Guardian 27,385 – Brummie

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Not too difficult for a Brummie, though there are a couple rather obscure words and a few names that may be unfamiliar, though clearly clued. I can’t explain 6d.

As usual with this setter, there’s a theme in the answers, with characters from PETER PAN, who meets WENDY DARLING with TINKERBELL and has trouble with CAPTAIN HOOK (who has a SHIP) and the CROCODILE. Thanks to Brummie.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
9. LATCH Fasten strip across counter top (5)
C[ounter] in LATH (wooden strip)
10. PERSONNEL Navy takes issue when commandeered by Shell staff (9)
SON (issue) in RN, all in PEEL (to shell, as in peas etc)
11,17. CROCODILE TEARS Rushes to back of queue, showing false emotion (9,5)
CROCODILE (a queue) + TEARS (to rhyme with ‘bears’: speeds, rushes)
13. PEATBOG Boat at sea in secure area of decomposing matter (4,3)
BOAT* in PEG (to secure)
15. DARLING Large, in bold: TREASURE (7)
L in DARING
18. PAN Backing down hollow (3)
Reverse of NAP (“downy covering”) – pan = hollow as a geographical feature
20. HEGEL Rejected member that went unheard as a philosopher (5)
Reverse of LEG (member) + EH (“I didn’t hear that”)
22. RETIRED Left the room scratched? (7)
This seems to be just a rather weak double definition, unless I’m missing something
25. CAPTAIN Leader‘s liable to be entertained by relative killer (7)
APT in CAIN (who murdered his brother Abel in Genesis)
26,12. WENDY HOUSE Guardian cuts honeydew fudge for children’s home (5,5)
US (the Guardian) in HONEYDEW*
27. NAILBRUSH Corrections to banish URL digital cleanser (9)
(BANISH URL)*
30. PHEROMONE Chemical secretion more flexible in mobile device? (9)
MORE* in PHONE (mobile device, possibly)
31. LITHO Hogarth cloistered courtyard erased on right of illuminated print (5)
LIT (illuminated) + HOGARTH less GARTH (a cloistered courtyard)
Down
1. BLOC Combination seal ultimately lacking (4)
BLOCK (to seal) less its last letter
2. STROMATA Fibrous connective tissues taking little time to rise in layers (8)
Reverse of MO (moment, short time) in STRATA
3. SHOO Wash without audio aid? Get away! (4)
SHAMPOO less AMP (audio aid)
4. SPRING UP Season has ended — make an appearance, quickly! (6,2)
SPRING (season) UP (ended – as in “time’s up”)
5. FRIEND Cook might have done so around North China (6)
N in FRIED. In rhyming slang, China = china plate = mate
6. MOTHER SHIP Service craft: Weightless Moth (6,4)
I have no idea how this works, apart from the definition: no doubt I’m missing something obvious.. Thanks to NormanLinFrance and Hedgehog: MOTHER SHIPTON is a kind of moth, from which you have to remove a TON
7. INCUBI Night-time threats to females (two Brummies nursing new offspring) (6)
N[ew] CUB in I (= Brummie) twice
8,13. BLUE PETER Flag down Cook? (4,5)
BLUE (sad, down) + PETER (Peter Cook, comedian etc)
14. BE SORRY FOR Roof’s berry-smeared — pity (2,5,3)
(ROOFS BERRY)*
16. GALEN Old Greek physician: “Wind precedes indigestion, ultimately” (5)
GALE + [indigestio]N
19. NUCLIDES Anatomising includes particular kinds of atom (8)
INCLUDES*
21. GRATUITY Graphical user interface initially overlapping cross tip (8)
An overlapping of GUI and RATTY (irritable, cross)
23. TINKER Naughty kid‘s fiddle (6)
Double definition
24. DANTON Revolutionary worker drowned in Wear (6)
ANT in DON (put on, wear). Georges Danton was a prominent figure in the French Revolution
26. WIPE No head on Nick’s mop (4)
[S]WIPE (nick = steal)
28. BELL Inventor‘s three lives (4)
BE (to live) + twice L (live – to rhyme with hive – as in an electric circuit). Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone (though some dispute his priority)
29. HOOK Catch wine circle substituting carbon (4)
HOCK (wine) with O replacing C

36 comments on “Guardian 27,385 – Brummie”

  1. Parsing issues with litho and galen but put them in anyway. Mothership is perhaps a service of sorts and a craft , but stumped by the rest of it. Thanks

  4. Thanks Brummie and Andrew.

    Thanks for pointing out the theme Andrew, as it totally passed me by. My favourites were 3D SHOO; 8d,13d BLUE PETER and 31a LITHO.

    As for 6d I see that a MOTHER SHIP is a service craft, but the weightless moth part of the clue eludes me.

  7. Norman@2 – thank you for that!

    Dragged up Galen and stromata from some cupboard in the attic, didn’t parse shoo, stupidly. Thanks for the helpful blog Andrew

  8. Just thought that MOTH in the clue sort of gave it away without any scientific knowledge (thanks for that Norman)

    Otherwise a pantomime hoot.

  9. For once we (actually Mrs W) spotted the theme which did make it easier to solve, and it was a nice seasonal reference – and much nicer than actually going to a performance of one of these dreadful events (just my opinion of course).
    I didn’t parse LITHO or the surprisingly weak MOTHER SHIP, nor could I see anything more behind RETIRED.
    I haven’t seen Hedgehog post before – welcome to 225 if you’re new here.
    Thanks to Brummie, Andrew and other contributors.

  11. How nice to have a few science-based clues for a change!

    Happily missed the theme; I’ve always hated Peter Pan.

    Thanks to Brummie and Andrew.

     

  12. Thanks Andrew, needed your blog for a lot of parsing.

    Unfortunately I chose two possible (but wrong) alternatives:  I thought the Naughty kid’s fiddle was ‘monkey’ not TINKER.  And entered ‘join’ instead of BLOC at 1d (JOIN(T)).

    Like the theme, however, it all ended happily but there was an unusually high number of question marks.

    Ticks at DARLING, & WIPE.

    Many thanks, Brummie, nice week all.

    PS My heart missed a beat when I saw Hedgehog posting.  Worryingly close sobriquet to another that I remember only too well.

  13. Hi all been lurking for some time. However after two years of retirement and improved completions now feel confident enough to contribute. Thanks to Brummie and Andrew, got there in the end (though missed the theme), could not parse 6d but thought it could not be anything else. Held up for ages by putting pit in18a. Convinced myself it parsed in terms of backing horses (maybe misspent adulthood). However 19d put me right. Thanks again to Brummie and Andrew and hope the rest of the week goes as well as the first half

  14. Thanks to Brummie and Andrew. I had more than the usual amount of trouble with parsing. I did not know PAN = hollow, WENDY HOUSE, MOTHER SHIPton, or garth-courtyard for LITHO and missed the shampoo connection to SHOO. Lots of guesswork.

  15. Completely missed the theme.  Was reassured to find that I was in good company in being unable to parse 6d.  Thanks to both Brummie and Andrew.

  17. Thanks to Brummie and Andrew. Quite gentle for Brummie, and for once I spotted the theme half way through (after a brief dalliance, like Howard March @16, with “pit”).

    Wendy was based on the daughter of W E Henley, who was the inspiration for Long John Silver.

  18. I couldn’t parse BELL though it obviously fits the theme with TINKER, so I wrote it in.  The best guess for me, was that it was an allusion to the three Brontë sisters who all used the pseudonym Bell, but Mrs FD thought this unlikely.

    Apart from that, a not-too-tough Brummie excursion and a nice seasonal theme which (for a change) was easy to spot almost at the start (once I had CROCODILE, HOOK and WENDY all in place, I was quite sure the 3-letter in the middle would have to be PAN – though it took a long time to figure out the parsing!)

    I’d heard of Mother Shipton (the witch I mean) but not of the moth of the same name, I was wondering whether the good lady had the power to transform herself into that kind of insect!  (After all, if Prof. McGonagall can do the ‘turn-into-a-cat’ thingy….)  But Wikipedia set me right on that front.

    Other unfamiliar words were STROMATA and GALEN – but the clueing was nice and helpful.

    Thanks Brummie and Andrew,

  19. BTW – another long-cherished belief exploded.  A bit of googling suggests that the girl’s name WENDY does not originate from its use in Peter Pan – it was in circulation before then.  Barrie did, however, help to popularise it as a given name.

  20. FirmlyDirac @19 – the little girl was Margaret, who died aged only 5. She called Barrie her “Fwendy-wendy” and thus the name Wendy, a diminutive of Gwendolyn, was popularised but not invented.

  21. Couldn’t parse everything, not knowing what Mother Shipton and garth were in this context for example, but found the solving relatively easy for Brummie nevertheless. A seasonal theme! How nice! Didn’t spot it though, must have had my Bah Humbug hat on.

  22. Like Trailman@21 I couldn’t parse a lot of this but still found it most enjoyable. Dnf (if this is the right acronym?) because I failed to get WIPE. Ah well, can’t be a clever beggar, as Mrs M calls me – or does she mispronounce beggar? -, every day, can I.

    Many thanks to Brummie and Andrew.

  24. Thanks Brummie and Andrew

    I didn’t find this easy, and quite a few went in from definition only; I didn’t know STROMATA, but was able to work this out from the wordplay. I totally missed the theme, of course!

    PHEROMONE was favourite. I didn’t like the clue for GRATUITY, though I did eventually parse it – “overlapping” very loose.

    I was confused for a while by DANTON, as I remembered MARAT dying in his bath, though not by drowning…

  25. I didn’t find this especially easy either and laid it aside with about a third done. When I came back to it I still found it difficult but with perseverance I got there but with some guesswork and limited parsing. Didn’t get the theme although it looks obvious in retrospect. Last time we had this setter, I casually said I thought I was getting on to his wavelength! That’ll teach me!
    Thanks Brummie.

  26. I knew GALEN and STROMATA (don’t know why), but didn’t know the philosopher or revolutionary, the cloistered courtyard, TINKER, the moth, NUCLIDES.

    Was trying to force GUIDANCE for tip, and was also fixated on PIT.

    I parsed BELL but could think of the three lives that would fit into a 4-letter word.

    Great challenge Brummie, and many thanks Andrew for the explanations. Enjoyed the theme.

  27. I should have looked for a theme in a Brummie crossword – but I forgot, and therefore missed it!

    Apart from a couple of clues that I didn’t seriously attempt to parse I thought this was a well-crafted puzzle with a well-executed ghost theme.

    Concerning L = ‘live'(?) in 28d BELL: I see that Chambers has L = line (but not live), which I think is correct for electrical wiring, whereas Collins has L = live (but not line), which I have seen in print and now seems to be a popular variant.

    Thanks to Brummie and Andrew.

     

  28. Alan@27 – on the back of many UK electrical fittings e.g. switches, you will see E,N,L for Earth, Neutral, Live.

  29. The moth is so called because of a marking on its wings which looks like the classic profile of a witch’s face with long nose and chin – Mother Shipton was clearly much better known in those days!

  30. Andy @28

    Thanks for that.  I acknowledge, of course, that is L = live is popular now.  I most often see just E, N and L in switches, sockets and electrical fittings, but I could also show you instruction sheets, etc, with Earth, Neutral and Line.

    Probably Chambers ought to show L = live as an alternative to line, and Collins ought to acknowledge L = line.

     

  31. Thanks to Brummie, Andrew and NormanLinFrance (for 6d).
    A couple of bits of, to me, dodgy grammar at 5d and 20a and MOTH @ 6d as part of the clue and the first 4 letters of the answer was, to put it politely, unconventional. 6d was a classic example of solve first and try to parse after. Having worked out that service craft was the definition and craft meant ship did anyone get the answer by thinking “what is the name of a moth from which I can remove a weight to give a service craft?”

  32. Pino @31:  No, but I did look up in a butterflies & moths book if there was a moth with a longish name starting with ‘mother’.

  33. Pino @31 – re: MOTHER SHIP[ton] – I didn’t exactly go along your suggested lines “what is the name of a moth” etc. – because I thought the word “Moth” might be a bit of misdirection.  Instead I thought along the lines: “what is the name of anything you can get by adding a weight to MOTHER SHIP?” With that idea for starters, it didn’t take long for “Mother Shipton” to spring to mind – after all I used to live in Yorkshire (thought not in Knaresborough)!

    Regarding the PETER PAN theme – this holds a special place in my childhood memories, because I think it was the first proper children’s book I had bestowed on me as a young child.  Years later, on clearing out the family home after my mother’s death, I came across the book again – it still bore the inscription by the person who gave it to me, showing that I was 4½ at the time.  It was entitled The Story of Peter Pan, and is a simplified version of the original, suitable for younger readers (it glosses over the more disturbing aspects of the original, such as childhood mortality…)  Whether I was actually able to read the book at that tender age, I don’t remember – although I know I was reading from quite an early age.  Certainly I found the book a big advance from all the “Noddy in Toyland” stuff I’d had thrust at me up till that time….

    P.S. Please please let there not be a “Noddy” themed X-word anytime soon! 😮

     

  34. FirmlyDirac@33
    That’s the point I was trying to make. Most of us will have put in MOTHER SHIP but none will have done so on the basis of MOTH in the clue. I suppose that it was clever to make it look like a misdirection when it wasn’t.

  35. Must admit I had CLIC for 1 down (Clic = alternate of clique therefore a combination, and CLICK being seal, thus with the K removed.)  Also could not understand MOTHER SHIP.

  36. Must admit I had CLIC for 1 down. (Clic = clique hence a combination, and Click = seal remove the K). Also could not understand MOTHER SHIP thanks for the explanation

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