Times 26380 – the crossword that came to dinner

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time : According to the club timer, 27:46, but there is a bit of a story here. I’m in dress rehearsals for a production of The Man Who Came To Dinner and I finally managed to get the wireless backstage to work (well, sporadically). So I started the crossword and then heard my cue. So I shut the laptop, did my scene, and came back. Opened it up and finished off the crossword, submitted and… the internet had reset.

So I had to load a second version of it and play neutrino (fortunately I remembered all of the answers from reading the clues, so this only took a few minutes).

Similar to yesterday, a puzzle with magnificent wordplay for some relatively obscure terms, there was only one where I was hoping (a Zulu term clued as a part anagram).

The internet seems to have come and gone again, so I hope this will post when I get it written up.

Away we go…

Across
1 CLAUDE DEBUSSY: anagram of B,DUE,DUE in CLASSY
8 PER,M: this may be clue of the week, as I’ve seen three variations of it recently
9 SCANDALISE: SCAN(picture),DALI(Spanish artist who is not Miro),S(tartling),E(veryone)
10 BIRDSHOT: B(Bachelor) then an anagram of THIRD,SO
11 NEWHAM: (o)NE, WHAM
13 HAMMERHEAD: HAMMER(attack),HAD(experienced) around (shor)E
16 INFO: alternating letters in Is No FoOl
17 GINS: hidden in sellinG IN Small
18 EXPOSITORY: remove the last letter of EXPOSE(revealing story) then I, TORY
20 INDABA: anagram of (A,BIND), A – I like “reconvening” as an anagram indicator
22 SLAG HEAP: reversal of PA(secretary),GALS surrounding HE
24 IRIDESCENT: I, (b)RIDE, SCENT(bouquet)
26 MA,IN: key meaning “most important” here
27 STEPPING STONE: Took me a while to figure the wordplay here, I didn’t get it when I hit submit. Anyway we have two STs, surrounding EPPING forest, then ONE
 
Down
1 CREPITATION: CITATION surrounding REP(where I happen to be right now)
2 AIMED: the trunk is the A1, then MED
3 DISCHARGE: DISC(recording), HARE(career) containing the key of G. Terrific surface!
4 DRAFTEE: and another! D, RAF(service), TEE(support)
5 B,ADEN
6 SOLO WHIST: SO LOW HIT containing S
7 YES: remove the PR from YPRES
12 AFFIRMATIVE: another long reversal, this time of AM,RIFF in EVITA
14 MISHANDLE: M(male), then HAND in ISLE(Arran, say)
15 DESCARTES: or DES CARTES anniversaires
19 PO,STERN
21 AESOP: reverse PROSE,A and remove the R
23 HIMBO: a term I haven’t heard in a while – H, then (l)IMBO
25 RES: shorten RES(t)

85 comments on “Times 26380 – the crossword that came to dinner”

  1. O.k. for me, I knew ‘Indaba’, and, while ‘himbo’ was unknown it was readily inferred from the wordplay once solving 27a made ‘himmy’ untenable (shimmy rather than the mambo that attracted other contributors).
    Having said that, I very nearly fell for the same problem as yesterday: only a final check showed that I had not solved ‘res’ at 25d. Fortunately this was quickly addressed as I remembered the term from day release study of Public Law many years ago.
    Could, perhaps, have been faster if I was not listening to the Liverpool match on the radio – Drat, Dortmund have just equalised!
  2. Hi again everyone.
    Finding this one hard to decipher even with the solutions and can’t wait until I get to the stage you are all at.

    The per/m one. How did you get per?

    Thanks for the patience whoever replies.

    Edited at 2016-04-07 08:45 pm (UTC)

    1. Hi, per = each = a. Think of it as “the bananas cost so much per(a) pound” Keep working at it. It gets easier 🙂
      1. Thanks John. I saw that definition but wasn’t sure if there was something else ‘as well’ if you see what I mean!
        I will stick if you all don’t mind my questions! 🙂 It’s horrible when it’s so difficult at the start but I’m looking forward to the day when I recognise the clues. Thanks for the patience.
        1. I found this blog 5 years ago. Before that my first Times crossword took 3 days to get 75% of the way through with aids. Through absorbing the explanations provided by the contributors, I now finish correctly most days, rarely going over the hour and have done the occasional puzzle in 20 minutes. Still a way to go to catch up with the best performers though. I still marvel at those who regularly do it in 10 minutes or less! In the first few years I regularly took 90 minutes.
  3. About an hour today but another INBADA here – add my grizzle to the others above about obscure foreign words and anagrams. Also a song and a prayer for HIMBO though at least the word play seemed to point in that direction more obviously. Otherwise a pleasant struggle with some lovely clues – 3d for example. Break a leg, George.
  4. Thank you so much. The support you give is invaluable as it is hard when you start out particularly if you’ve always had a facility with words.. I find the quick cryptic more accessible currently and get a bit further but presume that it’s a matter of practice and … practice! The blog helps hugely in interpreting the words behind the words. I dream of an hour let alone 20 minutes but it’s really encouraging to know that others have been at this end of the journey.
    Thank you so much for replying.
  5. Damn! My first mistake of the year, but at least it was out of ignorance rather than stupidity or carelessness. I’d never heard of HIMBO so it was a toss-up between MAMBO and LIMBO for the dance, and at the time HAMBO sounded more likely. Should have thought of “bimbo”, I suppose. (Sigh!)
    1. Geez Tony, I’ve lost count of the number of mistakes I’ve made this year. And only some of them have been in crosswords!
  6. Decided HIMBO is somewhat amusing, and fair; INDABA INBADA less so, and not. NE hurt me badly today: got the W in WHIST first, which meant the borough had to be BOW, confirmed by the down Old British – whoops. Thankfully my ophthalmologist takes plenty of time with patients, so I had plenty of time.
  7. In yesterday’s South China Morning Post……

    Very clever wordplay, but maybe too many unfamiliar words.

    Having gone to boarding school in Swaziland, I knew indaba, as we used to have them from time to time.

    Jezz in Hong Kong

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