Guardian Cryptic 29,606 by Brockwell

84 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,606 by Brockwell”

1. A very satisfying way to finish the week. Many thanks to Brockwell and manehi.

2. Besides FLYING FISH, a number of other solutions link thematically to BARBADOS, where it is generally served with a stew of OKRA as part of the signature national dish. KENSINGTON OVAL is the main cricket ground in Bridgetown, and just outside Bridgetown is the GARRISON SAVANNAH racecourse. Garry SOBERS was also a Barbadian, and of course the island is noted for its production of RUM. Perhaps Brockwell recently spent a holiday there?

3. Thanks Brockwell and manehi
   Mostly pretty easy, but with some knottier bits. A DNF for me – I didn’t get OKRA, and am not sure i do even now it has been explained!
   WAHOOS was a jorum. I didn’t see why TAG was graffiti.
   I always marinate things in a marinade, but I see Chambers allows the latter as a verb too.
   Favourite KENSINGTON.

4. 23ac
   Is the revolutionary fish not an anagram of BASS?

5. Pudding and SOUSE is a Bajan dish too, and there are a lot of Bajan MARINADEs. I was corrected to Bajan by a work colleague who came from BARBADOS every time I said Barbadian, so it stuck.

   I knew the WAHOO as a barracuda when I looked it up. Anna @4 basa is a different fish

   Thank you to Brockwell and manehi.

6. OUTPATIENT my top clue and I liked the Victorian women. Enjoyable puzzle. Thanks.

7. I enjoyed that. For once the linked clues actually helped me – as the flying fish led me to the island (with, admittedly, a Google search). From there the theme was helpful too.

   For me, this worked.

   Muffin @3, a ‘Tag’ is what they call the scribbled initials in spray paint that blight public areas. It’s the form of graffiti that is definitely not art.
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_(graffiti)

8. Tough puzzle.

   Favourite: BANKSY.

   New for me: BASA fish (for 23ac); ABOMASUM; FLYING FISH; WAHOOS = fish; DE NOVO.

   I’m from Melbourne, Victoria and I wonder if any men there still refer to women as sheilas. I never heard it myself except in comedy send-ups of Aussies. This clue 20d was my last one solved, though I gave up on 26ac.

9. Couldn’t quite feel the love today, for some reason. Still, I liked KENSINGTON and the Victorian women – though it seems we’re behind the times there as per michelle@8 – and I learned a few more fish.

   How does OUTPATIENT mean “case”? And how does OKRA mean “pods”? And though I’m game for playtexes, I can’t say that involving them in the definition is much my cup of tea.

   Thanks both

10. Not too sure that KENSINGTON can be considered a well to do area of London throughout its borough. Though its Chelsea partner certainly is. But this was a pleasant and fairly straightforward solve until I reached the SE corner, where the wordplay pointed strongly to WAHOOS and ABOMASUM, both of which I then had to look up to add to my knowledge of the world. Last one in the tricky OKRA, which I first came across referred to as Lady’s Fingers…

11. …OUTPATIENT my favourite clue too…

12. Shanne @ 5
    Ah, thank you. I couldn’t find BASA myself anywhere.

13. WAHOOS was a jorum, as were ABOMASUM and that meaning of AWN. I guessed that there was a BARBADOS related theme, and Google told me that fishing for WAHOOS is a thing there, besides all the things quoted by Balfour@2, most of which I didn’t find.

14. A@12 the BASA doesn’t seem to have made it into Chambers yet. But it does have OKRA = “the pods themselves” so my clue of the day is off the hook 🙂

    There seemed to be something fishy going on, but I totally failed to spot the Barbados theme. Kudos to those that did.

    Brockwell is rapidly becoming one of my favourite setters

    Cheers B&M

15. Out-patient is hyphenated in my dictionary and patent is not a synonym for leather (patent leather was a sort of leather after a treatment which had been patented) .

    Great crossword let down, for me, by a bit of a stinker.

    Thanks Brockwell and Manehi

16. Some enjoyable surfaces today, but clues very variable in difficulty, so I started confidently but ground to a halt later, failing to parse KENSINGTON and missing OUTPATIENT completely. I don’t think I’d have got OKRA either, but will never know because there is a spoiler in the Guardian comments. Thanks Brockwell and manehi.

    I haven’t seen e’en as a poetic abbreviation for evening, only for “even” in its other sense.

17. Thanks both, and to posters above re the theme. One of my cousins married a Bajan (now sadly late). He was a terrific cook, but no flying fish around Freo 🙂 . Tasty puzzle!

18. Matthew Newell@15: I think the idea with “patent” cluing “leather” is that the question mark allows it to be a “definition by example”.

    Muffin @3: I am with you on marinate being the verb (which also causes problems for the next clue) and think the blurring of noun and verb here to fall exactly into the discussion we (along with Gervase) had just a few days ago about unnecessary neologisms, lexical drift etc. So let’s not repeat ourselves and I shall just sit in the corner and harrumph to myself.

    “Scouse” for “Liverpudlian” threw me at first as I thought it should be “scouser” but then I thought of “He has a Liverpudlian/Scouse accent” which worked for me.

    Anyhow, lots of great clues which caused me to look, shake my head and move on with no idea what they were about until the odd crosser went in and I found a new way to look at them. Many thanks Brockwell and manehi.

19. A DNF for me today because of OKRA, but it was an excellent clue! Thanks to Brockwell and Manehi

20. Anna@12
    You will find it in Aldi, but, not apparently in Chambers.
    AP@9
    An outpatient is a medical case and Okra takes the form of pods.
    Thanks s & b

21. Me@16: duh! HallowEEN of course.

22. As an Australian in my mid 70s, SHEILA was outdated or insulting even when I was growing up. It has 19th Century Irish origins. I found this interesting article from a lexicographer on the term. (Note the grocers’ apostrophe in the photo.) Barry Humphries et al used the term as comedy, playing to the British view of ‘colonials’. https://www.suebutler.com.au/blog/2019/8/20/sheila

    Chewy puzzle, my favourites were OUTPATIENT and SOBERS UP.
    I needed help parsing TEENAGE and explaining the ‘case’ in IDIOCY.

    Thanks to Brockwell and manehi

23. muffin @3, I’m sure BANKSY would know what a Tag was.
    michelle @8, I’m sure there are a lot of knuckle draggers out there in Oz who call women (is that still an allowed word) SHEILAS. I use it occasionally if I want to irritate Guardian readers. 😉
    I found this a really strange outing. I thought it was going to be a write in, but the the last few especially in the SE took ages.
    Best for me was OKRA.

24. Hi all, muffin @3 and Gladys @13 used the term jorum in relation to wahoos, could somebody please enlighten me as to its meaning – thanks.

25. Thanks Brockwell and manehi.
    Top faves: IDIOCY, OKRA, TEENAGE and OUTPATIENT.

    Two Bees@24
    From the FAQ section:
    What is meant by Jorum?
    A Jorum. in this context, is a word that a solver works out from the clue and despite never having heard of it before, it turns out to be a real word.
    This term came about on this site when a blogger described the above situation regarding the word “JORUM”. A commenter replied to the effect that he or she had often wondered if there was term for such a situation and announced that he or she would think of them as JORUMs from now on.

    (There was some discussion a few days ago as to whether the plural form of this word should be JORUMS or JORA :-))

26. OKRA was also a great clue, but I saw the spoiler in the G before I solved it. Note to self, don’t read the comments before completing the puzzle.

27. BANKS beer is from Barbados.

28. Great crossword with some excellent surfaces. I’m another for whom MARINADE left a slightly sour taste, and ‘patent’ for ‘leather’ didn’t quite work for me (JoFT @18: how would you feel about ‘calf’ = ‘leather’?). But these are minor quibbles in a very well crafted puzzle.

    WAHOO and BASA were jora for me, though the clues led me by the hand to the solutions (and I forgot to look for a theme as usual). OKRA was LOI – clever construction.

    Favourites: KENSINGTON, SHEILAS, ABOMASUM, BARBADOS, SOBERS UP – inter alia, as there are a lot of good ones here.

    Compliments to Brockwell (and thanks for all the fish) and manehi

29. TimC@23 – thanks for the update. I haven’t live in Oz for a long time. I was just wondering if there are people who still call women SHEILAS. I never came across it in real life before, only heard it in old TV shows and films. Interesting to know that Ockers are alive and well in Oz!

    ronald@10 – I was intrigued by your comment that “Not too sure that KENSINGTON can be considered a well to do area of London throughout its borough.” I guess you are saying that some parts of Kensington are rundown or rough?

30. A nice mix of the straightforward and trickier. I was bamboozled by the plural of WAHOOS, which to my surprise seems to be right, and must have tried a dozen Fords before Harrison. It seems that SHEILAS are Victorian in both geographical and historical senses.

31. Surprised that OKRA was unknown to some solvers. It’s been around in supermarkets in the UK for quite a while now. Of course I didn’t spot the Barbados theme, mainly down to my ignorance I think. I enjoyed the puzzle nonetheless, and laughed at the misdirection in 20. The obscurities, WAHOOS and ABOMASUM were clearly clued, and ‘ABAS’ just had to be a kind of fish in 23. 13 my LOI and didn’t have a problem with ‘patent’ for leather. Thanks to Brockwell and manehi.

32. Yes michelle @29, there are all sorts of people everywhere. 🙂
    I was also interested in the Kensington reference. Maybe things have changed since I lived there in the 70s.

33. Wish I’d twigged the theme before spending far too long trying to justify Cambodia as the answer to 1d (it fitted -a-b-d— so well). On the plus side I now know a lot more about their fish curries.
    Great crossword, thanks to Brockwell and manehi.

34. I knew OKRA (bhindi in Indian cookery) – it was the clue that baffled me!

    [When I was last teaching chemistry, our two lab techs were actually called Bruce and Sheila!]

35. I was delighted to see Brockwell’s name on today’s puzzle (I’m with Bodycheetah @14) and the first two linked clues got me off to an amusing start. MARINADE, as a verb, appeared in my very first blog (in 2008) of an Orlando puzzle, where I commented that I only knew it as a noun, which sparked a very similar discussion, which has been revived a number of times since. I ticked both clues today!

    Other ticks were for 10ac EBAY, 11ac KENSINGTON, 21ac SAVANNAH, 27ac SUNUP, for the ‘lift and separate’ and echoes of yesterday’s Picaroon, 28ac ABOMASUM for the amusing and helpful cluing of an unknown word, 3dn BANKSY (&lit?), 7dn DE NOVO for the construction, 13dn OUTPATIENT and 19dn SOBERS UP, because I’m old enough to know about both cricketing legends. I smiled at the Victorian ladies when the penny dropped but wasn’t sure whether the term was derogatory. (I ticked it, anyway.) I can’t pretend to have detected the whole theme but recognised several connections.

    Many thanks to Brockwell for another entertaining and enjoyable puzzle and to manehi for a great blog.

36. Michelle@29…perhaps it was the fact that Grenfell Tower is within the Borough of Kensington and Chelsea that triggered my comment. Perhaps I shouldn’t have within the context of a cryptic crossword, bearing in mind the tragic events there…

37. Thanks Brockwell and manehi

    Both MARINADE and MARINATE as verbs go back to the 17th century, so the former is hardly a neologism.

38. Some interesting and unusual cluing which I appreciated

39. BANKSY
    Reads like an extended def …maybe a CAD.
    Should have included this in my fave list.

40. Ronald @36, Michelle @29 – I’ve lived in various bits of Kensington, as a student at Imperial College; North Kensington, the top end of Ladbroke Grove, is nowhere as smart as South Kensington, where the museums and V&A are found. Portobello Road is bougie at the south at Notting Hill Gate, but north becomes a range of tower block social housing. That’s also where the underpasses under the A40M Westway North Circular are found, where the social club to support Grenfell was built . When I first moved to London Portobello Road and Notting Hill Gate weren’t gentrified the way they are now. And those underpasses were a wilderness of caravans, and still there’s a traveller site there.

41. I could see there was a theme going on, so thanks to Balfour @2 and others for fleshing it out. It also ‘dawned’ on me, as Eileen mentioned, that we had SUNUP yesterday, which hasn’t been clued in the G since Puck (RIP) in February 2020. (What happens soon after Aurora raises matter involving a Parisian (5)). I agree with ronald @10 about KENSINGTON, as I policed it’s less salubrious bits alongside the posh areas. Like others OKRA was my LOI and probably my favourite. Couldn’t resist https://youtu.be/BonWfTW7jKc?si=SNuWGFaAe5JH5O_6

    Ta Brockwell & manehi.

42. There’s a UK car insurance company, originally aimed at women, called Sheilas’ Wheels!

43. Thanks Shanne @41, you beat me to it. A very diverse area indeed and Chelsea certainly has its eyesores as well. Yes Judith G @42, I used them for a few years, until their premiums got too tasty.

44. Kensington, neither entirely posh nor entirely North of Kensington – a setter’s nightmare.

45. Tomsdad@31, muffin@34: likewise, it’s not that I didn’t know what okra was; it’s that I query it as a match to “pods”. Would people equally accept “cardamom” (which is a spice, rather than a plant, i.e. at the opposite end of the scale)? Neither for me are the pods themselves.

46. I’d like to just repeat the comments of Gervase@28.

47. Great theme! Completely eluded me of course despite having been a few times.

    Not especially hard, except for a couple of head scratchers, but such well crafted clues with great surfaces esp. BANKSY, SAVANNAH, SOBERS UP and ABOMASUM

    Having studied ruminant physiology in my sandwich year many moons ago, the last one jumped off the page at me (very unexpectedly!)

    Thanks Brockwell and manehi

48. I agree with many others who have preceded me in posting.
    Lots to love here. I didn’t get all the Barbados references but never mind.
    BANKSY at 3d was my LOI – but a wonderful way to end a fine puzzle!
    Many thanks to Brockwell and manehi.

49. KVa@25 many thanks, much appreciated 🙂

50. Thanks to those above who explained about parts of Kensington not being well-to-do. Looks like the setter should have written the clue differently…

51. Am I the only one who cannot say (or even think) the name Sheila without lapsing into a faux-Australian accent and stereotype?

    NHO of 28A nor either of the fish, but got there in the end. And I see I was not alone in being defeated by 26A.

    And as usual I completely missed the theme.

    TY Brockwell and manehi

52. I liked this one, but was helped by having seen pods = OKRA before in a cryptic. And we had dawn = SUNUP earlier this week. NHO of Gary Sobers, or AWN used as a verb, and in the states MARINATE is spelled with a T when in its verb form. But all the cluing made sense and there were plenty of crossers to help. Thanks!

53. Lots of ticks for the wordplays of KENSINGTON, SAVANNAH, OKRA, ABOMASUM and OUTPATIENT (where JFT @18 explains that the question mark is showing a DBE), and the definition for ASHTRAYS. I got somewhat stuck in the SW, and I DNK the fish, basa or wahoo. With respect to the KENSINGTON definition: Hasbro’s latest edition of the board game (Monopoly), has seen Mayfair supplanted by Kensington Palace Gardens as the number one London location, in order to reflect the soaring prices in real-life Kensington.

    Thanks Brockwell and manehi.

54. All I was going to say has been said but I thought OKRA was brilliant.

55. Good fun – worth the entrance fee for MARINADE and SOUSE alone!
    19D’s use of ‘amiss’ was clever: I know very little about cricket and at first felt so chuffed that I’d remembered the name Dennis…
    The theme sailed right over my head.
    Thanks manehi & Brockwell

56. Robi @53: It’s being very pernickety, I realise, but ‘patent’ can’t strictly be a DBE as the word is never used on its own in this sense, unlike chamois or morocco, for example. You wouldn’t say:’Poirot was wearing patent shoes’ (but you might for Rosa Klebb 🙂 ). It’s a very minor quibble, as the allusion is clear enough.

57. Thanks Manehi. A completion but needed your help to understand why SAVANNAH and OUTPATIENT were correct. Don’t think I’ve seen HANNA without Barbera so that threw me.

    I solved OUTPATIENT as dismiss=out and case= patient (medical case) and was wondering in what cryptic way they were one’s dressed in leather. Thanks for the correction.

    A lot of good stuff in this BANKSY (I am an adopted Bristolian), KENSINGTON, BARBADOS, FLYING FISH, IDIOCY and others

    I even managed the two clues where you had to split a word. I always struggle with them. Given myself a pat on the back.

    Tough end to what has been a more plain sailing week.

    Great end to the week.

    Thanks Brockwell and Manehi

58. OUTPATIENT: the question-mark wouldn’t indicate DBE even if patent were an example of leather (on which I agree with Gervase, that it is not). Patent leather is a type of leather. Leather on its own is sufficient to clue a type of leather. That was the last entry for me, and I revealed, and then tutted a bit, but anyway, a typically fun and smart puzzle.

59. @4 Anna. Only one S in answer

60. Gervase @ 56

    “What sort of leather is it?”

    “It’s patent”

61. Surely the answer to 28 across is a load of tripe.

62. Very enjoyable tussle.

    I’m sure I’ve asked this before and forgotten the answer, but could some kind soul explain muffin@3’s use of ‘jorum’?
    I don’t imagine it’s anything to do with a punchbowl!

    Thanks 🙂

63. Bonnylass @62

    KVa @25 has given the answer from FAQ but, if I can add my twopenn’orth, please see my comment @14 here:
    https://www.fifteensquared.net/2025/01/04/guardian-saturday-prize-crossword-29577-by-kite-28-december-2024/#comments
    (It is to do with a punchbowl. 😉 )

64. ‘Hungriness’ is a pretty awful word when we’ve got ‘hunger’ !

65. Gervase @56, James @58; my mistake, it’s not a DBE, as you say, However, it looks like you’re going to have to argue with the ODE, for patent: mass noun] patent leather: designs in a wide range of textures featuring super-chic patent, soft suede, or sophisticated nappa | [as modifier] he wore black trousers and black patent shoes.

66. BonnyLass@62: KVA@25 gave a good explanation for the origin of JORUM

67. Anna @12 I couldn’t find BASA myself anywhere. – try Waitrose 😉 !

68. Thanks all. I missed the earlier comments!

69. Mostly straightforward, but I had to come back several times to find SAVANNAH and AWN. Never heard of the latter as a verb and can only find it online as a noun meaning a bristle, especially one growing from the ear of grasses. But nothing to do with cover. Perhaps one of the large dictionary owners here can find it? Wracked my brains with a long list of animated film houses and dismissed Hanna as I have never seen it on its own, only as part of Hanna and Barbara, but of course the clue specifies one producer. I was puzzled by the purpose of ‘to’ in the clue, but in the end decided that it didn’t have one and should be read as “the cover (of) Virginia” (which of course is grammatical nonsense). Like others above, I loved the construction of OKRA. Did not realise that they were pods; they are colloquially known as lady’s fingers and I tend to think of them as mini courgettes, but good to be enlightened. Thanks Manehi and Brockwell.

70. Many thanks to manehi for the blog and to everyone who took the time and trouble to solve and comment on the puzzle. It seemed a nice way to celebrate my favourite place in the world and I’m so glad that most of you seemed to enjoy the journey 🇧🇧. B

71. Balfour @2 I think Garry SOBERS still is a Bajan. Apparently a family friend of Jake Bethell who’s batting for England as I write.

72. I didn’t like “leather” for PATENT, for the reasons others have given, but Robi @65’s dictionary quotations mean that I’m wrong. (I assume that when Robi says ODE, that means OED, by the way.)

    I also didn’t know that MARINADE could be a verb.

73. Ted @72; no, the ODE is the Oxford Dictionary of English, which is a lot more concise and more up-to-date than the OED.

74. Brockwell’s puzzle’s are consistently clever and enjoyable. This was no exception, although the theme was wasted on me. My only quibble was having SUNUP two days in a row, but that’s sub-par editing rather than setting of course. MARINADE had us off to a great start, FLYING FISH is nicely done, but my favourite was the very clever use of Amiss in SOBERS UP. It’s also pleasing to see obscure nouns fairly clued, especially when the solutions intersect, so a strong hat tip for ABOMASUM and WAHOOS as well.

75. Got to within 6 of a finish before I lost the will to continue…
    Very enjoyable, looking forward to checking some parsings.
    Thanks both.

76. Robi @65: Not a usage I’ve ever encountered, even though it is listed in the ODE (Outrageously Degraded English 🙂 ), but it’s NOT in Chambers!!

    Simon S @60: I love your false analogy. ‘What sort of setter is it?’ ‘It’s Irish’

77. Robi @73 — Thanks for the correction. I didn’t know about the ODE. I did confirm
    that this meaning of “patent” is in the OED as well.

78. Interesting discussion on patent/leather. It did seem to me a bit like the red bus argument: yes, a red bus is a thing, but bus? would hardly be a fair way to clue Red.
    But I’m a believer in usage trumping logic, so thanks Robi for the ODE example.
    Good puzzle. I failed on OKRA too.
    Thanks, B/G and manehi

79. Excellent crossword and with my favourite sort of theme – the sort that gradually dawns on you. As opposed to the (for me) WORST sort of theme, this being in the clues themselves and only fun for the setter I rather think!
    Apparently average house prices in Kensington are just a tad under £2,000,000 so yeah, dodgy area!

80. Tim C @23 I think a lot of graffiti writers have it in for BANKSY because he doesn’t really do tags in the classical tradition; vide his feud with ROBBO.

81. Thanks for the blog, one of my favourite setters now , I can safely ignore the the theme and it never seems to spoil the clues or the grid .

82. Lovely set, great blog! Chuckled a lot

    Thank you!

83. This setter is very accomplished in my view. Some of the earlier clues were exemplary; smooth and precise (with brilliant surfaces – for those who like such things!). Even when Brockwell strayed into ‘selcouthery’ in the SE, all was fair….
    Reasonably straightforward… but very good. A high quality setter (in my view) ….

    Many thanks both and all

84. Failed on ASHTRAY, OUTPATIENT, and OKRA

    Can’t find any reference to AWN as a verb, but it had to be. Paul@69 asked for a reference, but no one else has stepped up

    Enjoyed GARRISON, SAVANNAH (for bringing up memories of The Flintstones, a childhood favourite), GAPS (great surface!), and the wonderfully-named nho WAHOOS!

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