Times 29041 – Include me out

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

I wasn’t overly keen on this crossword, though I like to think I am generally easy to please. Masses of letter deletion clues and three weak cryptic definitiony clues are some of the reasons why it didn’t seem, to me, at least, quite to fit the bill. 20:40

Across
1 A large study probing small fish and bird management (8)
FALCONRY – A L CON in FRY
6 Innermost nature without love? Attempt to become passionate (6)
SULTRY – SoUL TRY
9 Decorative item beginning to sparkle for a horse, not tail (6)
SEQUIN – Sparkle EQUINe (for a horse, as in characteristic of a horse)
10 Insolence and criticism for cosmetic (8)
LIPSTICK – LIP (stick) STICK (criticism, as in ‘he gave Harris a lot of stick’)
11 Rewrite government order after Conservative withdraws (4)
EDIT – EDIcT
12 Promote the redesigned camera accessory (10)
PHOTOMETER – anagram* of PROMOTE THE
14 Without air at first, heating elements retaining temperature — they don’t provide much coverage (1-7)
G-STRINGS – T in GaS RINGS (heating elements)
16 Spot, head removed — delicate stuff (4)
LACE – pLACE
18 Rebuke R & A support for golf being curtailed (4)
RATE – RA (from the clue) TEe (support for golf ball)
19 Book idiot opened, but not finished —notes follow this (4,4)
BASS CLEF – B ASS CLEFt (cleaved means split, and so by extension opened)
21 Learn the moves in revolutionary soccer team? I might (6,4)
CENTRE HALF – LEARN THE* in FC (football club) reversed; a bit weak
22 Doomed to receive reduced data (4)
INFO – IN FOr (if you are ‘in for’ it, you are doomed)
24 Various papers distributed after union session (8)
CONFETTI – cryptic definition; I was slow to see this for some reason
26 Bar mostly wrong to offer this form of the grape? (6)
RAISIN – RAIl SIN
27 Source of colour against capturing quantity of light (6)
CRAYON – RAY in CON
28 Guess there’s one million in bequests? (8)
ESTIMATE – I M in ESTATE
Down
2 Leading article picked up, but ignoring editor’s conclusion (5)
AHEAD – A (article) HEArD (missing final letter of editor)
3 Bar right to suppress last of booze of fake origin (11)
COUNTERFEIT – COUNTER (bar) boozE in FIT (right)
4 Point among squares in game (8)
NINEPINS – PIN (point) in NINES (squares)
5 Burly seamen, I fancy, may be seen around deep vessel of note (6,9)
YELLOW SUBMARINE – LOW (deep) in BURLY SEAMEN I*
6 Function to bring in noodle soup in liquid transfer system (6)
SIPHON -PHO (Vietnamese soup) in SIN (function)
7 Rental abandoned after female pulls out (3)
LET – LEfT
8 Far-fetched European enthralled by Right and Left-wing figure repeatedly (9)
RECHERCHE – E in R CHE (left wing figure) R CHE; far-fetched in the sense of pretentious refinement
13 Borrowing many ideas, church backing the French reviews dismissing religious instruction (11)
ECLECTICISM – CE reversed LE (‘the’ in French) CriTICISM
15 Family turning up outside old part of theatre (5,4)
STAGE DOOR – AGED (old) in ROOTS reversed (family, as in the Alex Haley book sense)
17 A spoof about class mostly is to invite trouble (3,3,2)
ASK FOR IT – FORm in A SKIT (spoof)
20 Racy phone message given to working church employee (6)
SEXTON – SEXT (racy phone message – never knowingly sent or received one) ON (working)
23 Deceptive move in ruling? (5)
FEINT – a FEINT is a deceptive move, such as sleight of hand; feint-ruled paper is writing paper with light horizontal lines printed across at regular intervals. I’m not mad about this clue either
25 Surreptitious and quite lacking in attitude (3)
FLY – FairLY

61 comments on “Times 29041 – Include me out”

  1. 8:32

    Only parsed STAGE DOOR post-solve, having been hung up on ‘old’ providing an O, and didn’t know the second meaning of FEINT. All pleasant Mondayish stuff generally, though.

    Thanks both.

  2. My timing of 78 minutes may give others hope! I seemed to be writing in far too many answers, sure that they were correct but less sure of the definition or wordplay or both.

    Answers that remained unparsed were G-STRINGS, YELLOW SUBMARINE, FLY and SYPHON (because I didn’t know PHO). I expect on a blogging day I’d have worked all or most of these out later, but by the time I completed the grid I’d run out of steam .

      1. SYPHON was the spelling I had in mind from the start but resisted when solving because I was paying attention to the wordplay. However when commenting later I reverted to type and spelt it SYPHON, which is normally a valid alternative.

        By one of those amazing coincidences SIPHONED also turned up in today’s Guardian puzzle with the second letter unchecked so once again I had to check the wordplay carefully to decided between I and Y.

  3. I thought this (like last week) was a bit tougher than Mondays usually are, but unlike our esteemed blogger I rather enjoyed it even though I had to struggle in places to finish in 31.42. LOsI were BASS CLEF and RECHERCHE, which I never really got and was pleasantly surprised when my biff produced the congrats message. Also HNI about STAGE DOOR and CENTRE HALF, and am not fully convinced by right = fit but I suppose so.

    From Spirit on the Water:
    You think I’m over the hill
    You think I’m past my prime
    LET me see what you got
    We can have a whompin’ good time…

  4. 24:09
    I submitted off leaderboard because I had no idea how FEINT and FLY worked. Also BASS CLEF and INFO (I couldn’t see how you could reduce ‘in for it’ to ‘info’, and still don’t), but I was confident they were the solutions. Not a lot of fun.

  5. Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer
    (The second coming, Yeats)

    Well I quite liked it. 20 mins gently done mid-brekker. I like the Right and Left-wing figure idea. And I can picture Burly Seamen on a submarine. And turning Gas Rings into G Strings is neat-ish.
    Ta setter and U.

  6. I found this quite difficult to finish the SE and SW corners and had errors. I had SLY for surreptitious and don’t see how FLY is a synonym. As a consequence of SLY I missed CONFETTI. I got CENTRE HALF but had no idea of the definition. I didn’t get FEINT. I would have thought the ruled page would be faint-ruled but I found feint-ruled and faint-ruled are equivalent.

  7. 23 minutes with LOI a biffed FEINT. I also didn’t know the noodle soup but the function gave SIPHON away. CENTRE-HALF and STAGE DOOR were parsed in retrospect. Otherwise, I got on well with this. COD to G-STRINGS, constructed and then seen. Thank you U and setter.

  8. 35 mins but more of a slog than my time would suggest. I think we are going over the top here with inclusions/exclusions. We have: without, not tail, withdraws, without(again), removed, curtailed, not finished, reduced, mostly, ignoring, dismissing, mostly (again), and finally, lacking. Phew.

    I did like YELLOW SUBMARINE & CONFETTI though.

    Thanks U and setter.

  10. Wrote quite a few answers in with just a few letters, unparsed: ECLECTICISM, YELLOW SUBMARINE, COUNTERFEIT, CENTRE HALF. Had ‘sly’ until CONFETTI appeared. As a stationery fan, always browsing the shelves, FEINT went straight in.

    12’16”, thanks ulaca and setter.

  11. As Hugh and Francois have said above, far too many letter inclusion/deletion clues.

  12. About 20 minutes.

    – Didn’t know the second meaning of FEINT or that FLY can mean surreptitious
    – Worked out PHOTOMETER without knowing exactly what it is
    – Only dimly remembered the rebuke meaning of RATE
    – Not usually a fan of cryptic definitions, but quite liked CONFETTI

    Thanks Ulaca and setter.

    FOI Let
    LOI Rate
    COD Yellow Submarine

  13. 20:17 but errors

    I found this too straightforward for my own good, became a little carried away with the possibility of a sub-20 minute solve, and my attention to detail drifted. Part way through I put in AMEND for AHEAD – to check later – followed by solving (and correctly parsing) SIPHON and then somehow elected to enter its alternative spelling, SYPHON. Why??? And then, a few minutes later, submitted without returning to AMEND.

    Thank you, ulaca and the setter.

  14. Nho PHO but otherwise plain sailing today. Count me in with those that liked this.
    There are quite a lot of addition/deletion clues but I didn’t notice at the time so it didnt detract.

  15. The trouble with Mondayish puzzles is that once the top half has more or less fallen in, a slight increase in trickiness further down – FEINT, INFO and the CD CONFETTI, I’m looking at you – can lead to “well I suppose so” entries like my FEY at 25d, confidently enough entered that I was surprised by pink. Of course, I can’t really justify it. I stretched the elfin definition to mean without attitude, and imagined somewhere in history it might have meant surreptitious. I’ll have to content myself with being mildly grumpy for the rest of the day, especially since I fluffed the quickie, too, with a typo.

  16. I was very surprised to be all green, as I wasn’t convinced by a few of these – INFO, FLY, FEINT, G STRINGS.

    Reasonable time it seems, but it felt a bit forced. However, I did like CONFETTI.

    14:23

  17. 18:55

    Pleased to come home with a clear round. A quick start with the NW all going in straight off the bat. Slowed down for stuff like RECHERCHE (which needed all of the checkers) and ECLECTICISM (was wondering for a while what the word end would be as had been thinking C(RI)TICAL rather than C(RI)TICISM). Entered STAGE DOOR initially without understanding the cryptic, and when I couldn’t see much else to cross it, I removed it again, and then worked it out properly which enabled me to finish. The only definition I was unhappy with was that for FLY, which I understood to be smart/clever. I did like CENTRE HALF though!

    Thanks Kitty and setter

  18. 8:21. It was nice to come in well under par on the SNITCH today having been consistently over last week. I sympathise with Word Psmith as I almost did the same thing with SIPHON – having parsed it I also started typing SYPHON as I’m more familiar with that spelling. Thankfully I managed to check myself. I liked the use of a relatively modern reference in pho – the presence of Vietnamese eateries having proliferated over recent years.

  19. I liked last Monday’s puzzle, and this was similarly enjoyable, though I did feel that some of the constructions here were a little familiar. Perhaps there are only so many ways a word can be dissected, without one’s idiosyncrasies becoming intrusive.

    Thanks U and setter.

  20. 24.47 with a short interruption to take receipt of some post. Not everything parsed and I tend to agree with our blogger.

  21. I saw early on that this was going to have some tricky definitions, so began with the short answers to give me a foothold. Unfortunately this worked against me, as a bifd SLY held up my POI CONFETTI for ages. I also wasted time on 5d, thinking I was looking for ‘sub’ (deep vessel) in the anagram, rather than ‘low’. LOI by a long way was CENTRE HALF. I missed the anagram, and only parsed after it had been entered. A very woolly definition and not my favourite type of clue. However, I liked FALCONRY, ECLECTICISM, BASS CLEF, G-STRINGS and RECHERCHE a lot, so on balance a positive review.

  22. Finished but had to check several and bifd with a semiparse on feint, stage door and siphon.
    Got G-string as soon as I saw air and thought not Air on a… and raising the bar jumped out at me for raisin…lucky guesses!

  23. 11:20 – lots going in from definition and crossers alone. Parsing after the event, only STAGE DOOR eluded me and had me briefly wondering if rodegats were some Lovecraftian species of hybrid cat-rodent that had hitherto escaped my notice.

  24. 16.39 with one pink square. First foray into a timed cryptic today as generally prefer going leisurely with paper in hand and more than one sitting usually needed to complete. But it was fun and unusually not delayed by much today. LOI 21 ac which was typically straightforward. Thanks to setter.

  25. Another SLY corrected by CONFETTI and SYPHON corrected by reading the clue again. Had forgotten the second meaning of FEINT. COUNTERFEIT was FOI. AHEAD was LOI as I failed to parse it, having thought of it near the start. 17:03. Thanks setter and U.

  27. All done in 22 minutes. One of those crosswords where you write in the answers being more or less convinced they must be right, but not being quite sure why. So I was pleased to finish but missed the light bulb which usually flashes on completion of each clue. Do not remember PHO featuring before, but this was not a problem as it appears in the name of most of the Vietnamese restaurants in this neck of the woods.
    FOI – LIPSTICK
    LOI – LACE
    COD – G-STRING.
    Thanks to ulaca and other contributors.

  28. I enjoyed it.
    POI 6d Siphon, for some reason I thought the tube was spelt syphon. Ah, just looked it up; may be spelt either way. Only knew Pho from Times Xwords.
    5d I too liked the burly seamen and have an earworm damnit.
    13d Eclecticism, just too biffable to work it out.
    14a G-Strings ditto; saw the rings but missed the gas.
    25d Fly, ditto. Another who tried Sly first, then saw the thrown wedding rice.

  29. 7:26. I liked this one, but like Jerry I didn’t notice the proliferation of deletion clues so missed the opportunity to be annoyed by it.
    FEINT is a standalone noun that refers to narrow ruling on paper, there’s no need to combine it with ‘-ruled’ or similar.

  30. Completed in 25′ before rushing to my golf game this morning. Given time constraints, quite a few entered without fully parsing, so like others didn’t quite pick up on the issue of excessive deletions. Still not sure of the definition for CENTRE HALF (not sure my team knows either…) but couldn’t be anything else. Didn’t NOT NOT like this puzzle but didn’t love it either. Thanks Ulaca and setter.

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