Times 26673 – where we find lady cats and tailless cats

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Excuse brevity, our satellite internet was still down after a nasty storm, I am having to rush this sitting in a restaurant. An odd mix of easy clues and strange ones, a couple of definitions I found dodgy, and 5d only half understood. 25 minutes to do the puzzle.

Ah we are back online and i can see from the comments below how speed in blogging in a noisy place is not a good idea. I’d missed the CON CERT split parsing (very clever) and needed the genius of Galspray to unravel 5d. I’ll try and do better next week, back in the tranquillity of Lot-et-Garonne.

Across
1 ACID – AID = relief, around C; D bitter.
4 ACQUAINTED – QUAINT = curious, insode ACE, D; D familiar.
9 POP CONCERT – POP for try, as in have a pop at; (EDIT) CON = do, CERT for something assured; D performance.
10 MANX – MAN for husband, X for kiss; D tongue rarely used. Seems odd, it was quite frequently used when I lived in the Isle of Man. and not used anywhere else!
11 ADVERB – BREV(E), for short note; DA for lawyer; all reversed; D promptly, for example.
12 NO CHANCE – D never. A Monopoly game with no CHANCE cards or squares would be defective, and less fun.
14 NUMB – D unfeeling; If you were more unfeeling you’d be NUMBER, so like one or two. So less than number is numb, I guess.
15 LIFE ESTATE – (LEFT SEE AT I)*, D what would be left. Seems odd that the LEFT is in the anagram fodder and the definition? And not a phrase I am familiar with. EDIT see below if it’s &lit.
17 FLOWER SHOW – F for loud, L for large, OWERS are in the red, HOW for the way to, D colourful display.
20 LIZA – A monitor is a type of LIZARD, delete the RD = losing way, D female.
21 PREMISES – Double definition.
23 LOSING – LOG = record, is broken by SIN = crime, D down.
24 DOGE – DO for party, EG = for one, reverse it; D chief magistrate.
25 BLUE COLLAR – BLUE = far from happy, COLLAR = band; D &lit.
26 EAT ONES HAT – E = energy, ATONES = makes good, HAT = bowler perhaps; D fulfil promise unexpectedly.
27 STEW – WETS were faint-hearted Tories, sort of, reverse = look left; D worry.

Down
2 CROWD PULLER – CROWD for host, PULLER for trailer; D popular event. Seems another odd one to me, I have a trailer and it’s pulled, not a puller. Perhaps we mean a movie trailer which pulls punters into the movie?
3 DICKEY BOW – CID reversed, KEY for chief, BOW for crook; D formal attire.
4 ANNABEL – NAB for arrest, in (LANE)*, D girl.
5 QUEEN OF THE SOUTH – Well, tom’s mate could be a female cat, a queen, and QOTS is a Scottish football team. But I have no idea yet about the ‘rarely in Henry’s’ reference.
6 ATTACHE – A TT ACHE could be a craving to avoid the booze; D man on mission, i.e. with an embassy.
7 TRAIN – Last letter of seT, RAIN for bucket down, D guide. Is guide a synonym for train? As in ‘train on a target’ perhaps?
8 DIXIE – DIE for sink, around X and I; D pot, a large cooking utensil.
13 CITIZEN KANE – (NAZI NECKTIE)*, D famous picture.
16 TELESALES – TE a note, LESS for diminished, insert ALE for alcohol; D calls for flogging. I have the free Mr Number app which kills them all for me.
18 RISIBLE – RILE for annoy, insert SIB(ling); D comic.
19 WILDCAT – WILD for angry, CAT another queen feline, D called without warning, as in strike.
21 PADRE – PAD for flat, RE for Royal Engineers, D minister in service, i.e. in army, navy, or air force.
22 EIGHT – (W)EIGHT = stress with leader removed; D crew, rowing.

46 comments on “Times 26673 – where we find lady cats and tailless cats”

  2. May or may not be a return to form, need to see how Ulaca went first.

    Liked CITIZEN KANE. Thanks setter and blogger.

    Also I think 15ac is an &LIT, rather than “left” doing double duty.

  3. 27 minutes with similar thoughts about the unknown LIFE’S ESTATE (though doesn’t “at one’s perishing” form part of the definition too?) and trailer/PULLER. Biffed QOTS and moved on thankfully since I’m not on blogging duty today. Only a J short of a pangram.

    Edited at 2017-03-15 06:56 am (UTC)

  4. 14m. Trickyish, this one, and I agree there were some odd things in here. I don’t understand ‘do something assured’ for CONCERT, for instance. I enjoyed wrestling with it though.
    I think the anagram fodder at 15ac is ‘perishing’, and it’s &Lit.
    At 2dn ‘trail’ is also a verb meaning ‘pull’, hence trailer = PULLER.
    A game of Monopoly with NO CHANCE would if anything be more fun, since you might persuade the other players that it wasn’t worth starting.
    1. Not convinced. Verbs, yes, but doesn’t follow that the nouns are synonymous IMO. However it’s just a small moan.
      1. Even if it’s just a generic noun-form of the verb without specific meaning? So someone who is ‘trailing’ a boat behind a car could be said to be the trailer/puller of the boat even if they are obviously not a ‘trailer’ in the usual sense of the noun.
  5. I had this done and dusted in a fast (for me) time, but stymied by having entered DICKIE BOW, which made ADVERB ungettable. Enjoyed the rest of it. Thanks to setter and blogger. Gradese
      1. Yes, that was my reading of 9A too — concert has to be split into “con” and “cert”. Clever clue and my LOI.

        Thanks to Galspray for parsing 5D. I don’t think I’d ever have worked that out.

        Edited at 2017-03-15 09:08 am (UTC)

  7. 17:23 … I started going faster when I eventually slowed down, if you know what I mean, this being a pretty biff-resistant puzzle. That has to be a good thing.

    A few shrugs along the way but everything more or less added up. I appreciate the misdirection in CITIZEN KANE, and POP CONCERT is very clever.

    Pip – your note on 15a indicates ‘life’ doing double-duty when I think you meant ‘left’, which could confuse a stupid person …

  8. I thought this was an excellent puzzle until I managed in my excitement to close my window with just 16dn and 27ac left to get – had to type everything back in. Presumably my time of 12 minutes would have been closer to 10 if that hadn’t happened.

    I’ll give 16dn my COD nomination just because of it proving my nemesis, though now the parsing of 5dn has been explained somewhere that is definitely another contender – didn’t see that at all, apart from the QUEEN part (though like others I expect I was secretly hoping for it to be JERRY).

      1. Not Henry Purcell (though a contemporary of his). The avatar does arise from a conversation I was having with keriothe in these parts earlier this week…

        Edited at 2017-03-15 12:47 pm (UTC)

        1. Thanks for introducing Nahum Tate to me (and I see Tate wrote the libretto for Henry Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas).
  10. I was still looking for the pangram with 9ac left, which kept pushing me to Job something and took 5 minutes to parse pop concert – good clue though!

    Gandolf34

  11. Interesting that queen for cat appears twice, plus the noted tailless one. LIFE ESTATE is an estate held during the life of a possessor (thank you Chambers), so it wouldn’t be left, would it? Hmmm. LOI LIZA with a zee. COD undoubtedly QUEEN OF THE SOUTH.

    Third sub-20-minuter of the week, thanks pip and setter.

    1. Yes; this is the first crossword that I’ve ever seen something like “tom’s mate” and immediately thought, “oh, that’ll be ‘queen’—I’m starting to remember my crossword vocabulary! Hurrah!”. And then I *still* took another half an hour to get the rest of the clue, and then came across the extra hint for the “queen”/”cat” concordance that would have been really helpful all the *previous* times it had come up…
      1. I should beware. Next time it’ll probably be a setter with a literary bent and the word indicated will turn out to be VIV.
  12. 30 minutes and really enjoyed it. Thanks Galspray for the QOTS explanation which is a great clue but COD to TELESALES.
  13. Held up by 5d (unparsed) and 15a plus a few others, so came in over the hour. I always like it when those Scottish football teams make an appearance but my favourite was the surface for MANX.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

  14. I was really held up by entering 12ac as NO CORNER (monopoly) which screwed up the north-east rather like Storm Stella! NO CHANCE!? (that sort of Monopoly!)

    WOD 8dn DIXIE

    Managed to parse 5dn QUEEN OF THE SOUTH my COD but 13 dn CITIZEN KANE was late on arrival.

    Cue Harry Lime Theme.

    FOI 3dn DICKEY BOW LOI 9ac POP CONCERT

    15ac LIFE ESTATE was unknown.

    61 miserable minutes!

    Edited at 2017-03-15 10:26 am (UTC)

  15. 50 or so minutes, so a bit of a struggle for me too… LOI was an unparsed ‘article’. Could only think of that and ‘autocue’ to fit the crossers. Must try harder…

    Hadn’t heard of the term LIFE ESTATE, but the anagram led to that, nor had I come across DIXIE before. Liked ‘calls for flogging…’ when I finally got it. Would never have got the parsing for QOTS, so thanks Gal.

  16. Around 28 minutes but it felt longer – not usually a good sign on the fun front. RHS harder than the left with LIFE ESTATE the main cause of woe. I dislike clues for random forenames so having two of them raised the grumpiness level another notch and I thought the repeated use of queen for cat unnecessary.
  17. Whipsaw effect of DNKs and write-ins. DIXIE and QOTS were guesses. On the other hand if you had to grapple with first year real property law you can’t help remembering LIFE ESTATEs. It’s also part of the plot of Pride & Prejudice because Mr. Bennett holds his property for his life only (in entail), after which comes Mr. Collins – something Mr.B never succeeds in explaining to his wife. 21.31
  18. A bit laboured this one with same occasional quizzical look as others have described. Got QOTS from QUEEN and enumeration 5,2,3,5 then reverse engineered the cryptic. Not keen on the Monopoly clue. LIFE ESTATE no problem – another one from definition and then work out the cryptic
  19. Which is a good name for a cat, if not two. Been walking round the garden most of the night with the ailing old dog, so on 3 hours sleep. Hope he can pull through this one. I’ve just finished this steadily in 40 minutes with a couple of uncertainties correctly biffed. Not heard of a LIFE ESTATE before, but it makes sense. “I wish I was in DIXIE” has taken on a cannibalistic new meaning too. I’ve checked the verse: ‘The Queen of the South (aka Sheba) shall rise up in the judgment with this generation.” I guess that will be after a bad offside decision. Disappointed 13d wasn’t clued with an allusion to Rosebud, ‘His childhood happiness had our beds unmade’ perhaps.
  20. About 1 hour 15 min for me in two sittings, but finished with no errors. No idea on the QOTS team and didn’t parse it, so this was a pure guess. DNK Dickey Bow as formal attire. At least Australians are familiar with monitor as a lizard. Thanks to the setter and Pip.

    Edited at 2017-03-15 11:25 am (UTC)

  21. 21.53, with no idea how QOTS worked beyond QUEEN. Could it be that only Galspray and Anon spotted the wordplay?
    Loved (when I got past the rather mixed goods train words) the clue for TELESALES, or at least its definition. Were it not for the fact that it creates thousands of jobs, I’d have the whole trade banned. Competing with the lawyers for first place up against the wall come the revolution
    I probably should have known Life Estate, as, like Olivia, I did first year Property Law, but that it came as an unknown to me might explain in part why I didn’t do third year, thus being in possession of an LL.

    Edited at 2017-03-15 11:56 am (UTC)

  22. Managed this one in 39:37, so a definite improvement from yesterday. FOI 1a which always raises hopes. LOI TELESALES. I loved the definition Calls for flogging! Biffed QOTS from QUEEN and enumeration, but did manage to parse it before coming here. Hadn’t come across LIFE ESTATE before, but the checkers and anagram fodder made it inevitable. I wasted time looking for a painting at 13d until the penny dropped. Nice puzzle. Thanks setter and Pip.
  23. 29 mins with a bit of biffing including QOTS. I dredged the pot from somewhere in my cerebral RAM. Spent ages trying to think of well known Italian (because of the Z) artworks before the penny dropped for 13 dn. Saw the CERT ending for 9 ac but bunged in the rest on a prayer as my LOI.
  24. I think everything that needs to be said has been, some of it twice, so I’ll just record a rather slow 19:19.
  25. 14:26, with this coming together in bits and pieces – needed the wordplay for LIFE ESTATE, but QUEEN OF THE SOUTH went in with a shrug and a hope, though now I see it the wordplay is clever. Nice clue for an awful word in TELESALES
  26. I struggled greatly with this one. Pushed the time to an hour and a half this morning and still had some leftovers, so finished off over lunch.

    A lot of the GK was at my fringes or beyond—MANX, DIXIE, QOTS, LIFE ESTATE—but I think I also fell for virtually every misdirection and thought of every wrong synonym going but never the right one. I was so far off the wavelength I think I might have been tuned in to the wrong band altogether.

    But it was a fun workout, and it was at least gratifying to come here and find that I had pulled all the teeth correctly, so thanks to setter and blogger. FOI ACID, LOI ATTACHE, COD TELESALES.

  27. Temporarily barred for forgetting password. At my age I forget what day it is too! I took about 60m for this, struggling in the east until I biffed Life Estate. I found the puzzle a bit unsatisfactory feeling the clues were a bit forced. Still, a god excuse for sitting in the garden in the sunshine for an hour having finished my tasks (sorry all those slaving away). Now off to listen to my new Shins CD (highly recommended). Thanks blogger
  28. Most enjoyable. Nothing to add that hasn’t already been said. 32 minutes. Ann
  29. There was a lot of trickery here, as well as things I simply didn’t know, such as the football team, a DIXIE pot, and we say ‘telemarketing’ over here. So LOI was TELESALES, thanks to the checkers and wordplay. I never did get the wordplay for QOTS, and ‘PULLER’ seemed a bit off, so overall this lasted a good 40 minutes for me. Regards.
  30. 11:56 for me, feeling a lot less tired today, thank heavens.

    Some nice clues – I liked QUEEN OF THE SOUTH despite its being rather more convoluted than my usual taste.

    1. Forty minutes for this one, and I found it quite hard going but still enjoyable. Spent a while on the south-left corner, where for some reason I had “precepts” for 21ac. I also spent a while trying to justify “dado”, getting my judges and district attorneys in a tangle.

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