28006 Thursday, 17th June 2021 Keep taking the tablet.

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Well that’s been exciting. My PC has made itself unobtainable, so I’m working on a not very powerful android tablet, fine for doing the crossword, as I seem to make fewer mistakes, but a bit of a trial when writing up the blog, I can’t copy the clues directly as is my wont, and am limited to LJ’s HTML editor, which thankfully is OK even for me.
As for the crossword, 22.49 which felt a bit slow, with the top half resisting more than the bottom. I wondered if there might be something of a theme with both the triangle word and its most famous exponent, but I think not.
I have done my best to eliminate mistakes and present clues, definitions and SOLUTIONS in my customary style, but if misprings have slipped through, please be kind as you usually are.

Across

1 Projection to get extremely large ratings here (10)
FORECASTLE So projection is FORECAST, to which you add the extreme (letters) of LargE. Your ratings are of course the people shaped navy ones.
6 Stream in gorge to the west (4)
FLOW Gorge here is to eat greedily, or WOLF. “To the west” means you reverse it.
9 Liberal is firm and very devout (7)
COPIOUS Firm is CO(mpany) and very devout PIOUS.
10 Changing ends of meandering route, one wants good fare (7)
GOURMET An anagram (changing), for which you want the letters of ROUTE plus the M and the G from either end of meandering.
12 Date and I loved dancing and were a good match (10)
DOVETAILED And immediately our second anagram (dancing) of DATE and I LOVED.
13 Fighting men cut by a blade (3)
OAR Of the many abbreviations for military personnel, you need OR (Other Ranks). Cut them down the middle with the A in plain sight.
15 When one’s getting on with female penning graffito (6)
DOTAGE The female in question is a deer one, a DOE, and the graffito penned thereby a TAG, one of those almost always illegible stylised signatures defacing public surfaces.
16 Distance Parisian is to roam (8)
ESTRANGE The Parisian version of is is EST, to which you add RANGE for roam. Distance here is a verb, not a noun.
18 Possibly getting a raise in pounds provided by board (8)
LIFTABLE Pounds gives you just the single L, or £, provided is IF and board TABLE.
20 Trims twirling officer’s coat decoratively (6)
STUCCO So it’s to coat decoratively, made up of CUTS for trims, which you twirl or reverse, plus an officer, in this case a CO.
23 Book suppressing final character’s age (3)
ERA The book is EZRA from the OT, from which you remove the final character, in my alphabet the Z.
24 Needle with point around figure’s side (10)
HYPOTENUSE The way I have this is that we have HYPO for needle of the kind they’ve recently jabbed in your arm, then USE is from point as in “what’s the use/point of doing crosswords” surrounding TEN as a random figure.
26 Help when presenting US car line on the radio (7)
AUTOCUE An American car is an AUTO, and QUEUE for line sounds like CUE where heard on the radio.
27 American peak with worse weather (7)
RAINIER A volcano in the Cascades in Washington State. It helped that the weather here has just turned from dry to soaking, so it’s rainier, worse unless welcome for the garden.
28 Herb around old French bread now (4)
EURO The herb is RUE, for remembrance according to Ophelia. It’s around, or reversed, and O(ld) is stuck on the end. Bread, of course, slang for money.
29 Philosopher, on leaving, snakes around market (10)
PYTHAGORAS The snakes are PYTHONS, from which ON leaves. They then circle the AGORA, Greek for market, known to you from agoraphobia. The wordplay kindly prevents you spelling P. with a U at the end.

Down

1 Reality about to get inverted in newspaper (4)
FACT C(irc)A for about gets inverted inside the F(inancial) T(imes).
2 Harmony left following musical style (7)
RAPPORT Left supplies you with PORT to follow RAP which is allegedly a musical style.
3 Work with nothing explicit about ballet, say (13)
CHOREOGRAPHIC Work is CHORE, nothing is 0, and explicit GRAPHIC.
4 Strut surely has wood in for example (6)
SASHAY This confused me, because I thought surely (ay perhaps), was part of the wordplay, but I think it’s part of the definition as marked. So it’s ASH, random wood, surrounded by SAY for for example. Chambers has “to walk or move in a gliding or ostentatious way”: that’ll do.
5 Bar’s words from member with drinks on tab (8)
LEGALESE (Bodily) member is LEG, drinks ALES and your tab(let?) is the E.
7 Bird, catching bit of current, is to take off (7)
LAMPOON The bird is a LOON, and the bit of current it catches is represented by AMP.
8 A new merlot’s drunk – it’s sweet and refreshing (10)
WATERMELON About time we had another anagram (drunk), here of A NEW MERLOT. Oenophiles of this parish can confirm whether Merlot meets that description.
11 Getting this could be seen as infra dig (13)
UNDERSTANDING I’m going to leave the definition as marked, though dig also has similar overtones. I think the wordplay invites us to think of where we would be if infra, under. I’m happy to be further enlightened.
14 Corrupt? Oddly they’re overwhelmed by praise (10)
ADULTERATE Take the odd letters of ThEy’Re and overwhelm them (well, surround them) with ADULATE for praise.
17 Like a shoe, perhaps, that’s unsafe to walk on (8)
SLIPPERY The Uxbridge English Dictionary puts in an appearance. Under slippery, it has “a bit like a shoe”.
19 Large heavier clothes more streamlined (7)
FLATTER Heavier translates to FATTER, which “clothes”, L(arge)
21 One handling money in his care roughly (7)
CASHIER Another anagram (roughly), of HIS CARE.
22 Formality which may come from King Edward (6)
STARCH I believe starch is a major component of the potato, of which King Edward is an example.
25 Most of national flag (4)
IRIS The national you need is IRISH. Lose the last letter.

64 comments on “28006 Thursday, 17th June 2021 Keep taking the tablet.”

        1. Unless I’m losing my marbles (not unlikely), the text of 17d used “unsafe to walk on”

          1. I think we’re at cross purposes and I misunderstood. Sorry. z8 mentioned ‘in plain sight’ re the A in 13ac, but you were applying the expression to a different clue and I’ve obviously missed the point you were making.
  2. I could have saved a minute or two if I’d either biffed LOI STUCCO–what else could it be?–or twigged to the wordplay, which finally hit me as I was about to biff. I had trouble with POI AUTOCUE, too, not knowing that AUTO was an Americanism, and barely knowing AUTOCUE itself–I think the US version is ‘teleprompter’. Didn’t see how ‘tab’ fit in.

    Edited at 2021-06-17 03:47 am (UTC)

    1. Yes, AUTO as an Americanism seemed odd to me too, and in fact I’d have thought that ‘line’ for ‘queue’ was more of one, although z8’s parsing is of course correct and that’s not what’s intended here.
      1. AUTO is marked as North American usage in both Collins and Lexico. It’s not a term I hear often (if indeed ever) in the UK. ‘Line’ is certainly an American usage though.
        1. I don’t doubt the sources you quote, and fwiw the Shorter Oxford (the two-volume one) doesn’t qualify it as North American or anything else (just from 19th century), but I’d have thought it was in common usage everywhere by now and 15×15 solvers wouldn’t need their hands held as today. ‘Auto Trader’ is one of the UK’s largest car dealers . ‘Autocar’ is a leading UK car magazine founded under that name in 1895, and there’s Autosport, another UK brand founded in 1950.
          1. Chambers also says ‘chiefly N Am’.
            In most of your examples it’s arguable that ‘auto’ is a prefix, but ‘Auto Trader’ seems clear and now that you mention it you do see the word used a fair amount in the trade (google finds me a business called ‘Majestic Autos’ for example).
            It’s not used in everyday conversation (at least not in my experience) but then I don’t know that it is in North America either.

            Edited at 2021-06-17 09:09 am (UTC)

              1. In which case the ‘North American’ designation in the dictionaries does seem decidedly dodgy.
                2. Never heard, mind you; no doubt I’ve seen it: Auto Parts, Auto Repair, even what Horryd was getting at. But still.
                  1. Yes it’s also pretty common in that context here. Sometimes it’s not clear whether it means ‘car’ or is an abbreviation of ‘automotive’, but in the example I gave above (‘Majestic Autos’) it’s unambiguous. So it seems the word is used equally commonly and in exactly the same context on both sides of the pond.
  3. Great crossword, but an unfortunate DNF. Just couldn’t see hypotenuse, even after 12 years at school and 4 at uni studying mathematics, fixated on the word ending in NESS. Even with Pythagoras directly below it!
    Liked the Uxbridge slippery most of all. Saw infra dig as being below/under the (necessary) standing/rating, close to its dictionary definition, so somewhat Uxbridge-ish as well.
    edit: Just repeated what Vinyl said, I see – it takes me 13 minutes or more to read the blog and formulate a comment.

    Edited at 2021-06-17 04:05 am (UTC)

  4. Around 35-40 minutes, as I forgot to note my exact finishing time. I’m still a bit confused about 11dn, and 13ac was unknown or forgotten.
    1. I’m very late to the party having printed this and only just got round to completing it. 11dn was my COD in the way I parsed it – infra dig is beneath one’s dignity = under one’s standing (e.g. in the community) = under standing.
      The word play didn’t kindly prevent me from putting a ‘U’ into Pythagoras – I hadn’t heard of agora = market but will now try to remember it from your useful reference to agoraphobia. Thanks.
  5. UNDERSTANDING was only sort of parsed and I couldn’t see the E for ‘tab’ at 5d; short for “tablet” makes sense. Otherwise not too difficult though I spent a few minutes on AUTOCUE at the end and was sore tempted to bung in an unparsed ‘attaché’ until inspiration struck. Done in 32 minutes.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

  6. 39 minutes with LOI SASHAY in a topsy-turvy solve. I didn’t know that Grace Kelly’s husband was also a volcano but fortunately I was well used to rain and the Royal IRIS in the county of my birth. HYPOTENUSE was late to fall, despite the proximity of COD PYTHAGORAS. We really needed a trio of related clues at 3,4,5 or 5,12,13. A good puzzle.Thank you Z and setter.
  7. 25 mins pre-brekker to work clockwise from FOI Watermelon round to LOI Legalese and the wonderful ‘drinks on tab’.
    Excellent crossword and I have learnt something: the Rainier peak.
    Thanks setter and Z.
  8. Much the same experience as johninterred — I was left wondering about the book ERA_ and UNDERSTANDING was beyond mine.
  9. 25:44
    Steady solve. Just threw in rainier and understanding. Surely in 4dn seems to be a filler word.
    THanks, z, nice blog.
  10. 15:47 with UNDERSTANDING not understood and ERA not parsed… I couldn’t think of a book in the bible ERA_, never thinkiong of the Z. LOI AUTOCUE. COD to SLIPPERY.
    Good stuff. Thanks Z and setter.
  11. …I had to use aids to get HYPOTENUSE. Like isla3 I was focused on point = NESS.
  12. 9:36. Very enjoyable one today. My time is a bit better than average, which looking at the SNITCH seems to have been most people’s experience. This gives me no reason to mention wavelength, so I won’t.

    Edited at 2021-06-17 10:40 pm (UTC)

  13. I started off at a gallop, with FACT, SASHAY and FORECASTLE leaping of the screen at me. The answers kept FLOWing and everything was DOVETAILING into place, until I ground to a halt with 17d, 24a and 29a outstanding. With only _L___E__ to go on, I postulated that the word would end with either T or Y, at which point PYTHAGORUS leapt out of the darkness, happily, as Z mentioned, converted to PYTHAGORAS by careful assimilation of the wordplay. SLIPPERY then magically floated into my consciousness and I rethought the posited NESS at the end of 24a and HYPOTENUSE took its rightful place adjacent to ERA. A fun puzzle. 29:49. Thanks setter and Z.
  14. 31.24 . I found this tough but very enjoyable. Took a while to get going, FOI was oar, and my pace was never electric but felt good to finish.
    SW quadrant gave me the most trouble with slippery, hypotenuse and pythagoras my last entries.
    Thanks setter and blogger.
  15. 25 minutes; the top half flew in, the lower took longer, ending with UNDERSTANDING which I didn’t / don’t fully dig. Always nice to see entries to the Uxbridge dictionary. And the setter managing to have Pythagoras and his ‘side’ in the same puzzle was clever.
  16. The Plum Rain Season has started in Shanghai – June is the wettest month hereabouts. I spent forty minutes on a top-down solve at home and finished up in a twenty minute DD taxi ride (top-up) to my favourite Indian Restaurant – The Marsala Art. The conversation with the maitre-di-di was regarding the unavailabilty of cardamoms in China, due to Covid 19 restrictions in Hong Kong.

    As to the business in hand:-

    FOI 2dn RAPPORT

    LOI 28ac EURO

    COD 25ac ERA

    WOD and back to CARDAMOMS – for a substitute powder. grind equal amounts of allspice and cinnamon – apparently. I love ’em green and whole in pinapple chutney!

    Edited at 2021-06-17 10:03 am (UTC)

  17. Very nice puzzle, lots of things which weren’t obvious but weren’t overly obscure either. Wordplay all very clear, which helps when you can’t tell a sashay from a chassé.
  18. I am minded to wonder if 11d could perhaps be ‘infra, dig?’. Or am I being obtuse?
    Enjoyed this, and as most, AUTOCUE was my last. All I could see were ARTICLE and ATTACHÉ which blinded me to the answer. Not sure if the US use of auto is needed as US use of line as queue is enough for the cryptic to make sense.
  19. Beg to differ – “distance” is a noun here (that is, the distance a Parisian has to roam), I think?
  20. Made a bit of a pig’s 23ac of this. No excuses — other than an inflexible mind — for not seeing AUTOCUE or HYPOTENUSE. A good and entertaining workout nonetheless.
  21. Being an Anglo-American I do find that the Americans on the blog seem to want to get the lawyers out, whenever possible, and the Anglos prefer to move on. Just sayin’. My COD goes to 11dn UNDERSTANDING for The Special Relationship restored.
    1. Being an Anglo-Englishman I think that’s very unfair. I’m amazed that our American friends have the patience to struggle through all the references to obscure Hertfordshire towns and whatnot, and I am always fascinated by the linguistic differences they highlight.

      Edited at 2021-06-17 10:46 pm (UTC)

      1. The comment struck me not so much as unfair as mystifying, and gratuitous. So far as I can tell, two Americans, Vinyl and me, commented on AUTOCUE; neither comment indicates ‘wanting to get the lawyers out’ on any interpretation of that phrase that I can think of.
  22. Started slowly, but finished at a gallop. I liked both UNDERSTANDING and HYPOTENUSE but COD to ERA.

    Talking of distance and estrangement; I may be imagining it, but, for some odd reason, the phrase “dead to me” seems to be cropping up more and more frequently in the media. As if we’ve all started reading the same Victorian novel.

    Thanks to Z and the setter.

  23. Nothing anyone has said about infra dig has really convinced me, although perhaps eniamretrauq has a point. It still seems a bit loose.

    And Pythagoras a philosopher? Well yes all the sources confirm this, but he wasn’t the first one to occur to me.

    1. It’s just a name for a type of iris, and some other flowers.
      It seems to have been cropping up a lot recently in the puzzles I regularly do.
  25. The word-play should have ensured that I spelt his name correctly, but it didn’t – and I did purse the lips a bit while thinking that I’d never come across AGORU as a word for market. So a DNF for me by one letter. More interruptions today than I can count, so really no idea it’s taken for me to come up with this failure. Some good clues though – particularly liked CHOREOGRAPHIC.
    1. That’s ‘… no idea how long it’s taken me …’, of course. I was interrupted again while typing the above.
  27. I know AGORA; it was my special spelling of PYTHAGORUS which had me scratching the bean over AGORU.
  28. I had to cheat for my LOI, AUTOCUE. All I could think of was ARTICLE and ATTACHE. Otherwise, no problems. Nowadays, I do this in the morning, as if I were commuting to my office on the other side of the room…
  29. Excellent puzzle which I finished – except I can’t spell Pythagoras either, so technically DNF. Could not decide whether listable or liftable, so I checked that. Several unparsed – liftable, era, Euro, legalese (just the e I didn’t get) and flatter. FOI dovetailed, LOI Euro. Had several restarts as I kept getting stuck, but persevered. Cross with self about spelling the great Greek Pythagorus. NHO Mount Rainier but it was obvious from the clue. Not much biology in this one. Thanks, Z, and setter. GW.
  30. 16:59. Got off to a flying start then ground to a complete halt midway through. Then got 18 ac “Liftable” and everything suddenly fell into place. Nice when that sort of thing happens — but not often enough in my experience!
    I picked up 23 ac “era” at the first pass but spent not a little time trying to parse it by seeking to identify a novel or book of the bible of 4 letters beginning ERA. PDM moment on returning later and the letter Z appeared in a neural circuit somewhere.
    Lots of excellent clues with my COD 28 ac “Euro” where I couldn’t reconcile the number of words for what seemed ages. Of course once I stopped thinking of “pain ” for french bread, another PDM appeared, accompanied by a smile and a groan.
    Thanks to z8 for a fine blog in frustrating circumstances and setter for a fun puzzle.
  31. Did all but SLIPPERY and HYPOTENUSE in 27 mins being slightly stuck on those two. Went back to the emails and when I reverted later they both went straight in. Like others wanted the latter to end TINESS not least as I remembered TINE being a point but it was just a coincidence.

    My heart sank when I saw the infra dig clue — I find those long cryptics tough, but a few checkers were helpful even though I didn’t get it, ditto ERA but all correct nonetheless

    Nice puzzle — thanks Z8 and setter

  33. 16.54. Off to a quick start with a little underlying anxiety because while the RHS was filling up quite comfortably, very little seemed to be going in on the LHS. I think choreographic may have been the one to open it all up though. Hypotenuse my LOI, would’ve taken a lot longer to pick up on “side” had I not just entered Pythagoras.
  34. Nope. Too cryptic for me, sadly, requiring too many guesses at randoms, like the female being DOE, the book being EZRA, and the peak being RAINIER, which answer occurred to me but seemed way too simple. Short on GK, vocabulary, and all round cryptic skills today. But thanks to blogger for tutorial.

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