Guardian Cryptic 28,007 by Vlad

by

Tough, fun, and neatly clued as ever from Vlad. Favourites 1ac, 9ac, 12ac, and 4dn.

Across
1 CHARMED Fascinated, but about to get hurt (7)
C (circa)=”about” + HARMED=”hurt”
5 ACERBIC One chapter ending writer’s cutting (7)
ACE=”One” + [chapte]R + BIC=pen=”writer”
9 IDIOT Right away Vlad would demon­strate he’s not very bright (5)
I‘D RIOT=”Vlad would demonstrate”; with R (Right) taken away
10 TO THE HILT Completely thoughtless opening, with most of this hotel requiring refurbishment (2,3,4)
T[houghtless] + (thi[s] hotel)* with the first part of the anagram fodder being “most of this”
11 HELIOTROPE Serf I engaged to secure plant (10)
HELOT=”Serf” in ancient Sparta; with I engaged inside; plus ROPE=”secure”
12 IDOL One’s most admired feature of Hello? Diddly-squat on reflection (4)
hidden reversed/”feature of… on reflection” inside: HelLO DIddly-squat
14 CLASSIFIEDS Ads on other side where, hopefully, 18 25’s provided (11)
CLASS=”where, hopefully, LESSONS WILL BE LEARNED” + IF=”provided” + (side)*
18, 25 LESSONS WILL BE LEARNED Quietly going, sacked? Bland response … well, lies (1 down justifying why not) (7,4,2,7)
=a CLICHE used to justify not sacking someone for a mistake
“sacked” as anagram indicator for (Bland response well lies)*; with the p (piano)=”Quietly” removed/”going”
21 ALAN Like name for boy (4)
A LA (as in à la)=”like” + N (name)
22 CARJACKERS Causes of traffic hold-ups (10)
cryptic definition, with “hold-up” in the sense of robbery, rather than traffic jams
25   See 18
26 INTER Bury‘s season hasn’t started (5)
[w]INTER=”season” without its starting letter
27 AUDITOR One checking car’s height (7)
AUDI=make of “car” + TOR=hill, a high place=”height”
28 AMNESTY Lady guards breeding ground! Pardon? (7)
AMY=”Lady” around/guarding NEST=”breeding ground”
Down
1 CLICHE See children’s fiction around — it’s definitely not original (6)
C=letter pronounced as “See”, or textspeak abbreviaton of “See” + CH (children) with LIE=”fiction” around it
2 AVIDLY Victor embraced by lady I fancy with enthusiasm (6)
V=”Victor” in the phonetic alphabet + (lady I)*
3 MUTTON CHOP Cycling cape’s under dog meat (6,4)
PONCHO=”cape”, with the letters “Cycling” around so that the first letter goes to the end; all after MUTT=”dog”
4 DETER Time inside does maybe discourage (5)
T (time)* inside DEER=”does”
5 ANTIPASTI Upset at pianist for starters (9)
(at pianist)*
6 EVEN Flat number son mislaid (4)
[S]EVEN=”number” with S (son) removed
7 BRINDLED Streaked — checked name’s hidden (8)
BRIDLED=restrained, “checked”; with N (name) inserted/”hidden”
8 CUT-GLASS Well-spoken German wearing sword (3-5)
=used to describe a precise way of speaking
G (German) inside CUTLASS=”sword”
13 AFFLICTION Nothing up? Force Frenchman into possible trouble (10)
FA=’F-All’=”Nothing” reversed/”up” + FLIC=French for ‘policeman’=”Force Frenchman” as in police ‘force’ + (into)*
15 ABSTAINER Seat in bar maybe not his? (9)
(Seat in bar)*
16 ALHAMBRA Palace turned over City and Gunners (exaggerating player B’s input) (8)
a palace in Granada, Spain
LA=Los Angeles=”City”, reversed/”turned over”; plus RA=Royal Artillery, “Gunners”; with insertion/”input” of: HAM=actor who overacts=”exaggerating Player” + B
17 ASSAILED Attacked after broadcast, alas, is duke out of the country? (8)
(alas is duke)* without UK=”country”
19 TESTIS After exam, one finally has a ball (6)
TEST=”exam” + I=”one” + final letter of [ha]S
20 ASTRAY Like to hear about America’s leader? Wrong (6)
AS=”Like” + TRY in court=”hear” around the leading letter of A[merica]
23 JUDEA Law supported by one biblical region (5)
JUDE Law the actor + A=”one”
24 RAPT Report in paper sent (4)
“sent”=’thrilled’ or ‘transported’, as in the song You Send Me
homophone/”Report” of ‘wrapped’=”in paper”

40 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,007 by Vlad”

  1. Thanks Vlad and manehi

    Too many unparsed for me to enjoy this, and a DNF as I revealed RAPT.

    I was intending to complain about the “ghost anagram” for 10a – T THE HILTO(n), but that wasn’t the right parsing!

    Favourites were DETER and ABSTAINER.

  2. My favourites were CUT-GLASS, IDIOT, ALHAMBRA.

    I failed to solve RAPT, and I gave up on parsing 1d, 13d, and 18/25. I got as far as thinking that ‘bland/ well/lies’ was part of the anagram fodder. Should have seen it as I was missing ‘ernesso’.

    Thanks Vlad and manehi.

  5. I had ASIF for 21a, which I thought fit very nicely.  Luckily I’m a regularly user of the “check all” button so it didn’t lead me too far astray.

  8. Lovely puzzle. My favourite was 16. What a surface!
    At 22, I thought it was a cryptic definition, involving car jacks, which hold up.

  9. I’m with muffin on this one – more respect to the setter for deconstructing the solutions to come up with the clues than enjoyment in solving. The neater clues like 1a and 7d were excellent – I’d never really thought about what brindled meant. I would have failed with RAPT as well if MrsW hadn’t looked up the answer and coached me to get there. Thanks to Vlad and manehi.

  10. Another rapt failure here. Given that paper is often FT and with the crossers and the Pauline 19d I wondered how ar could be parsed as sent….

  12. Considering that it’s Vlad, I’m glad to have missed only one and to see that I have so much company in failing to see RAPT. I did enjoy the solve but had to come here to appreciate some of the cleverer clues. My only question is about CLASSIFIEDS, where there seems to be no instruction about how to put the three elements in order. What am I missing?

    Thanks to Vlad and manehi

  14. A pleasant puzzle.  I liked DETER.

    I couldn’t parse IDIOT.  I really couldn’t parse LESSONS WILL BE LEARNED.  Affliction bothered me because I had F for force, and how could LIC be a Frenchman?

    Thanks, Vlad and manehi.

  15. Once I’d managed to untangle LESSONS WILL BE LEARNED things fell into place quite nicely, though as some have already said on here already, several clues were rather difficult to parse even when written in…

  16. Good, tough puzzle but as usual with Vlad I have quibbles:

    9 across: Are RIOT and DEMONSTRATE really synonymous?

    17 down: No matter how I torture this, the DUKE is not OUT OF THE COUNTRY – THE COUNTRY is OUT OF THE DUKE!

  18. Couldn’t convince myself about riot for demonstrate, but I can see it now.
    I too was left with lic for Frenchman. Not sure if I’ve come across flic before, it was gendarme when I was at school.

  19. I know it’s common for anagram and other unary indicators to come on the “wrong” side of their fodder, resulting in a kind of Yoda-speak, but for 17d “duke out of the country” to mean you subtract country from duke instead of the other way around just seems a bit of a cheat.

  21. Roy Blake @ 16 ‘Out of’ as in not having (“the shop was out of bread”) rather than movement or positioning.

  23. NNI

    Flic is slang in France for an agent of the police, usually applied to traffic cops, originates from German slang Flick, and very cleverly used as Herr Flick in ‘allo ‘allo as the young German police agent.

  26. Agree with manehi, that was tough.  I failed to parse AFFLICTION and ASSAILED.  Never heard of Flic before.  I think Helot in 11 has come up in crosswords, but again I had to check it.  My biggest problem was having POST in for 24 (as a dd, report/paper sent) which held up the long one, LESSONS WILL BE LEARNED.  The latter seems particularly appropriate right now, but I’d be surprised if Vlad composed this so soon after the election.

    My favourites were INTER, AMNESTY, ABSTAINER, ALHAMBRA and BRINDLED (new to me, but I managed to compose it from the wordplay).

    Great puzzle, as is usually the case with Vlad.  Thanks to him and to manehi for the much needed blog.

  27. Firstly, thanks to Vlad and Manehi. Like others I had to come here for RAPT and didn’t manage to parse completely other clues, but I don’t mind that because that meant I had to spend more time in the company of this excellent puzzle!

  28. Thanks, Conrad Cork and Clive, I only watched bits of ‘Allo ‘Allo, but don’t remember any of their names, and I wouldn’t have twigged why one of them was called Herr Flick.

  29. Lots to admire but I wonder why there isn’t more comment on 18,25. Impossible to solve without crossers and no definition that I can see. What manehi has underlined bears no resemblance to the solution.

  31. While it was LOI, I did get RAPT and thought it rather a good clue. I liked ALAN as well and ALHAMBRA brought back memories of my visit there some years ago.
    I often find Vlad unsatisfactory and have trouble parsing many of his clues and this puzzle was no exception. Indeed, I often have trouble parsing in retrospect. 18/25ac was an example of this.
    Thanks Vlad.

  33. Glad is not one of my setters of choice and a ew of these defeated me. Enjoyed reading the blog though and appreciated 10,11ac and 4d. Am I the only one who arrived at ‘carjackers’ via car jacks which are used to lift up vehicles.

    Thanks to all.

  34. Not easy but very enjoyable, mostly. I thought a few clues were rather strained, but I listed six favourites: HELIOTROPE, INTER, AMNESTY, MUTTON CHOP, CUT-GLASS and JUDEA. My top favourite above all those was, of course, ALAN. I left just RAPT unsolved at the end.
    Thanks to Vlad and manehi.

  36. Jeceris@29. I think that if manehi had underlined “sacked”as well there would have been a definition.
    28 While it didn’t hold me up I dislike clues that use “lady” or, more frequently, “girl” to indicate one of many possible 3-letter names.
    I don’t suppose I’m the only one who tried at first to parse PALER @ 9a.
    Thanks to Vlad and manehi.

  37. Am I the only person here who does this on paper? Got there in the end, although I found some harder to parse than to solve. Particularly liked “force Frenchman” = flic and the misleading definition for ASTRAY.  Solved RAPT by the time-honoured method of listing ever possibility for *A*P until I found one that worked. I went with “duke out of the country”  to mean simply “English duke” but manehi’s explanation is obviously the right one: “out of the country” as in “out of milk” for example. Thanks to Vlad for a tough challenge and to manehi for the blog.

  40. RJS, no you’re not! Dr What’s on, I agree – which is why I thought ‘the country’ was ‘e’ for Spain. I enjoyed this one but it took ages and I gave up on ALAN (I thought ASIF as well) and RAPT.

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