27658 Thursday, 7 May 2020 “Two households, both alike in dignity”

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I found this a cheerful enough number, with intelligent and witty clues and nothing I could see that was obscure. My last two in, the mostly harmless crossing pair at 3d and 14a took my time to 2 seconds short of 17 minutes. At the time of writing, that’s a bit outside the average. I only sorted out the wordplay for 8d after submitting (it’s not hard) but I took care with everything else because I am a dutiful and conscientious contributor.
I trust lockdown is not proving too onerous: I’ve rather enjoyed binge watching Game of Thrones (which I had avoided before) and working my way backwards through Listener crosswords, valiantly trying to avoid looking up the synopses of the former and (when I get stuck) the solutions of the latter. Mostly I succeed, and today got to the last episode of GoT without knowing what was going to happen, though not much of it was a surprise.
On to my analysis, clues, definitions and SOLUTIONS marked.

[(click to open)]

Across

1 House found touring Uzbek capital (6)

STUART The royal house, that is. Found: START, and U the capital of Uzbek (no “Where is Kazakhstan?” knowledge needed). (Either Tashkent or the Som, to save you looking them up).
5 Like rock formed from lava that’s cooled (as in cold) (8)
BASALTIC One of the longest definitions you’ll see. And in the brackets, one of the shortest bits of wordplay. BALTIC, as well as being the sea or the collection of states, is (informally and without the capital) “extremely cold”. Insert AS
9 Passionate, well-built chaps kept in check (8)
VEHEMENT Well built chaps are HE-MEN, with or without the power of Greyskull. Put in check, in this case VET
10 I’m disgusted by backtracking individual — it’s all I can take! (6)
ENOUGH UGH for a representation of “I’m disgusted”, following an individual ONE reversed (backtracking)
11 Taken aboard ship, Neapolitan food for horse (10)
LIPIZZANER Trust the wordplay for the spelling of the Spanish/Austrian horses. PIZZA from Napoli, (actually the birthplace of the modern version) on board a LINER
13 Table: first of furniture items lost (4)
EATS I presume the furniture items are SEATS, from which the first (letter) is deleted.
14 Little personal responsibility (4)
BABY My last in, and a bit of a struggle. Reminiscent of pigeon a fortnight ago. Chambers has “one’s pet project, invention, machine, etc; one’s own responsibility”. Babies are (undeniably) little, but there is also the notion of, for example, a baby grand piano.
15 Shame about poles attached to cord being bent (10)
PROPENSITY Shame is PITY, the cord is ROPE, and poles N and S. Assemble.
18 Astonished, when teeth knocked out? (10)
GOBSMACKED Two versions, one the colloquialism, the other taking a more literal approach
20 Unexciting European, dull revolutionary (4)
TAME E(uropean) and MAT for dull, in revolutionary presentation.
21 Agreement stuffed, by the sound of it? (4)
PACT Sounds an awful lot like PACKED
23 Lock securing object in style (10)
TRENDINESS You need the TRESS from lock, the END from object, and IN as itself. Assemble.
25 Man is struggling to accept one — like himself? (6)
SIMIAN Our first anagram (struggling) du jour. MAN IS plus I from one. &lit-ish
26 Converted cabin behind pub in tower (8)
BARBICAN …and straightway our second, at least in part. CABIN’s letters “converted” after BAR for pub
28 How grass cutter’s cut line of bushes (8)
HEDGEROW A grass cutter might be an EDGER, place it in HOW (in plain sight)
29 After publication, clear drawer (6)
MAGNET The publication a MAG, and clear NET, often with an extra T
Down
2 Kid at home playing opera (3,6)
THE MIKADO An anagram (playing) of KID AT HOME. My grandfather used to enjoy singing “On a tree by a river”, because it gave him licence to use the word tit, repeatedly and with emphasis, without being ticked off.
3 Useful thing bringing up branch stuck in a well (7)
AMENITY I think this is TINE, which I think of as the pointy bit on a fork, but is also a branch of an antler, surrounded by [on edit: A and] MY(!) as a representation of well(!)
4 Digit so extreme, ultimately? (3)
TOE A cheeky little &lit, the last letters of digiT sO extremE
5 Stick no label upside down (5)
BATON NO in plain sight TAB for label, joined and tipped over
6 Led, having heard a shot in race (11)
SPEARHEADED An anagram (shot) of HEARD A in SPEED for race
7 Prowler in deli, one’s shoplifting (7)
LIONESS Today’s rather decent hidden, deLI ONE’S Shoplifting
8 Roof blown off house, ending in different block (5)
INGOT This time, the house is BINGO, house being an older (?) term for legalised theft the game beloved of millions. Remove its “roof” first letter, and add T from the end of differenT
12 Nothing quicker around ultimately than crane fly? (3,8)
ZIP FASTENER ZIP one of the many synonyms for nothing, FASTER for quicker, and the last letters of thaN and cranE inserted
16 Attention-seeker beginning to kick lout (3)
OIK OI being the attention seeker, K being the beginning to Kick.
17 Property agreement invalid as I’m three! (9)
TIMESHARE A straightforward anagram (invalid) of AS I’M THREE. Amusing
19 Cruciverbalist’s job getting harder (7)
SETTING Two definitions, the first undeniably in house
20 Beating champion of the century? (7)
TONKING My favourite clue. In cricket (and in other sports) a century is a TON, so the soi-disant champion would be the TON KING
22 Quick, a stay (5)
ALIVE BCP “ He will come again in glory to judge the quick and the dead”. Wordplay the terse A plus LIVE for stay as in I live/stay here
24 Pound invested in misery served up in joint (5)
ELBOW Pound here is the full LB, in WOE for misery “served up”
27 Edge: border of hat, not cap (3)
RIM the border of a hat is a BRIM, remove the “capital” first letter

49 comments on “27658 Thursday, 7 May 2020 “Two households, both alike in dignity””

  1. I put in TANNING at 20d, making a mental note to return and think about it; as with most of my mental notes, I ignored it. Probably wouldn’t have done me any good anyway, as I’d never heard of TONK. Other than that it wasn’t too difficult a puzzle; my main problem, taking the last 4 minutes, was EATS; never figured out what was deleted. BASALTIC from definition, LIPIZZANER from the Z, after spending some time thinking ‘aboard ship’ meant S___S. Z, you’ve forgotten the A of AMENITY.
    2. I was another who inserted TANNING, Kevin, mostly because I couldn’t think of anything better. I know the word TONKING but it never occurred to me.
  2. I put TANNING too, but didn’t understand how the second half of the clue worked, just the “beating” bit. I was tempted by TONNING and nho TONK anyway. And at 14A I put EASY for BABY since that was the only thing close I found in my alphabet trawl. So 2 wrong.
  3. Oops; TONKING, wtf, I had TANNING, figuring there was some sports icon I wouldn’t know.

    I was whizzing thru this so fast that I was almost relieved to have to slow down a bit to think about some longer ones, but then I found it difficult to finish, or to believe the answers to just four smaller ones. LOI EATS, but I had to get INGOT before that, and didn’t know what word meaning house is spelled _INGO (desultorily checked out the possibilities and found the Scots House of Lingo, nothing seeming relevant about bingo, dingo, oh by jingo…). On the other side, “tine” as a “branch” didn’t occur to me for the longest time, but I needed AMENITY before I could take care of BABY.

    Happy to remember the horse’s name. My vacation plans included seeing Naples for the first time this spring and I’m well aware that it is the home of pizza.

    Parsing BASALTIC (long after putting it in) was fun.

    Edited at 2020-05-07 05:16 am (UTC)

  4. Stuck on last 2, 3d and 14a, bunged in lack and ametiok?! So not surprised to see pink squares.

    COD stuart. Tashkent and Samarkand is well worth a visit.

  5. Finally I finish one all correct after two weeks of awful solving. I did think I was going to face the same fate here when just left with 14A and not being confident in BABY. I guess that’s the trouble with a cryptic definition – you don’t have both the parsing and the definition to confirm your answer.

    From other’s posts I feel fortunate to have avoided the TANNING trap which I could well have fallen into on a different day. It was my first thought but I left it unsolved and luckily TONKING came to me later on.

  6. Quite speedy, until the alphabet trawl at the end for BABY – which was the first word that came, but didn’t seem strong enough. I went through the whole alphabet. Pizza is the only Neapolitan food I know, but that *couldn’t possibly* be part of the wordplay, he said. Knew TONKING – Oz slang, as well as British. Wondered, too, about the house of Jingo in Scotland, or maybe the house of Starkey. And wondered if FEATS were items, missing the F of furniture. So all right, but for many of the wrong reasons – thank-you for putting me right, Z.

    Edited at 2020-05-07 05:52 am (UTC)

  7. Spent ages on AMENITY and BABY, could have been 8 or 10 minutes, just couldn’t get them until eventually baby clicked. Lots of MY, OI and UGHs going on today.

    COD ZIP FASTENER, nothing to do with crane flies.

    Yesterday’s answer: 111111111 squared is the pleasing 12345678987654321, inspired by ALL SQUARE.

    Today’s question: can you think of one tube station that is contained in another (with the crossword rule that it can’t be at the start or end)?

    PS I am hosting another quiz this Sunday at 7pm, each round has a hidden message again. If you’re interested, email [email protected] with a team name.

    Edited at 2020-05-07 06:45 am (UTC)

    1. Mound financiers in helmets regularly jumped (10)

      Edited at 2020-05-07 09:53 am (UTC)

  8. 27 minutes, with LOI EATS. I think I have heard a table of food called the EATS, if that is the explanation, although there may be a much better one. I got TONKING with crossers, with ‘ton’ for ‘century’ being familiar both from cricket and the ton-up boys who used to put their lives in jeopardy on motor bikes. Sensibly as a youth I played cricket and rode a push-bike. COD to ZIP FASTENER, not that I’ll ever get used to ZIP for ‘nothing’. Some easy, some difficult today, but fairly clued. Thank you Z and setter.

    Edited at 2020-05-07 06:50 am (UTC)

    1. This is house party talk – the eats are (on the table) over there and the drinks right here! Sort of thing!
  9. Came within a whisker of finishing this but eventually gave up, using aids for AMENITY and BABY, and to finish off BASALTIC (I had been working on it starting with BASIL). Was pleased to have worked out TONKING and remembering LIPIZZANER from trips to Vienna, although I never actually saw them there.
  10. 20 mins pre-run, pre-brekker.
    A confidence booster.
    Mostly I liked: the attempt to hide fly next to crane, attention-seeker and 28ac.
    Didn’t like: Basaltic. Good grief!
    Thanks setter and Z.
  11. Ran out of time at the 45 minute mark. As it turned out, the NHO I’d felt was suspect—LIPIZZANER—wasn’t the one preventing me from seeing 3d. No, that was my WARD at 14a, which seems to be a perfectly fine answer, apart from being wrong. Curses!
  12. At 37m I capitulated on my LOI, shrugged and entered TANNING with a sinking feeling that was immediately validated in pink. I usually try the short ones first but in this puzzle they proved some of the knottiest, despite my FOI being OIK. COD to the cleverly disguised fly. Thanks Z and setter.
  13. And another steady middle of the road solve with the exception of TONKING which is an interesting word well clued.

    The PIZZA in Naples are excellent – pity about the overwhelming smell of sulphur from Vesuvius. Personally, I’d stay along the coast in Sorrento and day trip Naples

  14. Like others, BABY and AMENITY took too many minutes. The rest pretty straightforward. Up here in The People’s Republic of Jockland we say ‘tanking’.
    1. One of the pleasures of hearing full-time match reports from Roddy Forsyth on the radio is the occasional use of the word “gubbing”.
  15. …like others TONKING never occurred to me but TANNING did.
    Thank you, Z, for BASALTIC and EATS. I figured it had to be BASALTIC but couldn’t work out why. I also figured it had to be EATS but, then, (S)EATS didn’t occur to me.
    My favourites today were SPEARHEADED, LIONESS and ZIP FASTENER. With the last one, try as I might, I couldn’t get Daddy Longlegs to fit.
  16. 15:04. Last 2 in were AMENITY (which I failed to parse) and BABY with fingers crossed I had understood the cryptic. I would never have remembered the horse without the reference to the food of Naples. I liked the roof being blown off Bingo at 8D and OIK. No problem with TONKING, which I associate with a batsman being sent in to score some runs quickly.

    Edited at 2020-05-07 07:50 am (UTC)

  17. Interesting vernacular scattered through today’s puzzle which kept me on my toes. Happy to avoid biffing TANNING despite the obvious temptation. Like others, initially dismissed PIZZA as there’s no way there can be a longer word with that concealed in it, I thought.
  18. 44:24
    Tonking straight in from wordplay. All done in 15 mins bar baby and amenity. Half an hour staring fruitlessly at these two until I considered ward, and from there somehow got into the area that provided baby. Thereafter amenity went straight in.
    Thanks z.
  19. If I try the 15 x 15 do i have to assume that American spellings will not necessarily be flagged up?? I know that part of the extra difficulty is that the setters take more liberties. i was thinking of 20a unexciting – in the Uk we would say MATT wouldn’t we?

    1. I considered commenting on MAT(T)(E) when writing up as the same reservation occurred to me. Chambers has MAT as the primary entry with the other two as alternatives, with no regional indications, so I guess it’s okay.

      1. Thanks for your reply – I think this is one of those instances where the dictionary is behind so to speak. I suppose it might be creeping in to the UK, like the increasing acceptance of Mathew 🙁
    2. I have the impression they are flagged more often than not in the 15×15, but you can’t rely that they will be.
  20. Heading for an under-tenner, then I ran into 13 across with its infuriating e*t*. Finally bunged in eats without understanding why, and was surprised to discover it was correct. I can’t see the word barbican without thinking of Lawrie NcMenemy.
  21. Well, at least I finished today- 28.20. FOI the mikado, last eats. Amazing how difficult I find the short answers. Recognised basaltic early but struggled like hell to work it out. That corner proved a pain with ingot- a very nice clue- proving a right pain.

    All in all an enjoyable romp with plenty of challenge and some nice aha moments.

  22. Dispirited on my first read through the across clues, apart from FOI PACT and the bottom two rows, but then the down clues seemed much more straightforward. Very tentative with BABY and ALIVE, but it all came good in the end.

    COD ZIP FASTENER for the deception and elegance. Thanks Z and setter.

  23. ….on the same problem pair as most other folks.

    Started badly by biffing “dumbstruck” at 18A. LOI parsed afterwards.

    FOI ENOUGH
    LOI AMENITY
    COD PROPENSITY
    TIME 14:40

  24. A damn good TONKING! (or a trip to the Gulf!) was a cricket expression at school. In 1964 the Viet Nam War started in the Gulf of Tonkin (Tonquin) after the ‘Maddox’ incident. The memoirs of Bob McNamara 2005, provided proof of material misrepresentation by the US government to justify a war against Vietnam.

    Time 37 mins.

    FOI 18ac GOBSMACKED SOI AMENITY!

    LOI 13ac EATS

    COD 20dn TONKING

    WOD LIPPIZANER – these horses they are originally from Lipica, Slovenia in an area a few miles west of Novo Mesto, birth place of Melanija Knavs- aka FLOTUS.

    My middle name is 1ac STUART, after my Scottish great-grandmother, Gertrude: but I pay no claim to my rightful inheritance. Meldrew

    Edited at 2020-05-07 10:13 am (UTC)

  25. After 24 minutes I had all except 3d and 14a, and was unhappy with my AGILE at 22d. I remembered LIPIZZANER once I had ZIP FASTENER, and BASALTIC was one of my first few in. Lots of PDMs in this puzzle and very enjoyable apart from the further 15 minute slog to get the last 3. BABY came first, quickly giving me AMENITY, but I was forced into an alphabet trawl which finally gave me ALIVE as a slightly better alternative to AGILE. I was surprised not to have pink squares there though. Phew! 39:36. Thanks setter and Z.
  26. 11:51, with at least 3 minutes agonising over EATS, where I had the answer but worried that it was too weak so wasted time trying to find something better, and BABY where I just didn’t have an answer for absolutely ages. I got BABY eventually with an alphabet trawl and then gave up on EATS and just submitted, quite surprised not to see a pink square or two.
  27. Liked this! One or two tricky bits, as the agile baby tanners seem to show.
    I never seem to have quite parsed basaltic or hedgerow
    Also not that familiar with Lippizaners but saw them on the telly once .. come from Vienna, or somewhere? Persuading animals to do really stupid things to music, is one of our least attractive traits. Don’t get me started on dressage..
  28. 13:41. I was pretty confident about EATS but not so much about BABY and ALIVE.

    I’m another who declined the pizza on offer on first pass.

  29. Wot everyone else said! Undone by 14a, 3d and 20d. But better than yesterday. I do wonder how suggestible I am – in the quickie blog yesterday, there were a few comments about the biggie being quite difficult, so I approached with some trepidation and it all went horribly wrong! Today I decided not to look at any comments until I’d had a go at both crosswords so had no pre-conceptions, and things weren’t quite so bad.

    But back to today: I thought there was a lot to enjoy here – I liked VEHEMENT, ENOUGH, SIMIAN, TOE, and INGOT a lot. No problem with LIPIZZANER or BASALTIC, but a few others took their time to reveal themselves. I entered TANNING, although I had been looking for something ending in king, but couldn’t find it so abandoned the seach with a shrug. I had to go to aids to find AMENITY and only got BABY when I came here. So a mixed bag.

    FOI Lipizzaner
    COD Oik
    DNF with two to go and one wrong after about 45 minutes

    Thanks setter and Z8

  30. Found this much easier than the SNITCH suggested.

    Only BABY, EATS and ALIVE really holding me up – didn’t think the definitions for those were so obvious.

    Liked BASALTIC, TONKING and LIPIZZANER

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