No 27382, Thursday, 20 June 2019 No gnu flag

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I found this on the tough side, taking a pleasingly alliterative (anumertive?) 32.32 to complete, though Love Island was burbling in the background courtesy of Mrs Z and may hae been a disturbance to the path of smooth solving. There’s more than a touch of the transatlantic in this one, depending on how you count the American stuff, but that’s offset by some Yoruba,  Scots, French, Spanish and Mandarin. Latin, too, if you count today’s mountain-dwelling quadruped.
I’d like to think we have a nod in the direction of the 50th anniversay of Apollo 11’s landing, with 16ac, and indeed “eleven” in 14ac, but if that’s not intentional, permit me to nod anyway.
Credit to the setter for some rather pleasing surfaces throughout and a decent challenge.
My reasoning lies below, with clues, definitions and SOLUTIONS.

Across
1 Expecting furious nurses to be irritated about hospital (4,5)
WITH CHILD A matryoshka clue to begin with. “Nurses” and “about” are your containment indicators, so H(ospital) goes inside ITCH (to be irritated) goes inside WILD (furious)
6 Tailless mountain goat found in dry region (5)
TIBET Your IBEX loses its tail and hides in TT, short for teetotal or dry. Satisfyingly, a species of ibex is found in Tibet.
9 Beef tender and firm at point which cut by daughter (7)
COWHERD  The firm is CO, and then “at point which” indicates WHERE, cut the final E, add D(aughter)
10 Dope men smuggled in pouch (7)
SPORRAN SP is short for Starting Price, and can mean dope or gen in the phrase “what’s the SP?”, similar to “what’s the bottom line?”.  Add our favourite men, the O(ther) R(anks) and RAN for smuggled
11 Charm displayed by top Brit, every second (3)
OBI A West African word for a fetish or charm, useful in Scrabble. Every second letter of tOp BrIt
12 Speaking well of video, cooing dreadfully (2,4,5)
IN GOOD VOICE I think the “of” is redundant, except for surface. “Dreadfully” tells you it’s an anagram of VIDEO COOING
14 Neighbours to come about eleven? (6)
BESIDE I took ages (actually, truth be told, until now) to realise that the to has to attach to neighbours to make the definition work. Come about BE, eleven: SIDE, as in footie or cricket.
15 After arrest, fail to find weapon (4,4)
NAIL BOMB As improvised by Agnes Nutter (witch) in Good Omens if you were able to catch the excellent recent adaptation for TV. Arrest is NAIL, and fail is BOMB, I think more US than British English
17 Unify with European left? Somehow, that’s not typical of the Dutch! (8)
UNWIFELY There ain’t a lady livin’ in this world as I’d swap for me dear old Dutch. An anagram (somehow) of UNIFY+W(ith)+E(uropean)+L(eft)
19 Cockney’s to listen to the hits broadcast: what’s to stop him? (6)
EARWAX Gor blimey Miry Poppins, ‘ere’s me droppin me Haitches again like a proper gent what’s born wivin the sahnd of Bow bells an’ no mistike. So that’s ‘EAR for listen, then. Add WAX, which you might think was the spelling of whacks, hits, if heard on the wireless.
22 Card game’s to promote alternative to setter? (4,7)
JACK RUSSELL The card’s the JACK, the games R(ugby) U(nion), promote is SELL. It’s a dog, as is the setter, though if I was offered a JR in exchange for my gundog, I think I’d not see it as an alternative, unless I was tired of waiting for my setter to massacre rats.
23 Passes some task on after retiring (3)
OKS, which apparently is okay for okays, though I think it looks wrong. Reverse hidden in taSK On
25 A note to send off that may get one’s blessing? (7)
ATISHOO A is –um– A, the note is TI (cue Sound of Music) and send of is SHOO. ‘S’neezy clue
27 I want a rook to fly like a dove (7)
ANTIWAR Fly is the anagram indicator, the material being I WANT A R(ook)
28 Like flattery for example to interleave with work (5)
SOAPY I think we’ll have to call this a riffle clue. Take the SAY (“for example”) cards out of your Lexicon set, then the OP (short for opus, work) pair, and shuffle them with a riffle action. Yay!
29 Following a breather, performing grand exercise regime (5,4)
FALUN GONG This is a real “follow the wordplay” clue, unless you’re familiar with variations of qigong. So: F(ollowing) A breather: LUNG performing: ON and G(rand). Chuck it in and thank your lucky stars it’s not an anagram.

Down

1 Out to lunch, ace ladies put out cold sandwiches (5)
WACKO I think you have to assume “ladies” is WC. A(ce) is sandwiched by said WC and KO for “put out cold”. Took me a long time to justify the obvious answer.
2 Those out of the country have to visit relations (7)
TOWNIES I.e. those not in the country(side) Have gives you OWN, which “visits” TIES for relations.
3 Game in boarding school subject to delay (6,2,3)
CHEMIN DE FER  Worked backwards from the solution to fathom the wordplay. IN is “boarding” school subject CHEM(istry) and DEFER for delay.
4 Trendy? Don’t fancy anything this colour! (6)
INDIGO So it’s IN for trendy, then DIG 0 (nothing) for don’t fancy anything.
5 Scrapping ad spoils broadcast (8)
DISPOSAL A simple enough anagram (broadcast) of AD SPOILS
6 Heads of two hundred orchids, all the same (3)
THO Another Americanism (or, Chambers says, poetic) composed of the first letters of two hundred orchids.
7 Irish and Polish turning to Mexican food (7)
BURRITO IR(ish) and RUB for polish reversed and given TO to complete
8 Volatile person can put up radical fight (9)
TINDERBOX Can is the TIN bit, DER is from red, radical “put up”, and BOX is fight.
13 Old language, very alluring at dances (6,5)
VULGAR LATIN  Latin after it stopped being Classical and not just, for example, “et sanguinem infernum”. The collection of letters, V(ery) ALLURING AT “dances”.
14 Bags of waste English girl’s put outside (4,5)
BLUE JEANS Although jeans and bags are both trousers, I’m not wholly convinced that jeans are bags, but heigh ho. BLUE (separate etymology from the colour) can be a verb, to squander, hence waste. E(nglish) has today’s only random female, JAN put outside, with her ‘S for company
16 Bishop presumably remaining longest on board launch (8)
BLASTOFF Possibly more US again without a space or hyphen, but in most of the sources. Our B(ishop) is LAST OFF so staying longest on board.
18 What we can hear: cheers welcoming one in Kansas City! (7)
WICHITA I played around with KC as part of the wordplay until disabused by circumstance. I know Wichita from the permanently on-line lineman, but not that it’s the largest city in Kansas. WICH is an impression of which (what) as heard. Cheers is TA, and I (one) is welcomed by both.
20 Directory of people with houses around Cornwall? (4,3)
WHO’S WHO The venerable directory of the great and good. W(ith) and two HO(uses) surround SW, which is where Cornwell is.Could almost be seen as an &lit
21 In September in Washington it must … happen (6)
BEFALL. The ellipsis is significant, a blank to be filled in. September in Washington must BE FALL, yet another bit of US-speak
24 Woolly gesture of indifference (5)
SHRUG A (sort of) double definition, though as a shrug has more in common with a wrap or scarf, I’m not sure woolly (a cardigan or jumper in my wardrobe) quite works.
26 Conclusion to match, indeed, that’s cut and dried (3)
HAY The last letter of matcH plus AY for indeed.

63 comments on “No 27382, Thursday, 20 June 2019 No gnu flag”

  1. I never did figure out WACKO; I had some vague idea that WAC=Women’s Air Corps (it’s Women’s Army Corps, and hasn’t existed for 40 years), and that aces were pilots, or something. I only parsed SPORRAN post-submission, until then wondering is SPRAN was yet another term for ‘dope’. Took a while (and some checkers) to remember JACK RUSSELL (I had SPANIEL for a while), took even longer to remember BLUE (and ‘bags’) and make sense of BLUE JEANS, and took what seemed like forever to get UNWIFELY. I liked a number of the clues, but maybe COD to (also biffed) CHEMIN DE FER.
  2. I thought this was a really good puzzle, largely down to some crafty definitions – ‘Bags’ for BLUE JEANS, ‘Neighbours’ for BESIDE and ‘Passes’ for OKS to name but a few. ‘Expecting’ for WITH CHILD jumped out at me though – I reckon that’s approaching chestnut definition category.

    COD to ANTIWAR for a great surface.

  3. I worked about three-quarters of this on the subway from office to karaoke bar (say, thirty m. or less), and then for the next few hours was simply stuck every time I looked at the page. As soon as I got home to undistracted solitude, I saw that C_E_I_ __ ___ must be CHEMIN DE FER, which, in my excitement, I filled in without parsing. Then I had to accept that “neighbours” was BESIDE—not recognizing (thanks!) that “neighbours to” was the def.—and that UNWIFELY must indeed be the answer to 17, though I couldn’t see the anagram until I saw “unity” was really “unify.” JACK RUSSELL then jumped into my lap, which meant that BLUE JEANS had to be the “bags,” although I didn’t remember the “waste” sense of BLUE.
    I’ve been known to do “Wichita Lineman,” written by the great Jimmy Webb, at karaoke. My dad was a lineman for the Monongahela Power Company in West Virginia. “And if it snows, that stretch down south will never stand the strain…” But Dad knew he would be pulling down some good overtime.

    Edited at 2019-06-20 05:51 am (UTC)

  4. Quite hard work at times so I was pleased ot finish with all correct and without resorting to aids.

    Was it in the 1970s that bell-bottomed jeans were fashionable? Whenever it was, in my view they would have qualified as ‘bags’.

    LOI, unsurprisingly, was FALUN GONG which has come up only once before, in July 2010, and my comment then mirrors my experience today exactly, so here it is again: I worked out FALUN GONG from the wordplay but had never heard of it so was not really expecting to have the dictionary confirm it as correct.

    Rather worringly TftT Google finds only that entry, so why is it ignoring today’s?

  5. FALUNG GONG is outlawed in China, much like the Nazis in Germany. I would not Google that hereabouts unless you would like a ‘State Visit’.

    FOI 26dn HAY

    LOI 22ac JACK RUSSELL! I kept thinking there was a card game called Jack Restall – there simply isn’t!

    COD 3dn CHEMIN DE FER

    WOD WACKO! Jimmy Edwards and Mr. Dimwiddy some to mind.

    Z, is that Cornwall or David Cornwell or both!?

    1. The TV series takes an H: “Whacko!” My favourite member of staff was the much put-upon Oliver Pettigrew played by Arthur Howard, Leslie’s younger brother. Some episodes are available on YouTube and there was a feature film called “Bottoms Up”.
      1. I do not think that ‘Whacko!’ would be considered as suitable even for adult television these days.

        I forgot to add my time at 45 mins.

        1. The film “Bottoms Up” was shown uncut within the past few weeks on Talking Pictures TV which specialises in vintage films, many of them with non-PC themes and attitudes. They get round it with a standard disclaimer to the effect that anyone likely to be upset by it should switch off.
          1. It won’t be an exact quote, but my favourite memory of ‘Whacko’ was Jimmy Edwards in full flight, cane in one hand, moustache aquiver, thundering:

            “Treat them as human beings? We’re not dealing with human beings – we’re dealing with schoolboys!”

  6. A shrug is similar to a bolero, a tight little jacket.
    Wikipedia: “A shrug is a cropped, cardigan-like garment with short or long sleeves cut in one with the body, typically knitted, usually for women. Generally, a shrug covers less of the body than a vest would, but it is more tailored than a shawl. Shrugs are typically worn as the outermost layer of an outfit, with a full shirt, tank top, or dress beneath.”
    1. Thank you. I am educated, or at least more educated than I was. I look forward to seeing adverts for shrugs trending on my LJ feed.
  7. Just under half an hour. Not happy with CHEM as an abbreviation, or the WACKO justification. OK, I read, is now an allowed word in Scrabble, so perhaps expect more appearances. Had heard of FALUN GONG through it being banned.

    Was struck by how many different clues and meanings there can be for OBI.

    Thanks z and setter.

  8. … except what is in his nature to endure, according to Marcus Aurelius. This puzzle nearIy disproved that. I made a meal of it, limping home with LOI BEFALL in 61 minutes. I must have spent ten minutes with the right anagram fodder on ANTIWAR. I definitely need a small vacation after this one. It was a good puzzle though. The signals down the line were on wavelength but the receiver was 180 degrees out of phase. I’ve never heard of FALUN GONG and it was a case of “when all else fails, follow the instructions.” COD to BLAST OFF. Jeans either means James Dean to me, and not too baggy, or Venus in Blue Jeans, and very tight! I also prefer dogs that woof to those that yap. But thank you Z and setter.
  9. An early attempt at the puzzle this morning as Mrs Shabbo and I are otherwise engaged at dinner, which is our usual solving time. The Times crossword over dinner? Who said the art of conversation is dead?!
    Enjoyable and reasonably tricky. DNK Falun Gong, but the solver fortunately adhered to the principle of providing fairly straightforward signposting for a fairly obscure definition.
    I am still not convinced that bags and jeans are synonymous and shouldn’t blastoff be hyphenated?
  11. After 31 mins I gave up with two unsolved. Unwifely – although I thought about “my old dutch” – and wichita.

    Tough puzzle.

  12. Gosh. An hour and a couple of minutes for me, with those couple of minutes spent piecing together the unknown CHEMIN DE FER and crossing my fingers.

    I had a few false starts with this one. FOI was 11a OBI, but it was only after a few more of the shorter answers went in that I managed to get off to a start in the SE, gradually working my way quite spottily to the NW corner. No idea what was going on with BLUE JEANS, so was grateful the crossers left little doubt.

    A good challenge, I thought. Thanks to setter and Z. And additional thanks to Hans Christian Anderson for The Tinderbox and The White Stripes for the song that fixed WICHITA in my mind.

    Edited at 2019-06-20 08:39 am (UTC)

    1. Crikey I’m amazed that anyone can associate WICHITA with a song other than this one. I’d suggest it was a generation thing but the Glen Campbell song was recorded four years before I was born!

      Edited at 2019-06-20 09:00 am (UTC)

      1. I’ve probably heard it at some point, but listening now, it doesn’t ring a bell…
        1. If I remember correctly Casino Royale (IF) mentions Chemin de Fer being played by some Germans at the Casino.

          1. I never read beyond Dr. No. Not my cup of tea, oddly, given my general proclivity for spy novels.
      2. I’m with Matt. As soon as I got WICHITA The White Stripes popped into my head.
      3. Adding to the songs

        The Grateful Dead’s Jack Straw was from Wichita (they kinda rhyme)

  13. 21:47. The left hand side was approximately three times as hard as the right for me.
    I’d have been a few minutes quicker if I hadn’t been sufficiently worried about BESIDE to figure out the wordplay. I never did see that the definition required ‘to’, so thanks for that z8.
    Thanks also for parsing 3dn, which I bunged in from definition and couldn’t figure out. The unindicated abbreviation CHEM for ‘school subject’ seems off to me. Perhaps it’s old-timey school slang from the days when people said ‘blue’ and knew what VULGAR LATIN was.
    I liked this puzzle a lot though. Where the clues were hard it was usually because of something cunning, rather than obscurity, and where the answers were tricky the wordplay was very clear.

    Edited at 2019-06-20 07:54 am (UTC)

    1. I have a feeling Jennings and Darbishire would have called it “stinks” Keriothe. Didn’t parse that clue.
  14. Tough but fair – very enjoyable struggle. Thank you setter and well done z8. I also would have enjoyed blogging this one.
  15. No problems to finish this in 30 minutes, although a few relied on wordplay alone notably 29a. Biffed TIBET and the card game. Well blogged z8, I’d have enjoyed blogging this as much as I did yesterday’s.
  16. I had to put a good few extra neurons to work to get through this puzzle. OBI was my FOI, followed by TOWNIES. WACKO was unparsed but led inexorably to WITH CHILD, INDIGO and DISPOSAL. CHEMIN DE FER held out until the end, being my LOI. FALUN GONG was constructed entirely from word play. BEFALL and BESIDE took some mental gymnastics to justify. Liked JACK RUSSELL and WICHITA. Enjoyable puzzle. 40:31. Thanks setter and z8.
  17. 31 mins. NHO Falung Gong, but the wp was generous. Every day’s a school day here. Thanks z.
  19. That was tough but fair, I’d say. Main problem was that I’d chucked in EARWIG which left me stranded with TINDER—G and trying to find a fight with —G, assuming this must be a new word to me. Gosh, didn’t know there were so many posh people in Cornwall, must be all the grackles (no spellchecker, they are grockles) with second homes.
  20. Thank you for those explanations – that was a tough one, with several answers put in with fingers crossed and no real understanding of how they worked.

    Now it all makes sense (well, more or less).

  21. Limped across the finish line at just over 30 with several (SPORRAN, CHEMIN DE FER, WHO’S WHO) unparsed – thanks Z. I’d concluded that my struggle was the result of grogginess after a too-long-delayed dental procedure yesterday with accompanying dope and sleepless night, so glad to see that others had similar difficulties.

    I kept trying to fit “loo” in 1D, having got the point of the ladies but blind to any alternative. Similar fixation with Topeka in 18D. I wanted BLASTOFF and ANTIWAR to be hyphenated. JEANS=bags sort of works if you think of “mom (or “dad”) jeans. In Rebecca I think of Mrs. Van Hopper playing “chemmy” in “Monte”.

  22. Lots I couldn’t parse though it seems I wasn’t alone. A few new words or senses as well, with SHRUG for the item of clothing and the ‘to waste’ meaning for BLUE. Not nice, but EARWAX was a nice clue.

    Yes, I’m another who instantly associates WICHITA with the Glen Campbell song. This also turned up elsewhere last week in a 60’s-70’s popular culture themed puzzle, with the def ‘Whence a lineman’.

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

  23. An excellent puzzle with some cracking clues, ANTIWAR being my favourite.

    The JAN in 14d seemed odd, given that JEAN is also a girl’s name.

    14m 55s but unfortunately with CHEMIS DE FER. Never heard of the game, and my french isn’t what it should be.

    1. How delightful! presumably (or very nearly) as worn by the Iron Lady herself. Or perhaps Jeanne D’Arc?
  24. I always associated BLEW with waste as in you’ve blown it. BLUE in that sense never crossed my mind and I biffed BLUE JEANS.
    1. That definitely rings a bell, sure it’s come up before in the Times? I remember harrumphing at the lack of homophone indicator to get blue from blew.
      In this case the tense also matters: blue is present, blew is past.

    2. I only know this meaning of BLUE from crosswords. Im pretty sure the confusion with blow/blue had been discussed in the past.
        1. Sorry that wasn’t meant as a dig! Far be it from me to criticise someone for their memory. I’m the guy who invented ‘ninja turtle’ and forgot about it. I also forgot it was my birthday when I turned 16, which is another story.
  25. 15:04. I really enjoyed both puzzle and blog so thanks all round.

    Like most, I suspect, C de F went in as a biff (as did WITH CHILD and SPORRAN) and the FALUN thing had to be constructed from wordplay.

    My musical tastes are sufficiently eclectic for me to have both Seven Nation Army and Wichita Lineman on my iPod but it’s the latter I thought of first.

    COD to WACKO.

    1. I’m vastly more likely to be listening to the White Stripes than Glen Campbell (particularly as my 9-year old has a bit of a thing about 7NA at the moment: only this morning he was alternating between it and Back in Black on a ukulele when he should have been getting ready for school) but I still associate WICHITA overwhelmingly with the country song.
  26. As previously observed, the sort of difficulty which comes from misdirection rather than obscure vocabulary, which usually makes for the most enjoyable challenge. Took a while to crack the NW corner, even to the extent of parsing everything (this felt like a puzzle where it would be wise not to guess at answers). Very nice.
  27. Wichita from the lineman (Roy Orbison? Johnny Cash? Never would have known it was Glen Cambell) Like everyone else I know 7-Nation Army, but without ever listening to the lyrics.
    Wondered, like some, what a SPRAN was. SP as odds, yes; dope meaning not used here. Otherwise all parsed and enjoyed.
  28. Thirty-two minutes for this. All seemed reasonably straightforward, although I didn’t understand the assembly instructions for WACKO until reading [z8]’s blog, for which thanks.
    1. Slow going, got there, still not clear about ‘beside’ standing for ‘neighbours [to]’. A quirky puzzle and there perhaps too free?
  29. I was very proud of myself for getting WICHITA, with the mind-stretching reasoning that Wizard of Oz starts in Kansas, and has a witch, so that must be “what we hear”, and “city” was defining Wichita.

    I was so disappointed to come on here and find I’d got my logic completely wrong…

    1. It remains true that if you get the right answer by off-the-wall reasoning, then off-the-wall reasoning is perfectly fine.
      I do wonder if the setter could have played with the Dorothy theme, having her welcomed by the Munchkins after the first destructive stage of her witchy tour
  30. Magoo is back and showing us lesser mortals how it’s really done! He managed this toughie in under 7 minutes. *agonised emoticon*
  31. 61:44. Once I’d picked off all the low hanging fruit (a lot of which seemed weighted to the RHS) it was very slow going with progress made by occasional, isolated bursts of inspiration. Shrug entered with a…..shrug. Knew of the Falun Gong group. Wacko was obvious but torturous to parse. Chemin de fer definitely one of those moments of inspiration. I thought I would know Wichita lineman when I heard it. I didn’t really. Put me in the White Stripes camp! This one really stretched the grey matter and was a satisfying completion.
    1. I’ll add my voice to this debate and say that I knew both songs, but thought of the Lineman. Though I must say I always thought of him as some kind of assistant referee in an American Football game.
      1. English football.
        Quote: Glen Campbell, meanwhile, gave us The Wichita Linesman, the story of an official for the county FA whose weariness toward the end of a long season is palpable. Indeed the line “And I need a small vacation” was one of the first concerted appeals for a mid-season break. “Songwriter Jimmy Webb and I both felt it was impossible for the linos to concentrate 110% over a full nine-month season,” Campbell would later recall, “especially given the pressure being applied on them by managers, players and spectators and Fifa’s constant adjustments to the offside laws.”
        From The Grauniad.

        Edited at 2019-06-21 02:44 am (UTC)

  32. Had to leave this and come back to it, having four or five which just wouldn’t give — blue jeans,. wichita, unwifely and jack Russell. I appreciated the toughness of the challenge – just wasn’t entirely happy with some of the clueing. Bags are surely a particular kind of jeans – ie baggy ones. And shrug = woolly? GD lovers will know that Jack Straw came from Wichita.
    1. Bags can be any trousers as confirmed by the dictionary (jeans in any case can be loose fitting)

      A shrug can be a woolly garment

  33. This was pretty tough but the wordplay was good. NHO FALUN GONG and only got CHEMIN DE FER once all checkers in – no idea what it is. Thought of COWHERD early but could not see why. But plenty to enjoy.
  34. Thanks setter and z8b8d8k
    Surprisingly, having read the comments of the difficulty factor that others had with this, was able to get it out in two shortish (for me) sessions and completed it in 37 min. Sometimes being in a different region can help – FALUN GONG was very familiar, having seen groups of folk raising the issue often in the streets of Melbourne over the years. Also JACK RUSSELLS were a common pet choice down here and OKS often used in its verbal sense. On the other hand, have only seen BLUE for ‘waste’ in crosswords before. CHEMIN DE FER was very much a post-solve parse – had heard of the game, but that was a tricky charade to unpick. The clothing definition of SHRUG needed to be confirmed later as well. Have seen the alternative spelling of ‘obeah’ at 11a before, but it always gives pause before remembering it.
    Finished in the SW corner with ATISHOO (the only one that needed pre-solve help in getting) and BLUE JEANS (where I had JEAN as the ‘English girl’ rather than J-E-AN. Enjoyed it a lot !

Comments are closed.