Times Cryptic No 27738 – Saturday, 8 August 2020. Have a banana!

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This felt relatively straightforward, tho with a few unknowns, which could all be overcome. Much use of first or last letters of words, or both. I liked 3dn because it seemed so obvious the clue was referring to an Irish church! Thanks to the setter for a very enjoyable puzzle.

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.

Clues are blue, with definitions underlined. Deletions are in {curly brackets}.

Across
1 Beautiful youth ultimately serving some old lawmaker (8)
GANYMEDE – G (servinG, ultimately), ANY (some), MEDE (old lawmaker, referring to ‘the laws of the Medes and Persians’). G. was a beautiful Trojan lad … mistreated by the Greek gods, almost inevitably.
6 Feeble dog on lead in former times (6)
FLABBY – F (lead in Former), LAB (dog), BY (times).
9 Indian city besieged by extremely threatening rabble once (6)
TAGRAG – AGRA in TG (ThreateninG, extremely). I was familiar with RAGTAG, but not this version.
10 Teacher expresses disapproval about minerals (8)
TUTORESS – TUTS around ORES.
11 Stick around lake, being down in the dumps (4)
GLUM – GUM around L.
12 Charlie’s new earnings docked before work on river (10)
NINCOMPOOP – N (new), INCOM (income, docked), PO (a river in Italy), OP (work).
14 Hanger-on in farm building, one left inside (8)
BARNACLE – BARN, ACE (one) with L inside.
16 Underdone cheese dish with bit missing (4)
RARE – RAREBIT minus the BIT.
18 Time to go back and make improvements (4)
EDIT – TIDE backwards. Time and tide wait for no man. Perhaps no exactly the same thing!
19 Ancient history chum distorted excessively (8)
OVERMUCH – OVER (ancient history), anagram of CHUM.
21 Go to Paris, carrying cycle for versatile sportsperson (3-7)
ALL-ROUNDER – ALLER (‘go’ in French), ‘carrying’ ROUND.
22 Dark blue Bible displayed in major city (4)
NAVY – A.V. in N.Y.
24 Female murder victim to be buried in Scottish island shortly (8)
ISABELLA – ABEL ‘buried in’ ISLA{y} ‘shortly.
26 It’s like a carapace maybe, the poet said (6)
SHELLY – sounds like SHELLEY.
27 Seabird identified by woman in luxury car (6)
GANNET – ANNE in G.T. “GT” is a car designation that seems to have largely disappeared.
28 Assess English girl worried about university (8)
EVALUATE – E (English), VAL (girl), U (university), ATE (worried).

Down
2 Use of a covering for the ears? (5)
AVAIL – sounds like A VEIL.
3 Big church in Kerry most affected by change (4,7)
YORK MINSTER – anagram (affected by change) of (IN KERRY MOST).
4 With O’Neill briefly in charge, start to study selective breeding (8)
EUGENICS – EUGEN{e} O’Neill, I/C, S{tudy}.
5 Friendly understanding altered niece, not surprisingly (7,8)
ENTENTE CORDIALE – anagram (surprisingly) of (ALTERED NIECE NOT).
6 Understand family’s first party finishing early (6)
FATHOM – F{amily}, AT HOM{e}.
7 Bearing of one who will succeed on radio? (3)
AIR – sounds like HEIR.
8 See island store coated in baked clay, mostly (9)
BISHOPRIC – I (island), SHOP (store), all in BRIC{k}.
13 Case left by chap having meal with union leader (11)
PORTMANTEAU – PORT, MAN, TEA, U.
15 Asian lad travelling around posh part of Spain (9)
ANDALUSIA – anagram (travelling) of (ASIAN LAD) around U.
17 State of mountain-climbing artist entertaining request (8)
NEBRASKA – NEB=BEN ‘climbing’, then RA ‘entertaining’ ASK.
20 Illuminated sign colonel finally installed in clubs, perhaps (6)
SUNLIT – last letters of sigN and coloneL ‘installed’ in SUIT.
23 Southern African grassland sometimes considered in speech (5)
VELDT – sounds like FELT, when pronounced with an Afrikaans accent. On edit: I think Keriothe’s comment is right. “Sometimes” flags that the V in VELDT could be pronounced as an F or a V.
25 Disallow fruit? Not half! (3)
BAN – have half a BANana!

21 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27738 – Saturday, 8 August 2020. Have a banana!”

  2. I don’t know if TAGRAG was my LOI or not, but it did give me pause. I biffed ENTENTE CORDIALE from the E and D, parsed post-submission. Could have done without TUTORESS.
  3. An easy solve with one wrong (Steely for Shelly). “Go to Paris” read awkwardly to me (Go to a Parisian…?), and like Guy, I was leery of Tagrag but the instructions were very clear. Thanks brnchn
  4. No problems with this, finished in about quarter of an hour. As others, I was slightly puzzled by TAGRAG, but what else could it be? COD to GANYMEDE. Thank you Bruce and setter.
  5. ….but poor old Bobtail remains at the rear. An otherwise straightforward and enjoyable puzzle.

    FOI TUTORESS
    LOI FATHOM
    COD NINCOMPOOP
    TIME 9:38

  6. My notes say “straightforward” too, Bruce.
    Thanks for decoding FLABBY. That was my only query although, as with others, I have never heard of TAGRAG.
    My only objection is to VELDT as a homophone of FELT. No Afrikaans please, we’re British!
    No, make that two objections: I think TUTORESS is an ugly word.
    There is a breeding colony of GANNETs on White Island, offshore from where I live. It was the island that erupted last December while parties of visitors were on it.
    I liked BARNACLE as “hanger-on” in 14ac but my COD goes to NEBRASKA for “mountain-climbing”.
  7. 25 minutes. Easy. My only unknown was MEDE as lawmaker but GANYMEDE was vaguely familiar so I wasn’t delayed.
  8. Most of this was OK. I started with NAVY, then got VELDT-no objections to that.
    15 clues in my first session indicates good progress.
    I was down to my last two by 2pm and LOI was GANYMEDE, a clue for which I lacked the GK.
    But 9a was a problem as it turns out.
    The answer to the question -What else could it be?-is as follows: I thought the definition was Indian. The go-to crossword city is UR.Rabble once is the first letter of Rabble. Add TG. Think of the Volkswagen car -Touareg ( a tribe somewhere?); there must other spellings in Collins. Disregard the odd E and you get TAUREG -simple!
    David
    1. TUAREG? I think your clairvoyance misfired – wrong crossword. Look out for it appearing elsewhere, though!
  9. Vague memories of Medes & Persians .. I bet they have a lot more laws to ignore nowadays, though.
    Tutoress is not only ugly but also completely unnecessary .. who says a tutor need be male? Any more than a teacher is? It should be expunged from the language forthwith.
    Liked 26ac
    1. Was it in fact ever in the language? Was George Eliot, even in the darkest days of sexist language, a writress? A woman truck driver a teamstress? We’ve thankfully got rid of ‘Jewess’ and ‘Negress’; I doubt ‘tutoress’ was ever there to be got rid of.
      1. Tutoress is in all the usual sources and dates back to at least the 17th century. Chambers also offer tutress and tutrix.
      2. I agree with the sentiment, but usage is usage. ‘Actress’ is also out of favour these days.
  10. 10:32. No problems with this. I didn’t know MEDE but did know GANYMEDE fortunately. TAGRAG new to me too.
    In 23dn I think ‘sometimes’ is part of the wordplay, indicating that VELDT is sometimes pronounced like ‘felt’. Collins and Chambers both give two possible pronunciations, one with an F sound at the beginning and one with a V.
  11. 09:35 …so rather on the easy side. LOI GANYMEDE. I had to check TAGRAG to see if it was a real word. I had a chuckle at the thought of YORK MINSTER being reconstructed in Kerry.

    Edited at 2020-08-15 10:47 am (UTC)

  12. 25:44, so this must have been easy, or perhaps it was just on my wavelength. GANYMEDE, for example, was my FOI, just as I started solving, and everything else, even the not quite obvious ones, fell into place at a steady pace. LOI was SUNLIT, which might be my COD together with PORTMANTEAU, the latter for the smoothess of its surface reading.

    Edited at 2020-08-15 03:48 pm (UTC)

  13. 17:58. A quick solve with no real difficulties. Knew the Greek cupbearer but not the lawmaker. Wondered at tagrag as opposed to ragtag.
  14. No problems for me, apart from a raised eyebrow over TAGRAG, and a careful perusal of the wordplay at 24a to get ISABELLA rather than ISOBELLA. Liked YORK MINSTER. 20:09. Thanks setter and Bruce.

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