Guardian 29,688 – Brockwell

89 comments on “Guardian 29,688 – Brockwell”

1. Thanks Brockwell and Andrew
   I didn’t parse ASTI or PARTYING (never heard of a party ring).
   I’ve never heard BOTANICALS referred to as drugs. The usual meaning is for the (secret) flavourings used in gin.
   Favourite LOI EDEN.

   Enjoy Glencoe, Andrew – try not to fall off anything!

2. Lovely puzzle: thanks Brockwell and thanks Andrew. Quite a lot of gardens appearing.

3. Very slick, as usual, and I wonder if I was caught out by the same bits of tricky parsing as Andrew. PARTY (r)ING is not a phrase with which I am familiar, and neither is LADY GARDEN, though I was able to make the connection between the national and the deforestation. And, whilst I’m one who did enjoy the series – I know there are others here who did not – I still did not spot ‘Friend’ = ROS(s) in ROSE. Easy with hindsight. Favourites amongst the others inc AWARD, HANGING, ROYAL PALM, ELEVENSES, GARDEN, MALI, EDEN and GNOME.

   Thanks Brockwell and Andrew

4. Gardens
   Hanging, herb, botanical, Eden, rose, rock, lady, water, -party
   Found in gardens
   Gnomes, beds, bugs

   Perhaps there are more?
   Thanks to Andrew and Brockwell

5. Some wonderful clues in this one. I especially liked EDEN, LADY, and PASADENA (where I live). Could 20A just as easily be BANGO with get rid of being BAN?
   BANGO is also a game.

6. Party ring biscuits for those lucky enough not to have encountered them – they used to appear at children’s parties of my youth, and at parties my daughter attended.

   TEA gardens too – apparently gardens where herbs to make various teas are grown (I did know the phrase, but not exactly what it meant).

   (I also wondered about TEA as the key word with INDIA, BOTANICAL, HERB, TEA ROSE, TEA PAVILION, TEA GARDEN, TEA ROSE)

   Thank you to Andrew and Brockwell.

7. ROSE was my last to parse, never having seen the series, though ‘Ross from Friends’ finally came from somewhere in my consciousness. Tricky puzzle and like others I’ve never heard of a party ring. The 25, 2 (or 22a) connection with 12 raised a smile. Judging by comments on the Guardian site, EDEN is not a well-know UK PM anymore. BOTANICALS took ages to tease out from the fodder, as it didn’t immediately strike me as an example of drugs. Liked MALI for the reference to the incomparable Bob. Didn’t spot the GARDEN theme until after completion, as usual. Thanks to Brockwell and Andrew (enjoy the rain-free hiking).

8. Had to mentalphabet to get the ess of asap before the little old lady’s town hove into view. First thought re 12 was Sissinghurst — somewhat wide of the mark! A few nhos, eg the Friends bloke (never watched), the biscuit, and the studio (also not my genre). Ditto others above re loi botanicals, needed all crossers. Lots to enjoy though, thanks B and A.

9. Found this quite tricky in parts, and thoroughly enjoyable. BRAZILIAN elicited a schoolboy snigger, but I also liked AUBERGINES, ALPHA and GNOME. Thanks to Brockwell for the fun, and to Andrew – enjoy the hike. And remember, if the Campbells don’t get you, the midges might…

10. I could not parse 1d, 18d (never heard of a party ring cookie).

    Thanks, both.

11. Jay@4, Besides TEA, also PALM, AUBERGINES, (garden) TAP?
    Shanne@6, I liked the TEA sub theme.

    I hadn’t parsed EDEN (very clever), ASTI, PARTYING (nho party ring), ROSE (missed the Friends reference).

    So many great clues! Favourites BRAZILIAN, GNOME, PASADENA, PAVILION, HEART, AUBERGINES, ELEVENSES.

    Thanks to Brockwell and Andrew. Enjoy the hiking. 🥾

12. Good fun: Thanks Brockwell (and Andrew: the only time I have visited Glencoe the rain was pouring down the mountains in streams – at least the waterfalls were impressive!)

    I missed PAST IT, but it didn’t matter: wine is always ASTI (when it isn’t ROSE, which I didn’t parse either – I have never watched Friends). Also missed the PM in EDEN and the element in NI ckelback (clever), and the PARTY RING was new to me (oh, those. I know the biscuit but had forgotten the name.) But I did remember the GNOME (A Thing I Learned From Crosswords).

    Also found in gardens: HERBAGE, ROYAL PALM, a PAVILION? Though I missed the theme, and was somewhat surprised (though not shocked) to find LADY GARDEN considered an acceptable entry.

13. [For those who enjoy an earworm, here’s the obvious one]

14. Another lovely puzzle from Brockwell.

    Lots of smiles and ‘ahas’ as the theme emerged: ticks for SOAP OPERA, INCUR, ASTI (again! – with an original treatment and great surface), GARDEN, PASADENA, MALI, EDEN, GNOME, TAP WATER, ACCOST.

    As always, I enjoyed the device in Epping Forest, Olivia Newton-John and Vincent Price.

    Many thanks to Brockwell for the fun and Andrew for the blog – enjoy the walking and dodge the midges!

15. I, too, had never heard of a party ring, and was a bit surprised to see BOTANICALS as drugs rather than flavourings.
    Even more surprised to find LADY GARDEN in a puzzle by someone other than Paul.
    Clever, though, and good fun.
    Thanks, both.

16. muffin @1. It took me ages to accept botanicals as drugs, but Chambers bears me out: “a drug made from vegetable matter”.
    However, the ones used to flavour gin are not always secret. For example, The Botanist (possibly my favourite gin of all time) has the Latin names of 22 botanicals “hand-foraged on the island of Islay” and 9 other flavourings embossed on the bottle. My brother was slightly puzzled when he misread the inscription on the label as “For Aged Botanicals”.

17. I got nowhere with this. What does 2PM have to do with the biblical Eden?

18. Really wonderful clues, loads of fun, as others have said.

    Amma@17: 2 represents 2 down i.e. GARDEN; Garden of Eden, Eden was a Prime Minister.

19. Amma, @17 – the 2 is directing you the answer for 2 down, which is GARDEN.

    {edit: we crossed, drofle – my comment took ages to load for some reason)

20. Amma @17 – the answer to 2D is GARDEN – and one of the UK’s prime ministers (PMs) was Anthony EDEN – the Biblical garden.

21. Great spot Jay @4!

22. Couldn’t parse MALI; couldn’t possibly comment why!

    I noticed a theme three quarters the way through, but it didn’t help solve any, but fun anyway.

    Thank Brockwell and Andrew: midges shouldn’t be much of a problem at this time of year

23. One or two that I couldn’t parse, like the two wines, ROSE and ASTI, but I enjoyed the solve this morning. Last one in was GNOME, and it was only when I had TURNS UP penultimately solved as the indicator of what to do that that one fell into place satisfyingly. Many thanks Brockwell and to the holidaying Andrew who is a bit further north than I am on my own break in the Lake District, where I too can hardly believe the lovely warm weather here for early May…

24. Just don’t ask Glencoe locals if Mali sounds like Marley!

25. Ta for the link, gladys @13, with a wave to jay @5.

26. I thought this was a lovely puzzle with a theme that kept on giving. BRAZILIAN raised a schoolboy chuckle, and I enjoyed the inclusion of real people in PAVILION and ACCOST. I noticed that Vincent Price immediately followed HAMMER, but interestingly, although he, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing were great friends, Price never appeared in any of the studio’s films, as he was strictly contracted to American International Pictures. TILT.

    Ta Brockwell & Andrew.

27. I liked all the GARDENs (thanks to Jay@4) and I am also now happy to appreciate all the TEAs (thanks to Shanne@6). Plenty of clever clues and I thought 12a BRAZILIAN was very funny. Like some other folk, I needed to come here to understand a few of the parsings.
    Many thanks to Brockwell and also to Andrew for blogging before heading out hiking.

28. Another outing for the setters’ favourite tipple ASTI – maybe they should serve it at the next S&B meet 🙂

    Top ticks for ASTI, BRAZILIAN and INCUR

    HAMMER took me longer than the rest of the clues combined

    Cheers A&B

29. Quite a few unparsed, didn’t know the synthpop group, and really hated the MALI answer, which to my ear sounds not even close to Marley. All that aside, the puzzle was otherwise enjoyable.

30. NHO PARTY RING but the cluing was fair enough with a couple of crossers in place. The parsing of ASTI eluded me. Some nice surfaces today.

    Thank you Brockwell and Andrew

31. Oh! an indirect anagram (WORLD->EARTH->HEART). Blimey, that’s yet another blow for us Ximeneans.

32. pserve_p2 @31 – not an indirect anagram, but a cycling clue (which are usually synonym-based). The letters are still in the same order, just starting in a different place. Think of it as if the letters are written in a circle then they move around (in this case just one movement, but it can be more).

33. Amoeba@32: Ah! Yes, thank you. Right… it’s just ‘cycling’ the letters. I was too hasty.

34. poc@29: Are you absolutely sure that your pronunciation of Marley sounds “not even close” to your pronunciation of Mali? Do you make no ‘m’ sound, or follow that with either a short or a long ‘a’/’ah’ sound with perhaps a liquid ‘l’ phoneme and a closing unstressed vowel? I think it that would be quite remarkable.

35. Thank you, Jay@4, for that theme alert — it completely passed me by. I was thinking there might be some kind of music/pop/rock thing going on: Marley, Aha!, REM, ROCK…
    The party ring is new to me, too.
    Lots to enjoy in these clues, as mentioned by commenters above.
    Thanks Andrew and Brockwell.

36. The EDEN clue was a gem

37. I really enjoyed that. A lot of fun to solve. Slightly surprised to see LADY GARDEN in there and slightly ashamed I worked my way backwards from BRAZILIAN to get those two answers. I’m all for equality and with the amount of times the male appendage is used in crosswords I suppose it’s only fair. As said in other comments it was a very Paulesque clue.

    Thanks blogger and setter.

38. I remember being with a small group of people some forty, or more, years ago which included the Queen and Prince Philip. On being given a bunch of flowers, Her Maj asked the donor “Did you grow these in your own flower garden?” as though she assumed that everyone had a separate garden just for growing flowers!!

    I recall bodycheetah saying, on this setter’s last outing that Brockwell was “atop my setters league” so approached this with good expectations

    But I too have never heard of “party rings” and don’t believe “accost” means simply “approach”; one has to accompany the approaching with some assertion, if not aggression!

    I agree with others about clever use of the theme and the praise others have given for this. But for me, personally, it’s the puzzle aspect that counts most – rather than the extras (I can get a great surface from a good poem and, though I appreciate the surfaces – and the fun of a theme – it is for a crossword puzzle that I do these things…)

    As for LADY GARDEN – is this not a tad outdated? It’s a term I’d have comfortably used in familiar company in the ’90s or early 2000s – but it jarred a little here in public!

    Overall, I enjoyed this – but perhaps I won’t yet be positioning him(?) as highly as bodycheetah!

    Many thanks both and all

39. Shamefully, my first thought for 24d was SHI(F)T which sort of works, but CANID saved the blushes.

    Lovely puzzle with some excellent mis-directs, but I’m afraid I’m not fond of seemingly arbitrary single letter abbreviations. S for square, A for acting, and so on.

40. pserve_p2 – well said! In any case, these “sounds like” clues rarely claim to be exact homophones!

41. Thanks Shanne, Balfour and drofle. Eden the prime minister made sense but I wouldn’t have recognised the link to another clue. I didn’t solve 2a anyway – gave up and revealed the answers after some fruitless ponderings.

42. William F P @38: If we worried about things being outdated in crosswordland, I think we should find another hobby! Singers from the 30s, actors from the 40s…

    All good stuff though I had no idea about Party Rings. The word “cookie” had me assuming it was an American biscuit I’d not heard of, rather than a UK one. Either way, it was new to me.

    William @39: I have no doubt someone will point to Chambers or something equally authoritative but I agree with you that there are an awful lot of these. “Acting” is OK for me as it appears, like “fellow” and “royal” in a lot of combinations. But “s” for “”square”? “RMS” = “root mean square” comes to mind, but it is hardly one of many.

    Thanks Andrew and Brockwell.

43. While we’re on the subject of sound-alikes, how did everyone like the world’s shortest Spoonerism? I can see no technical reason why lady/daily should be incorrect, but it feels wrong.

44. AUBERGINES? Fruit? How come??????

45. 6 down. Would anyone on the radio fail to pronounce the R in “Marley”?

46. For ages I had PITT instead of EDEN for 2 PM and was amused at how clever I was…

47. I don’t often look at the weekday crossword, but I enjoyed that. I thought lady garden was rude and hilarious.

    The only other time I have come across this meaning of GNOME was 35 years ago, when my tutor at university described one of my essays as “blunt and gnomic”. Probably the only feedback I still remember!

48. gtrimprov @45, try this and compare with this

49. vannucci @44. Like the tomato, the aubergine is botanically classified as a berry, therefore a fruit. If you ever see the original ‘egg plant’ with small white fruits about the size of an egg, that may make more sense. I can get them in my excellent local outlet for Asian foodstuffs, but they are very bitter and need a lot of salting and rinsing before they can be used.

50. Robi @48 Yup, we rhoticists are pretty resigned now to the supposition that all non-rhotic speakers sound like Brian Sewell. My own rhoticism has been tempered a bit over the years spent in English universities, but was revived vigorously when we lived for some years in Prague and then in Italy. I remember when, in a cafe in Como, my English wife tried to order a Sprite and the server could not understand. I intervened with ‘Sprrrite’ and was understood instantly. We laughed about that for years afterwards.

51. By the by, I notice that the favourite running in the 3.40 at Chester today goes by the name of Bob Mali. The owners obviously had no problem with dodgy homophones when they named their horse….
    Your 15 Squared racing correspondent.

52. I’d just like to point out that I live in the clue to 2d and answered said clue in my back 2d answer.

53. Many thanks for both crossword and blog.
    I must admit to thinking that LADY as a spoonerism of DAILY is not the greatest example of its kind.
    Would a butty make Spooner tubby? Would his collar be in a locker? Borderline-ish, I feel.

54. Finished; it took a while and I didn’t like it!

55. I liked the cheeky BRAZILIAN, the reverse NI for INCUR, the wordplays of ELEVENSES, BOTANICALS, PASADENA and TAP WATER, and the surface for GARDEN. As for abbreviations, if it’s in Chambers, I think it’s fair game. Otherwise, the setter is forced to use lots of initially, primarily, finally etc.

    Thanks Brockwell and Andrew.

56. Totally missed the theme(s).

    Never heard of party rings, lady gardens, hammer studio, gnome= saying. I don’t know my soap operas or sitcoms, even American ones. That said, it was still fun anyway.

    Botanically speaking, if it has seeds it’s a fruit. Eggplants/aubergines do.

    Thanks, Brockwell and Andrew.

57. pserve_p2@35: Perhaps I may be allowed a little hyperbole, but to me 1) the ‘a’ sound is different between the two words, and 2) there’s no ‘r’ in Mali. Although I’m used to the unwarranted and frequently discredited assumption that all solvers are non-rhotic, I found the combination of both these features to be very irritating.

58. poc@57 I think you mean @34

    I agree with you, poc, even when I knew Mali was correct, I couldn’t get the singer – in fact, came up with an obscure Maleigh Zan. So yes, pserve_p2@34, not even close, remarkable or not.

59. Nho PARTY RING, loved EDEN.

    I’ve never really thought about the pronunciation of MALI (i.e. how the residents say it) before the discussion here, but it occurred to me there may be an additional difference from Marley. Since the country was once French, if it has a French pronunciation the name will be stressed on the final syllable: ma – LEE. Just sayin’ !!

60. [Shanne @6
    When I followed your link to party ring biscuits, it invited me to “accept all cookies”. Does this mean they were free?]

61. 2 small quibbles :

    5d. You should mention that ASAP is reversed

    13d. The letters are cycled to the right, not to the left.

    And I can’t understand how Mali and Marley can be pronounced differently. For those complaining about the lack of an R in Mali, how do you get along with wart and water?

62. Dr. WhatsOn@59 I have no idea how the inhabitants of Mali pronounce their country’s name, but it is not a French name. During colonialism it was known as French Sudan, and only adopted it’s modern name on independence. It is named after the medieval empire of Mali, which occupied a similar area. The name is thought to be of Mandinka origin.

63. Andy@62 good point. I wasn’t trying to suggest it was of French origin (what on earth would it mean?), just that the colonialists might have had some influence.

64. DD @61: I invite you (after our current tyrant is deposed, perhaps) to sojourn here in Los Estados Unidos, where, I can assure you, everyone pronounces Mali differently from Marley. Even in American non-rhotic accents (to be found in upper New England, Brooklyn, the Carolina low country, etc.), I suspect the vowels will be different. But this discussion has been had so many times here that it’s gotten tedious, so let’s drop it, hmm?

65. Oh, and I had assumed there was some British chanteuse of yesteryear named Molly whom I hadn’t heard of.

66. Only for those who have dedicated their entire lives doing cryptic crosswords and NOT for newbies/intermediates.

67. Many thanks to Andrew for the excellent blog and to everyone else for your comments. Sorry if the homophone led some up the garden path 😉. B

68. Probably too late for anyone to read this now but I’ve finished. I didn’t parse ASTI, PARTYING (despite being biscuit aware) or CANID. I agree with Gladys and SZJoe about the Spoonerism. I don’t think the good reverend would have struggled with a mere 2 syllables. PASADENA took ages. My head actually dropped when I drank in TAP WATER. I also wasted some time on BRAZILIAN having become briefly confused and looking for a 7 and a 2. Thanks Brockwell and thanks to Andrew for an informative blog.

69. Grecian, I think the commenters on the perennial rhotic debate should take some gardening leave, bores me to death. It really doesn’t matter!

70. AlanC @69
    I agree that it’s tedious that “sound-alikes” ignore the Rs. What are they there for if not to affect the pronunciation?

71. muffin @70: but it only works for some of us purists😉
    However, surely we have to accept other interpretations of the damned r?

72. Thanks for the blog , pretty good overall with some very clever clues but a bit bitty for my solving style and I really hope this setter is not following the Prep-schoolboy style of Paul . One sniggering 9 year-old is quite enough .

73. Update@51, hot fav Bob Mali nowhere, race won appropriately enough in the light of this crossword by HAMMER the HAMMER…

74. I always enjoy Brockwell’s valiant efforts to get some more modern references into puzzles (alongside some more traditional stuff). LADY GARDEN was very good, but I think my fave was the super neat TEA.

75. Given 12 Across, perhaps it’s as well that today’s Blogger doesn’t illustrate his solutions!
    Thanks to Brockwell and Andrew; thanks also for interrupting your trip on our behalf, and stay safe.

76. Enjoyed this, though it was a DNF for a few in the NE corner (including MALI). At the risk of prolonging the rhotic debate I found I had to modify my strong Irish pronunciation of “water” when I moved to the USA. Not because of the hard “r” which they had no problem with, but had to change to a nasal “a” instead of my natural “aw”. I guess when we see “sounds like” we just have to imagine a BBC news reader saying the word…

77. 😂 AlanC @69 – I’m going to try and grow some perennial rhotics in my garden 😉

78. [AlanC@69 I forgot to mention that the theme today was perhaps a reference to the KPR manager . ]

79. I don’t think I kew that “auberge” was an English word (although I know enough French to be familiar with it). But the dictionaries say it is, so that’s fine. I’d also never heard of a “party ring”.

    I’m fairly sure I’ve only seen the word HERBAGE as jocular slang for cannabis.

    There were quite a few others I failed to parse, but now that I see how it’s done they all make sense to me.

80. [Ted @79
    “Auberge” is a song/album by Chris Rea, so that makes it English?]

81. I enjoyed this, although I had to reveal a few. I’d never heard of the word Gong for award so that one was impossible for me to get. Cur was also a new word for me.

82. Completed, but failed on the parsing of ‘partying’, ‘ alpha’ and ‘rose’.
    Thanks to Roz@72: I couldn’t have put it better.

83. Sebd @81
    “Gong” for medal is more familiar, but AWARD is a second step away from that.

84. [Roz @78: gives me the chance to finish off the rhotic debate with ‘Come on you RRrsss’ – muffin and sprog 3 will get it.]

    Grecian @77: mulch ado about nothing.

85. gtrimprov@45: would anyone on radio fail to pronounce the L in “would”?

86. I thought today’s was lovely and great fun. I liked the interlacing. My favorites were the shortest spoonerism and 16d. Lady garden def set the tone <3

87. Very late to this as I had to sleep on it once again.
    NeilH@15 – I thought LADY GARDEN was safe to give even the most sheltered a blush as it was neither an explicit clue nor answer
    Wayne Blackburn@24 – funnier comment than mine would have been!
    Pserve_p2@35 – thanks for the GK on Price

    And many thanks to Brockwell/Grecian and Andrew

88. When I think about Mali I hear it as pronounced by Andy Kershaw, since there was a time when it seemed he was there very other week bothering some local musician with his tape recorder.

89. Didn’t get too far with this one, less than half way. There were a lot of obvious ones I should have gotten, like AWARD, ELATING, BINGO, BOTANICALS, HEART, and ROSE

    Re soundalikes, I don’t think non-rhotics really understand (or ever will?) just how annoying non-rhotic soundalike clues are for the rest of us. Hard to explain why. They’re just really irritating in a way that variations in vowel sounds are not

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