Times 27763 – In the loop

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Time: 19 minutes
Music: Bob Marley, Babylon By Bus

Another easy Monday, despite the grid having so many long answers – I was definitely on the wavelength,    The only one I wasn’t sure of was the lake up in the Lake District, which any UK solver is very likely to know, but I had to figure out from the cryptic.   I could have biffed aggressively, but I wanted to work out the cryptics and be sure.   I just had a bit of trouble at the end with emcee, where it would have been useful to have had a good grasp on what compere means.

I would like to remind all commenters that they should not be posting the answers to any other of today’s puzzles, including all Times puzzles, and for that matter any puzzle from any paper.   You should also not reveal the answers from any prize puzzle that has not yet closed.   I don’t like having to delete posts from legitimate commenters, so please don’t do this!

Across
1 Svengali-like figure arty types installed (8)
RASPUTIN – R.A.S + PUT IN, where you might think “arty” is an anagram indicator, rather than a clever way to indicate R.A.
5 Two graduates introducing book about old African tree (6)
BAOBAB – BA(O)BA + B.
9 Don’t object so much? That’s stupid (8)
MINDLESS – MIND LESS, a starter clue.
10 Way to plug advantage in Tea Party location (6)
BOSTON – BO(ST)ON.
12 Occasional spell for women in singular golf game in leisure facility (8,4)
SWIMMING POOL – S(WIMMIN)G + POOL.  A wild cryptic for an obvious answer.
15 Small marsupial’s time to settle for the night (5)
ROOST – ROO’S + T.
16 Worthy objects calling for a libation to be prepared (9)
NOTABILIA – Anagram of A LIBATION.
18 Celebrity from South America entertaining a sailor (9)
SUPERSTAR – S + U(PER)S + TAR.   Another wild cryptic that is not really needed.
19 Fine fabric produced by large detached territory (5)
LISLE – L + ISLE.
20 Wrongly blame a Latino’s enthusiasm for dance (12)
BALLETOMANIA – Anagram of BLAME A LATINO.
24 Fellow disposing of books at end of stage show (6)
EVINCE – [stag]E + VINCE[nt].
25 Like some songs mixed choirs originally performed tastefully (8)
STROPHIC –  Anagram of CHOIRS + P[erformed] T[astefully]
26 Pursued, being grimly persistent (6)
DOGGED – Double definition.
27 Day Welsh girl adopts English milk supplier (8)
FRIESIAN -FRI + E + SIAN.
Down
1 Spirit initially prevailing in 17th-century parliament (4)
RUMP – RUM + P[revailing].
2 Function popular when visiting the Home Counties (4)
SINE – S(IN)E.
3 Liberal in overcoat embracing wife on a Cumbrian lake (9)
ULLSWATER – UL(L)S(W,A)TER.   Unusually, two separate enclosures.
4 Introduction of ideas perhaps in race to secure house (12)
INSEMINATION – IN(SEMI)NATION.
6 Surrounded by part of team on green (5)
AMONG – hidden in [te]AM ON G[reen].
7 Unfathomable? A Midsummer Night’s Dream isn’t (10)
BOTTOMLESS – Double definition, one allusive and jocular.
8 Music director refused to allow songs to be heard (10)
BANDLEADER – sounds like BANNED LIEDER.
11 Sound of footsteps of old PM with queen on pitch (6-6)
PITTER-PATTER – PITT + ER + PATTER.
13 Eg cockapoo, grumpy about being confined to bed (10)
CROSSBREED – CROSS  + B(RE)ED.
14 Forcing learners to keep up exercise in Advent (10)
COMPELLING – COM(PE,LL)ING.
17 Pugnacious bachelor taking girl round Greek island (9)
BELLICOSE – B + ELLI(COS)E.
21 Compere picked up award for gallantry? (5)
EMCEE – Sounds like MC, the Military Cross.
22 Language used by violent youth ultimately on main road (4)
THAI – [violen]T [yout]H + AI.
23 Possibly Smiley’s one deception (4)
ICON – I + CON.

47 comments on “Times 27763 – In the loop”

  1. I thought my 8:01 was going to look pretty slick, but I was already in 4th place! I biffed SWIMMING POOL and BALLETOMANIA was my last in.
  2. Like George, I biffed SWIMMING POOL; also RASPUTIN & SUPERSTAR, only parsing post-submission. I had EVINCE fairly early on, but couldn’t figure out why; VINCE by himself is a fellow, so I wondered for a while about the books. DNK ULLSWATER, my LOI, so I was careful to work out the parsing. V, you’ve left out the S in RASPUTIN.
  3. In 24a “end” appears to be doing double duty, or even triple duty since the New Testament has to be removed from the end of Vincent, i.e. could have been ” fellow disposing of books at the end, at the end of the end of stage show”, though it wouldn’t have scanned well.
    Thanks for parsing SUPERSTAR, Vinyl. Green dream in 15:36
  4. The East flowed in whilst the West did not, so ended up with a turgid 32 mins.

    FOI 27ac FRIESIAN

    LOI 4dn INSEMINATION

    COD 25ac STROPHIC

    WOD 11dn PITTER-PATTER onomatopoeic

    Did not parse 12ac SWIMMING POOL – WIMMIN indeed! Whatever next? Guardian readers!?

    I do sincerely hope that onomatopoeic is not the answer to any clue in any puzzle, in any newspaper, worldwide today. But knowing my luck……..

  5. Found it tough, bottom left very recalcitrant. the snitch is sitting at 60, so I’m the outlier.
  6. With about 8 minutes on the ULLSWATER/RASPUTIN cross. Better safe than sorry! Otherwise not much notable here.
  7. To me this felt a bit harder than it’s SNITCH rating suggests, with RASPUTIN, STROPHIC and BALLETOMANIA in particular holding me up.

    Regarding not giving out answers to prize puzzles, I’m surprised the Times haven’t yet realised that if you solve the Saturday puzzle on the app rather than via the Crossword Club then it checks your answers there and then (but doesn’t submit it as a competition entry).

  8. Nice easy start to the week, only holdup typing FRIESIAN with EI leading me to look for a very obscure greek island ending in I. 22 mins.
  9. I’m glad we’ve had “balletomane” in the past and that “strophe” has come up enough to reassure me that STROPHIC was a reasonable word. Apart from that, not much to slow me down, gaily biffing SWIMMING POOL along the way, and along with everyone else, by the sound of it.

    27 minutes, which is handy as I’m back to work following a week off today, so my morning routine needs all the help it can get to stay on track.

  10. 34 minutes for both puzzles again today; I might be getting good at this lark!

    But really, I’m not fooling myself as this was a very straightforward cryptic for the most part where even the unknowns (or forgottens) such as BAOBAB and BALLETOMANIA could be constructed easily enough from wordplay. I can never remember what STROPHIC means.

  11. …Its mounded oceans of tempestuous fire,
    And whelm on them into the Bottomless void.

    25 mins pre-brekker, with a slight stutter at the 17c parliament and Smiley as an icon (?).
    Thanks setter and Vinyl.

    1. I thought of Le Carré’s Smiley, couldn’t fit him in to the clue, saw (once I had the checkers) the wordplay, and put it in; then I thought, “Oh, that smiley!”
  12. 31 minutes. I found this a strange mix between simple and tricky. I took a while to parse ULLSWATER for instance. I’ve never heard of BALLETOMANIA, but then it’s not a condition I suffer from. LOI was the unknown STROPHIC, solved from anagram and crossers. COD to the clever RASPUTIN. At least he wasn’t poisoned by Novichok. Enjoyable enough puzzle. Thank you V and setter.
  13. so highly delighted. Like Jackkt I have no idea what STROPHIC means but once the crossers were in it could only be that. FOI SINE, LOI ROOST. I liked 7d. Thank you vinyl and setter.
  14. Very easy today, but some interesting words .. I am more of a balletophobe than a mane myself. And is strophic anything to do with cata or apo, I wonder?
  16. Pleasant start to the week, despite guessing NOTABILIA, BALLETOMANIA and STROPHIC must be words.

    COD: SWIMMING POOL, liked ‘occasional spell for women’

    Friday’s answer: bouillon and bullion come from the same root, to do with melting.

    Today’s question: which is the most populous state capital, Boston being sixth?

  17. I slowed myself down as the temptation to biff was so great (especially when the answer was obvious and the clues were so convoluted). A good confidence booster to start the week.
  18. I have been to the ballet three times, definitely do not have BALLETOMANIA. I did parse SWIMMING POOL. LOI was EVINCE, as noted the clue didn’t need books.

    Is an M.C. now an EMCEE? Interesting how language evolves.

    11’44”, thanks vinyl and setter.

    1. Your ballet tally (note the dodgy homophone) exceeds mine by 2.5 as I left “Giselle” at the interval and was met in an adjacent hostelry later by the woman who had persuaded me that I would enjoy it. It was a very short relationship.
    2. I didn’t know emcee existed as a word. I have always thought MC was short for Master of Ceremony.
  19. Breezy 11 minutes, though I submitted having forgotten to check SUPERSTAR, by some distance the most wordplay-opaque of the clues. That S(outh) US gag is something I should remember but don’t, very like a=PER.
    We had STROPHE in 27746, some evidence of the Times easing us in to a wider world.
    I tried to fit CUMMINGS into 1ac but the lizards wouldn’t let me.
  20. 10:39. Stuttered over INSEMINATION, otherwise rather Mondayish. LOI SUPERSTAR which I parsed after completion. Mostly I liked CROSSBREED and BANDLEADER. Can anyone object to that homophone?
  21. 10.30. Thought I was on for my first sub 10 in a while but stuttered at the last. FOI rump, LOI bellicose. NHO of strophic but took a punt. Interesting puzzle but nothing too difficult. Good start to the week.
  22. A few where parsing took a dive into the dark arts perhaps but an enjoyable romp in the pool. 12’37. Suddenly taken back to the compelling sight of baobabs in Zimbabwe. Loved the neat misdirection in icon.
  26. Lots of biffing from me, so thanks for the explanations, particularly SWIMMING POOL. I need to learn my overcoats – ULLSWATER was my LOI, hoping that it made sense. 6m 21s in total.

    BALLETOMANIA should have gone in quicker once I had all the checkers and worked out MANIA, but for some reason it didn’t. An odd word.

  28. ….and felt I should have been much quicker. Obviously, I biffed SWIMMING POOL.

    Is a Deejay the same as an EMCEE, or is it something he wears to a posh do ?

    FOI BAOBAB
    LOI EVINCE
    COD ICON
    TIME 8:59

  29. ULLSWATER a write-in as I live half a mile from a bunch of streets named after the Lake District lakes.

    Less confident with others in the NW corner – took a long time to spot RUMP and decide whether DISEMINATION or INSEMINATION was correct. So RASPUTIN and MINDLESS took longer than they might.

    Didn’t bother guessing what was going on with SUPERSTAR

  30. Didn’t fully parse EVINCE, SUPERSTAR (I forget that “a” can give you “per”) or ULLSWATER (didn’t know Ulster as an overcoat), so thanks to the blogger for the explanations. Hadn’t heard the terms NOTABILIA or BALLETOMANIA either, but both were pretty clearly indicated as anagrams and easy enough to figure out. Otherwise this was reasonably straightforward.

    FOI Rump
    LOI Emcee
    COD Bandleader

  31. An average solving time for me of 34 mins. Bellicose held me up because I wrongly guessed it ended -some. Once I sorted that out lisle quickly followed. I’m not sure if I’d have got evince so quickly if it hadn’t been in the concise (or perhaps it was the QC) very recently. Just over 45 mins for concise QC and 15×15 so a good start to the week! Thanks setter.
  32. … but was slowed down by SWIMMING POOL, SUPERSTAR and STROPHIC which all went in unparsed so I appreciated Vinyl’s explanations.
    I smiled at ROOST, BOTTOMLESS and ICON and my COD is BANDLEADER, also for its humour.
    Not a bad start to the week at just over 30 minutes so thanks to the setter.
  34. I am in the habit of printing off the current day’s crossword on one side and then 10 years ago’s on the other. The 2010 crosswords are currently going through a “no print option” so I had 7/09/2011 today. I was surprised to see practically the same clue as today’s 8dn in that crossword:

    14a Miller, say, stopped songs being heard (10)

    Today’s was fun but I did wince a bit at “Wimmin” in 12a.

    Thanks to setter (the same one re-cycling clues?) and Vinyl for the blog.

  35. 14:25. This one was a walk in the park. A bit of a shame to have both mindless and bottomless together in the same puzzle.
  36. The blogger writes: ‘it would have been useful to have had a good grasp on what compere means’ – reminds me, a friend from Vancouver was completely stumped when I mentioned the word. Seems it just isn’t part of the North American idiolect.

    I did OK apart from foolishly biffing BANDMASTER, which delayed me a little.

  37. I had a go at this – very new to trying the main crossword although have been doing the quick cryptic- on paper not online. Can’t do online as we don’t subscribe. I got bellicose but surely the Greek island is spelled Kos?
    1. I parsed this one differently

      BELL (I [C]OS)E
      BELLE = girl
      IOS = Greek island containing
      C = round

      Kos came to my mind first as the Greek island but I’m pretty sure its Ios.
      Sorry for late reply but puzzles are printed in Oz a month later.

  38. New to the main crossword having found the quick cryptic too easy. Pleased to finish this one in a couple of hours off and on. Couldn’t parse icon, superstar or evince but assumed correctly that they must be correct. Is that what “biffing’ means. Loved bandleader and pitter patter

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