Guardian 28,245 – Brummie

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I learned a couple of new words today, though both were gettable/guessable from their anagrams and some crossing letters. I started off quickly with this one but struggled a bit towards the end.

I would expect a theme from this setter but I can’t see anything, unless it’s cakes, with DUNDEE and ROCK. I await enlightenment… Thanks to Brummie

See comment 2 for a hint to the theme…

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. PEDESIS Random motion of particles when speed is altered (7)
(SPEED IS)* – I didn’t know this alternative name for Brownian motion
5. HANGING Punishment not supported, basically (7)
Double definition – I’m not sure why “basically” is there, unless it’s that something hanging is not supported at its base
9. CONTE Short story about not switching energy (5)
C (circa, about) + NOT* + E
10. INPUT DATA Computer entry a pundit corrected (time advanced) (5,4)
(A PUNDIT)* + T[ime] + A[dvanced]
11. IN EXTREMIS One, following destruction of Reims, is close to death (2,8)
I NEXT (following) + REIMS*
12. DEAD Extremely insensitive (4)
Double definition – for the first, dead = very = extremely
14. CRACK OF DAWN Very early form of cocaine belonging to French? (5,2,4)
CRACK (form of cocaine) + OF DAWN (belonging to comedian D. French)
18. TRADE SECRET Street cred possibly involves a hush-hush manufacturing advantage (5,6)
A in (STREET CRED)*
21. CALM Still, a reticent person needs a change of heart (4)
CLAM (reticent person) with the middle letters reversed
22. SPOONERISM Reverend’s mistake: lovey-dovey type is married (10)
SPOONER (one who spoons) + IS + M
25. CROCODILE Old Cicero’s untidy file (9)
(OLD CICERO)* – as in a file of walking children
26. UMBRA Say backing away from offence is a shadowy area (5)
UMBRAGE (offence) less reverse of E.G. (say)
27. RAMEKIN ‘Brummie King’ breaks shower dish (7)
ME (the setter, Brummie) + K in RAIN
28. DEFENCE Plea from French criminal (7)
DE (French of, from) + FENCE (criminal)
Down
1. PICNIC Excursion — choose to cut both ends off (6)
PIC[k] (choose) + NIC[k] (cut)
2. DUNDEE Rough end absorbed by outstanding city (6)
END* in DUE (outstanding, as in a debt)
3. SPECTACLES A better means of seeing the sights (10)
Double definition
4. SHINE Do exceptionally well in cutting a Victorian adventure novel (5)
IN in SHE (novel by H Rider Haggard)
5. HOP-PICKER Seasonal worker‘s dance, a groundbreaker, about to get backing (3-6)
HOP (dance) + PICK (“groundbreaker”) + reverse of RE (about)
6. NUTS Shock over bananas (4)
Reverse of STUN – I’ve seen variations of this a few times…
7. I DARE SAY A Yardie’s ground, supposedly (1,4,3)
(A YARDIE’S)*
8. GUARDING Shielding us, having disposed of a large sum of cash (8)
GUARDIAN (us) less the second A + G (a grand – £1000)
13. OFF THE CUFF Dicky, given article and box, improvised (3,3,4)
OFF (dicky – in poor condition) + THE (article) + CUFF (to box)
15. ADEMPTION Revocation of a legacy, one associated with Piedmont organisation (9)
A + PIEDMONT* – another new word for me, from “adeem”, which Chambers defines as “to cancel (a bequest) by destruction or sale of the thing bequeathed”
16. STOCK CAR Racer shares coach (5,3)
STOCK (shares in a company) + CAR (coach, e.g. of a train)
17. MAILROOM Here are the ins and outs of a large office (8)
Cryptic definition
19. GIBBON Historian, a big swinger (6)
Double definition – Edward Gibbon of the The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
20. IMPALE Run through one’s barrier (6)
I’M (one is) + PALE (fence, barrier)
23. ON END One and minus one, continuously (2,3)
ONE + AND less A (one)
24. ROCK Diamond tip (4)
Double definition, with tip=rock as verbs

60 comments on “Guardian 28,245 – Brummie”

  1. Thanks Brummie and Andrew

    Same two new words for me – I was a science teacher for 40 years or so, so PEDESIS must not be in common use if I never came across it.

    I liked SPOONERISM – not one, for a change – and CROCODILE.

    NUTS irritated me as it could be entered either way round and I guessed wrong at first. ON END is a but loose for “continuously”.

  4. Same couple of new words for me as our blogger: I recalled Brownian motion from O Level Physics back in the late 70’s but PEDESIS was a dnk though the anagram fodder was clear.  I think you’re right on the inclusion of ‘basically’ for HANGING.  After all, you’re definitely supported at the other end, just fatally!

    Nothing stood out as particularly problematic – or particularly spectacular – today.  A good solid puzzle.  CRACK OF DAWN made me smile and I briefly wondered what Paul might have done with it and then decided to pursue that no further. GIBBON took longer to drop than it should and I enjoyed seeing Spooner in a different context for once.  I’m surprised to see NUTS/STUN appear as often as it does and just how many good setters end up using the reversal as the clue.  LOI was ROCK where I stared for some time at -O-K thinking what a heckuva lot of a combinations would fit.  Fortunately I started through the OCK’s first.

    One of my earliest recollections of total terror was watching the 1965 film, SHE, starring Ursula Andress when I was still very young.  The denouement which involved tribesmen being hurled into a pit of flame and She suddenly ageing and decaying was a bit much for the youngster I then was and gave me nightmares for ages.

    Thanks Brummie and Andrew for the blog

  5. Same two gettable unknowns as Andrew, the NW being last in, not helped by taking ages to give Dundee its due despite the due/owed/owing/outstanding cluster being standard fare. Otherwise pretty gentle from the sometimes gnarly Brummie, though needed most crossers to see spectacles, d’oh, and was slow to take the ge off umbrage. Liked the big swinger, and ‘one and minus one’ was pretty cute. Enjoyed it, thanks both.

  6. muffin @1: we crossed and had a couple of observations in common.

    quenbarrow @2: well spotted.  Totally escaped me.  Not a genre I’ll pretend to know well so I’ll look forward to seeing how many are identified by other posters, beyond the obvious (now quenbarrow’s pointed it out) two.

  7. Thanks quenbarrow, one thick theme-blind Aussie here, and that particular Picnic was actually being mentioned on an arts programme while I was solving…theme-deaf too!!

  14. I tried a few answers out on Google together with “Australian film”.  GIBBON resulted in the query “Did you mean Mel GIBSON?”  The inclusion of a theme, even if brief as this seems to be, pushes it up in my estimation though I still note an absence of tea tray moments, wonder, incredulity, admiration on this occasion.

  15. Ah, and there was me seeing 25ac and 24d on the lookout for Elton John songs. Completely blinded me to anything else.

  16. Saw Helfgott play, early ’60s, at His Maj in Perth (I was in the pit scraping away up the back of the second fiddles). Rush was great as him in Shine.

  17. Did anyone else think “grandstand” for 3dn?  A good place for a better to see…  Of course “spectacles” is far superior and I soon sw why grandstand could not work.  Really good crossie.  Did not see all the films – only 2 of them.  I do think nuts/stun is a chestnut (pun intended).  Many thanks to Brummie and Andrew.

  18. [Sympathies for early movie traumas, Mark @4; child minders were scarce in the ’50s and I went to a few with the folks, eg I Am a Camera, I’ll Cry Tomorrow and Cast a Dark Shadow. Scary.]

    On a lighter note, yes, that particular rendition of early morning crossed my mind too 🙂

  20. Cobro pointed out Crocodile Dundee as possibly being related to a theme but I forgot to look for more.

    Favourites were SPOONERISM and I DARE SAY.

    Thanks Brummie and Andrew.

  21. Mark @ 4 I think Paul would probably have used UP AT THE CRACK OF DAWN

     

    Thanks Andrew and Brummie –  forgot to look for a theme

  23. Why can I never, ever spot a theme? Good puzzle – most went in steadily but I found the south east corner to be a bit tricky. Don’t like ON END (NO END, surely?).

    VSD Prasad @19. I agree. I suspect the position of the underlining is a typo.

    Nice start to a lovely sunny day. Thanks Brummie and Andrew.

  24. Some of the films were very good. Dead Calm was maybe N Kidman’s first biggie. And I liked her in Moulin Rouge (sorry that wasnt in here)

    But STRICTLY was missing from BALLROOM .

    It was when I saw the cunning DUNDEE that it all fell into place.

    Thanks Andrew and Brummiep-great fun and I loved CRACK OF DAWN

  27. Many thanks Andrew,

    I thought of Indian file , but having got Crocodile I thought it must be ‘file’ papers using Crocodile clips.

    tip=rock never occurred to me, I think you did well there, too.

    CE on Conte – used “about” for NOT/ont in the middle – so completely missed the C for circa!

    On end – I absolutely hate the use of “a” from “and” , but I missed the use of the second “one” as the hint.  Brummie is so clever! And you!  I was obsessed with zero but got the solution from ‘continuously”.

    Shine – was looking for a V in the answer – but gave up on the Victorian period – during her reign how many books were written? Expecting us to get SHE was a bit off, I feel.  I guess a reference to Rider Haggard would have been too easy, and it was not a difficult answer to find anyway.

     

    I’ll stop there, you helped me understand a few more – many thanks.

     

     

     

  28. With just the E crosser, I spent ages trying to justify THEBES as the answer to 2D (THE BEST = outstanding, with its end “absorbed”). But once I twigged the other crossers it was a piece of cake (with 6 on!).

  29. Thanks Brummie and Andrew.

    I’m with Mark in not finding anything exceptionable or exceptional. I did like SPOONERISM, though, for not being one.

    muffin @1 – I see nothing loose about 23dn:: we’ve been in local lockdown for twelve weeks ON END!

  30. Another Aussie who missed the theme. Nor did I know that Dead Calm is Aussie (never seen it), though I identified the other three once I got the hint @2 – I have seen all of those. Wish I had seen the theme, though, as it would have helped with LOI DUNDEE – not knowing ‘conte’ (SLOI) didn’t help either. Nice to see a SPOONERISM that wasn’t. Another ex science teacher who thought ‘Brownian motion won’t fit ‘ at 1a – and has never heard the word it turned out to be. I did struggle a bit with this, and missed parsing a number, so thanks for the help there, Andrew, and to Brummie for the crossie.

  33. Thanks for the explanations Andrew, quite a few new words for me too but agree that those were clued clearly so there wasn’t as much blind guesswork as there sometimes can be.

    I liked ON END, I had to stretch a bit for the definition but think maybe in terms of dominoes laid end-to-end/on end (or women at Harvard as per D Parker?) and i think it is acceptable. I did think MAILROOM was a bit loose but maybe that’s a generational thing (I have thought this before with Brummie/Cyclops) as our office no longer has one, but had no problem with SHE as I went through a phase of enjoying these slightly gruesome adventure films after first seeing Raiders OTLA.

    No idea of theme of course but it’s especially hard when the special solutions are not just single words – but could add 27A where the definition recalls a great film called THE DISH about the moon landing being monitored from some outback listening station. Disappointed not to see Mad Max and Bad Boy Bubby in there somewhere though!

    Thanks Brummie for an enjoyable challenge, my favourite was Crocodile.

  34. Very enjoyable with lots to admire.

    1A I should have known and 9(LOI),15 were new but gettable with crossers to help.  It’s a change to see SPOONER appear in person.

    I didn’t spot the theme (mini-theme?) which wouldn’t have helped anyway.

    17 was below par and didn’t match the standard of the rest of the clues.

    Thanks Brummie and Andrew

  35. gif @32: thanks.  I had absolutely no idea I could riff! 😀

    [On the subject of monikers and pseudonyms on here, I’ve noticed a couple of absentees of late.  As well as Anna, who departed, returned and, sadly, seems to have departed again, I haven’t seen posts by il principe dell’oscurità or SPanza for some time.  I hope the absence is temporary and would welcome your return.  Without you we are collectively lighter in terms of both the Sardinian perspective and insight into the distillation of rare and essential oils, if I remember correctly.  And, crosswords being what they are, at some point in the future knowledge of one or the other will be key to understanding an obscure clue.]

  36. Oh that was a lot of fun.  Started very quickly and then slowed considerably and a few DNKs – PEDESIS for one but was actually my FOI because it was so well clued.

    Brain might have been in better gear having watched Only Connect last night and scored 2 but I just think this was a lovely and well-constructed puzzle.

    Thank you Brummie and Andrew

  37. I missed the theme, but CRACK OF DAWN is apparently a French short film … [another useless fact]. I did like that clue. STOCK CAR is also a British film of the 1950s.

    When I found ‘Brownian’ did not fit into 1A, I was a bit stuck like others. There are at least 8 entries for Aussie films, so more than a ‘mini’ theme, I think.

    I enjoyed this; thanks Brummie and Andrew.

  39. I usually think Spoonerisms are, to pervert a well-known expression, the last refuge of someone out of ideas.  Today’s SPOONERISM was a refreshing change.

    Isn’t 20d IMPALE using the same meaning of “pale” twice?  “Pierced by a post one’s post”?

    6d NUTS wasn’t a problem to figure out the wordplay so much as as whether the answer was NUTS or STUN.  So it behaved like Schrodinger’s cat until I had a crosser.

  40. Like Mark @4 and Eileen @29, I found this solidly clued but with little to admire. It’s often my reaction to Brummie. I did like ON END and UMBRA. Thanks to Brummie and to Andrew for explaining CALM (so obvious in hindsight!).

  41. Dr WhatsOn @39: if you back to the Latin palus, I think you’re right.  Meaning post, with which one can impale.  I took barrier to mean boundary or limit as in the phrase beyond the pale.  Whilst that second pale certainly originated in a fence made of pales (or possibly a ditch), it developed a new level of meaning which, for me, meant we have two different pales.

  43. This was going well until I got stuck in the NW – good to know I’m not alone. Had to resort to an anagram cruncher to get PEDESIS, and if muffin @1 didn’t know the word, who else did? Mind you, only myself to blame for not seeing the obvious SPECTACLES until later, but that’s dds for you. And had I seen the theme, HANGING + ROCK would have led to PICNIC without a thought. I’ve seen all the films, so there’s really no excuse.

  44. michelle @9 – It’s not a proper Aussie film themed puzzle without a reference to the Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.   Or maybe 24d is part of that?  Hmmmm….

  45. An interesting mixture of write-ins and wild, semi-parsed guesses. With the latter, the theme helped: HANGING and ROCK being two of the write-ins, I figured a PICNIC was more than likely – and although there are a number of 6-lettered cities with N as the third letter (London, Venice, Geneva, Denver, Manila, Bangor….) when DUNDEE occurred to me, I looked around for somewhere to bung a crocodile.
    Thanks to Andrew for the assistance with all the semi-parsings, thanks to Brummie for the fun.

  46. We did wonder if there was a sort of meta thing going on, where some very well known ‘crossword ropes’ appeared in the clues but were not used as you might expect them to be.

    “Reverend’s” as part of def not a cryptic spooner-indicator

    ‘say’ as (indirect) fodder in 26a not as cryptic ‘for instance/maybe’

    ‘criminal’ in 28a as object in wordplay not as cryptic anagrind

    ‘bananas’ as def in 6d not as cryptic anagrind

    ‘dicky’ in 13d as part of the ocnstruction, not an anagrind

    ‘run’ as part of def in 20d not cryptic indicator for ‘R’

    … just us, then?

     

     

  47. Enjoyed this, couldn’t finish the NW or SW last night.  Thanks to Brummie and Andrew.

    Once quenbarrow pointed out CROCODILE DUNDEE and I found HANGING ROCK (missed the picnic) I thought the theme might be outdoor experience in Australia.  Did you know that the CRACK OF DAWN is a famous climbing site?

    “Dead” as”extremely” reminds me of my favorite line from “Educating Rita”, where the arrogant professor’s naive trainee says about a woman she’s developed a crush on, “Everything about her is dead unpretentious.”

    Eileen @29 — I liked your neat “exceptional or exceptionable.”

  48. Just wanted to say that I actually knew the word ADEMPTION. In a prior edition of my career I taught law, you see. But PEDESIS was new to me.

    As with others, my last two in were CONTE and DUNDEE. Of course I didn’t see the theme, and wouldn’t have even if I’d remembered to look. Thanks to all for filling me in.

  49. JVector @46: Interesting! May I add “Shielding” in 8d. I was trying for a while to find a word with US in it till the penny dropped.

  50. Initially I found this hard, and wasn’t so keen on what looked like endless anagrams. But it grew on me, and I very much liked CROCODILE and RAMEKIN. Missed the theme, of course. Many thanks to B &A.

  51. jvector @46: that’s a very interesting observation.  I like it.  Adriana @49 has added “shielding” and I could also contribute “Random”.  Having immediately thought Brownian like everybody else, my next thought was whether that was a distraction and there was an anagram of ‘motion’ going on.  Quickly dismissed but it’s another crossword indicator.  That said, I think it was, perhaps, evidence that this puzzle didn’t completely sparkle that none of the other ‘ropes’ (never heard that before) did mislead, even for a moment.

  52. Despite failing with CONTE and GIBBON I really enjoyed this crossword with UMBRA, RAMEKIN, DUNDEE, and STOCK CAR as particular favourites. I’ve become a big fan of Brummie’s style. Thanks to both.

  53. Mark@51: agreed, ‘random’ could be in that bag too. “Crossword ropes” was meant to be “crossword tropes” ! Shame one can’t edit a post after submission…

     

  54. jvector @53: that’s funny.  Thank Goodness I inserted the parenthesis rather than just took it as a given.  Mind you, it would fit with ‘knowing the ropes’ rather nicely.  😀 And, yes, the number of times I could have done with a post-submission edit…

  55. Not allowing edits – at least you can start reading where you left off, knowing you have not missed something before?

  56. Thanks both,
    This was quite difficult. I put in ‘no end’ for 23d and ‘spencerism’ for 22a as a philosophy that might be regarded as a clerical error and a vaguely remembered sit com character who might have been called lovey-dovey at a stretch.

  57. I don’t have a problem with ‘on end’ for ‘continuously’ – c.f. ‘talk for hours on end’. Plea = defence though did niggle slightly. I was thinking of e.g. ‘pleading’ insanity, but that feels more like mitigation after admitting the offence rather than a defence. Though I suppose you can plead provocation in order to get acquitted, so on balance I suppose it’s OK.

  58. [Thank to everyone who highlighted the Aussie films theme – especially quenbarrow for spotting it so early! Sadly, I didn’t get to the Brummie until today, and actually did it after today’s Boatman. So I am very late to post. But I was delighted with what I uncovered and very glad I went back to it! I do have to say that IMHO, PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK and SHINE were much finer films with far superior acting and believability than the other two. This crossword was lots of fun, so I hope Brummie gets to read my post – thank you, Brummie, for incorporating a theme that included those of us on the other side of the globe!]

  59. Julie – it’s great to see your message, since it would have been frustrating if you had missed out on the puzzle on this of all days! I share your high rating of those two films, but the other two have a lot going for them in their less classy generic way. We have a long-running weekday-afternoon TV quiz show here, POINTLESS,: in a nice coincidence, yesterday’s show featured DEAD CALM. Contestants, in one round, were  shown stills from five Nicole Kidman films to identify, and one of them (duly identified) was of her with Sam Neill.

  60. Sorry to disagree, but I found the unresolved ending to PAHR most unsatisfactory.

    I once read a compilation book in which various authors attempted to supply the “missing last chapter” to the original book. Every one of them was nonsense!

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