An interesting and enjoyable puzzle from Brummie this morning, with several less familiar words, which were all gettable, together with a friendly grid to help things along.
Brummie’s puzzles often have a theme but I haven’t been able to spot one today. Many thanks to him for the challenge.
Across
1 TS Eliot’s timeless “Gnostic, quixotic sect member” (13)
SCIENTOLOGIST
Anagram [quixotic] of TS ELIO[t] [timeless] GNOSTIC
10 A case of what should properly be used to cover a floor (9)
CARPETBAG
Cryptic definition? I can’t quite see this one, I’m afraid
11 Field of European football team not banner-free? (5)
REALM
REAL M[adrid] [European football team minus ad [banner] rid [free]
12 Evacuation: one leaves before last of Tory Opposition (5)
ENEMY
ENEM[a] [evacuation, minus a – one leaves] + [tor]Y
13 Find oneself getting round Aintree (beaten, outside time) (9)
ORIENTATE
O [round] + an anagram [beaten] of AINTREE round [outside] T [time]
14 Allowance: Southend, given space, takes hint (7)
STIPEND
S END [South end, given space] round TIP [hint]
16 Gruesomely large openings on total wreck of part of larynx (7)
GLOTTAL
Initial letters [openings] of Gruesomely Large + an anagram [wreck] of TOTAL
18 British sort of insult: “Camp outfit!” (7)
BUTLINS
B [British] + an anagram [sort of] of INSULT
20 Cordial poured over hot body support (7)
CHASSIS
CASSIS [cordial] round H [hot]
21 Not one initial interaction with USA, which went down controversially (9)
LUSITANIA
Anagram [interaction] of [i]NITIAL minus one i [not one] and USA
23 Ray: gather name’s changed to Miles (5)
GLEAM
GLEA[n] [gather] with the n [name] changed to M [miles]
24 Stockhausen wasn’t a heavyweight — a Lambert! (5)
TONAL
TON [heavyweight] + A L [Lambert – a unit of brightness] – see here for Stockhausen
25 Tip over mock seaweed (9)
CARRAGEEN
CAREEN [tip] round RAG [mock]
26 Whose patients are laid back? Yes and no (13)
PSYCHOANALYST
Cryptic definition, referring to the psychoanalyst’s couch
Down
2 Not first winter transfer taken by Price, the player (9)
CORNETIST
COST [price] round an anagram [transfer] of [w]INTER minus its initial letter [not first]
3 Reflective lines of energy on stage yard (5)
ELEGY
E [energy] + LEG [stage] + Y [yard]
4 Rag label cover protecting ring (7)
TABLOID
TAB [label] + LID [cover] round O [ring]
5 Trailing insulation (7)
LAGGING
Double definition
6 Radius covered by diagonal shaped candleholder (9)
GIRANDOLA
R [radius] in an anagram [shaped] of DIAGONAL
7 Indian songbird — medicine man removes tail (5)
SHAMA
SHAMA[n] [medicine man]
8 A drug-taking bicyclist is transforming ease of comprehension (13)
ACCESSIBILITY
A + an anagram [transforming] of BICYCLIST IS round E [drug]
9 Decorating audacious men libels them (13)
EMBELLISHMENT
Anagram [audacious] of MEN LIBELS THEM
15 English politics constituted of letters (9)
EPISTOLIC
E [English] + an anagram [constituted] of POLITICS
17 Ease up as a master sommelier? That’s rude (9)
TASTELESS
If a sommelier eased up s/he would TASTE LESS
19 Plant used science to change carbon to oxygen (7)
SENECIO
An anagram [used] of SCIENCE, with one of the Cs [carbon] changed to O [oxygen]
20 Charing Cross? Exasperation! (7)
CHAGRIN
Anagram [cross] of CHARING
22 Star lives over a narrow cavity (5)
SINUS
Reversal [over] of SUN [star] + IS [lives]
23 Greek pain container of legend (5)
GRAIL
GR [Greek] + AIL [pain]
Thanks Brummie and Eileen.
Quite tricky, with some Googling required (GIRANDOLA and SHAMA). Enjoyable though. I was delayed by blithely writing in PSYCHIATRISTS at 26a; CHAGRIN put me right eventually.
“Carpet-baggers” were Northern near-crooks who exploited people in the Southern states after the US Civil War. To carry away their spoils, they carried bags literally made from carpets, which “should properly be used to cover a floor”.
I enjoyed this very much; much more so than other Brummie puzzles just lately. I couldn’t unpick CARRAGEEN though, so a DNF in the scorebook.
I was unsure of the significance of the wordplay for CARPETBAG, and muffin may well be right.
Many thanks to Eileen for the blog
I took 10ac as more of a literal definition, i.e. a case made out of a floor covering, which is exactly what a carpetbag is. Can’t see any reference to the US post-war carpetbaggers though.
That’s two splendid Guardian puzzles in a row. I do enjoy Brummie’s surfaces and many of today’s clues were a pleasure. Hard to keep to the same high standards throughout, though, and one or two – 14a, 24a and 2d, for example, were a tad contrived.
Favourites included SCIENTOLOGIST and ACCESSIBILITY (I know some feel anagrams are lower order clues but I liked these), REALM, CHASSIS and SENECIO (which I had to look up but felt I deserved as I’d worked out how to get there!) COTD, though, is BUTLINS which made me smile.
Several answers solved from the wordplay but required subsequent Googling. I’d never heard of SHAMA, GIRANDOLA or CARRAGEEN.
I’m sure this has come up before, before I started visiting this site, but my only gripe today is the use of ‘price’ = ‘cost’ in 2d. I don’t have Roget to hand and they probably appear as synonyms but, pedantically, they are not the same thing.
Many thanks to Brummie and to Eileen for the review
Thanks Brummie and Eileen
Mark @ 4: as a former buyer, I would ask my suppliers either for the price or the cost. The answer would be the same whichever word I used.
Very enjoyable for me as a ‘learner’. Took a long time to get going but the fog eventually cleared. Guessed (correctly) at SENECIO and (incorrectly) at GIRANDOLA (I put in GARINDOLA). I also had a couple of other PSYCHxxxxxxxx before finalising on PSYCHOANALYST
Thank you Brummie and Eileen.
A most enjoyable puzzle. I don’t think 10a has anything to do withe carpetbaggers, and if it did it would more likely relate to some politicians in the US; minty’s post @6 reminds me of Phileas Fogg who took only a CARPETBAG as luggage for his voyage “Around the World in Eighty Days.”
This one was a challenge and we needed help to finish it. Insectologist is another anagram of 1ac and we didn’t see the alternative correct solution until nearly too late. Thanks to everyone.
Four new words to me by my count which made this hard to finish off. Still, all were gettable by a combination of wordplay and guesswork so satisfying in the end. I liked the ‘football team not banner free’ for REALM and my favourite, the ‘Stockhausen wasn’t’ clue.
Thanks to Brummie and Eileen
Simon S @5: fair point. Got myself thinking unit cost or similar which only equals price when it’s cost-price.
This was fun and I found the anagrams clever, especially the long ones 1a SCIENTOLOGISTS, 8d ACCESSIBILITY and 9d EMBELLISHMENT.
Failed to parse 24a TONAL, and 25a CARRAGEEN, 7d SHAMA and 19d SENECIO were all guesses, so thanks to Eileen for the explanation and confirmation.
As others have reported, I also found the SW tricky due to the insertion of the wrong “psychs” for 26a – tried both psychiatrists and psychologists before seeing that it had to be PSYCHOANALYST, but this held things up for a while.
Thanks to Brummie.
Overall, we enjoyed this one but shouldn’t the clue for 9d have Decoration rather than Decorating? Decorating = Embellishing, surely?
Appreciate that would mean the remainder of the clue required further ’embellishment’ 🙂
Found this a little tricky in places, with 3 unfamiliar solutions, but no complaints as they were all clearly clued. CORNETIST was last in
Thanks to Eileen and Brummie
Thanks Brummie and Eileen.
Enjoyable solve with GIRANDOLA and SENECIO as new words for me. I think I may have said this before but ‘take’ does not seem to me to be a container. Chambers gives ‘take in’ but not ‘take.’
I liked the sommelier tasting less.
Thanks to Brummie and Eileen. I had trouble with the words already cited but also BUTLINS (my LOI, not available to a US solver) and LAGGING as insulation. Still, lots of fun – and I too don’t see any connection to the 19th century carpetbaggers (unless “properly” is somehow the signal).
Very enjoyable, I love a good sprinkling of anagrams plus some new words to learn.
I thought same as Benpointer @ 12 re Decoration v Decorating for Embellishment.
Why does Pain = Ail in 23dn? They don’t seem like synonyms to me…
For what it’s worth: The Lambert in 24 ac is presumably a reference to Constant Lambert, very much not an atonal composer.
Crumplehorn @ 16, perhaps “what pains/ails you?” “The embellishment/decorating of the Town Hall has been a success.”
It ails me = it pains me?
Process of decorating = process of embellishment?
Not sure how much it matters, since for most of the clues (except for the vocabulary stretchers) the answer preceded the parsing.
Almost a dead heat with Cookie, it appears.
Buddy @19, perhaps Peter Aspinwall will enlighten us, he has just had the decorators in…
[Hi Buddy, that is a laugh, I thought you were doubting my post @18!]
Another quality puzzle, and once more I find a sometimes-tricky setter well within my scope. How refreshing! It’s clearly important to get the long 13-letter clues early, and apart from a dalliance with PSYCHIATRISTS – I’m not alone it seems – they all fell reasonably easily, the anagrams helping. Loads of good surfaces too – I lived in Bognor once, home of a BUTLINS. My one gripe is that the uncrossed EEI in SENECIO could have gone in pretty much any order for all I knew of the plant.
I think the lack of a tangible theme removed a few constraints on the setter making it a very interesting puzzle. thanks all.
I agree with Mark @4: “That’s two splendid Guardian puzzles in a row.”
Four words were new to me, but that didn’t put me off much as they were all ‘gettable’, as Eileen said.
I had fun with 26a PSYCHOANALYST: like Julie @11, I thought of ‘psychologists’ and ‘psychiatrists’ before the ‘N’ turned up, and then I was able to write in the intended answer.
I’m another who wouldn’t normally make ‘price’ mean ‘cost’, but I take Simon’s point (@5) and can’t quibble with that.
I wondered at first about ‘decorating’ = ’embellishment’, but it clearly works, as Cookie and Buddy have explained.
The puzzle as a whole was to a high standard and I enjoyed it very much.
Thanks to Brummie, and to Eileen for an excellent and succinct blog.
Benpointer @12 and Crumplehorn @16
Re EMBELLISHMENT / decorating. This is something that crops up from time to time and I meant to say in the blog that you need to think of ‘decorating’ as a gerund. Collins – “gerund: a noun formed from a verb, ending in -ing, denoting an action or state, e.g. ‘the living is easy'”.
I should also have said that both ‘pain’ and ‘ail’ need to be taken as transitive verbs, as in the example given by Cookie and Buddy [thanks to both – I’ve been out!].
Xjpotter @17, from Wiki, “The lambert (symbol L, la or Lb) is a non-SI unit of luminance named for Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728–1777), a Swiss mathematician, physicist and astronomer.” – as Eileen mentions in the blog.
Cookie @27 – Xjpotter is referring to the surface reading of the clue: I only remembered about this composer when I saw his / her comment. This is a much better clue than I thought it was. 😉
Xjpotter@17 and Eileen @28: I hereby withdraw my criticism @4 of 24a. The Lambert reference is certainly cleverer than I had realised. Thanks to Xjpotter for the enlightenment.
Yes, many thanks, Xjpotter [sorry – your comment was posted while I was out and I overlooked it in my comment @26].
I can’t say I enjoyed this much and found it a bit of a slog. I
delayed entering CARPETBAG because it seemed so easy and doesn’t
seem to be cryptic. It was only as a result of crossers that
I saw it must be correct. I’ve enjoyed the last couple of Brummie
puzzles but this one didn’t do it for me,I’m afraid.
Cookie: the term “embellishment” never passed the lips of the guys
who did my decorating!
Eileen @28, thank you, and apologies to Xjpotter @17, I admit Constant Lambert first came to my mind when I read the clue but dismissed the connection as regards solving it.
Mark @29, I wonder now if 2d refers to Jim Price…
Cookie @34: oh my Goodness. If it does, then it’s awesome. I hope Brummie reads this site and sees the credit we are giving him/her! And what a laugh he/she will be having if both Lambert and Price just happen to have coincidental relevance!!
After a slow start, this went better than I expected. The NW gave me the most problems, with CORNETIST my LOI. I was lucky with 26a as I already had the L from GRAIL when I first thought of PSYCHO-, so I could eliminate the two other obvious possibilities immediately. I needed to confirm online that SHAMA is a bird,, and I missed the possible references to Constant Lambert and Jim Price.
Favourites included REALM, PSYCHOANALYST and CHAGRIN.
Thanks, Brummie and Eileen
Wow!
I didn’t start this until this afternoon so apologies for the lateness.
Mark @4. I’m sorry if some think that anagrams are lower order clues. To me they are the most satisfactory – and they appear in list of best clues ever cf the famous Grantchester/Jeffrey Archer clue.
24a A real pedant’s comment: Stockhausen wasn’t heavyweight – a Lambert. He was a heavyweight – a Lambert.
Beecham was once asked if he ever conducted any Stockhausen and replied that he didn’t but he thought he might hve trodden in some on the way to rehearsal.
Too late by far but thanks to Brummie and Eileen for puzzle and blog.