Times 26149 – A Minor Hiccough

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I found this tougher than I oughta,
Confusing my creatures of the water.
While misspelling my chemical whatnot
Can’t be said to have helped a whole lot.

50 minutes.

ACROSS

1. GRAMPUS – ‘sea creature’ (a dolphin); GRAM + PUS[s]; I had ‘Octopus’, having convinced myself that an ‘octo’ was an eighth part of, um, something. Nagoya football club used to have eight grampuses, before they downsized.
5. REPRESS – ‘check’; REP + RE + SS.
9. AFTERNOON – ‘part of PM’; AN around an anagram* of ETON FOR.
10. CUT-UP – ‘upset’ (I reckon the hyphen must be a boob – see Jack below, not a mistake, but, in my estimation, at any rate, quite unnecessary); TU in CUP.
11. SNAFU – ‘utter confusion’; reversal of U FANS.
12. EMOTIONAL – ‘poignant’; [sublime]E + MOTION + A[rne] + L[oved].
13. HOBSON’S CHOICE – ‘there’s no alternative’; HOOCH NICE BOSS*.
17. PANIC-STRICKEN – ‘terrified’; PANIC (a type of grass including millet) + SEN[t] around TRICK.
21. RUSTICATE – ‘send down’; Rusty Kate!
24. MORON – ‘pillock’; MOON around R.
25. RAVEN – ‘eat voraciously’ (or ravenously) and ‘a large bird’.
26. PREDATORY – ‘rapacious’; PA around RED + TORY. Nice misdirection.
27. BAR LINE – ‘it’s divisive, with staff backing’ (think music); a row in a pub might be called a bar line, if you were being really pedantic and had nothing else to talk about.
28. DRAFTEE – ‘conscript’; DAFT + EE around R.

DOWNS

1. GLASSY – ‘abstracted’ (as in dull of wit); a schooner is made of glass when it’s not under sail.
2. ASTRAKHAN – ‘fleece’ (specifically of the karakul lamb); ARTS + A reversed on KHAN. Cue Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances, where one gets to sing a lot of ‘Khans’ (in this version they seem to have been given the Riverdance treatment).
3. PERTURB – ‘disconcert’; REP reversed + TUB around R.
4. STONEWORT – ‘plant’; STONEWOR[k] + T[his]. Tricky until you see that masonry = stonework.
5. RONDO – ‘work’; ON (‘taking place’) in R + DO.
6. PECKISH – ‘wanting sustenance’; a bit like Mr Peck the actor, not the 16 Popes and two Antipopes.
7. EATEN – ‘consumed’; a simple hidden.
8. SUPPLIER – ‘purveyor of goods’; SUPPLER around I (‘current’).
14. SWINEHERD – ‘animal minder’; a creative use of the Haggard book: we have SHE + RD around WINE (‘tent’).
15. INNERMOST – ‘at deepest level’; MINERS NOT*.
16. SPARE RIB – ‘piece of pork’; SIB around (‘fed by’) PARER (‘person cutting’).
18. CHIANTI – ‘alcoholic drink’: a charade (often the toughest clue to spot, I find) of CHI (Greek letter) and ANTI.
19. KAMPALA – ‘capital’; A + M[ale] + PAL in KA (initial letters of Kakakhstan).
20. ENZYME – ‘biochemical catalyst’; Z in YEMEN*.
22. SAVER – ‘one who delivers’; SAVE on [ma]R[ch].
23. AMPLE – ‘generous’; [ex]AMPLE.

35 comments on “Times 26149 – A Minor Hiccough”

  1. The last eight minutes or so were spent summoning the leap of faith required to enter ASTRAKHAN.

    The Margaret River corner was also a problem, with the unknown RUSTICATE and the “couldn’t totally convince myself” RAVEN and BAR-LINE. But all’s well that ends well, and the occasional hiccough along the way is only to be expected.

    Enjoyed 6dn, probably because we’re approaching lunch-time.

    My usual thanks to the setter, and to the admirably-restrained blogger.

    1. It’s a long series…

      And Darren Lehmann must get the credit for my heading.

  2. … stroll. Nothing too difficult except for a few hold ups in the SW. Good to see REP clued in two distinct ways (5ac, 3dn).

    Ulaca: at 16dn, the containment indicator is “fed by”.

  3. 19:05, but no points for accuracy, as I typed in ‘glasy’ at 1d and ’emorional’ at 12ac, and didn’t even notice. Well, it is Monday, last night’s low temperature was 28 and I woke up at 3. Wasn’t sure about GLASSY (am quite sure about glasy, though), but couldn’t think of anything else; it was my LO (almost)I. RUSTICATE took a while, the non-homophony aside, as I persisted in trying to get our friend Di into it somehow. Oh, well; tomorrow, I’m assured, is another day.
  4. Very slow progress overnight – only half a dozen answers in before I gave up and blogged the Quickie instead. On resumption this morning,still slow but steadier and needed help with STONEWORT. I think Americans have ‘measures’ rather than ‘bars’ in musical notation so I wonder what they call ‘bar-lines’?
  5. Yes, I too assumed it was something to do with GLASSY eyed…

    Last one in BAR LINE, took a while to see the required meaning of ‘staff’, good misdirection. dnk (or hf=had forgotten) GRAMPUS.

  6. 14 mins, but the last four of them were spent on trying to decide if there was a credible alternative to BAR-LINE because I didn’t get the music reference. I was slowed even more after I realised that “bar-file” also fitted the wordplay. Other than that I was very much on the setter’s wavelength.
  7. 12m. Funny experience this: it felt much harder than it was, in my case at least. Odd-looking words like ASTRAKHAN that need constructing from wordplay contribute to this feeling, I think, even if you happen to spot the construction quite quickly.
    I’m not sure how GLASSY equates to ‘abstracted’. GLASSY-eyed, perhaps.
      1. It’s the indirectness of it that I’m struggling with. A glassy look indicates an abstracted person but the look itself is not abstracted. The more I think about it the less I think it deserves thinking about.
        1. But an angry look is not itself angry. Just an example of the way language lends itself to be used.

          Edited at 2015-07-13 12:09 pm (UTC)

  8. 16.12, wondering, singer that I am, where I’d heard the term BAR LINE before. I decided it had something to do with sums, especially division ones, and staff could go out and play.
    Otherwise good fun, with a special mention for rusty Kate – my kind of homophone, which I’d classify more as a groany pun, the sort you have to giggle at despite yourself. Do any of the Aussie XI have the nickname Kate?
    I figure quite a few of the words in this one were intended as fillers for Test Match commentary, starting with SNAFU and working through PANIC STRICKEN and several more. Who will be the DRAFTEE who turns out to be the side’s SAVER?
  9. 16:14. I enjoyed that. Like others, pondered at length over BAR LINE, missing the musical connection completely and guessing that it had something to do with bar codes
  10. 17:20 and no serious hold ups. LOI REPRESS as I had never heard of REP as a cloth, but couldn’t find anything else to fit. 27a my favourite. with rusty Kate a close second.
  11. 15:52 … enjoyed this — apart from the BAR-LINE clue (which I also spent a long time dithering over before clicking the submit button). The def. is a stretch too far for me. The clue was especially difficult if you were taught to think of it as a stave rather than a staff!

  12. In my usual 10-12 minutes solving time bracket. BAR LINE accounted for a minute or two of hair-tearing at the end. Enjoyed 6d, especially with Atticus Finch being back in the news lately…
  13. 27 min, but with a typo, after seeing that my FOI, OCTOPUS had to go. Bit of a delay on 5a, as the cloth went in at once (it’s a setters’ favourite), but couldn’t think of a 4-letter word for the rest.
  14. 39:41. I found this a toughie with lots of unknowns, or possibly half knowns given that several rang a vague bell. For instance ASTRAKHAN, which I knew was right as soon as I had the word but I have know idea where I know it from. I also vaguely recall GRAMPUS being a sea creature though like ulaca alludes to, I know it better as a Japanese football team where ageing English players go to ply their trade a while longer.
  15. 15:56 finishing with the first two downs once I’d corrected the careless octopus. I thought octo might be a weight of paper (possibly thinking of recto and the like) but was sufficiently unconvinced to mark the clue with a great big question mark.

    I also had QMs against glassy and rusticate where I wasn’t sure of the meaning.

    1. You might have been thinking of ‘octavo’.
      I didn’t mention it earlier but from what I remember if you were ‘sent down’ it meant you couldn’t come back (although you might be allowed to sit your exams) whereas if you were rusticated you could.

      Edited at 2015-07-13 12:27 pm (UTC)

      1. Don’t know about South Midlands Poly, but at Fenbog, rustication meant until the end of the term or year. However, as it was a requirement for a degree to spend a specified number of nights each term ‘in’ college to ‘do’ nine terms, it did defer getting a degree
  16. Difficult and DNF, made more difficult by being convinced that 1a was going to be ACAUDAL (def. lacking tail), which led to DISTURB rather than PERTURB for 3d. Of course, I couldn’t satisfactorily parse either answer, although I got close (or at least thought I had). A sort of semi-biff of two wrong answers.

    I had no problems with ASTRAKHAN and the two longer across clues were write-ins, so a bit curate’s egg for me.

    1. One if those occasions where you were unlucky to know the word. My ignorance was blissful here.
    2. I very much enjoyed this one as it reminded me of the era when theatricals of a certain type used to wear coats with Astrakhan collars. A.A. St. J. Hancock was partial to them.
  17. Indeed. I’m just not sure what an abstracted look is, or whether it’s the same as a glassy one. But it’s close enough for me to get the answer so like I said it’s not really worth worrying about.
  18. About 20 minutes, ending with CUT-UP. A lot of little unknowns were encountered, but essentially ignored, and all the answers found their way in after due time. Not much exciting, though. Regards.
  19. Needed two looks to get through this, was far from the setter’s wavelength, but in the end I thought everything fitted in pretty nicely
  20. 9:14 for me. 27ac (BAR-LINE) left me worrying – yet again – about incipient Alzheimer’s, so I’m slightly relieved to find that others struggled with it. But with my musical credentials, I find it hard to forgive myself for not recognising the word as soon as I thought of it.

    I agree that the hyphen in 10ac (giving CUT-UP rather than CUT UP) must surely be a mistake, but apart from that, this was (or should have been) a pleasant, straightforward start to the week.

  21. 35m with similar hold ups to others. LOI was ASTRAKHAN – only vaguely remembered probably from a previous puzzle!

  22. The Shorter Oxford has:

    cut-up noun & adjective. L18.
    [ORIGIN from cut up (inf. & pa. pple): see cut verb.]

    ► A noun.
    1 A distressing event, a deep loss. L18.

    1. There isn’t a hyphen in the enumeration in the iPad edition, which suggests… I don’t know what it suggests!

Comments are closed.