I can’t believe that there was anyone who missed the theme in this week’s Prize puzzle from Brendan.
Almost every clue, along with many of the answers, has a reference to trees or to wood of some kind. There were some easy anagrams and hidden answers to help us get started, but also some quite obscure tree references (e.g. at 18 down) which took a little time to uncover. Timon and I were left with just the one answer (at 20 down) which we weren’t initially able to parse fully; I think that I have now worked it out.
Many thanks to Brendan.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | FELLOW |
Hack down willow without determination, mate (6)
|
| FELL (hack down) OW (willOW without determination, i.e. without will). | ||
| 4 | OBOIST |
Player holding old wood from elsewhere beside tee (6)
|
| BOIS (French for wood, so wood from elsewhere) inside O(ld) T(ee). | ||
| 9 | WREN |
Great architect, builder of treehouse (4)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 10 | DOUBLETREE |
Part of horsedrawn vehicle left when European departs 1d or 19 (10)
|
| DOUBLE TREE; which is what you get if you remove the letter E(uropean) from the answers to 1d and 19d (FIR BOX and YEW ASH, respectively). | ||
| 11 | ABJECT |
Miserable sailor caught in plane (6)
|
| AB (able seaman) C(aught) in JET (plane). | ||
| 12 | UNEARTHS |
Discovers last of beech nuts are spoilt (8)
|
| *((beec)H NUTS ARE). | ||
| 13 | EXONERATE |
Clear misuse of axe on tree (9)
|
| *(AXE ON TREE). | ||
| 15 | ELMS |
Key limes oddly deficient as trees (4)
|
| E (musical key) LiMeS (odd letters removed). | ||
| 16 | SAXE |
Small feller’s tool, kind of blue (4)
|
| S(mall) AXE. Saxe blue is a dye colour. | ||
| 17 | RED PLANET |
Mars rose or cherry tree put in ahead of time (3,6)
|
| RED (rose or cherry) PLANE (tree) T(ime). | ||
| 21 | PALOMINO |
Ring in tree I reportedly know, something like chestnut or bay (8)
|
| O (ring) in PALM (tree), I NO (sounds like “I know”). | ||
| 22 | ABELES |
A pollinator’s seen around large poplars (6)
|
| L(arge) in A BEE’S. The abele is the white poplar-tree. | ||
| 24 | BOOK JACKET |
Leaves are bound to be given its protection (4,6)
|
| A cryptic definition; no wordplay as such that we could see. | ||
| 25 | DEAL |
Pine, perhaps, for building agreement (4)
|
| Another double definition. “Deal” describes boards of fir or pine of a standard size. | ||
| 26 | TINDER |
Twigs, say, can turn a bright colour (6)
|
| TIN (can) RED (bright colour, rev). | ||
| 27 | SCORCH |
Quickly move from second section of rustic orchard (6)
|
| S(econd) + hidden in “rustic orchard”. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | FIREBOX |
Use gun then use fists in really hot spot (7)
|
| A charade of FIRE (use gun) and BOX (use fists), | ||
| 2 | LANCE |
Cut cedar, initially in way (5)
|
| C(edar) inside LANE. | ||
| 3 | OLDSTER |
American word for elder in Arnold’s terminology (7)
|
| Hidden in “Arnolds terminology”. | ||
| 5 | BALDER |
Black part of forest, comparatively leafless (6)
|
| B(lack) ALDER (a forest tree). | ||
| 6 | INTER ALIA |
Italian tree’s interior destroyed, not in isolation (5,4)
|
| *(ITALIAN (trRE(e)). | ||
| 7 | TEETHES |
Isn’t comfortable around gum trees right away concealing article (7)
|
| THE (article) inside T(r)EES. | ||
| 8 | GUM UP THE WORKS |
Eucalyptus, say, he put out with plant put stop to everything (3,2,3,5)
|
| GUM (eucalyptus, say) *(HE PUT) WORKS (plant, in the factory sense). | ||
| 14 | NEXT OF KIN |
Fox in Kent disturbed those closest in tree? (4,2,3)
|
| *(FOX IN KENT); the tree is the family tree. | ||
| 16 | SEAPORT |
Place such as 25 where bark may be secured (7)
|
| Cryptic definition, using “bark” as the variant spelling of “barque” or ship. Deal is one of the historic Cinque Ports (there are more than five in total). | ||
| 18 | PLASTIC |
Artificial trees one turned over, caught by cop (7)
|
| SAL (rev) (a large N Indian tree), TI (a small Pacific tree) both enclosed in PC (police constable, or cop). This, along with ELDER and VISAGE, was among the last answers we parsed. | ||
| 19 | EYEWASH |
It helps one clearly see nonsense (7)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 20 | VISAGE |
Face what’s hard in 10? Wise man (6)
|
| This was difficult. You have to take the answer to 10 ac (DOUBLETREE) and insert an H(ard) – there’s only one place it can go, giving you DOUBLE THREE. 2 x 3 = 6 = VI (six in Roman numerals) the rest is SAGE (wise man). | ||
| 23 | ELDER |
Source of berries delivered some time before (5)
|
| I think that this is a double definition, referring to the elder tree and its berries, and to older people, who may be said to have been delivered (i.e. born) some time before. |
I think it unlikely that a wren would nest in a tree.
Thanks bridgesong. Never did divine PLASTIC and contented myself by assuming that ‘hard’ in 19d should have been ‘half’.
4. The only way OBOIST makes sense is if “holding” is considered a juxtaposition indicator i.e. O+BOIS next to T. I can’t see it as a container indicator the way the clue is written.
20. Got VISAGE, but agree the logic is a bit too convoluted. I couldn’t explain the VI.
23. Got ELDER but I like your explanation for the second definition (delivered some time before)
DOUBLE T(H)REE is six/VI
My faves: DOUBLE TREE, RED PLANET, INTER ALIA, VISAGE and ELDER.
OBOIST
Agree with Shafar@3 on ‘holding’.
Thanks Brendan and bridgesong.
Actually the even letters in KEY LIMES gives us the answer without needing to divine an actual musical key.
Like others there were a couple I couldn’t parse, so thanks Brendan for the challenge and bridgesong for the explanations.
Thanks bridgesong. Very impressed by the tree references in every clue, and all done without making any of the those clues feel overly forced to fit the theme. I learned something about horsed carriages and the names of a couple of new trees from doing this (Abele, Alder) and would have learned a couple more (Sal and Ti) if only I’d been able to parse PLASTIC; thanks for the explanation. I’m glad you said VISAGE was tricky; that was my other unparsed answer. Both impressive and fun; thanks Brendan.
Just the parsing of PLASTIC defeated me.
Amazing to get a tree into every clue.
Thanks both.
A beautiful puzzle and a great blog. I couldn’t parse PLASTIC and VISAGE, – the latter a marvel, as is the DOUBLE TREE clue itself. It is impressive that there’s a tree reference in every clue. Thanks Brendan and bridgesong!
Zoot@1 – they do, in cavities on a tree.
Delightful puzzle. Clever use of the unmissable theme in clues and answers. 10a DOUBLETREE, second last in and nho, gave a delightful pdm with its resonance with 1d FIREBOX and 19d EYEWASH, and the concurrent revelation of the wordplay in those solutions. That alone was worth the price of admission. Fantastic!
Many other ticks, including 9a WREN (“builder of treehouse”, despite Zoot@1), 1d FIREBOX (“Use gun then use fists”), 7d TEETHES (“Isn’t comfortable around gum”), 23d ELDER (“delivered some time before”)
Further to Andy Luke @6 re 15a ELMS, taking “Key limes” as a whole makes “oddly deficient” work properly (i.e. remove the odd letters)
27a SCORCH, notable for having container as only part of a clue. Have we seen that before?
Couldn’t fully parse 18d PLASTIC or 20d VISAGE, so thank you bridgesong
If we accept that 20d VISAGE relates to the theme (“Doublet(h)ree”?), then Brendan has actually included the theme in every single clue/solution (as pointed out by HYD@8 and Layman@9). Cleverly managed it in 14d NEXT OF KIN (“those closest in tree”), 16d SEAPORT (“where bark may be secured”), 24d BOOK JACKET (“Leaves are bound…”). Last (first?) time he managed that was 29,861
Thanks for the blog , I am not keen on themes in the clues but very fond of trees so this was fine and very well done . DOUBLETREE is very clever and the VI bit of VISAGE is brilliant . PLASTIC a bit of a stretch with the obscure trees , only seen those two from Azed .
DEAL I had as – Pine , perhaps , for building – as a first definition .
I agree with Andy@6 for ELMS ( and Mig ) and yes S(CORCH) is a bit unusual .
Layman@9 , I agree for the wrens , ours often use the holes made by the yaffles the year before .
Unpopular opinion: I don’t see the point of a theme if it doesn’t help. There wasn’t a clue where I thought, “we’re on trees, so it could be this”. Does it enhance misdirection and therefore the puzzle? Not for me. I know from setting quizzes that a theme can help the setter though, so maybe it’s more about that. Oh, I see I crossed with Roz.
I agree with Zoot @1 about wrens.
I haven’t got out of bed the wrong side (or at all) today. I still liked the puzzle and thought that FIREBOX, EYEWASH and DOUBLETREE were an outstanding set of interdependent clues. The related clue for VISAGE was also very good but I realise in retrospect that I didn’t parse it so thank you bridgesong.
Thanks Brendan
Good puzzle – didn’t parse PLASTIC or SCORCH
Liked: FELLOW, WREN, PALOMINO, TINDER, SEAPORT, VISAGE
Thanks Brendan and bridgesong
Thanks for explaining PLASTIC.
I got VISAGE from the definition and well before DOUBLETREE ( I struggled with ‘YWASH’ for a while) but it was a neat back-parse.
I took “holding’ in the OBOIST clue in the sense of declaring a truth “I hold that jam on clotted cream is the way to prepare one’s scone”
I wonder if Brendan was tempted to link the VI part of Visage to the Irish dental stop when it comes to pronouncing “th”.
Super puzzle and very helpful blog.
Thank you.
Very smoothly done and I certainly enjoyed the surface theme. Wouldn’t want one every puzzle but this was elegantly done and a fine example of the setter’s art. DOUBLETREE was just a delightful idea.
Thanks both
I parsed PLASTIC as 1 LAST (shoe tree) turned over as LASTI in PC. OK a last isn’t quite the same thing as a shoe tree but SAL and TI are very obscure. But I’ll admit it was a bit of a straw-clutching!
I think “holding” works as a containment indicator in 4a if you read the clue with a break between “old” and “wood”.
Thanks to Brendan and bridgesong
I’m with those who think wrens nest in trees, along with the RSPB, who say:
“Males build several different nests in the nooks and crannies of trees, climbers, walls and banks”
I didn’t parse PLASTIC or VISAGE beyond the sage, but enjoyed this last week – knowing all the trees except the TI and SAL, but I had to look up the DOUBLETREE.
Thank you to bridgesong and Brendan
Very entertaining crossword.
I see a theme like this an another example of how Guardian setters always try to inject a bit of fun, however serious the cluing might otherwise be. The Times and others are usually just a bit dry, for all their ingenuity.
As an oboist I’m always happy to see the instrument represented.
Doubletree was clever (when I realised what was going on).
I think themes can add to the enjoyment of a puzzle both by pleasure in seeing the ingenuity of the setter and by temporarily distracting the solver making it more of an achievement when you finally see the wood for the trees as it were.
I know about wrens’ cavity nesting habits. I just didn’t think that sufficiently arboreal for ‘ treehouse’. I’ve seen a foxhole among the roots of an oak. Is that a treehouse? I suppose here it is. I’m happy to be in the minority.
I should have added ‘or in a tree’ after the word treehouse above.
I know Qaos is the “there’s always a theme” setter, but Brendan is up there too, and when he goes for it he goes all in. This was one of his most ingenious, but everything was completely solvable (admittedly I didn’t work out DOUBLE T-H-REE for 6=VI, but in hindsight I should have “twigged”).
So many clever touches and tree references, with just a few Guess-then-Googles: DOUBLETREE, LAS, SAXE and ABELES all added to the list of things I know thanks to crosswords.
My favourites were probably ELDER for “delivered some time before” and the symmetrically positioned DOUBLETREEs in FIREBOX and EYEWASH.
Petert @21 beat me to it with the “wood for the trees” comment, but did it very neatly.
Thanks to Brendan and bridgesong for setting and sorting respectively
Thanks for this bridgesong!
Thoroughly enjoyed this one. Never fully parsed PLASTIC (got SAL, but not TI), so this was helpful.
I’m 99% sure that, for OBOIST, “holding” is simply a link word. You see it more in barred puzzles, but you absolutely can get: “definition *having* wordplay”. It works best when the clue is a charade, as in “Solution has/contains/holds XYZ”. (Presumably it’s avoided in blocked puzzles because it can confusingly misdirect towards containment in the wordplay.)
So here, OBOIST literally holds (contains) an abbreviation for Old + a non-English word for wood, beside T(ee).
Given the clue’s phrasing, anything else seems contorted to me!
For OBOIST I see ‘holding’ being used as in comments on card games like bridge or poker. “What should North play when holding A, Q and 10?”, for example. (Edit: Karol#25 has a similar thought.)
I enjoyed working out the part of VISAGE that related to 10a. Like Forest Fan@15 I thought first of the snooker player and pundit Ken Doherty saying “THREE” in his delightful Dublin accent.
I think the use of two obscure trees to form PLASTIC shows a weakness of allowing a theme to take over a whole puzzle. A comment rather than a criticism, as I enjoyed this crossword immensely, and I didn’t mind missing out on just the one parsing.
Thanks to Brendan and Bridgesong.
I’m with Woody @20 even though I’ve no tree connection in my handle. A thoroughly entertaining puzzle. Many thanks to Brendan and to bridgesong for decoding VISAGE.
The theme was obvious even to me, but I’m kicking myself on missing WREN (the redundant ‘great’ misled me), and I think the derivation of PLASTIC is much too obscure even though the solution was obvious. Are we really expected to know these particular trees?
I totally agree with the first paragraph of Mig’s comment @10 – and, in fact, pretty much all of the rest of it, so I’ve nothing to add, except huge thanks to Brendan and Bridgesong and Timon (and I parsed DEAL as Roz did @11).
Very entertaining and clever as always from Brendan. Could BALDER be part of the theme (as well as having ALDER in it)? — alternative spelling of Baldur / Baldr, the Norse god killed by a mistletoe dart?
Many thanks Brendan and bridgesong.
Zoot@22 , perhaps there are two sorts of treehouse , the one you build with planks etc on the branches , many birds nest like this on a smaller scale . Also a house inside the tree , The Pogles for example or Moonface and Silky . Our male wren is making nests now in holes quite high up left by woodpeckers .
Another example of Brendan’s mastery in setting. I found it difficult, and I spent ages on deciphering VISAGE before the PDM. I also liked DOUBLETREE, very clever, the nicely misleading PALOMINO not being a tree, TEETHES with it’s gum tree, and another gum tree in GUM UP THE WORKS.
Thanks Brendan and bridgesong.
I really enjoyed this one despite having to come here to understand the parsing for plastic.
Doubletree was great with the two beautifully linked source answers, and the excellent construction of visage. It reminded me of the rugby player Billy Twelvetrees, known as 36 thanks to his captain Geordan Murphy’s pronunciation of his name.
Pleasant puzzle for my weekly solve. I finished a few days early, but failed to explain a few clues, so well done bridgesong and others for figuring them out. Yes, VI in VISAGE was constructively hard. Also, didn’t know the obscure trees in PLASTIC and the alternative spelling of barque.
Eoink#33
I had the same thought about Billy Twelvetrees at 10a. It helped with parsing 20d. Having got 10a from the crossers I Googled DOUBLETREE and found a page of references to a new name for Hilton hotels with another 10 to come. At that I got out of my chair and went to look in Chambers.
Brian#17
I tried the same parsing as you for 18d. I used to prefer Brendan’s puzzles before, as he said here, he decided it was more fun for him as a setter to include a theme. There were fewer obscurities like here and 10a.
Thanks to Brendan and bridgesong.
Is there a different way to pronounce “Twelvetrees” than the obvious?
Thanks to Brendan and bridgesong.
Valentine @36; the Irish pronunciation of three sounds like tree
What Eileen said @29 ..
[…and thanks for before, re her late Maj’s cream teas. Lovely to see you up and about!]
Pino @ 35 Brendan has been including themes in his puzzles for years. He did once produce one without a theme, which had a nina along the lines of “THERE IS NO THEME IN THIS PUZZLE”.
SimonS#39
Yes but I can remember when he didn’t.
I laughed out loud when the penny dropped on VISAGE – then I laughed even more when, on explaining the source of the hilarity to Mrs TTP, she was confused because, being Irish, DOUBLETREE and double three both sound the same.
In OBOIST I interpreted “holding” as per Karol @25 and Sheffield hatter @26.
Like others, I needed the blog for the parsing of PLASTIC, having nho either tree.
Many thanks to Brendan and bridgesong.
Another who couldn’t parse PLASTIC here (and got nowhere near VISAGE!).
Agree with Petert @ 21.
Compliments, Brendan. Great fun.
A super puzzle, with a much-appreciated and well-executed theme. I had to go back over two clues (PLASTIC and VISAGE, to nobody’s surprise) but managed to work them out eventually.
Thanks to Brendan and bridgesong.
[Robi @37: as in the very old (and probably politically incorrect) joke where Pat says to Mike: “It says here Tree Fellers wanted. Pity there’s only two of us.”]
I often think that Brendan goes overboard with his all-encompassing themes, but I did like the FIR BOX and YEW ASH cross references from DOUBLETREE (an object I hadn’t heard of).
Tanks Brendan and bridgesong. Another who failed to parse PLASTIC. I got VISAGE though, but failed to notice the double trees. Presumably the Dubliners still spell three with an H?
For once I could see the forest (at 5d) in spite of all the trees.
One of the pleasures of doing cryptics is enjoying the cleverness of the setters. Brendan’s pervasive themes enhance that joy for us, as we admire his creative grid-filling. As others have noted, the FIREBOX EYEWASH DOUBLETREE combination is a gem, added to by the neat VI=doublet(h)ree connection between 10a and 20d. Just another example of why Brendan is in my troika of favourite setters.
Thanks B&B for the evening and morning fun and games.
I feel obliged to “chip in” on this one, despite not being represented in it 😉.
I knew of all the trees except 18d, which was the only one I couldn’t parse. Thought the construction of DOUBLETREE was brilliant. That one was a jorum for me.
I’ve also seen a wren nesting in a tree, I can’t see any problem with that.
A really enjoyable puzzle, thanks Brendan and Bridgesong.
(Belated greetings to Eileen, it’s great to have you back – I hope you are recovering well)
Wonderful puzzle! Thank you Brendan!