Times Cryptic No 27750 – Saturday, 22 August 2020. Wot’s that you zed?

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This puzzle was more challenging than recent Saturdays, all thanks to clever clues, not obscurities. I didn’t note the exact order, but 10ac, 4dn, 7dn and 23ac all went in quickly. When three quarters were done, the SE corner was still virgin! 28ac was my LOI, and went in with great satisfaction!

As highlighted in the comments, there were some obscure uses of familiar words, but they are all supported by the dictionary, I think. 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 Sentimental, say, extremely, about year at college (6)
SYRUPY – S{a}Y (say, extremely), about YR (year) and UP (at college).
4 Head in charge, almost totally, for now? (7)
TOPICAL – TOP (head), I/C (in charge), AL{L} (totally, almost)
9 Nose, or a brief description of one? (5)
AROMA – classically, a prominent nose in the physical sense is A ROMA{N} one.
10 It was a miracle staff ran as door shattered (6,3)
AARON’S ROD – anagram (shattered) of RAN AS DOOR.
11 Preserve and deliver letter at the end, then track (6-3)
FREEZE-DRY – FREE (deliver), ZED (again, I’m surprised to see a letter spelled out. Here, it’s the letter at the end of the alphabet, as spelled and pronounced in the UK), RY (railway track).
12 Like beer, often for old people (5)
INCAN – if beer isn’t in a bottle, it’ll be IN a CAN.
13 Stone axes and miniature figure from the east (4)
ONYX – X and Y axes, NO=number=figure, all backwards (from the east).
14 Scandinavian girl initially bringing in chicken, and something for dips later? (10)
FINGERBOWL – INGER is the girl. She and B (for Bringing) go in a FOWL.
18 Am merely puzzled, with no way of looking back? (6,4)
MEMORY LANE – anagram (puzzled) of AM MERELY NO.
20 Strip of land, double the amount you can dig up? (4)
SPIT – the answer was obvious , but I had to look it up to understand the wordplay. It’s a triple definition: a spit of land, a spitting image, or a spadeful=spitful of soil. I didn’t know the last usage!
23 I can be saved, cured and brought home (5)
BACON – a clever triple definition. Save the bacon, cure the bacon, bring home the bacon!
24 Replacing another very young airman who crashed orbiting moon (9)
VICARIOUS – V for very, ICARUS (the airman), orbiting IO (a moon of Jupiter).
25 Finished, I had, around five o’clock, basking in a warm glow? (3-6)
SUN-KISSED – SUNK (finished), I’D (I had), around SSE (south-south-east, approximately, on the clock face). SSE is actually a quarter past five on the clock, but it would be a shame to quibble with such an original device!
26 Not qualified to show clip? Only hear it (5)
SHEER – SHEER meaning unqualified as in “sheer nonsense”, sounds like SHEAR meaning clip.
27 Always with expensive clothes — but no pyjamas? (7)
DAYWEAR – AY (always) and W (with) in DEAR (expensive).
28 Turbulent, indeed, and corrupt place (6)
YEASTY – YEA (indeed), STY (corrupt place).

Down
1 Crook, maybe, turned up to secure place in school (9)
STAFFROOM – STAFF (crook, maybe), MOOR (secure) turned up.
2 Fine for breaking eggs, overturning younger birds’ nests (7)
ROOKERY – OK (fine) breaking ROE (eggs), YR (younger) overturning.
3 Square meal, one that normally isn’t without appeal at first (6)
PIAZZA – PIZZA (a meal that’s normally round, not square!), without=outside A{ppeal}.
4 Go around middle of rehearsals — or not? (5)
TARRY – TRY (go) around {rehe}AR{sals}.
5 Awfully dry input — that of experts? (8)
PUNDITRY – anagram (awfully) of DRY INPUT. An unkind definition gives a cute literal meaning for the clue.
6 You are casually opening what’s needed to make chocolate liqueur (7)
CURACAO – UR (you are, casually) opening=inside CACAO. Cacao is the tree that cocoa beans come from.
7 On the way up earned a lot contracting, becoming loaded (5)
LADEN – backwards hidden answer, signalled by ‘on the way up’ ‘contracting’.
8 Miss in the field actually helping us to victory? (4,4)
LAND GIRL – just a cryptic definition, I think. A reference to the WWII Land Army.
15 As recalled, no team reportedly finishing off race? (8)
GENOCIDE – GE is EG (as), recalled. The rest sounds like ‘NO SIDE’. A rather callous definition.
16 Invitation from minister to allow university’s petition (3,2,4)
LET US PRAY – LET (allow), U’S (university’s), PRAY (to petition, as a verb).
17 Press bags request from this writer? Dig that! (4,4)
IRON MINE – While you’re pressing pants, please IRON MINE. Dig for iron ore you know where.
19 Person affecting accent once my back finally is turned (7)
MOCKNEY – never heard this expression, but the anagram (turned) of ONCE MY {bac}K was obvious.
21 Great ability of female counterpart to bow? (7)
PROWESS – I always think of words ending in -ESS as an endearing Times Crossword archaism, but here it’s just a pun. His PROW, her PROWESS! Of course ships are traditionally female, so it would be her prow in any case.
22 Man washed up — after giving off of course (6)
CRUSOE – I saw the R and immediately thought MAN FRIDAY, but eventually saw that it’s an anagram of COURSE.
23 Put in home when retired? (5)
BASED – AS (when) in BED (i.e. retired).
24 Shield it from guest (5)
VISOR – the guest is a VIS{it}OR.

29 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27750 – Saturday, 22 August 2020. Wot’s that you zed?”

  1. I thought this on the harder side, and struggled a bit to get it finished, but got there eventually. Some excellent clues.
    I came across spit = a spade depth when we had an allotment, years ago.. it was not long before the advantages of the “no dig” system made themselves felt, however.
  2. For some reason I forgot to print out a copy, so it was only now when I went to check that I saw that I have a typo–LSND GIRL–giving me 2 errors. I have no memory of this puzzle, but it clearly took an effort.
  3. with three errors: PLOT for SPIT; LIONESS for PROWESS and JERSEY for YEASTY. All entered because I couldn’t think of anything better.
    I have question marks against so many clues some of which you’ve satisfactorily explained, Bruce, such as SPIT, SHEER, FINGER BOWL, IRON MINE and LAND GIRL.
    PROWESS is pushing it a bit but I should have got it
    However I just don’t see BASED as equalling “Put in Home”. And YEASTY = turbulent??? And STY equalling “corrupt place”??
    That might have been OK for the Premier League solvers but it was a bit much for me. No wonder I needed to use aids with a couple of clues.
    Having “SSE” = “around five o’clock” definitely put this in the very hard basket. In fact the whole of the SE corner was in that category.
    CODs to IRON MINE and VISOR.

    And another thing!! I’m familiar with INGE and INGA but I’ve never come across INGER before!
    Apart from that, it was a fine puzzle!🙃👎

    Edited at 2020-08-29 03:04 am (UTC)

    1. I didn’t know Inger either, but when I googled her to check, I got an impressive list of distinguished ladies.

      Those senses of YEASTY and STY are a bit off the beaten path, but supported by the dictionary. If BASE (noun) is HOME, I think you can get from PUT IN HOME to BASED without too much of a stretch.

      I was least happy with AROUND FIVE O’CLOCK, because AROUND is a containment indicator, so it can’t also indicate an approximation.

      1. I’m with martin at 23d – I see the definition (sort of), but I don’t see the instructions to insert the AS into the BED

        Otherwise, this wa a tough puzzle, and biffing Primal for Piazza didn’t help my time in the NW. Thanks brnchn – i needed some of your explanation this week.

        Edited at 2020-08-29 04:03 am (UTC)

        1. If RETIRED means IN BED, use IN as the insertion indicator and BED as the fodder it goes in. It’s a device we’ve met a few times before.
          1. We’re using the IN as part of the definition (in place, or put in place) so its not available as an indicator of ordering.

            In addition, the IN is on the other side of HOME, and home is certainly either the definition or part of the definition. So to my eye the IN doesn’t create any clue-istic relationship between the AS and the RETIRED. I can read the clue as ‘insert AS into HOME’, but not as ‘insert AS into BED’. The bits are there, I just can’t order them.

            1. ‘Retired’ means ‘in bed’. So dog retired => bedogd. The word IN is not part of the wordplay.
      2. Maybe the setter was thinking SSE was precisely five o’clock, so did not see “around” as doing double duty…?
        1. That was my interpretation too, but if E is 3 o’clock and S is 6 o’clock, then strictly speaking SE Is 4.30 pm and SSE is actually 5.15 pm. I actually biffed SUN KISSED and the usage of “SSE” was explained by a friend later on. A bit too clever by the setter in my opinion.
      3. I didn’t notice anything at the time, but the one Inger I could think of was the actress Inger Stevens, although her original name was Ingrid.
  4. YEASTY?? Got this one wrong by putting in FEISTY, as it seemed more turbulent to me, though I couldn’t parse it. All the rest I liked. 41:52 with the error.
  5. Very hard, mostly through what I considered were a few poor equivalences in definitions, as others have noted. Got there in the end with Yeasty 2LOI and Iron Mine LOI. LOI mostly because my home state WA is about the largest producer of iron-ore in the world, yet there isn’t a single iron mine in the state, only iron-ore mines.
    1. Though there were some superb definitions: miracle staff, something for dips after (eating) chicken, incan (groan), way as in road/street/lane of looking back. Liked the punditry and the pizza – though we’ve had the same clue the other way round, which works better: “Not a square meal (5)” – and liked, with a groan as the penny dropped, the prowess.
  6. I’ve not written a time down, but that’s because YEASTY came well after the event. I think the rest was in the three quarters of an hour territory. In the intervening period I’d also parsed SUNKISSED, while thinking that it was strictly inaccurate and then having breakfast. Other clues were good, even the corny PROWESS, and I’ll give COD to LET US PRAY. I’m sure it will surprise nobody to know that I’ve never been remotely inclined to adopt a MOCKNEY accent. Thank you Bruce and setter.
    1. That’s because you (probably)have a proper accent already, BW .. after growing up on Merseyside, I go Scouse when a regional accent is needed
  7. I gave up any hope of solving this without aids with 5 answers outstanding and even after using them I managed to put FEISTY at 28ac although of course I was unable to parse it. ‘Brutal’ was my verdict on the puzzle as a whole.
  8. I thought IRON MINE was a poor clue, as “iron ore mine” is the normal usage.
  9. ….SpaIN, GERmany, but most frequently in Scandinavia.
    I was slightly puzzled by the R at the end, being more familiar with Inge (probably because I had two regular customers of that name in my cabbying days). As Bruce says, Wikipedia produces an impressive list of Ingers, all of them unknown to me, while Inge can apparently be either male or female !

    This was tough. I’ve already commented earlier on SUN KISSED and IRON MINE. Like many, I didn’t know this definition of YEASTY, or the third meaning of SPIT. I inadvertently cancelled my timer part way through, so my time is rounded.

    FOI AARON’S ROD
    LOI CRUSOE
    COD MOCKNEY
    TIME 23 minutes

  10. A toughie indeed. It took me 68:51 to finish this puzzle, but I needed help with my LOI, YEASTY, which I spent a goodly while on before giving up in despair. Vaguely remembered the required definitions of SPIT. Managed to parse the rest eventually. Thanks setter and Bruce.
  11. 23:34. I really enjoyed this puzzle, although I can see there are some touches of looseness and rather oblique definitions.
    I interpreted ‘bags request from this writer’ as directly indicating MINE in the sense kids say ‘bags’ or (where I grew up) ‘bagsy’.

    Edited at 2020-08-29 08:45 am (UTC)

  12. Tony Blair used to affect a mockney accent when he was trying to hide his public school background from the masses. It wasn’t convincing, just irritating.
    1. The classic mockney of our times is the violinist formerly known as Nigel Kennedy. There was a clip of him being interviewed on TV as a child when he was oh-so posh and not at all like his later punk image. I can’t find it on YouTube so I suspect he’s managed to bury it somehow.
      1. I remember seeing him–assuming it’s the same fellow–on TV, badly dressed with a bad haircut, going by the one name, Kennedy. I thought, if you’re going to go by one name, then Midori, say, may be tolerable, but Kennedy?
  13. 57:48. Very tough! All correct and parsed in the end, but had to check YEASTY and STY and E.G. for “as” and cheat to find FINGERBOWL. I liked the double triples at 20 and 23A.
  14. My notes say “Hard” and that I only managed to solve 6 clues in a long first session. FOI was LET US PRAY, appropriate for what turned out to be an impossibly difficult puzzle. Perhaps the solving process could be described as yeasty?
    I got quite a few before I gave up. I too was mystified by the instructions in 23d. I was nowhere near LAND GIRL despite having all the checkers.
    For some reason I thought of DUN ROAMIN when I first read 25a but I did get SUN KISSED after which I was dun solvin.
    David
  15. DNF. I ground this one out over an hour and three minutes only to find that I had a typo in Aaron’s rod leading to one pink square. Definitely at the harder end of the spectrum for me so glad to come here and find others thought so too. The top half went in ok but I struggled after that. I liked memory lane, bacon and vicarious but was a bit meh about some of the others, spit (though mainly because the third of the triple definitions was unknown), sheer where I thought the homophone was indicated in a clumsy and roundabout way, yeasty for turbulent and iron mine which just felt a bit of a random definition.

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