading. My only problem was that I started with SERIOUS at 13a, and there are several possible antonyms, of which I wrongly guessed ‘comical’. But I got there in the end. Thanks, Brummie.

24. I fully parsed half of the antonym clues but I did not parse 13ac, 25ac, 7d, 13d, 23d, 29d. I think that half of the time what I was doing was guessing an antonym from crossers and then forgot to even try parsing my answers.

    14d INTERBREED – hybridized / got this one wrong and did not notice my error as I did enter RESISTANT at 30ac.

    I gave up on 1d, 26d.

25. My previous comment: I meant 31a, not 31d, of course. Apols.

26. Annoyingly, I didn’t spot the “special instructions” for quite a while, so was very confused, I put in OLD in the centre, and couldn’t make the down clues fit! But once spotted it was fairly straightforward, I could imagine this becoming a regular concept. Last ones in were TRUMP and WARM, took ages to spot COO for “I say” and realise TRUMPS was an anagram minus the M!

    Good fun all round for me though, thanks B&B.

27. I started this in the same “oh well, might as well have a go” mood as several others here, but in the end the only special clue that gave me real trouble was WARM, because I had the antonym stuck in my mind as COLD, which of course wouldn’t parse. So W_R_ stayed blank.

    INTERCROSS was unfamilar but gettable, and I don’t think I worked out where the ENT in STUDENT came from, but where crosswords are concerned, boss=stud and vice versa are the usual meanings.

28. Apologies for the mistake in the parsing of ABYSS, now corrected.

    Glad to see that I’m not the only one slightly puzzled by the clue to FAST/SLOW.

29. In my opinion this twist was too devious for the Prize crossword, perhaps suitable for the Genius. It subverts an important feature of crosswords, using the crossers to help decipher the clue. Or perhaps that’s just my way of doing it?

30. I parsed 1d thus:

    To FAST isn’t to diet, it’s to eat nothing at all, I think.

    Also a fast, a noun, can mean a time of year e.g. a religious fasting period, so wouldn’t be the right time at all to diet.

    Thanks all.

31. Enjoyed this and almost finished it but failed to get 30 and 26d. Not thinking of coo’ for ‘I say’ was down to me, but I might have got there if I hadn’t been trying to accommodate the unnecessary ‘quite’ as part of definition for ‘cool’. Am I being unreasonable? Do other people think it’s cool?

32. For FAST I decided in the end it was a double cryptic definition, with 1) Fast = constant/steadfast/correct ie “just so” or “so” and 2) Fast =not the right time like a clock that is fast. I didn’t wholly convince myself though!
    The rest was good fun and I’m glad I bothered, once I’d got over a sinking feeling that here was another Christmas holiday novelty!
    The only one I failed to get was 26 down, where I finally went for FINE/WORN, such as might be used by coin collectors. I got to FINE (not very convincingly) from the “quite acceptable” definition though the parsing didn’t really happen!

33. I like Brummie, possibly my favourite setter. Even so, like so many others, I nearly didn’t bother when I saw the special instructions. I managed quite a few of the reverse clues more easily than I’d expected but I’m not sure it enhanced the solve for me. Not one of his best but still very good.

34. Oh, and as for 29d, I just presumed shiver was a Grauniad special and was supposed to be sliver!!

35. Dave F @34 You beat me to it!

36. An interesting challenge because it wasn’t clear which clues resulted in an antonym. This meant that it was difficult to use the crossers in the normal way, because some would help to think of the definition in the clue, while some would fit the antonym. Several times I had to rethink what I was doing, because it’s a well ingrained habit.

    A real challenge, but thoroughly enjoyable and engrossing.

    Thanks to Brummie for the concept, and bridgesong for the very clear blog.

37. Charged straight into this without seeing the special instructions, so I was totally bemused until I was made aware of them. They were very easy to miss online. I enjoyed it once I knew what I was doing.

38. I too enjoyed this. In my random way I scanned the clues quickly for one I could instantly solve to get me going and lit upon the hidden GUEST at 17a. Then, addressing myself to 13d, the clue obviously led to LOOSE, but with the G in place, that had to be its antonym, TIGHT. TRIVIAL at 13a, therefore, was plainly the required antonym for SERIOUS as clued, and so I was off. When I turned over to go back to sleep around 4.00, I had just four to get in the SW, two of which had to be antonyms. The second half of a night’s slumbers made those obvious enough in the morning. Not, in the end, as others have said, nearly as tough as I at first feared. I did not, incidentally, for a moment doubt that FAST was the clued solution at 1d and am really rather perplexed by others’ perplexity. Perhaps if I had been more awake at 3.30 I might have over-thought it.

39. FrankieG@17: Oh, “ents.” I never suspected that such a word existed (Tolkien notwithstanding), and it does not appear to be listed in Chambers, but I do see that it will come up in online sources. Thanks for the clarification. Is it just UK university slang?

40. A lovely concept, and an enjoyable solve – a bit like an alphabetical jigsaw with an extra layer.
    I think Brummie was quite kind in that some clues that were fairly readily parsable were unlikely to have an antonym (PERU etc). My own main breakthrough was solving 27a (IGNORANCE), reckoning that its antonym KNOWLEDGE fitted the bill, and being confident that the less-common ‘K’ would grid-match with that of DIKTAT at 24d (which was another word unlikely to have an opposite).
    Held up for a while in the NW corner, wondering whether 2d (OPPOSITE) might be ADJACENT. Those of a triangular mind will identify.
    Many thanks to Brummie & Bridgesong

41. I love a puzzle with a quirky twist, it’s a nice break from the daily norm. This was no exception. Great fun from beginning to end.

    Many thanks both and more please!

42. I thought I would just dive in and see what happened, and it all worked out in the end.

    Looking at the Chambers Thesaurus, the first entry for diet is FAST and one entry for FAST is diet. I guess that some diets do involve fasting. My irritation for this clue was, though, what is the ‘so’ doing? It doesn’t seem to be necessary in the clue and just misleads in a bad way, IMHO. Perhaps there is some other reason it’s there.

    Thanks Brummie for the torture and bridgesong for a clear blog.

43. Well worth the struggle. ENTS as in Entertainments Officer was after my time but I had picked it up somewhere. So @ 1d and you @ 17@ seemed to be there for the surface, unneccccessarily in the case of 1d.
    Thanks to Brummie and bridgesong.

44. Thanks Bummie and bridgesong

    I think the most common usage of SHIVER in the context of this puzzle is the old pirates’ phrase “Shiver mi timbers’.

45. Most enjoyable. I tackle Guardian puzzles via the app on my smartphone, so each clue presents itself individually as I hit on the light. I’m usually too keen to get started to scan all of the clues, which means I miss any special instructions.

    That happened here, until several mis-crossings prompted me to look for any rubrics. WHODUNNIT is a great anagram clue, and one that flagged up to me that something strange was going on. Once I had found the catch, the whole thing fell out fairly easily. As sheffield hatter @36 remarked, we couldn’t use crossers in the usual way, but by juggling possible antonyms which crossed with words that didn’t have an obvious opposite, the jigsaw could be completed.

    I didn’t have a problem with ‘fast’/SLOW, though I concede the clue is more allusive than watertight. A fast doesn’t necessarily entail not eating at all – Lent and Ramadan for example.

    Many thanks to Brummie and bridgesong

46. I like Brummie and I have no issue with “special instructions.” However, when I saw this and realised there was no way other than educated guesswork to work out which solutions required antonyms, I decided I had neither the time nor the patience for this puzzle. Maybe it’s karma, but I haven’t managed to complete a puzzle since !

47. John, 46.

    I thought that at first, but then realised that many words, e.g. most concrete nouns, don’t have antonyms, so where these were likely the definitions it got us off to a decent start.

48. Took a week but worth the effort in the end. Thanks to blogger and setter.

49. I hesitatingly thought FAST might have been F(E)AST (not thE right) as in ‘very much not the right time to fast’ but that parsing still feels awkward.

50. Thanks Brummie and bridgesong. I took 1D to be a straight double definition:

    1 “So”; online Chambers, adverb (4) for FAST: deeply; thoroughly – fast asleep

    2 “not the right time to diet”; agree with Etu @30 and others above that to FAST is precisely NOT to diet. A dietary regimen may be low-cal, but it can still involve ample servings.

    This take is similar to that of Woody @32 regarding defn 1, but then departs from his overall gloss after that.

51. Thanks Coloradan@50. That seems about right. But it’s incredibly tricky and it’s no surprise that many here have said it was their last one in. (Me too, by the way!) I fact, it wasn’t until I had about five clues left that I considered this one for an antonym, so I reverse solved it from the crossers and never got near to parsing the clue.

52. I really enjoyed this although, like Sheffield Hatter @36, I had to keep remembering to cast aside an ingrained mindset. That was easier to do with some of the special clues, like TRIVIAL and KNOWLEDGE, than others, such as FEEBLE. My favourite was WHODUNNIT.

    Thank you to Brummie for a novel challenge and to bridgesong for the comprehensive blog.

53. Pauline@52. Thanks for “mindset” – that’s exactly what I was trying to explain; much better than my “habit”. 🙂

    I liked WHODUNNIT too – it was obviously an anagram, but when I finally got enough crossers to get the outline of the word it was a nice pdm.

54. A brilliant puzzle from the current pick of the setters. If the point of the prize crossword is to entice new solvers this is certainly bound to hook a few – compare this to today’s dirge of a prize puzzle.

55. What a satisfying puzzle. I found it very slow going at first, but over and over, just as I was about to give up, more pieces clicked into place. It was difficult enough that I felt quite proud of myself when the last clue fell into place.

    I didn’t like the idea that “endless fun” could be ENT[ERTAINMENT], but now that I know that ENT[S] is a thing, that seems just fine. I was also baffled by the parsing of FAST, but I think I’m OK with it now. (I take it that “diet” is the — perhaps slightly imprecise — definition, and “So, not the right time” indicates the application of the word to clocks as bridgesong says.)

56. This was slightly spoilt for me when I realised that you don’t actually have to solve the “special” clues. Just spot the definition and think of its’ opposite. Having said that, I enjoyed the challenge so thanks to Brummie – and to bridgesong for explaining 6D and 22A.

57. I enjoyed this, and enjoyed the concept. Brummie was generous in giving us plenty of solutions which don’t have antonyms, thereby making strong candidates for specials of those which do.

    Meandme@56, sure – but you could say that about any cryptic crossword clue. It’s always possible to just guess a synonym for what you suspect is the definition and hope it’s correct without parsing; I don’t think guessing an antonym makes it any easier or takes anything away from the puzzle.

    I’m still baffled by the FAST clue, not understanding what the “So” is doing. I want it to be something more like the F[E]AST theory of Rich@49.

    I also don’t understand why COOL is “quite acceptable”; if it’s along the lines of “that’s ok”/”that’s cool” then why the “quite”? Not that I would have got cool from “ok” either! And not that it mattered at all in the end, because as per another commentator I spent an age trying to parse it as “cold” despite that not matching my desired “I say = cor” which in any case turned out to be not quite right, and when the penny finally dropped for COO I forgot to cross-reference the word to the definition and only did so when reading this blog!

    Thanks both!

58. I’m very late to the party, but The Guardian app didn’t have any special instructions, yet it was obvious something was going on. So I went to the website to check and lo and behold things started to make sense! Frustration turned to enjoyment and I eventually completed it Wednesday.

59. Like many others I assumed I wouldn’t finish, but put in Guest immediately which gave the antonym Tight and I was off. Got it done in a day albeit with a couple not parsed. I think the easiness shows brilliant setting

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