Brockwell provides the Thursday challenge
It’s eighteen months since my last blog of a Brockwell puzzle (apart from last year’s Summer Special Jumbo) – and I see that I prefaced that one with ‘It’s over a year since I last blogged a puzzle by Brockwell’) and so I was delighted when this one landed in my lap.
From the beginning, I was, as usual, on the alert for a theme and, after solving the third and fourth clues PAUL and THE BEATLES, I thought I’d found it, especially when JOHN, RINGO and GEORGE emerged, along with a reference to Pete Best in the clue for 12ac – but that was all I could see. It was only when I got to 3dn BEETLE that, as I should have known, it became obvious that there was a lot more to it than that. In my research into the various types of beetle, I learned that there are about 350,000 species worldwide, making up 40% of all insects, so there was plenty of scope, even for Brockwell! It was only a couple of days ago that I commented, on the Indy blog, how we often remark here that almost anything can be the name of a band, font or whatever. It was a case of checking every single entry and being surprised at how many beetles I’d never heard of – lots of fun! Knowing Brockwell’s brilliance at wringing every last drop from a theme, I’m sure there are probably more tucked away and I look forward to your discoveries.
There’s just one piece of parsing (14ac) that I can’t work out, so my thanks in advance for your help (which came very quickly – please see comments 1 and 2. (I would have preferred this to be a Prize puzzle (it’s certainly worthy) to give more time for pennies to drop and for more research.) I haven’t listed my many ticks – I’ll leave you to name your favourites.
Many thanks to Brockwell for a rather stiffer than usual challenge – enjoyable as ever!
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
7 Wrestler’s trick with bad acne (4,4)
JOHN CENA – here’s the wrestler
JOHN (trick – both slang for a prostitute’s client) + an anagram (bad) of ACNE
9 Small opening in Gogglebox you once rejected (6)
EYELET
A reversal (rejected) of TELE(vision) (gogglebox) + YE (you once)
10 Sample from Lulu apparently repulsed my colleague (4)
PAUL
Hidden reversal (repulsed) in luLUAPparently – for non-regular Guardian solvers, Paul sets puzzles for the paper
11 Musicians performing late in ancient city (3,7)
THE BEATLES
An anagram (performing) of LATE in THEBES (ancient city)
12 Stuff clinging to the back of Pete Best? (6)
GEORGE
GORGE (stuff) round [pet]E – reference to legendary footballer George Best
14 Militant going into business with John Denver here (8)
COLORADO
???
Please see comments 1 and 2
15 Ducks once more coming back for rest (6)
SPIDER
A reversal (coming back) of REDIPS (ducks once more) – a spider is a snooker rest
17 German band love Foreigner, but not in a nice way (6)
GRINGO
G (German) + RING (band) + O (love)
20 Child cuddling cross monster (8)
MINOTAUR
MINOR (child) round TAU (cross)
22 Every year songbirds going west over the hill (4,2)
PAST IT
PA (per annum – every year) + a reversal (going west) of TITS (songbirds)
23 Ground doesn’t vex a Manchester United manager (4,6)
DAVE SEXTON
An anagram (ground) of DOESN’T VEX A
24 Put on endless party (4)
STAG
STAG[e] (put on)
25 Prime minister’s note opened by billionaire (6)
MELONI
ME (note) + LONI (Love – billionaire)
Much better is MI (note) around ELON (billionaire) – see comments 5 and 6
26 Number 19 nailing 501 (8)
CARDINAL
CARNAL (erotic – answer to 19 dn) round D (500) +I (501)
Down
1 Imposing women arrange bets (8)
DOWAGERS
DO (arrange – as in ‘doing’ one’s hair?) + WAGERS (bets)
2 Particular canine abandoned by waterway (4)
ANAL
[c]ANAL (waterway) minus c (abbreviation for canine in dentistry)
3 Car rentals regularly in competition (6)
BEETLE
rEnTaLs in BEE (competition)
4 Derisive remark about my Picasso? (8)
JEWELLER
JEER (derisive remark) round WELL (my, as an exclamation)
5 Fruit recipe stopping tennis ace going bananas (10)
NECTARINES
R (recipe) in an anagram (going bananas) of TENNIS ACE
6 Top ambassador interrupting ball (6)
BEHEAD
HE (His/her Excellency – ambassador) in BEAD (ball)
8 Means business (6)
AGENCY
Double definition
13 One who may charge money around statue (10)
RHINOCEROS
RHINO (slang for money) + C (around) + EROS (mistakenly named statue in Piccadilly Circus)
16 3 characters in hotel ate ridiculously (8)
ELATERID
Hidden in hotEL ATE RIDiculously – the answer to 3dn is BEETLE
18 Islander’s fine home about to get washed out (8)
OKINAWAN
OK (fine) + IN (home) + A (about – in Chambers) + WAN (washed out)
19 Blue Ivy Carter initially supports Beyonce’s latest nonsense (6)
EROTIC
[beyonc]E + ROT (nonsense) + I[vy] C[arter] – Blue Ivy Carter is Beyonce’s daughter
21 Console gutted Modigliani over pictures (6)
IMAGES
A reversal (over) of SEGA (console) + M[odiglian]I
22 Long track in evergreen forest (6)
PINERY
PINE (long) + RY (railway track)
24 The Sun ringing Brockwell for dirt (4)
SOIL
SOL (the Sun) round I (Brockwell)
I think 14 ac is: RAD inserted in COLOO – Business with John = CO + LOO, and I think RAD is short for Radical (Militant).
Thanks Eileen
Thanks Eileen
Two great puzzles in a row after yesterday’s Fed. I’m always a big Brockwell fan!
I had 14A as CO (business) plus RAD (militant – radical?) in LOO (John, a different slang usage of the name).
Crossed with crispy @#1 – the danger of verbosity…
For the first time in ages, I was completely defeated by this one, despite seeing the theme. NHO John Cena or elaterid, had forgotten about the Sega console, and didn’t know there was a jeweller called Picasso. Dave Sexton was also only a distant memory for me.
And there is a Colorado beetle.
I think MELONI is MI (note) around ELON (Musk, billionaire)
Thanks Brockwell and Eileen!
I parsed 14a COLORADO
Militant going into business with John Denver here (8)
‘rad’ for militant going inside Co (business) + loo (John – (American?) slang for toilet)
I parsed 25a Prime minister’s note opened by billionaire (6)
MELONI
as the note ‘mi’ around Elon [Musk] for billionaire.
Ornette @4 – COLORADO is highlighted as a beetle in the blog.
Willbar @5 and Bruce @6 – many thanks! I wasn’t at all happy with that. Blog amended now.
I looked at 7a, thought “the second word is probably CANE”, put it in, checked, then tried CENA. A word search found JOHN CENA. Who he? I threw it away at that point!
We had BEETLE as a car yesterday.
14a, business = co, john = loo, militant = rad(ical). So – co lo rad o
Thanks to both.
MELONI is MI (a note) around ELON (a billionaire)
Did not particularly like RHINO for money, especially since the answer is RHINOCEROS – seemed duplicative.
Corky @9 – the blog has been amended. Please see comments 5, 6 and 7.
Very hard for me with lots of vowels as crossers, but an admirable puzzle which reminds me of JBS Haldane’s alleged reply to the theologian who asked him what his study of Creation had taught him about God. “The Creator has an inordinate fondness for beetles”
Petert @12.
🙂
Curate’s egg.
Very upset with Brockwell for clueing DAVE SEXTON as a Man U manager, when his greatest year was taking QPR to the top of the first division in 76/77, only to be pipped by Liverpool on the last day. Apart from that, this was as enjoyable as ever. I got PAUL and THE BEATLES straight away so smugly thought this is the theme. However, as Eileen rightly points out, there is such depth to his crosswords, that you can’t take your eye off the ball, so big kudos for spotting the main theme. EROTIC is just brilliant.
Ta Brockwell & Eileen for a brilliant blog.
In spite of getting both sides to the theme early on, I still found this hard (much more so than would be normal for me with this setter), although on reflection I can’t quite see why as I eventually managed to fully parse everything satisfactorily.
NHO John Cena, Dave Sexton or Paloma Picasso, though no doubt they will be familiar names to some. Also nho elaterid beetle, although that is written out in the clue, so it had to be that.
Thanks, Eileen for explaining why a lot of the answers I came up with as being the only thing that worked were actually parseable (is that a word?), just not by me.
That was prize level tough. NHO Paloma Picasso which meant 4D was unparsed. Theme helped to get 12A GEORGE. Thanks to Eileen for the blog.
[AlanC@15, I thought he was more successful as a Chelsea manager ?]
Thoroughly enjoyable.
I found this to be very tough. More than half of the crossers are vowels, and more than a quarter are Es. Is that a lot? It seemed like it when I was solving.
Spotting the theme helped with 12ac – but it took me far far too long to click why GEORGE = “Best?’ D’oh!
[SimoninBxl @19: you’re absolutely right, it was a tongue in cheek remark about my team being overlooked in crossword land, and probably rightly so 😉].
Had to resort to the reveal button more than once, as I’ve never heard of the jeweller, nor of the ELATERID, which to boot is not in Chambers.
I might have done better had I recalled Brockwell loves his themes. As it was I failed dismally, with many reveals that still left me puzzled, so thanks Eileen and others for explaining. Far too hard for me this morning.
George Best was known as ‘El Beatle’ in Spain, so another nod to the theme in the clue. I share other’s experience of finding this difficult with minimal help from the crossers. The theme, once spotted, helped a lot though I didn’t spot every reference in the end. Had to Google CENA to find out who he was. I also had to dredge up the memory of Dave Sexton, despite being a supporter. A largely forgettable period for the team. I liked COLORADO for getting John Denver in the clue. Thanks to Brockwell and to Eileen for her extensive beetle research.
DNF for me as JEWELLER proved a bridge too far. Also had ‘DRINGO’ for some inexplicable reason. I put it down to a fit of the fuddles. Or perhaps tiredness had set in. Was pleased to get DAVE SEXTON, ELATERID and JOHN CENA just from the wordplay. I didn’t know any of them. Plus I spotted (half the) theme for once! And that helped with JOHN. So overall rather satisfied in fact 🙂
A = ‘about’? Really? Chambers is so bizarre. How on earth did it become established as the crossworders’ reference dictionary?
Well thanks for clearing that one up Eileen. Didn’t get off on the right foot with Brockwell after mistakenly entering a fairly plausible HIGH SPOT for 7a and throwing up in my mouth a little at 10a. DAVE SEXTON and Paloma PICASSO a little before my time too.
And can a Sega really just be a console? It’d be like calling a Playstation a Sony…
I got in my own way with 26ac. I was, for a while fixated on the old trick of ‘number’ = ‘anaesthetic’.
I case of being too clever for my own good.
Didn’t know JOHN CENA (and I have had a sheltered enough life for john=trick to escape me too). Didn’t know Picasso’s daughter was a JEWELLER (though her dad did a bit in that line himself). Had to Google to confirm DAVE SEXTON and the ELATERID beetle (which was at least fully present in the clue). Couldn’t parse COLORADO. Other people will have different lists of unknowns today, but there was a LOT of GK required so kudos to anyone who knew all of it.
Enjoyable double theme, which helped with GEORGE. Favourite clues among many: THE BEATLES, GRINGO and the neat little SOIL – all for nice surfaces.
Defeated by my lack of knowledge (too many NHOs to list, e.g. sega for console, john cena, blue meaning erotic, prime minister meloni, spider as a snooker rest, etc; I googled Man U managers). However, I stuck with it, and with help of google and checking letters I got there in the end. Never heard of most of the beetles, either, but the other beatles are known to me :-). I needed this blog for a few parsings, so thank you Eileen, and thanks Brockwell for a challenging puzzle while nervously waiting for my PhD student’s viva to finish (still waiting at this moment)
Another tough Crossword today, which I didn’t manage to complete – JOHN CENA, who he?
However I do remember that when we did a topic on The Home Front during WW2 at my primary school, parents of the children, those who remembered those times as children themselves, came up with some fascinating stories. One dad told us how as a little boy he was playing Sexton Blake with a friend out in the countryside. Suddenly another little boy appeared from seemingly nowhere, having overheard their game and announced by the way that he was a Sexton too, DAVID SEXTON. Sounds rather far fetched, but true…
JOHN CENA was my first one in. I don’t watch wrestling, but I do watch films and this guy really is pretty famous these days. NB. I’m not suggesting everyone should have heard of him. I hadn’t heard of some of the coleoptera. The only total blind spot was ELATERID; however, it was written out in full, was rewarding to look up and confirmed to me that we had a theme that, for once with Brockwell, I had the sense to look out for. It helped with STAG and COLORADO. I was very pleased with myself for spotting RHINOCEROS quite quickly. The use of RHINO for money is 100% confined to my cruciverbal life.
I found this hard, but I fully parsed it in the end. I would have been a bit quicker if I’d thought about the, arguably more obvious, BEATLES aspect of the theme.
Thanks, Brockwell and Eileen.
Spent way too long over this and, having finished it, can’t thing why. All perfectly fair.
A tough week so far, perhaps well get light duties tomorrow.
I know (the names of) plenty of current and recent football managers, but DAVE SEXTON was before I paid much attention to the sport. I’ve never paid any attention to wrestling, but knew CENA as a particularly muscular actor. His Wikipedia page is as long as your arm, if not longer, btw.
Otherwise, quite good fun. Parsing of COLORADO was the trickiest. Faves NECTARINES and EROTIC.
Tx!
I don’t know why a dowager is imposing: the word simply indicates the widow of a peer or baronet whose successor has married.
I also have a quibble about 18D, “A” for “about”. This seems to me to be the weakest example to date of “it’s in Chambers” as a justification. I don’t recall ever seeing this abbreviation in the wild. Perhaps we should just throw in the towel and allow absolutely any word to be reduced to its first letter without further indication.