Guardian 29,041 / Brendan

89 comments on “Guardian 29,041 / Brendan”

1. certainly didn’t slice through this, even though the theme was obvious with just a quick scan of the clues, and I hoped the swords would not be too obscure. I guessed KATANA and FALCHION through the wordplay and didn’t know HANGER and FANDANGO were types of sword. I couldn’t parse OVEN. Favourites included GOALIE, EXCEPT, REDACT, NAVAJO and NORWAY. Always a pleasure to CROSS SWORDS with this RAPIER-witted setter.

   Ta Brendan & Eileen.

2. HANGER and WASTER are swords, so eight swords cross in the grid in four pairings. Brilliant!

3. Thanks Brendan and Eileen
   Great fun. Even I saw the theme, though I hadn’t heard of GLAIVE (Wiki says it isn’t exactly a sword, but a “pole-arm”). I didn’t fully parse OVEN (clever now) or FANDANGO (didn’t know DAN as a tribe). Favourites were GOALIE, TELEVISION, and TOP HAT.

   [I’m reminded of a talk and recital that Leon Goosens, the famous oboist, gave to us when I was still at school. He told a Thoms Beecham story. During the concert, Sir Thomas leaned over to him and said
   “Leon, come back to my dressing room after the concert – there’s someone I would like you to meet.”
   When Goosens arrived, there was a very distinguished looking gent standing in the room, wearing a frock coat covered in medals. Sir Thomas said
   “Leon, I would like to introduce you to my very old, my very dear friend, the King of Sweden.”
   The distinguished gent just said
   “Nor-vay”]

4. The theme was helpful and I knew all but one of the swords, FALCHION – which was one of my favourites.

   Didn’t manage to parse the two musical clues – so obvious now.

   Others I liked were GOALIE, STRONG ROOM, GLAIVE, IMPRESSIONS, NAVAJO

   Thanks Brendan and Eileen

5. Thanks Jay @2 – I missed HANGER and WASTER: I knew there must be more to it than I’d spotted!

6. A very enjoyable puzzle. Thanks, Brendan.
   A comprehensive and interesting blog. Enjoyed reading it. Thanks, Eileen.

   Liked OVEN, CROSS SWORDS, WASTER, ACTION and DOWNPLAY.

7. Thanks, Eileen, for the parsing of DOWNPLAY. In spite of fishing around in the deepest depths of my mind I couldn’t see the angle…

8. Not easy, but I chipped away and was rewarded with an abundance of smiles. Holes in my general knowledge resulted in two that I was unable to parse — FANDANGO & GOALIE. GLAIVE was pretty obscure, but the wordplay led me efficiently to it.

   Thanks Brendan & Eileen.

9. I did smile at the first 3 letters across the top and bottom of the grid, I wondered if it was hidden instruction from Brendan. Eileen, you may have missed my comment @1 about FANDANGO also being a sword.

10. Is FANDANGO a sword?

11. Didn’t know GLAIVE, or that a WASTER is a sword, but the clues are fair, and the lift and separate in WASTER is fun. Liked GOALIE – I had Goa??? for ages before the penny dropped. The surface for HANGER made me smile, as did the ref wondering about extra time. As always with Brendan, the gridfill is a work of art in itself with the four sets of crossed swords in each quarter.

12. Gladys @10: not to my knowledge. I think the other sword is WASTER as found by Jay @2.

13. This was brilliant although technically adnf for as I can’t spell NAVA(H)JO. Tried to convince myself a Havan was a native of Cuba!

14. Brilliant crossword by Brendan. I had heard of some of the swords but not all. Favourites were OVEN, HANGER and GOALIE.

    It struck me as to how many of these swords had influenced vehicle design teams to name their products with a punchy brand name.

    ( Sunbeam ) RAPIER, ( Triumph and Seat ) TOLEDO, FALCHION ( tank ), GLAIVE ( tank ), ( Reliant ) SCIMITAR, ( Mazda ) NAVAJO, ( Suzuki ) KATANA, [ m/cycle and car ] ( Kia ) TIGRIS [ Gladiator holding a sword or a sword itself ? ] and, in the clueing : ( Suzuki ) Samurai. Naturally, no-one would call a vehicle a HANGER or a WASTER !

    Thank you Brendan and Eileen.

15. Neither Chambers nor Collins has FANDANGO as a sword.

16. I’ve found a fandango sword. It seems to be a neoprene play item.

17. … FANDANGO Sword and Matchbox car. Don’t know if the FANDANGO was/is a real vehicle.

18. gladys@10: I googled and found a Fandango Kendo martial sword but on reflection, it my be just a trade name.

19. Good stuff as usual from Brendan. Really liked GOALIE, OVEN (COTD for me), and WASTER. Last two in the nho FALCHION and GLAIVE, but they couldn’t be anything else from the clueing and crossers already in place…

20. Superb – thanks, Brendan. And Eileen for the blog, and Jay @2 for the extra knowledge – I had thought the theme seemed a bit “light” by Brendan’s usual standards!

21. There is a pattern of a pair of “crossed swords” in each quarter of the grid, which suggests that only one of WASTER/FANDANGO can be the right candidate. I didn’t know either of them, but I did find the practice wooden WASTER sword online.

22. Widdersbel @20 I was surprised that Brendan had, apparently, identified all the swords as such – but It would never have occurred to me to look up HANGER and WASTER. Brilliant!

23. gladys@21
    I missed that pattern. Thanks.

24. Typically clever and well clued puzzle from Brendan, made somewhat trickier by the unfriendly grid. FALCHION was the only unfamiliar blade, although I didn’t recognise HANGAR and WASTER as others. And I agree that FANDANGO is not even a sword dance!

    Too many favourites to list individually, but I enjoyed all the six-letter entries.

    Thanks to Brendan and Eileen

25. gladys@31 yes, Jay had “balanced” to 8 – symmetric as has been pointed out. Beyond these 8, solutions must be brand names / associated “indirect terms” lining up with swords. One always wonders if Brendan came up with these “near sword” terms in his research for the puzzle or they occur there merely by coincidence ?

26. As others have said it was a real treat to be crossing swords with Brendan today and I found this another delightful and educative offering from one of our stellar setters (I learned some new things along the way, always the mark of a good experience for me). Partway through the solve, I thought “Gee I love Brendan’s surfaces”! They seem to speak to me and I am definitely a better solver for engaging with his puzzles, even though they are never a pushover. I get drawn in because I find some solutions come to me easily, so then it’s worth the ongoing pursuit to crack the others. Lots of my favourites already mentioned. Thank to Bradford’s (RIP Anne) for helping to confirm FALCHION at 22a, which I only got from crossers and wordplay.
    Appreciate the great blog from Eileen and all the “sword spotting” in the blog and the comments. Thanks to Brendan for a happy Easter Tuesday.

27. Crossing with others: I am in awe of those who could see the visual layoutof the grid as “crossed swords” as well. I am so often oblivious to that sort of thing and that’s why it’s such a pleasure to come to 15² and be the observer of even more nuances.

28. [muffin @3, great story; in Sydney there’s a Eugene Goossens Hall, named after Leon’s dad]

29. I don’t know what “used” is doing in TOP HAT, and didn’t parse DOWNPLAY (even though it couldn’t be anything else) so thanks for the explanation Eileen. I also wasted time trying work out what a Havan islander was in Navaho (NAVAJO).
    For once I saw the theme, including WASTER and HANGER (but not FANDANGO which is definitely just a dance) and the clever descriptive CROSS SWORDS in the middle.
    Favourite was ACTION for the clever “either side of suitcase”.

30. Just want to be the first to say I didn’t enjoy this. Much too smarty pants for my liking.

31. Scintillating!

32. Tim C @29 – ‘used’ seems to me to be a legitimate part of the wordplay: Brendan has used THAT round OP to produce the answer.

    crispy @30 – I can’t help hoping you’ll be the last. 😉

33. Aw. I was chuffed to get HANGER and WASTER from wordplay without realising they were swords as per Jay@2.

34. TimC@29 : Just fully noticed once more ( did take cognisance when solving ) that, in TOP HAT, the word “that” does not go through an anagram process. It’s already fully ordered. “Used”, for me, indicates that something is done with “that”, namely to wrap it around “op” ( work op[us] ) and get TOP HAT.

35. Eileen@32
    TOP HAT
    ‘THAT is used outside work (OP)’ works fine, but THAT is outside work (OP)’ would have worked as well, I feel.
    The only issue would have been that of an awkward surface.

    A minor thing: Just noticed that you have indicated ‘used’ as an anagrind. ‘THAT’ without any change goes around ‘OP’.

36. Flea@35
    Sorry. I took some time to type. 🙂

37. Flea@34*

38. KVa – so I did! (That seems a while ago now. I’ll amend the blog.)

39. gif@38 It’s a bit surprising that Sir Eugene is commemorated in Sydney as he was expelled from Australia under something of a (blue) cloud.

40. Eileen @32. Why? I’m sure some people look at all the “Gosh isn’t Brendan fab?”, and think they’re stupid. I just want them to know they’re not.

41. This was very clever and I failed on a couple, though I did know GLAIVE. I know ‘go’ and ‘match’ seem to be accepted as synonyms but I never remember it and I don’t understand how it’s meant to work. Surely ‘match’ would be ‘go with’?

42. Well I’m happily in the “Gosh isn’t Brendan fab?” camp. Eileen @32, I totally agree with you about “used” in 24a. Similarly in 9a HANGER, the wordplay would work without the word “produces” but the surface wouldn’t make much sense. The inclusion of the legitimate link word makes for a great surface and a brilliant clue all round. Brendan himself commented a while ago (@52 on 28,721) “I don’t share the view sometimes expressed here that superfluous words in clues must be avoided at all costs”. Hear hear.

    Many thanks Brendan and Eileen.

43. Yes Eileen @32, maybe, but “used” is not an anagram indicator (as the blog suggests) so “that’s outside work” would do just as well, although the surface isn’t great. Or am I missing something?

44. Crispy: I can sometimes get irritated by the fact that with Brendan it’s never enough to just solve the clues: there’s always (sometimes multiple) layers of extra too-clever-by-half-ery to wade through. I guess it’s a matter of taste – some people love all those extra frills and curlicues and some don’t see the point. But I did like today’s.

45. Sorry, Flea, KVa and Eileen, I got delayed by a telecon with an Edinburgh travel company trying to sort out my trip to the Orkneys and Shetland.

46. Splendid crossword splendidly blogged

    Many thanks to Brendan and Lucky Eileen

47. I was surprised to have completed this, given there were a fair few new words/meanings for me (FALCHION, GLAIVE, and as it happens both the meaning of PRODIGAL and the sword the WASTER). But rather that with very fair cluing than the looseness we had yesterday.

    OVEN was very clever, and I can’t be the only person who spent a long time thinking it started with an H…

    Thanks Brendan & Eileen.

48. gladys @44 – one of the things I’ve always felt about Brendan is that compiling crosswords must be very much a labour of love for him. To me, his sheer delight in playing with words comes through in every aspect of his puzzles. The fact that some of us share his delight is a bonus! It never feels like being “too clever by half” to me – no more than when, for example, Lionel Messi scores a goal with an outrageous bit of skill when a simple tap-in would have sufficed.

49. Delightful puzzle and very cleverly constructed.

    I thought WAGGONER was a stroke of genius. Also liked ACTION and REDACT.

    Thanks Brendan and Eileen

50. Thanks for parsing ACTION – I looked at it for ages but couldn’t make sense of it. FALCHION is an unknown which I would never have got in days and will forget in minutes – that was the clue that beat me today. 3D had to be FANDANGO, but how we get GO from ‘match’ remains a mystery to me.

51. People often say “Do these trousers and top go?” instead of “go together”.

52. BigNorm @50, “Does that tie go/match with that shirt?”

53. Sense of deja vu from this 2013 puzzle
    https://www.fifteensquared.net/2013/12/04/guardian-26122-by-brendan/
    Great fun nonetheless

54. A rare Brendan completed grid with everything parsed, though I will check the answers.
    A few of the swords needed checking but were all solvable from the wordplay.
    Looking forward to reading the blog.
    Thanks both…

55. A Glaive is not a sword. It is a spear, or Pole arm

56. As anticipated, some of the parsing I missed…OVEN escaped me, though as I type I am listening to a rerun of Classic FM’s top 300, and the great man’s Pastoral Symphony is playing.

57. Got all the answers and the theme, but not the brilliance! Kudos to Jay@2 and any others who noticed it. Many thanks to Brendan and Eileen.

58. Very impressive. Didn’t know WASTER was a sword but the clue works fine anyway, and need to learn the tribes of Israel because I couldn’t fully parse FANDANGO. GLAIVE is one of those words that I didn’t know I knew but it was in there, somewhere.

    Thanks both…

59. Well done Crispy@30 and @40 a good point well made. As we must encourage all grades and not discourage newbies. We like Brendan but find his puzzles challenging, but that’s OK.
    Thanks to Brendan for the workout and to Eileen for help with the parsing of 19down and 7down – now so obvious!

60. I’m with Crispy @30. Grid fills are only impressive if you are impressed by that sort of thing, and I am not when it detracts from the solving experience, with the forced inclusion of rarely used words and compensatingly straightforward clues. As usual with Brendan, I gave up with several clues unsolved and little interest in finding out whether this was because of my stupidity or the genius of the grid-fill.

61. Matt @53: I hope that’s deja vu in a good way – and that it’s a sign of grey cells in perfect working order that you remember one from a decade ago. Looking at that one, there is only one overlapping solution with this and the word ‘sword’ appears nowhere in the clues – which, for me, does rather underpin the fabness mentioned by others.

    I thought a GLAIVE was a boomerang.

    Seriously, on the hard-to-pin-down GLAIVE – defined in Chambers as sword, spear, long shafted weapon and fish spear – Wikipedia has this to say:

    The word “glaive” has historically been given to several very different types of weapons.

    The word “glaive” originated from French. Almost all etymologists derive it from either the Latin (gladius) or Celtic (*cladivos, cf. claymore) word for sword. Nevertheless, all the earliest attestations in both French and English refer to spears.[3] It is attested in this meaning in English roughly from the 14th century to the 16th century.[4]
    In the 15th century, it acquired the meaning described above – polearm.[5]
    Around the same time it also began being used as a poetic word for sword.[6]
    In Modern French “glaive” refers to short swords, especially the Roman gladius [fr].
    The term “glaive” is used in the science fiction/fantasy film Krull to refer to a thrown weapon, similar to the chakram or hunga munga, which can return to the thrower, much like a boomerang. “Glaive” has been used to describe this fictional type of weapon in films, video games and other fantasy media since.[7][8]

    Thanks Brendan and Eileen

62. Thanks Brendan for another skillfully crafted crossword. I failed to get FALCHION and WASTER and I couldn’t parse OVEN and WAGGONER but I enjoyed many clues such as TELEVISION, TOP HAT, and NORWAY. [I feel that there is a Brendan-can-do-no-wrong bias at times but there’s good reason for this — in my opinion he has never produced a mediocre puzzle in the 5 years I’ve been attempting his work.]
    Thanks Eileen for the blog.

63. Knew falchion from King Lear who talks in his dying moments of how he would once have made his opponents skip with his biting falchion. But foolishly had NORMAN as the answer for 20d, glossing certainly not as” no, man”. Must be the ageing hippy in me.

64. Excellent. I have directed, acted in and taught Lear but still forgot FALCHION.
    What a joy is old age!

65. Thanks Eileen and all. Especially Matt @ 53, your memory is better than mine. Glad I didn’t repeat much.

66. Postmark @61; yes – very much in the pleasant sense: they’re both great puzzles, and the main reason the previous one stuck in my mind was because of the clever, theme revealing clue for CROSSED SWORDS.

67. In fact, looking back at the comments in that puzzle, i see that there’s another precedent, just as elegantly done https://www.fifteensquared.net/2010/04/13/independent-7329-by-virgilius/

68. RAPIER my first one in, at which point the theme became obvious and everything fell into place quite quickly after that. FALCHION was new to me, and the parsing of IMPRESSIONS held me up for a little while, but all good fun! Thanks Brendan and Eileen.

69. Thanks Matt @53 for the link. It was strange to see the number of comments compared to today’s blog.

70. Thanks for dropping in, Brian @65 – you’re always very welcome.

71. Fabulous grid-fill as ever with Brendan.

    After not looking at CROSS(s)WORDS for a week, and trying to solve after an afternoon nap, I found this very tricky, but managed it with quite a lot of help. I see all the swords are in my Chambers Crossword Dictionary, so they must be kosher!

    I liked the No 1 GOALIE, the BeethOVEN’s Fifth, and the silly person in IMPRESSIONS. I failed to parse DOWNPLAY.

    Thanks Brendan for the fun and Eileen for carefully explaining it all.

72. I for one love the artistry involved in producing a puzzle like this. I found the clues very smooth generally and enjoyed the solve. Got the obvious sword theme but missed the specific crossed aspect. Also couldn’t see the wood for the trees in GLAIVE, which was unfamiliar to me. So a DNF, strictly speaking. Faves were the hapless husband clue and the highly formal attire, the meaning of which only dawned on me while writing the comment.
    Thanks, Brendan, Eileen and commenters, for the entertainment.

73. So many comments and no earworm. 3D prompted memories of this.

74. Matt @ 67. Totally forgot that one too. Seriously, everyone, this is a function of memory. I avoid recycling, though I probably would have gone ahead after the decent 10-year gap and minimal overlap.

75. Late to the party after spending time on Maskerade (after which this seemed quite easy!)
    I was once again blown away by the sheer artistry of Brendan’s work.
    I think it’s all been said, so I’ll just thank setter and blogger.

76. What a lovely puzzle! Thank you Brendan and Eileen, and the commenters who picked up extra layers to the theme. Lots of fun cluing.

    Falchion was new to me, and so were hanger and waster qua swords; glaive I knew—I assume from my fantasy reading habit.

77. Thanks, TimSee @73 – me too.

78. Mrs S and I found this easier than we expected, either because we’re of a certain age where our GK overlaps that of the setter, or because we’re (slowly) learning the tricks of the cruciverbal trade.
    The only one we didn’t get was redact. It does sometimes seem that we get some of the hard ones and miss the more straightforward ones.
    The hanger as a sword I first met aged about 9 when reading Gulliver’s Travels. Having a visual response to novels, I was initially somewhat perplexed. As I was when I read of the Polish people, who obviously had very shiny furniture. I was easily misled (which I used to pronounce myzled ?)

79. Managed 4 clues.

    Revealing the answers a lot. They then make sense…just.

80. Please keep at it, Steffen!

81. Brendan was at the cutting edge with today’s puzzle. One of the pleasures of now having retired is that I can spend all day on solving these now.

82. Didn’t know some of the swords and can’t believe I missed WAGNER.
    Thanks both

83. PostMark@61 Aaagh! I remember that film Krull! I saw it in the ’80s, with a bunch of teenagers from a children’s home I worked at. I am definitely not a fantasy fan, although you clearly are, so I’m not dissing the genre. The young people loved it, but I was slumped in my seat, privately dubbing it ‘Krudd’!

84. The never-heard-of swords were very fairly clued, as I’ve come to expect from this setter, though I didn’t believe GLAIVE until I had all the crossers, so the NW corner was last to yield.

    3d had to be FANDANGO (memories of “We skipped a light fandango” meant that it had to be a ‘lively dance’), but I’m not sure I’ve seen ‘match’ for GO before, and I’m still not convinced. [Mind, I’m still seething about ‘worried’ for ATE so I seem to be developing a little list.] And there’s no way I’m going to remember all the tribes of Israel.

    Really enjoyed the two composers, and I saw the theme to the extent that I knew where the swords were going to be crossing, so it’s been a good day on the whole.

    Thanks to Brendan/Brian and to Eileen as always.

85. Top half was harder for me. Failed to solve 4d – clever clue but I had never heard of the word ‘WASTER’.

    Favourites: IMPRESSIONS, ACTION, OVEN.

    New for me: FALCHION; GLAIVE.

    Thanks, both.

86. Really pleased to finish this, even if a day late. I must admit that, from my D&D experience, I thought a GLAIVE was a polearm rather than a sword. OVEN was my LOI, and too many claps to list. Bravo, Brendan!

87. Who said RPG’s don’t teach you anything? Glaive, falchion, rapier and scimitar are all well used in D&D and similar games.

    Thanks to Eileen for throwing light on a couple of darkened corners.

88. Togs @39 not that surprising really: Goossens did a superb job of raising musical standards in Sydney, and is commemorated for that reason. The more interesting question would be whether the hall keeps his name in today’s more censorious age where personal deficiencies are, apparently, not to be tolerated.

89. Thank you David@88 for leading me to a very interesting story. I’d heard of Goossens but didn’t know why he was chased out of town. https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/the-conservatorium-director-and-the-witch-20150702-gi3h8y.html

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