Guardian Prize 27,136 by Philistine

by

A very enjoyable puzzle that was not as difficult as it first appeared.  In the end I think I spent as much time trying to find the reason to choose between the two possible orientations as I did solving the puzzle in the first place.  Thank you Philistine

UPDATE:for the grid orientation please see alliacol’s comment @7 below which is very compelling. I’m now convinced that my grid is drawn the wrong way round and there has been some sort of slip between Philistine’s original construction of the grid and the publication of the instructions in the puzzle.

This is an interesting variant on the Alphabetical Jigsaw, a form used in the Guardian for many years by Araucaria.  I solved this on a print-out from the Guardian website that had clue numbers in the grid and in the clues.  This made things very confusing indeed, and in the end I had to ink the numbers out with a pen to prevent myself form becoming permanently distracted by them.  I see that now the online puzzle has been replaced by a more sensibly formatted PDF version.

My approach to filling the grid was not to worry about the orientation.  If I filled it the wrong way round I could always print out another grid and swap the solutions over later, though unless you are intending to enter your solution in the raffle for the prize why bother?

I noticed that the Q and I solutions had to fit in the top-left corner and cross the two eight-letter entries in that corner.  It was soon clear which of the eight-letter solutions would fit.  Similarly the solutions at 22 and those at 24 had to start with the same letter, and both cross with the eight-letter solutions in that corner, so that gave an easy way to get started there.  Still, it was not quite plain sailing as there was the possibility that I had chosen opposite orientations for each corner.

My approach was to make a random guess and see if it worked out: in the end I made the lucky choice and rest of the solutions fitted in first time. Having a printer and having the option to print off a new grid if the first attempt fails makes solving this sort of puzzle so much easier than it would be using the newsprint copy.

In the end I could not find a compelling reason for how the grid should be oriented.  The two clues I chose were:

Q (CINQ) as the clue contained the word across.  This would have convincing had there been another clue containing the word down.

C (EMETIC) as it contains the word up.  I have not seen a crossword labelled with Across and Up clues before so I did not find this convincing.  For some people using “coming up” as a reversal indicator is only acceptable in a down clue.  Had this been an explicit rule of crossword solving then this would have convinced me, but it is a style that a setter may or may not choose to follow.  In my opinion not enough of a reason to be an indicator of the orientation of the solution.

My feeling was that it would have been better to either say either orientation is acceptable or to make some modification to one of the clues so that there were clear indications of both Across and Down.  Perhaps there is something here that I have missed.

One of the things I liked about this puzzle is that it does not use obscure words or contrived phrases to fill up the awkward corners.  The clues are friendly too which makes the prospect of filling the unnumbered grid less daunting.

UPDATE: as of 12/03/2017 the Guardian website shows the following grid in the annotated solution:

completed grid

UPDATE: Surely this has to be the correct solution, elegant and self-explanatory:

Across
Down
A ECZEMA Complaint from city over labyrinth half back to front (6)
EC (East Central, The City of London postcode) on MAZe (labyrinth) with Ze (half of the back part ) moved to the front
B DOORJAMB Anxiously think back about difficulty that’s in the frame (8)
BROOD (anxiously think) reversed (back) containing JAM (difficulty)
C EMETIC It makes one sick to refer to Philistine coming up (6)
CITE (refer to) ME (Philistine, the setter) reversed (coming up)
D SORDID Taking peeps, possibly predisposed to get sleazy (6)
SORDID with PEEPS gives an anagram (possibly) of PREDISPOSED
E ELECTORATE Voters thrill about East End bully (10)
ELATE (thrill) contains (about) ‘ECTOR (bully, hector in East End accent)
F TREBLE CLEF After losing heart, shake and almost crack the symbol (6,4)
TREmBLE (shake, losing heart) then CLEFt (crack, almost)
G SPRING Season well (6)
double definition – nice!
H LOOFAH Starts to feel at home after toilet cleaner (6)
starting letters of Feel At Home following LOO (toilet)
I MAI TAI Heard of compiler’s link with drink (3,3)
sounds like (heard of) my tie (compiler’s link)
I HI-DE-HI Camp sitcom to conceal greeting (2-2-2)
HIDE (to conceal) and HI (greeting)
J HADJ English adjective describing act of worship (4)
found inside (described by) englisH ADJective
K KOPECK Reject agreement to kiss for a coin (6)
OK (agreement) rejected then PECK (kiss)
L CARTEL Syndicate permitted drivers to reverse (6)
LET (permitted) and RAC (Royal Automobile Club, drivers) reversed
M PLATINUM Fruit in a can? The opposite element (8)
TIN (can) in PLUM (fruit)
N OBERON King of Borneo is corrupt (6)
anagram (corrupt) of BORNEO
O POLITICO For example, Blair’s licit activity in motion (8)
anagram (activity of) LICIT in POO (motion)
P SKULLCAP Pull sack out to find hat (8)
anagram (out) of PULL SACK
Q IRAQ Republicans start to question republic (4)
IRA (republicans) then Question (starting letter of)
Q CINQ Across the water, five reportedly went under (4)
sounds like (reportedly) sank (went under)
R FOUR POSTER Report of us being kinky in bed (4-6)
anagram (being kinky) of REPORT OF US
S OWN GOALS Now playing: Love Amongst Girls for self-harm (3,5)
anagram (playing) of NOW then O (love) in GALS (girls)
T SPICY TWIST Soup extremely cold? Minimal amounts of Tabasco will, if stirred thoroughly, give it this (5,5)
SouP (extremely, outside letters of) ICY (cold) then first letters (minimal amounts) of Tabasco Will If Stirred Thoroughly
U GRAND CRU During car crash, I left to get wine (5,3)
anagram (crash) of DURiNG CAR missing I
V SATNAV Posed with vehicle going the wrong way without this? (6)
SAT (posed) with VAN (vehicle) reversed (going the wrong way)
W BYELAW “Farewell, love and war” starts the rule (6)
BYE (farewell) then starting lettes of Love AndWar
X HOAX The kind of joke that rhymes with more than one? (4)
HOAX rhymes with “jokes” (more than one joke)
Y CHIVALRY It’s courtesy to weep about high values, when half is wiped out (8)
CRY (to weep) contains HIgh VALues (half missing)
Z ALCATRAZ Male ice bath craze uncovered in prison (8)
AL (male, man’s name) then mALe iCe bATh cRAZe (no outside letters, uncovered)

definitions are underlined

I write these posts to help people get started with cryptic crosswords.  If there is something here you do not understand ask a question; there are probably others wondering the same thing.

67 comments on “Guardian Prize 27,136 by Philistine”

  1. ……only a small point but I’m pretty sure in Z. ALCATRAZ was ALL hidden in the sentence …mALe iCe bATh cRAZe, and it was a coincidence that male also clued a man’s name, most probably a red herring!

  2. Thanks PeeDee. As you say, the clues themselves were generally not difficult and I solved quite a few of them at the first pass. The more difficult part was fitting them in and I had to remind myself regularly that it was the last letter and not the first that was defining. I never did understand the instruction about two clues and had to rely on luck to resolve the orientation.

    It took me a while to explain ELECTORATE though I knew it had to be right and my LOI was SORDID which I thought was clever.

  3. The puzzle worked well enough but for me the fun of crosswords is in the wordplay and solving the clue, not in the mechanics of slotting them into the grid. I felt the quality (or at least difficulty) of the clues was compromised to make it doable as there wouldn’t be crossers available to help solve the clue.
    That said Mrs W enjoyed working out how to fill in the grid so it was a Jack Sprat affair where we licked it clean.
    Thank you Philistine and PeeDee

  4. Thanks Philistine and PeeDee

    I tookthe two indications of the preamble to be ‘over’ in ECZEMA and, as you said, ‘coming up’ in EMETIC, both of which indicate down lights.

  5. Small typo – the anagram in O is of LICIT.
    I enjoyed this and wasn’t stressed about getting the wrong orientation.
    The clue for ECZEMA is the other indicator – ‘over’ meaning it’s a down clue. I took the ‘coming up’ in C to indeed be another such.
    Thanks for the blog PeeDee, and thanks to Philistine.

  6. Lovely spicy twist on the classic Araucaria format. Is that the first time it’s been done? I actually didn’t read the instructions properly at first, and just assumed a standard Alphabetical Jigsaw putting Q in the bottom rh corner. Getting ELECTORATE first didn’t help and it took me a while to twig. I also guessed orientation for top left wrongly at first, and it was seeing where EMETIC fitted in, with its vertical reference, which made me take the rubber to the newspaper again. (That indication was fair enough, I thought, btw, PeeDee, especially as we were warned to look out for such. I didn’t even bother to look for the second). I still found it hard to remember the clue letters came last, not first, but as PeeDee suggests, they all fitted in quite easily once you got going.

    Couple of small points, PeeDee:
    M: A TIN in PLUM
    Z: See Ant@1. That’s how I saw it, too (eventually – only saw the RAZ at first, but guessed I was looking for ALCATRAZ)

  7. An odd thing — the centre of the grid contains the letters NSEW. If you reflect your answer in the NW/SE diagonal you get the correct points of the compass. I appreciate the argument about “emetic”, but if the preamble had referenced “four clues” maybe the reflection would have been a more satisfying solution.

  8. This wasn’t anything like as difficult as it first appeared and was all over far too soon. But the main reason for this was that I absolutely loved it and couldn’t put the thing down. Many thanks Philistine, and PeeDee for the blog

  9. I seem to recall encountering a similar issue about orientation at least once in the past, in an orthodox (if that is the right word) Alphabetical Jigsaw i.e. based on first letters rather than final letters. Almost certainly Araucaria. Two orientations possible, with a subtle indicator in one place (or more) as to up or down, just as here with EMETIC and ECZEMA; I didn’t find that a problem, and enjoyed the whole thing. Can’t immediately find a precedent by searching the site, either through lack of persistence or because it was too long ago, but maybe someone with their own database can come up with the reference? Or indeed come across [with] it.

  10. I liked this a lot, although it was a bit of a scary moment as I started to fill in the grid with only just over half the clues solved, and each step along the way from then on was fairly tentative.

    So just for once we are not quite of the same opinion, White King@3, and I was more with your wife in terms of appreciating the fun of piecing it all together (but then my hobby as a child was jigsaw puzzles; one Christmas when I was about 8 I received a new pair of school shoes and a jigsaw and I actually remember being very excited about both! Not like the excess of presents my little nieces receive these days. But not trying to say we lived in shoebox in middle of the road…)

    I was with you, brownphel@8: I couldn’t leave it alone. The breakthrough came when I went on my morning walk to the beach and got ALCATRAZ and ELECTORATE out in my head. It was great to find that they parsed when I returned home.

    To get the orientation right I used the “Q” and the “I” clues to get started and did lots of trial and error using pencil and eraser, and it all slotted together eventually.

    Warm thanks to Philistine and PeeDee.

  11. Thanks PeeDee. The instructions looked daunting but a first run through of the 28 clues gave 20 of the answers. The IRAQ/CINQ junction and the certainty that two of the three six-letter S words would hem in the SE corner helped get it in right. But there remained some tricky ones and I needed TEAS for the Blair clue, leading to last-in DOORJAMB. Thanks Philistine for the fun.

  12. I don’t really like alphabetical jigsaw puzzles – much prefer standard fare. I took the orientation from ECZEMA’s ‘over’, but I like alliacol @7’s NSEW discovery. If you follow his (her?) approach, the diagram shown above needs flipping so that you get

    N
    W E
    S

    in the middle of the puzzle.

  13. Thanks Philistine and PeeDee
    I agree that this was easier than it appeared at first look. On the orientation I was fairly sure that EMETIC needed to be a down clue (though the way I had entered IRAQ/CINQ made it an across for me!).

    The central NEWS is interesting, but a red herring, I think, as the rubric specified two and clues (rather than solutions), as I recall, as giving the orientation (though I never did decide what the second one was).

  14. I really enjoyed this. I’ve always liked the alphabetical puzzles and this was a lovely wrinkle on an old favourite. I was pleasantly surprised by how relatively easy I found enough of the clues, and finally started trying to put things in the grid when I had all the six letter clues except SORDID, three of the ten letters, but only a couple of the eights. Pity I didn’t have SORDID, because the first two I put in were SPRING and SATNAV, assuming they were the two six letter clues with the same letter. It was only towards the end that I realised my problems would all be solved if I replaced SPRING with SORDID. Like PeterO @ 4 and Gonzo @ 5 I finally got the orientation from EMETIC and ECZEMA – and discovered I had it wrong, but didn’t feel fussed enough to rub out the whole thing and re-enter it.

    Embarrassingly, I didn’t get the parsing for HOAX or HADJ (I can’t believe I missed a hidden clue, even once I’d got the answer!). I think those were a case of ‘I’ll work out why later’, but never getting around to it.

    Incidentally, because of the way this had to be printed, my copy included the prize details, which I don’t normally see. The last time I saw these, you got the Style Book and Secrets of the Setters. When did they change to Can You Solve My Problems? (Although I always thought Secrets of the Setters was an odd prize under the circumstances, I actually found it useful for lending to people – it’s a good explanation of how this rather odd activity works. And I actually like the Guardian Style guide.)

    Many thanks for the entertainment, Philistine, and thanks for the detailed blog, PeeDee.

  15. Very enjoyable puzzle, and an interesting twist using the last not first letter. Easier than I thought it would be.

    I too used the “across” of Q(CINQ) for the orientation and didn’t notice the NEWS, which I think would be more satisfying. Either way the rubric doesn’t seem quite right.

    Many thanks PeeDee and Philistine.

    BTW I highly recommend the Araucaria books of various alphabetical crossword variants – great fun.

  16. Very nice. This wasn’t as fearsome as it looked, though I’m so used to the clues for jigsaws being given in order of first letters that I had to make a conscious effort to remember that we were dealing with last letters here.

    I’m another who took the “up” and “over” to be the orientation hints. It’s a perfectly fair way of doing things but hardly an obvious one. I’m fairly sure we’ve had “up” for a reversal in an across clue a few times in previous puzzles, and relying on what some no doubt think of as Ximenean pedantry in a decidedly non-Ximenean puzzle series is a bit strange.

  17. Alliacol – Your observation has made this morning’s reading unexpectedly thrilling. I was definitely with PeeDee in inferring that those two clues were the critical ones in indicating the orientation, but now I’m very slightly less than completely convinced … Whether it’s a coincidence or an original intention that got lost in the later stages of setting, it’s beautiful.

    I enjoyed the puzzle, by the way – a genuinely fresh and uncontrived development of a classic form, and how often do we get the chance to say that?

  18. This was very easy indeed. Thanks to @7 for pointing out the NSEW in the middle; I usually miss things like that. Red herring or opportunity missed?

    I don’t think the orientation really matters. I always just pick one and then tut if it looks like I picked the “wrong” one.

    A nice variation on the araubetical puzzle. And I loved mALe iCe bATh cRAZe.

  19. We both really enjoyed this puzzle and many friends have asked us if we enjoyed the Saturday puzzle. Well done Philistine you have done a great job.

    I have to thank one of the friends mentioned above for the orientation. The clue for B has ‘Anxiously think back’ which is BROOD backwards. The ‘back’ means it must be an across clue. As has already been mentioned EMETIC uses ‘up’ which identifies it as a down clue. Thank you Jim.

    Thank you for an excellent blog PeeDee.

  20. Thanks Philistine and PeeDee; what a great idea.

    I really enjoyed this. I’m with alliacol and Boatman in thinking that the orientation marks in the centre seem more than just coincidence … but then I don’t see which are the two clues that give the NSWE orientation.

    I ended up with the same orientation as PeeDee but that was just by following my nose rather than using any intelligence.

  21. Thanks all

    A very welcome development
    I loved hoax but easily favourite was self harm = own goals !
    I took too long filling the grid because I misspelled HIDIHI !

    I own a Chambers publication called “Backwords for Crosswords”
    which is out of print,sad since mine is falling to pieces. The

  23. This was a joy.
    Technically, the small well of *q words limits it in the long run, but it was a refreshing change to a favourite format.
    If only the orientation had been unequivocal…

    Thanks to PeeDee and congratulations to Philistine.

  24. Unputdownable for me too.
    My rationale for grid population identical to Peedee
    I too don’t bother about orientation as I stopped entering the raffle years ago.
    Quenbarrow@9: I recall the Auracaria variation too. I think the hint to the orientation lay in the (long) answers in the perimeter- with meanings allusional to across or down.
    Btw: I have now joined the x-steps to genius club. Last weekend, I met the wife of a friend of Araucaria’s brother (I was getting out more with my coat:-)
    Many thanks to Peedee & Picaroon.

  27. Thank you PeeDee.

    The enumeration of the clues caused me a lot of brain strain and in the end I took a tippex pen to them!

    I really couldn’t justify one orientation or another so just blundered on until it was done, expecting at any moment to have to screw it up and start again.

    I see now that EMETIC really has to be a down light but can’t find its defining companion. Alliacol’s suggestion @7 would be very compelling if the the setter had not pointed us to 2 orientation defining clues.

    In the end, my grid looked like the one above, but it cost me black looks from the memsahib for whom I was supposed to be more gainfully employed last Saturday.

    Many thanks, Philistine, a fine puzzle.

  29. As often happens, the posing of the question immediately led me to understand. If it is deliberate then it is genius.

  30. I found most of the clues easy to solve.
    However, I started by putting the 2 Q words in the wrong way round.
    When I’d finished I noticed the cardinal points in the centre were in the correct place.
    However, it didn’t work for the down clue EMETIC. A pity.

  32. Thank you Philistine and PeeDee.

    Absolutely super puzzle, never enjoyed one so much before. MAI TAI was new to me, so I googled to check. SPICY TWIST held me up for a long time but OWN GOALS was the last in. I got the AL in ALCATRAZ from mALe uncovered, as did Ant @1, my favourite.

    The orientation of my puzzle is ‘wrong’, but everything fits in beautifully and I have the points of the compass correct at the centre.

    As regards ECZEMA, the second part of the clue says ‘half back to front’ for MAZE, for me that cancels out ‘over’ being an indication of a down clue.

    My DOORJAMB is upright as it should be and my TREBLECLEF goes down cutting the 5 lines as it should.

    On the other hand PeeDee’s DOORJAMB is across as the clue seems to hint it should be and his EMETIC is coming up, and with his CARTEL the drivers can reverse, whereas mine cannot.

  35. Thanks Philistine and PeeDee

    Like Tony @6 I saw it and thought “Yippee! An alphabetical!” without reading the rubric. Then I saw the second “I”, clearly hi-de-hi, and thought the Azed gremlins had crept in. But once I got over that hurdle it was immensely enjoyable and not that difficult.

    As always with alphabeticals I printed out two versions: when the first one clearly didn’t work I successfully completed the second. Unusually I had solved all the clues before doing this.

    I kept the paper as I had a letter published ….

  37. For what it’s worth, the annotated solution prints the grid as PeeDee had it originally, so it may be that the NEWS in the middle is either a coincidence or a red herring. Or, of course, the annotated solution could be wrong!

  38. It would be interesting to know what Philistine intended. The second solution is much more elegant, but doesn’t seem to be indicated in the rubric.

  39. If anyone reading this knows Philistine personally then it would be nice if they could contact him. Perhaps he would be kind enough to let us know his original intent. I believe that in his day job Philistine works as surgeon and must be very busy, so no pressure to reply.Obviously this request would not the highest priority in his calendar.

  40. A super puzzle with too many good clues to mention. The answers came fairly easily, but working out where to put them was another matter! I realised that “Iraq” & “cinq” had to go in the NW corner but the rest took quite a while longer. Missed the compass point references, but by some fluke my method worked.

    Many thanks to Philistine for the very enjoyable challenge and to PeeDee for the blog.

  41. @PeeDee

    Just noticed: you have this in the header as #27,136, but that was the Riddle of the Sphinx; Philistine’s puzzle is #27,142!

  45. Surely PeeDee, muffin, et al the NESW IS indicated in the rubric. Only two clues need to be correctly orientated as Philistine states for all the rest to fall into place, they are those ending with N and W. I.e. OBERON and BYELAW!! 4 clues are NOT needed since, as far as the CLUES are concerned until we solve them we do not know which will start with E and S. The grid as rewritten by PeeDee must be correct and is as you state PeeDee the most elegant solution. It would be very good to hear from Philistine but I would hazard a bet that we have now got it correctly solved. But who will The Guardian award the prizes to, if their annotated solution is wrong, Dilemma!!
    I thought this was a superb puzzle, so many thanks Philistine. And PeeDee my thanks to you for sticking with it!!

  46. S Panza @ 45: impeccable logic. The discussion has been interesting – even though I really don’t like alphabetical puzzles!

    I think we should drag Philistine away from the operating table and get him to give a definitive view.

  47. Hello S Panza, I think either all the central cells are aligned or none of them are. Any one of the four solutions intersecting the central compass is enough to determine the alignment.

    Why say “clues” rather than solutions, and why say two clues when any one of four would do?

    I would have suggested that Philistine sent in the puzzle without the latter part of the rubric. The editor has decided that solvers will need some extra help and the result was some “design by committee” instructions that are a bit muddled. But if that is all there is to it then how did they manage to publish the wrong solution?

    Perhaps Philistine wrote the puzzle a long time ago and had himself forgotten about the central compass?

    Who knows?

  49. Looked daunting, in fact straightforward both to solve and to insert solutions (apart from the Orientation Question). I wrote out solutions on a separate piece of paper under headings 4,6,8,10 for the respective number of letters, using as closer to a fixed-space font as my dubious handwriting allows. That then made it easy to find where solutions go
    As for the OQ, I also went for emetiC and cinQ as the orientation indicators to get the same solution as the first one given by PeeDee.
    However the central points argument initially advanced by alliacol @7 seems very convincing, and the possible reasons for the confusing rubric proposed by PeeDee @47 also have the ring of veracity !
    Very enjoyable, and it would be great to know the real story of this sometime.

    There were some neat clues in there, and I don’t think anyone mentioned politicO which was my last one in, surely though it would have been yet further improved as “For example, Blair’s licit activity in Brown stuff”

  50. Enjoyable – for the most part the clues were straightforward but I had 20 solutions before I dared write anything into the grid. I didn’t see the NEWS because I was looking for indications in the clues not the solutions, as indicated by the preamble. I have never liked the convention that requires across and down clues to read differently, but I was aware that it existed and was able to deduce the correct orientation that way. POLITICO was last in.

    Thanks to Philistine and PeterO

  51. Lovely puzzle but one – as we know by now – with a rather unsatisfying sting in the tail.
    How brilliant it would have been if the central N,E,W,S had defined the choice between the two grids.
    But then Philistine should have re-written the clues for EMETIC (which cannot be else than a down clue) and perhaps CARTEL.
    The clue for ECZEMA is unfortunate as ‘over’ suggests a down clue and ‘back to front’ an across clue.
    Therefore, as Cookie said @32 we should perhaps forget about that one.

    Funny enough, I found that by giving the last letter this alphabetical was made easier than in the case of knowing the starter.
    Easier to find the solutions, that is, because filling the grid ‘en route’ on the other hand was harder.
    So, I waited more or less until the end, filled the grid regardless of orientation and, finally, looked for a justification.

    Despite all the confusion, good stuff with an original idea.
    Many thanks to Philistine & PeeDee.

  52. This was an interesting and enjoyable challenge, though not as difficult as it seemed at first. Once I had most of the answers, the relative placings of a lot of them could be deduced from the clue for EMETIC (see below), with its use of “up” for reversal. The NW and SE corners held out longest as I only had three of the 8-letter words at that point. The SE gave way first, but then I had to resort to an online wordfinder to get a list of 8-letter words ending in B before the light dawned. I thought DOORJAMB was two words so I might never have got it without that ‘cheat’. That gave the crossers for the O clue, and finally it was done.

    On the question of orientation, the Guardian’s own solution surely has to be taken as definitive (at least until Philistine says otherwise). I do think the NESW squares would have given a more satisfactory indication, though, with the rubric adjusted accordingly.

    Thanks, Philistine and PeeDee.

  53. Could the NEWS orientation have been the original intention, but because it only becomes apparent in the solution it was deemed unfair for a competition? It might have been seen as requiring two grids/copies of the paper.

    Thanks Philistine and PeeDee.

  54. We loved this! Initially very sceptical. Solver 2 hates anything with instructions, but entirely won over by the end. Great puzzle, great blog.

  55. beery hiker @50 – I agree with you about not liking the idea of a rigid across/down reversal indicator convention. I like the idea that the setter can use the reversal terms either literally or metaphorically as they so choose. The Guardian is supposedly a liberal newspaper and to me it fits that people, both setters and solvers, should be able to choose their own preference on this sort of thing.

  56. PeeDee has sold me on the NSEW idea. It seems much more likely than a hint based on knowledge of (and opinions about) the mechanics of setting. I wonder if we’ll ever be told what the actual intention was?

  57. jennyk @52 – quite right that one should be able to take the published solution as definitive. Sadly the Guardian manages to make a b******** of so may of its crossword puzzles that I’m not sure I could take anything they put up on their website as definitive!

    Its all free so I suppose we can’t complain too much, and it makes for an interesting postmortem. All part of the paper’s charm really.

  58. Joining the discussion rather late, so I don’t know if anyone will see this.

    I think PeeDee’s first solution must be correct. The instructions clearly refer to “two clues”, which to my mind are those for ECZEMA and EMETIC. These definitely indicate that they are down clues.

    (I don’t think the “back” and “front” in the former are necessarily suggestive of an across clue. When I’m lying on my back I still have a back and a front, even though these are facing down and up.)

    Also this is the published solution, which as jennyk says must be pretty conclusive!

    So is the NSEW just an extraordinary coincidence? Or a deliberate red herring? Will we ever know?

  60. I too saw doorjamb as vertical (gives NSEW correctly) I didn’t see trebleclef which seems to confirm it. Better than the other suggestions but answers not clues

  61. It has been a long standing joke in my local pub that “7 up is lemonade”. Not that it helped – I had to solve 19 clues before I dared start to fill in the grid.

  62. I’m more or less a complete novice at cryptic crosswords, having started recently and not knowing any of the ‘rules’. However this is my first completed crossword, and I found it relatively easy, apart from Eczema. I just guessed the positions based on Q top left. This did remind me of the Auracaria puzzles of old, which i could solve, but it took a week. I like alphabetical puzzles, because you need to solve all the clues first then slot them in. I wish I’d submitted it for the prize. maybe next time.

  63. Another thought, the clue for BYELAW and its definition “rule” suggest the idiom “divide and rule”, which is a ‘rule’ in itself, and the ‘king’, definition for OBERON, divides and rules the grid giving N correctly for the points of the compass.

  64. quenbarrow @9 wrote:

    “I seem to recall encountering a similar issue about orientation at least once in the past, in an orthodox (if that is the right word) Alphabetical Jigsaw i.e. based on first letters rather than final letters. Almost certainly Araucaria. Two orientations possible, with a subtle indicator in one place (or more) as to up or down. Can’t immediately find a precedent by searching the site, either through lack of persistence or because it was too long ago, but maybe someone with their own database can come up with the reference?”

    That was Guardian Prize puzzle 26,047 by Araucaria, from 7 September 2013. Again an alphabetic puzzle with a symmetrical grid, but in that case the T solution was THE BOTTOM LINE, and inserting it at that position gave the correct orientation.

    http://www.fifteensquared.net/2013/09/14/guardian-26047-araucaria/

  65. My clues database does not include the special instructions so I can’t provide a definitive list, but I am sure Araucaria used symmetrical grids for his jigsaws several times. Incidentally all of the alphabeticals between 1999 and Araucaria’s death were by Araucaria – since then we have seen them from Maskarade, Puck and Paul but I am pretty sure none of those were symmetrical…

  66. You are all too kind and the comments are appreciated. The solution published in the Guardian is the correct one. It may not have been had I seen the compass. Regretfully, I hadn’t.

  67. Tony @6,

    It’s not the first alphabetical jigsaw based on final letters but you might need to be old and have a good memory to know that. Way back in university (early 80s), I remember one like this from Araucaria. That was very tough and it required a team of us cracked it. This one was less tough and I managed to do it on a train with no electronic aids.

    DuncT @53,

    Maybe unfair but it would not be unprecedented that you could only determine the correct orientation once you had solved it. I remember one, possibly a Genius, in which RIGHT and BOTTOM appeared along two edges when complete, in my case they appeared the wrong way around.

    In this case, I was most sure about the orientation. Despite what I just said, I did not spot Never Eat Shredded Wheat.

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