27742 Thursday, 13 August 2020 A beast by any other number

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
No too taxing, completed by your blogger du jour in a smidge under 21 minutes. Almost all of the vocab would be accessible to people doing the Times 50 years ago, and I applaud the appearance of quaint and half forgotten terms such as appear at 12 or in the wordplay at 20 and 16. The clues are admirably terse, very few straying into 3-line territory in the online version, and none stretching to 4. A little bit of biblical knowledge is useful but nor essential, and I have provided appropriate notes in a somewhat Reithian attempt to entertain and inform.
I have set clues in italics, definitions also underlined, and SOLUTIONS thus.

Across

1 One fighting without aide where work’s rough (5,5)
SCRAP PAPER One fighting is a SCRAPPER, placed here outside (without can have that meaning) P(ersonal ) A(ssistant) for aide. If you haven’t got the back of an envelope or a fag packet, not a bad place to put one’s outline plans and such
6 Old bit of French bread right for tart (4)
SOUR The French franc, of blessed memory, was split into 100 centimes, 5 of which made a SOU. Add R(ight)
9 Put on trainer in old vehicle (10)
STAGECOACH Easy enough: put on (a play) STAGE and trainer COACH
10 Back in vogue, proper depiction of features (1-3)
E-FIT The back in “vogue” is E, and proper FIT. Standing for Electronic Facial Identification Technique, E-Fit is a registered trade mark widely used in identifying suspects from witness’ recollections
12 Maybe head of state coming in clean (12)
PERADVENTURE Her Majesty, ER plus ADVENT for coming in PURE for clean
15 Treasury staff will lead event (4,5)
POLE VAULT The treasury VAULT is led by POLE for staff
17 Biblical baddie, not half bizarre once (5)
ANTIC “How strange or odd soe’er I bear myself,
As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on…”
Hamlet advising Horatio and friends that he might, just might, appear a bit wacko. And there you have the required version of ANTIC. The biblical baddie is the big one, ANTICHRIST (1 John 2:18 et seq), only half of which you need. Make your own identification: everyone else does.
18 Desire man with Tarzan’s face (5)
COVET Commandment 10 of the Big Ten (“don’t”).  Man: COVE and the T from the face of Tarzan
19 Convertible orange car showing superiority (9)
ARROGANCE Today’s first anagram (convertible) of ORANGE CAR
20 Most of cabinet one saw united (12)
CONSOLIDATED Not, perhaps the first synonym of united to spring to mind, nor perhaps CONSOLE the first synonym of cabinet, though we used to call large tellies or radio sets consoles, and by extension the cabinet that contained them. Remove the last letter, add one I and DATED for saw. My last in, the checkers not helping much.
24 Perform lines one’s produced for play? (4)
DOLL Perform: DO and lines LL
25 With wet land to the west, I leave dry land (4,6)
GOBI DESERT Wet land is BOG, which is reversed (to the west) I in plain sight, plus DESERT for leave
26 Sound of disapproval having accepting a job (4)
TASK Not tut, then, but TSK for sound of disapproval, immortalised if not coined by Bugs Bunny. “Accept” an A therein
27 Backing current opinion introduced by fool (10)
ASSISTANCE Remember that “current” is another way if introducing the letter I into a clue, and the rest falls into place with an ASS as a fool and STANCE as opinion

Down
1 Band like quiet covers (4)
SASH Like: AS and SH for quiet.
2 A lot of leaves about, arboretum getting emptied (4)
REAM Conventionally 516 sheets of paper. RE about and A(boretu)M emptied
3 Keeping doubt quiet at first (12)
PRESERVATION Quiet (again), but this time P, plus RESERVATION for doubt
4 Single nomad’s nose (5)
AROMA ROMA are “travelling people”, a distinct ethnic group also known as gypsies, so nomad is a decent synonym. A ROMA is one such
5 Old wine, rubbish brought up for digger (9)
EXCAVATOR Old doesn’t signify some antique term but gives you the EX, the wine is CAVA  and rubbish (brought up/backwards) provides the TOR
7 Unpleasant like a golfer struggling to hole? (3-7)
OFF-PUTTING Two definitions, I suppose, the second humorous and differently pronounced
8 Cut back grass bordering ditch (10)
RETRENCHED Grass is REED and ditch stand in for TRENCH. One borders the other
11 Gentleman fooling around with Net or Web (12)
ENTANGLEMENT One of those anagrams (fooling around) where you put together two separate bits of the clue: here GENTLEMAN and NET
13 Eccentric group about to step on rat (5,5)
SPACE CADET The group is SET, the step, PACE and the rat CAD. Assemble
14 Test side with advantage (6-4)
ELEVEN PLUS The old exam which determined whether you would go to the posh school or the local Sec Mod. Side is ELEVEN (cricket, football etc) and advantage PLUS
16 Peacekeepers love stopping hatred, it’s agreed (9)
UNANIMOUS UN are the peacekeepers in an ideal world, and hatred is ANIMUS, into which you inset O for love/zero
21 Entering French town, I claim to have been elsewhere (5)
ALIBI You may have to guess the French town as ALBI (stick an I in it for the answer), but it is indeed a town in southern France, its main claim to fame being (sort of) the centre of the Albigensian or Cathar “heresy” ruthlessly put down by the papacy in league with the French king in the 12th and 13th centuries. Not much is known of their theology (history is written by the winners) but I’ll bet they thought the Pope might well be the Antichrist, with good reason
22 Film-maker eschewing padding (4)
LEAN David, director of Brief Encounter, Dr Zhivago and a stellar catalogue of Great British Movies. No padding.
23 Crusty, edible cases a problem for mince pie (4)
STYE At last, and at the last, today’s hidden in cruSTY Edible . Mince pie is one of the better known examples of CRS, for eye

68 comments on “27742 Thursday, 13 August 2020 A beast by any other number”

  1. Nice blog, z, thank you. I’m with you – some nice clues supported by enjoyable vocabulary.
    I thought that ‘having’ might have been meant to be replaced with ‘accepting’ at Task, 26a, but the printer didn’t get the memo from the ed and so left both in.

    Edited at 2020-08-13 01:49 am (UTC)

  2. Slow start–FOI TASK–but things picked up at last. I biffed PERADVENTURE, somehow overlooking ER, also SPACE CADET. I spent some time wondering whether AROMA were another non-rhotic pun for ‘a roamer’, but finally remembered ROMA. Except one nomad is a Rom. Didn’t even notice the superfluity in 27ac until Paul mentioned it. I liked RETRENCHED.
    1. Roma is a bit of a curiosity. You are right that rom is a gypsy man, but capitalised Roma is both the gypsy people and a single member of the community. So no error here. A Roma is fine.
  3. LOI E-FIT, NHO. But ELEVEN PLUS was just a guess too. I liked the gentleman fooling around. First guess for SCRAP PAPER was “first draft,” since I had the first R, but of course that wouldn’t parse.
      1. Most assuredly.
        Example from Collins:
        Apparently there were a lot more in the first draft before he objected.
        Times, Sunday Times (2016)
  4. I don’t normally comment if I don’t finish (defeated by 4 in the NE), but I enjoyed this one and had lots of candidates for COD:
    pole vault, arrogance, off putting, entanglement and lean.
  5. I thought I might be on for another pink square following yesterday when I finished with an unparsed ANTIC so it was a pleasant surprise to find that not to be the case. Speaking of yesterday, where I failed on NON TROPPO, last night I had a can of Italian beer where I spotted the word troppo on the side. It’s strange how often such coincidences seem to crop up.
  6. Somewhat surprised that my “throw in the towel” guesses at 17 ANTIC — I never thought of “antichrist” — and 22d LEAN turned out to be right. I watched Brief Encounter for the first time a few months back, but things like director’s names never really stick with me, even if I notice them. 48 minutes.
  7. Enjoyable but defeated by ANTIC. I gave up and put in AZTEC on the basis there was a Z in the clue and “once”. But I knew it was wrong. I didn’t know that meaning of antic and I didn’t think of antichrist. I was wondering who in the bible is a baddie given they all seemed to be very mixed. King David is a hero, but let’s just say he’d be canceled today. But nobody woud clue him as “baddie” even so.
    1. The only real “baddies” I could think of in the Bible were Cain in the OT and Judas in the NT but neither made sense with this clue.
      1. The Bible is chock-full of baddies. Ahab, Herod, Nebuchadnezzar, Judas Iscariot. Even the goodies aren’t spotless (consider how David came to marry Bathsheba !)
        1. I bow to your Biblical knowledge but I think I would struggle to fit Nebuchadnezzar into a 5-letter clue!😀
  9. 21 minutes. LOI David LEAN, which I wasn’t absolutely sure about. It’s a long, long time since I sat the eleven plus. I’m not sure that our grammar school could be called posh, though we did play Rugby and not Football. COD to EXCAVATOR. Now back to puppy sitting. Good puzzle. Thank you Z and setter.
    1. Rugby ? Posh ! My alma mater played both sports (and hockey) so we were aspirationally middle class I suppose.
    2. I took the 11+ in 1960. There was a while ago a campaign called STEP – Stop The Eleven Plus, but it has yet to succeed here in Buckinghamshire.
      Andyf
  10. 36 minutes. For my LOI at 17ac ANTIC seemed like the best fit for the checkers although I was unable to justify it either from wordplay or definition (which I didn’t know anyway) and this tempts me to say that it’s therefore a rotten clue, but that may just be me trying to find an excuse for my ignorance. NHO ALBI either but the answer had to be ALIBI so I wasn’t bothered about that.
  11. 20:12. Baffled by “Eccentric” = SPACE CADET, for which I needed all the checkers, but I see on looking it up it must refer to someone high on drugs. Still seems a bit odd to me. Hesitated over LOI LEAN, but an alphabet trawl didn’t get me anything else, and now I remember him. DNK ANTIC and failed to parse E-FIT – all in all a bit of struggle, but overall rather good. Thanks Z for the elucidation.

    Edited at 2020-08-13 06:33 am (UTC)

    1. A SPACE CADET is just someone who seems eccentrically other-worldly, there isn’t necessarily an implication of drug use. Collins says ‘as if affected by drugs’ but Lexico has no reference to drugs at all.
    2. I always thought it meant someone who was a total ditz – or dingbat, as Archie Bunker charmingly called his wife.
      1. As I understand the terms a ditz and a SPACE CADET are both scatter-brained, but with the latter there’s an implied dreamy, sleepy perhaps even (as Collins has it) stoned quality that isn’t necessarily there in the former.
  12. Got there but was very unsure about Lean. Obviously I don’t watch enough movies. My kids tell me I should stop reading and get in front of the box like all normal folk. Perhaps they are right…
  13. I hit ‘submit’ without checking my work just to get in under 30m and was relieved when no pink squares appeared. It meant I submitted a correct in only circa 4.2 verlaines!

    Thank you, Z, for the ones I couldn’t parse: E-FIT, PERADVENTURE, ANTIC and SPACE CADET.

    In 4d until I came here, I thought the word ‘nomad’ meant ‘roamer’ and that the clue must be missing a homophone indicator.
    Co-CODs to DOLL and GOBI DESERT.

  14. Just under my current Snitch par of 15:44, seemed harder. There seems to be an extra word in the clue for TASK – ‘having accepting’ (or ‘having accepted’ would be better)? Didn’t think of Antichrist, thought it might be Herod. Was ‘with Net or Web’ deliberately 12 letters to distract from the real anagram fodder?

    COD: DOLL, great surface

    Yesterday’s answer: Whipsnade Zoo is the other zoo run by ZSL, some nice clues there.

    Today’s question: the Gobi Desert is the sixth largest in the world, what does Wikipedia say is the largest?

  15. Some nice clues today, though I do think the RE…..ED device should be retired from the regular cryptic. It was a cliche when I started doing these things in the late 70s. Talking of which period it should be pointed out that the 11-Plus still exists in those parts of England which still have grammar schools and the like. COD goes to ANTIC.
  16. Foiled by 17a – Antichrist didn’t occur to me, so I gave up and put in “attic”. Annoying, because otherwise this one didn’t pose too many problems. RETRENCHED took me a long time, as did SOUR until I dredged up “sou” from memories of previous crosswords. Didn’t parse GOBI DESERT, so thanks to the blogger for that.

    FOI Doll (very nicely clued)
    LOI Retrenched
    COD Doll/Pole vault

  17. I ground to a halt twice here. Once about two-thirds of the way through whereupon I managed to piece together ENTANGLEMENT to get things going again then at the end on my LOI PERADVENTURE which isn’t a word I use every decade and was trickily clued.

    Good challenge and blog.

  18. Bystander to track and field athlete: ‘Are you a pole vaulter?’

    Athlete: ‘No, I’m German, but how did you know my name is Walter?’

  19. As for others, a steady solve apart from 17A ANTIC which is a poor clue in my opinion

    ELEVEN PLUS brought back memories. As alluded to by Bolton wanderer, many grammar schools were far from posh. The system was designed to give working class children a shot at higher education. My own, Battersea Grammar, did that very well

    1. Surprising how many instances of social mobility it produced in my circle of friends, despite claims to the contrary from contemporary “experts”.
    2. My grammar school (Calday Grange) always seemed to me as if it really wanted to be a public school but didn’t have the money… I didn’t like it at all and looking back, I had cause 🙂
  20. 11:13. Another where I started really slowly, with only two or three of the acrosses going in on first pass, but then accelerated. The downs were a lot easier.
    I worried I might be looking for some obscure character at 17ac but even I’ve heard of the ANTICHRIST.
    As Angus suggests above 26ac has an extra word in it: looks like setter and/or editor couldn’t decide between ‘accepting’ and ‘having accepted’ and ended up with neither.
    A fun puzzle with some interesting vocab.

    Edited at 2020-08-13 08:48 am (UTC)

  21. Precise and concise, which I like. Heart sank when I saw ‘biblical’ but I biffed ANTIC. The Antichrist reminded me of Robert Rankin’s very funny early books The Brentford Triangle and East of Ealing. Smiled at ‘old bit of french bread’ and ‘crusty edible cases’.
  22. The SW corner took some time to fall, and CONSOLIDATED took an age as my LOI. 11m 44s and feels like it should have been quicker.

    PERADVENTURE is my COD, a nicely-worded clue and a reminder of the Paul McCartney song English Tea: “Do you know the game croquet? / Peradventure we might play”.

    I had always thought that SPACE CADET was an Americanism, having only ever come across it on US TV shows, but apparently not.

    1. Unfortunately being an Americanism is no bar to being included in the crossword these days. It’s disgraceful, but it’s the fault of English dictionaries which feel the need to include them probably because their editors heard their children using the expression once.

      We had ‘aw shucks’ in a championship crossword last year; along with ‘schnell’. If pure German words are allowed, then alas there’s no logical basis for excluding Americanisms.

      Another dangerous precedent is the use of Merriam-Webster as a last resort, when all other references have been exhausted. Mr Grumpy

  24. Enjoyable romp round the grid. I first met SPACE CADET in an article about the mighty Hawkwind in 1972. Good to see it here, still crazy after all these years.
  25. I missed the ELEVEN PLUS by one year – an exam based on notions of ‘intelligence’, a pseudo-science popularised by racists and cheats.

    Eventually got ANTIC, reminded me of the Omen films where the said Antichrist obviously hadn’t read to the end of Revelation.

    I have been to ALBI, and sat through a talk for tourists in the cathedral while having to stare at a disgusting painting of heaven and hell, which belongs in a museum.

    About 21′, thanks z and setter.

    1. You’re way too harsh on the 11+. I think it was right to be (largely) abandoned and put in my bit as a comprehensive-school teacher to work towards a better system, a project that’s made real progress and is steadily developing further. On social grounds it’s always outclassed the old set-up. Nevertheless, despite an element of dodgy research that fed into its establishment, the exam did not reflect a culture of racists and cheats. A facile dismissiveness about several aspects of the past is however an unfortunate part of the culture now. joekobi
      1. One popular definition of Intelligence is that which is measured by an IQ test. I am inclined to agree. However the 11+ did me no harm, though it might have harmed my cohort at primary school.
        As I said before Bucks still uses the 11+ and is not alone. Despite that we sent our children to a comprehensive run by Oxon because there was a local arrangement. They didn’t seem to lose out, but the comp they went to was largely populated by non-selective intake from Oxon.
        Andyf
  26. found this rather tough going, although I did particularly like PERADVENTURE. Like others, A-T-C was a complete mystery, and ANTIC was only because it couldn’t be attic or aztec. I was definitely OFF PUTTING yesterday, hope for better in the Texas scramble on Saturday.
  27. 14.35. Much more in tune today. SW corner delayed me a little but space cadet yielded consolidated and the rest followed. Nothing particularly memorable but I did like peradventure especially as it woke me up to the realisation 4 dn was aroma rather than alone!
  28. Good puzzle, good blog. No issues for me, 25 minutes. LEAN was my LOI, am not at all wised up on movies. I sat the eleven plus and made it to Bournemouth Grammar which was an excellent school so I am told. An old fashioned exam factory.
  29. Foiled by picking ATTIC from the choices I had of ATTIC, AZTEC or ANTIC. No idea what was going on in the wordplay. Didn’t think of ANTICHRIST. Otherwise 43:20. Thanks Z.
  30. 23’41. I rather like the Biblical baddie, now I see him/her. Some nice cluing. Unlike England’s slip catching at present. joekobi
  31. ….having wasted too long trying to parse 26A (I’m with Stavrolex on that one), and then trying to justify “taut”.

    Couldn’t see ELEVEN PLUS or SPACE CADET for well over 4 minutes, hence my eventual LOI.

    Thanks to Z for outing the Antichrist !

    FOI E-FIT
    LOI COVET
    COD SOUR
    TIME 18:15

  32. 23:50. Much quicker than normal on a puzzle that others seem to have found relatively difficult. And I haven’t been doing the Times Crossword for 50 years or anything like.

    Baffled by the clue for stye (my LOI) but remembered to ask myself “is this a hidden” whereupon the CRS penny dropped.

    Changed attic to antic as that seemed to fit the literal but needed the blog to explain the answer.

    Much more satisfying than the QC which was a DNF …

    Thank you setter (and Z). Loved the definition for 1ac

  33. 26:08 glad to find my feet in the 15×15 after a difficult QC. FOI e-fit and LOI the preceding stagecoach. Liked the Def of scrap paper. Knew enough of Hamlet’s antic disposition to enter it and worry about the biblical baddie later. DNK the French town but it couldn’t be anything else. MER at the superfluous ‘having’ or the superfluous ‘accepting’ or possibly the failure to change ‘accepting’ to ‘accepted’ in the clue for task. A pleasant solve and an excellent blog.
  34. All the answers eventually fell but it was rather a time consuming process. I remembered the Antichrist, the French coin and the archaism at 12a – so the top half went in fairly quickly. Then I hit the buffers in the SW corner because I had forgetten there was such a thing as a SPACE CADET outside the works of Robert Heinlein. 33 minutes. Ann
  35. Made heavy weather of this. 20a brought the Consolidated Liberator to mind, the most produced heavy bomber of all time.
  36. I didn’t get any of the Across clues on the first pass and was beginning to panic but, once I started on the Downs, things started to drop into place and I finally finished in just over 45 minutes.
    PERADVENTURE, POLE VAULT AND UNANIMOUS went in unparsed but, thanks to Z, I now realise that these were very clever clues – too clever for me!
    Amongst my favourites were ARROGANCE, PRESERVATION and OFF-PUTTING and my COD is EXCAVATOR for its excellent wordplay.
    Thanks also to the setter.
  37. 7mish for this none too taxing collection of words. PERADVENTURE, the most interesting, was accordingly the LOI.

    Apologies for the intrusion on pure crossword business, but would anyone be interested in joining an Online Quiz League? A team is forming that may well include both myself and topicaltim, so we could go the whole hog and get a TftT team together! The details are at itzon of the co of the uk if you want to know more, insert dots appropriately there.

  38. Very nice stuff, with some pleasing vocabulary. Like others, took a long time to spot the Biblical reference, having contemplated various Old Testament stories first.

    P.S. If anyone is interested in doing some vaguely competitive lockdown quizzing, please see the post above from verlaine

  39. Well I went for “Demadventure” on the “not half bizarre” basis that a demure joke could be a clean joke and the whole might somehow indicate a Head of State.
    Peradventure I will remember that word next time and peradventure I won’t.
  40. (5dn)

    Enjoyed this, completed with numerous interruptions due to kids showering, hair brushing wars etc. Biffed ANTIC, otherwise all plain sailing

  41. I didn’t like ‘convertible’ as an angram indicator. If something’s convertible, does that mean it’s been converted? No. It simply means that it might be converted.

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