Guardian Summer Bank Holiday Jumbo 2025/ Maskarade

Blog now fully published

Apologies for the delay in publishing this blog.  Unfortunately, the puzzle did not have a blogger assigned and this wasn’t noticed until The Guardian published the solution earlier today..  Admin called for a volunteer to blog it late this morning.

There was a preamble for the puzzle: One each of the letter pairs AR, BRYR, ZR is omitted in wordplay among the across clues. The same applies for the letter pairs RA, RB …. RY, RZ in the downs, with two clues containing two omissions each.

Remaining clues are normal.

I did not solve the puzzle myself and used the Guardian solution to help with the wordplay.  I was also helped by a spreadsheet from Crossbar who had isolated the letter pairs omitted to the relevant clues.  This was particularly useful as a few of the normal clues also contained an xR or Rx letter pair.  Indeed, one of them, AR DR EAD ER actually contained three different occurrences.  I realise that Maskarade only wanted one omission of each distinct pair

Based on Crossbar’s spreadsheet, I can see that there were 26 distinct letter pairs omitted from wordplay in both the Acrosses and Downs.

The detailed blog showing wordplay is further below.

Across Letter pair Entry Could have omitted
1 AR SEARCH PARTY another AR
54 BR BREAK  
32 CR CROWS NEST  
53 DR RUN DRY  
29 ER PERTH  
52 FR WAGE FREEZE  
23 GR EGRETS  
20 HR THRESHES  
17 IR IRWELL  
16 JR BAJRA  
58 KR UKRAINE  
49 LR WALRUS  
26 MR MR TOAD  
46 NR GENRES  
15 OR PHANTASMAGORIA  
34 PR VIDE SUPRA  
25 QR QRENDI  
44 RR CIRRUS  
27 SR GOES ROUND  
43 TR PROTRUDES  
50 UR PUREEING  
48 VR SEVRES  
30 WR WRITE  
57 XR NOUVEAUX RICHES  
61 YR ANDY ROBERTS  
11 ZR EZRA  
7 TARMAC AR
14 TAVERNS ER
18 CARD READER AR, DR, ER
22 ROLLER ER
37 LOWRY WR
38 TWEET  
59 ISIS  
60 SYSTEM  

 

Down Letter pair Entry Could have omitted
2 RA EXTRA
5 RB ABSORBS
41 RC HIERARCHY
24 RD FORWARDS
6 RE TOP-SECRET
31 RF TURF
56 RG ERGO
12 RH RHINESTONE
36 RI EQUESTRIANS
50 RJ PERJURY
3 RK RIVER KENNET
35 RL INTERLEAVES
4 RM HERM
33 RN SEVERN
42 RO AGGRO
10 RP CHAIRPERSON
26 RQ MARQUEES
39 RR WINTERREISE
11 RS ECO-WARRIORS
55 RT AVERT
9 RU MASERU
21 RV HARVEY
24 RW FORWARDS
51 RX XERXES
50 RY PERJURY
28 RZ ORZO
8 ARTICLES RT
13 MAPLE-LEAF  
19 CHOIR  
40 FREEMASONS RE
45 RISING SUN RI
47 WATER ICE RI

Thanks to Maskarade for the puzzle.  I wonder how difficult it was to create the filled grid given the requirement to get 26 distinct combinations of letters into both the Across and Down entries.

Rows highlighted in yellow show the wordplay for the normal clues

This blog has been rather rushed. I apologise if there are any typos or spelling errors remaining.

No Detail Omitted
Across Letter pairs omitted from the wordplay ar shown in fuchsia
1 Rescue group ruined 29 cays (6,5) 

SEARCH PARTY (rescue group)

SECH PARTY (anagram of [ruined] PERTH [entry at 29 across] and CAYS)

SAR CH PARTY*

AR (once only)
7 Sailor – Scotsman? – gets pitch (6) 

TARMAC (pitch is a black shining residue of distillation of TAR etc; extended to various bituminous and resinous substances, one of which,TARMACadam, is used as a road surface)

TAR (sailor) + MAC (a term sometimes used to refer to a Scottish male)

TAR MAC

 
11 Pound of meat – just heart (4) 

EZRA (reference EZRA Pound [1885 – 1972], American poet and critic)

EA (middle letters of [just heart] mEAt_

ZR A

ZR
14 Servant dismissed from likely workplaces (7) 

TAVERNS (workplaces where you might have found servants in the past)

Anagram of (dismissed from) SERVANT

TAVERNS*

 
15 A Panama sight curated in series of illusive pictures (14) 

PHANTASMAGORIA (fantastic dreamlike series of illusive images or of real forms)

Anagram of (curated) A PANAMA SIGHT

PHANTASMAOR IA*

OR
16 Indian millet Abraham regularly supplied (5) 

BAJRA (a kind of Indian millet)

BAA (letters 2, 4 and 6 [regularly] of aBrAhAm

BA JR A

JR
17 Source of water for Mancunian flower (6) 

IRWELL (river that flows through Manchester; Mancunian flower)

WELL (source of water)

IR WELL

IR
18 Nurse admits fear of old data storage device (4,6) 

CARDREADER (a device, no longer widely used, for reading information on a punched card and transferring it to a computer; more up-to-date, a device for reading any card that holds digital information)

CARER (nurse) containing (admits) DREAD (an older word for fear)

CAR (DREAD) ER

 
20 Beats out some laminates he supplied (8) 

THRESHES (beats out)

TESHES (hidden word in [some] laminaTES HE Supplied)

T HR ESHES

HR
22 Posh car‘s two birds … (6) 

ROLLER (Rolls Royce; posh car)

ROLLER (a bird [genus Coracias] of a family related to the kingfishers, with a habit of flight like a tumbler pigeon;

also, a kind of canary with a soft trilling song;

hence, two birds)  double definition

ROLLER

 
23 … mementos regularly presenting birds (6) 

EGRETS (white herons of several species; birds)

EETS (letters 2, 4, 6 and 8 [regularly] of mEmEnToS

E GR ETS

GR
25 Dine out somewhere in Malta (6) 

QRENDI (a village in the western region of Malta)

Anagram of (out) DINE

QR ENDI*

QR
26 Fictional ‘washerwoman‘ gets pulled along, reportedly (2,4) 

MR TOAD (In Kenneth Grahame’s  [1859 – 1932], “The Wind in the Willows,” MR TOAD, disguised as a washerwoman to escape jail, encounters a female barge owner who offers him a ride in exchange for washing her clothes)

TOAD (sounds like [reportedly] TOWED [pulled along])

MR TOAD

MR
27 Mark leaves good menu lying about and calls in next door (4,5) 

GOES ROUND (calls in next door)

Anagram of (lying about) GOOD mENU excluding (leaving) M (mark, former German currency)

GOE S R OUND*

SR
29 Exercise – getting hot – in Scottish city (5) 

PERTH (Scottish city)

PT (physical training; exercise) + H (hot)

P ER T H

ER
30 Put pen to paper. That is about time (5) 

WRITE (put pen to paper)

IE (id est; that is) containing (about) T (time)

WR I (T) E

WR
32 SOS went out to lookout (5,4) 

CROWS NEST (an elevated platform near the top of a ship’s mast for a man on lookout)

Anagram of (out) SOS WENT

CR OWS NEST*

CR
34 Note to look up recording that’s not round USA, oddly (4,5) 

VIDE SUPRA (see above; note advising the reader to look further up the text)

VIDEo (recording of moving pictures) excluding (that’s not) O (a round character) + an anagram of (oddly) USA

VIDE SU PR A*

PR
37 This artist would become humble if he changed sides (5) 

LOWRY (reference the English artist L S LOWRY [1887 – 1976])

If the R (right) in LowRy were changed to L *left), thereby changing sides, we would have LOWLY (humble)

LOWRY

 
38 Sentimental time to comment on-line once (5) 

TWEET (reference the former online social media service Twitter (now known as X) where comments were known as TWEETs, so to comment was to TWEET)

TWEE (sentimental) + T (time)

TWEE T

 
43 Juts out, being endlessly most exultant (9) 

PROTRUDES (juts out)

PROUDES(most exultant) excluding the final letter T (endlessly)

PRO TR UDES

TR
44 Sky feature about headless pope (6) 

CIRRUS (highest form of clouds; sky feature)

C (circa; about) + pIUS (reference one one of many Popes who took the name PIUS.  There have been twelve so far)

C I RR US

RR
46 Types of tailless birds (6) 

GENRES (types)

GEESe (birds) excluding the final letter E (tailless)

GE NR ES

NR
48 Porcelain from the dioceses (6) 

SEVRES (porcelain made at SÈVRES near Paris)

SEES (dioceses)

SE VR ES

VR
49 Morse lived outside heart of Augusta (6) 

WALRUS (a morse is a walrus)

WAS (existed; lived) containing (outside) U (middle letter of [heart of] augUsta

WA LR (U) S

LR
50 Using a liquidiser on the loo? (8) 

PUREEING (using a liquidiser)

PEEING (urinating; on the loo)

P UR EEING

UR
52 Joke-teller at rest, we hear, with financial restriction (4,6) 

WAGE FREEZE (an example of financial restraint)

WAG (habitual joke-teller) +EEEZE (sounds like [we hear] EASE [rest from work)

WAGE FR EEZE

FR
53 Damon’s not working to cease the flow (3,3) 

RUN DRY (stop flowing; cease the flow)

RUNYon( reference Damon RUNYon[1880 – 1946], Americian journalist and short story writer) excluding (not) ON (working)

RUN DR Y

DR
54 Short holiday in Kenya (5) 

BREAK (short holiday)

EAK (International Vehicle Registration for East Africa or Kenya)

BR EAK

BR
57 Middle of queue taking anchovies to unsettle upstarts (8,6) 

NOUVEAUX RICHES (people with newly acquired wealth, but without good taste or manners; upstarts)

Anagram of (unsettle) UEU (central letters of [middle of] qUEUe) and ANCHOVIES

NOUVEAU X R ICHES*

XR
58 University at oldest French republic (7) 

UKRAINE (reference the Republic of UKRAINE)

U (university) + AINÉ (French word for elder or senior; oldest French)

U KR AINE

KR
59 Lives – again – in river (4) 

ISIS (river that flows through Oxford into the Thames)

IS (lives) + IS (lives, again)

IS IS

 
60 Ends of branches regularly block the way (6) 

SYSTEM (method of procedure; the way)

SY (last letters of [ends of] each of brancheS and regularlY) + STEM (stop; block)

SY STEM

 
61 West Indian fast bowler twirling red batons (4,7) 

ANDY ROBERTS (reference ANDY ROBERTS [born 1951; former West Indian fast bowler)

Anagram of (twirling) RED BATONS

AND Y R OBERTS*

YR
Down    
2 Former leading territorial, one in the crowd (5) 

EXTRA (a person temporarily engaged for a minor part in a film, etc, eg to be one of a crowd)

EX (former) + T (first letter of [leading] Terrestrial)

EX T RA

RA
3 Intervene disastrously in chalk stream (5,6) 

RIVER KENNET (one of the largest tributaries of the River Thames and an example of a chalk stream)

Anagram of (disastrously) INTERVENE

RIVE R K ENNET*

RK
4 Island chief regularly seen (4) 

HERM (an island in the bailiwick of Guernsey in the Channel Islands)

HE (letters 2 and 4 [regularly seen] of cHiEf)

HE RM

RM
5 Takes in seaman’s emergency call (7) 

ABSORBS (takes in)

AB (able seaman) + SOS (call signifying an emergency)

AB SO RB S

RB
6 Confidential leading cult (3-6) 

TOP-SECRET (confidential)

TOP (leading) + SECT (cult)

TOP SEC RE T

RE
8 Clarinets playing no new pieces (8) 

ARTICLES (pieces)

Anagram of (playing) CLARInETS excluding (no) N (new)

ARTICLES*

 
9 Capital city‘s embassies regularly exposed (6) 

MASERU (capital city of Lesotho in Southern Africa)

MASE (letters 2, 4, 6 and 8 [regularly exposed] of eMbAsSiEs)

MASE RU

RU
10 Head of the board having spiced tea with worried senor (11) 

CHAIRPERSON (head of the board of Directors or Governors for instance)

CHAI (a strong black tea; spiced tea) + an anagram of (worried) SENOR

CHAI RP ERSON*

RP
11 English lily-livered fellow dropped dead on city greens (3-8) 

ECO-WARRIORS (people who are willing to take direct, and often illegalaction on environmental issues; greens)

E (English) + COWARd (lily-livered fellow) excluding (dropped) the D (dead) + RIO (RIO de Janiero, city in Brazil)

E COWAR RIO RS

RS
12 Island home with single imitation diamond (10) 

RHINESTONE (imitation diamond made of paste.)

I (island) + NEST (home for a bird) + ONE (single)

RH I NEST ONE

RH
13 Female pal screwed up rag (5-4) 

MAPLE-LEAF (reference the MAPLE-LEAF rag by Scott Joplin [1868 – 1917], American composer and pianist)

Anagram of (screwed up) FEMALE PAL

MAPLE LEAF*

 
19 Vocalists having sheets, we’re told (5) 

CHOIR (group of vocalist)

CHOIR (sounds like [we’re told) QUIRE (24 or 25 sheets of paper)

CHOIR

 
21 Word of agreement upset rabbit on film (6) 

HARVEY (reference a 1950 film of the same name which featured a rabbit [or similar shaped creature] named HARVEY)

YEAH (word of agreement) reversed (upset)

HA RV EY<

RV
24 Sportspeople going ahead ruining sofa (8) 

FORWARDS (players in various sports; sportspeople)

Anagram of (running) SOFA

FO RW A RD S*

RD and RW
26 Drunken housemates shot out of tents (8) 

MARQUEES (large tents)

Anagram of (drunken) hoUsEMAtES excluding (out) the letters in SHOT

MA RQ UEES*

RQ
28 Two rounds of pasta (4) 

ORZO (pasta in the form of small pieces.like rice or barley)

O (round shaped character) + O (round shaped character) giving two rounds

O RZ O

RZ
31 In France you will get grass (4) 

TURF (grass)

TU (one form of ‘you’ in France)

TU RF

RF
33 Sabrina was a Spanish golfer (6) 

SEVERN (Sabrina is the mythological goddess and spirit of the River SEVERN, the longest river in  Britain)

SEVE (reference SEVEriano Ballasteros [1957 – 2011], Spanish golfer)

SEVE RN

RN
35 Inserts pages into Vietnamese rewritten without marks (11) 

INTERLEAVES (insert blank leaves or pages) i

Anagram of (rewritten ) VIETNAmESE excluding (without) M (marks as in currencies of old)

INTE RL EAVES*

RL
36 They’re up to ask take-away with some beans – can’t be! (11) 

EQUESTRIANS (horse riders; people who are up [on a horse])

rEQUEST (ask) excluding (away) R (recipe; Latin for ‘take’) + beANS excluding (can’t) BE

EQUEST RI ANS

RI
39 Comedian wearing a popular slip-on shirt for song-cycle (11) 

WINTERREISE (German for Winter Journey,  a song cycle for voice and piano by Franz Schubert  [1797 – 1828], a setting of 24 poems by German poet Wilhelm Müller)

WISE (reference the comedian Ernie WISE [1925 – 1999], one of the duo Morecambe and WISE) containing (wearing [?]) IN [popular] + TEE  [slip-on shirt])

W (IN TE RR E) ISE

RR
40 Unattached family folk who meet at The Lodge? (10) 

FREEMASONS (people who meet at a FREEMASONS lodge)

FREE (unattached) + (MA [mother] + SONS [children], together forming a family; family folk))

FREE MA SONS

 
41 Disheartened hitchhiker turned hay for those at the top (9) 

HIERARCHY (the group of people who control an organization)

HIER (letters remaining in HItchhikER when the six central lettersT CHHIK are removed [disheartend]) + an anagram of (turned) HAY

HIER A RC HY*

RC
42 Macho behaviour of amateur 36’s ride, it is said (5) 

AGGRO (aggression; macho behavior)

A (amateur) + GG (gee-gee;  horse in terms of racing and betting)

A GG RO

RO
45 Dawn at the Animals’ House (6,3) 

RISING SUN (the RISING SUN is seen at dawn)

RISING SUN (reference the song ‘House of the RISING SUN‘ recorded by The Animals in 1964)  double definition

RISING SUN

 
47 Wife takes a moment to consume last of the confection (5,3) 

WATER ICE (dessert; confection)

W (wife) + (takes) A + (TRICE [moment] containing [to consume] E [final letter of {last of} thE)

W A T (E) R ICE

 
50 In France, a little oath-breaking (7) 

PERJURY (lying under oath; oath-breaking)

PEU (French [in France] word for ‘a little’)

PE RJ U RY

RJ and RY
51 Former partner from the Home Counties always backing Darius’s successor (6) 

XERXES (in late 486BC, XERXES succeeded his father DARIUS as King of Persia)

EX (former partner) reversed (backing) + SE (South East ; area of England where the Home Counties are located) reversed (backing) – both components are reversed, so ‘always backing’)

XE< RX ES<

RX
55 Ward off hail (5) 

AVERT (ward off)

AVE (hail!)

AVE RT

RT
56 So game (4) 

ERGO (therefore; so)

EO (a mid-18th century gambling game, depending on a ball falling into slots marked either E or O)

E RG O

RG

38 comments on “Guardian Summer Bank Holiday Jumbo 2025/ Maskarade”

  1. Really enjoyed this after I finally worked out how to deal with the special clues (i.e most of them) – but several clues not parsed so looking forward to the blog.

  2. I look forward to the Bank Holiday Jumbo crosswords while knowing that sometimes I won’t manage at all. That was my first thought on seeing the special instructions on this one. But I wrote down all the pairs in two lists – the crosses (?R) and the downs (R?) – and started finding the answers for the clues for each pair. Got a few answers in the top half (MR TOAD being one of the first) and began to make progress.

    I enjoyed it a lot – took me ages but eventually finished except for one clue – and a few unparsed.

    My favourites were: EZRA (made me laugh), THRESHES, WINTERREISE, PERJURY, ORZO, FORWARDS, XERXES

    Thanks Maskarade and duncanshiell

  3. This took me most of the week, but I (just about) got there eventually, with lots of internet searching (e.g. is there a film rabbit called Harvey? does Sabrina have anythihg to do with the Severn?).

    I’d agree with Fiona’s likes, and add PUREEING and NOUVEAUX RICHES.

    My only quibble is with HIERARCHY – surely “those at the top” are HIERARCHS? But that didn’t work with “turned hay”, so I left the last letter blank (hence the “just about” got there).

    Thanks to Maskerade (it must take an age to produce something like this) and to duncanshiell (especially for stepping in at the last minute).

  4. Glad to be of some use duncanshiell, and thank you for the blog. That must have been quite a task at short notice.Great & really helpful colour coding.
    I found this puzzle great fun to do, and got their in the end with a little help from Google.
    Thanks Maskarade.

  5. I actually got on with this pretty well once I got the hang of it and made a list of the omissions and ticked them off as I went. Missed out on one answer though, and not ashamed to admit that Mr Google helped out a bit.

    I seem to recall a previous Maskarade special where a Maltese placename appeared where the theme required Q to be followed by R?

  6. It’s an extremely minor quibble but isn’t it a feature of Harvey (1950) that the rabbit doesn’t appear ‘on film’?

  7. chris@6 To quibble a little more, Harvey appears in the film in a painting (and of course we see his footprints).

  8. Loved it but had to use google once or twice, and I needed to remember my Latin (which failed me on VIDE SUPRA). Thanks Maskarade, as always: a great entertainment

  9. I finished this the day it appeared in the newspaper, a first for me with these jumbos. Had to cheat somewhat with the Maltese placename, having three letter pairs still to fit in, and the QR could have been anywhere! Bunged in ROLLER, so thanks to Duncan for looking up those two birds! Felt pleased with myself to have remembered ANDY ROBERTS, when there are so many great West Indian fast bowlers to choose from.

    Thanks to Maskarade and Duncan for stepping up to the plate.

    Simon@8. What a strange thing to say! How can a sight of the blog have retrospectively justified your decision not to bother? Even stranger is to come here and tell us all about it. In my experience, there is more fun to be had by attempting a crossword than by not bothering, but I guess it takes all kinds.

  10. [Marianne@12 I don’t know if this will be of any use to you, but I obtained my print version of the relevant Guardian online from BorrowBox and screen grabbed & printed the crossword from that.
    BorrowBox is an online book, audio book and magazine/newspaper lending service that many libraries in the UK subscribe to. If you have a library card from one of these you can sign on to BorrowBox for free. It keeps back copies of newspapers for about a fortnight.]

  11. Duncanshiell, very well done on blogging this so quickly. I can find no issues with the parsing. One thing, though, is that the grid showing the puzzle has blocked off much of the middle (12th) line down, so 13d and 41d do not appear.

    I felt this was relatively easy for a holiday jumbo, finishing it by Sunday evening. Thanks, Maskarade. Only 52a did I have trouble parsing, with all the Es, so this blog has helped.

    Marianne@12, what do you need more than is in this blog? If you are prepared to give your email, I can try to send you a copy of my newspaper, marked with my scribbles. But it will tell you little more than duncanshiell has.

    But the question remains, why did the Guardian publish one puzzle in print and a different one online? This brought about letters of complaint – one is in the 30 August paper, but is not answered. Anyone have a view?

  12. sjshart@14. I guess that Marianne wanted to have a go at the crossword before reading the blog. 😊

    I’m a Guardian subscriber and always do the crossword in the paper. So it was disappointing that the Enigmatist was online only. I don’t enjoy solving online, so I feel a little deprived – I haven’t even looked at it!

  13. sjshart @ 14

    Well spotted! Doing the blog in a bit of a hurry, I simply forgot to create the entries down the central column of the grid. If you had looked very closely, you would have noticed that all the clue numbers after 12 were incorrectly placed in the original grid.

    Normally, I check that the last clue number in a grid is correct, but clearly I didn’t yesterday.

    It’s all sorted now and the grid in the blog has been updated.

  14. An excellent, challenging and enjoyable puzzle. PERJURY was my last one in, as I had thought only of working with PETIT plus one letter pair, whereas PEU (arguably a better match for ‘a little’) was needed.

    Thanks to Maskarade, and to duncanshiell for his sterling effort in producing a last-minute jumbo blog for us.

  15. kenmac @16
    Seems a fairly blatant breach of copyright to post the crossword. If the Guardian had intended it to be freely available to those who don’t buy the newspaper, then they would have posted it on their website.

  16. Absorbing puzzle. I struggled with PERJURY and VIDE SUPRA. As to be expected with a puzzle like this, I had a few NHOs – QRENDI, MASERU, BAJRA and WINTERREISE. To my shame, I also didn’t know the IRWELL.
    Very clever to fit all the themers, especially QR, XR and the reverse.
    A couple of quibbles: I didn’t like “leading territorial” for T in 2d and a CARD READER is surely a device that unlocks a data storage device rather than being one itself.
    Fun to complete. I often don’t have time for the jumbos, so this was satisfying.
    Thanks, Maskarade and duncanshiell for the excellent last minute blog.

  17. A mammoth blogging task – thanks!

    I was convinced ERGO had been misclued -“obviously” the game was GO, but that meant ER were the missing letters, which belonged in an across clue.
    Despite that, we managed to complete it after several days!

  18. Van Winkle @19 – ypu are assuming that the non-appearance of this puzzle online (and the non-appearance of the Enigmatist prize puzzle in the newspaper) were intentional rather than another Grauniad snafu; I don’t think this is proven or indeed provable.

    I thoroughly enjoyed the 75% or so if this puzzle that I solved. I had to give up in the end because the grid in the newspaper was so small that many of the numbers in the grid were illegible even with my reading glasses on ! Time to return to Specsavers, methinks….

  19. sjshart @14,

    I was one who wrote a letter of complaint, which has drawn silence from The Guardian. Personally I think something went seriously wrong in the build-up to the Bank Holiday weekend which they aren’t prepared to admit to for whatever reason. But in the absence of any comment from the newspaper, we
    can only speculate.

  20. As usual, a most entertaining and clever puzzle by Maskarade. It is a shame that it seems to be the object of some confusion at the Guardian, perhaps resulting in the fewer than usual comments received in this blog.

    Being from the North-west, my first entry was IRWELL and last was PERJURY with EQUESTRIANS not fully parsed since we were unaware of the Latin for take compounded by the use of just its initial letter. I thought that perhaps ‘runaway’, with a change of the end phrase, had been intended!

    Many thanks to M and, of course, the truly heroic duncanshielll.

  21. JohnB@24 I must say I’m surprised you’ve had no reply from the Graun. I’ve had occasion to write to them several times for various reasons and always had a speedy and helpful response.

  22. Crossbar@26,

    I wish I shared your surprise. I don’t believe they want to have to explain the whole mess unless forced to.

  23. I know exactly what happened with the publication problems of my BH Jumbo. But I do not feel it is gentlemanly to enter this discussions without permission from HQ. Suffice it to say, the explanations are valid and I for one, as the compiler, had no qualms about the difference in formats on the day.

  24. Found a copy thanks to my local library’s subscription to the Pressreader app (other online newspaper providers are available). Always admire the skill needed to produce puzzles like this. Got most of it done but was distracted by the Enigmatist that came out at same time albeit online. Thank you for the blog – nothing new to add to previous comments – and to Maskerade for the BH jumbo tradition.

  25. Maskarade@28. I accept that you don’t have any qualms about the difference in formats (yours in the paper and Enigmatist’s online) but some of us do. The experience of the solvers should have been important to the Guardian crossword editor, shouldn’t it? Solvers in faraway places were unable to attempt yours, as photonelly@30 has reminded us, so were inconvenienced; as were those of us who, despite perhaps being fairly comfortable with electronic devices for most things, do not enjoy solving crosswords like that.

    If you “know exactly what happened with the publication problems of my BH Jumbo”, why is the crossword editor not being forthcoming about it?

    If it can be reproduced adequately in a print newspaper, why can a pdf not be made available online, as has happened for many years? And why was your jumbo replaced online by an Enigmatist, depriving paper solvers of that experience?

    Finally, can we expect similar cock-ups at future UK Bank Holidays?

    Apologies for directing my ire in your direction, but it was your choice to stick your head above the parapet!

    Thanks for the crossword, as I have already said @11 but you have perhaps missed. 🙂

  26. sheffield hatter @32 – solvers in faraway places were able to attempt the crossword if they had paid for a subscription to the Guardian Editions app (and continue to be able to do so). This is more a reminder of how such solvers are generally convenienced by having free access to the crossword.

  27. I always look forward to Maskarade’s BH crosswords – this one was enjoyable as usual. The previous puzzle in this format was more satisfying because of the theme word which served as a double check on everything (if that makes sense) – I’m already looking forward to the Xmas challenge!

  28. As I live in Belgium I could not buy the paper but did manage to buy a single issue digital edition from the guardian pressreader website. However I found that the printout was not formatted as nicely for solving as the normal pdf – if I scaled the printout so that the text of the clues was a reasonable size, this led to the text printing out slightly blurred. However it was still OK to solve. The crossword, as usual for a Maskarade BH jumbo, was great. These BH puzzles usually take me a couple of days to solve but I usually get there, as opposed to e.g. Genius crosswords which also sometimes have interesting features like those used by Maskarade, but which I usually find too difficult.

  29. BenWinn @35 the crossword in the paper was also printed too small for some reason. Also I’m not sure why there wasn’t an online entry otherwise I’d’ve sent it in (I haven’t bothered with postal entry for probably 20 years!)

  30. I never manage to finish these but I always enjoy the journey. Maskarade’s appearance @28 leads me to hope that he is keeping an eye on this blog (even yet) and that my thanks for this (and many other jumbo puzzles) will register.

    And as usual I am astonished at the percipience of our esteemed blogger.

  31. I loved this puzzle – the genius of Maskarade is that the puzzles are fun, lighthearted rather than just complex. Like a delicious pastry. Carried it around for days and almost finished it but not quite because I didn’t know the Latin and didn’t want to look anything up. Very grateful

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