We have an Enigmatist puzzle in the prize slot today. If you like a challenge then Enigmatist is the setter for you
There were a few opportunities today to use your knowledge of French and Latin. Combine that with some English words that are not in common use, your vocabulary will have increased as a result of solving the crossword. The less well known words were seen in both the wordplay and the answers.
Yes, it’s a hard puzzle, but it is also a prize puzzle, which to my mind should always be a bit more difficult than the standard weekday offerings. The new words for me were EVEJAR, DIASTEMA, ADUNC, limen and lig.
Enigmatist writes well-formed clues with plenty of misdirection that make you think laterally. The wordplay is often quite intricate, but everything fits together in the end. There are difficult clues, but there are also a few clues that can be answered fairly quickly from the definition immediately, or soon after you have one or two crossing letters.
I knew or vaguely remembered the named people in the grid. ERIC CLAPTON fell very quickly with a couple of crossers, as did GAWAIN. DOUG MCCLURE from the western series The Virginian needed a bit of research, but ARTHUR C CLARKE was an easier one for me to recall.
There were at least two examples of wordplay with nested containers – ECCLES CAKE and MACCLESFIELD
There are nine occurrences of the string CCL in the entries. These are all highlighted in the grid below. CCL is the Roman numeral for 250, so I’m guessing this is Enigmatist’s 250th crossword for The Guardian. I doubt if it is simply his 250th puzzle in total as he has been around in various guises for many years.
I reckon the inclusion of CCL in so many words forced Enigmatist to include DIASTEMA and ADUNC as entries. The CCL in CRYPTIC CLUE is highly appropriate. I am impressed that Enigmatist got CCL into both Across and Down entries. Often, theme words go in one direction, making it difficult to find additional theme words that fit the crossing letters in the other direction.
I thought the clue for CRYPTIC CLUE was particularly clever in the way it wove the anagram of PICTUR into the correctly order letters of CYCLE.
I enjoyed this, but I didn’t come close to solving it in one sitting.
Thanks and congratulations to Enigmatist on his 250 milestone. Here’s to the next 250!
| No | Detail |
| Across | |
| 1 | Weather movement forced cloud up north with reduction in temperature (8,5)
OCCLUDED FRONT (an advancing cold front into which a mass of warm air has been driven obliquely, forming a bulge which narrows as the warm air is lifted up and the cold air flows in beneath; weather movement) Anagram of (up) FORCED CLOUD + N (abbreviation [with reduction] for North) + T (temperature) OCCLUDED FRO* N T |
| 9 | A fair few, but no miles at all (3)
ANY (at all) mANY (a great number; a fair few) excluding (but no) M (miles) ANY |
| 10 | Planter involved with 10cc guitarist (4,7)
ERIC CLAPTON (reference ERIC CLAPTON [born 1945], English rock and blues guitarist) Anagram of (involved) PLANTER and (with) IOCC (10cc) ERIC CLAPTON* |
| 12 | React nervously when receiving specific tube (8)
CATHETER (a tube for admitting or removing gases or liquids through channels of the body) Anagram of (nervously) REACT containing (receiving) THE (definite article, used to refer to a specific person or thing, or a group of things) CA (THE) TER* |
| 13 | Arthur’s nephew, first in Winchester, taking a cut in profit (6)
GAWAIN (Sir GAWAIN [a character in Arthurian legend, in which he is King Arthur’s nephew]) (W [first letter of {first in} Winchester] + A ) contained in (cut in) GAIN (profit) GA (W A) IN |
| 16 | Special constable in unwanted entrance has look around selection in patisserie (6,4)
ECCLES CAKE (a small cake [patisserie] or bun filled with raisins, currants, etc) (SC [Special Constable] contained in [in)] LEAK [an unwanted entrance of water]) all contained in (has … around) ECCE (Latin for behold!; look!) ECC (LE (SC) AK) E |
| 18 | Mercury coating blade (4)
FOIL (mercury coating on a mirror) FOIL (a blunt fencing sword [blade] with a button on the point) double definition FOIL |
| 20 | Double headed once (4)
FOLD (a double of anything upon itself; double) oF OLD (in times long past; once) excluding the first letter (headed [topped]) O F OLD |
| 21 | In salute of magician abroad, keeping cool on vacation (10)
ACCLAIMING (welcoming with enthusiasm; in salute of) Anagram of (abroad) MAGICIAN containing (keeping) CL (letters remaining in CooL when the central letters OO are removed [on vacation]) AC (CL) AIMING* |
| 23 | On retirement along Riviera, je veux un oiseau local (6)
EVEJAR (dialect [local] name for the nightjar [bird [oiseau in French]) EVEJAR (reversed [on retirement] hidden word [along] in rivieRA JE VEux) EVEJAR< |
| 24 | Top surfaces of sponges intermittently with pepper (8)
CAPSICUM (a tropical American shrubby plant of the genus Capsicum, of the potato family, yielding a fleshy, many-seeded fruit, also called green pepper or red pepper) CAP (top) + SI (initial letters of [surfaces of] Sponges and Intermittently) + CUM (combined with) CAP S I CUM |
| 27 | US actor reportedly understood the attraction of Lord’s membership? (4,7)
DOUG MCCLURE (reference DOUG MCCLURE [1935 – 1995], American actor, best known for his role as the cowboy Trampas during the entire run from 1962 to 1971 of the series The Virginian) DOUG (sounds like [reportedly] DUG [got; understood]) + MCC LURE (attraction [LURE] of Lord’s membership – the Marylebone Cricket Club [MCC] is based at Lord’s cricket ground) DOUG MCC LURE |
| 29 | Hold individual to confess (3)
OWN (have; hold) OWN (personal; individual) OWN ([with ‘up’] confess) triple definition OWN |
| 30 | Author, high flier, sticks right through reworking of Chaucer (6,1,6)
ARTHUR C CLARKE (reference Sir ARTHUR C CLARKE [1917 – 2008], English science fiction writer) (RT [right] and LARK [high lying bird; high flier]) contained in or placed in different places [sticks through]) an anagram of [reworking of] CHAUCER A (RT) HUR C C (LARK) E* |
| Down | |
| 2 | Perhaps this blurred, incomplete picture contributes sporadically to cycle (7,4)
CRYPTIC CLUE (‘this’ is a reference to the CRYPTIC CLUE we are solving) Anagram of (blurred) PICTURe excluding the final letter(incomplete) E with the letters forming the anagram being entered within the letters of (contributes sporadically) CYCLE which appear in the correct order within the answer C R Y PTI C C L U*E – the C at one or more letter(s) from PICTUR within all of the letters of CYCLE |
| 3 | Subjects like English will expand threshold (8)
LIEGEMEN (subjects of a feudal Lord) (EG [for example; as an illustration; like] + E [English]) contained in (will expand) the length of LIMEN (the threshold of consciousness; the limit below which a stimulus is not perceived) LI (EG E) MEN |
| 4 | Road one’s GP is coming over (5)
DRIVE (road) DR (doctor; General Practioner [GP]) placed over (is coming over, in this down entry) I’VE (I have, one has; one’s) DR IVE |
| 5 | Avoid a failure to trouble the scorers (4)
DUCK (avoid) DUCK (zero runs score in cricket; a failure to trouble the scorers) double definition DUCK |
| 6 | Is avoiding anger over actor becoming politician (6)
REAGAN (reference Ronald REAGAN [1911 – 2004], former President of the United States. REAGAN was an actor before he became a politician) iRE (anger) + AGAiN (repeated; over) with each word excluding (avoiding) the letter I, so we have to omit I twice, written as ‘avoiding Is‘ REAGAN |
| 7 | Clear catch (3)
NET (clear of all charges or deductions) NET (capture; catch) double definition NET |
| 8 | Wrongly claimed to possess square in key French market town (12)
MACCLESFIELD (market town in the English County of Cheshire) Anagram of (wrongly) CLAIMED containing (to possess) (S [square] contained in [in] CLEF [French for ‘key’ ]) MAC (CLE (S) F) IELD* |
| 11 | Political neutrality soon upset idle soldiers in Northern Territory (3-9)
NON-ALIGNMENT (political neutrality) ANON (soon) reversed (upset) + LIG (to idle) + (MEN [soldiers] contained in [in] NT [Northern Territory {of Australia}) NON A< LIG N (MEN) T |
| 14 | Mike plugs in ‘ABC’ to jam timer (6,5)
ATOMIC CLOCK (a clock in which, to achieve greater accuracy, the oscillations of a quartz crystal are regulated by the vibration of certain atoms such as a caesium atom; timer) (MIC [MICrophone; Mike] contained in (plugs in) (A TO C [the letters ABC]) + LOCK (jam) A TO (MIC) C LOCK |
| 15 | Local to drink toasts: bottoms up! (4)
SKOL (friendly exclamation in salutation before drinking, etc, expressing a similar sentiment to ‘bottoms up!’) LOKS (final letters of [bottoms] each of locaL, tO, drinK and toastS) reversed (up) (SKOL)< |
| 17 | Chanel business merger? (4)
COCO (reference COCO Chanel [1883 – 1971], French fashion designer and businesswoman) CO (company; business) + CO (company; business) run together (merger) to form one word COCO CO CO |
| 19 | Gap in Features reported from the floor team’s sorted (8)
DIASTEMA (a natural space between two consecutive teeth, or series of teeth; gap in features) SAID (reported) reversed (from the floor) + an anagram of (sorted) TEAM DIAS< TEMA |
| 22 | Nightstick, say, for one getting in with heat (6)
WARMTH (heat) WiTH with ARM (weapon – a nightstick [truncheon; baton] is a form of weapon) replacing (for) I (Roman numeral for one) W (ARM) TH |
| 25 | Individual who finds classes challenging not completely hooked (5)
ADUNC (hooked) A (one; individual) + DUNCe (slow learner; one who finds classes challenging) excluding the final letter (not completely) E A DUNC |
| 26 | He makes a hole in one tree (4)
ACER (one who scores an ACE [hole in one] in golf) ACER (tree or plant of the maple genus) double definition ACER |
| 28 | Regiment once the focus of docudrama (7)
UDR (the former[once] Ulster Defence Regiment, now replaced by the Royal Irish regiment) UDR (central letters of [the focus of] docUDRama) UDR |
An excellent puzzle I thought. Between us, across various forums, we confirmed last weekend that this was indeed a 250th milestone puzzle for Enigmatist.
CRYPTIC CLUE is an interesting construction. An anagram placed between the letters of a word which letters remain in order. Very precise.
“Is avoiding” for “avoiding the i’s” didn’t really work for me, but the construction was clear enough.
Good fun, thanks to Enigmatist and Duncan
We had OCCLUDED FRONT only two days before this. I didn’t have a lot of trouble with the puzzle, but given that I usually see cricket references quickly, it took me ages to see MCC in 27ac.
Agree wholeheartedly with the bloggers estimate of this puzzle. Certainly took time to solve. Missed the CCL in the puzzle as a celebration. MACCLESFIELD took me ages, despite having lived there for 18 years. I was misdirected as intended and trying to find a French market town. FOLD was my LOI, and I was uncertain of the parsing, though I did see that ‘of old’ meant ‘once’. Was delighted to get CRYPTIC CLUE of course, and to solve DIASTEMA and ADUNC from the wordplay. Thanks to Enigmatist and to duncanshiell
Thanks duncanshiell. Certainly hard and I only got there through sheer stubbornness and more recourse to Google than I liked. As usual completely missed the theme. With the first three crossers of 2d in place I tried unsuccessfully to justify ‘crystal ball’.
Enjoyed the puzzle. Congrats, Enigmatist, on your 250. Thanks for the great puzzle.
Thanks duncanshiell for the wonderful blog.
ECCLES CAKE
I think the def should include ‘selection in’
ARTHUR C CLARKE
Read it as
LARK strikes/pierces (RT in CHAUCER*)
Same dnks as duncan, barring limen which is part of undergrad Psych jargon. My housemate and I were both surprised not to have watched The Virginian, as in ’62 we were still at home watching all those other Westerns. Maybe it got to Oz later, by which we were getting up to other stuff. But yes, nice chewy one from The Puzzler, in which I missed the recurring MCCs, but like Zoot @2 was given a start due to the recent occurrence of Occluded Front. Enjoyed it, thanks both.
Got there in the end, but it was indeed a bit of a struggle. Missed the CCLs, annoyingly. Nice blog, as usual.
In ECCLES CAKE, I was not so sure about the description of LEAK, thinking it’s just as often an unwanted exit (e.g. from a balloon). But entrance works for boats, a common usage, so I suppose it’s ok.
The way I justified the “in” in OCCLUDED FRONT was that “north” gave N directly, and “reduction in temperature” gave the T.
[Written last Saturday at time of solving.]
I floundered on the last Enigmatist Prize, but from fairly early on here, I felt in the game. I’ve read nearly all of Arthur C Clarke and once he went in, I became more confident. With the fear factor gone, it became an enjoyable solve.
Two OCCLUDED FRONTs in three days, did Serenos steal John’s thunder? FOILed again? That’s two in two days. It makes the last appearance of REAGAN, at a whole week ago, seem relatively distant, which would normally seem like good news.
I assume the F in FOIL was for F[reddie] Mercury. I enjoyed unpicking MACCLESFIELD, ERIC CLAPTON and ECCLES CAKE.
Thanks Enigmatist and Duncanshiell, I just read your detailed intro which is really good.
Dr. WhatsOn@7
OCCLUDED FRONT
Agree with you. I had the same parsing.
Very tough. Several unparsed bung and shrugs (18a FOIL, 20a FOLD, 6d REAGAN, 22d WARMTH). 27a I resisted entering DOUG MCCLURE for the longest time because I couldn’t parse it, but he kept imposing himself, so I eventually relented, and was rewarded with an eventual completion
Managed to solve and parse several nho’s, 23a EVEJAR, 8d MACCLESFIELD, 19d DIASTEMA, 28d UDR, and loi 25d ADUNC, which I could only get through a dictionary search. Fortunately it wasn’t AZUIC, which would have taken much longer! 🙂
Favourites 12a CATHETER (ouch!), 13a GAWAIN (a childhood friend of mine), 16a ECCLES CAKE (evoking the Goons), 5d DUCK (“failure to trouble the scorers”)
10a I was trying to wedge PHIL COLLINS in, but I guess he’s not a guitarist!
Missed the CCL theme of course. Impressive grid! Congrats to Enigmatist, and thanks to duncanshiell for a great blog
I came back every day until I was just left with ADUNC, which eluded me. I never really got my head around the clue.
Thanks both, though I only skimmed the blog as I now have cataracts on top of my AMD which leads to letters and numbers hiding themselves. Another joy of aging.
I completed this, which is a triumph in itself, particularly having given up on the previous Enigmatist prize, but I can’t honestly claim to have ‘solved’ it; too many clues ended up with question marks over the parsing for that. Thanks duncanshiel for filling in the gaps – your Latin is better than mine, which is an admittedly low bar. I completely failed to parse ECCLES CAKE, and would never have parsed LIEGEMEN in a century. I’d never heard of FOIL in the mercury context (the best I could do was ‘F’ for ‘Freddie’ with a coating of oil). Amongst other mis-parsings I missed the ‘Is’ = multiple ‘I’s trick in REAGAN, and above all I missed the CCL theme. But I completed an Enigmatist, and I was very happy.
Badly needed this blog. Had filled the puzzle in, but well over half of the clues were unparsed, leading me to believe I’d made an error along the way and compounded it. But no, just devious parsing with misdirection and unknown words. Also missed the CCL, which on reflection might have helped the solve.
I can die a happy man, I completed an Enigmatist puzzle in the Guardian without help.
Par for the course with this setter is to struggle all week and still have less than half filled in. This time I had 60-70% done in the first sitting and only a second Sunday sitting was needed to finish.
A lot of luck with my stronger subjects coming up – weather systems, football towns, Cold War politics, Arthurian legend, dentistry and an appearance of a musician, author and actor amongst my favourites.
Only downside was I couldn’t parse ECCLES CAKES fully despite looking at it off and on all week and started to doubt it was correct. First place I went to in the blog.
I am sure there will be posts that say this was easier than usual for this setter but I am just going to ignore them and proudly wear this feather in my cap.
Thanks Enigmatist and Duncan. Totally missed the 250 thing but congratulations. That’s a lot of brain cells fried.
I parsed FOIL as F (Fahrenheit) + OIL.
I found the SW corner difficult, not having heard of the actor I was trying DREW… for a long time, and although I saw the device EVEJAR took ages because of a silly letter entry elsewhere.
Missed the CCL theme (vivat!) Needed lots of searches – how else could I have got the likes of DOUG MCCLURE or MACCLESFIELD? At one point I even searched Imdb for all actors named Doug, Paul or Saul (the U had to be there because of UDR, which had to be that from the clue though I didn’t know it, either); didn’t find him there… Needed some help with the parsing; thanks Duncanshiell for the excellent blog!
I got FOIL quite early on but it took me ages to finally look in the dictionary for the “Mercury coating” on the back of a mirror. I was an avid fan of The Virginian when I was about 10 or 11, so I quickly saw that DOUG MCCLURE would fit, but an absolute age to get the attraction of watching the Marylebone Cricket Club (doh!).
Had to admit defeat after writing down all the four letter words I could think of that would fit the crossers at 20a, including FOLD, and being unable to justify any of them. Also failed on 19d, even with all the crossers, on DIASTEMA: I got the anagram of “team”, but was stuck on looking for a homophone for the first part, rather than a reversal. So another dnf for me – I reckon I’ve probably also failed to complete on 247 of the previous 249, but great fun as always.
Thanks to the enigmatic one, and to Duncan for a super blog.
I have always had mixed feelings about Enigmatist’s puzzles, with some of his cluing, whilst ingenious, a bit too abstract to be watertight.
I enjoyed this one however and salute his originality and humour. CATHETER and ECCLES CAKE were outstanding.
I did not see the CCL, so kudos to those who did
Overall I feel I have finally come to an understanding with Enigmatist and will now look forward to his next prize puzzle.
I enjoyed this, a fantastic workout. I had film for 20a, with a reference to double headers, but felt very uncomfortable as the double headed in the clue felt too clumsy for Enigmatist. Thanks to Duncan for putting me out of my misery.
I’m kicking myself for not spotting Arthur C Clarke. I possibly expected it to be an author unfamiliar to me.
Doug McClure seems rather unfair. Very few people would recognise the name. Fair enough it can be solved from the wordplay, especially if you spotted the theme, but I still think references to people shouldn’t be too obscure.
Similarly to James H @14, I managed to complete this by Sunday morning having never previously completed an Enigmatist Prize. So I was expecting to be greeted by a hail of “at the easy end for this setter” comments today. The whole puzzle is very good, especially given the constraints of the theme. I thought DUCK was lovely.