Guardian Prize 26,747 / Paul

[If you’re attending York S&B please see comments 32&33] - here

Hurrah! – another prize puzzle like what they used to be: not too difficult but needing – for me, at least – a bit of teasing out and a bit longer time than a weekday puzzle.

I got about two thirds of the way through before discovering the theme, since I didn’t get 23 immediately. My way in [eventually] was through 8dn, where the wordplay was so pellucid that I confidently googled the unknown [and unlikely-sounding] RINGHALS, only to find that the whole of the first page referred to a Swedish nuclear power plant! – at which point I despaired. I’ve met some esoteric themes but … ! Then, mercifully, with crossers, I got 27ac, which I recognised as a snake, and I knew that there were some with outlandish names, learned mainly through crosswords, so then consulted Chambers re 8dn, as I should have done in the first place – or persevered beyond Google’s first page!

From then on, progress was steady: the wordplay for all the 23s was meticulous, as expected from Paul, and I learned a couple of new ones. Many thanks to him for an interesting and entertaining challenge.

Across

1 Blue clothes first, perhaps? (3,4)
LOW GEAR
LOW [blue] + GEAR [clothes]: this turned out to be a simple charade, with two bits of possible misdirection in ‘first’ and ‘clothes’ – a sign of good cluing

5 One with special advantage is in the drink, they say? (7)
INSIDER
Sounds like [they say] in cider [in the drink]

9 Currency of Iceland in a rut
DINAR
Hidden in IcelanD IN A Rut

10 Lottery in hand, oddly, after card removed (9)
WITHDRAWN
DRAW [lottery] in H[a]N[d] [odd letters of] after WIT [card]

11 Just eastern Chinese dynasty sold houses (4-6)
EVEN-HANDED
E [Eastern] + VENDED [sold] round [houses] HAN [Chinese dynasty]

12 Goodwood’s cut (4)
GASH
G [good] + ASH [wood]

14 Tell to seal mouth after Beethoven’s Ninth, a line combining different tunes (12)
CONTRAPUNTAL
COUNT [tell] round [to seal] TRAP [mouth] after N [ninth letter of beethoveN] + A L [a line]

18 Blank cheque cashed with random initials, the balance imbalanced! (5,7)
CARTE BLANCHE
Anagram [imbalanced] of THE BALANCE and the initial letters of Cashed and Random – but ‘imbalance’ is a noun, not a verb, so there is no such word as ‘imbalanced’: why not ‘unbalanced’? – the surface didn’t make much sense to me, anyway

21 Unhealthy to ignore strong heart, for one thing (4)
UNIT
UN[f]IT [unhealthy] minus [to ignore] f – strong – its middle letter [heart] – I think there’s some discussion re [un]fit = [un]healthy?

22 A robust, rough and unfashionable, unskilled worker (10)
ROUSTABOUT
Anagram [rough] of A ROBUST + OUT [unfashionable]

25 Line retracted about idiot, with woman never believed (9)
CASSANDRA
A reversal [retracted] of ARC [line] round ASS [idiot] + AND [with] for the daughter of King Priam of Troy, to whom Apollo gave the power of prophecy but, when she rejected his advances, he caused her prophecies never to be believed. She prophesied the fall of Troy and I remember that the notes in the back of my school copy of Aeneid II suggested that we might wonder why she didn’t simply prophesy the opposite? But everyone knows there was no getting round these decrees / prophesies: look at Oedipus – prophesied to kill his father and marry his mother, so his hapless parents exposed him on a mountainside as soon as he was born and …

26 Pedagogue recalled hiding, having shackled student finally (5)
TUTOR
Reversal [recalled] of ROUT [hiding] round [having shackled] [studen]T

27 23, disconcerting thing? (7)
RATTLER
Double definition

28 Sovereign ruled country gutlessly, tending to make mistakes (7)
ERRANCY
ER [sovereign] + RAN [ruled] + C[ountr]Y – we have to read ‘tending’ as a gerund, not a participle

Down

1 Run from 23 under opening in lederhosen (6)
LADDER
L[ederhosen] + ADDER [snake – 23] – and no whiff of the well-worn snakes and ladders

3 Bulldozer great sex? (10)
EARTHMOVER
Double definition 😉

4 Canopy of willow overshadowed by bay tree (5)
ROWAN
W[illow] in ROAN [bay – horse]

5 Chiefly wet? (2,3,4)
IN THE MAIN
A rather Rufusian cryptic definition

6,2 Crushing victory desired, unfortunately, as 23 (10)
SIDEWINDER
An anagram [unfortunately] of DESIRED round [crushing] WIN [victory]

7 Italian mount girl has reared, glittering stuff! (8)
DIAMANTE
Reversal [has reared] of ETNA [Italian mount] + MAID [girl]

8 Call Dutch artist a 23 (8)
RINGHALS
RING [call] + [Frans] HALS [Dutch artist] – an unequivocal piece of wordplay for an unfamiliar word

13 23 gets to transport rodent after getting up in the morning (10)
BUSHMASTER
BUS [transport] + HAMSTER, with AM [in the morning] reversed [getting up]

15 I’m grateful wine and bread have turned up — too much to ask? (4,5)
TALL ORDER
TA [I’m grateful] + a reversal [turned up] of RED [wine] and ROLL [bread]

16 Reconnaissance vehicle out cold in evidence of battle (5,3)
SCOUT CAR
OUT C [cold] in SCAR [evidence of battle]

17 Ultimately violent, nastier sort of toys for boys? (5,3)
TRAIN SET
[violen]T + an anagram [sort of] of NASTIER – is this what Santa’s delivering to the Halpern household?

19 Feeding kid, too much material (with a mouth for 23) (6)
COTTON
OTT [too much] in [feeding] CON [kid] – + mouth gives cottonmouth, another snake previously unknown to me

20 Hardy one of seven writing off two articles? (6)
STURDY
So many ‘sevens’ it could have been one of, so some pause for thought here – but it turned out to be simply S[a]TURD[a]Y – nice one, Paul!

23 Benefit circling north wind (5)
SNAKE
SAKE [benefit] round N [north]: I don’t know why this took so long to see – except that benefit usually = dole

24 Uncle Sam’s zip pinches a hard object (4)
NAIL
NIL [nothing = zip in the USA, which I learned – through crosswords, of course – only fairly recently] round A – reference to the expression ‘hard as nails’: a typical Paul clue to end on 😉

19 comments on “Guardian Prize 26,747 / Paul”

Thanks Paul and Eileen

Agree that this was ‘Prize perfect’ and a great blog to match.

My way into the theme was with SIDEWINDER as the fourth one in. Just realised that I hadn’t gone back to parse WITHDRAWN, so thanks for that.

Lots of entertaining value with many of the clues – favourites being EARTHMOVER, BUSHMASTER and my last one in STURDY.

Thanks Eileen. Not hard, though at the end 18 and 13 took almost as long as the rest, what with the rodent and the getting-up-in-the morning trickiness. That and RINGHALS got checked o/l afterwards though I was near-certain they were 23s.

Thanks Eileen. I got in fairly early with 1d and didn’t have too much trouble with the rest though I had to stare at CASSANDRA for a while. I did explore the dwarfs, the deadly sins, the hills and G7 before 20d dawned on me.

This was just the right level of difficulty for me. My only gripe is with 19 down which was my last one in; I don’t see that ‘kid’ as in joke or tease is a synonym for ‘con’ as an abbreviation of confidence trick. Thanks to Paul and Eileen

Thanks to Paul and Eileen. In your parsing of SIDEWINDER you omitted “desired,” the source of the anagram. I got RINGHALS early on and knew the term from a previous puzzle, so that the others followed fairly easily. Last in was DIAMANTE (I kept trying to squeeze in other terms). I much enjoyed this one.

Thanks Paul and Eileen
Exactly the same as you, Eileen – I spent some time wondering what Sweden or power stations had to do with the theme.

A pretty bog standard keyword puzzle from Paul. I’m actually think it was more suitable for a weekday. Some of Paul’s recent weekday offerings have been corkers and would certainly have graced the weekend spot! (But of course that’s down to our “illustrious ed”!

No clues were particularly notable. I’d never heard of the Cottonmouth snake but the wordplay got me there after a while.

So a little disappointing for the weekend for me.

Thanks to Eileen and Paul.

I’m with the majority who enjoyed this and found it the right level of difficulty.
Once again, our Collin’s Gem version of Bradford’s Crossword Lists came into its own here – a tiny book but a trove of obscure knowledge, including Cottonmouth, Ringhals and Bushmaster, all of which we were previously unacquainted with.

Oh, and I had to smile at 3d – a lovely incongruous image!

Thanks Paul and Eileen.

I enjoyed this puzzle, especially the SNAKE clues – the RINGHALS was new to me, but clearly clued. I also particularly liked LOW GEAR, INSIDER, EVEN-HANDED, CONTRAPUNTAL and CARTE BLANCHE, imbalanced seems to also be an adjective

http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/imbalanced

Thanks, ACD @5 – corrected now.

Thanks Paul & Eileen.

Good, entertaining puzzle that was just right for me.

I got SNAKE fairly early on, which was just as well. I had heard of COTTONmouth but not RINGHALS.

I enjoyed EARTHMOVER and BUSHMASTER.

I liked this but I agree with Brendan that it was easier than some of Paul’s recent offerings. I got the theme quite early on. I had not heard of RINGHALS but it was pretty obvious from the wordplay, and I knew the other snakes. LOI was STURDY and I’m still not sure I understand it.
But lots of fun.
Thanks Paul.

Peter Aspinwall @12

STURDY: Saturday [one of seven days of the week] minus [writing off] a and a [two articles].

Very straightforward, particularly compared with last week’s Prize. I’m generally not keen on puzzles with a lot of cross-referencing but 22a was my FOI, which made getting the crucial 23d relatively easy. However, I couldn’t parse COTTON, which I got from the snake mouth reference, and for the second part of LOW GEAR (my LOI) the penny took a very long time to drop. I had to check RINGHALS online but the construction was clear once I had the crossers.

Favourites were IN THE MAIN and STURDY.

Thanks to Paul and Eileen.

Mostly straightforward and entertaining, though I got held up a little by not knowing a couple of the snakes – I think BUSHMASTER may have been last in.

Thanks to Paul and Eileen