Guardian 26,583 – Brummie

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I took a while to get started on this, but then everything quickly fell into place, with just a delay at the end to get the (rather unhelpfully clued, I thought) intersecting pair of 17a and 13.

We have a mini ghost theme of the YOUNG PERSON’S GUIDE TO THE ORCHESTRA, by Benjamin BRITTEN, which is based on a theme by Henry PURCELL. See it here – if you’re short of time, skip to 14:10 for the wonderful final fugue. Thanks to Brummie.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
9. YOUNG Solvers no good as babies? (5)
YOU + NG
10. TUNNELLER Mole, a musician getting ready to enthral a king’s mistress? (9)
NELL [Gwyn] in TUNER (musician getting ready)
11. ORCHESTRA Pit workers possibly round river front — god! (9)
O (round) + R[iver] + CHEST (front) + RA (Egyptian sun god)
12,14. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE Virginia’s classic direction of keeper going to work? (2,3,10)
Double definition: novel by Virginia Woolf, and where a lighthouse keeper would go
13. SOMALIA State‘s contribution to ransom, a liability (7)
Hidden in ranSOM A LIAbility
15. PERSONS Former president’s protective of society people (7)
S in PERON’S
17. UNRIG Reverse the setting up of one vulgar doctor (5)
UN (dialect or “vulgar” form of “one”) + RIG (to doctor)
18. YOU Lad, the almost disappearing one (3)
YOUTH minus TH[E]
20. EXTRA Who’s part of the movie host‘s run? (5)
Double definition: film extra (part of the crowd, or “host”), and a run in cricket
22. BRITTEN Benjamin, a familiar national figure? (7)
Homophone (indicated by ”familiar”) of “Briton” (national figure). Thanks to Steve B and Mac Ruaraidh Ghais: a better parsing of this is BRIT (familiar national) + TEN (figure)
25. PURCELL Almost express contentment with chamber music man (7)
PUR[R] + CELL (chamber)
26. CAMEO Not much of a role for top actor of advanced circle (5)
CAME (advanced) + O (circle)
27. MOOD MUSIC Low density rock, possibly providing a background for hotel lobbies? (4,5)
MOO (to low) + D[ensity] + MUSIC (rock, possibly)
30. MINUSCULE Less complicated clue in lower case (9)
MINUS (less) + CLUE* – I hope we all avoided the common misspelling “miniscule”
31. GUIDE Fine for Scots to have English escort (5)
GUID (Scots good, fine) + E
Down
1. TYPO Party politics covers up blunder (4)
Hidden in parTY POlitics
2. DULCIMER Beaten mid-clue by setter’s ultimate instrument (8)
MID-CLUE* + [sette]R
3. AGUE Losing against obscure illness (4)
VAGUE (obscure) less V (versus, against)
4. STATUARY Stuart A. played with Yes, the rock group? (8)
(STUART A + Y)* It would be nice if Yes had a Stuart A. playing for them, but apparently not..
5. ENCAMP Make a pitch: “Hull’s location is on the up, rather flamboyant” (6)
Reverse of NE (Hull is (vaguely) in the North-East) + CAMP (flamboyant)
6. YESTERYEAR I agree, Terry’s worried about Nuneaton centre’s past (10)
YES (I agree) + [nun]EA[ton] in TERRY*
7. CLOTHO Fate is cold and reluctant before love (6)
C + LOTH + O. Clotho is one of the Fates of Greek mythology
13. SQUIB Small weak person liable to get lit up (5)
Double definition: “a paltry fellow” (Chambers) and a firework
16. SHAWL One could be wrapped up in this Walsh novel (5)
WALSH*
19. UNPROVEN Parking in sporting run range not established (8)
P in RUN* + OVEN (range)
21. THEISTIC Believing it’s involved with ethics (8)
(IT ETHICS)*
23. IMMUNE Setter’s married a foreign female — so complaint impossible? (6)
I’m (Setter is) + M[arried] + UNE (French feminine “a”)
24. NIMBUS Lower than the lowest turned up as rain producer (6)
Reverse of SUB-MIN[imum]
26,8. COME TRUE Meteor and small copper rocks occur as predicted (4,4)
(METEOR CU)*
28. MAGI Star-struck followers of old lady with judo outfit (4)
MA (mother, old lady) + GI (judo costume)
29. CREW The gang gloated (4)
Double definition: crew is a form of the past tense of “crow”, meaning to gloat

51 comments on “Guardian 26,583 – Brummie”

  1. Thanks Brummie and Andrew

    Rather a mixed bag for me. Likes first – 10a, 11a, 12-14, 25a, 27a and 30a. On the other hand, some clues were very easy – e.g. SHAWL. I thought 26a, 4d and 5d rather clumsy.

    I didn’t know SQUIB as a small weak person, so spent some time trying to find a 4-letter weak person to follow the S. I also missed the UN = vulgar “one”, so some guessing and checking involved on these crossers.

    I thought that the “up” in 1d indicated a reversed hidden, until I spotted the straight one.

    “small copper” to indicate “cu” isn’t usually thought necessary.

    I took “range” = “rove” in 19d, so had “nun” instead of “run” “sporting” – obviously this puzzled me.

  2. I parsed 22 somewhat differently.

    A “familiar national” would be a BRIT (to those in the UK anyway) followed by TEN which is an example of a “figure”, or number.

    Some clever cluing in this one. “Starstruck followers” for MAGI and “rock group” for STATUARY, to name two.

    Thanks Brummie and Andrew!

  3. Thanks to Brummie and Andrew.

    As is often the case, when the theme is made of individual words which have to be read together, I missed it completely!

    I parsed BRITTEN slightly differently – BRIT= familiar (colloquial) national + TEN = figure

  5. I forgot the say that I tried “soft music” for 27a first, raising an eyebrow at “soft” = “low density”.

    Minor type in 9a, Andrew – NG, not BG.

  6. I believe that it’s an invariable rule that a post pointing out a typo will include a tipo – “forgot to say” in post 5.

  8. Thanks, Andrew, for the blog and Brummie for an enjoyable puzzle with a delightful theme.

    I particularly liked the way TO THE was incorporated – I’d already been glad of 12,14 as a good start.

    My last two in were the same as Andrew’s. I’d never heard of that meaning of SQUIB and was following the same route as muffin. I remember SQUIT, with that meaning, from childhood but I already had the B from BRITTEN, so the possibility of a Q didn’t occur to me.

    In the past, I’ve commented on Brummie’s somewhat clunky surfaces but there were some nice ones here: I liked the pit workers, the musician getting ready and the chamber music man, among others.

  9. I got YOUNG, BRITTEN and ORCHESTRA in early on, the latter two making me think there was a musical theme, and the first cementing what it was. UNRIG and SQUIB beat me, though – I’d never heard of SQUIB as a firework, but at least the phrase “damp squib” now makes more sense.

  10. Squibs appear in Harry Potter too:

    ‘And what on earth’s a Squib?’ said Harry. ‘Well – it’s not funny really – but as it’s Filch …’ he said. ‘A Squib is someone who was born into a wizarding family but hasn’t got any magic powers. Kind of the opposite of Muggle-born wizards, but Squibs are quite unusual’

  11. Thanks Brummie and Andrew.

    Found this hard after the last few days puzzles, but enjoyable. I particularly liked STATUARY!

    Entered SQUIT for the small weak person thinking they would be likely to light up quickly with drink, but BRITTEN made me change to SQUIB, which I knew as a firework. None of my OCEDs, 1964 on, give that definition. Collins, 1984, gives squib n. 2 an insignificant person, but Collins on-line says it is obsolete.

  12. Re: the point that muffin@1 made, I thought that “small copper” to indicate CU was quite good misdirection by Brummie, because it could lead a solver to think that SCU was needed somewhere in the answer. MAGI was my LOI when I finally saw the definition because I didn’t know GI as a judo outfit.

  13. Thanks all
    I went
    further, or did not, with squib, which I refused to write in!
    I liked mood music.

  14. Thanks all
    I went
    further, or did not, with squib, which I refused to write in!
    I liked mood music

  15. Oxford (ODE) is the clearest of all: (Informal) a small, slight or weak person, especially a child.
    Not that I’d heard of it …..

    I liked this puzzle in which – for me too – the 13/17 combination was where it all ended.
    A relatively quick solve, comparable to yesterday’s Paul, but more enjoyable.

    Thanks Andrew.

  16. Thanks Brummie for an interesting puzzle although, as usual, I missed the theme.

    Thanks Andrew; having got ‘un’ for ‘a foreign,’ I wondered how ‘e’ equalled female, doh! 🙁 My other ‘un’ I thought must be Latin (vulgar) for one. Oh dear, sorry Eileen and I even did ‘O’ level Latin (the headmaster got very excited by Winnie the Pooh in Latin – no wonder I don’t remember it well.)

    Although Chambers says MINiSCULE is a non-standard spelling, Collins & Oxford gives it as an alternative, so it seems to have been accepted now.

    I thought SOMALIA was well hidden and I liked ORCHESTRA and STATUARY.

  18. Not great.

    10a didn’t like the TUNER definition much; 11a sense is hard to get; 12 14a weak cd to go with the def; 17a ‘one vulgar’ for UN? I thought it was a northern thing; 18 you=one? Also YOU is used at 9a; 20a odd first def; 22a ‘familiar’ does not indictae, for me; 26a strangely long def; 27a ‘music’ is defined in the clue as ‘music’, which seems lazy; 30a lower-case needs a hyphen here; 1d looks like a reverse hidden because of the up, this is not needed; 6d grammar ‘Nuneaton centre’, and the second apostrophe will need to be for ‘has’ unless you drop the first one and eliminate the difficulty; 13d second def does not define; 23d incorrect definition; 26d ‘small copper’ I believe indicates CU unfairly.

    HH

  19. I had 27a as a double definition, low density rock being an excellent description of the appalling stuff played in hotel lobbies. I also parsed Britten as a homophone.

    After yesterday when many clues were BIFD, 7dn was that unusual occurrence (for me anyway) of solving the word play and looking at it having no idea what on earth it meant. Thank you Wikipedia.

    Didn’t get guide or encamp – Hull is pretty much half way up the east coast, so not sure how it qualifies as NE.

    Thanks to Brummie and Andrew

  23. HH @

    “10a didn’t like the TUNER definition much…”

    I took it as a reference to the tunneller Ives, ‘the Mole’ in ‘The Great Escape’ – and thought it was a good clue, especially for the wordplay, as mentioned above @8.

  25. Thanks Andrew and Brummie – a slightly easier than usual Brummie, I thought, I wasn’t sure how to parse 22a, but I prefer the revised version.

    Good to see a president from outside the US; not sure if Hull is in the North East where I spent my high school years (Newcastle) – Hull was well over the horizon and out of sight, looking south from the Tyne.

    Favorite clues were CREW and DULCIMER

  26. xjpotter @24, for minuscule Collins gives a choice of “noun: 1. a lower-case letter” or “adjective: 6. (of letters) lower-case”. It was news to me too.

  28. Seriously, HH, what exactly do you think is wrong with “musician getting ready” for “tuner”? Most days I could list several clues as having something wrong with them, simply because I didn’t get them straight away. I suspect if every clue appealed to me directly, a lot of other solvers would soon get bored.

  29. Like yesterday, a rather easier example for this setter, I thought. I did spell MINUSCULE correctly but it was a close-run thing. Did see that something musical was going on, but not the precise reference, annoying as I know the piece.

    I’m with Freddy on Hull’s location. It’s in Yorkshire, and not even the North bit thereof. Any Hull natives / residents to confirm? (I guess that Brummie went for Hull as it induces uncertainty over the type of hull being referenced.)

  30. I also got stuck on SQUIB and UNRIG, but the puzzle had the right level of difficulty for me – hard work but soluble. Favourites were TUNNELLER, ORCHESTRA and YOU. Missed the theme, needless to say.

    SimonS@21: ha ha!

  31. Mixed result for me today. Started at a gallop, spotting the theme quite quickly. Then ground to a halt, with several revealing themselves slowly, and the thorny 13/17 not revealing themselves at all. Having decided that ‘rock group’ must be a geological answer, it took some time to disentangle myself in 4d. Enjoyed the theme and subsidiary musical bits, as well as some nicely devious definitions.

  32. Fairly straightforward for a Brummie, and quite fun. Last in was ENCAMP after PERSONS, which I only saw after giving up listing presidents and thinking about the definition. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE was first in, and with CLOTHO and AGUE following this seemed more of a quiz than a crossword for a while. Favourite was tunneller.

    Thanks to Brummie and Andrew

  33. PS the theme went right over my head, even though I was taken to see it as a young person…

  34. Re TUNER not clear, that’s what. It could be almost anything. I can’t see Eileen’s link with MOLE in Great Escape – the clue is supposed to be all about music, designed to mislead AWAY from moles or tunnellers IMO.

    MINISCULE complained about above is actually an alternative spelling, not a mistake.

  35. My sticking point was MAGI, as I didn’t know “Gi.” Cheated on that, which gave me GUIDE, my LOI (as I didn’t know “guid” either). It follows from the above that the theme sailed right over my head. Embarrassing, since I even know the music in question.

    Minuscule and majuscule aren’t entirely obsolete; you still see them occasionally used in font-geek contexts.

    For COME TRUE, I assumed that “Meteor” was a (super-loose) way of saying “comet,” and I was left wondering how “rue” could be a small copper!

  36. hh @34 – I looked at “musician getting ready” and thought of “tuner” immediately, before seeing the rest. Just goes to show our minds work in different ways…

  38. I got off to a very slow start because I missed the GI in MAGI, the EN in ENCAMP, and the UN in UNRIG and did not know “extra” as a cricket term or “crew” as “gloated,” but I did get started with BRITTEN and CLOTHO (and was hoping for LACHESIS and ATROPOS who did not show up) and liked IMMUNE. Thanks to Brummie and Andrew.

  39. I think HH takes it very personally when he is misdirected by a misdirect. I saw it as TUNER straight away, TUNNELLER was one of my first in (well one of first five anyway).

  40. I found this really difficult and working through it was rather like pulling teeth. I did miss the theme which, of course, sticks out like a sore thumb now I know. Started so well with PURCELL but got into a mess by having LIFT MUSIC for 27ac. MAGI and GUIDE were the last ones in.
    I sort of enjoyed this but it did take me a long time.
    Thanks Brummie

  41. Haha AndyK. I would not describe a musician getting ready necessarily as a ‘tuner’. You can try to make it right if you wish, but I know that this is a very poor piece of the ‘SI’.

    I was more annoyed actually by ‘small copper’ to mean CU rather than SCU: there is no need at all for the extra ‘small’, and I have never seen it used elsewhere. It was just in there to pad the surface, as we usually find with these stunts.

  42. AndyK @ 39

    I think you have nailed it. Many of hedgehoggy’s comments attest to a lack of crossword-solving skills, presented as if the fault lay with the setter.

  43. I agree entirely with PeterO and anyone else expressing a similar view. TUNER…it’s so obvious. HH will know next time!!

  44. Probably too late, but I found 10ac totally fair – I went down the agent/spy route for ‘mole’, then wondered if the definition was ‘mistress’. But all the time I was thinking ‘tuning’ and once I had the crossers it fell into place. HH, many Guardian crosswords invite lateral/divergent as well as convergent thinking.

  45. A wonderful puzzle from Brummie.

    I didn’t find this easy at all. I was misled by many of the clues whereas a lot of you obviously went unerringly to the solution. This is probably indicated by the fact that in a lot of cases when I finally saw the solution I wondered why I’d taken so long. (That’s the joy of a good cryptic)

    A good example of this is 5D. For a long time I only had the “N” and had been misled to looking for a word meaning to sell. I spent ages trying to find a phrase describing “Hull’s location” in which I could replace a word meaning “flamboyant” with “si”. I had also initially misread “rather” as “rather than”. (A comedy of errors!)

    As far as NE for Hull is concerned I suppose it’s OK for a weather forecast which always seem to assume that everyone lives in London. As far as I’m concerned Hull is SE.

    Lots of great cluing I thought and most of the complaints on here seem even more petty than usual. 😉

    It goes without saying that I didn’t spot the theme but did notice that the clue for 2,14 was the easiest in the puzzle. Perhaps this was meant to lead us with the aid of “Britten” to enlightenment!

    Thanks to Andrew and Brummie

  46. Never mind, Hull will soon be under the sea we read in today’s newspapers, and hedgehogs are protected, so Hoggy has carte blanche.

  49. [muffin, the article is very interesting, thanks. Don’t tell Hoggy, but when I was four I visited England with my mother for a year in 1946-7, we stayed with her parents in Yalding, Kent. One day I wandered off and spent a lovely time with the ‘Gypsies’ and had a delicious stew for lunch.]

  50. Thanks Brummie and Andrew

    Found this an interesting and not easy puzzle to solve and parse. Was another who spotted the Woolf novel very early which got things off to a bit of a flier, but the clever misdirection and a lot of smaller component words (GI, GUID, ONE – in the context of you, UN – as another term for one) that I didn’t know, slowed things down a lot.

    Didn’t know the Britten work, so would never have spotted the theme – very clever though, especially on getting ‘TO THE’ separated.

    Finished with PERSONS and ENCAMP as the last couple in.

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