Times 26767 – Move it on over

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Time:35 Minutes

Music: Mahler, Symphony #3, Horenstein/LSO

Yes, I am attempting to join the modern age.   In order to instruct our new blogger, I had to figure out how to get Mohn2’s blog-generating script to work, so I figured I might as well use if myself.   Unfortunately, in my first attempt, I accidentally deleted the entire ‘Across’ section and had to start over again.   I think it will work pretty well once I get the hang of it.    If I was on Unix, I’d write a shell script to clean up some of the output, which would make things even easier….that is, if I could remember anything about regular expressions.

The puzzle?   I found it the usual Mondayish sort of puzzle, with the marked exception of the ‘lucidly’/’shoebill’ crossing.   I suppose that if I had seen ‘lucidly’ quickly, it would have been quite easy, but for a long time I didn’t consider the possibility of putting “I’d” and “l” together.   Once I got that one, ‘shoebill’ became immediately obvious.

Across
1 Eccentric bishop with a lot of sumptuous material (7)
CAMBRIC – CAM + B + RIC[h], where ‘eccentric’ is not an anagram indicator.
5 Teacher dons formal wear to work for press (7)
SUBEDIT – SU(B.ED.)IT, that is, a Bachelor of Education, not a sleeping facility.
9 Alert few excited by duke’s pottery (9)
DELFTWARE – D[uke] + anagram of ALERT FEW.
10 Best way to follow revolutionary argument (5)
WORST – ROW backwards + ST, where both the literal and the answer are verbs.
11 Admitted by Italian monk, look at plants (5)
FLORA – F(LO)RA.
12 English reader with a list primarily of voters (9)
ELECTORAL – E LECTOR + A + L[ist].
13 Where the setter may be, if the cluing is substandard! (2,3,8)
IN THE DOGHOUSE – jocular double cryptic definition, or something along those lines.
17 Dance featuring light female in tall heather? (8,5)
HIGHLAND FLING – HIGH (LAND F) LING.
21 Open sleeve mostly recycled for wrappers (9)
ENVELOPES – Anagram of OPEN SLEEV[e].
24 Hints about touring large Adriatic port (5)
SPLIT – SP(L)IT, i.e. TIPS backwards.
25 State support part of UK rejected (5)
INDIA – AID + N.I. backwards, where Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that is useful to setters.
26 Drink advert: Oscar phoned Derek regularly about that (9)
ORANGEADE – O RANG [d]E(AD)[r]E[k], a rather busy cryptic.
27 Clearly this writer had pounds invested in girl (7)
LUCIDLY – LUC(I’D L)Y
28 Qualify in French, given book (7)
ENTITLE – EN + TITLE.
Down
1 Catalogue famous poem penned by Buffalo Bill (6)
CODIFY – COD(IF)Y.   The short poem is almost always ‘If’, which may help if you can’t remember Buffalo Bill’s surname.
2 Becoming gentler — but cutting about European Liberals! (9)
MELLOWING – M(E L,L)OWING.
3 Take back tons wagoner brought up (7)
RETRACT – T CARTER upside-down.
4 Beast of burden, one oddly biting head of harmless reptile (9)
CHAMELEON – C(H[armless])AMEL + anagram of ONE.
5 It may finally be raised, say — in seconds, that is (5)
SIEGE – S,I(E.G.)E – a compendium of popular crossword abbreviations, all in one clue!
6 Dog swallowing English wife’s charm (7)
BEWITCH – B(E W)ITCH, not very accurate, as in this specific context, a ‘dog’ is the opposite of a ‘bitch’.  So don’t get too picky if you want to finish.
7 Engraver’s daughter on river Ribble to begin with (5)
DURER – D + URE +R[ibble].
8 Added up books sent up by lanky journalist (8)
TOTALLED – OT upside down + TALL ED.
14 Bewilder old boy, and reportedly worry girl (9)
OBFUSCATE – O.B. + sounds like FUSS KATE.
15 Nerve trapped by a French worker lacking in courtesy (9)
UNGALLANT –  UN (GALL) ANT.
16 Eg Oxford man, one catching fish in African swamp (8)
SHOEBILL – SHOE + BILL, a bird from East Africa.
18 Expression of amusement over fat religious reformer (7)
LOLLARD – LOL + LARD, a sect that seem to have taken the place of Tiepolo and etagere lately.
19 Discernment one Saint displayed in hours of darkness (7)
INSIGHT – I + N(S)IGHT, with the alternate abbeviation for ‘saint’.
20 She was a goddess at that time in A&E (6)
ATHENE – A(THEN)E.
22 Some love dictating early Sanskrit (5)
VEDIC – Hidden in [lo]VE DIC[tating], where you might need some crossing letters if you don’t know the word.
23 Hoofed mammal nibbling oriental plant (5)
PEONY – P(E)ONY, after thinking of many obscured hoofed animals.

52 comments on “Times 26767 – Move it on over”

  1. Yep, pretty Monday-ish, but I made it harder by having RELENTING instead of MELLOWING at 2dn. It was convincing enough that I took quite a while before questioning it, after which FLORA and CAMBRIC followed with relative ease.

    COD to LUCIDLY I think. Thanks setter and Vinyl. Congrats to Verlaine on the Keriothe-esque time of 4:24.

    1. Nice to see you keeping the Australian Magoo karma by keeping 12 seconds ahead of Ulaca’s impressive time. Congratulations to you both!
      1. Yeah, not a bad effort from the HKM, obviously uplifted by events in Wellington on Saturday. Glad I was on my toes.
  2. Amazon opens bookstores and Ronaldo back at Old Trafford? Have we reached The Pinnacle? Are we now in cultural recession? Lead magnificently by the HOCUS POTUS. Saddo!

    42 minutes of my Monday gone forever. FOI 9ac DELFTWARE.
    LOI 10ac WORST – which I still find somewhat confusing.

    13ac IN THE DOGHOUSE was sub-standard cluing IMO and
    17ac HIGHLAND FLING was a gimme!

    WOD 22dn VEDIC which I will try to slide randomly into conversation on occasion.

    COD 16dn SHOEBILL – pray, how is Lake Chad?

    PS I just noted Lord Galspray’s comment on Lord Verlaine’s splendid 4.24, which is exactly ten times my doddering speed!
    Crumbs! Congrattos to LV.

    Edited at 2017-07-03 02:54 am (UTC)

  3. … as it must have been for me to finish in 40 mins over lunch.

    Thanks for the blog, V. Do you need to note the initial “D” in 9ac?

  4. 29 minutes which had seemed unlikely earlier in the proceedings as I had a real problem getting started.

    Not so unlikely was my LOI, the unknown SHOEBILL, but ‘Oxford’ in the clue was helpful.

    I share horryd’s misgivings about 14ac as we have suffered a surfeit of dogs and setters and Venetian magistrates over the past couple of weeks, but that would be down to the editor rather than the compiler I suppose.

    Congrats on your graduation to Mohn2’s excellent script, Jonathan. I can’t say I had noticed that the output needs much in the way of cleaning up – just deletion of the script itself en bloc, and the word ‘undefined’ at the foot of the template – but I think that depends on which browser it’s run in. I use Firefox for this purpose and find it works very smoothly. When I tried it in Chrome orginally there seemed to be a lot more to do. But it’s horses for courses, as they say!

    Edited at 2017-07-03 05:09 am (UTC)

  5. After a run of DNFs, I was relieved to complete today’s offering in 35 mins. First one in WORST, last one in SHOEBILL, which I was surprised to find was correct. Agree that IN THE DOGHOUSE was a bit weak.
  6. 35 mins over a Fat Rascal (hoorah). Nothing too tricky except: DNK Vedic, never seen a Shoebill, another Lollard (seems to have become a crosswordland favourite) and the always tricky Best=Worst. Liked 4d as both Camels and Chameleons are just funny. Thanks setter and Vinyl.
  7. 8m, so nearly two verlaines. Lots of biffing this morning, and no unknowns other than Buffalo Bill’s name. There are some unusual words in here, but you will have come across them if you’ve been solving these things for a while: LOLLARD, CAMBRIC, DELFTWARE, VEDIC.
    13ac is terrible, but it made me chuckle so I like it.

    Edited at 2017-07-03 06:32 am (UTC)

  8. Straightforward, but too many biffable, and a couple of clichés, setter as noted, plus heather (ling or erica?), journalist. LOI like others, SHOEBILL. 10’10” thanks vinyl and setter.
  9. Nice straightforward stuff, though as with galspray I had RELENTING at 2D for a while. I also got hung up briefly on the pottery being something like Waterford (which with hindsight I realise is glassware) – FELDWATER seemed a possibility. LOI DURER because I hesitated to commit, not knowing the word, but eventually trusted the parsing.
    1. Mr Pootle, Sir! Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) was a German artist and engraver! His ‘Praying Hands’ a masterpiece. We pray for you during your time in the naughty chair, along with Mr. Gove!

      Edited at 2017-07-03 09:21 am (UTC)

      1. I’m glad you enlightened me otherwise I’d have continued with the misapprehension that a durer was another word for an engraver rather than an actual person!
  10. My trouble with the LUCIDLY/SHOEBILL crossing was inexplicably spelling the first with two Is, which would otherwise have made my time of 14.40 turn up on about page 4. So I think “easy” is fair enough comment. Perhaps I should restart printing out and penning, as a lot of my issues seem to be stemming from the unreliability of keyboards, which keep shifting keys under the wrong fingers and hiding the consequences.
    I see our education continues, with LOLLARD turning up yet again to make sure we recognise that sidenote in history. I for one intend to loll ‘ard all day.
  11. My fastest time in yonks. Did not need to go back to any clue. I have even seen SHOEBILLS and worked in SPLIT many times. The planets do have to align occasionally.
  12. 38 minutes for me; quite quick in the top half, slower in the lower, as it were. A few things on the borders of my ken, or indeed entirely outside it in the case of SHOEBILL, but luckily it was a pretty obvious bird once it flapped into view.

    FOI 1d, LOI 7d, DURER. I thought I’d heard of him, and it turned out I’ve definitely looked him up before, as I once investigated the sources of all the original “screen savers” on Amazon’s Kindle 3, one of which was his St. Jerome in His Study. Idle curiosity often turns out to be useful in the end.

    Thanks setter and VInyl. I’ve noted etagere for future reference, too!

    Edited at 2017-07-03 08:41 am (UTC)

  13. 18 minutes today, with fingers crossed for SHOEBILL, a pretty obscure clue for a pretty obscure bird. It brought back memories of the Hush Puppy casuals I wore there everyday (apart from when subfusc when my old school shoes were buffed up) for 3 years, price fifty-nine and eleven. Enjoyably easy puzzle otherwise. COD ORANGEADE, reminding me of even earlier days when the Corona man was in our street. Thank you V and setter.
    1. The Corona man! Ice Cream Soda, The Topper, Ted Ray, beans on toast, jumpers for goal posts!

      Edited at 2017-07-03 09:24 am (UTC)

      1. I took The Wizard, the comic with no pictures, not The Topper. It had Wilson the Wonder Athlete who ran the mile in 3 minutes aged 200, living as he did off a diet of herbs. There was the goalie Bouncing Briggs too, who never let in a goal all season. He was a scrap metal dealer who went to the ground on his motor bike with an old bath tub for a sidecar. His grandson probably nicked The Toff’s cable.

        Edited at 2017-07-03 09:59 am (UTC)

        1. Perhaps surprisingly, my brothers and I were avid readers of Tiger (later Tiger and Hurricane, then Tiger and Jag) back in the day.

          Sounds like Bouncing Briggs would have been more than a match for Tubby Morton, but did The Wizard have anyone who could take down a villain with a golf ball from 400 metres away? Philip Driver could.

          1. No golfers in The Wizard that I can remember but I still think Wilson the Wonder Athlete is top trump. We also had a cricketer who learnt to play in the fairground, whose name escapes me, along with two other footballers. Limp along Leslie was a canny midfielder who’d been badly injured in a car accident as a child, with both his parents killed. The second was called Stan Stagg, a fearless number nine, clearly modelled in my eyes on my hero Nat Lofthouse. Later I felt the debate between the Leavisites and the structuralists would best be conducted considering these stories. Leavis would have won hands down.
            1. There was an educational element as well. I learned that Scotsmen are constantly saying “hoots mon!”, Irishmen “begorrah!” and Frenchmen “sacre bleu!”

              And yet the Slogger From Down Under used expressions that I’ve never heard in real life. Go figure.

              1. Not the same ones as Barry McKenzie then? I know that’s much later but that’s where I learnt my Aussie expressions from, at least until the stump mike was invented.
          2. The Phil Driver!?
            Yes, but what about the Corona Ice Cream Soda!?

            Edited at 2017-07-03 10:37 am (UTC)

        2. Ah, the epic feats or feet of Wilson. I remember once he broke the world long-jump record fairly easily having to leap across a growing rift in the earth’s surface. A comparatively rare sub-quarter-hour for me here, but not the same, not the same at all. – joekobi
  14. Returned from holiday 2 weeks ago to discover our local cheeky chirpy vandals had decided it would be a jolly jape to rip out a few hundred metres of phone cable…I am now back online.Right on the money today 11 mins

    Edited at 2017-07-03 09:49 am (UTC)

  15. Whooo! Language Timothy! Most phones are wireless these days I hear.

    Edited at 2017-07-03 09:27 am (UTC)

  16. I like how I get a small window of adulation in the mornings before Jason and Magoo turn up and make my times look stupid! This seemed like a fun puzzle but was all over quickly enough not to make much impression, apart from the fun PDM over SHOEBILL…
  17. Monday time, 13 minutes, hardly enough for vinyl1’s Mahler to get going. FOI DELFTWARE, LOI the CAMBRIC / MELLOWING crossers.The old BEST = WORST thing again. Nice one Verlaine.
  18. Enjoyable romp through this in 11.30; some lovely clues today I thought. Thanks setter (you’re certainly NOT in the doghouse!)

    Edited at 2017-07-03 10:38 am (UTC)

  19. 7 mins so pretty much on the wavelength. SHOEBILL was my LOI, and although the bird isn’t one of the better known ones I think it is fairly clued. I have no problem with BITCH being clued as “dog” because “dog” can obviously refer to the animal or just the male. Much like duck can refer to the bird or just the female, or “day” can mean both the 24 hr period and the period of daylight.
  20. A pleasant start to the week without having to put the brain cells though too much stress. I read through the clues for the top half without enlightenment, however, and turned my attention to the bottom half where the HIGHLAND FLING launched me into a flurry of answers, and lifted me out of the dog house. LUCIDLY arrived with little fuss and the bird was rapidly shoehorned into place. I then turned my attention to the NE corner and finally finished in the NW with MELLOWING. 21:01, so quick for me. Thanks setter and Vinyl.
  21. Would have been a record time, but for the unknown SHOEBILL – unfortunately I was looking for an obscure Oxford man so I had to look up the answer. Well done to those who can finish this faster than I could type it in.
  22. All done in a Mondayish 23 mins and 50 secs. A steady top to bottom solve, the only hold up being LOI shoebill which was only half known but trusted the crosswordese Oxford = shoe to get there in the end. I didn’t twig Batchelor of Education and had a question mark over whether a teacher was a type of bed I hadn’t heard of but the answer was obvious so I biffed it without worrying too much. I was in Amsterdam last week and went to the Rijksmuseum which had more Delftware than you can shake a stick at and a fair few Durer prints as well so they were both write-ins. COD to shoebill, the only one which really had to be satisfyingly constructed from wordplay in order to rise up out of the mists.
  23. One for the speed demons here, my likely personal best of 6:24 (I’ve submitted under six minutes but not checked all the answers for typos) is beginning to look pedestrian. All very straightforward until SHOEBILL which I got from wordplay.
  24. Waltzed through in under 10 minutes. Only SHOEBILL needed to be thought through. Thanks to vinyl for the blog title reference to George Thoroughgood, who may never have crossed the ocean but is a favorite here. Regards.
  25. My time’s already been given by a fan, so not much to say except best wishes to the Lions in Auckland on Saturday. May it rain cats and dogs, may the referee be on fire and may the best team in red win.
  26. A sub 15 that could have been better, but I’ve never heard of a Shoebill (apart for the one my mum used to get for my Tuf Pathfinders, animal tracks on the sole and a hidden compass, a must for any cub scout).
    Still done accompanied by a nice pint of Abbot, sitting in the beergarden.

    Edited at 2017-07-03 01:03 pm (UTC)

  27. 10:12 so yep, pretty Mondayish. I dithered a bit over 5a, forgetting about B.ED (I daresay not all teachers are B.EDs, and not all B.EDs are teachers) and wasn’t brave enough to throw in VEDIC without some corroboration or to biff the reptile.
    1. Just checked with Mrs BT, a teacher of nearly 40 years standing. BSc + PGCE.
  28. One of the delightful quirks of the English language is BEST = WORST, along with SLOW UP = SLOW DOWN, and ROAD WORKS = ROAD DOES NOT WORK. Any other examples?
    1. In the sad aftermath of the Grenfell Tower disaster, I’ve heard quite a few people discussing the flammable/inflammable gotcha…
    2. The other way round: ‘Cleave’ is to unite and also to separate.
  29. A pedestrian 30m but at least all correct for once. Started at high speed with the top half and then had a complete blank for about 10 m before the now blindingly obvious dance floated into view and the rest all fell into place. A pleasant little number though I did have bluebill for a while until I checked the parsing more carefully. Roll on Saturday and the third test! Thanks setter and blogger.
  30. 6:54 after yet another slow start. I eventually cottoned on the fact that this was pretty easy stuff (for the most part at any rate – I made rather heavy weather of SHOEBILL), but sadly rather a lot of time had passed by then

    A pleasant, straightforward solve.

  31. The first 15×15 I have ever completed without some sort of aid, and it only took 20 min. I am amazed that no-one else has commented on the easiness of this one. Even the inevitable (and in my view tedious) obscure flora and fauna ones were gettable. Thanks setter and vinyl.

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