Times Cryptic 27434

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

I needed 55 minutes for a technical DNF. I found this a mixture of the very easy and the quite tricky plus two unknowns (at 5dn and 6dn) which I eventually gave up on and resorted to aids.

As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]

Across
1 Produced note before the signal to stop (8)
FATHERED – FA (note), THE, RED (signal to stop)
6 Coin in large pot (6)
COPPER – Two meanings, the second being a large receptacle for boiling water, usually for cooking or laundry. Originally merred at ‘copper’ in the singular for ‘coin’ but then I thought ‘Spare a copper, guv?’ and it all became clear.
9 Painter needing one paper getting another on first (13)
EXPRESSIONIST – EXPRESS (one paper), I (another – paper), ON, 1ST (first).  The Daily Express has been around forever and the I newspaper was discussed here quite recently. It started life as a cut-down version of The Independent but has since become…er…independent.
10 Laughing Stalin set about military leaders (6)
JOCOSE – JOE (Stalin) containing [set about] CO’S (military leaders). “During the Wohr”, as Uncle Albert used to say, the Man of Steel was referred to almost affectionately as ‘Uncle Joe’. In view of what we know now this might seem amazing, but at the time it was more about survival – “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” and all that.
11 Fancied slogan for subversive reporter? (8)
IMAGINED – Alternatively spaced this might be read as “I’M AGIN (the) ED(itor)”, which sounds vaguely subversive
13 Desperate need to put a Bible in the post (10)
STARVATION – A + RV (Bible – Revised Version) contained by [in] STATION (post)
15 Horse to follow flawlessly finding way through? (4)
PATH – PAT (flawlessly – off pat), H (horse). ‘Heroin’ rather than the quadruped, I think.
16 Better writing from woman husband shunned (4)
EDIT – EDIT{h} (woman) [husband shunned]. An edit may not actually be better than the orignal but the idea is that it should be.
18 Weird artist associated with opera in China (10)
PARANORMAL – RA (artist) + NORMA (opera) contained by [in] PAL (China – plate, CRS for ‘mate’)
21 Dry skin from here one might take off (8)
AIRSTRIP – AIR (dry), STRIP (skin)
22 Protein excess ends in muscle expansion (6)
GLUTEN – GLUT (excess), {muscl}E {expansio}N [ends]
23 Changing pants idea is so cool (13)
DISPASSIONATE – Anagram [changing] of PANTS IDEA IS SO
25 Railway out of extremely pleasant place with canals (6)
VENICE – VE{ry} NICE (extremely pleasant) [railway out]. ‘Birmingham’ wouldn’t fit.
26 Journalists in tea-shop occasionally drink (8)
ESPRESSO – PRESS (journalists) contained by [in] {t}E{a}S{h}O{p} [occasionally]
Down
2 Strange tales about firm that once flavoured beer (7)
ALECOST – Anagram [strange] of TALES containing [about] CO (firm). Aka ‘costmary’ this is an aromatic perennial plant.
3 Physician in box carried by massive animals (11)
HIPPOCRATES – CRATE (box) contained [carried] by HIPPOS (massive animals)
4 Former Kent player always up to conserve energy (5)
REEVE – EVER (always) reversed [up] containing [to conserve] E (energy). I nearly made a right prat of myself over the parsing of this clue as I wrote a long screed about a cricketer called REEVE who has never played for Kent, only Sussex, Warks and Somerset, and isn’t dead so he wouldn’t qualify for a Times crossword anyway. The explanation is of course that it’s a reference to the actor (player) Christopher Reeve whose most famous role was Superman, aka Clark Kent.
5 Kid has repaired one African garment (7)
DASHIKI –  Anagram [repaired] of KID HAS, I (one). One of my unfavourite types of clue in which an obscure foreign word is served up as an anagram. Eventually resorted to aids for this one. If anyone’s interested, SOED defines this as ‘a loose brightly coloured shirt or tunic, originally from W. Africa’.
6 Old European to sing about good in humans (3-6)
CRO-MAGNON – CROON (sing) contains [about] G (good) itself contained by [in] MAN (humans). More obscurity necessitating another visit to the dictionary (Collins, this time) where I found this: ‘an early type of modern human, Homo sapiens, who lived in Europe during late Palaeolithic times, having tall stature, long head, and a relatively large cranial capacity’.
7 Homer’s initial appears in irrational letter to Greeks (3)
PHI – H{omer} [‘s initial] contained by [appears in] PI (irrational)
8 Plea for short dash to provide medical help (7)
ENTREAT – EN (short dash – punctuation), TREAT (provide medical help)
12 Persistent nuisance lucky to avoid fine (11)
IMPORTUNATE – IMP (nuisance), {f}ORTUNATE (lucky) [to avoid fine]
14 Sweetener when wise man loses head over rotten meat (9)
ASPARTAME – {c}ASPAR (wise man – one of the Magi) [loses head], anagram [rotten] of MEAT. At first I thought the AS was clued by ‘when’ which gave me some problems sorting out the next section of parsing, but I got there eventually.
17 Decrease in expected wind level (7)
DWINDLE – Hidden [in] {expecte}D WIND LE{vel}
19 Sally ready to embrace East German (7)
RIPOSTE – RIPE (ready) contains [to embrace] OST (East – German)
20 Eternal fool to accept point by setter? (7)
AGELESS – ASS (fool) contains [to accept] GEL (setter) + E (point – of compass)
22 Set to reach maturity, needing to shed weight (5)
GROUP – GRO{w} UP (reach maturity) [shed weight]
24 Runner at last conquers Karakoram peak (3)
SKI – {conquer}S [at last], K1 (Karakoram peak). I biffed this of course as ‘runner /ski’ comes as second nature now.  I had no idea what the rest of the clue was about until I looked up ‘Karakoram’.

59 comments on “Times Cryptic 27434”

  1. Well I was going to say “Tuesday is the new Monday.” I guess knowing the two obscurities at 5 & 6 helped. Shrugged at 4dn assuming Reeve was a famous Kent cricketer, Superman flew right over my head. Failed to spot the I as a newspaper, though it’s been seen a few times before. Alecost has appeared before, too, and enabled me to confidently enter a mis-remembered alescot. Fortunately Uncle Joe soon fixed that. Didn’t know importunate as persistent.
    Otherwise I had H as a quadruped horse? When I used to go to the races the racebook had e.g. 3C 3F 4M 4H 4G as shorthand for 3-year-old colt and filly, 4-year-old mare, horse(entire/stallion), gelding. It seems to me that horse -> heroin -> H is one cryptic step too many, not dissimilar to indirect anagrams. Does that make sense? On the other hand I don’t think I’ve ever seen C, F, M or G as abbreviations, why should H be different?
      1. Indeed, vague memory is that E appeared a few weeks ago clued as “hallucinogenic”, a similar 3-point turn through the dictionary. And having checked I notice that my Chambers, which has no trouble making up non-words and pretending they’re words, does not include F,H,M,G as abbreviaions, whereas my Oxford does.
        1. Correct me if I’m wrong but, but … are you two actually referring to the nonsense that dictionaries come up with? And not getting slated for it either? Haha-just a friendly warning though-if you’re going to spout that sort of subversive nonsense on here, I advise investing in tin hats, the pair of you. Welcome to my world! I thought I was but a lone voice in the wilderness. Mr Grumpy
  2. No samlets for me today, thankfully. FOI PATH, LOI AIRSTRIP. 2d was my POI; it looked vaguely familiar, but I waited until I had all the checkers. 3d took a while, because I was taking ‘animals’ as the def, and looking for a DR or MB or whatever for ‘Physician’. My ignorance of cricket came in handy, since I assumed REEVE was a cricketer and never got the Superman allusion (I have ‘NHO’ written in the margin). We knew enough in the 30s to make ‘Uncle Joe’ an, ah, inappropriate epithet. No problem with K-1 or CRO-MAGNON; there have been a number of news items about their interbreeding with Neandertals.
    1. Yes, I think you are right about the 30s but when war came and the situation was becoming ever more desperate it suited the allies to turn a blind eye to all that. I doubt the leaders or the media were actually under any illusions about Stalin but he wasn’t a direct threat at that time and the ‘Uncle Joe’ thing was a way of brushing it all under the carpet for the moment.
      1. The show trials were what I was mainly thinking of; a large chunk of the left intelligentsia in the US managed to maintain their illusions, although they also led to large numbers of CPUSA members (including my parents, I suspect; I’m not sure when they quit) leaving the party. But I’m sure that as you say, the enemy of my enemy and all. (I forget the title of the Waugh novel where the hero is (prematurely) pleased at the Non-Aggression Pact, since all the bastards would be on the same, opposing side.)
        1. Many of these people managed to maintain their illusions after Robert Conquest published The Great Terror in 1968, leading to Kingsley Amis’s famous suggested subtitle for a later edition: ‘I told you so you f****** fools’.
          There were still people in the British left intelligentsia defending Stalin in the Guardian just a few short years ago. Nowadays such people advise the leader of the opposition.

          Edited at 2019-08-20 08:18 am (UTC)

        2. P.S. Kevin it strikes me that you might enjoy David Aaronovitch’s book Party Animals, if you haven’t already.
  3. All in after just on 50 minutes. Couldn’t parse the ‘wise man loses head’ in 14d, didn’t know what IMAGINED was all about and another to enter REEVE as just another county cricketer I’d never heard of – good misdirection.

    I have to confess that the hidden DWINDLE was my last in. I liked CRO-MAGNON and HIPPOCRATES.

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

  4. Much as others. Never twigged REEVE just used cryptic. Didn’t know DASHIKI and looked it up. Like Jack I don’t like anagrams of obscurities. Knew Jo Stalin of course and CRO Magnon a write-in. Well blogged Jack
    1. Well, one man’s obscurity etc. Dashikis were big enough in Berkeley, anyway, in the late 60’s-early 70’s. Including among white boys (not me! nor Nehru jackets nor bleeding Madras anything). And I even saw some in Nairobi.
  5. Knew DASHIKI via the medium of Frank Zappa, weirdly (You Are What You Is), but left it until the chubby checkers were in just to be sure. And CRO-MAGNON? Easy write-in!

    Great set of clues I thought, with REEVE a brilliant bit of skullduggery. Super, man.

    1. I thought I might be the only person who immediately started singing FZ to myself while solving, but you’re never alone on the internet…
  6. I had a teddy bear called Jo Stalin. I don’t remember us ever giving him an ‘e’ to become Joe. Pity, as otherwise JOCOSE would have been COD. That honour now goes to CRO-MAGNON man, who I think was still around when I was a lad and Stalin walked this planet. 28 minutes, with LOI DASHIKI after penultimate FATHERED fell into place, clearing up. the vowel positions in the garment. A decent challenge. Thank you Jack and setter.
  7. Another easy one, although failed to connect Clark and Christopher.
    No probs with cro-magnon .. and if you have D_S_I_I and a, h and k to fit in, what on earth else could it be? The A has to go second so only dashiki and daskihi are even possible. So a fair clue, imo. In Qatar they are called dishdash
    1. Surely a dashiki covers only upper half of the body whereas a thobe or thawb is an ankle-length garment. From the Arabic ثَوْب meaning garment. During my many years in the Gulf and Middle East I heard the article referred to most commonly as a thobe in Saudi Arabia & Bahrain, a dishdasha in Iraq, Kuwait and Oman and also as a kandarah in the UAE. Regards, Jeffrey
  8. I found this awkward. NHO DASHIKI and thanks jackkt for CASPAR and the “I” which went in un-parsed.
  9. 14:37 … knew all the necessary and somehow thought of Christopher Reeve without ever considering obscure county cricketers.

    A last-second edit saved me from social catastrophe with ‘expresso’ (which I did think was how you spelt it until about 2005)

    COD to JOCOSE, even though it never quite sounds like a proper word

  10. 47 minutes, so not too easy, but not too hard. I couldn’t parse 11a IMAGINED, but what else could it be, so that let me have the final letter I needed to arrange LOI 5d DASHIKI in the likeliest way, which turned out to be the correct way, too.

    Some words from my Big List came in handy—we’ve had “costmary” before so ALECOST is on there alongside it—but there were a few that need to be added to it, such as Caspar and his co-Magi.

    I thought 6d CRO-MAGNON was kind as there’s a potential definition at both ends—”Old European” and “humans”—so it was extra-biffable. I didn’t realise it was so little known.

    Edited at 2019-08-20 08:24 am (UTC)

  11. 30 mins pre-brekker.
    What’s an Alecost? About £7 during the Edinburgh fringe.
    NHO Dashiki so being an anagram was harsh.
    And not keen on ‘when’ as the connector in 14dn. As Jack (and I) found, it made parsing tricky.
    Thanks setter and J.
  12. It did hurt my brain for over an hour, but I was there or there abouts in an hour.

    I wanted 18ac to be TURANDOTIC; I started with a biffed 9ac IMPRESSIONIST and 3dn was HIPPOPOTAMI which it wasn’t! 6dn CRO-MAGNON was a write-in.

    Very lively and apposite discussion today. Looks like the red is still under bed.

    FOI 5dn DASHIKI (Zappa)

    LOI 22ac GLUTEN

    COD 4dn REEVE utterly brilliant! DNP (might this be added to The Glossary along with the other DNs?)

    WOD 14dn ASPARTAME (Nutra-sweet or E951) – where’s my barge pole?

    Edited at 2019-08-20 08:55 am (UTC)

  13. 13:58. Nice puzzle. I hadn’t heard of (or had forgotten) DASHIKI but I constructed it with complete confidence from the fodder. I don’t mind anagrams of funny words when you can work them out.
    ‘Former Kent player’ is rather brilliant. I missed it completely.

    Edited at 2019-08-20 08:06 am (UTC)

  14. I was scratching my head about REEVE because I knew Dermot Reeve didn’t play for Kent. He played for my county, Sussex and for Warwickshire, as you said. I think Sussex even won the Gillette Cup when he was playing for them.
    That’s a brilliant ploy to say “Kent player”.
    Thank you also for the explanation of EXPRESSIONIST.
    1. Did not think he was a Kent cricketer. And then convinced myself that Christopher must have been either a Man if Kent, or a Kentish Man! Not a super solution.
  15. As usual it was the easy ones that stumped me, in particular COPPER and ENTREAT, which were my LOIs. Did look up DASHIKI to be sure. Several biffs that I came here to parse, including VENICE, REEVE, AIRSTRIP. Liked the use of I newspaper, not seen it before.
  16. I missed the Superman connection and assumed REEVE was a cricketer. FATHERED was my FOI. I managed to avoid the hippo trap as well as the impressionist. A biffed PORCELAIN(E) held me up for a while and had me wondering why I couldn’t parse ENDLESS, but sanity returned when I remembered Norma. IMPORTUNATE helped too. VENICE was my LOI. Nice puzzle. 21:21. Thanks setter and Jack.
  18. I was rattling along with this puzzle but got stuck in the NE. Cro-Magnon went in hesitatingly and Dishaki had to be corrected before Imagined hoved into view.

    COD: RIPOSTE, for the amusing surface reading.

  19. There must be a term for those occasions when a setter comes up with something excellent and original, and is only let down by the fact that practically nobody spots it 🙁 As per practically everyone else, I couldn’t get past Dermot REEVE, who skippered my team Warwickshire to unprecedented success, even though I knew full well he’d never played for Kent, so ended up just biffing it and moving on. Sorry, setter.
  21. ….which was something of a miracle since DASHIKI and CRO-MAGNON were right at the back of my memory cupboard, and I never saw past Dermot REEVE despite thinking he’d never played for Kent. Indeed, when my ex-wife told me that Christopher REEVE had had his awful accident, I didn’t know who he was at the time.

    Also made life hard by carelessly biffing “impressionist”.

    FOU JOCOSE
    LOI ALECOST
    COD PARANORMAL
    TIME 18:48

  22. A rather leisurely 29.25, not seeing Superman, of course, or how GELE arrived in 20d (d’oh!)
    It also took me an unfeasible amount of time to realise that K2 (which I knew) might have a big sister on more or less the same planet.
    I also managed to try IMPRESSIONIST (press for paper and no idea otherwise) and HIPPOPOTAMI for the boxed doctor.
    DASHIKI imagined in – sadly, I remembered the sixties but not those bits.
    ASPARTAME (as I may have mentioned before) is, on my tongue, just about the bitterest substance on earth – even more so than that stuff they used to paint on your fingernails to discourage dentrimanicure.
    Nice blog, Jack, and a prize for rescuing the best clue for ages from the obscurity of Kent cricket.
  23. I gave up after 20 mins with 11a unentered, but having made up CRO-MEGNON at 6d. Plausible if (like me) you’d never heard of the actual answer.

    More annoyingly, I also got 14d wrong – I couldn’t remember if it was CASPAR or CASPER, nor the spelling of the sweetener, so I plumped for ASPERTAME.

    Lots of unknowns and tricky ones today, I thought: ALECOST, COPPER as a pot, JOCOSE, DASHIKI (obscure word & anagram = no-no)… a real struggle for me. I did, at least, spot the Kent reference fairly early and smiled to myself, having just finished listening to a podcast about Superman and Batman.

  24. Very slow start for me. I wanted “plea” in 8d to be “plead” or ENTREAT to be “entreaty”. 18.15
  25. A very haphazard solve today, as I have been doing this in between everything else, so no time at all. Quite slow to start off, then things picked up a bit.

    In fact, I will claim a technical DNF, as I checked DASHIKI before entering it. Can I claim first use of Verlaine’s suggested AOI of a couple of weeks ago? Anyway, it led to my POI of IMAGINED and then LOI (AIRSTRIP) which was hiding in plain (plane?) view.

    Once I got going, I enjoyed this: VENICE was nice and no problem with Cro-Magnon (visits to the caves of Les Eyzies helped with that). I got REEVE, trying to manufacture some sort of link with the Canterbury Tales – sheer desperation! So thanks for the explanation, Jack.

    FOI Phi
    LOI Airstrip
    PDM Riposte – took too long to parse even though I was sure of the answer
    COD Paranormal – like horryd, I wondered if Turandot was going to make an entrance

  26. Another who knew Dermot Reeve played for Warwickshire not Kent, and was impressed with the clue when I read the blog and saw Superman. Stupidly bunged in IMPRESSIONIST at 9a which made 2d impossible and then at the end had to guess ALECOST from wordplay and re-do 9a. The DASHIKI and the CRO MAGNON weren’t a problem. 23 minutes with a few wasted on the above wrong answer issue.
  28. Hit-and-miss, curate’s egg, what-you-will kinda puzzle: sheer brilliance of the used REEVE def should, imho, have been accompanied by another def in a different sense, something like: County official and former Kent player? (5) … NHO DISHIKI but biffable; not wholly convinced by SETTER = GEL (and, er, sets ugly precedent along the lines of BANKER and FLOWER etc for RIVER). But some interesting entries and some great clues elsewhere. So many thanks, as ever, to GELLER.
  29. Having just noted Mr. maufew’s comment- I did not go for either Caspar or Casper but for Gaspar.

    Gaspar, Balthasar and Melchior were my wisemen.

    In the end it makes absolutely no difference as they were both beheaded!

    Edited at 2019-08-20 04:20 pm (UTC)

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