Guardian 29,635 – Brummie

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Brummie has been very productive of late – this is his eighth puzzle this year. I found this mostly quite straightforward, though I didn’t help myself by carelessly misspelling 14ac. Thanks to Brummie.

Brummie doesn’t seem to include ghost themes as often as he used to, and if there’s one here I can’t see it.
Across
1 BIGOTRY Grand ball – test for sexism? (7)
BIG + O (ball) + TRY (test)
5 PARLOUS Dire son following Norm Reed? (7)
PAR (norm, as in golf) + LOU (Reed, musician) + S
9 HINDU Religious adherent back at university (5)
HIND (back) + U
10 CAPACITOR Electrical store vehicle carrying CIA top bananas (9)
(CIA TOP)* in CAR. A capacitor temporarily stores charge in an electrical circuit
11 CALIBRATED Determined to correct bad article (10)
(BAD ARTICLE)*
12 BROW Peak seats quite near to the stage? (4)
The B ROW is just behind the A row, so near to the stage
14 SCHEHERAZADE He’s reached out to embrace the first and last storyteller (12)
A Z (first & last letters) in (HE’S REACHED)*
18 CARPENTER ANT Boring thing, Nat, fatuously pursuing Sabrina? (9,3)
[Sabrina] CARPENTER (singer b. 1999, not connected to the earlier Carpenters as far as I can see) + NAT*
21 TANK Bomb container (4)
Double definition – to bomb or tank is to fail, e.g. as a performer
22 BUBBLE BATH Indulgent dip supplied by unreliable enterprise hit hospital (6,4)
BUBBLE (unreliable enterprise) + BAT (hit) + H
25 INTERDICT Bar put under former Princess Court (9)
INTER (bury, put under) + DI (late “princess”) + C[our]T
26 TINGE Cast get outside in shade (5)
IN in GET*
27 HALOGEN Element of greeting left out by commander (7)
HALLO less one L + GEN[eral]
28 HUNDRED Husband under-performing – start of deep division! (7)
H + UNDER* + D[eep].- hundreds are an old administrative division, perhaps familiar from the Chiltern Hundreds
Down
1 BY HECK I’m surprised youth hostel’s in stream (2,4)
YH in BECK
2 GANGLY Loosely-built band, unprofessional, no heart (6)
GANG (band) + L[a]Y
3 THUMBSCREW Painful digital device from Tom’s gang? (10)
[Tom] THUMB’S CREW
4 YUCCA Plant that tastes awful? Not quite with calcium (5)
YUC[k] (that tastes awful!) + CA[lcium]
5 PUPPETEER Manipulative type – ‘elevated darling protected by aristocrat’ (9)
UP (elevated) + PET (darling) in PEER
7 OUTBREAK Flare-up when away on holiday (8)
OUT (away) + BREAK (holiday)
8 SCRAWLER Society creep, one with a bad hand (8)
S + CRAWLER – hand as in handwriting
13 LAUNCESTON Foreign consulate at new city of Australia (10)
CONSULATE* + N – Launceston is a city in Tasmania, named after the town in Cornwall
15 EXTRUSION Tubular operation is our next resort (9)
(IS OUR NEXT)*
16 SCOTTISH ‘RI’s out’ – wayward, historic St Lewis’s people? (8)
Anagram of HISTORIC ST less RI, with the definition referring to the “Isle” of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides
17 PRENATAL Before the birth of China, right, Etna erupted internally? (8)
R + ETNA* in PAL (rhyming slang China plate = mate)
19 GARNER Collect a jazz pianist (6)
Double definition – the jazz pianist is Erroll Garner, most famous for writing the song Misty
20 SHREWD Scold Democrat Sharp (6)
SHREW (a scold) + D
23 BUTCH Macho bar chain (5)
BUT (bar, except) + CH
24,6 PROG ROCK Music genre expert finally achieving pitch (4,4)
PRO (expert) + [achievin]G + ROCK (to pitch)

75 comments on “Guardian 29,635 – Brummie”

  2. A solid solve. Liked PARLOUS, PRENATAL, SHREWD, THUMBSCREW, GANGLY and HALOGEN. Didn’t see a theme unless musicians, venues bands etc.?
    Great blog Andrew, just to let you know there is a typo in BUBBLE BATH, but I rather like the alternative which suggests gossipy jacuzzis 😎. Thanks to Brummie too.

    Thanks Pauline – typo corrected. A.

  3. Top notch from Brummie as usual. Great to see Sabrina Carpenter and Lou Reed together at last 🙂

    C(oincidence)OTD for me was SCOTTISH as my partner’s surname is Lewis and she’s an RI (Registered Intermediary)

    Ticks for BROW, PUPPETEER and many, many more

    Cheers B&A

  4. Thanks Brummie and Andrew
    I had the spelling hold up with 14a too – didn’t check the anagram carefully enough! I’m looking forward to having a BABBLE BATH!
    Fairly straightforward. Favourites HUNDRED and SCRAWLER.
    On the downside, I thought the three clues that needed knowledge of musicians of various repute were a bit unfair. I knew LOU Reed and had vaguely heard of Erroll GARNER, but Sabrina CARPENTER was completely unknown. There are lots of better ways to clue CARPENTER, surely?

  5. Favourites: THUMBSCREW, SHREWD, PARLOUS, BROW.

    New for me: YUCCA; jazz pianist Erroll Garner; CAPACITOR.

    I could not parse 16d.

  6. A couple of quibbles for me – if you are going to have element=halogen, you might as well have element=metal, and calibrated is not the same as determined. Other than those, a pleasant solve although the musicians caused me difficulty – nho of Sabrina Carpenter or Erroll Garner, and I only spotted Lou Reed retrospectively. Also although only one fitted, there are too many four letter types of rock: hard rock, trad rock, folk rock, punk rock, and of course prog rock. Probably others too.

  7. SCHEHERAZADE took me a long while to fathom even with all but one crosser in place towards the end – maybe it was simply because it has been a long while since I have listened to that piece of music. The last portion to yield was with the excellent PARLOUS, followed by loi BROW. Enjoyed the journey this morning, many thanks Brummie and Andrew…

  8. As a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles of knowledge, ‘Sabrina’ was for a moment a teenage witch and then immediately CARPENTER. I know there are those hereabouts who forswear any knowledge of contemporary popular culture, but it really does one no harm.

  9. Thanks Brummie and Andrew. The CARPENTER ANT was new to me, as was Sabrina Carpenter herself. Not sure why determined = calibrated. I had TE (the, first and last) in the anagram for SCHEHERAZADE for a while, and didn’t remember the pianist Errol GARNER, who I eventually revealed, so a dnf today.

  10. Add another to the “too many ‘e’s in 14ac” list – it must be all the e’s in the first half which makes us keep going. I see we are already in the territory where Lou Reed is reasonable GK but someone who featured heavily at the Brits last weekend is not. Admittedly I only know that after searching to see if Sabrina Carpenter was a thing as I’d never heard of her either. Erroll Garner was new to me – clearly I need to brush up on my jazz pianists as well as my Bolivian poets.

    All good fun, brief but it was not a write-in. Clues unravelled as hints and crossers appeared, which is how it should be. I enjoyed some of the old-fashioned words such as “scold” for “shrew” and “hundred” – more my comfort zone than Charlie XCX and the like I have to confess.

    Many thanks to Brummie and to Andrew for the clear analysis.

  11. I had a feeling CALIBRATE would get the quibblers out. So here’s what it says in the dictionary: “To determine true values by comparison with an accurate standard”

  13. ravenrider @6 and gladys @9, Chambers has….

    calibrate transitive verb

    To determine the diameter of a gun barrel or tube
    To determine true values by comparison with an accurate standard
    To mark or adjust gradations or positions on

    Having calibrated a few things in my time, I think determined is a reasonable synonym.

  15. Pleasant puzzle. I was pleased to correctly spell SCHEHERAZADE – and doubt if I have ever written the word in my life, depute being familiar with the stories. I did not know of Sabrina CARPENTER but was aware of the ANT; whilst I am aware of The Carpenters and some of their songs, they were not my Thing so – to my eternal embarrassment – I assumed Sabrina was the female part of the duo and didn’t give it another moment’s thought! GARNER was certainly NHO so, not spotting the synonym in ‘collect’, that required a reveal. LAUNCESTON, yet another NHO so my GK was sorely wanting today. BIGOTRY, PROG ROCK and HUNDRED were my podium.

    Initially, a slight eyebrow raise at Brummie’s version of the old trick with B ROW: Row B – certainly; front row and second row – no problem; never heard it referred to as the B row. But I guess the QM is the get-out-of-jail card for that one.

    Thanks Brummie and Andrew

  16. I feared at first this was going to be a toughie, for my initial pass through the acrosses yielded nothing. But then THUMBSCREW swam into focus, making SCHEHEHRAZADE almost a write-in, and thereafter things fell steadily into place.
    GARNER needed a bit of research – and I’m another who’d immediately connect Sabrina to the teenage witch. The singer took rather longer.
    Brummie has a neat way with short, pithy clues: BROW, HINDU and TANK were pleasing – but my fave was BY HECK, for evoking fond memories of my Yorkshire grandma, who used to say it all the time.
    By ‘eck, our kid.
    Thank you Brummie & Andrew

  19. Nice work. If INTERDICT had been a down clue, I might have missed “put under” for “inter”

  20. Great fun to solve. Thanks to Brummie and Andrew. I really liked 5a PARLOUS, 12a BROW, 14a SCHEHERAZADE, 8d SCRAWLER and of course 13d LAUNCESTON, most of which have already been mentioned in dispatches.

  21. Normal service resumed, Roz. Enjoyed today’s Brummie. Thanks both for the puzzle and the blog.

  22. No sign of it on my Firefox browser again. Just a blank sheet. Won’t even let me comment on it either.

  23. Sabrina to me was a young lady who worked with Arthur Askey, so not much of a help to get CARPENTER ANT. I did, however, appreciate Errol GARNER making an appearance. Thoughtful jazz. SHREWD was my LOI, not thinking of scold as a (perhaps misogynistic) noun. I’m another one who wasted time trying to fit TE into the anagram that finally revealed itself as SCHEHERAZADE, but appreciated the clue when realisation came. Tricky but enjoyable puzzle. Thanks to Brummie and Andrew.

  24. Enjoyable puzzle. The SE quadrant was a bit recalcitrant, but I got there in the end, without recourse to external information. The holes in my GK correspond with those of JoFT @10 (as I confirmed yesterday) but the definitions led to the solutions.

    Favourites: CAPACITOR, SCHEHERAZADE, TINGE, HUNDRED and BY HECK (for the expression, rather than the clue!).

    I thought we had finally seen the back of Princess DI, but she’s popped up twice consecutively.

    Thanks to Brummie and Andrew

  25. Yes, I must own up to not knowing GARNER the musician either. The only Garner I ever knew, and met, was this giant of man Joel, standing slightly stooped under the low beams of The Little Rose pub in Cambridge with some of his fellow touring West Indian cricketers who had been playing a very one-sided game earlier that day at Fenners against the University…

  26. If a definition of ‘core’ could be ‘to take the middle out of’, that doesn’t mean that ‘take’ can be used as a definition of ‘core’. Likewise with calibrate. You don’t determine a gun barrel.

  27. Our city took embarrassingly long, especially since I encounter it at least half-a-dozen times a year via cricket and footy. Smooth puzzle, ta Bruum and Andrew.

  28. Like several others on here, I had never heard of Sabrina Carpenter but was familiar with Lou Reed. However, that is simply a reflection of my age. Crosswords are NOT set for me personally, but for a general audience that also includes many younger solvers. I’m sure that for them, it would be the other way round. Congratulations to Brummie for setting a puzzle with something to confound everyone!

  29. Muffin@4 et al: I too hadn’t heard of the singer and had to guess. Wasted some time trying to fit in a reference to the Bogart/Hepburn film. Otherwise I enjoyed this.

  31. Andy in Durham @28: The timing of these posts suggests that many of us are retired, and therefore somewhat detached from youth culture. But all the comments are observations, rather than complaints. Many (though not all!) of us don’t grumble when names or words appear that are unfamiliar. We are long past the days of the Renaissance when some individuals were claimed to know everything there was to know 🙂

  33. … First heard of 18a Sabrina CARPENTER just 12 days ago here. She’s the niece of Nancy Cartwright (the voice of Bart Simpson {et al.} since 1987).
    LOi 13d LAUNCESTON – I guessed right.

  34. FrankieG @32 GARNER was a write-in for this ‘cat’ as crosswords sometimes like to dub jazz followers, and I’m sure it was for Zoot of this parish as well. His best-known and arguably best record is ‘Concert By the Sea’, which is available in toto on YouTube if you or anyone else is interested.

  35. [Having turned 60 just a few months ago, I feel that it is my duty to moan that Sabrina Carpenter is far too modern to be fair. I’ve not heard of her (which is entirely down to me, I’m not denying that), so would someone be kind enough to tell me: does she do tunes that I can whistle along with, and do her lyrics make sense?]

  36. I struggled a bit with the spelling of SCHEHERAZADE, but I realised that that was the answer. I liked the B ROW, the outside in TINGE, the surface for the HUNDRED, SCOTTISH St Lewis people, and the good anagram for LAUNCESTON, although when I Googled it, it inevitably gave the English town.

    Thanks Brummie and Andrew.

  37. JOFT@10 Good reference, thank you for the memory.

    For once I knew all the GK, both current and ancient. After a very slow start, Scheherazade broke it open for me. There was some discussion of it on a radio station I was listening to in the car a couple of days ago, so it was top of mind.

    Solid fun. Thank you Brummie & Andrew

  38. I’m another who thought we needed TE in SCHEHERAZADE, but I didn’t think it for long! I plunked HESREACHEDTE into the anagram helper thing, and our Arabian Nights raconteur jumped out at me immediately. I realized I needed a Z, and figured out where it came from right off the bat. Anyway, just a plug for the anagram helper, which is a neat little widget that I wish the other sites had.

    I have heard of Sabrina Carpenter, but I don’t think I’ve heard her. Yes, the age group that 15^2 tends to attract is more likely to know Karen Carpenter (PostMark @15, the lead singer of The Carpenters that you were looking for) than Sabrina, but then Karen sadly has been dead for over 40 years. Lou Reed and Errol Garner are also dead; maybe it’s a good thing that we have at least one reference to a musician who is still making music?

  39. Phew! I found this a right battle.
    One of those puzzles, that’s more enjoyable after you’ve completed it.
    Lou Reed/ Erroll Garner/Sabrina Carpenter…. Princess Di, Tom Thumb/ even Launceston: all a bit too samey, for me, and the clues were a tad dull.
    Some great ideas for very inventive and original definitions ( SCRAWLER/ BUBBLE BATH / CARPENTER ANT / B ROW/ PUPPETEER etc.) but I rather felt the clues let them down.

    I will be out of step, I suspect: ” close, but no cigar”.

    Thanks, Brummie & Andrew

  40. The cultural Sabrinas (old movie, young witch) mentioned above came to mind for 18A, but I’m just plugged in enough to pop culture for the current singer to emerge as well. Can’t hum any of her tunes though, so I’m still an old fogie. Finding the same issue with shows like “Jeopardy”, as the generational shifts occur…

  41. [Love Lou Reed, Karen Carpenter, Johnny Mathis’ version of Misty (1959), and bought Ray Stevens’ (1975 … ) — {Never a big fan of 24d,6d though.}]

  42. Talking of Sabrinas, any other old fogies remember Norma Anne Sykes?
    (Apols if she’s mentioned already)

  43. Frankie @41: in that case, here’s your PROG earworm for the day. (I like a lot of prog, although its excesses are…excessive.)

  44. Here in Wales we have a BBC weather presenter called Sabrina, and she was my 1st thought for 18a, but her surname (LEE) didn’t help at all..

  45. Ravenrider @6. I think element = halogen is quite reasonable, as there are only six of them. Element = metal doesn’t work, as there are lots of metals, but not all metals are elements (e.g. brass and bronze, both metal alloys).

  46. [mrpenney @48: really 40+ years since Karen Carpenter died? So it is. Blimey. I remember being rather sad to hear the news, even though I was 18 and obviously far too cool to like them.]

  47. ginf@42: yes, she was the first Sabrina to come to mind. Of course, the classicists will also know that Sabrina was (is?) the goddess of the river Severn, according to the Romans.

  48. At the risk of demonstrating that inside every 70 year old man still lies an over-excitable teenage boy, and also carrying the risk of re-igniting the lift-and-separate debate, the name Sabrina only evokes in me the famous blonde bombshell (as a number of others have mentioned above).

  50. Virtually all cryptics use superclasses to clue subclasses, e.g. animal to clue dog, so element to clue halogen is just fine. It doesn’t mean they are synonyms. (Doing it the other way is definition-by-example and requires some indication.)

  52. Phil McHale @45: Tennnessine is certainly the sixth element in Group 17 of the periodic table, but it is suggested that relativistic effects would markedly change its chemistry from that of the lighter members. In particular, the -1 oxidation state is predicted to be the least stable, so calling it a HALOGEN (‘salt former’) is probably a misnomer 🙂

  53. Didn’t find many answers for this one, the hardest of the week so far for me. I too couldn’t get past Sabrina the teenage witch. My daughter used to provide me with some music knowledge but she’s too busy now gentle parenting two small children so probably doesn’t know who Sabrina Carpenter is either. I did work out SCHEHERAZADE though.

  54. [grantinfreo@42: Yes, me. There’s also the Sabrina – famous for similar reasons – whose 1988 UK No.3 hit Boys Boys Boys (Summertime Love)
    “remains one of the most downloaded video clips on the Internet.”]
    [mrpenney@43: My Chromebook – “Old fogey just quits (6)” – rather than play your Genesis clip. It’ took nearly an hour to get it to reboot.]

  55. I think you’ve identified this crossword with the wrong number. It’s listed here as 29,365, whereas the crossword for today (6 March 2025) is 29,635.

  56. [Gervase @52: I was massively disappointed that they didn’t make the symbol for Tennessine be Tn. It would have added another to the following set: Al Ar Ca Co Fl Ga In La Md Mn Mo Mt Ne Nh Pa Sc, of which Fl, Mt, and Nh were added after I took my last chemistry class.]

  57. I’m another who tried to jam TE into the anagram, and who’s never heard of Erroll Garner or Sabrina whatsername. But I enjoyed a lot — those mentioned as well as BUBBLE BATH.

    Thanks Brummie and Andrew.

  58. Thank goodness for a contemporary culture reference! Nice to see Sabrina C get a mention!

    I dredged up GARNER too to balance things out.

    Thanks Brummie and Andrew

  59. [mrpenney @56: In 1847, the chemist Hans Rudolph Hermann claimed to have discovered a new element, which he called ilmenium. Unfortunately it turned out to be just a mixture of niobium and tantalum. Otherwise your adoptive state could have joined the list]

  60. It kind of feels like 1001 nights ago I started this, many fruitless stares for ages in all corners, but it gave way in the end. Here’s a good recording of the Rimsky Scheherazade – New York Phil with Alan Gilbert. Thank you Brummie and Andrew

  61. Putting PARENTAL for 17a, which on reflection, though it fits the wordplay, is obviously not right, knackered me somewhat.
    Much better than the usual Paul horror show yesterday.
    Thanks both.

  62. I also thought TE went into 14a, though great to be reminded of Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov genius piece of music that I was lucky enough to enjoy at the Royal Festival Hall last autumn.

  63. I’m in my twenties and have been doing cryptics regularly for about a year now. I’ve recently graduated from quiptics and Mondays to getting a few clues on the weekday ones. I definitely appreciated a more modern reference in Sabrina Carpenter. I enjoy the older ones too (in fact my friends joke that most of my references are 50 years out of date), but it’s nice to have a bone thrown my way for once!

  64. Thanks for the blog , good set of neat clues . The theme is Richard CARPENTER , church architect , known for his innovative fonts .
    Chargehand @21 , routine always seems to work for me as well .

  66. Balfour @34 [Thanks for the name-check. I’ve actually got his autograph. I’m not really surprised so few people have heard of him, even though his music is more widely known than that of most other jazz musicians.]

  68. [That’s impressive, Zoot. My only comparable experience is taking a leak next to Bobby Hutcherson at Antibes in 1969. The only time I saw Miles live, although that week I was also at ‘The Great Concert of Cecil Taylor ‘ as it is dubbed, up at St Paul de Vance. Now, that was something!]

  69. gladys @ 47 I am not a classicist but I know Sabrina for the Severn, as my Stoke Priorian wife is named after her. However, it didn’t occur to me that Brummie had my wife in mind.

  70. [Balfour @68
    I once rubbed shoulders with David Duckham (famous (?) England rugby player).

    I was walking in after having played for my Cambridge College against Bedford VIs, while he was walking out to play for Coventry against their Firsts!]

  71. Balfour @68 [ I’ve got Duke’s as well.
    Zoot spoke to me once. He said “Can I put my drink on your table?”🙂]

  72. If anyone is still there….
    Surprised that no BROWs raised over PEAK giving BROW. Certainly, to this hill walker, they are quite different things.

  73. Well I’m really late to thread, but interesting to read the comments re contemporary pop culture and iffy definitions. We have a setter here, David Astle, who can really stretch the friendship with synonyms at times. He also uses references to pop culture and slang in some of his puzzles. Like all crosswords, it actually serves as a good learning tool. I’ve only just finished this crossword today. It was most enjoyable. Hadn’t heard of Sabrina Carpenter, but it fitted the word play so in it went. I thought that Butch must be a chain of bars over there; now I see the clever word play. Like many others, I stuffed about with TE as the extra letters in the anagrind for Scheherezade, but got there in the end.

  74. Very nice puzzle. My favourite was discovering that “resort” was itself a surface cryptic clue for anagram!

    Thanks Brummie and Andrew

  75. Second completion in a row. Very satisfying

    Got GARNER from the definition thanks to the harvest hymn “Come, ye thankful people, come” (“…in his garner evermore…”)

    Amazed that it took 64 comments before Roz nailed the theme! 🙂

    Zoot @71, like Jack Aubrey and Nelson: “May I trouble you for the salt?”

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