Time 26,527 – New location, same service

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 27 minutes

Music: None, music not yet available in my Connecticut establishment

I thought this was a rather vanilla puzzle, with maybe a few words that might be obscure to some solvers. I didn’t have any major difficulties, although I ended up having to go through the alphabet to get
the dog. Certainly, far from a masterpiece, but a serviceable Monday puzzle

My solve was a bit delayed by the golfing finals. Congratulations to Rory McIlroy for a wonderful round, although he should have put it away on the first playoff hole. I am expecting an exciting Ryder Cup, if the US can manage to hang on the in the foursomes, which are usually our downfall.

So on to the puzzle!

Across
1 TEAMSTER, TE(AM)STER, not the usual ‘A’ or ‘US’.
5 POP ART, P(OP)ART.
8 KOI, I OK backwards. I had never heard of this fish – has it ever been used to clue ‘coypu’? Maybe we shouldn’t give them ideas…
9 UNINTENDED, UNI + N.T. + ENDED.
10 CONTRACT, CON + sounds like TRACKED.
11 RAGOUT, RAG + OUT.
12 VENT, hidden in [co]VENT[try]. I was considering ‘send to Conventry’ before I saw how this one worked.
14 SPOTLIGHTS, S(POT)LIGHTS, not ‘E’ or ‘H’ this time.
17 REGARDLESS, double defintion, one facetious.
20 CASH, C + ASH.
23 BEHEST, BE + HEST[on].
24 PARENTAL, PA. RENTAL. Misleading because it starts with ‘PA’, not ‘MA’. Concerning Boston birds, anyone?
25 NETHERMOST, anagram of THE MONSTER. ‘Slain’ is certainly a novel anagram indicator.
26 ERR, E[xpiated] + RR. Tempted to put ‘ebb’? Don’t!
27 BRANDY, BRAND + Y[our].
28 ALDERNEY, [b]ALD + ERNE + Y. Those unfamiliar with the names of the Channel ISlands, C.I. to cryptic solvers, migth find this difficult, but Alderney was just on the periphery of my knowledge.
 
Down
1 TAKE COVER, TAKE(C)OVER, eminently biffable.
2 AVIGNON, A + VI(G)NO + N. I had some problem arriving at the correct spelling, needing ‘koi’ for a guide.
3 SCURRY, S + CURRY.
4 EPISCOPAL, EP + IS + C[arved] + OPAL.
5 PLEURAL, sounds like PLURAL…if anyone ever says it.
6 PEDAGOGIC, P(ED[ucation] + AGOG)IC, another one that is most likely biffed.
7 REDOUBT, R.E. + DOUBT.
13 TRAVERTIN, TRA(VERT)IN, not the most common spelling, but I had never heard of it, so no matter.
15 TESLA COIL, anagram of LOCAL SITE. Hmmm, seems familiar.
16 SCHOLARLY, S(CH)O + LA + RLY, some rather seldom-used abbreviations being required.
18 ELEANOR, E + LEA(NO)R, a queen who has appeared frequently of late.
19 DITHERY, DI(-a,+THE)RY.
21 ACTAEON, ACT + AEON.
22 WESTIE, SEW upside-down + TIE, my LOI. Also a gang member from Hell’s Kitchen, which would make an interesting double definition.

52 comments on “Time 26,527 – New location, same service”

  1. Except for the obscure rock and its obscure spelling. Helped at 25ac by another recent puzzle (under embargo). Thought “American” was doing double duty at 1ac but then found that it’s also “a driver of a team of animals” (ODO).
  2. Messed up putting KELTIE for the dog (it’s not even a dog although it sounds like it should be). The only other holdup was being convinced that the Tesla thing had a second word CELL. For a moment I thought PARENTAL assumed Philadelphia had PA as an abbreviation, and then I realized that it is in Pennsylvania which does, so it is not an error.

    For all you golf fans (or fans of lemonade in their iced tea) and there seem to be many here, I just saw Arnold Palmer died.

  3. A very Monday morning and my best time for a bit, 21mins. That puts me in contention along with McIlroy – but hopefully I won’t have to partner him!

    FOI 18dn ELEANOR LOI 22dn WESTIE (woof-woof!)

    8ac KOI carp – everywhere in China Japan.

    28ac ALDERNEY was a write in – Vinyl, do you have a passport!? I am not being SARKY!

    COD 21dn ACTAEON (alt. ACT + A + EON).

    WOD 13dn TRAVERTIN(E) this is the German spelling.

    horryd Shanghai

  4. Like Paul, I thought of ‘keltie’, and thought of just about every other alphabetic combination possible, and threw in the towel at 17′. Never heard of a WESTIE (no doubt I have, here, and forgot), and now know that it’s a West Highland Terrier, which I’d never heard of. Surprised by the spelling of TRAVERTIN, but dealt with my surprise. Koi ponds (‘koi’ being the Japanese word for carp) are something of a fad in the US, I believe, although I don’t suppose one finds many in Manhattan.
  5. 23 minutes, and keeping my fingers crossed that the Classical and Anglocentric stuff did for my Antipodean oppo. Last in WESTIE. Enjoyed the puzzle.

    Go Doggies!

    1. Yes, the fairy tale drags on for another week. So now my boys have to kill Santa Claus to win the flag.

      Should be fun to watch.

  6. 45 minutes with most clues solved quite quickly but a lot of time wasted considering “maternal” at 24ac, “Anglesey” at 28ac and “taster” as the “one trying at 1ac. Never heard of TRAVERTIN with or without a second E or the coil thingy.
  7. 9m. No problems this morning, and only the rock unknown. Some quite fiddly wordplay in here, particularly 16dn, resulting in a fair bit of biffing.
    For those who didn’t know WESTIE, they are cute little dogs that make very good hats. If only I could think of a way to illustrate this for you…

    Edited at 2016-09-26 07:15 am (UTC)

    1. I used to own a Westie , by default ; I would not describe them as cute but bloody-minded and they are probably best used as hats.
  8. Strongly considered EBB for 2 across, parsing the clue as having a typo for ‘sink’. Fortunately SCHOLARLY came to the rescue. TRAVERTIN, fingers crossed, a bit hard for a Monday. COD 6d, biffing would miss the elegance of the wordplay. 20′. Thanks vinyl and setter.
  9. 21:52. Fairly straightforward, but I was held up by my LOI, ACTAEON, which I’d never heard of and I thought looked a bit implausible.

    I presume a TESLA COIL is something used to charge an electric car.

  10. 13:12 … not hard, but with a lot of more or less unusual vocab., which certainly made me think a bit.

    I got stuck on the idea of HIGHLIGHTS for quite a while, despite having spent a couple of hours last night watching the film Spotlight!

    The closest I’ve ever been to the Channel Islands was watching every episode of Bergerac.

  11. 16 min: LOI 1ac after spending some minutes trying to fit US in.
    Didn’t know that 13dn was OK without a final E, but clue was clear enough.
  12. Sometime between my first and second dogs arriving (1949, mongrel Rex and 2002, border collie Timmy), people seemed to have stopped using SCOTTIE and started with WESTIE. Found this hard today, taking almost the full hour with LOI ACTAEON. Biffed TRAVERTIN. COD BEHEST, followed by REGARDLESS. Spent a long time trying to make MATERNAL fit the PARENTAL clue.. Enjoyable puzzle and blog.
    2. I understand from Wiki that “Edward Donald Malcolm, 16th Laird of Poltalloch, is credited with the creation of the modern [Westie] breed from his Poltalloch Terrier, but did not want to be known as such.” Sensible man.
      PS. Does anyone own a Poltie?
  13. A Monday job, 13 minutes, TRAVERTIN plumped in from wordplay only, the rest flowed. Mrs K used to have a WESTIE although I got there first having asked her to think of a sort of dog three blanks TIE.
    I have been to all the CIs having spent 3 months working as a Cadburys relief rep there in my first real job, when the usual man threw a sickie. We used to travel between them in a yellow Dragon Rapide – they weighed you and your bag and told you where to sit so the plane didn’t go round in circles. The pilot switched the ground radio link off and on to Radio 2 and flew in by sight. No doubt H & S have ended all that.
    Watched McIlroy into the early hours, making a 20 ft putt for 11.5 million dollars is impressive. Vinyl1 I am hopeful but not optimistic about Europe’s chances. RIP Arnold Palmer.

    Edited at 2016-09-26 08:47 am (UTC)

    1. “making a 20 ft putt for 11.5 million dollars is impressive”

      I’d be willing to give it a try.

    2. My recollection of flying between the Channel Islands is the alarming flight from Guernsey to Jersey, courtesy of the yellow Aurigny Airline planes. The airport on Jersey is by the western coast at the top of a steep rise which I guess at some stage was a cliff. The way of landing from the west was to aim straight at the middle of the cliff where just before impact, the updraught would flip the plane up onto the runway on the cliff-top. The alarming element is that every passenger can see through the pilot’s windscreen.

      Edited at 2016-09-26 10:47 am (UTC)

  14. 11 mins and an early post courtesy of a day off. I had all but three done in 9 mins, and WESTIE eventually went in before the TEAMSTER/SCURRY crossers. Count me as another who either wasn’t aware of or had forgotten this spelling of TRAVERTIN but the cluing was generous. Like Sotira I initially had a misbiffed “highlights” at 14ac.
  15. 1941, with a lot of time spent at the end on the dog. I firmly believe you can put any three or four letters in font of TIE and it’ll be what somebody calls a dog. Nobody I know would ever tie their quadruped shark to a lead (not since Bill Sykes anyway). Quite apart from the need to get away from those needle sharp teeth as quickly as possible, a clip is far more convenient.
    I stayed in AVIGNON last Monday, but eschewed dancing on the bridge. It only goes halfway, anyway. On the out trip we stayed in possibly the worst hotel in France, run by a couple auditioning for the reboot of the Addams Family but with trained fleas to do their biting fur them.
    Chambers’ definition of TRAVERTIN is “a pale limestone deposited from solution”, which is spookily similar to the way it found itself into my grid. Jamais couché avec.
    I got TEAMSTER from the “American driver” definition, and let the wordplay go fizzle.

    Edited at 2016-09-26 10:45 am (UTC)

  16. 28 minutes, so definitely on the easier end of the spectrum for me. FOI KOI, LOI TRAVERTIN which I hadn’t come across in either of its spellings, but the wordplay was helpful. I dithered between PATERNAL and MATERNAL before spotting PARENTAL, which then gave me WESTIE. Liked the Charlton clue. Was guided to the correct solution, ERR, by solving 16d before looking at 26a. Knew Nikola’s coil from school physics. A pleasant start to the week. Thanks Vinyl and setter.
  17. I enjoyed this puzzle a fair bit when I did it this morning – the vocab complexity level definitely hit the spot for me – and then I enjoyed it again just now and discovered that I’d beaten Magoo’s time by a few short seconds. Hopefully a good omen…
  19. Nearly all done in 30mins. Had blanks at TEAMSTER and BEHEST. And I couldn’t parse ELEANOR, despite having studied the mad old King for A-level…
  20. TRAVERTIN and ACTAEON both sound like something you might use on a particularly nasty rash, and might as well have been for all I knew. But the wordplay came to the rescue.

    Didn’t really know WESTIE as a dog. It has a different meaning in Australia, though in that sense it’s been pretty much replaced by ‘bogan’. Anyway, it sounded plausible.

    Tougher than usual for a Monday I thought, but very enjoyable. One over par. Thanks setter and Vinyl.

  21. How many different types of these disgusting animals are there and why are expected to know all their names? My word processor thinks “Westie” is a typo. It is not even allowed in Scrabble.
    1. It’s in more than one of the usual source dictionaries and is therefore perfectly valid for inclusion in the Times crossword, though I’ll admit I’m not entirely convinced by either part of the wordplay on this occasion.

      As for not even being valid in Scrabble, you have typed the word correctly in your posting and presumably you know the rules of he game, so I’m surprised that you even considered that it could be valid.

    2. To reply to my own comment “Westie” is not allowed in Scrabble because (according to Chambers) it is written with a capital w.
  22. A bit over an hour, my last three in being BEHEST (which I at least understood once I thought of it) and my audacious guesses WESTIE and ACTAEON, which to my great surprise turned out to be right. And so to bed.
  23. 16:16 for me, feeling horribly tired following a busy day following a busy weekend.

    I was put off early on by POP ART (I’ve no idea why a graphic novel should be considered an example of this if that’s what the clue is implying, though perhaps I’ve misunderstood it), and then went off down blind alleys trying to make 10ac start with SYN(A) and 15dn end in CELL. I don’t recall coming across TRAVERTIN without a final E before, but at least it clearly had to be the answer.

    Around half my time was spent on WESTIE, which had slipped my memory despite the fact that I’d come across it for the first time as recently as 25 March in No. 26,369. Even when I’d thought of the confounded animal (after working through the alphabet a couple of times), I still dithered over it.

    1. Tony, it’s not graphic as in “giving clear and wildly explicit details”. It’s referring to a story written in comic book format.
  24. Sorry to be stupid. Please could someone parse ‘Eleanor’ – inserted here with a shrug.

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