Times 26,327: Booze Cruise

There really are an unusual number of references to drink and drunkenness in cryptic crosswords, aren’t there? It’s not just me and my confirmation bias? I can’t think what possible connection there could be between the setting/solving community and bibulosity, but there you go. (Actually this reminds me of the last time I encountered the very reverend John Henderson, in a pub by chance it was, when I suggested to him that “Enigmatist” might be Cockney Rhyming Slang for “Brahms and Liszt”. Being a noted abstainer from all such vices, he wasn’t convinced, but, Brahms, Liszt, Elgar… you’ve got to admit it makes a weird kind of sense.)

But anyway I doubt today’s crossword was done under the influence of lashings of booze, despite 3dn and 20ac, as the word that kept occurred to me to describe it was “meticulous” – every element very neat and clever and in its right place. No difficult vocab for anyone to object to (19dn being a possible outlier), no obscure literary or scholarly references; I must admit that 1ac was was my LOI based on the faulty assumption that it would be one of those bloody cricket references that I can never make stumps nor bail of, but no, even that turned out to be fair and square in the end. So while I personally might prefer them a bit more baroque, this was a model of the setter’s art in many ways. Undying kudos to the gentleperson responsible.

COD to 15dn I think: only crosswords can make you completely re-see a word in this way!

Across
1 SORTING OFFICE – that ensures accurate deliveries (as part of the posital service): S{p}ORTING OFFICE [“pressure-free” (i.e. lacking P) cricketing position, say]
9 OCHRE – natural colouring: OCH [north of the border, I’m surprised] + RE [about]
10 INVECTIVE – abuse: INVE{N->C}TIVE [ground-breaking, “centre abandoned” (i.e. losing its middle letter), “receiving constant” (i.e. C, the speed of light)]
11 LABORATORY – workplace: LAB OR A TORY? [a question of political affiliation]
12 ITCH – irritation: {p}ITCH [“opener’s dismissed” from field]
14 EXPLAIN – account for: EX PLAN [former | programme] “one’s appeared in”, i.e. with I inserted
16 DIURNAL – during the day: URN [somewhere to keep tea] drunk by DIAL [tuner]
17 BITTERN – a bird: BITTER N [tart | noun]
19 TIGRESS – Amazon: {e}GRESS [exit “initially barred”] after T{h}I{s} [“oddly”]
20 ALIT – got off: LIT [cheered] after A{ctivists’} [“leader”]
21 AMBASSADOR – delegate: AMASS ADOR{n} [collect | deck “incompletely”] cut by B [British]
24 ENTHRONES – reverences: ([“last of”] {rac}E THE NORNS*]) [“destroyed”]
25 INANE – dull-witted: IN{di}AN [Apache for one, “lacking heart”] + E [energy]
26 COMPLEMENTARY – matching: COMMENTARY [review] covering [“50% of”] {peo}PLE
Down
1 SHOULDER BLADES – body parts: (A SOLD{i}ER BLUSHED*) [“not seeing one” (i.e. with I removed), “rude”]
2 REHAB – remedial treatment: reverse of BA{t}HER [“rising” swimmer, “taking time out” (i.e. losing T)]
3 INEBRIATED – wasted: [“stirring”] (DIATRIBE*) about NE [Tyneside]
4 GLISTEN – glow from reflection: IS {los}T [“ultimately”] in GLEN [valley]
5 FEVERED – impatient: FED [agent abroad] that EVER [always] is interrupting
6 INCA – old South American: {CA->->}IN [murderer, “about to be sent down”, i.e. with the CA (circa) moved to the bottom of the solution]
7 EXISTENCE – being: (SIXTEEN*) [“troubled”] + [“first couple of”] CE{lebs}
8 KEYHOLE SURGERY – cryptic def, referring of course to an operating theatre and not a playhouse
13 SUGGESTION – suspicion: (SINGS OUT EG*) [“rousing”]
15 PATRIOTIC – loyal: P.A. TRIO TIC [spontaneous movement by three secretaries]
18 NOMINAL – trifling (as in “a nominal fee”): hidden backwards in [“revolutionary”] {p}LAN I’M ON{ly}
19 TRANSOM – timber for doorframe: T{enant’s} [“initial”] + RANSOM [payment to deliver]
22 DRAMA – a sensation: RAM [stuff] seized by D.A. [lawman]
23 FROM – sent by: F{O<->R}M [model “with twisted heart”]

47 comments on “Times 26,327: Booze Cruise”

  1. 13m. No real problems today, although I found the top half a lot harder than the bottom. I don’t think I’d have been able to tell you what a TRANSOM is but ‘timber for doorframe’ seemed like very much the right kind of thing.
  2. As a cricket fan and still playing I was overly long at 1a thinking of fielding positions etc with a p in.Too much knowledge is a bad thing when applied to the wrong track.Also not helped by marking (I do paper) it as 6,7 sadly 25 ac sums me up nicely today.
    1. Oh yes, even once I was sure that SORTING OFFICE was the answer I was still sure that OFF must be the cricketing position… trying to make the rest of the wordplay fit around that was a fool’s errand indeed!
  3. 13.44 today, only a short check for typos behind Jason, so was this (like yesterday?) a relativity tricky one that I found breezy or an easy one for the end of the week? Certainly some upward twitches at the corner of the mouth, especially the wholly innocent juxtaposition of tart and bird to upset the sensitive.
    I had COMPLEMENTARY in long before I parsed it, being convinced that 50% of people were (was?) men. CoD to PATRIOTIC.
    1. I thought 50% of PEOPLE was PeopLE, which seemed a bit odd!

      Edited at 2016-02-05 11:01 am (UTC)

      1. So it would seem, though I expect to be back on more familiar territory on Monday when we have an “easy” one.
  4. A very enjoyable 34 minute solve which I had started by thinking would prove rather more difficult than it turned out. I like your shorthand for indicating substitution at 10ac, Verlaine, which I shall steal for my own use in future.
  5. I associate transom with a window rather than a door . Also am I alone starting with naive on the assumption that Apaches are now natives rather than Indians ? Okay , its not quite right but more PC !
  6. 40 minutes of good solid head scratching.
    Lovely piece of misdirection in 1a with me mentally going through all the field placings I could think of.
    LOI 8d, accompanied with an inevitable “Doh!”
    By the way, Verlaine, it’s not only the crosswords themselves that are laced with drink – I am increasingly concerned for the livers of the worthy bloggers due to the number that claim they completed and compiled the blog under the influence or its after effects (dare I say it, you included?).
    “…look not thou upon the wine when it is red…”
    1. Alcohol, the cause of and the solution to all life’s problems. And that goes double for crosswords.
  7. Straightforward for me apart from 20A – ALIT. This is a word that has caught me before so I have no excuse.
    1. Me too, LOI by a long way. And I wasn’t totally confident of “cheered” = “lit”, so happy to get away with it.
  8. …which left me quite chuffed in an otherwise unchuffworthy week. Possibly due to the lack of obscurities, as mentioned by the V.

    Thanks setter and Verlaine.

    Totally unrelated, but if you revel in the discomfort of others (as we all do), have a little look at the Perth weather forecast. Starting Sunday, and using Fahrenheit for extra effect, we’re expecting 104, 108, 108, 106 and 102.

    Hot enough to boil a monkey’s bum.

    1. Far from revelling in your discomfort, I’m more tempted to book a ticket. Nothing more than the standard wind rain and cold here.

      Anyway, the crossword. Similar experience to you this week, this being the only one finished let alone in a sensible time, so a chuffed one here too with just under 16 mins.

    2. A delicacy I have never tasted. Do you do this on the barbie or in the kitchen?
      Your heatwave reminds me of Barry McKenzie ( I think) ” Dry as a dead Dingo’s donger?
      With apologies ……
      1. An Aussie lawyer I once worked with gave me a list of “classic Australianisms”. The dingo’s donger was in the section on being thirsty, along with “drier than a nun’s nasty, “as dry as a pommie’s bathmat” and the curious “as dry as a bull’s bum going up a hill backwards”.

        1. Although “monkey’s bum” is of course a Pythonism, from their highly-cerebral homage to the Philosophy Department of the University of Woolloomooloo.
  9. Yes, a relatively easy Friday for a change. ALIT also LOI for me, but no real excuse – I failed to see that I hadn’t done that one until I entered my penultimate answer (INCA) and wondered why the iPad app hadn’t given me a time. I liked the cricketing misdirection (I was looking for something to do with midwifery for a while) and also the ‘rude’ anagrind in association with body parts.
  10. Another incorrect solve due to not parsing and not thinking: complimentary. Nuff said. Other than that, about 45mins, so on the tough side for me.
  11. 16:49 with 20ac LOI. I liked 1ac when I saw it, having worked through SLI(p), LONGSTO(p), (p)OINT etc. It did seem to me though that there were an unusually large number of ‘think of a word and take off the first letter’ clues. I never like those. Thanks for the blog verlaine
  12. This was a surprisingly quick solve and complete parse, surprising considering that many of the definitions pass the crosswords-is-crosswords close association test but perhaps not the strict synonym test, and that is usually a killer for me. I rather liked Laboratory, and was happy that I didn’t have to dredge up Hippolyte or one of her sisters. Thanks to a careful setter and a toast to Verlaine

    Edited at 2016-02-05 12:33 pm (UTC)

  13. I forgot to mention my own time in the blog, so either I’m ill or just becoming more evolved? Anyway it was within an ace of of the 10 minute mark I think. Where an “ace” is defined as about a quarter of a minute, anyway…
  14. 14:55 with a light virtual sprinkling of Sue’s tippex over liberatory.

    LOI “from” (which needed an alphabet trawl) and I tried but failed to reply directly to Deezzaa’s post to the effect that, with only the H to help me, keyhole surgery was my second one in. Sorting office biffed and I had no idea that reverence could be a verb.

    I agree with V’s COD nod to patriotic as I enjoyed the PA trio joke. There were some very nice well-disguised definitions (and parts thereof) dotted about.

    Thanks all round.

  15. Zoomed through this late last night until I came to the meeting of SORTING OFFICE and FEVERED, which reduced me to the old tactic of “it’s got to be ?EVER?D… A? B? C? D? Forunately near the front of the alphabet to find one that met the definition – the F helped get office.

    Never did bother working out the wordplay for COMPLEMENTARY with the definition and checking letters in

  16. A bit of a slog today, struggling with all the long multi-word ones and really looking for “rude parts” – as well as the more Timesque fielding position and West End theatre.

    I must have given my mojo to Gallers in a moment of madness. 57 minutes.

  17. I was amused by your comment about bibulosity. I blog the Listener every week on Listen With Others and have made a recurring joke about the fact that almost every setter includes at least one, and sometimes lots of boozy clues.
  18. The lurgi is finally abating, I managed to stay awake for the whole solve, and my time of 13 mins seems decent enough after reading the comments above. Like Vinyl the 1ac/1dn crossers were my last ones in, and you can count me as another who learned that “reverence” can be a verb.
  19. Completed this one in 45 minutes, which is good for me. FOI SHOULDER BLADES which gave me a good entry to the rest. LOI ALIT. Took me a while stop separating got and off. TRANSOM went in from the checkers after I got COMPLEMENTARY, with the parsing then being obvious. I liked PATRIOTIC too. Count me as another who wasn’t aware reverences could be a verb. Nice penny drop moment when 8dn revealed itself as a different type of theatre. Thanks for the blog V. John
  20. Is John Dun a new face here? If so, welcome!

    This one took me something like 40 minutes, but I left the timer running while I enjoyed chicken Al Badami and brinjal bhajee courtesy of our local emporium of gastronomic excellence. The former contains mango so, including the rice and the naan, that’s four of my five-a-day taken care of. A slice of lemon in the G&T ought to bring me up to government guidelines.

    Nothing too difficult, I thought, though it took me a while to get SHOULDER BLADES and SORTING OFFICE (the latter remaining unparsed), and I’m another one who didn’t know one could reverence something.

    1. Hi Thud, thanks for the welcome. I’ve actually been following the blog for around 5 years which is when I started doing the Times crossword. I haven’t commented much in the past as due to the pressures of work and on call I tend to be up to 3 days behind, so there’s no one looking at the blogs I can comment on. I’m just spending the last month of my working life on the sick as I’ve had my right knee replaced by one of your fellow surgeons in Darlington. I’ve now caught up and can comment real time 🙂 I have to admit to enjoying your medical stories :-)John
      1. Well, in that case, welcome back! Personally, I’ve been about 8 years behind since the 1980’s, so three days is pretty good. I wish you a speedy recovery, and I hope they did the right (as opposed to left; as opposed to as opposed to wrong) knee.
      2. Sounds as though you are not a million miles south of me, here in Northumberland.
        A very welcome recruit to the contributors.
        Having a knee replacement is a pretty drastic way to get time for crosswords, but I suppose that it is one small compensation for the discomfort of the operation and physiotherapy. As my wife has had both knees replaced, I know that the much greater compensation can be the relief from crippling pain that she suffered before the surgery. Hope that you benefit similarly.
        1. Hi Geo(rge?)Thanks for the welcome message. I’m in Middlesbrough but had the op in Darlington. It’s 3 weeks since I had it done and I can already feel the benefits. Weaning myself off the heavy duty painkillers and should be driving again next week according to the physio :-)Still a way to go to get the full bend, but I graduated to the bike and leg press yesterday.
  21. Sorry to be so late today. About 20 minutes, ending with ALIT which held me up since ‘lit’ doesn’t feel like ‘cheered’ to me, very much. I liked LABORATORY. I didn’t know why TRANSOM meant ‘timber for doorframe’ either. Not much else to say. Regards.
  22. Rather a stellar time for me (that is, by my standards), and an enjoyable puzzle. I did not fully parse some of the solutions once I had decided on the entry, which is a shame because 11a is much cleverer than I had appreciated, so thanks to Verlaine for the enlightenment.
  23. (A very late contribution as LiveJournal was under maintenance when I tried originally.)

    I thought at one point I was heading for a decent time, but I had a minor hold-up with COMPLEMENTARY (unable to see the wordplay and worried that – despite the obvious definition – this might be a trick clue where the answer was actually COMPLIMENTARY); and then a major hold-up with ALIT (ruddy vowels again!) where it took me a while even to spot “got off” as a possible definition, and then several times longer to convince myself that LIT = “cheered” was the only viable possibility for the wordplay.

    1. Got it wrong, missed ALIT on my alphabet trawl.
      And still don’t see how LIT = CHEERED. Are they both synonyms for drunk, as Verlaine suggests? LIT is, cheered (for me) isn’t!
      Otherwise must have been off the wavelength, an average 25 minutes where everyone else was speedy.
      Rob
      1. I did eventually decide my knee-jerk assumption that LIT was “cheered by alcohol” was wrong. But there’s definitely a sense in which lighting up a room “cheers” it up, and as for lighting up ones face, surely nothing could be much cheerier?
      2. Collins English Dictionary includes “to make or become cheerful or animated” among its definitions of the verb “to light”.

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