Guardian 27,766 – Brummie

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A gentle workout from Brummie today, with quite a few rather obvious clues.

No (obvious) theme that I can see, though I’m ready to be enlightened… Thanks to Brummie.

And indeed there is a theme, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the invention of the Worldwide Web – see comments

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. YACHT CLUB Where crafty people meet Cathy’s bolshie staff (5,4)
CATHY* + CLUB (staff)
6. SITE Location of oral sense (4)
Homophone of “sight” (one of the senses)
8. CHILL OUT Prelude to a fever abroad? Don’t worry (5,3)
A CHILL when you’re OUT might be a sign of a coming fever
9. SERVER Tennis player‘s scoop? (6)
Double definition
10. PORTAL Left in front of a large entrance (6)
PORT (left) + A L
11. OIL-FIRED Type of heating, I say, needing line and shot (3-5)
OI (I say!) + L[ine] + FIRED (shot)
12. STATUS Rank shabby material in South America (6)
TAT in S US
15. NAVIGATE Ground gave in when roping a tense steer (8)
A T in (GAVE IN)*
16. GARMENTS Miles got into strange, bad habits (8)
M in STRANGE*
19. LIKE SO Relishes getting round in that way (4,2)
LIKES (relishes) + O (round)
21. NEWSROOM It produces the latest novel: Second Opportunity (8)
NEW (novel) + S + ROOM (opportunity)
22. OUT BOX In which items to be sent do better in a ring? (3,3)
To OUT-BOX is to do better than your opponent in a boxing ring
24. DOMAIN Scope of party chief (6)
DO (party) + MAIN (chief)
25. LIE AHEAD Invent a top and await (3,5)
LIE (invent) + A HEAD. I’m not entirely happy with the definition, but I suppose it’s as in “what troubles await us”
26. EDGE Advantage Mantel (though line is off) (4)
LEDGE (mantel) less L
27. RED CARPET Reprimand after cardinal walked over by VIPs (3,6)
RED (cardinal – from the colour a cardinal’s cloak) + CARPET (to reprimand)
Down
1. YAHOO Grass up old love beast (5)
Reverse of HAY + O (old) + O (0, love in tennis) – one of the human-like creatures in Gulliver’s Travels
2. COLE TIT Flyer‘s fancy tie stuffed into gun (4,3)
TIE* in COLT. Variant spelling of the more usual “coal tit”
3. TROLL Ill-tempered character of rector in charge (5)
R[ector] in TOLL (change)
4. LET DOWN Disappointed officer covers Estonia’s premier with feathers (3,4)
E in LT (lieutenant, officer) + DOWN (feathers)
5. BASE LEVEL Mean to get even — ‘Water erosion of land stops here!’ (4,5)
BASE (mean) + LEVEL (even) – in geology, base level is the lower limit for an erosion process
6. SURFING Going over the water, Channel-hopping? (7)
Double definition, with the channels being on a TV
7. THE DEPTHS Article on government branch by cabinet minister: “Low point of misery!” (3,6)
THE (article) DEPT (department, branch of government) + HS (Home Secretary)
13. TRAPEZOID Figure transported to a prize day (9)
(TO A PRIZE)* + D[ay]
14. SUNDOWNER Star needs relaxant — a timely drink (9)
SUN (star) + DOWNER
17. MESSAGE Word manipulation: replace A with E (7)
MASSAGE with the first A replaced by E
18. SAMPLED Had a taste of winter transport fitted with electrical unit (7)
AMP (ampere, unit of electric current) in SLED
20. KETCHUP Dressing up to pursue sailing vessel (7)
KETCH + UP
22. OPERA Head to be removed from fool, right? Put before a Salome? (5)
[D]OPE + R + A. Salome is an opera by Richard Strauss
23. OP ART Ring member for visually stimulating work (2,3)
O + PART

47 comments on “Guardian 27,766 – Brummie”

  1. Thanks Brummie and Andrew

    I didn’t see lEDGE or Home Secretary, and I thought “scoop” for SERVER was rather loose.

    Favourites were GARMENTS and KETCHUP.

  2. I’m a bird lover and I’ve never seen that variant spelling of Coal Tit. I can’t find it anywhere online either. Not saying it doesn’t exist, just that it’s extremely obscure! I thought it was a mistake once I realised the answer was Cole Tit after having gone through every possible Tit I could think of. Unfortunately, this made me a bit cross (for no real good reason)!

  3. A WWW theme, I think, on its 30th anniversary: SITE, SERVER, PORTAL, NAVIGATE, OUTBOX, DOMAIN, EDGE, YAHOO, MESSAGE, TROLL, OPERA, and SURFING.

     

    Thanks Brummie and Andrew.

  4. Thanks, Andrew and Brummie

    There seems to be a bit of a computer thing going on – SERVER, PORTAL, NAVIGATE,  OUT BOX, DOMAIN, YAHOO, TROLL, SURFING … but I’m not knowledgeable enough to get them all.

  6. Snap, indeed, Eileen. I spotted the theme at 4am, but didn’t click it was the WWW till I read the article about Tim Berners-Lee in the Guardian just now.

  7. …and I’d listened to Tim Berners Lee on the Today programme and still didn’t make the specific WWW connection until I saw your post!

  8. Alison Copland @2

    I think it has changed over time. When I started bird-watching in the 50s it was always COLE TIT, but I agree that this spelling is almost never seen now.

  10. Like Alison C @ 2 I was rather stumped by COLE TIT, which had to be the answer but seemed wrong. Also I hadn’t heard of HS for Home Secretary. But some good clues. Thanks to Brummie and Andrew.

  11. Ah, so that’s why the tit sounded familiar but had me going que? Noticed a few web-relateds, domain, surf etc, but had no idea of the www’s birthday, even tho, yes, Berners Lee has been mentioned by Auntie; my radar for that sort of connection is nil. But yes, a nice stroll, although I took ages to mix d with ‘to a prize’ in 13d, a gimme really. Both surface and def of 25 I thought a bit hmmm. Enjoyable all in all. Ta Brummie and Andrew.

  12. muffin @8

    That’s interesting. Now I’m fascinated as to what the derivation of Cole/Coal might be.

  13. A likeable puzzle. Missed the theme though! So I am glad to come here and see the web that Brummie has woven!

    I enjoyed 1a YACHT CLUB, 8a CHILL OUT and 14a SUNDOWNER, all of which reminded me of relaxing around sailing boats. I would have included KETCH(UP) at 20d but I didn’t like the way UP was in both the clue and the solution. 2d COLE TIT was a BIFF for me, not having heard of either COAL tits or COLE tits.

    Many thanks to Brummie, Andrew and cryptic colleagues.

     

  14. Good puzzle; I missed the theme.

    Apparently, the spelling of COLE TIT was modernised to ‘coal tit’ at the end of the 19th century!

    I liked GARMENTS and EDGE.

    Thanks Brummie and Andrew

     

  15. Cole tit stumped me too for a bit, but it still appears in Chambers. I was interested enough in Alison’s query about derivation to pursue it through the OED (which doesn’t make it entirely easy), but it goes back to ‘coalmouse’ (which then became coal/cole titmouse and cole/coal tit). ‘Coalmouse’ is inherited from Germanic languages (in modern German Kohlmeise), with reference to its black markings, and is found in Old English as ‘colmase’, thence ‘coldmose’ or ‘colmose’ in the 16th century. ‘Cole mouse’ remained the most usual name for the bird after that, with ‘coal’ first creeping in in the 19th century, when ‘coal titmouse’ also appears.

  16. Thanks to Brummie and Andrew. A steady solve for me but found some of it easier to solve than parse, and another who was a little bemused by cole tit. NE last in for me and also liked garments, message and sundowner. Missed the theme completely (I often do), and thanks again to Brummie and Andrew.

  17. Overall nice puzzle, Brummie, and as usual the theme completely escaped me.  Thanks, Brummie and Andrew.

    Hmm indeed, grantinfreo #11.  I’m bothered by LIE AHEAD as a synonym for “await”.  I think await is one of those transitive verbs that have to have a direct object, you can’t just say “troubles await.”  They have to await somebody.  And I’m also bothered by LIE as a synonym for “invent.”  Can somebody come up with a sentence that can use both?

    Where does R stand for “rector”?

    OI for “I say” escaped me too.  To this former New Yorker (current New Englander) “oi” is the first half of “oy vey.”  I never think of it as British.  And even though “Dept.” is just as common in the US as in the UK, I never thought of it.

  18. Valentine @ 17:

    “Let us see what troubles await” seems to work OK as a spoken line.

    I don’t want to tell the truth, so I lie/invent a lot.

    R = Rector is Chambers definition 3, and presumably stems from the ecclesiastical world.

    hth

  19. Enjoyed this tho as ever missed the theme. Valentine – oi is pure Cockney and a way of attracting attention. I think that ‘red’inrelation to a Cardinal refers to the traditional red hat,the accepted symbol of the rank.

  20. In 11a, the setter being Brummie, I think there might also be an indirect reference to the midlands pronunciation of ‘I’. Anyone remember ‘Oi’ll give it foive!’?

  22. Another one who wrote in cole tit thinking it had to be wrong, but had to be right! Otherwise a straightforward unfold. Haven’t we seen “sundowner” and “troll” (as part of a solution) very recently? Base level was new to me geologically but worked out once crossers were in so fair play. I liked “ketchup”, “opera” and “site” but no big ticks today.

  24. Another perplexed by COLE TIT and missed parsing newsROOM and OIl-fired and despite having read the Tim B-L article I missed the theme. It was an enjoyable if uninspiring solve for me as I didn’t have any ticks at the end. Thanks to Brummie and Andrew.

  26. Thanks to Brummie and Andrew. I’m another who struggled with COLE TIT. I did spot some of the WWW linked items last night when I did this puzzle but only made the connection when reading this morning’s news (as pointed out above).

  27. Maybe I wasn’t thinking straight, but some of these took me a lot longer than they should have done, despite the obvious theme.

    Thanks to Brummie and Andrew

  28. Yet another perplexed for a while with Cole Tit, as I always thought the much more common Coal Tit variation referred to its distinctive black cap. But perhaps Coal was spelled Cole back in Dr Johnson’s day, better go and check…

  29. I had an advantage with COLE TIT: I know nothing about English birds, so once I reaiized it was a TIT, I was quite certain that I wouldn’t have heard of the answer and would have to work it out from wordplay and crossers. If I’d known a bunch of different kinds of tits, I probably would have been led astray by them.

    If I wanted to quibble — not that I would ever do such a thing — it would be over the enumeration of 22a: in my experience, it’s written OUTBOX. I can envision it with a hyphen, but not as two words. But that’s a trivial complaint, and if it’s the worst that can be said, then I think it must be a good puzzle!

     

  32. Thanks JohnE @30 and muffin @31 – knew they looked familiar! Good detective work. I should’ve figured it was Cyclops as Private Eye is about the only other puzzle I do (apart from the odd stab at an Azed).

  33. I thought ‘cole tit’ must be am error, but then thought that it would have been corrected by the time I had sat down to do the crossword. Certainly never come across that variant and it wasn’t in an old (Blackie’s) dictionary.

  34. A nice steady resolve. However, now I’m annoyed that I missed the theme (so bloomin’ obvious in hindsight and a large part of my area of work). Agree with the quiblets about 25a – too clunky to enjoy. But overall good fun.

    Thanks to Brummie and Andrew.

  35. Harhop @19:  “Cardinal” at this point is also a specific shade of red.  While the name originates from the churchman’s entire outfit (including the hat), actual Catholic cardinals wear scarlet. My favorite example in the real world:  the Arizona Cardinals–who originated in Chicago before they moved west and are the oldest team in the NFL–got their nickname because their first set of uniforms were castoffs from the University of Chicago, whose color was (and is) maroon.  The uniforms had faded down to cardinal.  The decision to associate the bird with the team came much later.  (My second favorite example is Stanford University, whose teams compete under the name Stanford Cardinal–specifically singular so as to reference the color, not the bird or the prelate.  Because that’s a lousy mascot, Stanford teams are now represented on the sideline by a student in a usually somewhat Dadaesque homemade tree suit.)

    I have nothing to add about the puzzle, which was a quick, enjoyable solve.

  36. mrpenny @35:  Stanford teams before the early 1970s were the “Indians.”  Then the trustees of the university withdrew that name.  The trustees then took two years before adopting “Cardinal.”  So the teams had no official name for two years.  As you can imagine, students made many creative and highly unofficial suggestions.  My favorite was the Stanford “Nothings.”

    The official seal of the university pictures a tall tree (Stanford is in Palo Alto [“tall tree”], California).  https://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stanford_University_seal_2003.svg

    The student band adopted the tree as mascot, and every year uses a different student-made tree costume.  The tree is more the band’s mascot than the university’s.

    As for “Cardinal” (as you stated correctly, the color, not the bird or the RC churchman), while the color had long been associated with Stanford, it seems to be a clear case of Harvard envy.  Harvard teams were the “Crimson” long before Stanford teams became the “Cardinal.”

  37. You have all been so concerned with cole tits but has anyone mentioned “oral” sense. It’s not site ( sight) its taste. Or have I completely misunderstood.

  38. Site, server, portal, navigate, newsroom, out box,  domain, yahoo, troll, surfing, opera (browser), and possibly status.  Can’t see any more. Thanks to setter and blogger. Good puzzle unlike the Times which IMO has a couple of weak clues.

  42. Late to this. Missed the theme which I should have got. In fact I made much heavier weather of this than I should’ve done because this was quite a straightforward puzzle. I knew COLE TIT was an alternative to the,now , much more common spelling but I still banged in COAL TIT which doesn’t work with the wordplay anyway. Liked YAHOO.
    Thanks Brummie.

  43. Very quick and straight-forward solve today – no quibbles but (per usual) completely missed the theme.  Must remember to look for one! Was I the only one to try and take the “ry” out of Hilary (Mantel)?  Thanks Brummie and Andrew

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