27370, Thursday, 6 June 2019 Something will turn up, not only in the down clues

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

More TLS stuff in this one than some of you will be comfortable with, so I’ve added some extra high and low culture just to be even more annoying. Barely a scrap of sciency stuff anywhere in sight.
You might be forgiven for scratching around for the full alphabet as some of the higher scoring letters turn up but Q and X are missing.
I trundled through this in just over 17 minutes, hesitating only over my last in at 14 across, which I should have seen more readily.
I have taken the liberty of placing clues in italics, definitions in underlined italics, and solutions in BOLD CAPITALS
Across
1 Taken to court about smear that’s continuing(9)
SUSTAINED Taken to court: SUED surrounds STAIN for smear
6 Drinkjust less — only halves — in front of papa(5)
JULEP Take the front halves of JUst LEss and add the front of Papa. Better, in my opinion, take mint leaf, bourbon, simple syrup, and crushed ice, mix and serve.
9 Streambroadcast following down time(7)
AIRFLOW I wasted time with this trying to make an anagram of stream follow D for down, but it’s broadcast: AIR, F(ollowing) down time: LOW. The “time”, is, perhaps, not strictly necessary, but makes for a better surface
10 Playwright has Romeo fencing?(7)
BARRIER Well, he has Peter Pan fencing, anyway. J M BARRIE plus the NATO Romeo.
11 Upset if gun rusts?(5)
FUNGI Rust is a fungus that attacks wheat, one of the things you look for when roguing in a seed crop. Here, it’s an anagram (upset) of IF GUN
12 Say what you thinkto be smarter than leading clobber (3,4,2)
OUT WITH IT A charade of be smarter than: OUTWIT plus clobber: HIT
13 Notice article making one very angry(8)
SEETHING Simple. SEE THING.
14 Wisdom, say, not an expected thing(4)
NORM Pass me the stupid hat. I immediately thought NORMAN Wisdom, the darling of ultra Communist Albania (sic), and tried to remember if he’d ever played the part of a forman (which isn’t even spelt right). Added many ticking seconds to my time until I just took the AN (which is not…) off his forename.
17 Facilitate rental agreement, saving pounds(4)
EASE Rental agreement LEASE. Save,or knock off, the £
18 IR webcam disturbed cheery clerk(8)
MICAWBER The Dickensian optimist from David Copperfield, somehow captured in the disturbed, confused form of an IR WEBCAM, which he shouldn’t have been.
21 Russian impresario given good hour in Live Aid broadcast(9)
DIAGHILEV If you  know not the name, start with the G(ood) H(our) and sprinkle the letters of LIVE AID around until something that looks like a Russian impresario emerges. Perhaps most (in)famous for staging Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring in 1913, and for being the lover of Nijinsky (the ballet dancer, not the horse)
22 Openup about antipodean isle?(5)
UNZIP UP is given in plain sight, insert N(ew) Z(ealand) I(sland)
24 Colourful displayof artist in east London?(7)
RAINBOW An artist in east London is an RA IN BOW
25 Attendant eats too much soup(7)
POTTAGE Too much is OTT, which the attendant PAGE ingests. I’m more familiar with the single T version, but either is OK
26 Very familiarwith supporterless North London landmark(5)
PALLY Alexandra Palace is “the People’s Palace” in Haringey, built in 1873 and again in 1875, surviving (somehow) to this day as a magnificently unlikely piece of living British heritage. I sang there once in a scratch choir at one of its many reopenings. It housed the original BBC TV broadcasting antenna (see Dr Who, The Idiot’s Lantern). Anyway, everyone knows it as Ally Pally. For our “supporterless” purpose, remove the Ally
27 Widespread bird split by hill range(9)
PARTRIDGE Fair enough, they turn up almost everywhere, trying not to get shot. Split: PART, hill range: RIDGE

Down

1 Island’s cut back workforce(5)
STAFF The island is Staffa, from which you cut the back. Again, the “back” is not strictly necessary, but pretty.
2 Dogchewed up grannie’s slipper(8,7)
SPRINGER SPANIEL Clearly an anagram “chewed up”. GRANNIE’S SLIPPER has the requisite 15 letters.
3 Nothing left? OK(3,5)
ALL RIGHT I once got into an argument with my primary school teacher (must have been Mr Downing) about whether it was alright to write all right alright. We carried on until there was nothing left to say, which was therefore all right.
4 Recently-discoveredisland — refusing to go ashore (3-5)
NEW-FOUND The island of Noufunland without its go ashore land
5 Chap seen outside bar entrances(6)
DEBUTS Our first random bloke is DES, and the bar he takes in is all BUT
6 Yank wearing leather jacket(6)
JERKIN Yank wearing translates directly to JERK IN
7 One who painted bird somewhere in Bedfordshire(8,7)
LEIGHTON BUZZARDis the setter’s go to Bedfordshire town with 15 letters, and has turned almost as often as it does in the Leighton Buzzard Observer – even at least once in the MCS. For the “one who painted”, you can have either Edmondor Frederic, both of whom produced rather drippy works in semi-rafaelite style. The bird is perhaps more familiar.
8 Get two men in for each worker on reduced hours(4-5)
PART-TIMER We have our next two random blokes, ART and TIM, in PER for each.
13 Drug constituent turned up in police operation(5,4)
SPEED TRAP The drug is SPEED, and the constituent PART is upended
15 Crawler in support guarding time with dignitary(3,5)
PIT VIPER The support is a PIER, which “guards” T(ime) and VIP for dignitry
16 What supports running later bus(8)
BALUSTER An anagram (running) of LATER BUS
19 Caught partner getting fat(6)
CHUBBY HUBBY is an affectionate term for husband in the lower orders (so I believe). Put C(aught) on the front
20 Picturelocal set up with vulgar inside (4-2)
BLOW-UP The local PUB is inverted and houses LOW for vulgar. Blow-up as a picture came to public notice with the 1966 film of the same name with David Hemmings and several skinny lovely ladies. I wasn’t quite old enough to see it in the cinema, more’s the pity.
23 Get annoyed with girl after exercise(5)
PEEVEAnd our random miss to finish with. EVE follows PE for exercise

49 comments on “27370, Thursday, 6 June 2019 Something will turn up, not only in the down clues”

  1. I also toyed with (stream)–but + F– for a while. Biffed 7d–isn’t it the home of Our Jackkt?–and assumed post hoc that there was an artist named LEIGHTON, feeling sure that there was a bird named BUZZARD. Never did parse OUT WITH IT. My last two were NORM and PALLY. I only know Wisdom from here, and it took a long time to recall him. I was fine with PALLY, although I had no idea what the landmark was–I’ve heard of Alexandra Palace, but never Ally Pally–but at the last moment it occurred to me to wonder if it was PALSY (as in -WALSY). After a minute or two of dithering, I stuck with the L. Is PEEVE an intransitive verb? I, anyway, have never peeved, although I get peeved more than is good for my blood pressure. Z, you’ve got the wrong anagrist for MICAWBER.

    1. Thanks, amended. Micawber might just have been caught on csmera, but not on webcam

  2. … the stupid hat, after you’ve finished with it? Took Norm as being Norman – like Art/Arthur, Tim/Timothy, Eve/Evelyn, Des/Desmond – and was confused: the norm is definitely not “not an expected thing.” Oops.
    No idea of what Pally could be so had to be guessed from crossers, Diaghilev unknown-ish but went in confidently, Leighton NHO but otherwise quite straightforward. Even for someone with no TLS knowledge. Quite liked the springer spaniel chewing slippers.
    1. Peter B used to have a dunce’s cap that was borrowed and passed around amongst us when required. There was also a self-kicking boot for use at those “Doh!” moments, though I don’t remember who originated that one. Happy days!
      1. I remember the dunce’s cap.
        Also remembered why Diaghilev rang a faint bell: he appeared in Neil Curtis’s book “Bear Dinkum Drops His Guts”, which I have a copy of and have just consulted.
  3. LOI was PALLY, which I checked by Googling “PALLY” and “North London” before inking it in. I also didn’t know the island but STAFF seemed the only thing possible there.
  4. Had everything right, including the unknown Russian, but fell at the last with jerkin, guessing that the yank was GI.

    Cod springer spaniel.

  5. 14:51 … very nice puzzle. Fun vocab and lots of wit. COD NEW-FOUND.

    Knew the impresario’s name but not much else, so thanks for clearing up his amorous preferences by species, Z8, even if it nearly cost me a keyboard (wrong time to take a slurp of coffee).

    Thanks, both

  6. When the two long ones went straight in I thought this might be a quick one and so it proved, the first time I’ve been under 10 minutes for a long time. I thought I might be scuppered by my LOI, the Russian impresario but once I’d decided that I’ve heard Russian names ending in -LEV but not -LIV it could only be DIAGHILEV.
  7. 21 minutes with time lost thinking of PIT to go with VIPER and distracted by a few other bits and pieces such as -TT- in POTTAGE and wondering why the PARTRIDGE should be defined as ‘widespread’ – surely no more so than most other gamebirds? I then wondered about wingspan, but at 46cm it’s nothing exceptional. If it had been clueing ‘peacock’ it might have made more sense, but perhaps we are all missing something.

    Ally PALLY was the original home of BBC-TV until the mid-1950s but they had a studio there still in use until the mid 1980s. The antenna survives to this day and is currently used for transmitting DAB radio and various other bits and pieces.

    LEIGHTON BUZZARD covers where I live which is actually Linslade and was until 1965 a separate entity in Buckinghamshire rather than Bedfordshire.

    NEW-FOUND was late in because I had recklessly bunged in GET WITH IT at 12ac despite my not fully justifying the wordplay.

    Edited at 2019-06-06 06:05 am (UTC)

    1. The pheasant is not a native bird and only survives where it is put .. grouse are a northern moorland species only .. pigeon count as vermin not game .. so without looking into rarer species like quail yes, I would say it is more widespread than the rest..
    3. I don’t live in Linslade, but I am the local milkman,and for Leighton Buzzard too which was nicely helpful for a long down clue early on to get me going.
  8. 45 minutes, partly because I’m sleepy, and partly because I started off from 6a JULEP and bumbled around the eastward half a lot before coming back to the other side, which I found a lot easier. Apart from LOI 21a DIAGHILEV, mostly piecing the correct spelling together from fragments of other Russian names I’ve come across in spy novels. (Look, the big Russian authors are on my list, but Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is taking me a while to get through…)

    Enjoyed the sword-fighting surface of 10a BARRIER and the simplicity of 11a FUNGHI—luckily for me a friend has just had to ditch her garlic crop because of rust (sorry Kenny!).

    1. I hope you find she’s worth the effort. A strangely enjoyable book. Not my usual thing at all. Ann
  9. … so glad it only took 16 minutes. I will never listen to the Rite of Spring in the same way again thanks to the image Z8 has left me with.
  10. 30 mins with yoghurt etc.
    I enjoyed the TLSyness and also liked: JuLeP (clever), Norm(an) and Micawber.
    My MERs today were at the (deliberate) misdirection in *Widespread* bird and *leather* jacket.
    Thanks setter and great blog Z.
  11. Diagheliv for Diaghilev. I was not confident about Pit Piper.

    COD: Springer Spaniel. Not difficult to spot the anagram but very nice!

    1. This is very nearly the first times crossword I ever finished. I also put DIAGHELIV. Aargh!

      /c

  12. 32 minutes with LOI OUT WITH IT. I took longer to see NORMan Wisdom than I should have done, given that I first saw him in Trouble in Store in 1953. I’m glad Albania found him funny as, after a couple more of his films, I think I kept a straighter face than Jerry Desmonde, and I was still at primary school. Didn’t know DIAGHILEV but with crossers it was the most likely answer. I saw the Hemmings movie back in 1966 when it was considered racy. I managed to remember the King James spelling and didn’t make a mess of pottage. I refer to any jacket as a JERKIN, as did my mother who would often use the word. COD to NEW-FOUND. Good puzzle. Thank you Z and setter
  13. Easiest of the week so far. Ran through it top to bottom with barely a pause. Some thought needed for the Russian and not keen on the clue padding at 27A. Fond memories of Ally Pally from courting days.
  14. and rather English type of TLS; right up my alley, even ALLY-PALLY. Thus 13 minutes 45 seconds. My best shot for a long time.

    FOI 2dn SPRINGER SPANIEL swiftly followed by

    LOI 5dn DEBUTS

    COD 7dn LEIGHTON BUZZARD, home to my twin brother.

    WOD 21ac DIAGHILEV (I highly recommend the new Nureyev docu)

    This is how crosswords should be. Before the time that IKEA opened their doors.

    As for Widespread the setter obviously went straight into Wikipedia, as the first word one sees re-distribution is Widespread with a capital W!

    ALLY PALLY good memories of Robert Plant and LedZep ’72

    Edited at 2019-06-06 08:52 am (UTC)

  15. Enough said about the above. Loved PALLY. Have been to STAFFA, wherein Fingal’s Cave, great place.

    Canadian Pacific.

    Would have been twenty minutes, thanks z and setter.

  16. Gnargh! I managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory with “Diaghelev”, despite knowing I had only one “e” to play with and deciding it looked prettiest at the end.
  17. About 20 minutes. Don’t get the ‘time’ in 9. Leighton Buzzard seems a touch insular but nobody’s complaining. Rainbow Pottage ought to be someone’s name. (Or a political party’s.)
      1. Hmmm. ‘Down time’ tends to be taking it easy. It’s an awkward equivalent anyhow prepositionally. But I guess.
  18. I was slightly bruised by my poor performance on the QC this morning so I looked at this to see if I might improve.
    Result: a PB of 23:06 which included time to sip tea and not type. Over 10 minutes faster than my QC time. Funny old world.
    LOI was JERKIN. FOI the dog which gave lots of letters. Could not parse FUNGI -thanks for that. Happily I checked the Russian name before submitting or I would have had an extra E.
    David
  19. I’d fortunately heard of the Russian Impresario, although I couldn’t have expounded on his predilections in the same way as Z. Like Robrolfe I’ve also had a wander around Staffa and clambered along to Fingal’s Cave, a wonderful experience in clement weather. Not being able to think of BUT was a BARRIER to a speedy entry of my LOI, 10a. Jackkt’s locale was a write in, and ALLY PALLY came to mind speedily although I wasn’t caught by the trap above it. Mr MICAWBER zoomed into view and the PIT VIPER was another drop in. NEW-FOUND took a moment or two to alight. A most enjoyable puzzle. 23:07. Thanks setter and Z8.

    Edited at 2019-06-06 10:33 am (UTC)

  20. My one blind spot was UNZIP because my brain kept looking for Oz in there and then went chasing after an island name (Luzon was the only one that came to mind). Otherwise no speed bumps. JULEPs are traditional drinks at the Kentucky Derby which was a bit controversial this year because the horse that came in first was disqualified after it was deemed to have committed a foul. The tweeter-in-chief did not like the decision. When I was small I misheard the 12 Days Of Christmas to contain a “partri chinnapear tree”. Still a bit confused by “time” in 9a. 14.27
    1. Having seen the race replay, I’d say the Donald has a point. A true all-rounder!

      ulaca

  21. 9 minutes dead, finishing on PEEVE. Fortunately I decided that -ILEV was more probable than -ELIV, but the chap meant nothing to me.

    NORM went in straight away for me, but embarrassingly because I misread the clue as “…not an unexpected thing”, and assumed that Mr Wisdom might have abbreviated at times.

  22. ….over the RAINBOW you may find LEIGHTON BUZZARD. I’m glad I did, because it got me moving after a sluggish start. Only slight worry was the spelling of DIAGHILEV who was hiding in the dustier recesses of my mind.

    FOI NORM
    LOI DEBUTS
    COD SPEED TRAP (closely followed by SPRINGER SPANIEL – slippers are seriously at threat if you own one)
    TIME 8:22

  23. 8:48 just after midnight with half a bottle of vodka inside me, so definitely on the easier side. I thought “Widespread bird” was a bit strange but if you Google for widespread partridge you get over a million hits!
  25. Think this just pips my previous PB by 3 secs. Plenty of biffing here. Failed to parse the Wisdom bit of NORM though of course know of him. Don’t know where I’d heard of DIAGHILEV but having an O Level in Russian might have helped. Didn’t parse the RA IN bit of RAINBOW either- helpful checkers.
  26. A nice smooth solve with no real problems. I had to play around with the anagram to get the Russian name spelt correctly. Transliterations are always a bit of a problem. I well remember a pub quiz where they demanded the “correct” spelling for Tchaikovsky. Take your pick. An anagram always helps. 23 minutes. Ann

  27. No-one else tempted by GORM for 14ac.? No, thought not…

    I was biffing my way through this with a decent time in view – around 20 mins. – and fell at the last.

    Well, you know what they say about common sense …..

    Time: DNF in 21 mins.

    Thank you to setter and blogger.

    Dave.

  28. One wrong with what seemed vaguely familiar as WICAMBER, with the resultant groan when I hit the complete button. DNK BALUSTER and LOI was NORM with it’s misdirection holding me up.
  29. All done in around 20 minutes. I had to presume the existence of a painter named Leighton and somebody named Norman Wisdom, of whom I was unaware. Held up only by a choice between PALLY vs. PALSY, as I had never heard of the Ally Pally. Do the other palaces earn nicknames also, or does this one stand out for some reason? Regards.
    1. Alexandra Palace was conceived right from the start as “The People’s Palace” and had no royal associations other than eventually being renamed in honour of Princess Alexandra of Denmark who married Prince Edward very shortly after its opening in 1863. I don’t know of any royal palaces with nicknames other than ‘Buck House’ as a colloquial reference to Buckingham Palace.

      Edited at 2019-06-06 08:57 pm (UTC)

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