Guardian Prize Crossword 26166 Saturday January 25Th 2014

[Hokeypokey]

3dn Good periods getting to secure higher areas (7) ----n-s.
Struggling to find the connection on the undefined clues, I have Sofia, Paris, Minsk and Lima.
Grateful for any help.

[maurice]

They're just all capitals
Sorry I've forgotten 3d

[maurice]

Ah, now I remember: it was UPLANDS

[bollingerzz]

1a Beirut, Oslo, Seoul.

1d Baku, Sofia, Zagreb.

8d Lima, Minsk, Tehran.

30a Bern, Paris, Berlin.

[grumpy01]

8d could also start with Lome.

[bollingerzz]

You make an excellent point grumpy01. Lome or Lima appear to be equally valid entries, which causes a problem for the Guardian. Since this is a prize crossword which entry should they accept? I suppose if they are to act fairly they should accept either Lome or Lima but it should cause Otterden the compiler to blush a little.

[Arundo_Donax]

Also Bern is not the usual English spelling, normally it's Berne.

[bollingerzz]

The Guardian is well known for its spelling mistakes. Maybe they think Lome and Lima are the same words...lol.

[humbersloop]

I thought having a guessing game for the undefined clues was a particularly poor device and the rest of the puzzle wasn't brilliant either

[bollingerzz]

I agree humbersloop. I don't think it was the best prize crossword I have ever done. If they are going to have undefined clues then they must ensure that the answers to the undefined clues are uniquely determined by the answers to the cryptic clues.

[humbersloop]

thanks bollingerzz, not just me neing grumpy then

I think the problem was with the grid's number of unches in those clues

[humbersloop]

^*being*

[Sailplan]

Count me in among the grumpy ones, bollingerzz and humbersloop! If you're going to have a device like this around the circumference, then to my mind the words should ideally comprise a complete set, or at least be part of a smaller set than the 196 capital cities! Apart from the helpful letters in the NW corner, I don't see any way of completing this other than trawling through the list - not my idea of crossword solving. Quite apart from the Lima/Lome howler! Mind you, by then I was already grumpy about a number of pretty poor clues.. "endures" as an anagram for "end user" and "A need is" for "aniseed"?? In a Guardian Prize Puzzle?? 11a and 16d are pretty suspect too, and in 22a, a peck is a measure of volume, not of weight.... I shall stop chuntering on now, but I shan't rush to tackle another puzzle by this setter!

[Cryptomaniac]

Yes - grumpy too! The main thing is that just finding capital cities in four strings of three was so boring. Following Bollingerzz's comments, I'd also suggest to Otterden that if (s)he wants to do this sort of thing again, have properly cryptic clues scattered around the grid using - maybe - names like Irving BERLIN, Jack LONDON, PARIS Hilton, SOFIA (or is it Sophia?) Loren, Denzil WASHINGTON and even Dion DUBLIN. Give it a few years, though - while we forget this one!