Times Cryptic 28040

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 38 minutes. Quite straightforward. I imagine the speed merchants will report very fast times.

Edit 07:20: After reading reports from the first seven conributors it seems the puzzle was not as straightforward as I had thought. Perhaps the picture will change when the UK contingent turn up.

As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]. I usually omit all reference to positional indicators unless there is a specific point that requires clarification.

Across

1 Terrible tirade overwhelms me, not wanting a black mark (7)
DEMERIT
Anagram [terrible] of TIR{a}DE [not wanting ‘a’] contains [overwhelms] ME. On another occasion a setter might have used ‘wanting a’  instead of  ‘not wanting a’ for exactly the same effect. The English language is strange!
5 Cut wood goes to fires ultimately (5)
STEAK
{fire}S [ultimately], TEAK (wood). Cut of meat.
9 Admired people I only half think about (5)
ICONS
I, CONS{ider} (think about) [only half]
10 Mum is one old bird full of energy joining rave (9)
DEODORANT
DODO (old bird) contains [full of] E (energy), RANT (rave). Another brand name! From Wiki: In 1888, the first modern commercial deodorant, Mum, was developed and patented by a U.S. inventor in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Edna Murphey. The small company was bought by Bristol-Myers in 1931 and in the late 1940s, Helen Barnett Diserens developed an underarm applicator based on the newly invented ball-point pen. In 1952, the company began marketing the product under the name Ban Roll-On. The product was briefly withdrawn from the market in the U.S. but it is once again available at retailers in the U.S. under the brand Ban. In the UK it is sold under the names Mum Solid and Mum Pump Spray.
11 Chimney, pillar with less attractive shape? (7)
LUMPIER
LUM (chimney – Lang may yer lum reek!), PIER (pillar). Unfair to lumpies!
12 Grass and tree is dividing two hotels (7)
HASHISH
ASH (tree) + IS contained by [dividing] H H (two hotels). One for our U.S. pot correspondent!
13 Vessel provided by club carrying granny with neckwear (6,4)
BANANA BOAT
BAT (club) containing [carrying] NANA (granny) + BOA (neckwear)
15 Punter, not abstaining, may get it (4)
BEER
BE{tt}ER (punter) [not ‘abstaining’ – TT – tee-total]
18 The latest thing in our generation? (4)
RAGE
{ou}R [latest thing in…), AGE (generation). Semi &lit perhaps to account for double usage?
20 Promoting a series of operatic works beginning with endless violence (10)
FURTHERING
FUR{y} (violence) [endless], THE RING (series of operatic works by Richard Wagner)
23 Sun a strange blue? Such may be a puzzle! (7)
SOLUBLE
SOL (sun), then anagram [strange] of BLUE
24 Able regularly to get our paper early (7)
BETIMES
{a}B{l}E [regularly], TIMES (our paper)
25 Colour above country (9)
OVERSTATE
OVER (above), STATE (country). I wasn’t quite sure that the definition worked but Chambers has ‘colour = exaggerate’ and that would seem to cover it.
26 Painful look given by wife in church (5)
WINCE
W (wife), IN, CE (church)
27 Character of one who may sing in choir (5)
TENOR
Two meanings, the first as in the general meaning or mood of something.
28 One of several flowers surrounding chap’s about to burst open (7)
DEHISCE
DEE (one of several flowers) containing [surrounding] HIS (chap’s) + C (about). There are at least five Rivers Dee in the British Isles and two in Australia. I struggled long and hard over this silly word on a previous occasion and fortunately it has stuck in my brain so it wasn’t time wasted. Today it required no effort at all as it came up in last Thursday’s puzzle.
Down
1 Romeo stands in ruin — an occupier of position by entrance (7)
DOORMAN
R (Romeo – NATO alphabet) is contained by [stands in] DOOM (ruin), then AN
2 Girl is holding on in attempts to win converts (8)
MISSIONS
MISS (girl), then  IS containing [holding] ON
3 Additional qualification for sportsperson (5)
RIDER
Two meanings
4 Nothing all right with dreadful threat around? Cheered up (4,5)
TOOK HEART
Anagram [dreadful] of THREAT contains [around] 0 (nothing) + OK (all right)
5 Partner that is drunkard imbibing quietly (6)
SPOUSE
SOUSE (drunkard) containing [imbibing] P (quietly)
6 Test needs article to be lowered into old pit (7)
EXAMINE
A (definite article) contained by [lowered into] EX (old) + MINE (pit)
7 Outline plan hasn’t succeeded — it floats away? (5)
KETCH
{s}KETCH (outline plan) [hasn’t succeeded – ‘s’]. A type of boat.
8 I must be seen in factory watering-hole — there’s a bit of pressure (8)
MILLIBAR
I contained by [seen in] MILL (factory) + BAR (watering-hole)
14 Way bad lover is out to trap you texting? (9)
BOULEVARD
Anagram [out] of BAD LOVER contains [to trap] U (you texting)
16 Diary penned by Pooter, e.g. is terrific (8)
REGISTER
Hidden in [penned by] {Poote}R EG IS TER{rific}. ‘Pooter’ reminds me it’s about time I re-read The Diary of a Nobody.
17 Semiaquatic creature has to appear in fresh communities (3,5)
NEW TOWNS
NEWT (semiaquatic creature), OWNS (has). The filler words suggest containment but it’s simpler than that. The nearest new town to me is Milton Keynes which has three main streets called 14dn.
19 First sight of enemy in some water perhaps in this? (7)
GALLEON
E{nemy} [first sign of] contained by [in] GALLON (some water perhaps). Clued by Trelawney in last Tuesday’s QC as: Some liquid surrounds English ship.
21 Huge island, eastern, occupied by a thousand soldiers (7)
IMMENSE
IS (island) + E (eastern) contains [occupied by] M (a thousand) + MEN (soldiers)
22 A form of address to a fellow lacks hint of thoughtfulness — one is offensive (6)
ABUSER
A, BUS{t}ER (form of address to a fellow) [lacks hint of thoughtfulness]. An American form of address.
23 Runner in race (5)
SHOOT
Two meanings, the first botanical
24 Insect starts to climb high tree (5)
BEECH
BEE (insect), C{limb} + H{igh} [starts]

65 comments on “Times Cryptic 28040”

  1. No very fast times reported yet; I sure did my best to raise the average. I was terribly slow to see e.g. MISSIONS, BANANA BOAT, OVERSTATE, MILLIBAR. I wasted time taking just RING as operatic series. And I never did figure out RAGE. But DEHISCE went in like a shot.
  2. I messed up and put IDOLS instead of ICONS without thinking too much about it since I had all the checkers. I also wasted some time on FURTHERING, my LOI, having filled in the obvious RING but not noticing that it was actually THE RING, which made finding a word for violence to shorten impossible, of course.
      2. Another faller at the FURTHERING hurdle, for the same reason. DNF (there were 3 or 4 others which I’m too ashamed to discuss in detail)

        HASHISH is absolutely not a synonym for “grass”
        – grass (weed) is herbal marijuana
        – hashish is compacted resin

        1. All right, own up. Are you a member of the drugs squad, or did you just enjoy a wonderfully mis-spent youth ?
          1. Whaddayamean youth?

            For crossword-solving I recommend the following:

            – A couple of tabs of acid (good for creative thinking)
            – A pipe or three of crystal meth (sharpend the concentration)
            – 3 or 4 10mg Valiums (calms the nerves)

            Hope this helps! Denise

  3. “Finished” in 17 minutes, but dithered over FURTHERING, unable to parse it. Unfortunately, that was the least of my troubles, as I too had meant to come back for IDOLS (which hadn’t made sense), and had forgotten to. Of course with the pink squares I saw the answer immediately. Nice to know I’m in good company.
  4. Thank you, Jack, for saving me the trouble of looking up Mum’s of Maine!
  5. Stuck on 23d at the end and bunged in SHOOT, hoping it would be an alternative spelling of ‘chute’ which thankfully it was. I missed the wordplay for RAGE which I just had as a cryptic def. I wasn’t too keen on the product placement at 10a, but your extra info. was very interesting.

    Two arboreal references – ASH and BEECH – which was more than enough after a recent themed puzzle elsewhere.

    Done in 46 minutes. Left with the obvious earworm.

    Thanks to Jack and setter.

      1. Hello and thanks. Yes, I was OK with SHOOT for ‘runner’ in the botanical sense but wasn’t sure that ‘chute’ for ‘race’ (ie a channel) could also be spelt as it’s homophone SHOOT. Anyway, worked out in the end though I’m sure I won’t always be so lucky.
        1. Oh right, sorry. I just took shoot/race as two words for ‘run quickly’.
          (Also apologies to jackkt because I see he already pointed out the botanical meaning in the blog and I just didn’t read it properly!)

          Edited at 2021-07-27 11:01 am (UTC)

  6. NEW TOWNS appeared in one of the Sundays I blogged, and I noted that its “dictionary status” had been verified. Yet today I somehow bunged in SEA TOWNS, intending (of course) to see how that could be parsed, or not, after I’d filled in the rest. But (of course) I didn’t visit those TOWNS again before coming here. A number of these excellent clues (like this one, as Jackkt points out) were deceptively simple. I was relieved that 16 really had nothing to do with “Pooter.” Had to guess that Mum’s is a BO quelcher. FOI 1ac and kept stringing answers together with little hesitation, until I got to the SW, where the lack of a “foreign” indication (and bravo for that, really) kept me from considering “ABU” for a while. FURTHERING and BOULEVARD may be my favorites here.

    Edited at 2021-07-27 04:23 am (UTC)

  7. I think ICONS was one to sort out the biffers from the parsers today. Alas I was with the biffers. As Jeremy said at least it’s nice to have company.
  8. FURTHERING was my LOI after being held up making the same assumption re RING
  9. 25 mins pre-brekker. No dramas.
    Tiny MER at use of Mum deodorant. Pleased to see ‘you texting’ not just you=U.
    Thanks setter and J.

    Deodorant? Would you like the ball type?
    No, it’s for under my arms.

    Edited at 2021-07-27 06:39 am (UTC)

    1. The actual joke (courtesy of theTwo Ronnies) is:

      I want some deodorant.
      Ball or aerosol?
      Neither – I want it for my armpits.

    2. Actually it’s ball or aerosol sir? Neither it is for my armpits (in a Swedish accent preferably)
  10. Slower than it felt it should have been, with some slight MERs along the way (I’d normally think NANA was a fool rather than my NAN or NANNA, but see that it can be; COLOUR seems slightly loose as def for OVERSTATE; SOLUBLE use re puzzles, surely better is SOLVABLE, so I checked Chambers after completing and smiled at the elegance of their def there: “capable of being solved, dissolved or resolved”). Fun, nonetheless, and many thanks to blogger (especially for the potted history of Mum) and setter.
  11. 35 minutes with LOI SHOOT, where I was happier with the botanical meaning. This was a steady solve. I wasn’t sure where the S was coming from in IMMENSE. I assume the island was IS. COD to BOULEVARD. Thank you Jack and setter.
  12. Thanks Jack. I think you meant to say 14dn when you referred to Milton Keynes.
    I’m with you on RAGE and, like many, I just thought of RING without the THE but biffed FURTHERING anyway.
    Thanks, also for explaining ABUSER. As you say, ‘buster’ is an American form of address and most of us are not.
    Isn’t there some sort of convention against product placement in the Cryptic?
    1. No, brand names have turned up with greater or lesser regularity for as long as I can remember, which is long. See glossary for a 2007 example …
      1. Thanks, Jerry. For quite a while I was thinking that there might be an esoteric word to describe the shortening of ‘mother’ to mum.
    3. There isn’t a convention against product placement, but there is a very long-standing tradition of people thinking there is a convention against product placement.

      Edited at 2021-07-27 12:10 pm (UTC)

        1. If that rule ever applied, it clearly hasn’t for many many years. Brand names appear all the time!
          1. Of course. Just saying that it proves there was at least some substance to the belief.
  13. Yes, straightforward today.
    I parsed 13 ac as NAN (granny) + A BOA, inside BAT. Works either way I guess. And you forgot the S in immense Jack, as BW says. M MEN inside IS + E
    1. Thanks. The S omitted in transcription from paper to screen is now amended.

      On BANANA BOAT any method that gets to the right answer is fine for solving but I don’t think the alternative parsing works. Being expected to insert an indefinite article that’s not indicated in the clue might be too slippery a slope. I don’t think even the Guardian does that although I’ve not been solving there long enough to be sure and they keep surprising me with what they DO allow.

      Edited at 2021-07-27 11:24 am (UTC)

  14. 19 minutes, adroitly dodging the IDOL distraction.
    Most of my slowness came in top right and bottom left, and of course with (THE) RING. SHOOT went in with a strong expectation of an appeal to the third umpire, since I could justify both synonyms but thought there might be better.
    Other deodorants are available, of this I’m sure.
    Three boats and three trees today, counting the ASH. straying into Listener thematic territory perhaps.
    I’m not sufficiently experienced to be troubled by the grass/hashish discrepancy, but am pleased to see the community includes people who are.
    Thanks as ever for an exemplary and informative blog.
  15. 22.00 but having done all the hard graft, put in sport for shoot. Oh calamity!
    Really pleased with myself for getting dehisce but only from recalling it was an answer I didn’t know last week.
    COD by a country mile was deodorant.
    Thanks setter and blogger.
  16. Quite a few of these resulted in a wince rather than a grin: DEODORANT, ABUSER, RAGE.SOLUBLE, OVERSTATE.

    I did like BANANA BOAT and MISSIONS.

    Thanks to Jack and the setter.

  17. 17:08. Held up by my LOI, FURTHERING where, like Kevin, I didn’t see past RING for opera cycle until an alphabet trawl turned up the answer. I liked BEER best,

    Edited at 2021-07-27 09:10 am (UTC)

  18. I whizzed through this in super-quick time to save jackkt any embarrassment arising from his opening comment.

    I did consider IDOLS but it clearly didn’t parse so had a re-think. LOI FURTHERING with the same dithering as others.

  19. Luckily Idols never occurred to me or I might have put it in. Didn’t fully understand the clue till I read the blog. I suppose I must have heard of Mum the deodorant. Is it on sale in the UK? Seemed odd including a trade name, but when I see its history I am inclined to say fair enough. Like many others I remembered dehisce from last week. Mind you, I may have remembered the word but I’m not sure I could have given you the meaning. Funnily enough my computer underlines dehisce in red, implying that it doesn’t think it’s a word. It’s high time computers learned to do Times crosswords. They’d improve their vocabulary no end. Was there an American edge to this crossword? Demerit; buster; Mum. But then Dee and New Towns are UK-specific.
  20. Only parsed RAGE post solve, briefly wondering if there was an A missing from a hidden in the clue. Held up for longer on all things SW, viz. SHOOT, OVERSTATE (LOI) and the rest. 23mins.
  21. Thanks Jack as ever- No link to the Banana Boat Song? I’ll see if I can find one.
  22. 15:10. I found this pretty tricky.
    Like others I puzzled over FURTHERING until the penny finally dropped.
    DEHISCE is a word I’ve never seen outside crosswords but it’s becoming almost a chestnut.
    Register is an excellent hidden.
    As Denise says, grass and hashish are not the same at all.
  23. It wouldn’t be a good idea to address anyone as BUSTER in any of the watering holes around here, although I have been known to include it in a pithy phrase addressed to the tv. 23d reminded me of the book about the panda who goes into a bar eats SHOOTs and leaves. 20.12
  24. Fortunately thought of ICONS before IDOLS otherwise I might have bunged it in hopefully.

    Happily saw early that it was THE RING rather than just RING otherwise I might have been confounded.

    Didn’t manage to parse ABUSER.

  25. Er’ indoors managed to lock ‘erself outdoors! She used the ‘S’ word – ‘stupid’ which had me over. It’ll be my turn next!

    Off to slow start as I had DOOORMAT at 1dn for a while but it was DOORMAN – which I became! I also biffed MILLPOND at 8dn which was real ‘stupid’!

    FOI 1ac DEMERIT

    LOI in BANANA BOAT and not OATANA BOAT! Five years I visted Harry Belafonte grandmother’s house in Jamaica.
    ‘Hey Mr. Tallyman!’ Tally’s (copper tags – wages) could only be spent at The Company Store.

    COD 10ac DEODORANT – more product placement – who cares!?

    WOD 14dn BOULEVARD St. Germain

    26ac WINCE doesn’t get much of an airing unlike 28ac DEHISCE! Innuit Windscreen Wash.

  27. “No, an underarm will be fine.”

    The reasons for my abject failure are mentioned earlier. I shall just say I enjoyed BANANA BOAT, and commend Stan Freberg’s take on “Banana Boat Song” to younger readers

  28. Another careless IDOL here. I also wasted a few minutes wondering what endless violence could fit into _U_T_E. An alphabet trawl eventually dropped an H in and all was clear. 27:06 WOE. Thanks setter and Jack.
  29. Struggled to finish this, mainly in the NE, where the MUM had me all ends up. LOI FURTHERING where like many I only had RING.
    As I keep saying, this was easy till it wasn’t
  30. I came here mainly to see what people thought of Mum. I smiled once I got it with eyebrow raised.
    It turns out I managed to guess several and finish all correct.
    Problems parsing FURTHERING, RAGE and ABUSER (LOI).
    I too liked BOULEVARD and quite a few others.
    You wait ages for DEHISCE to appear and then it turns up almost weekly.
    David
  31. About an hour spread out over the day. Same failure as many to understand how FURTHERING worked but was glad to see it was correct. Then disappointed to see that IDOLS was wrong. Liked 10ac DEODORANT.
  32. 37:29, of which the last 10 or so were spent on ABUSER and then OVERSTATE (with an alphabet trawl). I didn’t like this puzzle much because I was able to start off like a shot with everything extremely easy, only to be held up at the end by just a few somewhat vague and imprecise clues. I also thought of IDOLS first, but quickly saw ICONS as well, and that fit the wordplay better. DEHISCE went in right away, but only because it appeared last week, and if that hadn’t been the case I would have found this clue not very helpful for a word I consider rather obscure. Not a good mixture. Like johninterred, I liked BEER best.

    Edited at 2021-07-27 07:16 pm (UTC)

  33. 31.50. Another workmanlike, steady solve for me today, a little bit disappointing after an absolute flier on the QC. I didn’t know a pier was a pillar but no one else seems fazed by it and it didn’t prevent me from solving lumpier. I think grass can be used to mean cannabis in a more general sense than just the bud, so grass for hashish seemed ok. I don’t think it works the other way round though, I think hashish is more specifically cannabis resin. Odd how many of us saw ring straightaway as the series of operatic works (I was patting myself on the back at that point) while completely missing the vital definite article until much later. Not entirely confident that shoot adequately met the requirements of both runner and race but couldn’t think of anything better.

Comments are closed.