Times 27400 – you may remember this

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Time taken: 13:01 but with one silly typo at 15 down keeping me from the leaderboard. From looking at the early finishers, this is on the difficult side, nobody is under 10 minutes. Odd puzzle this, with some cryptic definitions and some words that were obscure to me.

I am getting to this fairly late and I have a meeting that is going to eat up my morning, so I hope I have everything sorted, but you may want to check the comments first, in case I have made a characteristic typo or misinterpretation, as I will not be able to correct anything until the late afternoon.

The first definition in each clue is underlined

Away we go…

Across
1 Polish local back on the game (3,2)
RUB UP – PUB(local) reversed after RU(Rugby Union, the game)
4 Start making an impression having landed work on ship (2,2,5)
GO TO PRESS – GOT(landed), OP(work) RE(on), SS(steamship) – crafty definition
9 Motorists about to leave home finally choose somewhere in France (9)
AQUITAINE –  the motorists are the AA(Automobile Association) surrounding QUIT(to leave), then IN(home), and the last letter of choosE
10 Brute rounds on pretentious toff (5)
YAHOO – the two rounds are O and O, put them after YAH(an affected upper-class person). Had to work out the wordplay for the blog, this went in from definition
11 Cutting insignificant church visits (6)
PUNCHY – PUNY(insignificant) containing CH(church)
12 Parasite from horse burrowing into poor titmice (4-4)
ITCH-MITE –  H(horse) inside an anagram of TITMICE
14 Song bird relies on following it around (2,4,4,2)
AS TIME GOES BY – TIME(bird) and GOES BY(relies on) after SA(sex appeal, it) reversed
17 Put the lid on canopy over engine that’s growing hot (6,6)
SCOTCH BONNET – SCOTCH(put the lid on), BONNET(canopy over a car engine) – the definition refers to a hot pepper
20 Raucous Indian in school yard (8)
SCREECHY –  CREE(Indian) inside SCH(school), Y(yard)
21 An inspired suggestion? (6)
BREATH – cryptic double definition, since a breath could be inspired(inhaled)
23 Nothing put forward in musketeer’s pledges (5)
OATHS –  move the O(nothing) to the front in the musketeer ATHOS
24 Leading in platoon, prepared for further advance (3-2,4)
TOP-UP LOAN – UP(leading) inside an anagram of PLATOON – got this one from the wordplay, haven’t heard of the phrase
25 Given handle, stir, with pole, a lot of water (9)
NICKNAMED – NICK(jail, stir) then N(north pole), A, MED(lot of water)
26 Scene of action initially settled on years before (5)
YPRES – first letter of Settled after Y(years), PRE(before)

Down
1 Show over, gather before Conference (8)
REAPPEAR –  REAP(gather) then a conference PEAR – definition refers to showing up again
2 English girl’s last but one composition for jazz interval (4,4)
BLUE NOTE – an anagram(composition) of E(English), the last letter in girL, BUT, ONE
3 Get satirists performing curse (3,3,7,2)
PUT THE MOCKERS ON – curse is the direct definition (certainly in cricket), the rest is that if you get the satarists performing you might PUT THE MOCKERS ON
4 Carriage entrance is for picking up only (4)
GAIT – a homophone of GATE(entrance) – the homophone is indicated by “picking up only”
5 Parts of China party? (10)
TWENTIETHS – cryptic definition, based on china being a traditional gift for a TWENTIETH anniversary
6 Happy choirboys ultimately leading fabulous, special sort of life (15)
PSYCHOBIOGRAPHY – anagram of HAPPY,CHOIRBOYS and the last letter of leadinG – another one I had to work out from wordplay, knowing the BIOGRAPHY part was most likely
7 Race Elizabeth and Nicholas are holding together (6)
ETHNIC – hidden inside elizabETH and NICholas
8 Son, having drawn on pot, gets fired (6)
STOKED – S(son) and TOKED(smoked marijuana)
13 A number one turn, time and time again (1,3,6)
I GOT RHYTHM – I(one), GO(turn), T(time), RHYTHM(time). 1930 Gershwin tune (written a year before the song at 14 across)
15 Popular pro (2,6)
IN FAVOUR – double definition, which I somehow managed to enter as IN FAVORR
16 Artwork from film projecting feature on grammar school (8)
ETCHINGS – ET(film), CHIN(projecting feature), GS(grammar school)
18 No pained reactions arise after a fainting (6)
ASWOON – NO, OWS(pained reactions) following A
19 Judge a pain in the neck mostly about immigrant’s case (6)
CRITIC – remove the last letter from CRICK(pain in the neck) and insert the outer letters in ImmigranT
22 The cheapest promotion for this tablet? (4)
IPAD – the cheapest promotion may be a 1P AD

52 comments on “Times 27400 – you may remember this”

  1. TWENTIETH also my LOI, and only because it was the only word that fit! But a very pleasurable outing.
  2. 16:51 … I loved this. Creative, witty, just the right side of baffling. Who could ask for anything more?
    1. ‘Creative, witty, just the right side of baffling!Who could ask for anything more?’
      Yours truly
  3. at 5dn was my second one in as last November ‘Her Indoors III’ and I went to Kyoto to buy a piece of chinaware to celebrate our 20th Wedding Anniversary. We chose a yellow and black pumpkin by Yayoi Kusama, ‘spotted’ in a lovely gallery dedicated to the old girl. Great noshi too!

    FOI 1ac RUB UP the wrong way!

    LOI 22dn IPAD

    COD 17ac SCOTCH BONNET

    WOD 6dn PSYCHOBIOGRAPHY (Just re-read A Confederacy of Dunces)

    Time 37 minutes

    Edited at 2019-07-11 06:23 am (UTC)

  4. Quite a few unknowns (SCOTCH BONNET, PSYCHOBIOGRAPHY, BLUE NOTE), but at least they were each composed of constituents I knew. Like most everyone else, I chucked in TWENTIETHS because it fitted the ‘parts’ part – after a fine recent run, I would have been as sick as an Indian who’d paid a fortune for his World Final ticket when he saw they were only playing New Zealand in the semis if this had been wrong.

    Edited at 2019-07-11 05:50 am (UTC)

    1. It’s bizarre to be watching England v Australia at Edgbaston, U, and the ground is full of Indians. They must be cursing SA for beating Australia and knocking them off top spot.
  5. I have no solving time but it was more than an hour and actually I used aids on my LOI STOKED, so it was a technical DNF anyway.

    Unknowns were YAH as a type of person, ITCH-MITE, PSYCHOBIOGRAPHY. Wasn’t sure of GS for ‘Grammar School’ but it’s in Chambers.

    Looked twice at BLUE NOTE defined as an ‘interval’ because a note on its own isn’t an interval, but of course in order to be ‘blue’ it has to be considered in relation to the notes around it, within a scale or the established key of a piece, so it’s absolutley fine.

    I enjoyed the song references and in particular I GOT RYTHM which featured in the Gershwin show GIRL CRAZY. I put up a link to play it in my blog only yesterday but if anybody opened it they didn’t comment.

    The interrupted hidden word device at 7dn may be a first.

    Pleased to get TWENTIETHS and guessed correctly its association with China.

    Edited at 2019-07-11 06:05 am (UTC)

    1. I went through an identical thought process on BLUE NOTE. The most common example is a minor third played over a major chord, very common in blues.
  6. 45 mins then gave up on 5dn – pre-brekker.
    After the trickiness of itch-mite, aswoon, blue note, I worried that 5dn would require knowledge of Chinese provinces so gave up. This was lucky as it requires knowledge of customary anniversary gifts, about which I know even less.
    Mostly I liked: Aquitaine and COD to Put the mockers on.
    Thanks setter and G.
    1. My dear Myrtilus – a phrase much used by Mr. Anthony A. St. Hancock. I have come up with a new breakfast cocktail as I ran out of tonic water – The Hancock.

      Take a generous amount of Gilbey’s, Gordon’s, Hendrick’s, Bombay Saphire – what you will; add 1 heaped teaspoon of one’s favourite marmalade; top up with ice and soda water (tonic water does not work!) Shake vigorously; add a slice of the appropriate citrus or whatever is to hand.
      Enjoy!

      1. Dearest Horryd, I will take you up on this, probably starting with the excellent Edinburgh gin, Pickerings. The favoured garnish is grapefruit, so some grapefruit marmalade should fit the bill. I’ll let you know how I get on.
        Incidentally, Jerry sent me some fantastic home-made Lime Marmalade. I’m still blind tasting it against Lewis and Coopers and may need more to complete the process.
  7. 12:04. Nice puzzle, with a mixture of the fairly biffable and the significantly more tricky. I had no idea about TWENTIETH.
  8. Top class stuff, despite the usual distressing lack of science.
    Didn’t we have scotch bonnets just the other day?
    1. Yes, I thought so too. Turns out it was in the last but one Jumbo, now out of embargo but not yet blogged.
  9. …when solving clues like 14a. 31 minutes with LOI ETCHINGS. Nobody’s ever wanted to come up and see mine. I was unsure between twentieths and thirtieths before Eleanor of Aquitaine, played of course by Katharine Hepburn, came to the rescue. I suppose China would come before Silver. Thirty-second, which we celebrated last week, is Lapis Lazuli according to Mrs BW, although I’m not sure she wasn’t trying it on. COD to YPRES for its construction. Excellent puzzle. Thank you George and setter.
  11. I came up short on TWENTIETHS. When I just had this one left I did an alphabet trawl and concluded the second letter had to be R or H; I’m not sure why I disregarded W. Given that the definition seemed to be ‘Parts’ I then got hung up on the fact I could fit THEATRE in at the start, despite the fact I was unlikely to come up with something to fit THEATRE_H_. Must stop going up blind alleys!
  12. Fun puzzle on which I really needed to concentrate. May I be the TWENTIETH to admit that I had no idea why. I think I will give it COD.
  13. TWENTIETHS was the only word that fitted: most of us only manage one china anniversary, so for me the plural didn’t occur and it was so, so long ago. Well (and possibly, to judge by comments) uniquely sussed, George.
    25 minutes saw me through this with 20ths last in, and I GOT RHYTHM taking quite a bit of the rest of the time. Neither song was obviously a song despite one of them being clued with the word song. Just the right level of misleading.
    Isn’t iPad product placement, or is it now in the dictionaries?
    1. iPad® is in Chambers, and I see they’ve also given an entry to Android® for fairness. I have heard people use “iPad” as a generic term for a tablet computer of any origin, but nothing like as often as “hoover” or even “kleenex”…
      1. My edition of Chambers has got about as far as Babbage’s “difference engine” so some modern technology is beyond its ken. Perhaps I should update!
  14. I approached this puzzle with trepidation, having seen Vinyl’s comment on the QC blog, but was pleasantly surprised to get off to a flying start in the NW which didn’t slow to the usual crawl until I was left with 5d and 8d. I dragged TOKED from the depths before too long, but it was a good while longer before an alphabet trawl produced TWENTIETHS. I could see “parts,” but it was another minute or so before I spotted the wedding anniversary. I was rather pleased to spot it though. Another minute checking for typos revealed none and also revealed the parsing for NICKNAME, where I hadn’t originally equated nick with stir. An enjoyable puzzle. 28:31. Thanks setter and George.
  15. 48 minutes, though it felt like longer. 1a went in first, but it was all a bit scrappy from there, until like many others, it seems, I finally stuffed in 5d TWENTIETHS as being the only thing that fit the definition.

    I biffed many along the way, like the 2d BLUE NOTE (I’m right at the end of Beginning Acoustic Blues Guitar, but I’ve rather stalled and despair of ever getting to Intermediate…), the two songs at 13d and 14a, 25a NICKNAMED, 26a YPRES, and so on.

    COD 1d REAPPEAR for the tricksy “show over” def, though “start making an impression” was a close second.

  16. STOKED for SMOKED.

    A fun puzzle. COD: AS TIME GOES BY. As well as being a great song it was, in my view, a dreary sitcom. You must remember this?

    For me anyway, when watching it, time didn’t go by – it dragged.

    Edited at 2019-07-11 09:03 am (UTC)

  17. Had to use aids to get to Ypres but that was a challenge for me.
    Thank you George for AS TIME GOES BY, YPRES, BLUE NOTE AND TWENTIETHS.
    My COD was NICKNAMED because I was looking for a large body of water.
  18. ….but, as it was to two different women, a China anniversary never entered my calculations. Thanks to George for enlightening me.

    NHO PSYCHOBIOGRAPHY.

    FOI ITCH-MITE (despite it being NHO !)
    LOI TWENTIETH
    COD I GOT RHYTHM (also liked iPad)
    TIME 14:03

  19. A pleasant experience in which I learned about ITCH-MITEs and PSYCHOBIOGRAPHY, discovered that IPAD is in the dictionary, and, like everyone else, put in TWENTIETHS with no real idea of why it was right. Just the thing to release the nervous energy created by watching the Ashes warm-up game while solving…
  20. Many fingers crossed when submitting, dnk BLUE NOTE, PSYCHOBIOGRAPHY and like most others had no idea re TWENTIETHS.

    21′, thanks george and setter.

  21. I came to a SCREECHY halt at *p*d and simply failed to see it for quite some time. I couldn’t tell you what a BLUE NOTE is but I remembered the jazz club of that name in Greenwich Village that we used to go to after working late in the years long before our TWENTIETH. I believe YPRES was known as Wipers to its unfortunate participants and there was more than one battle there. 18.19
  22. 21 mins; steady little solve, with 9ac reminding me of Nerval and his lobster. Thanks George.
  23. Unusual to find China meaning china, as opposed to mate, pal etc. And as most of you I had no idea why either.
    Most of this was completed in about 20 mins, but the rest.. sneaky little YPRES in the SE was LOI.
  24. Pleased to have reached the PDM moment about “TWENTIETHS” on my own steam, though as noted in the blog, it did push me over the 10 minutes mark.

    I don’t think it’s strictly a cryptic def: I think the definition is “parts”, and the wordplay is the alternatively punctuated “TWENTIETH’S”… of/belonging to a twentieth (China-party).

    1. Great clue though – reminded me of the superb one that appeared in a Champs prelim a few years ago “Number of letters in post office by five (5)”.
    2. I’m not sure one can rely on alternative punctuation for parsing the clue, no?
          1. How about this one from one I blogged not very long ago:

            In Yorkshire, the tavern that provides lifts? (1-3)

            T-BAR (T’BAR)

            1. In the example you cite, I think it’s more a case of a ‘play on punctuation’ (by analogy with a play on words). In the clue in this puzzle, it’s more a case of an importation of non pre-existing punctuation, which I think is a bit loose, especially for a Thunderer puzzle.
              1. I could find you a half dozen more I’m sure – as-it-were double defs where only one of the definitions fits the enumeration given, though both contain the same letters. How do you think the clue works – as a very weak cryptic definition only?

                Edited at 2019-07-14 05:08 pm (UTC)

  25. Pink square O for P in YPRES – grrr. Shouldn’t have to be so careful – would have had no such problem had I done this on paper.

    TWENTIETHS from checkers and definition only.

    Didn’t get BREATH for suggestion but see it now i.e. a BREATH of fresh air?

    BLUE NOTE took a while to biff – didn’t fully parse. Assumed Harold Melvin and the BLUE NOTEs must actually mean something.

    Final two in were ETHNIC – very nice – and YAHOO – didn’t get YAH as being a pretentious toff though can imagine they say it a lot (probably all descended from Germans).

  26. I seem to have settled into 30 plus circa 10 minutes format lately, and today no exception. Half an hour on the neurons alone, then with aids.

    This was a game of two halves or four quarters depending. Like others I started well with 1a FOI and following that got most of the NW corner complete, then came to a bit of a standstill everywhere else. Guessed and biffed a few in with around 40-50% done by the 30 min mark. PSYCHO… came easily with aids as did the completion of PUT THE M____ ON which the aged brain had forgotten. I think it’s a phrase I used in childhood (1970s) but not since. Seeing it was like one of the odd smells or faces from long ago, long forgotten that you can’t place.

    Like others worried about blue note being only a note, but was buoyed on by the knowledge of the Blue Note record label who issued a disc or two I owned once – was it Weather Report or John Mayal and the Blues Breakers? Don’t recall. Or perhaps it was just Alexis Korner’s soft voice announcing the origin of tunes he played…

    LOI was TWENTIETH or thereabouts. I had all the checkers then abused the check button to get T_E_TIETH and figured that it had to be a fractional type answer with no clue about china – something to do with a wild party getting out of hand and breaking grandma’s finest to smithereens?!

    COD for me is YPRES as it is pretty much &lit, beautifully worded and disguised (looks like it could be referring to some much more sophisticated wordplay but isnt, which is nice) AND I will be cycling through the place in a month on my hols!

    Thanks for exegesis and cryptic constructions.

    63/65.

    WS

    1. Were Weather Report on Blue Note? News to me. Takes me back though… Birdland, Jaco Pastorius… marvellous.
  27. DNF. Bah! Wiped out by Ypres. Everything done inside three quarters of an hour but failed to see what was required at 26ac, thought the second letter would surely be a vowel and bunged in Yorks for no reason that I can really see now.
  29. DNF because never heard of “Scotch Bonnet” – was trying to figure how Scotch Corner would work.

Comments are closed.