A fun challenge from Brummie, which I really enjoyed solving.
Brummie’s puzzles usually have a theme and today it’s comedy duos, signposted by he answer to 19ac in the centre of the grid. The penny dropped about half-way through the solve, which made most of the remaining answers easier but I’m not sure I would have easily solved 4dn if I hadn’t been looking for it. I’ve counted seven pairs – including one case of double duty – which I think is pretty impressive. I’ll leave you to name them.
Thanks to Brummie for an entertaining start to the day – and a Happy Thanksgiving Day to our Transatlantic friends. 😉
Across
9 Southerner rustling in a docked baa-lamb (9)
ALABAMIAN
Anagram [rustling?] of IN A BAA LAM[b]
10 Outsider left not one sort of key (5)
ALLEN
ALiEN [outsider] with L [left] replacing I [one]
11 Generous drink moves right to the heart (5)
LARGE
LAGER [drink] with the R [right] moved to the middle [heart]
12 Actor Tree’s half-cut old Scotsman? (9)
TRAGEDIAN
TR[ee] [half cut] + AGED [old] + IAN [Scotsman] : ironical, in a puzzle full of comedians – [it’s a long time since we saw ‘actor Tree’!]
13 Refuse to be kept by lover, initially in wild surroundings (7)
SALVAGE
L[over] in SAVAGE [wild]
14 Half-soaked people in this switched on tourist city? (3,4)
HIP BATH
HIP [switched on] + BATH [tourist city]
17 Tree line to the west of one (5)
ROWAN
ROW [line] + AN [one]
19 Reverse-engineered molecule that might bind some solutions here (3)
AND
Reversal of DNA [molecule]
20 Check temperature inside animal (5)
DETER
T [temperature]in DEER [animal]
21 Punctuation mark 1-50-100 goes in front (7)
PILCROW
ILC [1-50-100 in Roman numerals] in PROW [front] – I didn’t know the name of this ¶ punctuation mark
22 Smear cold sulphate on new yellow tops (7)
CALUMNY
C [cold] + ALUM [sulphate] + N[ew] Y[ellow]
24 Pretentious greeting — fault corrected and accepted (9)
HIFALUTIN
HI [greeting] + an anagram [corrected] of FAULT + IN [accepted] – lovely word, which Collins and Chambers both spell highfalutin[g] but my SOED gives this as an alternative: it’s the way I would have spelt it but I don’t think I’ve ever had to!
26 Poet‘s streams (5)
BURNS
Double definition
28 Who’s responsible for Alice Island? (5)
LEWIS
Double definition – reference to Lewis Carroll
29 Try to lance anaemic wound, being totally self-obsessed (9)
EGOMANIAC
GO [try] in [to lance] an anagram [wound] of ANAEMIC
Down
1 Party nut (4)
BALL
Double definition
2 Bay City East entered in web address (6)
LAUREL
LA [city] + E [East] in URL [web address]
3 Risk getting in migrant Near East paid worker (4,6)
WAGE-EARNER
Anagram [migrant] of NEAR E[ast] in WAGER [risk]
4 Bear after it sees stars (6)
LITTLE
Reference to the constellation Ursa Minor [Little Bear] – I can’t see any wordplay
5 Single-coated tree could do with scrubbing? (8)
UNWASHED
UNWED [single] round ASH [tree]
6 Speed pressure card (4)
PACE
P [pressure] + ACE [card]
7 One hoping for beneficial response, say, lacks the power to secure mail operative (8)
CLAIMANT
CAN’T [lacks the power to] round an anagram [operative] of MAIL – cryptic reference to benefit claimants
8 What we came to expect from de Gaulle after a while (4)
ANON
A NON [de Gaulle’s repeated veto on Britain’s application to join the EEC]
13 Drinks to lift a bad mood (5)
STROP
Reversal [to lift] of PORTS [drinks] – this type of clue often leads to discussion: this one, for me, leads to PORTS
15 Bald-pated, short, old cuckoo’s a crafty thing (10)
PADDLEBOAT
Anagram [cuckoo] of BALDPATED O[ld]
16 Writer Grass takes drive up (5)
HARDY
HAY [grass] round a reversal of DR [drive]
18 “Wit Offensive” on radio makes you grouse? (8)
WILDFOWL
Sounds like [on radio] [Oscar] Wilde [wit] + foul [offensive] – question mark indicates definition by example
19 Nervously excited wife breaks into a laugh (8)
ATWITTER
W [wife] in A TITTER [a laugh]
22 Gun swindle implicating Frank? (6)
CANNON
CON [swindle] round ANN [Frank?] – I think there’s a mistake here, unless I’m on the wrong track: it’s Anne Frank
23 Bird strike repelled can (6)
MARTIN
Reversal [repelled] of RAM [strike] + TIN [can]
24 Well, say “Hello” vociferously! (4)
HALE
Sounds like [vociferously] ‘Hail’ [Hello]
27,25 Well, you shouldn’t be on it (4,4)
SICK LIST
Cryptic definition
22dn – yes, you are correct – it’s ANNE (or Annelies) Frank.
Thanks Eileen and Brummie
Well Eileen I can’t find your 7th pair so I guess it must be one of the double duty pairs as all mine are only singly used.
I agree on Anne Frank and also had PORTS
Thanks Eileen and Brummie
Thanks Eileen. Liked the puzzle and Brummie’s helpful 19.
minty@2 The double act is Martin. There could have been 8, for Australians anyway. STROP and HOGES Paul Hogan and his comic offsider, who doubled as his manager and other roles.. writer, producer….
Very tough one for me. Couldn’t solve quite a few but the theme did help me get more than I otherwise would have done.
What does ‘short’ do/mean in the clue for 15dn PADDLEBOAT?
I was looking for ARNAZ to go with BALL. Didn’t know the duo in the grid, but what a fortuitous pairing.
crumplehorn@4 I took short to mean abbreviation.
Ah! Thanks paddymelon @5 I am already getting used to O being used for old without any instruction so didn’t consider it here.
This site is great! Thanks all
Hi Crumplehorn @4
It means ‘old’ loses its last letter – misleading punctuation!
paddymelon@4 – thanks I’ve got it now though I’ve never heard of them. I had to google “Martin” and one of the only likely words left and found them.
Apologies for the cross.
What sort of nut is a ball, I wonder?
@10
To spare dear Eileen’s blushes, the clue uses two of the six hundred euphemisms for “testicle”. Brummie may have left his Cyclops hat on, inadvertently
Many thanks, baerchen. 😉
Epeolater@10
The kind of nut which Goebbels had none of at all?
A testicle.
So hold on, I’ve got…
Laurel & Hardy
Cannon & Ball
Little & Large (one might argue about ‘comedy’ pairing here)
Rowan & Martin
Hale & Pace
Burns & Allen
So can only find six pairings.
Thanks to Brummie and Eileen. Am a long time lurker!
Many thanks to Brummie and Eileen for what was a challenging solve.
Regarding 22 dn, wasn’t there a US TV series in the 1970s featuring a calorifically-enhanced detective by the name of Frank Cannon?
Thanks Brummie and Eileen
I missed the theme. I have now found Laurel & Hardy, Hale & Pace, Rowan & Martin, Burns & Allen. In my home town there is a vet surgery called Cannon & Ball but that probably does not count.
I give in, what are the ones I have missed?
Welcome, Rob @15 – you need to use one of those names again, in a different pairing. Look for another proper name in the grid.
Roderick @16 – I believe so but that wouldn’t account for all the wordplay.
Sorry Rob@15 we crossed
I think the clue for LITTLE was deliberately vague(latin being normal) as once the theme was spotted and LARGE was crystal clear….beat not to make it too easy.
I also see MARTIN doing double duty as in LEWIS &MARTIN, ROWAN &MARTIN.
Also had WILE for wit instead of WILDE which made sense with a Scottish commentator.
Y=Nice puzzle and thanks for blog.
Kevin @17 – see Rob’s list at 15 [Cannon and Ball, yes!] and my reply to him @18
Bingo, Copmus!
Rob@15
The missing pair is (Dean) Martin and (Jerry) Lewis, with Martin doing double duty as referred to in earlier posts.
PS: usually ‘MARTIN and LEWIS’.
Sorry for all the crossings – I’m going out now!
Thank you Brummie and Eileen.
I enjoyed this but, in spite of having been a sub-editor at one point in the far distant past, had never come across PILCROW, and had to google wikipedia – the section Modern Use is very interesting.
I loved the clues for ANON, HIP BATH, HIFALUTIN, PADDLEBOAT and SICK LIST.
The only pairs I could spot were LITTLE & LARGE and LAUREL & HARDY since there is no Arnaz to go with BALL.
Thanks to Brummie (as always) for the quirky puzzle and to Eileen (as always) for the learned blog.
At one stage I thought I was going to repeat yesterday’s woeful performance (POP-UP THEATER would you believe, although I did wonder about the American spelling), however once I saw HIP BATH I could see light at the end of the tunnel, followed closely by getting the significance of 19a.
My LOI was PILCROW – like Eileen new to me, but the word play was inescapable – I did think of PALTROW, but she hasn’t featured in any comic duos as far as I know!
Great puzzle, fun theme, what’s not to like! In 25 years of publishing I never heard of PILCROW. Favourites were LAUREL, HIFALUTIN and LEWIS. Many thanks to Brummie and Eileen.
Thanks for coming back to me everyone. Of course Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. I don’t think their surnames trip off the tongue as readily as most of the pairings featured, but no bother.
Once we’d nailed the theme we were sure Morecambe and Wise would be there, but not this time.
I loved the way the theme didn’t dominate the clues. Which is another way of saying I completely failed to spot it! Deftly done brummie
Brilliant crossword & brilliant blog! We didn’t get Burns & Allen (too busy looking for Flanagan!!) – fantastic Eileen! Thanks to you & Brummie.
drofle @28, did you ever wonder why there was a space at the beginning of a paragraph? If so, bring up my wiki link @26…
I twigged to the theme of duos when 19ac became clear, but that only helped with LAUREL and HARDY and ROWAN and MARTIN since the others were unknown to me, but like paddymelon@3 when I had STROP I was convinced that HOGES was lurking somewhere. An unusual word and a clunky clue; SCRAP would have been simpler. I wonder if Brummie was winding up the Aussies.
Thanks to Eileen and Brummie.
[crumplehorn@4 – in case you’re confused by Eileen’s response @7 – ‘short, old’ signifies O here (not that it “loses its last letter” – we only need one L, from ‘bald’) which is as originally explained in her blog. A deliberate mistake, no doubt, to ensure we’re paying attention! Hope this helps…. ]
A very tidy crossword, though I agree with Eileen that, once the AND was entered, the solving took on a brisk pace. Huge fun; I had no complaints at all save the swiftness of completion (it is a Thursday, Mr. Editor!).
Many thanks to Brummie and Eileen (I like, and agree with, your comment on 13dn!).
Didn’t get the comedy duos until near the end but then the rest dropped in comfortably. Hip bath last in. Very cryptic clue,we thought, but very clever. Thanks to everyone.
Newish to this site, having only recently decided to take the plunge with the Guardian crossword. Always found it too difficult for me. And do was pleased to get about two thirds of this without assistance. And never spotted the comedy duos until I read Eileen’s comments above.
28a is a lovely clue – and a beautiful island. 21a was evilly obscure. COTD for me was 24a: super word and elegantly clued. I’ve always known it without the final ‘g’ at the end.
Am I alone in quibbling slightly with 13a being clued as refuse? The solution is wanted/useful; refuse is unwanted/useless? Or is the one being viewed as a subset of the other?
Hi Mark @37 – welcome to the site! I’ve recently stopped saying that definitions are underlined in the blog – should do so occasionally for newer commenters. In 13ac, the definition is ‘refuse to be kept’. I remember that when I was child we had ‘salvage bags’ – they’re called recycling bags now. 😉
Gosh. Completely missed that. I get the underlining – don’t worry. Entirely my fault as I didn’t even read your parsing of 13a because I knew the answer was right. I’d overlooked the significance of ‘to be kept’ in the wordplay. Excellent clue. Thanks for the reply and for the review. “Salvage bags” is how my children view most of my trousers1
Thanks Brummie and Eileen
I took ages and failed on BALL and ALABAMIAN, and didn’t spot the theme as usual (despite looking for one after getting AND!). Wordsearch needed for PILCROW. Favourites were HIP BATH and LAUREL. I don’t think the clue for LITTLE works – I saw what he was getting at, and it was an early one in, iut the “sees” doesn’t seem right.
I’ve never heard grouse referred to as WILDFOWL before – “moorfowl”, yes, but wildfowl means ducks and geese to me (as in “The wildfowl trust”).
I see that Brummie is on first name terms with Lewis Carroll.
I didn’t get much fun from this crossword, partly because (as usual) I didn’t get the theme until I had solved at least two thirds of it (and it wasn’t a theme I knew much about).
It took me too long to get 14a HIP BATH and 5d UNWASHED, but patience was rewarded as these are two of my favourite clues, the others being 2d LAUREL and 21a PILCROW.
There were two clues that I didn’t like: 4d (LITTLE), which is a type of clue that I like to call a single entendre, and 22d (CANNON), in which ANN for Anne is surely a mistake.
Eileen, in 24d HALE, I think the indication for ‘hail’ is ‘say “Hello”‘, not just “Hello”.
Thanks to Brummie, and especially to Eileen for an excellent blog.
muffin @40
I loved your comment on Brummie and Lewis Carroll. I’m sure you weren’t making a point (as if) – but I could have made a similar point if I’d found the words for it!
I agree with you about LITTLE. This is only the second time I have used the phrase ‘single entendre’ to describe a CD that doesn’t quite make it: I also queried ‘sees’ at the time.
Alan B @42
😉
22d, perhaps “implicating” is being used as a something like a homophone indicator for ANN, a word implied or suggested rather than given by formal expression, there is a question mark.
Thank you, Alan B @41/42
I queried ‘say’ in 24dn myself [‘Hail Caesar / Mary’ seemed adequate] so your interpretation makes perfect sense.
I hope I made my reservations re LITTLE clear in both preamble and blog.
I think it’s time your ‘single entendre’ made it into the 15² lexicon. I shall accord it a © in future blogs [if I remember!] as I do with Muck’s Araubeticals. 😉
Cookie @22
Nice try, but I’m sure ‘implicating’ was meant only as a containment indicator. Getting from ‘Frank’ to ‘Ann’ via ‘Anne’ seems too incongruous, and I would guess this is just an unfortunate error.
Thanks Eileen (@45)!
And yes, I had noted what you said about LITTLE.
As regards my post @44, but then “implicating” would perhaps be doing double duty?
Alan B @46, apologies, I spent a long time cogitating!
Thanks to Brummie and Eileen. Again I’m late to the party owing to internet issues. I did not know STROP as a slang term or as part of a comedy team and had trouble with HIP BATH, but I did know PILCROW from a previous puzzle though, given the responses above, apparently not from the Guardian.
So I am the only one who found this incredibly difficult? After about three attempts only had two answers; I double checked a few guesses on-line; used Anne Bradford to get a few more; and then, when I was coming here in defeat, noticed HALE and ALLEN, thought “comedians” and then got a few more, including AND.
Thanks Eileen, really needed you today.
See mine @40, Dave Ellisn @51 and feel better!
I would hope “single entendre” doesn’t make it into any crossword lexicon. It doesn’t describe a particular clue type but a personal reaction to the perceived inadequacy of a clue. As no clue in a cryptic crossword is ever intended to be without cryptic content, the term reads (to me) as a haughty comment on the efforts of the setter.
Van Winkle @53
I agree with you up to a point. Technically, the clue type is ‘CD (cryptic definition’, and the non-technical label ‘single entendre’, whose meaning is clear even though it’s not a recognised phrase, does indeed reflect my own judgement of the inadequacy of the clue. Whatever the setter intended, I don’t think this clue was up to the standard of any other of today’s clues.
Sorry if you found my term haughty where only a bit of humour was intended.
As an occasional setter myself, I try to be objective about the efforts of the Guardian’s setters, and I don’t expect perfection. In my opinion, all bar two clues in today’s puzzle were fair and sound.
me @54
A right-parenthesis somehow got deleted. In my second sentence I meant that the clue type is ‘CD (cryptic definition)’.
Bear with LITTLE sees stars?
A CD doesn’t work like that as far as I’m aware, being instead a pun of some kind: bar of soap = Rovers Return, he’s been known to pot the white = cannibal, features editor = plastic surgeon, one step up from the gutter = kerb or kerbstone, he saw himself as winning on the pools = Narcissus etc.
Thus ‘single entendre’ is not at all appropriate for the clue, as there’s obviously an attempt to hint at some unfortunate event befalling a bear – perhaps poor Sackerson, being thwacked round the ear by some club-wielding Elizabethan lout. Nice to hear the term again though, as it’s always good to double up on your single entendres. Let’s close with …
Hear hear! (6,8)
Paul B @56
Having read your comment I have less confidence now in calling the clue in question a CD. (Eileen did not do so in her blog.) However, the answer falls out all too easily from ‘Bear after it’ and ‘stars’, and I don’t think there is enough ‘crypticism’ to make this a double entendre or a pun.
I won’t stand dogmatically by my ‘single entendre’ label in this case, but that was how it seemed at the time. I loved the examples of puns in your first paragraph – I haven’t met any of them before. And I liked ‘Hear hear!’ too.
Apart from this, on the whole, being a joy to solve this crossword, 22d is really unforgivable.
Such a blatant mistake.
Even if Brummie didn’t notice, the editor should have.
Where is BNTO tonight to endorse (only for once) my comment?
Nice medium difficulty puzzle from Brummie.
4d doesn’t have a visible definition to underline but that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with the clue.
“It” keys the answer, just as “this” frequently does in the trickier (often barred-grid) puzzles.
The clue says that if you put BEAR after the answer you see STARS. Clues like that have been around plenty of times before.
I’ll sit on the fence on the ANN/ANNE issue. I sailed past it at the time. If it is an error (which it may well be) at least it shows that the setter and editor were using their heads – rather than dictionary-trawling – if anything something to be encouraged – hardly “unforgivable” – although given that Brummie has an online blog in whcih he criticises other people’s clues (mainly Gordius) stone-throwing and glasshouses do come to mind.
Thanks to S&B.
Found this impossibly hard too, commiserations with others.
However, apart from some that have already been pointed out, my quibble is, on what planet could CANNON/BALL and LITTLE/LARGE be considered to be “comedy” duos?
Thanks to setter and blogger, and everyone’s comments.
Jeremy @60, Little and Large were a comedy duo and there was The Cannon and Ball Show which also featured a duo.
Failed with 7d. Didn’t spot “operative” as an anagrind and don’t think that it works. Spent too long trying to fit in P for “power” and Pat for “mail operative”. Thanks to Brummie and Eileen.
Sorry Sil @58, I was out the whole of yesterday in Manchester meeting up with old work colleagues. There was much intelligent conversation ( 😉 ) and even more drinking of fine real ales.
When I eventually arrived back home I was unable to complete the puzzle before Morpheus beckoned. (However I had solved 22d without noticing the error!!)
I did finally complete the final 20 percent of the puzzle after today’s Shed. (Hence my late visit here)
Of course I agree with you but this is all I expect now from our illustrious/invisible ed.
Cookie @61
Thanks, but I knew who they were… I just didn’t think that they were even remotely funny, that was all. Still each to his own goût, I suppose.
Jeremy @64, apologies, I have never seen any of these duos, except LAUREL & HARDY (and BALL & ARNAZ, but they were not included). I have lived on other parts of the planet where English is not spoken for over 50 years now.