Guardian Cryptic 29,408 by Brummie

77 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,408 by Brummie”

1. A great relief after yesterday!

2. Thanks PeterO and Brummie.
   Puzzles coming fast and furious.
   Likes:
   STOIC, SCRAWNY and MINOR POET.
   Hercule is ‘Poirot’, though.

3. Hope you’re on the mend, PeterO. Thanks for the parsing of PANTIES as, while I was aware of the anagram indicator ”pants”, which it wasn’t here of course, I didn’t know the slang meaning ”rubbish” or ”inferior”.

   To be honest, I didn’t really enjoy this much because many of the definitions gave so much away, but each to their own.
   Brummie really worked overtime on 11/20 and 22/24.

   ANGLOPHILE and HARD TIMES my favs.

4. Flavia@1 said it!

   Poiret looks like a misspelling of Poirot, but there were some notable Poirets too. Jean Poiret wrote La Cage Aux Folles.

   I was a bit surprised by the use of retro in CATHODE RAY TUBE. Something is retro if it was recently built but in the style of the past, right? Are there any recent CRT TVs? Or might the clue just have said “old”? Maybe the word “feature” there is the get-out-of-jail-free card. Confused!

   Thanks B&P

5. Re a possible theme. (I’m a sucker for internet sleuthing, often coming up with nothing, but the journey’s fun, especially when the crossword has gone in swiftly.)

   I found there was a close association between Charles Dickens, the author of Hard Times, and Punch.

   https://www.jstor.org/stable/44390614
   .
   This association is also mentioned in the Wiki entry on Household Words, which Dickens co-owned and edited, and in which he serialised Hard Times.

   I wondered if some of the answers like SCRAWNY, BENDY, PANTIES, STAYS could be considered household words or at least reflecting hard times?

   And Hard Times has been described as reflecting Dickens’ PESSIMISM about human nature and society. (Google Books)

   Then there’s a Charles Dickens Punch cocktail. 🙂

6. Quite a few in the eastern half that stumped me, including PANTIES, as, like Paddymelon, I’ve never heard of that meaning of “pants”. Collins says it’s British slang. Never heard of LAIKA … a bit obscure methinks. And “narcissi border” to me means “NI’.

   A more manageable solve than yesterday’s, thanks Brummie & PeterO.

7. After the Blood Sweat And Tears of Monday thru to Wednesday this week, this was a much more welcome offering from Brummie. Though it was over much too quickly, even if I couldn’t parse HUSSARS, PANTIES and NAIVE. So many thanks Peter O…

8. Both Brummie’s puzzle and Gozo’s in the FT provided welcome relief from the puzzles of earlier this week. I will actually get an opportunity to do some reading tomorrow before the Friday puzzles pop over here at 4 PM. We are finally getting hints of summer weather in SoCal—82F today and 81F projected for tomorrow, both with plenty of sun.

9. CRT
   Dr. WhatsOn@4
   It didn’t occur to me while solving the puzzle that retro didn’t mean just old. Thanks for raising the question. Maybe someone has an explanation.
   paddymelon@5
   Quite some connections! Maybe that’s the theme.
   Without any reason, I remember those two words you taught me: apophenia and pareidolia! 🙂

10. I must be spending too much of my time struggling with these Guardian Cryptics. When I saw Masque Dances appearing in the very first clue I read this morning, it reminded me that the other night I had a quite vivid dream about a masked ball specially put on for Guardian Fifteen Squared Solvers to attend. I was there. We all held up masks in front of our faces with our user names inscribed on the outside. At a certain point the masks came down and we revealed ourselves.
    One person was my next door neighbour, another someone I don’t particularly like further down the street, another a family member.
    Maybe more of a nightmare than a gentle dream, but I’ve often wondered about our respective true identities and who actually knows who in real life…

11. I couldn’t spot a theme either, but themes have to hit me over the head for me to get them. Very Mondayish

    Pants is pretty common British slang – you’d say it is a bit pants when something you’d been looking forward to was unavailable, for example. Also in front of children.

    Thank you to Brummie and PeterO.

12. GDU @6 LAIKA has her place in history as the first animal to have gone into orbit around the Earth in a Russian Sputnik back in 1957. An important step in terms of research but rather a sad and lonely image.

    A more enjoyable puzzle than yesterday despite a few rather odd indicators (‘reaction’ as an anagrind doesn’t work for me though I am sure it will be fine for others). I was surprised to see two successive homophone clues both indicated by ‘sound’ in LAIKA and STYLE and did not find ‘cut’ terribly helpful in PAIL where it seems superfluous. IMPIETY made me smile.

    Thanks Brummie and PeterO

13. Maybe the mental muscles were still pumped after yesterday’s workout 🙂

    The calm after the storm?

    Doubtless someone will be along soon to complain that PUNCH is glorifying domestic violence

    Cheers P&B

14. Definitely on Brummie’s wavelength today, and it was very enjoyable to dash through a puzzle after a generally tough week (even if Paul was not as difficult as he can be). “My Life as a Dog” was one of the my favourite films of the 1980s, so LAIKA was familiar from the movie’s opening monologue (iirc). Thanks Brummie and get well soon PeterO. Link for those who might be interested in the filmhttps://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089606/

15. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089606/

    I’ll try that link again.

16. Paul@15: Thanks for the reminder.

17. Agree this was pretty straightforward, but enjoyable. Favourite probably EUCALYPTUS TREE, mainly for the definition.
    Regarding ‘pants’, I’ve always assumed that its use as an anagrind arises from its meaning of ‘garbage’ in UK slang – how else could it imply an anagram? And I hadn’t realised that pants in that sense was UK-specific. (If I’m being ultra-picky, PANTIES is simply a diminutive of ‘pants’ in the underwear sense, so that’s arguably not a great clue.)
    Thanks Brummie and PeterO.

18. A benign Brummie today, which didn’t get me RATTLE(D) x 2 after yesterday’s offering. My favourites were ANGLOPHILE, presumably referencing the upcoming Euros, SQUEAMISH, LAIKA and HIMALAYAS. We had a HUSSAR from Fed last Thursday. I can’t see any theme, which is rare.

    Ta Brummie & PeterO.

19. Not sure I like I for “narcissi border”, and count me as another member of the “couldn’t parse PANTIES” club, but I enjoyed this. Favourites SCRAWNY (nice word), ANGLOPHILE (nice surface) and EUCALYPTUS TREE (nice definition). Can’t see a theme.

20. Enjoyable puzzle. I agree with Ronald@7 and others who posted that this was a much more welcome offering than the puzzles earlier in the week.

    I could not parse 10ac apart from anagram of MISSES I – had thought the P came from P[robing] leader = P and I was left with an unparsed M.

    Favourite: HIMALAYAS, HELL (loi).

    New for me: IMPI = Zulu warriors; CATHODE-RAY TUBE (well-clued); LAIKA – what a sad story of her death from overheating hours into the flight.

    Thanks, both.

21. LAIKA
    I’ve posted this before, but I’ll repeat it for anyone interested.
    Лайка (laika) is the Russian word for a huskey dog.

22. re Laika
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ark2O_SjnsE&ab_channel=MiniNinjasClan

23. Another one for whom this was a relief. Enjoyable in its own right too, I should add.

24. I didn’t even attempt yesterday’s puzzle ! As usual with Brummie’s puzzles I almost gave up on first reading but then decided to persevere and I’m glad I did. 22/24 was a struggle for me to work out and only went in from the crossers as I was trying to fit lay into it. M.Poiret was a famous fashion designer in the late 19th Century. I keep forgetting that pants is British slang for rubbish but now I see it can mean inferior. I wonder how many other words can be ascribed to it. Thanks Brummie and PeterO and thanks Ronald@10 for sharing your dream about what many of us might have thought.

25. Enjoyed this and found it gentle. Many thanks to Brummie and PeterO. My favourite was EUCALYPTUS TREE. I like the Dickens idea pdm@5. Thanks to Paul @14/15 and Baldy B@ 25 for the links about Laika which I shall try later, a sad image as PM rightly says. Ronald @10, I often wonder too, but haven’t had a dream like that I’m pleased to say…

26. Yes, dashed that off – too quickly as it turned out as for some unknown reason had PAIN @ 6d

27. Anna @21. I’m impressed as to how you do the Cyrillic script. Poor old Laika. I used to follow the Iditarod until I found out how cruel it was to huskies.

28. A channel and a tube both convey stuff, I guess, but one feels open while the other is closed … just musing, not too bothered. But yes, gentle from the Brum today, with 7d loi, as aging brain had misread it as ingenious and gone che? All good fun, ta BnP.

29. What a difference a day makes.

30. The OED has the slang usage of ‘pants’ originating in 1994. I think I heard somewhere that it was coined by radio presenter Simon Mayo, but don’t know of that’s true.

31. Straightforward Brummie. Like GDU @6, I think ‘border’ implies first and last letter, so the clue for STOIC didn’t really work for me (and wouldn’t you say ‘narcissus border’ and not ‘narcissi border’?). But that little quibble apart, this was a most pleasant diversion.

    Favourites were HUSSARS, ANGLOPHILE and LAIKA [Homophone corner: this reminded me of a pithy comment from a critic about a film version of Isherwood’s ‘I Am A Camera’: Me No Leica]. EUCALYPTUS TREE is nicely done, but I’m afraid I spotted it immediately.

    Thanks to S&B

32. paddymelon @ 27
    Thanks. Just download the Russian keyboard from Mr Microsoft 🙂

33. [Loved those two movies, Dr Wh @4 (esp. the help in the apron 😉 ]

34. Bodycheetah @13: as the J in my name stands for Judy, I have to rise to your challenge re Punch and domestic violence. Of course it is!

35. NI would be the borderS of narcissi, we were asked for one.
    On a different note I have English , Vietnamese and French interchangeable keyboards on my phone and I use Lexilogo on my laptop.

36. Definitely a case of “on the same wavelength” today – one of those days when your first assumption about the structure of a clue or the first synonym you come up with is the right one. Doesn’t mean it was an easy crossword, just one I got on well with for some reason.

    Like PM@12 I was confused by “cut” – wouldn’t “Vessel’s power trouble” have worked? Also I confidently wrote in “rough” for 26ac as meaning “similar” and the sound of the sound of a dog. Crossers put me right. A pity – I thought it a witty clue!

    In 11,20 I struggle to see the equivalence of “flash” and “ray”. I know both are connected to light but they seem quite distinct to me, only suggestive of each other rather than synonymous.

    Anyhow, all good fun so thank you to Brummie, PeterO and the various contributors here for their erudition.

    [Purely as an aside, and for the scientifically minded: Most sugars rotate the plane of polarisation of a beam of electromagnetic radiation in a clockwise sense. Now that is all sweetness and light… I’ll get my coat]

37. STOIC
    nicbach@35
    NI would be the borderS of narcissi
    I concur

    PAIL
    PM@12 and Jack of Few Trades@36
    Yes. That ‘cut’ could be cut out without any problem.

38. I found that more accessible than previous Brummie crosswords. I also couldn’t parse PANTIES, but it was logical with the cross letters.

    Ronald@10, I’ve wondered that too – never had a dream about it, though. I’m very intrigued by some of the regular posters and have often wondered about their real identities 🙂

    Thanks Brummie & PeterO

39. I’m another who enjoyed this and found it a relief not to have brain strain today. (I know, it’s not a thing.)
    It was nice to have an Aus reference although I thought EUCALYPTUS TREE was a little obvious. And as an Aussie, I had heard of the UK slang term ‘pants’, probably from British TV shows, so was able to parse PANTIES, though it wasn’t very well hidden.
    I liked IMPIETY, CATHODE-RAY TUBE, SCRAWNY, MINOR POET, LAIKA.
    Thanks Brummie and PeterO.

40. Didn’t anyone else put SHIP for 6d? I won’t explain my reasoning as it’s probably obvious, but I thought it was a bit raunchy! And it held me up for 6a!

41. Enjoyable solve with good clues.

    I did like a LAIKA, where I couldn’t fit ‘bark’ in. I also liked the surface and good anagram for ANGLOPHILE, RAUCOUS, where mercifully U was not clued as you, and the definition for PRATTLE.

    Ronald @10; interesting dream! If you live in the UK, there are occasional ‘Sloggers and Betters’ (S&B) meetings where people reveal themselves, so to speak. Maybe there should be a Zoom meeting for Guardian solvers?

    Thanks Brummie and PeterO.

42. I echo Flavia@1 – big relief today with a reliable Brummie. paul@14 – My Life as a Dog is a great movie. Thanks for the reminder – might have to dig that out for another watch. Thanks very much to Brummie and PeterO

43. I knew Laika (remember from my childhood), but lazily and unthinkingly wrote in Leica, so technically a DNF, which is annoying when the puzzle was relatively undemanding.
    Very enjoyable stuff and nice blog. Thanks, both.

44. Did anybody watch the final Number Nine last night, as pointed to in yesterday’s puzzle?

    I enjoyed this. It was the first puzzle in a week I’ve been able to print (printer under the weather), so I took it to bed and had an easy go-to-sleep.

    Thanks, Brummie and PeterO (feel better).

45. I just noticed the explanation for SWEETNESS, which I hadn’t gone back to try to parse. That’s a lovely one. Thanks B&P.

46. After yesterday’s offering I actually enjoyed this. Done and dusted in 15 minutes

47. That was fun! Now for his alter ego in Private Eye..

48. Enjoyable relief after yesterday. IMPI was new to me but inevitable in context.

    Thank you Brummie and PeterO

49. Initial delight (after this week’s disaster area) as the answers flew in.
    However, I had to come here to connect sweetness with light.

50. I’m another who found this a relief. EUCALYPTUS TREE was a bit obvious, though – a glance at the definition and enumeration was sufficient. Lots of other good clues, though.
    [Ronald @10 et al: it so happens that I found out a while ago that one of the other posters on here is someone I know, even though we live half a world away – met through both working in the International Baccalaureate. My handle alerted him.]

51. Lots of Y’s in this puzzle and most of them as crossers. I wondered if there could be some kind of Nina with them but I can’t see it.

52. Thanks both and all.

    6D, PAIL: I suggest this has two ways of parsing, the above and

    Vessel [ha]s Power cut [giving] trouble.

    (So I’d vote for cutting out the cutting of ‘cut’: it’s cute!)

53. Thanks for the blog, good set of clues but this should have been on Monday.
    CATHODE-RAY TUBEs still very much in use , I was using one this morning. A long and noble history. Roentgen used one to discover X-rays , J.J. Thomson discovered the electron’s properties. Davisson and Germer showed wave behaviour of electrons.

54. As I’ve noted elsewhere, I really enjoyed this when I needed an hour’s distraction in the middle of the night having problems getting back to sleep. A puzzle doesn’t have to be wilfully obscure and clever-clever (yes, Sphinx, I am looking at you…) to be good.
    Thanks very much, both.

55. poc@30 – I think it was coined by Stephen Fry in one of his novels.

    PANTIES was unparsable because the clue is inaccurate. “Expects head” cannot indicate the the head (first letter) of “expects” unless it has a possessive apostrophe :expect’s head. Solvers are entitled to fairness and accuracy from setters, and this one should not have got past the editor, in my view.

56. Goujeers @55: as a fan of the possessive in such situations, I note with some regret that editors’ attitudes are changing. Many clues now use indications rather than precision when identifying single letters – it’s particularly noticeable in acrostics/strings of first/last/middle letters. Once, these would have been pulled up but you see instances without possessive in pretty much every publication these days which implies the editors are content with the change. And, to be honest, relatively few commenters raise it, suggesting most of them are relaxed about it too.

57. Goujeers @55
    Point made, but you are requiring truth in punctuation, which is by no means universally accepted..

58. PANTIES
    A couple of days back we had ‘ones on the wing’ as the def for MOCKINGBIRD.
    Even in the def, we had to imagine an apostrophe, which wasn’t in the clue.
    This is the new normal.

59. So, ‘a couple of days back’ could mean SS?!

60. Yes, Goujeers @55, you can get a first letter from a concrete, like arrowhead, bridgehead or masthead, but not really from an abstract like expects head. And abstract verbs don’t possess, whereas you could have, eg, the arrow’s head.

61. 6a, domestic violence; 12a, blatant sexism; 15a, body shaming; 23/24 and 26a, animal cruelty; 25a gratuitous insult of less well known writers – Brummie should be ashamed of himself. Or am I being too 1a?

    Finally, after the hard times of the week so far, we have a crossword that is all sweetness and light, and a blog to match. Thanks Brummie and PeterO for the rattler of a puzzle, and please excuse my prattle.

62. JTL @59, 🙂

63. JTL@59
    😀

64. (Belated reply, only just read this…) Ronald@10, what a fascinating idea!!

65. I liked this one more than I usually do Brummie’s, maybe a bit easier than normal, especially in this week of very tricky Guardian crosswords. Only one I didn’t really like was PANTIES – a bit same-sidey.

66. Chuntered along during coffee breaks and virtually all the clues reveals themselves apart from a few on right hand side. My dad and I built an oscilloscope in 1980s so cathode ray tube was first in both that and this. Thanks to blogger and setter and all.

67. BidyCheetah @13. Punching is very much an equal opportunity pastime. Feeling up is not.

68. Having solved 1a I had 2d starting with U, so UNIT TRUST came fairly easily. A few minutes later I noticed I had actually entered UNIT TRUMP. I was listening to an interview with Marjorie Taylor-Green at the time.

69. Dave F @67: PUNCH is not a verb here, but the wife-abusing puppet character, as Granny Judy P @34 points out to her chagrin.

70. Alans@26
    Perhaps the unknown reason why you had PAIN @ 6d was PAN(vessel) cut by I (current/power) = PAIN (trouble). That’s how I parsed it, anyway.

71. Thanks both and I was pleasantly entertained for the large part of a train journey.

    An online solver, I revealed HIMALAYAS expecting to see ‘castilles’ – that well-known range of mountains in, ermm….

    ‘Sweetness and light’ derives, iirc, from a work wherein Johnathan Swift extolled the virtues of the bee which through it’s dual products of honey and candle wax gives us a source for both. (Does Michael Caine impersonation).

72. “Not many people know that” (1972).

73. oed.com: sweetness and light: ‘
    1.a.ii. 1867– … taken from Swift … and used with æsthetic or moral reference; now usually in trivial (frequently ironic) use … pleasantness, good will…
    1704 Instead of Dirt and Poison, we have rather chose to fill our Hives with Honey and Wax, thus furnishing Mankind with the two Noblest of Things, which are Sweetness and Light. J. Swift, Full Account Battel between Books in Tale of Tub 251′
    Thanks Alphalpha@71

74. GRANNY and BEND are both types of knot but unfortunately I didn’t get any further.

75. Thanks for doing the spade work frankieg

76. First ever completion. Online confirmation was useful as was crossword solver (for the last 2). I can’t count how many I needed your explanations for

77. nicbach @39 has the right answer regarding “borders”. I is one of the borders of NARCISSI; N is the other. Although I admit that I too was expecting the phrase to mean NI.

    I’d never heard of the IMPI, and the phrase UNIT TRUST is not familiar to me — possibly due to my being on the other side of the Atlantic? — but both clues were gettable notwithstanding.

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