Guardian 24363/Brummie

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Several very easy hidden clues mingled in with some more difficult clues. One word I had to cheat on and look up, another I just couldn’t get despite it being easy, with hindsight! In addition there were a two themes running through the puzzle. The four outer entries all contained colours. The second theme was then based on 1a. However, the answer to this one brings back painful memories of a Listener failure in 2007 that I recently discovered through the annual statistics.

* = anagram
< = reversal
“” = homophone

Across
1 LITTLE GREEN MEN LITTLE+GREEN+MEN A few months ago I went to a talk by Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell on her discovery of pulsars. One of her slides showed the original pen-trace with the regular tick of the first pulsars clearly visible. Next to the traces were written, LGM-1 and LGM-2. At that time the oscillations were just too regular and LITTLE GREEN MEN was a definite possibility.
8 VENUS (ha)VE + SUN< SUN = daily (newspaper) and ref Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.
11 NACELLE EL in CLEAN* I failed on this one as I spent too long trying to fit LE or LA in rather than thinking of EL (or even IL) as a foreign article. It didn’t help that the word was a new one on me. A NACELLE is a streamlined structure housing an engine on a plane, car, boat or other form of transport.
12 INEARTH IN+EARTH
17 BARNSTORM BAR+N+S+TO+R(oo)M
20 ACTED AC+TED ref Ted Hughes.
23 NEEDFUL NE(E)D + FU(e)L the letters are all in the clue but the E is moved 3 places, it could have been moved 4 places.
25 CHURLISH HURL+I+S in CH Brummie = I but cleverly hides Bob = Shilling = S.
27 A WHITE ELEPHANT A WHITE + ELEPHANT odd one this. The cryptic reference is to Humph (Humphrey Littleton) being A WHITE rather than a black trumpeter as Satchmo (Louis Armstrong) would be. Trumpeter is then used to define elephant and so seems to be doing double duty here.
Down
1 LAVENDER BLUE LAV.+ENDER + BLUE rude = BLUE. The song has lots of “dilly dilly”s in it.
4 GASKELL GASKE(T) + L+L I think “lives” here is meaning use the abbreviation L = live twice.
5 ELYSIUM ELY + (I in SUM) SUM = (maths) problem
7 EYES RIGHT YES+R in EIGHT rowers is more often EIGHT than four or two.
10 THE RED PLANET (PLANTED THREE)* LGMs were often though to come from Mars, the Red Planet rather than a green one.
14 SCRIMSHAW (SCHISM+WAR)* sailors in the past used to carve or engrave bone or shells to while away the time, this is SCRIMSHAW.
16 SPACESHIP SPACES+HIP
18 OLD-TIME TOLD* + I+ME again Brummie is refering to himself but twice this time.
22 VERDI E(lland)+RD in VI I think it’s a long time, if ever, since Elland Road (home of Leeds United) will have been entertained with a double hat trick = VI.
24 FONDA “fonder” despite this appearing easy I just didn’t see it, and that’s after running through the alphabet for the fourth letter! Henry, Jane, Peter or Bridget. Take your pick.

6 comments on “Guardian 24363/Brummie”

  1. Curiously, 11A was the first one I got, after a bit of trouble trying to (mis)spell it NARCELLE.

    Failed on 4D though.

  2. Nice puzzle, although the theme seems a bit familiar. Was there a recent Enigmatist or Nimrod with populated by LITTLE GREEN MEN?

    Apologies in advance if this is incorrect.

  3. 24d was my last entry too – because there is a whole dynasty of them it is unusual for the FONDAs to be referred to by surname alone.

    Once I had a foothold in this puzzle it turned out much easier than it had looked at first – double theme helped.

    NACELLE and SCRIMSHAW were familiar words, but I had to check their meaning before inserting them; INEARTH was completely new to me but obvious from the wordplay.

    22d is a beautiful, though tragic, clue.

  4. Got Noise for 5d due to definition part (racket) but cannot understand the build up. Can anyone help?

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