Guardian Cryptic 29,654 by Brummie

by

The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29654.

A few less familiar words, but nothing to frighten the horses. Brummie often uses a theme, but nothing stands out for me here.

ACROSS
1 BLUEGRASS
Navy shop supplying country music (9)
A charade of BLUE (‘navy’ – indication by example, if you are a stickler about it) plus GRASS (inform on, ‘shop’).
6, 22 PLAY ROUGH
Get aggressively physical when criminal Ray dips into till (4,5)
An envelope (‘dips into’) of AYR, an anagram (‘criminal’) of ‘ray’ in PLOUGH (’till’).
8 CRACKNEL
Go east in Northern Line for a nutty filling (8)
A charade of CRACK (‘go’ – “I’ll have a crack at it”) plus NEL, an envelope (‘in’) of E (‘east’) in N (‘northern’) plus L (‘line’).
9 DROOPY
Limp extremely drunkenly, nursing bad back (6)
An envelope (‘nursing’) of ROOP, a reversal (‘back’) of POOR (‘bad’) in DY (‘extremely DrunkenlY‘).
10 ETRIER
English climber’s foot caught in level rope ladder (6)
A charade of E (‘English’) plus TRIER, an envelope (‘caught in’) of R (‘climbeR‘s foot’) in TIER (‘level’).
11 OUTDOORS
Disallowed opportunities, not having a roof over your head? (8)
A charade of OUT (‘disallowed’) plus DOORS (‘opportunities’).
12 EGGNOG
Christmas-time drink, say, before flipping dinner alert? (6)
A charade of E.G. (exempli gratia, ‘say’) plus GNOG, a reversal (‘flipping’) of GONG (‘dinner alert’).
15 DRAUGHTY
Currently cold, needing doctor – anything – at end of day (8)
A charade of DR (‘doctor’) plus AUGHT (‘anything’) plus Y (‘end of daY‘).The definition plays on ‘currently’ for a current of air.
16 LOPSIDED
Tilting executed by quirky spoiled duke (8)
A charade of LOPSIDE, an anagram (‘quirky’) of ‘spoiled’ plus D (‘duke’). ‘Executed’ is just a link word.
19 KIBOSH
Scupper King and I? Nonsense! (6)
A charade of K (‘king’) plus ‘I’ plus BOSH (‘nonsense’).
21 RESTRAIN
Check on melody (8)
A charade of RE (‘on’) plus STRAIN (‘melody’).
22 RELISH
Like Laurel is Hardy, to some extent? (6)
A hidden answer (‘to some extent’) in ‘lauREL IS Hardy’.
24 SQUASH
Pulp, Queen united in band (6)
An envelope (‘in’) of Q (‘queen’) plus U (‘united’) in SASH (‘band’).
25 MOUNTAIN
Horse has one in heap (8)
A charade of MOUNT (‘horse’) plus A (‘one’) plus ‘in’.
26 PEEK
Turn over board to see gander (4)
A reversal (‘turn over’) of KEEP (subsistence, ‘board’).
27 RACEHORSE
Nothing in research involved a runner (9)
An envelope (‘in’) of O (‘nothing’) in RACEHRSE, an anagram (‘involved’) of ‘research’.
DOWN
1 BURNT
Brook’s on time but gets fired (5)
A charade of BURN (stream, ‘brook’) plus T (‘time’).
2 UNCTION
Do without strong ointment (7)
A subtraction: [f]UNCTION (‘do’) minus the F (‘wothout strong’ – the original meaning of the musical direction).
3 GONER
One who’s certain to pass on £1001 (5)
The money needs to be split. A charade of G (£1000) plus ONER (£1).
4 ALL TOLD
Tall bats on the way out – nothing more to add (3,4)
A charade of ALLT, an anagram (‘bats’) of ‘tall’; plus OLD (‘on the way out’).
5 SIDETRACK
Tried dancing in fire to create a diversion (9)
An envelope (in’) of IDETR, an anagram (‘dancing’) of ‘tried’ in SACK (‘fire’).
6 PROLONG
Paid player to ache and stretch (7)
A charade of PRO (‘paid player’) plus LONG (‘ache’).
7 APPARATUS
Government system one mixed up with Sparta (9)
A charade of A (‘one’) plus PPARATUS, an anagram (‘mixed’) of ‘up’ plus ‘Sparta’.
13 GROTESQUE
Bizarre Greek quotes about conserving energy (9)
A charade of GR (‘Greek’) plus OTESQUE, an envelope (‘conserving’) of E (‘energy’) in OTSQUE, an anagram (‘about’) of ‘quotes’.
14 GODFATHER
Topping contractor, this boss? (9)
A cryptic definition, with ‘topping’ indicating killing.
17 SETBACK
Reverse bet’s off – in the bag (7)
An envelope (‘in’) of ETB, an anagram (‘off’) of ‘bet’ in SACK (‘bag’).
18 DYNAMIC
Candy twists containing note: ‘full of beans’ (7)
An envelope (‘containing’) of MI (‘note’ of the solfa) in DYNAC, an anagram (‘twists’) of ‘candy’.
20 BOLSTER
Out of control horse gobbling small pillow? (7)
An envelope (‘gobbling’) of S (‘small’) in BOLTER (‘out of control horse’).
22
See 6 Across
23 SPIKE
Lace from southern Lakeland mountain (5)
A charade of S (‘southern’) plus PIKE (‘lakeland mountain’). The definition refers to the adulteration of a drink.

picture of the completed grid

71 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,654 by Brummie”

  1. A dnf as I looked up rope ladder to find etrier, though of course the instructions on the tin were clear enough. Seen that current — draught trick before, but needed all crossers to remember it. And cracknel was new. Otherwise pretty smooth, ta Brum and Peter.l

  2. A word on the é in étrier. That (and ê) often indicates a dropped “s” (over the years. Think être and Latin esse). Putting it back, and a few more changes, gets you “stirrup”, which is what the French word means. Did that make sense?

  3. Dr. Wharson@2.
    NHO étrier. My GK ended with carabiners and crampons.

    [Having only ever been on ice twice, in the Snowy Mountains in Australia and in the Tyrol, with lifelong injuries, I have a lifelong interest in climbers.. Lincoln Hall, an experienced Everest climber, who lived here in the Blue Mountains, NSW, was stayed alive for hours exposed on Everest, only to die not long afterwards of mesothelioma, as a consequence of a backyard cubby house built by his father in his youth, a common health risk in Oz. )

  4. I thought a bolster is a large pillow, one that is long and thick.

    NHO ETRIER.

    Started last night, but got nowhere. All fell into place this morning.

    And so back to bed

    Thanks, both

  5. Dave Ellison,@4. BOLSTER. The way I read this is the clue has a question mark so it’s a bit cryptic. S for small in the middle, but agree, it’s not necessarily a ‘small’ pillow. I’ve still got a few around. They work well as draught excluders.

  6. Liked DRAUGHTY (A draught could be hot. No? Liked it anyway for the def.), GONER and GODFATHER.
    Thanks Brummie and PeterO.

  7. paddymelon@5
    BOLSTER
    With ‘pillow’ being the straightforward def, does the question mark serve any purpose?

  8. I had to do some running repairs to my etrier only the other day. Luckily my etui was close at hand…

  9. KVa@6. I also thought “draughty” could be hot, as it often is here, but couldn’t find a reference
    @7. You have a point about the QM in the clue for “bolster”.

  10. I wondered if the horsey references could be a theme, MOUNT, BOLsTER, sideTRACK etc, but probably to few of them, although it would fit with Dr WhatsOn @2 ‘s stirrup. ÉTRIER a Jorum for me which made my day.
    My favourites were DYNAMIC, BLUEGRASS, GODFATHER, EGGNOG and GONER. Thank you to PeterO and BRUMMIE for a pleasant end to the week.
    The Other Mark @8, I like what you did there 🤣

  11. Apart from wasting a short while wondering if GODFATHER was going to turn out to be some kind of roofing specialist, this all went in reasonably straightforwardly. The nho ETRIER was fairly clued, GONER was a tad cheeky but OK and there were some nice anagrams. (And, yet again, I read that Brummie often has a theme but not on this occasion; I am beginning to think ALL Brummie’s puzzles are themed but so brilliantly hidden that none of us notice)

    Thanks Brummie and PeterO

  13. Never heard of ETRIER, and I didn’t get GONER. The pike in SPIKE I gather is something to do with north English dialect? I still don’t understand GODFATHER. Are draughts always cold in the UK?

  14. Thanks Brummie and PeterO
    Very slow start – only EGGNOG, RELISH, and DYNAMIC on first pass. BURNT and thus BLUEGRASS gave me some useful crossers and I then finished fairly quickly, but with several not parsed, and a wordsearch needed for ETRIER.
    Is “united” needed in 24a? I’ve often seen QU for “queen”.
    Opportunities for DOORS is a bit loose.
    Favourite a late one, SETBACK, for the misdirection.

  15. Apart from not being very impressed by the clue for GODFATHER, and the appearance of two, for me, unknowns in ETRIER and CRACKNEL occupying the NW corner, found this a smooth enough solve, helped greatly by several friendly anagrams. Many thanks Brummie and PeterO this morning…

  16. No double ticks today but I did like DRAUGHTY, BURNT and APPARATUS

    Hopefully this one will smooth any feathers ruffled by Anto yesterday 🙂

    Cheers B&P

  17. GDU @13: not sure ‘pike’ is particularly dialectic. England’s highest peak is in the Lake District – Scafell Pike – and, nearby, you will find the Langdale Pikes, Pike o’Blisco, Grisedale Pike, Red Pike, Esk Pike etc

  18. I got obsessed with the idea that 7d was an anagram of one+Sparta, and by the time it became clear that it wasn’t, all I could think if for A P R T S was “ASPIRATES” which made no sense. Failed to see one=A again: a personal blind spot that often trips me up.

    ETRIER was my last in and a jorum. I liked RELISH and RACEHORSE and BOLSTER, thought of all sorts of things for the “topping contractor” (hair stylist? roofer?) before I got the right one, and still can’t quite see how GONER parses.

  19. gladys @18
    GONER was one I didn’t parse too, but PeterO’s parsing is that G stands for £1000 (isn’t it usually K?), while £1 is a ONER (by comparison with fiver or tenner).

  21. Lovely puzzle, slow to fall, but very satisfying when it did! Many ticks, liked the simple elegance of RESTRAIN.

    I resisted putting in BURNT for a while, as it didn’t feel synonymous with “fired” to me. Cognate, definitely, but synonymous?

    @Geoff Down Under: to top is to kill; a Godfather (“this boss” in the mafia sense) might order/contract killings as part of his business dealings

  22. gdu@13: I would say we spend more of our year trying to stay warm than keeping cool, and our windier months are the autumn and winter, so yes, on the whole we would think of a draught as being cold air getting into the house. Possibly people also have some atavistic memory of houses heated by fires, which must draw in air to replace the hot stuff that goes up the chimney. That comes from the outside, so any draught through a gap in doors and windows will be cold.

    I enjoyed this – 4 puzzles for the price of one with this grid! I was worried after the first pass of across clues, with only 3 or 4 solved but I love it when impenetrable clues slowly become clear. I initially thought “check on melody” was “refrain” but found myself a letter short (dang!) and knew “topping contractor” was something to do with hitmen (that, or hairdressers) but still took a while to get there.

    Many thanks Brummie and PeterO

  23. Postmark@17, you do have a lot of pikes! We have none, apart from the aquatic ones. Collins led me to believe it was a north England dialect.

  24. I thought Peter was hinting at horses in his preamble and like Pauline @10, I thought there were enough references to make it a quasi-theme, maybe adding (BLUE)GRASS and SPIKE to her suggestions. Lots of likes with GONER, GODFATHER, RELISH and SQUASH my favourites. SW held out the longest.

    Ta Brummie & PeterO.

  25. GDU @13, I’m surprised that Pike is not in Chambers as referencing hill. It seems it is a dialect N.English term for “pointy hill”. It was familiar to me.
    [GDU @13 and PostMark @17 I’ve probably climbed all of those Pikes a few times. My dad used to bike up there after work on Friday and sleep in Joss Naylor’s (MBE) barn to climb all weekend at the head of Wasdale.
    I once tried to do the round of the Langdale Valley starting at Lingmell and taking in Pike O’Blisco and the Langdale Pikes, but was completely rooted when I got to Bowfell so I gave up and got the bus back down the valley to Elterwater.
    The link is worth reading and mentions Scafell Pike, the highest fell (hill/mountain) in England]

  26. [Jeez pdm, between that mountain road, and the ice, dyu have a taste for risk … skydiving, bungee … 🙂 ?]

  28. There were some really clever clues with great surfaces, my favourite probably being “Get aggressively physical when criminal Ray dips into till” for PLAY ROUGH. I had another big tick for LOPSIDED. PeterO, I’m not sure if your comment was intending to criticise “executed” as being just a link word in the latter, but I thought it worked well. In the surface we get the spoiled duke engaging in jousting, and in the cryptic reading the answer is produced (executed) by the wordplay.

    Re 15a, if we say it’s DRAUGHTY in the UK, we always mean that it’s cold!

    Many thanks Brummie and PeterO.

  29. muffin @14: I agree that QU is also used but ‘united’ is needed for the surface for the unlikely amalgamation of the two bands, Pulp and Queen.

  30. [Tim C @25: even with teenage legs, the Langdale round is a tough slog in a day though I’d argue the Wasdale round is tougher still. Both are beyond my ageing knees these days!]

  32. I wondered about a horseracing theme, too. So much so that I spent too long trying to make GIMME work for GONER. There’s a GeeGee in EGGNOG of course. [They were going to put Pike in the dictionary but Captain Mainwaring told them not to]

  33. I thought Scafell PIKE when I solved SPIKE, my LOI. I also know ETRIER; it’s part of the more serious/obsessed geocacher’s kit. Higher terrain caches require equipment – boats or climbing kit, which is where etriers come in, usually for climbing trees, but torches and underground kit can also be needed

    Slight wonder if there’d be a theme based around James CRACKNELl early on, but disabused as nothing else linked appeared.

    Thank you to PeterO and Brummie.

  34. Petert @32 “[They were going to put Pike in the dictionary but Captain Mainwaring told them not to]” LOL

  36. Tim C@25 PIKE is in my rather old (1990 ed.) copy of Chambers, with one definition as ‘a sharp-pointed hill or summit’.

  38. [I think the best “round” in the Lakes is Newlands from Braithwaite. Start over Causey Pike to get the road walking in first. Grisedale PIKE is included! Hopegill Head is one of the “pointiest” peaks in the district.]

  43. Ha – yes! Judge @40
    One of us found it hard (but wondered about a horse theme), one of us found it easy

  44. This was fun. I finished before I got up (a few hours ago). I talked myself out of cracknel, peek and spike for a while, which slowed things down. It also took a while to pull up the rope ladder (“rope” and “ladder” are also slang drug terms @37 Hornbeam).

  45. Very nice. Not too tricky, I really enjoy Brummie’s puzzles.
    Got done by APPARATUS, convinced it was an anagram of SPARTA and ONE.
    I knew 8a, but not 10a, but the wordplay was clear followed by a trip to the dictionary.
    Thanks both.

  47. Muddled my way through most of this then revealed the last few. I much preferred yesterday’s – only one CD and no DDs today! I have great difficulty with clues such as 8a which is not only a charade but includes an envelope. I got the answer from crossers and definition; I would never have seen the parsing.

  48. In the seventies there was a chocolate-covered bar called Mint Cracknel, advertised by Noel Edmonds iirc. Nowadays the word brings St. Etienne to mind. (The band, not le club de football.)

  49. Postmark@17: 23D defeated me, but now that you list a few, it’s painfully obvious. Several decades since I last set foot on one.

    CRACKNEL and ETRIER were NHO, but a brief google confirmed the existence of the latter.

  50. ETRIER was also a jorum for me. I liked the surfaces for PLAY ROUGH and DROOPY, and the wordplays of GROTESQUE and BOLSTER (not a small pillow). As AID @36 pointed out, PIKE is in Chambers without a Northern England qualification. I also now like GODFATHER, once the parsing was pointed out.

    Thanks Brummie and PeterO.

  51. Good puzzle. I too had “unfamiliar” beside a few. Loved 1a BLUEGRASS and 14d GODFATHER. Many thanks to Brummie and PeterO.

  52. Robi @50 – I could be wrong, but the definition is just PILLOW, the SMALL (S), goes in BOLTER

  53. I thought one-pound notes were “oncers.”

    What is cracknel? Apparently everybody knows but me. Wiki gives “a dry hard savoury bread,” while the puzzle gives “a nutty filling.”

    My brother had heard about fell runs and managed to do one on a work visit to the UK. He enjoyed the community aspect of it, with the kids and all.

    The Joss Naylor link mentions St. Bees, which I hadn’t realized is a real place. I know it from a limerick:

    There was an old man of St. Bees
    Who was stung in the arm by a wasp.
    When they asked “Does it hurt?”
    He replied, “No, it doesn’t.
    I’m so glad it wasn’t a hornet!”

    Thanks Brummie and PeterO.

  54. Surely there’s a racehorse theme? BLUEGRASS, CRACKNEL(L), EGGNOG, DROOPY, KIBOSH, RELISH all come up as racehorses… Or am I falling for Roz’s ‘font illusion’, there are so many racehorse names out there (including Hadrian…) that any puzzle is a racehorse puzzle? But GODFATHER, I mean surely?… Thanks Brummie and PeterO

  55. HYD @52; I probably didn’t phrase that well. The definition is just pillow; I meant that the ‘small pillow’ was nicely misleading. 🙂

  56. [Valentine @53
    Wainwright’s Coast to Coast – a popular long-distance walking route – starts at St. Bees Head. (It ends at Robin Hood’s Bay in Yorkshire.)]

  57. Hadrian@54: there is (or was, a few years ago) a racehorse called The Giant BOLSTER – which sounds ridiculous until you learn that Bolster was the name of a giant famous in Cornish folklore. Which proves, if it proves anything, that nothing is too improbable to be the name of a band, a typeface or a racehorse.

  58. It appears that between us we have enough for a horsey theme. Just waiting for Brummie to drop in and tell us we’re wrong 😎

  59. Pauline @58 – probably true that if we solvers tried hard enough, we could probably find a theme to every puzzle!

  60. I wasn’t sure of GODFATHER, because I always thought that, in slang, “top” was only used reflexively to mean “commit suicide”. However, come to think of it, in the movies eating an orange is a pretty ‘suicidal’ act, as I recall – as Signor Don Corleone soon discovers! :-).

    The other checks were ETRIER – a new word for me but then mountaineering is full of weird terminology – clear from the wordplay though – and BLUEGRASS which is beyond my GK but a fairly easy write-in. All the rest was fine.

    Ticks for LOPSIDED (good misdirection with ‘spoiled’ as a possible anagrind); PLAY ROUGH; DROOPY; EGGNOG; GONER (shades of Qaos’s numerology there?!); SIDETRACK; GROTESQUE (the Q as a crosser was a help!); SETBACK. But that’s just a selection.

    Thanks to Brummie – always welcome – and Peter.

  61. [To expound further on the ‘horsey’ theme here – I just couldn’t resist quoting this gem:

    INTERVIEWER: “Did you use a real horse’s head in that scene in The Godfather?”
    PROPS MANAGER: “Yes. We first tried using a taxidermist’s head, but it didn’t look right.”]

  62. Thanks for the blog , neat set of clues , APPARATUS cleverly avoids the Paddington stare.

    The theme is actually from the Pevsner edition of Churches : An Architectural Guide which includes many named fonts .

  65. Dave Ellison@4: From a song Val Doonican sang when I was a child
    “They each wear a bolster beneath their petticoat
    And leave the rest to Providence and Paddy McGinty’s goat.”

  66. I’m ashamed that SPIKE was my last one in, given I’ve walked up enough of them…
    DRAUGHTY probably my favourite, for the tight but deceptive definition that meant the construction of the clue had me scratching my head for quite a while. I decrypted the two unfamiliar words and then checked their existence.

  67. [Thank you, fellow commenters. I’ve enjoyed your conversation though I now feel I must rest after all those pikes!]

    I liked this crossword but didn’t think it as brilliant as some of Brummie’s previous puzzles. However, on looking back ‘post-solve’, I realise any fleeting disappointment is simply because he sets a very high bar. One only has to take a look at his elegant constructions (take RACEHORSE and RELISH as but two examples … quite beautifully done)

    And many thanks to almost everyone…. 😇

  68. I was held up in the NW because ‘navy’ had no indication that it was a definition by example, so I ruled out BLUE for a couple of days. 🙄 Once I’d put the answer in, the others in that quadrant soon fell.

    It always takes me a while to get onto Brummie’s wavelength, as he is so good at finding misleading synonyms and hiding them in a smooth surface.

    Completely missed the theme as ever. 🤔

    Belated thanks to setter and blogger.

  69. I’d love to have a list of all the themes that Roz has spotted over the years. This one (Roz@62) is a classic. I didn’t see it while solving due to my unfamiliarity with ecclesiastical typography.

  70. Thank you Cellomaniac , very kind . I am pretty sure your last bit is a joke but if not , just to be clear , they are baptismal fonts .

  71. Completed the right side. The left side not so much — not enough to get a toehold. I’ve had a bad run with anagrams lately, with LOPSIDED being the latest

    I don’t think anyone mentioned DRAUGHT (horse) as part of the (maybe) theme

    Valentine @53 thanks for the limerick. It was included in a classic Goon song, but disintegrated into chaos before the last line, so I never knew how it ended

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