A mixed bag from Brummie today.
This was like solving two puzzles in one. The right-hand side was straightforward, while the left-hand side was very difficult. The inconsistencies don’t stop there, however, as the quality of the clues was very disparate.
There were some belters (9ac, 24ac and 14dn, for example), but there were also some where the definition or wordplay were a bit suspect (definitions at 2dn, 7dn for example, and the clues at 13dn and 18dn aren’t brilliant either). The surface at 21ac is clumsy, and I can’t properly parse 16ac.
Some of the answers had a cricketing theme (ashes, maiden, Australia, skied etc).
Thanks, Brummie.
| Across | ||
| 1 | AUSTRALIA | Country that informally gives boozer heart (9) |
| The heart of “boOZer” is Oz, an informal name for Australia. | ||
| 6 | EDGE | Advantage of top-cut grass (4) |
| (s)EDGE (“grass”, with its top cut) | ||
| 8 | WHISTLER | Canadian resort artist (8) |
| Double definition
Refers to Whistler, a mountain resort in the Canadian Rockies, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), whose most famous painting was “Arrangement in Grey and Black, No 1”, more commonly known as “Whistler’s Mother”. |
||
| 9 | SOMBRE | Grey hat tipped or removed (6) |
| SOMBRE(ro) “hat” with <=OR removed | ||
| 10 | OSSIFY | Cross, if Yorkshire holds become fixed (6) |
| Hidden in “crOSS IF Yorkshire” | ||
| 11 | CO-HOSTED | Wasn’t the only entertainer to fashion hoods etc (2-6) |
| *(Hoods etc) | ||
| 12 | OPENER | Key sporting event about to return (6) |
| OPEN (“sporting event” – think golf or tennis) + <=RE (“about” to return) | ||
| 15 | LEUKEMIA | Hacked email about eastern country’s US-style disease (8) |
| *(email) about E(astern) U.K. (“country”)
Leukemia is the American spelling of leukaemia. |
||
| 16 | ANALYSIS | Breakdown is its own possible cure (8) |
| Not sure of the parsing, unless Brummie is suggesting that “analysis” = “cure”? | ||
| 19 | SLEDGE | Runners on this start to slow step (6) |
| S(low) + LEDGE (“step”) | ||
| 21 | ATTAINED | Eat it and dancing is hit (8) |
| *(eat it and) | ||
| 22 | CREASE | Fold back electronic snail mail reply facilitator (Roman Catholic) (6) |
| <=E.-S.A.E. R.C. (“Roman Catholic”, stamped address envelope (“snail mail reply facilitator”), and e(lectronic), all reversed) | ||
| 24 | MAIDEN | Miss relief — in pieces (6) |
| AID (“relief”) in MEN (chess “pieces”) | ||
| 25 | LET IT RIP | Act without control and don’t spare a tear (3,2,3) |
| Double definition, the second mildly cryptic. | ||
| 26 | BEAR | Put up with no bull! (4) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 27 | EARTHWARD | So astronauts may be bound to get tense, being overwhelmed by hardware malfunction (9) |
| T(ense) overwhelmed by *(hardware) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | ASHES | Result of one who was fired up for a sporting contest? (5) |
| Double definition, the first cryptic. | ||
| 2 | SESSION | Rows over press-ganging school’s head for assembly (7) |
| <= NOISES (“rows”, over) press-ganging S(chool) | ||
| 3 | RELAY | Broadcast put back (5) |
| Double definition | ||
| 4 | LYRICAL | Year One, being involved in Latin: state “poetic” (7) |
| Yr 1, involved in L(atin) + Cal.(ifornia) (“state”) | ||
| 5 | ANSCHLUSS | Orchestrated UN’s clash with second German political union (9) |
| *(un’s clash) + S(econd)
Anschluss, the German word for “addition” or “connection” is now synonymous with the political union between Hitler’s Germany and Austria in 1938. |
||
| 6 | EN MASSE | Sense a change, taking millions all together (2,5) |
| *(sense a) taking M(illions) | ||
| 7 | GARDENING | Digging group entertaining fancy diner? (9) |
| GANG (“group”) entertaining *(diner) | ||
| 13 | PUNCTUATE | Pointedly edit written work? (9) |
| Cryptic definition, although IMHO, not a very good one. | ||
| 14 | RESONANCE | Figures on ancestral houses echoing quality (9) |
| Hidden in “figuRES ON ANCEstral” | ||
| 17 | LEANDER | Character who drowned, one grabbed by shark possibly (7) |
| A (“one”), swallowed by LENDER (“shark, possibly”)
In Greek mythology, Leander was a young man who dies swimming across the Hellespont to visit his lover, Hero. |
||
| 18 | SADDLER | Senior, quaintly rotten inside, whose clients put something on the horses (7) |
| Sr. with ADDLE (“quaintly rotten”?) inside | ||
| 20 | ELECTRA | Vengeful character taking pick to Egyptian god (7) |
| ELECT (“pick”) + RA (“Egyptian god”) | ||
| 22 | CATCH | Round hook? (5) |
| Double definition, the first a musical term. | ||
| 23 | SKIED | Dies in distress — Kay intervenes — sent heavenward (5) |
| *(dies) with K (“Kay”) intervening. | ||
*anagram
Couldn’t parse AUSTRALIA (silly me), CATCH or CREASE (thanks, loonapick); liked ANALYSIS, ANSCHLUSS and PUNCTUATE. Thanks to Brendan also.
16a. I think that Brummie is simply suggesting that psychoanalysis can be a cure for a mental breakdown.
Thanks Brummie and loonapick.
Re: 16a, a breakdown is synonymous with analysis, in the sense of breaking something down into its constituent parts to analyze it. But analysis can also refer to psychoanalysis, which can possibly be a cure for a breakdown.
I had DIALYSIS there for too long, which, of course made 13d impossible.
I agree with George Clements @2; 16ac seems a well enough formed clue. I see no problem either with 18d; the saddler’s products are put on horses by the people who buy them. ‘Addle’ is now archaic (ie, quaint) as an adjective and ‘addled’ is used instead. Chambers gives ‘addle’ as a noun as well!
Thanks Brummie and loonapick
Very similar experience for me; RHS done, LHS empty apart from 1ac and 26ac (stock exchange reference?). Finally finished in the NW.
I liked SOMBRE, EARTHWARD, RESONANCE and LEANDER. I didn’t like the “one who was” in ASHES – some construction involving “firing” might have been better. I couldn’t parse ANALYSIS either, and if Brummie’s intention was as George @2 suggests, I think it’s a bit feeble.
Pedants’ corner: sedges aren’t “grasses”, they’re a different family altogether. “Grass-like” is as close as I would go. Brummie could have cross-referenced 19ac somehow instead.
SLEDGE also fits the theme, Brendan.
Glad to get 1a AUSTRALIA straight away, or I could never have held my head up again on this forum. I did like the funny connection to “boozer”, though as you know cricket and drinking are very masculinist and often over-exaggerated stereotypes, despite these figuring large in terms of some of the uglier Australians you must encounter in the UK.
I found a lot of the puzzle enjoyable, but it was really hard in places and took me ages and involved a lot of uncertainty. Several answers were biffed in from the crossers only.
So thank you for the parses, Brendan, and also to George Clements@2 (I had a big question mark beside 16a ANALYSIS).
I had never heard of that word for “sent heavenward”, SKIED, at 23d. Pity it crossed with 27a EARTHWARD.
The favourites for the old History/English teacher were 5d ANSCHLUSS and 13d PUNCTUATE, even though I agree that in the latter clue, “Pointedly” was a bit clunky.
I didn’t mind WHISTLER, due to good memories of having visited the resort and discovering it 25% staffed by young Aussies on working holidays, one of which was my own 22-year-old – he still says it was one of the best times in his life!
Thanks to Brummie.
Crossed against the comments@3, 4 and 5, or I would have acknowledged.
Why do people keep saying Brendan? Am I missing something?
pex@8 – good question. My name is David, not Brendan.
To those apologists for ANALYSIS – I understood that the setter was alluding to psychoanalysis, but it was a weak effort in my opinion.
Thanks loonapick for a great blog. It seems to be unanimous that the RHS was more penetrable than the left.Thanks for parsing 1a which is so obvious when you see it.It was ASHES which alerted me to the theme(more chance of a theme in a Brummie puzzle than Ronaldo netting a spot kick)
In the cricket archives I could only find a SADLER-I usually reckon that themesters should make double figures which was the case here.
A nice puzzle following England’s victory.
Oops! Following the crowd! Baa! Humblest apologies to loonapick!
Didn’t spot the theme until afterwards.
AUSTRALIA, EDGE, OPENER, ANALYSIS, SLEDGE, CREASE, MAIDEN, ASHES, SESSION, GARDENING (when the batsman pokes and prods the grass with his bat), CATCH, SKIED
I don’t think there have been any cricket tournaments that have been CO-HOSTED (unless you count England and Wales as co-hosts — but only when there is a test at Glamorgan)
A bowler might LET IT RIP when he PUNCTUATEs his over with bouncers.
good fun.
Neither muffin nor loonapick could parse 16a satisfactorily, yet when it is explained to them they grandly declare it ‘a bit feeble’ and ‘a weak effort’. We need a bit more than that to dispel the smell of sour grapes. It seems to me an impeccable clue.
barker @13
“analysis” to mean “psychoanalysis” seems sloppy, though I agree that a psychoanalyst is often referred to (for brevity’s sake, I expect) as an “analyst”.
It’s a bit like saying “lysis” and expecting your listener to interpret it as “electrolysis”.
That clue about Whistler, whose “art was characterized by a subtle delicacy, while his public persona was combative,” reminded me of the limerick by his fellow artist (and poet) Dante Gabriel Rosetti:
There is a young artist named Whistler
Who in every respect is a bristler;
A tube of white lead
Or a punch in the head
Come equally handy to Whistler.
Agree with barker@13 but have to admit that I gave up on this after revealing WHISTLER and thinking “Well, if I don’t know this one I won’t know lots of the others!” Rather defeatist, I know, but there are days like this.
Many thanks all the same to Brummie and loonapick.
barker @13 – I didn’t “grandly declare” anything. I gave my opinion of what I considered to be a weak clue. Is the point of blogging to just give a bland parsing and not to be critical? I hope not, or this would be a rather dull site, and a dull task.
We can agree to disagree on ANALYSIS, which I still consider weak.
Thanks to Brummie and loonapick. I did not know WHISTLER as a resort and needed help parsing SESSION and CREASE, but I did know CATCH in its musical sense and settled for ANALYSIS without giving the clue much thought (analysis?).
Thanks Brummie and Loonapick
I mostly agreed with Loonapick’s mixed bag analysis, except on the points of ANALYSIS, and PUNCTUATE. A punctum is a point, and I thought, rather than being clunky, ‘pointedly’ was quite cute.
(Lucy Lastik @ 12 – India and Pakistan jointly hosted the 1987 World Cup)
My experience and view of this was very similar to loonapick’s, although it was the SW corner that held me up. It seemed like a real mixture of clues as exemplified in the introduction to the blog.
Like drofle@1 I didn’t parse 1a and now see what a neat clue it is and I didn’t know the musical sense of CATCH. ANALYSIS eluded me and whatever the merits of the rest of the clue the definition is clear enough and should have led me to the solution.
Unusually, I did spot the theme which didn’t help with the solving but did add to the enjoyment. My favourite today was MAIDEN.
Thanks to Brummie and loonapick.
Thanks Brummie and loonapick.
Muffin @14; analysis is quite a usual short form for psychoanalysis and is in all the major dictionaries. I thought the clue was OK because, as others have pointed out above, (psycho)analysis can be used as a cure for a breakdown.
Edward Saddler was apparently an Australian cricketer (died 1874). I’m sure everyone knew that!
Thanks for the blog, Brendan. I’m with you on the 16a analysis- very weak, making ‘punctuate’ almost impossible given the laxity of that clue. I hate it when crap andlits or cds cross; enough for Brummie to be bundled out and shot immediately come the Glorious Day. I didn’t enjoy key as a synonym for opener either, my last one in, and that came really from the theme. Agree whole-heartedly with Lucy Lastik at #12 on the list of references, just adding Bear- some used to call one-time cricketing beast and latter-day grouse-blaster Ian Both the Bear on account of his extraordinarily strong body odour.
Regards to Brendan for the blog and Brummie for the puzzle. Ta-ra!
Thanks loonapick and Brummie.
Missed the theme.
I had to give up on the LHS as I had the anagram of POINTEDLY, LINOTYPED at 13d.
I failed to explain 16a, too. “In analysis” is a (US) alternative for psychoanalysis, so I think that makes this an OKish clue.
Robi@22
I’ll see your Saddler and raise you: Patrick Whistler Neate played one first class game, for Oxford University in 1966, scoring 3 runs. Why this merits a wiki entry is a mystery.
I was searching ‘whistler cricket’, thinking whistler might be a term for a bouncer that narrow misses your head.
Thank you Brummie and loonapick.
I missed the cricketing theme (my school had all the equipment and I longed to play, but we never had a PE teacher who was willing to do so), however I enjoyed the puzzle even though I did not know many of the terms (thank you Lucy Lastik @12).
I did not remember the resort WHISTLER, I must have heard of it since it was the venue for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
I agree with James @19 about PUNCTUATE, punctum came to my mind too.
muffin @14, “He’s had a breakdown, now he’s undergoing ANALYSIS”.
Favourite clue was CREASE.
@loonapick
Today’s blog is like watching a scene from Only Fools and Horses in which Trigger insists on calling Rodney “Dave”
I had no problem with ANALYSIS, but do have my quibbles with RELAY as a synonym for “broadcast”.
Thanks to Brummie and loonapick.
I needed a lot of help with parsing today, having biffed in LEUKEMIA (kinda knew I was in for a hard day at this point – couldn’t see why this dread visitation was specific to the US; now the parsing reminds me of simple crosswords where a clue would be accompanied by an (anag.) indication), WHISTLER, CREASE and, of course, SLEIGH (Doh!).
I liked ANALYSIS fwiw.
Can’t believe it’s 1 August!
Hi several
If “analysis” means “psychoanalysis”, why do we need the word “psychoanalysis” at all? It’s much harder to spell!
baerchen@27 – at least my name is Dave!
muffin @30, probably ANALYSIS could have been clued better, but it fits the cricketing theme…
Still feeling mortified about the mistake, loonapick/Dave. Can’t apologise enough.
Has anyone named all the themers yet? I have AUSTRALIA (of course!), EDGE, OPENER, ANALYSIS, SLEDGE (could do without that one!), CREASE, MAIDEN, ASHES, SESSION (stretching a point), GARDENING (slang for what a batsman sometimes does to ‘repair’ the pitch), CATCH and SKIED. Maybe there are others I’ve missed.
Hats off to Moeen and Roland-Jones of course!
Stupidly, I put PENETRATE instead of PUNCTUATE. Couldn’t make sense of it of course.
Sorry Lucy@12 – didn’t spot that you got there first! 🙁
An enjoyable crossword with a theme that even I noticed! Thanks to Brummie and Loonapick
Cookie @32
Yes. If you recall, I didn’t say it was wrong, just “sloppy” (and “feeble”, of course!)
The first two thirds or so went in very smoothly, but PUNCTUATE and MAIDEN held me up for ages – the latter should have been obvious much earlier. Spotted the theme but didn’t get any assistance from it.
Thanks to Brummie and loonapick
Muffin@30 There must be lots of words that eject excess baggage while retaining their original meaning. Off the top of my head I can’t think of many, but bike for bicycle comes to mind (not a great example) and also psychotherapy, which makes me wonder whether the “psycho” is ditched for the sake of some form of parenthetical politeness: he’s in “therapy”, she’s undergoing “analysis”.
Polio?
We say someone is in analysis not in psychoanalysis. The clue is perfectly fine I’d say. It was punctuate that I would never have got. Very Rufus I thought.
Just to be different, I managed to do this bottom half first, then the NE and finally the NW corner.
I agree with those who said that this was a mixed bag, and I was uncertain about entering a few of the answers – although they turned out to be correct. I wondered, for example, whether 25a LET IT RIP was going to be ‘let it out’ until SKIER, going down, confirmed the correct answer.
On the whole, though, I enjoyed this crossword.
I had no problem with 16a ANALYSIS. Both parts of the clue are sound, in my opinion. I solved 1a AUSTRALIA but didn’t ‘get’ it until I came here.
Thanks to Brummie and loonapick.
But no thanks to Brendan, who has contributed nothing to this crossword, as far as I know!
Belated apologies – I put Brendan instead of Brummie in my comment@1, and it clearly had a domino effect!
I thought ANALYSIS was OK-ish. The clue I liked least was CREASE as I thought it very awkward with the forced inclusion of electronic with snail mail and the spurious RC tagged on. Never heard of ANSCHLUSS but put it together enough to check it on Google. It was easy to guess Australia but I was looking way to deeply, not in the right place, for the parsing, so that one bowled me a googley! Otherwise, I enjoyed the crossword.
It didn’t occur to me there was a theme until someone mentioned there was one and then it was blindingly obvious -perhaps it might have helped.
It took me a long time to get going on this. I had a retinal screening this morning and I kept going out of focus. I didn’t see the theme,of course, but I wouldn’t have associated some of the terms-GARDENING,SKIED,EDGE- with cricket anyway! I didn’t know that WHISTLER was a place in Canada so I guessed WHISTLER.
I didn’t have a problem with ANALYSIS and I didn’t with SADDLER -a cricketer- who knew?
Thanks Brummie.
Thanks both,
I had an ‘R’ against a couple of clues, denoting ‘Rufus-like’. Not *necessarily* a bad thing. As well as JAM, there are also Rex (Mottisfont Abbey, inter alia) and Laurence (Ashmansworth Church, inter alia) Whistlers. Because I live in Hampshire, the last two come more readily to mind.
Found myself in the zone today. I liked the ones others have quibbles with: opener, analysis, and punctuation.
Just out of curiosity, googled saddler, cricketing term and came up with: A cricket or saddle is a ridge structure designed to divert water on a roof around the high side of a chimney.
Could Brummie be spinning a little disguise here, just for a lark?
Minor edit. Whistler is in the Coast Mountains not the Rockies. Great blog otherwise thanks Loonapick.
Just had a last look at this before turning in. So annoyed I missed the theme.
Liked baerchen’s comment @27.
Thanks Brummie & Brend… er loona er Dave
Pentman @43, the Roman Catholic Church designates certain people as facilitators, the clue for CREASE was one of my favourites, along with those for ANALYSIS and PUNCTUATE.
cookie – CREASE was one of my favourites too!
Thanks all (particularly Brendan – I couldn’t disagree with a single thing he said!)
It seems to me the clues that loonapick didn’t particularly like were one’s leaning towards a North American flavour. Certainly within US culture I would have thought that “analysis” as psychological treatment was a familiar enough meaning. And “pointedly” makes more sense in the American context where for instance an “exclamation mark” is called an “exclamation point”.
I thought that “analysis” was an excellent clue, playing on the double meaning of analysis (psychoanalysis as a cure, vs. e.g. chemical or business analysis as a breakdown) and the double meaning of breakdown. Otoh I had “penetrate” for 13d. A pretty weak clue – you would correct punctuation during editing, but “punctuate” doesn’t mean “correct punctuation”.