Times 29335 – A test drive

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Time: 20:44

Music: Freddie Hubbard, Red Clay.

I thought his puzzle was going to give trouble, so I picked off some of the easier clues to get started.   The setter offers some novel constructions, and is definitely fond of removing letters from words.    I definitely found it quite enjoyable.

 

Across
1 Put foot down after Charlie humiliated (9)
 CHASTENED – C + HASTENED, put foot down as in stepped on the gas.
9 Issue returning underwriter had (7)
EMANATE – NAME backwards + ATE.    A name in the sense of a Lloyd’s underwriter.
10 E from Indonesia perhaps (7)
EASTERN  – Double definition, my LOI where I tried all sorts of tricks before seeing the obvious.
11 Silence writer making one envious at first (5)
QUELL  – QU(-i,+E)LL, a simple letter-substitution clue.
12 Correspondents gathering in Shanghai (5-4)
 PRESS GANG – A jocular cryptic hint.
13 Listing showing signs of recovery, they say (7)
HEELING – Sounds list HEALING.
15 Note Jean-Paul Sartre’s bed set on fire again (5)
RELIT – RE + LIT, with more knowledge of French than usual required.
17 Call impostor briefly (5)
 PHONE – PHONE[y].
18 Bones from carcass lying around (5)
SACRA – Backwards hidden in [c]ARCAS[s].
19 Brassed off agent in court (3,2)
FED UP – FED (a US agent) + UP.
20 New way to the top beginning to emerge (7)
NASCENT – N + ASCENT.
23 Spooner’s nosy follower, one employed in the kitchen (6,3)
FRYING PAN  – Spoonerism of PRYING FAN.
25 Philosopher in bar called out (5)
LOCKE – Sounds like LOCK.
27 Trend in Great Depression ruined Democrat: millions lost (3,4)
ART DECO – Anagram of DEMOCRAT – M.
28 First section nearly all one-sided (7)
PARTIAL – PART I + AL[l].
29 Cleaner put off man of good birth (9)
DETERGENT – DETER + GENT, a chestnut.
Down
1 Sinister fellow turning up in empty city (6)
CREEPY – C(PEER upside-down)Y.
2 I mess about, remarkably sober (10)
ABSTEMIOUS – Anagram of I MESS ABOUT.
3 Nurse almost guaranteed prize (8)
TREASURE – TREA[t] + SURE.
4 Hitman in Japan hiding here? (5)
NINJA – Hidden in [hitma]N IN JA[pan].
5 Pleased something done about one of The Sun’s offerings (9)
DELIGHTED – DE(LIGHT)ED.
6 Nothing must be removed from ornate old boat (6)
BARQUE – BAR[o]QUE.
7 Lawsuit covering investigation (4)
CASE – Triple definition.
8 Disorganised paralegal overlooking a complaint (8)
PELLAGRA – Anagram of PARALEGAL – A.
14 MP in election unusually short (10)
INCOMPLETE – MP in an anagam of ELECTION.
16 Withdrew from competition? Strange (4-5)
LEFT FIELD – LEFT + FIELD, in entirely different senses.   An Americanism for those in Tunbridge Wells who wish to write a letter to the puzzles editor.
17 Woman waiting ages to run off after author (8)
PENELOPE – PEN + ELOPE, where the definition describes the wife of Odysseus.
18 Misguided Republican steps in, one not in union (8)
SPINSTER – R in anagram of STEPS IN.
21 Shutter closed when sleeping (6)
EYELID – A cryptic definition.
22 Where you might find mule travelling thus? (2,4)
ON FOOT – Referring to the MULE you wear.
24 Poet turning tail, cause of ferment? (5)
YEAST – YEATS with a twist in the last two letters.
26 Sculptor losing heart in capital (4)
CARO – CA[i]RO.    Never heard of him, but the cryptic is pretty explicit.

54 comments on “Times 29335 – A test drive”

  1. I don’t think I’ve ever heard LEFT FIELD (with a hyphen, in Chambers) used all by itself to mean “strange.” Virtually always (are there variations?) it’s “out of left field.” (The title of my friends Joshua and Henri’s regular offering of cryptic puzzles via Patreon—a title they embrace in all its senses.)
    SECOND TRY

  2. 24:38
    Like Guy, I’ve never come across LEFT-FIELD. I was quite slow on this one. QUELL (and hence BARQUE) was a long time coming, and I only parsed it, and EMANATE, after submitting. NHO CARO, and I needed the checkers to think of Cairo.

  3. 36 minutes with 10 of those spent on my last few in the NE segment: BARQUE, QUILL, CASE and PELLAGRA. And I could have saved myself another minute or two had I written in EASTERN when I first considered it, but it seemed such a feeble clue I didn’t believe it, so I waited until checkers made it inevitable. I still think it’s a feeble clue though.

    I had no problem with LEFT-FIELD despite being unware of its origins in baseball, if that’s where it comes from. CARO was taken on trust and I ignored ‘waiting ages’ re PENELOPE, just assuming (correctly) it was a reference I wouldn’t know.

    1. EASTERN is ridiculous. Hardly a double definition when the first word—er, letter—is just an abbreviation for what’s defined by example in the rest of the clue.

  4. CARO was my LOI since I NHO him. I assumed he was a contemporary of Michelangelo or something, but he is English and only died a few years ago. Before I had checkers I was tempted by MOoRE. I’ve also never heard of LEFT FIELD on its own but that didn’t hold me up. For EASTERN, I wasted time trying to justify ASTERN as “from” before realizing I was just being too complicated. I knew who PENELOPE was and why she waited ages. Nice Mondayish offering.

  5. 33.58, which I thought was OK seeing I DNK CARO, PELLAGRA or NAME in that sense, was puzzled by lock/bar and jagged BARQUE by just getting lucky. Thanks v.

    From Make You Feel My Love:
    When the rain is blowing in your face
    And the whole world is on your CASE
    I could offer you a warm embrace
    To make you feel my love

    1. For your Bob Dylan, I’ll raise you Tom Lehrer (RIP).
      From “I Wanna Go Back to Dixie”:
      “… I’ll go back to the Swanee
      Where PELLAGRA makes you scrawny
      And the honeysuckle clutters up the vine
      I really am a fixin’
      To go home and start a mixin’
      Down below that Mason-Dixon Line…”

      1. That’s quite…niche! If anyone’s going to get a word like pellagra into a song, it’s Tom. Or it was Tom…

  7. 23 minutes. EASTERN went in with a shrug. I was happy to see the crossing Q which helped me get QUELL. NHO the ‘Sculptor’ and having done only a perfunctory alphabet and capital trawl, I wasn’t very confident on pressing the Submit button. I liked the journalists meeting together in China.

  8. About 25′. Should have been quicker but held up in NE corner where EMANATE wouldn’t come quickly, and I needed it to decide between the VHO pallegra/PELLAGRA. CARO also faintly familiar, but I too thought was much older, so maybe actually a NHO. I pencilled in EASTERN to begin with not expecting it to survive, but it did. Thanks Vinyl and setter.

  9. Quick, as befits a monday. No unknowns but pellagra only vaguely and could not describe symptoms…
    Was unclear what art deco and the great depression had to do with each other. Just a matter of timing? Seems a bit left-field, which Americanism did not bother me much.

  10. 13.10
    No great problems apart from the NHO sculptor. Seeing J and Q in the top half made me wonder if we were in for a pangram (single only, after Friday’s double), but no such luck.
    Starting the count-down to next month’s Championship, hopefully with some improvement in times (for The Times).
    COD ABSTEMIOUS
    LOI CARO

  11. 38 mins a chunk of which was spent in the NE like others. QUELL was the key that finally unLOCKEd the door. I agree with the comments above, some very strange clues.

    PELLAGRA and the waiting PENELOPE both unknown.

    I liked FRYING PAN.

    Thanks V and setter.

  12. 18:50 but I submitted off-grid for some reason.

    No major problems encountered but I took a best guess for the unknown PELLAGRA, the other unknown CARO took far too long to see, and I ummed and ahhed about EMANATE as the Lloyds connection didn’t occur to me.

    An entertaining solve so thanks to both.

  13. 51:28
    Needed two aids, one to look up PELLAGRA, as I guessed PALLEGRA which made LOI EMANATE impossible. Spent a lot of time in that one, could not think of a word for “underwriter”, forgot the whole Lloyds thing.

    Other hint needed was a list of 4/5 letter sculptors. Only one I thought of was RODIN, for a capital of ROIN, clue works either way. Managed to get LOCKE without needing another list, then got the C and CARO.

    Also held up by putting YEATS in, which blocked the easy chestnut DETERGENT.

    Bed=lit, sure I knew it, but how many are we expected to know?

    COD PRESS GANG

    2. bed =lit would be well known to many from wagon lit=sleeping car . Orient Express and all that.

      Caro is written into my cheating dictionary, so must have appeared before.

      the easy Monday rule doesn’t quite apply

      thanks to setter and blogger.

  14. DNF. Gave up on 30 mins with the NHO CARO missing. Finally dredged LOCKE before twigging lock = bar works as a verb and guessed the remaining letters of NHO PELLAGRA.
    A mixed bag, slow to start, fun in parts, ended weakly. Thanks both.

  15. 51 minutes with LOI CARO. I too was tempted by MO(O)RE before John Locke closed that down empirically. DNK PELLAGRA, the best arrangement of the letters I could come up with. I knew LEFT FIELD, and had always assumed it came from baseball. Not sure if it’s the leg or the off side though. A good challenge. Thank you V and setter.

  16. DNF in 32 minutes, just could not get CARO. I suppose I should have realised Cairo. I did the rest in 25 minutes or so and thought it had some clever cluing, but not getting this Caro thing has annoyed me now 😉
    Thanks setter and blogger

  17. 14.04

    Some minutes at the end on CARO even with the checkers. Knew PELLAGRA, for sure only from these things. Liked FRYING PAN

    Thanks Vinyl/setter

  18. 14.00, after putting in a less-than-confident CARO. “He was lauded as the greatest British sculptor of his generation” apparently. Very pleased for him. Like others, I also stumbled through the NE sector, despite being fine with PELLAGRA, and it was only when the Q emerged that I made progress, tackling the nightmare of ?A?E with anxiety, relieved by the triple definition, which limited options.

  19. 27:34 with FOI SACRA and LOI EYELID. NHO CARO and VHO PELLAGRA COD to FRYING PAN but I have no issues with the LEFT-FIELD or ART DECO

    1. As someone from Tunbridge Wells , I’m pleased to report no issues here with left -field: that was the least of my problems.
      Defeated in the end by the sculptor and I’m ashamed to say, EYELID.

  20. 20.08. Good loosener for the challenges ahead. Got really tangled up in the NE corner and I thought for a while I wasn’t going to crack it. I’d thought about quill earlier but had to go back and work it out. Once I got that barque followed easily, I didn’t do myself any favours by thinking the clue referred to an anagram of ornate plus and mins O.
    LOI emanate.

  21. No very great problems except that lock = bar didn’t establish itself at once, and was slow to understand DE(LIGHT)ED, indeed I’ve only just done so. 31 minutes.

  22. As it was for others, the NE was the sticking point. Baffled by QUELL until I read vinyl’s blog and I didn’t think much of EASTERN. No problem with LEFT FIELD. I liked CARO, CHASTENED and ON FOOT.

    It’s hard to believe but according to his Wikipedia entry “From his first years in the École normale, Sartre was one of its fiercest pranksters.” I suppose he would have had to take his bed being regularly set on fire as part of the general fun.

    Thanks to vinyl and the setter

  23. 35:43 but had to Google sculptor and only knew of John Locke because some time ago I mis-Amazoned a book if his thinking he was a lighter author.
    Ta Vinyl and setter

  24. 6:56. No problems today, in spite of the unknowns PELLAGRA and CARO. PELLAGRA did ring a faint bell, perhaps a trace of its last appearance here in 2019!

  25. PRESS GANG started the proceedings. Most of the NW followed although EASTERN and TREASURE had question marks about their provenance until the crossers confirmed them. LOCKE presented himself unsteadily while I tried to equate lock and bar. I suppose you can bar/lock a door. The sculptor eluded me and I headed up to tussle with the NE where PELLAGRA tinkled a faint bell before EMANATE provided a second crosser for the elusive BARQUE which gave me QUILL. That left the sculptor who finally stumbled precariously from CA(i)RO. 17:28. Thanks setter and Vinyl.

  26. 18:05 – mostly quick until the philosopher and today’s capital city/nho artist slowed me down. Generally on the tricky side, I thought.

  27. 14 minutes, ending with CARO assuming it was Cairo less I. Nice for a Monday. No issues with LEFT FIELD and agree with jerryW about ART DECO.

  28. Starting the week with a fail. I just couldn’t get the order of the unheard of PELLAGRA right.

    LOCKE was my first thought but not convinced by bar/lock. Reading the comments here it seems acceptable but still a small grumble from me. Not helped by the unheard of CARO checking the middle letter.

    COD PARTIAL

    Thanks blogger (a lot I parsed but I wasn’t convinced with my workings) and setter

  29. 21:30

    Fairly smooth solve, though not heard of either PELLAGRA nor CARO. CASE bunged in early but wasn’t 100% so glad to see the QUELL trick to confirm it. Liked PRESS-GANG and PENELOPE.

    Thanks V and setter

  30. I’m relatively new .. can ‘E’ be ‘Eastern’ or just ‘East’? .. if the latter then rather than a double definition is the clue referring to the ‘E’ in Indonesia being on the east side of the word?

    1. I wondered that, but astern means behind or at the back not slightly to the right of centre, at least in my way of thinking. I’m of the opinion it’s just a really poor clue.

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