A gentler than normal Brummie…
…but still full of the setter’s sense of humour and clever misdirections.
There may also be a theme in here, but I can’t see it.
The crossing of TEETH in two answers could be seen as a little clumsy, and I’m not sure about 6dn, which seems to be the homophone equivalent of an indirect anagram, so may not be enitrely fair, althoughh I personally think it’s fine.
Thanks, Brummie.
| Across | ||
| 1 | CAST OFF | Broken arm having mended, do some knitting? (4,3) |
| Once one’s broken arm has mended, the cast will be removed. | ||
| 5 | BABYSIT | Protect offspring of hound by taking son inside (7) |
| BAIT (“hound”) with BY taking S (son) inside | ||
| 9 | REFIT | Makeover: about to get sexually desirable (5) |
| RE (“about”) to get FIT (“sexually desirable”) | ||
| 10 | ANCHORAGE | US city gets a new church — with nothing to go up the wall (9) |
| A N (new) + CH (church) with O (“nothing”) + RAGE (“to go up the wall”) | ||
| 11 | FALSE TEETH | Fine-tuned athletes, packed with energy, taken out at night? (5,5) |
| F (fine) + *(athletes) packed with E (energy) | ||
| 12 | See 21 | |
| 14 | GO OVERBOARD | Get too enthusiastic and hit the drink (2,9) |
| Double definition, the second being cryptic. | ||
| 18 | ABIDE WITH ME | A tender baritone finally accompanying Brummie hymn (5,4,2) |
| A BID (“tender”) + (bariton)E [finally] + WITH (“accompanying”) + ME (“brummie”) | ||
| 21, 12 | HIGH SEAS | Notes broadcast far from land? (4,4) |
| Homophone [broadcast] of HIGH Cs (“notes”) | ||
| 22 | BAFFLEMENT | Confusion when two females replace centre of gutter in parapet (10) |
| FF (two females) replace [centre of] (gu)TT(er) in BA(tt)LEMENT (“parapet”) | ||
| 25 | IDENTICAL | Description of certain pod members rendered in dialect (9) |
| *(in dialect) For the definition, think of the phrase “like two peas in a pod” | ||
| 26 | MAGMA | Molten material‘s reduced periodical state (5) |
| MAG(azine) (reduced “periodical) + MA (Massachusetts, so “state”) | ||
| 27 | GANGWAY | Passage from Burns’ Go With Style (7) |
| GANG (Scots for go, so “(Rabbie) Burns’ go”) with WAY (“style”) | ||
| 28 | TANGENT | A touching feature of Dynasty (Net version) (7) |
| TANG (Chinese “dynasty”) +*(net) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | CARAFE | Vehicle advanced on iron vessel (6) |
| CAR (“vehicle”) + A (advanced) on Fe (chemical symbol for “iron”) | ||
| 2 | SOFTLY | Singular approach of primate-catcher? (6) |
| Think of the phrase “softly softly catchee monkey” | ||
| 3 | OUTWEIGHED | Was of greater importance, so able to walk better through water, they say (10) |
| Homophone of OUTWADE [they say] (“to walk better through water”) | ||
| 4 | FLARE | Flash unfashionable attire — reduced! (5) |
| FLARE(s) (“unfashionable attrire”, reduced) | ||
| 5 | BUCK TEETH | Prominent features of ‘dandy champers’ (4,5) |
| BUCK (“dandy”) + TEETH (“champers”) | ||
| 6 | BOOM | Blair’s reported prosperity (4) |
| A homophone of BLAIR [reported] is BLARE, synonymous with BOOM | ||
| 7 | SPACELAB | Revolutionary scientific facility — Pascal be damned! (8) |
| *(pascal be) | ||
| 8 | TEESSIDE | Northern area supports, of course, sports team (8) |
| TEES (“supports of course” i.e. golf tees) + SIDE (“sports team”) | ||
| 13 | ABLE SEAMAN | Qualified, reportedly, to identify island’s salt (4,6) |
| ABLE (“qualifed”) + SEA (homophone of SEE (“identify”, reportedly)) + MAN (“island”) | ||
| 15 | OLIGARCHY | Gay choir formed around end of April, a powerful group (9) |
| *(gay choir) around [end of] (apri)L | ||
| 16 | YACHTING | Unknown number longing to include time out on the water? (8) |
| Y (“unknown” in algebra) + ACHING (“longing”) to include T (time) | ||
| 17 | KING FERN | Finger twisted inside hollowed-out Kenyan rainforest plant (4,4) |
| *(finger) inside [hollowed-out] K(enya)N | ||
| 19 | LEAGUE | Coalition: the French disease (6) |
| LE (“the” in “French”) + AGUE (“disease”) | ||
| 20 | STRAIT | Narrow part said to be in line (6) |
| Homophone of [said to be] STRAIGHT (“in line”) | ||
| 23 | FILET | Cut line by knot’s end (5) |
| FILE (“line”) by (kno)T [‘s end] | ||
| 24 | STOW | Away with this illicit cruiser! (4) |
| If you add AWAY to STOW you get STOWAWAY (“an illicit cruiser”) | ||
*anagram
It looks a bit nautical to me.Better surfaces than your usual Brummie.
Double teeth forgiven. Thanks all.
This was initially a bit of a struggle for me (things just weren’t clicking), until I remembered something I had said here back in February, after comparing different setters: “… if you’re stuck on a Brummie, maybe that crosser is a B or a C.” Worked like a charm.
Thanks Loonapick and Brummie.
I liked the clues for 11a FALSE TEETH and 5d BUCK TEETH a lot, so I am not niggling about the crossed canines. I also enjoyed 1a CAST OFF, 18a ABIDE WITH ME, 21,12a HIGH SEAS and 27a GANGWAY. So all in all I had fun. I was very pleased to get 8d TEESSIDE from the word play only as I had heard of it but had no idea where it is. Thanks to Brummie and loonapick.
I can see CAST OFF, ANCHOR, HIGH SEAS, OVERBOARD, GANGWAY, STOWAWAY, WEIGH (anchor), FLARE, ABLE SEAMAN, LEAGUE, STRAIT & YACHTING, although I’m sure there’s more to be found.
[Good advice for the future Dr. WhatsOn@2. Well spotted copmus@1 – enough boatie references here to be a nautical theme I reckon. Worthy of Boatman puzzle. ANCHORAGE, GO OVERBOARD, HIGH SEAS, GANGWAY, ABLE SEAMAN, YACHTING, maybe STRAIT]
A nautical theme, I thought: CAST OFF, REFIT, ANCHORAGE etc
Thanks Brummie and loonapick
[Sorry about the repetition; we crossed, Niltac@4. You saw more than I did! Embarrassing omissions for a recreational sailor like me. I did think of 40000 Leagues but a league is also a land measurement I think. My partner often does REFITs on our little sailing boat but that could be stretching it a bit. Just spotted BOOM as well – I have hit my head on it enough times you would think I would have seen it immediately!]
BOOM
In addition to the nautical references already mentioned, TEESIDE is a major ship-building centre in the Nort-East Of England where you might REFIT ships.
Thanks Brummie and Loonapick.
Thanks, loonapick and Brummie – I enjoyed this.
Agree with copmus about the surfaces – lots of smiles here – and with him and loonapick re the double teeth: for me, the veniality or otherwise of such ‘weaknesses’ depends on the quality of the rest of the puzzle. [And I liked BOOM, too.]
Renewed thanks to Brummie for a cheerful start to the day. [It’s a sunny morning and I’m off out soon for a bluebell walk.]
Another (slightly tenuous maybe) nautical reference: the band on the Titanic apparently played “Abide With Me” towards the end
How obvious is that theme? I obviously solved this while half asleep!!!!
Pedrox – sorry to be a pedant, but I think you’ll find that the Titanic band allegedly played “Nearer my God to Thee” which was a bit more appropriate!
I’m sure that in reality no one really had much time to listen to anything the band were playing.
Larry – shouldn’t that be ‘was’.
Still your comment reminded me of…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Res3-YX4X8g
Thanks to Brummie and Loonapick.
Relatively gentle with smiles along the way. I particularly liked the dandy champers and 14ac – my first one in.
And completed just in time for my first cataract operation.
A much gentler cruise than the stormy weather of the past two days, so thank you Brummie. I was multiply mislead and then able to navigate my way through some difficult channels which were mostly fair. However I was not overly taken with “cast off” as that means you’ve finished knitting not doing it, and “babysit” where I could see no indication as to why “by” goes inside “bait” along with “s”. Also not totally sold on “outweighed” though the mechanism is right, the part of speech doesn’t seem quite right.
On the plus side I really enjoyed “false teeth” and “identical” for neat definitions, “gangway” (because it sent me aglay) and “tangent” again for the definition and surface. “Spacelab” was neat too – sometimes revolutionary means something else 🙂 “filet” and “oligarchy” had lovely surfaces and “stow” was a clever mechanism which took me both crossers to spot. All in all the positives hugely outweighed (waded?) the couple of minor gripes. Thanks loonapick for setting us on course.
Thanks Brummie and Loonapick for a gentler solve. Stealing a bit of Boatman’s territory there, but always calming to think of things nautical – A bit like being in the womb, gently floating on the water.
I’m waiting for the gooverboards to appear in the shops – perhaps at Xmas.
Speaking of minor grips, thezed, “I was multiply mislead” does my head in! (The late Denis Norden comes to mind, riffing with Frank Muir on words that invited mispronunciation, Norden wanting to render “misled” as “mizzled”!)
I knew I’d come a cropper here – “grips” indeed!
Ulyanova@14 – yes, unfortunately the industry is now just a shadow of its former self and chiefly restricted to refitting rather than building ships, although some still continues on a far smaller scale. The great ship the Mauretania was built here during the area’s heyday.
comeoneyouspurs @18,19 – it is a well known maxim, often cited here as a scientific law, that when pointing out a typo in one post (even one’s own) it is inevitable that one will make a typo oneself. Further confirmatory evidence of the law is not needed, but Popper will be happy to see that it has not been falsified!
Talking of songs ulyanove @14, 10a created an earworm of Michelle Shocked’s “Anchorage“
Enjoyed this. My only tiny niggle is that CAST OFF is what one does when one has finished knitting something, whereas the surface implies that one is starting or continuing a knitted project. “Did some knitting” would have been smoother.
Thank you Brummie and loonapick.
I enjoyed the theme – having the AN at 10a I was tempted to enter ANNAPOLIS, the city where the US Naval Academy is.
Thanks for parsing 2d, loonapick; I had never heard of the phrase, so had no idea what was going on. I found an interesting discussion of the origin of the phrase here: http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-sof2.htm and wonder why people started using “catchee” or “catchy” rather than “catch.”
Gentler but enjoyable Brummie and I’m definitely getting better at noticing themes
Thanks to setter and blogger
Didn’t like 6d. Boom and blare (blair) are not synonyms, the former being less acute/sharp than the latter (e.g explosion/siren). Double teeth a bit feeble, too.
This puzzle was quite a struggle. Maybe I was not on the setter’s wavelength. I failed 2d – never heard of “softly softly catchee monkey”. It sounds like a leftover from the colonial era?
I could not parse 24d STOW, 6d (do not know BLARE), or 27a – never heard of GANG = Scots for go, so “(Rabbie) Burns’ go”.
New for me was TEESSIDE.
The one clue that I liked was FALSE TEETH.
Thanks B+S.
Thanks for the helpful blog. Failed on BOOM (dubious IMO anyway) and STOW, in retrospect a very clever clue. A much better Brummie than usual. A clear nautical theme.
Softly Softly was the TV successor to Z Cars in the 70’s.
I did like CAST OFF, despite some misgivings given above. I suppose one could think of it being a part of the knitting process (I’m no expert here!)
I also ticked GO OVERBOARD and ABLE SEAMAN for the misdirection of ‘salt.’ SOFTLY and OUTWEIGHED were both a bit daft but it’s good to raise a smile during solving.
Thanks Brummie and loonapick.
Thanks Brummie and loonapick. I enjoyed this. The nautical theme seemed to extend to some of the surfaces – the iron vessel in 1d, the suggestion of a pod of whales in 25a, “Cut line by knot’s end” in 23d.
24d STOW was an unusual clue, as there seemed to be only wordplay, with no definition.
I don’t really see what “so able” is doing in 3d (OUTWEIGHED) apart from being there for the sake of the surface.
No one else object to ‘damned’ as an anagrind? I spent too long thinking about Blaise’s/go to blazes. But a minor quibble. A lot of fun. Thanks loonapick and Brummie.
05a basset
10a scale (go up the wall)
FLAREs are unfashionable attire?
So the definition of STOW is “this”?
thezed @16 OUTWEIGHED works if you read it “[was] able to walk better through water” with the “was” carried over from the earlier part of the clue.
Iroquois @24 It’s “catchee” because the phrase is an example of the mercifully defunct habit of presenting sayings in supposed Chinese pidgin, which adds “-ee” to many words. The only other one I can recall is “no tickee, no washee”, attributed to this or that laundryman, a stereotypical occupation for Chinese immigrants, at least in the US. I found the reference unpleasant if not racist.
Oops — I forgot to expand two notes to myself.
I meant to say, did anyone get stuck on “basset” for the hound in 5a BABYSIT? All I could think of was spelling it with three S’s, which seemed improbable.
And did anyone think of “scale” for “go up the wall” in 10a ANCHORAGE?
@Valentine: What’s odd about “catchee” is that the proverb comes from Africa, not China. But I suppose the habit of making things sound as if the original speakers are so unenlightened that they can’t speak “proper” English was supposed to add to the charm at one point…
Thanks to Brummie and loonapick.
And I enjoyed this too with nothing much new to offer by way of comment. To quibble with quibbles, one (ahem) may have to CAST OFF several times in the course of knitting a garment – when finishing eg the front, back, sleeves of a pullover, and “by” in BABYSIT is right there in the clue. Lord Jim@31 makes an interesting point about STOW, one which also extends to SOFTLY – I had no problem with these but “unusual” perhaps?
I really liked the surface for TEESSIDE.
Alphaalpha @36 re 5ac “by” is in the clue but my point was the wordplay does not indicate how to use it:
“protect offspring” = definition, “of” = link word, “hound” = bait (ish), “by” = by, “taking son in” = put “s” inside this. Hence Basitby or some similar solution. “taking…in” clearly can only refer to “son” and not by so there is nothing to tell you to put “by” inside “bait” – which was my sole complaint about the clue.
I agree re “cast off” but it does still seem a bit odd as others have commented – but I supposed Brummie wanted to avoid too many nautical references in the clues, leaving that to the solutions where possible.
Why Spacelab is “Revolutionary” was a bit unclear to me, but it could mean innovative or refer to the fact it was in orbit.
Occasionally one can guess an answer from the crossers, but can’t see either the definition or the wordplay. “Softly” is still rather a mystery to me – not sure I’ve ever heard the phrase and what has “singular approach” go to do with it? (As I typed this I saw it probably means one of the two softlys.) Not a great clue in my opinion.
I make it 14 nautical/maritime answers, which is pretty good going: CAST OFF; REFIT; ANCHORAGE; GO OVERBOARD; HIGH SEAS; GANGWAY; YACHTING; WEIGHED (as anchors are); FLARE; BOOM; ABLE SEAMAN; LEAGUE; TEESSIDE; STRAIT. I assume the tune for ABIDE WITH ME being EvenTIDE would be pushing it.
I forgot STOW(AWAY), so 15!
thezed @16 and cm8032 @22
I am not a knitter, but I think that the quibble over CAST OFF is misplaced: when you cast off, you may be finishing knitting, but not finished – and, for that matter, not necessarily finishing. You can cast off just a portion of a row, for example to make a buttonhole.
thezed@37; I would propose that “by” takes “son” giving “bys” and that is all inside “bait” – would that work? Anyway clues for me generally solve with the finesse of a cathedral bell crashing to the belfry floor and I give little further thought to the intricacies of clue structure. [ It was unintentional of me to quibble with you one to one – hope I haven’t dropped a clanger.]
1A DID some knitting would have been better. When you cast off you have finished.
Me @ 31: … or could the definition in 24d be “Away with this!” meaning STOW! (as an imperative), with the definition overlapping with the wordplay?
Alphalpha @42: yes, that’s how I understood 5a.
The theme was obvious enough for even me to see it, although it didn’t help me solve anything. I didn’t parse BOOM and ticked plenty most have which have been mentioned so I’ll add LEAGUE for its clever wordplay which had me convinced it ended GLE rather than starting LE (or LA). As usual the quibbles passed me by although I did a double take with the two TEETH and used the check button. Many thanks to Brummie and loonapick.
Alphalpha @42 – nothing taken personally…my quibble is as much for enlightenment about a clue as to pick holes. Your (and Lord Jim’s) suggestion is “by taking son” means “bys” and “in” means put that lot into “bait”? I can see that almost sort of maybe works a bit but I’m not a huge fan of the clue! Your reading makes some sense of it for me though, so thanks for that.
Agree that this was mostly straightforward, but it did take me a while to see BABYSIT and BOOM.
Thanks to Brummie and loonapick
While it is “gettable” from the crossers, how is 2D a crossword clue? Thanks to the blogger and the seyyer!
*Setter*
Thanks Brummie and loonapick
I was initially troubled by the conjunction of 5D and 11A, but then thought “two sets of intersecting teeth make a jaw”, so it’s now OK by me.
Like others, I couldn’t parse 6d. I sympathize with the complaint that BOOM and BLARE are not synonyms. The best justification I can give for the equivalence is from Cole Porter’s “Night and Day”:
In the roaring traffic’s boom,
In the silence of my lonely room,
I think of you
Night and day.
I always thought “boom” was a strange word to describe the sound of traffic.
I don’t think the indirectness is a problem. Homophone clues normally require the solver to fiind a synonym for a word in the clue, and then take a homophone of that. This clue has the same steps, but in reverse order, which doesn’t seem any more unfair to me. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen other homophone clues of this type, although I can’t point to an example immediately.
Sad to say, I once wore FLAREs!
I thought this easier than usual for Brummie but nonetheless enjoyable. An obvious theme but I didn’t see it;I did wonder if there might be a dental theme given the double TEETH which was a bit cheeky. Didn’t know KING FERN but the answer was obvious. SPACELAB was LOI.
Thanks Brummie.
Thank you, Iroquois@24, for the clarification. I had always taken the expression to be a pejorative rendering of “Chinese” English, as in this joke:
Waiter in Chinese restaurant: “You for coffee, sir?”
Customer: You fuckoffee yourself, you Chinese bastard”.
An entertaining crossword with a well incorporated theme that was not so pervasive as to spoil the overall experience. I liked the grid design with as many as 10 long, or fairly long, words (of 9, 10 or 11 letters) intersecting each other. I tried to get them all as starters, but four of them had to wait until I had more data.
I was surprised rather than bothered by the two sets of teeth gnashing together crosswise – I thought such repetition was discouraged by editors. Like Lord Jim, I wondered how STOW worked (where’s the definition?), and perhaps his own suggestion of STOW! as an imperative is the only way. OUTWEIGHED means “was of greater importance than”, so that one also gave me pause for thought.
Thanks to Brummie and Loonapick.
Thanks to Brummie and loonapick. I was OK with BOOM but thought 2d lacked a definition really.
Otherwise excellent.
New poster here. Trying to get into cryptic crosswords and so far, my best precheat is 44% (thanks guardian app for giving me the stats!!). However this one completely threw me, terrible effort. My current approach is to look for anagrams and obvious clues and then work from there. I find it so hard to spot the pointer words, but reading this blog every day after I’ve had a go is really helping. Any advice for the best way to learn to decrypt a cryptic, much valued!
I stand corrected over CAST OFF. My excuse is that I mostly knit socks so there’s usually only one cast-off to be done per item!
Valentine @34 Yup, I couldn’t dismiss BASSSETT from my mind for a long time, too
Cryptic_cretin@56: the best advice I think is to know that the definition is almost always the first word/group of words or the last word/group of words in a clue. (cf loonapick’s parsings today – apart from the contentious STOW (and SOFTLY?) the definitions are front and rear.) [Not a great moniker if I may make so bold – you may not live up to it for long!]
Many thanks to both. ABIDE WITH ME was written for sailors and sung at their funerals in Brixham originally, so it certainly is part of the theme. The rest – I enjoyed it.
I am surprised that this was generally considered an easier Brummie. I found it quite tough and had very few solutions after a run through of the across clues. Fared better on the downs and was almost able to finish, except for SOFTLY, which I cheated. I’m very unfamiliar with the phrase, but at least I now finally understand (45 years after the fact) the reason the TV show was so called (thanks, Marienkaefer!).
Amazingly, I failed to notice the nautical theme, but it wouldn’t have helped me.
I also struggled with BABYSIT and tried hard to use BASSET (a la Valentine). The “so able” part of 3 does seem to be excess baggage. Reversing the order of the clue would solve the problem – “They say to walk better through water was of greater importance (10)”
Good puzzle. Beat me. Thanks, Brum and loonapick.
I’m another who struggled to shoehorn BASSET into 5A, not helped by thoughts of BASSINET or even BASINET.