Guardian 29,228 / Brockwell

98 comments on “Guardian 29,228 / Brockwell”

1. A nice theme with an added musical flavour to this one and amused to see Mozart and Rat Scabies in the same puzzle. Lots of ticks including IMPREGNATE, SNITCHER, FLEADH, CLUEDO, TYPIST and STONE CRABS (nice touch having a STONE next to a BE(A)TLE. Earworm has to be the new song. https://youtu.be/Opxhh9Oh3rg?si=R9F3E2ZJeewxaJHj.

   Ta Brockwell & Eileen.

2. Oh dear. Missed the theme again.

   This was a bit of a lexicon-expander. FLEADH, LOCOTORY, ricket and new meanings of SKELETON & muppet. Hadn’t heard of stone crabs or barflies — American? I did vaguely recall Midge Ure from a puzzle a few months ago.

   26a strictly should be “… Nick lines …”, but of course that would ruin the surface.

3. Thanks Brockwell and Eileen
   Two jorums for me – FLEADH and LOCUTORY. A mixed bag – a lot of nice clues, but some were borderline unfair in the GK stakes. MIDGE URE is from some time ago, and “puree” isn’t the most obvious pulp, though I enjoyed working it out. RICKET for blunder was unknown to me and the first couple of pages of Google – it was difficult to deflect Google from “rickets”. STONE CRABS are a bit obscure for a Spooner.
   Favourite LAVISH.
   FAB 1 was Lady Penelope’s numberplate in Thunderbirds!

4. When did moths stop being insects?

5. Liked the Lady Penelope/Parker reference in 6d.

6. ROACH could also be included in the theme.

7. Don’t forget ROACH! (13d)
   Enjoyed this but it was hard.
   Thanks Brockwell and Eileen!

8. (Oops AlanC – great minds and all that)

9. I missed the theme, but now see two types of ant in the red army.

10. Also, if you have any red ink left, a DOR is a kind of dung beetle and a BOT is the larva of a botfly.

11. Thanks, Alan C and Kristi – I didn’t think of [cock]ROACH.

    Crispy @4 – I’ve checked and will remove my comment at 9ac!

12. Also DORY & BOTH

13. [too slow]

14. Thank you Eileen. I was so preoccupied spotting the musical references that I completely missed the more obvious theme. Tough but fun, so thanks Brockwell.

15. Go on, stretch it! NITs are insects, too.

16. Thanks, Blaise @10: there’s a drop or two left – I’ll add those!

17. IMPREGNATE

18. STONE CRABS

19. …not to mention pediculosis pubis, aka CRABs…

20. Beat me that time…

21. Thank you Eileen, especially for IMBECILE, obviously I’m one.
    And thanks to AlanC@1 for the earworm.
    There were insects and sea life and toilet humour in the clues. I think there may be a ”deeper” connection.
    Crispy@4. Indeed moths are both insects and animals.
    LOCUTORY could have been clued to include another INSECT, locusts.
    RED and ARMY are two kinds of ants here, neither of which you would want to crawl over you.
    Favs were BOTH and ARROGANT for the wordplay.

22. Totally missed the theme and struggled to get on the wavelength. Possibly distracted by attempts to keep cats and dogs off wet screed

    Today’s ear worm courtesy of The Arctic Monkeys Mardy Bum

    MIDGE URE meant nothing to me 🙂

    Cheers E&B

23. Ah, thank you Frankie G@ 17. Before your post I was just impressed by IMPREGNATE for steep.

24. Thanks, FrankieG and Blaise, again. (I wish now that I hadn’t highlighted any of them but just left it to you all: I might have known I’d miss some. 🙁 )

25. paddymelon @21 – I had the same thought about locusts.

26. Quite tough but enjoyable for the most part. Slowed down in SE corner. Did not notice the theme until I finished the puzzle.

    New for me: LOCUTORY; RICKET = blunder (for 23ac); FLEADH; STONE CRAB.

    Favourite: IMBECILE.

    Thanks, both.

27. I don’t know why I expected this to be extra difficult – general suspicion of unfamilar setters, probably. In fact it was just right and I enjoyed it, though FLEADH, LOCUTORY and STONE CRABS were new (but gettable) and I missed BARFLY. Some good lift-and-separates here: Rat Scabies, the Two Ronnies and Joe Root. Liked CLUEDO and BOTH.

28. Blaise@20 – A dead heat at 10:06 – let’s call it a draw
    Bodycheetah@22 – 🙂

29. This was good fun, though I didn’t spot quite all the INSECTS that people have observantly pointed out. Favourites were BEETLE and MIDGE URE for the clever uses of “FAB 1” and “Pulp singer”.

    GDU @2: if you take “Nick’s” as “Nick has” then it’s “John pinching Nick” (LO CUT O), “has lines” (RY), which seems ok.

    Many thanks Brockwell and Eileen.

30. Mostly steady-away but got rather chewy towards the end. The theme whistled above my head as per. LOCUTORY was new to me, as was RICKET for blunder. FLEADH was in the recesses of my mind and eventually emerged.

    Liked IMBECILE, RED ARMY and BEETLE.

    Thanks B and E

31. RED ARMY and BOTH were my favourites among many good clues. Nice to see someone picking NITs as opposed to nit-picking.

32. 14a could fit the theme with snITCHer.

33. Petert @31: 🙂

34. No theme AGAIN! Oh dear.

    A few strained definitions but enough very good clues to offset.

    The FAB1 clue pour me on mind of the schoolboy joke…

    Lady P: Parker…
    Parker: yes M’Lady?
    Lady P: Take of my bra
    Parker: yes M’Lady
    Lady P: …and Parker…
    Parker: yes M’Lady?
    Lady P: don’t let me catch you wearing my things again.
    Parker: yes M’Lady

35. I liked this a lot, despite not managing several clues. I did know FLEADH (pronounced ‘fla’) but not RICKET as a blunder, among others.

36. Thoroughly enjoyed this, a setter I’m not familiar with nice crisp, concise clueing. Held up at the very end in the NE corner, with IMBECILE my least favourite clue. Really liked the short ones – BOTH, BEET and DORY – and there was even for me a mini cricket theme with ROOT, CRICKETERS and the Kent Lose Badly intro to 16d. Which is what my favourite County (I’m either a Kentish Man or a Man of Kent, can never remember which) did last season in Div One, only just holding on to their place there for next season. As a young teenager I used to travel on the train to all those grounds around the County that they played at then (at least eight) with my scorebook and packed lunch. I digress, apologies…

37. I thought the !rish word FLEADH just rhymed with BLAH but
    https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fleadh#Pronunciation has a choice of two and the Scottish Gaelic looks radically different.
    And https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fle%C3%A1#Irish has different IPAs depending on what !rish province you’re in.
    Petert@31 – 🙂

38. I am surprised to find some comments on the G’s own page suggesting that the posters don’t enjoy Grecian’s alter ego. I have enjoyed every Brockwell so far and, as with Qaos, it’s nice to have a setter one can expect to have incorporated a background theme. I did spot this one but, like some earlier posters, not all the components. And, yes, LOCUTORY is so frustratingly close to locust.

    FLEADH, SNITCHER, WASPISH, BEET, SKELETON, BEETLE, TYPIST (old joke but nicely done here) and BOTH were my favourites. (Eileen, I’d have thought the last of those would have been excuse enough to re-post your favourite clip!)

    Thanks Brockwell and Eileen

39. …Root of course not appearing in the Grid, but in the wording for 24ac and representing a vegetable rather than one of our greatest ever English batsmen. But wasn’t a certain less successful English football manager portrayed by one of our red top newspapers as a turnip or swede once upon a time…?

40. Ah, 11a impregnate as in soak, not nearly vertical! And never heard of ricket for blunder. I like locutory, I got it from clue. Nice word. Thanks Eileen for explanations. I liked this one. It was neat!

41. PostMark @38 – I didn’t think there was a sufficient interval since the last time – and others have posted it in the meantime, anyway – but for anyone who hasn’t seen it, here you are: 😉
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hKnJFX0q74

42. Anyone else find out the hard way that permeating is also an anagram of impregnate/tang empire?

    [currently I can’t access this site over WiFi. – fine on 5G and VPN – anyone else having trouble?]

43. Good puzzle. I didn’t look for a theme, so it passed me by, and wasn’t necessary for the solve, which flowed easily. I knew FLEADH (from Irish daughter-in-law) and LOCUTORY, as it happens, but not that meaning of ‘ricket’, though that is what it had to be.

    Plenty of concise and well-formed clues. I was pleased to see Mr Ultravox make an appearance. My favourites were IMPREGNATE, SNITCHER and particularly my LOI – IMBECILE (sorry ronald @36). Clever use of phraseology to clue two French words, and without mention of Nice or Nancy 🙂

    Thanks to Brockwell and Eileen

44. Bodycheetah @42 – initially, yes.

45. I did see the theme but it didn’t really help in the solving because there are so many INSECTs. For those of you who wanted a locust in 26A, it could have been locustal or locustas, with something like insoul for 22A, mouse pad for 18D (losing MIDGE), and a new B?S? for 24D.

    I liked the surfaces for LAVISH and BOTH, the wordplay for LOCUTORY (no Conservatives there), and the ‘aural wordplay’ of TYPIST.

    Thanks Brockwell and Eileen.

46. Liked this a lot..(Ronald at 36 I’m a kentishman born west of River Medway. East of River is Man of Kent)

47. Further to IMBECILE, ‘here the’ is ‘aquí lo’ in Occitan, though few Marseillais still speak it these days 🙂

48. IMBECILE was my favourite – it also contains LICE backwards, to go with the NIT in SNITCHER – any more red ink, Eileen?

49. FrankieG @48 – I mentioned NIT in the blog but didn’t count it, since it’s the larva of an insect.

50. I’m a child of the 1960s so FAB1 also brought to mind Lady Penelope, Parker, and that wonderful pink Rolls; closely followed by the Beetles. Overall, I found this to be in my Goldilocks zone, though I did struggle a bit with the SW. With thanks to Brockwell and Eileen.

51. Eileen @49: Nits are eggs, rather than larvae. In fact, lice don’t have a larval stage. From the egg hatches a nymph – an immature version of the adult insect.

52. Thanks for explaining there was a theme Eileen, I’d completely missed that, and also for some much-needed help with parsing. I’d assumed SCABIES was somehow giving you ITCH, had decided WASPISH was a reference to the Viper Wasp, and couldn’t parse MIDGE URE at all!

    Several words/meanings new to me – I was OK with FLEADH, but not STONE CRABS or LOCUTORY (I had the (unparsed) LAVATORY in there for a while, which held me up). I didn’t know SKELETON could mean a sport, and (while I knew the words) disliked the use of the (both American?) slang terms RICKET and BARFLY.

53. Gervase @51
    I was relying on Collins: NIT – 1. the egg of a louse … 2. the larva of a louse or similar insect. Either way, I didn’t think it qualified as an insect.

54. Mardy bum
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO368WjwyFs

55. SKELETON is a variant of bobsleigh. See here.

56. SKELETON also came up in the recent Soup puzzle. And soup cropped up today. Pleasingly circular 🙂

57. Ah, Cedric@46, thanks very much for that. As I was born in boring old Beckenham I must therefore be a Kentishman. Though in its defence early on David Bowie was associated with the place, and in a post a while ago I mentioned that maybe that most famous early cricketer W.G.Grace is buried in its cemetery. Though he was more a Man of Gloucestershire originally…

58. NHO FLEADH, LOCUTORY or RICKET, but managed to deduce them. Thank you Eileen for the parsing of 21D which eluded me.

    And as always I missed the theme.

59. [Eileen @53: Entomological howler from Collins – no insects remotely similar to lice have larvae. It can’t even be excused as a widespread though strictly erroneous usage. ‘Larva’ is definitely a technical term, unlike ‘caterpillar’ or ‘grub’, so is unlikely to be misused 🙂 ]

60. [Which stage of the head louse cycle is susceptible to a nit comb? I was told that it worked by breaking the legs clinging on to hairs.]

61. [Ignore 60 – I’ve Googled]

62. I get so much pleasure from this site but only seem to post here when I’m horrified by a clue. Apologies – generally I don’t feel I have anything to add.

    Old woman = crone

    Really? Of course we can all get it, but this is a misogynistic and ageist idea of an old woman. Is Judi Dench a crone? Was the Queen a crone?

    I have in the past emailed the crossword editor about such outdated terms but never had a response.

63. Thanks Brockwell and Eileen

    I don’t think BARFLY is an Americanism. Back in the 70s, on one of their albums Family had a track called Sat’dy Barfly.

64. I totally missed the theme — I haven’t yet learned that Brockwell always has one.

    Eileen, thanks for parsing IMBECILE and pUREe.

    I’d never heard of ricket = blunder, “mardy bum”, FLEADH, Rat Scabies, the dor beetle, muppet=IMBECILE or a LOCUTORY, though they were all clearly clued. My first cat was MIdge, when I was four, and I adored her.

    My favorite was the BEETLE that sounds like the FAB 1.

    Thanks, Brockwell and Eileen.

65. Gosh it’s a long time since Rat Scabies was in my mind. Thumbs up to that clue for the reference alone. I wasn’t sure about the need for ‘old’ in the definition for MOTHER. Perhaps flows better, but seem oddly to infer that women become old as soon as they have a child. Thanks Eileen for a great blog as always and for parsing IMBECILE and FAB 1 (I’m another who was thinking of Parker and Lady Penelope) which were the last holdouts for me. Thanks Brockhurst for a good challenge, and plenty of fun especially FLEADH (another hark back to my youth) and LOCUTORY (new to me, but impeccably clued as Eileen noted).

66. Lurkio @62 our comments crossed. I was also a bit taken aback by ‘crone’ but thought that maybe it was a reference to the outdated (old) use of a word for ‘woman’.

67. Lurkio@62. Surely the point is that a crone is invariably an old woman, but an old woman is not necessarily or even usually a crone, in which case I can see nothing in the clue to give offence.

68. paul @65: ‘The old lady’ is a colloquial term for one’s mother, just as ‘the old man’ can mean ‘my father’. No implication of advanced age.

    I have no objection to ‘crone’ in a puzzle, though I would never use the word to describe anyone other than a character in a fairytale. Would you have a similar objection to ‘codger’?

69. Lurkio@62. “Old woman = crone. Really? ” Well, yes – it’s defined as such in Chambers. In brackets it says “derog.” But surely it’s only derogatory if used in reference to or in the direction of a particular old woman (such as Judy Dench or the late Queen, as you point out). In a crossword it’s just an equivalence or synonym. Crone is a word that has been used to refer to an old woman and is therefore legitimate in a crossword, unless the publication where it appears has a policy against its use.

    The fact that your emails to the crossword editor at the Guardian on this subject have gone unanswered suggests that either he doesn’t care and can’t be bothered to answer, or that he is no longer up to the job. Conceivably both.

70. Gervase@69. Codger is not marked as (derog) by Chambers. Perhaps you were thinking of its near relative, gadgie (usu derog)?

71. sh @70: I would certainly consider it derogatory if used to refer to me! Is it less acceptable to insult women than men? 🙂

72. Of course even ‘old’ is considered disrespectful these days, hence euphemisms like ‘elderly’ and ‘senior citizen’. My late father, well into his 90s, used to complain sometimes: ‘I’m old’. ‘No’, I would reply – ‘I’m old, you’re VERY old!’

73. Often people try to avoid using the word “old” at all when referring to other people. I’m (slightly) irritated by the clumsy construction “he’s thirty years of age” rather than “he’s thirty years old”.

74. Gervase@72. Chambers has for OLD “a general word of affectionate or familiar approbation”, which sounds ok on the whole, but there’s more: “…or contempt”!

75. sh @74: Quite, old thing! 🙂

76. [Italian is similarly euphemistic. It isn’t considered polite to use the general word for ‘old’: ‘vecchio’ to refer to persons (although you can say ‘il mio vecchio amico’ to refer to a friend of long standing without implying decrepitude). Instead they use ‘anziano’ – which in English sounds worse!]

77. Bodycheetah @22: thanks for that. I’ve heard that song hundreds of times (just came up on my Spotify playlist) but hadn’t actually picked up on Marty Bum. In future will always remind me of this excellent puzzle.

78. @68&70; codger is marked as derogatory in the ODE, which is often regarded as a good guide to modern usage.

79. Oops, his brother Mardy.

80. The anti-crones make a good point. Derogatory references should be banned from crosswords. No more clues about Trump, BOJO, Rees-Mogg, Rishi, Truss, etc., and let’s add that notorious neo-Nazi, Richard Wagner to the list while we’re at it. And to call a whistle-blower a SNITCHER is clearly not called for. (On the other hand, I have no objection to “old” – I am proud of my status as an old curmudgeon.)

    Thanks, Brockwell, for bringing this seamy side of crosswordland out in the open. And thanks, Eileen, for the helpful and engaging blog.

81. Many thanks to Eileen for your excellent blog and your trusty red pen! Thanks also to all the solvers for your comments. I’m really happy that most of you seemed to enjoy the puzzle and the bug hunt. I loved all the different opinions on nits and crones and think it’s nice when a puzzle generates this kind of debate. The NIT was supposed to be thematic, but as a zoology graduate, I totally understand why Eileen wouldn’t apply her red pen to it. Hope to see you all again soon. B

82. Many thanks for dropping in, Brockwell – always appreciated – and for clearing up the NIT issue. 😉

83. Pitching into the debate about terms for old age or the elderly, I’ve never particularly liked the word Geriatric as used by the medical profession or whoever. As in a bit past it. Was really rather pleased that the last time our wonderful NHS had to look after my mother (who’s hoping to reach 98 completed years this Sunday) she was nursed in the Frailty Ward. Sounds somehow more tender and caring and respectful…

84. #several. In Wicca, the three stages of a woman’s life are ‘maiden, mother, crone’. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_Goddess_(Neopaganism). It’s a very positive term. If you do a google n-gram, ‘crone’ is way on the rise in our langague – in what I can only believe is the positive sense: – the uptick since just before 1980 corresponds with the rise of what wikipedia chooses to call neo-paganism.

85. BTW, ‘mother’ in this sequence need not be read as ‘childbearer’ – there are wider connotations.

86. Thank you, polyphone – very interesting.

87. It is indeed the end of days because I finally got the theme!!!
    Challenging solve but great fun!

88. I once saw FAB 1 in a Sainsbury’s car park. No sign of Lady Penelope of course. Perhaps Parker had nipped in for some ciggies.

89. Thanks Gervase@68 and everyone else who pitched into a civilised debate. I’m familiar with ‘old man’ for dad but have never heard ‘old woman’ for mum. Makes sense though.

90. Eileen, you could add BOT [the gadfly] to the thematic roster . . .

91. https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-g
    ‘geriatrics – branch of medicine dealing with elderly people, not an amusing way to describe them in an attempt to make yourself sound cool’
    Nothing on crones, though.

92. [ Ronald@83 and FrankieG@91: A string quartet I play in – all senior citizens – tends to take fast movements at a more leisurely pace than the professionals. We use the term “Allegro geriatrico”. My wife’s quartet (she is also a cellist) calls itself the LOCA Quartet – Ladies Of a Certain Age. ]

93. Aphid @90

    Please see comments 10 and 12 – but I forgot to add that one! (I’ve done it now, for the sake of the archive.)

    cellomaniac @92

    That has set me up for the day – thank you. 😉
    (It reminds me of a walking group (SWALLOW) that one of my friends belonged to: Short Walks And Long Lunches On Wednesdays.)

94. There’s an offshoot of our U3A ( University of the Third Age – for old codgers (whoops) like me), in our town. A small select group who call themselves Educating Senioritas, taking their cue perhaps from the film starting Julie Walters and Michael Caine…

95. As usual, it’s easier to talk about the quibbles than the many clever bits.

    Can someone point me at a reference where “muppet” is used to mean IMBECILE? That one isn’t just new to me, it seems bizarre, given that the word was only coined in 1970 and (at least in America) has only positive connotations.

96. ThemTates @ 95
    I can’t give you a reference but I found this
    https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/muppet

97. We were held up by putting “Scumball” for rat in 14A – S for last letter of scabies, cu for metal, backed by mball for a singer, which seemed to make sense. Lots of fun. Thanks Brockwell and Eileen

98. ThemTates
    You will hear “muppet” being used in that sense at the end of this clip (worth listening to anyway – I ws driving when it was on live, and had to pull off the road!)

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