Times 27412 – line please

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Time taken: OK, I’ll admit, after everything else was in at 15:49, and probably four minutes earlier, I was left looking at 16 across. Nothing was coming to mind with regards the clue or the wordplay, and I was starting to get frustrated and did that thing you should not do when you are frustrated, bung in an answer that sounds likely, cross your fingers and hope.

Of course it was not correct… in starting to write the blog I have a much better suggestion I’ll toss in here.

For what is worth it appears I am not alone. As of right now there are 18 submitted crosswords and 10 of them have at least one error.

Away we go…

Across
1 Broadcast equipment is something that needs no feed? (3,5)
AIR PLANT – AIR(broadcast), PLANT(equipment)
9 Equipment engaged in working one type of extruded tubes (8)
RIGATONI – RIG(equipment), AT(engaged in), ON(working), I(one)
10 Exactly how things were dispatched for approval (6)
ASSENT – or AS SENT
11 Work site creates resistance (10)
OPPOSITION – OP(work), POSITION(site)
12 Soon cutting intro from French opera (4)
ANON – the opera is by Massenet: MANON.  Remove the first letter
13 Ask too much throughout career (10)
OVERCHARGE – OVER(throughout), CHARGE(career)
16 Soldier dropped in to Vietnam returned as Minister of War (7)
MAGINOT – GI(soldier) inside TO, NAM(Vietnam) all reversed. I started thinking of people and went for MADISON, so this was my error
17 At no particular moment very soon (7)
ANYTIME – double definition
20 Artificial shiner with quality? (10)
RHINESTONE – an all-in-one. Anagram of SHINER, then TONE(quality)
22 Well out of East African country (4)
MALI – remove SO(well) from SOMALI(East African)
23 Sit angrily, disposed to make a complaint (10)
LARYNGITIS – anagram of SIT,ANGRILY
25 Aim to complete after opening bid? (6)
INTEND – END(complete) after a bid of ONE NO TRUMPS or 1 NT
26 When new function is introduced, employees keep away (5,3)
STAND OFF – N(new), DO(function) inside STAFF(employees)
27 Anger about November period for a ceremony for the dead (8)
FUNERARY – FURY(anger) surrounding N(November), ERA(period)

Down
2 No simian suffers inability to doze (8)
INSOMNIA – anagram of NO,SIMIAN
3 Pomposity of pensioner worked up about the ending of Brexit (10)
PRETENSION – anagram of PENSIONER surrounding the last letter in brexiT
4 Self-guided car — no timid person’s wanting key (10)
AUTONOMOUS – AUTO(car), NO(no), MOUSE(timid person) with the E(key) removed
5 Expedition allowed to make notes (7)
TRIPLET – TRIP(expedition), LET(allowed)
6 Clutch engages only intermittently (4)
EGGS – alternating letters in EnGaGeS
7 Company getting support for office equipment (6)
COPIER – CO(company), PIER(support)
8 Like some waltzing couples starting vigorous energetic new sequence (8)
VIENNESE – OK, this was my favorite clue in the puzzle. First two lettters from VIgorous ENergetic NEe SEquence
14 Communication’s lost at exchange (10)
CONVERSION – remove AT from CONVERSATION
15 A talk about time, missing energy and strange particles (10)
ANTIMATTER –  A, NATTER(talk) surrounding TIM(e)
16 Painter of river in haze (8)
MURALIST – URAL(river) inside MIST(haze)
18 Designer using a lot of cutting to top off Queen? (8)
MILLINER – a lof of MILLING(curring) then ER(queen)
19 Religious leader has power over words (7)
PONTIFF – P(power) ON(over), TIFF(words)
21 What might be made on raid (6)
INROAD – anagram of ON RAID
24 Develop good argument (4)
GROW – G(goo) then ROW

65 comments on “Times 27412 – line please”

  1. I would appreciate an explanation of why plant equates to equipment. Many thanks.
  2. No matter how long it took! Ha!
    My LOI was MALI—that had to be the answer, but I was a bit hesitant about “so” for “well.”
  3. ODE sv ‘plant’ 2: ‘machinery used in an industrial or manufacturing process’
  4. Here’s Collins, definition 5: “. uncountable noun
    Plant is large machinery that is used in industrial processes.”
    I’d heard this bit of jargon before.
      2. My favourite road sign was spotted in New Zealand in 1977: NO TRUCKS ALOUD

        And that was before the age of electric vehicles.

  5. This took me ages, well over an hour and a DNF at that. Never heard of an AIR PLANT, didn’t get the ‘bid’ bit of 25a and couldn’t parse MALI. I bunged in MADISON for the ‘Minister of War’ too, annoying as the wordplay was (or at least is now!) clear and the name was gettable from the famous Line.

    I liked the ‘type of extruded tubes’, ‘Like some waltzing’ and ‘strange particles’ defs. Top of the day though to INROAD and especially MILLINER, which would both do as &lits for me.

    Thank you to setter and blogger.

  6. Like Guy, LOI was MALI; unlike Guy, I never got as far as thinking of SO. I also never figured out VIENNESE; well, it’s hot, and this room has no air conditioning. INSOMNIA & INROAD rather QCish. As George notes, there are quite a few unexpected 1-error scores; I’ll be interested to see if there are more MADISONs. That one never occurred to me; for one thing, we have Secretaries not Ministers. (I didn’t know he was M of W; but it makes sense.)

    Edited at 2019-07-25 05:28 am (UTC)

  7. I’ve just completed the 15×15, the QC and the Concise and successfully managed a silly typo in each one of them. Especially frustrating with this one after I had diligently rethought my unparsed Madison and worked out MAGINOT.

    COD to EGGS

    1. Still not bad going to finish that lot before 06:30! Kind regards, Bob K.
  8. 40 minutes with all the time over my target 30 spent on 17, 18 and 25.

    Never did parse INTEND as I keep forgetting 1 NT which has come up several times and even very recently, I think.

    Biffed MAGINOT, famous for his ‘line’ and returned after the clock was stopped to work out the parsing. I wonder if I was the only one to try PROFUMO as the ‘Minister of War’ before checkers put paid to the idea?

    My parsing of MALI was MAL{aw}I [well, out], taking ‘aw’ (like ‘well’) as something people say when they hesitate and are playing for time – a la John Wayne. It may be wrong but it still got me there.

    Edited at 2019-07-25 05:44 am (UTC)

  9. 53 minutes. LOI unparsed was MALI. I thought of MAGINOT early, without actually knowing if he’d been Minister of War. MURALIST needed all crossers, as did MILLINER. Is ANTIMATTER strange? I guess so, as there’s not much of it about. I can’t help today but remember Harold Wilson’s quote about Macmillan’s night of the long knives. “…Mr Macmillan sacked half his cabinet. The wrong half as it turned out.” Hardish puzzle. Thank you George and setter.
  10. I wanted 1ac to be AIR GUITAR! But alas it did not fit!

    I found today’s first response totally goat-worthy. I don’t think I have yet found an ‘Anonymous’ who knows how to operate ‘Roget’s Thesaurus’ (Synonym Central). It is free on line! I believe Kevin and Guy have better things to do than to explain why plant = machinery! There are non- cryptic crosswords available.

    Time 51 minutes- should have been 30!

    FOI 2dn INSOMNIA didn’t lose any sleep over that!

    LOI 22dn MALI – I suspected it was from the off!

    COD 6dn EGGS simples!

    WOD MAGINOT – with the railway by Hovart’s of Lille, who were family friends. My mother holidayed on the Maginot Line in 1935!! My grandfather was shot there five years later! You’ll be pleased to hear he survived.

    At one time HORE-BELISHA was Minister of War for Britain. His eponymous ‘Crossing’ saved a few lives. Maginot’s didn’t!

    Edited at 2019-07-25 07:09 am (UTC)

    1. Don’t be mean! Any questions are welcome, or this fabulous site has lost its way. You’ve never had a blind spot where a clue just doesn’t make sense?
      1. Indeed. That’s what we’re here for. I’ve asked a few similar questions in my time here and I’m a blogger who one might suppose should know it all.

        As for ‘plant/machinery’ I’m not sure that I would be familiar wih it but for road signs in my childhood announcing ‘HEAVY PLANT CROSSING AHEAD’ which had to me explained to me by my father.

        Edited at 2019-07-25 08:54 am (UTC)

    2. What nonsense, H! The whole point of this site is to help people solve the damned things, we should do so in any way we can.
      1. I hope you have noticed that over the past month, especially on Mondays, I have been encouraging QCers to come to this site when I have thought that the 15×15 was IMHO easier. Several have and have enjoyed and surprised themselves. It was rather unusual to have today’s first entry as an anonymous query. A statement about the rest of the puzzle would have been more apt. I would further encourage folk to use the on-line tools that are freely available for information. For example the new Glossary has been a most useful adjunct to this blog and was surely designed to diminish some of the basic queries.
        I am sorry to have caused the raising of eyebrows.
  11. Having successfully decoded all the clues, I carelessly entered LARINGITIS. Eeejit! Drat and double drat! 32:00 WOE WOE and thrice WOE. Jack, I considered PROFUMO, but INSOMNIA put paid to that. In fact INSOMNIA is why I’m here now instead of being fast asleep. I’m normally not a morning person, but this heat is oppressive. I woke up 4 times between 5 and 7, then gave up the struggle. Thanks setter and George.
  12. 24 minutes, with lots of them trying (and failing) to work out why it was MALI. It’s not helped by a personal geographical confusion over east and west when it comes to Africa leaving me with only “well out of” as wordplay for (not, obviously) an East African country.
    Two very good &lits today, and the obvious-when-you-see-it pairs clue at 8d. We are spoilt!
  13. I blame the heat but really it was me having an off day. Absolutely nothing wrong with the crossword. Putting in HANDS OFF started the problems. Setter 1 Solver 0.
  15. Nice crossword, enjoyed this though failed to parse Mali..
    Contrary to popular belief the Maginot Line was effective and performed well. The German invaders were forced North through Belgium, as planned .. unfortunately, they were able to move at a much faster rate than the French believed possible, so their intended counterattack failed to materialise in time
    1. ‘The World War II German invasion plan of 1940 (Sichelschnitt) was designed to deal with the line. A decoy force sat opposite the line while a second Army Group cut through the Low Countries of Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as through the Ardennes Forest, which lay north of the main French defences. Thus the Germans were able to avoid a direct assault on the Maginot Line by violating the neutrality of Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Attacking on 10 May, German forces were well into France within five days and they continued to advance until 24 May, when they stopped near Dunkirk.’

      A similar construction in the Sudetenland had been rendered useless by the German invasion when not a shot was fired.

      1. Yes. I was labouring to point out that all of that was in line with French designs, expectations and plans, except for the speed of the German advance which is what caught them out.
  16. I was apparently on the wavelength and lucky in a few places. 33 minutes, pretty good for me, with FOI 1a AIR PLANT and LOI 22 MALI (unparsed.)

    I biffed a few along the way, some less forgivably than others, especially 8d VIENNESE where I just couldn’t separate “waltzing” from “couples” to find the parsing, and 26a STAND OFF, where I got the answer from thinking of “tan” for “function”, thereby snookering myself on the wordplay.

    Luckily, though I thought of MADISON, I kept going to come up with the required linesman… I wasn’t trying to fit PROFUMO in, either—I’ve just watched Breaker Morant, so Kitchener was the only British Minister of War I thought of…

    Did anyone else first try to crowbar MODERNIST in at 16d before realising that there was an extra “N” after they’d put ODER in MIST? No? Oh well.

  17. 19′, relatively flying. MAGINOT LOI, plucked from history. Knew VIENNESE only from Strictly (Dancing with the Stars over the pond). Did not parse MALI or ANON or RHINESTONE, known only from the cowboy.

    Thanks george and setter, and all questions are welcome.

  18. On the wavelength today so no problems. MAGINOT a write in and thanks to Jerry for saving me the task of putting the record straight

    Like Boltonwanderer I can’t see anything strange about ANTI-MATTER

    1. I didn’t take the “strange” to be the specific meaning from particle physics, but the more quotidian definition. I’d say antimatter counts as “unusual”, “difficult to understand or explain”, or “not previously visited, seen or encountered”, and possibly “alien”…
  19. Got off to a flying start in the north-left, then a few interruptions and a slower brain saw me finish in a leisurely 32min. But then discovered a tyop in 6d (egss).
    RHINESTONE and MALI unparsed.
    1. I see my posting crossed with gothick_matt above.

      As for aspidistras, according to Orwell they are capable of flying so shouldn’t be a problem on the roads.

      Thanks for the reminder of ‘Ower Gracie’.

      Edited at 2019-07-25 11:51 am (UTC)

  21. Well, I can’t get any antimatter in Tesco’s, so I’d say it was pretty strange.

    2. Not available at Tesco? Thank you, I have always wondered what the ‘unexplained item in the bagging area’ was. Now I know.
  22. ….Rugby League reference, I might have got STAND OFF, instead of incorrectly biffing “stave off”. It fits half the clue – but only half.

    NHO AIR PLANT, but the parsing was straightforward. Thanks to George for unravelling VIENNESE.

    I vaguely recalled (M)ANON from somewhere, but opera isn’t my thing at all. I was pleased to see how MALI worked quite quickly.

    Just over 13 minutes but DNF.due to that barmy biff.

    COD PONTIFF

    1. AIR PLANTs enjoyed a period as fashionable and relatively inexpensive gifts, certainly during the 1980s but perhaps that’s just the time that I became aware of them. They were often grafted onto attractive sea-shells or pieces of pottery etc.
  23. Very slow start for me but things picked up after the WALTZING MAGINOT line. It made me wonder if there was a counterpart song to hanging out the washing on the Siegfried Line. Also got stuck on AUTOsomething in 4d and for too long the only thing I could think of that would fit was a didact. It’s been very hot here too but we do have a/c in the bedrooms so shouldn’t complain. Pip must be having quite a time with his move. 21,53
    1. George Formby had a song which began “Imagine me on the Maginot Line sitting on a mine” but it never caught on.
  24. Another who had much more trouble parsing MALI than solving it (once you’ve got MALAWI in your mind, it’s definitely hard to see past it). Also had to correct my biffed HANDS OFF, so slow but perfectly pleasant solve on a hot day.
  25. 11:35 but, like others, failed to parse MALI, my LOI. Luckily I remembered the MAGINOT line and never thought of MADISON. COD to RIGATONI.
  26. Same as blogger. Fell at the last post. Approaching my 30 min deadline, I plumped for Madison – even though a) I couldn’t see why and b) I don’t recall him being minister of war (though maybe he was). Darn!
  27. As usual it was the easy ones that did for me. No problem with MAGINOT it was MILLINER that did for me. I guess I didn’t know that milling was cutting. That left me with the biffed MALI. Think that VIENNESE is up for COW or even COM.
  28. About 8:30
    Quick time for me, right on wavelength, even for the MofW.
    Antimatter would have been perhaps better defined as “rare” rather than “strange”…
    Nothing spectacular, tad formulaic in places, but no carping from me when I have this heat to deal with!

  29. I managed to complete this, but couldn’t parse milliner. Still don’t really get it. Can anyone help? Many thanks
    1. To ‘mill’ is to ‘cut or shape (metal) with a rotating tool’ (ODO) so ‘a lot of cutting’ indicates MILLINg. This ‘tops off’ (i.e. is on top of) ER (queen).
      I didn’t know this meaning of ‘mill’ either.
          1. For me it was working at British Gas’s Engineering Research Station in Killingworth that introduced me to the impressive set of machinery, including milling machines, on the “shop floor”.
            1. John – did you end up at GRS by any chance? There are still a fair few Geordies here in Loughborough 😊
              1. No. I left ERS and British Gas in 1987, well before the move. But I bumped into my ex-boss from then who did move (but is now retired) at last year’s 15squared Sloggers & Betters event in York (he is now a setter). Are you a GRS person?
                1. Not exactly – a traling spouse! We moved from London (Watson House) – 26 years in the East Midlands 😊 I bet you’ll know some of the ERS people who are still around here though and I imagine my husband (who is still a gassie) will have known your boss – what a small world! And we had a wonderful few days in Lavenham and Dedham Vale earlier this year too ….

                  Penny

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