Maskarade set the challenge for the Guardian prize puzzle this week
A bit of general knowledge is always useful when solving a Maskarade puzzle. I learnt something new with this puzzle when I discovered a Native American tribe known as the Menominee.
I was impressed that Maskarade came up with an anagram for SWIMMING COSTUME at 1 down, but I didn’t think the clue’s surface reading made much sense.
The Chinatown clue was interesting in that it could have led to a number of answers if you were cold-solving the clues. A very quick internet search revealed over 30 possible towns that could be clued in the same way. In Britain, Stoke-on-Trent. Of course, the number of cells available in the grid, plus the crossing letters, restrict the answer to DRESDEN.
Compound anagrams, where the anagram fodder is constructed from two words, one of which is excluded to leave the grid entry, are becoming more common in blocked crosswords. Maskarade gave us three examples today, leading to LORELEI, NEFERTITI and INSULATED
| No |
Detail
|
| Across | |
| 1 | Miss appointment with firm – an average joker (5-2,8)
STAND-UP COMEDIAN (a joker) STAND-UP (miss or break an appointment, usually intentionally) + CO (company; firm) + MEDIAN (The middle number or average of the two middle numbers in an ordered sequence of numbers, rarely equal to the mean or average of all the numbers in the set) STAND-UP CO MEDIAN |
| 9 | Patients treated outside hospital way back when (2,3,4)
IN THE PAST (way back when) Anagram of (treated) PATIENTS containing (outside) H (hospital) IN T (H) E PAST* |
| 10 | Inhabitant has no den to take exams again (5)
RESIT (take exams again) RESIdenT (inhabitant) excluding (has no) DEN RESIT |
| 11 | Wind knocked over communist base first (7)
MEANDER (wind) MEAN (unkind; cruel; base) + RED (communist) reversed (knocked over) MEAN DER< |
| 12 | Vegans left Seville orange squashed on Rhine rock (7)
LORELEI (a siren, said to dwell on a rock at the edge of the Rhine south of Koblenz, who lures boatmen to their death) Anagram of (squashed) sevILLE ORangE excluding (after left) the letters in VEGANS LORELEI* |
| 13 | Windbag occasionally presents royal occupant of Castle Adamant? (3)
IDA (reference Princess [Royal] IDA, the leading character in a comic opera of the same name [also sometimes known as Castle Adamant] who runs a women’s university in the Castle) IDA (letters 2, 4 and 6 [occasionally] of wInDbAg IDA |
| 14 | Native American drops third note to one who’s proposed (7)
NOMINEE (one who is proposed for a role) meNOMINEE (a federally recognised native American tribe) excluding (drops) ME (third note of the tonic sol-fa, do, re ME etc) NOMINEE |
| 17 | ID in magenta looking odd (4,3)
NAMETAG (a form of ID [identity]) Anagram of (looking odd) MAGENTA NAMETAG* |
| 19 | Blimey, Alec capsized the boat (7)
CORACLE (a small oval rowing boat made by stretching hides over a wickerwork frame, now used in Wales and Ireland) COR (blimey!) + an anagram of (capsized) ALEC COR ACLE* |
| 22 | Dignified to a degree, relatively speaking? (7)
GRANDMA ( a relative) GRAND (dignified) + MA (Master iof Arts; university degree) GRAND MA |
| 24 | Tango with a pair of ducks, also (3)
TOO (also) T (Tango is the international radio communication codeword for the letter T) + O (a zero [duck] shaped character) + O (a zero [duck] shaped character), giving two ducks T O O |
| 25 | Watertight floodgate (7)
STAUNCH (watertight) STAUNCH (a primitive form of lock; a floodgate) double definition STAUNCH |
| 26 | When interviewers show agreement with seabirds (7)
NODDIES (sequences in a filmed interview in which the interviewer is photographed nodding in acknowledgement of what the interviewee is saying; when interviewers show agreement) NODDIES (oceanic birds, unaccustomed to man and therefore easily caught and deemed stupid) double definition NODDIES |
| 28 | ‘TU’ – there’s a French article about it (5)
UNITE (UNITE is one of the largest Trade Unions (TUs) in the United Kingdom) UNE (one of the French forms of the indefinite article) containing (about) IT UN (IT) E |
| 29 | First lieutenant dropping sultan round for Pharaoh queen (9)
NEFERTITI (reference Queen NEFERTITI [1370BC – 1330BC], a queen of the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, the great royal wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten) Anagram of (round) FIRsT lIEuTENant excluding (dropping) the letters of SULTAN NEFERTITI* |
| 30 | Constant that’s instrumental in marriage break-ups? (7,8)
ETERNAL TRIANGLE (a sexual relationship, full of tension and conflict, involving three people, usually a married couple and a third party. A relationship that can lead to marriage break-ups) ETERNAL (constant) + TRIANGLE (a musical instrument; that’s instrumental) ETERNAL TRIANGLE |
| Down | |
| 1 | Attire for the Lido with roughly two GCSEs, minimum (8,7)
SWIMMING COSTUME (attire worn when bathing at a lido) Anagram of (rought) TWO GCSES MINIMUM SWIMMING COSTUME* |
| 2 | Vauxhall model almost off course (5)
ASTRA (an ASTRA is a Vauxhall car model) ASTRAy (off course) excluding the final letter (almost) Y ASTRA |
| 3 | Chinatown (7)
DRESDEN (For many years, the German city of DRESDEN was a centre for the production of porcelain [china] items) The clue is a cryptic definition alluding to the town’s history of porcelain production. DRESDEN |
| 4 | Publicity broadcast that is plain (7)
PRAIRIE (a plain) PR (public relations; publicity) + AIR (broadcast) +I.E. (id est; that is) PR AIR IE |
| 5 | Bunting seen from floor to landing (7)
ORTOLAN (a kind of bunting, common in Europe) ORTOLAN (hidden word in [seen] floOR TO LANding) ORTOLAN |
| 6 | Walford resident’s caught strange body part (7)
EARDRUM (body part) ‘EARD (heard, caught; Walford is the fictional setting of the BBC soap opera Eastenders, a place where native speakers would drop the H at the front of a word) + RUM (strange) EARD RUM |
| 7 | Artiste away from Barking industrial estate, protected from the elements (9)
INSULATED (protected from the elements) Anagram of (barking) INDUSTriAL Estate excluding (away from) the letters in ARTISTE INSULATED* |
| 8 | Nightmare on this broadcast showing county (15)
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE (English county) Anagram of (broadcast) NIGHTMARE ON THIS NOTTINGHAMSHIRE* |
| 15 | Spread grain out, eaten by horse (9)
MARGARINE (a spread) Anagram of (out) GRAIN contained in (eaten by) MARE (female horse) MAR (GARIN*) E |
| 16 | Length of US railroad (3)
ELL (an obsolete cloth measure equal to 45 inches) ELL (an alternative spelling of EL [an American [US] railroad) double definition ELL |
| 18 | Fairbrother’s tune (3)
AIR (tune) AIR (hidden word in [‘s, indicating possession] fAIRbrother) AIR |
| 20 | Cannot even eat here! (7)
CANTEEN (a place where one can eat; eat here) CAN’T (cannot) + E’EN (poetic form of even) CANT EEN |
| 21 | Husband in lean-to brewing alcohol (7)
ETHANOL (a type of alcohol) H (husband) contained in (in) an anagram of (brewing) LEAN-TO ET (H) ANOL* |
| 22 | Achieved success – after many miles? (4,3)
GONE FAR (achieved success) GONE FAR (a person has GONE FAR after he/she has travelled many miles) double definition GONE FAR |
| 23 | Rough road ran somewhere up in the Pyrenees (7)
ANDORRA (country in Europe, bordered by France and Spain) Anagram of (rough) ROAD RAN ANDORRA* |
| 27 | An unexpected bonus on a cake! (5)
ICING (a covering for a cake) ICING (reference the phrase ‘ICING on the cake’ [anything that is a desirable addition to something already satisfactory]; a bonus) double definition ICING |
As an intermittent visitor to prize puzzles I thought this was the most straightforward one I’ve solved but I so enjoyed it, especially the long border clues. STAND-UP COMEDIAN and the pretty obvious SWIMMING COSTUME were the first two in and it flowed smoothly from there. The subtraction clues in LORELEI, NEFERTITI and INSULATED were very clever and I liked the surfaces for IN THE PAST and ETHANOL. I had to google the tribe in NOMINEE to confirm my guess.
Ta Maskarade & duncanshiell.
Quite straightforward, nothing too tricky. No standouts for me, this time.
I thought the aforementioned three subtractive word clues (setter’s prerogative I suppose) did make it a tiny bit easier, and less interesting.
A lovely puzzle – gentle and enjoyable
Favourites were: MEANDER, MARGARINE, CORACLE, ICING
Thanks Maskarade and duncanshiell
No particular issues for me; anagram-heavy, perhaps, but that turns out to be something of a sweet spot for me, with or without subtractions. In this case, I found LORELEI and NEFERTITI particularly nice. ORTOLAN, which is not familiar here as a menu choice, I knew about through a friend who said that it was a sort of lark that in France was consumed in fine restaurants while one’s head is draped with a napkin (serviette?) so as to capture the subtle aromas while eating it essentially whole, because they’re tiny. Is this true? My friend, much missed, was known both to be a gourmand and a relentless teller of partial truths…
Thanks to Maskarade—gentle, yes, but much enjoyed—and to duncanshiell for the ever-helpful color-coded dissection.
Thanks duncanshiell. As you have noted some GK helped in pencilling clues in and worrying why a bit later so it wasn’t too difficult. I enjoyed it.
I found this the easiest Prize I’ve ever encountered; disappointingly so to be honest as I expect to occupy most of Saturday afternoon, and often into Sunday with solving (and sometimes all week without finishing, such as last week’s). So having knocked it off in 30 minutes left me feeling a bit flat. I’m very far from what I’d describe as an expert solver, and yet this was a Monday level crossword for me, in fact I’ve found some Quiptics harder. That’s not down to Maskerade of course, it’s an editors call.
I found the clue for 1a wrong, frankly. Median and average are not synonyms, the correct synonym for average is mean. And before anyone chips in with “in Chambers” that doesn’t make it right, just commonly misused.
Thanks Maskarade and duncanshiell
On the relatively quickly solved side for me, too, but none the less enjoyable for that. GiS@6: I have to disagree. When I was teaching Maths, we talked about three different averages (i.e. measures of central tendency): mean, median and mode. Mean is just the most commonly used. Thanks, Maskarade and duncanshiell.
As a Mephisto blogger, I am used to compound anagrams – I was just surprised to find them in a regular puzzle. The only thing I had doubt about was noddies – yes, I vaguely knew the bird. US solvers are not great at UK car models, but Astra seemed highly likely.
Hmm. Mean, median and mode are defined as measures of central tendency. To call a median an average is to incorrectly afford the inclusive definitional status to the term ‘average’ which, as Graham @6 rightly says, is merely a lay term for mean. Het.
As others have said, this was very enjoyable. I’m sure the setter was surprised to see it turn up as a Prize.
Superb puzzle. Wonderful clues with engaging surfaces throughout (maybe 1d excepted, as noted in the blog). Very entertaining — thank you Maskarade!
All clues were favourites. Maybe single out 29a NEFERTITI (an ingenious bit of engineering), 5d ORTOLAN (cleverly hidden with “from…to”), 15d MARGARINE (“Spread” misdirection), and 20d CANTEEN (delightful)
Couldn’t parse 14a NOMINEE. Thanks duncanshiell for clarifying, and for an impeccable blog
It’s nice to have a relatively easy prize now and again and I enjoyed this one, particularly the subtractive anagrams. I didn’t know about the Menominee but found them after the event, and needed a dictionary to confirm ORTOLAN was a word. I did think average and median would bring out some quibbles – to me an average is not a median – for one thing it’s much harder to calculate! – but I didn’t mind the clue. Thanks both.
Thanks for the blog , some very good clues and a very friendly grid with a full perimeter and so many first and crossing letters , perhaps this made it easier for a lot of people . The subtraction anagrams were well done ( I would not personally call these compound anagrams which are harder ) but I think that three is one too many .
DRESDEN – this had to be Longton or Burslem when I was solving but had to change when using the grid . DRESDEN is actually a small district in Longton , not a town itself , but does produce the finest pottery . I suppose the setter was thinking of the German city and its inferior Meissen-ware .
AlunC ar frig y siart ddydd Sadwrn .
Interesting upshots … if on the easier side for a prize puzzle. I seem to agree with compiler, blogger, TassieTim@7 that “average” is the (vague) lay term: with arithmetic mean, geometric mean, median and mode specific definitions.
As mathematician turned hydrologist turned puzzler, was feeling slightly “flash”. I vaguely recalled that staunch could mean a kind of floodgate. But had never connected that it was once a term associated with “flash locks”. These were locks/ponds of water held back so that they could be released to aid navigation when water levels were low. That they proved useful is part of the evolution of the formal locks more familiar today.
Not feeling flash now I realise I carelessly came up with GAME TAG rather than NAME TAG at 17a. No wonder I couldn’t parse OUTFLAG to solve 5d.
Many thanks, Masquerade and duncanshiell
Thanks, duncan, for the well presented comments, as usual. On MEDIAN, I am with TT@7 and Choldunk@15, rather than Graham@6 and Grant@9. ‘Average earnings’ is the pay at the 50th percentile, not the total pay divided by the number of people, ie the median not the mean. (Sadly they are very different.) Perhaps usage in Australia is not the same.
Easiest Saturday puzzle I can remember. I am unsure whether that’s a compliment or a criticism, but thanks, Maskarade, I enjoyed it.
Enjoyable and smooth rather than a battle, but that’s no bad thing sometimes.
Even so, I hadn’t heard of either meaning of ELL so I’ve learnt something too.
Thanks Maskarade and duncanshiell
Easy for a Prize.
If people say “average” they mean “mean”, not mode or median.
My first thought for DRESDEN was Chelsea!
Definitely on the easier side. Enjoyable but a straightforward completion on Saturday morning. Time for a toughie that I finish over the weekend.
I liked the puzzle and was also initially baffled by NOMINEE. Too many favourites to mention.
Ref median vs average, the ONS puts it rather well: Median monthly pay shows what a person in the middle of all employees would earn each month. The median pay is generally considered to be a more accurate reflection of the “average wage” because it discounts the extremes at either end of the scale.
Thanks to Maskarade and duncanshiell
My vague memory of studying maths is of learning that TassieTim@7 is correct – technically ‘average’ can define mean, mode or median; but in common use it is ‘mean’. Sometimes there are complaints here that a definition, used in everyday speech, is wrong technically; here we’re getting the opposite complaint!
Other than that, fairly straightforward. NHO the American ELL nor meNOMINEE but answers were clear.
Thanks both.
[Roz @14: Rwy’n hoffi eich meddwl] ⚽️
If you investigate what the average person means by average, the modal answer might well be that it means arithmetic mean. But clearly there’s more to it than that.
As PhilB@19 points out, the Office for National Statistics definition of MEDIAN is
‘A measure of the average. The median is calculated by identifying the exact middle point in a set of observations. When the observations are ranked from lowest to highest, the median is the value in the exact middle of the observed values. It is the Office for National Statistics’s preferred measure of average earnings as it is less affected by a relatively small number of very high earners than the mean.’
It is used in all ONS data on pay in Britain, so anyone referring to average pay in Britain is referring to the median pay.
When solving 1a I thought, “that’ll set the cat among the pigeons!” and indeed they are fluttering all over the place. I also thought at the time that the setter had clued MEDIAN with great accuracy: ‘an average’. But sadly his effort was wasted.
Thanks to Maskarade and Duncan.
As others have observed, relatively straightforward for a prize. A half hour romp rather than a full week-end teaser. No less enjoyable for that. 1ac and 1d going straight in was a considerable help. Could not parse NOMINEE or EARDRUM (having misread Walford, which I did not know, for Watford). Liked the clues for UNITE and CANTEEN.
Sh@24 spot on. It’s interesting how many missed seeing the important ‘an’ in the clue.
I’m not sure ELL is an alternative spelling of EL, rather the spelling out of the letter L which is used to refer to some elevated railroads (ELs)
beaulieu @20: that puzzles me too. It’s worth looking at the entry on Wikipedia for “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average“.
Interesting how one’s reasonable expectations can influence one’s reaction to the actual dish that’s served.
This average solver found the puzzle mostly a write-in with a couple of obscurities thrown in. If this had been a Monday puzzle I’d have thought it was a gentle example but nice.
As it was I was expecting a tough challenge over a few days, and the puzzle was therefore a big let-down.
Which is a shame as looking at the puzzle without the expectations raised by its billing, it was actually enjoyable.
So thanks to Maskarade and duncanshiell and a big fat raspberry to whoever decided it should be a Saturday prize puzzle.
PS I use “average” solver to mean “unexceptional”.
PPS I use “mean” in the sense of definition…
A rare FBB (finish before breakfast) for me, although I didn’t have a parse for NOMINEE until later. The pedant in me still thinks that the third note in do-re-mi is not ME and I had WhatsApp correspondence with puzzler friends on the validity of ELL v EL. but a nice gentler puzzle for a change
When the data set has a lot of skew the median is better than the mean as AN average . I agree with Tim@7 plus others , Sjshart@16 has an excellent example amplified by Phil@19 and Andy@23 .
[ AlanC@21 , you are being very formal . I thought I would be …….. di meddwl dy . ]
I read DRESDEN as a “type of china” + “town” + “chinatown (town making china)”.
I read ELL as “EL + L” (length of el (railway))
Nho Walford, never having watched East Enders, but I tend to assum that any unknown but clearly English placename is likely to be a reference to Cockney pronunciation.
Enjoyed the puzzle, particularly the subtractive anagrams. Also liked NODDIES, MARGARINE, COMEDIAN.
NHO the American ELL and had to google Vauxhall models to confirm my answer.
Thank you, Maskarade and duncanshiell.
Thanks M and DS. A pleasantly gentle crossword from Maskarade, even though several were not completely parsed until today (eg IDA and ELL and TU).
Another one who found this quite straightforward for a Prize Puzzle but entertaining nonetheless. I liked the TU being UNITE. I was completely misled by the ID in 17ac thinking it referred to SWIMMING COSTUME, doh!
Thanks Maskarade and duncan.
I disagree with ELL being an alternative spelling of EL, which is short for “Elevated”, most iconically in “the El” in Chicago. There is no second L in Elevated. In my thirty-plus years as an adoptive American, I have never once encountered “Ell” for El, or even for L.
I stared at 18d for a long time trying to figure out the parsing. Surely it had to be more than AIR being barely-hidden-at-all in FAIRBROTHER? That would barely qualify for a Quiptic. Also, the surface seems meaningless, unless there is some famous Fairbrother I am unaware of.
As for “average”, the mathematicians have it correct: mean, median, and mode are all examples of an “average”. In fact there are more: “mean” usually indicates arithmetic mean, but there is also a geometric mean. “Average” is the entire class of such central indicators.
In general use, people do typically use average in the sense of “mean”, except in cases such as the ONS statistics mentioned above, and I would aver that many non-mathematicians are unaware that they are doing so. They also occasionally use it to mean mode; for example “the average person has two legs”. But it is, I’m afraid, simply wrong to say that “average” is not inclusive of “median” or that it is exclusively a synonym of “mean”.
As a resident of Chicago, the city most noted for its el, which I ride every workday, I must say that I have never, in my livelong life, seen the word spelled with two L’s. Not here, not in New York, not anywhere in the US. There is room to argue over whether it’s “the El” or “the L”, but it is NOT “the ELL.” I don’t know where he even got that from.
Oh, and since the meNOMINEE are from nearby Wisconsin, I’ve certainly heard of them. But when I solved that clue, I thought to myself, “wow, the Brits are going to be baffled by that one!” As it apparently proved, based on the above comments. But heigh ho, it’s a prize puzzle for a reason.
Well made puzzle, very mild for a Prize as many have noted. I agree with those who have pointed out that ‘median’ is AN average, as Maskarade carefully put it.
From Chambers:
ell2 /el/ same as el1
el1 /el/ (US informal)
noun
An elevated railroad
That’s the usual setters’ excuse, but who knows where Chambers found it.
Thanks to Maskerade and duncanshiell
I parsed 16d as EL = US railway and L as a commonly used abbreviation for “length” so ELL = ” US railway length”. The clue is then an &lit or a clue as definition or some other term to justify a clue in which an element is doing double duty.
Thanks to Maskarade and duncanshiell
Comment #41
Who needs The Traitors to see people being assertively wrong when you can just pop in here? Anyway, I agree it was an easy one. [Easier than today’s fun offering.]
Z622@4 I think there’s a scene in the film The Taste of Things that shows ortolans being eaten, a practice I believe is now outlawed.
Agree with Martin@42.
[BTW – the new Guardian iPhone app shows if you have completed the puzzle correctly by giving you a green tick and played in the list. Spotted it as I had one clue wrong in today’s Prize]
[Some fun Chicago El facts: all CTA trains are referred to as “the El”, even if they are not elevated. (Parts of the system are underground or at grade. In fact, the Green Line is the only one of the system’s eight lines that is elevated for its entire distance.) I guess this is because probably about three-fourths of the system is indeed on elevated tracks, and all eight lines are elevated for at least part of their routes, so it’s an apt description even where it’s not.]
[ AlanC@21 , I like your Buckminsterfullerene symbol , it is named after one of my favourite architects . ]
I think the Guardian is being appropriately egalitarian by having prize puzzles of varying degrees of difficulty. It gives solvers of lesser experience the occasional opportunity to participate.
To those who complained that this puzzle didn’t fill their afternoon, I suggest that it offered several rabbit holes that could have extended your enjoyment of the exercise. Princess IDA (13a) and ORTOLON (5d) are two examples that I found fascinating.
And you could also have joined in on the lengthy discussion of the very correctly clued 1a (MEDIAN = an average).
Thanks Maskarade for the very enjoyable Prize crossword, and duncanshiell for the colourful blog.
I enjoyed the puzzle, and I’m grateful for the parsing of NOMINEE. I’m pleased that Maskarade has mellowed a little, having associated the name with some baffling intricacy over the years. I liked this being a bit easier (a day for me, rather than 2-3 days) because I had a good book on the go !
For me, “Average” is a perfectly good way to give us “Median”. I enjoyed how the clue fell into place; that feeling of the penny dropping. After the recent Winnie the Pooh special, I now have Yogi in mind, and what he meant when he claimed to be “Smarter than the average bear’ ?
ORTOLAN reminded me of the Christy Lefteri novel, Songbirds, set around the illegal trade in the ‘delicacy’.
Thanks to setter & blogger.
Like Pino we had Railroad Length = El length = EL L = Ell.