Guardian Cryptic 29,144 by Brendan

94 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,144 by Brendan”

1. Just marvellous, with a theme right up my street. It may irritate solvers with little interest in the bard, but the characters and plays should be reasonably familiar apart from the tinker SLY and VALENTINE maybe. Likes include INACTIVE, SLINGS, MENDELSSOHN, SWITCH OFF, SCREENPLAYS, STIGMATISE and LOVES LABOURS LOST among many. Yet another tour de force from the setter.

   Ta Brendan & manehi.

2. Excellent puzzle which was made even more enjoyable my its theme.

   New for me: CLERESTORY, and Christopher Sly the tinker in The Taming of the Shrew (for 1ac).

   Favourites: LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST, WILL, SLINGS, MENDELSSOHN..

   Thanks, both.

3. Managed to complete, and enjoy, this with little or no knowledge of Shakespeare.

   Thanks manehi for the parsing of MENDELSSOHN – I thought there may have been an error in the clue, but you’ve put me right on that one.

   Thanks also to Brendan.

4. The plays I did at school (Hamlet, Henries V and IV part 1 and Merchant of Venice), I know quite well but the others are more of a mystery. So I thought this was going to be difficult. In the end it was a lot of fun and extremely clever in the way Brendan weaved the theme in different ways.
   Thanks B and Manehi

5. Anyone else try to hammer “Snout” into 1a?

6. Very entertaining as always from Brendan. I loved the WILL and WONT. And EDGAR was a great clue-as-definition.

   I don’t think I’ve ever heard CLERESTORY spoken and I assumed that the second E was sounded, but on checking I see it is indeed pronounced as “clear story”.

   Many thanks Brendan and manehi.

7. Total admiration, once again, for the way Brendan develops a theme in a thorough and enjoyable way. I felt this could well have been a Prize crossword allowing for, perhaps, a wider audience and more time to savour. Thanks, manehi, too, for an accomplished blog. I enjoyed the extra bits of information given about the characters and the explanation of cryptic definitions such as 13D. A pity, in 7D the ‘practice’ is misspelt for the surface reading [as a verb] (but not for the definition – which is a noun). I suppose it works in American spelling.

8. Superb crossword, great start to the day
   Thanks Brendan
   And manehi

9. I see that our commentator VALENTINE gets a mention two days on the trot. 🙂

10. Well, that was fun.
    Obviously one can only admire Brendan’s cleverness. But I must admit to having reservations about themes as crashingly intrusive as this. If one knows even a smidgeon of Shakespeare there are too many clues – among them MOOR OF VENICE, EDGAR, OLIVIA, YORK, AIR PISTOL – which become virtual write-ins. That’s a pity, in my view, because they’re good clues in themselves and are devalued by the theme making them so obvious.
    Much to like here, of course. LOVES LABOURS LOST very funny, and I admired INACTIVE.
    Thanks to Brendan and manehi.

11. Without ado, had the outrageous fortune to solve this morning’s Brendan fairly quickly. It won’t be necessarily as you like it but WONT was my favourite. Other KILLER clues were “famous actor exchanging last two parts for a role in Twelfth Night” for the powerful way the simple word “a” played its part in the solution and “Tinker on stage, holding online meeting without ado” for the way a particle with ancient etymology ( SLY ) swallowed up a particle of the modern era (E-DATE).

    VALENTINE has appeared on successive days, having been in yesterday’s Brummie and I love seeing ( 3-term + ) alliteration so LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST was pleasing.

    Obligatory earworm for today

    https://youtu.be/UxUsmAL2HO0

    Thank you Brendan and manehi.

12. Brilliant and amusing, thanks.

13. Just brilliant. I loved all the clues already picked out. Shirl@5 Yes. Another Snout here. And a really thorough blog too. Thanks.

14. Well, for once a theme that even I spotted. 1A with its side glance at The Taming of the Shrew reminded me of Cole Porter’s song from the musical Kiss Me Kate: Brush up your Shakespeare…, seems to be on point. With thanks to Brendan and manehi.

15. When I observed that the theme was the Bard, I thought I wouldn’t have much hope, as he’s a bit of a black hole in my general knowledge. But I surprised myself by discovering I wasn’t as ignorant as I thought, getting it all out and enjoying it very much. My favourite clue would have had to be LOVE LABOUR’S LOST, which produced a small chuckle. CLERESTORY was new to me.

    Thanks Brendan & manehi.

16. Very little memory of Shakespeare’s works from long time ago and thus as AlanC @1 suggested not heard of SLY or VALENTINE or indeed PISTOL. So struggled a bit.

    Liked: LOVES LABOURS LOST (FOI – had heard of that one), MENDELSSOHN, AVOWEL, SLINGS, WONT

    Thanks Brendan and manehi

17. Thought I had no chance when I started this, but thankfully an anagram and a few in the NW got me going. Managed without reveals except for SEDATELY, INACTIVE, MENDELSSOHN and CLERESTORY.

    No, Shirl@5. No, but I get where you’re coming from with ”snout” for IA SEDATELY. I tried to do something around ”ado” with ”fiddler” or ”Topol”. Too many unknowns in that one for me, but clever, as was INACTIVE.

18. Thanks Brendan and manehi

    Larry @ 7 I think 7D works if you see ‘practice’ as adjectival – ‘practice acting’ (rehearsal) as opposed to ‘real acting’ (in front of an audience).

19. Thankyou both, I did Macbeth at school and have seen, but had forgotten that it is a 5 act play, the first being The Taming of the Shrew in Regents Park when I was 11, I went with my elder sister, who had just turned 13 . Suprisingly, I don’t remember Mr. Sly, so yes,, Shirl@5, but SNOUT refused to go in.
    Loved Love’s Labours Lost.

20. I too approached the theme with a bit of trepidation, with my knowledge being limited to a couple of half-remembered plays at school nigh on 20 years ago, but this was lots of fun. I knew slightly more than I realised, and in any case, the cluing was very fair. I think I’ve vaguely come across CLERESTORY before but am now less ignorant of the pronunciation.

    Favourites: WILL & WONT, and Olivia.

    Thanks Brendan and Manehi.

21. I’m firmly in the ‘love it’ camp. A super blend of thematic cluing and thematic solutions and an impressively populated grid. Sure, some knowledge of the Bard does allow for a few easier ways in to some clues but that didn’t detract from the clever constructions for me. It does seem a cop out not to mention particular highlights but I could tick so many today. Maybe I’ll just second Lord Jim @6 in acknowledging the delightfully paired (pared?) WILL and WONT.

    Thanks Brendan and manehi

22. I seem to have forgotten several more plays. Apologigies.

23. Another here for WONT, especially as I got it, without homophoning, and WILL’s not bad either.

24. Absolutely superb. Apart from a partially unparsed ELBOWS at 10a that held me up on WONT (it fits two crossers!) this was a sheer delight from start to finish. Otherwise, AlanC @1 has it spot on. Thanks, Brendan and manehi (super blog).

25. Have been pronouncing it wrong all these years, something like Clare restory, hey ho, always a-learnin’. Sly the tinker too was a shrug. Loved “loves [the fact that] labou’s lost”. A nice cruisy bardic puzzle, thanks B and m.

26. A total delight. Great fun.

27. Smashing puzzle, very enjoyable and approachable. A few of the answers may have been giveaways if you know a little Shakespeare, but were no less enjoyable for that. Thanks, Brendan and manehi.

    Lord Jim @6 / gif @25 – glad to discover I’m not the only one!

28. Thanks for the blog, WILL and WONT were very neat and MENDELSSOHN was clever, although I had to leave it until I had looked at the Downs, I did not know where to put the H .
    I do not think I have seen Shakespeare used for a Guardian theme before, I suppose he gets crowded out by all the science themes.

29. The actors union won’t have liked The Scottish Play being named twice. Yes, enjoyable, though took a while to be convinced that 14d had to be CLERESTORY. Did know this word from lovely examples of windows at this level in our local church. Not that keen on KILLER, the only slight complaint. And SEDATELY for “without ado” meant that that was nearly my last insertion. Roz won’t have been impressed by the cricketing reference to get the House of YORK…

30. Absolutely wonderful. Thanks Brendan!

31. Always love a good literary cryptic and so I revelled in this one. Thanks in abundance to Brendan and for your blog, manehi. I smiled a lot right to the end when my last solution, SLINGS at 10a, was fitted in – what a gem! Such a pleasurable exercise from start to finish.

32. My Plan A with a theme I’m unfamiliar with is to knock off all the non-themers first. So Plan B it is then 🙂
    Despite a bit of guesswork with OLIVIA, EDGAR & PISTOL it all went in fairly smoothly which is testament to the quality of the clues

    COTD obviously YORK for the cricket reference

    And as we’ve had two Valentines in a row it seems only fair to have an earworm from The Valentine Brothers

    Cheers M&B

33. Think I just have to add to the general acclaim here. The surface readings for the theme were superb, with 19a being a wonderful example (I’d forgotten that EDGAR disguised himself in rags, so missed out on appreciating the clue until I came to the blog). I’m another one who has been pronouncing CLERESTORY wrongly all my life (to myself, I don’t think I’ve ever used the word in conversation), so learnt something today.

34. This was great after the GE theme from Grecian yesterday
    Sheer class

35. What a beauty.

    If I’ve missed it, apologies, but I’m surprised no one has picked up on Larry’s point @7 re the spelling of practise . It jumped out at me.

36. Thank goodness I did the Bard at school.Lots came flooding back. A great offering from Brendan. Loved the misdirection for AMND i.e the composer. Thanks B and blogger.

37. Superb

    Thanks to Brendan and Manehi

38. William#35. The surface i believe leads as practice, noun, acting on ……

39. It amazes me that so many people have been pronouncing CLESESTORY rightly or wrongly.

40. Highly entertaining puzzle. I recognised all the thematic characters (including one of the Two Gents of Verona) apart from Sly – and, yes, I also tried Snout.

    Big smiles for WILL, WONT and LLL, but too many other favourites to list.

    Like most people who first encounter the word in print (for me it was in one of the Pevsner ‘ Buildings of England’ series), I assumed the word was pronounced ‘cler-ESS-tory’, but I later discovered that a CLERESTORY is literally a ‘clear storey’ – the upper part of the nave of a church with windows.

    Thanks to S&B

41. William @ 35 See mine @ 18

42. From Azed 21/2/23 – Frees parliamentarian for upper level in church (10) .
    It is the alternative spelling and both are given as the headword in Chambers.

43. Loved this – clever, funny, penetrable. LOVES LABOURS LOST is almost as funny as the play, and I thought INACTIVE was brilliant as well.

44. Roz@28 Maybe, in spite of Heisenberg, science doesn’t provide the necessary ambiguity?

45. Great puzzle and not too easy for me. SEDATELY for instance. Last one in was CLERESTORY which I’d forgotten but see it means clear storey which slightly devalues the clue.
    Thanks both

46. Petert@44
    😉

47. Another here who thought CLERESTORY had four syllables, never having heard it spoken. Never met SLY the tinker either.

48. WONT
    The ‘practice acting’ explanation by Simon S@18 is convincing.

49. Thanks Brendan and manehi
    Very clever indeed, but really easy if you knew the bard, and really difficult, I imagine, if you didn’t.
    Favourite LOVE’S LABOURS LOST.

    [Although Shakespeare characterises Richard III as a killer, there is considerable doubt as to whether he had anything to do with the murders of the Princes in the Tower. They were a far greater threat to Henry VII than to Richard. Richard had been informed that the marriage of Edward IV to Elizabeth Woodville was invalid, on account of a “pre-contract”. Whether or not this was the case, as far as he was concerned the Princes were illegitimate and hence he was the heir.
    Henry VII tried to bolster his very dubious claim to the throne by marrying their sister, Elizabeth, also daughter of Edward. However in order for this to work, she had to be legitimate, so also the Princes were, making them the rightful heirs.
    On a related nore, dates suggest that Edward himself was illegitimate; not the son of Richard Duke of York.]

50. [ Peter@44 – Camping equipment to make people laugh with strangeness? (8) . Azed again. ]

51. I’m away for a few days’ holiday and just had time before breakfast to complete about two thirds of this excellent puzzle before the morning’s activities.
    With some free time in the afternoon, I’ve been able to finish it and find, as expected, that practically everything has been said – but I couldn’t not add my appreciation of Brendan’s skill and ingenuity. Like others, I loved the WILL / WON’T combination, chortled at LOVE’S LABOURS LOST and also particularly liked SLINGS, INACTIVE and MENDELSSOHN, though really I could just have gone along entirely with PostMark @21.

    I’m totally at odds with bodycheetah @32: “COTD obviously YORK for the cricket reference”. It took me ages to see the first definition: I knew ‘yorker’ was a cricket term but didn’t know ‘york’ as a verb, nor that it meant dismissal.

    Huge thanks to Brendan, as ever and to manehi for a splendid blog. I’m glad you enjoyed it!

52. On PARED – As a child PARE was a word I only ever heard at home or in Ireland, on holiday – paring apples – or pencils with a pencil parer.
    In school, in England it was peel, sharpen and sharpener.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Pencil_parer&redirect=no
    Once again, my childhood memories reduced to a redirect page, just like:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sunday_Night_at_the_London_Palladium&redirect=no
    How very dare they?

53. bodycheetah@32 CHOON!

54. Eileen@51: It only really exists in two forms YORKER noun and YORKED pp verb and if an intended yorker misses the stumps then the batter wasn’t . The more I write , the more preposterous it seems. Maybe it only exists as YORKER.

55. The bowler is trying to york the batter?

56. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/york#Etymology_2
    ‘Perhaps imitative.
    Verb – YORK – (slang) – To vomit. – 2013, Breaking Bad (TV series), “Blood Money” (episode)
    BADGER: “They’re eating blueberry pies… […] Okay, finally, Kirk, he can’t take it anymore. He yorks! Now it’s just down to Chekov and Spock.”‘

57. It is in Chambers93 – YORK to bowl someone out with a yorker.

58. Thanks Brendan for another first class crossword. Apparently my Shakespeare knowledge was sufficient enough to solve every clue except SEDATELY. My top picks were the ingeneous INACTIVE, the brilliant OLIVIA, SCREENPLAYS, TENDERLY, and STIGMATISE. Thanks manehi for the blog.

59. I suspect the comment from Bodycheetah was aimed solely at me, in a nice way. Despite my contempt for cricket I know all the terms , Azed uses them a lot and other setters sometimes. I am very tolerant at the moment because I have learnt that the cricket will no longer invade Radio 4 Longwave.

60. Having loved Shakespeare since schooldays – a good deal more than 20 years ago, btw – this was the crossword I’ve been waiting for all my life!
    Thanks, Brendan.

61. I’m another one who pismrnounced CLEARSTORY – the bit of the church with the windows. The bit without them is the BLINDSTORY.
    But how do people pronounce WONT? I pronounce it the same as WON’T. But Merriam-Webster has 3 options
    https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wont
    And Wiktionary has 2, but says the second is “Obsolete” and doesn’t bother with a sound file.
    https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wont
    ‘Homophones: want (one pronunciation), won’t (one pronunciation)’

62. FrankieG @61
    I think the level without windows below the clerestory is the triforium.

63. I struggled a bit with this, it seems a bad idea to attempt cryptics just after lunch, but I admired the ingenuity.

    I particularly enjoyed AVOWAL, INACTIVE and the LOL LOVES LABOUR LOST. York as a verb is also in the ODE and Collins. Although I am familiar with Hamlet, I didn’t spot the quote for EXCESSIVE, the definition of which remained a mystery to me.

    Thanks Brendan and manehi.

64. A super themed puzzle, as has been said many times. I know some of Shakespeare’s plays, and that knowledge was of some assistance, but I loved this puzzle anyway for its fairness and for the skill that went into incorporating the theme so well. I enjoyed the WILL/WONT pair. My music knowledge helped with MENDELSSOHN, and my cricket knowledge helped (decisively) with YORK.

    Many thanks to Brendan and manehi.

65. Thanks to Brendan for a very enjoyable and funny puzzle, with a very welcome theme. I also fully agree with the summary by Flea@11 as this is my overall favourite puzzle to date.
    Thanks to manehi for his blog.

66. [Wasn’t Autolycus a tinker, too?]

67. [I toyed with Autolycus too, but I couldn’t fit him in. What’s the quote? “A snapper-up of unconsiderdd trifles”? A tinker metaphorically, certainly, but perhaps not professionally!]

68. FrankieG @61: I pronounce WONT like the first M-W entry but being from the southern US, that pronunciation is barely distinguishable from “want”.

    I am almost positive that we read a poem in high school that included CLERESTORY and our teacher explained that the emphasis was on the “rest”. Just goes to show you should always fact check your teachers.

    Great puzzle! A theme that I liked and best of all: only one cricket reference!

69. I actually much prefer the (incorrect) pronunciation of CLERESTORY with the 4 syllables. Rather like the word Refectory. I’m another who only ever saw it written down in church guides and pronounced it so. As a much younger individual I thought the word misled as read was pronounced something like “mizzled”. There was an old joke too, where you were asked to pronounce a series of spelled out Scottish clan names. As is Macintosh and Macleod and so on. Finally you were asked to say the word Machinery out loud. Caught out, the spoken effort would be a pathetic Mac Hinery….

70. [ronald @69
    A bit like being asked to name a 4 letter word ending ENY…]

71. Great puzzle – quick and straightforward – and until my last fill-in I thought finally we’d had a cricket-less puzzle. Then I put in the obvious York and had to look here to find out why. Obscure cricket clue yet again – seems to be the setters’ obsession

72. A very nice crossword which I completed in two sittings (there was a sleep interruption in between, one thing I learned the hard way is not to try a crossword when you are tired.

73. muffin@62
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triforium
    ‘A narrow triforium may also be called a “blind-storey”, and looks like a row of window frames.’

74. Loved this! At first glance it looked hopeless to a guy who isn’t particularly well-versed in Shakespeare, but it all slowly fell into place. Thanks Brendan (and manehi).

75. Great fun. I knew the Shakespeare references except for having forgotten Christopher Sly. I know Twelfth Night very well, having played Viola in college and been music director for a friend’s production later.

    And I’m appearing in the puzzle two days in a row!

    Thanks to Brendan and manehi.

76. (Valentine is also a very minor character in Twelfth Night, an attendant on Duke Orsino in Act I Scene 1 and I think never seen again.

77. Terry @71 – to york a batter is hardly an obscure cricketing term – unless you (sadly) find all of cricket obscure.

78. WONT? Rhymes with font on the rare occasions when I need to say it – but after CLERESTORY I’m no longer so confident about my ability to pronounce on pronunciation.

79. BlueDot@68 – Someone who is wont to post on 15^2 would be a “wonted poster” – but if he were an outlaw in a western the sheriff might print a wanted poster. That could be confusing…

80. We badly need the return of MrEssexboy .

81. No need to know anything about cricket. Richard III is described in the opening lines as ‘this sun of York’.

82. In my experience, WONT has always rhymed with WON’T. But then in my experience, SLOTH has always rhymed with BOTH. But not any more, apparently!

83. Brendan is always great, and this was right up with his best, to get the theatre and Shakespeare into so many clues, and yet not to require much knowledge of the Bard to complete: brilliant.

    Ticks for numerous clues, but especially LIBRETTO and MENDELSSOHN for referencing the operas as opposed to the plays, and MOOR OF VENICE for so neatly getting a different tragic hero “Romeo” into the anagram; even better that Romeo was indeed a novice who was crazy about a female.

    S-LY and VALENTINE went beyond my Shakespearean knowledge, but both were clued very clearly, and CLERESTORY was new to me but again a fair clue.

    I love cricket, but it was the historical knowledge of Richard’s house that led to YORK. Then seeing the answer confirmed by the cricket aspect produced a smile.

    Thanks to both. Parting is such sweet sorrow, but I’ve said enough for now.

84. What AlanC@1 and others have said: great puzzle. Thanks Brendan & manehi.

85. For those of us with an interest in railway history, CLERESTORY immediately brings to mind the nineteenth century carriages with a line of roof lights along the top. They make very attractive models, though I believe only a few originals survived long enough to make it into preservation, partly because they had a tendency to leak.

    We always pronounced them as suggested by ronald@69, with, as I recall, the stress on the ‘rest’.

    A very enjoyable crossword. Still kicking myself for not parsing YORK, despite having spent a fair bit of the summer at various county cricket grounds.

86. Having spotted the theme immediately I expected a DNF due to my lack of knowledge of the bard, however due to the excellent clueing I managed to complete it.

87. Don’t generally have the time or inclination to do the weekday crossword but cannot resist a Brendan, Picaroon or Paul, so I took a little time out on a sunny day in the garden and found this an absolute delight. The clever misleading musical clues were the two which held me up.

88. Nearly finished which, considering I know virtually nothing about Shakespeare is quite an achievement.
    Thanks both.

89. Andrew Tyndall@66, muffin@67
    Autolycus was my first guess for 1a, when I had no crossers (and hadn’t counted the letters!). I’ve often thought that being a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles is a useful attribute for setters and solvers.

90. Nobody does a theme like Brendan, and this one was just magnificent – thank you Sir!

    (I don’t know what the record is for “number of thematic references”, but this one must be up there on the all-time list.)

91. AuntRuth@81 Richard the not-yet-III was indeed a part of the House of York, along with the rest of his family, but”this sun of York” in his sarcastic opening soliloquy is his brother Edward, now kng

92. Absolutely fantastic. CLERESTORY was new to me, and I had to do a few checks and trips to crosswordsolver, but this puzzle was so good it made me want to finish it, by hook or by crook.

93. Very, very late to this, although I did solve it on the day, but really here to say how much I enjoyed this.

    I had forgotten that Christopher SLY is a tinker, I remembered him as the drunk at the beginning of the play. Neither am I surprised that not many solvers knew about him: he’s often omitted in performance of The Taming of the Shrew, as his role complicates an already challenging play. I have seen a performance where his role was there in both the induction and the final part that’s only found in one version of the printed play. That performance had Bianca as an agent provocateur, setting Kate up so she could get her own way, and Kate more sinned against than sinning. (I went to either a study day or a talk discussing this performance and the role of Christopher Sly was discussed and why it is often cut.)

    Thank you to Brendan and manehi.

94. With extremely belated thanks to Larry @7 who recommended this to me over on another blog. I feared when I started that a deep knowledge of Shakespeare might be needed (not my strong suit) but in fact I only failed on MENDELSSOHN in the end. Brendan surely is the master of the thematic puzzle!

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