Times Cryptic 26924

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

At 28 minutes I found this quite an easy puzzle but there are one or two references that may prove troublesome for those who don’t happen to know them. Fortunately for me, for once I did!

Can any of my fellow bloggers or LJ experts suggest a way of preventing opening remarks appearing in larger font than the blog itself. I noticed Don’s QC blog yesterday appeared similarly. As viewed before posting (or saving an edit) the font sizes look the same, but after posting and saving the introduction appears two points larger.

As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]

Across
1 Palm about to provide cover (6)
COCOON – COCO (palm), ON (about)
4 Injured captain who lost control, oddly trendy (8)
BLIGHTED – BLIGH (captain who lost control – mutiny on the Bounty), T{r}E{n}D{y} [oddly]
10 Soldier’s caged bird revealing musical composition (7)
PARTITA – PARA (soldier) contains [caged] TIT (bird). J.S. Bach wrote some famous ones.
11 Standard / snooker balls (7)
COLOURS – Double definition
12 It follows a monster around (4)
ERGO – OGRE (monster) reversed [around]. Latin for ‘therefore’. We have a stray ‘a’ here for those who worry about such things.
13 Run around after evacuation with senior politician (10)
ADMINISTER – A{roun}D [after evacuation], MINISTER (senior politician)
15 Catch ruffian seizing end of poker that lies by the fire (6,3)
HEARTH RUG – HEAR (catch), THUG (ruffian) containing [seizing] {poke}R [end]
16 Errand boy carrying article for Echo in Excel (2,3)
GO FAR – GOF(-e, +A)R (errand boy / excel).  E is echo in the NATO alphabet.
18 Old lady / who wins chess game? (5)
MATER – A straight definition and a contrived one
19 Before a fight performers search far and wide (4,5)
CAST ABOUT – CAST (performers), A, BOUT (fight)
21 A quiet dean, sadly not up to it (10)
INADEQUATE – Anagram [sadly] of A QUIET DEAN
23 Such places as Scarborough, primarily? (4)
SPAS – S{uch}, P{laces}, A{s}, S{carborough} [primarily]
26 Greek girl supplying Italian dessert (7)
GRANITA – GR (Greek), ANITA (girl). It’s a sort of water ice.
27 What logger may make from trees in ground (7)
ENTRIES – Anagram [ground] of TREES IN
28 Calmly submissive, did not keep appointment (8)
RESIGNED – Two meanings
29 Savage, not sweet, with Article 50 (6)
BRUTAL – BRUT (not sweet), A (article), L(50)
Down
1 A little wood catches fire ultimately (5)
COPSE – COPS (catches), {fir}E [ultimately]. Another redundant ‘a’.
2 Movie star getting award after a piercing howl (4,5)
CARY GRANT – A contained by [piercing] CRY (howl), GRANT (award). Aka Archibald Leach, born in Bristol in 1904.
3 God of love heading for disaster at home (4)
ODIN – O (love), D{isaster} [heading], IN (at home)
5 Polish bishop’s left short (7)
LACKING – {b}LACKING (polish) [bishop’s left]
6 Cotton cloaks laid up somewhere in Kent (10)
GILLINGHAM – GINGHAM (cotton) contains [cloaks] ILL (laid up). I wonder if the town’s fame has spread abroad?
7 Faith bound to be heard (5)
TRUST – Sounds like [heard] “trussed” (bound)
8 Soldier or sailor turning up after leave (6,3)
DESERT RAT – DESERT (leave), TAR (sailor) reversed [turning up]
9 Butcher’s / bird (6)
GANDER – Two meanings. ‘Butcher’s hook’ / ‘look’ is CRS. ‘Gander’ is also slang for ‘look’, apparantly with reference to the long neck of the bird. Rambling Syd Rumpo used to carry his ditties in a ‘gander bag’.
14 One of Quince’s playmates realigns TV set (10)
STARVELING – Anagram [set] of REALIGNS TV. Robin Starveling, a tailor, and Peter Quince, a carpenter, are among the ‘mechanicals’ in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
15 Lulu longing to entertain married princess (9)
HUMDINGER – HUNGER (longing) contains [to entertain] M (married) + DI (princess). Those of us who also do the Quick Cryptic were at an advantage here as this word came up in a puzzle only a few days before Christmas. Our regular contributor, Invariant, advised that it’s apparently derived from merging hummer and dinger, with all three words meaning (roughly) a good thing. I think ‘lulu’ in this sense came up quite recently too.
17 Profit not unusual in area taken up (9)
FOOTPRINT – Anagram [unusual] of PROFIT NOT. Defined as ‘the shape and size of the area something occupies’.
19 Bottle for Brecht’s mother (7)
COURAGE – A straight definition plus a reference to the play Mother Courage by Bertolt Brecht. I think by convention the ‘m’ of ‘mother’ should be capitalised here as in this context it’s a proper noun.
20 Military assessment of turbulent priest (6)
SITREP – Anagram [turbulent] of PRIEST. A reference in the surface here to the saying attributed to Henry II, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” which resulted in the assassination of Thomas a Becket.
22 Leader of assembly blocks US president (5)
ADAMS – A{ssembly} [leader], DAMS (blocks)
24 Fibre in diets is a laxative (5)
SISAL – Hidden in {diet}S IS A L{axative}
25 Move / jug (4)
STIR – Double definition, the second relying on two slang terms for prison.

44 comments on “Times Cryptic 26924”

  1. Took about 40 minutes after a slow start. Had to guess STARVELING (admittedly not hard), and GILLINGHAM went in with a flash of inspiration.

    I tend to associate ‘lulu’ more with the very bad than the very good but I suppose either sense is OK.

    Did you know there are also 2 meanings of HUMDINGER? From the OED:
    “humdinger… 2. Electronics. A voltage divider connected across the heater circuit of a valve with the variable tap connected to a source of fixed potential, so that the hum introduced by the heater can be reduced by suitably biasing it with respect to the cathode.”
    Er…? Well, now you do know anyway.

    Thanks for the reference to Rambling Syd Rumpo. Kenneth Williams at his best.

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

  2. I would have had it done well before leaving the house to pickle my brain.
    Don’t think I’d ever heard before of GILLINGHAM, but it was obviously going to be an “ingham” name, so not too hard to guess.
    Last night I was regaling (wishful thinking) my dining companions with the fact that COURAGE and “bottle” are synonymous in UK slang and cryptic puzzles. It came up because I said I wanted to wait until I’d had a bit more wine before taking advantage of the open mic to sing with the live band (I did “The Way You Look Tonight” and “You Go to My Head,” and I am never really afflicted with stage fright).

    Edited at 2018-01-02 05:53 am (UTC)

  3. 45 minutes. Lucky, as I missed the Brecht and Shakespeare references, despite A Midsummer Night’s Dream counting for half of the Shakespeare I’ve seen so far. STARVELING did go in surprisingly easily, so perhaps some of it’s sticking to my unconscious, at least.

    FOI 2d CARY GRANT, LOI 1a COCOON (not knowing “coco” for “palm” didn’t help, and like Vinyl I went a bit “cuckoo” for a while.) Biffed 15a HUMDINGER.

    Enjoyed the turbulent priest, though SITREP is one of those annoying phrases used by managers in dull industries who like to pretend they’re in the marines…

    1. I only knew SITREP because it came up once before. I thought it was recently until I just checked and found it was in December 2015!
  4. Since I lived in GILLINGHAM as a teenager, that went straight in. Finished in about 25 mins. Took far too long to remember STARVELING (especially given that it was an anagram).
  5. 35 mins with croissant and marmalade (hoorah) – then left with the DNK dilemma of Sitrep versus Sitper. Sitrep sounded more likely. I had previously entered Stripe until Inadequate killed that off.
    Mostly I liked: Article 50, Lulu and the Literary GK.
    Thanks setter and Jack.
    PS Well spotted on the stray ‘a’.

    Edited at 2018-01-02 08:04 am (UTC)

  6. 30 minutes on the nail, which is par for me, in a nice gentle workout.
    There is of course another Gillingham, in Dorset – the distinguishing feature being that this one is pronounced with a hard G whilst the Kentish version has a soft G.
    Thanks for parsing 1a Jack. And BTW Cary Grant’s name was spelt Leach (not Leech), not to be confused with Archibald Leach who was a leading pioneer in football stadium design.
  7. 38 minutes. Like Myrtilus, toyed between SITREP and SITPER and decided it must be a report or representation. NW the biggest problem until I twigged COPSE. Then COCOON and PARTITA became clear. I took a GANDER at the murder bird I’d entered and decided it was the wrong sort of butcher. Apparently football fans’ British geography is well above the national average but the one club they can’t place is GILLINGHAM. Thank you J and setter.
    1. Not that it helps me pin it down to within more than about 50 miles, but if you’re a quizzing nerd like me, the question of which is the only professional football club in Kent pops up very reliably.
  8. 10:48. No real problems today, and no unknowns, although ‘lulu’ is a term I only know from crosswords and I was grateful for the anagram in 14dn. My memory of minor Shakespeare characters probably wouldn’t have been up to the task without that assistance.
  9. Sitrep: mission accomplished 13:47 … after a bit of anxiety over GILLINGHAM, one of those places that I’ll probably never get closer to than a road sign saying Gillingham 6m. Telford’s the same (except the road signs say Telford, obviously).

    Satisfying puzzle.

    1. Ha, that reminded me of when Dilbert tries to record an answerphone message: “Hello, this is Dilbert, I’m not here at the moment .. well, I am here at this moment, obviously…”
  10. Another sluggish solve in 22 minutes, hampered by jumping to obdurate conclusions: I was convinced that the anagram of “Profit not” had to end in POINT, and, like Vinyl,struggling at 7d for a faith that sounded like tied. The princess in what turned out to be HUMDINGER had to be either IDA or RANI: if you follow the Express, it’s too soon for a grieving nation to make the Princess of Hearts a mere fragment of a crossword clue.
    I did like Bligh as the captain who lost control, though it took too long trying to take rein from captain in some sense.
    My mind being what it is, I dawdled for a while wondering whether Scarborough was really a Spa town: another smart clue.
    Thanks Jack for all those additional factoids.
    I’m afraid my knowledge of controlling font sizes is limited to messing them up in the HTML version, then asking nicely followed by and hit and hope.
    1. jackkt – I had the same problem (large font appearing) with LJ in some recent posts. I think it comes from copy/pasting text into the visual editor tab of the old LJ interface. I experimented a bit and if you paste your intro into the HTML tab — rather than the visual editor tab — and then switch back to visual the typeface is as it should be. It didn’t seem to be a problem when I pasted into the new editor interface.
      1. Thanks for the suggestion. My comment was based on what I see on my PC, but checking on my Android tablet the intro and blog are the same size as intended. And on my iPhone the intro is actually smaller than the blog, so it appears it perhaps varies according to device and local settings.
        1. Confusing, isn’t it. For what it’s worth, on my Mac your intro looks larger than usual for these blogs.
  11. A very enjoyable crossword. Only STARVELING was unknown. Almost wrote in SHRIKE for GANDER (a little knowledge is dangerous). COD to the gentle 1d COPSE.
  12. Twenty-eight minutes, with MATER and COCOON my LOsI. I dithered over MATER because I could only think it had something to do with “master” (as in “chess master”), and completely missed the blindingly obvious reference to “mate”. For COCOON, I was convinced that it should have two C’s (well, three including the one at the front).
  13. 26 minutes, enjoyable midde level puzzle, some nice clues (because I did them OK) and a few tricky ones with literary references, which could be biffed.

    Like deezza was familiar with the Dorset Gillingham and its pronunciation being different from the Kent one.

  14. Fairly easy stroll in the park this one

    Wiki is interesting on Gillingham Kent as against Gilliam Dorset. It says the Dorset one comes from Gylla’s home and hence the hard G whilst the Kent version is from Jillingham and thus a soft G.

  15. I felt like I was making really heavy work of this so it was a surprise when the timer came up with 26.48. On reflection I did go all around the houses on several clues – but at speed. The Dorset Gillingham is just down t’road so that one came easily enough. LOI GANDER, should have seen the rhyming slang much sooner.
  16. Was pleased to do this one in 26 mins, since it clearly had some chewy bits and wasn’t just easy-peasy. I like the literary ones, COURAGE and STARVELING. Also bunged in STRIPE before INADEQUATE sorted that one out. SITREP was dredged up from my fun years in my old school CCF ‘combined cadet force’ — and how useful that experience has turned out to be in giving me military jargon that I can use in Times crosswords! The double defs (straightforward and tricksy ones) were lovely. Great puzzle. Thanks for nice blog, too.

    Oh, I don’t think ‘mother’ needed an initial capital: although it is being used in the play as a proper name, she is also, simply, a mother.

  17. Obviously most solvers like 1ac to be a write-in, to get off to a good start – here it was my LOI, there being so many variations on “about”, at least two of them involving the letter C. Right, I’m off to wurdle my posset, as Rambling Syd would put it.
  18. I managed to delay finishing this by confusing a firedog and a hearth rug and biffing HEARTH DOG. I finally spotted my mistake when I realised my LOI had to be GANDER.

    I thought there were some nice clues today. ‘Profit not’ was a well disguised anagram for FOOTPRINT to my eyes though perhaps I should have spotted unusual as the anagrind earlier. I thought ADMINISTER was also good with the deceptively simple definition of ‘run’.

  19. Clearly my knowledge of literature is inadequate – in spite of just reading Bernard Cornwell’s excellent Shakespeare novel (in which the main character plays Francis Flute) neither Peter Quince nor Robin Starveling were mentioned as far as I can remember. Also DNK PARTITA or GRANITA, but easily got from the clues. LOI LACKING where I was looking for polish as the def.
  20. I bothered to get some sleep before this one, which turned out to be a good plan – only 6 and a half minutes, and more importantly only 10 seconds behind my pacesetter Jason. Caused some trouble for myself by banging in ANTIQUATED at 21ac, but 14dn was so clearly a character from MND that that crosser Q could not be allowed to stay for long…
  21. Delayed myself for a long while because like Verlaine had banged in ANTIQUATED in a moment of ageist thought. Have only ever made it to Rochester, Strood and Chatham but knew Gillingham from train announcements. Nice puzzle, 29′. Thanks jack and setter.
  22. This was the one I couldn’t see, until Captain Bligh gave me a prod by “nailing his COLOURS to the mast”. STARVELING was played by Terence Hardiman in the 1970 RSC Dream – which is the only professional one I’ve seen. 15.57
  23. I’ll hold back on the TfTT AVATAR results until Sotira’s CHRISTMAS TURKEY is out of the way.

    So for the time being you will have to do with the result of the horryd WoLY (Word of Last Year)

    which is…….. tarantara………. HYGGE (hʊɡə) – The Ogsford Dictionary defines as: a quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that
    engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being – (Demmark). We need a bit that presently with WWIII on the menu. Thank-you the Danes!

    As for 26924 I was off the pace and crawled over the line at about 51 mins with LOI 9dn GANDER my COD – for double slang!

    FOI 11ac COLOURS and WOD 15dn HUMDINGER a real humdinger!

    Edited at 2018-01-02 01:41 pm (UTC)

  25. 12:10 but it felt faster.

    I’ve been to watch football at Gillingham a few times and went through the station twice a day one summer when working at Shepherd Neame brewery in Faversham but it still took me a while to get that one.

    I’ll stop short of telling the Anita Harris “joke”

  26. I was delayed by 1a and most of the NE, crawling over the line in 39:38. Took ages to see TRUST rather than the TENET I was fixated on. COLOURS came after that and GILLINGHAM. LACKING then brought up the rear, after TED was finally joined by BLIGH. ODIN started me off. SITREP rang a faint bell, but STARVELING and COURAGE went in from wordplay and crossers. An enjoyable puzzle. Thanks setter and Jack.
  27. 13 minutes or so, hold-ups were GILLINGHAM and the upper left hand corner. I shouldn’t have been held up, since I had just put COCOONED in another puzzle that afternoon.
  28. I found this hard going and took over the hour, but I did enjoy the challenge. No idea why lulu and humdinger were a match but it seemed to work so in it went. Smiled at Bligh when he finally came to mind and enjoyed the reference to Adams, one of the many early US presidents with Welsh heritage. Very good puzzle and blog today, thank you setter and blogger both.
  29. Since Santa was kind enough to bring me The Complete Uxbridge it seems only fair that I should share the knowledge that TRUST is therein defined as Iron erosion in Yorkshire.
  30. 50 minutes: slow going, though no particular holdups coming to mind – did remember on pre-submit check to change 16ac from GO FOR to GO FAR, so avoided my frequent ‘one typo’ entry. 🙂
  31. Fell into the go fer trap. Could only think of Queeg for a captain. Thought that the cotton would be a thread after getting the A in the right crossing slot.
    But knew a bit of useless Mother Courage trivia, which is that Brecht adapted it, and Grass adapted The Tin Drum, from a 17th century novel, Simplicius Simplicissimus. The things we learn over a slow Christmas holiday.
    Lots of nice clues, thx.

    Edited at 2018-01-02 07:49 pm (UTC)

  32. A pleasant puzzle to start the year (for me). Wordplay for GILLINGHAM, GRANITA and PARTITA also. Everything else was fairly understood, so a normal solve in about 20 minutes. Regards.
  33. 41:25. I slowed down a little bit in the top half where the simple colours took far too long to see, as did 10ac, 1ac and 1dn where I thought “catches” was a containment indicator. Also tried to make the last five letters of 17dn “point” until eventually seeing the light. Nice puzzle though.
  34. 31 min 19 secs with one wrong. I couldn’t get 1 across. Guessed at cuckoo for cocoon.

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