Guardian 29,226 – Brummie

by

Thanks to Brummie for our entertainment on a wet Monday morning.

I was lucky to guess the theme early on from JOHN and FRIAR, which helped quite a lot with the rest: we are in the world of the FOLKLORE hero ROBIN HOOD, who lived in SHER/WOOD FOREST with his Merry Men (or CREW?) LITTLE JOHN, WILL SCARLET and FRIAR TUCK.

 
Across
7 ROYAL WE Victoria’s one abysmally low year? (5,2)
(LOW YEAR)* – the Royal We was Queen Victoria’s way of referring to herself (as in the apocryphal “we are not amused”), or her “one”, as formerly used by the more recent late Queen
8 LESOTHO Country hotel’s playing ball (7)
HOTELS* + O
9 EDIT Censor‘s current turnover (4)
Reverse of TIDE
10 DISAPPEAR Insult by a President at Conference? Make yourself scarce! (9)
DIS A P[resident] + PEAR (of which Conference is a type)
12 ROBIN Bird pen fixture with round ridge opening tipped over (5)
Reverse of NIB + O (round) + R[idge]
13 TREATISE Fun is editing leader for paper (8)
TREAT + IS + E[diting]
15 JOHN Jack Ball at Houston bankers’ convenience (4)
J[ack] + O (ball, as also in 8a) + the “bankers” of H[ousto]N – john is (mostly US) slang for a toilet or convenience
16 FRIAR Brother‘s kitchen item reported (5)
Homophone of “fryer”
17 WILL With Dicky, one could be left in it (4)
W[ith] + ILL (dicky)
18 FEEL BLUE Touchdown, in two words, makes you experience sadness (4,4)
Touchdown “in two words” is touch + down = FEEL + BLUE
20 SABRE Sun bear: unstable potential killer (5)
S + BEAR*
21 HOTEL ROOM A smashing time here for a rock star? (5,4)
Cryptic definition, from the idea that rock stars have a tendency of smashing up their hotel rooms, though maybe not any more
22 TUCK A dive’s possible feature food (4)
Double definition: a tuck is a feature of e.g. Olympic high diving
24 BOLLARD Cast is turning fat – a hindrance when on the road (7)
Reverse of LOB (throw, cast) + LARD (fat)
25 SCARLET Potential big name actor going around college: time to go red (7)
C in STARLET less the first T
Down
1 WOOD Club‘s court date (4)
WOO (to court) + D[ate) – club as in golf
2 WASTE BIN Office item used to be involved in bet (5,3)
WAS + (IN BET)*
3 SWEDEN Vegetable garden’s boundary land (6)
SWEDE + [garde]N
4 LEAP YEAR ‘1812’, for one, is bound to have noisy climax and corny bit (4,4)
LEAP (to bound) + the “climax” or last letter of noisY + EAR (a bit of corn)
5 FOREST It has a canopy of raised support (6)
Reverse of OF + REST (support)
6 SHER Former actor producing ‘Female Resistance’ (4)
SHE + R – the actor is Sir Antony Sher, who died in 2021
11 SET FIRE TO Position sack and turn over light (3,4,2)
SET (position) + FIRE (to sack) + T[urn] O[ver]
12 RHONE Polish river comes first as major river (5)
R + HONE (polish)
14 SOLVE What you aim to do, only without Victor (5)
V in SOLE
16 FOLKLORE Stories of old people taking on new role (8)
FOLK + ROLE*
17 WEBSTER’S Gale’s hiding book, a dictionary (8)
B in WESTER’S
19 LITTLE Small US state capital – not Hudson? (6)
LITTLE ROCK (state capital of Arkansas) less ROCK [Hudson, actor]
20 SHMUCK Obnoxious type of quiet Scottish island (6)
SH (quiet!) + MUCK (Hebridean island)
21 HOOD Criminal carrier has nothing to hide (4)
0 in HOD (brick-carrier)
23 CREW Company was boastful (4)
Double definition: for the second, it’s the past tense of crow = boast

64 comments on “Guardian 29,226 – Brummie”

  2. A pretty good Monday experience. For this solver, Brummie can be hit or miss but this was nicely in the hit zone with a theme that raised an eyebrow at ROBIN and was then confirmed with the middle row of three. Early enough to help when it came to FOREST, as well as to send me hunting for the actor, SHER. Only FEEL BLUE brought me down a little but it was more than compensated for by ROYAL WE, DISAPPEAR, SABRE, TUCK, LEAP YEAR, SET FIRE TO and FOLKLORE. Personally, I’d have preferred Brummie to have gone the extra mile and made it clear that only one T – ‘a time’ – is leaving to make SCARLET but it was clear enough what the solution was.

    Thanks Brummie and Andrew

  4. A nice change to see Brummie on this miserable Monday morning. If I hadn’t been aware of the theme after spotting ROBIN and FRIAR, I don’t think I’d have got SHER, fine actor though he was. Favourites ROYAL WE and LEAP YEAR.

  5. I wondered why folk were “old people”, but now I see I misparsed.

    Tried really hard to parse HOTEL ROOM, and must say I groaned when I read the explanation here.

    Hadn’t heard of Sir Antony Sher, nor Muck island.

    Saw the theme, but after only reading comments ‘neath the puzzle on the Guardian website.

  6. Like GDU I was wondering about the old folk ad aws thinking maybe a slightly archaic word, so thankyou Andrew for that.
    I had WILD origonally for WILL, I thought it was a cryptic clue and confused brothers.

  7. I saw the theme early by writing in ROBIN and FRIAR on first read through, and was then on the look out.
    Didn’t spot SHER/WOOD because I saw Sher on stage in a couple of things and solved WOOD easily as I read through, but it helped with SCARLET, LITTLE and FOREST and made sense of FOLKLORE.

    Thank you to Andrew and Brummie.

  9. I didn’t think SHMULL sounded quite right. It’s the Isle of Muck, not Muck Island, which rather tickled me, Geoff@5.

    No theme here – I think I was expecting the clues to be harder than the were (Being Brummie), which somehow slowed me down.

    Thanks, both

  10. Thanks Brummie and Andrew
    No theme , of course – I usually forget the solutions I’ve written in.
    A bit puzzled by “wester”. Why should it be a gale, and shouldn’t it be “westerly”?

  11. Very tough, harder for me than a Saturday Prize puzzle. Failed 17ac and gave up on SW corner – I could not solve 21ac, 24ac, 19d (never heard of Little Rock).

    New for me: MUCK = an island in Scotland; WESTER = gale. Is it a way of saying a westerly wind?

    Thanks, both.

    I did not notice the theme until I read the comments in the Guardian blog – if I had spotted it earlier it might have helped me solve 19d and 21d.

  12. SHER was my foi as I remembered him from the wonderful 1975 BBC series, The History Man. I spotted the theme reasonably early so it was one of those dilemmas of do I try and SOLVE from the wordplay or simply fill in the answers. Difficult to resist the latter though. Anyway a great start to the week with HOTEL ROOM and WILL my favourites.

    Ta Brummie & Andrew.

  13. Hardly needs mentioning that I missed the theme entirely. Some clunky surfaces I thought, but I still enjoyed working them out e.g. JOHN. Favourite was LEAP YEAR. Had to look at SHMUCK a couple of times as I was expecting the more usual spelling, schmuck, but it seems that this one is also used. Good fun. Thanks Brummie and Andrew.

  14. For the first time in five or ten years I solved nothing on the first read-through. DISAPPEAR got me started and then, deliberately looking for a theme, I was able to finish. LOI was CREW, which is an old chestnut!
    Thanks to Brummie and Andrew.

  15. Loved the Robin Hood theme. On a school trip to Sherwood Forest, once spent an enthusiastic half an hour cramming as many people as we could inside the hollow Major Oak tree, the outlaws’ famous hiding place and where they would DISAPPEAR.

    My fave was ROYAL WE.

    The puzzle brought a few links to mind, especially lots of TV viewing of this when a youngster

    https://youtu.be/kIXiESqT_jY?si=ENGqSHZCdJMf9ya9

    and this ‘partial destruction’ one

    https://youtu.be/rL3B7p0oSgs?si=IKoc6DbI2R1q4F7E

    [ michelle@11 : The Cinton Presidential Center and Library is in Little Rock, Arkansas ]

    Thank you Brummie and Andrew.

  16. I got the theme quite early and it helped with some clues, but I missed joining up Sher and Wood although I got Forest. Like Auriga I got nothing on the first read, but then shoved in a couple of guesses and managed to parse them afterwards. Favs Folklore and Royal We. Thanks B and A

  17. Enjoyed this on the whole but had the same ? as muffin regarding wester for “gale”.

    Some of the surfaces were sublime…FOLKLORE for instance, but others, I felt, a little clunky. Position sack and turn over light for instance, doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

    Many thanks, both.

  18. Sou’wester is commonly used to indicate a gale (and the hat to protect from it), so I suppose a “wester” is the same thing after veering westerly.

  20. Muffin@10 – Chambers defines “Wester” as “a west wind or gale”. I think Brummie (to whom thanks) is entitled to clue it on that basis.

  21. Good fun; I got the theme early on, so that helped with a few.

    I liked the unlikely cd for HOTEL ROOM, the surface for BOLLARD, and the wordplay for SCARLET.

    Thanks Brummie and Andrew.

  23. Great clues-so busy solving them that I had to look afterwards for a theme (at least 80% chance with Brum)-and it was staring me in the face
    Just a tad late connecting SHER and WOOD
    And I agree that RHONE was a great clue

  24. This was lots of fun, and I eventually clocked the theme, although not until I’d got all the answers independently (seeing JOHN FRIAR WILL across the middle made me suspicious). It perhaps helped prime me for FOLKLORE, my LOI that I was *sure* would have an anagram of role *within* ‘people’. Made heavy weather of it overall, especially the SW corner.

    Thanks both.

  25. Oh actually, seeing the theme helped with confirm SHER, who I’d not heard of & would otherwise have been a bit of a hit & hope!

  27. A strange experience for me with this, thought it very much a so-so puzzle for most of it,only with the SE corner still to solve at the end. Then when WILL, SCARLET and TUCK all fell into place I suddenly realised this was a very clever themed BRUMMIE offering. Hadn’t much liked a clumsy sounding “Bird pen fixture with round ridge opening tipped over” at 12 ac, but had very much approved of FEEL BLUE, LITTLE, and HOOD. Of course I should have linked up ROBIN and HOOD by then and also LITTLE with JOHN, but I hadn’t, as I’m usually blind to the theme. Well done Brummie for giving me the wrong impression for so long, and the ultimate aha moment…

  28. …and actually rather unforgivable of me not to spot what was going on in the forest today, with my family surname part of the (now obvious) theme…

  29. Thanks Sagittarius @20. I’ve never heard that.
    Of course, we all know from Crosby and Hope that Webster’s Dictionary is Morocco bound…

  30. I found this considerably trickier than the usual Monday fare, which was no bad thing. No doubt it would have been much easier had I spotted the theme early, but like muffin I forget a clue as soon as its solution is entered, and as usual it passed me by completely.

    Some nice deceptions: ‘Victoria’s one’ ‘Conference’ and ‘Stories of old people’ stood out for me. Some rather odd surfaces, but I particularly liked the one for LEAP YEAR with its nod to the Tchaikovsky chestnut.

    Thanks to S&B

  31. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmuck_(pejorative) ‘Schmuck, or SHMUCK, is a pejorative term meaning one who is stupid or foolish, or an obnoxious, contemptible or detestable person. The word came into the English language from Yiddish (Yiddish: shmok), where it has similar pejorative meanings, but where its literal meaning is a vulgar term for a penis.
    Etymology – The Yiddish word shmok derives from Old Polish smok “grass snake, dragon” …
    Euphemisms – Because of its generally being considered a vulgarity, the word is often euphemized as schmoe … Other variants include schmo and shmo.’

  33. I’ve always thought “convenience” was British for a toilet — I’ve never run across it over here. John, yes.

    A gale is a Wester? Never heard of it. (In New England we have Nor’easters, if that’s how you spell it.)

    Andrew, thanks for parsing LITTLE. I didn’t think of either Little Rock or Rock Hudson, shame on me.

    Thanks to Brummie and Andrew.

  34. Valentine @33
    It always amuses me when I see a sign:
    “Toilets out of order – we apologise for the inconvenience”

  35. I noticed in the clue for John, in addition to the parsing as given, that Jack is a form of John and John Houston; I guess this was deliberate by Brummie

  36. Unusually for me, I spotted the theme early enough for it to help with some the later clues. Surprised to see ‘ball’=O used twice in clues quite close together, I always thought such repetition was best avoided. There’s also a tiny imprecision in SCARLET, as the fodder word STARLET has two Ts and ideally the clue should specify which to remove. I’m being very pedantic but I’m currently reading Don Manley’s Chambers Crossword Manual and can feel myself getting more Ximenean with every chapter 🙂 but I’m sure that will pass.

    I liked SOLVE, CREW, LITTLE and FEEL BLUE.

    Thanks both.

  37. I would never, ever have gotten SHER if I hadn’t seen the theme fairly early on. I saw it when I had ROBIN, FRIAR, and JOHN, which made me immediately go looking for HOOD, TUCK, and LITTLE. A bit disappointing that Maid Marian didn’t put in an appearance, but I can’t quibble with such a well-made puzzle.

    I thought of trying DOER where SHER is, since a doe is a female of various species, and a doer is an actor. But then “old” in the clue wouldn’t have been doing anything–doer is a rare word, but not a particularly archaic one.

    [FrankieG @41: Yiddish has also given us the similar word putz, another word meaning “penis” that is uncomplimentary about the personality in question. I’d say that a putz and a schmuck are not exactly the same type of person, but I can’t quite limn the difference here. Putz is also German for the verb “clean,” proving that Yiddish and German may be close cousins but are certainly not the same! I think Yiddish slang is probably more familiar on this side of the Atlantic; our Jewish community is relatively large and has had an outsized cultural influence.]

  38. Not my best Monday effort; the little ones eluded me.

    I had RHINE = SHINE (polish) with R comes first (in place of S). Not as clean as the parsing for RHONE, but I think it works…

  39. Thanks Brummie. I didn’t look for a theme until I saw comments on the Guardian thread and then it became obvious. I enjoyed this crossword nonetheless due to clues like ROYAL WE, FRIAR, BOLLARD, LEAP YEAR, FOREST, and LITTLE. Thanks Andrew for the blog.

  40. Pedantically, I thought you’d polish the flat of a blade, but hone the edge.
    Did anyone else involve Ms. Johansson in their try at parsing 25?

  41. I had big ticks for LEAP YEAR (great surface), ROYAL WE, LESOTHO and LITTLE. I couldn’t parse CREW, which made me grumpy, but now I can see it’s rather clever. HOTEL ROOM was a bit weak for me and needed the crossers, but there’s nothing unfair or pretentious here making for a fine start to the week. Thanks to Brummie, and of course to Andrew.

  42. Except for the theme (which I missed, as usual) I still prefer WILD to WILL, because it doesn’t read write right for WILL. W(ith) D(icky) one (I) could be L(EFT) in it. Dicky Attenborough could leave you in the WILD.
    Hey ho

  43. Thanks for the blog, really enjoyed the puzzle, especially the Conference Pear .
    Totally missed the theme, in retrospect I am grateful that FRIAR TUCK was not clued with a Spoonerism.

  44. My favourite today was 4d LEAP YEAR. I laughed out loud at the hilarious surface, which perfectly describes the Tchaikovsky overture.

    19d LITTLE was a clue for us old folks. Little Rock isn’t in the news much these days, but it made a daily appearance in the ‘60s during the civil rights movement of that era.

    Muffin@29, thanks for the chuckle. I have a 1904 leather bound Webster’s; I will now always associate it with Bing and Bob.

    Besides being a great actor, Antony SHER was a gifted writer. His memoirs and commentaries on performing Shakespeare make fascinating reading.

    Thanks Brummie and Andrew for the Monday fun.

  45. I came late to this. I agree with Cellomaniac@44 in that LEAP YEAR is a favourite. I also agree with the comment on Antony Sher. It’s a great regret of mine that I never saw his Richard III (a thoroughly “bad” king, whatever the Ricardians may claim). With thanks to Brummie and Andrew.

  46. In 17A, the “one” that could be left in a WILL refers to a bequeathed possession: in what way is that possession “with Dicky”?
    In 18A, where “down” and “sad” are both synonyms for BLUE, the clue appears to be non-cryptic, since they both refer to the same sense of blueness with no punning difference.
    Frankie G @31: thanks for the extended definition of SHMUCK. Here in New York City, it is more commonly used to mean a dupe than an obnoxious type. And, as Paul @13 points out, “schmuck” is by far the most common usage.
    [These quibbles aside, allow me to pay tribute to my father, who was the Vicar of SHERWOOD — the parish of St Martin’s in Nottingham — some sixty years ago]

  48. AndrewTyndall @46 – dicky means ill – as in “I’ve got a dicky tummy” as British understatement for various stomach upsets in various idiolects .. so “with dicky” = w + ill

    That particular phrase is in my idiolect so that particular clue went in on reading it.

  50. 20a – how do you know to only use the ‘S’ of sun with bear?

    12d – is the Rhine a Polish river as well?

    Brutally difficult for me.

  51. steffen@50 S is a standard abbreviation for Sun.

    The Rhine is a German river. My mistake at first was to think of polish = shine and then think of a way to substitute R for S. I couldn’t. But polish also = hone, I now know, and the “major river” is R + hone, or Rhone (which is French).

    I admire your persistence. I wish I had it too.

  52. Re Kite no 29227

    I am getting repeat of Kite 29223. Are other sources incorrect too?

    Sorry if I am breaking taboo by posting in wrong blog but too early for answers to be blogged yet.

    I like Kite so hope there is a new one somewhere

  53. Of course, WESTERS as a gale does not work too well outside the UK. I remembered Anthony SHER from seeing his unforgettable performance as Richard III when the RSC toured Australia, so had little trouble parsing that.

    Apropos of nothing, I was wondering today about the term TTM. Surely if you belt your head with a tea tray then you would spill tea all over yourself and probably smash the china. And if you are not having tea, why would a tea tray be to hand instead of, say, a laptop? Bizarre expression.

  55. @53
    The tray’s bare, servceable as aluminium. @Brigster shared a link (I think) and coined the idiom. Frustration’s definitely included, to my mind.
    PDM solves/ penny-drop moments, like Picaroon’s Spanish 7d can be so perfect … and they’re pain-free.

  56. Mathew Newell@52 The comments on the Guardian site are thanking Tramp, but the crossword I am getting there and on the Guardian app is the Kite one.

  57. Found the theme helpful with this puzzle and was delighted to see Muck appear, having been to a wedding on the Isle of Muck many years ago.

  58. @Sue #55. Can’t see why an empty tea tray would just be lying around doing nothing, waiting for a head-banging moment. I still think it’s a bizarre expression, but each to their own.

  60. Re today’s puzzle, the comments on The Guardian website note that the pdf version shown there is correct, Tramp No. 29,227. Printed and ready to solve…

  61. Once the day staff arrive for work they might correct the Kite/Tramp mixup. Meanwhile the pdf version has the proper puzzle for today (or maybe a bit improper, as it’s Tramp…)

  62. @klrunner. Thanks. It’s a print out and solve the old fashioned way with pen and paper then for me. Not sure how I access it as my phone automatically assumes I want to use the app – but there must be a way; an extra challenge!

  63. Liked john friar solve little

    I’m getting more and more clues without the need to revert to this blog. Haven’t progressed past Monday Guardian cryptic though.

    The apex of my acting career was playing the lead role in Robin Hood in Primary 5. The nadir of my acting career was playing Robin Hood in Primary 5 when the drama-student-teacher decided to dress us all in upturned Spar carrier bags with holes cut for our heads, because they had a green tree logo. The indignity.

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