I “got” the theme about halfway through (probably with AUSTIN, CARLISLE, and TROLLOP), and it really helped solidify a few later answers – forcing me to “get” the Latin math in WILD, for instance.

I never got RAITA, and probably wouldn’t ever have without reading a dozen articles on Indian cuisine on line… forgot to google BALTI_… and, embarrassingly, never sussed HART. The latter which, of course, become a triple homophone!

I’m just glad it wasn’t 13 Indian dishes.

It must come down, as you say, to taste, but I would quibble with the emphasis of your summing up of Brummie’s theme. The theme was: ‘composers – whose names are also ordinary words’ (whose meanings are irrelevant to their membership in the set); there was not a main theme and a secondary one. The ‘ordinary words’ component was integral to the theme. Even though the puzzle was solvable without the theme being fully understood, the ‘composers names’ component was indispensable and all the composers names were part of the same ‘also ordinary words’ set. Imagine that Brummie had chosen to define just the ordinary words, which would then have turned out also to be composers’ names to those solvers who recognised them. It would have been pointless.

The question of obscurity is, I think, another matter.

After all that, thanks for making me think more closely about what, when I’m solving, seem like instinctive convictions.

In the end, I never got round to Quantum. I do enjoy these opportunities to think through what, while solving, come as almost instinctive convictions. Thanks.

Firstly I should clarify my point @63. When I say that I and others solved the Brummie puzzle without recognising the theme, I should have clarified that I did recognise the ‘composers’ element of this quite early on, and yes it was helpful as you say.

The main point of my complaint is not this but the ‘ordinary words’ element of the clues. Like Sil, and unlike several others, I do not care much for this. I find it too inclusive to be interesting. Also the fact that they are ordinary words is simply to say that they each have a meaning. But they lack any semantic coherence as a ‘set’ and the meanings in question are deliberately avoided in the clues.

I am not at all sure that we can progress much further. Perhaps it is simply a mater of taste in the end. I find the idea that the answers are a disparate lot of ordinary words, whose meaning is unclued, neither interesting nor helpful. You and several others get some sort of kick out of it.

Re Brendan, it may be partly come down in the end to the old argument between those who find punning amusing and those who feel it is the ‘lowest form of wit’.

To sum up: with Brummie we have composers (hidden but easily accessible major theme) whose names are ordinary words (hidden and inscrutable secondary theme).

With Brendan we have writers (hidden but by no means inaccessible major theme) whose names sound like the answers (implicit but reasonably accessible (partly via raita) surface-level secondary theme).

Beyond this one might add (at a personal level) that – to me at least, and I suspect many others – all the writers were well known, whereas a number of Brummie’s composers were inaccessible to me without Google. I must confess that, unlike Sil, I did not know Glass or Parry or Piston from the latter’s Russian dissident counterpart Pistoff – but there we are back to low wit!

As rrc points out at #6 “The compiler was being rather kind telling us the theme in 9 across – perhaps our comments in the past about anonymous themes have been upheld.” Brendan’s themes have frequently been unnecessary to the process of solving the crossword, but if you spot the theme it can help. Whereas the clearly indicated but partly unclued themes of Brummie and, quite frequently, Araucaria – which RCWhiting seems to prefer, can frequently have the (in my view) undesirable effect of making the crossword unsolvable or, nearly as bad, solvable merely by Googling the set of possible answers and mechanically fitting them in where they will go. Where’s the challenge or fun in that?

I’m with Sil on this one. Brendan’s themes, being “an extra layer”, add to the enjoyment of the puzzle. This one, which he obligingly, and to some extent misleadingly, signalled in the clue to 9a, seems to have caused more kerfuffle than all his completely hidden themes. I hope he’s not been reading this blog, it might put him off altogether!

The crosswords are comparable simply because in both certain solutions comprised a set of words which constituted the ‘theme’, and, unlike those of a ‘normal’ themed crossword, these solutions themselves fell into another set – a list which was indicated in one, and became (or didn’t become) apparent in the other.

In Brendan’s this further set was comprised of homophones of already thoroughly clued solutions, and was thus, as I expressed it, ‘cosmetic’; I, and some others evidently, solved the puzzle without recognising the theme, indeed thinking there was probably a different theme. It may have been found helpful by some solvers, but it wasn’t at all necessary.

On the other hand, it would have been difficult – I don’t say impossible, and RCWhiting’s assertion included the rider ‘or nearly so’ – to solve the Brummie without recognising that a number of solutions referred to composers: the theme was integral to the crossword, and was itself the common definition which you complain was missing, tupu. Thus the theme itself was not cosmetic, but structural. The further set gave a focus to the themed answers, and was able to do so because, although there may be ‘many thousands (?) of surnames that are ordinary words’, there are few enough such composers’ surnames to make them a recognisable set comparable say to ‘English composers’ or ’20th century composers’.

If either of you wants to continue this conversation, please don’t think me uninterested or rude for not replying – I shall be out for the rest of the day, once I’ve had a quick look at Quantum.

I realise you have partially different viewpoints from each other

‘Part of the structure’. Yes, but the set is defined only by a very general and vague semantic principle, and at the same time the principle is also rendered inaccessible by the self-imposed structural absence of any definition for the ‘ordinary words’ involved.

Re ‘integral to solving’. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. As far as I can remember the Brummie ‘theme’ was missed altogether by most commentators who solved it including myself. In the Brendan case, I suspect more people saw it. I saw it only at the end and it certainly helped me to see ‘priestly’.

The difference is that the theme’s idea was clued with definitions in the Brendan puzzle, so once it is recognised it helps the solver and is not purely cosmetic. In the Brummie case, it was as good as cosmetic because it had very little to do with anything. It might as well have been one in which every word had at least two consonants, or had more labials than dentals, or was included in Dr Johnson’s dictionary. As I said earlier there are many thousands of surnames that are ordinary words.
Nor do I remember there being any clues where a choice between an ordinary word and a non-ordinary word had to be made.

I cannot see why we should compare this themed puzzle with Brummie’s.
Moreover, I think there are themed crosswords and themed crosswords, if you know what I mean. In my opinion, there is no such thing as A Themed Crossword.

The theme in Brummie’s puzzle I found rather ordinary.
I knew all the composers, found PISTON and PARRY for example because of that, after having some crossing letters and nót through construction.
For me, the so-called ‘extra thing’ that all the names were normal words too, did not have any influence while solving.
On hindsight, I still don’t care much about it.
I don’t think it made it easier to find them.
Moreover, Brummie’s theme words lacked a definition.
Completely different from here – so why compare?

This Brendan is a themed crossword, the theme indeed being an extra layer – so, what’s the problem with that?
Are we not allowed to call this a theme, because the puzzle is solvable without it? Nonsense, I think.
A crossword like this is also much harder to compile than Brummie’s – well, that’s what I think.

The phrase “A theme must be integral and the puzzle should be unsolvable (or nearly so) without it” is one I completely disagree with. In particular, I don’t like the words “must”, “should be” and “unsolvable”.

Of course, one may disagree.
But it’s probably clear that I/we liked this easy, but clever crossword very much.

‘A theme must be integral and the puzzle should be unsolvable (or nearly so) without it.’ I think this is very well put, and marks the difference in quality between this puzzle and the recent Brummie with which it has been compared. Here the theme quite cleverly adds an ‘extra layer’ to the puzzle, but it’s merely cosmetic. The extra layer of double meaning in the Brummie came as part of the structure.

However, I must admit that in a language like Finnish where all ‘rs’ are and must be clearly pronounced, their absence can have serious implications. On one of my first visits, I tried to use the term for cranberry liqueur which involves the word ‘karpalo’ (cranberry). Unfortunately my pronunciation was more like ‘kapalo’ which means a ‘nappy’!