Guardian 29,815 – Maskarade

39 comments on “Guardian 29,815 – Maskarade”

1. Apropos of nothing, there is slip-up hidden backwards in 20d.

   I enjoyed TELEMANN

   Thanks, both

2. I occasionally read on here of people claiming to have done a “write-in”, never thought I would do one of those! Today was my first, more or less. Liked wattle, although indwell was a jorum for me. Fun start to the day.

3. Crosswords like these feel purer. You can see the wordplay, appreciate the misdirection and the smoothness of the surfaces. I like a challenge too, but a puzzle like this is a joy.

   I liked PARSNIP, KILOMETRE, PRETTY NEAR and MOTHBALL (also Tiger Moth)

   Thanks Maskarade and Andrew

4. Very pleased to have one I could finish fairly quickly, after my long and largely fruitless struggles with Paul’s yesterday!

5. Dave @1: I entered “slip-up” thinking of “advance” as a reversal indicator. It got killed by a “T” crosser… Didn’t know MOTHBALL or WATTLE, had to look up the opera and oggies, – outside my GK… Pleasant solve overall; also liked TELEMANN.

   For NATIONAL THEATRE, I thought of it as a double definition, the second part referring to something like “on a national stage”.

   “Caved in to Trump by not endorsing any candidate” is funny (don’t want to start a political debate). Thanks Maskarade and Andrew

6. Nice to be reminded of Bob Smithies, aka Bunthorne.

7. Didn’t know the word INDWELL, though the wordplay made the answer obvious. Otherwise not too much to detain you, though needed the crossers for CORNISH PASTIES and for PATIENCE, not being a G&S aficianado, so thanks to the blogger for the explanation and slight correction. Liked WASHINGTON POST. Thanks to Maskarade and Andrew

8. Very non-spiky for a Wednesday.
   Of course, I misled my self by putting Pushback for 16d. But that’s my failing, as usual.
   On the other hand, 7d seemed so simple I wasn’t sure I had the right idea.

9. In the spirit of glass half full, at least it wasn’t a jigsaw 🙂

   I liked PARSNIP

   Cheers A&M

10. MCourtney @8. I was hoping it was Thursday today.

11. Good spot, Dave E @1, missed that.

    I know it irks some newcomers when others crow how easy a puzzle was… so I won’t.

    I enjoyed this very much, many thanks Maskarade.

12. LIE IN WAIT and PRETTY NEAR were my favourites. I am not a fan of ‘from’ as an anagram indicator in PALM TREE – I see no sense of disruption or change in the word and if the setter’s able to use it in this context then why not dispense with other indicators, shove in ‘from’ and let the solver work out for themselves which device is being used.

    Thanks both

13. The bottom left held me up with several unfamiliar things – Bunthornes bride, oggies and indwell.

14. New for me: INDWELL.

15. Have seen Bunthorne in a cw context but never wondered about its origin and, like Tomsdad @7, not up with G&S [despite singing the judge part in T by J at school]. As for others today, nothing too gnarly here, although i did look up oggie, and dnk about wattle fences (here, settlers’ cottages had wattle-and-daub walls). All good, thanks EnA.

16. “oggies” were new to me (and I assume the extra full stop is a typo?) and I am another who is not up with the G&S works so clues about them are as opaque to me as cricket is to some others. “Washington Post” is one of those double definitions which is not really a double definition as the march was written for the newspaper and named after it. A snatch of it appears in Sondheim’s “Assassins” (in the song “How I saved Roosevelt” along with another Sousa piece) which made it familiar.

    I thought “indwell” a very fair example of cluing a word the setter would know to be unfamiliar. Some lovely anagram spots and I too went for “slip up” with no clear parsing before the crossers put me right. I await a clearer explanation of National Theatre – all I have is a vague definition intended to mislead. Who are “the rest of us”?

    All good fun, fair and clear and thanks to Maskarade and Andrew.

17. Thanks Maskarade and Andrew
    Not hard, but pleasant.
    “Oggies” reminded me of the “oggie-man”, who used to sell them from a market stall in Barnstaple’s Pannier Market.
    Incidentally, CORNISH PASTIES weren’t a rural delicacy. The were invented for tin-miners’ lunches. There was a potato/meat mixture at one end and something sweet – jam for instance – at the other. The miners held them by the ridge, which was then discarded as it would have been contaminated by the possibly toxic muck on their hands.

18. Layman@5. ‘The rest of us’ as in non-English UK nationals? Bit lame but only sense I can make of it

19. Enjoyable, but I needed to come here to clear up a few things. Oggies were unknown — and not in Collins, but Google found them. Unaware that the Scottish “och” signified impatience. WASHINGTON POST came quickly but I was unaware of the march. Never heard of STOA. Does “comment” mean “Here’s how” in French? Or am I missing something?

20. Sharing a house with a Cornishman fifty years ago came in handy – he cooked us a ‘tatty oggie’ – delicious it was too. And he told me muffin’s story @17 as well. I was another SLIP UP and needed help on G&S. Otherwise very smooth. Thanks, Maskarade and Andrew.

21. Lots of new words/people here – Oggies, Stoa, Erne, and Telemann all previously unknown but that’s part of the fun!

    Living in Scotland I’m not sure I’ve actually heard any Scots use “Och” as a way to express impatience, but ultimately it doesn’t really matter.

    Nice puzzle, a lot simpler to get into the mindset when compared to yesterday’s.

22. The surface of 9a refers to John Snow, ex England fast bowler.

23. Muffin @22 I thought the surface of 9a referred to the Game of Thrones character, Jon Snow, who is in the House of Stark (apparently, never watched it).

    Geoff @19 We only had a STOA 3 weeks ago from Paul (at which point I didn’t know it either). You must have been away that day.

24. Martin, I only attempt Paul’s when I’m feeling courageous, and only if I’ve had plenty of Vegemite on my toast.

25. Almost a write-in, but I had to look up Bunthorne (I could only think of the setter going by that pseudonym).

    Slightly irritated by 7d. Surely the NT serves the UK as a whole rather than specifically England, or am I wrong?

26. Since last week I am off work on Thursdays, so now I can do the puzzle in the morning. So I may come here more often on Thursdays! A few unknowns for me (oggies, indwell), but was familiar with “och”, as I have lived in Scotland now for nearly 20 years.
    Geoff@19: “Comment” meand “How” in French. That was my FOI

27. It would have been a quick solve if I could remember how to spell TELEMANN which led to a failure today.

    Very heavy on the anagrams today which made this otherwise fairly plain sailing. They were pretty neat though especially CoRNISH PASTIES.

    Thanks Andrew and Maskarade

28. I’ve seen an amateur performance of “Patience”. I wouldn’t say it’s one of G&S’s best.

29. As I solved 15d I confused ‘bunthorne’ with ‘Bunbury’ from The Importance of Being Earnest. I could see (with a couple of crossers) that the ‘game’ was probably PATIENCE and just assumed that she must be mentioned somewhere in the play and bunged it in, thinking no more about it – until I came here and realised that I’d carelessly scored a dnf on a very gentle puzzle. Oh, well.
    Thanks for the enjoyment Maskarade and for the blog, Andrew.

30. I’ve been a keen birder for 45 years and I’ve only ever seen ERNE in crosswords. Didn’t know the Sousa march so was baffled but bunged the POST in because it fitted. BTW, Sousa also wrote the Monty Python theme Liberty Bell which also gets played at US presidential inauguration.
    Thanks both.

31. And, of course, Telemann, pronounced the German way, does not really sound like “Telly man”

32. Might be fastest finish for me. Thanks.

33. This would have been perfect as a Quiptic, or perhaps a Monday offering, but on a later weekday I would normally have hoped for more of a challenge.

    I didn’t have time to contribute yesterday (touring Iceland, lucky me!) but I thought Paul’s puzzle yesterday was a delight, and was disappointed to see the quantity of whingeing in the comments here. There are setters that I don’t greatly enjoy, but I am usually content to keep my counsel.

34. Thanks, DutchGirl@26.

35. Poc@28, I took “and the rest of us” to mean the other UK nations.

36. Muffin@22

    I well remember the fast-bowling John Snow, but my first thought was the physician who identified the source of cholera.

37. Defeated at the SW corner. Bunthorne’s Bride said nothing to me at all, NHO INDWELL and not entirely convinced by MOTHBALL (although I do understand the parsing set out here). So not as easy as our blogger thought, for me at least.

38. PostMark @13: with tongue firmly in cheek, I would offer that a butterfly comes from a chrysalis, and that’s pretty transformative, wouldn’t you say?

39. Offspinner @36
    Yes – he removed the handle from the Broad Street pump.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.