27490 Thursday, 24 October 2019 Isn’t it fun…?

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I liked this lot, particularly given the smoothness of the clues (almost) throughout, effortlessly throwing you off the track. I am fully aware that there are references in here, particularly to people from the arts (including the pugilistic ones) that might be more than a little fringe even for our erudite crew. There are not many Van Dykes I confidently know beyond Dick and the one who painted Charles 1, and while I completed the puzzle on hazy recollection and crossed fingers in some places, I had to look up the details for several artsy references. My time extended to 23.41, the SE corner producing most of the slower entries.
Including my garnered bits of knowledge, my workings are detailed below with clues, definitions and SOLUTIONS
Across
1 Spectators not allowed to finish show off (4)
CROW The spectators are a CROWD, and the “not allowed to finish” is as long a way of saying “remove the last letter” as we’re ever likely to meet
3 Warning light on beach with delta, not a place you’d want to crash (10)
BEDCHAMBER The trick with this one is to recognise the definition starts at “place”. Now then, the warning light is AMBER, and BEACH (in plain sight) with D (delta, NATO) not A gives you the rest to place in front.
9 Somehow, I want a rook like a dove (7)
ANTIWAR “Somehow” telegraphs an anagram, so play around with I WANT A R(ook – chess) to get your not-hawk dove. I am led to believe that the gentleness of doves is something of a myth
11 Not exactly in the money around here (7)
LOCALLY After trying variations on Skid Row, I realised this no CD: not exactly is CA (circa, around about) which is placed in LOLLY, one of many informal terms for money
12 She puts herself out, forsaking uniform to meet the electorate? (5,3,5)
PRESS THE FLESH A phrase born out of the politician’s (usually mistaken) belief that people will vote for you if you crush their fingers. See also glad-handing. Here, it’s born out of realising “out” is an anagram indicator, the letters to be rejigged are SHE PUTS HERSELF, minus the NATO uniform U
14 Rude not to take home so many? (5)
GROSS I’m going to say this is a triple definition: rude, not to take home (the to is a bit iffy) – take home pay being your total earnings (gross) minus deductions, and so many, via “the sum total” (Chambers)
15 Failing that is description of Henry Van Dyke’s man? (9)
OTHERWISE Very TLS-ish. Henry Van Dyke wrote in 1895 a short(-ish) story about “the other wise man”, a fourth magus who missed out on visiting the infant Jesus. You can read it here on Gutenberg: it’s really rather charming. I suspect many will have their fingers crossed on this one: I know I did.
17 Commissioner from China, with NCO, visiting sultanate (9)
OMBUDSMAN Here’s my “as I write” working out: China is CRS for mate, hence BUD, the NCO is the S(ergeant) M(ajor) and the sultanate OMAN
The word is of Swedish origin, adopted in the UK in 1967 as the title for a kind of complaints official attached to various levels and functions of government. Now pretty much universal.
19 US athlete is in the red, lapping Pole (5)
OWENS The very great Jesse, star of the Berlin Olympics. “Is in the red” translates to OWES, insert the pole of your choice. Your humble and slightly embarrassed scribe admits to trying S first.
21 American: his first failure is sampling endless rounds (13)
MISSISSIPPIAN A rather decent &litish clue. You need the American’s first, A, round which you place failure: MISS, IS (in plain sight) and SIPPINg: sampling with its end missing.
24 Close to liquidation, fine to raid one’s capital (7)
NAIROBI Close to liquidation, just the N, fine gives you A1, raid supplies ROB and one (without the ‘s which here means is) gives  – um – 1
25 Plant displayed by a large green stone (7)
ALECOST Otherwise costmary, balsam herb, bible leaf, or mint geranium. A L(arge), ECO: green, ST(one). Before hops, used for flavouring good ale.
26 Turn round diameter variable twice to find pi (5-5)
GOODY-GOODY It helps if you know pi is a (now antique) word, short for pious, meaning overly religious or sanctimonious: discussed before in these columns but perhaps forgotten. GO from (your) turn, O for round, D(iameter) and Y for variable. Then do it again. I liked the cod-mathematics here.
27 Tube empty when picked up (4)
VEIN Today’s homophone (picked up). Compare vain. My last in, and a tricky trawl with tube not, perhaps, the most generous definition.

Down

1 Boxer formerly with concern to find target (4,6)
CLAY PIGEON I hope everyone knows that Mohammed Ali was once Casius Clay. I’m familiar with the phrase “not my pigeon” meaning of no concern to me: I didn’t know it comes from Chinese pidgin (皮金 according to Translate though doubtless our Far East contingent can correct it) a corruption of business, meaning affair, concern.
2 Moving upfront, he goads hosts (2,3,2)
ON THE GO “hosted” in upfrONT HE Goads
4 Burrower disturbed the marrow (9)
EARTHWORM  What you get when THE MARROW is disturbed
5 Staff could have this small volume, mostly untouched (1,4)
C-CLEF Clearly we are in the realms of musical notation, so that sort of staff. A small volume is CC, and mostly untouched is LEFt. Indicating where middle C is, it looks like the letter B in this collection
6 Tried car home for a change, parking within sight of Paris (3,2,8)
ARC DE TRIOMPHE “For a change” tells you to throw the preceding letters in the air until they fall into a recognisable shape, You’ll aso need the P from Parking “within”.
7 High School cast up for a turn call theatre (7)
BOLSHOI In the context of this crossword, a rather clunky clue which I struggled to make sense of. But it’s H(igh) S(chool) (verified in Chambers) plus LOB for cast, both then “up” (reversed in a down clue) followed by OI for call.
8 Fish some hope to catch on the beach? (4)
RAYS Some in this context being sunbathers. A more or less double definition
10 Maybe Rebecca’s old track — that is included in musical (4,4,5)
WEST SIDE STORY More TLS. We have Rebecca WEST, writer and sometime Times journalist, keep the ‘S, add O(ld) RY (railway) track and insert that is in Latin, ID EST, better known as the abbreviation i.e. Fabulous music from Bernstein
13 Serenade knight after king in French palace (10)
KENSINGTON Forget (as I had to) Versailles, the French palace which inconveniently fits. You have serenade for SING TO, N for knight (chess) after K(ing) and French for in, EN. Currently home to several royals including the Cambridges and the Gloucesters
16 Offer stick for balancing act (9)
HANDSTAND Offer translates to HAND and stick to stand – I was thinking pontoon and poker.
18 Short grass skirts fashionable for a child (7)
BAMBINO No ra-ra here: short grass is BAMBOo which “skirts” IN for fashionable
20 Ultimately dire hole Cockney’s in, for example (7)
EPITOME So, ultimately dirE, PIT for hole and ‘OME for the aspirationally challenged Bow resident
22 Jones daughter coming out of the blue (5)
INIGO Even more TLS, Jones the architect, the blue we want being INDIGO from which his D(aughter) is excluded
23 Catch small badger (4)
SNAG A neat and relatively easy charade of S(mall) and NAG for badger.

42 comments on “27490 Thursday, 24 October 2019 Isn’t it fun…?”

  1. Also considered 25ac EMERALD and 13dn VERSAILLES but with ARC DE TRIOMPHE there already, ALESOST and KENSINGTON prevailed. (Not all well at the latter!?) And I wondered over 27ac being NEON with NONE being picked up and shaken. 15ac OTHERWISE not known but…

    FOI 12ac PRESS THE FLESH

    LOI 19ac OWENS

    COD 26ac GOODY-GOODY

    WOD 21ac MISSISSIPPIAN

    I was unable to pass the IKEAN 7dn BOLSHOI – ballet awful clue

    Time 42 minutes

    Edited at 2019-10-24 03:21 am (UTC)

  2. A real battle for me but I enjoyed it for the most part until I fell at the final hurdle, abandoning my alphabet trawl for 27ac when I got to NEON (yes, I know, but I’d finally reached the limits of my perseverance by that stage).

    NHO of Henry Van Dyke, never mind his Otherwise Man.

    How could anyone around here forget ‘pi’ when it comes up at least once a week and there are regular calls from indignant solvers for it to be consigned to crossword history?

    Edited at 2019-10-24 09:59 am (UTC)

  3. I raced through half of this then slowed dramatically on the right hand side, particularly the NE corner. The answers there had to be teased out and I particularly liked the “delta, not a” device. I spent some time trying to think of “not a place you’d want to crash”.

    Regarding pi being exclusive to crosswordland I agree it’s not often encountered outside but I seem to recall someone being described as “a bit pi” when I was a child and wondering why they were like a pastry foodstuff. I could of course have imagined it though.

  4. 12:04. I started quickly in this but then slowed down as the clues got decidedly trickier.
    I don’t think there’s anything dodgy about the ‘to’ in 14, Z. GROSS pay is ‘not to take home’ in the same way as a dressing gown in a hotel room.
  5. 40 mins and found it tough.
    Mostly I liked: Epitome, Kensington and COD to Bedchamber.
    But Bolshoi – good grief!
    Thanks setter and brilliant parsing Z.
  6. Happy to finish this in under my average time – steady progress with no big hold-ups. I was glad to know INIGO Jones and concern = pigeon from doing crosswords. I was also glad to work out BOLSHOI fairly quickly.

    Thanks, Z, for the blog and especially the details on Rebecca West and the Van Dyke (which I’d assumed without knowing). Thanks, as always, to the setter.

  7. Never heard of H Van Dyke but ‘failing that’ was enough. BOLSHOI must be a diabolical word to try and clue cryptically. A bit of a plod but got there.
  8. …but at 10 not 8 down. 41 minutes. LOI EPITOME. We had ALECOST somewhere recently fortunately, and we visited Kensington Palace only a fortnight ago for the Victoria exhibition. Disappointingly, she didn’t look that much like Jenna Coleman even when young. OTHERWISE was a total biff. I did wonder if Henry, Dick Van Dyke‘s father, partnered Eric as a boy before Ernie came along. Tough but enjoyable. COD has to go to MISSISSIPPIAN for the courage of the enterprise. Thank you Z and setter.
  9. First finish this week, pleasing. Thanks for the link to the story, z, I will read it later. Spent a long time on BEDCHAMBER, convinced it started with RED. Helped by PRESS THE FLESH, ARC DE TRIOMPHE and WEST SIDE STORY being straightforward in my view. Thanks also for the info on the C CLEF, always wondered why the tenors had funny symbols. Didn’t bother parsing MISSISSIPPIAN, em eye double ess eye double ess eye double pea eye from childhood remembered.

    24′ 30” thanks z and setter.

  10. A lot of lateral thinking needed for this puzzle. CLAY PIGEON was my FOI, and PRESS THE FLESH quickly followed it. Then the real work began, although MISSISSIPPIAN and ARC DE TRIOMPHE were big helps. SNAG and GOODY GOODY were simple enough, and once NAIROBI was in, WEST SIDE STORY was easy to biff. BOLSHOI was a bit of a battle, but I worked out the parsing eventually, the B from BEDCHAMBER being the key. The SE was more of a challenge. OTHERWISE was a biff. NHO the story. KENSINGTON took a while, ALECOST eventually surfaced once EPITOME hove onto view, but an alphabet trawl was required for the elusive VEIN. I hesitated at NEON, but moved on. An enjoyable workout at 34:48, which I observe is a dead heat with Starstruck! Thanks setter and Z.
  11. After considering Dick, Anthony and the beard I just had to wait for the checkers before seeing OTHERWISE. Will have a look at the story later – thanks for that nice piece of research Z. A hard fought 22.41
  12. ….I figured I was ready for Cassius CLAY….” I don’t suppose Bob Dylan ever did “knock him clean right out of his spleen”.

    This was exactly the sort of pre-Championship work-out I needed. Only one NHO (having already had Cassius I wondered whether Henry Cooper ever grew a beard), one biff (WEST SIDE STORY, thanks Z), and a two minute alpha-trawl to clear KENSINGTON and VEIN.

    FOI PRESS THE FLESH
    LOI VEIN
    COD GROSS
    TIME 14:19

  13. Held up for an extra minute and a half at the end by my LOI 27A, having to think further after trying, in vain (as it were), to get NEON to work. I had to rely on definition/wordplay/checkers for several – NHO that Van Dyke nor his other wise man, or Rebecca West and failed to parse BOLSHOI and MISSISSIPPIAN. Thanks for the enlightenment Z and setter for the fun puzzle. 18:25
  14. I got off to a good start with 1a CROW and gradually slowed to a crawl in the opposite corner, where I took an age to see the homophone at 27a, then a good long time to summon up the plant at 25, and then finally painstakingly working out that there must be a palace in KENSINGTON (I must have known this at some point, but I’d forgotten) let me see that the athlete was actually someone I’d heard of at 19a. (I’d been stymied by assuming it was “O/D” wrapped around a three-letter word for “pole” cluing someone I’d likely never have encountered…)

    As you’d expect, the greater obscurities passed me by, but at least WEST SIDE STORY and OTHERWISE were pretty biffable. Helpfully INIGO Jones was familiar from Bill Bryson’s At Home.

    Edited at 2019-10-24 10:46 am (UTC)

  15. Excellent challenge, with which I had quite a struggle before prevailing. Add me to those who remembered ALECOST from previous puzzles, had to take OTHERWISE solely on trust (very TLS, indeed), and had to generally work hard to ignore the obvious and wrong, such as Versailles and emerald.
  16. Plenty I didn’t quite ‘get’ here e.g. WEST SIDE STORY (who is Rebecca WEST?), BOLSHOI (almost entirely from checkers though saw the backwards LOB), OMBUDSMAN (looking at the wrong M for OMAN meant I failed to see the Sergeant Major).

    SE corner was a horrorshow – KENSINGTON instead of VERSAILLES was a disappointment, VEIN, ALECOST and EPITOME all were a bit of a struggle.

    1. Who was Rebecca West? Well, she was a novelist of the first rank, and a DBE, of whom George Bernard Shaw said “Rebecca West could handle a pen as brilliantly as ever I could.” She had a son by HG Wells, and affairs with Lord Beaverbrook and Charlie Chaplin .. her Wikipedia entry might be worth a look ..
  17. Liked this too, 26 minutes, with a few guesses (OTHERWISE, MISSISSIPPIAN) and C CLEF from wordplay only. Best of the week, so far. My FOI was West Side Story, a movie I was taken to 7 times by my then girlfriend, along with The Sound of Music probably even more often. Fortunately we didn’t have to watch the movie all the time.
    2. You mean, you got popcorn too, Pip? It’s those little extras that make the cinema so enjoyable 🙂
  18. Held up mightily at the end by -E-N, one of those annoying tasks of the solver to do an alphabet trawl (see above). Unfortunately I haven’t the patience for that, so I use a helper, much as I dislike it. OTHERWISE, fairly straightforward, although my lack of musical knowledge caused me to put V CLEF for a while.
  19. 19:30 with the RHS significantly trickier than the sinister. The four long clues were easy to biff with a few checkers in place but some of the 7-letter ones were really tricky.
  20. Had to resort to aids to get “Alecost”. I will have to memorise this along with “Alewife” as words that only appear in crossword puzzles.
    By some miracle, I came up with “Mississippian” without a single crossing letter and thinking of O. Henry gave me the O leading to “Otherwise” which, otherwise, was a total biff.
    Great puzzle even though I was a technical DNF.
  21. Dear Zed8 – I missed your query re- pidgin. 皮金 is simply Google’s phonetic translation pi-djin and has no meaning.
    Her indoors notes the Mandarin for business concern is sheng-yi and perhaps 皮金 is likely to be derived from the Cantonese or even Hokkien. Lord Ulaca?

    Edited at 2019-10-24 02:51 pm (UTC)

  22. I had G CLEF (“small volume”=gallon) for a while. Never heard of the Van Dyke fellow, and think I”ll pass on his Baby Jesus (good grief) story.
  23. Retired hurt! Defeated by chunks of the SE corner. Quite a few of the rest went in semi-parsed, so many thanks to Z8 for all the clarifications.

    Am I the only person round here who still uses ‘pi’ occasionally to describe a goody-goody / prig? I guess it’s not so common these days, but hardly rare, surely? And I’m not that ancient! A nearly pensionable birthday coming up at the weekend 😕 Funnily enough, I referenced goody-goody in the Quickie blog before starting the biggie, so 26a fell into place quite quickly. What are the chances?

    Anyway, there was enough to enjoy before I gave up – press the flesh and bambino raised a smile.

    FOI Snag
    LOI Too many to mention
    COD Antiwar

    Thanks to all 😊

    1. Well, I’m 46 and I’d never heard it used until I started doing the crossword in earnest a few years back. Mind you, I think I only recognise “prig” from CS Lewis and Enid Blyton, so maybe I just don’t get out much…

      Edited at 2019-10-24 05:18 pm (UTC)

      1. Ah but you’re just a bambino! But it is obviously a generational thing – when I was a kid, pi wasn’t uncommon (litotes alert – now that’s something I’ve learnt from here!) but has clearly gone right of fashion, along with lid, tile and rhino. Probably a good thing too, unless you’re a regular here 😉
        1. On reflection, Matt, I suspect if I used the word outside my family these days, I’d get at least an MER!
  24. Emboldened by yesterday’s performance I gave this a try. It looked harder -and was.
    Biffed WESTSIDE STORY and OTHERWISE; continued in that vein with VERSAILLES and PHILADELPHIAN ( it does fit but not with Versailles).
    An early visit here was clearly needed.
    Anyone worried about ALECOST should try Wetherspoons;£1.69 a pint in Reading on Saturday.
    David
  25. I went pretty fast on this one, probably because I was sitting in Denver Airport with my laptop battery on 5% and my flight about to board, so I didn’t have much choice.

    My LOI was GROSS which I took a long time to see as a multiple def. I was strongly suspecting that “not to take home” meant minus IN but of course it didn’t. If your net salary is your pay to take home then your gross must be your pay not to take home, I expect!

    1. Cracking time, V – ahead of both Magoo and Jason – well done! Maybe you do all your solving under “departure lounge” conditions.
  26. I liked Goody-Goody. If I’d needed the wordplay for Bolshoi, West Side Story, Otherwise, or a couple others I’d’ve been sunk.

    Edited at 2019-10-24 07:15 pm (UTC)

  27. 32:55. I thought this puzzle was quite crafty in places, in a good way. DNK that Van Dyke, more of a chitty-chitty, supercali, diagnosis murder man myself. NHO Rebecca West either but managed to work out the answers – the Def’s were helpful.
  28. Yes, that’s essentially what you get when you do the reverse translate, with GT suggesting pikin, then if you ask nicely, pigeon. The sources suggest that 皮金 is a Chinese imitation of the word business, in rather the way that Russian has бизнес ланч (biznis lanch) for the blues skies meeting at Макдональдс.
  29. Well, my brain has clearly gone into power-saving mode, since it took me 48 painful minutes to get through this one. Quite a few went in unparsed or demi-parsed (BOLSHOI and MISSISSIPPIAN amongst them), and OTHERWISE went completely over my head. LOsI were KENSINGTON and VEIN.

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