Guardian 28,733 / Maskarade

73 comments on “Guardian 28,733 / Maskarade”

1. It’s always best to start with the positive, so here goes. This was an ambitious idea for a larger holiday cryptic, and at the outset I attacked the puzzle with excitement – the previous similar biggie that I recall was so good that I wished it had gone on forever.
   I was fortunate in spotting the nature of the 37 pairs at a very early stage (quite easy since I live in one and have visited most of the others). That, given the fact that they were ‘more or less correctly positioned in relation to each other’ also proved helpful in choosing a correct pair to add in each case, based on an imagined overlay of a map with the grid. Alas, the fun stopped there, since for me the solution of the clues was a tedious grind, with scarcely a half-smile along the way. Fortunately it didn’t last long enough to spoil a holiday weekend, and when complete I’d lost interest and couldn’t be bothered to check those contrived foreign words and an obscure English actor. Perhaps such an ambitious sub-scheme will inevitably turn out this way, but for me this was a real dud – a dozen or so sparkling clues might have changed my mood, but I didn’t drop across them. Did anybody else?

2. Some feat for Maskarade getting all these states in more or less the correct positions; congratulations for your persistence . Early on I decided it could be states, but I had put ENGLAND in at 80ac, and along with LONDON at 6d thought it might be something else (NG isn’t a state of course).

   I quite enjoyed this, given some initial misgivings about the size of the Xword.

   In 9d I couldn’t understand how TED was “spread grass”, and I still don’t, I am afraid – any further explanation, Gaufrid?

3. The Maskarade jumbos seem to be one of those love ’em or hate ’em things, but I love ’em, in particular the extra layer of puzzling on top of the regular clue-solving. In this case, I might have been aided by one of the geographic jigsaw puzzles I had when I was a young kid. One was of the American states, the other of the British counties (the former has stood the test of time, the latter not so much).

   On reading the special instructions my first thought was that we were looking for chemical symbols arranged a la periodic table. But early answer OPALINE in the bottom right meant that ALuminium would have to be a heavy halogen, so scratch that idea, and enter the States.

   It took me three days, on and off, but I managed without a map or list – that jigsaw seems to have paid off.

   I thought EID very clever. The local news had been full of the fact that this year there was a rare confluence of Passover, Easter and Ramadan, but Eid follows Ramadan and just missed Passover, so I spent way too long down that rabbit-hole trying to make the calendar work before seeing the light.

4. DaveEllison @2, tedding is the practice of spreading mown grass out to dry.
   I enjoyed this and made it last by not looking at a US map until most solutions were in. OPALINE and ELFLAND were my way in. I had to word-search DUTIABLE once I knew it was UT, never heard of DIABLE.
   Thanks Gaufrid, well played Maskarade.

5. Oh, and I also thought the ‘French puss’ might be a hooker, so was looking for words for pimp :/

6. Got about two hours in, a quarter of it done, had fathomed the states and appreciated the cleverness, but then the prospect of spending another 4-5 hours on it made me turn my computer off and go and do something else. Well done all those who persevered

7. I can’t remember the couple of pairs of letters that revealed the theme fairly early for me. It took me far too long to see the ‘smashing Oz’ Beaut in BUTENE and I made the mistake of highlighting the UT rather than the NE in the word until I looked at the map. I’d also never heard of Ding for a ‘party down under’ in my near 40 years living here (only the Scottish strike is in Chambers).
   Favourite was EID for the clever ‘Passover’.
   A real tour de force which I enjoyed. Thanks for the fun and geography lesson Maskarade and Gaufrid

8. Thanks for the blog, I decided to ignore the instructions at first and just work through the Across as normal and fortunately very few theme clues. For the Downs , London came quickly and ND seemed to stick out for North Dakota, it has been in the news a lot lately because of the Tanis fossil finds.
   A steady solve from then on, at least it was sunny in the afternoon. The grid is very impressive but I found it a bit of a chore because of the sheer number of clues in a grid this size, must be over 90.
   Dave@2 I have used a TEDDER, it is like a wooden rake with teeth far apart, use has died out now with modern haylage methods. Crosswords seem to keep ted, tedder and tedding alive.

9. First time I’ve tried one of these, which I mostly finished, on Monday when I looked at it properly getting the top right corner and seeing what needed doing. I was left with four which I mostly solved yesterday (see below). I learned the States and their capitals by playing Sporcle, because I was irritated I was so ignorant. I had 59D as BONMOT by including New Mexico.

   A DNF as I put MI in SLIEST, not IL, so had problems with LINING (duh), and PAP at 38D, because I read the clue as putting PA at 38. And having used MI earlier used IL in 14D which gave me RILAGE, which is French.

10. I am with Rodshaw. Well done to Maskerade for the technical achievement and thanks to Gaufrid for the blog, but having worked out what was going on after getting 15 or so entries, I decided I had better ways of spending the holiday weekend. It didn’t sparkle for me at all.

11. Thank you Gaufrid for clearing up some of the mysteries in this. DNF for a combination of reasons: lack of time more than waning enthusiasm. But Vic was away so Tim had to ‘go it alone’. Might explain why he didn’t get the sherry 13a?
    The odd foreign word and a much-loved proper noun was fine, I thought, to allow such a grid filled with the extra dimension of themed insertions. Well done, Maskarade.

12. The deadline for sending in a solution is Friday 29th April.

13. Thanks both. Derek NIMMO was a popular comic actor who made many appearances on radio’s Just A Minute, referenced in the clue.

14. I am on the side of those who were impressed with this one, and finished on Monday, after much confusion over BUTENE, which I thought was ‘butane’, including UT, which I had already found in DUTIABLE, and with the unparsable ‘bane’. Like Dr W, I recalled the jigsaw of the USA – perhaps a standard gift to boys in London in the 1950s/60s (my other jigsaw was just England/Wales, I think).

    Some definitions pushed the limits, but were perhaps to be expected in these complex circumstances – identifying IVER as the Bucks village, LANA as the Sweater Girl. OLDSTER as a midshipman, and the double meanings of DIABLE and HORSE. And can somebody please explain the Tolkien reference in INKLING?
    I parsed DING as defined by Scottish for ‘strike’, meaning ‘hit’ (which I had to look up), with the ‘down under’ reference something to do with a dingo. Is there a meaning of DING I could not find?

    I think of AESOP as a fabulist, not a poet. Does anyone agree, or can you correct?

    But all in all, congrats and thanks to Maskarade and Gaudfrid.

15. As everyone says, an impressive grid, but the number of entries and the number of relatively obscure words made it a little bit less fun and more of a slog than most Maskerade puzzles (which I generally really enjoy). I got there, more or less; my wife knew how to spell ARANTXA, which I didn’t, and I had ALARME instead of ALARMS – I may have miscounted the foreign words, and thought I needed one more. Still, impressive work by both Maskerade and Gaufrid here. Thanks, both.

16. sjs@14 The Inklings were a circle at Oxford associated with Tolkien ans CS Lewis.
    I agree about Aesop, did he write his fables in a poetic form ?

17. The Inklings can be found here sjshart.

18. First time I have tried a Maskerade puzzle. When I first saw it I thought I hadn’t a hope but I was intrigued by the special instructions and thought I’d give it a go. So I marked all the special clues and started. Got a few of the non-special clues and then got POLONY and MIRAGE and started to wonder if the special pair of letters were US states and got myself a list. Nearly gave up when I got SLIEST for 35d, could not find a word that comprised 2 letters before or after SLIEST, and realised that the 2 letters could go in the middle of the answer – anywhere! (And that CEDE was not the answer to 51d which helped me get LARGO.)

    Anyway I spent a pleasant few hours having a go, got about a third of it and put it aside to continue later. But didn’t get round to it and was surprised to see it here today as, as mentioned above, entries can go in until the end of next week.

    I have not looked at the answers above as I intend to see if I can get any more first.

    Thanks to MASKARADE and to Gaufrid (in advance – I am sure I will need your help)

19. Another brilliant gridfill. Cracked the theme pretty early with AK and a couple of others in the NW, not the hardest holiday special but not the easiest either. I drew my own sketch map of the abbreviations. TX was my last themer – fortunately I watched a bit of tennis in the 80s/90s because I have never heard the name in any other context. Almost went wrong putting BORED instead of ORBED, also wondered about SCISM as a possible alternate spelling until SC was needed elsewhere.

    Thanks to Maskarade and Gaufrid.

20. Sjshart@14 – Tolkien and CS Lewis used to hold regular meetings in a pub called the Eagle and Child in Oxford.
    For some reason the pub was nicknamed The Inklings, but whether it took its nickname from the fact they were writers or the other way round is unclear.
    I believe other authors used to join them too.

21. sjshart @14, as I say in my post @7 I’ve never heard ‘ding’ being used for an Australian party. It’s not in Chambers 2014 but you can find it in Collins

22. The mind boggles at the skill required to create this: two words for 38 answers with a state added and then to lay them out geographically. Wow!

    The sheer number of clues made the whole thing look overwhelming. I solved a bit each day on my phone with a map open in a browser. I thought at one time it was two-letter country codes. POLONY was my way in. I finished (with help) but now see a couple of early bungs, CENE and LARGE, are wrong.

    I enjoyed looking at the US map and mapping it to the clues, sometimes before attempting an answer, based on their position.

    Thanks Maskarade for an extraordinary puzzle and Gaufrid for the excellent blog.

23. I’m just posting a test as I can’t see how all the comments before mine are dated April 23, ie before the blog and before the close of the comp.

24. …and still can’t!

25. That’s a good point Deegee@23.

    Really enjoyed this, and with no printer or Guardian my start was to draw grid. My first thought was pairs might refer to the periodic table but USA quickly identified. Nerdily I know where all the states are but still went wrong as didn’t bring I’d Alaska. I’d Idaho twice!
    Great puzzle though. Well done Maskerade and thanks for blog

26. …in Alaska…ggrrrr

27. Deegee @23, the blog appeared very briefly a week ago which is when I commented. When it was realised that it was before the closing date it was removed until today. Doesn’t matter to me as I don’t enter, but I understand why it was delayed. I’m glad the comments were kept as I for one wasn’t going to type it again.

28. Overall impression, like others, very impressive but a little strained in places as a result.
    I don’t think I’ve ever finished a bank holiday special, and got very close this time. I wanted the crossers to confirm 2d/15ac and got whisker right but failed on amide, the best I could think of was abide. Given I don’t recognise ame, abe seems just as plausible. I guessed ding for 78 even though I’ve never heard of either definition and I’ve never heard of dazing either. I also guessed vater but didn’t enter it because I couldn’t find a definition other than “duodenal swelling” which seemed too obscure. I still can’t find a definition of pact meaning Maori settlement and would never have imagined oldsters = midshipmen.
    There doesn’t seem to be any comment on the five French or German words, Spanish forename, and English actor, and they seemed rather irrelevant anyway.

29. Thanks TimC.

30. I’ve finally caught on that the mention of the Spanish forename is added to justify the use of Arantxa, which as the extended answer couldn’t be clued.

31. ravenrider @28 PA is the Maori settlement , it is in Chambers , CT is the state . Derek NIMMO is the actor.

32. VATER is German for father ?? I am on thin ice now. MrEssexboy may visit later.

33. ravenrider@28, the Maori settlement is a PA.

    Thanks, TimC@17, Shirley@20 & Roz@16, for telling me about INKLINGS. I was about to thank you last week, when we were all interrupted!

34. This was a combined effort from family Crossbar, as is usual for a bank holiday crossword, and done in small bursts over a week. We enjoyed it more than usual for a Maskarade as we thought the clues were generally better than in previous ones. Not sure why, but we thought “2 letters? Oh yeah, that’s bound to be state abbreviations” straight away, so off to a good start. Lots of head scratching along the way, especially wondering about the foreign words, but it’s long ago now, so can’t remember the detail. Didn’t notice how the states were in the correct positions mapwise – very clever. We cheated and used a list of state abbreviations.
    So in summary – very satisfying. I wonder if we’ll get a jumbo Jubilee one?

    Thanks to Maskarade for the fun, and Gaufrid for pointing out what we’d missed.

35. Enjoyed the challenge. A really impressive grid. Shame about the extended closing date interrupting the discussion … and doubling the number of blogs to follow.

36. My experiences were pretty much exactly a union of sjshart @14 and KeithS @15, pdp11@22.

    Thanks to the various erudite types on here for filling in the Tolkien/Inkling and PA Maori Settlement gaps in my knowledge. (An aside : PA is also Pennsylvania and is in roughly the correct position, thence I think the reference to the 38th pair ?)

    While agreeing there were not great clues individually the 37 (actually 38) specials were a real treat. Discovering ARANTXA and realising that Texas was ‘hidden’ there was a standout moment, but the combo of geography, codes and clues was overall very satisfying and an immense constructional achievement by Maskarade.

    Thanks Gaufrid for explaining it all so well!

37. I was pleased to get the states, but, in spite of their frequent appearance in crosswords, I am never sure of the abbreviations. I managed about three quarters but ground to a halt in the Mid-West.

38. Vater is indeed the German word for father Roz @32 and so is one of the 5 words mentioned in the preamble.

39. [Roz @32 is an accomplished performer on the ice, however thin it may be. Having skated happily through Enghalskrug, Brotstudien and Vehmgericht, VATER should have been a doddle 😉 ]

40. I thought that this was a fairly typical Maskerade offering – more quantity than quality. They just go on and on and on ….
    Not particularly challenging, though. The ‘theme’ was fairly obvious. I am quite sure that most solvers will have twigged ‘American states’ quite early on.
    Then it was just a question of arming myself with a map of the abbreviations and fitting them in to not very inspiring clues.
    All rather tedious, I though, and reminiscent of Maskerade’s obscure placename crossword a couple of years (?) ago.
    I do agree that we should give credit to Maskerade for fitting them all in the grid in the more-or-less correct places.
    The name Arantxa is more Basque than Spanish. I am currently learning Basque (it is the most difficult language I have ever learnt) and Arantxa is one of the characters in the course. OK, I suppose you can argue that the Basque country is (mainly) in Spain, and there are probably Spanish people bearing the name, who are not Basques.
    The -tx- represents a palatal -sh- for anyone interested.
    Despite all, thanks to M and thanks too to Gaufrid for the blog.

41. Too difficult for me. I solved 20 clues and gave up because I coudl see it would take me way too much time. I decided it would be just as much fun to wait a week and read the blog than to struggle over this puzzle.

    I could not work out what the theme was with the 37 clues but I guessed it might be US states as I already had MI, WI. I now see that it was quite an achievement to place the US state abbreviations in roughly the same places as they appear on a map

    Of the ones I solved, I did not parse 8d WI+ELDER (Sir Mark?)

    Thanks, both.

42. I was happily chugging along finding where the chemical symbols from the periodic table would fit 🙂 , but was stumped by ALARMS, as there is no MS, of course. In an idle moment I Googled “chemical symbol MS” and found a Wiki list of not only the current symbols, but also those that had been discontinued (such as MS for Magnesium), or never used (MS for Masrium, a disputed discovery of Radium). I thought, this is a bit unfair.

    Then I solved 8d ELDER and needed a chemical element WI to fit with 7a PAWN. And of course there isn’t one. There are two: I found a spoof periodic table with the element Williamsium, and several attempts at Wine, that essential component of all life. At this point I was about to give up, but something made me look again, and the penny dropped: obviously WI is Wisconsin. I was three clues short when I finally gave up, mainly because I used UT at 36d then forgot I needed to place it elsewhere after I realised my error. Also missing several parsings and definitions.

    Well done Gaufrid for the comprehensive blog, congratulations to all who completed, and thanks to Maskarade. (And sorry for doubting you about the disused chemical symbols!)

43. sheffield hatter @ 42
    I also toyed briefly with the Periodic Table. But gave up the idea when I realised that Ia could not have an H in it.

44. Anna@40 I would normally agree with your 1st paragraph about the clueing in Maskarade’s offerings, but i did think the level was higher than normal this time.

45. Good to see Anna@40 – I am currently learning Basque ….. Sometimes I think you are my anti-particle. SH@42 there was a Listener puzzle with chemical symbols in it, quite a long time ago.

    [EB@ 39 , I always say that Azed clues are so good you do not even need to know the definition or the answer. I do always check things when I have finished, Brotstudien was particularly brilliant both in construction and ” earning a crust ” ]

46. Roz @ 45
    Do I understand that you too are learning Basque? If so, perhaps I could ask Gaufrid to put us in touch? It would be good to share some ideas with you ….

47. Sometimes it’s just a question of enjoying the journey and I did – so far as it went. An ambitious project by Maskerade and I’m so impressed by both the puzzle and the blog.
    I got about halfway through before I went off the boil with the arrival of more crosswords including Brendan’s excellent prize for last week – my bad (I wish I had the perseverance gene; life would be so different). In mitigation for the DNF I am certain on review that I could be there until Tibb’s Eve without any hope of completion. That amplifies my admiration for those that could follow through to the end, not least Gaufrid who had no choice in the matter.
    On the other hand I always take a bikkie from the barrel when I manage to figure out what the special instructions are intended to convey – so yay me!

48. Anna@46 , I meant that I just about manage English, my language skills are zero.

49. Roz @ 48
    Ah, OK, don’t want to know you in that case ……
    (THAT WAS A JOKE!!)
    I’m not sure we’re anti-particles, though. I usually think your comments are spot on.

50. I liked this despite taking far longer than anyone else to spot the US states, and eventually finished it with a map of them at my elbow, chasing abbreviations across it. Maskarade’s achievement in siting them in more or less the right geographical areas helped me no end with the last few.

    I always enjoy Maskarade’s bank holiday crosswords.

51. sheffield hatter @ 42 Me three! FLuorine in 80a and ALuminium in 76a (though I couldn’t work out why it was “more or less correctly positioned”).
    Sorry to say I gave up on this quite early 🙁

52. … and now I’ve looked it up FL isn’t fluorine it’s Flerovium (which I’ve nho).

53. So now there are several of us who have mentioned that we first thought of the periodic table – but I wonder if those very mentions might have spoiled the plot for a future holiday special!

54. Dr W @53. I would hope it would get the juices flowing! The grid could even be in the appropriate shape.

55. I think expecting anyone much under fifty to have a clue as to who Derek Nimmo was was optimistic. He did well in sitcoms for a while but went out of fashion, and ended up as a (successful) producer of overseas tours. Hardly a name on everyone’s lips!

56. Well ! Firstly, many thanks to Maskarade for the challenge and to Gaufrid for taking on the blog for this puzzle – above and beyond ! I was another whose initial ideas revolved around chemical symbols, but like many of you I soon realised that wasn’t going to work. Once I twigged that the “theme” was in fact US state codes (and hence the rubric about their positioning) I printed off the appropriate map and set to work. As I have said before, I don’t think Maskarade intends us to complete his bank holiday puzzles without that kind of aid to hand. I didn’t have a lot else to do at Easter, but even so this one did take a while and I didn’t finish it until the Tuesday.

    I’m not entirely convinced that this sort of puzzle is actually fair (solve a clue then add two letters to the answer to produce another totally undefined word) but it was nevertheless solvable so I suppose I shouldn’t complain. My only firm complaint with this and with previous Bank Holiday puzzles is the lack of “long” solutions and the irritating over-abundance of short ones. In a 23×23 grid I’d expect a few solutions longer that 11 letters !

    I managed to parse most of the solutions. However, like others I still can’t see what PACT specifically has to do with Maori settlement, nor why TER is a “short road” ? Perhaps someone more erudite could set me right ? However in the second of those I could see more or less immediately that the “extended” solution had to be VATER – that was one of the very few benefits of having studied German to ‘O’ Level ! Nowadays, 50+ years later, my favourite German word is probably “Giftzwerg” – but I certainly didn’t learn that one at school !

57. JohnB @56. Some roads in towns in England are called Terrace, which is abbreviated to TER. (I lived on Gathorne Terrace for a few years, so this was not a problem for me, but obviously not everyone would have found this so familiar.)

58. JohnB @ 56 A pa is a ‘maori fort or settlement’ (Chambers) with CT as its themed companion. That PA is also the abbreviation for Pennsylvania gives a 38th themer.

59. Simon S @58; I think both PA and CT are thematic, so really there are 39 states overall.

    No one picked up on this earlier – in 37 solutions the (single) state has to be added to non-state clued solution but here the state is being added to a state (PA) to make an overall clued solution ( I was reading ‘settlement’ as doing double duty for the Maori village = PA and for the definition settlement = pact).

    It isn’t really clear this is enough of a distinction and why the rubric shouldn’t have read “In 38 cases, add 2 letters”

    This one also confused me (easily done) because the last 2 letters of MAORI are also a state (Rhode Island), which is also geographically in the correct location. So for some time I thought there might be some hidden word action going on.

60. Thanks Gaufrid & Maskerade. I found this a lot of fun – a different kind of puzzle to the usual daily fare, but enjoyable in its own way.

    Epee Sharkey @59 – 38, not 39, with PA being the 38th. That clue confused me at first – I got it into my head that PA + CT were the “38th pair [of states]”, but in fact PA is the “38th pair [of letters]”, and CT is one of the other 37 [unclued] pairs.

    Until I realised that, I spent a long time getting very frustrated, wondering why I could only count 36 states elsewhere in the grid… But I think the clue is fair enough – as per Simon S @58, it’s really just a straightforward double definition for an abbreviation for a US state and a two-letter word for a Maori settlement.

    I’m pretty confident of the numbers because I went as far as entering them into an Excel spreadsheet to do the adding up for me.

    ARANTXA was my LOI – I knew TX had to be the themed pair but I couldn’t reconcile that with a word that fitted in the slot. Until I went back and re-read the rubric and saw the bit about the Spanish name… duh!

    Anna @40 – I got waylaid for a while thinking it might be chemical symbols. My first themed solution to go in was RE[LA]ID, which was roughly in the right place for Lanthanum in the periodic table…

61. Sheffield hatter @57, Simon S @58 : Many thanks to you both, gentlemen ! I might possibly have remembered “Terrace” if I had thought for long enough, but I would never had thought of PA as being a proper word because that was almost LOI and I’d slackened off with counting the state codes by then. Oops !

    Widdersbel @60 I noticed comparatively early that it was possible to identify those clues which needed a state code inserted, because the enumerations for those clues were for the solutions to the clues themselves and not the solutions which actually had to be entered in the grid. So, I simply read each clue and marked all those where the enumeration didn’t match the number of squares in the light, and kept re-reading until I counted 37 clues thus marked.

62. I’m probably the last but wanted to say how much I enjoyed this.
    Many thanks to Maskarade & Gaufrid.
    The actual clues weren’t very testing but I admired how both the short and long versions were all proper words. The fact hat the left column had three entries made WA, OR and CA write-ins and my ony problem was that a map I googled had NT for Montana! My last in was ARANTXA. Had wondered how Texas would be managed and felt it must be there. It would have been helpful if the Spanish had been Basque (that language has lots of Xs- don’t know whether they have their own Scrabble version. I believe Polish Scrabble has a low-scoring Z. When I googled ARANTXA, I realised that I did know the name of Senora Vicario.
    Was anyone sorry about a missing state? I certainly now have a better idea of the layout of the USA but retain my objection to the setters who expect one to pick from 50, nearly twice as many as the alphabet.

63. Can anyone explain “ana” for anecdotes? I worked out that TX had to be added but couldn’t solve the clue.

64. H.W.M @63 A quick Google for “ana meaning” reveals this
    noun ARCHAIC
    1.anecdotes or literary gossip about a person.
    2.a collection of a person’s memorable sayings.
    which is more or less what my Chambers says. Not a common usage then.

65. I thought the fill was quite brilliant and am totally ready to forgive the few obscurities, none of which stopped me solving the puzzle eventually with the help of a suitably marked map in another tab with various lookups.

    I was a bit put off at first by the small size of the grid on my phone and the huge number of clues, so didn’t bother with it at first. When I did have a look, I found a few fairly easy ones to put in and quite quickly realized what the theme was (can’t remember exactly how at this distance).

    Annoyingly, although I did the whole puzzle using the interactive version, which stores one’s answers between sessions, I now find that that has been replaced with a pdf version, so all my answers have been lost.

    There seems to have been a lot of confusion about 26ac, but I think Widdersbel has explained it. To be absolutely clear, there are 37 state abbreviations which need to be added to the answers to 37 clues, the relevant answers being placed in approximately the same position relative to one another as the states indicated. In addition, a 38th pair of letters (PA), which also fit the theme but are not added to any answer after solution, themselves form the unadorned answer to a double definition clue, to which CT, one of the 37, needs to be added before entry into the grid.

    Derek NIMMO probably isn’t that well known to younger solvers, but the clue, together with the crossers and the special instructions, gives the answer quite easily, which can then be checked.

66. Btw, Guardian Genius 189, by Soup, used the symbols for chemical elements. The preamble states:

    “This puzzle salutes the 150th anniversary this month of the publication of a major work. Solutions contain elements from the latest version of the work. (Letter counts after the clues are correct.)”

    In his blog of the puzzle, duncanshiell explains:

    “March 2019 is the 150th anniversary of the month in 1869 when Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev [1834 – 1907] presented his initial work on the development of the periodic table to the Russian Chemical Society.”

    Qaos also uses chemical element abbreviations in Guardian Genius puzzles 102 & 206.

67. I feel, as a number seem to, that the Guardian should remind Maskarade that his objective is to give a pleasurable challenge to the solvers, rather than to himself.

68. Tony @65

    I began to wonder if I was the only one who suffered from the loss of the interactive version! It seems to have been removed on the first Thursday night (five days after publication). When I returned to the puzzle on the Friday morning, with 50-60 clues solved, I found that it had gone. It would have been hard work, and time-consuming, to restart on a printed pdf of the blank grid, so I stopped forthwith, but not before discovering the theme and admiring how the thematic bits fitted into the ‘right’ places in the grid.

    Thanks to Maskarade and Gaufrid, but no thanks to the Guardian for pulling the plug!

69. Alan, how annoying! I loaded the puzzle into a browser tab on my phone on the Saturday, where it remained, with no need to refresh. I think I started it on the Monday and finished it on the Tuesday. I don’t really understand why they pulled it, since I successfully completed the interactive puzzle on my android phone. Perhaps it didn’t render properly on some other devices?

70. There was an interactive version?? I had to draw the grid…
    This online with the puzzle now:
    “An earlier version of the PDF version of this puzzle gave an incorrect PO Box number in the address for entries. This was corrected on 20 April 2022.
    A duplicate version of this crossword which had technical faults was also removed on 20 April 2022.”

71. This is very late in the day – we have been away. We got the states fairly quickly but did not quite finish (e.g. not discovering oldster = midshipman) but are with JohnB @ 556 in feeling that it is a big ask to find 37 totally unclued words. Most were straightforward, but not all (e.g. old masters).
    fandj

72. I don’t like giving up on a crossword, but I was totally befuddled by this one and waited for the solution. I’ve some past crosswords for emergencies such as this!

73. I’ve just finished – it seems I wasn’t quite the first. Thanks for the blog.

    Did anyone find the 5 French/ German words? I found ARANTXA for the Spanish name, and I gather from posters here that NIMMO is the actor. VATER is a German word, and BON MOT might qualify as 2 French words, but what are the others?

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