Guardian Cryptic crossword No 29,790 by Anto

by

The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29790.

Anto continues to earn his place in the Cryptic roster, with a tractable but slightly quirky entry.

ACROSS
1 FAMOUS BELGIANS
Butchers abuse flamingos, but few can be named (6,8)
An anagram (‘butchers’) of ‘abuse flamingos’, but I take umbrage at the definition; for a small country, Belgium has produced its share of famous people – René Magritte, Django Reinhart, Georges Simenon, Georges Lemaître are just the first to come to my mind.
8 IDLER
Wastrel diligently keeps himself laid back (5)
A hidden (keeps’) reversed (‘laid back’) in ‘wastREL DIligently’, with ‘himself’ referring back to ‘wastrel’.
9 NASTIEST
Wine stored in cosy home is most unpleasant (8)
An envelope (‘in’) of ASTI (‘wine’) in NEST (‘cosy home’).
11 ABSOLVE
Excuse a second rate crack (7)
A charade of ‘a’ plus B (‘second rate’) plus SOLVE (‘crack’).
12 GAMELAN
Strategy to eliminate quiet Asian music (7)
A subtraction: GAME [p]LAN (‘strategy’) minus the P (‘to eliminate quiet’).
13 CADET
Leave half of cafe deli to military student (5)
‘Leave half of’ ‘CAfe DEli To’
15 SLEEP ON IT
Take time to decide about repositioning stone pile (5,2,2)
An anagram (‘repositioning’) of ‘stone pile’.
17 MELODRAMA
Announced soft drink with a big fuss (9)
A charade of MELO, soundin like (‘announced’) MELLOW (‘soft’) plus DRAM (‘drink’ – not soft!) plus ‘a’.
20 BASSO
Idiot taking on personal problem for singer … (5)
An envelope (‘taking on’) of ASS (‘idiot’) in BO (‘personal problem’).
21 LAID LOW
… will do a broadcast although unwell (4,3)
An anagram (‘broadcast’) of ‘will do a’.
23 DRIVE IN
Force to make journey home (5,2)
A charade of DRIVE (‘journey’ or ‘make journey’) plus IN (‘home’).
25 HANGER-ON
Lackey might turn around to find where to keep shirt (6-2)
Swap the words (‘might turn around’) to get ON HANGER (‘where to keep shirt’).
26 INAPT
It’s not suitable to reveal top tip in it (5)
An envelope (‘to reveal … in’) of NAP (‘top tip’ – a bet based on experts’ best advice) in ‘it’.
27 CATCH TWENTY TWO
Hear of pair of soccer teams facing insurmountable problem (5,6,3)
A charade of CATCH (‘hear’) TWENTY TWO (2 elevens, ‘pair of soccer teams’).
DOWN
1 FAIT ACCOMPLI
Awkward topic FA claim is one already settled (4,8)
An anagram (‘awkward’) of ‘topic FA claim’.
2 MILKS
Exploits of male types … (5)
A charade of M (‘male’) plus ILKS (‘types’).
3 UNRELATED
… not reported on as it’s irrelevant (9)
Just about a double definition, with RELATE as tell in the first, and match in the second.
4 BONKERS
Are they mad when they’re doing it? (7)
A play on BONK as have sex (‘doing it’).
5 LASAGNE
Food drop placed in passage (7)
An envelope (‘placed in’) of SAG (‘drop’) in LANE (‘passage’).
6 IDIOM
As part of bid I omitted specific language (5)
A hidden answer (‘as part of’) in ‘bID I OMitted’.
7 NESTLINGS
Desperate singletons abandon love to get young chicks (9)
An anagram (‘desperate’) of ‘singlet[o]ns’ minus the O (‘abandon love’).
10 ONE TWO ONE TWO
Marching orders that test speakers (3,3,3,3)
Double definition.
14 DALAI LAMA
Artist has a hit with a religious figure (5,4)
A charade of DALAI, an envelope (‘has’) of ‘a’ in DALI (Salvador, ‘artist’) plus LAM (‘hit’) plus ‘a’.
16 PUBLICIST
Bar legal protection for special marketing consultant (9)
An envelope (‘protection for’) of S (‘special’) in PUB (‘bar’) plus LICIT (‘legal’).
18 AT WORST
Wild rats surround pair – it’s as bad as it gets (2,5)
An envelope (‘surround’) of TWO (‘pair’) in ARST, an anagram (‘wild’) of ‘rats’.
19 AL DENTE
Impression beer has, having some bite (2,5)
An envelope (‘has’) of DENT (‘impression’) in ALE (‘beer’).
22 LOGIC
Reason legal officer gives innocent client tips (5)
First letters (‘tips’) of ‘Legal Officer Gives Innocent Client’.
24 EXACT
Cut up over court demand (5)
A charade of EXA, a reversal (‘up’ in a down light) of AXW (‘cut’) plus CT (‘court’).

picture of the completed grid

74 comments on “Guardian Cryptic crossword No 29,790 by Anto”

  1. Typo at 24d’s parse: …a reversal of AXW (cut) -> should be reversal of AXE.

    Thanks for the parsing!

  2. First time through, I had not a word, just a solitary letter S. After four hours sleep, it all went in very smoothly. I am usually quite diffident about Anto’s puzzles, but I really enjoyed this, with a chuckle at BONKERS.

    Thanks Anto and PeterO. And so back to bed

  3. Enjoyable puzzle, not too chewy.

    Regarding nameable Belgians, I had a different set than PeterO, as maybe others here did. However, Anto is probably right at the general population level. [The challenge is made more difficult by the fact we all probably know a bunch of famous Belgians, but don’t know they are Belgian – probably what Anto was getting at.]

  4. I wondered why Anto had picked on Belgians. Perhaps, as Dr WhatsOn@3 intimated, he was tongue-in-cheek?

    I failed to get the first word of CATCH 22, despite having _A_C_ and staring at it for ages. D’oh!

    Had no idea of a nap being a top tip, so failed to parse INAPT.

  5. This seemed very mild, by Anto standards. I didn’t get MILKS right first time, though it wasn’t difficult, just a bit of laziness from my side. Didn’t parse MELODRAMA; didn’t know FAMOUS BELGIANS (it’s a pub joke, right?) or GAMELAN but the clues were clear. Liked all the long entries.

    Re: belgians, I would add Bosch, Van Eyck, Rubens – they’re from those places, right?

    Thanks Anto and PeterO

  6. In 1a, Anto is simply riffing on what has been a standing joke, probably for longer than I’ve been alive: ‘Can you name five famous Belgians?’ I first came across it about 50 years ago. So Anto is not ‘picking on’ Belgians, GDU @4, and our esteemed blogger’s umbrage is somewhat misdirected,

  7. … and there’s Hepburn, Hergé and Jaques Brel, preceded somewhat by Vesalius and Mercator (saw the statue) 🙂

  9. Well, I entered Famous Bengalis @1A and was getting on my high horse thinking of the poet Tagore, Mother Teresa amongst others. Then the crossers made me think again! D’oh! Agree it’s one of a number of unfair but common misconceptions about Belgium and its inhabitants.

  10. I had great fun doing this last night and thought FAMOUS BELGIANS and CATCH TWENTY TWO were fantastic. Balfour @6 beat me to it in explaining the perennial joke, (yes we can name lots, including sportsmen Eddie Merckx and Kevin De Bruyne, but that’s not the point of the joke). I also laughed at BONKERS and MELODRAMA and will stick my neck out by saying that I think that this is Anto’s finest puzzle. Outstanding work.

    Ta Anto & PeterO.

  11. Agree with Balfour@6 that Anto is just referring to the joke rather than dissing Belgium, so no problem with the clue. Entered an unparsed ‘bananas’ for 4 initially which held me up for ABSOLVE until I saw the error of my ways. I , thought 27 was a reference to the Dutch team ‘Twente’, but PeterO is probably correct. Liked GAMELAN, but my impression while solving was that there were slightly too many anagrams or near anagrams that contributed to too many write-ins initially. However, it’s churlish to criticise the inventiveness of our setters. Thanks to Anto and PeterO.

  13. My dad used to use famous Belgians as a metaphor for something rare in the same way you would use hens teeth or similar. I never understood it as he was also a huge Eddy Merckx fan.

    Good stuff by Anto. Found this quite chewy but I just wasn’t seeing either of the 1 anagrams. Once they fell it went in much easier.

    Enjoyed MELODRAMA and BONKERS

    Thanks PeterO and Anto

  14. I did wonder whether “famous Belgians” was a googlebomb like “French military victories” but it appears not.
    Who would have thought Audrey Hepburn? No one’s mentioned Hercule Poirot yet. 🙂

  16. I did this quickly in the middle of the night and agreed with all Peter’s parsing. If that makes me look smug, I also wrote the first post here, accidentally deleted it, gave up and went back to sleep. So, here I am after a 15A?

    I found it an enjoyable puzzle and was exasperated that a novel I’ve read twice (there aren’t many) was my last one in. I enjoyed getting GAMELAN from the wordplay and Googling to check. I took a while to defeather the flamingo but was well aware of the tradition, as were the Belgians who rebuffed it twice, in 2005.

    All good, thanks Anto, Peter et al.

  17. Got through homophones of most of the premier league before the CATCH-22 penny finally dropped 🙂

    Quite conventional by Anto standards?

    Cheers P&A

  18. In the past I confess I have found Anto very much not to my taste, almost always finding several clues which really annoyed me. As a non-Anto fan, then, let me say that I thought this puzzle was first-rate.
    BONKERS, which it took me ages to get, was hilarious. The two long anagrams were well done, especially perhaps 1d, given the long-running saga affecting Sportswashing City. (The surfaces of quite a few of the down clues, such as 2d, 3d, 4d, 7d, 16d, 22d and 24d, suggest a mini-theme in that direction; but which is the other team hinted at in 27a…?).
    Possibly there should have been an “allegedly” or “proverbially” in 1a, but I’m not going to lose sleep over that.
    Thanks to Anto and to PeterO for the customarily excellent blog.

  19. Strategy to eliminate quiet Asian music (7)

    New for me: NAP = a tipster’s prediction of the probable winner of a race; the number of players in a soccer team (27ac).

    Re 1ac, apart from the reference to the old joke (which I had never heard) tbh I struggled to think of any famous Belgians, and of the ones mentioned by PeterO, I can imagine that some people could easily mistake those as being French (Magritte, Simenon, Lemaitre) or German (Reinhart) rather than Belgian at first glance, going by their surnames.

  22. I always enjoy an Anto puzzle. I had several ticks as always, but I think my favourite was FAIT ACCOMPLI, very clever.

    As to FAMOUS BELGIANS, the country was founded only in 1830, so has a bit of a disadvantage compared to older nations. Unless of course you count people from earlier times from the area that later became Belgium.

    (Re BONKERS, Enigmatist said in his “Meet the setter” article, “My favourite clue of all time has to be ‘Mad, passionate lovers? (7)’ from Spurius in the Independent”.)

    Many thanks Anto and PeterO.

  25. I must have been totally on Anto’s wavelength today as this went in very quickly. GAMELAN probably my favourite and MELODRAMA last one in. Thanks to Anto and PeterO.

  26. This was very neat, with a few great anagram spots as is customary for Anto. FAMOUS BELGIANS (which always strikes me as the sort of joke Jeremy Clarkson likes) would make a fine keystone clue for a themed puzzle. Favourites were FAIT ACCOMPLI and the lovely GAMELAN.

  27. Lord Jim @22 Belgium is older than both Germany and Italy but Bach, Beethoven, Vivaldi and Verdi are normally regarded as originating from their respective later countries.

  28. I too remember the ‘Famous Belgians challenge’ from about 50 yrs ago. The same list of names of actually famous Belgians were produced then as well.

  29. Nice one, Anto.
    4D brought back a delicious memory of an episode during a marketing meeting of a multinational computer computer. My boss was a French lady, whose English was almost perfect, except that occasionally she’d lapse into the French pronunciation of similar English words. She was explaining how they wanted to expand more into targeting the financial sector. Luckily she didn’t seem to notice how the English delegates (and myself) were creasing up with stifled giggles when she kept insisting on how keen she was on bonking…

  30. Ref; 1a) Seem to recall their 19th C king causing something of a hoo-ha! in the Congo. In- famous I suppose…

  31. Togs @27: that’s a good point. Though in English we referred to “Italians” (for example) long before the modern nation state of Italy existed. I’d be interested to know if Belgians were normally referred to as such before 1830.

  33. Lord Jim @31 Before modern nation states, nationality was often determined by language rather than place of birth. It works for Germans and italians but nobody has ever spoken Belgian!

  34. Not having heard of the joke, 1a was very strange. Is there something meta about referring to a joke many people are unaware of? Otherwise everything went smoothly.

    Another famous Belgian: Hercule Poirot, if we’re allowed fictional characters.

  36. I actually cackled at a couple of these, great fun. Thanks Anto and PeterO and all of you who have named so many famous Belgians.

  38. It was a bit hidden away, but the link in my post @16 shows who the Belgians thought the most famous Belgians were (as of 2005). To Judge’s point @33 they have a Top 10 for Flemish speakers and another for French. To Mandarin’s point @26, this followed the most famous Briton’s series in which Clarkson promoted Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

  40. Tomsdad@11: another BANANAS here, so it was A B SOLVE for a while. A very enjoyable solve today – I liked all the four outside clues. I can’t see any reason for all those ellipses, though. MELODRAMA was my last in, too. Thanks Anto and PeterO.

  41. Good fun, although I didn’t know the xenophobic reference to BELGIANS; perhaps I haven’t gone to the pub enough! Quite a number of likes: GAMELAN, HANGER-ON, CATCH 22, FAIT ACCOMPLI, BONKERS (this might confuse our American friends, but bonk is in Merriam-Webster), DALAI LAMA, and PUBLICIST.

    Thanks Anto and PeterO.

  42. There seemed ‘to’ be more occurrences of ‘TWO’ than ‘one’ might expect. Maybe not enough for a theme, but 2 ‘too’ many to be unintentional, maybe?

  43. Well, since this thread has become an opportunity to enumerate famous Belgians, which I was rather hoping it wouldn’t, I feel I should chip in with former F1 driver Jacky Ickx and former world No.1 woman tennis player Justine Henin.

  44. I always remember Hercule P being referred to as a nasty little Frenchman. Soon put the observer right: “Belgian”. Nice crossword with some excellent anagrams. Nice mislead with catch twenty two. Tried to fit Man City etc in. d’oh!

  45. I seem to remember a film that came out in 1969 in London where I was working at the time, called If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium. Almost the same kind of dismissive swipe, with a group of touring Americans having 18 days in which to visit as many of the European sites/sights as possible in that time frame. Quite a funny watch, if I remember.
    Last one in after a very enjoyable solve today was MILKS…

  46. My first two in were 1a and 8a and I thought we had a Monty Python theme – the famous Belgians sketch and Eric Idle(r). It wasn’t to be!

    Good fun, although over before I’d drunk half my tea.

    Thanks Anto and PeterO

  48. Did the whole puzzle last night. But couldn’t parse MELODRAMA or the one with NAP in it (nho).

    I liked the anagrams around the edges.

    Most of the famous Belgians named sound French — where are the Flemings?

    Thanks, Anto and PeterO.

  49. ArkLark@48…that must be a very large and well filled Kopje. Unless of course it was several replenished teacups as you worked your way through the contents of your teapot…

  51. Balfour @43 You’re probably one of the few who’d recognise Belgians Francy Boland, Bobby Jaspar and Toots Thielmans.
    [ I hope my frivolous post yesterday wasn’t the cause of your withdrawal. Please continue. Also see my second post yesterday for something of potential interest.]

  52. Enjoyable puzzle. Favourites included 8a IDLER (for the self-reference), 27a CATCH TWENTY TWO (for the “hear” misdirection), 10d ONE TWO ONE TWO (amusing unusual entry). 1a FAMOUS BELGIANS gave me a real laugh, even though it seemed unfair, not being familiar with the joke. Lovely to be reminded of many of them from the blog and comments

    12a, shouldn’t GAMELAN be defined as “instrument” rather than “music”?

    I left 4d BONKERS for last because I had BANGERS in my head for too long, and it didn’t feel right

    gladys@40, the ellipses today are just for amusing surface reading, as they are most of the time. They don’t usually have anything to do with the solution…except when they do!

  54. Didn’t know the Belgian thing was a joke, so feeling a bit red (and yellow and black) faced about it. However, I could name a large chunk of Belgium’s recent World Cup representatives: I see AlanC@10 started w/KdB, but don’t know if the rest of them really count.

  55. Most enjoyable. I count myself among those who went through homophones of football teams.

    “Belgium” is a swear word in “The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”: “the rudest word in the universe, yet by a strange coincidence, also a country on earth”.

  56. I found this surprisingly straightforward. I got 1A immediately and then switched from my usual strategy of taking the clues in order and instead tackled the down clues before the across clues.

    And just as I was patting myself on the back, along came 27A which I stared at for an absurdly long time, asking myself what common expressions end in “two”…

  60. Thanks Anto for an enjoyable romp. I missed BONKERS and had ‘bangers’ instead. (Bang is slang for having sex & people who ‘bang’ things around are often mad but I like BONKERS much better.) Other clues I liked were IDIOM, DALAI LAMA, AT WORST, AL DENTE, and LOGIC. I didn’t really understand the FAMOUS BELGIANS joke until the blog explained it. Thanks PeterO for parsing.

  62. Fun puzzle thanks Anto- add James Ensor and the wonderful Jacques Brel as well as a large number of pre Belgian Flemish renaissance painters. A small country that punches above its weight.

  63. Zoot @51 I’m ashamed to admit that I don’t recognise the middle of those three. [But meanwhile, not at all. I have just been preoccupied with getting my youngest boy, who fled the other parental home to live with me a year and a half ago, packed and off to his university destination. His stuff at last went into the back of an outsized van in the midst of a truly biblical rainstorm about 3 hours ago. He will follow tomorrow.]

  64. Zoot@57, yes “orchestra” would also work for GAMELAN. I’m just not sure that “music” is a suitable definition. Even though we have, say, piano music, we wouldn’t use “music” to define “piano”

  65. Good points simonc@21 and ayeaye@35. “… facing literally insurmountable problem.(5-6-3)” ?. Of course, if Heller’s original title had stood we’d be talking about 2 baseball teams facing off, so thank his agent for the euphony, as she warned about possible confusion with Leon Uris’s recently published Mila 18.

  67. Balfour @63 [A busy day then.
    Jaspar was a tenor player who married Blossom Dearie and played with J.J., Donald Byrd and Miles when he went to the States with her. He died in 1963. I’ve got a few recordings.
    Best wishes to your lad. ]

  68. epop @61: that reminds me of one of my all-time favourite clues:
    New ref took latitude, playing advantage for Eden Hazard (4,2,9)
    (Picaroon, 26,177, 7 February 2014)

  69. Mig@64 et al Debussy was greatly influenced by the GAMELAN orchestra he heard at the Great Paris Exhibition, the sonorities, rhythms and scales used.

  70. bodycheetah@66 Thanks, that answers my question! GAMELAN as a music genre doesn’t appear in Chambers. My edition has “an instrument resembling a xylophone; an orchestra of SE Asia consisting of percussion…” etc. — nothing about archaic or obsolete

  71. Thoroughly enjoyed this one, all went in quite easily with some lovely surfaces and some cute witticisms. I think 1ac must be a candidate for Surface of the Year, although the idea of butchers abusing flamingos conjures up some very disturbing visions !! Many thanks to Anto and to PeterO

  72. JohnB@71, Yes, I should have mentioned the the surface of 1a in my comment @52. I love humorous surfaces, and that one is hilarious!

  73. Josquin des Pres, Jacob Obrecht, Gilles Binchois and many others were Flemish composers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, leaders in the musical world of the time.

  74. epop@61…Eden Hazard was perhaps the pick of that so called “golden generation” of Belgian soccer. Who never actually quite won any tournaments. Rather like the English “golden generation”, the Lampards, the Gerrards, the Beckhams who also underachieved. Often referred to in the plural like that by commentators, as though there were several of the same player…

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