Guardian Prize 26,609 by Puck

by

Super puzzle from Puck.  I found this to be one of those puzzles in which the clues are hard until one solves them, when suddenly they seem to be quite easy.  Thanks Puck.

My apologies for the late posting of this puzzle.  I solved the puzzle a week ago and then forgot to write up the blog, no excuses.  Fortunately I solved this on the printed newspaper (rather than online) so I could look up a few inches and see several of the answers written higher up the page in the puzzles section.  Ironically I did the blog of the previous week’s Guardian Prize puzzle immediately, only to discover six days later that it was actually Eileen’s turn to write the blog and I had to delete it at the last minute.  Such is life.

 

completed grid
Across
1  
See 19
5 BIPLANE
On the phone to purchase no-frills aircraft (7)

BI PLANE sounds like “buy plain” (purchase no-frills)
9 UGRIC
In short, I’m disgusted by most fruity type of language (5)

UGh (I’m disgusted) with RICh (fruity, mostly)
10 FUTOSHIKI
Agonised shout, if family fails to finish puzzle (9)

(SHOUT IF)* anagram=agonised then KIn (family) unfinished
11 REABSORBED
Once again swallowed up British group, an aerospace one back in debt (10)

BROS (British pop group) and BAE (aerospace group) reversed in RED (in debt)
12 KAKA
Puzzle only half completed by a footballer (4)

KAKuro (puzzle) only half with A – footballer Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite, more commonly known as Kaka
14 PART OF SPEECH
An interjection, perhaps by EEC? (4,2,6)

EEC is part of spEECh
18 OBLITERATION
Being completely wiped out by dodgy rite during sacrifice (12)

RITE* anagram=dodgy in OBLATION (sacrifice)
21 FOXY
Friend has yen for sexually attractive American (4)

FOX (friend, why?) has Y (yen) – George Fox was a founder of the Quakers, the Religious Society of Friends
22 SUBMERSION
Sinking of vessel Nemo managed without undue risk, largely (10)

SUB (vessel) NEMO* anagram=managed containing (without) RISk* anagram=undue, largely=unfinished
25 UNBLOCKED
Nude dancing entertains bar, that’s clear (9)

NUDE* anagram=dancing contains BLOCK (bar)
26 OFLAG
Prison camp body regulating prisoners? (5)

OF LAG (hypothetical body regulating prisoners, cf Ofcom, Ofsted etc)
27 DRESDEN
Debtor desperately needs capital in eastern Germany (7)

DR (debtor) NEEDS* anagram=desperately
28 AUSTRIA
State (American) found in Chambers (7)

US (American) found in ATRIA (chambers)
Down
1  
See 24
2 DURHAM
See doctor had rum (6)

(HAD RUM)* anagram=doctor – a see is dioscese, Durham for example
3 KICK-STARTS
Gives up before back-up guitar gets going (4-6)

KICKS (gives up) before STRAT (Stratocaster, guitar)
4 SO FAR
Return of service great up to this point (2,3)

RAF (service) SO (great) reversed (up) all reversed (return of) – a double reversal, I’m not sure I have this correct.  Great could be OS (out-size)?
5 BUTTERFAT
Some milk to express? Nothing at all in emptied breast (9)

UTTER (to express) FA (nothing at all) in BreasT (emptied, no middle)
6 POSE
Set puzzle ordinary solver easily finishes? Just the opposite (4)

starting letters of (opposite of finishing letters) Puzzle Ordinary Solver Easily
7 ANIMATED
Setter’s dined in joiner’s chipper (8)

I’M (setter is) ATE (ate) in AND (joiner)
8 EPITAPHS
This paper briefly abandoned deadlines? They might be stoned (8)

anagram (abandoned) of THIS PAPEr (briefly) – lines written for the dead on gravestones
13 UPROARIOUS
Pour out port down under, getting rollicking (10)

POUR* anagram=out then RIO (port) in AUS (in Australia =down under)
15 TURDUCKEN
Nought for English in dish that’s Thanksgiving grub (9)

DUCK (nought) replacing E (English) in TUReEN (dish) – a turkey stuffed with duck meat, I don’t like the sound of that
16 CONFOUND
Trick discovered in puzzle (8)

CON (trick) FOUND (discovered)
17 FLEXIBLE
Book in store contains law that’s easily bent (8)

B (book) in FILE (store) containing LEX (law)
19,1across KILLER SUDOKUS
Surprisingly sulks, having liked our puzzles (6,7)

anagram (surprisingly) of SULKS and LIKED OUR
20 ENIGMA
Megan’s wrong about inner piece of jigsaw puzzle (6)

MEGAN* anagram=wrong containing (about) jIgsaw (inner piece from)
23 MEDEA
Play in game, sat next to dealer (5)

found inside (in) gaME DEaler (game sat next to dealer)
24,1 WORD SQUARE
Puzzle 14,225? (4,6)

WORD (14 across) and SQUARE (225=15×15, an example of a square number) – 225 is also the number of cells in this grid
*anagram
definitions underlined

36 comments on “Guardian Prize 26,609 by Puck”

  1. Many thanks for the blog. Agreed that this was a super puzzle. In 21a I think FOX is a reference to George Fox, founder of the Quakers / Society of Friends.

  2. Thanks PeeDee. I found it hard too and I thought some clues a bit weak. I didn’t like OFLAG and still don’t quite see it and had to stare at SUBMERSION for a long time. I believe in 21 that George Fox was one of the original Quakers but that is rather obscure too.

  4. 21 ac FOXY – George Fox was the founding father of the Religious Society of Friends AKA The Quakers.

    Thanks PeeDee and Puck.

  7. I liked this too but I wouldn’t say that everything looked easy after the solve -KAKA springs to mind. I’ve never heard of either footballer or game so I wouldn’t have got this without electronic assistance. FUTOSHIKI I only knew from crossword puzzles. The rest went in quite satisfactorily. LOI predictably was the aforesaid KAKA.
    But thanks PUCK

  8. Thanks Puck and PeeDee.

    I found the answers hard to parse, but where I did manage to fully do so wondered afterwards why they had seemed so difficult. I parsed SO FAR as PeeDee, but failed to fully parse REABSORBED, FOXY, KICK-STARTS and FLEXIBLE.

    BIPLANE, PART OF SPEECH, POSE and WORD SQUARE, among others, were good.

    TURDUCKEN is even worse than the clue indicates, it is really TURkey DUCk chicKEN, the duck being stuffed with a chicken!

  9. I thought this was an ingenious puzzle and I thoroughly enjoyed it. If memory serves TURDUCKEN was my LOI, while FUTOSHIKI had gone in earlier as my best guess from the anagram fodder and the rest of the wordplay. I thought the clue for OFLAG was quite amusing.

  10. As an American, I feel I must say that Turducken is not standard Thanksgiving food! I know some who have tried it as a novelty, but never two years in a row!

  11. I only managed to solve about 10 clues (mainly in the lower half) before giving up, and now that I see the solutions I doubt that I would have gotten much further even if I had persevered as there were so many words I have never heard of before such as UGRIC, FUTOSHIKI, footballer KAKA, OFLAG, TURDUCKEN.

    I think this was a case of my being absolutely not on the setter’s wavelength, but I enjoyed reading the blog anyway.

    Fortunately I am having better success with today’s Prize puzzle, with only one clue left to solve at the moment.

  12. Definitely a challenge!

    A couple of points about the blog – the aerospace group in 11a should be BAE, as there are two Es in REABSORBED, and there is a typo in the parsing of 15d (TRUeEN instead of TUReEN).

    I couldn’t fully parse TURDUCKEN.

    I had the wrong answer for 12a, but I think mine fits just as well, perhaps better in one way. Not knowing of a suitable footballer, I searched online and came across Homare SAWA, captain of the Japanese women’s football team and 2011 FIFA women’s player of the year. As she was playing in the 2015 World Championship last Saturday, I thought it was a very timely reference. SAW is, of course, half of jigSAW (though perhaps the clue does suggest that the answer would involve the first half of a puzzle). The Guardian’s annotated answers confirm that PeeDee was right with KAKA, though.

    My favourites were OFLAG, AUSTRIA and POSE.

    Thanks to PUCK and PeeDee.

    15a TUREEN typo in blog – couldn’t fully parse that

  14. Blog fixed now. I certainly found this a challenge, quite a struggle in fact. When I came to write the blog I was unable to explain why I found it hard – in just about every case I either knew the solution or it was written on the back page the paper in front of me.

  15. michelle @ 11

    Just the opposite experience for me. Puck’s was relatively straightforward as I do most of the puzzles. Just a few at the end, KAKA and TURDUCKEN I gave up on. Today’s, however, I find dullsville and might well give up with only a third done.

    Thanks PeeDee

  16. For me, this was the most difficult prize since the Arachne Sondheim one, but a very enjoyable challenge, which I didn’t complete on the day – needed online help with TURDUCKEN – once that was out of the way the last few soon fell. I think that was vaguely familiar, not least because one of Pink Floyd’s early albums had an insert of a recipe card for something similar but bigger involving a camel. Like PeeDee, I did this on the paper and my Saturday does normally involve doing the Killer Sudoku…

    Thanks to PeeDee and Puck

  17. Sorry to be pedantic PeeDee but your explanation for WORD SQUARE should say WORD (14 across).

    I found this puzzle a definite struggle and failed on KAKA (I didn’t even bother trying to find something to fit _A_A) and TURDUCKEN which was actually quite a clever clue and one which Paul could make something of. Being a guitar man, I especially liked KICK-STARTS.

    Thanks to PeeDee and Puck.

  18. Challenging and playful stuff with a couple of words new to me. I parsed FUTOSHIKI and was lucky enough to have it confirmed by looking further up the page in the paper. I resisted the temptation to attempt to solve it: cryptic crosswords are quite enough for me!

  20. Thanls Puck and PeeDee

    26 OFLAG isn’t a hypothetical body regulating prisoners, in WW2 it was a prison camp for officers, OFfixierLAGer, in comparison to STALAG which, I think, was an abbreviation for STAMMLAGER, base camp for prisoners.

  22. Firstly I would like to ask people to refrain to making comments on today’s prize puzzle. This contravenes the “rules” of this site as the time to make comments on the prize is next Saturday.

    I would also think that even a half-wit would realise that people coming to read this would not expect their enjoyment of a this week’s Prize to be spoiled by comments on a puzzle for which the deadline for entries is several days hence!

    An interesting puzzle from Puck.

    I had quite a few reservations though.

    9A – I’m not sure that “In short is enough to indicate that both UGH and RICH should be curtailed. Also RICH = MOST FRUITY seems wrong. RICHEST surely! (Then we have another problem)

    10A – This was obviously an anagram of SHOUT IF followed by KI. From the theme this was most likely another Japanese puzzle. I’m not sure how many people have heard of FUTOSHIKI!

    21A – FOXY seems wrong.. Surely we need a noun!

    22A – undue as anagrind?

    26A – I supposed OFLAG is compared to OFT? Not sure this is fair? Also I’ve never heard of OFLAG.

    15D – Although the wordplay is pretty obvious the fact that I’d never heard of this dish made it pretty difficult. Perhaps here up North we are blissfully unaware of such exotica! 😉

    Having said all that this was still a very enjoyable and challenging puzzle. Among my favoutites were 8D,.18A, 23D and 11A

    Thanks to PeeDee and Puck

  23. How on earth do subjective comments about the relative difficulty of today’s Prize puzzle spoil anybody’s enjoyment of said puzzle? It isn’t like any answers were let slip.

  24. Thanks, PeeDee.

    I’m very late to the party – I’ve been totally enthralled with the tennis all day.

    I could – and did – kick myself. Like you, PeeDee, I solved this puzzle, as always, in the paper and, as always, first turned to the back page and folded it over, to solve the puzzle, spent quite a bit of time researching / discovering FUTOSHIKI, which I thought I’d never heard of then, when I’d finished, unfolded the paper and found FUTOSHIKI a whisker away – Grrr! I was aware of the Killer Sudoku but was quite surprised to hear that beery hiker did it: I really did think that the puzzle-solving world was divided along a Sudoku / cryptic crossword line – it is in my experience – but bravo to you, bh, if you can do / enjoy both.

    I particularly liked 14ac, 26ac [having been subjected to Ofsted] and 24,1, with its reference to our site, which, I believe, is so called on the Guardian website.

    TURDUCKEN is an unattractive-sounding word, which I’ve never heard of, but I have been offered a local variation

    http://www.seldomseenfarm.co.uk/3br.htm

    – quite acceptable – but not really worth the effort, I’d say.

    [PeeDee – I’m so sorry your hard work last week was wasted.]

    Many thanks, as always, to Puck, for the fun.

  25. Quite a struggle, but an enjoyable one.

    I don’t think Oflag is particularly obscure, at least to those brought up on postwar escape films; and I thought the clue was terrific, given the proliferation of regulatory quangos in recent years : Oftel, Osted, Ofcomm, Ofeverything else. It’s a joke, Simon @21, and rather a good one.

    Turducken was a useful word to learn : I now know what to call the combination fowls that the likes of Marks and Spencer and Waitrose try to tempt me with at Christmas.

    Can I suggest that Brendan’s comments @22 about references to current prize puzzles are a bit heavy-handed, given that the comments actually posted could not spoil anything for anyone. But I agree that it would be safest not to say anything, however innocuous, to avoid accidentally giving something away.

    Thanks to Puck and PeeDee.

  26. G larsen @25 last paragraph

    I totally agree: it has always been policy here not even to mention, let alone comment on, current puzzles. I remain tight-lipped re this week’s. 🙂

  27. Thanks PeeDee and Puck,

    I enjoyed this but failed on the unfortunately named footballer and the fowl dish.

    Brendan @22:

    9A fruity=rich, most fruity=ric so “in short” is not doing double duty

    10A difficult if you solve online – in the paper edition the Futoshiki appears directly above the crossword!

    21A I think the definition means “sexually attractive” in American-English – yes, a bit awkward.

  28. Apologies to everyone, especially to Puck, for referring to this weeks Prize puzzle. Michelle is a beginner, and I have been doing the cryptic crosswords for less than a year. I tried this morning but, as so often, thought it beyond me without the help of the check button. I do not think we have given anything away. People often say ‘take a look at the Indy (or the FT) today’.

  29. Site Policy 4. Prize puzzles should not be discussed, or commented on in detail, until the appropriate post has been published after the closing date for entries.

    I do not think michelle or I have broken this ruling.

  30. Eileen @24

    I love Killer Sudoku as well as cryptic crosswords. I’d never heard of futoshiki, but my husband happened to be doing the ‘standard’ sudoku from the previous day’s Times when I was muttering about not knowing a puzzle with that letter pattern, so he helped me. 🙂

  31. Thanks Peedee and Puck. My elation seeing a Puck puzzle soon vanished. Found this to be hard. No kaka just -a-a. Couldn’t fully parse 24,1 and entered ‘four square’.

    Was besotted with turkey as thanksgiving grub having never heard of turducken! So Dresden had no chance; just d-e-r- –

  32. Re commenting on a future puzzle.

    Unfortunately even the mosy innocuous comment can give more away than one thinks.

    Regular readers get to know other posters likes and dislikes as well as their skill levels. So even a “I didn’t like this” or “I gave up” can say more than one thinks.

    Sorry if I came across a bit OTT. (I had had a couple of rather large Gin and Tonics so I was probably a little too free with my criticism! 😉 )

  33. [Re Eileen’s comments on Sudoku / Killer Sudoku – it might be heretical to say so here but I sometimes do the Killer before starting the crossword (call it an aperitif), as it helps to get the brain working, and I’m not always at my brightest first thing on a Saturday morning. Thanks to jennyk I know I’m not alone – the Killer is much less predictable than a standard Sudoku – though I will still do those if sufficiently bored. One point I would make is that I very rarely remember number puzzles, but a good crossword clue can stay in the mind for life – I’m definitely with Eileen on that one.]

  34. Re discussing the current puzzle: even if one’s own comment doesn’t give much away it encourages others to reply and add in their own comment. The sum of all these individual comments gives away much more than any one of the authors intended.

    Maybe one can say “but surely only one comment can’t do any harm”. True, but that is only the case as long as everyone but you restrains themselves. What makes you a special case?

    Best just not to mention it at all.

  36. Thanks Puck and PeeDee

    Did this one on a ‘stay-inside’ type Saturday morning with it taking up a good deal of it. Found the puzzle theme quite ingenious with a number of them new to me and some of which did sound interesting !

    Missed the Quaker FOX (went down the path of the US morning show ‘Fox and Friends’). Also didn’t get the OF part of OFLAG, but once explained, makes it quite a clever clue!

    Saw MEDEA quite early and smiled – have been nagging my daughter to read it for her holiday homework.

    Lots of other varied and interesting clue subjects and devices to cap off a very fun and challenging solve.

Comments are closed.