Guardian 26,345 by Orlando

by

Found this trickier towards the end, with the NW holding me up for quite a while – 11ac and 5dn both new to me, and 4ac only remembered vaguely. No complaints with the cluing, which was excellent throughout. My favourites were 10ac, 14dn and 19dn.

Across
4 BISTRE Brown wading bird one missed initially? There he goes! (6)
=a brown pigment made from soot. [i]BIS=”wading bird” with I=”one” missed initially, plus T[he]RE with “he” gone
6 FRILLIES Underwear that is covered with fine flowers (8)
=”Underwear”. I.E.=”that is”, covered by F[ine] and RILLS=”flowers” of water
9 HIRING Taking on leads for Heaton’s indie band (6)
=”Takng on”. H[eaton’s] I[ndie] plus RING=”band”
10 SINGULAR Remarkable, as sheep but not goats may be (8)
=”Remarkable”. “sheep” can be singular or plural, “goats” can only be the plural
11 LOVE-IN-A-MIST A moist Nigella? (4-2-1-4)
A flower of the genus Nigella. In crosswordese, LOVE IN A MIST could give O=”love” inside A MIST=>”A moist”
15 EPIGRAM Remark by Wilde, perhaps, on English livestock? (7)
=”Remark by Wilde, perhaps”. E[nglish] plus PIG and RAM=”livestock”
17 DIDEROT Queen held by another has time for French philosopher (7)
=”French philosopher”. E[lizabeth] R[egina]=”Queen” in DIDO=”another” queen, plus T[ime]
18 DENIGRATION Calumny? Snarl and ignore it (11)
=”Calumny”. (and ignore it)*
22 MURMANSK Isle’s shrouded in darkness — it’s a naval base (8)
=”a naval base”. [Isle of] MAN’S=”Isle’s” in MURK=”darkness”
23 ANTICS Tomfoolery? Not for heads of Civil Service (6)
=”Tomfoolery”. ANTI=”not for”, plus C[ivil] S[ervice]
24 NEUROSES Uncommon sense about our treatment for emotional disord­ers (8)
=”emotional disorders”. (sense)* around (our)*
25 HEBRON Bird that’s born within West Bank city (6)
=”West Bank city”. HERON=”bird” with B[orn] within
Down
1 BRUNEI Carla goes round eastern sultanate (6)
=”sultanate”. Carla BRUNI the singer, around E[astern] 
2 PRAIRIE DOG Yielding ape or rigid rodent (7,3)
=”rodent”. (ape or rigid)*
3 BLIGHTED Plot to enclose land that’s spoilt (8)
=”spoilt”. BED=”Plot”, around LIGHT=[come to rest on] “land”
4 BEHOLDER He is held up by more audacious viewer (8)
=”viewer”. reversal of HE inside (“held up by”) BOLDER=”more audacious”
5 STRAVAIG Saint taking Viagra, prepared to wander aimlessly in Scotland (8)
=”to wander aimlessly” [Scottish]. ST plus (Viagra)* 
7 IDLE Unemployed member of comedy team (4)
=”Unemployed”; =Eric IDLE of Monty Python
8 SORE Annoyed fly may be heard (4)
=”Annoyed”. sounds like ‘soar’=”fly may be heard”
12 ADMINISTER Manage a wedding centre, one in church (10)
=”Manage”. A plus [wed]D[ing] plus MINISTER=”one in church”
13 BRAINIER Black Prince with more grey matter (8)
=”with more grey matter”. B[lack] plus the late Prince RAINIER of Monaco.
14 STANDS IN Is a substitute to tolerate wrongdoing? (6,2)
=”Is a substitute”. STAND SIN would =”tolerate wrongdoing”
16 RED BARON Wine to accompany beef for pilot (3,5)
=”pilot”. RED=”wine” plus BARON=a joint of “beef”
19 ARNHEM Attention-seeker with sailors in battle (6)
=”battle”. AHEM=”Attention-seeker” around R[oyal] N[avy]=”sailors”
20 EMIN Artist employed in the mines (4)
=”Artist”. Hidden in [th]E MIN[es]
21 FRAU Dutch in Germany no closer to crime (4)
Dutch=’wife’ in Cockney slang, so would be FRAU in Germany. No “closer” (closing letter) to FRAU[d]=”crime”

35 comments on “Guardian 26,345 by Orlando”

  1. Thanks Orlando and manehi.

    I enjoyed all of the anagrams, and my favourites were 14d, 15a, 6a, 19d.

    I failed to solve MURMANSK, and could not parse 10a, 11a, 22a, 23a.

    New words for me were STRAVAIG and BISTRE.

  2. Started with 11ac – they were the first seeds I ever planted as a child – happy memories! Then worked steadily through the clues and found a lot on first pass, so no real difficulty. Didn’t know bistre but it had to be from the clue, likewise stravaig.

    Thx to setter and blogger.

  3. Thanks Orlando and manehi
    BISTRE was LOI as it wasn’t a word I knew, and the clueing, though fair, wasn’t obvious – some electronic help needed! STRAVAIG was also new, though easier to solve.
    I tried RED ARROW for 16d, thinking of “a row” being “a beef” (or complaint) – doesn’t work, of course. I also spent some time trying to work out where the HE in HEBRON came from (to go with the anagram of “born”). Saw it eventually, though.
    Favourites were LOVE IN A MIST and BRAINIER.

  5. I enjoyed this, so thanks Orlando. A lovely doh moment when 11a yielded. I needed your blog manehi for several confirmations, inter alia, 4a and 21d so thanks very much. However, another doh moment came when I checked your parsing of 3d. I knew BLIGHTED had to be correct, but could not for the life of me see land = light until I read your description when I slapped the front of my head and felt very stupid. Was this the best crossword of the week? I’d vote for it!!

  6. Thanks, manehi.

    Another gem from Orlando, with lovely surfaces throughout. As usual, it’s difficult to pick favourites but I particularly liked SINGULAR, MURMANSK, ANTICS, STRAVAIG [lovely word!] and LOVE-IN-A-MIST [perhaps because, like almw3, I have childhood memories of planting those seeds, along with clarkia and larkspur].

    As Joseph says, great fun. Many thanks, as ever, to Orlando.

  8. Thanks Orlando and manehi

    STRAVAIG and BISTRE new to me but won’t be forgotten in a hurry

    I read 12 in the same way as Cookie @ 7

  9. I read 12 as I in MINSTER too – do you get ministers in churches? Chapels, certainly, but C of E has vicars and rectors etc. rather than ministers, doesn’t it?

  10. Thanks both, most enjoyable, quality crossword.

    Cookie @7 I thought so too – Manehi’s parse is perfectly valid but I prefer ours!

    Nice weekend everyone,

  11. FRAU would have worked just as well (or even better) with just the first three words of the clue. And I got SORE not from SOAR but from the SAWfly whose caterpillars devastate my garden.

  12. Having seen a very good production of As You Like It last night, it was pleasing to see Orlando’s name under the grid today.

    The grid itself not very pleasing, but otherwise a fine crossword. Defeated by STRAVAIG and LOVE-IN-A-MIST, having never heard of either, but the latter an excellent clue.

    I do like how the MININSTER wordplay can be read two ways.

  14. Thoroughly enjoyed this. Fair and fun, but yielded over coffee for me. Vey unusual!
    Liked snarl to clue anagram at 18a, also 11a

  15. In the end, it was the bottom right that defeated me – couldn’t get HEBRON or ARNHEM. 15a was absolutely my favourite though. Thanks for the blog.

  16. I was amazed at how easy this was. I usually read the clues through first before starting to parse seriously. Today the read through gave me about three quarters of the puzzle straight away.BISTRE was the last in-I’d never heard of it-and I liked FRILLIES(no double entendre intended). Everything else was pretty obvious.
    Quite enjoyable though

  17. Why oh why couldn’t he have clued BISTRO instead? But then, I’m one of the few, I guess, for whom STRAVAIG was practically a write-in, thanks to my occasional Highland jaunts. So a neat exhibition of how one man’s meat etc.

    Plenty of good clues throughout, with FRILLIES, SINGULAR and LOVE-IN-A-MIST among them. Thanks Orlando for a good puzzle.

  18. Enjoyed this a lot – nothing too difficult but enough that required some thought to be satisfying, and the least familiar (BISTRE) had to be right from the wordplay and the crossers. Liked ANTICS, DENIGRATION, FRAU and particularly LOVE-IN-A-MIST (my last in after BLIGHTED mainly because I wanted the crossers – I’m not an expert on flowers and thought MIST might be replaced by a synonym).

    Thanks to Orlando and manehi

  19. I have a feeling STRAVAIG was familiar to me from Bill McLaren’s somewhat idiosyncratic rugby commentaries – it wasn’t quite a write-in because I was initially looking to fit ST around the anagram not before it, and getting it certainly made it easier to work BISTRE out.

  20. Thanks manehi and Orlando

    Harder than some recent Orlando puzzles but no less enjoyable for that. Stravaig held me up for a time – I kept wondering about vagarist – and bistre was new to me.

    I ticked lots of clues inc. 10a, 11a, 18a, 2d, 19d and 21d.

  21. @muffin. I think all clergy could be called ministers, but I took it as the building itself as in York Minster.

  24. I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle. The clue for LOVE-IN-A-MIST reminded me of Paul, and the clues for my last two in, BISTRE and STRAVAIG, reminded me of Pasquale in as much as they were uncommon words that were immaculately clued.

  25. A big thank you to everyone who has anything to do with this blog which I discovered about nine months ago when I started to take cryptic crosswords seriously. The thanks, by the way, also include George C, as I notice that he has not said anything for a few days following a rather unkind comment earlier in the week.

    The problem in days gone by was that when I tried The Guardian crossword and then looked at the solution the next day I still couldn’t understand the answers which made me think this was a world beyond my understanding.

    15×15 is brilliant. I now look forward to the Guardian crossword every day and sometimes
    manage to finish it.

    Today was one such day but I had great difficulty parsing BISTRE as I couldn’t understand how the ‘tre’ came in. FRILLIES was similar as I thought it had something to do with lilies but that left ‘fr’ hanging.

    Keep going everyone – you are a great resource to people like me!

  26. Late to the party today due to work stuff, but just wanted to say thanks to blogger and setter. Fine puzzle, fine blog.

  27. Jovis @25 – wise words, and I for one would be happy to second the call for George C to come back – none of us can please all of the people all of the time!

  29. Vic @22

    Exactly the opposite. It’s because there is almost no deliberation whatsoever that these things happen.

    If the crosswords were managed I assume that these random features wouldn’t happen. (When things are chosen at random it is likely that you will get repetitions)

    By the way I didn’t enjoy this. Orlando at his old-fashioned worse for me.

    BISTRE summed up the approach!!

    Completed without much fun.

    Thanks to manehi and Orlando

  30. PS: 20dn held me up for a while. Still not sure about the definition and would have preferred it written as “artist”.

  31. At first wanted to put in TROLLIES for 6A, but it should be spelt trolleys and I couldn’t imagine trolls as fine flowers in any way.

  32. Thanks Orlando and Manehi,

    So I don’t expect anyone will read this as the Bank Holiday crossword has come and gone (which I really enjoyed!) Anyway FOI 11A (although I’ve only now understood it 🙂 LOI 4A (checked BISTRO – how sad am I) 3d & 10a stymied me for some time…

    So… strange grid – why not extend 4, 5, 7, 8 down up by one square (and vice versa in the bottom half) – was expecting some kind of nina as a pair of TLAs at top and bottom…

  33. Thanks Orlando and manehi

    Enjoyed this … first one in was LOVE-IN-THE-MIST after checking for different names of Nigella – only saw the cleverness of it after coming here though !

    NW was the last part to finish with STRAVAIG, BRUNEI and BISTRE the last three in – hadn’t heard of two of them and struggled to pick up Carla initially.

    … and Dodgyprof … there is always someone reading these late 🙂

  35. PaulT @ 31 I actually put in trollies; I think that’s how Viz spell it. Oh dear! Also defeated by bistre (put in bistro),. The rest o.k. Loved singular @10a. and frau @ 21 d. even with the extra clueing which was something of a diversion at first.

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