27646 Thursday, 23 April 2020 Cry God for Harry, England and St George….and Shakespeare

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A step up from the week’s earlier offerings, this one pushed me hard for 27’ 44” of lockdown, nothing much else to do time. I am expecting quite a few blank looks around the place, especially with the cooler at 4 down which has nothing to do with prisons, maybe the French writer better known as a delicious, if expensive, meal at 11, the bony bit on a hornbill at 17, and (you cannot be) serous at 27. I’m sure there will be others to add to that list, but they’re the ones that stretched my vocab to its limit and required much trust to be place in the wordplay and the crossing letters. Even then, the one that caused me most trouble was the very last clue, which turns out to be quite easy but didn’t readily succumb to my word-charming incantations.
My meanderings can be found below, with clues in italics, definitions in underlined italics and SOLUTIONS in bold capitals

[Click to open]


Across
1 Shoot commercials over by entrance to major conference venue (7)
POTSDAM The 1945 conference between the “Big Three”, USSR, USA and UK represented initially by Stalin, Churchill and Truman, at the Schloss Cecilienhof in Potsdam to the SW of Berlin, designed to work out what to do with Germany. To work out what to do with the clue, turn shoot into POT, (turn) over ADS for commercials, and add the first letter of Major.
5 Disorganised old citizen retiring after tea (7)
CHAOTIC Familiarly enough, tea is CHA. The put O, and only then “retire” CITizen
9 Disclosure of major crisis mostly dire in the end (9)
EMERGENCE Knock the end off (mostly) EMERGENCY (major crisis) and take on the end of dirE
10 Delay getting seat in choir (5)
STALL Two definitions, the second confirmed by any choirboy and Chambers “fixed seats in the choir of a church, generally of carved wood”
11 Holiday accommodation ultimately rented by male French writer (13)
CHATEAUBRIAND François-René, vicomte de…, on his own cognisance, “the greatest lover, the greatest writer, and the greatest philosopher of his age”, roughly the first half of the C19. It is possible, I suppose, that your holiday accommodation might be a CHATEAU, BRIAN might be your random male, the last letter of rented is definitely D. Tack it on the end.
The steak is (probably) named after him.
13 Name of one with no trust initially in God? (8)
IDENTITY  So you have I for one, then No Trust initially for the NT, only those letters to be poked into DEITY for God
15 Possible carrier’s responsibility? (6)
PIGEON You’ll have heard of a carrier pigeon, and the rest of the clue is a colloquialism “ writing up this blog is my pigeon”
17 Bony protuberance in hornbill caught like that in Paris (6)
CASQUE C(aught) like that: AS, that in Paris (ie in French) QUE. Cross your fingers and hope the hornbill recognises it.
19 Unknown in top pub, a very large rodent (8)
CAPYBARA Unknown usually X, Yor Z, this time Y. CAP from top, either verb or noun, BAR from PUB, and the A is given for free. A monstrous (but rather cute) guinea pig.
22 Social awkwardness of a youth (not women) in Montana (13)
MALADJUSTMENT If you know MT ids the standard abbreviation for Montana, it helps. Into it, squeeze A LAD (youth) and JUST MEN (no women)
25 One who has depressing experience losing daughter (5)
OWNER A sneaky definition. Leaves you with depressing experience: DOWNER from which you can lose the D(aughter)
26 Complaint of elderly relative that is opposed to entering church (9)
GRIEVANCE Another clue where the wordplay doesn’t quite do what you expect. GRAN is your elderly relative, that is opposed to gives you IE and  V, which do the entering, then church is just tagged on the end, as C( of) E
27 Like serous membrane — more than one, by the sound of it (7)
PLEURAL “serous membrane: a thin membrane, moist with serum, lining a cavity and enveloping the viscera within, such as the peritoneum or pericardium”. So there you go. Pleurae are the versions that cover the lungs that you really only notice if you contract pleurisy, which can be very painful. Believe me. Our answer is the adjectival form and sounds like plural, more than one.
28 Young woman crossing river with festoon of flowers (7)
GARLAND You need to spot that the innocuous “with” is part of the wordplay, contributing AND to GAL “crossing”  R(iver)

Down

1 Leader of House gets installed in seat — what a relief! (4)
PHEW More church seating, this time a PEW. Inset leader of H(ouse)
2 Sweet substance a chameleon originally left in woody plant? (7)
TREACLE Thank goodness the woody plant is just a TREE. Insert A C(hameleon) and L(eft)
3 Follow graduate’s code of beliefs (5)
DOGMA Follow: DOG and graduate: MA. Also very high on my list of quirky films I like.
4 Sadly not Henry’s first time for the cooler (8)
MONTEITH “Large 17c or 18c bowl, usually of silver, fluted and scalloped, for cooling punch-glasses (said to be named from a fantastical Scot who wore his cloak so scalloped)”. Does anyone have one?  The wordplay’s a bit tricky too, our first anagram (“sadly”) du jour, made up of NOT H(enry’s first) TIME. I needed all the checkers and some hope. Last turned op in 2009, when the clue was maybe slightly more helpful: “Silver bowl — extraordinary hit with composer (not Verdi)”
5 On telephone, stop money order (6)
CHEQUE a nice, simple homophone to make up for the previous clue
6 Folly bust dairy, unfortunately (9)
ABSURDITY “Unfortunately” and anagram of BUST DAIRY
7 Carry around not quite all of every toasted bun (7)
TEACAKE Carry translates to TAKE, and most of EACh for every gets included
8 Scot’s scam squeezing Welshman and male compatriot, say (10)
CALEDONIAN So. Scam is CON. Your random Welshman is ALED (as in Jones the Snowman) and your random (but nearly always) Scottish compatriot is IAN. Assemble
12 Simpleton finally given reduced earnings on deck (10)
NINCOMPOOP Finally giveN plus INCOME for earnings reduced by one letter, and POOP for the deck. No sniggering at the back.
14 Is leaving this beneath Queen’s old newspaper (9)
THUNDERER Nickname for The Times since about 1830. Start with THIS, remove the IS like it says. Beneath then gives UNDER, and at 94 plus 2 days the Queen is still ER
16 Fighting hard in capturing head of legion (8)
BATTLING At last, a cricket reference. On who is in is BATTING. Insert the head of Legion
18 Cut short Hamlet’s rest? (7)
SILENCE The Prince of Denmark’s last words (apart from O, O, O, O (Sic)) are “the rest is silence”.
20 Feeler put out by worker upset girl (7)
ANTENNA Your worker is an ANT (true in crosswordland), backed up by Proverbs 6.6 berating slackers and other lie-a-beds: “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise!”. Then add ANNE, your random girl, “upset”
21 Amusing lass like Candida, for example? (6)
FUNGAL If you know Candida is a fungus, you’ll breeze this one. Amusing lass: FUN GAL.
23 Young swimmer always seen around lake (5)
ELVER Specifically a young eel, here EVER for always including L(ake)
24 Paid actor supplying cues (4)
FEED A double definition, though I nearly in desperation put in LEAD, which doesn’t work

59 comments on “27646 Thursday, 23 April 2020 Cry God for Harry, England and St George….and Shakespeare”

  1. Off to a slow start, with FOI OWNER, followed by ANTENNA. Things didn’t pick up much after that, and I finally gave up at around 40′ with MONTIETH & PIGEON yet to be grasped. NHO MONTEITH; it’s possible I may have once come across PIGEON here, but essentially a DNK, and not a chance I’d come up with it. Also didn’t know FEED or ALED, but inferred their existence.
  2. as I had LEAD at 24dn rather than FEED. Whatever!

    I vaguely knew 4dn MONTIETH as a punchbowl but better as a handkerchief. Also Jacobean-French for dentures.

    FOI 1dn PHEW!

    LOI & COD 15ac PIGEON another motherly phrase.

    WOD 18ac CAPYBARA I note that it differs from a coypu in that it is not crepuscular and looks bigger. When I was a nipper they used to have’em up at Chatsworth.

    Also 12dn NINCOMPOOP is delightfully onomatopoeic.

    Good work Mr. Setter and and Joe Bloggz

    Lunch!

    Edited at 2020-04-23 05:25 am (UTC)

    1. I used to see coypu when we lived in France. The bxxxxxs burrow into and help destroy river banks. As a result they are regarded as ‘nuisibles’ -pests.
      I believe they were eradicated many years ago in the UK.

      As I learnt once from the Aussie impersonator, “The Third Man”, Aqeeb Mateef inajarbesidethebed is or was a Pakistani cricketer.

      1. Billy Birmingham was the Twelfth Man, Martin. The Third Man, though less funny, has stood the test of time rather better.
    2. We have a few of these here in Argentina, where they are known as carpinchos. In Brazil, the Catholic Church has declared them to be a fish so that hungry natives can have something to eat in Fridays.
  3. Was pleasantly surprised to find that I’d pieced the unknown MONTEITH together (for all I knew it was the unknown Italian ice-cream MINHETTO…) only to find that the other NHO was wrong. I’ve long forgotten most of my GCSE French and plumped for CASQUI, completely forgetting that QUE was even a possibility. 40 somewhat annoying minutes. Ah well.
    1. I went with MINHETTO as the cooler, which I think sounds very refreshing. I quite fancy one out in the sun today.
  4. Top half was OK (although NHO MONTEITH, thought it was going to be something to do with menthol) but got stuck with the SE corner and nearly put in lead instead of FEED but kind of knew that was a red herring. Overall, though, I think my time will be better than par, and yes it is with a WITCH of 92, so far.

    Is a chateau really holiday accommodation primarily? Thought it was going to be chalet. Haven’t we had ANTENNA recently, or was that the QC?

    NHO: MONTEITH, PIGEON in the second sense, CASQUE (French for helmet) and CHATEAUBRIAND as a writer.
    COD: CANDIDA, made me laugh

    Yesterday’s answer: Michael Flatley sprang to fame after Riverdance performed in the Eurovision interval in 1994 (inspired by FLATLY).

    Today’s question: who was born Frances Gumm?

    Edited at 2020-04-23 06:49 am (UTC)

    2. We had ANTENNAE yesterday. There ANNE was an old queen but today she’s a mere commoner.

      Edited at 2020-04-23 12:04 pm (UTC)

  6. Struggled like others with much of this with the NW taking the longest to complete despite having written in PHEW and POTSDAM on first reading.

    Elsewhere I struggled with ‘very large rodent’, ‘Candida’, ‘bony protuberance in hornbill’ (why would anyone apart from an ornithologist or zoologist know this?), and the ‘serous membranes’ (which I misread as ‘serious membranes’ throughout until eventually I had all the checkers in place).

    CHATEAUBRIAND was a breakthrough although I did not know of him as a writer.

    Had MALADROITNESS at 22ac for ages despite not being able to parse more than the first 5 letters.

    Did a word-search finally on 4dn and then confirmed MONTEITH as the correct answer by revealing it as I still couldn’t be sure it fitted the definition. Annoying, as I had considered it earlier as a word that fitted the checkers but dismissed it as I didn’t recognise it as anything other than the surname of the American comedian Kelly Monteith, who for some unaccountable reason was latched onto by the BBC in the 1970s and given his own TV show which ran for 6 series.

    Edited at 2020-04-23 11:17 am (UTC)

  7. Finally lost patience and looked up MONTEITH, so submitted without leaderboard at about 55m. Convoluted wordplay plus extreme obscurity seems a rather unfair combination. Other struggles included FEED (though a nice aha moment when I saw the verb), CASQUE (NHO and took ages to work our the wordplay) and the meaty 11a, which I have never known as a person.

    Thanks Z and tough setter.

    Edited at 2020-04-23 07:53 am (UTC)

  8. I was down to the last two in under 20 minutes. These were of course CASQUE and MONTEITH. I remained stuck up a Gumm Tree and not over the rainbow for quite a while. I wanted the protuberance to be a callus, but it couldn’t be as SILENCE was clearly correct. Eventually I tried a Q and biffed CASQUE. Then I could concentrate on possible anagram fodder and MONTEITH (of that ilk?) emerged. COD to FEED. This was a scorpion puzzle, one with a sting in the tail. I don’t think that’s in the glossary. 42 minutes overall. Thank you Z and setter.
  9. I was really enjoying this, until the very end, when I had to guess at MONTEITH, not seeing the definition at all (a punch bowl is a “cooler”? Really?), and I still don’t see how “paid” equals FEED, though I didn’t see how LEAD could mean that either. Guess I’ll have to look at some dictionaries.

    Edited at 2020-04-23 08:24 am (UTC)

          1. Indeed, that’s why I thought this definition might just be wordplay. Keriothe set me straight.
        2. I think I’ve come across it in the area of consultancy or professional services (not the Cynthia Payne sort). E.g. someone being feed or else taking a cut of profits.
          1. I’ve seen it recently on reports split between “feed” and “unfeed” work, but then I do management information for a law firm, and I’m not sure that counts as “real life”.
      1. Groan. Is that a joke? I would think that something “fee’d” would be something with a cost. You handed over a fee, you “fee’d”? I’m incredulous.

        Edited at 2020-04-23 08:29 am (UTC)

        1. It’s in all the usual dictionaries (Chambers, Collins, Lexico). I think it’s used in the sense feed services = paid services.
  10. Relieved to come here and find that I had got MONTEITH, PIGEON, SILENCE and FEED correct, none of which I was confident about. I never really enjoy clues where half the challenge is figuring out which parts of it form the anagram, and for MONTEITH I only realised that was how the clue worked when I had all the checkers.

    CHATEAUBRIAND is in the category of “French things I have vaguely heard of but if pressed would most likely say were a kind of wine”, but I had the U which helped me get the chateau part so it fell into place pretty quickly.

    Otherwise I thought this was tough but fair. Thanks to setter and blogger.

    FOI Chaotic
    LOI Feed
    COD Nincompoop

  11. 13:22. I safely navigated the unknowns plumping for the correct MONTEITH at 4D (it couldn’t be anything else from the checkers) and my LOI CASQUE from the wordplay, COD to PHEW, ‘cos that’s what I felt when I finished. Thanks Z for the elucidation.
  12. Like everyone else, I struggled with MONTEITH as well as with FEED.
    I like the idea that a CHATEAU might be ‘holiday accommodation’. Very droll.
    1d (Leader of House) reminded me of one of my favourite cryptic clues:
    “Leader of House of Congress enraged army with regular cuts” A:MADAM.
    COD split between BATTLING, FUNGAL and BATTLING.
  13. At last something to moan about

    I once spent a pleasant holiday in a converted railway carriage. That doesn’t mean railway carriage can be defined as holiday accommodation. Ditto Chateau.

    CASQUE is ridiculous. Straight out of Club Monthly/Mephisto land and MONTEITH probably fits that categorisation also.

    The rest was easy. Difficulty via obscurity is not a characteristic of a puzzle to be admired. Well blogged z8

      1. One of my happiest childhood memories is of a holiday spent in a GWR railway carriage at Arthog station in North Wales.
  14. Once more we have my bugbear of the single clue which appears to have strayed in from a different (and much more difficult) puzzle. Spent a large proportion of my solving time at the end chewing over the possibilities for 4dn, wondering if there was a variety of menthol to be found, but finally landing on MONTEITH. Like others, I assumed it must be a Scottish prison which isn’t quite as well-known as Barlinnie, though in fairness, presumably I did solve it back in 2009, even if I don’t seem to have commented that day. Ah well, you live and learn, even if it takes you more than one go.
  15. 23.01. I felt quite happy to have struggled through this only to discover that LEAD wasn’t right. It seemed like a perfectly good answer at the time, although I had to assume that LEAD might be used to describe a professional actor in an amateur production, which with hindsight was a bit of a stretch. But it seemed in the spirit of a puzzle that includes the definition ‘bony protuberance in hornbill’.
  16. After some poor performances from me over the last few days, I found this the easiest of the week – which seems to put me in the minority. 9m 30s, with a last-second change from LEAD to FEED, and fingers crossed for MONTEITH.

    Like most others, CHATEAUBRIAND was unknown to me in this context (to my mind there’s nothing wrong with ‘holiday accommodation’ for chateau, although random male names do become a bit wearing). Neither were CASQUE or MONTEITH – fortunately I remembered PIGEON from the last time it came up like that.

    COD for OWNER. Not difficult, but I enjoyed the understated nature of the surface and the misleading ‘One who has’ definition.

  17. So that was interesting. I had no trouble with PIGEON or FEED, both of which I’ve heard in those senses and we’ve had before. I knew CASQUE as a helmet, so it’s not a great stretch from there to a hornbill’s excrescence, and what else could “that in Paris” be other than QUE? The one that got me was MONTEITH, which I also knew from it’s being the only lake in Scotland. I’ve never felt the need to cool punch glasses other than by putting ice cubes in them so don’t possess one. I think I’ve seen CHATEAU holidays advertised so it must be a thing. I got a WITCH of 101, so quite pleased with that having taken a phone call half way through. LOI MONTEITH, COD FEED.
  18. 20:52. I agree with Vinyl that this was mostly easy but then I found myself with a number of blanks, each of which required a fair bit of thought to unscramble.
    ► PIGEON – really unhelpful checking letters, required the mind to accidentally alight on the required meaning of carrier (the chef was still front of mind).
    ► CASQUE – only came up with what looked like a plausible word when I gave up trying to work out how a Frenchman might say comme ça some other way and spotted the need to separate like and that.
    ► MONTEITH – very hard 2-stage process of 1) figuring out what to anagram and 2) making it into a word. Something must have stuck from its last appearance because I was happy it was right. The French call it a mydents.
    ► FEED – LEAD was my first thought. And my second. But I wasn’t happy with it and eventually saw the light.

    The only other one that took a while to fall was PLEURAL but that was entirely my fault, trying to think if numerus or severel membranes might exist.

  19. Romped through this in under 20 minutes, until left with only 4d, thought it may be an anagram but couldn’t find a word I knew, had to resort to an aid and learn what a MONTEITH was; some sort of punchbowl. Or a lake in Scotland. Cooler is a rather loose def. Liked NINCOMPOOP for being a funny word.
  20. I battled my way through all except MONTEITH in around 30 minutes, with FEED as my penultimate entry, after a sudden inspiration. I then spent around 15 minutes on that single clue until I finally landed on the correct anagrist and put it together as a possible Scottish prison. Somewhat obscure!!! We have a pair of hornbills at Kirkleatham Owl Centre near Redcar. I couldn’t have told you what their horny bits were called, but postulated CASQUE from the wordplay and the crossers seemed to confirm it. My FOI was PHEW, which I silently uttered when my grid came up all green after 45:00. Unnecessarily chewy I thought. Thanks Z.

    Edited at 2020-04-23 10:30 am (UTC)

  21. Only ever heard of Monteith as a name – I clearly don’t
    move in the right circles…..

    Technical DNF in 39.27

    Thank you to setter and blogger.

    Dave.

  22. ….rather than the teacake. NHO CASQUE, CANDIDA (other than that execrable song by Tony Orlando), or MONTEITH (where I had to eliminate the letters from the anagrist).

    After 8 minutes, I was left with 4D, and almost all of the SW quadrant. 3 minutes saw off the latter, and 4D took almost 2 minutes more. Not my favourite puzzle I’m afraid.

    FOI POTSDAM (as opposed to the dam’ pots that I haven’t yet washed from breakfast)
    LOI MONTEITH (my teith were gritted)
    COD FEED (fully understood on first sight)
    TIME13:46

  23. Sounds like the sort of very expensive and utterly useless wedding present that spends its life imprisoned in a dark cupboard because it’s too valuable to get rid of. Some interesting “pairings” here, the Scotsman with MONTEITH (my father had an old navy friend called Bill M), TREACLE and TEACAKE, CHEQUE and CASQUE and Debby Downer with her GRIEVANCE. CHATEAUBRIAND is a ridiculous amount of meat (12oz) for just two people. Other than the cooler I was on the wavelength for this. 20.26
  24. Well, that was a bit more like it though I didn’t exactly race through the puzzle after a fast out of the blocks start. Finished in 20.07. FOI Potsdam and LOI casque which took a time to work out. Some really neat cluing I thought with pleural, cheque and maladjustment being good examples. The latter nearly caught me out as I had convinced myself the answer should be maladroitness!

    Interesting to see antenna as an answer today following antennae? yesterday. Amazing how these coincidences play out..

  27. All but 4d by 1.45pm. I was not going to let that defeat me. After a break came back into the house from the garden (too much bird noise) to work out 4d. I too tried the Italian ice cream route and then went through all my words for jail. Eventually I identified the anagrist and MONTEITH emerged. Hurrah.
    A similar route to John Dun and others. Started with PHEW. CASQUE unknown but clear to me from the clue and checkers.
    Great to finish one. David
  28. There were several easy clues in the SE which made me think this would be another doddle, but SEVORAL false answers held me up, including MISADJUSTMENT. No, I didn’t know my MONTEITH from my elbow either. LOI PIGEON which took ages to see from the letters provided.
  29. Scorpion is right BW! This definitely had a sting in the tail, and is a phrase for the glossary I think. I found this quite easy to start off with but slowed down after about 30 minutes with not many to go and ended up with two not completed and one wrong. And I bet everyone could guess which they were! Yep, MONTEITH, PIGEON and FEED 😧 Pigeon was particularly frustrating as we have seen something similar quite recently and I didn’t get it that time either. Nevertheless, I did find this mostly very enjoyable.

    No problem with CASQUE – I just trusted the wordplay then remembered seeing hornbills on Secret Life of the Zoo quite recently, so that was OK. I knew CHATEAUBRIAND as both writer and steak, but have never indulged in either. As soon as I saw Candida in 21d, I thought: yeast! But it took a while to work out fungal. Goodness knows there are enough birthday cards out there with pix of mushrooms and messages to a Fun-guy or Fun-gal, so it should have been easy enough really.

    FOI Chaotic
    COD Phew
    WOD Nincompoop
    DNF in about 50 minutes

    Thanks setter and Z8

  30. Spotted the PIGEON without remembering the responsibility bit.

    PLEURAL took a while for the penny to drop which made NINCOMPOOP, IDENTITY and then MONTIETH with all the checkers in place – no idea what it was but the anagram fodder was evident.

  31. I gave up after 31 minutes and used aids for MONTEITH. You learn something new every day. Otherwise a pleasant, thought slowish, solve. I’ve never heard of the bony protuberance either but the cryptic made it obvious.
  32. 30:06. A frazzled solve at the end of a long and hectic day. Wondered momentarily what Potsdam had to do with pears (if that’s your first thought when you see conference you’ve probably been doing these things for too long). Monteith was unknown but just sort of clicked as did pigeon and carrier in the way these things sometimes do despite not being familiar with the other required meaning. Casque unknown so grateful to the setter for spelling it out for us. I thought Chateaubriand was a bit clunky but liked the puzzle overall.

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