Guardian 25,943 – Brummie

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Fun and challenging, despite the two longer clues falling almost immediately. Favourites were 15a and 3d.

Across
8 TERRAPIN =”reptile” (painter)* around R[ex]=”king”
10 STOW =”stuff” [as a verb] rev(WOT’S) – my Chambers gives “wot: a facetious spelling of what”
11,9,24dn OUT OF SIGHT OUT OF MIND =”Not in the view of dismissive type” OUT OF SIGHT=”Really good” + OUT OF [one’s] MIND=”mad”
14 MOUNTING =”Staging” MING=”Dynasty” around [c]OUNT=”unstarted election process”
15 SKYDIVE =”Sportingly go down” SKY=”the Blue” + DIVE=”Shady Club”
17 RED ARMY =”large fighting machine” R[oo]M inside (ready)*
20 SPACELAB =”out-of-this-world facility” PACE=”Step” inside SLAB=”block”
22 SHEIKH =”Leader” (hike)* inside SH=”quiet”
23 INDICTMENT =”charge” rev(C[riminal] I[nvestigation] D[epartment])=”Copper outfit knocked back”, inside (mine TNT)*
24 MOSS double def Kate MOSS the model; or Stirling MOSS the racing driver
26 COMANCHE =”Native Americans” COME=”appear” around [r]ANCH=”stock farm”, having lost r[iver]
Down
1 LEFT HOOK =”Slug” LEFT=”Remaining” + Captain HOOK
3 UPROAR =”Stink” in heraldry, a “rampant lion” is rearing UP
4 ANATOMY =”Make-up” ANY=”whichever” around A TOM=”a cat”
5 COIFFURE =”Hairdo” (if of)* in CURE=”restorer”
6 STRIPTEASE cryptic def
7 AFGHAN =”national” FGH=”three consecutive letters”, in A A=”two articles + N[orthern]
13 DIDACTICAL =”Instructive” (addict)* + I=”One” + CAL[ifornia]=”state”
16 VOLITATE =”fly” (Tati)* in (Love)*
19,18,25,2,12 ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER cryptic def “Saw” meaning a proverbial saying
21 PUNCHY =”Effective” or PUNCH-Y, as in the “striking puppet” from the Punch and Judy show
22 SHTUMM =”shut up” (shut)* + M[ale] M[ale]

26 comments on “Guardian 25,943 – Brummie”

  1. Thanks, manehi. Good thing for me this wasn’t a game of poker… excellent opening bluff by Brummie with the two easy long ones which made me think this was going to be a quick win. Wrong! Highly entertaining, though, “mopping up” all the short answers. šŸ˜‰

    I didn’t quite see the need for “(one’s having left)” in 11,9,24 so thanks.

  2. This was an interesting puzzle in which the clues were very clearly written. I was pleased that I could parse all of my answers.

    My favourites were 21d, 23a, 6d, 22a, 3d & 1d.

    New word for me today was SHTUMM.

    Thanks for the blog, manehi.

  3. Thanks, manehi, thanks, Brummie. Sometimes a cross-word is precisely that when one arrives at the correct answer because of the crossing letters, never mind the aptness of the clue. “Uproar” for rampant lion is one such, in my view.

  4. Thanks Manehi.

    Really enjoyed this one. Cute and crafty.

    Re NeilW@1…

    If one is ‘mad’ – one is ‘out of one’s mind’ – but given part of the solution is ‘out of mind’ – ‘one’s’ must leave!

    Best,

    Team Yogdaws

  6. A nice puzzle.
    Shtumm is an interesting spelling though.
    I always believed it to be “schtum”

    Any thoughts anyone?

  7. Hi, setrungo. Chambers gives the principle spelling as shtoom with the following alternatives: schtoom, shtum, shtumm or stumm!

  8. Thanks to manehi for the blog. You explained what I had missed in 23: I had CU=copper stuck in my head and totally forgot that a copper is a policeman šŸ™

    On 3d I tried for a long time to make a smell then eventually remembered that stink has other meanings.

    I heard a long time ago about a computerised translation system. They fed in ‘out of sight out of mind’ and derived a Russian equivalent. They fed the Russian in and out came ‘blind idiot’ šŸ˜€

  9. Enjoyable puzzle, but I was unsure about volitate. The online Chambers doesn’t seem to list it. Is it still the case that a word should be in Chambers or is that an old rule?
    Otherwise I enjoyed the long clues which I rather ashamedly didn’t get that quickly. Even once I got one I was still tediously slow on the other.
    On the other hand, it meant a good work-out on the little clues with few hinting letters!
    Thanks, Brummie and manehi!

  10. Thanks Brummie and manehi.

    Enjoyed this very much, and as others have said it wasn’t made too straightforward by the long solutions falling early. SHTUMM held me up for a while as I hadn’t come across that spelling before, but as NeilW says it’s definitely there. I thought SHEIKH was very elegant. Slapped my forehead when I saw the anagram element of TERRAPIN – I’d been thinking that maybe there was a surrealist painter called Trapin…

    All of Arachne’s puzzles so far this year have come out on Fridays, and the last was three weeks ago, so I wonder if the Spiderwoman is weaving a web ready to snare us tomorrow?

  12. Wukka @9
    Be warned – the online Chambers is NOTHING like the real one, which does have Volitate. Several people have speculated that it’s only there to make us realise we need to buy the full version. Actually the Guardian crossword editor doesn’t require everything to be in C – he once said he likes the 1-vol OED. I think it just has to be in some reputable dictionary – sometimes not even that for neologisms etc.

  13. Good grid design to fit in both of the long ones – however, I got stuck for a long time on the first one [probably because many crossers were missing!]

    Thanks manehi; I particularly liked STRIPTEASE (of course šŸ˜‰ ) and RED ARMY.

    Wukka @9; VOLITATE is in the Chambers hardcopy under ‘volitant’ – maybe you’ll have to buy the dictionary! Sometimes words have been used that are not in Chambers – they may be in Collins or the SOED, or rarely, in none of the above (and, of course, many proper names are not necessarily in a dictionary.)

  14. Wukka – Im not sure what the rules are re Chambers, but my Chambers iphone app does include “volitate”… so it’s in there somewhere at least…

    Good fun puzzle. Held back slightly by my thinking that “didactical” was a flying dinosaur. Oh well…

  15. Thanks, all! That told me…

    I do have Chambers but I’m not at home at the moment and foolishly thought I could trust the web version!

    I wonder how they choose which words not to include? How bizarre…

  16. Thanks, manehi.

    At first I thought this was going to be very difficult, but I spotted a few randomly scattered answers and ABSENCE… leapt to mind with only the crossing B; the other long answer took me quite a bit longer (and has much the better clue, IMHO).

    An enjoyable crossword, with some ingenious and fun clues, as we would expect from Brummie.

    VOLITATE is on the Chambers app on my iPhone – I did have to check that it really existed! Like DIDACTICAL (what’s wrong with ‘didactic’?), it seems to have too many syllables. The simple Latin verb ‘to fly’ is ‘volare’, which gives us words like ‘volant’ and ‘volatile’, so ‘volate’ would seems to be the obvious English equivalent (the SOED lists the noun ‘volation’ but not the verb). VOLITATE is from the diminutive verb ‘volitare’, which means ‘to flutter’.

    OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND (5,3,4) was one of my favourite Rufus clues…

  17. Hi Wukka @15
    “I wonder how they choose which words not to include? How bizarreā€¦”

    It is not a case of leaving out some words. The on-line version is based on Chambers 21st Century Dictionary, a different publication.

  18. Thanks maheni.

    I found this quite hard – no answers in first time through.

    The two long ones took a time to fall – I wonder, as presumably these were the first Brummie entered, that their clues were less than exciting.

    3d UPROAR much appreciated.

  19. Beaut from Brummie and an excellent blog manehi. This took me much longer than my self-imposed hourly slot for a weekday Guardian. My last one in was 10ac. I find the four letter words the most difficult! A superb puzzle with no annoying repetitions in the clues.

  20. What a good puzzle, quite hard but I did enjoy it once I got going. I failed to get 6d at all, but having seen the blog (thanks, manehi) it has become my COD! Interesting to see that Regalize @19 also allows 1 hour. I do too, and now I mostly meet that target. Can’t quite comprehend how anyone manages some of these offerings in 20 mins or less, but I’m still learning from the excellent bloggers at 225 so might be able to reset my target soon. Cheers all.

  21. Lots to enjoy today, and found that solving went steadily but rather slowly. Last in (indeed, I didn’t actually write it in) was 10a. I got the ‘wots’ bit but couldn’t convince myself that ‘stuff’ is a really satisfactory def of ‘stow’ (the iPhone Chambers app did nothing to reassure me).

  22. Interesting crossword.

    Started of very slow with not much in after the first pass.

    Then a rapid acceleration as the long clues fell into place.

    Quite a long slog after that for the remaining few but very enjoyable and all answers were well clued.

    Last in was VOLITATE. I’d toyed with all the variations but have never heard of this. I have Chambers but it’s too heavy to be worth lifting from it’s dusty resting place at the bottom of a fairly inaccessible bookcase. (Why don’t Chambers do an online or electronic version of the full dictionary? I’d be happy to pay!)

  23. Brendan(nto): Chambers too heavy to be worth lifting? Don’t be such a wimp. It’s one of my favourite books. I recently came across the third definition of ‘char’: (sl) n tea. [Cockney spelling of cha]

  24. Nice puzzle. I thought the long ones were a bit weak but pretty well all the others were rather good, showing Brummie as fine setter, not just a lavatorial giggle merchant.

    Re VOLITATE and Chambers. I thought Collins was the bible for the G. It’s in Collins on-line.

    As observed, Chambers on-line is a bit of a con. It’s just a teaser to get you to buy the book whereas AFAICS Collins on-line is pretty complete. It’s psychological advertising – see we’re the good guys – so buy our book.

  25. Hi Brendan @22
    “(Why donā€™t Chambers do an online or electronic version of the full dictionary? Iā€™d be happy to pay!)”

    You can buy an electronic version of Chambers 12th Ed. See:

    http://wordweb.info/ordering.html

    If you don’t want the thesaurus select ‘show all’ for the optional extra dictionaries.

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