A welcome change to see Brummie on a Saturday.
I had to go all the way down to 22ac to get started, where an easy anagram gave a way in, followed quickly by 26ac, then a handful of down clues made encouraging inroads on the right hand side. The left hand side was looking rather bare, until 1ac provided some initial letters and I gradually worked my way round to the bottom left corner. I was bearing in mind that Brummie often has a theme and once names like WASHINGTON and LINCOLN began leaping out, this one would have been quite difficult not to spot. In all, I counted ten American presidents, 2dn being the only one I hadn’t heard of but the name seemed worth a google. All of them had a different meaning in the puzzle, which is quite a feat of cluing.
I enjoyed the solve, which I found sufficiently challenging and satisfying for a Prize puzzle. Many thanks to Brummie.
Definitions are underlined in the clues
Across
1 Jazz pianist lacking second sense (7)
HEARING
[s]HEARING – George, jazz pianist
5 State capital‘s toilet working (7)
JACKSON
JACKS [toilet] + ON [working] – yet another word for toilet, which I didn’t know before: here’s the story
9 It’s on target, but network device fails to start (5)
OUTER
[r]OUTER [network device] – the outer is the outermost ring on an archery target
10 Heavenly movement of songs mater composed (9)
AIRSTREAM
AIRS [songs] + an anagram [composed] of MATER
11 Transport provided by old flame out with Latin oddball (10)
EXULTATION
EX [old flame] + an anagram [oddball] of OUT and LATIN
12 Right after a blue cheesy stuff (4)
SKYR
R [right] after SKY [ a shade of blue] – an Icelandic cultured dairy product
14 Mark was a consumer backed by man, one with reservations (6,5)
TICKET AGENT
TICK [mark] + a reversal [backed] of ATE [was a consumer] + GENT [man]
18 Living nightmare of greeting the world around mid-morning! (4,2,5)
HELL ON EARTH
HELLO EARTH [greeting the world] round [mor]N[ing]
21 Cross appropriate to duke (4)
FORD
FOR [appropriate to] + D [duke]
22 Michael can shift — power-driven? (10)
MECHANICAL
An anagram [shift] of MICHAEL CAN
25 What made a clot hack a long cut with one? (9)
COAGULANT
An anagram [hack] of A LONG CUT and A [one]
26 Knock spots off front of trousers and rear (5)
TRUMP
T[rousers] + RUMP [rear]
27 Drastically reduced, as certain windows are after large insertion (7)
SLASHED
SASHED [as certain windows are] round L [large]
28 ‘City of Love’ backing onto Lancashire town? Not quite (7)
LINCOLN
A reversal [backing] of NIL [love] + COLN[e] [Lancashire town, not quite]
Down
1 House above the dam? (6)
HOOVER
HO [house] + OVER [above] – definition by example, hence the question mark
2 King Ben’s second after Paul’s music partner (6)
ARTHUR
HUR [Ben] after ART [Garfunkel – Paul Simon’s music partner]
3 Pain initiator overcome with resistance (10)
IRRITATION
An anagram [overcome] of INITIATOR + R [resistance]
4 Present relative temperature (5)
GRANT
GRAN [relative] + T [temperature]
5 Who talks twaddle like ‘gas in mock enclosure’ (9)
JARGONEER
ARGON [gas] in JEER [mock]
6 Attractive dock above the end of Cologne (4)
CUTE
CUT [dock] + [cologn]E
7 Spotted old Hollywood star in drag (8)
SPECKLED
[Gregory] PECK [old Hollywood star] in SLED [drag]
8 Having no problem with sums of money initially kept in a tureen that’s cracked (8)
NUMERATE
M[oney] in an anagram [that’s cracked] of A TUREEN
13 State of laundry? Not bad (10)
WASHINGTON
WASHING [laundry] + an anagram [bad] of NOT
15 Former county college grade with ‘plus’ added (9)
CLEVELAND
C[college] + LEVEL [grade] + AND [plus]
16 Truth of the matter? One isn’t party to bandit behaviour (3,5)
THE FACTS
TH[i]EF ACTS [bandit behaviour] minus i [one isn’t party to] – I spent too long playing around with THEFT and getting nowhere before the penny dropped
17 English opera in trouble again, having to hold back non-English part (8)
GLORIANA
An anagram [in trouble] of AGAIN round a reversal [having to hold back] of ROL[e] [part, minus e – English] – an opera composed by Benjamin Britten for the coronation of Elizabeth II: Gloriana was the name given by Spenser to Elizabeth I in his poem ‘The Faerie Queene’
19 Court’s disguised trapdoor (6)
SCRUTO
An anagram [disguised] of COURT’S – a new word for me
20 Tie fleece round cheek (4-2)
CLIP-ON
CON [fleece] round LIP [cheek]
23 Raffles off the lot almost? (5)
HOTEL
An anagram [off] of THE LO[t] – another definition by example, with a question mark
24 Uncultivated country‘s transport hub just opening (4)
BUSH
BUS [transport]+ H[ub]
Thanks to Brummie and Eileen. Several items were new to me (SKYR, SCRUTO, Colne for LINCOLN), but spotting the presidents early on made the solve smoother, especially with FORD and BUSH. I still took a long time to finish because I oped for travel agent (US) which dd not parse instead of TICKET AGENT (UK) so that CLEVELAND was my LOI.
When is a theme not a theme? When there are only 3 or 4 instances and there is a much more numerous contender. I say this because FORDs, LINCOLNs and AIRSTREAMs are all forms of MECHANICAL transportation. Wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t landed those first. As it is, the presidential theme made it more straightforward than some other prize puzzles.
Thanks Brummie and Eileen.
Eileen, you’ll be glad to know that Arthur is the statistically most forgotten president (well, tied with Franklin Pierce). When asked to name as many presidents as they could, only 7% remembered him.
thanks Eileen and Brummie. I couldn’t help but notice that for three of the across presidents there were somewhat appropriate words on the same line – Ford mechanical, slashed Lincoln (although he was shot not knifed) and coagulant ie clot Trump! An enjoyable solve.
My favourite was HELL ON EARTH.
New for me: SCRUTO, JACKS = toilet, SKYR.
I could not parse 16d (loi) or the Coln(e) part of LIN/COLN.
Thanks Brummie and Eileen.
And. . . I totally missed spotting the theme!
Thanks Eileen. I was slow to start too but once I got going most of it fell into place. Like michelle I hadn’t encountered SCRUTO, JACKS and SKYR before and also like her I completely missed the theme. Missed it last week too, I really must look more diligently. I tried hard to make TRAVEL AGENT fit too.
Curses. I had somewhat lazily put in JOHNSON at 5ac so I was never going to finish. If only I had got 6dn first!
Thanks Brummie and Eileen
I didn’t see the theme, of course. I had to check SCRUTO – apparently it’s a theatrical trapdoor.
LINCOLN was LOI – red-faced as COLNe is our nearest town!
Eileen, the article you link to explaining Jacks = toilet (5 ac) is surely wholly tongue-in-cheek, and full of implausibilities. It also doesn’t square with Wikipedia’s notes on the origin of Armitage Shanks. I don’t know whether or not the term is in fact used in Ireland, but this surely isn’t the explanation!
Also to say for a long time we had IRON for 21 ac: iron cross, and iron duke. And like others we didn’t spot the presidential theme.
Muffins, you amaze me. I had you down as a “softy southerner”. Must be an incomer. 😉
It must be Barrowford as you sound far too “posh” for anywhere else in that area.
I lived in Southfield for 20 years but the area has gone down the pan now so we moved years ago.
LINCOLN was a write in for me and to be honest I found this a little too easy for a prize as the theme smacked one in the face.
[Alex @10
Yes, an incumbden – only been here 38 years!]
I found this a bit of a grind to work through. No real complaints, but I only had one tick, for 14ac.
A couple of strange anagram indicators? ‘Oddball’ in 11ac and ‘overcome’ in 3dn.
Also I often buy skyr, where it is described on the label as a milk product and doesn’t taste cheesy at all. But I do accept that internet sources say it can be described as a soft cheese product.
Thanks to Brummie and Eileen.
richardonyabe @9 – I did say, ‘Here’s the story’.
I spent ages looking at 5d J-R-O-E-R, my LOI. I even had the JEER part! None so blind as (s)he who cannot see. I thought maybe there was a link between JARGONEER and 26a TRUMP (with apologies to our Yankee friends).
I also went up the blind alley of TRAVEL AGENT instead of TICKET AGENT for 14a, acd@1. Echoing some other posts, I had a few biffs – 12a SKYR, 28a LINCOLN and 16d THE FACTS, so I had to come here to have it all explained. 19d SCRUTO was also new to me, Eileen et. al.
It was a tough but fair puzzle with a lot to like, particularly the theme. My favourites were 18a HELL ON EARTH (like michelle@5 – we are often uncannily in synch – and so too for some of the unfamiliars I shared with michelle and Biggles A@6), 2d ARTHUR and 7d SPECKLED. BTW, I actually couldn’t recall Arthur as a POTUS, so you are spot on with your comment, Iroquois@3.
You are truly a legend, muffin! Such fidelity to the cause. You have helped so many relative newcomers like me a lot with your ongoing contributions.
Thanks to muffin and the other contributors for interesting additions to the blog. Those “hidden things” like mechanical transportation methods mentioned by Dr. Whatson@2 and the “things that went together” by ngaiolaurenson@4 added to the enjoyment.
Particular thanks to our ever-reliable and clever Eileen for the deconstruction, and of course the inventive Brummie for the challenge.
Thank you Eileen and Brummie.
Somewhat to my surprise I got this done more or less in one sitting and managed to spot the theme before finishing. LoI was Lincoln, but only because I wanted to be sure of the parsing and had to check out there was a Lancashire town named COLN_ which indeed there was!
richardonyabe@9 THe WaterfordWhispers site is a well-known (at least to Irish people) satirical website a bit like The Onion.
However, Jacks is a very widely used term for toilet in Ireland. I think it is a corruption/left over from Jakes which you will in The Bard (I’m pretty sure).
I did like SCRUTO and SKYR. here is a co-incidence: on checking in Chambers the existence of SKYR as a word (I had heard of it but thought it was a brand name), the next entry was for SKYRMION. My engineering journal arrives later in the week with an article about some neuromorphic computing; a new computing paradigm which is based n the properties of SKYRMIONS. What are the odds on finding this completely obscure word in one week and then finding it in context later in the same week.
Dr Whatson @2 — thanks for pointing out the further hidden mini-theme. I had at first thought Lincoln, Jackson were state capitals, and then got excited about Cleveland, which I think is the largest city, but not the capital of Ohio.
Thanks to Brummie and Eileen. Great fun and overall a very enjoyable solve. I am another who got held up trying to shoehorn travel agent in until Cleveland put pay to that. The SW was the last to fall with Gloriana and the facts last ones. The theme jumped out and for me I particularly liked hell on earth. Thanks again to Brummie and Eileen.
Had anybody without norwegian connections heard of skyr?
Howard March @17
Sainsbury’s sells it. I’ve tried it – OK, but didn’t feel like buying it again.
To Howard March @ 17
Is it not Icelandic? I often buy it here in Finland. It’s very popular. I was surprised to see the clue refer to it as cheesy, though.
As far as the theme goes, I has a real “how on earth did I miss that?” moment right at the very end, as I had everything in bar 28a and was trying to convince myself that L_N_O_N must be LINCOLN had suddenly realised how many of the other answers were also American Presidents. Had I realsied that earlier, I’d have had less trouble with FORD, which I first thought was FIST (‘put your dukes up’, with a cross being a punch) and then decided must be FORD, but I was thinking it was a reference to John Ford and the movies with John Wayne (the Duke). In retrospect, a neatly hidden theme, Brummie, and thanks for explaining what ‘duke’ was really there for, Eileen.
I came here last night and saw Eileen’s introduction and realised we hadn’t finished it last weekend. I looked at it again this morning and it all fell into place apart from GLORIANA which I didn’t know and couldn’t get from the clue. I hadn’t spotted the theme and Eileen’s mention of it in the intro did help so it is definitely a dnf. I’m in the SCRUTO as a new word club – is there anyone who did know it? MrsW came up with the bard and JAKES and I had heard of SKYR. Epeesharkey@19 – one way of looking at it is that coincidences happen all the time – and they only become coincidences when we notice them! Thanks to Brummie for a puzzle that spanned two weekends and to Eileen for the blog, and especially the parsing of THE FACTS which I didn’t see and is my favourite clue.
On looking over the blog again, I’m not sure I agree with the explanation of 1d. HOOVER is an example of dam, so it is not definition by example at all. But then, why the ?? Confused. Haven’t had my morning coffee.
Howard March @17
I remembered seeing the advertising campaign for skyr on UK television featuring an Icelandic judge.
Completely missed the theme, as usual, and took until Friday morning to finish. It was the SW corner which held out longest, partly because I, like richardonyabe@9 had tentatively entered IRON at 21a (Iron Duke, Iron Cross) and partly because I’d not heard of or didn’t remember GLORIANA. Solving that showed me IRON was wrong and I was able to stop wondering why THE INCAS might arise from the wordplay in 16d.
I didn’t know George Shearing and, strangely, he doesn’t figure in the long list resulting from Goggling ‘jazz pianists’, but the wordplay penny finally dropped and I was able to confirm the name. I had heard of SKYR, originally from another crossword, but I’ve since noticed it on the supermarket shelves and wondered whether it was worth trying. Hadn’t heard of SCRUTO before, but good word to learn. I had it earmarked as an anagram of courts from first sight, but only got it much later.
Could the QM in 1d be because of the word ‘the’? I wonder why the clue wasn’t just ‘House above dam’?
Favourite clues were 7d, SPECKLED; 13d, WASHINGTON and 20d CLIP-ON.
Thanks for pointing out what should have been an obvious theme, Eileen, and the link to the wonderful piece of Irish story-telling, which co-incidentally reminded me of one of the best bits of toilet graffiti ever: “WHO IS ARMITAGE AND WHAT IS SHANKING?”.
I have just got back from the supermarket and purchased a pot of skyr. I see it is now calling itself ‘Ísey skyr’. (That’s Isey with an acute accent on it, if it doesn’t show on the page). I guess that must mean ‘Ice island’
Anyway, my pot insists it’s an original Icelandic recipe, though I see it was produced in Denmark. I paid 1,29 euro for the 170g pot and it contains 95 kcal.
[Tony @24
I had heard of George Shearing from Leslie Nielsen\’s golf book (very funny). When asked about his perfect three golfers to make up a fourball, he diverged from the obvious Ballesteros/Nicklaus/Palmer/Player etc and chose Shearing, Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles. (You might be able to work out why!)]
Dr. WhatsOn @22 – you’re absolutely right, of course: I was carelessly misled by the question mark when it came to writing the blog. I think I got it the right way round in 23dn. 😉
Tony @24 You may have missed the theme but I’m glad you saw the joke about the ‘story’ – and many thanks for the graffito: we don’t get such good ones in the Ladies’. 😉
I missed being beguiled by IRON for 21ac on my first quick run-through [as I said, 22ac was my first one in and by the time I got back to it I was into presidents and had the R from GLORIANA] – but now I see it’s a pretty plausible answer.
Theme? What theme? Solved without spotting it! Held up for ages by having biffed Travel Agent and Angstroms for 10a, but then got Jargoneer after which it all fell into place. Did not know Skyr but what else could it be? Vaguely remembered Gloriana, an obscure piece if you don’t know Britten. Must comment on the number of recent clues referring to the great thatched duck. Doesn’t anybody like him? If he could even understand a cryptic I’m sure he wouldn’t appreciate the dry humour. Many thanks to setter for an enjoyable puzzle and bloggers for enlightenment. Jacks your uncle!
I managed to spot the theme for once, and it certainly helped with FORD and ARTHUR. Luckily, I avoided the JOHNSON trap because I already had CUTE. I like the trap though, since both JACKSON and JOHNSON fit the wordplay and theme.
Quite a few TILTS for me: JACKS for toilet (thanks to commenters for the discussion), SKYR, George SHEARING, SCRUTO and GLORIANA.
The only clue that bothers me a bit is COAGULANT. I can’t see “with” as a containment indicator, so this seems to be an indirect anagram, albeit an easy enough one to solve. I’d be happier with “without” in the clue.
Thanks, Brum and Eileen
Hi Phitonelly – your experience with JACKSON / JOHNSON matched mine, until light dawned.
I’m struggling a bit to see your problem with COAGULANT: I don’t see ‘with’ as a containment indicator – it’s just a straightforward anagram of A LONG CUT + [with] A.
Hi Eileen,
My problem is that “one” has to be converted to “a” first, then used with the rest of the fodder – “a long cut” – to get the answer, which makes it an indirect anagram, which I thought was a no-no.
Phitonelly, ‘your’ A is not part of the anagram.
It is exactly as Eileen says in the blog (A LONG CUT)* + A (one).
It might (perhaps) have been different if you see the parsing as (A LONG CUT + A)*.
Oops, it’s not …
It was indeed (A LONG CUT + A (one))*.
So, I see your problem but there are anagrams that are not really seen as indirect as long as the building stone(s) involved are pretty clear or unambiguous.
But yes, ‘one’ could have been A or I.
A setter like Klingsor (Indy) / Alberich (FT) uses what you see as indirect anagrams all the time.
[and he is a rather strict Ximenean]
So, forget about what I said @ 32.
I see your point but – perhaps unfortunately – ‘indirect anagrams’ are not as black & white as we thought they would (or should) be.
Hi Sil,
Thanks for the comment. The building stones are very clear here, as you say, and the clue wasn’t hard to solve. Additionally, the surface works well as it’s written, so I’ve no real complaint. I just don’t remember seeing an indirect anagram before (I’m not familiar with Alberich’s work, sadly, as I stick almost exclusively to the Guardian), so it rather stuck out to me in this puzzle. No biggie.
@phitonelli, quite often anagram components can be, eg, abbreviations of words in the fodder (although there are those who insist the required letters are actually in the words to be abbreviated — as, say, PO for Post Office, but not ETC for ‘and so on’).
Generally, if the required transformation is fairly unambiguous, as A for ‘one’, it will be considered fair.
Interestingly, the clue in question wouldn’t be acceptable for The Times, as they don’t allow ‘one’ to code for A.
Btw, Alberich not only sets many fine puzzles, but also has an excellent website where he sets out his guidelines for cluing:
http://www.alberichcrosswords.com/pages/id51.html
*phitonelly* – apologies
I was quite pleased with myself for finding the word HITE (loi), meaning attractive, in an urban slang dictionary to fit in with JOHNSON (foi), which, at the time, was obviously correct! Little did I realise…
Thanks Brummie and Eileen.
I thoroughly enjoyed this, so many thanks to Brummie. I was impaled for a time on all the suspects mentioned here so as ever kisses and thanks to Eileen for showing the way, but not making us feel too dense. Oh and for the theme which as always I missed.
Roberto, the problem is far too many people like the thatched one and others of his prejudiced ilk around the globe! I fear we are in for another dose of the same when next the USA come to vote. Trump and Johnson a pair to be reckoned with. Despair!!
Just for phitonelly: here’s another example.
From Radian’s puzzle, some weeks ago, in the Independent
Radian = Crucible (= Redshank) (and more)):
Ancient silver load plundered (3-3).
An anagram [plundered] of AG + LOAD.
Sil @39
Sorry but your example is not correct and I don’t want phitonelly to become confused. The clue was: “Ancient silver lode plundered (3-3)”.
The solution was AGE-OLD with the parsing being AG (silver) followed by an anagram (plundered) of LODE.
Oops, again, Gaufrid, you’re absolutely right!
And, phitonelly, for the second time in a few days: just ignore what I said.
Thanks to Eileen and Brummie
I was a little disappointed with this. Not terrible by any means, but from a setter of this quality I had hoped for a little more.
@25a for example – I wasn’t particularly bothered by the indirect element of the anagram although I don’t like really like that sort of thing, (it could only be ONE,A, or I), but why MADE A instead of MAKES A? I also can’t work out what the surface is alluding to. Is it golf, snooker, or am I missing something?
All in all just a little flat from a prolific setter, but just a blip I’m sure, so I can see no actual good ground for stemming the flow.
Sil @ 41
I’ve no wish to add to your woes, but I was surprised to read that ALBERICH/KLINGSOR routinely uses indirect anagrams so I have just looked at the last 5 in each of his guises. In one he uses O as an abbreviation for OLD, but I can find no other indirect anagrist.
@Sil (@Phitonelly)
Yes, and that clue enters the middle ground between substitutions like Alberich’s O for ‘old’ (where the letter sought is ‘on the page’) and the obvious evil of full-on indirect anagrams where the substitution is one of any number of synonyms of unspecified length.
There’s a very direct one-to-one correspondence between ‘silver’ and its chemical symbol AG. One will find plenty of such substitutions in anagram fodder in the Guardian, and should be prepared for them but some (such as our mutual friend Dutch, of the Independent for one) don’t hold with them, only being prepared to allow abbreviations headed by (or perhaps just containing) the fodder letters.
In his explanation of Ximenean cluing, as mentioned above, Alberich, while condemning the grosser variety of indirect anagram, doesn’t mention substitutions like this (although he may elsewhere on his site) and I’m not sure whether he would be keen to use, eg, silver=Ag, but perhaps he would if it made possible an excellent surface, which is where many setters are prepared to bend the rules they go by, if only a little.
@Dansar, I agree the surface for COAGULANT is hard to understand without context, and the past tense in the definition decidedly odd (but perhaps helpful to a surface meaning we can’t guess at?).
Dansar, Tony, phitonelly and others.
In FT 16,080 Alberich used O = ‘old’ as part of an anagram, and in FT 16,105 he had T = ‘time’ used in a similar way.
But he regularly uses anagrams in which one (or more) letters have to be selected first as part of the fodder.
Recent examples of these are:
Person ultimately being bum? (7) – (PERSON [bein]G)* – FT 16,061
Tail of golden retriever wags – that’s cheeky (10) -([golde]N RETRIEVER)* – FT 16,108
Name Peter Ustinov’s first novel (6) – (PETER U[stinov])* – FT 16,168
To be very clear, I have no issues whatsoever with these things but I tend to place them in the same kind of category as ‘indirect anagrams’ (because you’ll have to do something to complete the fodder).
There we may differ, though.
@Sil, Tony, Dansar, (and anyone else interested)
Although I haven’t checked all the examples cited, in the ones explicitly written here, the anagram fodder in unambiguously indicated, even if there is some work to do to get it (e.g. “ultimately being” gives “g” and only “g”). The point being that we’re not required to guess a synonym. What bothers me with 25 here is that “one” can be “i”, “a”, or even “an” (others?), so there’s some guesswork, albeit with a very limited set of choices. That seems to be genuinely indirect to me and this bothers me slightly because it’s a slippery slope. When will we see a clue with “gold” needing to be converted to “or”, say, and used as part of fodder (i.e. so that the O and R can end up anywhere)?
The AGE-OLD clue is a good example of one that looks like a whole anagram, but turns out to be a synonym + a smaller anagram (thanks, Gaufrid for the clarification), so perfectly fair. That’s what I alluded to in my original post when I mentioned the containment indicator. If you can accept “with” as indicating “inside”, then I have no problem at all with 25. But I personally can’t quite get there.
PS Enjoyed the discussion immensely!
@Phitonelly (Sil, Dansar)
Good point about the ‘silver’ clue, but I don’t think I would object even if the Ag were actually part of the anagram. Nor would I necessarily think it unfair to transform ‘gold’ to OR or AU, given that’s a limited choice of two. Using ‘precious metal’ there would, however, be a step too far.
If there is a limited range of (preferably short) possibilities, it’s not an insurmountable task to get to the fodder, unless you have mentally discounted such possibilities.
I once set this clue, which attracted criticism as an indirect anagram:
Seeing the Queen, perhaps makes efforts (8)
(SEEING + ER)*
We are so used to transforming “the Queen” to ER that I don’t think it’s really a problem. Nor would it have been if HM were the required fodder.
I asked a couple of people about this clue. Dutch was one of them and he found it unacceptable, since the fodder is not ‘on the page’. The other was a crossword editor for a national. His answer was a bit more nuanced, but he said he might allow it if the surface it produced was good enough to warrant it (without saying whether it was in this particular case).
Of course you are right that it could be a slippery slope. One might be tempted one day to use ‘colour of the rainbow’ on the basis that there are only seven possibilities, then later, perhaps ‘planet’ because (pace astronomers) only nine.
Just for the record, since there was speculation about what the attitude of Alberich (aka Klingsor) to these matters might be (as a well-known Ximenean and not, as he is at pains to point out, as an authority of some kind), I wrote to ask him. He replied:
[…] it’s quite common for directly indicated abbreviations to be included in anagrams [in The Times Crossword], along with the first/last letters and, recently, an “emptied” word (first and last letter). I think that’s fine, but I’m not keen on anagrams that contain indirectly indicated abbreviations such as “compass point” rather than “north” for N. It helps if the abbreviation in question is the first letter of the word that indicates it (OLD/O) though there are acceptable exceptions like ONE /I or perhaps TUNGSTEN/W. I don’t like two-or-more-letter abbreviation used as anagram fodder at all, though I’m sure one can find examples of where I’ve done it in the past! The example you quote, Ag for silver, is probably OK as it’s unambiguous but I still wouldn’t do it, and as for something like”about” (A, C, CA, ON, RE etc.) the less said the better.
It is sometimes necessary to include a multiple-letter abbreviation in an anagram to achieve a good surface, but the letters should stay together and be indicated as an inclusion rather than part of the anagram.