Guardian 26,749 – Brummie

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An enjoyable puzzle from Brummie with some helpful anagrams to get things going. Thanks to the setter.

Getting 12a and 22a early on led me to the theme of Andy Warhol and his works. I can see CHELSEA GIRLS (1966 film), COKE (paintings of Coca Cola bottles), [Campbell’s] SOUP CANS, MARILYN [Monroe], FACTORY (the name of his studio) and PITTSBURGH (his native city). I dare say I may have missed some other references.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
8. NO-GO AREA It might be barricaded, so you’ll have to pee elsewhere (2-2,4)
Double definition
10,9. STOP SHORT 9 Pull up second best drink (4,5)
S[econd] + TOP (best) + SHORT (drink – e.g. a shot of spirits in a pub)
11. PITTSBURGH City‘s time-consuming trading floor areas, a main obstacle, it’s said (10)
Homophone of “pits” + “[ice]berg” Thanks to Rullytully for the correction: the PITTS part is T in PITS
12. WARHOL Picture maker shows the doctor punched by a right and left (6)
A R in [Doctor] WHO + L
14. RIOT GEAR Defence of police officer who’s in thick with a potentially violent crowd? (4,4)
As far as I can see this is just a (not very cryptic and rather verbose) definition. Am I missing something?
15. CHELSEA Check by golfer on each prominent US family member (7)
CH (check, as in chess) + [Ernie] ELS + EA. Chelsea Clinton, daughter of Bill & Hillary
17. HEROISM Hot sexual desire, no uncontrolled movement — that deserves a medal, maybe! (7)
H + EROTICISM less TIC
20. UMBRELLA Revolutionary cart heading off with city’s protection (8)
[T]UMBREL (cart that carried people to the guillotine during the French Revolution) + LA (Los Angeles)
22. POP ART Representations of modern culture left around the state (3,3)
PA (Pennsylvania) in PORT
23. FRATERNISE Mix fluid after rinse (10)
(AFTER RINSE)*
24. COKE Drug king apprehended by former athletics star (4)
K in [Sebastian, now Lord] COE
25. GIRLS Misses reverse gear (extremely laborious) (5)
Reverse of RIG + L[aboriou]S
26. YEARNING Year before getting paid results in hunger (8)
Y + EARNING
Down
1. FOOTBATH Foundation spa’s dog-washing device (8)
FOOT (foundation) BATH (spa). I’m not sure what the dog is doing here..
2. SOUP Very excited starter? (4)
SO + UP
3. PROPEL Launch fitting with a different side indicator (6)
PROPER (fitting) with the second R changed to L[eft]
4. FACTORY To conduct yourself with love in a Quaker family works (7)
ACT + O in FRY (Quaker family that included Elizabeth, prison reformer, currently depicted on the £5 note)
5. ASYSTOLE It’s bad for circulation of mobile toy sales (8)
(TOY SALES)* – asystole is “flatlining”, so more a lack of circulation than something that’s bad for it
6. FOCUS GROUP Which market researchers might use to sharpen image of pop musicians? (5,5)
FOCUS (sharpen) + [pop] GROUP
7. STIGMA Mark‘s mathematical symbol covering temperature (6)
T in SIGMA (Greek letter, used in maths to indicate a sum)
13. HILARY TERM For some students, months of learning literary composition in Her Majesty’s care (6,4)
LITERARY* in HM. Hilary is the second term of the academic year at the universities of Oxford and Dublin
16. EELGRASS Plant turning out eg lasers (8)
(EG LASERS)*
18. STRIKING Landing a blow and bringing the match alive? (8)
Double definition
19. MARILYN Name mainly used when king enters (7)
R in MAINLY. This took me much longer thanit should have because I wanted it to be a word ending in -NYM
21. MIRAGE Lifting skirt to get on — it’s not what it seems (6)
Reverse of RIM + AGE (to get on)
22. PIEMAN Slapstick exponent encountered by Simon? (6)
As the nursery rhyme says, “Simple Simon met a pieman going to the fair”. The slapstick exponent would use a custard pie
24. CANS Examine, top to bottom, listening devices (4)
SCAN with S moved to the end. “Cans” is used for “headphones” by sound techncians etc

55 comments on “Guardian 26,749 – Brummie”

  1. Thanks Brummie and Andrew

    I enjoyed this, though it did give some problems. I read the words in 10,9 the wrong way round, so wondered why SHORT STOP (a baseball fielding position, I think) had to do with the definition. Also when I just had the H in 12a I tried to justify ROTHKO – it does have a bit going for it, but it was also dumb, as I had just read an article in G2 about the fates of the “Factory workers” who featured in Lou Reed’s Walk on the wild side. btw Warhol’s output could be regarded as POP ART.

    I had the same thoughts about RIOT GEAR and the dog in FOOTBATH as you did, Andrew. In fact I’m not sure where the intended defition for FOOTBATH is – I bought a massaging one for my wife a few years ago that was marketed as a “foot spa”.

    Favourites were SOUP and GIRLS.

  2. I think the parsing of 11a is the homophone is burgh, with pits going round t (time).
    I also can’t parse 14a…there has to be more to it.
    Know nothing of Andy Warhol, so the theme passed me by completely.
    Thanks to S & B.

  4. Thanks Brummie and Andrew

    Chambers has ‘Inability of the heart to pump blood’ as the definition of asystole, so I think the definition is fair. Flatlining is thus the representation of it.

    I’m flummoxed by 14 too.

  6. Thanks Brummie and Andrew

    This one started slowly for me and the theme went over my head entirely despite being aware of all the Warhol images. However, now that it has been pointed out it is all so obvious.

    Andrew is correct in pointing out that Sigma (in it upper case form) indicates a sum. In its lower case form it denotes the population standard deviation ( a statistical term).

    I’m still hoping that someone can come up with something better for 14 as I agree with Andrew’s comment

  7. I think the dog in 1d may refer to the slang expression for foot as in ‘sit down and rest your dogs’.

    14a remains a mystery to me too.

  11. Nice one Brummie and thank you Andrew.

    I’ve heard ‘my dogs are barking’ for ‘my feet hurt’ (supposedly where comfy shoes ‘hush puppies’ come from.

    Failed on 14, though toyed for a while with ***TGEA* as the ‘potentially violent crowd’ (Gate) ???

  13. Re FOOTBATH: ‘dog’s meat’ is Cockney rhyming slang for ‘feet’. Vide the very useful ‘Complete Cockney Rabbit’ by Ray Puxley (JR Books, 2008)

  14. I’d have got the theme much earlier if WARHOL hadn’t been almost my LOI. Duh!
    On the theme, there’s POP ART, of course, and there’s a 1964 painting called ‘Race RIOT’. And Warhol died of a sudden ASYSTOLE while convalescing from a gall bladder operation.

  15. Really good Brummie- well worded clues apart from 14 maybe.
    4 beat me- annoying as i well remember “Fry’s Turkish Delight” jingle.
    What is it with Quakers and chocolate

  16. I solved this in two sittings–last night when I really ought to have been in bed, and this morning when things seemed much easier. WARHOL was almost my last in, so I missed the theme entirely. UMBRELLA and STOP SHORT were entered unparsed. Thanks for the explanations.

    Muffin @1: yes, shortstop is a baseball fielding position (between 2nd and 3rd bases, closer to 2nd, with the exact position varying based on the situation). But it’s almost always written as one word.

  17. Finished slowly in NW having entered FALL SHORT, whilst wondered to myself that it parsed so poorly! Picked up on the theme only after completion, so it was satisfying to trawl through Warhol references. Such as I knew, anyway. Respect to roger@14 for knowing that he died of an asystole! (Anyone else having trouble with spellchecker on that??) Thanks to Brummie for the fun.

  18. Plates of meat is the usual rhyming-slang for feet, not dog’s meat, so that would be quite obscure.

    This was all right, some things okay, but the usual doubt cast by sloppiness elsewhere. I liked the 2nd def in 18d a lot.

    12a should capitalise The Doctor; 14a what is he going on about; 15a not really ‘on’ for across clues for me; 22a I find ‘the state’ very unhelpful and weak; 25a ‘reversed’ maybe; 26a okay but YEAR (supposed in idicate Y) appears in the answer anyway!; 1d see above, plus BATH is not given cryptically; 3d clumsy; 5d as blogged; 6 hmm; 13d obscure again; 33d wrong part of speech for def, and pieman def is compileritic; 24d could just as easily be SCAN.

  19. But HH, if you capitalise The Doctor, it kind of gives it away.

    I had one of my Rufus nightmares yesterday, so this was back to normality – though I see RIOT GEAR as nothing more than a cd. POP ART and COKE (for topicality) in my favourites list.

    Yielded steadily; early on, I’d looked for a nina, but totally forgot to think of a theme.

  20. Thought this was going to be quite tricky – the first two solutions I had (NO GO AREA and CANS) were both ambiguous enough not to write in. Had about three quarters in before getting WARHOL and the theme, but that definitely helped with MARILYN, my last in. A lovely puzzle.

    Thanks to Brummie and Andrew.

  24. bh @ 23

    It’s also the phrase for a legal period, so would be known to anyone with a moderate knowledge of the law and how it (supposedly) works. And the clueing is very straightforward, as befits a harder clue – I had the R from UMBRELLA, saw how the clue was constructed, which meant it had to start H and end M, and there were’t a lot of possibilities after that.

    Just my 0.02, of course.

  25. Tricky puzzle for me, but enjoyable.
    In common with others, I was baffled by 14a. All I could come up with was that someone in silk is wearing silk; someone in denim is wearing denim; so someone ‘in thick’ could be wearing thick clothing.

    And while I’m trying too hard and seeing things that aren’t there, I remember a Warhol picture of two gunslinger Elvises side by side, and ‘king’ gets two separate mentions in the clues…

    Thanks to Brummie and to Andrew for the blog.

  26. Thanks to Brummie and Andrew. Especially after yesterday’s romp, I found this puzzle very difficult, partly because of the bits of clues new to me. I did not know the Fry family of Quakers for FACTORY or the CH for chess in CHELSEA or the “short” for drink in STOP SHORT and missed Doctor Who in WARHOL (one of my last in). I did know HILARY TERM (the legal, not the Oxford connection) and did get ASYSTOLE finally (starting with the STOLE and unscrambling the rest) but took a long time getting the foot = foundation in FOOT BATH. I did think of RIOT GEAR early on but hesitated because I could not see why. All in all, a challenge but enjoyable.

  27. I really wish I could get themes. This one eluded me as usual but even if it hadn’t I doubt I’d have seen how PITTSBURGH and ASYSTOLE fitted in. I had to guess RIOT GEAR and I still can’t parse it. I had no problem with “dogs” for “feet” and thought 1dn rather a good clue. I liked NO GO AREA and FOCUS GROUP.LOI was UMBRELLA. I hadn’t come across the alternative spelling of “Cumbria”
    Thanks BRUMMIE.

  28. Doh! I completed this and enjoyed it, though (like others) didn’t feel that 14A was exactly cryptic.

    What I can’t believe is that I never noticed the theme! What’s the emoji for blushing?

  29. This took me a while, missed the theme though MARILYN, POPART and WARHOL should have caused some alarms to go off.

    I was left without FACTORY and hadn’t filled in RIOT GEAR although it was waiting for the checker. I thought 14a is just a cd, my first reading had me looking for some comment in his defence, which might the the intended surface reading.

    I liked GIRLS (though agree with HH), WARHOL, FRATERNISE and more.

    FOOTPATH had me confused

    Many thanks Brummie and Andrew

  30. 6d there was also a pop group called focus subsequently immortalised by Half Man Half Biscuit in a reference to the fictitious (presumably?) tribute band “I can’t believe it’s not focus”

  31. “Barking dogs” as slang for aching feet is fairly common in the US so I laughed out loud when I figured out 1d.

    Conversely, I wasn’t able to make even a stab at HILARY TERM. And “Quaker” immediately put me in mind of our most famous Quaker William Penn, particularly since Pittsburgh was already in the mix.

  32. I thought this was brilliant – I really had to think hard to get through this, but get through it I did. The clues show every sign of having been well thought-out, some of them being really ingenious. I thought 18 (STRIKING) was almost a triple definition, but it would have needed a little adjustment to make it work properly, e.g.

    “Landing a blow and setting the match alight.”

    It would be nice if Brummie could pop in and explain the ‘dog’ in 1D (FOOTBATH), as I think there is still some uncertainty about this,
    and, especially, how the clue for 14 (RIOT GEAR) is supposed to work.

    As always, I failed to spot a theme that most of you found. Andy Warhol is not a subject I know or care much about, so I woudn’t have seen any references except Pop Art, but I even missed that one because I wasn’t looking for a theme.

  33. Yes, an enjoyable romp. I only ever get themes if there is a big notice at the top of the puzzle saying LOOK FOR THE THEME! so of course didn’t get this one.

    Favourites were SOUP, GIRLS, MIRAGE and PIEMAN. Many thanks to Brummie and Andrew.

  34. Thanks Brummie and Andrew

    Nice puzzle with only a couple of hiccups along the way – originally wrote in NO-GO ZONE in at 8a and a not fully parsed SCHOOL TERM in at 13d. Made getting FACTORY a much harder task than it should have.

    I think that 14a is when a setter like Brummie plays a double bluff and makes the simple complex to sow doubt in one’s mind – looks like it worked !!!

    Finished with WARHOL (so obviously didn’t get the theme), FOOTBATH (that took a while to understand, until I found the definition of ‘dogs’ for FEET) and CHELSEA (a clever clue – and a welcome back to Ernie).

  35. Thanks all
    Last in was 10,9 largely because I had settled on stout early on with possibly milk!
    Favourites were 2, 3 down.
    Is a P for park(ing) linked to 8 across.
    Like the blogger I found “dog” redundant and 14 across puzzling.

  36. I enjoyed this although after a slow start it was completed very quickly.

    The only hold up was the NW corner as I had stupidly entered NO-GO ZONE which made 3 & 4 down very difficult!

    No problem with “dog” = “foot” in 1 down. A common phrase in Lancashire is “My dogs are barking”. (It doesn’t refer to any animals!)

    Although the answer to 14A was obvious with some of the crossers the parsing is a complete mystery and the surface isn’t even grammatical. (I’m sure our “illustrious ed” will explain. 😉 )

    Of course I didn’t see the theme as I never look for them.

    Thanks to Andrew and Brummie

  37. BNTO @36
    Curious. I’ve lived in (East) Lancashire for 30 odd years, and I’ve never heard “dogs barking” for feet hurting. I just asked my wife – Lancashire born and bred – if she had heard it. She said “I think I might have heard it when I lived in London”!

  38. Muffin @37

    Well that’s dialect for you! It’s often very localised. Both my wife and I are familiar with this phrase as were our parents!

    We were both born and brought up in Preston. Although we did live in East Lancs for 20 years.

    Neither of us have lived down south although I did work in Germany for 9 years! (I never heard it there though! 😉 )

  39. Foreign country, Brendan – wife is from Blackburn! I’ll be seeing a Prestoner for golf tomorrow, though – I’ll ask him.

  40. I also enjoyed 8a, but it stirred hopes that I was beginning to get the hang of things – hopes dashed! Finally got (and enjoyed) “a main obstacle”, but still cannot understand the “time-consuming trading floor areas” and homophone for PITTS. (11a)

    12a I missed THE, was trying to work with R & L, but then thought, maybe, there was cunning afoot and LEFT meant departed – alas.

    15a I still don’t get the golfer as {Ernie} ELS. Weirdly, I never think of the Clintons as
    a “prominent US family”.

    23a kept trying to mix different fluids until the penny dropped.

    5d enjoyed ASYSTOLE being “bad for circulation” – definite understatement.

    19d Should I assume the “R” added to MAINLY is from Rex?

    Many thanks to Brummie, Andrew and commenters

  42. ChrisP @ 40 – Re your queries . . .

    Trading floor areas (e.g. in stock exchanges) are called ‘pits’.

    Re 19d, yes, R = Rex as in King George = GR = George Rex.

  45. Re Lancs local dialects, in the 60s I visited rels in Banks, where water is ‘waarter’ whereas a few miles away in Hesketh Bank it’s more like ‘wearter’. Hey ho. Grant in Freo.

  46. Back to that strange clue at 14A (RIOT GEAR), which is quite out of character with all other clues in this puzzle. Brummie hasn’t popped in to throw any light on this, and I can only think that he/she put this hardly-cryptic, fully descriptive effort as a stopgap, intending to return to it later.

    Meanwhile, a possible cryptic clue for this phrase came to me this morning, and I have cobbled together the following:

    Redesigned rig to wear out west for quelling crowd violence. (4,4)

    I don’t claim this is difficult, but how about it, Brummie?

  47. Clever stuff from Brummie as usual, though like most solvers, I don’t see the cryptic in 14A.

    I don’t know much about Art; in fact, I don’t even know what I like. And I usually miss themes, but Google has helped me find a few Andy Warhol-related bits. I need to get a life.

    Apparently there is a WARHOL Bridge in PITTSBURGH, as well as a large AW museum there
    MARYLIN: the famous silkscreen
    SOUP: the Campbell Soup tin painting
    POP ART: synonymous with AW
    COKE: another painting
    CHELSEA: various connections, including the hotel and the film
    UMBRELLA: one can buy AW umbrellas!
    CANS: see SOUP
    GIRLS: see CHELSEA
    FACTORY: his studio

  48. Apologies Andrew – I don’t think I have added anything Warhol-related to the list in your initial blog!

  49. Hi folks! Long time reader, first time commenter, Guardian cryptic solver from US (Maryland). I’m happy to offer my take on 14A, if everyone else hasn’t already moved on. The phrase “in thick with” is one way to say “close friends with” or “in cahoots with”. Similar to the saying “thick as thieves”. The 2nd def relates to “in the thick” of (amidst) a crowd.

    Therefore, the initial surface reading sounds almost like a (legal) defence (or as we say here, defense) of a police officer who consorts too closely with nasty criminal types (a “potentially violent crowd”).

    The 2nd definition is what a police officer might need to wear and carry if he or she is to be in the midst of an angry crowd when it is foreseeable that a riot might break out.

    Hope that helps!

  50. BNTO
    You were quite right – the other three in the fourball all recognised the expression “my feet are barking”, and were surprised that I didn’t.

    (I’ll post a more indirect confirmation on the new Guardian thread when you put your head above the parapet in case yo don’t see this.)

  51. Glad to see someone finally listed all the thematic answers (thanks 1961Blanchflower). Although ASYSTOLE which may or may not count wasn’t listed.

    I just want to add/clarify that PITTSBURGH is where Warhol was born.

    Spent some time hunting for Ninas; Valerie Solanis would have been a real kick if it were buried in the unchecked letters….

  53. muffin @52

    Glad to hear it. I was beginning to think that I was reinventing my past. I was concerned that I’d soon start telling strangers how old I was. 😉

  54. I found this quite difficult, partly because I managed not to spot the theme, but very satisfying in the end.

    For what it’s worth, “dogs” is reasonably common US slang for “feet”, or at least it used to be. I think it would sound somewhat old-fashioned now. It still took me a long time to think of that meaning.

  55. Thanks Andrew and Brummie.

    WARHOL was one of my last in so I too missed the theme.

    I also held off RIOT GEAR and FOOTBATH until all the crossers were in and I’m still not comfortable about either. How can a bath be a ‘device’?

    So I’m afraid I’m in the generally OK camp but not close to considering this as great.

    Thanks all the same.

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