Times Cryptic 29322 – Sat, 30 August 2025. Yes, from down under, then!

31 comments on “Times Cryptic 29322 – Sat, 30 August 2025. Yes, from down under, then!”

1. About 45 minutes with one look-up, HANGAR. I just couldn’t see it, but having eventually found the answer I placed a rare tick against the clue as one of the very best I have seen for a while.

   BRUCKNER went in from checkers and the definition ‘scorer’ which I now always read as ‘composer’ before considering other possibilities. I missed the Australian / Bruce thing as I was never a particular devotee of Monty Python so my knowledge of their work is patchy. Apart from our blogger, the only Australian Bruce who comes to my mind is Bruce Woodley, one of the original Seekers.

2. DNK the NEC. I’m familiar with the Python sketch, but could make nothing of the clue, and like Jack biffed BRUCKNER from ‘scorer’ and checkers. Biffed TOED (toad=rat?). Finally got MASH from AS+H; and the H gave me HEARTBREAK.

   1. I did the same with BRUCKNER. I didn’t expect boundaries to signal just the ends of the words in question. I would have thought front and back were implied.

3. 1a was very neat. The word should be reasonably well known in the UK as it’s the phlebotomist one visits when booking book tests at one’s local surgery.

   1d didn’t know that PELF was slang for money, but easily worked out from the wordplay. Again British references needed. There’s a particularly fine parkin available via mail order from a baker in Ormskirk.

   28a was a pure guess. I got hung up on rattrap being a serrated bike pedal with a toeclip.

   1. ‘Pelf’ isn’t slang, it’s archaic.

      1. Sorry my mistake. And somewhat disrespectful I understand.

4. Took me close to an hour but I really enjoyed this. I liked the appearance of Captain BLIGH in 16a, the ‘Centre of Birmingham’ at 24a, BRILLIANTINED (another popular culture reference for me), the wordplay for PEREGRINATION and my favourite, BRUCKNER for both the convoluted wordplay and the need to separate the ‘run’ and ‘scorer’ to identify the correct def. I thought PELF was new but turns out I’d forgotten it from a previous encounter, only in crossword land of course.

   Thanks to Bruce and setter

5. Rather too obscure for me. I would never have got PELF, on two counts, not knowing either the definition or the wordplay. After spending too long on the unknowns around the SW corner, I gave up. A mixture of simple and fiendish BRUC-KNE-R?! I knew him, though not a favourite, but didn’t get the answer.

6. Good challenge but ruined for me by 1d.
   An example of an obscure clue ( brownie = elf ??) leading to an even more obscure answer( pelf = bread ???) . Got that bread would equal money but after trawling through goodness knows how many words which might fit ‘p*l*’ , I gave up in despair.

7. Persevered for 100 mins, taking a stupid amount of time over LOI (and COD) BRUCKNER, having forgotten that ‘scorer’ = composer in Xword-speak. Even after completing the grid, couldn’t fully parse THROUGHOUT and TOED – eventually got the homophone indicator for the former, but that for the latter remained elusive until branch’s explanation and the realisation that ‘trap’ = mouth. It seems that absolutely anything with the merest hint of aural reception by the ears will do to indicate a homophone, however vague (as in ‘escaping from mouth’).

8. Liked 29ac PRESENT DAY and 8d HEARTBREAK, but on the whole thought this was a bit too arcane in places to be enjoyable. Last ones in: 1d PELF was a lookup – knowing that a type of bread was required but was not confident and still do not understand how a brownie is an ELF; and 26ac TOED which was based on assumed meaning and crossers only (homophone indicator?!). Also, while a fan of the skilled members of what was the Monty Python team, cannot see this as a basis for Bruce as synonym for Australian (any more than if a watery bint lobbed a scimitar at one). BRUCKNER was a lookup for a composer that fitted crossers.
   Would appreciate knowing why jackkt thinks 15ac HANGAR is so wonderful, as we were struggling to see how it qualified as cryptic.
   Apologies for any crossings, I will read.
   Thank you branch and setter for the challenge.

   1. Given all the comments about brownie and elf, can someone please explain the connection. Thanks.

      1. ODE sv Brownie 3 (brownie) a benevolent elf that supposedly haunts houses and does housework.

         I was surprised it was unknown to so many; I’ve known it since childhood, though simply as another word for ‘elf’.

         1. Thank U Kevin. It’s a new one for us, maybe more popular in certain places?
            (And in my ODE too – maybe should have looked there.)

         2. Thanks…massive gap in my knowledge, clearly.

         3. and of course not to forget the Brownies, which I’m sure has some connection despite the colour of their uniform.

            1. Yes! I was a Brownie once: it was the entrance qualification for the Girl Guides, and one of the sub-groups was ‘Elves’. ( There we’re also Pixies and other fantastical beings, and we were trained in the ways of the Guides, to “Dib Dib Dib”). And our uniform was brown.

               1. ditto. I never saw the point of badges, and resented being sent to primary school in Brownie uniform as there wasn’t time to go home and change before the weekly meeting. being different wasn’t my thing.

                  Bruce isn’t my go-to synonym for Australian, despite this being my husband’s second name and his father’s first. I’m an Aussie.

               2. As an Aussie following this blog for a long time,
                  I have been enjoying all the comments for many years. In particular Jacaroo’s comments as I check the blog a month behind.But why aren’t you a Jillaroo?????

9. BRILLIANTINED is forever associated with Basil Fawlty. From memory, it was when he was fawning on the sophisticated female French guest that Sybil reminded him he had no chance with her, being ‘an ageing brilliantined stick insect!’

   The only Bruce that sprang to mind was Olympic champion Bruce Jenner, but even he isn’t a Bruce any more.

10. DNF, defeated by PELF where I see I’m in good company. If I’ve come across it before then I’d forgotten it, and I didn’t know that brownie can mean elf (I bunged in a hopeless POLE).

    – JOLLY ROGER went in with a shrug as I didn’t equate ‘roger’ with ‘very good’ (I get it now)
    – Didn’t figure out what ‘escaping from trap’ was indicating in the clue for TOED, but the checkers helped
    – Couldn’t have told you that BRILLIANTINED means oily, but I got there from wordplay and it sounded plausible
    – Did manage to parse BRUCKNER, though I didn’t know the Monty Python connection
    – Didn’t know that ‘raven’ can be used as a verb to mean PREY (though I guess the word ‘ravenous’ points in that direction)

    Thanks branch and setter.

    COD Hangar (a lovely penny-drop moment when I figured it out), with an honourable mention to the ‘stag weekend’ device in HEARTBREAK

11. 51 mins. Whether a Brownie = Elf, Fairy, Pixie, Gnome etc probably depends on which mythology/fairytale you read. Terry Pratchett gave them all very distinct characteristics. I particularly like the Pictsies. NHO PELF.

    I do know the Python sketch but being too young when it was first broadcast I grew up assuming Bruce and Sheila had always been used like that. Didn’t know they invented it. We live and learn. BRUCKNER dredged from mental list of composer names retained for quiz purposes.
    Thanks branch and setter

    1. As far as “Sheila” goes, Collins has for “sheila”:
       Australian and New Zealand old-fashioned an informal word for girl, woman

       1. (Reply to Guy’s post) Actually, I thought Sheila was based on an English name. However, some years past there was a German or Yiddish program on our SBS where someone used a phrase sounding like ‘strom-sheila’ which was translated as ‘live wire’ – but I was unable to get research clarity. Maybe there is some expert here who can shed light.
          BTW, presume you (Guy) would pronounce Ur online name in the French way – like the clarified butter (Gee)?
          Apologies to all for long post.

          1. Sheila is a real name, and then properly capitalized (Collins doesn’t cap the slang term).
             Karen is a real name that, to Americans, has become a slang term too.
             Yes, I pronounce “Guy” the French way: rhyming with oui and with a hard G.

12. Eventually completed this one. I was ok with Bruckner, pelf and others, but I was mystified by Prey until I read todays explanation. Some nice clues.

13. No idea about NEC (and of course not), but I let it slide.

14. I didn’t know NEC, but I did know that Nigromancy is an alternative spelling in some of the less abridged dictionaries, plus I could see a G and an I and an N somewhere near the middle of BirmINGham. Good thing for my solve I couldn’t figure any way to rearrange them, so I waited for the crossers, and took the NEC on faith.

15. “The English were led by King Edward himself,
    An avaricious man, and fond of pelf.”
    McGonagall
    So it must be all right

16. My thanks to branch and setter.
    Another jolly puzzle, DNF, 16a Blighter (although I thought of Marlon Brando the captain’s name stayed away) and 28a Toed.
    COD 12a Jolly Roger.
    1d NHO Pelf, felt the need to look it up. NHO Parkin either.
    NHO 4d Tantra, but got it.
    COD 14d Throughout.
    17d Bruckner. Not sure how I got this, must have cheated, didn’t parse it at all at all.
    25d Prey, never thought of either osprey or os bone, so don’t know how I got this.
    So failed on 2 pretty easy ones really. Oh well, another week another fail.
    Lots of 500 errors.

17. Liked this one, despite some pretty esoteric definitions ( PEREGRINATION, TOAD, PREY, PELF). They were the hold-ups for me, largely, but was pleased to get LATVIAN and JOLLY ROGER straight away, which helped a lot. Happy to have the memories of Marlon Brando for BLIGHTER, and being in the Brownies some decades ago. Good fun

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