Times 26416. When is an orange not a paper-pusher?

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time : 8:23, so either this one was on the beginner’s slopes, or I was really on the setter’s wavelength, or both. It didn’t hurt that I’d seen almost the exact same clue that was at 9 across recently.

My only niggle was the battle (that I knew as a city) clued as an anagram at 26 across. I was hoping there wasn’t a battle of SLATINGDAR that I wasn’t aware of.

I’m on vacation at the moment, so rushing through this to make happy hour. If I’ve messed something up, check the comments section, it may be a while before I could make any corrections.

Away we go…

Across
1 SLIGHT: double definition
5 SOLITARY: Definition is “one”. SO LIT(intoxicated), A RY(e)
9 BUREAUCRAT: C(orrido)R and A(prico)T after BUREAU
10 NICK: two definition – steal and a prison
11 SHANGHAI: Anagram of GHANA,IS containing H(arbour)
12 RINGER: double definition, though few phones now make a sound that could be described as a ring
13 COLA: hidden reversed in speciAL OCcasion
15 HOTELIER: HOT(just out of the oven) then LIE in ER
18 WEREWOLF: LOWER in FEW, all reversed, nice clue
19 MORE: double general knowledge definition
21 STINGO: STING(smart) then the middle of (b)O(y)
23 RECOURSE: definition is “resort” – RECUR containing O(mani) and then SE(aside)
25 MARC: a whiskey MAC surrouding R
26 STALINGRAD: anagram of LAST,DARING
27 UNSOILED: anagram (dystopian) of DELUSION
28 PARLEY: take the middle out of PARSLEY
 
Down
2 LOUGH: LO, UGH – got this from wordplay, Irish form of LOCH
3 GREENGAGE: Graham GREENE containing a GAG
4 TAUGHT: (whodunni)T, then AUGHT
5 STRAIGHTFORWARD: the hard is one from poker, a STRAIGHT then a rugby FORWARD. Sportsball!
6 LITERATE: anagram of A,LETTER,I
7 TENON: all TEN fingers and thumbs, then ON
8 RACKET,EER
14 OVERTRAIN: or OVERT RAIN
16 LIMBURGER: the cross between a lion and tiger is a LIGER, containing RUB andM reversed
17 COLOSSAL: LOSS inside COAL
20 SCRIMP: S(kirt) on top of CRIMP
22 NACHO: final letters of (Dresde)N (chin)A, (fantasti)C, (O)H, (n)O
24 SOAVE: may be tricky for some – SAVE(bar) containing 0

42 comments on “Times 26416. When is an orange not a paper-pusher?”

  1. An unprecedented sub-Verlaine for me. I look forward to the explanation of how that came to pass.

    Nice mixture of clues today, helped by the straightforward STRAIGHTFORWARD and (as George mentions) the recent appearance of mandarin for BUREAUCRAT.

    A good week so far. Thanks setter and George.

    1. Oh man! It’s hard being in the media spotlight all the time. It was a post-gig solve for me, and you never know whether being brimful of alcohol is going to be a friend or an implacable foe until it’s too late. I didn’t help myself at all by having a booze-addled LIMBERGER in for a long time, and being unable to do anything with what should have been easy clues like 23ac accordingly…

      Edited at 2016-05-19 10:39 am (UTC)

  2. I put in ‘literati’, not taking the few seconds necessary to count the Es. Also wasted some time trying to recall the capital of Oman, yet. (At least I didn’t try to recall the currency of Oman.) Thanks George for opening my eyes to LIMBURGER, which I put in then took out because I couldn’t for the life of me parse it.
  3. Just under 30 minutes. Very enjoyable and I also liked 9A which I once clued as “official fruit”. “Stuff of mine” that made my day. Thank you, setter and George for the blog.
  4. I havent had time for a puzzle for a week or two, and this was a pleasant one to return to. What with all that whiskies, brandies, and wines, I was sure that either Muscat or Muscadet had to figure in 23a. Whoops.
  5. 35 minutes, so 2.5 Gs. Last in and favourite PARLEY. I thought ‘dystopian’ was a masterstroke, with its meaning of something in a bad state.

    Yes, Verlaine having it handed to him by the boy from South Sydney is on a par with Liverpool getting beaten by Seville. Well, Liverpool of the 80s…

    1. Fab sportsball fact: I grew up in Flint, North Wales, whose most famous son as far as I can tell was one Ian Rush. Am I the Ian Rush of the crosswording world? Perhaps I should grow the moustache…
  6. 40 minutes, slightly delayed in the SE corner where I hesitated over the name of the cheese and needed checkers before the battle came to mind.

    Didn’t know STINGO as a generic name for strong beer but remembered it as a brand name for a barley-wine type brew, produced by Manns. I last saw it in the mid-1980s iirc.

    Edited at 2016-05-19 04:37 am (UTC)

  7. Left me curiously annoyed because I made heavy weather of the starboard side after downing the port in next to no time, finishing in 21.32. NICK and RINGER I half-got straight off but didn’t trust them enough to write them in, and for some reason I totalled all fingers and thumbs as 20. Maybe I should have taken my mittens off. I wasted time wondering why the conference centre, which of course is ER, mutated to the S I needed to remove from parsley, and failed to notice that aside from seaside left me the SE I didn’t know I needed.
    Being properly educated in the water of life, I was certain that “nearly finished whiskey” would be MAL(t) rather than RY(e), but clearly forgot my basic spelling.
  8. Feeling much better than yesterday, having at last finished one within my hour limit, coming in at 54 minutes. DNK LOUGH, STINGO or MARC but got them all from the wordplay fairly confidently.

    I can see “dystopian” as an indicator. It’s just a shame I couldn’t see it while I was trying to work out the anagram, but once I’d seen UNSOILED in there the fact I was reading the clue bass-ackwards seemed fair enough.

    LOI COLOSSAL; COD to 5d, just because I took so long to work it out and then it turned out to be STRAIGHTFORWARD, which produced a combination eye-roll and half-smile that there’s probably a word for…

    Edited at 2016-05-19 07:44 am (UTC)


  9. 22mins so amazingly quick for me today… all parsed as I went along, except for I didn’t see how STRAIGHT could = hand, and I’d not heard of STINGO…
  10. Easy indeed today but enjoyed it nevertheless, some very pleasant misdirections ..
    readers of the late Mr Pratchett will be aware that a werewolf need not be a monster .. “lunarly challenged” perhaps
  11. So, not Ounce or Eland but LIGER. I had STIR rather than NICK which delayed me slightly and for the first time on seeing Mandarin I thought “bureaucrat” rather than Duck, Collar etc.
  12. Remembered Stingo from years ago, possibly a crossword then. Delayed by LIMBURGER, convinced there is a cheese that starts LAMM…20’12” Thanks setter and blogger.
  13. About 20′ but with a careless lamburger. Recoil somewhat at ‘funny’ as noun, which have seen creeping in to ghastly slogans on the box. (Or ‘gag’ as adj.) Otherwise the puzzle an example of the cheerful mundane.
  14. That’s what we sang, but Google also has Inky Dinky… Enjoyable puzzle, with me as usual struggling in the south-east for a while and LOI PARLEY. About the half hour excluding the interruptions by builders in need of tea.
  15. 18:01. A nice way to recover after yesterday’s vintage crossword. I wondered if the setter had yesterday’s dinner in mind? Nachos and limburger washed down with brandy, whisky, Soave and cola.
  16. 19 min: K-M… brought the disgusting LYMESWOLD to mind, which wouldn’t parse, but obstructed the whole SE quadrant till I saw the anagram at 26ac meant it wasn’t going to be there.
  17. Perhaps I was distracted by all the fruit (and drinks and cheese and snacks) but I got too clever by half and thought “conference” had something to do with a pear. We had something of the sort once upon a time. So I get that sorted out and was clocking in at about the 15 minute mark when some sort of malfunctioning flash plug-in from a second window I’d forgotten was still open decided to gatecrash the proceedings and then everything went pear-shaped. Hate when the day starts that way. Limburger needs to be very well-wrapped or the whole fridge smells of very ripe socks.
    1. I was at a conference in London yesterday that almost went pear-shaped with SE Trains on strike, a fire on the Reading train,the Queen’s Speech closing roads and some protest march.
  18. Very nice puzzle. I had SODA as a fizzy drink for long enough before deciding it didn’t parse 🙂
  19. Found this one quite straightforward, apart from a slight delay in the SE, where I didn’t quite spot the aside, so thanks to George for that. I was sent in the fruity direction at 28a before spotting the de-centred plant. I also had IN GHANA as the anagrist for 11a briefly, until the penny dropped. We’ve had the mandarin recently so that went in quickly. I think I’m improving at viewing the clues from a different angle when the first try doesn’t produce results. 30 minutes for this one. FOI SLIGHT, LOI SOLITARY.
  20. I’m afraid that I took several many blogger’s times to complete this, being held up mostly in the SE. Having used the word STRAIGHTFORWARD several times first thing this morning in my QC blog, I was still unable to see it for an inordinately long time when I needed it here. You can’t get a large city out of an anagram of IN GHANA, however much you try.

    I laughed at Z8’s 20 fingers and thumbs above. Thanks for interrupting your holiday G, nice if succinct blog.

    Edited at 2016-05-19 10:53 am (UTC)

    1. For some time I had IN GHANA in my anagrist instead of GHANA IS, to the point I almost went with GHANGHAI until I thought to myself that looks a lot like SHANGHAI. Reading it again it’s clear the anagrist could go either way, but as usual once I’ve seen something one way it takes a lot to shift my thinking.
  21. Good progress through most of it then a DNF in the SE corner, biffed SORREL for 28a, don’t ask me why, then STRIMS for 20d then looked at the blog and did a Muttley for a bit. COD even though I didn’t get it 23a.
  22. I can’t say I found this a beginner’s puzzle, judging by my time of 35 minutes, though it wasn’t particularly hard either. The ‘straightforward’ 5d was actually one of my later entries, when I had enough checkers.I was also one who tried to make something out of IN GHANA.

    I thought there were some very enjoyable clues, especially 5a and 27.

  23. Leicester cheese on Tuesday, Limburger today. I’m off to dig out the words to Monty Python’s Cheese Shop sketch in case there’s some more obscure cheese-based clues tomorrow.

    Edited at 2016-05-19 03:24 pm (UTC)

    1. Unfortunately, Venezuelan beaver’s milk will have to be saved for the Jumbo.
  24. 10m. No problems today. The unknown STINGO looked a bit unlikely but what else could it be? Disaster narrowly avoided at 16dn where I bunged in LIMBERGER but fortunately my ‘you can’t spell’ alarm went off and I paused to identify at least part of the wordplay, starting and finishing with how ‘polish’ had anything to do with it.
  25. A slow start with only two answers – LITERATE and SOAVE after 12 minutes but then a light came on and all finished correctly in 23m. Hesitated a bit over the cheese which I was confidently biffing but then puzzled over the cryptic so thanks for explaining LIGER, George! Enjoyable puzzle too.
  26. Very easy today, actually my best time ever at 27:41 (how many Verlaines is that?), but maybe it helped to solve while I was still awake. Even obscure things like SOAVE didn’t give me trouble. LOI and one of my favourites was PARLEY, as for many others here, and the only clue I needed to biff entirely was LIMBURGER, since fortunately I have never come across a liger (and more fortunately not in person).

    Edited at 2016-05-19 03:57 pm (UTC)

  27. I actually finished this one in time to join the general commentry but went back to sleep and didn’t manage to post til now. My one missed was _ARC, not knowing the cocktail or the brandy.

    I’ve been lurking in the background for the last two months, doing puzzles when I can. Those of you who met me in NYC may remember that we had a baby on the way… Well, little Oliver is now just over two months old. It was nice to see him mentioned in the puzzle today.

    He was born 3/15/16, and it was a point of pride for me to finish that day’s puzzle (it probably took me a week of intermittent solving!).

    Howdy to all, hope to be back more regularly soon.

    1. Very happy news. Congratulations, and I hope to see you again some time. Regards.
    2. Lovely news! Congratulations to both parents. There will be sleep again – eventually.
  28. 12 mins so I’m another who was on the right wavelength. For some reason it took me ages to see STRAIGHTFORWARD, and I only got it after I entered its next-to-last checker from RECOURSE. I was then able to see SOLITARY which was my LOI. Count me as another who was looking at the wrong anagram fodder for SHANGHAI for a while.
  29. A more normal solve, about 20 minutes ending with COLOSSAL/UNSOILED, as the ‘dystopian’ label threw me off until the end. ‘Stuff of mine’ was very good, but like others I figured it had to be ‘ore’ which delayed that clue as well. Regards to all.
  30. I enjoyed this one despite going wrong with Salutary. 5D went in quickly as it combines two of my favourite things ie rugby and poker. Remembered Stingo from a recent crossword but Marc was guessed from the cryptic.I also knew Lough as the Irish spelling of Loch as I have a stuffed pike on my dining room wall which was caught on Lough Mask in 1928.
  31. Twenty-six minutes here, which is good for me despite a slow start.

    I enjoyed this uncommonly alcoholic (5, 21 & 25ac; 24d and, for those who know their cocktails, 11ac) puzzle, with LOUGH my only NHO (and why, I wonder, did they name a borough in central England after it?)

    Completely failed to parse LIMBURGER, mainly through failing to spot the liger.

  32. 7:37 here for this pleasant, 5dn solve. But then I was almost completely sober :-).

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