Guardian 26,392 / Brummie

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[If you’re attending York S&B please see comments 32&33] - here

An enjoyable puzzle from Brummie this morning, with a variety of clue types and a variety of general knowledge needed.

I got off to a quick start in the top left corner, then slowed down a bit but, overall, the clues unravelled at a satisfying rate.The last time I blogged a Brummie puzzle, a couple of months ago, I said I didn’t enjoy it so much as usual, partly because of the clunkiness of the clues. The surfaces today are much smoother and that added considerably to my enjoyment.

I can’t see a theme, apart from several Classical allusions [which won’t please everybody but they’re up my street] but, as always, that doesn’t mean there isn’t one.

Many thanks to Brummie.

Across

1 Intrusive ads showing dad dancing, maybe, with son (3-3)
POP-UPS
POP [father] + UP [dancing, maybe] + S [son]
[Did anyone else think of ADD-ONS for a minute?]

4 Hit parade captures heart of the one rejected by her stepson (7)
PHAEDRA
Anagram [hit] of PARADE round [t]H[e]
Phaedra fell in love with Hippolytus, her husband Theseus’ son, see here 

9 Jazz star torn apart — she killed herself (9)
CLEOPATRA
CLEO [Laine – jazz star] + an anagram [torn] of APART

10 Try to hold distinctive movement device (5)
GISMO
GO [try] round ISM [distinctive movement]

11 Lecher acted like an MP with time reduced? (5)
SATYR
SAT [acted like an MP] + YR [year – time reduced]

12 Finch‘s wild statement (9)
CROSSBILL
CROSS [wild] + BILL [statement]

13 Was too prone to apply veneer? (7)
OVERLAY
Doublish definition

15 Bike twisted round barrel, as might be found in well (6)
KIBBLE
Anagram [twisted] of BIKE round BL [barrel]
A year or so ago I had difficulty finding authority for ‘b’ as an abbreviation for barrel but there’s no such problem here: BL is in Chambers. KIBBLE’s there, too, as ‘a bucket used in wells or in mining’ but it’s a new one on me.

17 PC sort of old washer (6)
COPPER
Double definition: my grandma had a copper [boiler] for washing her sheets

19 Oscar’s sort of thing: backing horse, herding swine (7)
EPIGRAM
Reversal [backing] of MARE [horse] round PIG [swine] – a reference to Oscar Wilde, two of his epigrams being, ‘I can resist everything except temptation’ and ‘Work is the curse of the drinking classes’. You can find a list of the fifty most-quoted ones here

22 Deodorised free-range hens feed across river (9)
FRESHENED
Anagram [free-range – I rather like that] of HENS FEED round R [river]

24 Sloth possibly inhaling argon gas (5)
SARIN
SIN [sloth – one of the seven deadly sins] round AR [argon]

26 It appears here, chapter heading with bullets reversed (5)
COMMA
C[hapter] + reversal of AMMO [bullets]

27 Truck, comparatively blue, carries weight (3-6)
LOW-LOADER
LOWER [comparatively blue] round LOAD [weight] – the weakest clue, I think

28 Lincoln’s habit of putting everything into the other thing? (4,3)
TALL HAT
All [everything] in THAT [the other thing] – there are several anecdotes about Abraham Lincoln’s hat here

29 Want symbolic home to have entrance changed (6)
DEARTH
[h]EARTH [symbolic home] with the initial letter changed

 

Down

 

1 Preserved in aspic, as some modern master (7)
PICASSO
Hidden in asPIC AS SOme

2 Gather it’s petition time (5)
PLEAT
PLEA [petition] + T [time

3 Pages split by plastic replica documents holder (5,4)
PAPER CLIP
PP [pages] round an anagram [plastic] of REPLICA

4 Company “C” is in prime, which is dandy (7)
PEACOCK
CO C [Company “C”] in PEAK [prime]

5 Guardian‘s sugar snaps (5)
ARGUS
Anagram [snaps] of SUGAR
There’s a nice link with the previous clue: Argus was the herdsman set by Hera to watch Io. When he was killed by Hermes, she transferred his hundred eyes to the tail of the peacock, her sacred bird.

6 Who has lots of spirit, yet in dire trouble (9)
DISTILLER
STILL [yet] in an anagram [trouble] of DIRE

7 A head of uncompleted major space project (6)
APOLLO
A POLL [a head] + O[f]

8 Compact goods yard (6)
STOCKY
STOCK [goods] + Y [yard]

14 As a radical on the outside, Mo relaxed badly (9)
EXODERMAL
Anagram [badly] of MO RELAXED – a nice surface for ‘the outer cortex layer of a root’

16 Sulphur once providing lips with hue (9)
BRIMSTONE
BRIMS [lips] + TONE [hue]
The archaic name for sulphur, as in the biblical ‘fire and brimstone’ and the Victorian remedy, brimstone and treacle, which my grandma used to speak of

18 Buzz gets permit for lock (7)
RINGLET
RING [buzz] + LET [permit]

19 Is a donor complete, given love directions? (6)
ENDOWS
END [complete] + O [love] + W S [directions]

20 Working to break demo ruler (7)
MONARCH
ON [working] in MARCH [demo]

21 Odd bit of canal that’s turned? (6)
OFFCUT
OFF [turned – like milk] + CUT [canal[]

23 Common former leader (5)
HEATH
Double definition

25 Cyclist‘s condition? (5)
RIDER
Double definition: a rider is an additional statement, which could be conditional, hence the question mark

41 comments on “Guardian 26,392 / Brummie”

  1. Thanks Brummie and Eileen

    Yes – I thought “add-ons” and “what an awful clue”. Fortunately 1d was obvious, preventing me from writing in the error.

    Several obscure words here, though fairly clued. PHAEDRA was my favourite; GISMO was my LOI.

    29a is the second clue recently where we are invited to change the first letter, but what to isn’t directly indicated. New paradigm?

  2. Thanks Eileen and Brummie.

    Lots of butterflies hidden here.
    Argus, Brimstone, Comma, Copper, Heath, Monarch, Peacock, Ringlet

  10. I’m not sure metonymic is the same as symbolic, but 29a seems close enough for present purposes.

    The butterflies all flitted past me unnoticed.

    Thanks, Brummie and Eileen.

  13. Was stuck on 7d for ages, it’s only now that I see that I’d messed up the anagram fodder in 4 and had PHAEDRE. There’s me thinking how clever I was. Oh well.

    Missed all the butterflies.

  14. Then there is the epigram of Oscar Wilde… he had gone on the Stock Exchange for six months; but what was a butterfly to do among the bulls and bears?

  15. Thanks, Eileen.

    Enjoyable puzzle from Brummie, which didn’t give me too much trouble this morning. The NE quadrant was the last to yield.

    KIBBLE was new to me, but the clue led there ineluctably. I couldn’t parse 29a as I mistakenly thought ‘symbolic home’ was EARTH; I agree with muffin @1 that having to change a letter of a synonym to provide the answer to a clue is unusual, although curtailment of a synonym, by removing the first or last letter, is relatively common.

    Having finished the puzzle I searched in vain for Ninas, having been caught out yesterday and remembering that Brummie often hides things in his crosswords, but I eventually netted the Lepidoptera, with great relief.

  16. Yes I came up with add-ons and could not parse it, Then I came up with pop-ups and still couldn’t parse it. Thanks for the explanation, Eileen.

    While I’m at it, Thanks Eileen for your clear style (with definitions underlined). I notice a few other bloggers use a similar style. So Thanks also to flashling, scchua, PeterO and Bridgesong. Apologies to any bloggers who use this style that I have missed. I wish more bloggers would adopt it.

    I must admit I LOVE scchua’s picture quizzes. (despite the fact that I disagreed with one of his (/her) associations (MSG and Chinese Restaurant Syndrome) recently.

  21. A lot of time spent to set this one I would think. But there are a lot of stretches in the clues where we are invited to accept liberties. There are some Guardianisms (yes I accept that these are used consciously, and not really mistakes per se, just bad style institutionalised!), but there are some well-written clues.

  23. John @22: Unlike some other noun/adjective pairs, such as principle/principal, which are still distinguished, the adjectival form ‘radical’ has taken over the nounal function as well – starting first in the 19th century in the political sense, and more recently in chemical and biological contexts. ‘Radicle’ is still possible as a noun meaning ‘root(let)’ but is never used for the politician – and Brummie needed the ambiguity for the surface.

  25. groan again, there is a distillers butterfly valve, and pop up butterfly cards, and stocky people have to use a butterfly guard in martial arts….

  26. ….the book “Butterfly Rider : a Biker’s Year Long Search for Butterflies” by Christopher Klein… think I am going to be banned from fifteensquared.

  27. Enjoyed this a lot, and found it fairly challenging and educational. KIBBLE and CROSSBILL (my last two in) were unfamiliar but guessable, and I wasn’t familiar with the mythology of PHAEDRA and ARGUS (though both were familiar as album titles of the mid 70s). Liked COMMA, TALL HAT and DISTILLER. Missed the butterfly link.

    Thanks to Brummie and Eileen

  28. I also had add ons. I enjoyed this but relied on Eileen for some parsing. Thank you. Unusually I finished before the post. I am sure this is NOT due to my genius!

  30. I’m another with Add-ons at 1ac. Whizzed through (most of) the rest except NW until the penny dropped with a clang. Butterflies fluttered by unnoticed I’m sorry to say. But still enjoyed the variety and inventiveness. Thanks Brummie (posted from Edgbaston).

  31. Eileen, thanks for the blog.
    15ac, ‘bl’ is the singular of ‘bbl’.
    bbl is the oil-industry abbreviation for barrels (of 40 US gallons each).
    I thought everyone knew that!

  32. Well, I’ve learnt a lot today. Mostly about butterflies but also the word RADICLE which makes EXODERMAL make sense. The latter was my last in and I thought 14DNA a weak clue until coming here.
    Despite all that I thought this very enjoyable.
    Thanks Brummie

  34. Thanks again Brummie and Eileen. I have made an awful nuisance of myself on this page today, probably some of the “butterflies” I dug up weren’t meant by Brummie at all. It is lucky Pee Dee wasn’t blogging, though in truth the clues are so cleverly subtle I don’t think he could have objected.

  35. Hi All

    I’ve been out since mid-morning, so thanks for all the contributions in the meantime.

    Feeling a bit silly at not spotting the butterflies, especially since I’ve always known that COMMA was, rather strangely, one, and having made a connection between ARGUS and PEACOCK myself. I do know several of them but don’t think Brummie was stretching the boundaries as far as some here would have it. 😉

    Hi John Appleton @13

    My sympathies: you were simply thinking Racine[ish] rather than Euripides. 😉

    And Hi Kevin @16

    ADD-ONS parses perfectly: anagram [dancing] of DAD and SON – it’s just the definition that’s rubbish. 😉

  38. I really enjoyed this puzzle. Count me as another who confidently entered ADD-ONS at 1ac while thinking “strange definition”. I then tried to make any of the first three downs works, and when 3dn was so obviously PAPER CLIP I revisited 1ac, saw the correct answer and how it was parsed, and fleshed out the rest of the NW very quickly much like Eileen did. However, I completely missed the butterfly theme. I found the LHS much easier than the RHS, and I finished in the SE with SARIN after BRIMSTONE once I’d entered the unknown/unremembered KIBBLE.

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