Guardian 26,856 / Brummie

55 comments on “Guardian 26,856 / Brummie”

1. Thanks Brummie and Gaufrid

   I saw AMELIA EARHART straight away, so that gave me a nice set of first letters, though I did try for a while to work “Mambo” into 9a.

   Interesting contrast in solving STAMNOS and NAEVI – the first I had never heard of but constructed from the clue; the second went in unparsed from the definition!

   I’ve seen a very similar clue for 1d quite recently – no doubt beeryhiker will be able to give chapter and verse.

   Slight doubts about “be dependent” in 21a. It looks like it is meant as a dd, but it isn’t one. Also I’m not sure that the clue for DURABLE puts the A in the right place.

   Product placement in 24a!

   Finally, what is going on with ABSCESS? Why does the R go? I can’t find any reference to “randomly” for R in Chambers.

2. Hi muffin @1
   “Finally, what is going on with ABSCESS? Why does the R go? I can’t find any reference to “randomly” for R in Chambers.”

   The letters of ‘intro’ are randomly removed from ‘brass section’ to leave the anagram fodder.

3. Thanks Gaufrid – that makes sense of it. I was thinking that “intro” was the instruction to take the beginning of “SECtion”.

4. I liked this a lot. Hadn’t heard of NAEVI or STAMNOS, but they were well clued. Favourites were ELLIS ISLAND, STRAPHANG (after I had got over the misdirection) and GANGSTERISM. Many thanks to Brummie and Gaufrid.

5. A fun one and easier after some of the last few days…much enjoyed

6. I thought this was lovely – thanks Brummie & Gaufrid.
   I overcomplicated myself into a mess with STRAPHANG. The clue seemed complete without the final ‘train’, so, in the belief that it was a double definition, I got lost in the further reaches of Google hoping to discover that a straphang was an appendage to an Indonesian dress, or something. Well, it seemed plausible at the time.

7. STRAPHANG makes perfect sense to me – except that in the modern carriages they don’t have actual straps any more. I managed to find NAEVI (maybe because I have a few) but have never heard STAMNOS before and didn’t get it. Thanks for sorting out ABSCESS and DURABLE. I had the first bit of LOHENGRIN as HOLE reversed with its “back fired” – but on mature reflection it doesn’t quite make sense. Thanks Brummie and Gaufrid.

8. gladys @ 7: I’ve just come back from a trip to Japan and can assure you that there are still straps to hang from in the underground trains over there!

9. thanks Brummie and Gaufrid. I had NAEVI as “na” (no) with MI5, known as “five”, apparently, backing without the F but I wasn’t convinced.

10. ELLIS ISLAND was FOI from the definition, followed by analysing the clue.

    Reading through the blog just now, I wondered what was the word that sounded like “straffang”. It looks most odd, but I see on checking it (STRAPHANG) isn’t hyphenated

    Thanks Gaufrid and Brummie

11. I failed to solve ANCIENT LIGHTS & NAEVI and I could not fully parse 25a ( IS M), 5d (AN TEN), 17d, 19/13 DULL.

    I would have thought STRAP-HANG needs a hyphen.

    I found many/most of the surfaces clunky – by which I mean: not a pleasure to read.

    And yes, I put in SPARROW at first!

    Thanks setter and blogger.

12. Thanks Brummie and Gaufrid.

    This was fun, especially ACT UPON, NAEVI, DULL ACHE, SPARRER, HYENA, ANTENNAE, ABSCESS, DURABLE and I could go on…

13. drofle @8, I would not have thought straps to hang from necessary in Japaneses underground trains, the people are packed in like sardines.

14. For 3d, “spar” is the proper term for what fighting cocks do. No need for any allusion to Cock Robin. More of an allusion to Cock Sparrer, pioneers at the end of the 1970s of the Oi! movement, known as much for its rucking as its music. No doubt Brummie is a connoisseur.

15. Thanks to setter and solver. Very enjoyable. I couldn’t parse 11a and 12a, hadn’t heard of stamnos and didn’t manage to find it in the clue – obvious now of course!

16. A few new words/terms for me – ANCIENT LIGHTS, STRAPHANG and STAMNOS – which held things up a bit. My parsing of NAEVI was exactly the same as that of baerchen @9 and I was equally unconvinced. By the way, was ‘train’ really necessary, especially with the capitalisation of ‘Tube’?

    Overall a good challenge with many good clues, my favourites being DURABLE and BETWIXT.

    Thank you to Brummie and Gaufrid

17. Enjoyed the definition of HYENA, but – like Michelle @11, I found most of the clues a bit clunky (especially 2d).
    Suspect I’m missing something, but could the clue for ELLIS ISLAND easily be shortened? Why not “takes four lives”? (With the first two being Ls from an electrical plug.)
    Thanks to Brummie and Gaufrid.

18. For some reason Brummie isn’t in my list of favourite setters, but I thought almost all of this really sparkled – some lovely surfaces and constructions. Liked the 4 ‘lives’, DURABLE and the misdirecting ‘Ring’ opera.

    Thanks to both, greetings to all.

19. Gladys@7, Drofle beat me to it – oh yes they do!

20. SeanDimly @17 – I actually find the wording of 1ac quite charming, in that it could be seen as a playful nod towards the fact that each two ‘lives’ need a different pronunciation in the wordplay reading.

21. Thanks to Brummie and Gaufrid. I didn’t have any difficulty with this puzzle, but could some kind person enlighten [sorry!] me: why does “crossword answers” = “lights”?

22. A game of two halves. Most of the long ones went in pretty quickly, but STAMNOS, NAEVI, STRAPHANG and PUTTI were all unfamiliar, as was the legal meaning of ANCIENT LIGHTS, so a Pasqualesque(?) learning experience.

    Liked REISSUE and AMELIA EARHART

    Thanks to Brummie and Gaufrid

23. Cookie @ 13: Yes, the Japanese subway can be very grim – unlike the Shinkansen, which is pretty amazing. The only thing that’s I reckon is better about Network Rail or whatever it’s called nowadays is that the toilet seats aren’t heated!!

24. @beery hiker
    Did you look on your database for “earth-shattering”? I’m sure I’ve seen it recently.

    When we lived in London, a near derelict barn-like building next to our block of flats had an “ANCIENT LIGHTS” sign beneath the one grubby window that faced across the front of our block. It had worked, though – our block didn’t obscure it.

25. [I found this in an Independent from March last year:

    28 Momentous, or alternatively heart-breaking? (5-10)

    I think I’ve seen similar much more recently.]

26. Thanks to Brummie and Gaufrid. ANCIENT LIGHTS and STAMNOS were new to me (for “ancient jar” I’m used to “amphora”) and I needed help parsing DURABLE and SPARRER (as usual I missed the London-Cockney element), but I finished fairly quickly and enjoyed the process.

27. Limeni @20: Yes, you’re right – and my suggestion doesn’t work. Think I was troubled by the thought of such violence from a gentle antelope …

28. dybbuk@21: I think answers are called ‘lights’ from the idea that when you succeed in solving a clue, you see the light.

29. To muffin@1 — the a in “durable”.
    “Times two” is “double”. “Less zero” — take away the o and you have “duble.” Divide that with “resistance one” (r + a) and you get “durable.”

    There aren’t any straps on the New York subway either — you hold on to poles.

    I put “sparrow” in but in light ink, because the parsing didn’t make sense with it. A bit of use of the check button set me straight.

    I’d never heard of a stamnos, but the wordplay gave it up. I had never heard of “ancient lights” either, and looking it up gave a fascinating story.

    Thank you, Brummie and Gaufrid.

30. Thank you, peterM@28. It seems an obscure (or should I say “chiaroscuro”?) application of the word, but I appreciate the enlightenment….

31. … or that they look like windows in a building, also known as lights.

32. Crossword answers look like windows, Van Winkle? What am I missing?

33. Thanks valentine @29

    After ten minutes searching, this is the only attempted explanation that I’ve found. It goes for the “casts light on” meaning.

34. Dybbuk @ 32: I was musing on this . . . if you look at a crossword and imagine the whole puzzle to be the wall of a building, the black squares are the solid parts and the white squares are the windows (conveniently separated into equal sizes by mullions etc).

35. Thank you all @31-34.. Muffin’s link is most illuminating.

36. Dybbuk @35
    🙂

37. muffin @24 – just seen your question. If there was a recent one it wasn’t in the Guardian (though I have not yet added Saturday’s prize). These are the previous ones:

    Chifonie 24203: Treating the rash wrongly is fateful (5,10)
    Audreus 22872: Heartbroken squeal about milliner is momentous (15)
    Bunthorne 23849: Momentous thing, heart rate’s disturbed (15)
    Rover 22258: Shocking! That’s their anger out of control (5-10)
    Arachne 24568: All over the place are things that are not initially of great importance (5-10)
    Araucaria 25760: Listener’s object includes threats that could be very destructive (5-10)
    Philistine 26297: Really big heart? (5-10)

38. Thanks beery hiker
    It must have been that Indy one, then – odd, as I very rarely do the Indy.

39. [Muffin: when I was (a lot) younger, there were quite a few ‘Ancient Lights’ signs on buildings in old towns. I used to think that the entitlement applied to the view from the window, but, no: I found out that you are not entitled to your view, because the primary function of a window is to let light in, not to look out of. While I’m sure your flats didn’t prevent light from reaching the grubby window, they probably blocked the view from it. Perhaps that’s why they’re called blocks of flats….]

40. A well-crafted puzzle, I thought, in a grid that is challenging for the setter as there are six long answers.

    I can give myself a bit of credit for seeing how ‘sparrow’ contributed to the answer at 3D but was not the answer – so SPARRER went straight in.

    The words STAMNOS, NAEVI and PUTTI were new to me, as was the phrase ANCIENT LIGHTS, but it’s good to learn a bit along the way, particularly when you have good clues that lead you there.

    Thanks to Brummie and Gaufrid.

41. Good to see I had the same problems with this as others did (the various obscurities marbling the right-hand side). “Ancient lights” rang only vague bells from my long-ago law school days, probably because the doctrine is repudiated here in the US.

    Here in Chicago, the brand-new el cars (bought in the last four or five years) are the first in decades to have straps. (And before you ask—yes, the el does have two lines that run partly underground, but it’s still called the el even then.)

42. @mrpenney
    [I think more than half of the London Underground is above ground. I know what the “el” is, thanks to endless repeats of The Fugitive]

43. The late Alec Robbins discussed “light” in Teach Yourself Crosswords (subsequently renamed ABC of…) if I remember rightly (I lent my copy over 30 years ago to someone who promply moved away and took it with her). The same issue – whether it refers to the clue or the space in the diagram – came up then. On balance the term is better avoided I think. We need deliberate ambiguity in crosswords, but not this sort

44. On LIGHT: Chambers (AKA the BRB) gives “In a crossword,the word(or sometimes an individual letter in the word) that in the diagram is the answer to a clue”. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen the single letter meaning.

    An enjoyable crossword – thanks to Brummie and to Gaufrid for the blog.

45. About half of this – the West side- went in very easily but as for the rest!!!
    Not sure about ANCIENT LIGHTS which had a rather naff clue and I thought other clues were clunky as some others have pointed out.
    Rather a poor puzzle, I thought.
    Oh well.

46. My Chambers Crossword Manual by Don Manley (1986) says:

    “… you may come across a word that denotes the answers as they appear on the diagram. That word is ‘lights’. Unfortunately this term is also used to refer to individual letters within words… The particular meaning is usually obvious from the context, but I now avoid using ‘lights’ wherever possible.”

    Could the origin just be that they are the light squares as opposed to the dark, or black, ones?

47. Far too much complexity over “lights” in my view. I’ve always taken it to mean light as opposed to dark squares, no windows needed.
    However hard I try I can’t accept any of the suggested parsings for NAEVI. Apart from the dubious NA for “no”, how on earth does removing the leader of MI5 give “IVE”? The suggested NAE for ” no” doesn’t work either.
    And I agree with Van W @ 14, otherwise the clue can’t be solved. The chap who claimed he killed Cock Robin was the Sparrow.
    Thanks S & B

48. Thanks Brummie and Gaufrid. I thought this was wonderful. Playful, varied, at times challenging. Would have been a good Prize too. I gave up on naevi.

49. Thank you both @44 and 46. When trying to parse the answer in the finished crossword, I came across the Chambers definition, but the wording made my head hurt. I’ll remember it in future, but let’s hope that ‘light’ in this context doesn’t reappear too often. Thanks again.

50. jeceris @47
    “The suggested NAE for ”no” doesn’t work either.”

    Sorry but you are wrong. From Chambers under NAE – “adjective a Scots form of no² adverb same as no¹, esp with a comparative”.

51. This was a nice level of difficulty for me on a day when I didn’t want anything too challenging. I didn’t know STAMNOS, but the wordplay and crossers narrowed it down. I checked on “smatnos” first, though, thinking that it might just be the children who were reversed.

    I thought some of the surfaces were a bit clunky, but others were very nice, favourites being BETWIXT (perhaps mainly due to chocolate bar nostalgia), EARTH-SHATTERING, SPARRER (I had “sparrow” at first too) and DR WATSON.

    Thanks, Brummie and Gaufrid.

52. Thanks all
    I had sparrow with great confidence and never considered changing it, consequently I did not get 14 ac.
    Otherwise I thought it was at the easier end of Brummie’s range.

53. I’m surprised that there are no English lawyers to assist with 8d. My understanding is that this is a negative servitude which gives a proprietor the right to enjoy his property without his view being obstructed by subsequent buildings. As to LIGHTS, IMHO JimS @46 and jeceris @47 have it right. It is printer-speak for a blank square; as such, a pedant would insist that it referred not to the answers, but to the spaces in which the answers must be written, but life is too short!

    \
    \
    \

    \
    \
    \
    \
    \

54. Thanks Gaufrid and Brummie.

    Pretty straightforward for this setter. PUTTI and NAEVI were new for me but easily deriveable from the clues.

    STAMNOS came up in the FT within the last 6 weeks or so – so it was there waiting to be plucked back from the canyons of my mind.

    Wasn’t sure about 21ac. Is STRAP-HANG a word without the hyphen?

55. Thanks Brummie and Gaufrid

    This one seemed impenetrable when I first looked at it on the day and only re-picked it up again yesterday when LUMEN jumped out. Once it was breached, all went relatively smoothly to the end.

    Didn’t parse NAEVI – couldn’t get away from thinking it was something [F]IVE going back. Thought the 2+2 lives in ELLIS ISLAND quite clever.

    Finished in the SE corner with BETWIXT, the clunky DURABLE and the previously unknown term STRAPHANG the last one in.

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