Times 27,143: The End of the Beginning

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I wasn’t on the wavelength for this one – or maybe just shagged out after another long week – taking a little over 10 minutes to finish on paper. And very glad I was to do the paper version too, this time, 23dn being just the kind of clue I’m wont to bang in (“Playwright, _H_W? Done!”) and parse post-submit if I’m racing the clock on the electronic version.

FOI 14ac, LOI the rather archaic-sounding phrase at 21ac, COD to 5dn because it’s a film I’m always happy to be reminded of. Having written out all the parsings this does generally seem to have been more straightforward really than the heavy weather I made of it, with two absolute chestnuts at 9ac and 25ac, but also enlivened by some entertainingly quirky approaches, especially in the first and last three down clues. Thanks setter for rounding off another week in fine style!

ACROSS

1 Endlessly carp? Coming round in the end (5)
FINIS – FIS{h} [carp?] “coming round” IN

4 Complain luxury boat is unfinished, cutting beauty (9)
BELLYACHE – YACH{t} “cutting” BELLE

9 Champion drink, beer (9)
SUPPORTER – SUP PORTER [drink | beer]

10 Ecosystem merits having this wheat planted in it (5)
EMMER – hidden in {ecosyst}EM MER{its}

11 Depart this earth — left to disappear as soon as possible (4,3,4,2)
FROM THE WORD GO – FROM THE WOR{l}D, GO, losing its L for left

14 Acquire small area for training bats? (4)
NETS – NET S [acquire | small]

15 Hurry up — seems diaper is needed here (4,6)
LOOK SNAPPY – LOOKS NAPPY [seems | diaper]

18 I reuse film running in mixer (10)
EMULSIFIER – (I REUSE FILM*) [“running”]

19 One enters level two (4)
PAIR – I enters PAR [level]

21 “Cast in Chains” — song by The Wretches (3,2,3,5)
LAY BY THE HEELS – LAY [song] BY THE HEELS [wretches]

24 Some island seized by Henry I (5)
HAITI – AIT [island] “seized by” H I, &lit. Thanks to the commenters for untangling the full parsing: Henri Christophe, later Henry I of a Haiti, was a key figure in the local Revolution, and “some island” because Haiti is only half of Hispaniola, sharing it with the Dominican Republic of course. Retroactive Clue of the Day!

25 Outline provided by a stupid judge (9)
ADUMBRATE – A DUMB RATE [a | stupid | judge]

27 Carriage departed before time during endless floods, perhaps (9)
WAGONETTE – GONE before T during WATE{r}

28 Keen to eat old duck (5)
AVOID – AVID to eat O

DOWN
1 What keeps nurse going, perhaps German convenience food (4,6)
FISH FINGER – a nurse is a type of shark, so it may be propelled by a FISH FIN… plus GER [German]

2 Censure over card game (3)
NAP – PAN reversed. The card game also known as Napoleon.

3 Son gets rather mad covered in acne (6)
SPOTTY – S gets POTTY

4 Wealthier gambler not going into work (6,3)
BETTER OFF – BETTER [gambler] + OFF [not at work]

5 Slow and dignified film, but not indispensible (5)
LARGO – KEY LARGO (1948) minus the “key” bit.

6 Conceding Yankee playing cricket has no following (8)
YIELDING – Y + {f}IELDING

7 Pedestrian in public location (11)
COMMONPLACE – double def

8 Mostly ancient member of a noble line (4)
EARL – EARL{y} [ancient (as in “ancient civilisation”), “mostly”]

12 Big loud unit relocated in separate housing (11)
OUTBUILDING – (BIG LOUD UNIT*) [“relocated”]

13 Hotels mounted very intense type of water sport (10)
HYDROSPEED – HYDROS [hotels] + reversed DEEP [very intense]. Aka riverboarding, apparently.

16 Run home to look up family line (4,5)
KEEP HOUSE – reversed PEEK [loop] + HOUSE [family line]

17 Like an old civilisation rains, say, destroyed (8)
ASSYRIAN – (RAINS SAY*) [“destroyed”]

20 Fear ferret I introduced to father (6)
PHOBIA – HOB I “introduced to” PA

22 Fungus certainly turns up after vase is removed (5)
YEAST – YEA [certainly] + reversed T{urn}S – first removing the URN [vase] from the middle

23 Playwright that’s taken round for a staged production (4)
SHOW – (George Bernard) SHAW is the playwright, but taking an O [round] in place of his A.

26 Difficulty of a year that never was (3)
ADO – AD 0 is the infamous year that did *not* fall between 1 BC and AD 1, in the Gregorian/Julian calendar.

47 comments on “Times 27,143: The End of the Beginning”

  1. Verlaine avoided what I did: bunging in SHAW. I made a mental note to return to this one and check the wordplay, then shredded the note. DNK HOB, but that didn’t matter. Also DNK HYDROSPEED, and that did matter, as it took me a while to figure out why PEED. I wondered about HAITI, both because of the seeming double duty problem, and also because Haiti is not an island; it shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic. So I suppose Haiti is ‘some island’ in that sense, but that leaves the AIT problem. On edit: which I guess Keriothe solved while I was typing this.

    Edited at 2018-09-14 07:04 am (UTC)

  2. Relieved this wasn’t the Friday stinker I was fearing. Finished in 33 minutes (so I suppose about three Verlaines, which is very quick for me!) Top half was quicker than the bottom, mostly because I’d not heard of 21a LAY BY THE HEELS, 25a ADUMBRATE, nor 13d HYDROSPEED.

    FOI 2d NAP, LOI 25 ADUMBRATE, enjoyed 26d ADO, and the deceptive simplicity of 26a AVOID.

  3. Much enjoyed, but ‘Lay by the heels’ only went in from the wordplay, and ‘ado’ from the definition – thanks Verlaine! And thanks, Keriothe, for explaining ‘Haiti’ – I could not see the purpose of ‘some’ in the clue.
  4. 17:53. I found this tricky too, but I enjoyed it a lot.
    24ac is &Lit. Henri Christophe led a revolution against the French in 1804 and was later proclaimed King Henry I of Haiti. Brilliant!
    1. Okay, that actually might be my COD now you’ve told me how it works! I especially like the “some island”—I think I only came to know that Haiti was only some of Hispaniola because I’ve been brushing up on my geography for crosswords…
  5. For some reason I had in my head that a hotel was a HYDRA so ended up with HYDRASPEED. Possibly because of the current project at work with a dodgy acronym (HYper Data center Redesign and Adaptation).

    I thought this the best offering of the week – SHOW, LOOK SNAPPY and HAITI all particularly good.

  6. Fun crossword this, with some very clever clues of which 24ac surely COD, now Keriothe has shown the way
    Not heard of hydrospeed but didn’t matter.. stupidly putting NUTS for NETS, did matter
  7. 35 mins with a croissant (hoorah) and G&L marmalade.
    I don’t think I am familiar with ‘Lay by the heels’ but it is ringing a far off bell.
    I know Emmer was an easy hidden – but has anyone actually heard of it. Come on, own up.
    Mostly I liked Show, for the trickery.
    Thanks setter and V.

    PS I see a Grand Final clue in 2014 was:
    Ecosystem mercifully preserving old kind of wheat (5)
    So it might be well known to seasoned solvers.

    Edited at 2018-09-14 08:06 am (UTC)

    1. EMMER certainly seemed familiar from somewhere, but I’m not sure I’d started doing Grand Finals by 2014…
  8. The daily saga continues with me getting within one or two answers of completion after a mighty struggle and then running out of steam because I’d expended so much brain power on what went before. I guess HYDROSPEED was a write-in for some but I’d never heard of it (nor have the usual sources other than the Oxfords). Also I never heard of LAY BY THE HEELS, and KEEP HOUSE eluded me for some reason. I had a similar query as others re 24ac, so thanks to keriothe for explaining it, and I didn’t think of the film title reference at 5dn.
  9. Like another above, carelessly bunged in SHAW meaning to review it later then forgot. Never heard of LAY BY THE HEELS but guessed it anyway. 32 minutes with 23d wrong. Liked FISH FIN GER.
  10. Ah yes, this is a super clue, now I’ve realised that there are more Henry I’s than just Beauclerc!
  11. 25.12, with FISHFINGER (very amusing) and HYDROSPEED, taking the extra chunks of time. Wiki says hydrospeed is what the Europeans (all of them?) call what we Brits call riverboarding (thanks V). So that’s alright then.
    Be thankful EMMER was not clued by allusion to Jane Austen.
    Missed the brilliant allusion in 24ac, not being up on my Haitian history. I’d like to think I’d have seen it in a TLS.
    I see (now) that LAY BY THE HEELS is precisely to put in chains (Chambers: fetter). If I thought of it at all, I’d have probably said it was just “arrest” possibly with a bit of a rugby tackle.
  12. Finished with FINIS in 29 minutes. I’d mistakenly put rap for NAP early on. This followed me having to walk to the newsagents to replace my copy of The Times. The company that delivers to the newsagent had stuck their identifying sticker across almost the entire puzzle. Or was it censorship? Have I fallen foul of this site’s high editorial values? HYDROSPEED solved by memories of the ugliest hotel in the world, the Norbreck Hydro, between Blackpool and Cleveleys, where my grandmother lived. COD to BELLYACHE. LAY BY THE HEELS was known from somewhere, perhaps from the stocks in the Square in Poulton-le-Fylde, my mother’s home village. Thank you V and setter.
    1. My firm held their Xmas bash at the Norbreck Hydro about 20 years ago. I got totalled on Southern Comfort and lemonade, yet somehow went down for a full English at 8.30 when nobody else could face it. The marmalade definitely wasn’t gin and lime.
      1. My niece stayed there once. She expected running water in such a high-class establishment, but not down the walls of her room.
  13. 38:38 with two wrong. Shaw/Show and Ago/Ado.

    I liked Bellyache but now keriothe has revealed its hidden wonder, COD to HAITI.

  14. Didn’t previously know HYDROSPEED, but as others have pointed out, didn’t really need to. Likewise, my history isn’t strong enough for me to have realised at the time just how good a clue HAITI is, but bravo anyway. I even avoided the Shavian trap for the careless biffer, so my Friday is off to a good start.
  15. The top half flew in and then I stalled completely for a while. A glance at the Club board seems to indicate that GBS caught out quite a few people – very sneaky. It took me ages to see YEAST and I failed to parse the fishy ones FINIS and FINGER. Generous clueing for HYDROSPEED made it gettable. 18.34

    P.S. For those who like that sort of thing Brummie has a nice
    TLS-ish one today in that other paper.

    Edited at 2018-09-14 09:24 am (UTC)

    1. Mrs and Miss BW are away on a mother and daughter holiday, so I’ve had time to download and do Brummie’s challenge. Easier than this place, I’d say. A bit quicker too.
  16. Thanks for this Keriothe. Yes, it’s a beauty. I knew Toussaint L’Ouverture from A level Wordsworth but not Henri.
  17. ….but I do know of waterboarding. For a sadistic torturer, it’s definitely “a very intense type of water sport” ! Luckily I was able to parse HYDROSPEED without any trouble. The only other unknown was LAY BY THE HEELS, which was a confident biff.

    FOI EMULSIFIER

    Thanks to Myrtilus for the reminder re the 2014 Final. I knew I’d seen EMMER before – it was a DNK back then.

    LOI FISH FINGER which I parsed later. A COD candidate, along with HAITI (I didn’t overthink it at the time, but it’s really clever), and FROM THE WORD GO, but the winner is LARGO as Verlaine suggested.

    An excellent puzzle all round, and 14:02 was a time that gave me great satisfaction.

    Edited at 2018-09-14 10:35 am (UTC)

  18. 23’14 but another Shavian donkey. Out of kilter with the setter’s warp somewhat in this one, including a tendency of Specialist to pose as GK. No real complaints though – all neat enough.
  19. I liked it, and got through it in about the usual time. But while I found parts of this very tricksy,and very very clever, there were a couple that didn’t settle quite right for my ear. The &lit at Haiti and Emmer seemed to have a word or two in the wrong order and a couple others read awkwardly to me. Perhaps it was just juxtaposition with the very enjoyable Supporter, Lay By the Heels, Ado, and Adumbrate. Thx setter, thx Verlaine.
  20. NAP was my FOI, FISH FINGER(not fully parsed) and finally FROM THE WORD GO brought proceedings to a close. I also failed to fully parse LARGO and YEAST. Impressed with HAITI, but didn’t know that Henry. I had a long fallow spell where nothing would come to mind after my first 8 or so entries, but eventually got moving again after seeing COMMONPLACE. It took me far too long to see BELLYACHE despite having both components in mind from the start. I managed to avoid the bear trap at 23d. 34:29. Thanks setter and V.
  21. Another good crossword after yesterday’s, with a good mix of clues. ADUMBRATE came up earlier in the year, I think, which is fortunate as I’d never come across it otherwise. The one that stymied me for a bit was 20d, as I didn’t know HOB as a ferret, but it seemed the only plausible answer.

    My only minor gripe would be 21a, where I think it’s a shame to reference a band/song that isn’t real – it makes the surface a bit easy for the setter, in my view.

    7m 57s for me.

  22. Pretty good puzzle I thought, though maybe that lovely &lit stands out from a reasonably respectable crowd (21’s got ‘the’ in the clue and the answer for example, plus the chestnuts as blogged). Relatively undemanding for a Friday, anyway. Thanks both.
  23. Well this is a first. I managed to complete the 15×15 in under an hour (38:50) with no reveals or aids. There were still some words that I DNK i.e. EMMER, ADUMBRATE and HYDROSPEED as a sport, relying on the wordplay. Also there were some solves that I did not fully parse FISH FINGER, PHOBIA and YEAST so thank you to Verlaine for the blog. LOI 16d KEEP HOUSE. 11a gets my COD.
  24. 25 mins so 2and a half Verlaines! That must be a record in itself. Admittedly I had to Google 21a because it was unfamiliar. Reminds me of one of my favourite songs by Tri Yann called Dans les Prisons de Nantes https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0kryi6CY5Y0 which includes the line deliez moi les pieds. Have a listen! I’ve tried playing it on the guitar. Just about playable if you can sing in very fast medieval French.
    Think I missed some of the subtleties of this. Still most enjoyable
  25. 37 mins here. There were a few DNKs, EMMER and HOB and picked the wrong film (FARGO) for 5d – no wonder it didn’t parse that well but managed a fairly smooth finish for a Friday. Dodged the SHOW trap as well. I like 24a more now that the clue has been fully explained. Good setting!
  26. Not my finest hour; I thought it was really tricky and it took me 45 mins. Lay by the heels, hydros (had forgotten that), emmer. Is deep very intense, or just intense? The very in there caused hesitation. I tried to rationalise thumbnail for ages before seeing adumbrate. Oh well, at least I got through it. Good blog, V, thanks.
  27. Hmmm. I finished this and submitted it without much confidence. LAY BY THE HEELS looks completely implausible to me, so it was just as well that the checkers made it the only option. I was somewhat discouraged by “by the” appearing in the clue itself, but I suppose the setter had painted himself (or herself) into something of a corner and had no option. ADUMBRATE was one of those words that sits in the box labelled “misc – keep?”, unattached to any meaning. WAGONETTE sounded both plausible and kitsch, and NAP was only very vaguely recalled. FISH FINGER went in unparsed – I wondered if the shark was involved, but then got bogged down and decided Inge might be German, and finally got fed up and just put it in. Similar story for YEAST

    Thirty one minutes overall. I might have been marginally sharper and more on-wavelength were it not for the fact that I’m just back from a holiday, and therefore exhausted and in need of a holiday.

    Edited at 2018-09-14 04:55 pm (UTC)

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