Guardian Prize Puzzle 26,328 by Pasquale

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A puzzle with a particularly appropriate theme from Pasquale this week.

The preamble (which is not available to those who try and solve on the ipad app) told us that there were two groups of four clues, each of which was undefined.  It became apparent that one group were all Donalds and the other group ducks, giving us Donald Duck, who celebrates his 80th anniversary this year.  Pasquale of course has a number of other pseudonyms, all being words preceded by Don, including Duck.

The puzzle itself had a mixture of very easy and quite tough clues, made more difficult by the inclusion of the eight undefined clues.  I found it presented a satisfying and educational challenge: thanks, Don.

 

Across
1 TATTIE What Scots eat is of poor quality, we hear (6)
Sounds like “tatty”.
4 PAWPAW Fruit in two hands (6)
A very concise charade; so concise that I was sure for a long time that this clue must be one of those without a definition.
9 ZERO Cross about leading member of the Establishment (4)
ER in ZO.  A zo (or zho) is ” a kind of hybrid domestic cattle… said to be a cross between the male yak and the common horned cow” (Chambers).  I didn’t work that out until I came to write the blog.  This is the first of four clues which could be said to share the definition “duck”.
10 SUTHERLAND Filthy talk male abandoned coming to the female domain (10)
S(m)UT, HER LAND.  The first of four “Donald” clues.  Donald Sutherland is perhaps now more famous as the father of Kiefer Sutherland.
11 DISNEY Creator of Pluto — with money being spun! (6)
DIS, YEN(rev).  As DIS can mean Pluto, or hell, Pluto in this clue is doing double duty as part of the wordplay and part of the definition.  It is of course a reference to the theme of the puzzle.
12 ENDOCARP Finish with nothing and grumble — you may have got the pip (8)
END 0 CARP.  Chambers suggests a plum stone, so pip may be a little loose, but perhaps there is a botanist who can give us the definitive answer?
13 PLEASENCE Delight to be had for nothing in days gone by (9)
PLEASE for O in ONCE.  The late Donald Pleasence had a varied and distinguished acting career.
15 SMEW The first person to settle in the West Country (4)
ME in SW.  A variety of duck.
16 AMOK Wildly providing brief message that there’s nothing to worry about? (4)
AM OK (e.g. in a text message).
17 CARBONATE Rate bacon “bad” on account of salt (9)
*(RATE BACON).  An easy anagram which was the first clue to go in for me.
21 COSTELLO Sole clot messing about? He had a funny partner (8)
*(SOLE CLOT).  Younger solvers may not be familiar with the work of Lou Costello.
22 WOLFIT Don’t just nibble your food! (6)
This simple homophone was my way in to the theme; Donald Wolfit was a familiar name, but not as familiar a face as Donald Pleasence.
24 COLUMN INCH A bit in the paper, one of about 2,000 Nelson was given? (6,4)
More of a general knowledge question, this; I had no idea that Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square was approximately 2000 inches tall (2031, if this article is correct, including the statue itself).
25 NASA Huge agency makes a hospital suffer a setback (4)
A SAN(atorium) (rev).
26 SINDEN Evil place of illegal activity (6)
SIN DEN; the fourth Donald, Donald Sinden is another name which may be more familiar to those of us of a certain age.
27 STINKY Malodorous fluid in filthy place (6)
INK in STY.
Down
1 THE BILL TV 6 (with women) getting demand for payment (3,4)
A cross-reference to POLICEMEN at 6 down, with “women” added to make it gender-neutral.
2 THORN Ye began with this source of annoyance (5)
Chambers explains that “ye” is an archaic spelling for “the”, arising from printers’ use of y for the letter Þ (thorn).
3 IN STYLE Yeltsin getting drunk with no expense spared (2,5)
* YELTSIN.
5 AGENDA It’s continued with, after apologies have been given (6)
Cryptic definition.
6 POLICEMEN Officers in prison keeping order with insects invading (9)
LICE in OM in PEN.
7 WINDROW Opportunity around end of summer for hay being left to dry? (7)
R in WINDOW.  An unfamiliar word, but the wordplay was clear.
8 STRETCH A POINT It’s rotten chap that’s out to bend the rules (7,1,5)
*(ITS ROTTEN CHAP)
14 ABOUT-TURN A couple of brief illnesses bringing a complete change of mind (5-4)
A BOUT TURN.  A simple charade.
16 AMOROUS Hot men embraced by a timid sort, inadequately (7)
OR (other ranks) in A MOUS(e).
18 BOWSHOT Front feverish — foes finally within striking distance at Agincourt (7)
S in BOW HOT.
19 THIRSTY Leaving party, dotty Irish drunk — not one needing a Guinness? (7)
*(DOTTY IRISH) minus DO (party) and I (one).
20 PLUNGE Quiet organ before start of evensong (6)
P LUNG E(vensong).  Another variant of “duck”.
23 LINEN Revolutionary leader gets churned up inside (5)
LENIN with an anagram of the three internal letters.  Duck can mean a kind of coarse linen.

*anagram

34 comments on “Guardian Prize Puzzle 26,328 by Pasquale”

  1. Quack quack! Enjoyable puzzle, and blog, although I confused myself at 9A by finding Donald Reed amongst a list of famous Donalds:
    RED (cross, angry) around E (leading letter of Establishment) – leaving me wth five Donalds and three Ducks for a while…

  3. Thanks bridgesong. Once again I completed the grid without identifying the theme, not realising the four actors shared the Christian name of Donald. I made it harder for myself by entering Old Bill at 1d and oxtail – Och! Stale!) at 1a.

  4. I don’t like 9 much. I couldn’t find ZO in OED or Chambers and Google wasn’t any help. Collins was my only reference source.

  5. Zo is in Chambers (2011) under ZHO, but there is a cross-reference at ZO. There’s a reference to it at page 88 of Chambers Crossword Manual (1986), (author:Don Manley).

  6. Many years ago Punch had a cartoon with two ducks, one was saying “I’m a smew, you only find me in crossword puzzles”.

    Classic from Pasquale.

  7. I enjoyed this Pasquale prize. At first I thought it was going to be a little too easy but there were sufficient “stings in the tail” to put off the final solve.

    Everything was clued meticulously as we would expect from P and although there were some obscure (for me!)words as answers none of them were too esoteric. They were all gettable from the wordplay.

    First pass gave a reasonable return of answers and 26A convinced me I was looking for 4 Donalds. 11A with its &litishness made me unsure. Was I also looking for 4 Walts?
    Second pass gave PLUNGE for 21D and this was obviously one of the “other” 4. Not obvious what they were though until 15 across.

    Some nice variations on “DUCK” to keep us amused.

    Last two in were LENIN and NASA. Both passed the “Why didn’t I see that?” test on solving.

    Well done Pasquale.

    Thanks to bridgesong and “Pasquale”

  8. Many thanks – this site is a godsend for resolving parsing problems. Nelson’s 2000 was a bit far-fetched, wasn’t it? I had sanderling instead of Sutherland which caused major problems with 8 and gave me 5 ducks and 3 Donalds. And, I know, it’s not even a duck…

  9. Thanks for the blog. I got stuck in the SE corner, never having heard of WOLFIT and the abbreviation SAN.

    I thought the theme was quite amusing but found several of the clues a bit clunky… I’m often not on Don’s wavelength.

    PS I think 13a isn’t quite right, you need to remove the O from ONCE not add another.

  10. Thanks for the full explanation and to the setter for a very enjoyable puzzle (especially liked 11A).

    I had all the letters correct in my grid …. but entered LENIN for 23d, even though I was looking out for a cloth definition … hadn’t realised linen would do, I thought it was more of a canvas… think we used to have a very old tent made out of such fabric.

    Still puzzled by THORN… if TH equates to ‘ye began with’ where do the letters ORN come from ?

  11. R_c_a_d @9: I think that you have misread the blog. What I was trying to indicate was that PLEASE replaces O in ONCE.

    Epee Sharkey @10: THORN is perhaps more of a double definition. It’s the old letter which was the reason that printers printed “the” as “ye” and a source of annoyance.

  12. Not my finest ever solve, with two wrong. I never did see the “duck” definition for those four undefined clues because I was unaware of the 80th anniversary of Donald Duck. I had SMEW and PLUNGE but couldn’t see the connection. I inexplicably went with “Lenin” at 23dn despite the wordplay being clear enough, and I had “Reno” at 9ac, justified by a reversal (cross) of ON (about) ER (leading member of the establishment). I may have met the ZO in crosswordland before but if I had I’d certainly forgotten it.

  13. Thanks bridgesong and Pasquale

    An enjoyable puzzle with the usual impeccable cluing.

    Solved but rather slow-wittedly, perhaps partly because I did it in dribs and drabs. I saw the ‘Donald’ part of the theme quite early though I failed to parse Pleasence. It took me quite a time to get to the ‘duck’ idea – my first two were ‘plunge’ and ‘linen’ and it was only when I got ‘smew’ from the wordplay and checked its meaning that the penny dropped though I still had to check ‘zo’. Even then it took a little time again for me to put Donald and Duck together and I forgot the latter was a sobriquet of Pasquale! I at least saw the link to to 11a. It would have helped enormously if I had remembered Kipling’s honest serving men and had asked ‘Why?’!

  14. Thanks Pasquale and bridgesong.

    I failed to finish this puzzle, giving up in the NW corner, and there were others I failed to solve also. The theme went totally over my head, and I needed help to parse many of the answers including 6d, 16d, 16a, 26a, 19d, 25a. New words for me were PLEASENCE and WINDROW.

    My favourites were 12a, 5d, 27a.

    Oh well, the only consolation is that I have done much better with this week’s Prize puzzle and finished it earlier today.

  15. Thanks Pasquale & bridgesong.

    I got the theme but was missing a duck as I didn’t know about the linen connection. I also forgot the Scrabble godsend, ZO, although it is usually spelt zho, I think.

    No trouble with the Donalds, however. 🙂

  16. Thanks all. I failed to get ZERO and NASA. I thought the latter was going to involve the NHS somehow so I looked up the name NASH and discovered that Clarence Nash was the voice of Donald Duck. An opportunity missed?

  18. “Impeccable cluing”? Yes, in general. Then there’s 5D. I put in AMENDS, which seemed at least vaguely relevant. Now given the answer AGENDA, it seems to me that any connection to the clue as a cryptic definition is tenuous to vanishing. What am I missing?

  19. bridgesong@11 Yes; I see what you meant now.

    PeterO@18 In formal meetings it is common to begin with “Apologies for Absence” and then proceed with the Agenda. I didn’t think it was a great clue either…

    I did think COLUMN INCH was a corker, though. And I almost finished without any assistance for the second week in a row… which I guess also means I haven’t actually finished for two weeks in a row 😉

  20. Nothing to add, except to say that the annotated solution has yet to appear, and we also still await Hugh’s August email and the announcement of the winner of July’s Genius. Perhaps Hugh is on holiday?

  21. I am grateful for all the feedback here and on GU and from personal communications — it has been surprisingly and gratifyingly positive generally. The idea was to base the puzzle on DONALD, then the DUCK idea occurred to me as an afterthought. I thought ZO and THORN would have been better known, the former from Scrabble — they seem to have caused the most trouble, especially as they were involved in crossing answers. To me this was just another puzzle, not necessarily for a prize, and the Donald Duck anniversary passed me by completely. Back to the cricket!

  22. Nice puzzle. For some reason TATTIE eluded me for quite a long time,which was one of the easy ones. Age,I expect!

  23. I had DISNEY as a reverse of YENS (money) plus ID (being) Wrong route but right destination in the end!

  24. Interesting that there was a recent Guardian article on bizarre two-letter words beloved by Scrabble players:

    http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/nov/09/scrabble-art-two-letter-word

    When I read the article I thought that there seem to be a few words found only in crosswords such as etui and eft but by and large we seem mercifully free of qi, zo ee and the like.

    This probably explains why I didn’t get this clue, much preferring Andy B’s RENO but of course this wouldn’t fit in with the duck theme.

    Anyway, nice crossword even if a few clues eluded me (including THE BILL which of course has duck connotations…)

  25. R_c_a_d @19

    Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I had considered meetings as the context, but not being a habitue of many such,I did not think of apologies for absence. Still, I think as you do that the clue is on the weak side, and not up to the standard of the rest of the puzzle. For the rest, thanks to Pasquale, and for dropping by – and for reminding me of the test match; I managed to catch the last two wickets.

  26. This one failed my train test – although I got all of the themed clues with the possible exception of ZERO (I can’t remember whether I guessed that, but I would never have seen or known ZO), I didn’t get the duck link and I’m not sure I even realised that the actors were all Donalds. My paper copy then became a soggy mush during my walk so I didn’t try check it later. So I can’t say it was ideal for my internet-free train journey, though I did spend quite a lot of time on it.

    Thanks to bridgesong and Pasquale

  27. Many thanks to Pasquale and Bridgesong.

    Personally, I wouldn’t describe 22 as a homophone (the spelling is the same) as much as a simple charade.

    I thought the 2,000 inch Nelson clue was very enjoyable….

  30. And black is not the same as white but they’re not homophones.
    My posts were polite. Your sarcasm was neither courteous nor appropriate.
    I’m unsure which of us you might be kidding, but this clue is not a homophone; it is a simple charade.
    I’m sure you realise this, unless you have an oddly convoluted view of the meaning of “to spell”!

    Warm regards…

  31. William F P: I’m sorry that my attempt at humour was interpreted as sarcasm. That was not my intention. I think that I classified the answer as a homophone (despite the fact that the spelling is indeed the same) because it seemed a better description than anything else. I interpret a charade as involving some form of synonym for each of the two (or more) component parts of the answer. This clue is rather different: it invites you to supply the antonym to the words “don’t just nibble” and “food”. I honestly don’t know how such a clue should be categorised, which is why I said that I might be wrong. Unfortunately, I don’t suppose anyone else is by now still reading this thread, so you and I may just have to agree to differ.

  32. Thanks Pasquale and birdsong

    There is a chance that the thread will always be read …

    I actually started this one back near publication, but the two crossers in the NW corner – THE BILL and ZERO just did not fall at the time – in fact I originally had written in SAW BILL as one of the ducks. It appears that the tattered page has lasted through the time and I was actually able to finish it out this week. Thought that it was a really clever way to have a theme structured around DONALD DUCK’s 80th anniversary and like many was able to identify the DONALDs much much earlier than the DUCKs. I had LENIN instead of LINEN at 23d and with the erroneous SAW BILL, there was no need to look for the fourth DUCK. Had to check up Messrs WOLFIT and SINDEN as I had not heard of either of them.

    Needed help with the parsing of the second half of PLEASANCE and the whole concept of THORN – had no idea of it representing the character that it does.

    Tough but thoroughly enjoyable and well worthy of being a Prize puzzle.

  33. Bruce: just for the record, any post gets sent by email to the blogger, so at least one person has now read your comments on a puzzle I blogged 2 years ago! By coincidence, my blog to another Pasquale puzzle has just been published today, so I look forward to reading your comments on it in 2018 – if we’re both still around then!

  34. Hi bridgesong (without spell check interference this time)

    Yep … I knew that you guys get a notification, even two years on 🙂 I am just working through a backlog pile of about 30-40 puzzles that range from early 2014 to earlier this year … before I start on the current ones again ! So hopefully I can get to your latest Pasquale way before 2018 – when hopefully both of us ARE still around !!

    All of the best … Bruce

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