26374 If only I’d remembered who talked to the animals

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
There are, in my opinion, a couple of nasty little traps in this one, one of which I fell headlong into to continue a run of sub-600 scores. In the process of producing this report, I’m going to need to confirm some assumptions forced on me by the wordplay but not looking quite right in the defiinition department. That said, I don’t think this is all that difficult, as my otherwise otiose time of 16.37 would suggest – you just have to trust the wordplay (or in one case, not). Here’s how I blew it:

Across

1 WASH UP debrief
Derived entirely from the wordplay, which is H(enry) inside WAS (used to be) and UP, at university, and an assumption that in some strange military or business world one might be a slang term for the other. Also assuming it had nothing to do with taking ones (or another’s) trousers off. It turns out that it is indeed informal business speak for a sort of follow up or debriefing session (ODO) with much debate on whether it has a British or US origin. Maybe we can pin the blame on the Aussies.
5 NUMBERED  Figured
I suppose in the sense of having numbers. N(ational) U(nion of) M(iners), half of BE(er) and RED for wine.
9 WEIGH OUT  Jockey must do it at entry
Everyone else, of course, weighs in. Sounds like WAY OUT or exit.
10 OPENED  Exposed
Writer is PEN, school CO-ED. Insert one into the other, take away the C(aught).
11 UNTRUE  Not so.
Oh how we laughed! “You turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning”. 10 October 1980, the newish PM (and not yet a Lady) refusing to change tack despite 3m unemployed. Apparently she didn’t recognise the Christopher Fry literary reference either, but then she was only a chemist. You don’t need to know any of that, though of course it smokescreens the clue. A contrived version of UTURN and (Maggi)E.
12 BRIOCHES Rolls
Recalling perhaps another earlier lady’s response to the sufferings of the masses. Oomph is BRIO, and the rest is derived by chopping hire of CHEShire.
14 LITTER BASKET  nothing much of value in it
Refuse=LITTER, and portfolio of investments=BASKET.
17 SAFE CRACKERS  Those taking deposits illegally
Easy if you remember that, in crossword land a Peter is a SAFE. Not difficult to see that Dotty can be CRACKERS.
20 BRASSICA  plant
Turnips and cabbages. Military officers are BRASS, here I(n) C(harge) of A
22 ASSISI Italian town
My nemesis-du-jour, reading the clue more cleverly than it was meant. I took the second I of Assisi and made it a T, just like the clue says, and ended up with ASSIST. Now if only I could explain why “no” means “assist”. What you’re meant to do is think of a word which means “second” (that’ll be ASSIST, then), remove the T and add an I.
23 PODIUM to finish in the top three
Rather a hateful nerb (or is that voun?) common in Formula 1. Hate is ODIUM; put P(ressure) at the front.
25 SHE DEVIL  Spiteful woman…
…who would of course become a good person if only she’d shed evil. Teehee!
26 DEMONIAC  &lit
Take one of the M(iles) away from MANIC MODE, treat the letters diabolically, and you get COMEDIAN if you have no crossers and our true answer if you -um- don’t.
27 SOLVER  you
Setter points finger out of page. Only: SOLE, R(ight), and include V(erse). If you don’t understand the clue, is it still true?

Down

2 AGEING  Elderly
A wise monarch might be a SAGE KING. Remove his first letters.
3 HIGH ROLLERS  Those spending rashly
We have another school, this time a HIGH one, supported by waves which are ROLLERS. Can a high roller also be betting responsibly?
4 PROTECTOR  Box at Lord’s
A gentleman’s genital carapace, usually in cricket, where a short pitched ball on middle might otherwise prove inconducive to continuation of the family line. PRO TEC TOR translates for private eye Hill.
5 NOTABLE  Big noise
Or a person of importance, real or imagined. If you have NO TABLE, it’s hard to play cards. Unless it’s Snap. Or 52  Pick-em-up
6 MOOLI root vegetable
Hands up if you thought it was a food proceessor. Long and white it is, tasting vaguely of radish. Low: MOO, the L and I coming from the alternate letters of pLaIn.
7 EVE  Lady.
Always: EVER. Since this is a down clue, pinching the bottom means removing the R. Stop sniggering at the back.
8 EYE LEVEL viewpoint.
Top quality is HIGH LEVEL. Speak it as you imagine Dick van Dyke would in conversation with Miry Poppins.
13 CASTS A SPELL  Entrances
Lots of actors are CASTS, give them a turn or A SPELL.
15 BEE EATERS birds
If you take the F(ine) out of BEEFEATERS, you get these rather pretty birds. If you take the P out of Beefeaters, they’ll lock you up in t’ Bloody Tower and forget where they put Her Majesty’s keys.
16 CAPRIOLE High jump
Most famously performed by the horses of the Spanish Riding School. Rebuild the letters of PLACE around Olympic City RIO.
18 CLASSIC  of the highest quality
Our family’s first car was a Ford Classic, which tended to bend in the middle, so perhaps not living up to this interpretation of its name. C(ricket) C(lub) takes into itself LASS (girl) and 1.
19 ASPIRE  the opposite (of despair)
Good enough as an antonym once you realise you have to construct it from the letters of DESPAIR minus the first.
21 IAMBI  feet
Poetical ones, that is. Today’s hidden, in WillIAM BIg.
24 IBO African
From the Biafra (remember that?) region of Nigeria. Purists might suggest it should be Igbo, but we’ve only got three spaces. A BIO is a life story, drop the B one space.

52 comments on “26374 If only I’d remembered who talked to the animals”

  1. Bunged in PRAISE at 19dn which stymied ASSISI.
    Is there a LITLER-BASKET? It would be good for a nina?
    Ah well!
  2. For a long period I had 5dn NATURAL and 17ac SAFE BREAKERS
    I also thought 14ac was LITTLE (nothing much)and 8dn EYE SIGHT -thus over an hour to untangle the mess.
    Didn’t parse 15dn BEE EATERS!But knew it had to be.
    I was out late last night so the mind wasn’t too elasticated.
    COD 4dn PROTECTOR FOI 6dn MOOLI LOI 25ac SHE DEVIL

    horryd Shanghai

  4. I was doing quite nicely with the grid completed after at 28 minutes but I had one unparsed at 4dn so I returned to it and spent 9 minutes trying to justify PROTESTOR before realizing my error. I’d had PRO covered by “for”, TEST vaguely with reference to cricket and “at Lord’s say” and TOR for “hill”, but this involved overlapping Ts, nothing for “private eye”, and “box” as the definition, but why?

    Anyhow, I got there in the end and rather enjoyed it, cheeky references and all.

    I’m afraid it has to be said that the changes affecting the main crossword when accessed via the newspaper Puzzles section make the whole facility significantly inferior to what was previously on offer via the on-line newspaper, and in the Club which mercifully remains unaffected for the moment but its days are numbered.

    Edited at 2016-03-31 04:40 am (UTC)

  5. 13:38 … with a lengthy pause before remembering where I was and twigging the Peter=safe thing.

    I hadn’t parsed PROTECTOR at all, assuming it was some arcane Private Eye magazine reference. So thanks for the enlightenment, Z8.

  6. Very entertaining puzzle and even more entertaining blog – thanks z8.
    35 minutes without falling into the ASSISI/ASSIST trap (but only just).
  7. 24 minutes, so not quite Jason Roy or Jos Buttler but you can’t have everything. Loved PROTECTOR, though NOTABLE (very nice in a you-know-it’s-NO-but-what-comes-next type of way) was last in. Roll on Calcutta.
  8. 18:46 of steady solving. Never parsed ASSISI but stuck it in from the crossers. Like PROTECTOR. In my youth, jockstraps (‘athletic supports’) had a sort of pocket to hold it and stop it moving around, which would be almost as bad as not having one in the first place. Don’t know about now. Thanks setter and blogger.
    1. Having your own protector was a luxury we could never afford as kids. So at the fall of each wicket there was a ritual “exchanging of the box”. The memory of that warm moist sensation will never leave me.

      1. Yuk! A humerous writer whose name escapes me wrote about an enormous strap-on affair which was indeed passed from batsman to batsman (were there two?) known as Cromwell, aka The Lord Protector.
  9. I had PRAISE at 19dn for a while and almost managed to change it to ASPIRE before the end… but only as far as ASPISE. Typical verlaine move. A non-illustrious 12 minutes in any case.
  10. Early solve for me before granddaughter duties begin. 34 m but a bit of struggle after a flying start in the NW. I had gaps all over and each one was a real wrestle to get them to submit their answer -BRIOCHES for example where I couldn’t see the county despite growing up on a farm where I could have one foot in Shropshire and the other in Cheshire. Those days of innocent pleasures! Excellent blog, Z – thanks.
  11. This one clicked. All done in 15 minutes, including trying comedian first for demoniac. I was wondering how Jack Dee could be described as manic. The next time my wife suggests I do the washing up, I’m going to debrief about the meal.
  12. Very enjoyable puzzle and blog – managed to negotiate this all just fine, but the SW held me up a fair while until Brassica hove into view. LOI the cunning Iambi.

    Re. protectors, former Aussie wicketkeeper/batsman Adam Gilchrist tells a tale of an occasion when, playing in a tour match at Taunton early in his career, Australia was batting and a couple of wickets fell rapidly catching him somewhat unprepared as next man in. He made his way out to the middle struggling to put on gloves and adjusting his pad straps, then having taken guard realised he had forgotten his box.

    He attempted to convey his predicament to his “mates” back in the dressing room through miming and gesticulation in the hope someone would get the message and run out with a suitable item. His team mates, however, ignored his plight, preferring to prolong the spectacle of his standing in the middle pointing at and clutching his genitals in an increasingly agitated fashion.

    1. I made the mistake , once , and only once , of slipping the box inside my boxer shorts ( non-snug!) and only realised the consequences of the error on taking a quick single!
    2. In the states it’s called a cup – so I ended up with protected as a guess. Box, stateside, is particularly vulgar slang for the ladies version of the protected area.
  13. 29:38. I thought there were some very nice clues today – WEIGH OUT, ASSISI and BEE EATERS in particular.

    I was held up at the end by ASPIRE, SOLVER and PROTECTOR, the latter for which I liked the definition when I finally saw it. It reminded me of when I started playing American Football and first got given my kit with all the protective gear. When I turned up to training I found that the coach would always check you had your tail pad in place (to protect the coccyx) as it was considered particularly important. On asking why I didn’t have mine I had to tell him I thought it was meant to shield something round the front. Needless to say next time I turned up with tail pad in place and a protector.

  14. Never quite on this setters wavelength so a bit of a struggle at times. Never heard of WASH-UP as debrief – sounds very odd

    Now, a question for our esteemed blogger

    What do the following have in common: Marie Curie; Louis Pasteur; and Michael Faraday?


    1. If it’s just that they were all left handed, I’d be really upset! I know Faraday was Thatcher’s favourite scientist, but I can’t make a similar connection for the others. Mrs T and Marie Curie constantly swap the top two spots for “most influential women ever”. How about all three have appeared on banknotes? Faraday, Pasteur, Curie
        1. I’m sure you’ll know that my tongue was lodged firmly in my cheek at that point, but I’m delighted to have elicited a response! I’m not sure Faraday would have restricted himself to the designation “chemist” – indeed I think he preferred the term “philosopher”. His life and work transcend the boundaries of science and religion anyway, and he defies any kind of categorisation. We are immensely in his debt.
          1. Restricted, no but his extensive work in the field of chemistry includes the study of chlorine and carbon, both of which he discovered. In addition he made the earliest type of bunsen burner. Curie won the Nobel Prize for chemistry and Pasteur “invented” vaccines. I tried to pick examples I thought most of the blog would have heard of! Good news about your tongue.

            1. I’d have Jenner for basic vaccine, and I understand that Pasteur’s account of anthrax vaccine was somewhat iffy. But for sure Pasteur was another in the Pantheon.

              Edited at 2016-03-31 08:28 pm (UTC)

            2. Curie won the Nobel prize for chemistry. But she also won another one for physics.
  15. ‘To podium’ has been used in cycling commentaries for a few years now. Did very well, 21 minutes, about to finish, and then…had all the letters for 16d, never heard of CAPRIOLE, gussed wrong, so technical DNF. Really liked ‘protector’.
  16. Hadn’t heard that as a verb before. Around here we get “medal” as a verb during Olympic coverage which is almost as bad. Also never heard that use of WASH UP before so I think we should definitely blame the Aussies this time. It doesn’t necessarily mean doing the dishes here, it can mean a quick doing of the hands and face.

    When I was about 9 or 10 and some of my male relatives were playing in a village cricket match I picked up one of those protective things and asked what it was. Silence de glace. 14.19

    1. Such enquiries at my local club always met with the response “Nose protector, would you like to borrow it?” Small wagers would then be placed on how long it would be until we heard the motherly scream of “Take it off!”
  17. No trouble with PODIUM or WASH-UP. The hyphenated version differs a little from the Australian usage according to Collins and Oxford. WEIGH OUT was less familiar than weigh in, in fact I can’t find it in Collins at all. IAMBI was amusing.
  18. 30mins for all but two in the bottom right: wasn’t sure if it was assist or ASSISI, and couldn’t make head or tale of 19dn. Thanks for sorting those two out. dnk CAPRIOLE. All others ok.
  19. WASH-UP was a write-in. WEIGH OUT, CAPRIOLE and MOOLI were unfamiliar but not too hard. PODIUM as a verb is just awful, but it’s everywhere now. Like kids talking about who their team is “versing” next week.

    Pretty straightforward, but good fun as usual. COD to the tricky ASSISI.

    Thanks setter and Z.

    1. Jockeys weigh out (with their saddle) before the race and weigh in afterwards, as a check on whether they have ‘mislaid’ saddle weights during the race.

      Edited at 2016-03-31 01:45 pm (UTC)

    2. A few years back in an (Aussie) football commentary we had, “He’s fraughting with danger.”
      Right off the wavelength crossword-wise but still quite fast 23 mins. Liked PROTECTOR, but couldn’t make head nor tail of ASSISI so trusted the wordplay and put in ASSIST. Bugger.

      And while WASH-UP would certainly be a write-in for debrief (noun), I’ve never heard hyphen-less WASH UP used as a verb.
      Rob

  20. I managed to make a right mooli of timing myself for this but I reckon about 10 minutes. I was confident that the unknowns mooli and Obi were correct but I feared I might have made a terrible hash of capriole and demoniac. Not so.

    Wash-up was familiar as I spent a few years on the organising committee of a beer festival and we used to have a wash-up meeting shortly afterwards, although I’d never come across it before (or indeed since).

    Is it coincidence that the gentleman’s protector crosses with safe crackers?

    Thanks for the blog & links Z. By an unfortunate coincidence it has just been announced that Ronnie Corbett has died.

    Edited at 2016-03-31 11:55 am (UTC)

  21. Do I hear the dismissal of chemists and get brought back to comment? There’s one who is a pope apparently at the moment.

    Anyhoo, I found this kind of a breeze and only had questions at DEMONIAC (where i had written COMEDIAN in first), MOOLI since I didn’t recall the vegetable and LITTER BASKET which was a total biff.

  22. As an aside, has anyone got any idea about what is (not) happening at the Crossword Club site today? In the cryptic forum, there are 3 comments, one mine, and one from Eric Erudite (aka meph) saying effectively that it is all over now.
  23. Still a relative beginner so couldn’t quite finish SE corner. Wash Up is a well used management expression (I.e bulls*** such as thinking outside the protector etc). I enjoyed the blogs remind me of smelly pink plastic objects (were the air holes for hygienic purposes or to reduce cost?). As per my strap line David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd tells a wonderfully funny story of being hit in the gentleman’s midriff by Aussie demon Jeff Thompson – see You Tube for details
    Alan
  24. No real time, due to interruptions, but it took a bit more than average due to some unknown definitions, i.e. WASH-UP, and especially PROTECTOR. Both totally from wordplay, so no biffing today. Over here I think the analogy is that the box is called a cup. Regards.
  25. I’m afraid I took the knock again and it took me 24 mins as a result. At least I was 100% correct because I saw how to parse ASSISI fairly quickly and never considered “assist”. I finished with EYE-LEVEL after BRIOCHES which doesn’t look right somehow, possibly because the plural is pronounced the same as the singular.
  26. It has just occurred to me that those of a certain age will recall EYE LEVEL as the theme tune for Van der Valk, a series about a Dutch Commisaris (big policemen) played by Barry Foster.
  27. 9:05 here with a very similar experience to yesterday: a pleasant, straightforward solve which I should have completed quicker.

    Like others I bunged in PRAISE first time through, but changed it as soon as I reached ASSISI (no problem there). WEIGH OUT was new to me but obvious from the wordplay.

  28. The pronunciation of Entrances beat me but I got it with wordplay and completed with a couple of guesses, including plumping for Assisi over Assist. As a relative newbie could someone explain why Pete = Safe? Thanks
    1. It’s actually “peter”, and it’s thieves’ slang for a safe. It comes up quite a lot in crosswords so is worth making a note of.
  29. Once again, I brought a brain which was two sizes too small for the puzzle. I ended up with “praise” and (for reasons which elude even me) that well-known Italian town “Asseri”.
  30. 15m. I didn’t get round to this today, so did it and tomorrow’s in quick succession. Never heard this meaning of WASH UP.

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