27958 Thursday, 22 April 2021 Hans that does dishes can be soft as Gervais

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
In keeping with the name and style of this community, I cheerfully report that my time for this one was 17.43, mostly but not entirely (see entries below) properly sorted out and submitted with the minimum of trepidation. My last in was 11ac, with its (from my point of view) missable definition. I’m reliably informed (by her own tweet, so it’s true) that 10ac is Susie Dent’s (Dictionary Corner in Countdown) least favourite word, along with gusset and scrofula, so if she does the crossword she may well have struggled at that point. I’d be interested to know if anyone objects to 23 on the ground that it is, in some circumstances, an offensive term.
Our setter has compiled a set of admirably economical clues (my method of copying and pasting the clues first into notepad shows longer clues very noticeably). One day I’ll learn to produce admirably terse commentary, but evidently not today.
You have clues, definitions and SOLUTIONS together with my workings.

Across

1 Shy personnel pull boxes (5)
THROW Personnel is HR, which TOW for pull boxes (in)
4 Unsound female arrested by copper wasting time (9)
DEFECTIVE F(emale) coincidentally takes the place of T(ime) in your policeman DETECTIVE, T(ime) being wasted.
9 Troops surrender in a slump (9)
RECESSION The troops today are the R(oyal) E(ngineers), and for our purposes surrender is a noun rather than the verb required by the literal, CESSION
10 Film about love is soppy (5)
MOIST Film is MIST, and love as ever is O, zero in tennis. Soppy as in (mildly) drenched, not sloppily sentimental
11 Show contempt for rejected literary extract (6)
DISTIL My last in, struggling to make sense of the wordplay and missing the definition. We have DIS for show contempt, which I think the kids still use, and LIT for literary reversed (rejected)
12 Where to drink in a piece of history in China, say (8)
REPUBLIC Initially TEAHOUSE, piece of history being H and China being TEA and hope for the best. Try place to drink being PUB (at last!) and piece of history being RELIC, and combine the two.
14 Somewhat plump? Consuming gallons is justified (4-8)
WELL-GROUNDED Somewhat plump is WELL ROUNDED, allow G(allons) to be consumed.
17 Offering resistance that’s set in stone (12)
OPPOSITIONAL The innocuous set gives POSITION, place in OPAL for stone.
20 Perceptive faculty this person mentions audibly (8)
EYESIGHT Sounds (audibly) an awful lot like I cite, this person mentions.
21 He’s learned a vehicle’s parked in street (6)
SAVANT A VAN is a vehicle, the one we need, and it’s in ST(treet)
23 Block informal address in French language group (5)
BANTU TU is the second person singular used in French to children, God, animals, inanimate objects and in other informal relations. Put BAN for block in front. Bantu is “a name given to a large group of African languages and the peoples speaking them in S and central Africa”. Chambers also notes that it is a now-offensive term for a black person in South Africa.
24 Put a certain slant on It girl saving lives (9)
ITALICISE You need the IT as it is, a girl called ALICE and IS for lives to be “saved”.
25 Eleventh-hour hold up, with day getting long (4-5)
LAST-DITCH Hold up in its slightly less common meaning of LAST (how are you holding up during lockdown?)  plus D(ay) and ITCH for long, yearn.
26 Silly person‘s accommodation in a state (5)
NINNY The state is NY, and the accommodation therein is an INN.
Down
1 Refuse to twist neck (4,4)
TURN DOWN Twist fairly easily gives TURN, and neck gives DOWN as in necking a pint at the pub, if you remember what that was like.
2 It might cure shakes, a case in Lancet (4,4)
ROCK SALT Carefully disentangle the definition from the rest of the clue, and you then have ROCKS for shakes and A in plain sight with the “case” of LanceT.
3 Cleaner whips a gun out, wanting £51 (7-2,6)
WASHING-UP LIQUID First anagram (out) WHIPS A GUN, then add LI (Latin for 51) and QUID for pound.
4 One clad in blue ascending stage (4)
DAIS One is I (and all alone) and therefore SAD for blue, which surrounds it in reversed (ascending, it’s a down clue) style.
5 Tot has trouble around new digital feature (10)
FINGERNAIL Tot may have trouble, but so do I. The wordplay requires that tot means FINGER, which together with AIL for trouble and an enclosed N(ew) gives our entry. No, wait, I have it, thanks for once to my Chambers Electric Thesaurus. It’s tot as in a measure of whisky which if you were mean enough would be a finger’s width. CET gives a tot of whisky (I wish): dram, measure, nip, shot, slug, swallow, swig, finger. Yay!
6 A motion picture’s released using modern tech (15)
COMPUTERISATION Our slightly unusual anagram indicator is “released”, and slightly to my surprise A MOTION PICTURE’S the required fodder.
7 Wintry object in cold here the Parisian seizes (6)
ICICLE You need Comme Parlez Françis libre un for this. C for cold is still in English, but here and the are in (Parisian) French, ICI LE
8 Online ad perhaps lacking nothing to be inviting (6)
ENTICE Whimsically (hence perhaps) and online ad might be an E-NOTICE, from which you remove nothing (O)
13 Muslim, say, not entering second job (10)
MONOTHEIST Getting here, I realise I’ve not parsed this. So not gives NOT, which is entered into MO for (just a) second, and HEIST for (bank) job.
15 Encroachment sailor oddly admitted to leading? (8)
INVASION If you are leading, you are IN (the) VAN. The odd letters of SaIlOr gives the inserted remainder.
16 Praise hot drink ingested by youngsters in school (8)
FLATTERY LATTE is your hot drink, and FRY are youngsters in school if the school is of fish. Construct.
18 Place for testing gun turned up, it’s said (6)
VERBAL So not a homophone indicator, but a definition. Place for testing LAB, gun gives REV as in rev the car, both reversed (turned up).
19 Clear over crime, backing court activity (6)
TENNIS A reversal indicator for each of two parts. NET for clear “over” and SIN for crime “backing”.
22 Auditor’s store for funds (4)
CASH The traditional Gosh-That’s-Easy clue to finish with: CASH sounds like (auditor’s) cache for store.

70 comments on “27958 Thursday, 22 April 2021 Hans that does dishes can be soft as Gervais”

  2. Put in TURN DOWN because it pretty much had to be, with the W; but I should have remembered the relevant meaning of NECK. No problem with FINGERNAIL, although I worked backwards from the solution to the parsing. A finger is, I assume, a finger’s width’s depth; I tend to pour myself a finger’s length’s depth. 18d had me thinking homophonics for a long time. Biffed ENTICE, finally twigged post-submission. I think BANTU in the South African sense was always offensive. [On edit: It occurred to me to wonder: Do fry form schools?]

    Edited at 2021-04-22 02:00 am (UTC)

    1. Much obliged for the finger’s-length idea. Makes describing one’s consumption a lot less embarrassing.
    2. The only problem with the traditional finger measure is that when you want a double you ask for two fingers and this may not elicit the response you had hoped for!
    3. I think Bantu in South Africa was a legal term used to describe all members of the oppressed majority back in the bad old days, hence offensive in those times to the people so described, not to those framing the laws. To me, it’s as offensive as apartheid ever was — i.e 100% — and I’m pretty certain that it would never be used in polite company in South Africa today. I’ve never heard it applied to a language group and, given the vast differences between African languages, I’d be surprised if it has in that sense any justifiable basis at all unless to mean “not English, Dutch, Afrikaans, German or French” or, if you prefer, which I do but only for straightforwardness, “not spoken by white people”. I’m going to do a bit of research into this this afternoon. In the meantime, suffice it to say that I was rather shocked to find what I assume to be such a historic relic in today’s puzzle. Maybe I would have been less shocked 40 years ago. But I think we can do without it today somehow. Otherwise 27’38”, which was quite pleasing.
      1. All of that, news to me. According to Wikipedia there are up to 680 languages in the Bantu family, and more speakers than there are folk in South Africa.
        I guess everything is offensive, to someone..
        1. Thanks to keriothe and jerrywh for your comments. I tried to post a further note with some South African context but my post was deemed to be ‘spam’, perhaps because I’d included a link to an external site. I tend not to take Wikipedia as gospel, but your points about Bantu being a genuine (and huge) language group are consistent with what I read elsewhere and I suppose the setter gets a tick for having designed his clue with care. I’d still not recommend using the word if you are visiting South Africa though.
          1. No chance of that, I’m afraid. Rightly or wrongly, I see South Africa as a dangerous place to go.
          2. I’ve unspammed the message now but it’s way down the discussion on the next page.
      2. My experience of Bantu is precisely the opposite: I wasn’t aware of the offensive meaning but was aware of the linguistic group. It does refer to a genuine sub-group of African languages, so is much more precise than just ‘not English etc’. Wiki says ‘in modern South Africa due to its connection to apartheid the noun has become so discredited that it is only used in its original linguistic meaning.’ Having said that one does wonder why someone didn’t come up with a different name, in the circumstances.
  3. Thanks Zab for the really clear, and most helpful blog. Eg, I learned that “gun” can be “rev” and “e-notice” is online ad…not a phrase i’d previously come across.

    I was pleased to find some doozies early on: throw, moist. turn down, well-grounded , dais, cash., savant. After that i had to parse my way through the rest of the grid.

    Sadly I blew two….rock salt…I went with “rock milk” after seeing the “l” in third position and not stopping to fully parse. This naturally resulted in my blowing “Distil” with my “m” from milk suggest “dammit.”

    COD Well-grounded, which made me chuckle.

    1. There’s no suggestion that an e-notice is a recognised term, hence the “perhaps” in the clue and Z’s description of it as whimsical.
  4. Got held up at the end with COMPUTERISATION and REPUBLIC (which cross, of course). It seemed to unlikely that “a motion picture’s” would be an anagram of anything it took me a long time to consider it. And I was trying to hard to fit a word for friend in for the China thing. But I got there in the end. Actually, my loi VERBAL which I’d forgotten about until I was about to submit. Several cleverly disguised definitions.
    1. Equating computerisation with “modern technology” seemed so 1980’s that I struggled to make sense of the entire clue at first.
      1. I assumed this meant the introduction of computers to a job that had not previously used them, and in that sense the definition seemed okay to me.
    2. Because the definition also had 15 letters I wondered if I should be anagramming “using modern tech” to get the name of a film, as the checking letters I had were in both phrases.
  5. Home in 35 minutes on the dot. I don’t know why, but I agree that MOIST is a pretty yucky word. It mightn’t be exactly the same, but “damp” seems a more acceptable alternative. I liked the def and surface for ROCK SALT and the wordplay for VERBAL.

    After TENNIS, I had CASH down pat.

  6. I was surprised to see SNITCH hovering around 100; this felt as if it was playing much easier. I liked Verbal for the misdirection, Well-Rounded for the thought, and there weren’t any which grated or irked. Thanks, z

    Edited at 2021-04-22 03:07 am (UTC)

      1. Subtle nuances matter, and I think sometimes we non-mother-tongue-UK speakers miss connections that are quite clear to the majority of the solvers. I also think that more difficult puzzles (though at 100, this might not qualify as more difficult) are more tightly clued in their wordplay because, with more esoteric or more cleverly hidden definitions, the cryptic needs to be exact. To connect the dots, tighter clues which rely less on nuance and (local) connotation end up being easier for us non-mother-tonguers to decipher
  7. I thought that this crossword was elegant. I liked WASHING-UP LIQUID, ROCK SALT, OPPOSITIONAL, COMPUTERISATION but COD to MONOTHEIST. Thanks setter (and Z).
  8. I enjoyed this puzzle given that many clues required some parsing rather than being biffable. Not least my LOI, DISTIL, where I see I am in good company. That clue immediately suggested a definition of “Show contempt” to me and needed work to unpick.
    I’m left feeling I’d like to DOWN a FINGER of whisky (to be honest I’d rather savour it). Perhaps the rather fine Irish one, Redbreast, which I have on the go (of course thus whiskey). I think I’ll manage to hold off until this evening.
  9. 39 minutes. Another here who struggled with DISTIL. I always want to spell the word meaning ‘show contempt’ as ‘diss’ which I now see is a valid alternative, so DIS did not occur to me for a long time.

    I noted the capital I in ‘It girl’ and wondered if this was a reference to a particular Alice who had once been dubbed this, but apparently not. Clara Bow was perhaps the most famous one because she starred in a film called ‘It’ but she wasn’t the first or the last. More recently it has come to mean simply a rich socialite.

    Edited at 2021-04-22 05:04 am (UTC)

    1. z8, I forgot to say earlier that if you are copying and pasting the clues into notepad, would it not be a good idea to ’embrace’ the excellent java technology made available by our fellow bloggers that deals with all that with a few clicks? They haven’t invented one that writes the blogs yet, but no doubt there’s an algorithm in the pipeline!
  10. Can ROCK SALT cure?
    COD to DISTIL.
    Thanks for the blog, Z, and thanks for explaining FINGER = tot.
  11. Enjoyable and interesting puzzle, fast and efficient – and embarrassing – failure.
    Hadn’t heard of Bantu so guessed Banyu as the French language group. Lifted and separated wrongly, probably thinking of Paris banlieus. Then saw and immediately gave up on verbal, thinking it must be a UK army gun range which came up a few years ago. Kebbel? Kembel? Should have got it. At least there wasn’t only one poor error. Thanks setter and blogger.
  12. 41 minutes with LOI INVASION. I found this quite tricky with COMPUTERISATION not coming through for ages despite the anagram being set up straightaway. It took me back fifty years to the time of the replacement of Hollerith systems, when stone-age man first encountered problems he was ill-equipped for. I liked WELL-GROUNDED and COD ROCK SALT. A good challenge. Thank you Z and setter.
  13. 22.34. Most went in easily enough but SW quadrant took a while. LOI oppositional which was a great relief. Monotheist solved just before and another of the late-entries was washing up liquid, no doubt my better half would not be surprised by that. Oh dear…

    Thanks setter and blogger.

  14. …Oh! strongly adorable tennis-girl’s hand!

    35 mins pre-brekker. No ticks, no crosses, no dramas. A well-rounded and grounded test.
    Thanks setter and Z.

  15. A WELL-GROUNDED offering, I’d say
    So some FLATTRY now, if I may
    As the setter we want
    Is a VERBAL SAVANT
    And clearly we have one today

  16. FOI: THROW
    LOI: ROCK SALT

    I enjoyed both 15 letter clues and generally felt I was on the same wavelength.

    Thank you, z8b8d8k and the setter.

  17. COMPUTERISATION POI, great anagram.

    REPUBLIC slow, as was convinced it was the China that was the relic, probably confused with relict.

    The device for ITALICISE came up elsewhere recently.

    18′ 46″, thanks z and setter.

  18. I enjoyed this one, taking 45mins so having to work the little grey cells. Great anagram at 6d, my COD for that alone. FOI THROW, LOI DISTIL. Never parsed so thank Z for that. I wasn’t sure about MONOTHEIST either but the wordplay was generous.

    Thank you z and setter.

  19. Struggled the the most with VERBAL. I had the checkers but kept thinking of ‘gerbil’ as a place for testing, as in animal testing – even though it’s guinea pigs rather than gerbils. Eventually I got the ‘lab’ bit and it fell into place, despite thinking that ‘rev’ was some kind of gun rather than the verb. No matter in the end.

    DISTIL took a bit of thought too, as like some others I would instinctively spell ‘dis’ with two Ss, but clearly both options are fine. And I needed all the checkers for REPUBLIC.

    FOI Savant
    LOI Verbal
    COD Washing-up liquid

  20. Is it me, or are we seeing more one-liner clues these days, a la Dean Mayer?
  21. 18:51 Deceived by many a clever definition (e.g. “it’s said” and “it might cure”) and wordplay element (e.g. “tot = finger”) which kept me hesitating over putting in the right answer. NW corner held me up the most. Lovely stuff. Thanks Z and setter. Incidentally, it is not just Susie Dent who doesn’t like moist… see here.
  22. Found this tough going and a really enjoyable solve. Some very classy clues, the ones I got fairly quickly, and some diabolical ones, the ones that took a little longer. Like so many words, I learnt gun/rev from the Times puzzles. COD Washing-up-Liquid

    Thanks to z and setter.

  23. 8:06. No dramas, nice puzzle. Surprised to learn that BANTU can be offensive but this doesn’t appear to be the case when it refers to the language group.
    Your comment on 1dn is a bit out of date, Z. I have downed far more than my usual quota of pints in pubs (or rather, outside pubs) in the last ten days. I’m not normally a great beer drinker but have felt something of an obligation since lockdown eased. As George Mallory might have said, because it’s open.
    1. The Forest Gate is on my agenda, as is the Woodbine. My only slight hesitation in returning to what pubs think of as a finger of chaser you need a small mortgage to buy.
  24. A very enjoyable puzzle with some cute wordplay.

    Like Paul in London I was surprised to wee the SNITCH around 100, but for the opposite reason. It felt to me like a tricky puzzle for which I’d quickly tuned into the wavelength.

    For 9ac I considered ROCKSLIDE until I had the final checking letter, but didn’t put it in because, well, it was a million miles from fitting the wordplay.

  25. Admirably concise and well-constructed puzzle. I was another who didn’t see much on the first pass, and thought I was in for the long haul on a pretty tricky puzzle; at this point, my brain clearly found the right wavelength, and everything dropped pretty steadily.
  26. The only frame of reference I had for BANTU was Ian Dury’s Reasons To Be Cheerful Part 3 where he refers to Bantu Stephen Biko — didn’t realise it was anything to do with a bunch of languages.

    A steady solve apart from my LOI MONOTHEIST which even with all of the checkers took a while to work out as was thinking POST for job i.e. MOPO_H_IST. Eventually deciding to stick NOT in the middle saw the answer fall into place.

  27. Failed on 18d VERBAL, although I had considered it but stupidly missed the LAB so the REVolver never occured to me either.
    Thanks for explaining 2d ROCK, 5d (tot), 8d E-NOTICE.
    Embarrassingly long list of unparsed.
    Andyf
  28. All going well in 20 minutes until left with 11a and 13d; then, like jackkt I couldn’t comtemplate DIS rather than DISS and couldn’t see 13d at all, so rather than use an aid I came here to see the problem, or rather the solution to it. Still not keen on DIS spelling although apparently it’s valid dictionary-wise.
    Thanks Z8 for the chatty blog.
  29. Couldn’t quite see how TEQUILLA worked at 12ac, which I now realise is not at all surprising and which made ENTICE impossible to get. Still, with ENTRAP in place, I at least filled the grid with real words.

    Edited at 2021-04-22 11:20 am (UTC)

  30. I found this an entertaining puzzle. THROW and TURN DOWN were my first entries. I managed to THROW down my first post lockdown pints of draught beers yesterday to celebrate getting my hair cut. I also savoured several fingers of a nice Penderyn in the wee hours during the Whisky Club that followed our Zoom Folk Session, while we put the world to rights. I eventually stumbled into bed around 3am. Back at the puzzle, ROCK SALT and WASHING-UP_? allowed me to see DISTIL. LIQUID arrived a bit later. Success with the across entries in the SE allowed me to spot that 6d was likely to end with ISATION, and COMPUTER duly followed. FINGERNAIL and DEFECTIVE were my last 2 in. 23:47. Thanks setter and Z.
  31. Took too long to time but was pleased to complete this finally. LOI italicise which took ages to see. Couldn’t parse the finger of fingernail or the down of turn down which makes me think I need to drink more.
    COD to the brilliant anagram at 6dn.
    Love the new way of calibrating a finger of spirits!
    Thanks to setter and blogger.
  32. 24.10. I made slightly heavy weather of this, failing to see a couple of chestnutty types as early as I should: defective and eyesight for example. The helpful enumeration meant washing-up liquid wasn’t too long to dawn but computerisation took an age. Spent some time squinting at finger to make it mean tot in the add up sense, now I see that I was barking up the wrong tree.
  33. Picking up on my comment above (and a few more), there’s an interesting explanation of the matter from a South African viewpoint here.

    https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/defining-term-bantu

    Britannica says the term embraces more than 500 languages. So be it, but I still struggle to understand how they could be so similar in content or origin as to form a single group. One for the linguistics experts (of which I am not one).

    1. The taxonomy of language divides them into larger and smaller groups. So Indo-European is a vast family encompassing English, Russian and Urdu (but not Finnish), Germanic (which includes English) is a subdivision of that, and so on. The languages in each subdivision are related by common etymological ancestry.
  34. Similar to Penfold above, I tried the wrong letters for the anagram before getting COMPUTERISATION. Clearly set up to confuse by the setter, well done!
    Several biffs including FINGERNAIL, MONOTHEIST and my LOI DISTIL, where as usual I was looking for the wrong definition.

  35. Liked it … no queries, though I did have a mer at SAVANT, because I always thought that learning was exactly what they did not have to do, being naturally gifted. Like Dustin Hofmann .. but the dictionary says otherwise, so I retire gracefully. Again 🙂
    1. The Dustin Hoffmann type of savant was originally called an ‘idiot savant’ (in French); the ‘idiot’ has been dropped for reasons you can imagine, leaving the ambiguity.
  36. I may take a few days off. At the moment, if there’s a blind alley, I’ll gallop down it at full tilt.

    1A isn’t the hidden I wasted time on, the It girl wasn’t Clara Bow, and the youngsters weren’t drinking tea.

    OPPOSITIONAL is cumbersome, I can’t see who would use it — or why — and it was a DNK. MONOTHEIST needed an alpha-trawl before I could see it at all.

    FOI MOIST
    LOI OPPOSITIONAL
    COD NINNY (at least I didn’t biff nanny !)
    TIME 16:51

  37. Just saw the title of your blog en passant to the QC. I just had to drop the other boot. A good eighties shaggy-dog story, but we would have to repeat an entire advertising campaign to get a laugh today.
    1. That anyone else remembers it is a joy. I thought it might be a Muir/Norden story, so I’ve looked it up, and am even more delighted to see I’m already sixth on the Google list!
  39. Nice neat elegant crossword. Nothing to add to everyone else’s comments

    Thanks z8 and setter

  40. -this little word gives offence!?Really!?

    The Council for Culture Cancel (Crossword Land) has officially added –
    WOKE, ACTRESS, MOIST, BANTU, DISTIL and FINGER recently! Whatever next?

    Time a late and leisurely 43 minutes

    FOI 21ac SAVANT

    LOI 8dn ENTICE

    COD 13dn MONOTHEIST (Anag. the cooking instruction MOISTEN HOT!) Kipling

    WOD 10 & 22ac MOIST BANTU

    The word that worries me moist is CAULIFLOWER

  41. Chuffed, chuffed, chuffed to finish this in approx 45 mins. For a Thursday puzzle! I assumed it was a misplaced easier one, so additionally chuffed when I see that many regulars here found it tricky. Thank you.

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