Guardian Saturday puzzle 28,350 / Brendan

57 comments on “Guardian Saturday puzzle 28,350 / Brendan”

1. This took a while, but was a fun solve, and the calendar theme certainly helped in places. What also helped was being old enough to remember U Thant, plus allowing myself to Google facts after coming up with the entry (e.g. JANIZARY and BROWNING’s poem).

   Trickiest I felt was 7d, figuring out which of BAYERN and TAVERN was the answer, since both fitted the crossers and you could see both fitting the clue, although the former required less squinting.

2. Thanks Eileen. Rather a mixture of the straightforward and the more demanding I thought. I was fixated on Nome in 22d for a while and had to confirm DECEMBRIST. My LOI was 8a, I knew of janissary but not of an alternative spelling and wasn’t clever enough to realise that January was the last month left unaccounted for.

3. An enjoyable crossword with a nicely incorporated theme. The clues were excellent, and in a high proportion of them I could work out answers from the wordplay rather than guessing them and parsing afterwards. EXAMPLES, HARVEY, BAYERN (my favourite clue) and the unfamiliar JANIZARY came that way, among others. I agree with what Dr. Whatson said about how tricky 7d BAYERN was – having pencilled in TAVERN too quickly I then had to correct it.
   Many thanks to Brendan for a fine puzzle and to Eileen for a fine blog.

4. This grid could easily be converted into a pangram, which I always find fascinating, although that might have necessitated abandoning the theme.

5. Like you, Eileen, I was very slow to untangle the TALE at the winter’s end. In fact I’d put it down and forgotten all about it last weekend, and only remembered late this evening. The other one that wouldn’t come was HIP for ‘with it’, but got there in the end. Clever use of months and seasons, and nothing too obscure. Apart from the Z spelling in a word I’ve only ever seen as JANISSARY. I even recognised the name of the heart specialist!

   Thanks to Brendan and Eileen. (You’ve given us a Greek pub instead of an English one in the wordplay in 7d!)

6. Another work of art from Brendan, and a nice companion piece to his ‘days of the week’ puzzle last year. To the best of my knowledge Craig David never had a hit with ’12 months’, or I’d post the link 😉

   I failed on JANIZARY because JANINARY sounded more likely to my ears (btw Eileen your underlining for 8ac is a little too left-wing).

   I trust Valentine likes 11ac!

   Favourite BALMORAL – ‘said with relief’ – so simple, but so good.

   Many thanks Brendan & Eileen.

7. NW corner was most difficult for me, and I needed some help from google for the GK in this puzzle.

   Favourites: CLAIMED, PROTEST, JUSTLY, LORDSHIP
   New: JUNEAU (Alaska); SEPT = a subdivision of a clan, originally one in Ireland; William HARVEY, JANIZARY (loi)

   Thanks, Brendan and Eileen.

   Amazingly, I had not picked upon the theme!

8. Totally forgot that I hadn’t finished this, and stared just as dumbly at the last half dozen this morning as I had last week, so I revealed them…haven’t done that for a long while. A now dated saying was “Couldn’t hit a barn door with a handful of wheat”. It felt a bit like that.

9. What a great puzzle and so how much more annoying that I couldn’t get them all. Thanks, Eileen for explaining 10ac, TALE (I also got fixated on R as winter’s end, even though I strongly suspected that was a bluff); 15ac, STICKLE (I’m not surprised I couldn’t think of that word for “be scrupulous”, but what a fool I feel for not thinking of ‘tickle’ — stuck on ‘brush’); 1dn, CATARACT (D’oh!); 7dn, BAYERN (I was very tempted to biff TAVERN, but resisted) and 16dn, LORDSHIP (Aaargh! I even tried to fit OVAL in, unsuccessfully, but spent most of the time trying to make “ground” grind).

   I really liked how natural the phrase “said with relief” sounds and how it makes BALMORAL at the same time (20ac). Not hard, with such a definition, but very satisfying to solve.

   24ac, SPAN: a little gem indeed. One for your (not so) little list, I think, Eileen.

   2d MIKE was another one with a glaring false tell in “for speaker”, demanding a homophone that wasn’t there. Great pdm when it hit me.

   4dn SYLLABI seems so well camouflaged, if it hadn’t been for the straightforward def, I don’t think I ever would have seen it.

   I could go on …

10. Frustrating to see I failed on TAVERN/BAYERN. But I was pleased by my progress through the week on the rest of this excellent puzzle. Nearly caught myself out with SMAR at 24d. It is an Irish clan and I thought I was cleverly using the theme. But of course March was already accounted for at 17a and it was messing up the crossers for 26a! Thanks Brendan and Eileen – learning moment from reading blog was U as a Burmese title.

11. I liked the theme very much. However I also have to confess to failing on the BAYERN clue at 7d – definitionally I thought my attempt TAVERN was fine, but I just couldn’t understand the word-play (no wonder as I was very wrong). (Congrats to those who solved this one.) Never mind: the rest of the puzzle gave me a great deal of enjoyment! Top favourites (already mentioned by others) were 10a TALE and 14a BROWNING. Thank you very much to Brendan and Eileen.

12. Thanks Brendan for another clever gem. There were a few where I needed references — JANIZARY, HARVEY, and LORDSHIP — but that didn’t detract from my enjoyment. Favourites included SUSHI, JUNEAU, and my clue of the week, SPAN. Thanks Eileen for the blog.

13. I couldn’t parse Balmoral, though it was obviously right, and although I knew Janissary, the (apparently preferred) version with a Z was new to me and I needed Chambers to convince me that was the answer. Otherwise, lots of fun. I particularly liked BAYERN and TALE, and just the overall way the theme was worked. Thanks, Brendan, thanks, Eileen.

14. Like Eileen, I haven’t met STICKLE as a verb before, or that spelling of JANIZARY (I wondered about spelling it with an x, but looked it up to make sure). BAYERN/TAVERN caused the usual trouble, but I did eventually settle on the right choice.
    A very enjoyable tour de force – thanks Brendan.

15. Fellow fans of football teams with profligate strikers might have thought ‘Cow’s arse’ was a possibility for 5d, as in ‘they couldn’t hit a cow’s arse with a banjo’, before realising that the rest of the clue indicated BARN DOOR.

    The puzzle entertained me last Saturday morning, before my team proved me wrong by scoring twice on the afternoon.

    Thanks to Brendan and Eileen.

16. Thanks to Brendan for a fun solve. I hadn’t heard of JANIZARY but Mr trish knew it so he was quite smug. I liked BAYERN once the penny dropped and BALMORAL, which I saw only after I had written it out. HARVEY was a final bung-in, but I couldn’t find him on Google, so thanks to Eileen for the link.

17. Another Saturday puzzle I really enjoyed and (nearly) completed on the day. Annoyingly I didn’t get TALE despite returning to the puzzle several times during the week. Also could not parse BROWNING, BALMORAL, BAYERN
    (Literature not my strong point.)

    Loved lots but specially JANIZARY, DECEMBRIST (both new for me) CATARACT, DESIGNATES, AUGUST

    Thanks to Brendan and Eileen

18. I can’t quite see how LORDSHIP = rule.

19. Oooops just checked and realised the reason I couldn’t parse BAYERN was because I had put in TAVERN – no wonder I couldn’t parse it.

20. Trish@18, I think a local bigwig might have LORDSHIP over an area if he has rule over it.
    Many thanks, Eileen. I trust you have a great home to isolate in, if you consider BALMORAL to be the Queen’s ‘cottage’.
    Thanks too to Brendan, a very enjoyable theme for the puzzle.

21. essexboy @6
    Thanks – I’ve deleted the careless extra underlining in 8ac!

22. Nice one Brendan. Just what my brain needs: a good mental workout with some additions to my general knowledge. With 7d beyond my grasp, it kept me puzzling all week. Thanks Brendan, and Eileen for your elucidations.

23. Yes, clever and great fun.

    As so often it was a give up on Saturday night followed by another (this time successful) go on Sunday morning.

    Thanks Brendan

24. Eileen, just realised I think your TAVERNA in 7d should be TAVERN (English pub) otherwise what happens to the final A.

25. sjshart @20 – Yes, of course. Thank you.

26. I’m another who had to check some things post solve but pre-parse and was delighted to find, on this occasion, that they were correct. All those already highlighted by earlier posters including JANIZARY, U and the Browning first line. I think previous posters have also picked up on the stand out moments – BAYERN was my COTD but closely followed by TALE using a device that generally defeats me. And I did have to check whether or not there should be another ‘e’ in DECEMBRIST and was delighted to find there wasn’t. I could probably have waxed lyrical about most solutions in this delightful offering – so it’s a good job the blog was published 9 hours ago meaning others have been able to get there before me!

    trisincharente @18 (and sjshart @20): the Lordship of the Isles is a historical authority/title in Scotland and embraces, as one might expect, the majority of the offshore islands to the West. At one point it was a standalone kingdom independent of both Scotland and Norway and there was a King of the Isles. The Lordship succeeded the Kingdom and lasted some three hundred years before James IV of Scotland seized both lands and title. I didn’t appreciate this but the Lordship continues as a honorary title and is currently held by Prince Charles! (Other lordships are available).

    Penfold @15: I’m pleased you had the opportunity of a week’s contemplation to come to the conclusion that Cow’s arse was an unlikely solution to 5d. I have added it to my list of useful words and phrases for the future but desperately hope I don’t have to call on it.

    Thanks Brendan and Eileen

27. Pedro @24 – oh dear, another careless error. Fixed now – many thanks (and to sheffield hatter @5, now that I see what you meant 😉 ).

28. A delightful puzzle with good surfaces that pleased.

    I liked the (open) BARN DOOR among others.

    Thanks Brendan and Eileen.

29. I’ve just been reminded (by His Lordship) that he received his title by dint of a fun birthday present some years ago which gave him title to one square mètre of Scottish land. So I should have known all about it, me being Her Ladyship an’ all!

    It was Lordship as the rule itself, rather than the person, which threw me. So many thanks PM for the interesting explanation @26.

30. Many thanks to Brendan and Eileen.
    I really enjoyed hunt the month, with some lovely clues along the way.
    I had my 1dns done the year before last. The result was transformational, so I hope it comes soon for you, Eileen.

31. Ides be hypercritical to complain that V Day is “around” (as in “roughly”) the middle of its month. What a lovely puzzle. Failed to parse SPAN fully and much held up by the neat misdirection of defining CATARACT with “affects visibility” rather than “affects vision”. My German-loving partner came up with my LOI: the brilliant BAYERN. Great thanks, Brendan.

32. Great puzzle and blog. I’m another who carelessly put TAVERN for BAYERN. Some lovely penny-drop moments. Winter’s TALE and BALMORAL took just long enough to drop for the satisfaction in finding them to outweigh the shame in it taking so long.

33. 13a. Nitpicking at 13d, Eileen, a BM is a Bachelor of Medicine though he will commonly be called a (lower case) doctor. I had a biochemist friend with a DPhil in biochemistry in the Faculty of Medicine who used occasionally to point this out to people to whom he had been introduced as Doctor who then asked him about their medical problems.
    I had DELINEATES at 6d (line=dynasty, at=located) which held me up with 14a until It couldn’t be anything but BROWNING and I had to look again.
    I usually enjoy Brendan’s puzzles and Eileen’s blogs and this week’s were no exception.

34. Pino @33 – I have absolutely no idea why I wrote ‘of medicine’! Thanks for pointing it out. I shall expunge it forthwith. (Thanks for the anecdote. 😉 )

35. If this was Masterchef and I was Marcus Wareing then I think I might be saying that the technique and skills were flawless but the final dish could maybe use just a little more seasoning. Of course if I was Greg Wallace I’d be saying this

36. Late to the party today, so there’s not a lot left to say. Splendid crossword – thanks to Brendan and to Eileen, who’s been lucky to land some of the best puzzles recently.

    As others have also remarked, I was only familiar with the spelling ‘janissary’, which certainly seems to be usual these days. However, several dictionaries (as pointed out by KeithS @13) list this just as an alternative to JANIZARY. This seems strange, as it probably came into English via the French ‘janissaire’, although the Italian ‘giannizzero’ is another possible source. Perhaps the two spellings arrived separately. Either way, the consonantal sound in the centre of the word seems to have been modified from the Turkish ‘yeni çeri’ (new troops), where the second word is pronounced similarly to ‘cherry’.

37. This was most enjoyable and I chewed over it all week. I saw the months, but not the seasons (and while I don’t buy “Fall” as a season it’s a crossword and elasticity is allowed. (How come “Autumn” failed to make it over the water-jump?)).
    I always associate this grid with Brendan because of the capacity for a nina around the edges – can anyone say if he uses it more than other setters?
    Eileen, you continue to amaze and thanks Brendan for a succulent chew.

38. And now for something completely different.
    Eileen if you’re still there, or anyone actually: when explaining a clue, how about using a caesura to separate definition from wordplay? So for the BROWNING clue we’d have
    British admitting || poet wanting to return in April
    in addition to any underlining, highlighting etc.? In that case in fact you could generalise underlining to any parts of the wordplay that were definitions too, for a fuller notational explanation. Just a thought. (There’s more, but I’ll stop here.)

39. Alphalpha @37 – autumn’s there in 24ac.

    Dr WhatsOn @38 – Hmm … I’ll have to think about that one.

40. Eileen @ 39

    I think Alphalpha @ 37 is referring to the water-jump across the Atlantic, as autumn is the only season that hasn’t kept its UK name in the US.

41. Thanks, Simon – Doh!

42. Alphalpha @37, Simon S @40: “fall” was a UK name for the season before the settlers left for America, it’s just that they retained it after we’d forgotten it. It’s logical enough: leaves and plants (mostly) spring up in the Spring and fall down in the Fall. (And it’s easier to spell than autumn.)

43. Alphalpha, Eileen, Simon, Quirister:

    ‘Summer and winter, spring-time and harvest…’

    Although the word ‘autumn’ goes back to Latin, the original English expression for the time of year was ‘harvest’ – from Old English hærfest, preserved in Scots hairst, and cognate with Dutch herfst and German Herbst.

    ‘Harvest’ meaning the season, rather than the activity of reaping, seems to have declined between the 14th and 16th centuries, with both ‘autumn’ and later ‘fall’ taking its place. As Quirister says @42, both words crossed the Atlantic (see here) but while ‘fall’ fell away in Britain it became dominant in the US and Canada.

    (Of all the dialectal words for autumn my favourite is ‘back end’; no doubt if Paul had been setting that would have made it into the crossword 😉 )

44. Thanks, Quirister and essexboy – I haven’t heard ‘back end’ since my grandparents died.

45. Thank you Eileen, after a couple of gimmes such as MAYDAY and VALENTINES I struggled to get into this (I think it contains more GK/obscurities than I have seen lately from Brendan) but perseverance was certainly rewarded even though I needed lots of google and wikipedia to get or make sense of some (and thanks in particular for the specific Browning reference, I grew up on an estate where all the streets were names after writers so got the name but wikipedia led me to his life story and epics and I never did find the poem needed to make sense of the clue). I also fell down an enjoyable rabbit hole reading about Lordships in the Welsh Marches as opposed to Scotland. The usual high number of very fine clues so I will pick JUSTLY, which took me a long time to unravel, as my favourite for the same reason you highlighted in the blog, thanks Brendan.

46. [PS DrWhatsOn @38 – your post reminds me that when i first started to do cryptics I used single and double caesura to try to break down the clues in the paper, remembering the symbols from plainsong encountered in hymn books from my sunday school days. So that technique would make sense to me and if I ever reach the exalted heights of blogging on here I will try to remember to use them, if I can find the symbol on my keyboard! But I never knew the word for those vertical lines (double or single in the hymn books) was caesura, thank you.]

47. Thanks Eileen and Brendan. Enjoyed this, although only just finished it having not started til this morning and doubling with working/watching the Wijk aan Zee chess tournament. LOI was JANIZARY which is new to me.

48. Enjoyed this, as ever. Spent more time than was necessary looking for hidden “Brendans”, of which there were none. Pleasingly, the comments on here are quite positive.

    That said, I finished Paul’s latest this morning and while I found it thoroughly entertaining, I then came on to this site and saw an unnecessary amount of negativity towards some of it, especially the later comments. Why do some solvers need to criticise innovative and original cluing? The Stitch in Time clue was unusual but isn’t this how crosswords evolve? Also, what is it with the “Paul isn’t what he once was” nonsense? As we say at school, Create Your Own Sunshine: you might not like the clue but try and see the positives in its originality.

    Thanks to the bloggers, Paul and Brendan and to The Guardian for making two excellent puzzles freely accessible.

49. Eileen, what a wonderful article about Harvey! Thank you for finding it.

    It seems that “Japanese fare” always ends up meaning sushi in a clue.

    essexboy @6 Yes, I was TICKLED by the tribute (I presume) to me in 11a. Perhaps it’s time we started a club for commenters who’ve appeared in clues or solutions! And as for the “left-wing” suggestion in the link on JANIZARY refer to the bit in the article about the sultan who was deposed for sheer incompetence?

    Thanks Brendan for a fine romp through the calendar and Eileen for a sparklingly illustrated blog. I always enjoy the walks you take us on.

50. Eileen@39: no “Doh!” is in order – you got me right: I hadn’t spotted “Autumn” and thought that the “fall” in the clue for CATARACT was doing service. All this in spite of your illuminations – I was being unusually inattentive, as usual.
    But it’s all been most enlightening – thanks to all who elaborated on the Autumn/Fall dichotomy. Who knew? (Well, obviously…..)

51. essexboy @43: Well said re ‘harvest’ – and you can add the Swedish ‘höst’ as another cognate – the word isn’t just West Germanic. But the specific meaning ‘reaping’, rather than one of four seasons, is the primary sense, rather than a more restricted one; the word is thought to derive from the Proto IndoEuropean ‘*kerp-‘, which meant ‘cut’. Perhaps that is why it fell out of use as a name for a whole season – different crops are ready to be cut down at different times.

52. Hi Valentine @49

    I’m glad you found the article on Harvey interesting – I certainly did. All I knew was ‘William Harvey = circulation of the blood’ but I’d no idea he went that far back, so I was fascinated to read of his association with the early Stuart monarchs (whom I ‘did’ in A Level History) and with witch hunts.
    One of the advantages of blogging Saturday puzzles is that we have a whole week to do the research and find the best links (which are often not Wikipedia, the first resort, on busy weekdays) …
    … and also to eradicate errors and omissions in the blog, where, again, I fell short. 🙁
    Congratulations on the name check!

    Gervase @52 – Thanks for the added input. You’ve reminded me to thank essexboy @43 for the quotation (intentional or not) from one of my favourite hymns.

53. Eileen: I knew you’d spot that 🙂

    Gervase @51: thanks, that’s fascinating. Presumably Danish høst is another cognate – which reminds me of muffin’s story of the Danish gentleman and the French hotel.

54. Bless you, essexboy – we sang it at my husband’s funeral and it’s on the list for my own. 😉

55. Thought this a super crossword. Mr G needed for 8a & the heart specialist but completely beaten by Bayern which was very clever indeed. Thanks all.

56. I’m pleased to be ‘Johnny come lately’ to the blog as it’s been very educational rather than controversial. I almost completed this but had a blind spot with the three ‘J’ clues for some strange reason. (I’m also awaiting treatment for your affliction, Eileen so good luck with that). I feel your pain, Penfold @ 5 and thanks for the interesting gen on the Scottish LORDSHIP, PostMark @ 26. I liked BALMORAL and BAYERN so was chuffed to solve those. Thanks Eileen for a super blog and Brendan for a delightful theme.

57. I only finished this today after a week of head scratching – completely agree with Eileen’s comments. I am another who knew JANISSARY but not the Z spelling. As to LORDSHIP – I apparently (according to a cerificate) own an acre of the moon. What does that make me? Thank you to bodycheetah@35 for the link – made me a laugh a lot. Thank you to Brendan for a lovely puzzle, and to Eileen for the parsing and the links. My favourite, for its elegant simplicity – SPAN.
    [Going to try this week’s Prize, now I have managed this one.. ]

Comments are closed.