Times 26019 – good clean fun

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
In spite of the usual ‘my blog day’ nerves, I enjoyed this one and got there in twenty minutes or so, with the bottom half going in earlier than the top, and a few more minutes to worry about the parsing before tippy-tapping here. I’m not ecstatic about a couple of the definitions, e.g. 8d, but no doubt a Chambers expert will assure us all is well.

Across
1 DISPERSE – (SIDES)* around PER = for each, def. broadcast.
5 SCORCH – SCH = school, around COR = I’m surprised; def. feel too hot.
10 ATTIC – CIA (spies) reversed around TT = dry; def. top apartment.
11 IMPASSION – I = island, M = maidens, PASS ON = go along, around I = current; def. fire. I spent too long looking for an island beginning with M.
12 LEND AN EAR – Sounds like ‘lender near’; def. listen.
13 INFER – (FRIEN)*, anagram of friend without the D = died, def. presume.
14 ECSTASY – EC = city, STAYS = stops, has the S moved forward; def. transport..
16 ABOARD – AB = jack, sailor; OAR = row, D = daughter, def. &lit.
18 SQUINT – a SQUIT is a ‘nobody; insert N = new; def. peer.
20 BREWERY – BY has R EWER (right jug) inserted; def. you could find something to drink here.
22 OCEAN – cOaChEs, alternate letters, then AN, def. Indian perhaps.
23 ENUNCIATE – (AUNT NIECE)*, def. articulate. Nice anagram I don’t think we’ve had before.
25 ENTRANCED – Def. spellbound. If there were four queues, the fourth could be expected at Entrance D.
26 IMBUE – A Tory says ‘I’m blue’, take out the L, def. inspire.
27 PERUKE – Père is French for father; insert UK; def. ancient wig.
28 BRUSSELS – LESS (not so much), reversed inside BRUS(H) = sweep without H of hospital; def. capital.

Down
1 DEADLIER – DEAD = perfect, as in a perfect match; (F)LIER = pilot not female; def. it’s said, the female of the species is…
2 SET ON – NOTES = observations, reversed; def. attack.
3 EXCLAMATION MARK – (RECLAIM OK TAXMAN)*; def. !
4 SHIVERY – SHI(P) = Queen Mary, maybe, without P(ower); VERY = awfully; def. cold.
6 CASH IN ONES CHIPS – Double defintion, one a pun, the other ‘buy it’.
7 REINFORCE – Def. back up; I read this as RE = Royal Engineers = troops, IN FORCE = part of the squad.
8 HUNGRY – HUNGARY = republic, loses A = area; def. infertile. Can hungry mean that?
9 SPARTA – PART = leave, inside SA = sex appeal, IT, def. ancient city.
15 SEQUESTER – SE = south east, Home Counties; a QUESTER would be a man on a mission; def. appropriate. Are they still called the Home Counties?
17 PYRENEES – PYRE = fire, NEES = SEEN, visible, reversed; def. mountains.
19 TRENCH – WRENCH = yank; replace the W (wife) with T (time); def. ditch.
20 BLUNDER – B = black, then LAUNDER = wash, remove A, def. slip.
21 COME UP – Insert ME in COUP = great stroke; def. happen.
24 AMBLE – (G)AMBLE(R) = better, stripped; def. make slow progress.

48 comments on “Times 26019 – good clean fun”

  1. …and I think it was 14ac, but Pip, you’ve kept me in suspenders by leaving it out of your blog!

    I had an unparsed ECSTACY. Ah wait. I had a misspelt ECSTACY, which I still can’t parse. Oh yeah, now I can. Hmmmmm. There’s always tomorrow.

    Thanks setter and blogger.

    Edited at 2015-02-11 09:15 am (UTC)

    1. Sorry, I did type it but a bit of the HTML got deleted, never use a laptop lying in bed! Is there now.

  2. Got there in the end, but took nearly an hour…

    Didn’t know HUNGRY=infertile (if indeed it does?), but I managed to unravel all the others ok. Thought there were some great clues here, eg ABOARD and SHIVERY.

  3. Like you Pip for the second day running I’m stumped this time by “infertile”=”Hungry”. No doubt it will again be that strange dictionary Collins that carries the required meaning

    The rest went in without massive problems in 25 minutes. Some well hidden definitions I thought with 3D my favourite

  4. In common with my Antipodean friend, I hemmed and hawed over the spelling of 14a, deciding first that ECSTASY looked better and then that it parsed better (STAYS with the ‘s’ moved back one on EC, for the record).

    Like Pip, this was a bottom up solve, finishing with considerable head-scratching over the 1s and 14. Collins has the infertile meaning of ‘hungry’ as its fifth sense.

    I wonder if I was the only person to consider ‘barmaid’ at 20a after I got as far as the first four words and started making my own clue…

    Arachne is in top form in today’s Guardian.

    Edited at 2015-02-11 09:20 am (UTC)

  5. less than an hour with email interruptions. same question about infertile. and i thought is was spelled perruqre but i guess it can be either. only worked out how ecstasy worked much later
  6. An enjoyable but very slow solve with the SQUINT/SEQUESTOR junction taking me just over the hour.

    Only knew PERUKE from the German word for ‘wig’ although they are not spelt quite the same.

    HUNGRY is in Collins as “lacking fertility; poor”.

  7. 27:52 for another enjoyable puzzle. I said yesterday that I’m spotting hidden definitions earlier but I’ve a way to go before I look at a clue and assume the exclamation mark to be the definition.
    1. My never-reliable memory tells me there was a brilliant bit of misdirection some time ago where the dash – like these ones – in the middle of the clue was the definition. Hard to spot indeed…
    2. It’s a bit of a chestnut actually. Whenever you see 11,4 and a clue that ends ! always look to see if EXCLAMATION MARK is the answer
  8. Liked most of this, but one or two clues that struck me as a bit clunky, eg 8dn (infertile could easily have been eg starving) and not sure the &lit at 16ac works perfectly.

    Had trouble parsing 14ac because of focussing on the wrong S
    Always spelt it perruque myself, so live & learn.. I will know next time, if indeed there is a next time

  9. 11 mins, and for the second day running I was very much on the setter’s wavelength. I had the same doubt about HUNGRY but it couldn’t have been anything else, and ABOARD was my LOI when I eventually realised it was a semi-&lit (or extended definition). I liked 15dn.
  10. 12 minutes so I was clearly another on the wavelength today. Like just about everyone else, HUNGRY was last in – one of those where you can be reasonably sure it’s correct but still think “Really?” as you write it in. Otherwise very pleasant, and in the case of 3d in particular, very clever.
  11. 27:04 … heavy going for me. Whereas Monday’s quirks all worked for me, today’s … not so much (catchphrase in honour of the outgoing Jon Stewart).

    Needless to say, I did get a kick out of LEND AN EAR and, especially, CASH IN ONE’S CHIPS.

    1. Until John Oliver did such a great job standing in for Jon Stewart when he was away making Rosewater I couldn’t have imagined The Daily Show without him. It will be a great opportunity for somebody but it just won’t be the same without him. Maybe he’s going to run for POTUS ……
      1. When I was living within terrestrial broadcast (and Patriot missile) range of the US border for 12 years, he and ‘Stephen Colbert’ kept me relatively sane. It probably is the right time for Jon S to go, but …. damn it, with both of them gone, who will save us from the crazies now? (actually, I do really like John Oliver’s solo show, so there is hope)
        1. Did you know that more Americans trust Fox News than any other news channel? Accordingly, I watched it for a few minutes and could not stop laughing… the only good thing about our news media is how much better they seem to be than US news media
          1. I’m pretty sure there was a survey which showed that the majority of under 30s in the US regarded their primary source of news as … The Daily Show. Entirely understandable, if a little depressing.

            Fox News is singularly ridiculous, of course. And there are a few beacons of light here and there around the networks, and on non-commercial stations. I would have to take issue with the idea that our news media are much better. Having had plenty of opportunity to compare the two in recent years, I would change ‘much’ to ‘marginally’.

  12. Found this easier than the previous two days, finishing in 28 minutes. Like others, I was puzzled by the definition in 8. I prefer daily puzzles to stick to common, recognizable definitions, bu the clues were very good on the whole. Until I had 9 I wondered if 11 might be IMBUSTION, perhaps a special form of combustion.
  13. 13:42 with a fair amount of head-scratching, not least because I’d spell the wig with a QU.
    1. For R & R may I recommend “Peruke & Periwig” in Dawson St, Dublin, for food, drink and an example of this spelling. Google it, for the web address.
  14. I did the first 14½ clues in 15½ minutes in the barber’s waiting for my turn in the comfy chair, and the last 15½ clues in 7 minutes when I got back to my desk. This supports my hypothesis that I solve quicker in my customary surroundings (i.e. at my desk) than I do elsewhere (e.g. on a train to London, at the barber’s (q.v.) at home pretending to listen to whatever Mrs Penfold is saying or, horror of horrors, at the championships.

    1a should have come quicker as Chris Evans played Space’s (the) Female of the Species (is more deadly than the male) when I was driving to work this morning.

    Thanks for explaining 14 and 16 which I couldn’t parse. In the case of the latter I took “Where you could find Jack” as the def which left ABOAR to cover (having) row. Hmmm.

    Slight freshly trimmed eyebrow raised at sporting as an anagrind.

  15. 22.34 in a steady solve. I certainly struggled for the correlation between hungry and infertile, and thought there might be a Shakespeare or Biblical quotation to help, such as the hungry earth cries out for rain” or some such, where infertile could be substituted. Without success. To illustrate (which Collins doesn’t) Dictionarydotcom offers “lacking needful or desirable elements; not fertile; poor: [as in] hungry land.” but I still don’t really buy it.
    To compensate, the cheeky, cashier number 4 please, ENTRANCED and the &lit (if it isn’t what is it?) for ABOARD.
    1. OED has hungry as infertile and gives a number of supporting quotes including Googe in 1577 from his Husbandry books: The land which is nought and yielded not his fruits is called leane, barren and hungry. I wonder if ‘our Will’ had this in mind when he had JC describe Cassius as having a ‘lean and hungry look’, suggesting he was infertile in the sense of not ‘growing’ anything good under Caesar’s influence. Hmm!

      Edited at 2015-02-11 04:25 pm (UTC)

  16. 40m today and all correct so an improvement. I liked 3d and 25a for being different at least and enjoyed the solve. Thanks to setter and blogger today.
  17. About 23 minutes. The hungry=infertile meaning is also in my old Shorter Oxford. I wondered if it might be archaic but not so. The BBC “How to be a gardener” page says that a “sandy soil may lack nutrients, which are easily washed through the soil in wet weather (often called a “hungry” soil.)” Apparently not very often around these parts.
    1. Page 304 (!!!) of The Fertilizer Encyclopedia (!!!!) has this:

      Hungry soil A soil which is barren and low in fertility is called a hungry soil. Soil becomes ‘hungry’ owing to nutrient exhaustion and lack of organic matter.

  18. Thought this was a lot of fun. As all above hungry from world play/what else. Thought the homonym at 12a almost impervious to international pronunciation whic usually heralds complaint.

    I only seem to pipe up to learn as I cannot come close to times quoted with only one ever sub-30

    I have googled and seen ecstasy can be synonymous with transport, is this biblical? Metaphorical? Or another meaning of transport I may be unaware of? Or just as is to couple my ignorance?

    All help appreciated

    1. It’s a relatively old meaning of transport, and turns up (for example) in the Hymns Ancient and Modern 1861 (Anglican) version of the 23rd Psalm
      Thou spread’st a table in my sight;
      Thy unction grace bestoweth;
      And oh, what transport of delight
      From Thy pure chalice floweth!

      The Psalmist is basically having an excellent time
      With most Churches shunning such language these days, and the majority population not bothering, the most excellent Flanders and Swann pilfering of the phrase probably doesn’t resonate as much, but it’s still fun.

      Think “transported to another plane” and the ecstasy idea connects rather well

  19. Circa 30 mins which is on the slow side for me as I found it a difficult puzzle to get into. LOI was SHIVERY as I was trying to fit “liner” in for Queen Mary.

    Edited at 2015-02-11 06:16 pm (UTC)

    1. “Britain” is not the same as “Great Britain”
      Yes, the UK is the UK of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but Britain is both of them (i.e. including Northern Ireland).
      That’s why UK citizens are British subjects/citizens and UK embassies are British embassies etc. etc.
  21. 13:10 for me, not quite on the setter’s wavelength.

    Like others I had HUNGRY as my LOI, but the required meaning did ring a very faint bell so at least I didn’t agonise too long over it.

  22. Just over an hour, but a superb puzzle, I thought. I especially liked the exclamation mark, which (unlike dorset jimbo) I hadn’t come across before. I also had to think a bit about the spelling of ECSTASY (and couldn’t parse it for ages). My LOI were COME UP (after I couldn’t do much with COME ON) and PERUKE (or rather PERUKE, which then pointed me to COME UP). Other favourites: ENTRANCED and SHIVERY — I’m always amazed that obscure details like “fourth queue” actually do turn out to mean something constructive!
  23. Best part of an hour for me, in sporadic episodes (or perhaps episodic sporades), hence my belated arrival here.

    A first pass left me with only two answers, but then things picked up as I got on wavelength. The NE corner held me up (SPARTA, IMPASSION and HUNGRY). I too was surprised by hungry=infertile, but it’s common enough to speak of “hungry land”, at least in these parts.

    And now, belatedly, on to today’s…

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