27178 Thursday, 25 October 2018 Gosh, golly, my word and other exclamations.

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Crickey, this was, shall we say, demanding. Not many gimmes and quite a few where definitions were at best elusive. The setter takes us on a tour of the entire alphabet and quite a lot of planet earth. I did not know the farming method – our more bucolic contributors might be able to add to what I culled from Chambers, and the Spanish contribution to cuisine was only vaguely familiar. I think I might have been quicker had the 1s given in more readily, but they were late arrivals, towards the fat end of my 42 (whisper it not) minutes. Oh, and today’s soundalike is particularly gruesome.
Here’s how I reasoned it all out, with clues, definitions and SOLUTIONS. For 28d, it’s kind of tricky to show what the definition is, but I like it as a clue.
Across
1 Annual ceremony convened with wizard’s backing (6)
BAFTAS The British Academy of Film and Television Arts annually gives out prizes for luvvies and associates. We are meant to see convened as SAT (as in, say Parliament) and wizard as FAB and reverse both.
4 Complaint coming up that must be got around? (3,5)
THE BENDS Divers ascending too rapidly develop nitrogen bubbles in the bloodstream, potentially both dangerous and painful, hence the first definition. I suppose the bends need to be got round on the road, say, if you’re not going to end up in the ditch.
10 Ted escapes being turned over, maybe, in Scottish town (9)
INVERNESS Being turned over is INVERTEDNESS. Scrub TED
11 Gangster and president with much in common (5)
ALIKE A rare easy one. AL Capone (probably) and “I like IKE” Eisenhower (POTUS 1953-61 – Tricky Dickie was his Veep)
12 Lightly touching on love for farming method (4,7)
ZERO GRAZING Trust the cryptic and guess a bit. Love is ZERO (at least in tennis) and lightly touching gives the rest. “A system of dairy farming in which the cattle are kept indoors and cut grass is brought to them, thus avoiding the wastage caused by conventional grazing” – Chambers (with a hyphen). Poor cows don’t get to see daylight.
14 Means to improve reputation with posh girl (3)
PRU –dence, of course. PR is your means to improve reputation, and posh is U(pper class), as popularised by Nancy Mitford.
15 Artistic movement of green and white horse? (3,4)
NEW WAVE Mostly relating to arts as in cinema and music.. Green gives NEW, and white horse gives WAVE – the foamy sort you see in rough water.
17 A division of history of equestrian art? (6)
RIDING The historic divisions of Yorkshire, and being capable on a horse.
19 Plays in ways not conforming to expectation? (6)
STRUMS I think this is ST(reet)S ways with RUM for the rest inserted
21 Local brewing house opens to provide it? (7)
ALCOHOL &lit. An anagram (brewing) of LOCAL plus HO(use) insered, “opens” being the insertion indicator
23 Return of legendary winger’s brother (3)
COR Well, a ROC is your legendary bird, and I think you get to cor from brother by seeing them both as exclamations. Cor blimey! Oh brother! Good grief!
24 Fresher you mentored in biblical work (11)
DEUTERONOMY The Times’ earnest endeavour to get you all boned up on the Bible books continues, via an anagram (fresher) of YOU MENTORED. 5th in the Pentateuch.
26 Gets gunboat back defying odds in exploit (5)
ABUSE Reverse alternates in gEtS gUnBoAt. Defying odds just means concentrate on the evens.
27 Old province of Asia, until dissolved (9)
LUSITANIA Perhaps better known as the unfortunate liner sunk bu U boat in 1915, but for our purpose a Roman province in Eastern Western Iberia (thanks Kevin – it was an occident). ASIA and UNTIL are “dissolved”.
29 Turnover from enterprise initially millions a year — then nothing (8)
EMPANADA “in Spanish and Latin American cookery, a light pasty with a usually savoury filling” – Chambers, but you can probably work that out from your rudimentary Spanish. If not, then E(nterprise) + M(illions) + P(er) A(nnum) (yearly) + NADA for nothing
30 Put out by kiss that’s tender but worth very little (6)
KOPECK Put out is KO if you think about it, and PECK your kiss. Tender could go with the kiss but I think it’s meant to indicate currency, a Kopeck being 100th of a rouble (itself worth about 1p) and worth nada.

Down
1 Go after second rate reading matter, attacking furiously (8)
BLITZING Second rate is, of course B, reading matter LIT, so ZING will have to do for go.
2 Note Cockney’s kindness being spoken of (5)
FIVER Will those wishing to protest please form an orderly queue. Allegedly, Cockneys would so pronounce favour, but I think only if played by Dick van Dyke.
3 Bearing the strain (3)
AIR Double definition, the second being as in a song or tune.
5 Is owner of bank considered? Not so (7)
HASTIER Is owner of HAS, bank: TIER
6 Trumpet-blowing of dance music dwarf covered in life story (11)
BRAGGADOCIO So RAGGA is your dance music, developed from reggae, DOC is your Person of Restricted Growth from the Disney version of Snow White, and both surrounded by BIO for life story.
7 Run in with box for tool (4,5)
NAIL PUNCH I think you get from run in to nail via coppers doing their constabulary duty and arresting felons. Box to PUNCH is easier.
8 Those in favour tipped 17 for promotion, maybe (4,2)
STEP UP Those in favour are PETS: tip ‘em up (they deserve it) and add UP from 17’s “riding”
9 What a welcome for Mary after start of birthday function (6)
BEHAVE Cor blimey Miry Poppins, this is a right do and no mistike. Let’s get start of Birthday B  to begin with, then add EH(?) for what(?), and remember our Hail Marys for AVE. Function=behave? Chambers gives it in respect of things rather than people.
13 Really fancy package, round, wrapped by West Indian (2,1,6,2)
GO A BUNDLE ON Once you concede that GOAN is OK for West Indian (Goa is on the west coast of real India) this is not so hard: package is BUNDLE and round is O, enclose it in the aforementioned.
16 No ducking the consequences of its successful negotiation? (5,4)
WATER JUMP Cryptic definition, the conceit being that if you clear a water jump you don’t get wet.
18 After filming, maybe, run to take on champion (8)
PLAYBACK Run gives play as in play/run out a rope, champion is more straightforwardly BACK. See Isla3’s suggestion for a better breakdown of the wordplay, though if you got there my way it still works!
20 Declined to hug as filthy (7)
SQUALID SLID is declined, which “hugs” QUA for as.
21 Answer kid’s composed (2,4)
AT EASE A(nswer) and TEASE for kid are differently spaced
22 Mountaineering aid seen in distance, above fell (3,3)
ICE AXE Distance is Ice, as in coolness towards, and AXE is fell as in the mighty Scots pine.
25 Large feline in spring, heading off (5)
OUNCE Well, it’s quite big if it’s a lynx, and properly big in cat terms if a snow leopard. Take the first letter off BOUNCE for spring.
28 Tango without what it takes? (3)
TWO It takes two to tango, but Tango is also NATO T, and without gives you W/O

42 comments on “27178 Thursday, 25 October 2018 Gosh, golly, my word and other exclamations.”

  1. I did this in bits and pieces, intervals of waiting for my blood test, waiting for the doctor, waiting for the prescriptions, and waiting for the meds, but it took ages, and I couldn’t come up with STRUMS for some reason. No reason, actually. DNKs here and there: EMPANADA, WATER JUMP–looked that one up after concluding that WATER CURE wouldn’t work–ZERO GRAZING, GO A BUNDLE ON. Never figured out INVERNESS. Struggled with the spelling of BRAGGADOCIO. Spent bags of time on 14ac trying to do something with GEL. Still, I enjoyed this one a lot. COD maybe to BAFTAS. Wasn’t LUSITANIA in western Iberia? Now known as Portugal?
    1. It is indeed Western Iberia, though part Portugal, part Spain. I think I must have been feeling even more disorientated than usual.
  2. What a corker! For once, I spotted the pangram and it really helped with my last one in BAFTAS. What a corking homophone at 2d too! After all, the rhine in Spine sties minely in the pline.

    A tip of the titfer to the setter and a nod to our ever-erudite blogger. 50 mins.

    1. Your example gives us Cockney, but ‘dine to tine’ (meaning ‘down to town’) gives us an extreme version of Posh.
      1. Yes, because the Cockney renders the long A vowel in pain/Spain/rain as pine/Spine/rine, while the extremely posh render the diphthong in pound/down/town as pined/dine/tine.

        I suspect that the reason the extremely posh tighten the diphthong of ‘down to town’ into a long I in that way is particularly to ensure that their diphthong does NOT, in any way at all, resemble the Cockney slide into ‘darn to tarn’.

  3. I feel a bit cheated that after all the effort of getting within three answers of completing this marathon I was unable to polish it off and had to resort to aids.

    The ones that foxed me were:

    BEHAVE with its complicated wordplay and stretch of a definition,

    BRAGGADOCIO where I got DOC and BIO but didn’t know the music or the word itself,

    and

    EMPANADA where I had E, M, P (but only courtesy of 16dn) and NADA but failed to make the final connection ‘a year’ = PA because again I didn’t know the word.

    For the record, the B-word has not come up here as an answer, although Verlaine mentioned it in passing in an introduction to a blog in May 2016. Similarly it’s RAGGA’s first outing too apart from a Jumbo in January this year, and mohn2 mentioned it when discussing RAGA music in 2016.

    EMPANADA came up once before, in 2015, and I didn’t know it then either, although helpfully it was clued as an anagram that didn’t really offer any alternatives on placement of unchecked letters and the anagrist contained the word PAN.

    Edited at 2018-10-25 06:27 am (UTC)

    1. Behave=function a stretch?
      Take that up with Collins and Chambers in particular then 🙂

      Fgbp

  4. what a great crossword, even if it did ultimately beat me – gave up with PLAYBACK & KOPECK missing, looked up playback and immediately got kopeck. Otherwise only go a bundle on, zero grazing, ragga and the spelling of braggadocio unknown, but all gettable, and very satisfying to get. Particularly liked complaint coming up, behave, and alcohol.
    I had “After filming, run” as the definition in PLAYBACK, with “take on” being play in e.g. sport or games.
  5. I don’t feel too bad to have pushed my normal hour out by five extra minutes now I’ve read everyone else’s reactions. This dialled the week well away from my wavelength…

    FOI 14 PRU while trying to knock off the little ones when I couldn’t get started. LOI the apparently Australian cockney’s 2d FIVER. Might’ve been quicker if I’d taken the time to work out what was missing from the pangram, but I’ve done that so many times in the past, only to find out that either I wasn’t missing anything, or it wasn’t a pangram!

    Enjoyed a lot along the way, including the “West Indian” and the “division of history”, where I didn’t fall at the hurdle but I did refuse a few times… Thanks to the devious setter and Z for struggling through it for us all.

    Edited at 2018-10-25 07:34 am (UTC)

  6. DNF after an hour with two left – during yoghurt, granola, etc.
    Yes – I liked this in a masochistic sort of way and was disappointed to stop with Playback/Kopeck missing (like Isla above).
    I got the 1s quickly and Empananda and Braggadocio, but was undone by the clever 30ac and (the slightly dodgy) 18dn.
    I was held up by treating 17ac as a hidden for TRIANA. Well it sounds like a division of history to me. Luckily, the use of 17 in 8dn put me right.
    Thanks setter and the excellent Z.

    PS There were four and twenty FEWER.

    PPS Having read Isla’s parsing of 18dn (ie ‘take on’=play) I now understand it at last. So not dodgy.

    Edited at 2018-10-25 08:02 am (UTC)

    1. The whole FEWER versus LESS debate has been debunked by Oliver Kamm of this parish. LESS is fine in all instances according to PEDANTS CORNER.
  7. I think your suggestion is better: I was a bit concerned with “after filming, maybe” as a definition, though it worked well enough in the heat of solving. I had assumed that “take on” was merely the connecting tissue, as it were, but since it can mean “play” it’s useful. Only the setter knows for sure!
  8. All done and dusted but in a whopping 68m. The only one unparsed was COR (ie the brother bit). I wonder perhaps if the clue would have been better served with an exclamation mark; I doubt if blimey! or cor! or brother! are ever seen without one. Nevertheless an excellent and enjoyable challenge this morning. Thanks setter, and Z for the enlightenment about the aforementioned.
    2. For me, “brother” definitely needed an exclamation mark if it alluded to COR !!! Blimey, what ARE things coming to ?
  9. 95 minutes with INVERNESS totally unparsed, ZERO GRAZING unheard of and many others semi-biffed. BRAGGADOCIO spelling was a good guess, never having heard of RAGGA and wondering where the GA had come from. This puzzle wasn’t what I needed after a dreadful evening at the Unibol, that’s the Reebok/Macron as was. Mrs BW went to the flicks next to the ground. What made it more humiliating was us meeting up after the game with my teenage best friend, a Forest supporter. It was lovely to see him though, nearly sixty years on from our glory (?) days in the local table-tennis league. As I did with the music, I came to NEW WAVE very late in the day, when I realised I liked Elvis Costello, once my nephew stopped telling me how brilliant he was. It was ‘old hat’ wave by then. COD to GO A BUNDLE ON. Thank you Z for the enlightenment and setter for the challenge.
    1. This completely defeated me. Gave up after an hour with about 50% done. Fiver indeed! Bolton ping pong league was pretty strong in the 60s and 70s. I remember many a good tussle with Phil Riley at Little Lever. Happy days
      1. By then, early sixties, I was living in Southport and played District League Table Tennis there, as well as football and cricket. It’s always been Wanderers through thick and thin for me though. Playing table-tennis is a sign of a wellspent youth, snooker and billiards a misspent one. Or did we miss out?
        1. I did both! My cousin was the captain of the table tennis team, and as I had a car and our matches were all over South West Durham, I usually got picked to play:-) We were based in the Miner’s Welfare building which boasted a dedicated Billiards Table and 3 Snooker tables, as well as the table tennis room, a dance hall with a sprung floor upstairs, and a bowling green and tennis courts outside. All gone now though:-( Happy days though.
  10. Laboured through this. Determined to finish it but not really enjoying the last half a dozen or so. BEHAVE from wordplay and trusting to “function” as definition. Likewise EMPANADA which I haven’t come across before. FIVER is ludicrous.Couldn’t cope with this sort of puzzle every day.

    Well done z8

  11. FIVER, Oh dear ….. but really enjoyed the rest of it. Held up in the SW when I had W-T– -U–. I put in WITCH HUNT and thought what a great clue. Then, WATER CURE, then WATER PUMP, then JUMP. COD to ALCOHOL which I now need.
  12. Stopped after thirty minutes with half undone. Really need some sort of indication before starting when it’s this hard, especially during the week.

    Thanks for the explanations!

  13. As a counterpoint to the puzzle a couple of days ago, one where solving in 25 minutes felt like a bit of a triumph; lots of tricky wordplay to get to grips with here, and scarcely a biff in sight. 2dn also had me asking “What would Dick van Dyke say?” which is usually the key to pulling these answers art of fin air, gorblimey. Not easy but entertaining.
  14. Tricky as this was, I did seem to be more or less on the wavelength, despite taking 55:02, as quite a few clues just hit me straight away. BAFTAS was my FOI after a little thought, then the SW sort of half filled itself with COR, ICE AXE, ABUSE and GO A BUNDLE ON falling into place. In the NE, BRAGGADICIO, RIDING, ALIKE, PRU and ____ PUNCH also dropped in, but then I was reined in and had to fire up the more reticent brain cells. LUSITANIA and OUNCE were the only early entries in the SE and my last 2 in, KOPECK and PLAYBACK had to be dragged screaming from the depths. I didn’t know EMPANADA but followed the wordplay to get the coconut(other prizes are available). A very enjoyable puzzle. Thanks setter and well played Z!

    Edited at 2018-10-25 10:37 am (UTC)

  15. With much less than half done in 30 mins! Completed defeated by this. Some very clever clues and some that stretched fairness – in my view.

    COD: ALCOHOL.

  16. ….but a great sense of satisfaction in negotiating this minefield without error.

    FOI ALIKE

    Complaints : obviously FIVER, and I’ve already noted COR (!) earlier. INVERNESS is a city.

    DNK ZERO GRAZING (LOI), or EMPANADA, and thanks to Z8B8D8K for parsing PRU, NAIL PUNCH and BRAGGADOCIO – in fact, for his entirely excellent blog.

    By the time I spotted the pangram, that knowledge had become valueless, as I already had “zero” before GO A BUNDLE ON led me to “grazing”.

    COD PLAYBACK

    A good training exercise for Saturday week, but I’d need a couple of easier puzzles to accompany one of these were I to have much chance of getting to the Final.

  17. What a wonderful puzzle – personal favourites are INVERNESS, ALCOHOL, EMPANADA, STEP UP, TWO. It was almost a surprise coming across a chestnut like (p)OUNCE after all that imaginative work.

    I was done in just over 16 minutes, but alas neglected to go back and check what was going on with BRAGGADACIO [sic]. I’d vaguely assumed that GADAC was a dwarf I didn’t know about.

    This is the second recent puzzle where ICE = distance has confused me. Third time’s a charm?

  18. COR being le mot juste. Rather feebly I thought the brother might be one of the twins in one of the Narnia books (Horse And His Boy). I did know of ZERO-tilling vaguely but it didn’t do me any good. I occasionally make EMPANADAs so that was ok but I flunked the parsing completely on at least 6 of the rest. Anything like this at the champs will drastically narrow the field – it would certainly finish me off. Thanks Z. 36.40
  19. Three hours on this, all eventually in, only to discover I’d made the same spelling mistake for the unparsed BRAGGADOCIO as did mauefw. The only mistake – very frustrating! Lots of very clever clues, but a bit too clever for me.

    Thanks anyway to the setter and to our blogger for working it all out.

  20. ….for crimes against the English language. Perhaps the setter ought to go the same way for believing that cock-er-neys really do speak like that.

    Gave up after 2 hours with 6 remaining. Didn’t get FIVER nor consequently BAFTAS – had in mind that this was probably some unknown plant – nicely done Setter. Also missed four in the NE including the apparently easy AL-IKE for which an allusion to Ike Turner might have served me better. I only had the A as a checker which seemed to confirm AL but couldn’t shake off ALIGN…

  22. Strewth! I think this was all done in about an hour and three quarters over two or three sessions at work, on the train and at home. Comments from others here and a current snitch rating of 162 (putting it in the very hard range) have served to reassure me that it wasn’t just me. Though I did try to make things harder by spelling bragga-whatsit with 1G and 2Cs, so riding took ages. In fairness, once wordplay had been fathomed and oblique definitions squinted at, each element felt solidly locked in, I was confident with each answer (even the unknown zero grazing) and had no question marks or raised eyebrows, not even at the dodgy, cockney homophone. Do me a fiver chum! I did spend time wondering if means to improve reputation might be giving one a leg up and therefore a posh gel, but it doesn’t really work in an across clue. Also pondered hole for run in at 7dn thinking the ball might run in if a golfer holed a five foot putt say but it was the wrong sort of punch. Nice to have the odd one like this, small doses though.
  23. As of 20.20 (BST) this evening only 99 solvers had posted a time. Is this a record?

    Midas

    1. I gave up on this when I realized it had stopped being Thursday. Failed on BLITZED, BAFTAS, ZERO GRAZING and STRUMS.
  24. Using combined power of hubby and I, managed to complete in two sessions totalling c.90 mins. This included, however, misspelling BRAGGADACIO (sic) and using aids for THE BENDS. Now need to sleep to recharge brains!
  25. I thought I had just lost my marbles here, thank god others found it tough too

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