Guardian 26,097 by Brummie

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November the fifth and Brummie is playing games with us….

Quite a lot of the answers are card games, found this a little tricky in places. I’m off now to set up and blow up a firework display so won’t be around much to fix any errors.

Anyway a parting firework link, this is a Waterfall.

 

This what happens when you store too many of them…oops

 

 

Across
1 BRIDGE Second-rate pre-watershed link (6)
B & RIDGE watershed, pre seems to be just a link word, card game.
4 WEIMAR Old republic‘s sport one’s gripped by (6)
I’M = One’s in WEAR
9 CRIB Wood-turning not hard to copy (4)
BIRC(h) rev Card game
10 IRRESOLUTE Leisure or time initially wasted sitting on the fence? (10)
[LEISURE OR T]*
11 STREAM Burn energy, conserving electrical resistance? (6)
R(esistance) in STEAM Burn as in small river
12 PATIENCE Broadcast treated people as an operatic creation (8)
Sounds like Patients, the opera also being the late lamented Bunthorne’s Bride. Card Game
13 NEWMARKET Current commercial opportunity meetings held here (9)
A new market and race course, also a card game
15 SNAP Eagerly take slates back (4)
PANS rev, card game
16 POGO Medical procedure having returned energy, have a spring in your step (4)
OP(eration) rev & GO
17 SOLITAIRE Diamond version of 12 (9)
Double def, solitiaire diamonds and a version of patience, card game
21 UNEDITED Large body: dieted desperately but no different (8)
United Nations & DIETED*
22 INCOME As my internal organs are firm on the inside, pay? (6)
CO(mpany) in IN ME
24 ROUSTABOUT Worker with fair, tortuous folds covering muscle (10)
AB (muscle) in TORTUOUS*
25 BRAG Game requiring two cups and small weight (4)
BRA ( 2 cups) & Gram. Card game
26 NOUGHT Nothing new, nothing old (6)
N(ew) & OUGHT
27 OCELOT Playing cello heartlessly to cat (6)
[CE(l)LO TO]*
Down
1 BURETTE Tube of butter spread with end of knife (7)
BUTTER* & (knif)E
2 IMBUE Squeezing bum roughly, that is to permeate (5)
BUM* in I.E.
3 GLIMMER Hint of good associated with northern rogue (7)
G(ood) & LIMMER ( a nothern UK thief)
5 ERSATZ Wonders at Zermatt housing fake (6)
Hidden answer
6 MILLENNIA Note modulating all nine periods (9)
MI (note) & [ALL NINE]*
7 RATE-CAP To highly regard a national player was to impose a limit in the old days (4-3)
RATE & CAP (Internaltional player)
8 PROPHET OF DOOM Oh, topper should be removed before loudly feeling up a pessimist (7,2,4)
[OH TOPPER]*  & F (loud) & MOOD rev
14 MOGADISHU Big city Persian, say, with gold-plated salver? (9)
MOG (cat) & DISH in AU
16 PONTOON Floating supporter quickly right away gets working (7)
R removed from P(r)ONTO & ON Card came
18 IDIOTIC Nuts impair delicate internal leads of the ear (7)
I(mpair) D(elicate) I(nternal) & OTIC
19 RAMPART Drive home and go off Embankment (7)
RAM & PART
20 ATTACH Fix sort of case that’s curtailed (6)
ATTACH(e)
23 CABAL Classes of society recruited by state political faction (5)
A/B (social classes) in CALifornia

22 comments on “Guardian 26,097 by Brummie”

  1. Thanks Brummie and flashling
    Quite tricky, and not all that much fun, I thought – SW proved particularly recalcitrant.
    I had nAught for 26ac. Chambers gives “ought” as “illiterate corruption of nought” – no irresolution there, then.
    What is the “big” doing in 14dn? The clue surely works without it. “Large body” for “UN” is a bit loose too.
    Favourite was INCOME.

    Co-incidentally my Captcha was 4-four!

  2. A number of very nice clues, but nothing too intimidating I thought. I got a bit mislead on the theme, being diverted by ‘bridge’ and ‘pontoon’. I’m not too sure about ‘watershed’ as a definition for ‘ridge’, but maybe it’s a usage with which I am not familiar. Altogether an enjoyable puzzle from a setter I always find entertaining.

  3. Thanks flashling. This took longer than usual but it’s toughness had a definite allure. Some nice clues, but GLIMMER forced me to seek outside help. Missed the mini-theme.

  5. Thanks flashling and Brummie. It was tougher than usual and we almost gave up before the theme came to our aid…
    With respect to 1ac, I thought that the pre- as well as indicating (unnecessarily) that the B came before ridge was to give a confusing surface for those in the UK, for whom pre-watershed indicates television programmes which are suitable for children to watch.

  6. Thanks Brummie and flashling. Much to enjoy here, with a nice minitheme.

    Couldn’t get ‘megapolis’ out of my head, which slowed things up a tad.

    I got used to ‘watershed’ meaning (pretty well) ‘ridge’ when walking the Pennine Way years ago. Close enough, I think.

    I too went for ‘naught’ but was aware from previous puzzles that the vowel in this area is up for grabs.

    ‘Limmer’ was new for me; always good to learn.

  9. Thanks, flashing.

    I enjoyed this a lot; I didn’t find it particularly easy. I was two thirds of the way through before I remembered Brummie’s fondness for hidden themes (I agree with rhotician: this can scarcely be described as ‘mini’). Spotting the card games did help to complete the puzzle.

    As a chemist, I’m ashamed at how long it took me to see BURETTE in *(BUTTER E). “Limmer’ was a new word for me, but I guessed the answer correctly and checked it.

    Favourite were STREAM, BRAG and MOGADISHU, though I agree with muffin @1 that ‘big’ isn’t really necessary in 14d (on the other hand, I was happy with ‘large body’ for UN, and it gave a good surface to the clue).

  10. Difficult to get going, but it steadily yielded.

    Thanks flashling; enjoy the bangs! The ‘big city’ might be a reference to (courtesy of Wiki): ‘By the time of the Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta’s appearance on the Somali coast in 1331, the city was at the zenith of its prosperity. He described Mogadishu as “an exceedingly large city”.’

    As well as the others mentioned above, I enjoyed PONTOON

  12. Thanks Brummie and flashling.

    Surely 9 themed solutions (or even 10 if you count CABAL counts as more than “mini”?

    Enjoyed this. Like dunsscotus I thought 14 had to be MEGA-something, so was held up for a while in the SE. ROUSTABOUT – great clue for a great word.

  13. Slow burner for bonfire night. Struggled to get going, missed the theme (doh!), unable to solve GLIMMER and STREAM. Liked MOGADISHU and PONTOON. I agree with muffin that ‘large body’ was a big leap to UN. Grudging respect to Brummie for the tough workout!

  14. A favourite solver of mine, and didn’t let me down, though it came quite quickly. Just as well as I struggled with his last Guardian effort and am one clue short on the current Private Eye. The theme didn’t dawn on me till far too late, though I’d used it to get the 12a/17a link.

    MOGADISHU an especially nice clue I thought.

  15. I always enjoy Brummie’s puzzles and this was no exception.

    I didn’t spot the theme but that didn’t hold me up. Although some of the clues felt tough I never thought I wasn’t going to get there in the end. Like a few of you I was looking for “mega” at the start of 14dn before the penny dropped, and I also didn’t know “limmer” but the answer seemed obvious enough with a couple of checkers in place. WEIMAR was my LOI, not because it was the most difficult clue, but because I couldn’t see it at the time I was completing the rest of the NE and I only went back to it after I had solved the rest of the puzzle.

  16. I thought this was first rate. Although I guessed WEIMAR I didn’t parse it in my allotted time.

    Generally harder than usual for Brummie by me I’d say, but good fun as ever.

    Thanks everyone.

  17. Hi rhotician at 7. Don’t have a formula, but was taking cue from those above me, where both ‘theme’ and mini-theme’ are used. Why does it matter?

  18. Having said that, I agree with Gervase @ 9; if the ****theme can help in the nitty solving gritty, then perhaps the ‘mini’ could be left out. On the other hand, some themes infect (if that’s the right word), for example, all the across clues, as we all well know.

    It’s not a matter of formulas, and it’s only a game.

  19. It’s a bit weak, but worth it for annoying know-it-alls:

    “That place in Somalia…Mog…Mog..Mog…”

    “..adishu?”

    “Bless you”…

  20. Enjoyable puzzle from Brummie.

    First pass filled in one across solution and three downs.

    But a breakthrough in the NE corner led to steady progress. LOI was 1A.

    Of course I didn’t spot the theme.

    Thanks to Flashling and Brummie

  21. Hi dunsscotus. Sometimes I think that “Nothing matters very much, and very few things matter at all.” (Attr. Arthur Balfour.) But it seems he wasn’t always so miserable. And nor am I.

    I only asked out of curiosity. I sort of feel that “mini” is faint praise. My own ‘spotting’ of ghost themes has improved recently but it still, as in this case, only comes post-solve. I spotted Arachne’s Big Brother nina early and that helped a lot.

    The blog of Anax’s tribute to John Henderson in the Indy is well worth a look. Mega.

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