Guardian Prize 27,142 by Enigmatist

You know you’re in for a mental workout when you try to solve a puzzle by Enigmatist and this one was no exception.

There are some lovely story-telling surfaces here and some very subtle wordplay in places.  Too subtle for Timon and I, so I’m grateful to Gaufrid for giving me an additional hint or two.  For those that like that sort of thing, it is of course a pangram, with all 26 letters of the alphabet contained (25 of them in one answer at 11,20,3,14).  Thanks, Enigmatist, for the challenge.

completed grid
Across
8 RISOLUTO King Louis bursting to play with vigour! (8)
*(R LOUIS) TO.  It’s an Italian musical term.
9 ARBOUR Originally, Alan Rusbridger beat the Guardian’s retreat (6)
Initial letters of Alan Rusbridger Beat, OUR.  We came up with ASHRAM at first, but couldn’t parse it.
10 FREE UP Make available for emptying liquidised fruit over, but run out (4,2)
F(o)R, PU(r)EE (rev).
11, 20, 3, 14 THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPED OVER THE LAZY DOG Lesson once taught in pool to would-be paddler about superior speed? (3,5,5,3,6,4,3,4,3)
I think the wordplay here is just a (fairly loose) cryptic definition of this well-known phrase, once taught to typists (“the pool”).  The reference to superior speed meant that we wasted a lot of time looking for ?UPPER (we had the crossing U and P).  We even thought about JUMPER and the penny didn’t drop.  I don’t know why a lazy dog should be a would-be paddler, though.  I wonder why Enigmatist didn’t use the shorter all-inclusive version of the phrase with “jumps” instead of “jumped”?  Couldn’t fit in the grid, I expect.
12, 5 UP TO DATE Modern girlfriend’s choice! (2-2-4)
Cryptic definition.
13 DEVOTIONAL A short service for Ratty in love with Toad (10)
*(IN LOVE TOAD). Although devotional is given in Chambers only as an adjective,  it is also given as a noun in Collins, with the sense used here normally a plural form, hence “short”.
15 CONNIVE Dramatically, novice then losing the plot (7)
*(NOVICE, (the)N).  The removal of “the” from “then” to indicate the extra N is very subtle and leads to an excellent surface reading.
16 BEDEVIL Make it with iniquity? (7)
I think that this is both a charade of BED EVIL and a cryptic definition, somewhat loose, hence the question mark.
18 LOGORRHOEA I agree men will get blown away after horologer’s awful windiness (10)
Well, it’s an anagram of HOROLOGER followed by an A; I assume it’s A(men).
19   See 21
20   See 11
22 YARROW Adam’s first to broach concern over herbal plant (6)
A(dam) in WORRY (rev).
23 SPITAL How’s your father gaining admission to South China lazaretto? (6)
IT (meaning sex, or how’s your father) in S PAL (mate or China plate – rhyming slang).  The surface conjures up a bizarre image.
24 STOPOVER This break the making of Loadsamoney? (8)
POTS (loads of money) OVER (reversed).
Down
1 MICROPHOTOGRAPH I produce powerful retro Affleck vehicle that is (cutting speed) still quite hard to see (15)
I CROP HOT ARGO (rev) in MPH.  Argo was a film directed and starring Ben Affleck.
2 TO BE GOING ON WITH Boarding pass is, for now (2,2,5,2,4)
Cryptic definition.
3   See 11
4 COSTIVE Constipated chap to eat Italian special up (7)
IT S(pecial) (all rev)  in COVE.
5   See 12
6 ABOUT ONES PERSON Get organised, or be spontaneous on one (5,4,6)
*(OR BE SPONTANEOUS).  A well disguised anagram; we were looking for a double definition.
7 PURCHASING POWER Ring up worried customer, a little overdrawn, about cash supply — the problem? (10,5)
*CASH in *(RING UP), followed by P OWER  (“customer a little overdrawn”).  A customer overdrawn by a penny might be said to be a P OWER!  The use of “supply” as an anagram indicator works particularly well here; you have to remember that it is being used as an adverb.  Another great surface.
14   See 11
17 COEXIST Leaving shortly, splitting bill to share the planet (7)
EXI(t) in COST.
21, 19 FULL PAGE  Thus spread leaf and elements of plug? (4-4)
*(LEAF PLUG).

*anagram

68 comments on “Guardian Prize 27,142 by Enigmatist”

  1. Thanks bridgesong and Enigmatist.

    Tough puzzle.

    Up-to-date gave the opening (I was not sure of the hyphens) once I got it, I felt ‘date’ is gender-neutral…

    Then 9a and the nearby anagrams fell to be able to guess the long one. The rest was finished soon enough.

    Didn’t get BEDEVIL…was toying with DEMERIT.

    Couldn’t parse the long one and two others. Almost completing an Enigmatist felt good.

    Liked CONNIVE and FULL-Page

  2. This didn’t do much for me and I only saw it through to the finish out of sheer bloody-mindedness and unashamed recourse to Google. 8 and 18 were words new to me and of course 11,20,3,14 only works as a lesson in the present tense. I never even tried to explain it to myself and found any link between the clue and the solution in 12,5 and 7 and 16 to be tenuous to say the least. I spent some time trying to fit NEB, as in nebulous, into 1d and didn’t know about Affleck and Argo. Not to say there weren’t some good clues, I liked 22, 23 and 24 but I finished without much sense of accomplishment or satisfaction.

  3. I think “would be paddler” is in reference to the swimming style – doggy paddle, “would be” implyng the dog and the paddler are lazy.

  4. Great puzzle. I too wondered why ‘jumped’ instead of ‘jumps’.
    Wasn’t the carriage return lever on a typewriter refered to as a paddle?

  5. I wondered about the doggy paddle, but it has to be the typing pool. The point of the original expression is that it contains all the letters of the alphabet, in what was usually said to be the shortest sensible sentence, which the variation with “jumped” does not. On the other thread, someone suggested that the “once” could denote the past tense, but that seems a bit thin.

    I always understood that the ‘qwerty’ keyboard was designed so that fast typists would be less likely to jam up the keys on the old manual typewriters — a consideration which has fallen away with the new technology.

  6. The fact that JUMPS was changed to JUMPED did not stop me enjoying this challenging Prize.Bravely blogged. Maybe the Master will pop in.

  7. A fine crossword and a real challenge. Took ages to get going but once the long one was in there were plenty of helpful crossers. Annoyingly STOPOVER was last in. Should have seen that much earlier.

    Thanks to Enigmatist and bridgesong

  8. A challenge just a bit beyond my pay grade, this one. I really struggled and ended with several unparsed and ended up writing in DEMERIT with (correctly!) little certainty that it was right. Still, it’s good to be stretched.

    I actually typed “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” in the Apple Store not that long ago trying out the keyboard on the new MacBook Pro (I quite like the feel, but it’s noisy.) I’ve always been sceptical of the story that the QWERTY layout is to slow typists down to stop keys jamming – if so, why I are E and R next to each other? – I used to jam those keys together constantly on my old manual machine.

    Thanks for the challenge, Enigmatist, thanks for explaining it, bridgesong.

  9. Thanks Enigmatist and bridgesong
    MICROPHOTOGRAPH is a prime example of an unfair clue. It is very unlikely that you would be able to build it up from its parts (Argo?), so you have to guess the answer from a definition that is so vague it is more of an allusion, then try to justify – or, as I did, put the crossing letters into Chambers Word Wizard.
    I also guessed the long one from some crossers. Baffling – it’s not a “well-known phrase”, as it’s incorrect; the only point to the phrase arises if the S is included, hence “jumps”.

  10. Muffin@9 is quite right. The typist’s test sentence (rather than phrase) does not serve its purpose with ‘jumped’ instead of ‘jumps’ as it is thus one letter short of the pangram required. The clue for ‘bedevil’ lacks a definition.

  11. I won’t die in a ditch defending the qwerty origins, but it has a fairly convincing base in Wikipedia, including various stages of the development. Interestingly, ‘e’ and ‘r’ were placed next to each other at quite a late stage when ‘r’ replaced the period (full stop) key.

  12. We solved this low quality offering very quickly by enumeration once we’d got the long one.

    The definition for the long one is cute, but unclear how the rest of the clue is supposed to work, and unclear to me still having read the blog.

    Didn’t really understand “up to date”. Ok, so that means “modern”: why is the girlfriend’s choice an “up to” date rather than a date?

    Bedevil makes no sense whatsover.

    I now see purchasing power and stopover. Too clever by half is my reaction, but that’s subjective.

    About one’s person was very very good.

    One crying out for some quality control, I’m afraid

  13. I actually enjoyed solving this and it didn’t take as long as some Enigmatist puzzles. Thanks to E and Bridgesong

    Shame about the typist’s exercise… Now that no-one appears to learn to touch-type (there’s a “PA” at work who types everything using only her right index finger) I don’t suppose anyone will ever use the two exercises ever again – “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” to show that you know where all the alphabet is on the keys and “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party” which warms up the fingers using alternate left hand and right hand keys. I won’t admit how long ago it was I learned to type, but I do remember having to start the day at college with both of these exercises.

  14. Glad to see that I’m not alone in not enjoying this one. Lost interest before the end and wrote in a few without parsing them; seems they were “correct” but not much clearer on the parsing even now.

    I got “The Quick Brown Fox…” early but didn’t write it in because JUMPS didn’t fit. With a few crossers it seemed clear that it was almost right. How can you put in such a loose clue to something which is not quite a well known phrase? I was hoping to find something very clever that I just didn’t know… but it looks like just a bad clue.

  15. For the first time for a long time, I came nowhere near completing this Saturday Guardian crossword. I couldn’t get to grips with it at all. Had a go each day with diminishing returns, didn’t get half way.
    I couldn’t get any of the long solutions and that really hampered my efforts. Hope I can get back on a more successful tack today.

  16. Andrew B @12: I think I can explain UP TO DATE. The girlfriend is the “date”; what she chooses is up to her. As for BEDEVIL, that did give me some considerable difficulty. I can’t improve on the suggestion I give above.

  17. I had no time to tackle this crossword, but it has been interesting to read the blog. The last time I tried an Enigmatist puzzle was seven months ago.

    I thought it worth mentioning a snippet from the Wikipedia article on the pangrammatic sentence ‘The quick brown fox …’. The article’s heading is the sentence itself with ‘jumps’ instead of ‘jumped’. It says that the earliest known appearance of the sentence was in 1885, with ‘A’ instead of ‘The’ at the start:
    A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
    which is still a perfect pangram and is shorter.

    Whatever the merits of this clue (on which it’s not fair for me to comment), the choice of phrase was perhaps only an artistic blemish, because the version with ‘jumped’ is also on record.

    bridgesong, in 1d I think ‘still’ needs to be underlined as well, a microphotograph being a ‘still quite hard to see’. And in 2d ‘is’ should perhaps not be underlined, the clue being a cryptic definition followed, after the comma, by the straight definition (‘for now’).

    Thanks to blogger and commenters.

  18. Bridgesong@12 I suppose. It’s her choice; it’s up to her. They don’t quite substitute, do they? Not convinced. at any rate, doesn’t seem to me a great clue.

    I guess above all for me a weak clue is one where when you’ve solved it you’re not 100% sure it’s right; this was far from the only one.

    In the past I have found this setter in his different guises terribly difficult; sometimes inspired; sometimes too clver for his own good and ours; and occasionally unfair. I hope next time we see him he will have deigned to come back to this planet

  19. Took us 2 hours, twice as long as usual, and it was tough all the way with just 16 still uncertain (thanks for the parsing ,B) but a very rewarding puzzle nevertheless. My favourite was 13 and the wonderful use of Ratty as anagrind. I know of one alternative sentence for using all the keys, “pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs”. Are there others? Thanks Enigmatist and Bridgesong.

  20. There is always a sense of satisfaction in completing a difficult crossword even if one of the reasons it is difficult is the poor clueing as detailed by others above.
    Last weekend the family went to the National History Museum at Tring which consists mainly of Baron Walter Rothschild’s collection of stuffed creatures, many of which I had never heard of outside a Guardian cryptic and some not even there. Please don’t let Enigmatist, Pasquale et al. anywhere near it.

  21. Shirl @ 20: I’ll try and expand my explanation. Iniquity is evil: I think we can all agree on that. A bed is something you make (yes, I know that there are lots of other things that you can make). One meaning of bedevil is “to make havoc with” and another is “to treat with devilish malignity” so overall we have a cryptic definition including a charade.

  22. My explorations suggest that “would be paddlers” may refer to people using the sentence when learning semaphore signalling.

  23. Shirl @20, bridgesong@24

    When I read the clue I interpreted it like this:

    ‘Make it with’ is ‘bed’
    ‘iniquity’ is ‘evil’

    (A cheeky one!)

  24. Thank you Enigmatist for a fine crossword.
    Once I twigged the long one, it yielded steadily (with some help from ‘Er Indoors).

    And thanks to Bridgesong.

    Now to tackle Paul.

  25. I found this to be the most difficult 15 x 15 crossword I have encountered in many years. It took me longer than that week’s IQ (by the same setter!). I wouldn’t have finished this without extensive use of wordfinder and anagram solver programs.

    I think Bridgesong’s explanations are spot on for BEDEVIL and UP TO DATE, and I see nothing wrong with either clue. I parsed the clue for THE QUICK etc. as a humorous idea based on analogy with a paddling pool – those joining a typing pool could be said to be paddling in it – and the “superior speed” bit pointed to quick vs. lazy. A bit loose perhaps, but I’m not going to call unfair on this or any of the other clues. In my opinion JH is arguably the best setter around these days and there’s always sound logic behind his clues, however impenetrable they seem. I would agree though that perhaps he forgot to take us lesser mortals into account with this one!

  26. Started this on the Saturday afternoon and put it aside after solving three clues in an hour. Gave it another hour on the Sunday morning and got nowhere, so decided not to bother. Having seen the blog, I can see that was the best option and again you have to wonder when the Guardian will find itself a proper crossword editor.

    It’s hard to know what to criticise first but let’s go with the long answer starting at 11a: leaving aside the fact that the clue on its own is practically unsolvable from the subsidiary information, why use a corruption of the better known – and much more logical – phrase which employs all 26 letters of the English alphabet? Just so it would fit in the grid? Come on!

    In 2d, how many people would respond to the question “What’s this boarding pass for?” with “It’s to be going on with.”? In 16a, I don’t see how “Make it” leads to BED. In 18a let’s allow that such an unnecessarily complicated way of indicating the letter A is characteristic of this setter; unfortunately, though, the cryptic grammar is kaput. A correct version should contain the word order “… after awful horologer’s windiness”.

    Thanks anyway to bridgesong – and Gaufrid.

  27. Thank you Enigmatist and bridgesong.

    Very hard going for me. I failed to get BEDEVIL and STOPOVER, but enjoyed the struggle. Pretty sure the ‘would be paddler’ refers to someone using the carriage return, paddle, of the typewriter, in other words a typist, as Gonzo @4 suggests.

  28. Thanks Enigmatist and bridgesong

    I’m very definitely with the positive camp on this one. I thoroughly enjoyed it, even though it took longer than usual. No external searches, though I did need the dictionary to confirm a couple. OK, some of them may be “that fits, does it parse?” but if it does it normally brings at the very least a smile.

    I think Alan B @ 26 had 16 spot on, though the definition is curious if it’s an &lit.

    I used to get the shivers when I saw Enigmatist’s name, or those of his alter egos, by puzzles, but these days I look forward with eager anticipation to what I know will be a tough but rewarding struggle. Some of the nitpicking above reminds me of hedgehoggy at his worst, but I’m not going to point fingers to avoid the return flak. It’s a crossword. Senses of both humour and relaxation of the rules of language are required.

  29. Cookie, your explanation for “paddler” is much better than mine. I didn’t know that a carriage return is called a paddle (it’s not in my Chambers), but with that in mind I’m convinced by your interpretation and the clue seems much better in tis new light.

    “Some of the nitpicking above reminds me of hedgehoggy at his worst, but I’m not going to point fingers to avoid the return flak.” (Simon @ 31). My thoughts exactly – time will tell if this is just coincidence or not…

  30. Thanks to bridgesong and Enigmatist.

    I enjoyed this although I didn’t finish it (RISOLUTO anyone? COSTIVE?) but it was mainly a matter of time running out.

    BEDEVIL is surely towards the @lit end of the scale: you make a bed, iniquity is evil and “make it with iniquity” equals BEDEVIL (Bridgesong@24). As to the quick fox etc, I for one entered the “correct” answer without further thought and I would offer that most people asked to come up with their memory of the phrase would misremember it similarly i.e. jumped rather than jumps – it just makes more sense. Relatedly, the typists themselves are surely the “paddlers” – I feel sure I’ve seen the word paddling used for typing; think of the finger movement involved.

    Timon@22: a long-distant memory yields “Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz” as the winner of the shortest pangram prize.

    Favourite was (FOI) UP-TO-DATE.

  31. Bloody mindedness and electronic aids got me through this and,even with those,I still couldn’t parse some of it- e.g. STOPOVER. BEDEVIL was my LOI. I parsed this as has been suggested but I didn’t like it much.
    Thanks for explaining PADDLE,Cookie,the long anagram makes more sense now!
    Thanks Enigmatist- I think.

  32. I don’t usually comment on prize crosswords, as the blog is necessarily a week late and the memory fades, but one never forgets Enigmatist. There’s something about his puzzles that makes one want to make the effort. This one took a long and concentrated single session: I’m one who can flunk a simple clue (cf yesterday’s Qaos), so deep inside Mr H’s setting there must be something fair.

  33. timon @22, Alphalpha @33

    I have the book ‘Collins Word Games’ at home, and in it is a list of a few pangrammatic sentences including the three that we have encountered already on this blog. The ‘Jackdaws’ one is indeed the shortest known pangram that makes proper sense, but the following mouthful is also given, which is one letter shorter even than that:
    Quick bright vixens jump a dozy wolf
    (which I like because it has vixens and a wolf instead of a fox and a dog)

    Finally, Cookie and others may like to see what my book calls ‘a fairly well-known’ French pangram:
    Whisky vert: jugez cinq fox d’aplomb
    (although I can’t vouch for the literacy of that example)

  34. Enigmatist seems to have conflated the two versions of the pangram, both of which I was aware of: one with past jumping and plural dogs and the second with present jumping and one dog. I think it must be a mistake as the answer, being not quite either of those, is not a “lesson once taught” as advertised. I took “paddler” to be either slang or cryptic for “typist” and so part of the definition. I was encouraged in this view by Chambers'”to play or toy with the fingers (arch.)”. Reading the description of a typewriter linked by Cookie, I wonder if “paddle” is actually the name for the flat part, on which the finger impinges (not “impacts”!), of any key, as it refers to “the carriage return paddle”, not just the “paddle” as the carriage return key.

    “Bed” means “have sex with”, as does “make it with”, so the charade is perfectly straightforward and nothing to do with making beds, imo. The same can’t be said for the defn as an &lit.

    There were quite a few I didn’t manage, including BEDEVIL. Some were bordering on the unfair perhaps but I’m really annoyed at not getting TO BE GOING ON WITH, which I think is excellent, as was ABOUT ONES PERSON (which I did get).

    I’ve heard of Ben Affleck,but not most of his films, of which there are very many. I would have preferred a reference to Jason for argo, personally, but perhaps others wouldn’t?

    Altogether a rather unsatisfactory puzzle for me. I hope that’s not just sour grapes.

  35. This was indeed a “mental workout” which took me rather a long time, but was definitely worth the effort. Did have to resort to reference sources for many clues, but, fortunately, our local shop had none of the middle bits of “The Times” delivered, so I didn’t have too many other puzzles to distract me that day.

    I had no problem with 11ac as I’ve never had a typing lesson & I always forget to look for pangrams! Favourite clues were definitely 18 & 23ac.

    Many thanks to Enigmatist for an enjoyable challenge and to bridgesong for the blog (an unenviable task!).

  36. Somewhat off topic I guess, but is anyone else struggling to load today’s prize Paul? I loaded it last night when it was first posted and answered a couple of clues before closing it down to come back to it today. Now I can only load the printable version, which is of little use as I am on the road and do not have access to a printer. Any ideas gratefully received – about the loading I mean I do not want help with the puzzle of course!!

  37. I think the shortest sentence with all 26 letters is : “Quick-blowing zephyrs vex daft Jim” – shorter than the two given above. (I must admit I learned this from the late Jimmy Savile when he was still a popular entertainer.) Longer but more amusing is “Sex-crazed spy quits job with fun-loving workmate.” Maybe either of these would be bases for future puzzles.

  38. Thanks to all who responded to my plea about BEDEVIL. Sorry to be so late responding but duty called. I think I understand now but, for me, the clue is still a bit on the dodgy side

  39. I think Tony @38 must be right, here is a reference to typewriter keys, “typewriters have paddles that are spread out and they angle so that they all hit the same spot” – scroll down to sweetbunsmcgee’s reply.

  40. I vaguely recall an Araucaria puzzle of several decades ago in which each of the 26 clues contained a superfluous letter … or maybe a letter had to be removed from the solutions before entry in the grid … or whatever. Anyway, the point is that the preamble stated the letters in question could be arranged to form “Whiz dog lynx (q.v.) jumps kerb – fact”.

    Of course, whether this may be considered a coherent English sentence is another matter.

  41. too hard for me, I failed on 3 of the 4 long downs (only ‘ABOUT ONES PERSON’ yielded). Also obscure words LOGORRHEA, COSTIVE, RISOLUTI, SPITAL,
    I’ve enjoyed reading the comments and debate though. Obviously Enigmatist is a step up from other Prize setters – hopefully I’ll be better prepared next time.
    Thanks to Enigmatist, Bridgesong and all who contributed above.

  42. Alan B @37, I did not know that one, the usual French one, but not the shortest, is Portez ce vieux whisky au juge blond qui fume.

  43. This all seems a long time ago, but as I remember I enjoyed it even though it was a hell of a struggle. Yes, some of the clues were a bit loose but all made sense, including BEDEVIL. Thanks to Enigmatist and bridgesong.

  44. Thanks Cookie @46
    With my limited French I can make more sense of your example than I could of the pangram I got from my book.

  45. What is it with the CURRENT Prize puzzle, 27,148? I was doing it slowly but happily on my iPad, then had to break for a few hours. Now when I come back I see that the interactive version has gone (together with all my answers), and I can only get the print version, which is NBG as I don’t have a printer. What gives?

  46. So late that I realise I am writing this for my own benefit, but anyway…

    My experience with this was similar to Trailman @36. Single session, hard but fair.

    I was not happy with my parsing for BEDEVIL, nor with Bridgesong’s alternative. I agree with Simon S @31 that Alan B @26 has nailed it. Concise, inventive and slightly naughty – a great clue. I am surprised that others are still debating the weak charade idea.

    Re the long one and the reference to paddle, I am inclined to the idea of a beginner in a pool paddling. But Cookie’s suggestion of the carriage return paddle was certainly valid. Tony @38 must be a decade or more younger to make reference to a carriage return “key”. There was no such key on a mechanical/manual typewriter of course, the function being performed by pushing a lever which propelled the carriage back to the start and advanced the platen one line (CR/LF in the electric/electronic era.) On some makes/models, for comfort and ease of use, the lever was flattened and referred to as a paddle.

    Belated thanks to Enigmatist for a challenging mental workout and to Bridgesong.

  47. Thanks to an unhelpful grid I didn’t waste too much time before deciding not to bother with this one.

  48. RogerBear @49 see my post @40. I am in exactly the same situation as you. If anyone knows what the problem is or how to nudge the Guardian into reloading, I/we would be most obliged!!

  49. S Panza @52
    [It’s frustrating! I have no idea myself how to goad the bit of the editorial or publishing team at The Guardian into some sort of explanation or action, but I have posted a comment on ‘Site Feedback’ on this site in case our administrator knows some-one who can.]

  50. Thanks all
    Tony@38 is right.”make” is just one of those euphemisms like do and have which enable the fly to talk about “it” !!!

  51. Thanks all
    Tony@38 is right.”make” is just one of those euphemisms like do and have which enable the fly to talk about “it” !!

  52. I’m one who doesn’t particularly enjoy crosswords where the complexity and opacity of the clue mean that the solution has to come before any of the clue components, other than the definition, can be used to make sense of it. I needed all the external help I could find to get through to the end, and still couldn’t make sense of several of them until I came here. I’ve said it before, but completing a crossword like this leaves me with a sense that I have managed to defeat (or not) the setter rather than co-create the finished article together. But that’s just me, and others obviously feel differently, and the Guardian seems committed to providing puzzles which cater for all tastes. Thank you to Bridgesong – you (and your colleagues) deserve all the thanks you get for seeing this one through, and thanks to Enigmatist for marking out the limits of what I enjoy at the moment.

  53. Well done, bridgesong, for getting to the end of this. Like others, I was lucky if I got halfway through. I’m all for tough crosswords – this is the first Grauniad Cryptic or Prize puzzle I’ve failed to finish in years — but I got little pleasure from this: no happy moments of realization from the clues that I did solve.

  54. A very tough workout for me, which felt a bit of a slog. I looked at it on and off during the week. Although I thought of the long near-pangram answer fairly early, I discounted it because the enumeration didn’t quite fit, so progress was slow. It wasn’t until I got enough crossers yesterday that I was sure that version had to be correct. I finally finished it this evening.

    I’m with those who feel that “lesson once taught” is misleading as that is definitely not what was taught in the typing pool. I don’t buy that the inclusion of “once” is enough to justify the change of tense. Having said that, there were some very nice clues too, my favourites being CONNIVE and DEVOTIONAL.

    Thanks, Enigmatist (I think) and bridgesong (definitely1.

  55. I am with Simon on this – Enigmatist doesn’t deserve all of the carping and nitpicking, and nor does the editor on this occasion. I too find his puzzles very challenging, but they reward persistence and are hugely inventive. I woudn’t put it past him to have a clever reason for using the “incorrect” form of the pangram, but unless he says something himself we will never know…

  56. A rather extraordinary stat that somebody mentioned on the Guardian comments page but bears repeating here: the 19 clues that this puzzle contains is a new lowest total in the Guardian archive. 20 has been achieved 4 times before, by Imogen (27069), Paul (25718), Araucaria (22369) and Fawley (21912).

  57. Didn’t do the puzzle but greatly enjoyed the review and comments, thanks all

    I wondered whether 21d/19 might be an &lit (with plug referring to ads)

  58. I do find it odd that some commenters have defended what seems to be an obvious mistake with the pangram. BH suggests that E might have some subtle reasoning behind it; I hope that he turns up to explain it.

  59. Who is Affleck and who cares? I could look him up I suppose . . . Got it anyway but only partially parsed (obvs).

    Shame about the non-pangram. Confusing.

    Didn’t get 16a ‘BEDEVIL’

    Is 8a ‘RISOLUTO’ really the best word for ‘with vigour’? I doubt it.

  60. I’m months late with this, so probably nobody will read it, but here it is anyway.

    I was amused by muffin @9’s comment, ” It is very unlikely that you would be able to build it up from its parts (Argo?).”  When I first saw the clue, I said, “Retro Affleck vehicle? That’ll be ARGO reversed, then.” But it took me forever to work out the rest of the clue.

    The movie did win the Best Picture Oscar, not that long ago. It’s not that obscure!

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