27478 Thursday, 10 October 2019 Awash with clergy

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Not my fastest ever solve in just under 31 minutes, and early results suggest it was on the tougher side. I can’t quite put my finger on why, although some of the wordplay took some teasing out. I counted 4 double definitions (though purists might argue 10 shouldn’t be included) and two well-crafted &lits. There are also two colours of wine to cheer the soul.

How it all works is detailed below with clues, definitions and SOLUTIONS, with the occasional superfluity to irritate or entertain according to taste

Across
1 A series about division creating unnecessary panic (8)
ALARMIST Start by equating a series with A LIST, the insert ARM as a division, as in part of a company.
5 Prince Charming maybe hugs female speaker (6)
WOOFER That sort of speaker, paired perhaps with a tweeter. Prince Charming is a WOOER, maybe, and the female he “hugs” is just the  F. Chambers helpfully defines Prince Charming as “the prince in the tale of Cinderella, symbolizing the romantic ideal of a handsome husband.” Adam Ant admonishes the character:
“Don’t you ever, don’t you ever
Stop being dandy, showing me you’re handsome”
10 Fast appreciate an appreciative audience (4,3,8)
LIKE THE CLAPPERS As well you might.
11 Creative remedy that requires prayer to be cured (3,7)
ART THERAPY If you can untangle it, THAT requires PRAYER to be added before curing. I needed a bit of a squint to see “(to be) cured” as an anagram indicator
13 Get lost in this jazz? (4)
SCAT Double definition, one an injunction, the other a series of nonsense words sung particularly in jazz to great effect
15 Listener goes in to order in small restaurant (3,4)
TEA ROOM The listener is EAR, keep the TO and translate order as OM (order of Merit) and assemble diligently
17 Forget about mediocre start in extremely short examination (4-3)
LOOK-SEE  OK can sometimes mean good, but not that good, so mediocre. Place inside LOSE for “forget“ and stick the start of Extremely on the end.
18 Elegant, thin wine bottles (7)
REFINED The wine is RED, and thin translates to fine well enough. Bottle one in the other.
19 Winger back in training, evidently somewhat unfit? (7)
PUFFING Seasoned campaigners will look for a bird reversed inside PT or PE, thus wasting time when the winger is a PUFFIN and the back in traininG is just the G.
21 Sauce spoon (4)
NECK A double definition, playing around with the wide range of possibilities for both words
22 Player in formal attire, initially? (4,6)
DISC JOCKEY Formal attire being a Dinner Jacket or DJ, and a DJ being –um- our answer
25 Sharing soapy water? Scrub Rev’s back in it, furthermore (2,3,4,6)
IN THE SAME BREATH My last in, partly because I couldn’t get from definition to answer with any ease. However, if you’re sharing soapy water, you’re IN THE SAME BATH, and if you scrub the back (letter) of REV you get the RE to put in the sequence. I’m trying too unsee the image conjured up, without much success
27 Gather African country is being spoken of? (6)
GARNER Sounds quite a bit like GHANA for non-rhotics
28 Cow that Hindu revered, originally, then anything but! (8)
THREATEN The “originally” takes the first letters of That Hindu Revered. Hindus famously regard cows as sacred and not as potential steaks, so I suppose it’s fair enough to suggest that anything but a revered cow is EATEN

Down
1 Energy finally picks up anyway (2,5)
AT LEAST Finally is AT LAST, insert E for energy
2 Heard of line that was supposedly 300 cubits long (3)
ARK The line would be an ARC, sounding like the 500 foot long floating zoo
3 Time, more than once, champion gets jittery? (5,5)
MATCH POINT An &lit clue. Time, more than once gives you two Ts, which when added to the CHAMPION and allowed to jitter give the moment(s) defined by the whole clue
4 Remove coat, translucent by the sound of it? (5)
SHEAR A spelling test. The SHEAR we want is the wool-cutting one, the see-through sound alike version is SHEER
6 Old, old rider: I just fell off? (4)
OOPS Two Os for old plus a PS to stand in for rider (“a clause or corollary added to an already complete contract or other legal document”) providing a rather mild exclamation from a faller
7 Tongue passing over gum has brought pain, perhaps? (6,5)
FRENCH STICK My favourite clue du jour, the tongue being the FRENCH language, gum being STICK and pain being bread across the channel
8 Favour wine? One who wouldn’t, averse, ultimately (7)
ROSETTE This time the wine’s a ROSÉ, one who wouldn’t favour it a TT, and aversE ultimately supplying the E
9 Footwear: lose it and collapse (4-4)
FLIP-FLOP A flimsy sandal in this case (other definitions are available). Lose it: FLIP and collapse: FLOP
12 Light on old motor of aircraft, oft on the blink (11)
TRAFFICATOR Cars of a certain vintage have pointers that flip out to indicate change of direction. Here they’re indicated by a melange (on the blink) of AIRCRAFT OFT. Younger readers might just have to play around with the letters until they look plausible
14 Sandwich possibly good, certainly filled with little dash of love (4,6)
GOLF COURSE Good is just G, certainly OF COURSE, and our little dash of Love gives the L to be included
16 Old tune a girl messed up: frantic to get over it (8)
MADRIGAL MAD for frantic goes atop A GIRL messed up
18 Exercise in operation (7)
RUNNING another double definition
20 Article overlooked on ferocious, almost entirely bogus, mythical beast (7)
GRYPHON  Ferocious might be ANGRY, so following instructions remove the article AN and add all but the Y of PHONY, bogus
23 European king can be taken by the ears! (5)
CZECH If a chess King can be taken, he is in check: run that past your ears
24 Area of water, pure (4)
MERE Yet another double definition
26 Some vocal tone (3)
ALT Buried in vocAL Tone is “a high tone, in voice or instrument”, another &lit

63 comments on “27478 Thursday, 10 October 2019 Awash with clergy”

  1. OK, pretend I’m a spoon (a simpleton, according to Chambers) and tell me how spoon = neck. The least distant definitions I can see are: spoon – to court in a mawkish or sentimental way, and: neck – to kiss amorously. What am I missing?
    Otherwise tricky – the NW corner, trafficator, threaten and LOI alt where an alphabet trawl on A_T revealed no possible answer, so a desperation guess was required, fortunately correct.
    Also quite liked the baguette, and gryphon, which I partly got thinking of possible players… hooker? jockey? hockey? aah, he’d have a Gryphon hockey stick!
    1. SOED has

      spoon:
      verb intrans. Cuddle, fondle, or talk amorously, esp. in a sentimental or silly fashion. colloq. M19

      neck:
      a verb intrans. Engage in amorous fondling (with), (of a couple) embrace, kiss, or caress one another, clasp one another round the neck. slang. E19. ▸ b verb trans. Hug, kiss, embrace; clasp (a lover, sweetheart, etc.) round the neck; fondle. slang. L19.

      ‘Fondling’ seems to be the common factor here, but both terms are euphemisms so I’m not sure their meanings were ever intended to be too specific.

      Edited at 2019-10-10 05:15 am (UTC)

      1. Thanks – same two senses as Chambers, but the common “fondling” certainly makes them closer in meaning in the Oxford.
        1. I can’t help you with the dictionary but I’m old enough to remember when both words were in relatively common usage and they were interchangeable to mean snogging
          1. Born just after the war I’m not sure I recall any of my contemporaries referring to ‘spooning’ as it seemed a bit coy even by then, but it was hard to avoid mention of it in popular songs from my parents’ generation (and earlier) churned out on TV and radio with lyrics that invariably rhymed ‘spoon’ with ‘moon’ and ‘June’. Perhaps the most famous being ‘By the Light of the Silvery Moon’ which dates from 1909.

            Edited at 2019-10-10 09:59 am (UTC)

            1. I agree with you. Spooning was definitely older generation. It all meant nothing to me until 1950s when snogging was first word of choice and the back row of the Regal was place of choice.
              1. Lovers of old might bill and coo, rather like doves. Spooner would obviously kill and boo, which is quite another matter.
                1. My eldest son recently started working as a lifeguard at our local pool which reminded me of the signs stating what behaviour wasn’t allowed in the pool, including “heavy petting”.
  2. LOI MATCH POINT (“Ouf, just an anagram!”), but scrubbing the Rev’s back was the task I finished right before—once I got it that “back in it” was also meant to tell us (somehow) that the first two letters were inserted in BATH. And I took too long on the GOLF COURSE, which looking back should’ve been a straight drive. I think someone would THREATEN in order to cow, but might not get the desired result, though I suppose the two words will find themselves in proximity in a long synonym lineup. Nice to see the rare GRYPHON. Never saw TRAFFICATOR ere this. Also dug CZECH and OOPS. And of course the baguette. Have we run out of definitions for ROSETTE yet?

    Edited at 2019-10-10 04:38 am (UTC)

  3. Rather annoyingly I didn’t make a note of my finishing time. Since others seem to have struggled a bit I’d have liked to compare my solving time as I don’t recall having any major problems with this puzzle. My only working in the margin relates to parsing IN THE SAME BREATH having already come up with the correct answer, but if I had struggled at all my print-out would usually be a mass of scribble where I noted down ideas that eventually led to something or nothing.

    My only unknown was ALT.

    I received three automated emails yesterday thanking me for subscribing to The Times and Sunday Times, confirming my account has been set up and welcoming me to the fold. I’ve only been subscribing since 2008! The text within the emails dated two of the messages as 2nd June 2107, and the third as 2nd August 2017.

    Edited at 2019-10-10 05:51 am (UTC)

    1. Thanks for mentiong this, jackkt. I had a similar email yesterday and was planning to look into it this morning. But maybe they’ve just had a glitch and accidentally sent out duplicates of old welcome mails? Anyone else had one?
      1. I got the same emailS (plural, 5 identical ones), and I cancelled my subscription in October 2017!
      2. If we’re really lucky, they’ll have accidentally subscribed us back at 2017 rates, and we can get 50% off!
        1. Not lucky… in curiosity I logged in to see if they had re-subscribed me, but no such luck ;-(
    3. So that was what that email was. And I couldn’t make out if it was from the UK or the NY Times. Now I’m glad I don’t have to think about it.
    5. You may have received an email titled ‘Thank you for subscribing’. This email was sent out due to an internal technical error which has now been resolved. No payment has been taken and no new subscription has been created on your behalf.

      Rest assured that your personal information is secure. The error was due to a technical issue and no third-party was involved. No personal details have been compromised. You don’t need to do anything.

      We’re sorry for the inconvenience caused.
      Best regards,

  4. I felt like I was “on the wavelength” today having got a quick time by my standards for a puzzle rated hard by the SNITCH. Unlike Zed, who finished with IN THE SAME BREATH, that was my FOI and everything flowed from there. I did think to myself a few times that clues were tricky despite the answers going in quickly.

    In my haste several clues were half parsed including FRENCH STICK where I took “Tongue passing over gum” to be something to do with French kissing. I’m glad to come here and find that such smut has not made into The Times!

      1. Ah, yes. Rather ironic that amongst the necking and spooning I found smut in a perfectly clean clue!
  5. 21:39 .. very fast for most of this then a long dry spell before it started raining pennies.

    Some enjoyably creative clues. DISC JOCKEY and FRENCH STICK (pain, indeed) made me very happy.

    Thanks, imaginative setter and brilliant blogger

  7. I was totally off wavelength and took well over the hour. My first car, a Ford Popular 100E had TRAFFICATORs but, as I recall it, we just called them indicators. It didn’t go LIKE THE CLAPPERS (COD), and I didn’t on any clue, not even that one.Let’s hope tomorrow is another day. Thank you Z and setter.
  9. I was surprised to find I was only at 46 minutes when I’d finished. I think I was helped by finding the top half surprisingly easy. Getting 10a LIKE THE CLAPPERS as FOI probably helped, but I also saw the FRENCH STICK and a couple of other tough ones quite quickly.

    Then came the bottom half, which was much slower work. It didn’t help that I had no idea there was a golf course (let alone two of them!) in Sandwich, so I was trying to crowbar in all sorts of things to do with earls, or possibly lords (I’d forgotten the title), or maybe just COLD somethings…

    Also found LOI GARNER and CZECH tough. I’ve thought for a year or two that I’d be much better at crosswords if I just bit the bullet and started memorising lists of countries, but it always seems like a little too much trouble to go to.

    1. I’ve always considered memorising lists of things to improve one’s solving dishonourable somehow, on the verge of cheating. Fortunately for me this acute sense of fair play dovetails nicely with my natural idleness.
      1. Yes, I do feel like I should at least be memorising not just a list of countries, but at the very least also where they sit on the map or some other basics. Maybe that’s why it seems like too much work.

        I’m okay, morally speaking, with my general Big List Of Crossword Stuff as it’s not just a wordlist but also has definitions, pictures, and so on, and sometimes inspires me to learn a bit more about the things/people/places. This week I picked up a book of Saki essays in a charity shop and listened to the Gerard Manley Hopkins episode of In Our Time…

        Truth be told, though, I mostly find that my crossword-related studies are an excellent way of procrastinating my way out of the things I really should be doing!

        Edited at 2019-10-10 08:47 am (UTC)

        1. Oh well if you’re using it as an excuse for procrastination that is entirely different, and wholly commendable.
  11. Nice to see good old trafficators mentioned .. my father had a Standard 8 with them on, when I was a child. It had air conditioning too, you could crank up the bottom of the screen to let air in ..
    No problem with necking and spooning,except the reminder of not getting any these days

    Edited at 2019-10-10 08:54 am (UTC)

    1. I drove 2CVs for many years and they had air conditioning in the form a vent flap running the width of the windscreen just behind the wipers that you could crank open when required.

      My uncle had a little Austin with a windscreen such as you describe and as a small child it was very exciting being driven fast with this open. Front seat, no seat-belt, 50+ miles an hour – no problem at all! Kids don’t know they’re born these days.

  12. Excellent puzzle with some first class clues such as 3D and 7D. Sandwich no problem to a golfer.

    My first car was a side-valve, bull-nose, Morris Oxford with a huge bench seat at the front – ideal for necking. In the middle of the steering column was a small lever that one pushed left or right to activate the TRAFFICATOR arm. It wasn’t self cancelling so one had to remember to recentralise it after turning the corner. I developed a subconscious habit of checking the lever was correctly placed whilst driving along and just occasionally to this day I catch myself checking for a lever that of course is no longer present on modern cars.

    1. I drove an elderly black cab with trafficators many years ago. Of course, I didn’t use them.
      1. The fabulous Austin FX3 no doubt that my father drove before it was replaced by the FX4. A very comfortable ride and a truly amazing turning circle, the use of which formed part of the special driving test that a cabbie had to pass to get his green badge
      2. You can count my Uncle Fred from Neasden among the FX3 cabbies as well. I remember him driving LLL 45, then RLP 611. Later in life I considered buying an FX3 and went to look at one somewhere in South London: at a touch of the brake pedal it promptly turned through 90 degrees. Did not buy.

        Jim R

  13. 18:04. I felt pleased with myself for spotting the ‘pain’ trick immediately, but rather less pleased with myself about 10 minutes later when I realised that FRENCH BREAD didn’t fit the wordplay and was the reason I couldn’t make head or tail of the NE corner. That about sums up a solve where I felt like I was making unnecessarily weather of it throughout, so I’m quite relieved to find that others found this tricky.
    NHO the TRAFFICATOR. NECK and ‘spoon’ both seem perfectly good synonyms for ‘snog’ to me.
        1. And a fourth… although I put the “BREAD” bit only lightly as I couldn’t see the gum. PUFFING got me back on track
  15. I enjoyed this – especially the surfaces. COD to the ‘pain’. Fir 26d I put in AIR at first (some vocal and tone) then saw the hidden.
  16. I must have been on the wavelength today because this one felt quite gentle – 7m 37s with no massive hold-ups, other than FRENCH BREAD. I wasn’t entirely convinced by 11a and the trick in 22a isn’t my favourite, but otherwise I thought this was very nice.

    MATCH POINT is my COD, but honourable mention to LIKE THE CLAPPERS.

    Oh, and I’m going to lay claim to being one of the younger readers – TRAFFICATOR was unknown to me, but the two Fs made it relatively easy to deduce when enough checkers were in.

    1. I’d vaguely heard of them, but never used them or even seen them in the flesh (that I can remember at least)
  17. ….LIKE THE CLAPPERS, but today that ended abruptly. Like Sotira, I got off to a reasonable start, but after 11 minutes I hit a wall, and froze totally for the next 8 minutes.

    The problems were in the SE corner, and it might have helped if I’d levered my way into it with either IN THE SAME BREATH, where the “re” eluded me, or DISC JOCKEY, where I was searching for either a sportsperson or an instrumentalist. I’ve never worn a DJ in my life, and I’m not going to be breaking that tradition any day soon.

    I had FRENCH, and just couldn’t see STICK for ages, but that was my eventual crowbar, and I slowly saw the corner off. A lack of knowledge of both golf and chess wasn’t helpful today. I also wasted a fair amount of time playing with “pe/pt” before the penny dropped with PUFFING.

    FOI LIKE THE CLAPPERS (alas, it wasn’t to be)
    LOI CZECH (not my mate)
    COD MATCH POINT (see Andy Murray yesterday)
    TIME 25:23 (I’ll need a couple of 15 minute puzzles alongside one of this severity come December 7th)

  18. really enjoyed this – right on my wavelength as well, although had no idea about the RE in IN THE SAME BREATH. Only difficulty was matching MERE with PURE. Haven’t seen it mentioned above, but how can mere and pure mean the same thing? COD CZECH appealed to me
    1. I would take a guess, but it would be mere/pure speculation?

      (No, it’s not quite there in my mind…)

  19. As always, checked the times for others before starting, which made me think we were in for a toughie (verlaine taking close to 10 minutes is always a sign….)

    So pleasantly surprised – and more than a little pleased, given the latest spate of typos I’ve subjected myself to – when the clock stopped at 13.51, and the results were all green.

    finished off in the SW corner, where GARNER took a while to arrive, which gave me MERE and RUNNING as the last 2 in.

    Nice to see a DEEJAY actually written in full (unlike a few days ago; nasty word, could happily banish it to room 101 along with EMCEE). Getting this one first helped to avoid the FRENCH BREAD pitfall as well.

    Stats would appear to back my wavelength theory, with a personal NITCH of 86 against overall 123.

    Edited at 2019-10-10 11:43 am (UTC)

    1. I’ve taken to averting my eyes from the times before starting in case thinking a particular puzzle should be easy or hard would influence my solving.
      1. I keep promising myself I’ll do that, but it never seems to happen.

        Maybe tomorrow……

  20. I took a while to get going and then struggled to keep going. However I did manage to do all the hard work in 37:51, but tripped over my LOI with a spelling mistake. CHECH. Drat!! In my defence it is a European region of Bulgaria. From Wiki: Chech (Bulgarian: Чеч, Greek: Τσέτσι) or Chechko (Bulgarian: Чечко) is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe in modern-day Bulgaria and Greece. It consists of about 60 settlements and was traditionally mostly Pomak with an Orthodox Greek and Bulgarian minorities. I shall now go and sulk. Thanks setter and Z.
  21. I don’t think there was a blind alley that I failed to take with this one. The setter had me doing FLIP FLOPs all over the place, so much so that it got so I couldn’t even see the easier ones (RUNNING and PUFFING). Some good stuff but hard work. 25.08 but it felt longer.
  22. I enjoyed this a lot, especially LIKE THE CLAPPERS, MTACH POINT, SHEAR, THREATEN and my LOI CZECH. TRAFFICATOR was constructed from the wordplay on trust, but I then vaguely remembered those sticky-out indicators. Thanks Z and setter. 20:40.
  23. Another day where I felt unusually thick-headed, though there were plenty of blind alleys to go down, and it appears I wasn’t the only one. Still, like a good masochist, I enjoyed the PAIN.
  24. No time because I did it in two sessions, but not easy. LIKE THE CLAPPERS was new to me but guessable, and TRAFFICATOR needed to be unsorted. When I did so, I had no idea of what it was either. Regards.
  25. I found this one tough, and it took me forty-six minutes. DISC JOCKEY, GOLF COURSE and CZECH all held me up after what was already a long time spent a-solving. I was also held up by GRYPHON, not knowing that it could be spelled that way.

    I enjoyed LIKE THE CLAPPERS, which I think is a beautiful expression.

  26. 53:33. I struggled a bit with this but at least I finished under my own steam unlike a couple of other puzzles this week. Some of the defs were to my mind a bit oblique and indirect. Forget/lose in 17ac, neck/spoon (perhaps I’m of a younger generation I hadn’t heard spoon used in the way discussed by others above), the way the eaten bit of 28ac is conveyed, I just fell off for oops in 6dn. NHO trafficator so I’ll put myself in our blogger’s “younger readers” category. Hooray! DNK TT could mean teetotaller the person as well as teetotal the state. I really liked 10ac, 9dn, 18dn and 23dn. Didn’t understand how match point worked when solving now I’ve seen it properly I think it’s a terrific clue.

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