Guardian 27,068 / Brummie

38 comments on “Guardian 27,068 / Brummie”

1. The Road to 1ac is Sartre, as well.

2. Your parsing of 9A isn’t quite accurate above – probably a typo. It’s BEI[JI]NG.

3. Also thematic is NAUSEA

4. Thanks Gaufrid – I agree that the clue to JPS leaves the last R unaccounted for.

   I thought 10a was very weak – it’s really the same definition twice, and could just as well give CONDITION, and probably others.

   (I remember watching the BBC serialisation of “The Roads To Freedom” in the early 1970s, and can’t think of Sartre without remembering this)

5. Jason @2
   Thanks, error corrected. I should know better than to solve/parse in the very early hours of the morning when I’m not exactly thinking clearly.

6. I got 6,24,20 by the enumeration. A pure guess at first, but couldn’t parse entirely satisfactorily, like others.

   Enjoyed it all the same.

   Thanks all

7. Is it possible that the missing R is for resuscitation (as in CPR) and means “coming to”?

8. I think you must be right. Otherwise what is the point of “coming to”? If so, I can’t see it becoming a regular…

9. BAD FAITH (mauvaise foi) is a concept which figures greatly in Existentialism, the philosophical movement propounded by JPS.
   Thanks to Brummie and Gaufrid.

10. I enjoyed this. Had to look up IHRAM, and it took a long time to get EGG SHAMPOO (my favourite along with ADDIS ABABA and DOG BLANKET). Many thanks to Brummie and Gaufrid.

11. Shirl – ingenious idea, but surely resuscitation is more “bringing back” than “coming to”. Even if it’s right it seems very tenuous to me.

12. an enjoyable test, even if I was not alone in failing to parse J-P S completely. I especially liked FREEDOM, BAD FAITH and SCHOLAR, where for longer than ought to have been the case I attempted to fit in TE instead of CH. Thanks to Brummie and Gaufrid

13. I too was stumped by 6,24,20. All I could come up with was “ARTR” as an acronym for “Almost Ready To Run” in Softward Development which could (at a stretch!) be clued as “Creation Coming” (the software you are creating will be available soon). I am far from convinced and suspect I’m clutching at straws.

14. Thanks Gaufrid and Brummie.
    Given the theme, 10ac can only be SITUATION – it was a favourite Sartrean concept. There was also a book by him: SITUATIONS.
    An entertaining puzzle but I always thought JPS himself was a bit of a bore

15. An enjoyable challenge.
    10ac and 5dn have the flavour of Rufus’s worse and better efforts respectively.

16. I am reminded of the old joke(???):

    “Jean-Paul Sartre is sitting at a French cafe, revising his draft of Being and Nothingness. He says to the waitress, “I’d like a cup of coffee, please, with no cream.” The waitress replies, “I’m sorry, monsieur, but we’re out of cream. How about with no milk?””

    (Sorry – you’ll have to work it out for yourselves)

17. Thank you Brummie and Gaufrid.

    An enjoyable puzzle. I, too, puzzled over the missing R in SARTRE, “coming” may mean something?

    Rick @13 may have the parsing with “ARTR” accounting for “creation coming”?

    Shirl @7 may have the parsing with CPR, CardioPulmonary Resuscitation, the R accouning for “coming to”?

    SARTRE wrote “We need to experience “death consciousness” so as to wake up ourselves as to what is really important; the authentic in our lives which is life experience, not knowledge.”

    The COED gives resuscitate v.tr. & intr. revive from unconsciousness or apparent death, this ties in with “come to”.

18. Are we really supposed to get Paul from “our setter” when our setter is Brummie?

19. Quite an enjoyable crossword, and a theme I did see but didn’t expedite the solve. IHRAM was unfamiliar though perhaps I should have remembered it from when Brummie used it in 2014, and (annoyingly) FUSE was last in.

    Thanks to Brummie and Gaufrid

20. Thanks to Brummie and Gaufrid. I had great trouble getting started but getting Sartre led to a series of other solutions, though I had trouble parsing ADDIS ABABA, MOORAGE, and UNINURED (which, along with IHRAM, was new to me). A challenge but fun.

21. I too would be interested in Brummie’s parsing of 20. If it is about resus, that’s a new one on me. I enjoyed the theme, which struck me as more inventive than most.

22. Thanks Brummie and Gaufrid

    I found this as hard as yesterday’s but somehow not as entertaining. I didn’t know IHRAM or the brooch meaning of FIBULA. Favourite was ADDIS ABABA.

    Several irritated me. F for temperature scale is (strictly) incorrect – the scale is Fahrenheit, F is a unit of this scale (this mistake is made more frequently with the Kelvin temperature scale). POSIT has no indication that the “cheers” is in a foreign language. MOSES is an unfair clue; if you have heard of Grandma Moses (as I had, in fact) it’s trivial; if you hadn’t it would require a guess from the crossers. A THIRD is an interval, not a note.

    I guessed JOHN PAUL SARTRE from the hint “He thought a lot”, the letter count and a couple of crossers. I didn’t attempt to parse it, for which I’m now thankful.

23. 6,24.20. Could ‘coming to’ = ‘outcome ‘ = ‘recipe’ = ‘ r ‘.or is that too devious?

24. ADJOURN was in early, and its J led directly to J-P S without further thought. I had seen Gaufrid’s first line so wasn’t worried that I couldn’t parse it.

    Things moved on steadily, though if you’re going to have a theme, I prefer them to be less half-hearted than this. At the end, alas, I missed the lift-and-separate element of 28a, so tried (as intended by Brummie, no doubt) to reverse the letters of all the four-letter spacecraft that I knew (not many). A shame, as I’d twigged the use of the device by Rufus on Monday. Little cheat therefore needed to resolve **O*AGE.

25. Thanks both,
    Loved 13d.

26. A good workout in the sun. It’s like an English summer day here and this was just the thing to complete our lunchtime. We can’t parse the extra r but we got there nonetheless. Thanks to everyone.

27. I enjoyed this very much. I am familiar with Sartre so, once I got the theme, the puzzle came alive for me. I must admit that I didn’t bother to parse JPS once I realised what it was. Looking back, I’m not sure the clue does work which is a shame.
    My LOI was ISOTOPE because I’d got BRIGADEER instead of PRIVATEER for 25a.c.!
    Too many favourites to list.
    Thanks Brummie.

28. Oh dear – I came here hoping for an explanation of that R in 20d. Not often that you’re not able to help!

    I wasn’t helped either by deciding 12a was TIRE (Combining T[emperature] and IRE (scale – yes, there is apparently an IRE scale) to give exhaust).

    I didn’t mind ‘third’ as note (the third note of a scale is ok, not just as an interval) but as someone in higher ed, a third year seems to be quite a senior student to me!

    Ah well, all good fun. I too loved Egg Shampoo and Dog Blanket. Thanks Gaufrid and Brummie

29. MikeR @28
    Anything with three or more components, arranged in order, will have a “third” – “Flann O’Brien’s policeman” would have been as good, and more amusing!

30. MikeR @ 28

    Someone in third year at primary school is definitely still junior! 🙂

31. (Simon S @30
    In 37 years of teaching in senior schools, I think in only about 3 of them was my least favourite class not a 3rd year!)

32. In the States, the third year of high school (or university) is your junior year – unless you’re on a five-year (or more) plan, in which case it’s your next-to-last year.

    muffin – I’m with you – a third may be an interval but not a note, unless there’s some sort of inverse semiquaver I missed in music theory. But an enjoyable puzzle despite the mystery “r”.

33. muffin et al @various

    Under ‘third’ Chambers has “a note separated from another by this interval (music)” so I think it is reasonable for Brummie to use this.

    Also F as an abbreviation for Fahrenheit is also listed, so no problem there.

    I’m not saying that dictionaries are always correct, but if there is a relevant entry then it is fair play for a setter to make use of it.

34. Some interesting clues and answers here, but I had too many quibbles which spoiled the overall experience.

    I’ve never come across NONE ELSE before, and IHRAM is so obscure that more helpful wordplay than “after short time, one gets into one’s” would have been appreciated. A better clue for FIBULA would have been nice, too.

    I agree with Phil @8 about resuscitation = R, but there’s no other way for “coming round” to mean anything in the clue, so I guess it’s right.

    ISOTOPE was a write-in, with the definition being far too straightforward – is this so that non-scientists aren’t disadvantaged?

    Exhaust = use seems like a bit of a reach to me – “use up” would occur to me, but not “use”. (And no, I haven’t checked Chambers. Is it in?)

    The theme seems a little undercooked to me, with Road to FREEDOM, SITUATIONs and NAUSEA not signalled by the setter. I understand that some people find themes that become lists that invite being googled to be annoying, but it seems to me that as long as the clue can stand alone, there’s no need to resort to online cheating.

    I’ve enjoyed some of Brummie’s crosswords previously, but this one was not up to his usual standard, I felt. (Sorry, got home from work a little tired and grumpy.)

35. Re cholecyst@16: In the film ‘Zazie dans le Metro’ (1960), a character in a café asks for coffee without milk. The waiter replies’ ‘Sorry we don’t serve milk. Will you have it without cream?’

36. I enjoyed this very much, savouring several interesting and clever bits of wordplay along the way. I found myself tut-tutting a bit at 10a SITUATION and 5d AFTERLIFE, especially the former, and I agree with what Rog @15 said about these. Likewise, but to a lesser extent, 23d IHRAM (‘hr’ = short time?) and 27a SCHOLAR (‘CH’ = extremes of temperature?).

    I too can’t explain the ‘extra’ R in 6/24/20d and think it must be an error.

    22a ADDIS ABABA was my first in – a bit of luck, really, as it came to me just from ‘African city’ and ‘(5,5)’.

    I’ve learned FIBULA (another Rufusian clue at 1d) in its less familiar meaning – also IHRAM.

    Apart from my little niggles this was an enjoyable crossword with an interesting theme.

    Thanks Brummie and Gaufrid.

37. Always fascinated by the selection of words setters use to denote anagrams, but I don’t think “unpredictable” (11ac) is very suitable at all. After all, if you have the letters the answer will be one of a limited number of possibilities and therefore entirely predictable!

38. Dammit! I’ve lost ten quid in a bet. I was absolutely sure that the apparent error in the Sartre clue would mean we’d get a comment from a certain poster about “lazy setting” and “our illustrious ed” and “his holliers” and all that blah-di-blah. Oh well, good to know that even the most predictable bores surprise us occasionally1

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