Guardian 26,164 – Shed

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The last Shed I blogged, in September, was rather a gentle one, but this one was, at least for me, at the opposite end of the spectrum: it took me a while to make any headway with it, and even when I had a few answers in my progress was slow. I have a couple of doubts/queries/niggles about some elements that others may be able to shed (ha ha) some light on, but generally a very satisfying and enjoyable puzzle – thanks to Shed.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
8. CLANGOUR Boob reportedly making a lot of noise (8)
Homophone of “clanger” (a blunder or boob)
9. EMINEM Compiler turned round compiler’s former rapper (6)
MINE (compiler’s) in reverse of ME (compiler). Is Eminem a former rapper?
10. WASP Stereotypically privileged insect? (4)
WASP = White Angle-Saxon Protestant, referring to someone (usually American) of typically high social status
11. FLAUNCHING Female getting going with concrete structure (10)
F + LAUNCHING. A new word for me, denoting a familiar sight: “a sloping piece of cement, e.g. round the base of a chimney pot”
12. HIDDEN Party girl keeping one large chest measurement under wraps (6)
I + DD (large bust measurement) in HEN (a girl at a hen party)
14. INFRARED Find out about unusual end of spectrum (8)
RARE in FIND*. Infrared is at the low-frequency end of the visibile spectrum; to be scientifically picky there’s a lot more of the electromagnetic spectrum below it.
15. DORMICE Various mediocre, tailless rodents (7)
MEDIOCRE* less E
17. ARCHWAY Affected style of ornamental entrance (7)
ARCH (affected) + WAY (style)
20. SCABROUS Liver not wholly absorbing origins of alcoholic binge — result is almost obscene (8)
A[lcoholic] B[inge] R[esult] in SCOUS[e], from the Liver Bird, though I’m not sure Liver=Scouse exactly works
22. STRAIN Type of express, perhaps, chasing its tail (6)
[expres]S+ TRAIN (type of express)
23. DEFACEMENT Graffiti fade off building material (10)
FADE* + CEMENT
24. FLAX Plant that’s loud and loose (4)
F (loud) + LAX
25. DELPHI Oracle’s source, or prophet’s, in city (6)
P[rophet] in DELHI
26. COLANDER 22 across-er‘s article not so hot outside (8)
AN (indefinite article) in COLDER; a colander is a STRAIN-er
Down
1. AL PACINO Camel’s relation almost in love with actor (2,6)
ALPAC[A] + IN O (love)
2. SNIP Bargain to get legs over (4)
Reverse of PINS
3. COFFIN Head of college leaving home for final destination (6)
C[ollege] + OFF (leaving, as in “I’m off!”) + IN (home). My last one in, though I’d earlier guessed the rather macabre definition
4. CROATIA Bad actor going to Italy (a country) (7)
ACTOR* + I[taly] + A
5. JENNIFER Express disapproval about return of Scandinavian girl (8)
Reverse of FINN in JEER
6. DISHWASHER Beauty and Woman were synonymous with “domestic appliance” (10)
DISH (beauty), W[oman] “AS HER” – at least I think that’s the idea. Thanks to AndrewC and Eileen – it’s just DISH (beauty) WAS HER (woman)
7. SÉANCE Where to communicate with some of those ancestors? (6)
Hidden in thoSE ANCEstors. Not quite an &lit, as the wordplay doesn’t occupy the whole clue, but a very nice surface reading anyway
13. DEMOB HAPPY Anticipating release, had poem by Portishead translated (5,5)
Anagram of HAD POEM BY + P (“head of Portis”). Literally, the happiness of solidiers about to be demobbed, also used figuratively to refer to the anticipation of leaving a job etc
16. CHOLERIC Inclined to be cross about un-American show containing gap (8)
CIRCUS less US (un-American show) reversed (about) , containing HOLE
18. ANIMATES Mounting vigour, imbued with energy, proves enlivening (8)
E in reverse of STAMINA
19. ESSENCE What’s distilled in German city’s church (7)
ESSEN + CE
21. CLEVER Smart chopper gutted (6)
CLE[A]VER
22. SETTLE Colonise piece of furniture (6)
Double definition; settle, meaning a high-backed bench, is a word I first heard in, and always associate with, the description of Badger’s house in The Wind in the Willows
24. FINE Clement‘s penalty (4)
And another DD to finish, though I’m not totally convinced by clement=fine. I am now – as Eileen points out, they can mean the same when applied to weather

33 comments on “Guardian 26,164 – Shed”

  1. Thanks Andrew and Shed.

    My reading of 6d was simply DISH WAS HER – the was indicating a former equivalence. In a very intriguing puzzle, this was not the best clue, no matter how you read it.

  2. Thanks for the blog, Andrew.

    Like you, I found this quite tricky, especially in the top right corner – I hadn’t heard of flaunching, either – but I really enjoyed it when I got going.

    I read 6dn simply as DISH WAS HER.

    I think clement = fine is OK as applied to the weather, although it’s perhaps more often used in its opposite form, ‘inclement’.

    The surface of 20ac is so good that I really want it to work but I share your doubts about Liver = Scouse

    Favourite clue: DEMOB HAPPY.

    Many thanks to Shed for a great puzzle.

  4. Thanks both – I was obviously trying to be too 21d with 16d.

    Also thanks to Eileen for pointing the weather-related equivalence of clement and fine (perhaps I missed that because the weather outside definitely isn’t…)

  5. Actually, Andrew, both Collins and Chambers give ‘clement’, of weather, as ‘mild’ but I always think of inclement weather as being rainy – which it is here, too. 😉

  6. Neat coincidence with my wife’s forename at 5d and our surname in the clue for 24d.
    Generally an enjoyable puzzle, but I thought that describing ‘flaunching’ as a ‘structure’ was pushing things excessively – as far as I know it is just the fillet of cement setting chimney pots onto their stacks. I also share reservations about the ‘Liver’ and ‘scouse’ usage, but some of the other clues were very good.

  7. Manholes also have flaunching but I can’t remember hearing the word since I used to go down them nearly fifty years ago – I don’t think they are stuctures though.

  8. Thanks Shed and Andrew

    Found this pretty challenging but it steadily yielded. I had to check it, but had SCOUS[E] as LIVER[PUDLIAN] with the ‘not wholly’ doing double duty – sort of worked for me.

  9. There was once a TV comedy called The Liver Birds about two girls from Liverpool, I assume that was the peg on which the clue hung.
    11 was new to me too, and I misread 1 as ‘Carmel’, which had me blundering around in religious orders and then The Sopranos for ten minutes until I cleaned my specs.
    In 5, isn’t ‘jeer’ a bit of a stretch for ‘Express disapproval’? ‘Scoff at’, perhaps?

  12. We have just given up on “flaunching” and logged on to get the answer. We couldn’t find it anywhere – even on crossword solver sites. Apart from that, we actually romped through rather fast, enjoying lots of the answers. Like others, didn’t really get the scouse = liver (even though we live on Merseyside.) But it was a great crossword. Thanks Shed

  13. Thanks Shed for a great crossword – didn’t know FLAUNCHING and must remember it to impress Mr CS when I get home this afternoon.

    THanks to Andrew for the blog too.

  14. As Andrew says, this seemed quite hard at first, but it gave way steadily without any major obstacles. Last in was FLAX – no excuses for not seeing that earlier. FLAUNCHING was the only unfamiliar word but once the crossers were in place that was an obvious one to look up. I liked DISHWASHER, AL PACINO (once I realised that DI CAPRIO would never work) and JENNIFER.

  15. Thanks, Andrew.

    Great puzzle from Shed, which I found moderately tricky, especially in the NE corner (I’m another who had never flaunched before). I’m with the others on DISH WAS HER (and FINE was actually my first entry, having spotted it as soon as I turned the page of the newspaper).

    Lots of great clues: I particularly enjoyed COFFIN, HIDDEN and SCABROUS. I do share the reservations about ‘Liver’ = SCOUS(e), but I did wonder, like brucew@aus, whether there was an element of double duty here. However, it is less of a stretch than a couple of Paul’s very off-centre definitions in
    yesterday’s crossword.

  16. Very lucky today, with this and a top-notch Times offering. Ticks against 29a, 22a, 3d and18d – like others, ‘flaunching’ was last in. I was particularly impressed by the deceptive use of simple words (‘bad’ and ‘out’) as anagrinds. I wondered about Scandinavian for Finn, but note from the internet that this causes as much debate as Ulster/NI does here. Anyway, with a large proportion of the population Swedes and Finland having once been part of the Kingdom of Sweden, it’s less contentious than Liver for Scouse. As it happened, I enjoyed that – perhaps because of the TV show, perhaps because my own brand of pedanticism is not offended by it.

  17. Thanks Andrew and Shed

    A very enjoyable work-out. Like others I found the N.E. hardest and had to check ‘flaunchings’.

    Re Liver – Chambers gives it as meaning the ‘fanciful’ Liver(bird). This figures on Liverpool’s coat of arms and two statues of it stand as totems on top of the Liver Building on the Mersey waterfront. I too was not wholly convinced but it is clearly, like scouse, specially emblematic of the city.

    Re 13d I think Andrew must have meant ‘DEmobbed’.

    The cluing was characteristically extremely clever and the instructions were very helpful both for solving and parsing.

    I ticked 14a, 23a, 1d, 16d and 17d as I went along.

  19. Derek @18 re 22a – I parsed it that way too (but I think both versions work since its can be read as express’s so I don’t think there’s any double duty).

  21. Derek @20

    The ‘s was supposed to mean belonging to express, but I couldn’t think of a clearer way to word the comment – I blame 1970s liberal education. In any case your parsing is neater!

  22. Thanks to Shed and Andrew. Enjoyed this puzzle which was very tricky for me in places.
    FLAUNCHING new to me also. Will remember that when I’m working on my chimney pots.

    Must go out now to the pitch and work on my penalty kicks. I saw two teams yesterday that
    could use my services.

    Cheers…

  24. Maybe just me but i remember an 80’s group called wasp, they said it stood for we are sexual perverts. I’ll get my coat…

  25. I’m glad I’m not alone in having found this a little tougher than a lot of Shed’s puzzles, particularly the NE. Like quite a few of you FLAUNCHING was my LOI, after JENNIFER. I didn’t see Finn=Scandinavian for ages, even with the “f” checker.

    As someone who grew up in the area and subsequently moved back here after a self-imposed 25-yr exile in the south I’m not buying Liver=Scouse, but that’s a minor quibble in an enjoyable puzzle.

  28. Yes. Quite enjoyable until the hold up with FLAUNCHING which is not CONCRETE or a STRUCTURE or even a concrete structure!

    It was unfortunate that FLAUNCHING was in such a key place in the grid as a lot of my RH side was bare until I entered it. Then the rest fell into place.

    SCOUS for incomplete was obvious bit also obviously wrong!

    Thanks to Andrew and Shed

    Again we ask who edits this stuff?

  29. I took a while to finish this. I’d never heard of flaunching either and, for 2d, had swap/paws until I realised that it didn’t really work.
    I’m reading a book set at the end of WWI so ‘demob happy’ came quite easily.

  32. R @30

    It appears your pedantry doesn’t extend to grammar so I’ll spell it out 😉

    The “we” is the “indefinite we” so it applies generally to those whom it addresses. In this case the readers of this message board.

    Who do we ask? That’s a good question. Who should proof read these crosswords before they are published to ensure there are no mistakes or ambiguities? Perhaps we should ask the crossword editor or perhaps we should ask someone else?

  33. I think FLAUNCHING is just about a structure, that is, it’s shaped to perform a function, not merely a filling or binding.

    When I flaunched my new chimney pots I used concrete in preference to mortar too, for a longer life (a cement/gritsand, rather than cement/building sand mix). That seems the standard round here in Yorkshire, though people generally would only refer to the mix as concrete if used in bulk.

    Thanks one and all.

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