I can’t believe that there was anyone who missed the theme in this week’s Prize puzzle from Brendan.
Almost every clue, along with many of the answers, has a reference to trees or to wood of some kind. There were some easy anagrams and hidden answers to help us get started, but also some quite obscure tree references (e.g. at 18 down) which took a little time to uncover. Timon and I were left with just the one answer (at 20 down) which we weren’t initially able to parse fully; I think that I have now worked it out.
Many thanks to Brendan.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | FELLOW |
Hack down willow without determination, mate (6)
|
| FELL (hack down) OW (willOW without determination, i.e. without will). | ||
| 4 | OBOIST |
Player holding old wood from elsewhere beside tee (6)
|
| BOIS (French for wood, so wood from elsewhere) inside O(ld) T(ee). | ||
| 9 | WREN |
Great architect, builder of treehouse (4)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 10 | DOUBLETREE |
Part of horsedrawn vehicle left when European departs 1d or 19 (10)
|
| DOUBLE TREE; which is what you get if you remove the letter E(uropean) from the answers to 1d and 19d (FIR BOX and YEW ASH, respectively). | ||
| 11 | ABJECT |
Miserable sailor caught in plane (6)
|
| AB (able seaman) C(aught) in JET (plane). | ||
| 12 | UNEARTHS |
Discovers last of beech nuts are spoilt (8)
|
| *((beec)H NUTS ARE). | ||
| 13 | EXONERATE |
Clear misuse of axe on tree (9)
|
| *(AXE ON TREE). | ||
| 15 | ELMS |
Key limes oddly deficient as trees (4)
|
| E (musical key) LiMeS (odd letters removed). | ||
| 16 | SAXE |
Small feller’s tool, kind of blue (4)
|
| S(mall) AXE. Saxe blue is a dye colour. | ||
| 17 | RED PLANET |
Mars rose or cherry tree put in ahead of time (3,6)
|
| RED (rose or cherry) PLANE (tree) T(ime). | ||
| 21 | PALOMINO |
Ring in tree I reportedly know, something like chestnut or bay (8)
|
| O (ring) in PALM (tree), I NO (sounds like “I know”). | ||
| 22 | ABELES |
A pollinator’s seen around large poplars (6)
|
| L(arge) in A BEE’S. The abele is the white poplar-tree. | ||
| 24 | BOOK JACKET |
Leaves are bound to be given its protection (4,6)
|
| A cryptic definition; no wordplay as such that we could see. | ||
| 25 | DEAL |
Pine, perhaps, for building agreement (4)
|
| Another double definition. “Deal” describes boards of fir or pine of a standard size. | ||
| 26 | TINDER |
Twigs, say, can turn a bright colour (6)
|
| TIN (can) RED (bright colour, rev). | ||
| 27 | SCORCH |
Quickly move from second section of rustic orchard (6)
|
| S(econd) + hidden in “rustic orchard”. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | FIREBOX |
Use gun then use fists in really hot spot (7)
|
| A charade of FIRE (use gun) and BOX (use fists), | ||
| 2 | LANCE |
Cut cedar, initially in way (5)
|
| C(edar) inside LANE. | ||
| 3 | OLDSTER |
American word for elder in Arnold’s terminology (7)
|
| Hidden in “Arnolds terminology”. | ||
| 5 | BALDER |
Black part of forest, comparatively leafless (6)
|
| B(lack) ALDER (a forest tree). | ||
| 6 | INTER ALIA |
Italian tree’s interior destroyed, not in isolation (5,4)
|
| *(ITALIAN (trRE(e)). | ||
| 7 | TEETHES |
Isn’t comfortable around gum trees right away concealing article (7)
|
| THE (article) inside T(r)EES. | ||
| 8 | GUM UP THE WORKS |
Eucalyptus, say, he put out with plant put stop to everything (3,2,3,5)
|
| GUM (eucalyptus, say) *(HE PUT) WORKS (plant, in the factory sense). | ||
| 14 | NEXT OF KIN |
Fox in Kent disturbed those closest in tree? (4,2,3)
|
| *(FOX IN KENT); the tree is the family tree. | ||
| 16 | SEAPORT |
Place such as 25 where bark may be secured (7)
|
| Cryptic definition, using “bark” as the variant spelling of “barque” or ship. Deal is one of the historic Cinque Ports (there are more than five in total). | ||
| 18 | PLASTIC |
Artificial trees one turned over, caught by cop (7)
|
| SAL (rev) (a large N Indian tree), TI (a small Pacific tree) both enclosed in PC (police constable, or cop). This, along with ELDER and VISAGE, was among the last answers we parsed. | ||
| 19 | EYEWASH |
It helps one clearly see nonsense (7)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 20 | VISAGE |
Face what’s hard in 10? Wise man (6)
|
| This was difficult. You have to take the answer to 10 ac (DOUBLETREE) and insert an H(ard) – there’s only one place it can go, giving you DOUBLE THREE. 2 x 3 = 6 = VI (six in Roman numerals) the rest is SAGE (wise man). | ||
| 23 | ELDER |
Source of berries delivered some time before (5)
|
| I think that this is a double definition, referring to the elder tree and its berries, and to older people, who may be said to have been delivered (i.e. born) some time before. |
I think it unlikely that a wren would nest in a tree.
Thanks bridgesong. Never did divine PLASTIC and contented myself by assuming that ‘hard’ in 19d should have been ‘half’.
4. The only way OBOIST makes sense is if “holding” is considered a juxtaposition indicator i.e. O+BOIS next to T. I can’t see it as a container indicator the way the clue is written.
20. Got VISAGE, but agree the logic is a bit too convoluted. I couldn’t explain the VI.
23. Got ELDER but I like your explanation for the second definition (delivered some time before)
DOUBLE T(H)REE is six/VI
My faves: DOUBLE TREE, RED PLANET, INTER ALIA, VISAGE and ELDER.
OBOIST
Agree with Shafar@3 on ‘holding’.
Thanks Brendan and bridgesong.
Actually the even letters in KEY LIMES gives us the answer without needing to divine an actual musical key.
Like others there were a couple I couldn’t parse, so thanks Brendan for the challenge and bridgesong for the explanations.
Thanks bridgesong. Very impressed by the tree references in every clue, and all done without making any of the those clues feel overly forced to fit the theme. I learned something about horsed carriages and the names of a couple of new trees from doing this (Abele, Alder) and would have learned a couple more (Sal and Ti) if only I’d been able to parse PLASTIC; thanks for the explanation. I’m glad you said VISAGE was tricky; that was my other unparsed answer. Both impressive and fun; thanks Brendan.
Just the parsing of PLASTIC defeated me.
Amazing to get a tree into every clue.
Thanks both.
A beautiful puzzle and a great blog. I couldn’t parse PLASTIC and VISAGE, – the latter a marvel, as is the DOUBLE TREE clue itself. It is impressive that there’s a tree reference in every clue. Thanks Brendan and bridgesong!
Zoot@1 – they do, in cavities on a tree.
Delightful puzzle. Clever use of the unmissable theme in clues and answers. 10a DOUBLETREE, second last in and nho, gave a delightful pdm with its resonance with 1d FIREBOX and 19d EYEWASH, and the concurrent revelation of the wordplay in those solutions. That alone was worth the price of admission. Fantastic!
Many other ticks, including 9a WREN (“builder of treehouse”, despite Zoot@1), 1d FIREBOX (“Use gun then use fists”), 7d TEETHES (“Isn’t comfortable around gum”), 23d ELDER (“delivered some time before”)
Further to Andy Luke @6 re 15a ELMS, taking “Key limes” as a whole makes “oddly deficient” work properly (i.e. remove the odd letters)
27a SCORCH, notable for having container as only part of a clue. Have we seen that before?
Couldn’t fully parse 18d PLASTIC or 20d VISAGE, so thank you bridgesong
If we accept that 20d VISAGE relates to the theme (“Doublet(h)ree”?), then Brendan has actually included the theme in every single clue/solution (as pointed out by HYD@8 and Layman@9). Cleverly managed it in 14d NEXT OF KIN (“those closest in tree”), 16d SEAPORT (“where bark may be secured”), 24d BOOK JACKET (“Leaves are bound…”). Last (first?) time he managed that was 29,861