Guardian Cryptic 27,102 by Brummie

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Great fun – favourites were 12ac, 3dn and 19dn. Was on the lookout for a theme but couldn’t spot one. Thanks, Brummie.

Across
1 RIFLEMAN Flier abandoned by fellow flier (8)
=a RIFLEMAN bird [wiki]. (Flier)* by MAN=”fellow”
5 THAMES Feature of London breaks: bagging husband! (6)
TAMES=”breaks”, around H[usband]
9 MARACAS Instruments responsible for a calcium-filled world (7)
A plus CA[lcium] in MARS=”world”
10 DELIRIA Shop with retro atmosphere excited states (7)
DELI=”Shop”, with a reversal/”retro” of AIR=”atmosphere”
11 SHAWM Width covered by mock instrument (5)
=a predecessor of the oboe. W[idth] inside SHAM=”mock”
12 LIGHTSHIP Prepares to smoke joint, as a warning to seamen (9)
=a ship that acts like a lighthouse. LIGHTS=”Prepares to smoke”, plus HIP=”joint”
13 BATTLEGROUND “Culloden”, revolving turntable dog? (12)
Culloden was a battleground [wiki]. (turntable dog)*
17 CHEESEPARING Mean to be cutting down dairy produce (12)
“Mean” as in stingy, after the practise of keeping parings of cheese rind
20 RIGOLETTO City welcomes attempt to hire theatre entrance for opera (9)
=opera by Verdi. RIO=”City” around GO=”attempt” plus LET=”hire” plus T[heatre]
22 ROPEY Lasso-like? Yes, cowboy-style with gold backing (5)
YEP=”Yes, cowboy-style”, plus OR=”gold”; all reversed/”backing”
23 HARWICH Port flushed air WC in two hours (7)
=a port in Essex. (air WC)* in H[our] H[our]
24 YOUNGER Say name backward, restricted by one’s being less mature (7)
E.G.=”Say” plus N[ame], all reversed/”backward”; inside YOUR=”one’s”
25 REWRAP Soldiers finish filming and provide cover again (6)
R[oyal] E[ngineers]=”Soldiers”, plus WRAP=”finish filming”
26 DEADHEAD Useless chap, tidy up the flower bed! (8)
=an ineffective person; =remove withered heads of flowers to encourage new growth
Down
1 REMISS Wayward, sleepy feature endures, given sun (6)
R[apid] E[ye] M[ovement]=”sleepy feature”, plus IS=”endures”, plus S[un]
2 FORMAT Style of pro wrestling requirement? (6)
FOR=”pro”, plus MAT=”wrestling requirement”
3 ENCOMPASS Cover of only half useful navigational aid? (9)
E[ast] N[orth] COMPASS might =”only half useful navigational aid”
4 ABSOLUTE PITCH A gift that hits just the right note (8,5)
cryptic definition
6 HELOT Ancient slave, male, with parcel (5)
=a Spartan slave. HE=”male” plus LOT=”parcel”
7 MIRTHFUL Hurt film, awfully jolly (8)
(Hurt film)*
8 STAMPEDE Zapped steed absorbs a certain quantity of electricity charge (8)
(steed)* around AMP=”a certain quantity of electricity”
10 DAGUERREOTYPE Photo of partygoer dancing with due energy (13)
(partygoer due e[nergy])*
14 RUNAROUND Small car that’s given by evasive person (9)
double definition
15 SCORCHER Composer with chart entry devoid of skill — it’s hot! (8)
SCORER=”Composer”, with CH[art] inside but devoid of “skill” or art
16 HEDGEROW Question about rampant greed that divides the land? (8)
HOW?=”Question”, around (greed)*
18 APOGEE Primate admitting self-elevation is the highest point (6)
APE=”Primate”, around an upward reversal of EGO=”self-elevation”
19 HYBRID Cross borne by worthy bridegroom (6)
Hidden inside [wort]HY BRID[egroom]
21 LAIKA Possibly heard as a Russian dog (5)
=the first animal to orbit the earth [wiki]. Homophone of ‘like a’=”as a”

33 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 27,102 by Brummie”

  1. Thanks Brummie and manehi

    Great fun. Lots of favourites, with APOGEE heading the list for me. Two pedantic quibbles: in 8d, “amp” isn’t “a certain quantity of electricity” – you would have to multiply the amps by the time for which they flowed to get that; in 20 aren’t “let” and “hire” the opposite sides of the transaction?

    [When we were in New Zealand on a nature trip, our guide stopped in a woodland and made percussive noises with his mouth. Two riflemen (riflemans?) came quite close – nearly touching distance – to see what was going on. Strange looking birds – very small and almost tailless. Too unafraid for their own good, I fear, in common with many of the country’s birds]

  2. Lovely puzzle. Had FORMAL (style) rather than FORMAT but of course couldn’t parse. Favourites were DAGUERREOTYPE, ROPEY, HEDGEROW and ABSOLUTE PITCH. Many thanks to Brummie and manehi.

  4. Thanks for the excellent help with the parsing, Manehi.I still struggle with this setter, but this one was a little easier for me. Thanks also to Brummie for the many delightful clues and for including one of my favourite operas.

  6. Thanks Brummie and manehi.

    I didn’t know SHAWM or RIFLEMAN in the birdie sense. Enjoyable puzzle with some fine clues, although some of the surfaces were a bit weird e.g. “Culloden”, revolving turntable dog?

    I liked ENCOMPASS and HEDGEROW.

  8. A pleasant puzzle with some fun along the way to solving it.

    Like Robi@6, I had not heard of RIFLEMAN 1a in the bird sense, and 11a SHAWM only rang a vague bell but was solvable from the word play. CHEESEPARING at 17a was also only vaguely familiar as a Dickensian-sounding word for miserly behaviour.

    Some clever anagrams and I also liked the hidden HYBRID at 19d. Our weather today was a real 15d SCORCHER (31 degrees) so this and 12a LIGHTSHIP were my favourites.

    Thanks to Brummie and manehi.

  9. 1a parsed OK -just didnt know it was a bird-1d was obviously REMISS but thanks for the parsing
    Thought E N COMPASS was a bit devious (thanks again manehi)
    Otherwise very fine-not hard to fill the grid but those last bits of parsing needed a blog like this.
    Thats the second Brummie without a theme, I think and we may have had two Monks with no theme or nina.
    Which suits some folk who feel like they’ve been bombarded with themes in the last week(partcularly in the Graun)

  10. Thank you Brummie and manehi.

    A most enjoyable puzzle. I got held up for a while having entered EMPORIA for “shop with retro atmosphere”, but of course it is the plural, and what was “excited states” doing, “euphoria” provided no help – DELI always catches me out…

    Being a Kiwi, RIFLEMAN was no problem, but I see on the Guardian site that some solvers came up with WILD/F/OWL, pretty good!

  11. New words for me were HARWICH, LAIKA, RIFLEMAN = bird and I could not parse 17a, 2d, 3d. I also learnt via google that a mat is required for wrestling – I never knew that before today!

    My favourites were DELIRIA & HEDGEROW.

    Thanks manehi and Brummie.

  12. Thanks Brummie and manehi
    Cookie @7 well spotted
    I’m not going to mention where I had difficulty and which were my favorites. I have been beaten to the punch on all counts.

    Cheers to all

  13. Thanks to cookie @7 as well as to Brummie and Manehi – ‘revolving turntable dog’ does become much less arbitrary when one gets the HMV reference. No claims yet about Laika being obscure: I guess many solvers are old enough to remember that gallant orbiter, as well as the other dog. I had not heard runaround as alternative to runabout, in the car sense, but the clue works, and Chambers confirms. Fine puzzle altogether.

  14. I knew RIFLEMAN was a bird but couldn’t place it until I read the comments about it being a NZ bird. Then the penny dropped. Or rather, the $2 note did. I must have looked at its labeled picture countless times.

  16. I knew about Nipper and BATTLEGROUND was obviously correct but I still don’t understand the parsing. I didn’t know RIFLEMAN was a bird either. I, rather tortuously, thought it referred to one who lets fly with bullets but I can’t say I liked it much. Now I know,I can see what a good clue it is. The rest of this was rather easier than usual for this setter with whom I normally struggle.
    Thanks Brummie

  17. A+ crossword. Comments similar to other people. No unknowns, but had to think hard to bring some of the answers to the surface. I found the NW corner the hardest.

  18. Thanks both,

    A very enjoyable puzzle. Like a previous poster, I quibble about ‘amp’ as a quantity of electricity. I spent some time trying to fit Coulombs to the light. But I suppose we are used to scientific inaccuracies from setters, who are mostly literary types.

  19. Peter Aspinwall @16 I cannot see a tie in for BATTLEGROUND, Culloden and “music”, but there is a myth that after the Battle of Culloden a ban on musical instruments was placed on the peoples of the Highlands, however, bagpipes were regarded as a weapon of war… “Alan’s dog Nipper” is one of the pieces of music the Gordon Highlanders play – a bit “far fetched”?

  21. Thanks Muffin (and Cookie). I’ve only just twigged that BATTLEGROUND was an anagram. Oh, the shame!

  22. Found this a little tricky, with RIFLEMAN last in, but quite entertaining. Failed to parse ENCOMPASS.

    Thanks to Boatman and manehi

  23. Thanks to Brummie and manehi. As usual I had trouble getting started, but SHAWM got me going and much of the rest followed. For some reason I could not come up with the term “wrap” in REWRAP until the end (though I knew it) and both CHEESEPARING and DEADHEAD as used here were new to me. Very enjoyable.

  24. Lovely puzzle from Brummie. Like most people we finished in the top left corner with rifleman. There’s always more to learn and remember for the next time. Thanks to everyone.

  25. I’m with muffin@1 and Tyngewick@18 on the AMP.
    I think “hire” goes both ways, so “let” is covered.
    ENCOMPASS just doesn’t work for me. A compass which went from E to N would only cover a quarter of a circle, or am I to assume that a compass only indicates four directions? Have we perhaps missed a four-letter word including “EN” that means useful?
    Otherwise enjoyable, so thanks to Brummie and to Manehi for the blog.

  27. NW corner last for me too, though I had trouble with the others too. I did fill in the NE corner last night except for Nipper the Rotating Highlander.

    Did anyone else try to make the end of 13a be HOUND? I was thinking the answer was some kind of dog.

    I enjoyed RIGOLETTO and HEDGEROW when I finally got them in.

  28. I think you would need “hire out” rather than simply “hire” to mean “let”.

    “I hired a car from Hertz”
    “Hertz hired a car to me”?
    “Hertz hired out a car to me”
    “Hertz let a car to me”

  29. As you say, manehi, great fun. I managed to complete this without getting stuck in spite of not knowing rifleman as a bird; maracas; wrap meaning finish filming; or 26a deadhead meaning tidy up the flower bed (I knew ‘dehead’).

    4d ABSOLUTE PITCH would have been my first in if I had known that phrase. I have perfect pitch, as I call it (although I think it’s beginning to wear off a bit with age), and I was confident enough to enter PITCH (which helped with 17a CHEESEPARING), but I had to wait to get a couple of crossers before concluding the missing word must be ABSOLUTE.

    So I’ve learned a few things while enjoying a great crossword with some delightful clues that other commenters have highlighted. I shuddered at first on seeing ‘amp’ defined (or at least indicated) as ‘a certain quantity of electricity’ in 8d STAMPEDE, but the use of the vague word ‘electricity’ makes the clue valid, in my view. You have current (amp), potential (volt), power (watt) – even capacity (amp-hour) and whatever we call the electricity we consume and pay for (kw-hours). Just ‘electricity’ could (potentially!) be any of these.

    Many thanks to Brummie and manehi.

  30. @Auriga, I also looked for a four letter word with EN before thinking about points of the compass. I think Brummie’s intention was that E and N are only half of the four points, but you’re quite right that a sweep of the compass from E to N is only a quarter turn.

  31. Cant understand why people having problems with parsing 13a. Revolving = anagram – of ‘turntable dog’ As some said the HMV reference just makes it less arbitary. Lovely puzzle. Favourites 22a and 26a ( one of my favourite occupations!)

  32. Re 13a – I don’t think a “?” works as a DBE indication (if needed at all) unless it is hard up against the DBE.

    I imagine one is supposed to interpret it as “perhaps” or “maybe” (or “might this be one”).

    Araucaria often used a “?” as an anagrind – presumably on the same basis. A valid one IMHO – you don’t see that much any more – casual use as a DBE indication sadly rather common.

    No grinding battles suggested other possibilities which were eventually rejected.

    Fair puzzle – many thanks both.

  33. Oops – I think “No grinding” was supposed to be “No doubt grinding”

    Cat/keyboard interface issues here – sorry.

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