Tricky but enjoyable, especially some of the parsing. Thanks Chalmie.
| Across | ||
| 1 | EARLY BIRDS | Prehistoric flyers possibly worm-catchers (5,5) |
| EARLY (prehistoric) ad BIRDS (flyers) | ||
| 6 | T-BAR | Pitch holds second-rate Winter Sport Aid (1-3) |
| TAR (pitch) contains B (second rate) | ||
| 9 | LEAFLETTED | Felt elated after going round, having distributed flyers (some say incorrectly) (10) |
| anagram (after going around) of FELT ELATED – the primary spelling has only one T | ||
| 10 | GOBY | Pass swimmer (4) |
| GO BY (pass) | ||
| 12 | SOPWITH CAMEL | Old flyer cleared Sarajevo and arrived in Poland (7,5) |
| SarajevO (cleared, no middle) then WITH (and) CAME (arrived) in PO (Poland) | ||
| 15 | TEA CHESTS | Boxes trains going round station (3,6) |
| TEACHES (trains) contains (going round) ST (station) | ||
| 17 | ROTIS | Corrupt Iceland using Indian bread (5) |
| ROT (corrupt) IS (Iceland) | ||
| 18 | THERM | Trademark covers woman’s gas unit (5) |
| TM (trade mark) contains (covers) HER (the woman’s) | ||
| 19 | OSSO BUCCO | Large company outside, so child sent back for Italian food (4,5) |
| OS (out-size, large) CO (company) contains (outside) SO CUB (child) reversed (sent back) | ||
| 20 | HAWKER HUNTER | Salesman on the run crashing flyer (6,6) |
| HAWKER (salesman) then anagram (after crashing) of THE RUN – a military aeroplane | ||
| 24 | DUNG | Brownish-grey good for 11 food (4) |
| DUN (brownish-grey) G (good) | ||
| 25 | BELITTLING | Drunk lay about with Heather being scornful (10) |
| LIT (drunk) inside (with…about) BET (lay) then LING (heather) | ||
| 26 | PISA | Old man lives in Italian city (4) |
| PA (old man) contains (with…in) IS (lives) | ||
| 27 | ORANGE-TIPS | Flyers nobody called returning rancour (6-4) |
| O (nothing, nobody) RANG (called) then SPITE (rancour) reversed (returning) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | ELLS | Lengths of lines in French art (4) |
| L L (line, twice) in ES (art in French: you are, thou art) | ||
| 2 | ROAM | Wander around, committing nothing to memory (4) |
| O (nothing) inside (committed to) RAM (computer memory) | ||
| 3 | YELLOWHAMMER | Flyer ruining my whole realm (12) |
| anagram (ruining) of MY WHOLE RELAM | ||
| 4 | IN TOW | To win cycling as well (2,3) |
| anagram (cycling) of TO WIN | ||
| 5 | DUETTISTS | Two players expected odd bits of tat first? Tosh! (9) |
| DUE (expected) the every other letter (odd bits) of TaT fIrSt ToSh | ||
| 7 | BROOMSTICK | Book spaces on credit for magic flyer (10) |
| B (book) ROOMS (spaces) on TICK (credit) | ||
| 8 | ROYAL ASCOT | Rogers, possibly unfortunately on bed at race meeting (5,5) |
| ROY (Roy Rogers possibly) ALAS (unfortunately) on COT (bed) | ||
| 11 | SCARAB BEETLE | Almost frighten French monk and the occasional flyer (6,6) |
| SCARe (frighten, almost) ABBE ET LE (monk and the, in French) | ||
| 13 | STITCHED UP | Flyers put up by revolutionary party getting swindled (8,2) |
| TITS (flyers) reversed (put up) by CHE (Che Guevara, a revolutionary) then DUP (a political party) | ||
| 14 | WATER WINGS | Swimming aids encourage flyers to grow in bed! (5,5) |
| a cryptic sub-definition – if you planted WINGS (flyers) in a flower bed you would WATER them to encourage them to grow | ||
| 16 | SLOTH BEAR | Hotel bars smashed by resident of India (5,4) |
| anagram (smashed) of HOTEL BARS | ||
| 21 | NAIRN | Clean air now much reduced in Scottish resort (5) |
| found inside (much reduced) cleaN AIR Now | ||
| 22 | KIWI | Starts to know Icarus well – is not a flyer (4) |
| starting letters of Know Icarus Well Is | ||
| 23 | EGGS | Potential flyers say big words in the end (4) |
| EG (for example, say) then the last letters (in the end) of biG wordS | ||
definitions are underlined
I write these posts to help people get started with cryptic crosswords. If there is something here you do not understand ask a question; there are probably others wondering the same thing.
Your answer for 6A seems wrong.
Second-rate is B grade
A slow start and finished with GOBY and WATER WINGS incorrect. At least I was awake to the ‘French art’ this time.
Unfavourite word of the day: LEAFLETTED, whether it has one or two T’s.
I particularly liked the two aeroplanes amongst our feathered friends as well as KIWI and the ‘Prehistoric flyers’ in 1a.
A bit frustrating in the end but enjoyable trying to work everything out.
Thanks to Chalmie and to PeeDee
Quite right Aid, it didn’t make sense. The blog is fixed now, thank you for pointing that out.
Sweet. Many thanks, Clalmie
Ok, but for me a bit too much specialised knowledge needed. Didn’t know GOBY. Initially guessed Dory (as in the film) and checked to see if it was a pass. That didn’t work and so a word fit needed to get GOBY.
Didn’t know OSSO BUCCO, which only appears with a single C (one word or two) in my Chambers.
Didn’t know HAWKER HUNTER so googled that.
Didn’t know ORANGE-TIPS but that one was easy.
Didn’t know NAIRN but another easy one.
I have seen ‘leaflet’ as a verb before and, personally, would use a double T for the past tense. Agree with WordPlodder that it is an ugly word. SLOTH BEAR vaguely rang a bell and was the obvious anagram.
Thanks to all.
A fun run through a variety of flyers. With something like this there is almost always an element of specialised knowledge but provided, as here, things are clued fairly I don’t have an issue. I had not heard of goby or orange tips but, as has been said, they couldn’t really be much else and the learning experience is all part of the fun of solving.
A slight mistype at 12A – the country code for Poland should be PL.
Thanks to PeeDee and Chalmie.
Thanks Chalmie and PeeDee
Thought that this was a clever puzzle with that sort of loose theme where a ‘flyer’ could mean anything from a piece of paper to a thing that flew with feathers or one that flew with turbo jet engines.
Really enjoyed puzzling out the unknown words like YELLOW HAMMER and ORANGE TIPS from the word play and then just going to check what sort of flyer that they may be. Was pleased to quite quickly get the trick with the PERIOD.
Took ages to see why GOBY would be the fish and afterwards couldn’t understand why it did. It was my third last one in followed by the two aeroplanes – the HAWKER HUNTER and the SOPWITH CAMEL (which I had to get from a word finder first).
Thanks to Chalmie and PeeDee. A slow start and some tough going for me, though I did get through after almost giving up with GOBY. Both of the planes were new to me, as was ROTIS, and I did not parse WATER WINGS. I had no trouble with the extra T in LEAFLETTED but was hesitant about the extra C in OSSO BUCCO. EARLY BIRDS was my favorite.
A gentle and amusing puzzle which presented me, at least, with no real difficulties. Indeed I could say I flew through this. I love the flying theme which, once I’d spotted it helped with some of the later entries. It did make me wonder, though, if SLOTH BEAR can fly. Joint COD to the old aeroplanes, Thanks Chalmie and PeeDee
Thanks, PeeDee and commenters. This seems to have come out rather well.
I agree that LEAFLET(T)ING is quite ugly, but it’s very familiar to those of us who have spent a lot of time active in electoral politics.