Times 26499 – no wise fish would go anywhere without one…

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Tranquillity reigns this morning in the household, having dispatched the little ones on to EasyJet yesterday (including over half an hour queuing in 37 degrees of blistering sun waiting to get inside the overcrowded, cheapskate Billi terminal in Bordeaux). Consequently I was up before the larks and had this polished off in 24 minutes. At first read it looked difficult but once the long cross clues 11a and 21a fell in, the rest seemed to tick along nicely, ending with the well constructed 10a and the slow-to-see 7d.

Across
1 PEPPER-POT – Cryptic definition.
6 STROP – PORT (left), S(on), all reversed; D rage.
9 LILLE – ILL = bad, inside LE = there, the; D French city.
10 CASHEW NUT – AS (when) HEW (cut) inside CNUT (old Danish king); D bit of food. KNUT or CNUT are alternative spellings of CANUTE. Be careful how you spell CNUT.
11 TWENTY-FOUR-SEVEN – TWENTY = score, FOURS = boundaries in cricket, EVEN = drawing; D all the time.
13 LACROSSE – (CAR LOSES)*; D game. This was easier than I realised, I’d started working with (CAR)* followed by a synonym for loses.
14 ARMADA – A, RMA (Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst), DA (lawyer): D a lot of craft. I’ve seen ARMADA clued several ways but I don’t remember this neat one.
16 FLURRY – FURRY = like warm coat, wrapped round L; D a little snow.
18 PORPOISE – OR is cornered into P (quietly) POISE, which I think relates to ‘collected’ else how does poise arise? D sea creature. See headline above.
21 ON THE WATERFRONT – (TENTH-RATE FOR NOW)*, D film. 1954 movie, arguably Marlon Brando’s best.
23 ENSCONCED – Hidden word, in ATH(ENS CONCED)ES, D in firm settlement. I could see Athens wasn’t going to be part of an anagram or there for a cryptic reason so the search for a hidden word was a giveaway.
25 CUT UP – TU = workers organised, inside CUP = competition; D dice.
26 SCUFF – S(ingular), CUFF = blow, D damage caused by rubbing.
27 OKEY-DOKEY – O (old), KEY KEY (opening pair), DO (perform) splits; D word of approval.

Down
1 PILOT – PI = devoted, LOT = crew, D navigator. Another one where I searched for harder answers (CABOT?) before seeing the easy one.
2 POLLEN COUNT – POLL (vote) EN (in, French), COUNT (aristocrat); D measure to aid allergy sufferers, like me. Not that it helps any.
3 ELECTRO – ELECT = return, RO = OR (gold) revolutionary, D silver plated articles. Short for Electroplate, I suppose.
4 PACIFIST – I CAP = I beat, ‘up’ = PAC I , FIST = means to punch; D reluctant fighter.
5 TOSS-UP – TO, PUSS (kitty) reversed; D even chance.
6 SPENSER – PENS = writes, inside SER(B) = Balkan language releasing B(ook); D poet.
7 RUN – a double definition?; I can see RUN = last, as in a stage play, how does RUN = stand?Ah, as the wizard chap points out in first comment below, you can run / stand for Parliament.
8 POTENTATE – E in OT NT (parts of Bible) inside PATE (crown); D ruler.
12 VLADIVOSTOK – Anagram fodder is (TV AVOIDS L OK)* where L OK = large, fine; D Asian city. According to a friend who passed that way, not worth a passing visit.
13 LEFTOVERS – LOVERS are more than good friends, insert E (close to mE) and FT (daily paper); D they remain. My CoD for a smooth surface.
15 BONE IDLE – Cryptic definition, ha ha.
17 REEL OFF – (FEEL FOR)*, anagrind ‘cast’, D to recite. Another one where the route to the answer was easier than I at first thought.
19 PO-FACED – OF ACE (of one) inside PD (symbol for Palladium the element); D with solemn expression. No theatres involved.
20 GAUCHO – GAUCH(E) = most (of) awkward, O = round, D cowboy.
22 TIPSY – TIPS = bonuses, Y = ultimately unlikelY, D rather tight.
24 SOU – SOU(R) = tart, without the T; D a bit of old (money).

52 comments on “Times 26499 – no wise fish would go anywhere without one…”

  1. 23′ for this nice challenge, still cannot parse 18 ac properly. How is POISE ‘being collected’? – needs a D, or is there an implict ‘with’, ‘being collected’ = ‘with poise’? I really do dislike the Amercanism at 11ac. LOI 4d, was looking for a word meaning reluctant ending -fish. 16ac we had very recently, perhaps in the QC. COD 19d. Thanks pip and setter.
  2. Nice to have a bogey-free round today. No permitas to gang agley on.

    Good puzzle, particularly enjoyed PO-FACED and TWENTY-FOUR-SEVEN.

    Was wondering about PORPOISE. Perhaps the setter’s intention was “collected” = “with poise”? So we have P (quietly) being with POISE, OR collected. Anything to get the setter off the hook I reckon.

    Thanks for the blog Pip.

    On edit, I just realised I basically parroted the previous comment. Sorry Rob!

    Edited at 2016-08-24 08:20 am (UTC)

  4. Didn’t have quite the usual good feeling about this one. Off to a poor start with a crummy clue at 1A which always puts me in a bit of a 6A

    Add me to the list who can’t make 18A work properly. Not that the answer can be anything else. 13D a good clue.

  5. 10ac AS + HEW (cut) inside CNUT, I think. You had all the ingredients, Pip.

    Edited at 2016-08-24 07:40 am (UTC)

  6. An enjoyable puzzle and not too hard, finishing in 45-50 minutes. I liked PEPPER POT, POTENTATE and my last in PORPOISE, though same thoughts about POISE{d} as others. Even though the clue was good, count me as another who doesn’t like the expression TWENTY-FOUR-SEVEN.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

  7. I rather like ‘with poise’ if that was what was intended. Quite an enjoyable puzzle, a little wry, all fair enough to me. What a film that was (21). I must have seen it within a few years of its release (1954) and it remains in the top three or four.
  8. 30 minutes for this one in which I was rather surprisingly held up by the two 3-letter answers and they were my last ones in. I still don’t think 18ac quite works, “being collected” or “collected” give us “poised” not “poise” unless I’m missing something. Not mad about 1ac either.
    2. A slight tweak on Gothick’s parsing – I would look at it as a participial phrase, so ‘being collected is his thing’ = ‘poise is his thing’.
      1. What a thing this learning is! And you know I learn something virtually every day from this blog! Thank you!
  9. Sadly well off the wavelength today. Only a few things I didn’t know — RMA, ON THE WATERFRONT, GOUCHO, SOU — but I failed with a dozen left after my sixty minutes. Perhaps I shouldn’t have complained about my little run of being only one letter or word off…

  10. In one of life’s little coincidences King Cnut came to me as I picked up a handful of nuts, including cashews. Got there in the end without ever feeling confident. LOI FLURRY.

    Edited at 2016-08-24 09:28 am (UTC)

  11. 16m. I found this quite tricky, particularly in the bottom half.
    Small point, Pip, but at 1dn I think PI is ‘seemingly devoted’. This word is often defined without the ‘seemingly’ part, which has been known to elicit comment.
    ‘Being collected’ is to POISE as ‘being charming’ is to ‘charm’. They can be inserted interchangeably into ‘X is the key to success’. Seems fine to me. On the other hand I don’t like ‘most awkward’ for GAUCHe.
    I did like the puzzle though, so thanks setter.
    2. Not sure I agree, k, I think the seemingly applies to the whole definition, the PI LOT are seemingly a devoted crew.
      1. Wouldn’t ‘navigator’s devoted crew’ work just as well (or indeed better) in that case?
        I accept it can be read either way, though.
      2. If the definition is singular ‘navigator’, PI is surely clued by ‘seemingly devoted’, with ‘crew’ just carrying its generic sense of a group of people (as in ‘motley crew’ – compare ‘you ‘orrible lot’).
        1. You can read ‘seemingly’ as just a sort of filler, like ‘as’ or ‘appears as’: [def] seemingly [wordplay]. Although I do think it’s more likely that ‘seemingly devoted’ is intended to indicate PI.

          Edited at 2016-08-24 03:56 pm (UTC)

          1. It gives the clue a rather clunky surface, and the sentence modification would typically be indicated by commas.
            1. I agree: in fact I think that since ‘devoted’ is a perfectly good definition of PI the clue would have been better without the word ‘seemingly’. Not sure what you mean about the commas though: I’m not sure where you’d put them (although admittedly I tend to a fairly minimalist view on comma use) and besides we’re talking about wordplay so punctiation is to be ignored.

              Edited at 2016-08-25 08:36 am (UTC)

  12. 14:45 … some nice penny-drop moments in here, especially with 24/7. I rather liked PEPPER POT, too, though I realise that’s a matter of taste.

    On the Waterfront really is a great movie, though hard to watch without constantly thinking “Is there where he says it? That line?” Sometimes a line can be a bit too quotable.

  13. I found this less difficult than the last few, finishing with all correct in 30 minutes. My FOI was 24×7 and LOI PORPOISE with the same reservations already expressed. Like Jack, I had trouble with the 3 letter clues and they only went in after I had the other two letters. I biffed BARE BONE for 15d until I spotted ENSCONCED, so that held me up with 18a. I liked ARMADA and CASHEW NUT. Didn’t spot the parsing of PO FACED, but it couldn’t have been anything else. Thanks to Pip for sorting out the parsing and to the setter for an interesting challenge.

    Edited at 2016-08-24 10:01 am (UTC)

  14. 33 mins, after accounting for the power outage! You’d think this was Manila not Hong Kong.

    ENSCONCED wasn’t the gimme it should have been; in fact I had it as my COD. Well, the definition is very good…

  15. I seem to be well out of the mainstream today, since I cordially dislike Brando and all his films.. (stop MUMBLING, man! Just spit it out, we haven’t got all day!) and on the other hand, have no particular problem with 24-7, hardly an Americanism these days, more of a globalism although not much here in Kent does in fact operate that way apart from McDonald’s restaurants (allegedly).
    Did like the crossword though .. excellent surfaces, and some witty clues. Even a couple of well-disguised bones for the pedantry to pick over

    1. When I was working on call, I was woken up several times by Macdonalds calls at around 3am, for hot swap disk replacements!!!!
      1. Are they on the menu now too? They sound one of the tastier items.

        I should have added our local hospital A&E departments to that 24-7 list.. I have a good friend who either starts or finishes her shifts at 2am, having dealt competently with things no-one should ever have to face .. and no doubt there are others too doing such things for not much money. Puts poise v collected in its rightful place

  16. Exactly the same first and last as John Dun and I found it pretty straightforward too although at the first read through I only got a handful. Parsed PORPOISE only after seeing that it could not be anything else from the checkers. Enjoyed this very much with two cups of tea in a sunny garden. Better do the ironing now.
  17. I had just about finished when my eldest son emailed me to say they had had an earthquake in Umbria whilst on day three of their holiday. The family are fine but at least 37 appear to be dead and hundreds are missing. So I am a bit discumbobulated.

    May God be with them.

    horryd Shanghai

  18. No time today as I fell asleep in the Ariège sun halfway through. However I did finish it eventually without any major hold ups. Never seen OTW (a fact which applies to most lauded films) but I always seem to know them when they appear in the crossword.
  19. Hot here, too, in La Mayenne. Yesterday was a case of here a biff, there a biff, everywhere a biff, biff cos I I wuz in a hurry to collect some Aussie friends from the station. Didn’t work too well as I made two erreurs. Today was more relaxed and enjoyable. My favourites were PORPOISE and CASHEW NUT. With PORPOISE, the setter did a good job because I was looking at the wrong end of the clue for the definition.
    Thanks, Pip for the blog. I am familiar with EPNS but not ELECTRO on its own.
    1hr 12m 10s

    Edited at 2016-08-24 01:27 pm (UTC)

  20. 45m as I head to London KX on the 13.00. Pleasant journey and pleasant puzzle – difficult for me and needed some unpicking but I always felt I’d get there. The mark of a good puzzle and a good train service! Thanks setter and blogger!
  21. About 20 minutes, with only a bit of wonderment at PO-FACED. BONE IDLE also not particularly familiar, but the wordplay was helpful for each. No further insights on this. Regards.
  22. Found this relatively easy by my standards, even though I didn’t get quite a few of the clues until I read the explanations, and I’m still a bit mystified by 27 (key key?) and 15 (an all-in-one?). And what happened to the e in gauche?
    1. Adrian, it is clued as “most awkward” which the solver is supposed to interpret as “most of awkward”. Pip referred to it in his blog, but maybe not clearly enough.
    2. In 27a, KEY KEY (opening pair) refers to the fact that there are two openers. 15d, “Skeleton staff so unperforming? (4-4)”, isn’t an all-in-one (where the definition and the wordplay are the same) but rather a cryptic definition, a clue type which which relies on whimsical associations. Underperforming staff are idle, so if you had a bunch of skeletons working for you they would be bone idle.
  23. 23 mins but I took a bad knock in the middle of it so I’ve got no idea what my time would have been had I managed to stay alert the whole time. PACIFIST was my LOI after CASHEW NUT. At least I was all correct today after yesterday’s disaster.
  24. Last one in! So the only word that would fit was ELECTRO, and I spied the gold and sussed the definition, so I had to accept that, in the first part, “return” must mean “elect”——but I thought this was rather loose, unless the pol referred to has held the office before, and then the equivalent word would be reelect.” But, hey, “return” is equated with “elect” in Collins, just like that…
      1. Yes, I gathered as much—”return” is a synonym for “elect” as a transitive verb—but your phrase would translate as an “electing officer,” which I’ve never heard of before.

        Edited at 2016-08-24 07:56 pm (UTC)

  25. I highly recommend a liquid lunch as I tackled this after one and found it most enjoyanble. Hopefully that will not have worn off in two hours or so when I tackle tonights!
  26. 14:30 for this interesting and enjoyable puzzle. Looking back over the clues, I’m not sure why I wasn’t quite a bit faster, but it could have been the heat.

    I’m sure keriothe’s right about PI = “seemingly devoted”.

    1. Sorry – that was me. LiveJournal keeps logging me out – though on previous occasions it’s at least warned me that I’m not logged in.
  27. Thanks setter and pip
    Know that you’re the only one that will ever see this, pip, but anyway. This was an old puzzle that was from our Australian in late January this year (which would normally mean a late December published one from there) … and it’s only through the search facility of this site that I was able to discover that it was a puzzle from 3 years ago !! It is enlightening to see how much clearer that the blogs have become now with the listing of the clues included in present write-ups.
    Glad that I found it and it occupied three ~20 minute sittings yesterday to get it out – have to admire those that can belt something like this at a rate of 2-3 clues a minute !
    Started off by writing in BONE LAZY at 15d, so wasn’t really setting myself up for success anyway, but it helped get ON THE WATERFRONT, a film that I’ve never seen, as my next one in. Entering TWENTY-FOUR HOURS a bit later was also not helpful. Of the two three letter ones, SOU was a quick get and RUN was my last one in after struggling to see the ‘last’ definition for a long time. PO-FACED and CASHEW NUT were other clues that took ages to work out the word play. This sense of ELECTRO was the only word that I had not come across, so it is a credit to the setter to have cleverly disguise the answers (at least from me) for so long.

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