27274 Thursday, 14 February 2019 Be mine, just for today..

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Well now, if I say this took me 13.58, including checking for typos and making sure all my wordplay worked, you’ll understand that, in my opinion, it’ll show up in the greenest green of the SNITCH. I don’t go much faster, but unless I’m very much mistaken, this is not because I can boast of my superior solving skills so much to suggest this is no Thursday stinker. Anagrams that are generously flagged up, words which threaten to be obscure technicalities are nothing of the sort. There is a bit of antique landscape floating around at 17, and a temptation to stretch its modern equivalent to fit, but the setter is generous with the wordplay. Sketchy knowledge of American and Mediterranean geography is required, but scarcely beyond the reach of the average daytime quiz show contestant. Four clues, no less, require a basic knowledge of music, but nothing much beyond what Julie Andrews can instruct you in.
Add a nod to today’s date, and you have a pleasant, gentle grid with a couple of clever twists to keep you entertained.
I have provided explanations and clarifications below with clues, definitions and SOLUTIONS. Please press button B

[Button B]

ACROSS

1 A tipster’s manner is confused and not totally clear (15)
SEMITRANSPARENT If you need a more obvious anagram indicator than “is confused” then I fear you may be beyond help! Muck about with A TIPTER’S  MANNER  until the answer becomes (almost?) clear
9 Temporary diversion going all around ruined tel (9)
INTERLUDE Your second, slightly less obvious anagram indicator for the day is “going all around”. Give the letters RUINED TEL to your notional million typewriting monkeys and about 3 of them should come up with the answer straight away. My probability calculation is messed up by there being two Es, but the monkeys aren’t to know that.
10 Tree is full with the mass at its head (5)
MAPLE Read AMPLE for full, and move the M(ass) to the front
11 Grub, not to provide food and support (6)
PILLAR I like this. The grub is caterpillar, remove the word cater (provide food) and there it is.
12 Point small boat across loch (8)
PINNACLE L(och) has PINNACE “across” it. Chambers says pinnace is only loosely a small boat, but also gives three (different) more precise definitions, plus, as antique slang, a whore.
13 Clergyman’s a board member after day one? (6)
RECTOR Clergyman, 6 letters, starts with R.  The wordplay has you remove D(ay) I from DIRECTOR, your board member
15 Scots town, mostly where there’s rubbish chips (8)
DUMFRIES Chips, for our American friends, are not crisps but FRIES. Add DUM by taking most of dump, “where there’s rubbish”. I initially thought dumb for rubbish, but it doesn’t work
18 Something unlikely in telephoto picture? (4,4)
LONG SHOT A double definition.
19 Suspend inhibition (4-2)
HANG-UP Another double definition, the first not requiring the hyphen
21 Support team that’s bottom (8)
BACKSIDE For what it’s worth, I support Spurs, who cheerfully destroyed Dortmund this evening in the Champions League, and are currently nowhere near bottom. But regular readers would know that.
23 Quick break from work in Post Office (6)
PRESTO One of many Italian words used in music notation, which does indeed mean quick. Break from work REST inserted into PO, Ordnance Survey for Post Office
26 Misyoke with this makes donkey very vocal (5)
NOISY Takes some working out. If there’s no ISY in MISYOKE, you get MOKE, a donkey. Cute.
27 Potential lover of beer not heartlessly cutting source of wine (9)
VALENTINE Beer is ALE, not heartlessy NT, both “cutting” VINE, source of wine. Mrs Z has asked me to make it clear that I’m not available for today’s protestations of love.
28 Newspaper operations room where one can go to play (8,7)
NATIONAL THEATRE Organs such as The Times are NATIONALs (as distinct from regionals, provincials or locals). Operations room provides the (surgical) THEATRE


DOWN
1 Captain of slalom team member keeping very quiet? (7)
SKIPPER There might be a technical term for a slalom team member, but just SKIER will do. Insert PP, more music notation for very quiet.
2 Like steel cutlery tons used to cut food (5)
METAL Again, no technical knowledge needed beyond what class of stuff steel belongs to. Food is MEAL, insert T(ons)
3 Strong winds sent a door swinging (9)
TORNADOES Third easy anagram indictor of the day, “swinging”. Rearrange SENT A DOOR
4 A peculiar genus of plants (4)
ARUM  Apparently the cuckoo-pint genus, but also applied to versions of lily. A is –um–A , peculiar is RUM.
5 Attractive at first sight with a note of promise, wearing glasses (8)
SPECIOUS Not, perhaps, the first word you light on from the definition, though Chambers gives “looking good at first sight” amongst its definitions. Note of promise is the ever useful (to setters) IOU; it’s wearing SPECS, glasses
6 Fellow’s got under a million in capital (5)
AMMAN Capital of Jordan (but you knew that). Fellow again is the most generic possible MAN, placed under A M(illion)
7 Looking forward to former setter getting good (9)
EXPECTING Former is EX, your setter not our kind host but PECTIN, used for setting jam and such. Add G(ood)
8 Ancient hero of Florida and Alabama? (7)
THESEUS I like this one too. Unless corrected by our American contingent, Im happy to accept that Alabama and Florida are THE South East United States
14 Study text for play draft on Broadway? (9)
CONSCRIPT All Broadway is doing is inviting another Americanism, draft, which means our answer on this side of the pond, rather than something theatrical as suggested by the rest of the clue. Study: CON, text for play SCRIPT
16 Perhaps Cologne newspaper’s taken in neighbouring country (9)
FRAGRANCE A less esteemed newspaper than our beloved organ is a RAG. Insert into neighbouring (and occasionally invaded) FRANCE
17 Ancient area in 1006, a former principality (8)
MOLDAVIA Trust the cryptic for this one: ancient giving OLD, then A(rea), stick them into the Roman version of 1006 which is MVI, add A from –um–a
18 Chap keeping bar in Mediterranean country (7)
LEBANON At last we need a particular, if random, chap, in this case LEON, who is “keeping” BAN for bar
20 In favour of support involving key pupil (7)
PROTEGE In favour of: PRO, support: TEE, KEY probably the musical one (of 7, plus variants) G
22 Perhaps note authority for decision (3-2)
SAY-SO Another musical note, this time from tonic sol-fa, SO (a needle pulling thread). SAY stands in for “perhaps”.
24 Fast computer link nearly installed in street (5)
SWIFT The computer link is the prosaic WI-FI, which here is only nearly complete, placed in ST(reet), rather generously given in plain.
25 Spot line included in autonomous program (4)
BLOT I was a bit worried about this one, but settled on BOT for “autonomous program” for want of anything better, and chucked in a L(ine)

82 comments on “27274 Thursday, 14 February 2019 Be mine, just for today..”

  1. Thanks, Z, particularly for PILLAR and RECTOR, though the latter is as biffable as it comes. COD between PILLAR and NOISY.
    Row 13 gives us NOISY VALENTINE. That conjures up images of someone declaiming a Shakespearian sonnet (‘Shall I compare thee…”) under a balcony in Verona, just to mix things up, and something a little earthier.
  2. Not quite as smoothly solved as Vinyl, but no challenges. As he suggested, I biffed NOISY and PILLAR, solving the latter only post-submission. I wasn’t sure about NATIONAL, but nor was I worried. Always nervous when I see e.g. ‘Scots town’, but I actually knew DUMFRIES, though it was my LOI. 8d is rather odd; however one defines the SE US, if one includes Florida and Alabama one really needs to include Georgia.
  3. 27ac VALENTINE but not much to love hereabouts.

    I felt like BIFFO the BEAR with 11ac PILLAR 25dn BLOT and 8dn THESEUS surely Florida would have sufficed?

    FOI 1ac SEMITRANSPARENT

    LOI 26dn BLOT (on my landscape)

    COD 11ac PILLAR

    WOD 15ac DUMFRIES

    Time 25 mins

    Edited at 2019-02-14 06:46 am (UTC)

      2. Florida alone seems to me a better candidate than Florida and Alabama. It is the most South-East state, and as you point out yourself Georgia is more ‘southeasty’ than Alabama and you could make the case that South Carolina is equally so. So the clue is a bit odd but there’s a question mark so it’s OK.
        1. Florida vs. Florida & Alabama: as you say (and as I said). But the wordplay is supposed to give us THE SE US, and calling Florida THE southeast US seems strained, at best. I don’t see the question mark doing any good.
          1. The question mark turns it into a definition by example: ‘Florida, for example’ seems a perfectly good definition of THE SE US to me. ‘Florida and Alabama, for example’ is odder but still works I think.
              1. I must admit that I parsed this as THESE U[nited] S[tates] and was quite happy with that. But geography never was one of my strong points.
  4. 37 minutes which would have been quicker but for my insistance on understanding wordplay as I solve and today there were 3 or 4 clues that didn’t give up all their secrets at first glance. I wasn’t aware that ‘draft’ in this sense was an Americanism as it’s well-integrated into the language on this side of the pond.

    Edited at 2019-02-14 06:17 am (UTC)

    1. Perhaps someone can help me here: isn’t the definition usually at the start or end of the clue? I was slightly surprised to find “draft” in the middle of this one.
      1. Ah-ha: I should have read the blogger’s explanation more carefully. All now fully clear (unlike 1 across).
  6. 21 minutes for me so must be on the easy side. 26a was a rather bizarre clue but easily biffable. I though there might be a typo as MISYOKE seemed an unlikely combination of letters to be a word in our language. Japanese maybe? And thanks for a nice blog zed which will be very helpful for novice solvers.
  7. 6:16, but with a silly error: MOLDOVIA. The really annoying thing is that I wisely didn’t trust to my knowledge of how to spell the names of old regions and thought I had followed the wordplay. I’m not sure how I concluded that an O was needed. I think I may have got it from the word OLD in… the answer. Whatever the source of my error was, I’m sure that trying to go quickly (I thought for a while I might break 5 minutes) was a contributing factor.

    Edited at 2019-02-14 07:30 am (UTC)

        1. I read that article but it did not inspire so I looked up the official figures in Wikipedia, from which it seems Moldova is 67th from 156. Burundi is bottom.. not sure how they measure this, but avoiding Africa in favour of Scandinavia seems to be the general drift
      2. Actually I consciously told myself not to assume that the old principality would be spelled the same way as the modern country, and still managed to stuff it up.
        1. I tried to use ELBONIA in there but then realised I’ve been reading too much Dilbert.
  8. I’m glad this was an easy one, as I was bleary this morning and had to fiddle with my subwoofer halfway through to get my accompanying music working again.

    46 minutes, with trouble coming from both expected and unexpected spots: MOLDAVIA had to go in on trust, I didn’t know “moke”, and had no idea that AMMAN existed, let alone that it was a capital. But I also managed to miss “Wi-Fi” and “bot”, for ages, which is a pretty poor show for a geek. I can’t fault the setter for anything, though; my time is purely down to my brain’s slow start today.

  9. Some good clues including THESEUS, the def for SPECIOUS and the wordplay for NOISY, though I was disappointed to miss the clever parsing for PILLAR. The first crossword VALENTINE I’ve seen so far today.

    Finished (after spending over 5 minutes on the easy SWIFT at the end) in 31 minutes.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

  11. I was another biffer or NOISY and PILLAR but I’m glad I read z’s explanation today as they are both clever clues. Like keriothe I was tempted by MOLDOVIA but paused for long enough to avoid that pitfall.
  12. Easy overall puzzle but with some clever stuff hidden away. The clue to NOISY is I think completely original and very good. I also liked (cater)PILLAR. Not sure “Broadway” is really required at 14D

    Great blog z8. You clearly remember the old telephone boxes and Button B.

    1. Indeed, especially as it was an occasional source of mildly illicit income. You’d try Button B as you passed the phone box in case the previous caller had forgotten to retrieve their pennies. Rather like (sorry Jim) scouring the local golf course for “lost” balls and selling them back to the golfers for as much as thruppence. Happy days.
      1. No apology needed – I’d have done the same but sadly there aren’t many golf courses in Brixton!
  13. About 18 minutes, fast for me, but with a hurried ‘MOLDOVIA’.

    Enjoyable stuff, not too challenging.

    Presumably ‘tel’ in 9 across is the ‘artificial mound’?

  14. 16 minutes with LOI the very clever PILLAR. I didn’t parse NOISY, not ever having called a donkey a moke. There were some nice clues here, with DUMFRIES taking COD. I did an alphabet trawl for BLOT, and fortunately B comes early in that. I was vaguely aware of a BOT. Easyish but enjoyable. Thank you Z and setter.
    PS I was disappointed not to get my 4d back when I pressed Button B. As kids, we’d go into a phone box and press the button, in the hope that the previous occupant had forgotten to do it.

    Edited at 2019-02-14 09:19 am (UTC)

  15. As others say, a easy one today. I was on song and finished in 9 mins 15 seconds, with all understood including the nice (CATER)PILLAR and the NOISY one. Getting 1a in first made it easier I guess. I don’t suppose I’ll ever improve on this time, as it picked up nearly 3 minutes from my previous best.
    I nearly put MOLDOVIA but then checked the Area bit and remembered it wasn’t Moldova with an I.
    Thanks for the blog Z.
    1. Congratulations Pip. Knocking 3 minutes off is excellent. I cannot remember my personal best but I have never broken 10 minutes.

      Perhaps your picture should reflect your time. Little? Scops?

  16. Happy with my time but not surprised with the reading on the Snitchometer.

    COD: Specious.

  18. 12 and a bit, with some searching (in vain) for a message to go with the VALENTINE.

    A 2019 Valentine:
    Roses are red, violets are blue,
    Leave me alone or I’m tweeting #MeToo

    Nice blog, Z. Admirable restraint in not mentioning Tottenham.

      1. Excellent! I came across the following exchange on FB yesterday….
        Roses are Flowers,
        Pebbles are stones,
        Here’s big shout out
        To those on their own.
        Think yourself lucky,
        And try not to sob,
        Look on the bright side,
        You’re not with a nob.
        A lady commented:
        “I spend my days without a frown, the toilet seat is always down!”
        So I replied:
        ” I spend my days with a stirrup cup. My toilet seat is always up!”
        Amusement reigned!
  19. Looks liked I managed to squeeze my enthusiasm for Tottenham in under the radar. BACKSIDE was the clue I didn’t really explain by furtively mentioning the Spurs demolition of the mighty Borussia Dortmund last night at Wembley. Sorry!
  20. Given that I clearly recall ‘Moldavia and Wallachia’ from some history lesson long ago during which I managed not to drop off there is no excuse for my MOLDOVIA. Just shy of 9 minutes otherwise and really liked NOISY.
  21. Four seconds less and I’d have been under ten minutes for only the third time. So this was definitely easy. Raced through the top line after quickly solving one across. Very much enjoyed Pectin for Setter. Makes a change from Me or Dog. What else could Setter be? Sun? LOIs Protege and Blot. Stupidly I had Valentino in for a time, before seeing the error. Must have biffed a good 30 percent. Thanks to Pectin.
  22. ….my BACKSIDE. I’m the last of the great unromantics I’m afraid. Just another excuse for commercial enterprise to squeeze our hard-earned out of us.

    Thanks to Z for parsing NOISY. I’d already looked in Chambers for “bot” when I finished the puzzle.

    FOI RECTOR
    LOI PILLAR
    COD THESEUS
    TIME 9:28

    Edited at 2019-02-14 10:54 am (UTC)

  23. Could someone please tell the crossword editor that the C of E now has female rectors. I’ve tried before …
  25. I must have had the same history lesson as Malcj because I remembered MOLDAVIA and Wallachia (I think they got lumped in with Bosnia-Herzegovina) but I’d be unlikely to find them on a map. I hope some of the QC brigade have a go at this one. I found my mind drifting a bit remembering Groucho imitating an O’Neill strange interlude and then thinking of the RECTOR as a PILLAR of rectitude. Thanks to Z for the parse on NOISY – I got no further than wondering if it had something to do with “neddy” which of course it didn’t. In honour of the date I have added a heart at the top for setter and blogger. 12.44

    1. As one of the former ‘QC brigade’, even though I know I’m missing useful info. here, I choose to do the 15×15 each day in the manner in which I assume most of the most experienced solvers learnt to do The Times Cryptic Crossword:by checking the following day,learning from the unsolved answers, and then parsing myself those which I didn’t solve correctly.

      Perhaps even you, Olivia, may have had to learn at one time? Possibly.

      I only came here today because I biffed ‘noisy’but could not make head nor tale of it and knew I never would. And I am sorry to our blogger, but I still cannot understand it.

      Perhaps you may like to explain it to the’QC brigade’?

      1. It took me a while to see how this worked even with Z’s explanation. However I can now see that if MISYOKE has no ISY it becomes MOKE which is a word for donkey. Thus “this” in the clue indicates the answer “NOISY.” Therefore if you have no ISY in MISYOKE you get a donkey and NOISY becomes the definition “very vocal.” A bit long winded, but I hope this helps!
        1. Thank you John, but this very difficult clue is wholly dependent on one knowing that a donkey is a Moke, and being able to work out that there is no ISY.
          Ranks along with yesterday’s COHABITED (oh a bite) which I also biffed. Crickey, I mean I really enjoy learning some very ‘leftfield’ stuff but………c’mon!
          2. It really just relies on making the link between ‘very vocal’ and N?I?Y. I didn’t understand this clue when I entered the answer, and this is still quite common for me. Obscure words like ‘moke’ come up a lot and I always consider this fair enough as long as the clue isn’t totally reliant on them.
            On your other question to Olivia, I can confirm that discovering this blog in around 2010, and so being able to check and understand all the answers (including the ones I couldn’t get) was incredibly useful to me in improving my solving ability. If you do it regularly you will improve rapidly.

            1. Thank you Keriothe… Today I had an epiphany! I was chatting with friends and I had previously solved all but one of today’s xword except for 12a. I felt that the answer must be PINNACLE. I innocently asked of my friends if anyone had ever heard of a small boat called a pinnace and, before I knew it,one had whipped out their IPhone and confirmed the answer.
              I shouldn’t have asked and just plonked in the answer as usual. I don’t have an IPhone but I guess they’re the way forward which is v.annoying when I’m trying to do it the old-fashioned way. On my own!
              1. You’re welcome. It sounds like you did exactly as I did: conclude that there must be a boat I’d never heard of called a PINNACE. I just bunged it in and moved on.
                Checking answers here is useful for the silly words, but there will always be another MOKE or PINNACE to trip me up, however long I do these things. Some of them will stick, but you have to learn to solve around them.
                This blog is more useful for getting wise to the setter’s tricks. Before I discovered TfTT I could often see what the answer was without understanding why, which meant I never really learned.
                I hope you find the blog useful, and keep contributing here. It’s good to hear new voices.
  26. One of those puzzles where the really clever stuff might pass you by at first, if you’ve biffed the answer to PILLAR or NOISY and then can’t quite see why either is right (guilty, your honour). Lots of entertaining stuff, including several I did see at the time.
  28. A PB for me – very plain but enjoyable sailing – saw the NO ISY trick though didn’t know a MOKE is a donkey. Didn’t parse PILLAR either being my LOI, just went for it.
  29. Straightforward today because I got “Semitransparent” quickly. I had to guess “Arum” and biff “Noisy” as I didn’t know Moke. Overall, one of my better days timewise.
  30. 14:15, delayed by mucking up 1A initially and then having to overwrite with the right letters. Failed to parse PILLAR, RECTOR and NOISY (that one was very sneaky) so thanks for that Z – and great blog, as ever. I liked EXPECTING and THESEUS, but COD to the topical VALENTINE.
  31. A most enjoyable puzzle, but along with the many, I biffed NOISY, RECTOR and PILLAR. My FOI was SKIPPER, but I mis-parsed it with (u)KIPPER as the party member, not noticing that this left me with no definition. Still it got me going. Liked EXPECTING and, particularly, THESEUS. I read the clue very carefully for 17d as I knew MOLDOVA but this ended in VIA so was going to be subtly different. 18:00 Thanks setter and Z.
  32. Roses are Red
    Violets are Blue
    Come to Times for the Times
    When you’re stumped by a clue
  33. 18 mins but dithered for seemingly ages over PILLAR and BLOT. Pillar I finally decided had to be it but no idea why, and that left .L.T for which there weren’t as many possibilities as I thought when I looked it up later. Put me in mind of the very funny Blott on the Landscape, for which the TV version was nearly as good as the book.
      1. Yes! The first time I saw David Suchet demonstrating his versatility, plus some memorable George Cole and Geraldine James scenes, too…
  34. A strange day today. Could not read the full paper online which delayed my attempt at the QC. The T2 articles section (the only thing I could read online) featured Lorena Bobbitt; perhaps the editor does not really like Valentine’s day.
    Anyway,we were tipped off this puzzle was not too hard. I got it all correct bar 17d where I relied on the cryptic to give me Xoldavia ( I had considered Moldavia) .
    Annoying.
    David

    1. The Times has apologised for that odd glitch, but it was odd to see Lorena Bobbit back in the news as a result. Perhaps it was meant as a counter to the mood of the day, and a reminder that the course of true love never did run smooth. At any event it was sn interesting slice of life.

  35. Would have been good had I not thought that the Scottish town was spelt ‘Dunfries’ – dung seemed close enough to rubbish to work. Hey-ho.
    1. Hard luck George. Mind you, with you being up in Northumberland, I would have expected a better geographical awareness of one of the closest counties to England in Scotland:-)
      1. Hello John,
        You’re right of course, but when it comes to making daft errors there’s no-one better than me. Sadly, not the first time that dodgy spelling has cost me a clear round. Best wishes.
  36. Well I raced through most of this in about 20 mins but was bamboozled by 11ac. Had to put the puzzle away and come back to it later on to solve. Whereas noisy was solved from checkers and ‘very vocal’ then working backwards to see the isy-less misyoke and guessing that the result was a donkey, for some reason I couldn’t connect the PLR checkers and ‘support’ in 11ac and work backwards to justify it. I’ll put it down to some sort of temporary word-blindness.
  37. Thanks setter and z8b8d8k
    Did this over a coffee this afternoon and comfortably finished in around 24 mins with only NOISY unparsed. Was happy to work it out a bit later on … and that was even knowing the humble MOKE (am sure that I can remember reading a book as a kid that referred to one in it!) It was probably my favourite clue when I’d understood it.
    PILLAR provided much less of a problem – had twigged to CATER quite early on … and it was then just a case of joining / unjoining the dots. Thought that THESEUS was quite clever.
    ARUM was the first in and finished in the SE corner with BLOT, SWIFT and PROTEGE.

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