Guardian 26,912 – Brendan

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When I blogged Brendan’s last puzzle I didn’t expect to have the pleasure of doing another one just over two weeks later. However, today’s date is significant, especially to an Irishman…

…16 June being Bloomsday, so the puzzle celebrates JAMES JOYCE’S ULYSSES, which features LEOPOLD BLOOM and his HOMERian odyssey around DUBLIN, during which he meets STEPHEN Dedalus before returning to his wife MOLLY, who uses lots of YESSES in the long soliloquy that ends the book. There are also some more tenuous connections with IRISHISMS, ULSTER and SINBAD (he and Odysseus/Bloom perhaps being kinds of NOMADS). A brilliant composition – thanks again to Brendan.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. NOMADS Signs agreement enclosing minute area for itinerants (6)
M + A in NODS
4. LIBERTY Terribly mistreated, without one right or freedom (7)
TERRIBLY* less one of its Rs
9. VALENTINO Film star getting short romantic missive with love (9)
VALENTIN[E] + O. This also appeared as an answer in Brendan’s last puzzle (clued then as “Old movie idol opposed to drink and to inn, oddly“)
10. JAMES Royalty for author (5)
Double definition: one of two British kings, or six Scottish), and Henry James
11. JOYCE Female caught between happiness and ecstasy (5)
C in JOY + E
12. ELOQUENCE Without question, one clue needs revising — key is good use of language (9)
Q in (ONE CLUE)* + E (musical key)
15. DUBLIN Zero return after call for capital (6)
DUB (to call) + reverse of NIL
17. WRETCH Heartless war and the like, hard for unfortunate person (6)
W[a]R + ETC + H
19,13,25. ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT President initially not differing from United States government (7,7,5)
He has the same initials as United States Government.. Grant claimed that his middle initial didn’t stand for anything, but Simpson was his mother’s maiden name
22. IRISHISMS Flag that man’s writing for ethnic idioms (9)
IRIS (flag) + HIS + MS
24. ANGLE Perspective provided by early European immigrant (5)
Double definition
26. BLOOM Flower‘s sudden growth around lake (5)
L in BOOM. In cryptic clues, sometimes a flower is a flower
27. OVERREACH Concerning resistance to a head, try to be too clever (9)
OVER (concerning) + R + EACH (a head)
28. DESTROY Ruin of the French city of Paris (7)
DES (French “of the”) + TROY
29. PLATEN Part of press immersed in scoop — late news (6)
Hidden in scooP LATE News
Down
1. NAVAJOS In that way, Asian islander upset Indians (7)
Reverse of SO JAVAN
2. MOLLY After short time, lines put over end of dinghy producing fish (5)
MO (short time) + LL + [dingh]Y. Perhaps a rather obscure definition – it’s a genus of fish from the Americas – but it’s clearly clued. Molly Bloom’s name is probably a reference to the magic herb Moly, which was given to Odysseus to protect him from the magic of Circe
3. DINNER SET Innovative resident introducing new service for consumers (6,3)
N in RESIDENT*
4. LEOPOLD Liberal American writer upset former European monarch (7)
L + reverse of POE+ OLD – one of three Belgian kings, and other lesser royalty
5. BIJOU Finishes off big job you pronounced a gem (5)
BI[g] JO[b] + U (“you, pronounced”)
6. ROMANTICS Narcotism, in altered state, for such as Coleridge (9)
NARCOTISM* , with a nice surface reading: Coleridge’s Kubla Khan was famously inspired by an opium-induced dream
7. YESSES Votes for unknown characters from central Russia (6)
Y (unknown) + ESSES, the central characters of ruSSia
8. PIGEON Hog a lot of time as 23 (6)
PIG + EON
14. MYRMIDONS Run into my position in field with small force Achilles led (9)
R in MY MID-ON (fielding position in cricket) + S[mall] . The Myrmidons were warriors led by Achilles in Homer’s Iliad
16. BAY LAUREL Bush, as graduate, really confused about university (3,6)
BA + U in REALLY*
18. HISTORY Account of events showing husband is right (7)
H IS TORY
19. ULSTER Irish quarter in turmoil as result (6)
RESULT*
20. STEPHEN King who has feast after Christmas? (7)
Twelfth-century king of England; and St Stephen’s Day is 26 December, aka the Feast of Stephen, as in Good King Wenceslas
21. SINBAD Sailor‘s laconic moral statement (6)
SIN [is] BAD
23. HOMER Animated 13‘s all-round achievement as striker (5)
Double definition – do I really need to link to this one?, and a home run in baseball, which involves the striker going all round the field

51 comments on “Guardian 26,912 – Brendan”

  1. Thanks for a great blog, Andrew.

    This was a puzzle waiting to happen, I think, and who better than Brendan to present it? A brilliant composition indeed: bravo, Brendan – and many thanks. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

  2. Thanks Brendan and Andrew, I enjoyed the theme despite knowing very little about it. I was initially annoyed about having to guess USG’s middle name with no wordplay to help, but then found that the cross reference in 23d works as confirmation, which is neat.

  3. There were also references to HOMER and the Trojan war: ACHILLES, MYRMIDONS, ULYSSES; and to HOMER SIMPSON, perhaps?

    Thanks Andrew and Brendan.

    Found this slow to start, but very enjoyable once I got going.

  5. If we had the Tour de France yesterday, it was a tour de force today. To get so many Joyceisms, and all the related spin-offs, into the grid with barely an obscurity is a joy to behold.

    Another unmissable theme, even for me. And it did help: MOLLY led to LEOPOLD and I immediately went looking for BLOOM. I didn’t quite get the parsing of YESSES, but I knew it had to be right. Bravo Brendan.

  6. Sinbad the sailor, Jinbad the jailor etc occurs in the text,
    I think MOLLY got covered in this blog but also

    “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake”

    A brilliant use of a sort of multi-theme covering Joyce, Homer, Simpson, Ulysses etc etc

    Everything a Joyce fan could hope for.

    Great puzzle and well blogged (and commented on)

  7. I did wonder why there were occasional Irish references, but despite a) being Irish and b) having read Ulysses in the past year, I forgot that today was Bloomsday and completely missed the Joycean subtext. As Homer would say, “Doh” 🙂

  8. I took 20 to be a reference to American horror author Stephen King. Don’t know if this was Brendan’s original intent but it worked for me.

    Thanks Brendan and Andrew.

  9. I liked MYRMIDONS.

    I failed to solve IRISHISMS and could not parse 9/13/25, 20d, 21d.

    Thanks Brendan and blogger.

  10. You always hope for a treat when you see Brendan’s name and this one was wonderful.

    Thanks to him for a great themed crossword and to lucky Andrew who got to blog it.

  11. Thanks Brendan & Andrew.

    Brilliant setting to get in so many related words, although I didn’t know about Bloomsday.

    No doubt something similar has been done before but I did like HISTORY.

  12. Thank you Brendan and Andrew.

    A great puzzle. I did not know about BLOOMSDAY either.

    After entering MOLLY and DUBLIN I started looking for Malone, but with no luck; apparently June 13 was Molly Malone Day. Then JOYCE went in and I got suspicious, then JAMES, with ULYSSES soon following from the crossers.

  13. I loved this, even though (shame on me!) I didn’t spot the theme.

    I did love HISTORY, although it is well known that in a properly functioning marriage, the husband is never right! (Unless, I suppose, your household is like mine; I’ve mentioned before that I have a husband, who is always right.)

    Also gratifying to see the “striker” be a baseball player (cleverly disguised as a cricketer). It’s worth noting (given the way that clue is written) that one of the many sports-announcer-isms for a home run is a “round trip.”

  14. Not recognising the date, I missed the theme too. I really am very bad at spotting them. When I do see them I often find them irritating but, as this was so enjoyable without recognising the theme and probably would have been even more so if I had, I have no complaint at all this time. My favourites include ELOQUENCE, DESTROY and SINBAD.

    Thanks, Brendan and Andrew.

  15. “Striker” is not a baseball term. The player with the bat is the batter, who may hit a homer (good) or may strike out (bad).

  16. Thanks to Brendan and Andrew. Very clever and lots of fun. I was slow getting MOLLY because I started with “moray,” but I got MYRMIDONS quickly and for once recognized a cricket term (mid-ons).

  17. I could quibble that 10a is not at all unambiguous (HENRY would certainly be a valid answer, and QUEEN probably works too), but once you catch on that it’s Joyce-themed, that clue becomes a write-in. I’d always heard that the S. in U.S.G. stood for Sam(uel) – as in Uncle Sam. Either could be true, since the initial was originally just a mistake on his army recruitment form, apparently. Wonderful puzzle, thanks Andrew for the blog.

  18. Many many thanks to Brendan for an absolutely wonderful puzzle based on one of my favourite books. And thanks to Andrew for several insights, especially MYRMIDONS which I did not know but worked out from the wordplay. I really enjoyed the YESSES of ecstasy from Molly’s last soliloquy!! This was I imagine a labour of love for Brendan and we are all in his debt!!

  19. I had wondered whether — seeing as it was Bloomsday — there might be some reference to Ulysses. When I saw it was my namesake I wondered no more. Enjoyable, even if no mention of the faintly scented tang of urine.

  20. Perhaps of interest, ULYSSES was first published as a book in PARIS, and clue 28a is followed by PLATEN – probably coincidence.

  21. Enjoyed this a lot after a bit of a slow start, no problems with any of the themed references. Liked MYRMIDONS, IRISHISMS was last in.

    Thanks to Brendan and Andrew

  22. Dan Milton @15: true. But the batter quite literally strikes at the ball, making him a striker. This also is intentionally misleading: the clue is written to sound like cricket instead of baseball.

    No one calls rivers “flowers” either, but we all accept that one.

  23. Brilliant puzzle and a theme which I got quite early in the proceedings so this was an extremely enjoyable solve. I didn’t know this was Bloomsday but, in the event, this didn’t matter. I got MYRMIDONS from the Achilles reference and didn’t go into the clue further. IRISHISMS was LOI.
    Best of the week so far!
    Thanks Brendan.

  24. For Schroduck @17 and others

    Even if we accept that James is the required answer, how many of you thought of E L James, author of Fifty Shades of Grey and its sequels?

    Ulysses S. Grant was born Hiram Ulysses Grant and my searches could not find any reference to a middle name starting with S. Can anyone provide a reference?

    Thanks to Brendan and Andrew

  25. Forgot to say “and we should” accept James as the correct answer given the theme and the crossers

  26. I’m sure Ive seen Molly in a few crosswords, so not that obscure to the intended audience. Hard luck beginners though.

    This

    “When Grant was 17, Congressman Thomas L. Hamer nominated him to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. Hamer mistakenly wrote down the name as “Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio”, and this became his adopted name”

    comes from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_S._Grant

    so to say he claimed the S stood for nothing is probably wrong. It looks like he was actually stating a fact. His mother’s maiden name has undoubtedly led many to guess, but those guesses seem to have no foundation. So strictly speaking one might say the clue was wrong, but as we all solved it that may be a bit harsh.

  27. Re Myrmidons. I had mid-on as position + s for small, not positions. Really enjoyed this and the blog. Thanks all.

  28. Thanks Brendan and Andrew
    A real triumph to create such a clever themed and inter-related puzzle without making it impossibly obscure – in fact it all went in quite easily. I did tentatively enter QUEEN at 10a, as Schroduck suggested, but BIJOU soon proved it wrong.

  29. Mollies are very popular aquarium fish, especially the Black MOLLY, many people must know them even if they have never had an aquarium themselves.

  30. I was a bit worried about the americanised aeon in 8d and looked it up in the OED, where it is spelled ‘eon’ in the quotation:

    1916 J. Joyce Portrait of Artist iii. 152 That eon of time the mere thought of which makes our very brain reel dizzily.

    Fancy!

  31. Grandpapatee @27
    Oh, I’d missed that in Andrew’s blog. I also parsed it as MID-ON + Small. The clue says “position”, singular, and the blog parsing doesn’t explain the inclusion of “small”.

  34. jennyk @31 and Grandpapatee @27

    I missed that in the blog, too, having parsed it as you did. I’d bet my life that that’s the way Andrew originally parsed it, too – I know only too well how, in the process of parsing, these things happen. 😉

  35. I meant ‘in the process of blogging’, not parsing – i.e. the gap between solving and writing up /posting the blog.

  36. What a brilliant puzzle. Thanks Brendan and Andrew. I too tried to find any evidence for USG’s middle name – my conclusions were much as Derek’s.

  37. This is very late (I have just returned home after two days away), but I just wanted to record my huge appreciation of this crossword, which gave me a lot of enjoyment today. I especially liked the interplay between the themes. I didn’t see much of the Joyce theme, not having read his works, but my appreciation of the puzzle did not depend on that anyway.

    28A (DESTROY) was my favourite clue.

    Many thanks to Brendan and Andrew.

  38. Glad I got round to doing this. Not only is Ulysses one of my favourite books, US Grant is my favourite American Civil War general. (Really. I have several biographies of him around the house.) And in her final monologue, Molly Bloom recalls seeing Grant on his visit to Gibraltar when she was a young girl.

    And has anyone mentioned yet, wrt 18dn, Stephen Daedulus’s line “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake”?

  39. It is very hard to do justice to Joyce in criticism or comment, since we seem only to be at the near edge of understanding the two monumental works – especially FW, the masterpiece. And the Guardian’s crossword today did not engage at any point with either of these. This grid merely shows that the compiler knows something about Ulysses, and as such does not really satisfy even where the clues are fair and good.

    I appreciate that virtually no-one knows this stuff, but it would have been nice to receive a nod, as it were, to scholarship somewhere in this puzzle.

  40. I found the discussion of Grant’s name fascinating. My Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language published in 1946 gives “Ulysses Simpson Grant” as his name, period, as does the online New Oxford American Dictionary on my computer.

    I fail to understand the point of Isolde’s exanimation of my puzzle.

  41. Isolde @39 appears to be auditioning for “Pseuds Corner”. (As well as writing claptrap)

    I also note that posters on here seem to be becoming obsessed with “Themes”, lauding a puzzle whose cluing was in parts very loose and perhaps a little too easy.

    Of course I’m just an old grump 😉

  42. This late, late post may not be seen by many, but BNTO’s comment on ‘Themes’ prompted me to post some of my thoughts on themes in crosswords on the little-used General Discussion page (no. 117). My enjoyment of today’s puzzle, by the way, did not depend on the theme(s), but the interplay on James Joyce, Ulysses and Simpson very much added to it.

  44. Isolde @39 cannot have read Andrew’s introduction. The puzzle celebrates JAMES JOYCE’s ULYSSES, June 16th being Bloomsday. This day is now observed in many parts of the world.

  46. Perhaps Isolde @39 is confusing crosswords with literary criticism. If a puzzle is football or cricket themed, I don’t expect to see critiques of team tactics. If the theme is classical music, I don’t expect to see detailed comparison of one composer to another. If I wanted to extend my (very limited) understanding of Joyce’s work or discuss its deeper meanings, I wouldn’t come to the crossword page.

  47. I parsed the definition of 2d as “producing fish” as Molly Malone was a purveyor of shellfish and I didn’t know there is a fish called Molly.
    Thanks to Brendan and Andrew.

  50. Thanks Andrew and Brendan.

    I’ve never read any Joyce but seem to have learnt a lot about his books from crosswords over the years – seems to be a regular theme.

    So a relatively quick solve and only needed to check PLATEN – new word for me but clearly clued – and the S of Ulysses S Grant (the adopted administrative error apparently).

    Is that where Harry S Truman got the idea I wonder?

  51. Thanks Brendan and Andrew

    Always enjoy this setter’s theme-based puzzles – they are not the hardest set of clues going around, but always fair to work through. Sort of got that something Irish was going on and JAMES JOYCE was in the mix – haven’t heard of Bloomsday nor read his work – so the details of the theme passed me by. Can still nod in appreciation once that it had all been explained though !

    Did not know MYRMIDONS before but was gettable from the wordplay and a check up on M’s Wiki to see what they were. That was my second to last in, which left SINBAD as last.

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