Guardian 26,235 / Shed

by

I don’t think there will be so many ‘too easy’ protests today but there might be some complaints about unusual words. In fact, however, this puzzle turned out to be less frightening than it first appeared, as the cluing was absolutely impeccable and led unerringly to the less familiar entries. I used Google only to confirm my answers and to find links and I thoroughly enjoyed my learning experience.

It was only when I came to write up the blog that I realised how many anagrams and reversals there were. There were also several ‘lift and separate’ clues, which I like, and characteristically nice surfaces throughout. Many thanks, Shed, for an interesting and entertaining workout.

Across

1 Composer of 23’s “fine and private place”, embracing a total reversal (4,8)
THEA MUSGRAVE
I was off to a good start with the quotation from one of my favourite poems, ‘To his coy mistress’, in which Andrew MARVELL [23ac] describes THE GRAVE as ‘a fine and private place’: we need to insert A MUS – reversal of SUM [total] to give the composer. [I liked the use of ’embracing’, as the next line of the poem is, ‘But none, I think, do there embrace’.]

8 City governed by thug (7)
RANGOON
RAN [governed] + GOON [thug]

9 Heads of ulna and tibia extracted from beautiful broken bones (7)
FIBULAE
Anagram [broken] of BEA[ut]IFUL, minus the first letters [heads] of Ulna and Tibia

11 Back of Alton Towers changing direction (7)
NORWEST
N [last letter of altoN] + anagram [changing] of TOWERS

12 Trendy — right-on at heart — yet enduring (7)
CHRONIC
R [right] ON in CHIC [trendy]

13 Last bit of face powder turned to striking effect (5)
ECLAT
E [last bit of facE] + a reversal [turned] of TALC [powder]
This is one of those words that used to crop up quite often but it’s a while since I saw it.

14 Dull paper about Hitler’s rewritten (9)
MIRTHLESS
MS [paper] round an anagram [rewritten] of HITLERS

16 Highly influential, if admitted to part of penultimate round (4-5)
SEMI-FINAL
IF in SEMINAL [highly influential]

19 Poet finding way round Luxembourg (5)
PLATH
PATH [way] round L [Luxembourg] for the poet Sylvia

21 Family member dropping head case (7)
ELATIVE
[r]ELATIVE [family member minus first letter]
I only knew the seven cases used in Latin, so this was a new one for me: it’s the case used to indicate movement out of something; for example, out of the house, in, for example, Finnish, Hungarian, and Estonian.

23 Wonderland minus/plus poet? (7)
MARVELL
MARVEL L[and] minus ‘and’ [plus]

24 Child, originally gentle, disturbed by lack of attention (7)
NEGLECT
Anagram [disturbed] of C[hild] + GENTLE

25 Shirt — 2 ÷ 1,000? (7)
DASHIKI
Another new word – a garment that I was familiar with but didn’t know what it was called: here it is
A clever clue, which does what it says on the tin: we have a DASH, then II [two] divided by K [1,000]

26 A cur ill-disposed to get into festivity — more so than usual (12)
PARTICULARLY
Anagram [disposed] of A CUR ILL in PARTY [festivity]

Down

1 Shoot nurse with endless stream (7)
TENDRIL
TEND [nurse] + RIL[l] [stream]

2 Caustic electronic mouse, maybe (7)
ERODENT
E [electronic] + RODENT [mouse, maybe]

3 Homunculus’s missile? (9)
MINUTEMAN
MINUTE MAN [homunculus] – this made me smile

4 Mystic cheerleader, albeit American, uplifted (5)
SUFIC
Reversal [uplifted] of C[heer] + IF [albeit] + US [American]

5 Hour in which ethnic group rises for fresh start (7)
REBIRTH
Another reversal [rises] of TRIBE [ethnic group] in HR [hour]

6 Fringe of troubled enclave (7)
VALENCE
Anagram [troubled] of ENCLAVE
I was sure there was a spelling mistake here, a fringe being a valance, and valence being a variant of valency – and this was confirmed by SOED and Collins [although the French town of Valence, noted for textiles, was given as a derivation]. However, I found valence as an alternative for valance in Chambers – but I don’t have to like it.

7 Honest genius ditching one misguided one? (12)
FRANKENSTEIN
FRANK [honest] + E[i]NSTEIN genius without one of his ‘i’s, to give Mary Shelley’s misguided genius

10 Flower arrangement of Eliza Doolittle’s second to be interrupted by school, twice (12)
ESCHSCHOLZIA
Anagram of ELIZA + O [second letter of dOolittle] round [interrupted by] SCH SCH [school twice]
I was aware of this flower but had no idea that there were two SCHs in it, which makes it look rather odd. A nice clue, as, of course, Eliza wanted to train as a florist.

15 Hero from Biblical kingdom (Eastern) turning up in list (4,5)
ROLE MODEL
Reversal [turning up] of EDOM E [Biblical kingdom, eastern] in ROLL [list]

17 Compiler’s seaweed absorbing compiler’s pain (7)
MYALGIA
MY [compiler’s] + ALGA [seaweed] round I [compiler] – the apostrophe s this time indicates ‘is’.

18 Snow White, say, is quick to suppress anger (7)
FAIREST
FAST [quick] round IRE [anger]
Snow White’s stepmother’s mirror told her that Snow White was ‘the fairest of them all’.

19 Reader‘s country home shortly erected (7)
PERUSER
PERU [country] + another reversal – of RES[idence]

20 Spike Milligan initially standing in vote for something useful (7)
AMENITY
And another [standing] of TINE+ M[illigan] in AY [vote]

22 Bluestocking’s secret weapon (5)
ESTOC
Hidden in bluESTOCking – it’s a French sword

36 comments on “Guardian 26,235 / Shed”

  1. Thanks, Eileen.

    It wasn’t “too easy”, but I found it not so hard as Shed’s usual ones.

    I had the start of 10d, but had to look up the rest of it in google. And DASHIKI, too.

    Quite enjoyable, especially MINUTEMAN

  2. Thanks Eileen and, of course, Shed. Agree that it was easier than it looked but quite a workout all the same. A number of words had to be checked with the dictionary!

    Note that in 7d you have removed the wrong i from Einstein!

  3. One of my few memories of English lessons at school was of a particularly smug teacher spending about half a lesson getting us to guess the spelling of eschscholzia – it wasn’t until much later I discovered he’d probably been pronouncing it wrongly. Wish I’d known at the time.

  4. There were indeed too many unusual words for my liking. I loved most of the cluing, though. The blog helped me parse ‘dashiki’ – one of the three words I didn’t get. I tried ‘doublet’ (although it means jacket rather than shirt), since it is also some sort of mathematical thing that involves division, but had to give that up once 19d and 20 became clear.

    Thanks, Shed and Eileen!

  5. Thanks to Shed and Eileen. Shouldn’t 10 down really have a ‘t’ between the ‘l’ and the ‘z’ – the chap it’s named after seems to have (though Wiki doesn’t)? I put ‘dashimi’ – in ignorance. Sounded a bit Japanese, I thought…

  6. Thanks Shed, even if you did swallow the dictionary. 😉

    Thanks Eileen, not a lot of joy in this for me as I didn’t know the names, quotations or quite a few of the words. My computer had to save me from total destruction. I failed to parse AMENITY, so thanks for that.

    The clues did look fine once you got the answers but I thought you were supposed to do the thing the other way round.

  10. Thanks, Eileen.

    I thought, like Dave Ellison, that this was pretty easy for Shed. Mostly straightforward (for him) clues which just left me with all the crossers for the unfamiliar composer and flower. My only problem was, not knowing the poem or the lady, I entered MUSGRoVE – “the grove” seemed a likely “fine and private place”! 🙁

  11. It was a rare treat for ‘composer’ to be a contemporary female, rather than the hackneyed Arne and Bach.

    Thanks, Eileen, for parsing AMENITY, which I put in from the definition and checkers – you didn’t mention that ‘standing’ indicates the reversal of TINE.

  12. Thanks, Eileen.

    As others have said, surprisingly easy for a Shed – provided you knew the vocabulary. Fortunately, it was only DASHIKI which was new to me – and I failed to parse it as well. Some of the others (Ms MUSGRAVE and the California poppy) were practically write-ins with a few crossing letters.

    Good fun, with largely straightforward clues; my favourite was MARVELL.

    tupu is a Finnish scholar (I think) so may have something to say about ELATIVE (not to be confused with illative or inessive, of course).

  13. Thanks for the blog, Eileen. And thanks to Shed for a good work-out.

    I didn’t get through this unaided — and didn’t see all the wordplay either. But it was very fairly clued, if a little obscure in places!

    I was unfamiliar with ELATIVE (though it was easy to get), the EDOM part of 15dn (which meant I failed to parse), ESCHSCHOLZIA (which I got after identifying the right anagram fodder and using an app) and THEA MUSGRAVE (who I googled after I guessed the last name).

    MARVELL went in straight away. And I did know DASHIKI — the wordplay of this clue raised a smile.

  14. Thanks Eileen, I didn’t think this was easy (for Shed). I remember the previous Sheds I have blogged being pretty straightforward in comparison.

    I failed on Thea Musgrave, who I had not heard of. I did know the Andrew Marvell poem so no excuse really.

    All the rest of the obscure words I worked out from the clues, so not such a problem.

  15. Thanks to Eileen for the blog. You explained a couple where I had the answer but not the parsing.

    I half-recognised “a fine and private place” but did not know where it came from. Searching on google led to lots of mentions of a novel by Beagle but no help until I solved 23.

    In 8 I was partly remembering a city run by a ruler who had a gang of thugs acting as his private assassins but I could not track it down. Damascus perhaps?

  16. I did know of THEA MUSGRAVE, which helped, but the long flower was anything but a write-in for me, even when I had decided it wasn’t a river. Surely, I thought, there couldn’t be two SCHs in a row? And what combination of LZIAO (I had the starting E, but not the L in MARVELL or I in DASHIKI, eventually the last in) would make sense??

    So some frustration in the SE. A shame, as I like Shed, and the rest of the puzzle had flowed well for me.

  17. Many thanks to ChrisS, rhotician and PeterM for pointing out the careless errors and to Gaufrid for the corrections. The blog was posted in rather a hurry [which is no excuse] and I had intended to say that any errors / omissions would have to be corrected when I came back from the walk that I was dashing off to but I didn’t even have time to do that!

    All sorted now – and I’m in an even better mood, after a lovely walk in bright sunshine, with lots of blossom and an excellent pub lunch at the end of it.

  18. Thanks Shed and Eileen
    Went fairly quickly until the SE corner, which took a lot of Googling. I did know Thea Musgrave, but not Marvell’s poem, so wasted a lot of time trying to track down a work of Musgrave M?????L (there doesn’t seem to be one).
    Never heard of DASHIKI, so had to rely on a wordfinder. I didn’t parse AMENITY either. (I didn’t know ELATIVE, but it was obvious from the crossers.)
    I assumed I had misremembered the spelling of VALANCE, so I’m pleased that Eileen confirms that my memory was not at fault.
    I liked MINUTEMAN (though rather a dated missile, named after rapid-response militiamen in the American War of Independence – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minutemen). I also liked MYALGIA and SEMI-FINAL.

  19. sitywit @5
    It’s not uncommon for botanists names to be distorted in plants named after them. For example, “Wisteria” is named after Wistar, so should properly be “Wistaria” (though the original mis-spelling was possibly deliberate).
    Ask the man-in-the-street to spell Fuchsia!

  21. Two toughies in a row, but this was entertaining and educational. Fortunately I was able to dredge the name THEA MUSGRAVE from some dark recess of the memory, otherwise I’d never have got the Marvell quote. My second-hand 1977 Chambers was defeated by ELATIVE, DASHIKI and ESCHSCHOLZIA (though it did have ESCHSCHOLTZIA so I suppose that counts), and Edom, ESTOC and VALENCE were also new to me. Last in was ELATIVE because it took a while to see the excellent FRANKENSTEIN – I also liked MINUTEMAN.

    Thanks to Shed and Eileen

  22. I didn’t find this as straightforward as a lot of Shed puzzles. At 1ac I didn’t know the composer or the Marvell reference so I had to resort to aids to get it, and I didn’t know the shirt at 25ac so needed aids to get DASHIKI because “dashimi” and “dashigi” also fitted the wordplay.

  23. Thanks all
    I couldn’t finish this particularly the RHS. That wasn;t helped by 19ac = ROA(L)D which I put in very confidenyly!

  24. I thought AYE meant “yes” as in a vote but AY meant “ever”…

    I’ll have a look.

    Thanks all.

  25. Martin P

    I did have a look and so didn’t comment: both Collins and Chambwers give ‘ay’ as an alternative for ‘aye’.

  27. Completed much quicker than a normal Shed.

    A few new words but all meticulously clued.

    I was surprised I’ve never heard of Thea Musgrave as I listen to Radio 3 at least 5 hours each day and a good part of the remainder is Spotify playing “classical”. However I have been listening to her music (Spotify) for the last 40 minutes and I do find it rather forgettable. Sounds like film music that doesn’t hold up without the film and she does like to use dissonant brass. 🙁 It all sounds like the same piece to me!

    Still an enjoyable solve but not as humorous as a normal Shed.

    Thanks to Eileen and Shed

  28. That’s what I found too, Eileen 🙂

    (Plus stuff I didn’t know either)

    I struggled with this needing lots of research, but proudly deduced DASHIKI.

    I nearly put ROALD too but was saved by the H in 10d.

  29. Got there in the end. Many thanks, Shed

    Took me far too long to put in FRANKENSTEIN (not helped by inserting “clout” rather than ECLAT, understandable perhaps as a reversal of last bit of talc + striking) but got THEA MUSGRAVE early on because of the MARVELL quote. Thanks, Eileen, for explaining the minus/plus as I couldn’t parse the clue.

    Another early mistake was “mannequin” for HOMUNCULUS and a near miss with “morphia” for MYALGIA

    Favourite was DASHIKI – thought the typing looked odd as I was studying it!

  30. I started this late and was held up eventually by the SE corner.
    I enjoyed some parts of it but found it a bit hard at the end of a tiring day.

    I first thought of ‘dashimi’ for 25a but found the correct answer on trying to check it.

    I also failed to parse ‘amenity’ despite having recognised the possibility that ‘spike’ was a separate element in the clue.

    As Gervase kindly suggests, I did know ‘elative’. Finnish (and Estonian)notoriously tends to use cases instead of prepositions and the elative is one of these. They are used to signify ideas such as ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘into’, ‘out of’ and ‘part of’. The last example is marked by the ‘partitive’ case which is quite the most difficult for a non-native speaker to get hold of. It is interesting (to me!) that all these cases have Latin-style names (the actual Finnish names are spelled as if they are derivatives from Latin e.g. ‘elatiivi’) which give them an air of ‘classical civilisation’ even though the cases do not seem to be found in ‘classical’ languages. It may be that the first Finnish grammars were written by Finnish scholars in Latin.

    Gervase may know if Swedish grammatical terms were originally Latin-style.

  31. One wrong as I didn’t know ‘dashiki’ and guessed ‘dashimi’.I could have cheated of course, but, for me, a wrong guess is better than a researched answer. (I did look it up afterwards).

  33. I don’t think DASHIKI is unfair – I’ve seen it many times in media reports on African politicians, musicians and the like.

  34. I liked the DASHIKI clue – I knew I’d heard the word somewhere – I only tried to look it up to confirm the definition. As Simon S @33 says it has been used a bit in the media…

  35. Great crossword – all clicked into place with a satisfying snap. For me this is one of the stand-out puzzles of the year so far.

  36. Well …….. We’ve only just finished the puzzle! No, we haven’t been looking at it for hours but both Bert and Joyce have spent odd meals and coffee/tea breaks when they’ve been on their own trying to unravel the clues.

    We’d never heard of Thea Musgrave or Marvell which was a bit tricky and Joyce needed to search using for composers whose name started with M to complete this clue!

    Overall we both felt it was a bit of a slog but there was a sense of achievement when the last one went in.

    Thanks Eileen and Shed.

Comments are closed.