Guardian 28,711 / Brummie

88 comments on “Guardian 28,711 / Brummie”

1. Thanks Brummie and Eileen
   First pass yielded nothing, then I got INVIOLATE and gradually worked up from the bottom. I thought THOUSAND was one of the neatest clues I’ve seen for some time.
   I would used “pied” solely for black and white, but Chambers does have “of many colours”.
   I agree about FIGHT – a very weak clue.

2. Thanks Eileen. Like you I wondered if 10a and 4d might be the start of a theme, but also like you I didn’t see anything further. All very enjoyable though – and I share the same favourites as you. THOUSAND and SANTIAGO in particular stood out.

   Was this a relatively easy one or was I on Brummie’s wavelength this morning? It all went in pretty smoothly… right up to the last few which had me scratching my head a bit – TEAR DUCT was my LOI and I did raise half an eyebrow at it, but I think tear=cut is fine really.

3. Thanks Eileen. Slight typo: you have DRESSING rather than DRESSER for 6 down.

4. The top half fell in, but the bottom was a grind. LOI was the obscure TAILLE which I only knew from clothing labels! I’ve never heard of MUMMERSET or of GOO meaning sentimentality. I was hoping for a science theme, but it didn’t develop.
   Thanks to Brummie and Eileen.

5. What muffin said @1, really. Surely everyone’s heard of the Pied Piper?

   Really unsure about FIGHT but the crossers meant it had to be.

   Always thought of PAY-OFF as a reward or compensation for some action but Chambers has outcome as an additional definition.

   Surely everyone’s heard of the Pied Piper?

   Loved LYING, very apt these days more than ever, I feel.

   Many thanks for the excellent blog, Eileen.

6. …apologies for the repeated Pied Piper reference!

7. Thanks, blaise @3 – I’ll fix it now.

8. After the theme in Hypnos which writ large, I was struggling to find a common thread here but an enjoyable puzzle.
   I thought LYING could have been a spare Cyclops clue.
   Thanks all.

9. Fun puzzle with a good variety of clue constructions. The surfaces are rather uneven, with some excellent ones and others that are clunky and/or meaningless, but this didn’t spoil my enjoyment. I have looked hard for a theme, but have failed totally 🙁

   Favourites TEAR DUCT, TRONDHEIM (both good surfaces) and THOUSAND (very Qaotic!).

   Thanks to Brummie and Eileen.

10. As a non-UK (resident) solver I didn’t really have a problem with BRASSICA, apart from not being familiar with Brassic rather than Boracic. I hadn’t heard of MUMMERSET but it was easily gettable from the clue.
    I originally had Eindhoven rather than TRONDHEIM which delayed me a bit, but I got there in the end.
    Favourite has to be THOUSAND for the well disguised definition.

11. THOUSAND went in very quickly, as I remember Paul’s ‘Kinky full S&M’ from years ago. I was another who thought there was a theme – having both STRING THEORY and QUANTUM PHYSICS, then not building on it, was a slight shame.

    Thanks Eileen and Brummie.

12. I had the complete opposite experience to Auriga@4 with the top half proving the hardest. Never heard of 24ac but everything else was a known. 6 dn was a favourite mainly because it took so long for me to see it. 23dn was a bit weak and I was certain I’d missed something. Thanks to Brummie and Eileen.

13. William @5/6: they have now 😉

    I know the ‘two’ defs for FIGHT are really the same, but I took it as a punning reference to military commands, ‘Fall out!’ being ‘to leave one’s place in the current formation of ranks in order to take one’s place in a new formation’.

    You probably all knew that, but it made me smile as it evoked certain lowbrow cinematic memories (‘Now that Barbara’s fallen out…’)

    Like others I was hoping for a longer sojourn on Planet Roz, but thanks anyway B & E.

14. No, politicians have not been “traditionally” regarded as liars. It took John Profumo decades to recover from being obliged to resign for “misleading the House”. The great achievement of our current Dear Leader has been to normalise lying. And in time we shall live to regret it – if we haven’t complacently sniggered ourselves to death first.
    As to the crossword – enjoyed it, particularly liked STRING THEORY, THOUSAND and GOOD IDEA. Didn’t think a great deal of FIGHT, but that’s the nearest thing to a criticism.
    TAILLE was unfamiliar, but the wordplay was clear, so that’s fine.
    Thanks to Brummie and Eileen.

15. You were right, Eileen, I had trouble with understanding the clue for 8a BRASSICA and the “accent” part of 27a MUMMERSET, although I was helped with the latter by knowing that MUMMER is an old word for an actor (Shakespearean maybe?). These issues aside, I found this a most enjoyable puzzle and had many similar ticks to those cited by Eileen and others above. I also liked LESSING at 2d and LYING at 3d [the latter because we are facing a Federal election here in Australia in May and it was a pertinent clue given the political advertising we are being subject to already]. My favourite clue was 13d INVIOLATE. [In the Roman Catholic tradition there is a Litany to Mary Mother of Jesus in which all her names and traits are recited – we were taught it by rote by the nuns – as a child I always thought that one of the appellations was Mother In Violet, which created a visual image of a violet-clad woman, which I quite liked. [In another memory from my school days (a long time ago), PIED in 19a ESPIED made me recall G.M. Hopkins “Pied Beauty”.]
    Many thanks to Brummie and Eileen.

16. [Sorry William@5, I should have acknowledged that you had already mentioned LYING. BTW, William, I still haven’t had my automatic name and email restored via the Cookies. I was half hoping after I saw on a recent blog that you had got yours back without doing anything.]

17. As others above, THOUSAND is my favourite. Also liked TEAR DUCT for the misleading definition, but not for TEAR to mean cut.
    I’d totally forgotten TAILLE to mean French tax so cheated that, though should have worked it out really. I put in BRASSICA, but couldn’t parse it (thanks Eileen). I usually know the rhyming slang, but boracic lint to brassic was a stretch too far.
    For SANTIAGO, the first capital that came to mind with S….O was Sarajevo, but the crossers sorted that out.

    I thought this was a rather strange mixed bag all round. Curate’s egg.

    Thanks Brummie, and Eileen.

18. Grid correctly filled, but I’d never heard of TAILLE, which went in unconfidently from wordplay, or BRASSICA, which was little more than a guess from the def and crossers, so not really a “proper” solve. Otherwise everything fitted together nicely. I liked the science related clues and MUMMERSET in particular.

    Thanks to Brummie and Eileen

19. Like others, I liked THOUSAND but also FIDGET. In the context of string theory, a hundred (C) doesn’t seem to be a very large number, but maybe it is in quantum physics. [I had a GUT feeling there was going to be a theme, but I was wrong]

20. Julie @16. Apart from emptying your browser cache, I don’t know any other solution.

21. A few niggles for me: MOONROCK a single word? Both BRASSIC and TAILLE seem very obscure to me (snap, WP @18). But then, MUMMERSET is also obscure (particularly for non Poms) but I knew it Is it because many of my forebearers came from that region in the early 19th C? Yet there were some great clues too – the much lauded THOUSAND, the science ones, SOLILOQUY, one of my favorite authors , Doris LESSING, LYING (I don’t think BoJo takes all the blame there, NeilH @14, but I agree that how brazen it is now is a more modern phenomena). Thanks, Brummie and Eileen.

22. I enjoyed this. With STRING THEORY and QUANTUM PHYSICS going in early on, I thought there might be a science theme, but it was not to be. Having never heard of ‘brassic’, I stared at the crossers for BRASSICA for a long time, and got so desperate I checked online that there wasn’t an uncommon plant called ARDSHIPA! Like others I thought THOUSAND was a great clue. Many thanks to Brummie and Eileen.

23. NeilH @14 – I deliberately didn’t refer to the current situation: I’ve gone beyond the complacent sniggering stage to utter despair. I looked at this rather outdated poll result
    (you’ll be pleased to see the judges’ rating – but you knew that) but now find that there are variations in more recent polls!

    Julie @ 15 – MUMMERS go back much further than Shakespeare – see here
    Many thanks for your anecdote – I love mondegreens! And I immediately thought of ‘Pied Beauty’, too.

    And, Crossbar @17 – my first thought was also Sarajevo.

24. Once again I’ve messed up the links: this is the one for the poll
    https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/politicians-are-still-trusted-less-estate-agents-journalists-and-bankers

25. ‘Cut’ is certainly not a good synonym for TEAR when considered as a verb, but as a noun it is close enough for me.

26. My first thought trying to justify TEAR = CUT was of the semi-perforated tear strips you get on forms with a return coupon. Then I remembered this Don Martin cartoon, which had me laughing nearly as much as Julie’s mondegreen.

27. Defeated by TAILLE which I didn’t know and was searching for something ending in ‘le’ but like ‘able’ or ‘handle’ rather than ‘lle” so didn’t think of ‘tail’. Perfectly fair clue, though. Many ticks, including the much admired THOUSAND and I share with Gervase @9 a real liking for TRONDHEIM with it’s lovely surface and neat construction.

    Thanks Brummie and Eileen

    PS. William @5 and JinA @16: my name and email also magically reappeared about a week ago.

28. … with its lovely surface …

29. Filled this in successfully, but needed you, Eileen, for the (rather obscure, I thought) rhyming Cockney slang needed for the parsing of BRASSICA. Which it had to be, with all the crossers in place. Wasn’t quite sure how TAILLE worked, and hadn’t come across the term MUMMERSET before. Not totally convinced by the clarity of LYING, either. Otherwise very nice, and very glad that I didn’t have to reach for the dictionary to insert SOLILOQUY as the anagram fodder pointed the way – and the crossers again, especially the letter Q.

30. Thanks Brummie & Eileen (thank you for explaining BRASSICA!).
    No theme but perhaps a few loose pairings?
    4d & 10a (both GOOD IDEAs?)
    SOLILOQUY / MUMMERSET ?
    PAY-OFF / TAILLE
    STRUT / TRANSOM
    SANTIAGO / TRONDHEIM (old capital with the lovely Nidaros Cathedral)
    STRING & BRASS … 🙂

31. I need to bow to Mr. C’s superior knowledge of rhyming slang. He’s more of a Londoner than I am. When asked about “skint” he said, “Oh, yeah. B’rassic.” You need to imagine the accent. 😀

    Is boracic lint still used at all?

32. I needed help with to parse BRASSICA (a reveal) and (blush) PAY-OFF. Worth the effort for THOUSAND.

    Thanks to Brummie and Eileen.

    [muuffin@: thanks for the heads up yesterday about the ‘complete unknown’ – more blushing]

33. There has been a TV series called Brassic – the title from that rhyming slang. I’ve never seen it, but trailers keep interrupting more interesting programmes!

34. Straightforward today, though MUMMERSET is a new word for me (as is MUMMER). It couldn’t be anything else though. At 3D I think maybe our blogger is being a little unkind to some professions: in particular, I don’t think our setter would have attempted to clue this with a reference to journalists, especially in current times when there are some spectacularly brave members of that profession risking their lives to bring us the first draft of history from Ukraine. Bankers come in for a hard time and have done since 2008, though frankly I think it’s about time to move on from there and I don’t especially associate that profession with mendacity anyway. Estate agents and politicians – well, they can defend themselves!

35. Got the D and C of 6a, and jumped to “Moby Dick”. Had to rethink when I got to the SW corner.

36. Sorry. Is that the Mummerset corner.

37. Pleasant enough with a bit of science thrown in (although I wouldn’t call superSTRING THEORY science with its at least 11 dimensions; it doesn’t sound very likely to me).

    I liked TEAR DUCT with Collins giving for tear: ‘noun1.A hole, cut, or split’, the already acclaimed THOUSAND and the neat surface for TRONDHEIM.

    Thanks Brummie and Eileen.

38. As a former MP and councillor, I view with alarm the consolidation even in the crossword of the Guardian of the widespread view that politicians are liars. That gives great succour to those who think that very rich businessmen, or very senior soldiers, should govern the country. Some of the most hard-working, decent, informed and thoughtful people I have met in my life have sought to use the democratic mechanisms available to alleviate unnecessary suffering and remedial ignorance, and I’m not only talking about those on my (Labour) side of the House.

39. Wow, this was very hard for me. Only solved two on my first pass, then solved a few more on second pass.

    I did not parse 8ac, 15ac.

    Liked LYING, ESPIED, THOUSAND (loi).

    New for me were: TAILLE, TRANSOM, TRONDHEIM, MUMMERSET, BRASSICA (as well as the cockney slang to get there).

    Thanks, both.

40. Sorry: that’s “remediable” ignorance.

41. Like others, was expecting a science theme to emerge, but it didn’t. I had been trying to make that into a joke about the Uncertainty Principle, but couldn’t. I tried some words but they just came out entangled.

    Quite by coincidence, just yesterday I tried TAILLE as an answer to a NYT word puzzle: it was one of those cases where they say “here are our answers, you may have others”. It was one of the others, but frankly a bit creepy to see it show up here too.

42. 23d was indeed weak. I too was hoping for a Theory of Everything theme after getting 4d/20d and 10a/9a. My last ones in, which irritated me, were 8a and 24a, as I am not familiar with either obscure Cockney slang nor the history of French taxation.

43. [Petert @19 – you might have thought your GUT was invisible, but it made me laugh when I saw it – even though it was quite some distance away from my field 🙂

    Dr W – as a non-scientist, I was quite pleased with myself when I ESPIED Schrödinger’s COAT]

44. Never heard of TAILLE, but otherwise this went in fairly easily. Favourite definitely THOUSAND.

45. I thought I knew some rhyming slang, but BRASSIC is a new ‘un on me. All I could make of it was being somehow lacking brass. Come to think of it, I also have no idea what boracic lint is, or is used for.

    Eileen — you might want to switch “ring” and “band” in your parsing of STRING THEORY.

    I’m not sure RILER functions as a word, though it does follow the rules. Is it something anybody would actually say?

    Eileen@24 In the US, nurses poll as more trustworthy than doctors.

    What a pleasure this puzzle was. On first pass I got not one, zero, zilch, zip, of the across clues and was in despair, but then three down ones popped in and a slow fill-in began. Needed a bit of check button for BRASSICA and MOONROCK, where I didn’t catch on the “souvenir” was part of the definition. Thanks for the puzzle, Brummie, for the delightful company in the blog, Eileen, and Julie in A for the mondegreen.

46. What Eileen said plus my Favourite was TEAR DUCT.

    Thanks Brummie and Eileen

47. Eb@43 Thanks. If you take nothing away from Schrödinger’s COAT, it might disappear.

48. This was a good stretch with MUMMERSET and TAILLE new to me and had to find TRONDHEIM on map despite knowing the “wedding ride”. Fave was THOUSAND.

    Thanks both

49. Some info on TAILLE that may or may not be interesting. The modern French word seems to mean cut or size, rather than tax. It is etymologically related to “tailor” and “tally”. The corresponding Spanish word, which incidentally I needed to use when shopping in SANTIAGO a few years ago, is “talla” (the ll pronounced like y). And in Italian, the verb for cut is “tagliare”, which gives us “tagliatelle”. Now I’m hungry.

50. BigNorm@34 I’ve been doing newspaper crosswords almost every day for over 50 years, but so far as I’m concerned, the implications of 3d are about the most socially divisive I’ve ever encountered. Back in the 60s as rebellious children we used to chant “All coppers are bastards”.
    But now Brummie would have us as supposedly mature & sensible broadsheet-reading solvers chanting “All politicians are *lying* bastards” (why do we keep electing them, then?). I’m just amazed it got past the Guardian’s crossword editor.
    IF there are indeed falling standards in public life, I’d say Guardian crosswords are now at least as much in the frame as politicians, bankers, estate agents, and used car salesmen.

51. For 1a I read ‘involved in’ as representing the Q being enveloped and ‘transaction’ – as in arrangement or negotiation – as being the anagrind.

52. Regardless of whether politicians are liars (I would say a few are, many are not), I do crosswords for relaxation, and to get away from the “real world”. I’m getting a little tired of the political commentary we seem to be getting in them more and more. I’ll read the paper for that.

53. I love terse, minimalist entries Eileen. Thousand is up there.

54. Thanks Brummie for an amusing crossword despite several stumbles. I had no chance with BRASSICA, I failed to see the very clever TEAR DUCT, and I didn’t know TRONDHEIM. I enjoyed most else including the popular favourite THOUSAND, QUANTUM PHYSICS, and PENNE. I correctly guessed MUMMERSET; I knew “mummer” as an old player from the Mummers’ Parade held on Jan. 1st in Philadelphia, PA. Thanks Eileen for parsing and explaining GOOD IDEA.

55. Surely the clue for TEAR DUCT is just anatomically incorrect; lachrimal glands are the source of blubber and the tear duct its destination.

56. I had a friend round for coffee this morning and then we went out for lunch, so I have some catching up to do.

    BigNorm @34 (and Tony McWalter @38 et al) re 3d LYING:
    In an attempt to explain ‘Many would assume’ in the clue, I was quoting a supposedly reputable poll, which I acknowledged in my comment @23 to be somewhat out of date. I haven’t had time to look up more recent ones. I was not intending to express an opinion and would certainly not wish to impugn the journalists that you allude to: in fact, we had quite a conversation about the amazing job that they’re doing and the obvious toll that it is taking of them.

    Valentine @45 – thanks for pointing out my careless error, which I will amend now.

57. Gasmanjack@55 – to a passing ant the tear duct could perhaps appear as “a spring that forms the starting point of a stream” (second definition of source in Collins online).

    Thanks to Brummie and Eileen

58. I really enjoyed this one – a satisfying solve.

    Petert @ 19 – C is also the speed of light which is quite a hefty number. Perhaps what Brummie had in mind given the physics questions elsewhere…

59. MarkN@58 Good point.

60. Doesn’t it depend on the units? As trekkies will know, c = Warp 1.

61. I enjoyed this a lot. Not too many on the first pass of the acrosses but, as is often the case, the downs came to the rescue. Can’t believe it took me until the second pass to get OVERCOAT – all I could think of initially was Trench and Rain.
    I can think of one instance where TEAR and CUT are synonymous as verbs: in the phrases CUT UP/TORN UP to mean very upset.
    Fine puzzle. Thanks, Brum and Ei.

62. Thanks for the blog. MrEssexboy @60 you are wiser than you think . In the Planck system for high energy physics we define c=1, and e , G and k. It simplifies equations and leads to natural values independent of the human-based SI system.
    The theme petered out, perhaps the tachyons escaped and travelled backwards in time to last Saturday’s puzzle.

63. I often wonder why some solvers should be “irritated” by clues that require knowledge that they don’t happen to have themselves. The other week, for example, there was a commentator who had a whole list of topics that were presumably of no interest to him personally and whose validity therefore he seemed to question. (I assume that was what he was getting at by his numerous “wtfs”.) Surely, one of the pleasures of crossword solving is that occasionally one can actually learn stuff, isn’t it?
    [A very early mondegreen to match Julie’s: “Our Father, which art in Heaven (the ‘which’ was puzzling), Harold be thy name” (same as my uncle’s!)]

64. [One other random thought for Tony McWalter@38 and FumbleFingers@50:
    I completely agree with Mr McWalter and I think that a decent democracy requires a belief in the value and decency of our political representatives – and the for the most part they are admirable. But at the same time, I feel most people would agree that those standards have been slipping throughout the English-speking world (to say nothing of countries elsewhere!) and it behoves all of us to keep plugging away at that fact. So to that extent I completely disagree with FF Someone the other day said something similar – that Partygate references had been done to death and should be dropped No. No, they shouldn’t!
    Sorry Gaufrid. Rant over.]

65. [Gert Byce@53 My father’s childhood mondegreen from the same prayer: “Give us this day our jelly bread.” Much more satisfying than plain bread, don’t you think?]

66. [I didn’t have an Uncle Harold, but my mother did. He was known in the family as Unks. And no, jelly is not the American word for jam.]

67. [Valentine @66
    It must be jelly coz jam don’t shake like that….]

68. [Thanks Roz @62. I confess that when you cryptically promised “more exciting time travel next week” on the Jules Verne blog, I thought “But surely the clocks don’t go forward till the week after next?” 😉 ]

69. [ Tachyons are the beloved particles of theorists but no actual evidence of detection. Many rumours including messages sent from the future. The Cuban missile crisis tachyon code is very famous, well famous amongst particle physicists anyway. ]

70. [They would have to be from the future, Roz, because surely they travel backwards in time?]

71. Just the unknowns of 24a and 27a eluded me today, though, with hindsight I could probably have solved them both.
    I usually struggle with Brummie though, so happy days.
    Some parsing still to confirm…
    Thanks both.

72. [ muffin @70 that is the theory, people from the future sending coded messages back in time, lots of rumours, I am very sceptical. ]

    Well done HYD , I thought this was tougher than normal, the two you mention took a bit of head scratching.

73. Hate to say it, as the clue seems to have gained the plaudits, but the use of S&M in 11 across for me is unfair, as the definition part is not cleanly separated from some of the clue parts.

    This usage I’m sure constitutes a Guardianism, i.e. something Grauniad readers are prepared, through having been browbeaten by the in-deed mob, to accept.

74. tlp @73
    I don’t understand your objection. The definition is clearly separated, there at the end of the clue. Everything preceding it is wordplay.

75. @74 Muffin – Quite agree, part of the fun, finding a well hidden definition
    @72 Roz – Many thanks!

76. Jim @ 11, we’re being daft no doubt. Kinky full S&M? Presuming the answer was also thousand, could you parse for us?

77. [Roz @69 et al. I am sure I first came across tachyons in Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. They have fascinated me ever since.]

78. I solved about two thirds of this, which is pretty good for me, but I didn’t enjoy it. I got the answers to several through intuition, and more by educated guesses. I genuinely solved very few.
    Anyway, I’ve enjoyed othe crossword more despite solving fewer clues.
    Thanks though for the crossword and the blog.

79. [Tony McWalter @38. Is that THE Tony McWalter from Hatfield Poly (as was)? I studied Humanities there from 1984 to 1987.
    I think that many people enter politics with the best intentions. Unfortunately, getting to a position in which they can have real influence requires so many compromises that they seem to lose their way.
    Anyway, all the best!]

80. [muffin@67 Exactly. Jelly and jam are different things, though both are cooked and sweetened fruit spreads. And in fact, jelly with its firm structure will shake and jam won’t. Both are very nice on toast.]

81. Did anyone else try FIGHT = F + word for engage (supposedly) ALLIGHT , minus the ALL (all out), and then find ALLIGHT doesn’t exist?

82. C commonly used to denote the speed of light which is, in fairness, quite a large number.

83. Apologies, overlooked @markn 58 already pointed that out…

84. Kinky full S&M? = THOUS*/ AND.

    Really appalling. Which is how I feel at the moment, having contracted The Bug.

    The ‘Kinky full S’ bit is an indirect anagram of SOUTH, in case you were still scratching your head.

85. Thanks Brummie, loved 3dn. When I was a child, my Pa said to me
    “How do you tell when a politician is lying?”
    “His mouth is open.”
    The overwhelming evidence of history is that people cannot be trusted with power.
    The first step in solving this is to get rid of political parties.
    After that we get rid of politicians.

86. [ TassieTim@77- Tachyons turn up in literature , science fiction and all over popular culture. Murray Gell-Mann is reported to have said – Anything that is not forbidden is compulsory .
    Tachyons are not actually forbidden.
    I will repeat though that there is NO evidence of tachyons or their detection in any peer-reviewed papers, just a lot of speculation and rumours ]

87. Most fell into place and was enjoyable. A few clues stumped me. I wouldn’t have got 8a in a pink fit!

88. According to the Wikipedia page linked in the blog post, “Mummerset” is a portmanteau of “mummer” and “Somerset”, so it is a more than a little unsatisfactory to use “mummer” in the charade.

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