Times 29307 – pardon me! let’s get colloquial.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Quite an interesting one today, with a mix of classic clues along with some more more idiomatic answers (not much cop, on the money, neat for awesome, for example). I had to guess the protein food but everything else was fair dinkum. I liked ‘botheration’ and ‘burp’.

Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, DD = double definition, [deleted letters in square brackets].

Across
1 Cleaner thus hoovers up half of village post office (7)
SHAMPOO – SO (thus) has HAM[let] and PO inserted.
5 Slavic rider’s bag of lettuce? (7)
COSSACK – COS lettuce, SACK.
9 Opening of olfactory organ a lot (3)
OFT – O[lfactory], FT an organ, the pink paper.
10 Scotsman of power has Queen shut in throne room! (5,6)
WATER CLOSET – WATT (Scot who worked on steam power) with ER, CLOSE inserted.
11 Sanction for use in cigarette lighter (3,5)
GAS POKER – OK (sanction) inside GASPER, old slang for a fag.
12 Supply worker with what high-protein food (6)
TEMPEH – TEMP a supply worker, EH? = what? Apparently tempeh is one of those foods made from fermented soya beans, as all you vegetarians will doubtless know. I guessed it.
15 Awesome   as it is, landlord! (4)
NEAT – DD, neat meaning pretty good, neat without water added.
16 Lousy  Constable miniature? (3,4,3)
NOT MUCH COP – DD, one amusingly cryptic.
18 Could one be in flat — here? (10)
MAISONETTE – took me a minute’s thought to see how this works, although the answer was clear from the checkers. FLAT is MATTE, you insert IS ONE (?)  which = COULD ONE BE (?).
19 Result of knocking back last of lager in bar? (4)
BURP – PUB with [lage]R in it, reversed, &lit.
22 Stake between poles in French city (6)
NANTES – ANTE = stake, inside N, S. One of the nicest French cities.
23 Blue cheese finally introduced to producer of wine list (8)
CERULEAN – CRU (wine producer) with E (end of cheese) inserted, then list = LEAN.
25 Fuelled by oxygen, another bit exploding in blast! (11)
BOTHERATION – (O ANOTHER BIT)*.
27 Discharge extremists ejected from demonstration (3)
ARC – [m[ARC[h].
28 Left, with flag in appropriate colour? (7)
RETIRED – TIRE (flag) inside RED (right colour for left).
29 VIP well stocked with foreign cash? (7)
GRANDEE –  GEE ! (well!) with RAND = foreign cash, inserted. Is gee! really an English expression, or is this another Americanism?
Down
1 What might have pumped bullet ultimately into military leader? (7)
SHOTGUN – [bulle]T inside SHOGUN a Japanese military leader. Dodgy &lit., as shotguns don’t fire bullets?
2 Evidence when waiting for the train, hours slipping away (11)
ATTESTATION – AT THE STATION loses its H.
3 Captive to arouse great enthusiasm in discussion (6)
POWWOW – POW (captive) WOW! = great enthusiasm.
4 Exact location of the King’s Head? (2,3,5)
ON THE MONEY – Well, the King’s head is on banknotes these days, I think. And new coins.
5 County   seal (4)
CORK – DD. Ireland’s largest county.
6 Prominence of unusual case circumventing legal right (8)
SALIENCE – (CASE)* with LIEN inserted.
7 Idiot equally soft in the head (3)
ASS – AS = equally, S[oft].
8 Sauce finished at bottom of vessel (7)
KETCHUP – KETCH a vessel, UP = finished.
13 Romeo incarcerated by movie villain — King, say? (7,4)
PICTURE CARD – This was easier than I’d feared at first, as I know of few movie villains; but it’s simply R inside a PICTURE CAD.
14 Little stuff in grass (10)
SMATTERING – MATTER (stuff) inside SING = grass.
17 Approach sign on end of avenue while driving, seemingly? (4,4)
COME NEAR – OMEN (sign) E (end of avenue) all inside CAR. I supposed ‘inside car’ means while driving, at a stretch.
18 Cooler call from little lamb, by the sound of it? (7)
MINIBAR – well, a mini-baa could be a little cry from a lamb? Most minibars I find in hotels aren’t switched on to cool, they’re just there to offer you ridiculously overpriced warm beer or tonic.
20 Roast a cook cut in style (7)
PANACHE –  PAN (roast) A CHE[f].
21 Pound plus shilling where the franc is currency (6)
GUINEA – 21 shillings in a guinea, I was once taught, and the currency in Guinea is indeed the Guinean franc.
24 Housekeeper cooked for the auditor? (4)
MAID – sounds like MADE = cooked, as in “I made breakfast”. I’m not sure proper housekeepers would appreciate being called maids, but so be it.
26 Drop of the hard stuff,   little one (3)
TOT – DD.

 

66 comments on “Times 29307 – pardon me! let’s get colloquial.”

  1. 64 minutes. I found this hard to finish although I had done quite well early on picking off the easier clues. TEMPEH is making its TfTT debut today. The unlikely-looking CERULEAN has appeared only once in a 15×15 (2021) but has cropped up three times in Jumbos when I also didn’t know it.

    GAS POKER took me back to my childhood. One can hardly believe now that these lethal devices were commonly found in homes in those days!

    I struggled to come up with NEAT and once it was in I struggled again to parse it. I wondered if there may be a third definition, a type of landlord, a thought that Google indulged with an AI explanation when I search on ‘neat landlord’, but this was not supported in the usual dictionaries. I include this below for your amusement and to serve as a warning – or perhaps it really is a thing and AI knows best:

    The term “neat landlord” likely refers to a landlord who is particular about the condition of their rental property, especially regarding cleanliness and maintenance. This could mean they expect tenants to maintain a high standard of cleanliness and may have specific requirements in the lease agreement. Legally, while a landlord cannot force a tenant to use a professional cleaning service, they can expect the property to be returned in a similar condition to when the tenancy began, as documented in the inventory report.

    1. Reminds me of a viral screenshot I saw yesterday in which the landlord reminded the students that their rent had been 50p short that month! Interesting that professional cleaning can’t be legally forced – I believe it can (and was, on me) in Switzerland.

    2. I think NEAT is simply a DD – “as it is, landlord” = barkeeper, please refrain from adding soda to my triple scotch, thank you very much

      1. Thanks. Yes, I realised that when I read Pip’s blog, but missed it whilst solving.

    3. I regret the loss of the Gas Poker; they were great and better by far than the blowtorch I have to use today!

      1. I’ve seen an electric poker device used in a local pub that has an open wood-burning fire. Another one still uses firelighter sticks.

  2. I had fun here despite giving up with 4 unfinished (GUINEA, CERULEAN, ARC, PANACHE) at 40′. CERULEAN will be very familiar to anyone who played Pokemon as a child.

    I liked BOTHERATION, especially because yesterday I looked through the archives to see if TRICKERATION had ever appeared in a crossword. (It hadn’t.)

    How does ‘arc’ = ‘discharge’, please?

      1. I think BURP had my mind in the gutter and I was thinking of an arc of phlegm. I blame televised football!

      2. Ah right, thank you! Thought Wiktionary had come up short for once, but now I look again it’s there as def 5 of Arc: “A flow of current across an insulating medium; especially a hot, luminous discharge either between two electrodes or as lightning.” So even the synonym itself was there.

      3. Not forgetting the Van Der Graaff generator from my schooldays (and the band…).

  4. 40 mins without parsing COME NEAR or MAISONETTE, although ‘omen’ in the former looks clear as day now. I think getting CERULEAN early, having tried ‘lean’ for ‘list’, was what cracked the SE corner for me, otherwise it might have taken over an hour. TEMPEH went in over the less-fancied HELPEH (phew)

    COD to NOT MUCH COP. Thanks blogger and setter!

  5. 25.50
    Tricky, but fair (though OFT was a bit of a stretch).
    Biffed WATER CLOSET, guessed TEMPEH.
    LOI GUINEA
    COD ATTESTATION

  6. Enjoyed this a lot, dnf in 26′. Had ‘stengun’ as a mistake, hence never got OFT. Some wonderful idioms today.

    Liked MINIBAR, although on holidays it’s not been used if there’s a minimarket nearby.

    Thanks pip and setter.

  7. 75 minutes with LOI CERULEAN. My brain’s now aching with too many connections tangled together, particularly from the NOT MUCH COP/ ON THE MONEY intersection. TEMPEH was in by faith. I’ve never heard of a GAS POKER. I gather they’re for outside use. As proud chief fire lighter of our domestic coal fire in the fifties, one match was the expectation. Those matches don’t grow on trees, at least not the phosphorus. WOD to BOTHERATION, although other letters are usually used between the B and the RATION. COD to MINIBAR, which opened up the SW for me today. At the limit of ny abilities, this one. Thank you Pip and setter.

  8. 25 minutes

    – Didn’t know that Watt was Scottish for WATER CLOSET
    – Hadn’t heard of gasper as old slang for a cigarette, but trusted it to get GAS POKER
    – Relied on wordplay for the unknown TEMPEH
    – Had no idea how MAISONETTE worked
    – Needed a currency trawl to get GUINEA

    Thanks piquet and setter.

    FOI Oft
    LOI Guinea
    COD Not much cop

    1. I’d forgotten GASPER too until it appeared as an answer in last Friday s 15×15. Maybe you didn’t solve that day, as I don’t think you commented?

      1. I did comment that day, as it happens, and I got GASPER – clearly I have the memory of a goldfish. Though it was defined as ‘smoke’ rather than explicitly using ‘cigarette’, so maybe that’s why I didn’t make the connection today.

    2. I think you’ll find WATT is Scottish for James Watt, pretty much the father of steam power, allegedly inspired by his aunt’s tea- kettle.

      1. That was what I meant, that I didn’t know James Watt was Scottish. Sorry, I phrased it badly!

  9. 20:07

    I found the top half pretty easy (apart from TEMPEH) and the bottom half pretty hard. It was almost as if two setters hade done a half each.

    I liked the picture cad and the bag of lettuce.

    Thanks Pip and setter(s).

  10. Just under 1 hour and pleased with that. V. tough I thought but the breakthroughs kept coming often enough to stop me giving up.
    NHO GAS POKER but otherwise had all the GK and everything parsed.
    I first encountered TEMPEH in a Thai restaurant ca.1990. OTOH I struggle with all the trad. meat cuts/dishes clues.
    HO CERULEAN pertaining to sky, poss one by Cezanne.
    A puzzle of the first water, thanks setter and piquet.

  11. Done in around 22 minutes, definitely on the wavelength this morning and lucky with gasper being so recently encountered. Couldn’t parse MAISONETTE or WATER CLOSET, so thanks to blogger for those. And to the setter for a fair test.

  12. What a fantastic crossword, very tricky to get to grips with, slick in wordplay and definitions. Laughs out loud with both NOT MUCH COP and ON THE MONEY, and a dose of “you what?!” with TEMPEH. Broad smiles at MINIBAH, NEAT (cheers!) and the nostalgic GAS POKER, listed under “things that make us wonder how we survived the 50’s”.
    On another day, I might have complained at the 31 minutes needed to crack it all, but not when it’s so much fun.

  13. 69 minutes. Like boltonwanderer, this puzzle was at the limit of my abilities. Definitely harder than yesterday and Monday but enjoyable and no complaints. LOI was MAISONETTE, which I didn’t bother to parse and I doubt I ever would have worked it out. TEMPEH was unknown but possible and I also had trouble with ATTESTATION, not a word I’ve seen before for ‘evidence’. Yes, I remembered GASPER having appeared recently which saved me for GAS POKER which I didn’t know as a “thing”.

  15. BOTHERATION is Winnie the Pooh, isn’t it? Very much enjoyed this, but had to resort for aids for the unknown TEMPEH and also – to my vast regret – NOT MUCH COP, which I now see is a fabulous clue. Might have got both given enough time, but I never have it.

    1. Exactly! Neither do I (have much time), and although I’m officially retired, I seem to be busier than ever! So I tend to rush the morning crossword and cheat when I’ve given a clue a fair go and come up with nothing. With really fun crosswords like this one, I always wish I’d afforded it a bit more time.

  16. The NW corner went in pretty much straight away, with TEMPEH known, but then I ground to a halt, and all the rest was jolly hard work. I never parsed MAISONETTE or COME NEAR and there was a lot of hesitant pencilling in of potential crossers to aid a completion. However, woe! as having got ‘gasper’, I could only think of GAS POWER as fitting the remaining blanks and took it on trust that OW was an acronym for something meaning ‘sanction’. I’m pretty sure that my parents never had such a contraption – as BW says, a match was sufficient until central heating came to our home. I particularly liked WATER CLOSET and BURP. LOI was NEAT, which I would have said was considerably milder than awesome.

  17. Definitely on the harder side, I thought, but fun.
    Nho tempeh but I am basically a carnivore.
    Failed to parse maisonette but wrote it in anyway..
    Mer at bullets in a shotgun, though it is technically possible. Normally they fire pellets, ie shot. Clue in name.

    1. Yep, solid slug shotguns are a thing but you’d not refer to the projectile as a bullet. Another clue reflecting Brits’ generally poor knowledge/understanding of firearms.

      1. Not surprising as they are not generally allowed to own them! The number of FACs is shrinking rapidly as the regulations tighten and get more and more onerous. I gave mine up some years ago.. still plenty of shotgun certs around, many in the hands of folk who can’t really be trusted with them.

        1. Technically the definition in 1dn is just ‘what might have pumped’, so a reference to the pump action on some SHOTGUNs. No bullets required. That’s how I read it anyway.
          I looked up the stats and while it is true that the number of FACs is declining (from a peak of 583k in 2014 to 483k in 2025) the number of firearms per certificate is increasing by a similar amount. I wonder if this reflects people choosing to use a rifle owned by their local shooting range rather than bother with all the red tape of owning themselves.

          1. Good point about the shotgun, I didn’t separate the def. at the right place, clearly.
            As far as FACs are concerned you would think that if firearms owned by clubs are being shared the total number would go down? Club firearms would not appear on a private FAC, they have different licensing arrangements. If fewer people want more guns each I’m not sure I like the sound of that. But hey, past all that now and not sorry.

            1. If fewer of a shooting range’s customers own their own rifles then they would – all other things being equal – need to own more themselves. But as you say not relevant if it’s a completely different licence.

  18. I found this tough and a DNF as I had GAS POWER instead of GAS POKER, which I’d never heard of.

  19. When SHAMPOO, CORK and COSSACK popped straight into place I though it was going to be an easy puzzle. Wrong! A cracker though. I remember using a GAS POKER many years ago. Lethal devices indeed! NHO TEMPEH but it seemed possible. Held up at the end by SMATTERING and LOI, NOT MUCH COP, which induced a chortle. The MINIBAR was a highlight too. Didn’t bother to parse MAISONETTE. 38:22. Thanks setter and Pip.

  20. 35:50 – glad to see others found this tricky too; I thought it might be me having an off day. Initially couldn’t get past what seemed like a dodgy definition of NOT MUCH COP as “miniature” until I saw the real definition was at the other end; one of many stumbles in an excellent puzzle.
    .

  21. Thank you to piquet and setter. This started fairly easy then got a bit sticky. I was slow with 9a Oft, 17d Come near 15a Neat and 1d Shogun.
    POI 19a Water closet. Several people said James Watt was rather specialised knowledge earlier this week.
    11a Gas Poker. The gasper again!
    12a NHO Tempeh. I think I probably said that last time it popped up.
    18a Maisonette biffed. I think that was rather overcomplicated.
    17d Come near. Is this Green Paint?

  22. I’m now of an age my short term memory is less than reliable. But I do recall being impressed by ‘Not much cop’ when I first encountered it several years ago.

  23. I made very heavy weather of this, taking closer to two hours than to one, although it was all more or less understandable in retrospect. In 15ac it looks as if the landlord was included to make things easier, but he didn’t, having quite the opposite effect and I was looking for a triple definition for ages. I was unaware of the lethality of gas pokers: my mother used to use one for lighting the fire, and it was very neat (not awesome, just neat).

  24. Very annoyed as spent ages trying to fit something for pound and shilling around and for plus. Tried Rwanda but made no sense. Got the u and shoved in Luanda as L for pound. Guinea is so obvious

    1. I had a very similar experience (with added ‘could S for shilling be involved?’), and I’m not quite sure how the answer eventually dropped out of the ether – a bit of a lucky one.

      1. I was wondering if it might be The Maldives, or with the ‘plus shilling’, somewhere with plenty of S’s like Saragossa, though of course that’s not a country.

  25. V good indeed, though I had no clue how my LOI MAISONETTE worked. Thanks to Piquet for that and the blog.

    Enjoyed NOT MUCH COP and BURP.

    21:53

  26. Enjoyable puzzle with a DNF at CERULEAN which I maybe should have been more patient with. Thanks Piquet and setter

  27. A most enjoyable midweek experience. I liked pretty much all of them, but espcially Burp and Attestation. Like Pip I was glad we didn’t need a movie villain – the only one I could think of before I got properly on track was Bloefeld. Thank you setter and Ed.

    I think of three letter words as being ubiquitous, so I was surprised at how few there are ending in “C” and how relatively few there are ending in “S”.

  28. Excellent crossword.

    Joint CODS to “on the money, burp, minibar and not much cop.”

    Many thanks to P and setter.

  29. 69:09. that was tricky! NHO GAS POKER but seemed to make sense from the wordplay. COD was NEAT. I yet again failed to see the significance of a pound plus a shilling to make GUINEA. great fun though
    thanks both!

    1. A Guinea is a measure of money equal to 21 shillings. Used to price racehorses for sale, among other things

  30. 13:19. Excellent puzzle. I got a bit lucky with the GK: I vaguely knew both TEMPEH and FIRE POKER, but I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what either really was. If forced to guess I’d have said the former was some sort of Middle-Eastern food, like tabbouleh or freekeh.

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