Guardian 29,104 – Brendan

88 comments on “Guardian 29,104 – Brendan”

1. Thanks, Brendan and Andrew!

   BOGUS
   I took U in BOGS
   U is imported into BOGS

2. PERUkes
   caNZone

3. And here’s me looking to see if there was geist other than zeit, dill! (Actually there was, a blockchainy thing …). Nice to see Pirandello, mrs ginf was a fan, we went to his house. [There’s a nice movie comprising four of his stories; it’s called Qaos … I’ve often wondered if …].
   Lovely puzzle, thanks Brendan and Andrew.

4. Missed all the hidden countries — but I never see themes. Needed help to parse HANDED OVER. Never heard of PIRANDELLO, PLANCK & PERUKES, but three is within the legal limit. Agree with KVa’s parsing of BOGUS.

   An enjoyable pursuit, thank you Brendan & Andrew.

5. I’m with KVa@1. Didn’t finish (beaten by perukes and canzine, though both were fairly clued). Don’t think it was because of that, but I found this a bit dull and not satisfying.
   Thanks Brendan and Andrew

6. Far, far gentler than the usual Friday fare. Took me a little while to dredge up Max PLANCK and I needed to look up IRISH MOSS for confirmation, but a very rapid solve. Yes to KVa@1 wrt BOGUS.
   Thanks to Brendan and Andrew.

7. My faves: HANDED OVER and ROMANS.

8. After a difficult week for me this was a relatively quick but enjoyable puzzle. Canzone was new to me but clearly clued. I couldn’t tell you what Pirandello wrote but his name popped into my head once I guessed the river was Po. Thanks Brendan for restoring my self-confidence and Andrew for the blog.

9. I tend to agree with Crispy@5 – after the excellent puzzles of the past couple of days, this was slightly disappointing. Failed on CANZONE as I didn’t know the word, being a musical ignoramus, and ZONE not being the first word that springs to my mind for ‘divide into sections’. Also revealed GEORGIAN but that was more because I couldn’t be bothered to check all the countries/states that border the Atlantic. And I’m generally uninterested in themes.
   Sorry to be a bit negative. There were some nice clues, including PERUKES, PLANCK, OVERDRESSED, HANDED OVER.
   Thanks Brendan and Andrew.

10. Thanks Brendan and Andrew
    I don’t take offence easily, but you really cannot define CRETINOUS as “really stupid” any more. It’s a specific metabolic disorder – a thyroid deficiency.
    7d is weak. Olio isn’t a word in English; in Italian it means “oil” (usually olive).
    “Atlantic” is superfluous in 17d.
    “In” doesn’t work in 1a.

11. Finally saw the gag just in time to help with ROMANS & PERUKES.

    Nicely done, Brendan, many thanks.

12. I found this satisfying, with the south east corner holding out last.

    I thought, when I realised I was looking for a German physicist, that there are so many of them, like flowers or birds.

    EASEMENT like PIRANDELLO popped into my head from somewhere. PERUKES I knew, but it’s linked in my mind to something like the Baroness Orczy Scarlet Pimpernel books, which I read a long time ago.

    GEORGIAN for a style of architecture was another: but there are so many of them, until I mentally went down Atlantic seaboard of the US, with enough crossers in.

    Thank you to Brendan and Andrew.

13. Not just PERUkes, but PerUKes – a most versatile word!

14. Muffin@10
    “In” does work in 1a. Reverse CARA and reinsert it into CAS. Seems OK to me.
    And Atlantic may not be absolutely necessary, but it is certainly helpful. Not all states are American, and not all American states are on the eastern seaboard.

15. Charles @14
    1a is simpler than that – see the blog. I agree that your parsing does make use of the “in” though.
    How many states give adjectives that are architectural styles?

16. I had insomnia last night and turned to this at just gone midnight. As others have noted, a farily gentle offering for a Friday, but cleverly constructed. I am more familiar with the PERRUQUE spelling, though I got there. The only Sicilian author I could think of was Tomasi Di Lampedusa, though it could only be Pirandello. Anyway, all good fun. With thanks to both. Brendan and Andrew.

17. Muffin@15. It depends how far back you want to go, doesn’t it? Most of the early architectural styles are named after the states (Minos, Egypt, Rome etc.) in which they originated. Even on the eastern seaboard you could make a case for Carolingian.
    Redundancy is a strong word for something useful. Inessential, perhaps?

18. An odd mix I thought, with some obvious flaws as Muffin has pointed out. I’d add “country” in 2d, only 3 clues removed from the same word as a solution, and we say “as it happens” only a day or two ago. But also some real ingenuity, especially the three anagrams of each other.

    I rather liked the Italian book with its two definitions and wordplay – had it been just book OR Italians then the structure of the clue would’ve been far more obvious, so here the added definition (for me at least) made it much harder.

    Thanks Brendan and Andrew.

19. Is there some implied criticism of nationalism in the anagrams of COUNTRIES? Muffin@14 There’s Victorian, and Corinth, Doria and Ionia have been states at some period of time, I think. I am another who only got this by mentally running down the Atlantic seaboard, so I was grateful for the extra hint.

20. nanNIes. Brilliance fro the setter as per.

    Ta Brendan & Andrew

21. Despite Brendan’s typical ingenuity I enjoyed this puzzle rather less than his usual offerings – I’m afraid it was over too soon for me.

    I agree with muffin that ‘olio’ in the clue for OLIVE OIL is clumsy, but I don’t agree with ‘in’ being superfluous in the clue for CARACAS – for me it’s a perfectly reasonable copula or link word (I wasn’t impressed by the clue, though – the old purgative ‘cascara’ is a strangely unusual word to use as anagrist and made the solution a write-in). CANZONE was familiar as the standard Italian word for ‘song’ – but French? That would be ‘chanson’, surely? On checking, I found that it is also used to describe ballads in Provençal, but that’s not quite the same thing.

    ‘Cretin’ did originally signify a sufferer from a thyroid deficiency – particularly in Alpine areas where foods were historically lacking in iodine – but CRETINOUS usually now just indicates ‘stupid’. It’s a pejorative term that I would not use myself, but I don’t object to its appearance in a crossword.

    Nevertheless I found much to enjoy here: the Sicilian author, the relatively older Russian, and the cleverly hidden ‘x and y’ in HANDED OVER we’re highlights for me.

    Thanks to Brendan (I look forward to your next one!) and Andrew

    [PS I also look forward to meeting up with some of you in Nottingham tomorrow. You’ll recognise me – I’ll be the one wearing the ELY IS NOT A CATHEDRAL T-shirt. Only joking.]

22. I enjoyed the surface elements of the theme which were well worked. And I spotted some of the more obvious themers in the solutions but totally overlooked the hidden ones. And they were right in front of me. As with one or two others, PIRANDELLO and EASEMENT both popped into my head from somewhere – I know absolutely nothing about the former so must have encountered the name in a puzzle. BOGUS, GEOLOGISTS, VANYA, HANDED OVER, PLANCK, ROMANS and AESOP were my favourites. I agree that CRETINOUS should either be avoided or otherwise defined these days and, yes, ‘olio’ in the clue for OLIVE OIL was not to Brendan’s usual standard unless I am missing something.

    Thanks Brendan and Andrew

23. Agree muffin@10. I cringed at CRETINOUS. I was loth to say anything as the PC brigade would say it’s only a word and fair game in cryptics, but with the def ” really stupid” you’d think the setter would take a bit of care. ”NEUROTIC” can be over-used as well, but the dictionary definition there is ok.
    OLIVE OIL was a bit close to the wordplay with ”olio”.
    GEORGIAN, I thought but what’s cryptic about that until I realised that state’s on the Black Sea. ?
    TILT: Familiar with cough lozenges IRISH MOSS , but never knew about the seaweed.
    Favourite: GEOLOGISTS. ROMANS was clever but I didn’t get it.

24. And a nice MOET under OVERDRESSED. Don’t mind if I do.

25. Fun puzzle, thanks, Brendan and Andrew. I was going to mention PERU and NZ but I see others have already done so.

    Olio is defined in the usual sources as meaning “a dish of many ingredients” in English (derived from the Spanish olla).

26. [[Gervase@21. CRETINOUS has particular interest for me. I grew up in a flat, plains area of western Queensland, Australia, where the soil was iodine-poor. Both my father and grandmother had goitres removed and I have been tested several times whenever a medical practitioner thought there might be ”something wrong” with me. Have always used iodised salt since it was available.
    Had a car accident in Schwäbisch Hall, Baden-Württemberg, Germany in the 70s, which was apparently also in an iodine-poor area. I was the only non-thyroid surgical patient in that ward of the hospital. The other wonderful women helped me escape! That, and being able to answer the questions of the neurologist in the local dialect instead of standard German (Hochdeutsch). Nothing wrong with me 🙂 ]

27. Nice country tour from Brendan; clever 3 anagrams of each other (cretin is given as offensive in the ODE and Collins, but not in Chambers).

    No doubt I’ll court some controversy by quoting the Wiki definition of NI: part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland that is variously described as a country, province or region.

    I liked the rock cognoscenti in GEOLOGISTS and the H and E trick in HANDED OVER.

    Thanks Brendan and Andrew.

28. Mostly easier than the average Friday but I came unstuck three clues to the end. I did like the triple anagram device. As others have noted a couple of clues were surprisingly weak for Brendan — 1a is barely cryptic; I was looking for some clever double-bluff, but no. It could have been made marginally more interesting to solve by omitting the ‘’South American’ qualifier.

    Thanks both 🙂

29. I enjoyed this – many thanks to Brendan, and to Andrew for the blog. Only quibble: surely bizarre to describe Dover as *north of* Kent port?

30. judygs @29
    “North of” describes the position of the H AND E relative to DOVER.

31. [Further to the discussion about CRETINOUS, this is a dated term which would be highly pejorative even if used in its original meaning of being intellectually impaired due to thyroid deficiency. There are numerous expressions in English for being not very bright, all of which are derogatory. However, context is important. I would happily describe a friend as ‘idiotic’ if they had done something unwise, but I would be wary of using it to a stranger, unless I deliberately wanted to emphasise my annoyance, and I wouldn’t dream of using it to describe someone with genuine learning difficulties]

32. muffin@10 I share your misgivings about cretinous. The Guardian style guide doesn’t have anything to say on this.

    Thanks Andrew and Brendan. With the last few Brendan crosswords I have struggled with the last few clues, but this was fine today (except when I came to Andrew’s blog, I realised I had missed GERM)

33. muffin@30
    Ah, of course – thank you!

34. Yes, I suppose it was easier than usual. Now you’ve all spoilt my glow of achievement – I was so happy to finish reasonably quickly! Did not notice olio was not a word as I thought it was part of the hydraulic system in a plane’s landing gear (but that is oleo, of course). Liked Pirandello and (Uncle) Vanya as I have literary leanings. Did not know Irish Moss or canzone but they were obvious from the clues. Unlike some contributors, I am not affronted by words I do not know – I love learning new ones.
    Thought it was all great fun. Thanks Brendan and Andrew

35. Thanks Brendan and Andrew

    Olio is definitely an English word. My mid-seventies SOED has it going back to 1643.

36. Bonnie @34 – don’t be downhearted! I found your comment quite refreshing after rather a lot of negative ones this morning.

    Well, I enjoyed it! Admittedly, it didn’t take as long as a typical Brendan but it was very cleverly constructed, with some great clues. My favourites were 18ac OVERDRESSED, 26ac VANYA and 13dn HANDED OVER.

    I’ve just taken rather longer to solve Buccaneer’s FT puzzle
    https://www.ft.com/content/d1e8acab-b42e-4dd1-a6ea-cfe97bd06e4b
    which I’d recommend to those who feel less than satisfied.

    Many thanks, as ever, to Brendan for a fun puzzle and to Andrew for a fine blog.

37. Thanks for the blog, I thought this was really good , a nuclear theme from 5D , I only spotted the obvious ones. Thanks everyone for the others.
    GEOLOGISTS is very neat and misleading , also OVERDRESSED . HANDED OVER is a great clue, I always like the x AND y idea.
    Good to see PLANCK , his constant is the last fundamental constant discovered so far, there is an even greater physicist in the FT puzzle today.

38. Please don’t post spoilers Roz

39. [AlanC @ 20 , typical of you to spot NI , I only got Peru apart from the three referenced in 5D.
    Your number 1 yesterday has been recorded, it is now 24-14 . ]

40. [ Simon@ 38 the clue is PHYSICIST so hardly a spoiler. ]

41. Found this easier than the average Brendan, but mainly because the gk was in friendly areas for me (no botany or classical music). A very satisfying run of puzzles in the Graun this week.

42. Had to do a bit of surfing as I did not know canzone. Otherwise fun. The theme made me a bit anxious as I am rubbish at geography but got by in the end.

43. Thanks to Brendan and Andrew. If I don’t get to come on here Australian time until after I cook dinner after a busy day, it’s all been said already. But I enjoyed this smooth Brendan puzzle (as is usual with Brendan as setter).
    [Picky I know re 20d, but there’s no actual book called ROMANS in the Christian scriptures – it is the Letter or Epistle to the Romans.]
    [The discussion re 15d CRETINOUS was an aspect of the blog I found fascinating. Thanks to all who commented as I learn new things every day. paddymelon@26, your backstory re familial thyroid deficiency and your experiences in Queensland and in Germany were really interesting, though it must have been tough for you to learn that it wasn’t so much about genetics but about environmental degradation.]

44. At first I was getting nowhere until I spotted the helpful anagrams at 3d and 14ac. Steady progress thereafter, though I had a speculative Lerner in at 19d for the German physicist until the very end and therefore struggled to get PIRANDELLO and finally PERUKES. Clever triple anagram to be admired as always with this setter’s usual expertise…

45. …though I suppose a le(a)rner needn’t necessarily be unintelligent….

46. Well, I liked this.

    I directed a PIRANDELLO play, Henry IV, for my college drama group, and wrote a paper in grad school about another, Six Characters in Search of an Author. I’ve always been a fan. If you don’t like modern drama, he also wrote novels–The Late Mattia Pascal is a real gem, highly recommended.

    I once wrote the following clue for GEORGIAN: Stalin and Martin Luther King like 18th-century architecture. Maybe unfair? But anyway, had no trouble writing that one in here.

    I thought all the countries–both hidden in the grid and used in the clues–were very clever. So too, I like the fact that COUNTRIES has two different anagrams. Thanks to both setter and blogger.

47. Muffin@10 – you might not like it, but Cambridge English Dictionary, Meriam-Webster, and Collins all include that definition, generally with an indication that it is an offensive usage.

    I thought this a typical Brendan – a fairly quick solve, with perfectly sound clues and a brilliantly constructed diagram. As an early musician and physicist manque I didn’t find any of it obscure.

    Brendan in the guardian,, Buccaneer in the FT, Phi in the Indy, and the Don in the Telegraph Toughie. It doesn’t get better than today’s set!

48. Very enjoyable though a few beat me. E.g. CANZONE and H AND E missed.
    Thanks Brendan and Andrew

49. [Luigi PIRANDELLO may not be exactly a household name, but he is one of the more widely known Italian playwrights, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, as was his compatriot Dario Fo. Less widely known Italian recipients were the Sardinian novelist Grazia Deledda and the Sicilian poet Salvatore Quasimodo (great name).]

50. Loved this puzzle to end the week, so thanks to Brendan and Andrew. From some of the rather moaning comments, it’s clear you can’t please everybody! I’m guessing the really cantankerous ones are brilliant compilers themselves, unless they just got out of bed the wrong side.

51. An enjoyable mix of hard and easy. PIRANDELLO was entirely new to me but fair enough judging by the number of people familiar with the name

52. 4d NIGER is mentioned.

    7dn Didn’t we just have LIVE = “As it happens” yesterday, or recently?

    Enjoyed it. Thanks Brendan and Andrew.

53. Re PIRANDELLO — up until a few weeks ago I’d never heard of the chap but I was writing a crossword and it was the only word that fit in a tricky grid, so I looked him up. The clue I came up with was;

    Detective managed computer business with old Italian author (10)

54. Nice clue Rob

55. We had an F-word recently – now we have a C-word.
    https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-c
    ‘cretinism a medical condition, not a term of abuse’

56. Around the world in less than 80 clues.
    Loved GERM(ANY)-LOI.
    Thanks all.

57. Maybe we could replace the C-word with creditors, coeditors or crepitous.
    I like CREPITOUS – “grating, crackling or popping”
    Anyone fancy writing a clue?

58. We enjoyed this, as is usual with Brendan, saw most but not all of the theme entries, so thanks to posters above as well as to Brendan and Andrew.

    I was interested in muffin’s comment @10 re CRETINOUS; made me wonder if it was one of many insult words which were originally technical/medical but with the link now faded.

    I recall – circa 1955 – leafing through my mother’s textbooks on mental deficiency (as it then was), with its 3 broad levels of impairment: feeble-minded, imbecile, idiot. The latter two, but not the first perhaps, no longer associated with a diagnosis.

    And when later I railed from the Gresty Road terraces at poor referees ‘MORON – IMBECILE!!’ I was reproved by fellow-fans for prissiness rather than unPCness.

59. [One more Pirandello note: the name he gave to his collected plays was Maschere Nude, or “Naked Masks.” The astute question has been pointed out, “why isn’t it naked faces?” And the best answer basically is that for Pirandello, it’s masks all the way down. Which gives you a bit of an idea of what his plays are like.]

60. Thanks Brendan, it’s always a pleasure. As usual I had many favourites including OVERDRESSED, PIRANDELLO, VANYA, NANNIES, SINAI, ROMANS, and HANDED OVER; the craftmanship of the latter is why I love cryptics so much. I had no problem with a superfluous word or two in the clues — I believe Brendan once said that he will do that to improve a surface reading. Thanks Andrew for the blog.

61. Irishman @58 – there are loads of other examples – spastic, lunatic, hysteria to name a few. All of those terms have been dropped by the medical profession, partly to disassociate them from the pejorative use. So has cretinism, for that matter – the condition is called congenital hypothyroidism these days.

    The only non-obsolete usage of cretinous is as a mild insult. Most people aren’t aware of the medical connection.

62. Thanks for that research, Gervase @21, I did wonder in what sort of French canzone was song.

63. Widdersbel @61
    See the entry from the Guardian style guide that FrankieG quoted @55.

64. Spastic especially, Widdersbel @61; it had derivatives in local argot, like spaz, and [having a] spaz or spac (hissy fit).

65. FrankieG@57:

    Eurosceptic leaves the city, drunk in dodgy joints (9)

    Anagram of Eurosceptic (drunk = anagrind) minus EC (“leaving city”). Crepitous, IIRC refers to popping noises between bone and cartilage, hence the definition…

66. Another straightforward, totally logical crossword, with no silly tricks. Thankyou.

67. [Frankie G @57
    Some compounds – lead(II) nitrate, for example – make crackling sounds when heated as the crystals explosively break up. This is called “decrepitation”!]

68. [muffin @63: There’s no incongruity between Widdersbel’s comment @61 and the Guardian style guide. That recommends that ‘cretinism’ should only be used as a medical term. But as this usage is now itself obsolete, there is no justification for using the word at all – except perhaps in crosswords 🙂

    Re decrepitation, a bar of pure tin decrepitates when bent, due to crystal realignment (twinning). This is known picturesquely as the ‘cry’ of tin]

69. [Thanks Roz @39, chomping at your heels].

70. Nicely done, Rob T @53.

71. [ AlanC @69 do not be too hasty , 3 in a week halves your score as before. 3 in a row and your score returns to zero ]

72. Good challenge.

    Favourites: HANDED OVER, PIRANDELLO.

    I failed 12ac GERM and I could not parse 8d apart from E and MEN.

    Thanks, both.

73. Interesting to see Muffin’s complaint about ‘in’ regards my questions on the blog yesterday! I thought I was alone but apparently not… 😉

    Always worried to see Brendan’s name – as a setter I find him quite tough. But happily managed to get about half before revealing the rest today.

74. Shame on Brendan – I counted as many as four clues/answers that did not relate to the theme. 🙂
    Nice work Brendan coming up with two one-word anagrams for the 9-letter theme. Too bad that one of them offended so many people. I note that they did not object to the wording of the clue; they objected to the use of the word itself.

    Some people thought this was not one of Brendan’s better efforts. For me, his B-game is better than the A-game of a lot of setters. I thoroughly enjoyed this. Thanks B and A for the fun.

    [ Goujeers@47, nice picks, a great day indeed. For me the Fab Four would be Brendan, Philistine/Goliath, Arachne/Rosa Klebb, and Matilda/Velia. ]

75. Thanks Brendan & Andrew.
    I really enjoyed this for its wide range of interests, geography, drama and cryptic craft. I usually reserve my weakening effort for Sunday’s Azed but this tickled the taste-buds. and whiled away a worth-while hour and a half.
    Pirandello was surely the forerunner of Wes Anderson, who has, I see, a new work out this week. And we also had a neat clue for Chekhov’s Uncle.

76. Thanks Brendan for the puzzle, and Andrew for explaining the “h and e” in HANDED OVER, which went way over my head!

77. [Roz @71: has that got something to do with squaring a pie or summit, you scientists depress me with your endless brilliance? Anyway, KPR’s new academy has opened and I’m working on my 50-year plan].

78. Nice puzzle and thanks for the blog! Had to rely on you for the parsing for 18a as I kept trying to see “reversed” as a wordplay indicator.

    For 19d, I wondered if there might also be a play on “plonking” the way it’s used in the One-Upmanship books, but it doesn’t seem like that is used the same way anywhere else!

79. 25a – how do you know from the clue to remove “e” from SHORE I MISS?

80. 8d – I have so far known “workers” to be ants or bees in a cryptic crossword.

81. Andrew, for completeness, perhaps you should include 3Down as CUSTOM-MADE being anagram of MUSCAT DOME with REBUILT as indicator

82. Steffen: “best part of” might indicate that something be dropped from the following word; “workers” could be ants, bees, men, hands, labour, or a number of other terms — as soon as you think you know something a crafty setter will prove otherwise. That’s the fun of cryptics.

83. [AlanC @77 the rules are clearly written down I simply enforce them carefully. That is why I got my 10 point bonus to give me the lead. With your knowledge of music you should soon get KPR into Europe ]

84. Jack of Few Trades@65’s clue for CREPITOUS:
    “Eurosceptic leaves the city, drunk in dodgy joints (9)” – Nice one.
    Here’s my effort – I know it’s crap:
    “Mine for money in stupid, offensively grating clue (9)”
    Swap the TIN (money) in CRETINOUS “stupid, offensively” with PIT (mine) giving CREPITOUS “grating”
    Or maybe just change the original clue from “Really stupid…” to “Offensively stupid…”

85. So glad others on this site weren’t happy with ‘cretinous’. I expected some discussion on the Guardian site but couldn’t see any. Otherwise an enjoyable crossword. Thanks Brendan,

86. Thank god this cryptics are for free otherwise I would have not just wasted precious time but hard-earned money too.

87. Hawa@85 – “HawaYahya – Am I the only one who objected to the definition at 15d?”
    Yes, you were the only one – I’m stunned.

88. grantinfreo @ 3, I love movies like that so I looked it up. It’s apparently called Kaos. Looks great but not available on any of my streaming services. Almost tempted to sign up for another one just for that.

Comments are closed.