Guardian Cryptic 28,946 by Brummie

96 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,946 by Brummie”

1. Huh? Bortsch? I knew from my travels it could be spelt “borsch” or “borscht”, but “bortsch”?

   Why is “baulk” “bar”?

   Why is “cock” an informal address? It’s not in my dictionary.

   I’d forgotten the convoluted reason why peter is a safe. I vaguely remember it from another puzzle many moons ago.

   Couldn’t parse PICEA, CROCODILE, EWE or LENNON.

   So a mixed bag for me.

2. Thanks Brummie and loonapick
   Yes, finished over breakfast. I was lucky in knowing both Koch and PICEA, though.

3. GDU @ 1

   I agree about the soup, but Chambers has this spelling

   Vault and bar both mean an obstruction

   Cock is an informal term in parts of England, “Wotcher, cock” in parts of the South East would roughly translate as “what’s up , mate?”

4. Predictive text – *baulk, not vault

5. Ha! It’s not EWE, it’s EVE!

6. Thank you Loonapick. A very British cock!

7. GDU@1 I thought it was as in the greeting watcha cock.

   Forgot to look for a theme, but don’t think I would have spotted it.

   Thanks loonpick and Brummie

8. I knew Koch (just about) but didn’t remember wotcher COCK – but it couldn’t be much else. Unfortunately both spellings of BORTSCH parse.
   Another day, another obscurity, but I know more about plants than I do about sports team nicknames, so PICEA wasn’t a problem.
   Missed the theme.

9. You can add The SYNDICATE to the theme

10. In regards to 26 down. There used to be an old joke, What do you say to a man with no arms and no legs when you’re running late? Have you got the time on yer cock?

11. @GDU.
    “You got the time on yer, cock?”
    “No, I use a wristwatch”

12. GDU@1. Chambers gives cock as a friend, mate or fellow in British English slang. It’s fairly common.
    Completely missed the theme as per…

13. Definitely borscht when my mum made it [MaidenBartok was amazed when I said it was like gazpacho]. As for the Germanic and Scots, across the border my Lancs great aunts, if they spoke ‘browad’, said things like “Est ta getten a pair o’ gradely new shoon lad?” Meanwhile, from further south, ‘me old cock’, or ‘cocksparra’, I knew by osmosis from somewhere (Minder … Z-Cars ..?). Language is cool, innit! Thanks BnL.

14. Loonapick – shouldn’t you have highlighted Combination as the definition for SYNDICATE. Thanks both

15. geoff down under @1, loonapick @3 a baulk can also be a bar of wood

16. Correction: my dictionary does have “mate” as a “British informal” meaning for “cock”. When the clue had “informal address” I was thinking along the lines of a friendly speech. D’oh.

    I’ve never heard it in Australia, but I’m happy to be corrected by one of my fellow countrymen.

17. I got the theme with an early KILLING EVE and identified the same as you along with Shirl.s SYNDICATE @9. There is also EMPTY and I looked at the films TERMINATOR and ATONEMENT but they don’t really fit the theme. I really liked LIP-READ, COCK and CROCODILE.

    Ta Brummie & loonapick.

18. Re the beetroot soup. Looking at the Russian spelling, it should be borsch. Not a T in sight. It threw me for a while. Thanks Brummie and loonapick.

19. Ginf @13: Arthur in Minder might very well have said, ‘wanna buy a USED MOTOR, COCK?’

20. Crispy, that it’s a beetroot soup is a myth. It can be, but the term includes plenty of other soups. Another common myth is that it’s a cold soup. Again, not always.

21. Was convinced that 4d was ARCADIAN (“lives in a row of shops”)!! That didn’t help, and eventually I gave up on ATONEMENT and EMBANKED, but enjoyed the puzzle muchly. Favourite was the clue for DEATH – haven’t seen this before, thought it was tremendous. Thanks to B & l.

22. NHO Koch or COCK but guessed it right as LOI, better lucky than good sometimes I guess.

    Agree with lots of above – odd spelling of BORTSCH pretty mean with ambiguous wordplay and that close to another obscurity in PICEA. DEATH was an absolute beaut. Thanks both.

23. Andy @10 What do you call a man with no arms and no legs in a swimming pool? Bob. Time for the cracker Dad jokes?
    Never could spell Borscht, I mean BORTSCH.
    I did like DEATH for the definition (don’t think “Hated fancy choir invisible” would have been better) and CROCODILE for a pleasant memory.

24. My solving experience was similar to loonapick’s, surprisingly quick for a Brummie, but held up on PICEA.

    I needed the crossers for COCK, but vaguely knew Koch, and have heard cock as an address – very much male on male – but not recently, probably more to do with not spending time in London pubs. GASLIT isn’t BBC but is about Watergate.

    Thank you to loonapick and Brummie.

25. No! Not a homophone! Even growing up in London, I knew that if I put a key in a loch, I was likely to lose it. Cock, mate, tosh, chief… were all in my vernacular.
    In Poland I was met with complete incomprehension when I asked for “borscht”. It’s “barszcz” there!
    Theme? What theme?
    Thanks to Brummie and loonapick.

26. Fun and not too difficult, so thanks to Brummie and loonapick. If I had thought of looking for a theme, would I have found it? Probably not. My fellow English people, it really isn’t that difficult to pronounce “loch” or “koch” at least approximately correctly; do better!

27. A lot of chestnuts here (roasting on an open fire?) made this a very swift solve for me. Fortunately my interest in things botanical made the least common word, PICEA, a write-in.

    The ambiguity in the clue for BORTSCH is unfortunate, as this is a most unusual spelling. Like others, I first entered the more NORMAL spelling ‘borscht’ until DEATH intervened. (The final letter in the Cyrillic spelling of the word is the one normally transliterated from Russian as ‘shch’. In Bulgarian, the letter is pronounced ‘sht’, which may account for the usual spelling in English).

    I spotted the theme for once, but it wasn’t necessary for the solve. My favourites were some of the short words: EVE, DEATH, EARL, but I also liked ATONEMENT. Some of the surfaces could do with a bit of a polish: ‘Baronet welcomes alternative school soup’ is grammatical but nonsensical 🙂

    Thanks to S&B

28. Badaos@11 Exactly!

29. Made a very sluggish start with this, with first one in DEATH, which didn’t improve my mood much. Steady progress thereafter, but sadly a DNF as I was thwarted by the nho PICEA and therefore the C for the clever CASUALTY. Didn’t much care for the clue for EMPTY, but very much liked CROCODILE, with early memories of rainy plods to the local church on a Sunday when away at school. Needed to look up famous bacteriologists to arrive at COCK. Didn’t spot the theme as usual – perhaps if I had managed to nail CASUALTY early on, I might have…

30. I liked DEATH (though I imagine it’s been done before). I am perfectly capable of pronouncing /ch/ correctly but at the same time seeing that for many people KOCH and COCK are homonyms. I really don’t see it as an issue. I had BARTSCH for the soup, as I only knew bart for baronet, though I could see I hadn’t accounted for “alternative”.

31. This was over quite quickly for me too, and I didn’t need to look anything up. I saw no theme, though. 26d COCK was hard – ‘to an audience’ simply did not work for me, although it was easy afterwards to see what Brummie intended. My highlights have been mentioned already, so I will just say that I enjoyed this ‘Brummie with a light touch’.

    Thanks to Brummie and loonapick.

32. AlanC @19 🙂

33. NORMAL PEOPLE is also a TV series. Re “The Syndicate” which I loved, I would like to pay tribute to its writer Kay Mellor who sadly passed away last May.
    Ta Brummie and loonapick.

34. Of course, as Auriga @25 notes, it is BARSZCZ in Polish, which I know as my father-in-law was Polish. Like others, we had BORSCHT until DEATH came along. GDU @numerous, especially @16 – when I first moved from Canberra to Tassie as a teenager, lots of Taswegians called each other ‘cock’. As a Mainlander, I was shocked. You don’t hear it now, though – and now I identify as Taswegian. I was confident that there would be a homophone debate about COCK – unusually, I can see the point here, as Koch is quite different. Thanks, Brummie and loonapick.

35. I remembered the soup from a Knightsbridge restaurant that we occasionally visited in my student days. Still going apparently. They spell it Borshtch N Tears, which seems a more phonetic translation of the Cyrillic letter ? whose “standard” transliteration is “shch”. At the time, their ads proclaimed “onions for crying are free.”

36. Sorry NORMAL PEOPLE was mentioned and I did not spot it ! During my visit to Russia, I was “constantly” served borscht. In discussing it with other travellers, I didn’t believe there was a “t” in any part of the word and ( no expert but I did years of Greek and mess around doing comparisons with the characters ), I don’t believe there’s a “t” sound in the Cyrillic !

37. blaise@35. We crossed in posting. The Cyrillic “shch” is the final character in Russian for borscht and doesn’t have a “t” sound & those preceding it are just. B O R

38. Thanks for the blog , totally missed the theme, COCK is also a common term of address in Lancashire. I liked EMPTY , PICEA and DEATH, good wordplay for small words.
    If Sheffield Hatter sees 16D he will just have to pull himself together .

    Wishing everyone a joyful Winter (or summer) Solstice Festival .
    After sunset a spectacular sight , you have the chance to see five planets in one go, only Mercury is semi-difficult.

39. GDU @20. I suspect the ingredients for the soup depend on the country of origin. My Russian-English dictionary defines it as beetroot and cabbage soup. In Russia, the main ingredient is usually beetroot.

40. Glad I wasn’t alone in missing the theme which seemed to me as though it might have something to do with gloominess. The subtleties of the spelling of BORTSCH passed over my head; it looked good enough to me. Failed on PICEA which I’d never heard of.

    Robert Koch was a giant in the field of bacteriology, although he is now not as well-known as Pasteur. Among other work he discovered the causative agents for TB, cholera and anthrax; quite a CV.

    Thanks to Brummie and loonapick

41. Liked DEATH, ATONEMENT, EMPTY, TERMINATOR, LENNON.

    New: bank = aircraft tilt; PICEA.

    I did not parse 18ac EVE.

    Thanks, both.

    I did not notice the theme.

42. Crispy @39, when I toured Russia, Ukraine and a number of other former Soviet countries in recent years, we were frequently served borscht, and only once was it beetroot (and it was hot). This came as a surprise, as I’d always thought it was a chilled beetroot soup.

43. A couple of commentators have said it’s unfortunate that BORTSCH and BORSCHT are both consistent with the wordplay, in fact with the whole clue. Yes it messed a little with the solving especially if you first enter the “wrong” one, but I’m always on the lookout for clues with two different perfectly good answers – they are very rare – but this was certainly one of them.

    I knew someone named Koch. He pronounced the name like COKE. As do the well-known (in the States) Koch brothers and Koch Industries. With my O-level German I would guess that the bacteriologist used approximately the same vowel sound, with of course the ch as in loch, so that’s two strikes against the homophone.

44. GDU @42 et al: The commonest type of borscht is a hot beetroot soup, but other varieties do exist. In Lithuania there is a popular cold beetroot soup called šaltibarš?ai (= ‘cold borscht’) always served with potatoes on the side (like most things in Lithuania 🙂 )

45. A nice one for a wet Wednesday (but at least all the snow and ice has gone). For once I spotted the theme, although at first I thought it was films (Atonement, although I’m sure it was also on TV) and loved Killing Eve, Death in Paradise and Normal People. I also thought the Terminator was a film.
    Never mind, all good fun, thanks Brummie and loonapick

46. Another silver medal for me, having to reveal 27a.
    The soup and the spruce were unknown to me but could be gleaned from the wordplay.
    COCK was common a few years ago, I don’t hear it at all in London these days, everyone tends to be ‘mate’.
    I could not parse CROCODILE as I was not aware of the second definition.
    Agree, an easier Brummie puzzle than normal, but good fun, like yesterday’s puzzle, still easier than Monday’s.
    Thanks both.

47. This did feel a bit like Brummie doing his Vulcan impression at the Christmas party but I enjoyed it and their were a few chewy ones to keep things interesting; PICEA, GASLIT

    As a yorkshireman I’ve come to terms with the fact that most people can’t pronounce words like bath and grass correctly so the KOCH/COCK homophoney didn’t bother me either – I’ve heard enough people pronounce LOCH as LOCK for the equivalence to seem reasonable in a cryptic crossword

    COTD ASHY for its sheer silliness

    Cheers L&B

48. Not too bad a solve. PICEA was new to me and did not get it even with the crossers in place. Not having watched much British TV since emigrating, the theme escaped me even with the grid filled in.

49. [Andy @ 10: A pianist with no arms and no legs is a clever dick.
    Sorry everyone.
    I’m going.]

50. The English word ‘borscht’ comes from Yiddish, where it does have that final T – missing from all Slavic originals apart from Bulgarian (and perhaps the very similar Macedonian) where the final Cyrillic letter is pronounced ‘sht’ and not ‘shch’. Like many words of Yiddish origin it is much more familiar in the US than the UK. An area of upstate NY was known as the ‘Borscht Belt’ because of Jewish settlements there.

51. SinCam @45: me @17, I also had the same thoughts about films on TV.

52. Thanks roz@38 for the reminder about Solstice and all those planets

53. Roz @38 – thanks for the info on the planets, too much cloud around though at the moment, maybe it will clear up

54. Is Fanny by Gaslight too tangential?

55. [ Kate and HYD I am just glad someone is interested , bright and clear here so I am very optimistic. For Mercury and Venus you need a good SW horizon , they will be very low , try 30 minutes after sunset. Today is the best for Mercury it will soon be lost , Venus will be getting better for weeks, Saturn , Jupiter, Mars much higher and easier. ]

56. Any scouser of my childhood would pronounce KOCH and COCK exactly the same way, accompanied by a certain amount of spittle!

57. Thanks Brummie. I found much of this on the easy side except for the five I could not solve — EVE, PICEA, MOVING ON (never heard “upping sticks” before), CASUALTY, and COCK. My top choices were BUGATTI, KILLING (nice surface), PEOPLE, DEATH, and EARL. Thanks loonapick for the blog.

58. Mostly enjoyable but two grumbles: having an unusual spelling of BORSCHT, especially when the more common one parsed with the same clue, had a whiff of ‘gridfill trauma’.

    And no-one else seemed to have mentioned this yet, but ‘cycle’ as an anagrind in LUNAR raised my other eyebrow: I always thought that ‘cycle’ had a specific meaning in crossword clues, namely to move a letter from one end of a word to the other.

    But still, I finished and learnt a couple of new things, so thanks both!

59. Gervase @50: thanks for the observation about Yiddish. That explains a lot. [I’ve had a lot of delicious borscht here in the US, both hot and cold, but I do say that beets were invariably involved.]

    As with others, I had no real trouble with this–done and dusted in less than 25 minutes, unusal for a Brummie. I of course had no chance whatsoever at the theme; I believe exactly none of the listed TV shows has made any kind of a mark over here. PICEA was new to me, was the last one in, and was solved based on wordplay only. And COCK as “mate” is definitely from some strange foreign language here. Generally, if someone calls me a cock I want to punch them.

60. [Roz@55 Shortest day here in Gauldry, but sunset already 2 minutes later than it was a week ago.

    No chance of seeing Mercury – only 4 degrees above the horizon at sunset, and it was cloudy. Copernicus purportedly never saw Mercury]

61. Since when was cock homophonous with Koch?

62. Here in Ireland, I live in a village that ends in “ough” and rhymes with Koch. Nearby there’s a similar that rhymes with cock. My English other half thinks they’re the same.

    Anyway, fun solve and thanks both.

63. Why is SYNDICATE representation?
    Had to guess a few and missed theme but almost anything could be in it.
    Thanks both

64. Rob T @ 58 I saw 17 as the L and U cycling.

65. tim tt @ 63 SYNDICATE is a re-presentation of CITY AND SEA with one N removed: the definition is ‘combination’, of which a syndicate is a form.

66. Sorry, one A removed.

67. For 3d I seemed to remember that a cast could mean a tinge or tone to the skin so someone could have an ashy cast to the skin. That’s how I parsed it anyway.

    Anyone else heard of this? Or am I misremembering.

    Thanks both

68. [ Dave @60 bad luck , I saw it for about 20 minutes , it does depend on latitude and also the horizon. I was looking out to sea which is always the clearest. I have heard the same about Copernicus but it is surprising, I expect to see Mercury 2 or 3 times a year. ]

69. [GinF@13: Minder, very possibly; Z Cars, less so, I’d have thought. Wasn’t that set in Scouseland?]

70. Started doing cryptics in 2019 (perfect prep for lockdown) and Brummie was always a tricky one for me but this took just over an hour. Brummie, Tramp, Imogen and Paul now my favourite setters, but loathed them when I started out three years ago! Like others, loved Death and Terminator. Glad for this blog and the excellent added comments which I now read on a daily basis (only discovered blog three weeks ago).

71. Simon S @64 – yeah, I did afterwards 🙂 but I haven’t seen ‘cycle’ used for a two-letter switch before. I’ll watch out for that variation in future!

72. Yep you’re right KJ @69; after I’d posted I thought No, not Zed, that was Liverpool, right near great aunt Nellie in fact, not further south at all 🙂

73. Welcome CalMac @70, we denizens of 225 are a quirky bunch of critters, multi-talented, and nothing if not interesting …

74. Fiona Anne @67, I parsed ASHY the same (American here not used to that meaning of “shy”)
    CROCODILE’s second meaning was new to me, and a tricky one to google – after getting a bunch of news stories about student encounters with reptiles and information about Churchill’s flame throwing tanks, I finally tried “crocodile formation” and found it.

75. Grantinfreo @73 – thanks! So far the comments are abundantly interesting and definitely (very enjoyably) quirky – a great discovery and a daily treat. Thanks all.

76. Theologically speaking, ATONEMENT has nothing to do with compensation. Reconciliation instead.

77. Yes. Atonement is the process of bringing about oneness, as at-one-ment.
    When I was a medical student, mycobacterium tuberculosis was referred to as Koch’s bacillus in the older books.

78. No hope of getting the theme. I could only see CONGA and CROCODILE, MOVING ON. They’ve become a silly feature of wedding dances, not a good COMBINATION of wedding finery and alcohol, especially if BORTSCH was on the menu.

    I thought that IAMB was a missed opportunity. Neil Diamond’s introductory verse? (a prezzie for the setters in our midst to play with)

79. btw no theme for me, of course. In the Guardian paper today there was a list of the 50 best TV programmes of the year. I was obscurely proud not to have seen a single one of them!

80. muffin@79
    Me neither. Let’s hope setters don’t use them.

81. [pdm @78
    Diamond’s No. 1 song? No, I said, just a b… da-DUM! (4) ]

82. [eb@81 Boom tish!! 🙂 ]

83. [Wouldn’t boom tish be a spondee?]

84. Missed the theme & 4 shy of a finish – EVE, COCK, PICEA & STAY. Knew there was a T in the soup but not there. Am I correct in saying all Brummie puzzles have a theme ? Am blaming starting too late ? past the midnight hour for my woeful performance. Still enjoyed it nevertheless.
    Thanks both

85. [ Yeah, eb, but the double exclamation mark on tish, and the smiley face I thought might do the trick, as well as it being an appropriate response. …. (It never does to explain a joke, eh? It just becomes less amusing, if it ever was.)

    I’m still trying to come up with my own clue for the homophone of IAMB: “I am .. I said”. Can you have a homophone in the first person? I don’t see why not, although I haven’t seen one. That would get around all the homophone debates, wouldn’t it, if the setter said “I said”? Who are we to say how the setter pronounces the word? ]

86. Muffin and Pino , I did not even have to look to know I would not have seen any, I think G2 can be safely ignored all week, they just fill in space before Christmas.
    Huntsman @84 I think Brummie has produced more themes recently , not every time but certainly more often than not.

87. PDM@85 an interesting idea , I say/ I said would be a nice change.

88. [pdm – I appreciated the boom tish 🙂 , just being a smartypants @83. As Roz says, neat homophone idea, in fact in the song “I am” is an iamb, so maybe:
    What Diamond said, say (4)
    could be an &lit? ]

89. EB, PDM,

    It’s a bit cheeky but how about

    “I am… I said” – 12 inch version?

90. Nice one Blah, good to see you btw. I knew something was afoot.

91. Iamb. What iamb? Iamb: my own special creation…

    Late to this – still feeling a bit delicate post work Christmas do on Tuesday so unlike everyone else this was a very slow solve by usual Brummie standards for me. But belated thanks for the blog, Loonapick, and for pointing out the theme, which sailed over my tender head.

    Also unlike everyone else, it seems, I’m familiar with that spelling of BORTSCH
    – did initially enter BORSCHT but DEATH put me right. In a manner of speaking.

    Thanks for the fun, Brummie.

92. Paddymelon: Sum spoken of in part of verse

    A bit sneaky though – are we allowed Latin?

93. Blah@89 and eb@90. Like it.
    Widdersbel@92. Let’s break the rules!

94. Thanks Simon S @65 but? I had the anagram but we seem to have combination and re-presentation both indicating it?
    Anyone still hear?

95. Er thanks Simon S @65 … I had the anagram but we seem to have combination and re-presentation both indicating it?
    Anyone still hear?

96. @95 – think loonapick made a slip. Definition is “combination” with “representation” being the anagrind. In fairness, this is what he said; he just coloured in the wrong word!

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