Guardian Cryptic 29,036 by Brummie

by

Brummie is the setter of this morning’s Guardian puzzle.

A puzzle with a theme that I find hard to pin down – it might be three different but linked themes (geography, ecology and palaeontology) with words referring to water (SARGASSO, INDUS etc), the climate and its effects (CLIMATE, EROSION etc) and things that could be dug up (TRILOBITE/MASTODON). I may have missed something with FOOD CHAIN, as to me it looks like a fairly straightforward definition clue.

 

Thanks, Brummie.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1 CONTINENT
Europe is able to control a leak (9)
Double definition
6, 1 down FOOD CHAIN
Lionesses, in their element, top this! (4,5)
(not very) cryptic definition
8 MASTODON
Initially shocking commotion, with chap circling extinct mammal (8)
MAN (“chap”) circling [initially] S(hocking) + TO-DO (“commotion”)
9 IRONED
Alastair, on edge, did some housework inside (6)
Hidden in [inside] “AlastaIR ON EDge”
10 INGRES
Brummie, no good house painter! (6)
I (“Brummie”) + NG (no good) + RES (“house” as in “des res” (desirable residence))

The painter is Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867), a French Neoclassicist.
11 BLOKEISH
Obelisk, rough and hard, matey (8)
*(obelisk) [anag:rough] + H (hard)
12 HARLEM
Famous neighbourhood joint accepts relief regularly (6)
HAM (“joint”) accepts R(e)L(i)E(f) [regularly]
15 EMISSION
Discharge from energy undertaking (8)
E (energy) + MISSION (“undertaking”)
16 PATELLAE
Crown wants everyone to turn over last of the bones (8)
PATE (“crown”) wants <=ALL (“everyone”, to turn over) + [last of] (th)E
19 EXCESS
No more old tax surplus (6)
EX (“no more”) + CESS (“old tax”)
21 MAN-OF-WAR
Seasoned fighter‘s craft (3-2-3)
Double definition
22 WAIT ON
Serve as comedian, performing around one (4,2)
WIT (“comedian”) + ON (“performing”) around A (one)
24 SCRIPT
Writing ‘share certificates’ at end of document (6)
SCRIP (“share certificates”) at [end of] (documen)T
25 SARGASSO
A gas explosion involving Ross Sea (8)
*(a gas ross) [anag:explosion]
26 VEIN
Tube that is inverted in vivisection — extremely (4)
<=i.e. (id est, so “that is”, inverted) in V(ivisectio)N [extremely]
27 READDRESS
Study, shift and change mail direction details? (9)
READ (“study”) + DRESS (“shift”)
DOWN
1
See 6 across
 
2 NATURAL
Brown rejected name associated with mountains — genuine (7)
<=NAT (“Brown”, rejected) + URAL (“name associated with mountains”)
3 INDUS
River‘s hard work — go away (5)
INDUS(try) (“hard work”) with TRY (“go”) away
4 ENNOBLE
Make distinguished eastern quarter of Aberdeen count, perhaps (7)
[eastern quarter of] (Aberde)EN + NOBLE (“count, perhaps”)
5 TRILOBITE
Old fossil, one cast in ‘Hackneyed’ (9)
I (one) + LOB (“cast”) in TRITE (“hackneyed”)
6 FLOWERS
Stocks possibly of less worth in Flanders’ banks (7)
LOWER (“of less worth”) in F(lander)S [banks]
7 OVERSHOES
Does more than is needed as a blacksmith’s protective footwear? (9)
If a blacksmith puts too many shoes on horses, he OVERSHOES
13 AVALANCHE
Overwhelming downfall of sailors heading off with an iconic revolutionary (9)
[heading off] (n)AVAL (“of sailors”) with AN + CHE (Guevara) (“iconic revolutionary”)
14 MELTWATER
We contrived with lieutenant to break mother’s fall down a mountain? (9)
*(we lt) [anag:contrived] (where Lt. is lieutenant) to break MATER (“mother”)
17 EROSION
Wearing away a god, Zeus’s lover, with determination ultimately (7)
EROS (“a god”) + IO (“Zeus’s lover”) with (determinatio)N [ultimately]
18 EURASIA
Vast extent of land area is lost without uranium (7)
*(area is) [anag:lost] without (i.e. outside) U (chemical symbol for “uranium”)
20 CLIMATE
Prevailing mood of China? Cut power off first! (7)
MATE (“china”) with CLI(p) (“cut with P (power) off) first
22 WORLD
Neptune‘s promise to keep left? (5)
WORD (“promise”) to keep L (left)
23 OASIS
Band guarded by Samoa’s islanders (5)
Hidden in [guarded by] “samOA’S ISlanders”

68 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,036 by Brummie”

  1. Climate change generally as a theme? It’s all being affected.

    READDRESS made me grin when I put it together.

    Thanks to Brummie and loonapick.

  2. Hi loonapick. 22 should say “around A (one)”. Thanks for the blog. Thanks to Brummie for a gentle challenge.

  3. I spent time looking for something more in 6,1 as well, but can’t see anything more than a CD. Do the highlighted words constitute a theme? A valiant attempt from Loonapick, and this is Brummie, but perhaps there’s some link we’re missing. I would add ‘MAN-OF-WAR’ to the list as well as being related to the sea (and possibly sea creatures), but hopefully a commenter will elucidate more. Apart from what the theme could be, I enjoyed the puzzle. First pass giving just a couple of answers to the across clues and then everything slowly becoming clear. I dismissed INGRES at first, until I realised that RES could mean house as in ‘des res’. Liked 8, 5 and 13. Thanks to Loonapick and Brummie

  5. Ah, so there’s a theme? Damn, missed it again.

    An enjoyable pursuit today with plenty of smiles. New to me: scrip, Ingres, cess.

    Thanks Brummie & Loonapick.

  6. Thanks Brummie and loonapick
    A bit loose in places, as is common with Brummie. 1a needs a dbe indicator. I can’t see anything else in 6,1 either, but it’s weak.
    ROSS doesn’t appear unchanged in SARGASSO; the instruction to include it in the anagram is also loose.
    Genuine = NATURAL? Shift = DRESS? I realise that both can be justified, but only loosely.
    There’s more, but I’ll stop there.
    I liked MASTODON and TRILOBITE.

  7. I found the top half of this pretty much a write-in, but struggled a little with the bottom half, especially the SW. INGRES has come up before I think, and I’m familier with his Madame Moitessier in the National Gallery. With thanks to both.

  8. Small point, in 13d, isn’t naval “of sailors” rather than just “sailors”?

    Thanks loonapick and Brummie

  9. The theme is probably NATURAL WORLD, which gives Brummie a huge range of things to choose from. Thanks for explaining what “eastern” is doing in ENNOBLE – I suppose we do need to be told which quarter to use. Can’t see anything more in 6,1 though it looks ad if there should be.

  10. I thought the theme was ‘Natural World’ and then heard it spoken in David Attenborough’s voice, so added the kneecaps, the Man of War as the jellyfish and The Harlem (river).
    Yes I’m sure that’s more than Brummie intended but it’s still a spectacular gridfill.

  13. Thanks, Brummie and loonapick!
    Enjoyed the puzzle and the blog.

    Hovis@11
    Agree with your logic.
    Lionesses in their element -The women’s football team when in form (we can be busy thinking what they might top)/the predators (lionesses) in their natural habitat (being another meaning of ‘element’).

  14. I thought this was pretty lame overall for the same reasons as muffin @6

    Maybe the theme was looseness?

    Cheers L&B

  15. I agree with most points muffin @6 and others made, but I don’t see any problem with shift=dress or genuine=natural. There were also some very nice smooth and deceptive surfaces, like 13d, 14d, 27a.

  16. rr @15
    It’s just dawned on me that I was being far too complicated with shift=dress; I thought it was referring to dressing a line of soldiers by shifting some of them!
    Still not happy with genuine=natural though. “This is a genuine Ingres!”

  17. Somwhat easier today and I like that, like riding a bicycle in Wales, rather than the Alps. Gives a little breathing space. Favourites today were CONTINENT and OVERSHOES. I managedto parse everything too, but I did not notice the theme,
    Thanks for crossword and blog

  18. I remembered INGRES from “Ingres Paper” used particularly for Pastel drawing.
    Favourite was CONTINENT.

  20. Europe is an example of a continent; other continents are available!
    A bit unfortunate that EURASIA turns up as a solution.

  25. TimC @21
    That’s what I meant by loose – it’s possible to find examples where NATURAL could be exchanged for genuine, but there are a lot more where it wouldn’t work.
    nicbach @22
    I suppose so, but the clue would read much better if the solution included -ross-.

  26. I wondered about 1a being a definition by example, but then decided that the definition was “Europe is” (rather than just “Europe”), and indeed Europe is (a) CONTINENT. It worked for me anyway.

    IRONED was a nice example of a clue that works well with the definition being neither at the beginning nor the end.

    All good fun. Many thanks Brummie and loonapick.

  28. New for me: RES = house/residence (for 10ac); TRILOBITE.

    I did not parse 24ac, 20d.

    Thanks, both.

    I forgot to look for a theme (as usual)

  29. Did Brummie put HARLEM in there to make us think of “Globetrotters” and everyone’s carbon budgets when flying round the world or was it just a coincidence ?

    Planting of large numbers of FLOWERS is also a recognised carbon capture device.

    Thank you Brummie and loonapick.

  30. Like Hovis @11, I assumed it was referring to the football team. Agree with Lord Jim’s take on CONTINENT, so fine by me. Not quite a write-in but certainly on the gentler side for Brummie. Not many smiles though, all a bit serious but then I suppose the theme is too.

    Ta Brummie & loonapick.

  31. muffin@21 For a crossword definition all is needed is that the words CAN be synonyms, not that they are always synonyms. I have no problem with natural = genuine
    For me both 1a and 22d need an indicator that Europe is an example of a continent, and Neptune of a world

  32. muffin @25

    If you’re going to insist that crossword setters use synonyms which could be exchanged in all examples then I’m not sure we’d have any clues at all.

  33. Found this something of a relic after the last couple of days.

    I need a bit of help with Neptune = WORLD, however.

  35. I like your line of reasoning Flea@29 re HARLEM Globetrotters. Very weak def but the carbon footprint must be also inferred.

  38. I agree with Lord Jim @26 on both counts.

    I also had ticks for19ac INGRES, for the smile, 25ac SARGASSO, for the ‘lift and separate’, 4dn ENNOBLE, for the construction and 13dn AVALANCHE and 14dn MELTWATER, both for the surfaces.

    Thanks to Brummie for the puzzle and to loonapick for the blog.

  39. Enjoyed this and managed to parse all but two.

    Hadn’t heard of CESS as an old tax but it had to be that and had only a vague memory of SCRIP for share certificates.

    Liked: ENNOBLE, INGRES, READDRESS, EROSION, TRILOBITE

    Thanks Brummie and loonapick

  41. Not the trickiest of puzzles, with some nice constructions (pity about some of the surfaces 🙂 ).

    I agree with Lord Jim that ‘Europe is..’ works perfectly well and no DBE indication is necessary (in fact, calling Europe a continent is very Eurocentric – realistically it is just a peninsula of Eurasia, or even Afro-Eurasia). And I have no problem with NATURAL = genuine. Very few words have exact synonyms – there are usually different nuances anyway – but these two are interchangeable in enough contexts for the equivalence to be perfectly acceptable to me.

    I particularly liked TRILOBITE and FLOWERS.

    Thanks to S&B

  42. Thanks for the blog , I really enjoyed this , missed the theme but I agree with those saying it is the NATURAL WORLD. I liked READDRESS for the use of shift ( Muffin the shift dress was popularised by Mary Quant, I am very lucky to have some original items ) . Good to see IO not being a moon for once, I would have prefered farrier to blacksmith.
    For Everyman fans of follow-on clues we have TRILOBITE to follow ammonite , (in)CONTINENT was in the FT this week , BLOKEISH follows blokey from Tramp.

  43. No definition by example indicator is needed for 1a. Brits have for a very long time referred to Europe as “the continent”. And, as others have pointed out, “Europe is” would deal with it too.

    I thought this was fun even if ever so gentle.

    Thanks Brummie and loonapick

  44. For a while, struggling to make a start, as I read clues like…”Overwhelming downfall of sailors heading off with an iconic revolutionary”, followed by “We contrived with lieutenant to break mother’s fall down a mountain” I almost began to lose interest. However, eventually pulled myself together and quite enjoyed this. Eyebrows raised for a while with OVERSHOES. Last two in WORLD and WAIT ON…

  45. All would have been well if I’d spelt it correctly as mastodon and not mastadon, thus having “ado” for commotion and couldn’t parse the t…..

  46. Struggled to get anything in before I realised I was over-complicating things and 1a, 6a, etc were much (much!) simpler than I’d envisaged. After that it was pretty plain sailing. The theme (whatever it actually was) passed me by as usual, while my second to last one in was IRONED… those “simple” type of clues always seem to catch me out! Thanks Brummie and Loonapick.

  48. I liked today’s puzzle from Brummie, although in a similar way to looonapick and others, I wasn’t 100 per cent sure of the central theme except for a vague sense of nature/the environment. I didn’t really try to pin down a theme beyond that. I agree with a niggle or two others have had with a couple of the clue surface meanings, but at least they tell us what to do with the wordplay to get the result. And despite others’ criticisms, my favourite clue was the amusing 1a CONTINENT. Thanks to Brummie and loonapick, and to previous contributors for an interesting read; I needed the blog to clear up a couple of niggling uncertainties in my parsing.

  49. Couldn’t help but be reminded of the old “Harwich for the continent, Frinton for the incontinent” joke.

  50. BBC Radio 4 has a long-running series called Crossing Continents, which I cannot hear as anything other than Cross Incontinents.

  51. A fairly easy one I thought with the “theme” not really making any difference to it or how to solve (sorry Brummie). Missed China as MATE yet again.
    Thanks Brummie and Loonapick

  52. Thanks Brummie, this was a joy for me after yesterday’s debacle. I ticked CONTINENT, PATELLAE, READDRESS, AVALANCHE, and CLIMATE as my top choices. Thanks loonapick for the blog.

  53. Thanks Brummie and loonapick

    ttt @ 51 for me, the theme not making any difference to the solve is a sign of a good well-worked one, in that you can solve the puzzle completely independently of it. The theme, if spotted, is the icing on the cake (other decorative metaphors may be available).

  54. Nothing to add, other than this: when you lot say you’re going to the continent for a few weeks, do you ever mean South America? So Europe = CONTINENT didn’t even raise an eyebrow for me.

  55. After yesterday’s brainmelt, this was a welcome relief. I didn’t spot the theme, but I did notice that after ALCOCK yesterday we had BROWN in a clue. Serendipity?

  56. Got to this late today, and I’m afraid I thought it a bit pedestrian. If there is a theme, I missed it, and even in retrospect I’m not convinced that it’s there. Not much to delay one here and for me, at least, not one of Brummie’s more interesting efforts. Maybe I’m just being cantankerous.

    Thanks to both, as always.

  57. There’s a fair bit of cantankerousness about today! I solved this in one sitting over a beer or two at the pub, so it must have been fairly easy. Either that or I was fairly loose!

    I’m not convinced there’s a theme, and there was certainly nothing wrong with Europe as CONTINENT or ‘shift’ as DRESS. I liked the blacksmith miscounting the number of hooves on the horse, and the snow and water tumbling down the neighbouring mountains at 13 and 14.

    Thanks to Brummie and loonapick.

  58. I enjoyed the misdirection in 9A, as I tried to make “cooked” the housework that Alistair had done.

  59. Sheffield hatter@57 Just to continue the cantankerousness, it’s farriers that shoe horses, not blacksmiths…

  60. Charles @59. It would be incorrect to say that blacksmiths *don’t ever* shoe horses, and the setter would be making the clue ridiculously easy if using “farrier” instead, so I think you win today’s cantankerousness prize. 🙂

  61. Just looking in this evening to catch up.

    Ark Lark @43: yes that’s probably a better explanation of 1a than mine @26. But I’ll try to maintain that both work 🙂 .

    Charles @59: from Woody Allen’s brilliant comic piece Yes, But Can the Steam Engine Do This? (an imagined life of the inventor of the sandwich):

    1718: birth of the Earl of Sandwich to upper-class parents. Father is delighted at being appointed chief farrier to His Majesty the King – a position he will enjoy for several years, until he discovers he is a blacksmith and resigns embittered.

  62. 20d – MATE/CHINA….? What does this mean?

    6a, 1d – what significance does “in their element” have?

  63. 6d – I can’t understand the explanation given here. What does “banks” have to do with the clue?

  64. Steffen – China plate (shortened to China) is Cockney rhyming spangly for mate. For Flanders banks, think of banks as outer edges, so the outer edges of Flanders are F and S

  67. In the spirit of profound pedantry, with which all good solvers are blessed, can I just say (nicbach and Tim C) that a female blond is a blonde.

  68. I wondered if the Lionesses in their element could be football club or FC, which are the top or first letters of food chain

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