Guardian Prize 28,769 by Brendan

66 comments on “Guardian Prize 28,769 by Brendan”

1. I’ve brought forward publication in view of the Guardian’s decision to publish the annotated solution earlier today.

2. Heavens bridgesong. What a palaver this has been for you.

   I enjoyed this puzzle, quite an original idea. I like puzzles with a jigsaw element. I wonder if everyone approves of one clue having more than one possible solution.
   Some answers cane easily, such as TOKYO/KYOTO, LOGARITHM/ALGORITHM, TERN/ERNE. CHALICE seemed a bit implausible though, but I couldn’t think of anything else. Took me a while to remember FONTANELLE.

   Thanks Brendan for providing an enjoyable change to the usual. And thanks bridgesong.

3. There’s a song called Alice’s Restaurant, so I think 17a is Ch (church)+ Alice (restaurateur)

4. I thought this was an outstanding puzzle. It was not particularly difficult, but there was much to appreciate in the ingenuity shown in some pairs of across clues in particular, and I would single out the pairs SERVICE / CHALICE, ALIENATE / ESTRANGE and WHITE LIE / BLACK ICE for special praise.

   Many thanks to Brendan and bridgesong.

5. That’s interesting Nickb @3. Good thinking. The song completely passed me by (not unusual at all) but Mr. Crossbar is familiar with it. The only Guthrie I know is Woody, and it seems Arlo, the song writer is his son.

6. What fun! Thanks Brendan.
   I agree with Nickb@3 about the parsing of CHALICE. I think that is why the clue specifies “restaranteur”, rather than just restaurant.
   Thanks for the explanations bridgesong.

7. Agree with Nickb & Mystogre that 17a alludes to where you can get anything you want. Great clue among many. I enjoyed the novel challenge of double solutions with helpful down clues. Thanks Bridgesong & Brendan.

8. The parsing suggested by Nickb @3 is certainly convincing, though there is in fact a beer glass type called a CHALICE, used especially for some Belgian beers, such as this one. I’m sure many restaurateurs in Belgium would be familiar with these.

   I enjoyed this puzzle. I think the concept of clues resulting in different answers was discussed on this site a few weeks/months ago, so it was good to see it in action.

   Thanks to Brendan and bridgesong.

9. Thanks Brendan for a most entertaining tour-de-force. FONTANELLE was my top pick of many fine clues. I guess I thought of CHALICE much the same as sheffield hatter @8; maybe BELGIAN being so near in the grid prompted that idea in me. I liked BELGIAN because European was the definition and not the overused indicator for the letter “e”. Thanks bridgesong for the blog.

10. Thanks bridgesong and Brendan. I thought this was wonderful. I particularly liked the pairing of BLACK ICE and WHITE LIE. To do the trick with clues but also with solutions that make such apposite pairings *and* fit them in the grid symmetrically is quite remarkable. Chapeau, Brendan. 10/10

    Not familiar with the song, so CHALICE had me scratching my head. Otherwise, a nice steady solve. CENTIMOS was my LOI – but don’t know why it took me so long to break the clue down, it looks so obvious now.

11. I really enjoyed this and thought it very clever. I also parsed 17A as CH + ALICE (and promptly had the song as an earworm for the next few days).

    Thank you to Brendan and bridgesong.

12. Meant to add: my best guess for the parsing of CHALICE was a reference to the legendary Alice Waters of Chez Panisse and the French Laundry, but that seemed unlikely. The annotated solutions on the Guardian website confirm the song as the intended reference. Knew it had to be CH+ALICE for some reason, but I was never going to get that.

13. Brendan (though often under his other alias Virgilius) is a long-term serial offender with this type of clue.

14. I think the player in 26 is White as in chess to match 8

15. Engkeberg@14, or maybe the player in 8 is Jack to match Jimmy?

16. Great fun, very clever. Love the Arlo Guthrie reference – we once ate at Alice’s restaurant in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Although it had changed its name, the waitress had a T-shirt on: ‘You can get anything you want at Alice’s restaurant’ on the front, ‘Excepting Alice’ on the back. Also had to buy a copy of Sweet Baby James so we could play it on the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston. I agree with Engkeberg @14 that the player in 26 was Black’s opponent. Thanks, Brendan (your crossies are always such fun) and bridgesong.

17. I found this a special puzzle even though it tripped me up. I insisted on 8a being BLACK LIE. My ILIADS for 3d made no sense though I tried to convince myself that the Beatles were just LADS. I particularly liked the clue for ICON. Many thanks B + b.

18. Thanks bridgesong. I didn’t read the instructions carefully enough or didn’t understand them at the time when I gleefully entered TOKYO at 9a as FOI. When I got round to the down clues FONTANELLE leapt out at 6d and I was flummoxed. I had LOGARITHMS in the wrong place too so the NE corner took a bit more thought. I’d also fixated for a while on black tie and white tie so that didn’t help either. I agonised over 21d my LOI, the answer was clear but I couldn’t see why. Still not sure that ‘only’ is necessary.

19. Biggles, I think “only” is necessary as otherwise “gripping head of insect” would be an insert i instruction.

20. Just another example of Brendan’s brilliance. I have an image of Brendan writing a clue, liking it, and then realizing that there was a second equally valid solution with the same number of letters. First he said “Darn, I can’t use it” and then he said “Wait a minute, wait a futtocking minute…” (to quote Shakespeare the Upstart Crow).

    Thanks Brendan for the fun, and bridgesong for the deft handling of the Graniaud’s confusing treatment of this Prize puzzle.

21. Thank you bridgesong for persevering at the end of the Guardian yo-yo, and for giving up 2 days for our fun.

    I liked this. I wondered whether the instructions were making it a bit too easy. “Solutions to the seven paired across clues should be placed in the grid as the down solutions allow.” I didn’t have any trouble fitting any of them in, and wondered why the instructions, but then I had read them and did the down clues first!

    Re CHALICE . Alice’s Restaurant occurred to me (after many years of 19 minutes going round and round the turntable with the cr cr cr crack in it, and meeting Arlo Guthrie here… I prefer his more recent extended version ) but googling brought up a lot of restaurants called CHALICE, and some recipes and receptacles as well. Not sure.

22. As Widdersbel @12 has confirmed, the annotated solution for 17ac does make explicit reference to the film Alice’s Restaurant, so CH /ALICE is the correct parsing. I was misled by the definition in Chambers- “a drinking cup or bowl” and wasn’t aware of the Belgian beer connection. I agree that WHITE in 26 ac could equally well be the opposing chess player: I don’t know why Jimmy White came to mind.

23. Thanks for the blog , it must be so difficult to write these double clues. For once I had to start with the Downs. FONTANELLE is so clever , EVER is nicely devious but I think SMOOTH is the winner. Such a simple word must be hard to clue and the word play here is so original,
    For SITARS, miss out Indian and we have an &Lit.

24. The double answer idea has been discussed before on General Discussion, Ximenes once used it on April 1st with no warning. A quadrant of the puzzle had double answers that crossed with EACH OTHER but only one set crossed with the rest of the grid.

25. Took me a while to get going on this but really enjoyed once I did.

    FOI were LOGARITHMS and ALGORITHMS which helped me get the idea of the paired clues. Eventually got all but the oxymoronic ones and 2d and 24d which crossed them.

    Loved KYOTO, TOKYO which I think I have seen before. Also TERN and ERNE and ESTRANGE and ALIENATE. Of the others liked FONTANELLE

    Finally got EVER yesterday (so obvious once spotted) and then got the oxymoronic ones – did make me smile when I got them – not sure that they are oxymoronic – but they are deceptive. Wondered about ICON for 2d but wasn’t quite sure

    Thanks Brendan and Bridgesong

26. I loved this. So clever. The restaurant also came to mind as it did for NickB @3.
    I originally had Pastes for LASHES until HAVERSACK disabused me.
    FONTANELLE was clever and unfortunately I couldn’t get the rather sick joke out of my head. Favourite was the &lit SITARS (I don’t understand why Indian has to be left out to make it so).

27. Loved this puzzle. How much more enjoyable than this week’s sad offering.
    Also many thanks to those who replied to me yesterday after I had gone out.
    Thanks to Brendan and to bridgesong for the excellent blog.

28. TimC @ 26 , as it stands INSTRUMENTS is the definition and not part of the word play. Indian originally gives the I .
    Remove Indian so that INSTRUMENTS originally gives the I and becomes part of the word play.

29. What a great puzzle! Though I’m surely influenced by managing to complete a Prize for once.

    I enjoyed the pairing device but my standout clue was certainly SITARS for the brilliant &lit.

    Thanks to brendan, and to bridgesong for clearing up the few where I had the answers but wasn’t certain of the parsing.

30. Roz @28… Yes I see what you mean. I just read the whole clue as the definition, including everything after Instruments as they originated in India and e.g. were used by The Beatles, but as you say “Instrument” is not part of the wordplay as it stands. It ends up as a semi &lit.
    I’m trying to get into clue writing mode for today’s Azed. 🙂

31. TimC @30 the whole clue can be the definition but I took it as a straight definition plus word play.
    For &Lit we only need one I , so ditch Indian which does spoil the allusion somewhat.
    I never write clues for Azed , not one of my skills .

32. With Brendan you can be pretty sure you’re not going to get a straightforward puzzle, there’s always something interesting going on. Sometimes he seems to want to challenge himself as much as us. This was so impressive and clever and enjoyable. (Though people who insist that a clue must lead unambiguously to one answer, without any crossers, might not agree!)

    Many thanks Brendan and bridgesong.

33. Thanks Brenda’s and Bridgesong ! Especial thanks to Bridgesong for the parsing of WHITE ICE, which had escaped me although I thought the answer must be correct. Also kudos to Nickb@3 for CHALICE – I had completely forgotten Alice’s Restaurant even though it was a song I used to hear regularly back in the day ! Loved the idea behind this puzzle and I thought it was very well done. It helped that the first few down clues were quite straightforward but I guess that is a necessary component of this kind of puzzle .

34. Brenda’s ????? Brendan !! Bloomin’ autocorrect !

35. A very fine puzzle, not too difficult but requiring some thought.

    SITARS was a bit too obvious for me – I saw the answer immediately from the first two words, instantly confirmed by the Beatles, and the simple parsing followed almost as fast. But the double solutions more than made up for it, and as I took my time over the Downs, choosing the right places to put them added a pleasing complexity.

36. I did enjoy this, but suspect Brendan may have enjoyed setting it more 🙂

    I did think that having the same clue fit two answers of the same length sometimes meant that a clue was slightly inelegant. For example, ESTRANGE works better than ALIENATE, wordplay-wise, though ALIENATE fits the definition better. Also I got LASHES a lot quicker than I got CREAMS, which required some crossers.

    But that’s a minor nitpick, outweighed by the overall cleverness and solving fun.

37. Just happened to chance upon the blog which I had read wasn’t going to be published until June 11, so I had actually put my thoughts on the back burner; I am feeling a bit for bridgesong with the “on again off again” task of blogging.
    Thanks to other contributors for all previous comments.
    I found the “Same as” clues an intriguing novel device which turned on its head the notion others have mentioned is asserted by some, that a cryptic clue shouldn’t allow for more than one possible solution. I certainly approved, Crossbar@2 – and I’m not sure whether “serial offender” is quite fair, Phi@13. ! Well done to clever Brendan! Every element of this puzzle was well crafted and a pleasure to solve. [My top favourite already cited by others above was 26a WHITE LIE (such a nice contrast with BLACK ICE at 8a). BTW, I agree with Enkeberg@14 – and TassieTim@16 and bridgesong (later) @22- and believe that, in the spirit of “same as”, Brendan was referring to the two players in chess in 26 and 8, not to the snooker player in 26 – only because I had never heard of Jimmy White – nor Jack in 8, as referenced by Paul, Tutukaka@15.]
    Thanks also to bridgesong for the delayed/brought forward blog which I enjoyed reading. [Just reminiscing that a now ageing Arlo Guthrie came to the pre-COVID 2019 Bluesfest in Australia and during his set performed the entire version of Alice’s Restaurant – the crowd, including me, absolutely loved it!].
    [JohnB@33 and 34 – was that in fact an attempt at a platinum tribute to Brenda, perhaps Freudian rather than auto-correct? ]

38. I got 9a and 25a the wrong way round which completely knackered me.
    Not a fan of puzzles with special instructions, I find puzzles without special instructions hard enough.
    Thanks both.

39. Lord JIm@32 , each clue does lead unambiguously to one answer, it is just that there are TWO clues and TWO answers. The ambiguity is the position in the grid , hence the special instructions .

40. Hi Roz @39, I’m not sure I follow you. What I was saying was that each of the special clues does not lead unambiguously to one answer without any crossers.

41. A great puzzle which I really enjoyed. Not too hard thankfully, so at least I had a chance with the doubled clues. Very pleased to have TOKYO/KYOTO to give me a start.

    I thought there had to be a restauranteur called Alice. That was the only one I was clueless about.

    Kudos to Brendan.

42. [Julie in Australia @37. Nice one about Brenda in John B’s @33/34! I guess it might well be over the heads of most, or too late to get much appreciation. I had a little grin, so thanks for that.]

43. Brilliant puzzle, which is exactly what we expect from Brendan! It would have helped the mechanics of solving online if the clues themselves had been repeated, rather than simply saying “same as” (etc).

    I had ALGORITHM and LOGARITHM the wrong way round at first, because the G in 3rd position convinced me to put ALGORITHM in, without thinking that LOGARITHM had the same attribute!

    Roz@28, since you don’t bother reading surfaces, it will have gone over your head that if you remove the word ‘Indian’, the clue clue wouldn’t’t work because it would suggest that The Beatles were the first to use it. The clue stands up, as Tim C pointed out, as what is known (even to hardcore Ximeneans, I believe) as a semi &lit. It was a wonderful clue, imo, and an example of why a relatively easy clue can be admired for its elegant surface. A clue whose surface is nonsense is not usually a good clue even (especially?) if it’s hard. @39, not sure how you’re using the word “unambiguously” here? If one clue can correctly produce two answers, it’s ambiguous, surely? The fact that the crossers will disambiguate is not an attribute of the clue itself.

    Bridgesong@22, ALICE is confirmed by the annotated solutions to be a reference to the song (not the film, which came later and was based on the song.) Those who weren’t familiar with the song should give it a listen (YouTube, 18’15”); it’s very funny.

44. Tony’43 , I humbly disagree, for word play originally would mean the first letter of instruments. For definition it would mean using them in an original way , not FIRST.
    There are TWO clues , although not actually printed. TWO clues to give TWO answers , the position of each ambiguous hence the special instructions , a semi-jigsaw maybe.

45. I preferred Brendan’s puzzles before he felt the need to set himself the additional challenge of incorporating a theme or a device but I still enjoyed this one.
    Can someone explain how 8 and 26a are oxymoronic? Chambers says an oxymoron is “a figure of speech by means of which contradictory terms are combined to form an expressive phrase or epithet, as “cruel kindness”, “falsely true” etc. None of “black ice” “white tie” or “black ice/white tie” are oxymoronic.

46. Pino @45: I take your point about oxymorons, but it is WHITE LIE, not WHITE TIE.

47. Roz@44, yes, you’re right, you could read it like that, although it would make for a stilted surface when the natural word order is ‘played originally’ if you mean they had an original way of plying it. For that reason, I would still regard it as inferior to the present semi & lit. However, if you don’t care about such things, the full &lit would seem the better clue.

48. Pino @45, I wondered about “oxymoronic” at first but if you squint just a bit, you can see both phrases are mildly oxymoronic:

    “Ice” usually conjures an image of something white or clear, so the idea of ice which is black seems to contradict that notion. Similarly, in the convention that blackness equates to evil, the wrong which is a lie connotes black, the opposite of white.

49. bridgesong@46. Thanks for pointing out my mistake. I can’t remember what I entered when I solved the clue but TIE wouldn’t have parsed which would normally have stopped me entering it or at least I would have noticed and remembered.

50. Tony Collman@48
    Thanks. I see what you mean but I think it needs more than just a bit of a squint.

51. Julie in Australia @37,

    My mind may indeed deal in strange currencies at times, but I don’t think even I could essay anything Freudian about Brenda !

52. Tony@47 I agree and I never said anything about “better” . Without Indian it simply works as an &Lit, the original is better , for me just a definition plus word play, and the word Indian is clearly linked to the instruments so that originally Indian is misleading . ( “misleading”is always meant as a compliment from me )

53. Roz@52

    “for me just a definition plus word play”

    That just seems to be ignoring, and so failing to give due recognition to, the ingeniousness of the fact that the whole clue also defines the answer in more detail than the bare word “instruments”, something which should surely be acknowledged — and is, by the label ‘semi &lit’.

54. Tony@53. Instruments=SITARS , I embraced by STARS, all done move on. Semi &Lit means NOT &Lit so no need to read the clue.
    I would prefer that setters were more concerned with deception than style.

55. Alice’s Restaurant was a pretty famous song in it’s time, and also a film

56. Roz@54, that’s exactly the attitude needed when in a competition (possibly just with yourself) to solve at maximum speed but not, I would suggest, for maximum pleasure. You know, when you travel from A to B, there’s the shortest route and then there’s the scenic route. The first is best when your only objective is to get to B as fast as possible but if you want to enjoy the ride, take the scenic route.

57. I see beauty if fiendish constructions, not in bad Daily Express headlines.

58. Sorry as this is very late bridgesong but thanks for the explanations and for overcoming the Grauniad confusion, thanks also nickB@3 for the Alice explanation (as I assumed there was some celebrity chef of that name) and Tony Collman@43 for the link. I thought this was a fantastic puzzle, thanks Brendan.

59. I loved this ingenious puzzle. Thanks, Brendan and bridgesong.

60. A proper prize challenge. Well done Brendan, and thanks Bridgesong.
    From years ago, I remember a clue with the separate words ESTUARY and ENGLISH within the phrasing, for which the solution was an anagram, and the answer legitimately could have been either DELTAIC or DIALECT.(but not CITADEL or EDICTAL)

61. It’s additionally true (if you’ve seen the movie) that Alice’s restaurant in Western Massachusetts was in an old deconsecrated church.

    I enjoyed the puzzle. Thanks to Brendan and bridgesong. Nice device.

62. Sorry I’m late! I loved this. But just to stick my oar in, if Alice owned a restaurant she’d be a restauranteuse. But of course the masculine has to be the default gender in this patriarchy we live in!

63. I have not seen this device of double clues before and I found it quite challenging but fun to do.

    Liked COMING IN, WHITE LIE, FORMAT, BELGIAN, EVER (loi).

    New: BLACK ICE.

    Did not parse
    6d the second N in FONTANELLE (*leftalone + N);
    21d

    Thanks, both

64. A thing of beauty

65. Valentine@61

    Unless the film didn’t follow the plot of the song, the restaurant itself wasn’t in the deconsecrated church, but nearby. Alice lived in the bell tower of the church and dumped her garbage downstairs:

    “Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on – two years ago on
    Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the
    Restaurant, but Alice doesn’t live in the restaurant, she lives in the
    Church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and
    Fasha the dog. And livin’ in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of
    Room downstairs where the pews used to be in. Havin’ all that room,
    Seein’ as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn’t
    Have to take out their garbage for a long time.

    We got up there, we found all the garbage in there, and we decided it’d be
    A friendly gesture for us to take the garbage down to the city dump.”

    It was the “friendly gesture” that led to the main event and finally the recommendation on how to avoid the Vietnam draft.

    https://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/a/arlo_guthrie/alices_restaurant.html

66. Late to the game … missed the original blog posting, and didn’t find it till today.

    I found the word play really fun and clever. Like an earlier poster, I quickly plopped in TOKYO, then remembered the nearby city of KYOTO (original and modern capitals). After that, I worked on pairs of answers and waited on the downs to figure out which went where.

    Interesting that most of the pairs were the same type of cryptic clue (not just the anagrams pointed out in the blog, but hiddens, insertions double definitions). The only one I didn’t parse was CHALICE.

    For FONTANELLE, I got the second N from the centre of “arouNd it’s”.

    Thank you, Brendan for a delightful puzzle!

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