Times 27760 – rumour and 26

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Well I hit the submit button at 8:53, feeling very good about this one, but I didn’t check carefully enough and I had a typo in 26 across, so there goes what I think might have been a very good time. There’s some difficult stuff here, two entries that look that they are paying a visit from Mephistoland, and some tricky wordplay.

However today is a good day to beat your blogger!

Away we go…

Across
1 Overheard to whimper like a baby, being cross? (4)
MULE – sounds like MEWL(whimper like a baby)
3 Podginess of English male with good French cape (10)
EMBONPOINT – E(English), M(male), BON(good in French), POINT(cape). Got this from wordplay
9 Fairly sour press employee caught dipping into grant (7)
SUBACID –  SUB(press employee) then C(caught) inside AID(grant)
11 President at bar, next to a flower arrangement (7)
IKEBANA – President IKE Eisenhower then BAN(bar), and A
12 Fellow in doorway — painting, possibly? (9)
PORTRAYAL – RAY(fellow) in PORTAL(doorway)
13 Man following retired woman’s turn of phrase (5)
IDIOM – IOM(Isle of Man) after DI(woman) reversed
14 It’s measured along a meridian, in the main (8,4)
NAUTICAL MILE – cryptic definition
18 Accord Henry a new position in church (12)
ARCHDEACONRY –  anagram of ACCORD,HENRY,A
21 Crane-like bird Turkish commander found by main road (5)
AGAMI – AGA(Turkish commander) next to the M1(main road).  Another one from wordplay
22 Unemployed debt-collector bitten by ruddy insect! (9)
REDUNDANT – DUN (debt-collector) inside RED(ruddy) ANT(insect)
24 Measure of liquid bridge-player put in large vessel (7)
GALLEON – GALLON(measure of liquid) containing E(East, bridge-player)
25 Person investigating an American man on board? (7)
CHECKER – double definiton. Where I live draughts is called checkers
26 Stupid aspersion in speech, gradually losing force (10)
DIMINUENDO – DIM(stupid) and sounds like INNUENDO(aspersion) for the musical term. I put an extra E in there
27 Concept everyone associated at first with papers (4)
IDEA – first letters of Everyone Associated next to ID(papers)
Down
1 Wasted time supporting unmarried female writer (8)
MISSPENT – T(time) under MISS(unmarried female), PEN(writer)
2 Work with miners cutting top of oak tree (8)
LABURNUM – LABOUR(work) and NUM(National Union of Mineworkers) with the first letter of Oak removed
4 Naval officer, one with two daughters in motor yacht (5)
MIDDY – I(one) and two D’s(daughters) inside MY(motor yacht)
5 Touring Rhode Island, old lover carries minute scarlet flag (9)
ORIFLAMME –  RI(Rhode Island) inside O(old), and FLAME(lover) containing M(minute)
6 Entice police chief initially developing freedom in lines (6,7)
POETIC LICENCE – anagram of ENTICE,POLICE and the first letter of Chief
7 One demonstrated a crystalline compound (6)
ISATIN – I(one), SAT IN(demonstrated). I remember there being some controversy in the histrory of chemistry as to whether this or Mauvine A was the first ever synthesized dye.
8 Union leader in public vehicle getting over a shock (6)
TRAUMA – first letter of Union insie TRAM(public vehicle) then A
10 Woman runs business, one conveying messages by air (7,6)
CARRIER PIGEON – the woman is CARRIE, then R(runs), PIGEON(affair, business)
15 Loyalty from a duke thus, protecting queen (9)
ADHERENCE – A, D(duke), HENCE(thus) containing ER(queen)
16 A French vessel in sea, lacking identification (8)
UNMARKED – UN(A, in French), ARK(vessel) in the MED(sea)
17 Uncontrolled emotion blowing up this year (8)
HYSTERIA – anagram of THIS,YEAR
19 Barbed prong finally penetrating judge of advanced years (6)
JAGGED – last letter of pronG inside J(judge), AGED(of advanced years)
20 Pounds invested in women’s area in New York district (6)
HARLEM – L(pounds) inside HAREM(women’s area)
23 Took risks — kicked bucket across entrance to crescent (5)
DICED – DIED(kicked bucket) surrounding the first letter in Crescent

61 comments on “Times 27760 – rumour and 26”

  1. Did some biffing–EMBONPOINT from E,M, ARCHDEACONRY, ORIFLAMME, POETIC LICENCE (I dithered over C/S; can no longer remember which is UK, which US), HARLEM. NHO AGAMI, and though it seemed inevitable, I hesitated. POI IDIOM, which I thought of early on, but couldn’t parse. LOI DNK ISATIN.
  2. Held up at the end by nho ISATIN. The other nho answers went in from wordplay without any difficulty (SUBACID, MIDDY, AGAMI). I also wondered about the C/S in LICENSE but since it was an anagram, I didn’t need to wonder for long.
  3. A most enjoyable excursion:-

    FOI 4dn MIDDY – Easy!

    LOI 7dn ISATIN

    COD 1ac MULE

    WOD 21ac AGAMI – for all us twitchers, the ‘hummingbird’ heron hails from Central America. Named after its lovely plumage and not its hovering abilities.

    And talking of hovercraft, 4ac a NAUTICAL MILE is 1.852 kilometers. A Country Mile is slightly further, depending on which country one is in I guess.

    37 minutes More please.

    Edited at 2020-09-03 03:52 am (UTC)

      1. Missed on both counts. It is now 1.852 km, by definition, even accepted by the US who like to boycott anything foreign.
        It started its life as one minute of latitude. Since the earth isn’t spherical, 1 minute of latitude varies depending where you measure it, so that definition was never going to last.
  4. 25 minutes. I couldn’t figure out the parsing of IDIOM (I thought “Mo” was the woman, oddly) so I had to trust the wordplay even more with the NHO ISATIN, but apart from that everything flowed quite nicely.

    This was just the right kind of crossword to let me know that my practice and studies over the last few years here haven’t been in vain, as words like ORIFLAMME, AGAMI and EMBONPOINT just flowed out of me almost unbidden. Back when I started reading this blog every day I would’ve been roundly defeated by a puzzle like this, so thanks to you all…

  5. …the way hunger is moved when called fasting.
    35 mins pre-brekker to leave just the ungettable Isatin.
    No marks or MERs except rings round the random invitees, Carrie and Ray.
    Mostly I liked the dim innuendo.
    Thanks setter and G.
  6. There was some tricky stuff here with the unknown AGAMI and I can never remember what EMBONPOINT is but it went in from wordplay with fingers crossed. I was therefore surprised to find myself with the grid completed all but three letters in only 21 minutes. However after a few moments consideration I knew I hadn’t got a hope of solving 7dn so I gave up and used aids to find ISATIN. The wordplay seems straightforward working it back from the answer but it was by no means helpful enough to lead me to the unknown word.

    Edited at 2020-09-03 06:04 am (UTC)

  7. …apart from it isn’t. 28 minutes with LOI ISATIN, unknown but eventually constructed, adding a few minutes on to my time. IKEBANA was constructed too, but I think I had seen it before. I’ve also wondered what EMBONPOINT meant when I’ve encountered it, but not enough to go to the dictionary. COD to DIMINUENDO, a musical term which for one I was aware of. A pleasant puzzle. Thank you George and setter.
  8. A bit of a biff-fest today, which makes for a fast time but rather defeats the object of savouring the clues while solving. DNK AGAMI, ISATIN or SUBACID but they were all readily gettable from the clues. No COD today, as so few unbiffable ones to choose from. 4 easy ones in a row this week, so looking forward to something a bit more challenging tomorrow!
  9. Zipped through quickly, but never going to beat our blogger – only ever dipped under 10 minutes by a few seconds, on a particularly easy qualifier. Never heard of ISATIN, but weirdly SAT-IN popped straight into my head for demonstrated, so no problem there. Otherwise same unknowns, trusting the wordplay. We’ve had embonpoint and oriflamme before, but I couldn’t have told you what they were. Thanks setter and blogger.
    1. I can’t remember if I first came across ’embonpoint’ in ‘Ulysses’, but anyway, here’s Leopold Bloom thumbing through “Sweets of Sin” to see if it’s sufficiently porny for Molly:
      The beautiful woman threw off her sabletrimmed wrap, displaying her queenly shoulders and heaving embonpoint. An imperceptible smile played round her perfect lips as she turned to him calmly.
  10. The setter was feeling quite smamy,
    Using pigeon to link with agami
    I am just lost for words
    Enough of these birds
    You’re driving this poor solver barmy
    1. ISATIN the dark for a while,
      SUBACID did not make me smile.
      In case you ain’t heard
      Neither one is a bird,
      But I’ve noted them down in my file.
  14. That was my first thought. No problem today with any of the apparent obscurities, but probably gleaned from Listeners and Mephistos passim.
  15. A good time despite the obscure vocabulary today. NHO AGAMI, MIDDY, ISATIN, SUBACID, but all were deducible, ISATIN being the one at the end to agonise over.

    COD: HYSTERIA, nicely appropriate for 2020.

    Yesterday’s answer: Dennis the Menace appeared simultaneously in the UK and US. I find it hard to believe it was a coincidence.

    Today’s question: being good at what sport is supposedly a sign of a misspent youth?

      1. Much as I like those clues, it’s not the game with which I MISSPENT my youth !

        With love at heart, reckons break is short of a century – in this game ?

    4. Angus
      A big thank you for setting these questions. As you can see, a few us enjoy very much cluing the answers.
  17. 12.50, and that includes going back over the answers as if it were my turn to blog and I needed to explain the wordplay.
    ISATIN was, of course, my last, but I got it from the wordplay and a vague association of the result with general sciency planty stuff, like isinglass (which isn’t strictly either).
    If you’d asked me, I would have expected an AGAMI to have fur and hoofs rather than feathers and claws, but Turkish commanders in this province are either Beys or Agas and the M1 was more likely than the A1 in the spelling stakes.
    I was stalled by SUBACID, expecting an -ISH ending (fairly…) but eventually constructing it from wp.
    24ac looked the wrong way round in the clue, but I Yoda’d the E into the measure anyway.
    MIDDY should have been EASY for y’all after last week.
  18. 9 min 20 secs with 7 down unsolved 7 down. I could see Italic and 3 minutes later that’s what I entered. So DNF.

  19. 15:06. LOI ISATIN took some getting. AGAMI also unknown and got from wordplay, but I’ve seen EMBONPOINT before, although only in a crossword – a MCS from earlier this year.
  20. 13:55. I started very quickly on this but then started coming across the tricky ones. There was a Mephistoish feel to it in that I found myself relying on wordplay a lot, but I like that kind of puzzle and I thought everything was perfectly fair, even if the wordplay for ISATIN is a little unforgiving.
  21. Great crossword! Really enjoyed this one. What surprises me though is that many colleagues seemed to find the clueing of ‘Isatin’ so puzzling. Agreed it is an unusual word, but it is certainly ‘chemistry’ sounding, and as most of us seem to be of a certain age, I would have thought ‘sit-in’ was a ‘write-in’ for a demo! Oh well, maybe it’s because I was involved in one once, at Southampton University in 1970.
    1. I would say that ‘sat in’ from ‘demonstrated’ is a connection that’s a notch or two harder to make than ‘sit-in’ from ‘demo’. ‘Demonstration’ has alternative meanings (‘demo’ doesn’t) and you don’t usually see ‘sit in’ as a verb, never mind in the past tense.
  22. Taking my inspiration from The Who, this one took 5:15. An easy Thursday, even with a few vocabulary-busting words. Fortunately IKEBANA has come up enough times that I’m no longer defeated by it, and similarly PIGEON = business. ORIFLAMME was unknown but the wordplay was kind.

    A brief detour into IROSEA for 7d and musing on BALL for 1a (bawl is rather too strong for whimper, in retrospect) were the only hurdles.

  23. 14’56, straightforward enough with the unknown bird and compound presenting themselves from the men already on board or checkers. I might feel a tad narked about the etymological sexism so apparent in ‘hysteria’, deriving from the Greek for uterus, if I had one. Unaware of the midshipman abbreviation but seemed natural.
  24. About 40 minutes, but resorted to aids for ISATIN. I also entered CARRIER PIGEON partly unparsed, as I have never connected pigeon with affair / business. FOI MIDDY, LOI CHECKER, COD DIM…
    1. Pidgin English means language used for business. That’s what led me to think of pigeon.
      Andyf
  25. Romping to a very quick finish, but barking up the wrong laburnum tree despite Morse mnemonic for .-.. dit dah dit dit. Bye Dot, must dash.
  27. No idea what was going on with CARRIER PIGEON so many thanks for the explanation. Left with 2 holes a the end, EMBONPOINT appeared out of nowhere from the back of my mind, which left ITALIC if it had anything to do with the clue. Fortunately there was an alternative.
  28. Fun and fairly easy. Even if you’re not a chemist I think I SAT IN is pretty unambiguous wordplay. If Mephistos are as easy as this, I’ll try a few more. Agree with keriothe et al about embonpoint, conjures up a vision of substantial cleavage.
  29. ….can anybody play ? (The Hollies : “Carrie-Anne”).

    No problems, nice puzzle with plenty of variety.

    FOI EMBONPOINT (Karen B., forever remembered !)
    LOI SUBACID (not my area of expertise)
    COD ISATIN (ditto, but a lovely clue)
    TIME 7:45

  30. This went quickly, except for Isatin which I left with only the crossers filled in, and Subacid due to not quickly thinking Of Sub = Press employee. Thanks, George.
  31. Decent challenge. As with others I was delayed by ISATIN at the end. My other hold-up was mixing up my unions and putting NUT on the end of 2d. It was only when I solved the rest of the clue later on and started wondering what a laburnut might look like that I spotted the error.
  32. Unknowns – ISATIN, MIDDY, SUBACID, not knowing that a NAUTICAL MILE is a minute of latitude, PIGEON = business/affair.

    Cryptics were helpful though and got through in the end.

  33. But is it me or should 20d be A pound invested in women’s area etc. Pounds indicate more than one. Heigh ho. I can hear my late mother saying tut tut – she did the Time sword every day
    1. The stylised letter L (£) is the symbol for pounds sterling, no matter how great or small the number.
  34. but amazingly did manage to get them through the word play. I enjoyed this xword, probably because I managed to finish it! Same comments as many above, and I did like embonpoint, not necessarily because it’s French! What with the TUM in TUMULUS yesterday and this today, is someone trying to tell me something? Thank you George and setter
  35. Like some others, I DNK IKEBANA, AGAMI, ORIFLAMME or ISATIN but the detailed definitions made these gettable – and PIGEON for a business was one to add to my list.
    I enjoyed ARCHDEACONRY, POETIC LICENCE and ADHERENCE and my COD has to be EMBONPOINT which sounds so much nicer than its meaning!
    Thanks to the setter and to George for the very helpful blog.
  36. I entered “Agami” with a prayer and then came here before I realised I hadn’t entered 7d “Isatin” ( which I’d left for later). Probably wouldn’t have got it anyway, so not too despondent today.
  37. Sadly failed to beat the blogger. Had all bar one done in 15.30 and then had a complete blank at 7 dn. Isatin, aarrgghh. So obvious when you see it, alas I didn’t.
  38. 41:46, but there were enough difficulties to justify that. My LOI was DIMINUENDO when the penny finally dropped (and not DUM… or DAM…). I was prepared to believe that PIGEON might mean business since in British English, just about anything can mean just about anything, it seems. In AGAMI, I had to pray that the main road would in fact be a motorway. Strangely enough, ISATIN, though unknown, didn’t seem that hard, once “demonstrated” was interpreted properly.
  39. 19:49. A nice mix of vocab in this one. I was a bit dim before seeing the light at diminuendo and hesitant at LOI isatin but the wp was convincing.
  40. LOI , as for most it seems, was ISATIN. As Tringmardo observed , it does sound like a chemical- perhaps a hormone.
    After eventually seeing how it would parse, I ninja turtled it, thinking it might be a statin, i.e. a lipid lowering drug. Never heard of the dye, but it worked! Green frisson in 23:35

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