Guardian Cryptic 29,659 by Brockwell

64 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,659 by Brockwell”

1. TITmouse

2. I guessed the theme from DOR but that was well into the puzzle. I totted up at the end and saw: MICKEY and SPEEDY GONZALES (of course), WHITE, HOUSE, TIT, CHURCH, DANGER, HARVEST, FIELD – plus mouse HOLE and TRAP – AND MOUSE TRAP CHEESE should count? I’ll bet there are more. Other animals that might be noted are the PIG, RAM, DOG and the HOOPOE. (and again, TIT). Would CHEWIE count as another animal? Aside from the theme I foolishly rushed into entering BLACKHEAD even whilst tut-tutting that the head of a Guinness is creamy white. Saw my error only after floundering with crossing clues. I really enjoyed the puzzle, the variety of devices and the wit. Thanks all round.

3. Tit mouse, Mousehole, White mice (chocolates), Brain (Pinky and the), Itchy (and Scratchy).

4. Thanks Brockwell and manehi
   I found it hard to get in to this, not helped by going down the same mousehole as TerriBlislow @2. It all came out in the end, though I didn’t see M(o)BILES in22a.

5. I think THIMBLES needs both the I and O removed from MOBILES. One and zero being the digital/binary..

6. MouseHOLE is pronounced “Mow-zel” in Cornwall.

7. Then there’s a couple of rogue ones where TIT mouse is a bird and mouse TRAP is a device / game / play.

   .. and here’s an earworm

   https://youtu.be/v4s2AMKPHnE?si=4JdSwjurF9W7Y5JC

   Thank you Brockwell and manehi

8. Andy @3 – (tw)ITCHY is a great spot. I thought I had ticked off all the theme solutions, but I had missed that one.

9. A few towards the end caused problems. Never having been a Star Trekkie, CHEWIE was, like a rolling stone, a complete unknown. The parsing of CHEESE completely escaped me. Thought WHITEHEAD the least impressive clue, and I only twigged the Mouth part of the TRAP at 11d. Nevertheless lots to enjoy and admire this morning.

10. …oh, of course Star Wars, not Star Trek…
    And as ever oblivious to the really quite obvious, in retrospect, murine theme…

11. Nice to see Senedd Cymru getting a mention.
    The DD would occupy one square in a Welsh crossword, of course.

12. I nearly always miss the theme. Might have found it less tough if I had.

13. I missed the real theme as well. I thought it might have been birds.

14. Itchy is good. I wonder if the setter meant that.

15. I missed the theme until alerted to its presence by the Guardian thread. But what a beautifully constructed grid to fit so many of the little rodents in… He’s no jerry-builder, that Brockwell!

16. GUM is a triple definition – also gum as in glue

17. Parsed THIMBLES as Niltac@5. (Binary) Digits being removed from MoBiLES is a cute idea.
    Also liked TRAP, HOOPOE.

    Enjoyed the puzzle and the blog.

    Thanks Brockwell and manehi.

18. Me @15. I also missed the clever use of the ellipsis at the eighteenth hole. Bravo, Brockwell.

19. Thank you manehi for the parsing of THIMBLES and CHURCH(ill), which I had missed.
    I loved this puzzle, though some clues were tricky to get.
    I found a reference to the WHITEHEAD Institute, whose scientists completed the world’s first comprehensive genetic map of the mouse genome. (March 1996) Hence the Whitehead mouse. Maybe someone with genetics knowledge can confirm.
    My favourite mouse today was SPEEDY GONZALES. Also loved non-mouse CHEWIE.
    Thanks to Brockwell and manehi.

20. Da iawn, Anna @11 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 🙂

21. Very tough but enjoyable with the theme definitely helping with some clues, especially the brilliant SPEEDY GONZALES.

    Ta Brockwell & manehi.

22. Speedy G the star of some schoolyard jokes, not for here of course, but chewie for gum is about the same ‘age’. Thought senedd might be Welsh, ta Anna. Fun puzzle, ta both.

23. What fun, what wit, from one of my favourite setters – I loved it!
    Late to comment, as I was on my travels when the blog was posted and I think all I would have wanted to say about this clever, multi-layered puzzle has been said, one way or another, by others above.
    Huge thanks to Brockwell, as ever and to lucky manehi.8

24. What Eileen said

25. Agree with AinD @16 that GUM is a triple definition.

26. I thought Speedy Gonzales was a novelty song by Pat Boone, circa 1961. Never seen Star Wars, or Harvey. But got there in the end…

27. I did enjoy finding all the miscellaneous mice, and appreciated the originality of the wordplay, though I found some of it difficult (CHEESE, QUEEN ANNE, THIMBLES). I had SENATE for a long time, and didn’t know CHEWIE for gum, but I did eventually remember Harvey and the gnome (a Thing I Learned From Crosswords). Thanks Brockwell and manehi.

28. Thanks for the explanations. I got CHURCH but missed Churchill, doh, despite getting Heath in today’s Independent. The other one I couldn’t fully parse was TRAP, and I can’t say I am happy with organ = part, because I suggest it is too vague to be reasonable, and even this blog had to add a missing word to explain it clearly enough. Still, there is probably no rule that clues need to be reasonable…

29. I’m puzzled by the ellipsis in 18d. It appears to be superfluous, but then I never understand ellipses in clues.

30. I parsed gum=stick via glue rather than a stick of gum.

31. Sadly on 30/9/42, Anne Frank wrote ‘so we had to be as quiet as mice’ in relation to the use of water.

32. Sorry, manehi, but I parsed THIMBLES as Niltac@5 which is why I thought it such a clever clue!

33. It seems like a lot of the clues (eight, maybe? more if you count Wife and Uniform) rely on taking the first or last letter of a word in the clue. Just me?

    I had not heard of gnome for epigram, but I have heard gnomic so it follows reasonably that there would be a noun form.

    The parsing of 12 eluded me, and after reading manehi’s explanation I don’t feel so bad about that. Similarly 22. 11D I also did not parse, but in hindsight it’s fair. NHO Senedd, dor beetle, or hoopoe. My knowledge of the natural world being minimal, I have no idea how widely known the latter two are?

34. poc @29
    The ellipsis is needed because “18” is part of the clue

35. Ace @33
    Hoopoes are rare vagrants in Britain, though apparently several have been seen in the last few weeks, probably as a result of southerly winds. However I was once golfing in Portugal and it was going dusk (we had played 37 holes). The last green had a flock of about 30 on it as we approached – they like the watered golf courses as it is easier to get their beaks into the ground.
    Dor beetles are well known (to entomologists!)

36. Re: non-digital phones. I was thinking at first the setter was confusing digital with binary, but maybe common usage gets them off the hook (pun intended).

37. Anyone else wonder if Whitehead might be Alfred North of that name, Bertie Russell’s maths and philosophy mate?

38. [Ace @33: here in SW France we get hoopoes every year, arriving around the same time that cuckoos do. Their song, rather wonderfully, is hoo-poo-poo – so a duet with any nearby cuckoo is delightful.]

39. Very enjoyable. Great theme, and I think my favourite was the clever “Socks worn by United and Villa?”.

    Interesting guest appearances by Red Adair and Zoe Saldaña in the clues. I remembered the former from his firefighting exploits in the North Sea, but I don’t think I’d heard of the latter. On looking her up I find she is “the second highest-grossing lead actress and the highest-grossing actress overall” and that “Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2023” (Wikipedia), which just goes to show how little I know.

    Many thanks Brockwell and manehi (I enjoyed your description of Speedy Gonzales as “a fictional cartoon mouse” — as opposed presumably to a factual cartoon mouse).

40. This was a good one. It took a while but I had it parsed. I was aware of the theme at a subconscious sort of level, probably enough to help catch Speedy G. The full extent had passed me by! Thanks to B&M.

41. Did anyone else try GEYSER for 26d? floodinG ultimately + E for European + the YSER. “Flooding” would have had to do double duty though as the geyser would specifically present a risk of flooding in the wrong place–anyway QUEEN ANNE set me straight, which I got partly because I thought it might be a pangram.

    In any case excellent puzzle with a lot of clever constructions–a few NHOs for me though (ICI, SENEDD, CHEWIE for gum), and I had to reveal WHITEHEAD after making very little progress in the NW. Got the cartoon mice early but somehow didn’t pick up on most of the rest of the theme answers. “Non-digital” seems fine to me, as the binary numbers are a subset of digits in general, so all the digits that were present are removed.

    For a truly ridiculous quibble by me about HARVEST (loi), I believe that in most versions Harvey turns out not to be imaginary but an invisible pooka–at least there is a bit about him altering a dictionary in the play and 1950 movie and in the 1950 movie we see doors being opened and closed by an invisible presence. Still a fair definition though.

    Thanks Brockwell and manehi!

42. Missed the theme, as I almost always do. Never heard of Dor beetles or the SENEDD or ICI.

    Anna@11, would th, rh and ll also get a single crossword square? Do they actually in Welsh crosswords?

    I’d heard of Speedy Gonzales but didn’t know he was a mouse or a cartoon character. I’ve apparently heard of HOOPOES, because the word came to mind, but didn’t know a thing about them. They are really interesting and spectacular to look at. Wellbeck@38, I enjoyed your cuckoo/hoopoe story.

    Thanks Brockwell and manehi.

43. There were a few new ones there for me today – nho Dor beetles or “gnome” as an epigram. I needed the blog to parse 18, but then chuckled when it was revealed. Overall, iy was a slow, but satisfying solve and I feel quite happy to have completed it after several revisits.

    I spotted the mouse theme after Mickey and Speedy, and then promptly forgot it again! I still don’t think I’d have been as fast as the Mexican mouse at solving this, though.

    Thanks for the fun, Brockwell, and the great blog, manehi.

44. Many thanks to manehi for the excellent blog and to everybody else, for solving and commenting on the puzzle. I’m glad that most of you seemed to enjoy it. Well done Andy Doyle @3 – I wasn’t sure if anyone would spot (Pinky and the) BRAIN. All the best, B

45. That was just a bit too hard for me. I’m particularity bad at clues that involve thinking of a synonym and then removing or moving some letters, like l-ICI-t and ALBI(o)N. There seemed a lot of those today. Just have to keep practicing.

    Why do people feel differently about ‘tit’ and ‘boob’ to ‘nork’? Or even ‘bra’ as ‘supporter’?

46. Very tough, had no time to finish this puzzle. I gave up on 22,29ac and 11,17,18d,23d.

    New for me: HARVEY = 1950 film about imaginary friend; DOR beetle; EPIGRAM = gnome

    I am Australian but I could not parse the Australian (15) bit of 3d and also I could not parse 12ac, 1d.

47. Thanks for the blog , very neat set of clues and I am always happy to miss the theme . THIMBLES and CHEESE stood out for me .
    Perhaps we could have a big , bad wolf tomorrow , another week of baa-lambs so far .

48. Total theme bypass as usual. I though THIMBLES was excellent and I’ll putt in a good word for HOLE 🙂

    Brockwell consolidating his position at the top of the leaderboard

    Cheers B&M

49. A slow solve you say? I was slow getting about a third of grid filled, but then I absolutely sailed through the rest just now.

    Thanks, I should add, to the ‘reveal’ button.

50. I found this really tough but got there in the end without spotting the theme (obvious in hindsight). A lot were guess then parse and I didn’t manage to parse SPEEDY GONZALES, CHEESE or THIMBLES. I do love this setter though and will be checking out some from the archives. Many thanks to manehi and Niltac @5 for the help with parsing., flea @7 for the earworm, and Brockwell/Grecian for the challenge and for dropping in.
    [muffin @35, my knowledge of golf has been mainly acquired from 15^ but how did you manage 37 HOLEs, isn’t that two rounds plus 1 hole? Or will I regret asking? It’s a lovely story though..]

51. [Pauline @50
    Thanks for asking. We had paid for the day, rather than a round, so when we completed 36 holes, we said “lots of people have played 36 holes in a day, not so many have played 37”, so we decided to play one more!]

52. 37 holes in Portugal with hoopoes sounds about perfect muffin @51. Seeing them on European golf courses is a highlight for me. Beautiful birds.

53. [Of course, I was about 40 years younger then! btw my opponent and I had halved after 36 holes – we didn’t complete the 37th as we didn’t want to disturb the hoopoes.]

54. Manehi – a slow solve, eh? Maybe you should have Slowpoke Rodriguez as your Avatar.

55. Nice.
    Missed the theme.
    Too tired for further comment after losing my shirt at Plumpton this afternoon.
    Thanks both.

56. [muffin @51, I’m pleased I asked. It makes perfect sense 😎]

57. Pauline in Brum @50 – thank you – I appreciate it.
    Muffin @53 – don’t disturb the hoopoes is the archetypal honourable half.
    Ken – Admin @54 – wish I’d got Slowpoke Rodriguez into this grid.
    HIYD @55 – I lost a huge wedge at Plumpton the last time I was there – my sympathies are with you

58. I agree with Martin@40, I’m sure it’s possible to get the theme at a subconscious rather than conscious level. Get it or not I love a theme and this was a truly masterful composition, thank you and bravo Brockwell! (Also for the frisson it adds to 225 when setters drop by…) Thank you too manehi for a blog worthy of the occasion. All in all this has been a multiple-sittings week for me, my work-self is hoping for a gentler Friday.

59. [Valentine@42, if I may answer the question you put to Anna@11, yes the Welsh digraphs “ch”, “dd”, “ff”, “ng”, “ll”, “ph”, “rh”, and “th” each appear in a single square in Welsh crosswords. They also appear individually in the alphabet a, b , c, ch, d, dd, etc which makes for complicated sort algorithms and interesting alphabetically-itemised lists, eg to refer to the fourth item in such a list, you would refer to point (ch) not point (d).]

60. Another stellar offering from Brockwell. Far too many gems to list, and other posters have already mentioned most of them. Yes I missed the theme, and one or two reveals were necessary to fill the grid – mea culpa.

    I would never have solved HOOPOE had I not happened to have listened to British Sea Power’s song “Victorian Ice” yesterday evening ! “Hoopoes and Herring Gulls over chalky cliffs” – not the sort of lyric you’re likely to hear from most rock bands.

61. Roz@47: it looks as though you have got your wish.

62. Muffin@34: Ah. Light dawns.

63. I didn’t know about Harvey but that imaginary friend seems to be a direct precursor to Frank in Donnie Darko, one of my favourite films.

64. This was coming along nicely, and then halfway through I suddenly slammed into a brick wall that refused to budge. Didn’t catch the mouse theme. I was hoping it would be classic cartoon characters, but no such luck

    In high school I played Dr Sanderson in the play HARVEY. Good memories!

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