Times 27619 – Silent as the deathless gods!

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Time: 27 minutes
Music: Beethoven Piano Concerto 2, Fleisher/Szell/Cleveland Orchestra

I thought this was going to be difficult at first, as I could not see any obvious answers in the top half of the grid.   Skipping down the bottom, I saw ‘nugatory’ and worked my way up from there.  I had the whole bottom half done in less than ten minutes, but the top proved a little more difficult.   While there were some chestnuts here, there were also some novel cryptic techniques that forced the solver to think outside the box.   If there had been any unusual vocabulary or obscure references to a UK-specific comedian or TV show, I would have been stuck.    However, in the end, I found that you could let the cryptics be your guide.

I have nothing else to report, except that I have made steady progress on my income tax, and all ten forms I have to file are now seem to be totally correct.  When I am done, I will start digging up and reseeding my lawn.  So on we go….

Across
1 Spies following lead casing the French port (8)
VALENCIA – VA(LE)N + CIA.   Unfortunately, I wasted a lot of time on PB.
6 Look — a ghost about to vanish! (6)
ASPECT – A SPECT[re]. 
9 A United Nations programme? (3,5,2,3)
THE WORLD AT ONE – The obvious answer, even though as an American I NHO the literal, since we can’t listen to the BBC here.
10 Get out with this key (6)
ESCAPE – Double definition referring to what you’ve got on your computer keyboard, which may or may not allow you to escape what you’re in. 
11 Fruit punch included black mineral (8)
GRAPHITE – GRAP(HIT)E – there’s no B in it!
13 Boisterous enough to render sailor unconscious? (10)
KNOCKABOUT – KNOCK AB OUT, presumably more boisterous than is needed to knock out an OS.
15 Writer in bloom having to drop empty idea (4)
DAHL -DAHL[ia], where I[de]A is what is dropped.   Roald Dahl has been appearing frequently recently.
16 Italian town’s main road crossing smaller thoroughfare? (4)
ASTI – A(ST)I, a new clue for an old answer.
18 Extremely happy being in charge, likely to boom? (10)
HYPERSONIC – H[app]Y PERSON + I.C, causing a sonic boom
21 Margaret keeping one next to Nancy’s black robe (8)
PEIGNOIR – PE(I)G + NOIR, which is black in Nancy, France.
22 Chinese religious system Maoist altered (6)
TAOISM – Anagram of MAOIST, an easy starter clue.
23 Remembering career as bodyguard? (7,2,4)
CALLING TO MIND – Double definition, one semi-jocular.
25 Coat to take to the cleaners (6)
FLEECE – Double definition, this one straight. 
26 Turning over weapon, a politician is useless (8)
NUGATORY – GUN backwards + A TORY, the most like sort of politician in these clues.
Down
2 Technician denies power to ardent supporter (7)
ARTISAN – [p]ARTISAN, a well-hidden chestnut.
3 Remarkable as Odyssey evidently is? (3-8)
EYE-CATCHING – A derivitave of a hidden in [odyss]EY E[evidently],  an indirect cryptic.
4 Vital to tour hospital as part of routine (5)
CHORE – C(H)ORE. 
5 Completely self-obsessed Romeo breaks fast (7)
ALLEGRO – ALL EG(R)O, more Nato alphabet shenanigans. 
6 White substance provided as one preparing joint? (9)
ALABASTER – ALA BASTER, well-deserving of a question mark!
7 Player earning roubles invested with Italian banker (3)
PRO – P(R)O.
8 Fast runner no sporting type we’re told (7)
CHEETAH –  Cheetah, a chestnut.
12 Go to mess with shirty old scientist (11)
HYDROLOGIST –  Anagram of GO + SHIRTY OLD.
14 Goddess in Paphos, undressed, tried to change (9)
APHRODITE – Anagram of [p]APHO[s] + TRIED.
17 Plain concept is revolutionary, used regularly as template (7)
STENCIL – [p]L[a]I[n] C[o]N[c]E[p]T [i]S backwards, a bit tricky.
19 Journey north to support soldier reveals pattern (7)
PARAGON – PARA + GO + N, a ‘pattern’ in the sense of a ideal to follow, an older usage. 
20 Privileged member wearing crimson is on the rise (7)
INSIDER – IN + RED IS upside-down.
22 Ton pig eats new leather strip (5)
THONG – T + HO(N)G, readily biffable.
24 Caustic liquid left, yet unfinished (3)
LYE – L + YE[t], another easy one.

61 comments on “Times 27619 – Silent as the deathless gods!”

  1. I thought of PB at 1ac, too, but fortunately I decided quickly that it wouldn’t go with CIA; it still took me a while to get the VALEN. DNK the program. A couple of what should have been gimmes weren’t; THONG, and POI (!) CHEETAH. Biffed STENCIL, twigged post-submission. You may take some (small) comfort, Vinyl, that you’re not an expat: you’d still have the IRS forms, plus the tax where you live; I believe the US is the only country that requires its overseas citizens to file, and to pay income tax. A couple of missing definition underlines, V: 6ac, 3d, 22d, 24d.
  2. A long running lunchtime radio favourite, for the politically interested.

    FOI 12dn HYDROLOGIST

    LOI 17dn STENCIL

    COD & WOD 21ac PEIGNOIR

    38 minutes with interruptions! Another sunny day in Shanghai and no taxes for the retired. I have to pay tax in UK but only om my state pension. If only America would grasp a bit of socialism, it would save double tax forms etc.

    Edited at 2020-03-23 03:15 am (UTC)

  3. 40 minutes. ASTI as a wine is a chestnut but I’m not entirely sure I ever knew it as a town.

    THE WORLD AT ONE is a BBC radio programme rather than TV and is available on BBC Sounds throughout the world as is the entire BBC radio output unless restricted by unfriendly government intervention.

    1. If, like me, you own an old smartphone (everything is relative) you may not be able to get BBC Sounds which requires the latest OS, but in South Africa at least I can listen happily on BBC iPlayer Radio. Jeffrey
  4. My FOI was NUGATORY too, and worked the bottom half first (save for the rather obvious ESCAPE). Never heard of the program(me). I may have liked 3d the best.

    Edited at 2020-03-23 06:04 am (UTC)

  5. 23 mins so pretty fast for me. Lots of clues where I didn’t bother with the wordplay and just biffed them from checkers: STENCIL, APHRODITE, etc. Since I lived on Valencia Street until recently, in San Francisco, 1A was a write-in from spies=CIA. I could see the EYE in Odyssey evidently (you’ve got an extra “e” in there in the blog btw) and I could see how the clue worked, but took me forever to think of CATCHING as the verb.
  7. This was definitely something of a triumph for me having gone to pot solving wise last week. My head really wasn’t in it then but today I managed to concentrate the whole way through and not once contemplate a stupid virus.

    My only hold up was a couple of minutes at the end looking for ASPECT and my LOI ALABASTER. As vinyl says well worthy of a question mark, but on balance I liked the wittiness of it.

  8. 16:00. Held up at the end by CHEETAH and ASPECT. Like vinyl, I found the bottom half easier than the top. I liked EYE-CATCHING.
  9. 23 minutes. LOI ASPECT, but only because I reached the NE last. I didn’t know if it was going to be PEIGNOIR or MEIGNOIR but fortunately I thought the former sounded more likely as a garment. COD to EYE-CATCHING. I liked DAHL too. I struggled as to why it was PARAGON until I remembered the words of Once in Royal David’s City. Nice Monday puzzle. Thank you V and setter
  10. As ever, of course. 15.42 saw me through, with VALENCIA going straight in to get things started. As Paul says, if you go spies=CIA there aren’t many options.
    You have to admire a reverse every other letter clue, especially as “plain concept” was a shoo in for SIERRAN, surely, given the first two checkers.
    Couldn’t resist including the pic of my favourite cheetah: both he and I were very much alive at the time, in case anybody is in any doubt.
  11. 28 minutes on this sunny morning in Bristol, though there’s not much else to see out of the window. I expect my street to be much quieter this week than it was last week, as the primary school opposite is now closed.

    Anyway, yes, the puzzle: FOI 4d CHORE after working out that 1a was likely to end CIA, then mostly worked downwards, enjoying 23a CALLING TO MIND along the way, then rising back up on the 12d HYDROLOGIST through the cunning 11a GRAPHITE to finish off with 8d CHEETAH and LOI 6a ASPECT.

    Enjoyably tripped up by the clueing here and there: as well as trying to stick a B in 11a I was also trying to crowbar a GI in 19d PARAGON. Pretty straightforward other than that, though, especially as I remembered what a PEIGNOIR was.

  12. 30 mins, eating yoghurt, granola, etc, lazing in my peignoir.
    Neat and tidy, no dramas. I quite enjoyed calling to mind the world at one.
    Thanks setter and Vinyl.
  13. 9:39. No dramas, but as vinyl notes the top half was a lot harder than the bottom.
    THE WORLD AT ONE is currently presented by Sarah Montague, an excellent journalist who presented Radio 4’s flagship Today programme for many years. She left in quite justified disgust when she discovered that she was paid less than a quarter as much as one of her older male (and, some might say, rather less excellent) co-presenters.
    For some reason the word ALABASTER is forever associated for me with Richard III:

    “O thus” quoth Dighton, “lay those gentle babes.”
    “Thus, thus,” quoth Forrest, “girdling one another
    Within their alabaster innocent arms.
    Their lips were four red roses on a stalk,
    And in their summer beauty kissed each other.
    A book of prayers on their pillow lay,
    Which once,” quoth Forrest, “almost changed my mind,
    But O, the devil—” There the villain stopped;
    When Dighton thus told on: “We smothered
    The most replenished sweet work of nature
    That from the prime creation e’er she framed.”

    Edited at 2020-03-23 08:57 am (UTC)

  14. 15:30 online. I’m still struggling with navigation and can’t type as quickly as I can write. Like Vinyl I struggled to get a foothold at first but then was able to pick clues off once there were checkers around.

    I half-ninja-turtled Peignoir from a character in Fawlty Towers.

    Thankfully the goddess and musical term were fairly “common” ones. I went to Valencia for the Champions League semi-final with Leeds in 2001. I don’t remember there being a port but it was a very long walk from the beach to the city centre.

  15. Doh!
    Having recently reread the tale of Polyphemus, I had EYE-WATERING.
    Nice clue.
  16. A good start to the week as I commence what could be a while in isolation.

    COD: FLEECE, simple but both halves of the clue make sense
    Didn’t spot the hidden EYE in EYE-CATCHING, I was thinking of cyclopses (cyclopes?). I don’t understand how the surface for THONG is supposed to work.

    Vinyl, shouldn’t you say ‘cheater’ instead of ‘cheetah’ in your explanation?

    Answer inspired by a clue: since no-one got my puzzle from last week, I’ll give a clue. The puzzle was:
    i) H, He, Li, Be, C, F, Mg, Ar
    ii) I, II, V
    Isla was right that these correspond to 1,2,3,4,6,9,12,18
    and 1,2,5 respectively. What are those numbers in each case?

    Question inspired by a clue: what is the carbon molecule with the same structure of pentagons and hexagons as a football called?

    1. I’ll say Buckminsterfullerene, not because I’m confident it’s right, but because it’s my go-to answer whenever this sort of question comes up…
      1. As part of my MSc in Pure Mathematics I wrote a 10000 word dissertation on fullerenes. Csubscript60 is by far the most common. Unfortunately the football was replaced by a new branded thing a few years ago.
    2. It appeared as an answer in a jumbo a couple of years ago. See here.

      Edited at 2020-03-23 10:04 am (UTC)

    3. What was wrong with my answer on Thursday? (i) 1,2,3,4,6,9,12,18 are factors of 36 (which is Krypton coded as an element). (ii) 1,2,5 are factors of X (which is 10 in Roman numerals). Taken together we have Krypton Factor(s) and X Factor(s).

      SD

    4. On the number puzzle I arrived at the same answer as “anonymous” late in the day last week, viz:

      i) Krypton Factor (the atomic numbers listed being all the factors of 36, which is the atomic number of Krypton)
      ii) X Factor (1,2 and 5 being factors of 10, or X in Roman numerals)

      Not helped by the fact that Krypton Factor is not a show here in Oz, at least not to my recollection)

      Thanks, btw, for the puzzles

      2. The Krypton factor was on in Oz in the 1980s. I got a trip to NZ out of it as a contestant because it was filmed in Dunedin!
  17. Like you, Vinyl, I wasted too much time on PB in 1ac.
    Thank you for explaining STENCIL
    I love Beethoven. He was the real “Riffmeister”. “Roll over Chuck Berry” I say!
    At these stressful times, though, I find Arvo Pärt very restful.
    Don’t know if it would interest you but I used to be a subscriber to the Berlin Phil’s online Digital Concert Hall. I stopped my subscription about two years ago but three days ago or so I received an e-mail from them telling me that because they have had to shut the Philharmonie in Berlin, they are offering a months free subscription. All you have to do is go to their website digitalconcerthall.com and put in the code -on the screen- as instructed.

  18. My first contribution for a while as I’m recovering from surgery. Being confined to the house is no problem as I can’t walk far anyway! Might get a bit tedious as time moves on

    I managed yesterday’s Mephisto (shouldn’t cause you too many problems Vinyl) and now this standard offering. The best bit was being reminded of The World at One – excellent radio programme

    1. Great to see you back, Jim and through the op ordeal. Wishing you a speedy recovery with full mobility restored asap.
  19. Straightforward Monday stuff, apart from PEIGNOIR (one of those words which I recognised as a word when the wordplay indicated that was what it was, even though I would have struggled to define it out of context). I would be obliged if the editor could be sure to make Mondays easy and Fridays difficult for the next few weeks or months, just to help bring some structure to my calendar, now that all the days in isolation have started to seem the same…
  21. Nicely pitched for a Monday, given our current situation here in UK and elsewhere, as this one had some spice to it. So, easy-ish, I would opine. COD EYE-CATCHING with many other nice clues, and some neat footwork around the old chestnutty inclusions.

    I’m going slowly crazy here, but thank goodness for crosswords. And if TV could up its quota of good old films, so much the better.

    1. BBC2 showed Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes yesterday, and it turned out to be a much crazier film than I remembered.
      1. I finally got to watch “The Pink Panther” on Saturday. Anything’s better than Ant & bloody Dec !
    2. Have you tried Talking Pictures TV. It’s on all the free platforms as well as Sky and cable
  22. For me alabaster is forever associated with a song by Jake Thakeray, about a young lady with “breasts like apples, skin like alabaster..” .. slightly naughty but still felt OK to go out on the Tonight Programme, with Cliff Michelmore
    1. I you like Jake Thackray and you’re on Facebook, look up John Watterson who performs as Fake Thackray. I saw him live at the Theatre Club in Middlesbrough recently and he’s great. He is in touch with Jake’s family and has some previously unknown archive material.
  23. 25’25, steady solve. So that’s what a peignoir is. To have been half-haunted by Wallace Stevens’ phrase for nigh on an adult lifetime and to have imagined it was a drawing-room or lounge of some kind . . . seems all too typically inept of me. Yet I think I probably knew, underneath.
  25. Challenging start to the week, 28.27. LOI was eye catching after initially thinking eye watering, never quite got that except in remembering what happened to Polyphemus. Seems I over analysed. The World at One was wrongly ignored for awhile too which made alabaster even more obscure than it needed to be. Finally , cheated on peignoir. Worked out meignoir which I think is close enough to allow if you didn’t know the right word!
  26. ….thanks to Steffani on the Times Help Desk, whose simple instruction to uninstall and then reinstall the app hit the jackpot.

    I suppose an apt toast to her should be with a glass of ASTI on the corner of Holloway Road and Seven Sisters Road next time I hit the capital. More likely I’ll raise a decent pint of real ale in the Southampton Arms in Kentish Town !

    No major problems here, although I had to eliminate letters from the anagrist for HYDROLOGIST, and STENCIL was, like Kevin, parsed afterwards.

    FOI ESCAPE
    LOI DAHL
    COD EYE-CATCHING
    TIME 8:56

    1. I fear we are stuck with drinking at home for some time. I’d better get another brew on.
  27. Only one I didn’t parse was EYE-CATCHING – very good.

    PEIGNOIR, I knew from reading [spoiler alert] the ‘dirty bits’ in Irving Wallace’s The Prize, aged around 13, where Claude’s mistress ‘parted her peignoir’ just before they um began to ahem…… interrupted moments later by his wife ringing up to say they had won the Nobel Prize.

    1. I remember it from “Day of the Jackal”, also aged about 13, but I read the whole book: “The countess’s peignoir fell open…”
  29. Like Penfold, I remembered Mme. Peignoir from Fawlty Towers, so 21a was no problem. 1a went straight in as I started from CIA and built the rest easily. I worked in an anticlockwise direction until I was held up by HYDROLOGIST, ALABASTER and LOI, GRAPHITE. 23:46. Thanks setter and V.

    Edited at 2020-03-23 03:04 pm (UTC)

  30. Not very Mondayish it seems the standard has gone up along with all the self-isolation. Never thought of PEG and MEIGNOIR didn’t seem likely, so that was a holdup. LOI ESCAPE because I only think of the key as ESC. At last I completed one correctly…

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