Guardian Prize 29,548 / Brummie

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It’s Brummie back on a Saturday, exactly four weeks since my blog of his most recent Prize puzzle.

I always enjoy Brummie’s puzzle – but there’s an extra hazard here for the blogger: I can’t decide whether it’s more daunting to know that a setter always has a theme (as Qaos, whose aren’t always easy to find), or, as Brummie, sometimes, but not always, does. There was a fairly obvious theme of card games in the last one but I haven’t been able to spot any here. I’d be interested to know that you’ve found one.

Anyway, I enjoyed the puzzle, which I thought was reasonably straightforward, with three charades at 11ac, 5dn and 5dn to get things going nicely.

My ticks were for 5ac GLAUCOMA, 9ac PALPABLE, 10ac SABINE, 14ac ORDNANCE, 20ac DEAD LANGUAGE, 26 GUYANA, 5d GREENHOUSE GASES, 19dn CASING and 21dn DELHI.

Thanks to Brummie for the puzzle.

Definitions are underlined in the clues.

(I’ll be involved all day in our annual Christmas Tree Festival and so I shall not be available to answer queries or amend typos after 8.30 GMT.)

 

Across

1 Just switching direction at the end for launch (6)
PROPEL
PROPE[r] (just) with the r (right) exchanged for L (left) – switching direction)

5 German arranged a locum to attend a sight problem (8)
GLAUCOMA
G (German) plus an anagram (arranged) of A LOCUM + A

9 Picasso almost drowned in white, that’s obvious (8)
PALPABLE
PABL[o] (Picasso, almost) in PALE (white)

10 Ancient Italian, one featured in Ibsen play (6)
SABINE
A (one) in an anagram (play) of IBSEN – you may know about the Rape of the Sabine Women from the film ‘Seven Brides for Seven Brothers’, which I first saw when I was at school and still enjoy watching when it’s repeated on TV – and was tickled to think of it associated here with an Ibsen play

11 Camilla’s rock band study class (5,7)
QUEEN CONSORT
A straightforward but nifty charade – QUEEN (rock band) + CON (study) + SORT (class)

13 Said posh person’s off fish? (4)
ORFE
Sounds like (said) a posh person’s pronunciation of ‘off’- it really does!

14 Artillery alternative: nitrogen-filled ball (8)
ORDNANCE
OR (alternative) + N (nitrogen) in DANCE (ball)

17 Ignorant state sends tanks to capture vessel (8)
DARKNESS
An anagram (tanks – an unusual indicator, slang for lose or fail) of SENDS round ARK (vessel)

18 Amalgamate a new Spice Girl? (4)
MELD
The Spice Girls include Mel B and Mel C, so a new one could fancifully be called MEL D

20 Maybe Latin’s not quite Lady Gaga dancing with nude at back of stage (4,8)
DEAD LANGUAGE
An anagram (dancing) of LAD[y] – not quite + GAGA + NUDE + [stag]E

23 Rather fusty senior gathering yarn (6)
STALER
SR (senior) round TALE (yarn)

24 Casual underwear comes to brickie’s aid (8)
SLIPSHOD
SLIPS (underwear) + HOD (brickie’s aid)

25 Pleased about welcoming international stars (8)
PLEIADES
An anagram (about) of PLEASED round I (International)

26 Ridicule eastern half of banana republic (6)
GUYANA
GUY (ridicule) + second (eastern) half of banana – neat ‘lift and separate’

 

Down

2 Upended indigenous people failing to finish walkabout (4)
ROAM
A reversal (upended) of MAOR[i] (indigenous people, failing to finish)

3 Nobody wants a Dickens protagonist to act like a mouse (9)
PIPSQUEAK
PIP (protagonist of Dickens’ ‘Great Expectations’) + SQUEAK (act like a mouse) – lovely word

4 Raver heading off clumsy person (6)
LUBBER
[c]LUBBER (raver) minus its initial letter (header) – the weakest clue, I think: it could equally well be the other way round

5 Climate threat calls for fresh Commons talks? (10,5)
GREENHOUSE GASES
GREEN (fresh) + HOUSE (of Commons) + GASES (talks)

6 Skips CBS and so suffers (8)
ABSCONDS
An anagram (suffers) of CBS AND SO

7 Small bag – in public, a basket (5)
CABAS
Hidden in publiC A BASket (a new one for me) Chambers: ‘a woman’s workbasket, shopping bag or handbag’

8 Clarions used in Middle East’s musical mode (5,5)
MINOR SCALE
An anagram (used) 0f CLARIONS in Middle East

12 Showy celebrity joining preservation body gets spoken about (10)
ORNAMENTAL
ORAL (spoken) round NAME (celebrity) + NT (National Trust – preservation body)

15 Casually object: ‘short of library – extremely’ (9)
AIMLESSLY
AIM (object) + LESS (short of) + outside letters (‘extremely’) of L[ibrar]Y

16 Excluded, deprived of drinking venue? (8)
DEBARRED
DE-BARRED – deprived of drinking venue?

19 Preparing to burgle housing (6)
CASING
Double definition, the first as in ‘casing the joint’ – clever use of ‘housing’

21 City in which Handel hid, eschewing all-round applause (5)
DELHI
Hidden in hanDEL HId, minus ‘hand’ (all-round applause)

22 Tree with lost horse (4)
ROAN
RO[w]AN (tree) minus w (with)

35 comments on “Guardian Prize 29,548 / Brummie”

  2. My favourites were ORDNANCE and CASING

    NHO LUBBER. I failed to see the anagram indicator in DARKNESS and could not parse it. And I thought STALER was a bit odd for “rather fusty”. Fustier may have been better.

    Thanks Brummie and Eileen

  4. Thanks Eileen. As you say, reasonably straightforward and enjoyable sums it up. LOI was ORFE, I couldn’t help thinking the answer had to begin with a consonant. I played with ‘artlessly’ for 15d, you can have an object of art but it didn’t look right. Didn’t like 4d much either – landlubber Martyn?

  6. All mostly straightforward; ORFE had me wondering for a while right at the end – but I chuckled when I finally got it. I also liked PIPSQUEAK, although I wondered for a while about the definition – was it ‘something that nobody wants’? and if not what was ‘wants’ doing there? Still, a fun solve. Thanks Eileen and Brummie.

  7. Also did not get ORFE (or MELD and CASING) so DNF

    But a lovely puzzle. My favourites were: GLAUCOMA, PALPABLE, ORDNANCE, DEAD LANGUAGE

    Thanks Brummie and Eileen

  8. Thanks Eileen.
    Laughed at the surfaces for DEAD LANGUAGE and QUEEN CONSORT.
    I’d only just got used to IDE in cryptics, and now we have an ORFE fish, apparently one and the same according to Wiki.

  9. No problem with ORFE as I had some in the garden pond at my mother’s once. A lovely looking fish. Agree with Eileen’s summary of the puzzle and CABAS was new to me as well, but easily solved with the crossers in place. Laughed at MELD and CASING, though the latter took me a while to remember. Thanks to Brummie and Eileen.

  10. Enjoyable challenge.

    Favourites: DELHI, DEBARRED, ORNAMENTAL.

    New for me: CABAS = a small ladies’ bag or a basket.

    Thanks, both.

  11. Like paddymelon @8, I laughed at QUEEN CONSORT and DEAD LANGUAGE along with PALPSABLE, PIPSQUEAK and ORFE. Was desperate to find a theme for Eileen but apart from QUEEN and DARKNESS, I’m not going to be tempted to find a musical theme😉

    Ta Brummie & Eileen.

  12. I’ve never been quite happy calling Latin a dead language, despite the schoolboy jingle, though I agree of course that nobody speaks it in its ‘classical’ form any more. However it never died out, it just evolved into different languages.
    Egyptian is a dead language, the language of modern Egypt did not evolve from Egyptian, it was replaced by Arabic. But Latin isn’t dead, the languages of modern Italy (and other countries) evolved from it.
    Your granny dies but her genes live on in you and your descendants …

  14. Eileen – a minor issue in 15d. ‘Extremely’ indicates both outer letters of ‘library’. You lost an L.
    Great puzzle and blog.

  16. Thanks for the blog, Eileen and to Brummie for the crossword. My favourite was MELD which really made me chuckle as well . I also enjoyed ORFE (clue 12 where QUEEN CONSORT – clue 11 – had me thinking along the right lines) and the clever CASING. Like Martyn@2 was not totally happy with STALER for ‘rather fusty’ but that was my only quibblet.

    Well said Anna@12 about Latin which very much lives on in so much of the language used by us Europeans and cousins around the world etc.

    Must seek out the Ibsen version of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, 😂. Good luck with the Tree Festival Eileen and happy weekend all.

  17. ORFE was one of my earlier entries. I vaguely knew the fish, but the real giveaway was a phrase in our family folklore : “you’re ORFE the path”. In England one time my kids, wife and I were following a Public Footpath across an estate when we saw an avenue of trees and wondered what was at the end, so we started up. The squire, shooting stick, deerstalker and all, intercepted us with that phrase. I played the dumb colonial: “Jeez, cobber, my map shows this as a Public Footpath”. He was very gracious and put us back where I knew we should have been.
    Thanks for the crossie and blog, Brummie and Eileen.

  18. Enjoyable but over far too quickly for me, which is not a complaint I have to make very often!

    I was held up briefly by 10a, as I had made the fodder I plus IBSEN, which would have led to an unknown word, SEBINI or SIBENI or SIBINE. But in a lightbulb moment I substituted an A for the I and remembered those Sabine Women that Eileen mentions in her blog. Doh!

    Thanks to Brummie and Eileen.

  19. Have fun at the tree festival, Eileen – that’s me next week.

    I enjoyed this, without being overly delayed by it, but I knew ORFE as a fish and was amused by the clue as I could hear various people saying it. MELD was also lovely when I saw it.

    Thank you to Brummie and Eileen.

  20. Another very enjoyable run out with Brummie. The only thing that held me up was my misreading of 5ac’s definition as “a slight problem” rather than “a sight problem”. Had it not been for my glaucoma it would have been much simpler. Thanks to Brummie and Eileen, as ever.

  21. Like Eileen , I couldn’t spot a theme. I thought for a minute it might be music related with MINOR SCALE, ORNAMENTAL and deBARred but I couldn’t find any others.

  22. Like others, Orfe beat me. If the clue had been “said posh person’s composer” with (Carl) Orff as the solution, I might have got it.
    References to obscure fish are never my favourites, there seem to be so many of them.

  23. I enjoyed this. Just challenging enough for me, but not impossible. Thanks Brummie. I thought DELHI was clever. I have the same quibble about STALER as others — which made me wonder whether it could possibly be right — but that was my only issue. Thank you to Eileen.

  24. Quite straightforward for a Prize puzzle, but none the worse for that.

    I liked the ‘tanks’ anagrind to get DARKNESS and the fresh Commons talks for GREENHOUSE GASES. The ‘eschewing all-round applause’ was not really needed in the clue for DELHI, but it was clever.

    Thanks Brummie and Eileen

  25. An etnjoyable solve. My LOI was 19d. I was misdirected by 3 possible indicators – preparing/anag, burgle/take away, housing/including – before spotting the DD.
    Thanks to Brummie and Eileen.

  26. There were so many really good clues here. I’ll just pick out CASING, MELD and PIPSQUEAK as being on my podium. Did not know ORFE but guessed it and then looked up the fish, very funny 😎. Last in was STALER as that was the one I questioned for reasons already stated. Many thanks to Brummie for the fun, and to Eileen for the excellent blog. Hope the 🎄festival is a success!

  27. I can remember being stuck in the top left corner before getting over the line, but I still enjoyed this entertaining puzzle. LUBBER was my last in, and like Eileen I would call this the weakest clue.

    Thanks to Brummie and Eileen – also to Anna @12 for her remarks on Latin as a ‘dead’ language.

  28. Never heard of CABAS or the ORFE fish either. Both well clued, so I got ’em.

    Thanks Brummie for the puzzle and Eileen for taking pre-tree time for the blog, which was as usual a delight.

  29. Just got around to finishing it after a busy week. Used a wordfiller to find ORFE and ROAN, but on reflection both were do-able with more patience. Enjoyable puzzle. Glad that others liked it too.

  30. Many thanks to all for the comments, which I really enjoyed reading – so no theme, then.

    I was rather surprised that so few had heard of ORFE: I think I’ve known it, alongside ‘ide’, as long as I’ve been doing cryptic crosswords but perhaps we haven’t seen it so much lately. I really enjoyed the story from TassieTim, an Antipodean – I’d love to have been there! – and loved lenmasterman’s comment @20.
    I smiled, too, at Ravenrider’s suggestion @22: I’m one of the few people I know, like me, not to be fans of ‘Carmina Burana’ – apart from anything else, I’m irritated by the affected emphasis on the second syllable…
    … and, of course, I’m with Anna, EdTheBall and Alan B and any others who demurred at Latin as a DEAD LANGUAGE. It really hurt to underline that as the definition but it earned my tick for the wordplay.

    [Many thanks, too, for the good wishes for our big event today: a massive amount of work, involving so many people over so many months but hugely enjoyable. Many happy people through the church door today and we’re braced for many more tomorrow. I’m almost ready for bed now. 😉 ]

  31. Great stuff, Brummie. Just within my compass … with a bit of an aid for ORFE. A lovely mix of neat surfaces, and smile generators: not least ORFE and MELD. And great to see Camilla given her full title.

    Would have got there faster but for being obsessed that “nitrogen-filled ball” had to indicate something noDular or to do with raDix. The unique sequential route we end up taking through crosswords is all part of the delight.

    Thanks, Eileen, for explaining and coordinating.

  33. Colin C@32. The short answer is “it’s in Chambers”! It’s marked as archaic, but it’s useful for crossword setters. Because so many words have CON in them, solvers get used to thinking CON whenever they see ‘study’. (Except when study denotes DEN. 🙂)

    It comes from cunnan in Old English, which is similar to kennen in German.

  35. I’m late getting here, but I’ll confess I don’t get what’s going on with the clue for ORFE. I would have thought that OFF and ORFE would be (rough) homophones for any non-rhotic speaker, regardless of level of poshness. So why does the clue refer specifically to a posh person?

    (I’m an American and speak a rhotic version of English, so the two words aren’t even close to homophones for me, but I cheerfully acknowledge that that’s my problem and am not complaining to Brummie, Eileen, or anyone else about it.)

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