Everyman 3,672

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The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/everyman/3672.

This week’s offering required a little care to pin down the parsings and, as often with Everyman, definitions.

Across
1 ROPY Poor work disrupting railway (4)
An envelope (‘disrupting’) of OP (‘work’) in RY (‘railway’).
3 BARBERSHOP Insult hero’s unusually soft style of singing (10)
A charade of BARB (‘insult’) plus ERSHO, an anagram (‘unusually’) of ‘hero’s’ plus P (piano, musically ‘soft’).
9 TARANTINO Director getting Oscar, after cheers, blustering endlessly (9)
A charade of TA (‘cheers’ in the sense of “thank you”) plus RANTIN[g] (‘blustering’) minus its last letter (‘endlessly’) plus O (‘oscar’, radio code), for the film director, Quentin Tarantino.
11 CABAL Labour account about conspiratorial group (5)
A reversal (‘about’) of LAB (‘labour’ party) plus AC (‘account’).
12 IMPALE Stick with demon drink (6)
A charade of IMP (‘demon’) plus ALE (‘drink’); ‘stick’ as a verb, in the sense of pierce.
13 REALISTS Pragmatic people referring to ace catalogues (8)
A charade of RE (‘referring to’) plus A (‘ace’) plus LISTS (‘catalogues’).
15 ACTION STATIONS Deeds unfamiliar to saint in order to prepare for battle (6,8)
A charade of ACTIONS (‘deeds’) plus TATIONS, an anagram (‘unfamiliar’) of ‘to saint’.
17 STAMPING GROUND Territory shown by map sadly secured by fraud and crushed (8,6)
An envelope (‘secured by’) of AMP, an anagram (‘sadly’) of ‘map’ in STING (‘fraud’) plus GROUND (‘crushed’).
20 VICINITY Neighbourhood very hostile about fashionable appeal (8)
An envelope (‘about’) of IN (‘fashionable’) plus IT (‘appeal’; where but with crossword and film buffs is Clara Bow remembered as “The It Girl”?) in V (‘very’) plus ICY (‘hostile’).
21 ENTAIL Call for extremes of exertion before end (6)
A charade of EN (‘extremes of ExertioN‘) plus TAIL (‘end’); ENTAIL in the sense of “to bring on or result as an inevitable consequence” (Chambers).
23 CHORE Heart broken by hard task (5)
An envelope (‘broken by’) of H (‘hard’) in CORE (‘heart’).
25 GIBBERISH Sigh woefully about bribe, confounded nonsense (9)
An envelope (‘about’) of IBBER, an anagram (‘confounded’) of ‘bribe’ in GISH, not Lillian or Dorothy, but an anagram (‘woefully’) of ‘sigh’. You may exchange the two I’s, I won’t object.
26 TRIPARTITE Dance with skill, I note, having three elements (10)
A charade of TRIP (the light fantastic, ‘dance’) plus ART (‘skill’) plus ‘I’ plus TE (sol-fa ‘note’).
27 HYMN Contents of rhyme and new song (4)
A charade of HYM (‘contents of rHYMe’) plus N (‘new’).
Down
1 RETSINA Wine picked up in can is terrible (7)
A hidden (‘in’) reversed (‘picked up’ in a down light) in ‘cAN IS TERrible’, for the Greek resin-infused wine, not to everyone’s taste.
2 PERIPATETIC Wandering from pier, awfully sad, missing hotel (11)
A charade of PERI, an anagram (‘wandering’ ‘awfully’) of ‘pier’ plus PAT[h]ETIC (‘awfully sad’) minus the H (‘missing hotel’).
4 AVID Assistance guarding against becoming zealous (4)
An envelope (‘guarding’) of V (versus, ‘against’) in AID (‘assistance’).
5 BOOMERANG Recoil in anger, struggling after prosperous period (9)
A charade of BOOM (‘prosperous period’) plus ERANG, an anagram (‘struggling’) of ‘anger’.
6 RECALCITRANCE Remembrance mostly about one with dream showing obstinacy (13)
A charade of RECAL[l] (‘remembrance’) minus its last letter (‘mostly’) plus C (circa, ‘about’) plus I (‘one’) plus TRANCE (‘dream’).
7 HUB Fish not caught in centre of activity (3)
A subtraction: [c]HUB (‘fish’) minus the C (‘not caught’).
8 POLISH Refinement in language (6)
Double definition.
10 NELSON MANDELA One man ends all wrangling as leader of South Africa (6,7)
An anagram (‘wrangling’) of ‘one man ends all’,  with an extended definition.
14 SINGULARITY Oddity in wrong version of a liturgy (11)
A charade of SIN (‘wrong’) plus GULARITY, an anagram  (‘version’) of ‘a liturgy’.
16 SKIN-TIGHT Ruined contest, losing force and clinging (4-5)
A charade of SKINT (penniless, ‘ruined’) plus [f]IGHT (‘contest’) minus the F (‘losing force’).
18 DOLPHIN Teacher keeping record on Hawaii identifying marine mammal (7)
An envelope (‘keeping’) of  LP (‘record’) plus HI (‘Hawaii’) in DON (‘teacher’).
19 AVOCET Investigator with eggs upset bird (6)
A reversal (‘upset’ in a down light) of TEC (common abbreviation, detective, ‘investigator’) plus OVA (‘eggs’), for the elegant wader. Taking a leaf from Pierre’s book:
22 ABET Bishop during meal raised support (4)
An envelope (‘during’) of B (‘bishop’) in AET, a reversal (‘raised’, in a down light) of TEA (‘meal’).
24 OBI Sash used by slob incorrectly (3)
A hidden answer (‘used by’) in ‘slOB Incorrectly’.
completed grid

16 comments on “Everyman 3,672”

  1. This was a Goldilocks Everyman, although I did struggle with AVOCET where tec for detective is new to me.

    Ar RECALCITRANCE I was also delayed because, for me, recall and remembrance aren’t close enough synonyms (for me the former has more to do with recognition while the latter has connotations of commemoration). I’m sure, though, that the dictionary would prove me wrong.

    Thanks, PeterO, for the blog and thanks to Everyman for an enjoyable Sunday diversion.

  2. Thanks Everyman and PeterO

    I don’t remember much of this one, but it seemed OK. I think the anagram indicator for PIER in 2d is “awfully”, with “sad” by itself giving PATHETIC, otherwise “Wandering” would be doing double duty.

    Brits would be more familiar with this AVOCET It’s the emblem of the RSPB..

  4. Thank you Everyman and PeterO.

    BARBERSHOP in the singing sense was new to me, at first I thought the definition had something to do with ‘singeing’ hair ends. I also took TEC to be an abbreviation of ‘technician’, but it seems it can only be a variation of ‘tech’ for ‘technical college’, and cannot find ‘technician’ as a synonym for ‘investigator’ anyway.

    I liked the clue for NELSON MANDELA, and also those for RETSINA and BOOMERANG.

  5. No-one so far has mentioned SINGULARITY which took me a while to get and was my last one in. I managed to finish the puzzle on Sunday which is a rarity for me these days, so maybe it was easier than normal.
    Enjoyable as ever. Thanks to Peter and Everyman.

  6. I’ll remind you, muffin and Mr O, that bird links on Fifteensquared are copyright Pierre, merci beaucoup.

    Good puzzle. I especially liked PERIPATETIC in this one.

  7. A bit of a breeze this week with lots to like. Lots of well crafted clues, it felt like a pity to whizz through them quite so quickly.

  8. I found this harder than a typical Everyman, but no less enjoyable. I had a problem parsing ACTION STATIONS. I had “acts” for “deeds”, which gave me an anagram of ACTS + TO + SAINT + IN + O(rder). That obviously doesn’t quite work as “order” would be doing double duty, but it was so close that I just kept trying to tweak it instead of thinking to look for alternatives to “acts”. 🙁

    Thanks, Everyman and PeterO.

  9. Took me a while, which is usual these days. Probably would have got avocet if I’d left it a bit longer but had enough. Not a bad crossword .
    Thanks Pierre for explaining the parsings.

  10. The last few took a little while, and tec is a new one on me.

    Nice crossword though, thanks Everyman and PeterO

  11. I found this very hard unlike most others! Resorted to lots of help in the form of mr roget and mr google to even get started. Only truly easy one I thought was 10d
    I also have never come across TEC as an investigator, maybe someone can clarify? Totally new words to me this week Cabal, avocet and thought 26ac was one of the hardest.
    But got there in the end not totally without help tho

  14. When 1ac came to me at first glance I thought it was going to be easy but then I stalled rather badly. I have to say it ended up being one of the more difficult ones in recent times – the old dictionary came in useful I must say. At least it introduced me to a few new words (for me anyway) such as chub, obi and peripatetic to name three. I did enjoy the clues though (after the event, particularly “barbershop” and “gibberish”.
    Thanks to all

  15. Flew through this crossie but then south west had me stumped. Didn’t get AVOCET, CHORE and TRIPARTITE although I had the AVO parsed for AVOCET.

    PeterO @12

    As someone who has read a lot of detective novels in my time I can’t say I’ve ever seen TEC used as an abbreviation for a detective. Googling reveals:

    a detective.

    Origin
    late 19th century: abbreviation.

    A bit before my time! 😉

  16. Great puzzle , although I struggled with avocet , ( didn’t like TEC either ) and action stations ( I had acts for deeds and didn’t know where saint came in ).
    Some great clues e.g. Singularity , Tarantino , Recalcitrance.

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