Guardian Prize 29709 / Brockwell

77 comments on “Guardian Prize 29709 / Brockwell”

1. I’ve never heard of Haydn’s Surprise symphony being called the JOKE but his op 33/2 quartet is known by that name.
   Vaughan Williams wrote a Sea Symphony. Your dates for Britten seem to rule him out of that one.

2. A Sea Symphony is by Vaughan Williams, as I’m sure you know.

3. Thanks Brockwell and duncanshiell. I enjoyed this although I didn’t get the parsing of ‘Scottish’ but it had to be correct. I was reluctant to put in the crosser of ‘one’ in 15 D which seems to be a doubly weak definition.

4. I really enjoyed this puzzle. The theme slowly emerged, without helping with the solutions much. I really enjoyed the hidden EROICA. I was wondering if there was more to 8Across but maybe not. Exoplanets are mainly detected by ground-based telescopes and not really by NASA. I thought there might be a planet/moon/asteroid called Asa, but couldn’t find anything. Thanks to Brockwell for a fun puzzle and to duncanshiel for a thorough blog.

5. I thought the NEW WORLD could be shown by North America (NA) and South America (SA).

6. The theme helped by confirming some answers, but not to help get any otherwise ungettables,

   There are a couple of instances of what you might think of as advanced cluing if you like one-step-away associations, or sloppy thinking if you don’t, take your pick. STICKs are normally thought of as unattached (dictionaries give examples of wands and batons) and can be in any orientation, but posts are vertical and anchored, so they are different. Similarly, CLOCK means make a measurement, record means enter it in a log. Closely related, to be sure, but separate steps.

   I first had UNPOLISHED for UNFINISHED, which worked perfectly – except for the central character bit. And the theme!

   ODD FISH was clever.

   I guessed SCOTTISH from first sight of the clue, but took forever to figure out the wordplay. Even in hindsight it seems too contrived.
   ONE seemed a bit of a stretch.

   For those who don’t follow tennis and are surprised that the chosen ITALIAN name doesn’t sound very Italian, Jannik Sinner (currently #1 in the world, so quite well known) was born in a small Italian town just a few miles from the Austrian border, and where 5 times as many residents speak German as Italian, per wiki.

7. Was given Haydn’s Toy as a kid, still there with the vinyls I think. Along with one that 11ac reminds me of — the great comic Danny Kaye saying ” ..except of course The Unfinished Symphony, which has a beginning …As I was saying .. ” in The Little Fiddle. But yes, a masterful composition from Brockwell, of which I only knew New World, Unfinished, Pastoral, Eroica and Toy. And thanks duncan for your usual thorough treatment.

8. I entered ONE and SCOTTISH without parsing either. The symphony theme eluded me fully despite 28a!

   Thanks, Brockwell and duncanshiell

9. We made steady progress from the north-west, but it was quite near the end before SYMPHONY was inserted, which not only gave the theme but also supported NEW WORLD. We did confirm that all the across solutions were either wholly or partially thematic!

   A most enjoyable prize crossword with many clever clues, especially UNFINISHED, MERCURY, SYMPHONY, HEDONIST, JOSS STICKS and GLUCOSE, but we are not convinced by 15 down and wonder if the insertion of ‘good’ between ‘married’ and ‘10’ would have helped?

   I like the suggestion of Lord Jim @ 5, but do not agree with Dr.WhatsOn @ 6 since, for example, in football, the goal posts or corner flags are often referred to as ‘sticks’.

   Many thanks to B and d.

10. NEW WORLD
    Agree with Lord Jim@5.
    ONE
    The ‘joke’ part is clear. Is the ‘married’ part, as duncan says (united)?
    Liked MERCURY, TITAN and GLUCOSE.

    Thanks Brockwell and duncan!

11. I,too, could not parse SCOTTISH and reluctantly entered ONE. I notice a couple of symphonies, but never thought of a theme. It would not have helped. Otherwise I enjoyed this.
    Thanks both.

12. Fantastique puzzle-I changed CLOUT to CLOCK when I saw them all mounting up
    I got the JOKE but didnt know it was symphony so thanks there

13. The inclusion of all those symphonic references sure was clever. Thanks to brilliant Brockwell for fitting them all in. I didn’t know them all, so I needed this very comprehensive blog from duncanshiell to complete my list, and the blog also helped me to tease out a few parsings like 18a which I missed (red face). So my gratitude to Duncan as well. TAHR at 26d was a new one on me, though I think Duncan is right and it’s been in crosswords around the traps before – I did solve it though as that was all it could be. My personal jury is still out on 15d ONE – I had no trouble with the notion of becoming ONE (“Married”) in 15d but I’m still not convinced by the 10a JOKE cross-reference. With hindsight and having read the blog, I have to say I liked all the across clues, Of the down clues, I particularly enjoyed 2d TWEE, 6d JOSS STICKS and 23d RESUME, the latter for the misdirection of “Carry On Nurse”.

14. I didn’t have a problem with ONE ( cf Matthew 19:5). Chambers Thesaurus has married as a synonym of one.
    Favourites were RESUME for “carry on nurse” and MERCURY for the handwriting tips.
    Symphonies? What symphonies?

15. JinA @13, have you heard the one about the Engineer, the Physicist and the Mathematician on a train?

16. Thanks for the blog , reading 1Ac I thought we had yet another theme on quarks but it was not to be , one of two fission clues along with TITAN , both very good . MERCURY also very neat and I liked SCOTTISH .

    Most exoplanets have been discovered by the Kepler space telescope which is owned by NASA but no longer operates . There is a NEW WORLDs mission proposal but it will probably never get backing or funding .

17. Lord Jim@5 is surely right about the significance of NASA in the clue for NEW WORLD. For once, I did spot the theme, which led my to correct ‘unpolished’ (as Dr. Whatson@6) for UNFINISHED, which explained the missing middle letter. A thoroughly enjoyable crossword with a theme that for once was familiar to me. Lots to enjoy, too many to enumerate. Thanks to Brockwell and to duncanshiell for the comprehensive blog.

18. Great crossword, very clever. I’ve never heard the Surprise Symphony being called the Joke either. I thought Eroica was pretty neat too.
    Thanks both.

19. Found it . People might like a Brummie puzzle , June 16 2020 if you can find it . Unfortunately the internet is too primitive to link with my diary .

20. Here’s the link to the Brummie puzzle Roz mentioned @19.

21. Thanks Tim , eventually the internet will catch up with my own technology .

22. Ha, I didn’t even notice the symphonies theme and I play in an amateur orchestra!
    It was a fun puzzle though, quickly solved with plenty to admire and be amused by.
    Great blog from duncanshiell too.

23. I didn’t even look for a theme. I’ve heard (of) several of these symphonies and was comfortable when specifically asked for one with PASTORAL. Like others, my first thought was unpolished. I was nervous about SCOTTISH and looked for hair (locks), some regularly alternate letters etc. I may have parsed it after entry but genuinely can’t remember. I thought I had enough for NEW WORLDS but Lord Jim’s explanation @5 is so elegant.

    I had some kind of dictionary failure for TAHR which wasted a lot of time and also tried something too clever/stupid instead of ICON.

    Very good though. I enjoyed it. Thanks all.

24. Was the misspelt title of this blog a tribute to the paper otherwise known as the Grauniad? [Ah, it has just been corrected.]
    Thanks, duncanshiell, for your always clear analysis, and for parsing a couple I could not. Despite recognising the theme once I solved 11, 14 and 16, this took me a long time to finish, till Friday afternoon in fact. My LOsI were 7 and 9 – I looked for past PMs at length before realising it was the current one.
    Thanks, Brockwell, for the challenge.

25. Zoot @ 1 and Ian @ 2

    I even had Ralph Vaughan Williams in my notes, so goodness only knows how I managed to put Britten into the table. Another senior moment, I guess. It’s corrected now.

    For the JOKE, I did mention the Quartet in the table and I was simply guessing about the Surprise. Wikipedia tells me that a Symphony and a Quartet are constructed in similar ways, but are played by different-sized ensembles – a full orchestra for the first, and, not surprisingly, a group of only 4 players for the second.

    I’m pleasantly surprised that no one pointed out that I spelled ‘Guardian’ wrong in the title. I’ve corrected that also.

    Ah, I see someone has just pointed out the spelling error in the title while I was writing this post.

26. Man, I needed this blog this week.
    Even with all the across clues, and knowing there was a theme, I couldn’t spot it.
    8 across still makes no sense to me.
    14,16,18,27,28 across could not parse at all at the time, but accept their deviousness now.
    1, 4, 6, 26 down ditto.
    15 d, still don’t get.

27. I thoroughly enjoyed this one, even if I didn’t get the whole symphony theme, everything fairly clued, it was good too see more unusual uses for GK with SINNER for Italian, I mean he is the number one tennis seed at the moment. MERCURY and ONE were my last ones in, and I had remembered ONE being JOKE from past crosswords. Thanks D and B

28. duncanshiel@25 Sorry, I did see later that you mentioned the JOKE 4tet. Yes, symphonies and quartets are generally constructed on the same sonata form principles, but so are sonatas, trios and other forms of chamber music, so personally I don’t think a quartet should have been included in this theme, which passed me by entirely.
    RVW also wrote a PASTORAL symphony and there are more than enough named Haydn symphonies for a separate crossword. Now there’s a thought.

29. Enjoyed the theme and learnt a few names of symphonies.

    Favourites: ITALIAN, TITAN, ODD FISH, GLUCOSE, ICON, SKIERS (loi).

    I could not parse 18ac apart from the definition.

    Lord Jim@5 – thanks for your explanation of NASA for 8ac.

    New for me: TAHR goat.

30. I solved this super puzzle on a coach trip to Ely last Saturday and was quite glad the seat next to me was unoccupied, so my chortles and sighs of satisfaction as the pennies kept dropping went unnoticed amid the general chatter.

    I’m in awe of the way Brockwell can fill a grid so comprehensively yet unobtrusively, with beautifully and wittily crafted clues – as usual, far too many to list. The only temporary hold-up was in the bottom right corner – 28ac was the only place left to fit ‘Surprise’, which I was stubbornly convinced must be there somewhere. The relatively easy 19dn should have occurred earlier to put me right.
    I had no difficulty with one = JOKE: I remember seeing it several times before, as Tim C points out @15.
    Thanks to Lord Jim @5 for elucidating NASA, which had been nagging me.

    No time for more for now as it will soon be time for me to catch a train to Nottingham, where I’m looking forward to seeing some of you.

    Huge thanks to Brockwell for lots of fun and to lucky Duncan for a splendid blog.

31. LordJim@5 perfect explanation and NEW WORLD is now my favourite clue!

32. Thanks to TimC@15 for answering my direct question that JinA@13 had expressed! In hindsight an excellent clue for ONE which I hadn’t parsed either, also missing Hg for
    MERCURY. That’s two “doh”s for me this week.

    Great blog duncanshiel and heartfelt thanks to Brockwell for a brilliantly formed crossword in the prize slot.

33. PASTORAL was my way in, as I solved it simultaneously with 28a. I don’t usually notice themes but this one was hard to miss – apologies to those who did miss it. 😁

    I actually contemplated TWO for 15d, with ’10’ being two in binary, and being a couple for ‘married’ (cf Beatles If I Fell: “… when she learns we are two”). OK, so ‘joke’ has been used to clue ONE before, but I reckon it only means that in the context of telling jokes, so it’s not really a definition. (Beatles again: “here’s one from our last album”. 🤔)

    I was also stuck on ‘Sinner’ being a name for an ITALIAN (doh) and HG for the messenger, but credited the setter for his cleverness once I saw them. I didn’t see what NASA was doing – credit Lord Jim for his cleverness!

    Thanks to Brockwell and Duncan.

34. Zoot@28 , there has been a Haydn symphony puzzle before , was a Saturday Prize , probably Araucaria , round about 1997 . Unfortunately my diaries pre 2010 have been put in the attic so I cannot check .

35. I know I tend not to spot themes, but I really can’t believe I missed this one! I did a very definite double take when I opened this blog. But I did enjoy the puzzle.

36. A theme right up my street, though I failed to spot the SEA symphony in RESEAL and wondered why the theme seemed to have passed that clue by… doh! The theme helped to get SCOTTISH, which I failed to parse, and ITALIAN ( I have heard of Sinner but not his nationality: I don’t follow tennis). I didn’t know JOKE and assumed it must be one of Haydn’s: Mozart’s “Musical Joke” isn’t a symphony. I’ve seen JOKE clued as ONE before, as in “here’s a good one” or “have you heard this one?” but it’s a bit of a stretch.

    Favourite definitely the ingenious MERCURY. Thanks Brockwell and Duncan.

    (Vaughan Williams also wrote a Pastoral Symphony.)

37. I see no one has taken up my question of “have you heard the one about…..”. Just in case, here is the ONE/JOKE which I love having spent my life as an Engineer….

    An Engineer, a Physicist and a Mathematician were on a train which passed over the border from England to Scotland. They look out of the window and see that there are black sheep in a field.

    “Aha,” says the engineer, “I see that Scottish sheep are black.”

    “You Engineers are so inexact” says the physicist, “You mean that there are some fields in Scotland where some of the sheep are black.”

    “No,” says the mathematician, “You’re both not precise in your reasoning. There is at least one field in Scotland where at least one side of the sheep is black.”

38. Mozart wrote a “”Musical Joke” but that’s not a symphony either; it’s a divertimento. Brockwell usually drops by so maybe he’ll tell us what he had in mind. For my money it’s Haydn’s Surprise though I think that flouts one of the crossword conventions.
    I don’t usually spot themes but I saw this one and it helped in places. Hard but worth the struggle. Thanks to Brockwell and duncanshiell

39. sheffield hatter @33 I’ll meet your Beatles and raise you a Spice Girl: ‘… tonight is the night when two become ONE.’

40. The well-known Toy Symphony has also been attributed to Michael Haydn (Joseph’s younger brother) and Leopold Mozart (Wolfgang’s father). The latter seems fairly likely, but the conclusion is rather “we’ll never know for certain”.

41. I don’t know much about music but Google AI says: The “joke symphony” is a nickname, typically referring to works of music, particularly by Haydn, that incorporate humorous or unexpected elements, often in the form of musical “jokes” or surprises. It suggests Haydn Symphonies 60, 90, 93 and 94 ‘Surprise’.

42. Balfour@39. Yes, that’s one reason why I didn’t write in TWO. I still think that ’10’ is a better clue for TWO than it is for ONE. 😄

43. Hmmm! I finished this puzzle, but I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not. Some of the answers just didn’t seem to fit the nicely concise clues. I warmed to it after duncanshiell confirmed that my answers were correct, although I still didn’t get all of them. The puzzle went up further in my estimation when I read explanations by LordJim@5 and TimC@15 for NASA in the 6a clue and ONE for 15d. Very good clues and nice ONE @37! I had already tried and failed to fit Glucose as a Spoonerism, but it seemed to work for duncanshiell, so I looked up the pronunciation. Some folks say Glookoes, but I pronounce all sugars with a short o as in verbose, which wouldn’t work for Warden Spooner. I am relieved that I was not the only one to miss the theme. This was obvious on reflection, but, as usual, I forgot to check on completion. I do these puzzles a few clues at a time, so the theme words get split up and I tend not to notice them between sessions unless there is a prompt somewhere. Anyway, overall I think, a very good puzzle.

44. It was while I was looking up whether there was a Joke symphony that I found an interesting blog discussing humour in Haydn’s music which went on to talk about the Clock symphony – and then it dawned on me what the answer to 8A was & I could finally fill in my last 2 clues. It’s funny how obvious some answers are – but only after you’ve puzzled over them for ages.

45. sheffield hatter @42. I am inclined to agree. I did wonder at the time if there was something to do with binary numeration going on, because I could not see the link to JOKE, but that is a field of which I am more or less totally ignorant. I see the JOKE thing now (‘Have you heard the one about …’), but, due to my daughters’ immersion in the programme at the time, exposing me to more of it than I would have liked, I was more likely to link ONE in that sense to Friends, each of the 236 episodes of which is titled either ‘The one where…’ or ‘The one with …’

46. [Sinner v Alcaraz in Roland Garros final, Sunday 2pm BST. What a treat we’re in for]

47. Balfour@45. Good point about Friends!

    So, would ‘one’ be a reasonable synonym for joke, song, episode? (Buses? “There’ll be another one along in a minute!”) It’s surely just ‘one’ of a sequence that is defined by context as much as anything. But in this case we have ‘joke’ defining ONE. Would people be happy with a clue where ‘episode’ defines ONE? Or ‘bus’?

    Brockwell/Grecian sometimes drops in to share this space with us, so I hope for an appearance later.

48. [ KenMac@46 , you have not given the number of letters so it is hard to solve . ]

49. [Roz@48. I wonder if ‘treat’ is an anagrind?]

50. Roz@34 Thanks. I’ll look for it.

51. [IRoz and sheffield hatter, I’m assuming the wordplay must be an anagram of SINNER V ALCARAZ IN ROL S S IPM BST WHAT A. So it’s obviously I imprison ancestral shawls at Blazt]

52. An excellent themed puzzle, whose theme became apparent after SCOTTISH, ITALIAN and UNFINISHED, after which SYMPHONY followed. As others have said, the clues were top-notch, some of which gave me plenty to think (and smile) about. I left ONE until last, having got the association with JOKE early on (it will soon be a chestnut, if it isn’t already), when I realised how it can mean ‘married’ as well in a certain context.

    Thanks to duncanshiell and Brockwell.

53. [Mis@51. Well worked out!

    Where is Blatz? Sorry, Blazt. Missed the crossers! ]

54. [MOH @51 , I had – Imprison ancestral shawl at blast zone .
    The 1=one a very naughty indirect anagram .
    The definition – wer ei nf or – is translated from Linear B .]

55. Many thanks to Duncan for such a wonderfully thorough blog. Also, thanks to all of you for the comments. My wonderful (professional clarinettist) daughter suggested this theme and I was cursing her at first, as it proved to be a very tricky grid fill. However, I’m so pleased that most of you seemed to enjoy the puzzle.

    Lord Jim @5 is quite right about the NA/SA parsing for NEW WORLD. I was quite pleased with that one. I have to admit that the inclusion of JOKE was a clumsy error on my part. I had thought that it was a nickname of a Mozart symphony (rather than a divertimento) and failed to do my due diligence. I should have stuck with a previous incarnation, which had LINZ in that slot, with LENINIST and SWIZ crossing. This would also have avoided the clue for ONE, which may have helped too! Humble apologies to the classical music aficionados, although I do appreciate the efforts of Duncan and others to get me out of a hole with the Haydn justification – ‘twas very kind of you!

    All the best, B

56. Thanks for dropping in, Grecian. LINZ would have been interesting!

57. Truss maybe bored by northern city

58. The puzzle was too hard for me, but the clues I managed I thoroughly enjoyed. I failed to spot the theme which didn’t help.

    With apologies to Grecian @55, I find SCOTTISH unfair, a drunk is a sot, but I feel that you have to squint too hard to find the non-existent ‘sottish’ to describe one who is reguarly lit. Could be because I didn’t get it.

    Mind you, I didn’t find ONE either, but it seems this side of OK. ‘Did you here the one’ is such a well used phrase that it seems fair that ‘joke’ could substitute for ‘one’. Can you make the same argument for EPISODE or BUS, as Sheffield Hatter queries? ‘The one about’ is a niche Friends gag, so, for me, no. Although ‘another one along in minute’ would pass. Mind you, you might use ‘two’ in a similar way, as in ‘you wait all day…’

    I also didn’t justify NEW WORLD or MERCURY, but they are quite brilliant clues.

    Thank you Duncanshiell for the detailed blog and Grecian/Brockwell for the puzzle.

59. Roberto @58 I am afraid I have to defend SCOTTISH using the dreaded Chambers93 .
    SOT = a habitual drunkard
    SOTTISH = like a sot
    quite enogh for me .

60. [sheffield hatter & Roz – I assumed Brockwell was invoking Stovold’s 2nd Amendment to the Anagram Convention, whereby Vs are ignored, along with every third A. And remember, it’s vital that it’s the third A that’s omitted, not the second or fourth! So, basically, pretty straightforward.]

61. [me @60 – naturally, I meant kenmac, not Brockwell. But you’ll have understood that, I’m sure, as such things are covered by the Mortimer Variation.]

62. If it is in Chambers, Roz @59, I accept defeat.

63. Grecian@55
    Thanks for clearing up the JOKE Symphony problem. If it’s any consolation, according to wiki, another nickname for the Divertimento applied after Mozart’s death, is Farmer’s Symphony.

64. [MOH @60 , since wer ei nf or is the sinister shawl stealing Cretan deity the V drops out naturally since it is not in the Linear B alphabet , also 1=one avoids the extra A or I so we can stick to simple Iastic Regulations .]

65. [Roz @64, your knowledge of the more arcane byways in these matters is always astounding]

66. Joke Symphony is a totally plausible mistake, one that any Haydn-loving musician might make. Far from detracting it suggested to me that Brockwell was working from memory and lent this delightful puzzle even more authenticity. My only disappointment was that the grid was a light short for Nielsen 4

67. Hadrian @66 If Nielsen 4 is true to its name it won’t need another light, will it?🙂

68. Got all mixed up with the ONE clue thinking that unmarried name is né so married would be not né or O né. Stupid I know

69. MOH@65[ I think Roz is applying the Ventris Principle here.]

70. It took me ages to get MERCURY and in the end I thought “handwriting tips” must refer to Mercury being a make of pens or pen nibs, which it is, in fact. I agree that Hg is much better though.

71. [ MOH@65 I was simply using your hard work and tidying up a bit . I also know that KenMac is a strict Heraclitan when setting clues so always follows the Iastic Protocols . ]

72. Zoot@67. I think the point about Neilsen’s 4th symphony is that its name in English (ignoring the definite article) is 16 letters long and all one word. (It’s a bit shorter in Danish, but rather difficult to clue, I would guess.)

73. Sheffield@72 – all true 🙏, just to parse Mr Zoot’s comment in case he’s in bed/at a concert, he was pointing out that if, say, a cigarette is that 16-letter word you will never be needing another light…😉

74. Hadrian @73 Thank you. Exactly what I meant.

75. Thank you, Brockwell for the great puzzle, and everyone for the equally great blog and discussion.

    Haydn had so many jokes in his symphonies, as Robi@41 notes. My favourite is the bassoon fart in #93. The CLOCK symphony is a series of jokes from start to finish; if you can find Jiri Kylian’s dance version you will see what I mean.

    I also loved Hadrian’s Nielsen 4 comment and the follow-ups, as well as the various parsings of Admin’s “clue” @46. What a wonderful site this is.

76. At the risk of sounding like the ultimate pedant after all the brilliance following Admin’s intervention, the Sinner vs Alcaraz match was truly sensational. Rob

77. Late arrival here. I just wanted to put in a word of support for Sheffield Hatter @47 on the subject of “one” being used to clue JOKE. I don’t like it. We use “one” to refer to an instance of just about any sort of thing when the context makes clear what sort of thing we’re talking about. That’s all that’s happening when we use it to mean “joke”. If that’s good enough for a definition, where does it end?

    I’d seen this trick before, so I knew what was intended, but I didn’t like it.

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