Guardian 26,877 / Brummie

48 comments on “Guardian 26,877 / Brummie”

1. Thanks Brummie and Eileen

   Generally enjoyable. I made steady progress but stalled a bit in the NE – I was only able to finish when I looked up “wimble” and discovered that not only was it a real word, its meaning worked very well in the clue. Other favourites included PETANQUE, BRISKET and HYMNODY.

   I took HEEL IN as a dd., but a bit loose in both definitions. It’s not exactly “put your foot down” or “as a plantsman” – “as a plantsman might do” would be much better. In fact, is this a classic Guardian mistake?

   I assumed that there was such a thing as a “No 10 screw”, but again I thought that this was not really a fair clue. (Written in advance – I see it’s actually tobacco. Still not a fair clue, I think.)

   I’ve always seen a badger’s home spelled SETT, but Chambers does give the alternative.

   RASP was my LOI, and I’m still not convinced that “topless” is referring to the correct word – I was looking for a grate to remove the first letter from to give a catch, or possibly “catch on”. (Again written in advance – “catch on” rather than “catch”, then.)

2. Oh dear! After a reasonably good week, I was very disappointed at my many blanks left in this puzzle. Unfamiliar with 12a25d KENTISH TOWN (a London reference), 23a HEELIN, 13d Walker as a reference to a UK ART GALLERY and 20d HYMNODY.

   Despite having some crossers, I couldn’t get 8a BELABOUR or 23d HAMMER, not for want of trying.

   Nevertheless I did enjoy the literary references that went into 14a ELSINORE and 19d EPILEPSY.

   Thanks, Eileen, for explaining many answers and also the theme; the latter I totally missed…and thank you to Brummie for a clever puzzle.

3. Yes, screws do ( or maybe did, in these metric times ) come in sizes – no. 6, no. 8, no. 10 … didn’t know about the tobacco. Didn’t know wimble, either, or heeling in. Nice to see an art gallery that isn’t the Tate for once! Very enjoyable. Thank you Brummie and Eileen.

4. Thank you Brummy and Eileen.

   An enjoyable solve even though I had to check several words in the dictionary.

   HEEL IN is to put a cutting, for example, temporarily into the ground to keep it moist: I had forgotten that and thought it meant to stamp the earth down around a newly planted plant.

5. Apologies, that should be Brummie.

6. Oh, even spelled my own name wrongly, that should be Cookie.

7. I spy with my little eye BRAD lurking in the top LH perimeter

8. Wow, this was very difficult! I failed to solve 1d, 4d, 8a, 12a and was surprised I managed to get as far as I did with this puzzle. I neede help to parse 18a, 23a, 16a – got as far as (Clark) KENT but did not think of Kent-ish and gave up on parsing the TOWN bit as I was looking at ISHTOWN at that point!

   9a AUGER was not in the two online dictionaries I use most often, but finally found it in Colins online after reading this blog and still feeling confused.

   27a I still do not understand why PAY = SCREW. Never heard of that tobacco and was thinking of (possibility of) No.10 screw only. WALKER ART GALLERY is new to me – I know a lot of London galleries but I know nothing about Liverpool galleries.

   New words for me were FRET = sea mist and HYMNODY.

   Thanks Eileen and Brummie.

9. Screw was a common word for pay as in ‘He’s on a good screw’ but I’ve not heard it for a while.

10. Thanks both. I thought that “no 10” might refer to 10 across, JACK. There is a jackscrew

11. Thanks Brummie & Eileen.

    I noticed the tools early on but it didn’t help much with the solve. Good but tricky puzzle; I got a bit bogged down in the SE corner (who knew that sea fret meant sea mist?)

    In 18 the container seems to be ‘having.’ I’ve seen this used before but never seen it in lists of containment indicators and ‘have’ is often used as a juxtaposition indicator; any comments?

    After starting in the NW corner, I was expecting a pangram [no x or z,] so expected 19 to start with ‘ex…’ The usual problem with homophones; HYMNODY doesn’t seem to be pronounced ‘noddy’ at the end, more like ‘nodey’ as far as I can determine; not a bit issue though.

12. PLATINUM SCREWS are sometimes used in watchmaking, for example.

13. P.S. and often in magnetos apparently.

14. Hi Robi @11

    I didn’t think twice about ‘having’ – I’m sure I’ve seen it lots of times and I’m surprised that it isn’t listed. Chambers has the first meaning of ‘have’ as ‘hold’.

    There are other words that act as more than one kind of indicator, e.g. around / about, for both containment and anagram – I remember Anax commenting on its usefulness.

    I agree with you about Noddy. 😉

15. Thanks to Brummie and Eileen. Lots of terms new to me here: HEEL IN; FRET as mist; PETANQUE; HYMNODY; Walker ART GALLERY; and I needed help understanding SCREW, so lots of checking, but the clues were usually clear. Worth the effort.

16. I thought 27a was meant to be “pay jack” (Answer No 10 being JACK), which in Australia would mean pay nothing…and therefore the payee would be “screwed over”, thus to “SCREW” is to pay nothing to someone who deserves to be paid, i.e. to rip them off. Or is that too far-fetched? The actual Aussie expression which means “nothing” is actually “jacks#*t”, but, being impolite, is often shortened to “jack”.

17. Not even sure now that “jacks#*t” or “jack s#*t” (may be two words) is an Australian expression. It actually sounds more American now that I think about it.

18. Thanks, both.

    I must learn to look out for themes. Two really obvious ones have passed me by this week. This looked as if it was going to be impossible. The first pass yielded only ‘fret’ and ‘file’, but then it all fell into place. Last one in was ‘Elsinore’, which it shouldn’t have been.

19. Julie @ 16 and 17
    I suspect that’s not what Brummie had in mind, but your interpretation of 27 is ingenious. Jack is certainly used here in the US in that way. I don’t know if it originates here.

20. As regards “have” as a containment indicator, one says “shall we have tea now?”, “I am going to have an ice-cream”, etc.. The COED gives have 6 eat or drink.

21. This was quite an entertaining challenge. The top half went in pretty smoothly, but I failed in that I ran out of time and had to resort to the Check button to sort out the last few (HYMNODY, DUELLIST and HEEL IN). Should have seen DUELLIST but the other two were unfamiliar. The theme definitely helped. Liked TAOISM and PETANQUE

    Thanks to Brummie and Eileen

22. Spotted the theme just after I’d finished! At least I saw it before coming here (for a change).

    I had a few reservations. Eg “hack down” would mean “fell”, but HACK on its own just means “cut”.

    But overall this was enjoyable. 9A was a very amusing surface. Thanks to Brummie & Eileen.

23. Hi JimS @22

    I had similar thoughts re hack = fell, consulted Chambers and found ‘to kick or strike the shins of [in some sports, illicitly]’ and thought the object was probably to bring the opponent down, so gave Brummie the benefit of the doubt.

    But I was waiting for someone to comment on the missing ‘of’ after ‘DISAPPROVE’ [ = look down on’] in 11ac.

24. “The board disapproved the bank’s plan”, this is a sample sentence on Google: could one say “The shareholders disapprove the new broker”, “The shareholders look down on the new broker” ?

25. Thanks Eileen. I think even in the sporting (or unsporting!) context you need to hack someone down to fell them, rather than just hack them.

26. Thanks to Eileen @14 and Cook(i)e @20 for responding about ‘have’ as a container. I suppose the possible objection is that as ‘have’ has so many varied meanings it’s not as specific as, say, hold, grip, eat etc.

27. Rather like Julie (@2), I thought this was not the best way to end a good week. The theme was brilliant (I wish I had seen it!), and many of the clues were very good, encouraging me to work through to the end, but I counted 8 clues in all at the weak end of the range (the weakest perhaps being 23A), and this was not the really good experience I had with the last Brummie I completed a few weeks ago. I didn’t get 5D (RASP), but that’s only because I forgot about it!

    There were a few words/meanings that were new to me, but that was a good thing. I thought ‘No 10, possibly’ in 27A (SCREW) referred to the screw size.

    Thanks to Brummie and Eileen.

28. I don’t think my suggestion @24 works, perhaps “The shareholders disapprove the new broker’s methods”, “The shareholders look down on the new broker’s methods”, might be better?

29. HEEL IN can’t (or shouldn’t) be just a cryptic defintiton, as you specifically don’t “put your foot down” to plant firmly, as it is only a temporary measure, to give added protection to plants that, for whatever reason, can’t yet be planted in their permanent positions. The “heeling” refers to the angle of the plants in the temporary planting – leaning over.

    I still think the clue would have been improved by saying “as a plantsman might do”.

30. There were upwards of a dozen words I was unfamiliar with, including both definitions of screw, which made this a fairly impossible solve for me, but as always, I enjoy the vocabulary lesson.

    I could not parse TAOISM for love nor money, but now that I see it, I think it’s brilliant.

31. BlueDot @30
    Does “changing sides” work in a down clue? It would have been great in an across one. For me, a square has a left and a right SIDE, and a top and a bottom.

32. I thought 27 across was ENDOW from tEN DOWning street.

33. My first thought too, telnix. I might have stayed with it, but I used the “Check” button.

34. muffin @31

    ‘Does “changing sides” work in a down clue?’

    For me, perfectly: it’s a single word we’re looking at, with none of the ramifications of ‘on’, etc, which we often have to deal with in charade clues, so it makes no difference whether it’s an across or down clue, does it? [I know there must be better ways of expressing this but I’ve had my traditional end-of-week glass of wine or so with the family and this is the best I can do. 😉 ]

35. Hi Eileen
    Cheers!
    I don’t feel strongly about it, but I think it would read better in an across clue. I didn’t mention it initially, as it wasn’t really a problem, but I didn’t think it was a “brilliant” clue.

36. P.S. I suppose it depends on whether you would consider “top” and “bottom” to be “sides”. There is definitely an argument that they are!

37. “Maoist” is not entered in the grid. Like any normal word it reads from left to right. Swap the sides around and you have TAOISM, which you then enter, as a down clue. That seems OK to me.

38. Thanks, JimS – I think that’s what I’d like to have said. 😉

39. Yes, I agree that the clue works, but I think it would have been more elegant as an across clue.

40. Distracted by elections today so I didn’t give this enough attention. I did (finally) complete it but I don’t think my judgment of this- that it was quite hard- means much in the circumstances. FRET as a sea mist was new to me and I wasn’t too sure about GO PLATINUM. I really liked TAOISM though.
    I didn’t spot the theme until coming here which I think would have helped.
    Thanks Brummie.

41. Can’t believe the discussions about 23A and 27A. What planet do you all live on? 😉

    Never heard of “to dig one’s heels in”? Also to “heel in” is a method of firming up the roots of newly planted plant.

    Obviously not many DIYers here as if you ever bought a screw you must have been aware that besides specifying a length for the screw you must also choose a number. (the most common being 6,8,10 & 12. This refers to the diameter of the screw. (A rough equivalence being 6=3.5mm, 8=4.0mm, 10=5.0mm and 12=5.5mm)

42. BNTO
    You are incorrect about the gardening meaning of “heel in” – see my post at 29. Yes, when planting it is important to firm up the ground by treading on it around the plant. However this isn’t what “heeling in” means.

43. A bit late to this party but to add to the 27a/10a discussion, as has been pointed out by Es @9 “Screw” is a term for how much somebody earns, therefore = “pay”. A common type of jack is a “screw jack”, one example being the adjustable props that builders use widely known as “Acrow Props”.

44. Vacuous quibbles all; I thought this an excellent puzzle. Tobacco has nothing to do with 27ac – a lovely clue – so can’t understand why it remains in blog.
    Bravo, Brummie, and thanks again (we don’t all embark on a misdirected train of complaint!)

45. Good puzzle, took a while to get into it but the last third came in a rush.

    Re 27A, a no. 10 in Rugby League is a PROP = SCREW (nautical).

    Thanks Brummie and Eileen

46. Thanks Eileen and Brummie.

    I found this more enjoyable than previous tussles with this setter so I think I’m warming to him.

    27 is starting to look like a mighty clue. I had it just as a double (with the second being a size of screw) but when you add tobacco and a jack screw and MarcoPolo’s Rugby League Prop, then I make that a quintuple! That’s pretty impressive!

47. In bowls, one term for the ball the player aims at is “jack”, so I thought the crossing of that word with “pétanque” was a nice touch.

48. Thanks Brummie and Eileen

    Did this one earlier in the week but only got to check it off this morning. An entertaining solve, maybe a little on the easier side than normal for him, but full of variety in clue devices.

    Some new learning of local knowledge with KENTISH TOWN in London and the Walker ART GALLERY in Liverpool. Hadn’t come across HYMNODY nor the gardening term HEEL IN before.

    Missed the theme completely which is more the pity.

    Finished with a couple down the bottom – DUELLIST and that HYMNODY and back up to the top for BRISKET (a cleverly disguised clue and a good one to end on).

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