Times Cryptic No 27948 – Saturday, 10 April 2021.

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Well, that was harder than the usual Saturday fare. Lots of answers hovered beyond the edge of my memory for a long time. I had more trouble with the LHS than the RHS of the grid. The deadly duo in the top left, at 11ac and 2dn, made me smile when they almost simultaneously emerged from the mist. For me, 13ac and 16dn were two almost unknowns clued by others totally unknown. But, we got there in the end, didn’t we? Thanks to the setter for a very enjoyable puzzle. How did you all get on?

Notes for newcomers: The Times offers prizes for Saturday Cryptic Crosswords. This blog is posted a week later, after the competition closes. So, please don’t comment here on the current Saturday Cryptic.

[Read more …]Clues are blue, with definitions underlined. Deletions are struck through.

Across
1 Depressingly little is invested in home improvements (8)
DISMALLY – SMALL in D.I.Y. A gentle one to start with.
5 Grave sin — eliminating men in hostile circumstances (6)
ENMITY – ENorMITY, minus OR.
8 Film psychiatrist with bad reputation in the US (6-4)
SHRINK-WRAP – SHRINK, With, RAP.
9 Mollusc shedding small horny covering (4)
NAIL – sNAIL, minus S for small.
10 How Enright is made to do things differently? (4,3,7)
RING THE CHANGES – ENRIGHT is made from an anagram (‘changes’) of RING THE. So, RING THE CHANGES can serve as a clue for ENRIGHT. I wondered if Enright was a famous name in the bell-ringing community, but found no trace of that.
11 Golf permits in place for dispatch (7)
GALLOWS – G for golf, then ALLOWS. Does the definition count as gallows humour?
13 Judge a very good Köchel number for composer (7)
JANACEK – J for judge, AN ACE, K for Köchel. The Köchel catalogue has a K number for each work of Mozart. Definitely, an unknown clued by an unknown, but still gettable!
15 Argument backing form of vessel for religious devotion (7)
WORSHIP – ROW for argument, backwards; then SHIP.
18 Support a right to begin afresh (7)
RESTART – a REST is a support. Then A, RT for right.
21 Dilapidated tailor-made tent is thrown out (14)
TATTERDEMALION – (‘thrown out’) anagram of TAILOR MADE TENT. 14 letter anagrams aren’t among my favourite things.
22 Flow revealed by Daniel Bernouilli (4)
ELBE – hidden answer. It’s a change for a river to be a flow, not a flower, but it’s very apt since D.B. was one of a distinguished family of Swiss mathematicians and did famous work on fluid dynamics. Flow, indeed!
23 Cut around road blockage finally in Havering (10)
INDECISION – INCISION around last letters of roaD blockagE.
24 Cut juice to noisily swallow new socially-acceptable round (6)
UNPLUG – GULP, N for new, U for acceptable. All ‘round’.
25 Universal depression in untidy house of undergrads? (8)
STUDENTY – U + DENT in STY. Ugly word, but in the dictionary.

Down
1 Cleaner is Henry dressed in women’s clothing (7)
DISHRAG – IS + H for Henry, in DRAG.
2 Potential killer of fish in strait and river (9)
STRANGLER – STR. for strait (not an abbreviation familiar to me, and indeed Chambers has it as an abbreviation for straight, not strait, but there you are!). Then: ANGLE, R.
3 Girl brought up too much dye (7)
ANNATTO – ANNA is the girl, then OTT ‘brought up’. I thought the girl would be ANNE. How is one to know?
4 Unruly as well as disregarding authority’s lead? (7)
LAWLESS – this is a clever all-in-one clue. An (unruly) anagram of AS WELL AS, after ignoring one of the As (authority’s lead!).
5 A construction of Naples paddler regularly visited? (9)
ESPLANADE – and, immediately, another all-in-one! An anagram (construction) of NAPLES + ADE, where the last three letters are the even letters (regularly visited) of PADDLER. I took it on faith that Naples has an esplanade.
6 Capital fellow on the Spanish Main? (7)
MANAGUA – MAN, then AGUA is the Spanish word for water.
7 Sad about European city on the Adriatic (7)
TRIESTE – TRISTE around E for European.
12 Complaining about front pair of teeth getting dental treatment (9)
WHITENING – WHINING around TE.
14 Merger company landed with current working (9)
COALITION – CO, ALIT, I, ON. I is the symbol for electric current.
16 Flier uncovered book of navigational routes (7)
ORTOLAN – I vaguely dredged the answer from the mists of memory, and assumed it is a bird. I’d never heard of a PORTOLAN, but the clue tells you what it is.
17 A certain something penned by excellent poet (7)
SITWELL – IT is that certain something, penned by SWELL.
18 Feel bewildered over English court put in power again (2-5)
RE-ELECT – REEL, E for English, CT.
19 What may be puffin, braised in a stew (7)
SEABIRD – anagram (in a stew) of BRAISED.
20 Note girl’s agreement to stay (7)
TENANCY – TE (a drink with jam and bread!), NANCY.

22 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27948 – Saturday, 10 April 2021.”

  1. I never did figure out how ENMITY worked, but checkers made it inevitable. I have a ! by STUDENTY. 3d is a really poor clue, for the reason Bruce gives; I’m surprised it got through. I wouldn’t have thought that JANACEK was that obscure a composer; not my cup of tea (although I do like the opening and closing of his ‘Sinfonietta’), but. DNK portolan, but we’ve had ORTOLAN a couple of times.
  2. Annetto here, ho hum. Also never figured enmity or ortolan. NHO portolan. The rest was pretty good, quite enjoyed it. COD to unplug.
  3. Why have I been banned? My computer has been hacked, contacts cleaned out. What has been happening? I only check Sat and Sunday.
    1. It’s probably another Live Journal glitch as it’s extremely unlikely you would have been banned by TfTT, but if you supply your user name I will check that it hasn’t happened by accident.
  4. 39 minutes but I too have Annetto. There was no way of telling. I assumed that a Köchel number would be k although in my life that has been the coefficient of thermal conductivity or the Boltzmann constant. As I solved this, entropy continued to increase, with an UNGLUG in front of me before I got plugged in. Maybe TATTERDEMALION could have been defined as a state of maximum entropy. Quite a few clues didn’t SITWELL with me. But then the mental energy expended brought some order out of chaos, apart from with ANNATTO and a failure to parse ENMITY. COD to LAWLESS. Thank you B and setter.
  5. Hard work. I needed aids for 6dn as I didn’t know the capital city nor the Spanish word for water, so it was yet another example of a clue in which one was stymied both ways. I sympathise with those who complain of a similar experience at 13ac where just for once I knew the ‘obscurities’ both of which might well be taken in their stride by those with more than a passing interest in classical music. I had no problem solving ORTOLAN but then finding the word that needed its first letter removed proved more of a challenge, even using a word-search app as my usual one didn’t have it.

    Edit: Only just realised I had ANNETTO at 3dn. Not pleased about that one. Another case of enforced guesswork if one doesn’t happen to know the unusual answer.

    Edited at 2021-04-17 08:04 am (UTC)

  6. ….that the first word of 1A was “Depressingly”, because I gleaned very little joy from this almost humourless puzzle. We were expected to be able to speak both Spanish and French in consecutive down clues, and Daniel Bernoulli isn’t someone many of us would have heard of. I’d lost patience well before the end, and used a letter-checker for my LOI.

    FOI DISMALLY
    LOI INDECISION
    COD JANACEK
    TIME 13:10 (with an aid, and including checking)

    Edited at 2021-04-17 06:57 am (UTC)

  7. This solve was a bit of a wreck
    Not cultured; didn’t know JANACEK
    ORTOLAN and SEABIRD
    Were I French, I’d say “Merde”
    But I’m British, so “What the heck”?

    At 16D, i took “uncovered” to mean taking both ends off PORTOLANO, which does appear to be a book of maps, rather than just the first letter off PORTOLAN, which I think is just one map, but accept that it’s a debatable point.

    Had to resort to aids to get the right girl in the dye.

  8. I was fortunate to be tipped off about annetto/annatto before submission, having entered annetto fairly confidently to start with.. over all I did enjoy this crossword.
    Perversely perhaps, I enjoy the obscurities and see them as learning opportunities. I knew most of these ones, except portolano which does seem rather a stretch. Still, the next time I want a book of harbour maps I will know what to ask for ..
  10. Foiled by ANNETTO and a careless tatterdemaliAn. Hard work and no coconut! Failed in 25:24. Thanks Bruce.
  11. I got the top half of this fairly quickly, including the unknown ANNATTO where I was lucky not to think past Anna.
    By 1pm I only had four to do. I got SITWELL but then foundered on Tatterdemalion, Ortolan and Unplug.
    Was sure that GLUG was noisily swallow. The bird was off the map because of Matterledation.
    But had some fun en route. And was watching The Masters.
    David
  12. Took some musing, and finished in 27 minutes. I believe ENMITY was my last in because I insisted on working out the wordplay, even though insisting did no good and I’m indebted to B for being cleverer and even more persistent.
    Quite a lot of this I liked, especially the two consecutive &lits. Looking up the Esplanade in Naples leads you to a golf course in Florida, but there is apparently one in front of the Castel Nuovo in Napoli.
    I don’t know why, but I knew ANNATTO and wasn’t tempted by an E.
  13. My guess is that the setter was one of the HCs in the Azed competition of December 2020, disappointed not to have a VHC. Actually I’m not surprised that Azed (apparently) didn’t give it more recognition, since it isn’t a full &lit (what does ‘Universal depression’ have to do with the definition?) and if it isn’t some sort of semi-& lit then the word ‘untidy’ is part of both definition and wordplay.
    1. The definition is just ‘of undergrads’, so it’s not an &Lit or even a semi-&Lit, and there is no double duty.
      1. Yes I considered that, but the word ‘studenty’ surely implies untidiness. Chambers says ‘Relating to the lifestyles or fashions typically associated with students’. The setter obviously (I should have thought) wanted to make the implication by using the word ‘untidy’.
        1. The implication might be there but it’s not necessary for the construction of the clue. ‘Of undergrads’ is a perfectly adequate definition of STUDENTY.

          Edited at 2021-04-17 06:30 pm (UTC)

    2. U is simply the British Board of Film Classification, meaning suitable for universal viewing.

      Hence, universal depression is simply wordplay for U, DENT; not part of the definition, as Keriothe has pointed out.

      1. I’m well aware of what everyone is saying. I was simply making the point that to clue it in this way the setter is using ‘untidy’ as part of the definition (something studenty is typically untidy) and also as part of the wordplay (a sty is an untidy house). Surely this is quite obvious. I know it can be seen as sound and the definition could be just ‘of students’ but …

        Edited at 2021-04-18 11:08 am (UTC)

  14. 24:02. I happened to have just enough knowledge in the right places to get through this unscathed, but the clues for JANACEK, TATTERDEMALION and MANAGUA are verging on unfair, ANNATTO is more than verging on it and ORTOLAN is outrageous. I’m surprised all that survived the editing process
  15. Wot Keriothe says

    No problems with JANACEK and MANAGUA (and don’t know Spanish) but TATTERthingy was unremembered/unknown and ORTOLAN a fully-blown abomination

    Liked it apart from the couple I was unable to get after 35 mins

  16. If I need to be reminded that my vocabulary could be better, I’d rather go back and re-read the comments on my 7th grade report card than confront Annatto, Tatterdemalion, Portolan/Ortolan over my Saturday morning coffee.

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