27790 Thursday, 8 October 2020 Dinner dinner dinner dinner

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A mid range puzzle for me with the top section, especially the NW, giving most trouble with 1ac for a long time being the wrong but possible REPOST partly because I read changes as charges. The whole thing took me close to 21 minutes but included a pink typo at the bottom. The return of the Mephisto-ish antique at 3d (different tense) was rather more fairly clued this time, so if you can remember a week back should not really cause any trouble.
No hidden clue today, but a decent set of anagrams to play with and the sound-alike clues are pretty good. I know rhotic is the often smeared sounding of a R, but don’t know if there’s a similar word for a sounded W, here ignored.
The clues are in italics, the definitions underlined, and the SOLUTIONS in bold capitals

Across

1 Countermand second set of changes? (6)
REPEAL Hinges on the campanologist’s version of changes, a complicated sequence of bell ringing. Do it a second time, and you RE PEAL the noisy things (gloriously, of course).
4 Rush bedding that should keep camper drier (3,5)
FLY SHEET So rush converts to FLY, and bedding to SHEET.  I thought it might be the same a ground sheet, but Chamber reports (in one word form) “a piece of canvas that can be fitted to the roof of a tent to give additional protection from rain”
10 Sensible planet’s responsibility? (4-2-5)
DOWN-TO-EARTH In which, without the hyphens , it would be the earth’s responsibility. Gaia will be pleased.
11 Regularly removed attire? (3)
TIE Take out the even letters of aTtIrE, pretty much an &lit.
12 Boxer’s reported range (7)
ROCKIES Sounds like what belongs to Rocky (Marciano or Bilboa)
14 CGS unit formerly included in dictionary (7)
OERSTED Not helped by forgetting what CGS stands for (centimetre-gram-second – that set of units) ERST used to be English for once, formerly (still is, of course, more often met in erstwhile). Stick it between the pages of the OED(ictonary)
15 Authorised airing, just what the doctor ordered? (14)
CONSTITUTIONAL Two definitions, the second “a walk for the benefit of one’s health”
17 Male radio geek’s broadcast runs flawlessly (4,4,1,5)
GOES LIKE A DREAM “Broadcast” screams “anagram”. Apply to MALE RADIO GEEK’S
21 Abrasive pair of bachelors feeling sorry for nurses (7)
RUBBING Feeling sorry for, RUING, “nurses” two B(achelor)s
22 Tied up, held in college perhaps on large island (7)
LIGATED GATED is what educational establishments do to punish infractions of the rules, equivalent to being confined to barracks, currently a very common experience for a different reason in many universities (Students might mix in such a way as to pass on the Covid-19 virus – who could have guessed?). The L I comes for the standard abbreviations for Large and Island
23 Comrade‘s drink knocked over (3)
PAL Simple: LAP for drink reversed
24 Ineffectual vocal work almost stops popular musical returning (11)
INOPERATIVE OPER(a) for the almost vocal work bungs up IN (popular) and EVITA the musical backwards (returning) Not that that’s going to happen any time soon.
26 Smoked meat I added to previous stuff (8)
PASTRAMI Stick I on the end of PAST (previous) RAM (stuff)
27 Joined the line and collapsed (4,2)
FELL IN A double definition, the first military

Down
1 Socialist stalwart of certain universities? (8)
REDBRICK Mine was Birmingham with the magnificent Old Joe Tower at its centre.  Socialist is, of course. RED (except confusingly in America), and a stalwart is an absolute BRICK
2 What’s exclaimed when striking inmate in conflict (3)
POW Think TV series Batman with Adam West. The definition is cute
3 Outlaw historically needing to gain time (7)
ATTAINT Whodathunkit? A week ago we had the past tense of this antique word, occasioning much youwhattery and here it is again. To gain ATTAIN plus T(ime)
5 Doctor foretold extremes of Holmes’ life in novel (4,2,3,5)
LORD OF THE FLIES Once memorably clued in (I think) ISIHAC as “’ullo ‘ullo, coo, coo, zip zip”. Here it’s more prosaically an anagram (doctor) of FORETOLD H(olme)S (extremes) and LIFE.
6 Music beloved of the French, with variable piercing note (7)
SCHERZO Beloved of the French CHER plus variable Z in the note SO (a needle pulling thread)
7 Man of property, possibly China’s James Bond? (6,5)
ESTATE AGENT I like this one: a Chinese James Bond would be an E(astern) STATE AGENT
8 The latest goal in test (6)
TRENDY Goal is END in TRY for test, as in one’s patience
9 Journalist leading session in sweeper’s compact quarters (10,4)
BEDSITTING ROOM Since 1969, a fabulous absurdist film with a stellar cast, in which Ralph Richardson mutates into the title structure. Your ED journalist heads up a SITTING session, and is encapsulated in a BROOM or sweeper.
13 Priest cries out loud for ammunition (11)
CANNON BALLS I had tea with a delightful lady canon today, so was not in any way incommoded by the association, though she’s not actually a priest. Souns like (out loud) canon bawls.
16 Small fly found in child’s trifle (8)
SMIDGEON Fruit fly (our local winged pest with a diurnal breeding season) didn’t fit, but the MIDGE did. Place in SON for child and you have your trifle, or maybe just a little bit of it.
18 Some people primarily colder or hotter? (7)
SPICIER The primarily apples both the Some and People, and ICIER is colder
19 Double trouble for plant (7)
DOG BANE Both words which can also mean trouble, one as a verb, the other as a noun
20 Rising whale and youngster emerge (4,2)
CROP UP Shall we have the ORC as a reversing whale and the PUP as a youngster
25 Harmful tablet, quietly disposed of (3)
ILL Just knock the musically quiet P from the tablet PILL

41 comments on “27790 Thursday, 8 October 2020 Dinner dinner dinner dinner”

  1. I spent half an hour on the two unknowns DOGBANE and OERSTED at the end. I thought the latter had something to do with ‘Ofsted’ (as a non-UK solver I have come across the term in crosswords before), with the ‘CGS’ standing for ‘Comprehensive Government Schools’ or similar, so I could hardly have been more off-track, despite getting the right answer.

    For a child of the Adam West ‘Batman’ generation, that’s immediately what sprang to mind for POW, my favourite today.

  2. Half an hour for all but 14a, then a failure to finish. I suppose if I’d heard of an OERSTED, knew what CGS stood for, or had worked out from “erstwhile” what “erst” might have meant I might’ve got there, but I basically didn’t have any of the requisite knowledge for any of the clue components aside from OED, which makes things a little difficult…

    Edited at 2020-10-08 07:38 am (UTC)

  3. As I passed my 30-minute target time I had 5 answers missing, and rather annoyingly of these there was 1 missing in each of 3 quarters and 2 missing in the other.

    As 40 minutes approached I had cracked ATTAINT, ROCKIES, DOGBANE and SPICIER and spotted the OED in the CGS clue but I was unable to come up with a 4-letter equivalent of ‘formerly’ to complete the most definitely unknown answer at 14ac, so I used a solver to complete the grid. I might have tried an alphabet trawl but for the complication of not knowing whether I was working on OER?T?D or O?R?TED. I never seriously considered that it would turn out to be OER?TED as it seemed too improbable.

    Edited at 2020-10-08 05:20 am (UTC)

  4. …Wolf’s-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine.

    30 mins left Attaint (I must pay more attention) and the CGS unit.
    Then it struck me – that must be the thing that is 79.58 amperes per metre!
    Not.
    Thanks setter and Z.

  5. Caught by ligated and dogbane. Biffed limited in the hope MIT might get me there… but knew it was wrong… ho… hum
  6. OERSTED and DOGBANE required alphabet trawls. At least I didn’t biff LORD OF THE RINGS.
  7. 19 minutes, held up at the end by LIGATED and LOI DOGBANE. Did this after my morning CONSTITUTIONAL, dogless again now daughter’s dog has gone back home. This mid sixties physicist who had to morph from CGS to MKS mid-degree never expected to hear OERSTED again, but it was a write-in. I didn’t have any car to which the expression GOES LIKE A DREAM would apply in the age when I might have said it. COD to CANNONBALLS which worked for me. I liked this Thank you Z and setter.
  8. …an irritating pink square mistype – SMODGEON instead of SMIDGEON – damn these phone keyboards.

    Oh well….

  9. and a good thing, too. DOGBANE was totally out of my reach, and after a long time playing with the alphabet I gave up. Just as well, as I had flung in LIMITED–once again they’re calling MIT a college, I thought–and forgot, in my DOGBANE struggle, that I hadn’t actually worked out how the clue worked. I knew GATE, too; just never thought of it.
  11. All done in 30 minute… as I had no idea what CGS was, I refrained. OERSTED mon dieu!
    Whatever next!

    FOI 10ac DOWN TO EARTH

    (LOI) 22ac LIGATED

    COD 5ac LORD OF THE FLIES as I initially banged in LORD OF THE RINGS

    WOD 14ac notwithstanding, 19dn DOGBANE (Apocynum cannabinum) = poisonous to dogs – lockdown one’s poodles.

    Talking of pink squares, is Mike Pence alopecian?

    Edited at 2020-10-08 08:36 am (UTC)

  12. Slightly under par for a slightly easier than usual crossword. A few obscurities – DOGBANE, ATTAINT, OERSTED, LIGATED but vaguely aware of all of them. Didn’t know orca could be orc.

    COD: RUBBING, good surface and crypticness.

    Yesterday’s answer: the US state with a preponderance of latter-day saints, i.e. Mormons, is Utah.

    Today’s question: Orsted is the Danish formerly state-owned wind farm company. What is the Swedish equivalent company (still state-owned)?

  13. Very enjoyable 19m solve. Personally I don’t think Oersted is any more arcane than bits of GK from less scientific fields. Especially as the cryptic was pretty clear! OK I studied Engineering, but I DIDN’T study the classics, or philosophy, or languages, or history, or English etc. We must all treat the spectrum of fields of learning as of equal importance!
    Getting off high horse now.
    Spent a minute or so trying to justify ‘Lord of the Rings’ for 8d as my wife and I are currently enjoying re-watching the film version. But of course Golding not Tolkien is the man to go for here.
  14. Tough that. Half of my time was on the last four or five clues – including of course Oersted. Didn’t he pop up recently as ‘physicist’ – or was that in the Spectator? Also spent far too long on the book – even though I’ve just read it! One of those gaps in the canon – like people who’ve never seen star wars. And what a book it is! Can there be a more fantastic last page! Golding was phenomenal. I also recommend the one about Neanderthals, The Inheritors. And the ship trilogy of course. And Pincher Martin – 150 pages of a WW2 sailor’s thoughts as he drifts off the Scottish coast whenn his ship his sunk , yet it’s gripping.
  15. Last 10 mins spent on REPEAL ATTAINT and DOGBANE. OERSTED easy for me, to back up tringmardo above. Funny how one forgets ATTAINT so soon!
  16. 15:55. I started really quickly on this, but then got seriously bogged down from about the half-way point. I caused myself trouble with a couple of silly biffs, and struggled to come up with ERST and BANE, but generally it felt like I was making very heavy weather of it.
    BEDSITTING ROOM also took a while: I’ve come across its more abbreviated forms but never this one.
    Funny to see ATTAINT again so soon.
    1. “The Bed Sitting Room” was a play co-written by Spike Milligan, and made into a film in 1969 by Dick Lester (who is best known for “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Help”). Despite a very strong cast, it wasn’t really a success.
      1. Probably why I’ve never heard of it! I assume he didn’t coin the phrase, but it must have passed out of common usage because I’ve only ever heard ‘bedsit’ or occasionally ‘bedsitter’.
  17. I got through most of this and was untroubled by OERSTED, but I was stuck at the end with 1a, 3d and the DOGBANE/LIGATED crossing. I managed tocome up with REPEAL and D__BANE, but had biffed LIMITED instead of LIGATED which I finally saw after I lost patience and used aids to find DOGBANE. I also used aids to get ATTAINT, so I submitted off Leaderboard with a time of 46:21. Thanks setter and Z8.
  18. Surely it’s this, not dog bane? At least the setter thought so.

    Couldn’t get this, and was fixated on di- for the double, and, since grame (??) was in a list for ‘trouble’ in Chambers Crossword Dictionary, I bunged in ‘digrame’, a plant I’d not surprisingly never heard of, feeling the setter was being very unkind with two unknowns in a single clue.

    Edited at 2020-10-08 11:43 am (UTC)

  19. On the wavelength today; buzzed through this in 14 minutes with no hold-ups or unknowns. Looked for an anagram initially in 5d so didn’t dally with LORD OF THE RINGS. Remembered OERSTED was something to do with magnetic field strengths. CoD for me – SCHERZO.

    As noted above, curious that RED means left wing in Europe and right wing Republican in USA, not noticed that before.

  20. I recently re-read Dorothy Sayers’s Nine Tailors so REPEAL went in quickly (nice one). CANNONBALLS made me think of small boys at the Rhinebeck town pool shouting Marco Polo and swamping everyone. Not even an adult swim this summer alas. Forgot to put in my time 20.06

    Edited at 2020-10-08 10:45 am (UTC)

  21. Foiled by OERSTED – never heard of the unit, and nor did “erst” occur to me as meaning “formerly”. I shall endeavour to remember it.

    An enjoyable puzzle otherwise. The changes referred to in 1a are where we get the expression “ring the changes”, are they not? Not a camper so haven’t ever used a FLY SHEET, but the cluing helped. Wouldn’t have got ROCKIES without the checkers, as I always forget that meaning of “range”, and DOGBANE was a NHO-but-sounded-right. Didn’t fully parse ESTATE AGENT either, so thanks to the blogger for that.

    FOI Down-to-earth
    LOI Dogbane
    COD Smidgeon (lovely word)

  22. I biffed this, as we have recently seen Attainted, and then semi-parsed it, but why is the word needing in the clue? Or for that matter the word historically? Would not “Outlaw to gain time” work better and be simpler, neater?

    Cedric

    1. I can’t necessarily defend ‘needing’ other than it’s probably intended as a filler to help the surface reading but ‘historically’ is fine as the dictionaries describe it as ‘archaic’, or in the case of SOED ‘historical’:

      attaint 4 Law (now hist.). The process of convicting a jury for having given a false verdict, and reversing the verdict. E16.

      1. Thank you Jack. I’ve got rather used to words in the crossword that I think are archaic and time-expired but the dictionaries disagree and back up the setter, that if even the dictionaries think a word is archaic I suspect I ought to accept “historically” in the clue!
  23. OERSTED was fine although i’m not sure I could have spelled it correctly without the cryptic. Held up on DOGBANE – NHO and did not think of double as applying to trouble, submitted anyway as sounded reasonable and nothing else seemed at all likely. My first thought was TURN OF THE SCREW – I wonder how many titles fit 4,2,3,5?
  24. Did well til about 35 mins in then snookered on ATTAINT (even those we had it the other day) O R TED and DOG N E. NHOs. I liked SMIDGEON and ESTATE AGENT. I always thought REDBRICK referred to US Unis? I wanted to put Mill on the Floss in for along time until I got FLY SHEET. Now for tomorrow, eek. Thanks Z and setter.
  25. Which was how the world felt as I gazed at the plant crossers at the end for several minutes. Finally wrote dogbale, which should at least be a word for something or other. So no time, though the rest done in about 25 minutes. Not sure I agree with the spelling of ‘smidgeon’ – I’d have thought without the o. Didn’t know oersted but it seemed to work, though ‘former’ might be better than ‘formerly’ for ‘erst’. An interesting Vice-Presidential debate – down-to-earth v. trendy perhaps.
  26. ….I was left with 3D. The “duh moment” arrived 77 seconds later.

    FOI DOWN-TO-EARTH
    LOI ATTAINT
    COD SMIDGEON
    TIME 10:17

  27. Well, I am surprised that I finished, what with OERSTED and DOGBANE and LIGATED, but it even took only 41 minutes.
    COD to REPEAL (for that kind of changes). LOI was DOGBANE after I rejected my alma mater MIT for GATED, which I had to guess might mean “confined to quarters” as indeed it does. Nice puzzle, even though it leaves me feeling much like Trump must have as he tried to breathe at the top of the stairs.
  28. DNF. A catalogue of errors in truth. Replay instead of repeal not knowing the bell ringing meaning of changes, limited instead of ligated (MIT was just too persuasive) and dambane instead of dogbane, had heard of wolfsbane so should have made the imaginative leap, but didn’t. Persevered for nearly 40 minutes with this, sort of wish I’d thrown in the towel much earlier.
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