Times 27441 – An egghead test today; am I reading the right paper?

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I wonder if this is one of our esteemed regular setters deciding to give us a different treat, or a new chap or lady? Anyway, it’s decidedly different, requiring (ideally) some TLS type knowledge, and a bit about Antipodean trees and annoying insects, 13th century English history, French, some art, some geography, some poetry…. It took me quite a while once I’d finished it (in about 40 minutes) to decipher all the parsing, and even now I may be off beam with exactly what’s going on at 25a. Anyway it was fun and I for one have no problem breaking away from the Ximenean wordplay treadmill now and again.

Across
1 A case of straight shot the Danish miss? (6)
ASTRID – A, ST (outer letters of STRAIGHT), RID = shot (as in get rid of, get shot of). ASTRID is a Nordic female first name, it could be Danish, Swedish, Norwegian… Why is she Danish here? A random pick for a random name?
5 Port that’s superior consumed by King John — not the first (8)
AUCKLAND – King John (1199 – 1216) was known as John LACKLAND or (Jean sans terre) because he owned less land – and lost more in wars – than was usual for a monarch. If you knew that, you could then remove the initial L, and then insert a U for superior, upper, thereby obtaining the answer, a port in NZ. If your history didn’t stretch back that far, you could biff the answer from checkers and wonder why it was correct.
9 Did some housework and, finished inside, did some gardening (8)
HOOVERED – OVER = finished, inside HOED = did some gardening.
10 Failed to appreciate or mark one’s wise words (6)
MISSAW – M(ark), I’S, SAW = wise words, a proverb.
11 Some hope FA can teach training (1,3,6)
A FAT CHANCE – (FA CAN TEACH)*.
13 Where Bible readers may turn for warning sign? (4)
TOOT – They turn TO the OT.
14 How many of us following leads? (4)
FOUR – F – following, OUR = of us.
15 After cutbacks, employ alto as tenor to the Queen, say (5,5)
LOYAL TOAST – Devilishly hidden in EMP(LOY ALTO AS T)ENOR.
18 Twice crossing desert and bog area to see city (10)
BRATISLAVA – For some reason because of the “Desert Rat” nickname of WWII veterans, it seems RAT has now become a synonym for desert? So the parsing of Slovakia’s fine capital city goes: BIS (twice) with RAT inserted, then LAV for bog (!) and A for area. Do you like this clue? I’m not fond. EDIT see comment below for another thought on RAT = DESERT.
20 Love’s about romantic bliss primarily in a poet’s eyes (4)
ORBS – O’S = love’s; insert R B bening “romantic bliss primarily”.
21 Pipe set alight here? (4)
STOP –  I’m not an expert on pipe organs, I can’t even find a term for such an chap (tibiorganologist?) but I think this is a double definition; the first to do with organ stops, and the second ‘alight here’ being where you get off the bus.
23 ie not a lot’s moving? (4,2,4)
NOSE TO TAIL – (I E NOT A LOTS)*. &lit anagram.
25 Chips Peter had with spoon at wedding (6)
QUINCE – Well, our setter might know exactly what’s going on here, but I’m a little vague. We have PETER QUINCE the fictional playwright in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I don’t quite get the “Chips” reference, as Snug was the joiner or carpenter ? and I believe “potato chips” were yet to be invented. Then we have a reference, I think, to the Lear poem about the Owl and the Pussycat; in which at their wedding they dined on “mince, and slices of quince which they ate with a runcible spoon” Before you ask, “runcible” is a nonsense word invented by Lear, but a runcible spoon now refers to one of those thre-pronged efforts you can use to eat cake (or quince, perhaps).
I asked my Wise Owl what was going on, but he was none the wiser.
26 Mysterious cat: I may start to vanish (8)
MACAVITY – Another TLS type clue? Macavity is the “Mystery Cat” in T S Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, a book of poems I do like listening to in the car even though I dislike poetry. (I also listen repeatedly to the 1963 BBC version of Under Milk Wood in the car). He arrives by way of: (CAT I MAY V)*, the V from the ‘start to vanish’ and mysterious as the anagrind.
28 In general, very small drink is a hopeful sign (6,2)
THUMBS UP – THUMB sized can mean very small, although more usually THUMBNAIL I’d think. SUP = drink. EDIT it seems from comments below that this refers to General Tom Thumb, of whom I was blissfully unaware.
29 Thus Vincent’s night visit, entertaining bishop (6)
STARRY – A reference to the Van Gogh painting so-called (Starry Night) ; STAY here = visit, and insert RR = Right Reverend = Bishop.

Down
2 Inform on strike down in production area (4,5)
SHOP FLOOR – SHOP = inform on, to FLOOR someone is to knock them down.
3 One using pin to fix note inside flower (7)
RIVETER – RIVER, a flower, has TE a note inserted.
4 Back out of sleeping place, finding insect (3)
DOR – DORM is the sleeping place, loses its M. A DOR is a large flying beetle type insect which makes a silly buzzling noise, like a June bug. If you didn’t know the bug, you had to choose between DAR, DER, DIR, DOR or DUR or DYR. DOH! DOR looks the best bet.
5 Extra approval lawman needs overturning (3-2)
ADD-ON – All reversed, NOD (approval), DA (lawman).
6 Correct French version of film came out (5,2,4)
COMME IL FAUT –  (FILM CAME OUT)*. Literal meaning “as it is necessary” or “as it must be”.
7 Land to the north I wish I could auction, mostly (7)
LESOTHO – “I wish I could auction” could be replaced by OH! TO SELL! and then lose its final L, being only mostly. Then to the north = reversed.
8 Antipodean timber supplier’s refusal to bear reduced profit (5)
NGAIO – NO (refusal) has GAI(N) (reduced profit) inserted, to give us the name of this New Zealand tree. I knew the Maori word as the name of a famous writer from NZ but didn’t know she was named after a tree. There again, ASH BARTY is currently (not for long?) the world’s #1 lady tennis player and she’s from down under in Oz, so why not? (I know, she’s Ashleigh in full).
12 Unruly gang of scoundrels outside empty local celebrated (5,6)
HELLS ANGELS – HEELS being scoundrels, have inserted LL (empty local) and then SANG (celebrated, e.g. sang Mass). I thought Hells Angels were a bit scary but not unruly, they have a rigid code of behaviour even if it’s not to everyone’s taste?
16 Vote for period to be reduced (3)
YEA – YEAR = the period, to be reduced by R. Vote for, as in Yea or Nay I presume.
17 Her soppy stories about bachelor and son? (3,6)
SOB SISTER – (STORIES)* has B and S then inserted.
19 That’s surprising: no prize for recalling place name (7)
TOPONYM – All reversed: MY! NO POT !
20 Antony’s wife round court: Cleopatra’s close by (7)
OCTAVIA – O (round) CT (court) A (close of Cleopatra), VIA (by).
22 What’s so smart about saving time? (5)
TRUTH – HURT = smart, reversed = TRUH, insert T for time.
24 Review of yours truly’s Latin at college (3,2)
SUM UP – SUM is Latin for I am, i.e. yours truly is. UP = at college.
27 Leaves casually, for function (3)
COS – Double definition, COS lettuce for leaves, and COS being an abreviation (casually) for cosine, a function.

61 comments on “Times 27441 – An egghead test today; am I reading the right paper?”

  1. I could make absolutely no sense of this clue, but Peter Quince is a carpenter; Snug is a joiner.
  3. I threw in the towel with QUINCE & TRUTH unsolved. Actually, with those as well as LESOTHO, BRATISLAVA, TOPONYM, MACAVITY (misspelled as MCCAVITY), but at least I biffed the latter bunch; since I gave up on the first two, I never got around to examining the others. DNK NOSE TO TAIL, don’t think I’ve ever heard ‘FAT CHANCE’ with the article. LOYAL TOAST was as impressive a hidden as I’ve ever seen; or as is usually the case, failed to see.
  4. I was defeated by QUINCE and TRUTH too, which was annoying since I’d enjoyed the rest of the puzzle. The only hidden I’ve seen better was when CARDIFF ARMS PARK was hidden in a clue, which I failed to spot. I forget the precise clue, something to do with parking cars on a farm.
  5. DNF in an hour with the crossers of NGAIO and MISSAW (annoying, as NGAIO has been recently added to my Big List of Words) and 25a still to get. I did think of QUINCE as a possible answer, but as I didn’t know that bit of the Lear poem nor had any clue about what it might have to do with Chips or Peter I didn’t put it in… Oh well.

    I had plenty of question marks so I’ll now be studying the blog in detail! Thanks for working it all out for us.

    (I did wonder if 27d could be a triple definition with “cos” being casually “because”, or “for”?)

    Edited at 2019-08-28 07:08 am (UTC)

    1. I had a similar thought, but was feeling too lazy to have a debate with myself over the final clue!
  6. NW and SE went in easily enough but I really struggled with the rest of it, resorting to aids twice when I got completely stuck.

    I don’t think that RAT has got anything to do with ‘Desert Rats’ here, it just means to desert (e.g. a cause) and goes back way beyond the mid 20th century.

    I’m with Kevin on General Tom Thumb.

    I thought of the ‘The Owl and the Pussy Cat’ as soon as I saw ‘spoon at wedding’ and that led me to ‘runcible’ but not to QUINCE unfortunately until I had sweated blood over it.

    NGAIO came very late too, eventually arrived at from wordplay but I recognised it immediately from the name ‘Ngaio Marsh’ a New Zealand-born writer of crime fiction and a mainstay of the Penguin green-cover series in the days when I first started hanging around in bookshops. I looked it up once and knew it meant a tree.

    Edited at 2019-08-28 06:25 am (UTC)

  7. Splendid untangling of this beastie, Pip. Like everyone (so far) I ground to a halt in the Lands End sector, until TRUTH finally submitted its definition from the mist of the clue. STOP went in grudgingly, mumbling about a pipe not being a stop unless it’s lots of them (pipe SET, dumbo!) and then QUINCE (if there’s a U it’s probably a Q word) and the references wrested from the rather sideways allusions. Just sorting those out took my time from about 18 minutes to more than 30.
    I don’t think we’ve seen the Latin SUM used before, and a lot of knowledge that would do well on Pointless was needed throughout. Certainly a different and interesting style of puzzle, which I enjoyed until I hit the buffers.
  8. DNF, not knowing the French expression, MISSAW and with NGAIO only known as a crime writer. I wasn’t that happy about TOOT either. LESOTHO biffed from first and last letters. I’d no idea what was going on with QUINCE. STARRY solved courtesy of Don McLean. I’m suffering for my sanity today, waiting for the trapdoor to open. It’s already been sprung for Bury. What a bummer for those poor folk. At least last year’s Danube cruise gave me Bratislava, which has a beautiful old city. But sitting here in Lytham St Annes looking out to sea, I give you one more time the LOYAL TOAST, the Duke of Lancaster. May she protect her subjects from further harm. Thank you Pip and setter.
      1. Thank you, AV. It will be a long rebuilding process, but we still have a club.
  9. A ‘chippie’ or chips is a carpenter here in England.

    Stopped after forty minutes unable to parse TOUGH, TRUTH, TOUCH ……..

    Really liked AUCKLAND.

    Once looked up NGAIO re the writer to find it was a NZ tree.

    Thanks pip and setter.

    Edited at 2019-08-28 08:09 am (UTC)

  10. 45 mins with toast and excellent home-made lime marmalade (thanks Sue). Hoorah.
    And hoorah for a great TLS-y crossword. No problems with the SW (Quince et al); it was the NE that held me up (Ngaio/Missaw/Toot!).
    Mostly I liked the &Lits 23ac and 26ac. Also General Thumb. But COD to 9ac for the sublime surface.
    Thanks setter and Pip.
  12. This would be an excellent weekend puzzle when one is better able to devote the time to researching the obscurities. As a midweek offering it is completely misplaced.
    1. Couldn’t agree more. The editor must have taken leave of his senses. The proof is in the stats. Only 95 have bothered to complete it. A total waste of time. Mr Grumpy
  13. 20:30. Z8’s ‘different and interesting’ sums this up for me. I got most stuck in the John o’Groats corner though, with the MISSAW (is that really a word?)/NGAIO pair holding me up for ages at the end.
    I wouldn’t like them to be like this every day but variety is the spice of life, what?
  14. Thanks pip; tricky solve and blog.
    No idea about chips.
    30 mins, so fairly quick for this awkward puzzle.
    Ngaio from N. Marsh, as mentioned elsewhere. I wasn’t happy with ‘to bear’ as a containment indicator in that clue, becuase in a down clue it usually indicates one component on top of the other. I considered gaino for that reason before getting Auckland, and then remembering ngaio.
  15. I remembered NGAIO from previous puzzles, so wasn’t delayed much by that. The NW gave me no trouble, apart from waiting for HOOVERED to confirm DOR, which I didn’t know. The rest of the NE took a lot more perseverance but eventually succumbed. The SE was a struggle, but manageable. The SW however brought me to a grinding halt at around 55 minutes, with 21a 22d and 25a refusing to yield. Some time later I thought of bus stop where one alights, and the pipe set then made sense. I was totally stumped by T___H until I used a word finder to give me a set of words that fitted and was then able to see the parsing of TRUTH. That left me with _U_N_E, which I was unable to parse even with a wordfinder’s suggestions, of which QUINCE and QUINZE were the most likely options. I’d been thinking of runcible spoon, but didn’t know the rest of the rhyme, and “chips Peter” meant absolutely nothing to me, so I Googled the clue and got Pip’s blog comment to confirm QUINCE. So 78:16 with 2 cheats. I have to agree with Jim that this was a bit of a slog for a midweek puzzle. Well blogged Pip.
  16. ….a THUMBS UP I’m afraid. It certainly had its moments, but they were offset by a failed double alpha-trawl (MISSAW, which looks wrong when written down), and the road block on the A30 (anyone who’s sat in a jam on there will get my point only too well !). I never saw the TRUTH of 22D, and I might have solved STOP had I done so. I simply don’t understand QUINCE at all.

    The STOP I did see was the 20 minute target time, 40% of which I’d already spent in stasis. Like the anonymous poster above, I hope for a Times puzzle tomorrow, for this struck me as distinctly belonging in Grauniad territory.

    COD BRATISLAVA

  18. Which puts me in 30th place at the moment, must be a record. Mind you I had to do a bit of google checking to confirm my hunches. QUINCE went in because NUANCE didn’t make any sense, and I never thought of the runcible spoon et al. After that I just shrugged in STOP. Was most pleased with getting TRUTH. Lackland was a desperate trawl through my memory banks Had to be there somewhere.
  19. DNF in 35min – as didn’t see how to parse 22dn, so biffed TOUCH – getting from ‘smart’ to ouch!
    At 25ac ‘runcible’ put me on to Quince, so I assumed that Peter Quince in MND was a carpenter, though on checking there doesn’t seem to be any evidence.
        2. Yes, I know, but our friend evidently hadn’t seen your comment or didn’t trust it, so I thought I’d weigh in with a direct response to his query.

          Edited at 2019-08-28 02:18 pm (UTC)

      3. Of course: I went through the relevant parts of the play looking for evidence, but overlooked the dramatis personae ! 🙁
  20. Well I finished, but more than one session, and a few guesses along the way. Last 2 in Auckland, where I’d misremembered John Blackwater – he’s appeared in the past few months – and the carpenter. Quince known from MND, but not as a carpenter or a Peter, and certainly never heard of runcible spoons or eating quinces at weddings. Ngaio has appeared before, but maybe 1 or 2 years back, don’t talk to me about Astrid as English names annoy me more than enough, I don’t speak Latin or French but have seen both comme il fait (lucky I looked at the fodder to get faut) and cogito ergito sum. All in all a curate’s egg, some really nice clues, but some that didn’t annoyed.
  21. 17m dead, and I was somewhat surprised to discover there weren’t any errors, as I’d been unable to parse AUCKLAND (I’d forgotten all about LACKLAND), QUINCE (beyond Owl & Pussycat), STOP…

    …other things I didn’t know included who OCTAVIA was, what SUM was Latin for (the second bit of Latin this week), the phrase COMME IL FAUT (anagram of a foreign phrase! More guessable than some, though), and NGAIO (beyond the novelist).

    Lovely clues: NOSE TO TAIL was excellent, and I very much enjoyed BRATISLAVA and LOYAL TOAST. Didn’t think much of FOUR, though – I can’t work out what there are supposed to be four of.

    I think COS is a triple definition, isn’t it? “casually, for” being the subtly hidden one. [Edit: I see others are ahead of me on this one]

    Edited at 2019-08-28 11:40 am (UTC)

  22. I was going through this like a hot knife through butter until I came to a screeching STOP in the same place as others. Thanks Pip for putting on your TLS hat for this one. In the end, like Pip, I took the QUINCE clue as a mash-up of the Dream and the Lear, but it would have been a lot less confusing if it had just stuck to the one wedding – the Dream one say. The Chips part was ok because he was a carpenter (it says so in the dramatis personae). Thank goodness we didn’t also get a walrus in there. I’m never quite sure of the difference between a carpenter and a joiner (as in Snug). There is no TLS puzzle this week so it seems as if this took its place. 27.15
  23. It’s total coincidence, this puzzle would have been scheduled weeks in advance, but just today there’s reports of bedbugs in a certain resort in USA. Synchronicity.
      2. No it’s the Doral (golf resort in Miami), as in DOR=dor[m]=insect. At least I think that’s what Isla meant. There’s nothing funny about bedbugs in real life though. Our younger daughter brought them home from her Wellesley dorm in her final year, and getting rid of them was expensive and dispiriting. But I don’t mind them at a safe distance at a Trump golf club.
  24. I had a look at this before lunch. FOI was ORBS; thought of DOR but rejected it (DNK) and then got MCCAVITY (can’t spell it ) and that nearly get me hooked.
    But it did look very difficult so I gave up and came here. A good decision. Way too hard for most I expect.
    Re the carpenter -a chippie- or CHIPS perhaps, indicating his trade? Perhaps someone has said this already.
    David

    Edited at 2019-08-28 01:04 pm (UTC)

  25. Took ages and in the end I failed on QUINCE, which like gothick_matt above, I did think of putting in, but decided not to as I had absolutely no idea what was going on. AUCKLAND was also a mystery, but at least had a clear def and everything else was more or less parsed.

    Very hard work and a DNF to boot, but I liked lots of clues including the ‘In general, very small’, the ‘Pipe set alight here?’ surface and OH TO SEL(L).

    Thanks to setter and blogger

  26. I note The Club Monthly Special has arrived early.

    FOI 1ac ASTRID

    LOI 22dn (TRUTH) strewth!

    COD –

    WOD BOLTON WANDERERS

    So where’s the curmudgeonly cat?

  27. Tough to finish off final corner with STOP / TRUTH / QUINCE intersections but got there after rattling through rest of puzzle (admittedly with some biffing along the way, in same places as others have already mentioned).
    Think QUINCE clue was unfair with its two literary references juxtaposed (and the Lear reference probably too oblique and obscure) but did eventually get it from some vague Shakespearean remembrance …
    Def of TRUTH as “What’s so” was devious but in the most excellent of ways; and hidden was admirable (another devious def there too).
    Lots to admire; perhaps tad too QI/UC…
  28. Indeed. I should have thought this one most irksome for speed-solvers, what with one thing and another.
  29. I suppose she could only have been Danish or Swedish for the surface plural to work.

    Weird puzzle.

  30. Tough – particularly the SW corner as many others have commented. Enjoyed it though.
    BW – it looks like your prayers may have been answered! Fingers crossed.
  31. I thought this was brilliant but should’ve been on a Friday, naturally!

    The penny has only just dropped (with a longdrawnout groan) on the definition for TRUTH – just brilliant. I took several minutes at the end misseeing missaw, but it turns out that getting in under the 15 minute mark wasn’t TOO bad for this one anyway. Within 2 Magoos at least!

  32. I was happy to find that my guesses for the tree and the exotic port were on the money, delighted to see Macavity make an appearance (haha), and raising both eyebrows like crazy with MISSAW. Got stuck on STOP, though, which I should’ve got.
  33. How I loved this crossword! Best one of the year so far .. wasted on a Wednesday perhaps though our highly esteemed blogger seems to have made short work of it.
    Quince was an almost-guess .. I did know of Peter Quince, but had no idea about the rest of the clue. No undue problems otherwise though it did take longer than usual. c25m
    Thank you thank you setter, more please!
  34. I struggled with this for an hour but the SW and NE were too fiendish for me so it was a DNF. Didn’t know King John’s nickname and couldn’t think of the required port. I did think of missaw but couldn’t quite convince myself that it was a word and Ngaio was unknown. Should’ve got truth which might’ve led to stop but I didn’t so it didn’t. Quince was always going to defeat me, Chips Peter was too subtle for me and I didn’t know the owl and the Pussycat well enough either.
  35. What is a French expression doing in an English crossword? I recall that the use of ‘schnell’ in the championships caused a bit of controversy, but ‘comme il faut’ here seems not to have attracted the same furore? Mr Grumpy
    1. This expression from the French is now welcome in all reputable English dictionaries.
        1. Touché! Perhaps. But it doesn’t explain the difference in the reaction to the two instances.
  36. Tough going and a technical DNF as had no idea about NGAIO being a tree, though I had heard of the author (but didn’t know she was from NZ).
    Could grumble about plenty of clues being tough but there were also several AH moments, LOYAL TOAST in particular.

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