Maskarade is a new setter whose puzzle is published this weekend as sadly Araucaria has been too ill to set the holiday special. Also, given the choice of an alphabetical jigsaw which was practically an Araucaria trademark this has to be seen as a tribute to Araucaria himself. I cannot but wonder how Maskarade approached this; Araucaria would be a hard act to follow for any setter, let alone for a new one and in such delicate circumstances. Should he or she try and to dazzle with wit and ingenuity, and risk being seen as trying to out-shine Araucaria? Should he or she shy away and risk praising Araucaria with a damp squib? Maskarade seems to have chosen keep a straight bat – not too flashy, not too tame – and has pulled it off very well indeed. Thank you Maskarade and best wishes for Araucaria too.
A Friendly sailor in a distance race(7)
AMIABLE: AB (sailor) in MILE (distance race)
totally — that is right (6)
ALLIER: ALL (totally) IE (that is) R (right) – river in central France
B Bottle for Babylonian King (9)
BALTHAZAR: double definition
composer dropped small one placed on middle of tray (11)
BRAHMAPUTRA: BRAHMs (composer) S=small missing (dropped) a (one) PUT (placed) on tRAy (middle of) – river flowing from the Himalaya to the Bay of Bengal
C Sugar producer accepts money (7)
CAYENNE: – YEN (money) in CANE (sugar producer) – river in French Guiana
(mark) in charge of certain irrigation (7)
COLONIC: – COLON (punctuation mark) and IC (in charge) – colonic irrigation a pseudo-medical procedure, ‘certain’ meaning ‘type of’
D Bad dream about times (8)
DEMERARA: – ERA (times) in DREAM* – river in Guyana
frighten Dutch relative (5)
DAUNT: – D (Dutch) AUNT (relative)
E Cross in sort of triangle, outside (8)
EXTERNAL: – X (cross) in ETERNAL (sort of triangle)
hut Parsee rebuilt (9)
EUPHRATES: – (HUT PARSEE)* – river flowing through Turkey, Syria and Iraq
F German eleven upset about boy heading off (5)
FOYLE: ELF (eleven, German) reversed (upset) about bOY (missing head) – river in the north of Ireland
seen with Fred — oddly, makes one invisible! (4-4)
FERN-SEED: anagram (oddly) of SEEN with FRED – fern seeds are said to make a person invisible
G Cast an eye around sort of suit on shelf (6)
GLEDGE: G (sort of suit, worn by pilots) LEDGE (shelf) – to look around somewhere
for group of workers and card-playing opponents (6)
GANGES: GANG (group of workers) and E (east) and S (south) bridge opponents – river bordering India and Bangladesh
H Could be the Ural (7)
HERAULT: (THE URAL) – river in France
leader, high in Germany, crashing mini — on heroin (2,3,4)
HOCHIMINH: HOCH (high, German) MINI* crashing=anagram on H (heroin)
I Rather than mix of fine oats with date (7,2)
INSTEAD OF: anagram (mixture) of FINE OATS with D (date)
males tucked into most of the rice dish (7)
ILMENAU: I with MEN (males) inside (tucked into) pILAU (rice dish, most of) – river in Germany
J Katie Price or basketball star (6)
JORDAN: Stage name of model Katie Price, Michael Jordan basketball star – river bordering Israel and Jordan
from Jamaica I left with fliers for prisoners (9)
JAILBIRDS: JA (Jamaica) I L (left) with BIRDS (fliers)
K Branagh cut (6)
KENNET: KENNETh Brannagh (cut, not finished)- tributary of the Thames
translation of Kelt Rose for author and political refugee (8)
KOESTLER: (KELT ROSE)*
L Plates broken in a meal (7)
LAMINAE: (IN A MEAL)* broken=anagram
during Angelo’s siesta (6)
LOSSIE: found in amgeLO’S SIEsta – river in Scotland
M Reminders — notes — notes about (9)
MEMENTOES: ME ME (note of the scale, two of) and NOTES* about=anagram
half of the Russian capital on fashion magazine (7)
MOSELLE: MOScow (half Russian capital) ELLE (fashion magazine) – river in France and Germany
N Back again with artist (7)
NIAGARA: AGAIN reversed (back) with RA (artist) – river in North America
no way drink is the cure (7)
NOSTRUM: NO ST (street, way) RUM (drink)
O Not impeding progress to a few, youth arranged (3,2,3,3)
OUT OF THE WAY: (TO A FEW YOUTH)*
books, getting thanks starting to walk away (6)
OTTAWA: OT (Old Testamant, books of the Bible) getting TA (thanks) to Walk Away (starting letters)- Canadian river
P Part of pitch where a player gets tangled with a net (7,4)
PENALTY AREA: anagram (tangled) of A PLAYER and A NET
Scotsman after snapshot not having a second (7)
POTOMAC: MAC (Scotsman) following PhOTO (snapshot) missing second letter – river in USA
Q Witty remark to a Republican (6)
QUIPAR: QUIP (witty remark) and A R (Republican) – river in Spain
standing in line at Gardens’ annexe, we’re told (7)
QUEUING: sounds like KEW WING (Annexe of Kew Gardens)
R Awfully virile Nationalist (7)
RIVELIN: VIRILE* N (nationalist) – river in South Yorkshire
will talk and talk, country walk having started (6,2)
RAMBLE ON: R (Romania, country) AMBLE (walk) RAMBLE (country walk) ON (having started)
S Apostle’s Oxbridge college (2,5)
ST JOHNS – double definition – river in Florida
badly gilds the one window next to door (9)
SIDELIGHT: anagram (badly) of GILDS THE and I (one)
T Redhead in temporary shelter (5)
TRENT: R (red head) in TENT – river in the Midlands
T making auction bid for a couple of baseball fields (3,8)
TWO DIAMONDS: TWO (a couple) DIAMONDS (baseball fields) – a bid in a bridge aution
U Upper-class loo with cloth cover is brought back (8)
ULLAPOOL: U (upper class) and LOO with PALL (cloth cover) reversed (is brought back) – a very small river in Scotland
not measured, remounted incorrectly with bits of gold missing (7)
UNMETED: rEMoUNTED* incorrectly=anagram missing O and R (bits of OR, gold)
V Word picture that’s on a banknote (8)
VIGNETTE: double definition
and volume from Gaul — not half! (5)
VOLGA: VOL (volume) and GAul (not half) – river in Russia. I’m not sure about ‘from’ in the clue
W Rainbound Grand National fence (5,4)
WATER JUMP: WATER (rain) and JUMP (bound)
with fancy gold awning (8)
WANGANUI: anagram (fancy) of AU (gold) and AWNING – river in New Zealand
X Ten popular leading extracts from Guardian (5)
XINGU: X (ten) IN (popular) GUardian (leading letters of) – river in Brazil
copies about sex and love with king (7)
XEROXES: SEX and O (love) with REX (king) all reversed (about)
Y Go back into nomads’ tents for desserts (7)
YOGURTS: GO reversed (back) in YURTS (nomads’ tents)
during holiday on Nevis (5)
YONNE: found in holidaY ON NEvis – river in France
Z Once, after a bit of sleep, by Yorkshire dale (5)
ZAIRE: Z (bit of sleep, zzzzzz) by AIRE Dale – former name (once) for the Congo River. I think either ‘after’ or ‘by’ should have been deleted from this clue.
Zulu eats out, composing letters (5)
ZETAS: Z (zulu, phonetic alphabet) EATS* out=anagram – greek letters
*anagram
This looked a bit daunting at first and when HO CHI MINH and OTTAWA revealed themselves early on I convinced myself that the theme was capital cities and wasted quite some time on that line of pursuit. I needed some help with the names of European rivers and ILMENAU was my last.
I had to have all but about five or six answers before I could tackle the grid and even then was delayed by the ambiguity in entering the eleven letter answers.
I think a country walk is simply a ramble.
Still surprised I finished this. Many thanks all.
Thanks PeeDee and a warm welcome to Maskarade. This was a fine achievement. Wrestled with it during the week, although EUPHRATES jumped out in the early minutes and suggested the theme. In the end Google was called upon only for a small handful of rivers. Last in was the mysterious GLEDGE.
I think Maskerade may be Tom Johnson, as Gozo of the FT he has set a couple of similar double alpabetical crosswords. He is also editor of Araucaria’s 1 Across magazine. I needed to google quite a few rivers and then Gledge was my last entry. very enjoyable
This was my first ever alphabetical jigsaw and I really enjoyed it once I had worked out a method. I started filling in the grids once I had about half of the answers, and focussed on placing the 11-letter solutions first. I must admit that at the halfway mark, I had not realised the river theme which only occurred to me when I had almost finished the puzzle!
My favourite clues were perhaps those starting with the letters, D, H, L, Q, X, Y.
I was thrilled to be able to finish this puzzle and parse all of my answers. I have total admiration for Maskarade, especially for the inclusion of 26 names of rivers A-Z.
Thanks Maskarade and PeeDee.
I was unable to finish this and I am in awe of anyone that did.
PeeDee one small correction if I may.
In the defined solution for A I think you mean AB (sailor) not TAR
I had this down as Tom J from partway through the preamble, for much the same reasons as fearsome.
I was partly annoyed with myself for being so slow getting the one NZ river. To be precise, the grid is wrong – the river is Whanganui, the town on its banks Wanganui. These are even pronounced differently and, trust me, you don’t want to go any further into the circumstances surrounding the mismatch.
Thanks for the blog.
I have conflicting opinions on this one. Love the alphabetic puzzles and really wanted to get it finished; but there were so many words/names here that I didn’t know; spent so long googling that I didn’t feel I had really solved it myself at all.
Because of the style and the scots references (GLEDGE in particular, my last in too) I thought this was maybe a puzzle Araucaria had started but needed help to finish…
Thanks, Maskarade and PeeDee.
Like Samui Pete I was surprised to have finished this, and even to be able to parse all the answers. Very enjoyable puzzle.
The second reason for this post is to ask if there’s any news about Araucaria’s state of health.
Thanks for the blog – this was certainly very much in Araucaria’s style. I wondered if ‘Maskarade’ might be a collaborative tribute – three-quarters of ‘Biggles’ perhaps?
Like others, we had to solve many of the answers first – fortunately most were fair enough – then started with the 11-letter solutions which led to a rush of insertions which gave the crossing letters to polish off the remainder. Agreed – ‘Ilmenau’ wins the obscure river prize!
Thanks pat @6. It amazes me how I can not see these things myself when I write them.
Phi @ 7. Not quite. Cutting a long story short either is now correct for the town but Wanganui was the accepted spelling for the river until only about 12 years ago and is still in common usage.
Hugh Setphenson the Guardian crossword editor writes this:
Advance warning: the August Bank Holiday special offering will be published on Saturday 24 August. It is a double-grid alphabetical jigsaw puzzle, which should keep you occupied for at least some of the long weekend. It is by a new setter, Maskarade, as Araucaria has this time been unable to set it because of illness.
The does suggest that Maskarade is a real person, the wording is very straightforward and there is no hint of a ‘Biggles’. I wondered about Tom J (Gozo) immediately but then compared this to his 90th Birthday tribute puzzle in the FT which was a scintillating puzzle with a light and airy touch. The thought occurred to me that because of the sad circumstances surrounding this puzzle whoever set it may come across differently.
It is also possible that the puzzle was submitted to the Guardian unsolicited by a new setter who at the time of writing had no notion he/she would end up standing in for Araucaria.
Phil & Biggles A –
I know little about NZ myself, but Wikipedia suggests there are two wanganuis, one on the North Island and one on the South Island, only one spelled with an ‘h’. Wanganui
Very enjoyable. Minor point, isn’t the solution to the first L clue Laminae?
The more alphabetical jigsaws, the better, I say
PeeDee@14 beat me to it about the Whanganui (North Island) and Wanganui (South Island) rivers, assuming Wiki is right of course.
I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle, and congratulations to the setter. I didn’t start entering the answers into the grids until I had solved over half of them, and I needed to use Wiki quite a lot to confirm some of the less well known rivers. I knew ULLAPOOL the town and I have visited there a couple of times, but I had no idea there is a river of the same name. You live and learn. I’m please to see that I wasn’t the only one whose LOI was GLEDGE.
A fantastic crossword – a classic accessible but also difficult clues that jumped out at you and ones which did not it was really brilliant thank you and please can we have more like this and of this standard
Thanks to PeeDee for the blog.
When I first looked at the puzzle I was somewhat put off – a double alphabetic!
I found that I solved the 11-letter answers fairly swiftly. They fell into two pairs according to the central letter. I saw no ambiguity and fitted O and P into the A grid then the others into B. Most answers then placed themselves fairly quickly – with some exceptions.
Some of those rivers are totally obscure: three cheers to Maskarade for finding 26 of them.
Dear Santa
Can I please have one of these for Christmas?
I have been a good boy.
Daddy says he will leave a mince pie and a glass of whisky on the hearth for you.
PS PeeDee can have one too if he is with you.
I should have started by saying that I was sorry to see it was not Araucaria setting the puzzle. I deduce he was not well enough which is not unexpected but is saddening.
Thanks PeeDee and Maskarade
An enjoyable puzzle which needed quite a bit of web searching for checking river names.
I particularly liked the H and X(B)clues. This last had me scrambling about trying to make sense of Xerxes and O at first, before seeing the reversal.
Like others I am very sorry to have my worries about Araucaria confirmed.
Magnificent crossword, I thought. One that I’m sure araucaria enjoyed completing. Got confused by the St johns double definition, and found myself searching in vain for the river sidelight
Thanks for the blog, PeeDee. I love alphabeticals, so this was a delight. The theme occurred to me quite early on via Trent and Jordan but it took me some time before I could enter any answers in the grids. My last one — which took me ages to see — was ILMENAU.
I very much enjoyed this setter’s style and look forward to more. But I was so sorry to read that Araucaria was too ill to set one of his specials.
Thanks PeeDee
Splendid puzzle, which I managed to complete in a couple of hours with just a few checkings of river names.
I don’t recall Araucaria ever using such a difficult grid for his alphabetical jigsaw. His always had a couple of places where an across and a down clue shared an initial letter; the enumeration of the clues gave a strong hint as to where these solutions should go, and that gave a good start to the placing of the words. But not only does Maskerade’s grid lack such across/down pairings, but almost all the initial letters of words in the grid are uncrossed. Hence this double puzzle appeared very daunting at first, but fortunately most of the clues were relatively straightforward.
Why ‘Maskerade’ with a ‘k’? It’s the title of one of Terry Pratchett’s ‘Discworld’ novels, apparently, but I haven’t read it, so I can’t tell if there is a connection.
Sorry, it’s ‘Maskarade’, and not Maskerade. Opera by Nielsen, based on play by Holberg…
Thanks peedee – just a quick friendly edit to your preamble – it’s ‘whose’ not who’s ;).
bw.
I thought this was a masterpiece of construction. As for solving, once I’d spotted the theme, it wasn’t particularly difficult. I only needed Google for a few of the rivers, which is fair enough for a prize puzzle, and then there was a bit of experimentation with a pencil to start deciding what went where. Satisfying to see it all fall into place. Thanks a lot, Maskarade and PeeDee.
I echo several posters: JORDAN & TRENT quickly revealed the theme; 11-letter words were first into grid; GLEDGE was LOI; didn’t have access to Google whilst solving, but needed it to confirm some rivers (e.g. ILMENAU).
Admirable compilation by Maskarade, with generous clues to enable reasonably swift solving.
Thanks to Pee Dee and very best wishes to Araucaria as always
As noted, you don’t want to go into the details of W(h)anganui: but a little more anyway. The debate was revived a while ago when the official NZ place-name body proposed allowing the ‘h’ into the town name (as Wanganui is meaningless in Maori, which has the digraph ‘wh’, pronounced ‘f’, as a letter, but no letter W). The battle lines were immediately drawn over how outrageous this was, as the town had always been h-less (while everyone seemed perfectly happy to have the ‘h’ in the river, or in the Maori name for Wellington). Believe me, yards of unpleasant newsprint.
As to why the sound was transliterated as a digraph in the first place – well, that would require Fs, Ks and asterisks, and a dose of shocked Victorians.
NB Tom J is a confirmed Nielsen fan
Yes, as far as it goes. Whanga is a bay and nui is large hence Whanganui=large bay. Wanga is not a Maori word but why is the meaningless South Island Wanganui river name also approved by the authorities? The purists are correct but selective. Why do we have Otago instead of Otakau? And there are plenty of Ws in Maori – wai=water and all its derivatives and waka=canoe are common examples.
I’m not sure about the Fs, Ks and asterisks but he sound was transliterated as the wh digraph because this was the closest way in which it could be represented in a written language, which Maori then was not. There were nuances in pronunciation in different parts of the country and the sound now represented by wh could have been f or w or anything in between.
All of which is of no relevance here. All that matters is that there is a Wanganui river in New Zealand.
Thanks for the blog, PeeDee. Minor correction: The “gold” element of WANGANUI is AU (rather than OR). Other than that, I can only add my voice to the preceding chorus of praise for this piece by Maskarade.
Phi @29 – re Tom J and Nielsen, that would make sense. I spent a while looking for connections from Maskarade to Malta, busses etc but could not find anything.
I got EUPHRATES very early which pretty much gave me the theme. The rubric at the start was a bit confusing. Basically each clue is a wordplay for something of a theme, and a normal clue. But you had to really squint to see that from the introduction to the puzzle. Got there in the end but I’m not going to claim I knew all the rivers, several needed research.
failed to complete this, annoyed to find that on reading the solutions that the A grid was not, as stated, the first part of each clue and B the second part. I got the river link early too after seeing Euphrates but couldn’t place things because of the AB inconsistency. Many congratulations to those who managed it!
Hi Robert, EUPHRATES (for example) is the solution to the second part of the clue, it goes into the second (B) grid. Where is the inconsistency?
Karen @26: of course, how embarrassing 🙁
Fixed now.
We completed this in the belief that it was an Araucaria and that possibly he had died and this was his last ever and the use of ‘Maskerade’ was indicating this. Bless him.
Thanks PeeDee rather belatedly,
When the results to this puzzle were published, I had only written in two letters, a ‘T’ bang in the middle of grid A
and an ‘A’ in the middle of grid B. Being of a lazy disposition, I had ignored this puzzle for a full week after solving
about fourteen clues. I decided to have another go and finally completed it yesterday. The key to this puzzle was solving
the four eleven letter clues ie ‘O and P’ in grid A and ‘B and T’ in grid B. The OP pairing could only go in one way so that
was good but the BT pairing could have gone in either way so that was a bit annoying but I took a guess on Brahmaputra going
in horizontally as this fitted in with Euphrates. From this point I became rather cavalier and ended up writing a few answers
in the wrong place mainly due to the mistaken belief that there were only four seven-letter clues in each grid whereas there
were actually eight. Better preparation would have helped in the solving process. I got there in the end though.
I thought that the clues were very Araucarian and that Maskarade did a brilliant job. The puzzle itself was hard to start but provided many hours of great entertainment. I’m glad that I persevered…finally.
Best wishes to Araucaria.
A brilliant and satisfying puzzle – and a real tribute to (and tributary of) Araucaria. Thank you Maskarade and Pee Dee.
Thanks Maskarade and PeeDee
This one stayed in the pile of undone for a very long time before I pulled it out in a moment of bravery a few weeks ago. As it turned out, it wasn’t as bad as it first looked. I had started it pretty late one Sunday night (after 10), finished the B-grid a couple of hours later and the A-grid on the train into work the next morning. It’s only now that I have taken time to do the final parse run through and check-off.
Loved it … and I think that the great Araucaria would have approved of it !!!
I won’t lie, there was a lot of googling required to find some of those out of the way rivers such as QUIPAR, ILMENAU, FOYLE, YONNE, ULLAPOOL and XINGU to name a few. Think that I only needed 10-12 answers before focusing on the 11-letter ones to start the process of filling the grid.
GLEDGE was too good for me – although in retrospect, it shouldn’t have been.
I know that there are a couple of similar challenges in that pile that now I should focus on – because by my reckoning there will be another fresh one coming next month.