27,371: When Life Gives You Lemon Squeezy

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Well I don’t know about you lot, but I thought this was too easy for the Friday slot that is categorically no harder than any of the other days on average according to management… capping off a very easy week. 1ac went in straightaway from “very softly… thumb (9)”, LUCID came a second later, and we were off to the races with clues that were invariably wittily and prettily clued, but equally rather straightforward in their wordplay.

I will say that this was pretty much a model easyish Times crossword, with great surfaces everywhere you look and an inventive way with its containment indicators, but it’s a shame that some of the more interesting stuff was lost to me in my flurry of biffing – I didn’t feel much need to double-check what was going on with EGG TIMER, REVEILLE, GROUNDSHEET, HERRING GULL, THESAURUSES etc given a crosser or two. COD to 21dn whose surface tickled my ribs very pleasantly. And overall this puzzle was pleasant indeed, just not for quite long enough! Thanks to the setter and to the image of porcine cheese-munching jockeys (another excellent one)!

ACROSS
1 Very softly swathed in rings and fur, like a primate’s thumb (9)
OPPOSABLE – PP [very softly] “swathed in” O O [(two) rings] + SABLE [fur]. FOI.

6 Intellectually bright, left university to join police (5)
LUCID – L U [left | university] to join CID [police]. SOI.

9 Tenth muse initially failing to inspire (7)
ENTHUSE – {t}ENTH {m}USE

10 Men paid to perform for one after retirement (7)
GIGOLOS – GIG [to perform] + reversed SOLO [for one]

11 Remove contents of round tower (3)
TUG – reversed GUT [remove contents of]

12 Seabird messing up girl’s head in Yorkshire port (7,4)
HERRING GULL – ERRING [messing up] + G{irl}, in HULL [Yorkshire port]

14 Conflict is very common on street (6)
STRIFE – RIFE [very common] on ST [street]

15 Porcine jockeys love cheese (8)
PECORINO – (PORCINE*) [“jockeys”] + O [love]

17 About to ring apple-picker with incorrect wake-up call (8)
REVEILLE – RE [about], to “ring” EVE [apple-picker] with ILL [incorrect]

19 Fashionable babywear on sale, three-quarters off (6)
SNAPPY – NAPPY [babywear] on S{ale}

22 Folk with spring birthdays welcoming what’s in these books (11)
THESAURUSES – TAURUSES [folk with spring birthdays] “welcoming” {t}HES{e}

23 Zero in, turning attention away from earl (3)
NIL – reversed IN, plus {ear}L (having lost EAR = attention)

25 Mythical creature speaking amusingly, tail before face (7)
GRIFFIN – RIFFING [speaking amusingly], moving its last letter to pole position

27 Polished table leg, antagonising hosts (7)
ELEGANT – hidden in {tabl}E LEG ANT{agonising}

28 Face granny, extremely close (5)
MUGGY – MUG [face] + G{rann}Y

29 Elaborate purge repressing returning former reservists (9)
EXPATIATE – EXPIATE [purge] “repressing” reversed T.A. [former reservists]. Somewhat saddening that this seems to always have to be qualified with “former”, now it’s been the “Army Reserve” since 2014. No one would kick up a stink about AL needing to be specified as a former gangster, or TREE as a former actor, would they? Though I guess plenty of people might happily ditch the archaisms entirely…

DOWN
1 Obvious floating voter (5)
OVERT – (VOTER*) [“floating”]

2 Grass covering a German kitchen garden (7)
POTAGER – POT [grass] covering A GER [a | German]. LOI, solely due to being an unfamiliar word.

3 Exotic haircuts of a Commonwealth nation (5,6)
SOUTH AFRICA – (HAIRCUTS OF A*) [“exotic”]

4 Tired king wearing busby inside out (6)
BLEARY – LEAR [king] wearing B{usb}Y

5 Device for boiler say ultimately needing set-up instructions (3,5)
EGG TIMER – E.G. [say] + {needin}G + reversed REMIT [instructions]

6 Member oddly ignoring allergy (3)
LEG – {a}L{l}E{r}G{y}

7 Briefly soothe copper with fifty one gallstones? (7)
CALCULI – CAL{m} [“briefly” soothe] + CU [copper] + LI [fifty one]

8 Random duels upset Peel, for one (9)
DESULTORY – (DUELS*) [“upset”] + TORY [Peel, for one]

13 Stout female dons acquire camping equipment (11)
GROUNDSHEET – ROUND SHE [stout | female] “dons” GET [acquire]

14 Plan to sabotage regattas on first of May (9)
STRATAGEM – (REGATTAS*) [“to sabotage”], on M{ay}

16 Prof finally learning about boring north-eastern city (8)
FLORENCE – {pro}F + LORE [learning] + C [about] “boring” NE [north-eastern]

18 Opportunity to see rival faction (7)
VIEWING – VIE [rival] + WING [faction]

20 Slate, silver, turning up on each ancient landmass (7)
PANGAEA – PAN [slate] + reversed AG [silver] on EA [each]

21 Was repelling wife with revolting skin like a kipper (6)
ASLEEP – {w}AS [losing its W = wife] + rising PEEL [skin]

24 Lissome, and happy to go topless (5)
LITHE – {b}LITHE [happy, “to go topless”]

26 Leaders of France, enthusiastic yet slightly mad (3)
FEY – F{rance} E{nthusiastic} Y{et}

60 comments on “27,371: When Life Gives You Lemon Squeezy”

  1. Like Verlaine, a lot got biffed, but I was glad to have the wordplay for the exact name of the gull and for Groundsheet, which I only know as a ground cloth. I liked Asleep and Reveille.
  2. Yesterday I whizzed through. But today the dreaded Friday Factor came into play.

    The good Lord Verlaine notes this was ‘too easy’, but Meldrew ‘simply stood and smiled’

    for much of this. It was indeed easy but it took me 52 inglorious minutes.

    If you wish it to take longer, slow down a bit. Take a mental perambulation between clues, as do I.

    FOI 1dn OVERT

    LOI 19ac SNAPPY (Crocodile sandwich please!)

    COD 15ac PECORINO (bought just yesterday)

    WOD 10ac GIGOLOS

    For 25ac I had GRYPHON lined-up. DNP 11ac TUG.

    And I was unaware of CALCULI as gallstones.

    Edited at 2019-06-07 02:21 am (UTC)

  3. So easy, I forgot to parse GRIFFIN. But, unlike Vinyl, I didn’t have any problem seeing POT as “grass,” wonder why… ha.

    I was happy to have guessed what the “Yorkshire port” was.

    Edited at 2019-06-07 03:47 am (UTC)

  4. Finished in about an hour and a half, the morning after a heavy night on the Leffe (blonde and brune).

    Minor cheating at the end, I had 9a and 2d remaining, biffed espouse and then checked it, quickly saw the correct enthuse and then got the unknown potager.
    So quite pleased with Friday progress although noting V’s observation.

    Cod egg timer and asleep.

    Thanks.

  5. Spooky that I had exactly the same problem as vinyl1 with 1ac, writing in OPPO- and then being unable to think what came next, yet I knew that the word had come up in a quiz I watched within the past day or two (15 to 1, maybe) so it was really frustrating.

    Like horryd I tried GRYPHON at 25ac before checkers came along to prove me wrong, and btw it can also be spelt GRIFFON so with the penultimate letter unchecked one needed to understand the wordplay to be sure of the required spelling.

    I didn’t know the cheese (I love dolcelatta and gorgonzola so much that I have never felt the need to explore further varieties of Italian cheese) and I inserted the unused anagrist incorrectly. [Insert standard moan about anagrams of foreign words here, blah blah blah].

    I never did manage to parse TUG.

    I couldn’t agree more with the comment about “former” in 29ac although I’m pleased to say in my experience that particular abbreviation still seems to appear regularly without such qualification. Names from the past don’t become invalid just because they are in the past. I doubt a month goes by without (Queen) Anne turning up, but I’ve never seen her clued as ‘former queen’.

    I suppose one might have a different perspective if one solves on-line and takes part in the league table, but if I were an expert fast solver I’d be inclined to rest on my laurels and enjoy the solve, parsing everything as I went and savouring the clues.

    Edited at 2019-06-07 05:35 am (UTC)

  6. Gave up on the cheese after coming up with 4 spellings that all seemed plausible. Forced to guess, I’d have gone with REPOCINO. I suppose it would be deducible if you already knew that pecora was Italian for sheep, but I didn’t. But if you knew that, you’d probably know the cheese. Are we being trolled?

    On the plus side, GIGOLOS is brilliant. Great surface.

    Edited at 2019-06-07 06:15 am (UTC)

  7. Ditching them would be fine with me! But then it wouldn’t be the Times Crossword, would it?
  8. Greetings from mid channel .. Not too hard, but not as easy as our esteemed blogger thinks. I sympathise (not!) with his solving it too quickly to properly appreciate, and suggest that the answer lies in his own hands 🙂
    No problem with 15ac, as i like the cheese and i like the white wine of the same name even more..
  9. 35 mins with yoghurt, banana and a sip of Pecorino.
    I agree it could be an OWAA! (Obscure word as anagram). I see this abbreviation hasn’t caught on yet. But I am very familiar with the Cheese and, like Jerry, the wine.
    Hats off to the setter for putting effort into the 3-letter ones, which had a bit of a Leg-tug about them.

    I agree with previous comments – let’s not biff and move on, let’s savour. As soon as I saw 1ac (what do we know about primate’s thumbs? Opposable, obvs.) I thought, stop, enjoy the image of it being *swathed* in fur. Delicious.
    Thanks setter and V.

  10. No problems today knowing all of the vocabulary. Liked GIGOLOS, ASLEEP and TUG.
  11. 9:00. I found this mostly very easy but I got a bit becalmed in the NW corner, where POTAGER, ENTHUSE and TUG took me a while to see for some reason.
  12. If I had been a setter or editor it wouldn’t even have occurred to me that PECORINO might be unfamiliar to some people. I guess this is how they feel about the birthplaces of biblical characters, or minor characters from greek mythology, or plants.
  13. 17:07… so I agree it is as easy as the others this week. Lots of fun, though. I enjoyed the wit of TUG, ASLEEP and MUGGY, but most of all, PECORINO. Unlike Sotira, I have some in my fridge for grating on pasta as an alternative to parmesan or gran padano. Thanks V and setter.
      1. Gran Padano is more commonly known as the one you buy by mistake when you meant to buy Parmesan.
        1. cheese.com (!) has a database of 1829 different cheeses, if anyone wants to start memorizing them ahead of the Championships
        2. I always had the idea Grana Padano was the same cheese as Parmesan, but from everywhere else. There’s a locality thing (DOC?) – Parmigiano Reggiano must be from Reggio Emilia, but the same cheese is made all over. Wikipedia tells me there’s a few slight differences in the milk and the maturing, too.

          Edited at 2019-06-07 02:47 pm (UTC)

          1. I expect you’re right: the truth is I have never actually bought it myself, by mistake or otherwise, because I’m a disgraceful food snob.
  14. 28 minutes but without the correct cheese. I went for RECOPINO, although I have to admit that PECORINO now looks more likely. In fact, it’s 100% likely unless Verlaine is up to tricks. I didn’t parse TUG or know that CALCULI were gallstones, but I managed either to differentiate or integrate correctly in both those cases. I would never have spelt PANGAEA right without the cryptic. COD to REVEILLE, also a magazine available in the barber’s I went to as a child, along with the mysterious packets bought for the weekend. This was a decent puzzle, and I have to accept that foodie clues are legit. Thank you both.
  15. 45 minutes, and a pleasant start to the day. Might’ve been faster if I weren’t so 4d, but there you go.

    My time was stretched out by a few just-vaguely-known words: I’d seen 20d PANGAEA before somewhere, still had to construct it to be sure. Similarly, 2d POTAGER sprang to my mind fairly quickly, but I waited for the wordplay. The word’s probably just taken up residence in my unconscious after wandering through them at various National Trust properties…

    FOI 1a OPPOSABLE, LOI 16d FLORENCE. 10a GIGOLOS went in more quickly for having seen Breakfast at Tiffany’s for the first time last night. Enjoyed 28’s vivid surface and the “like a kipper” def, among others.

  16. I did not expect to be here on a Friday and a record time – 9.14am -the earliest I have ever completed a 15×15 ( I was on paper today and slower than yesterday).
    Started with FEY and LITHE but then got stuck in. Noted Thesauruses but then thought that Aries was the Spring sign so was trying to fit ARIANS in, making this my LOI.
    Quite a few unknowns PANGAEA and CALCULI; the cheese vaguely known. And did not parse TUG.
    Once again this came after another slow QC performance.
    David
  17. ….I put GRIFFON. Couldn’t parse it but thought the creature was spelled that way. I see it’s an alternative spelling.
    1. I double-checked the wordplay carefully, as I know that on some crossword in the past I’ve put in GRIFFIN when I was meant to be referring to a GRIFFON terrier. I can never remember which way round they are (or whether there might also be a GRIFFEN), but at least I remember to check the wordplay now!
  18. 21 minutes, so a teeny bit harder than the rest of the week, but (especially after reading comments and V’s careful analysis) realising that no less than 5 clues I hadn’t properly solved. TUG, THESAURUSES, HERRING GULL and REVEILLE all went in on automatic. What’s worse is that I didn’t realise I hadn’t sorted the wordplay. In the case of the bugle call, I was just too smug in the knowledge that I could spell it.
    The fifth was GIGOLOS. I may be betraying ignorance of what they actually do (a bit like Jon Voight in Midnight Cowboy) but I thought the clue was a mildly racy cryptic definition. Move on.
    I was lucky with the cheese after trying PEROCINO (which does have its own cheesy existence at least in internetland) and not being sufficiently convinced.
    Lots to like, lots to somewhat bewilder.

    Edited at 2019-06-07 08:55 am (UTC)

  19. Steady solve, interrupted by a phone call, so no exact time, but definitely over the half hour. Opposable FOI, and expatiate LOI. Thanks V.
  20. Bang goes your image as a woman of taste and sophistication.

    But I agree: GIGOLOS is a superb clue.

  21. Easy for me today with a good deal of biffing. Knew the cheese from the wine.

    In Mephisto the use of “former” and similar words alerts the solver to the fact that the answer is a word no longer in common usage. That seems fine to me. Its use in 29A is completely unnecessary.

  22. I didn’t find this all that easy but it sure was a relief after last week’s. Thanks to V’s parsing I now see what was going on in POTAGER. I’d been looking for “ein” German or even an “Otto” but when they didn’t turn up I just slung it in and hoped for the best. Same as others waiting for the tail end of OPPO to emerge. PECORINO sits next to the parmesan in the supermarkets we patronise and I’ve often grabbed it by mistake when in a rush. 20.19
  23. Several people are telling V to slow down and savour it all. But he is trying to win the championship and won’t get any faster by being leisurely. I bet all the other top solvers biff in just the same way. And what’s to stop him from biffing and savouring the wordplay after it’s all over?
    1. As another Championship regular, I always go for speed. That’s why I love this blog, which is part of a more leisurely enjoyment of the setter’s art.

      I thought I should have been quicker today, but was slowed down by BLEARY, ASLEEP and PANGAEA.

      FOI OPPOSABLE
      LOI EXPATIATE
      COD PECORINO
      TIME 10:22

  24. Oh dear. I’m another who’d never heard of the cheese – PEROCINO anyone? – and I also managed to misspell 10a as GIGELOS. It didn’t look right, but SOLE seemed to be doing the job, so…

    I also made fairly heavy weather of EXPATIATE and was reluctant to biff too often, so it was 10m 45s with those errors. A shame, because there were some very nice clues today, alongside a number of simpler ones.

    1. Being able to misspell gigolo is a definitive sign of a well spent youth…
    2. If you google PEROCINO there are loads of hits, usually cheese, though it appears to be a remarkably common misprint. There are pizza restaurants and such that have PEROCINO as a tile, but I can’t get the word verified. Perhaps I should check cheese.com
  25. Invented a new word Thesaureans, which meant i was done up like a kipper. I know my fellow spring birthday people as Taureans, not Tauruses, but realise now that that is a bit limiting for other star signs, Leons anyone?

    Thanks blogger and setter.

    1. I agree, and it’s not limiting really. Aquairians, Pisceans, Arieans, Cancerians, Librans, Scorpions, Sagittarians, Leonians. The three it doesn’t work for are Virgo, Capricorn and Gemini, but even then, one doesn’t put an ‘es’ on the end. I think the setter has taken a bit of a liberty there. Mr Grumpy
  26. An erring gull today: undone by a perocino, though should have thought of Latin pecus plural pecora, a flock. Also an incomprehensible groundstent. Enjoyed the rest.
  27. Officially 40:52 though around five minutes spent chatting to my office neighbour while the meter was running. Did not bother parsing THESAURUSES which was the first thing I thought of which begins wit T. I liked MUGGY.

    GIGOLOS last in – I thought the definition might be ‘Men paid to perform’ as well as ‘to perform’ meaning GIG

  28. At the boarding gate, so I just want to put on record my joy at my sub-Rhinebeck (is that the spelling? sorry, no offence meant) time…

    Edited at 2019-06-07 11:31 am (UTC)

  29. 14:00, not quite on the wavelength today and wasted time trying to fit an anagram of PURGE into 29ac until the penny dropped. Also slow to see POTAGER and GROUNDSHEET. No problem with PECORINO, as I’m a fan of both the cheese and the wine.

Comments are closed.