Times 26787 – biological salad

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Nothing too challenging in this pleasant offering, which took me around 20 minutes and no need for Wiki visits. 10a was my LOI because it took me a little while to link the definition to possible answering words that fitted. No antelopes but a couple of plants today. I’m on a traffic-jam holiday in England and my company is in demand more than is usual, so I’ll be brief.

Definitions underlined.

Across
1 Two bones containing a number of biological components (9)
RIBOSOMES – Two bones – RIB and OS (not just ribs), insert SOME = a number of.
If you don’t know what a ribosome is, look it up, it’s very interesting but I’m on holiday.
6 Pagan god in charge creates alarm (5)
PANIC – PAN = pagan god, IC = in charge.
9 Peer astride entrance to Lords in coat (5)
GLAZE – GAZE = peer, insert L(ords).
10 Material is stony substance containing small hole (9)
CORPOREAL – I took a while to convince myself that CORAL was called upon here as a stony substance – it is calcium carbonate, true, but made from exoskeletons of coral organisms. Indeed, a reef can be aged by checking the calcium to (radioactive isotope) strontium ratios. Then it took me a while to insert PORE = small hole and relate CORPOREAL to material. But it does.
11 A producer of mop’s organised solution to water in home (4-5,6)
DAMP-PROOF COURSE – (A PRODUCER OF MOP’S)*. If I don’t mention it here, someone will do so below; I would argue that a DPC is a preventative against water in the home, not a solution for it once it’s happened. But that would be pedantic.
13 Agent facing death, clutching note, felt remorse (8)
REPENTED – REP = agent, faces END = death, insert note TE.
14 Importance of what sounds like a demand for patience (6)
WEIGHT – Sounds like ‘wait’.
16 Party getting sluggish, not quite all there? (6)
DOTARD – DO = party, TARD(Y).
18 Seawater flooding the east coast resort (8)
SOUTHEND – SOUND = (area of) seawater; insert THE.
21 Diplomat accused by a female is trembling with fear (6,9)
CHARGE D’AFFAIRES – CHARGED = accused, (A F IS FEAR)*.
23 House outside French city with any number of spongers? (7-2)
HANGERS-ON – Insert ANGERS a French city, into HO = house, add N.
25 Soldiers attached to section making round trip (5)
ORBIT – OR = soldiers, BIT = section.
26 Gapes at boy after defensive blunder (5)
OGLES – OG = own goal, LES is today’s boy.
27 Spend time reconstructing architectural features (9)
PEDIMENTS – (SPEND TIME)*.

Down
1 Behaved like Lear, king getting senile? (5)
RAGED – R = king, AGED = senile (not in my case, of course).
2 “Flower of Asia” composer shortly to be given a place with artist (11)
BRAHMAPUTRA – BRAHM(S) = composer shortly; A, PUT = a, place; RA = artist. Thankfully not some exotic man-eating plant from Borneo, but the river type of ‘flower’. My CoD.
3 Sally secures shelter to have an extended rest (5,2)
SLEEP IN – LEE = shelter, inside SPIN = sally, in the sense of go out for a spin I suppose.
4 Causes of disease? Rodents mostly, with certain habits (8)
MICROBES – MIC(E) = rodents mostly, ROBES = certain habits.
5 Where hair finishes being untidy, needing to be cut (6)
SCRUFF – SCRUFFY needs to be cut so loses its Y. A dubious definition, in my case it’s more where the hair starts and finishes. Discrimination against baldness has been raised as a possible cause for concern in Parliament, as an example of ‘lookism’. Some chap won a case on those grounds, too, because the job ad said ‘must have neat hair’, but it was in Korea.
6 Offer short work couched in dull language (7)
PROPOSE – OP inside (dull) PROSE.
7 Name of old politician in the neighbourhood being heard (3)
NYE – Short name of Aneurin Bevan, sounds like NIGH.
8 Prayer editor put into anthology? (9)
COLLECTED – COLLECT is a prayer, ED(itor).
12 Perennial in garden, big or tiddly (6,5)
RAGGED ROBIN – (GARDEN BIG OR)*. A plant even I knew and can identify.
13 Edible plant, cold, Greek character included in set (9)
RADICCHIO – C(old), CHI, goes inside RADIO = set. We’ve had radicchio elsewhere recently, clued differently I think.
15 Prison punished and kept in cell? (8)
CONFINED – I think there is a typo here, the clue should read ‘PRISONER’ not prison, prisoner = CON, punished = FINED.
17 Fall back drunk, having swapped hands twice (7)
REGRESS – LEGLESS = drunk, exchange two L’s for R’s.
19 One offers refreshments — drop round twice maybe at first (7
TEAROOM – TEAR = drop, O, O, = round twice, M(aybe).
20 Tot needs meal reduced by half — makes sense (4,2)
ADDS UP – ADD = tot, SUP(PER) = meal reduced by half.
22 Model going to America establishes position (5)
SITUS – SIT = model, US. A legal taxation related word for the site of an asset or business.
24 Nothing left at home has turned up (3)
NIL – L(eft, IN, all reversed.

30 comments on “Times 26787 – biological salad”

  1. 17:28 … stuck for a long time again on one clue. Today it was SOUTHEND, where I could see how the clue worked but couldn’t think of the ‘sound’ container. Slight uncertainty over 15d didn’t help, but no excuse really for taking 5 minutes to see it.

    BRAHMAPUTRA is one of my favourite names of anything anywhere, and fresh in the mind after recently watching Tim and Prunella’s Great Canal Journey along same in the C4 series (well worth catching up with).

    You know you’ve been solving crosswords for a long time when you put in something like SITUS without a second thought.

  2. that carried him off, it was the coffin they carried him off in. Forgive the rhyme remembered from my schooldays. I had COFFINED, because I vaguely thought a coffin was a sort of prison. Thus a DNF, with just one letter amiss. Ho hum.
  3. 42 minutes, with crossed fingers for the unknown BRAHMAPUTRA and the crossing DOTARD as LOsI. FOI 4d MICROBES, though I had already pencilled in 3d in the hope that “sally” and “spin” were somehow synonyms.

    Quicker in the top half than in the bottom, partly because I didn’t get CHARGE D’AFFAIRES for far too long. Enjoyed 17d with its legless transformation and the construction of the TEAROOM in 19d.

    It’s probably a sign of progress that I looked at 15d and fairly quickly decided it was a typo rather than me being dense! Thanks to setter and blogger.

  4. Breezed through this one in 13.38, taking SITUS on trust and assuming setters can have misprints too for CONFINED. Coral (gem)stones are widely advertised, so I would suggest that lets the setter off the hook for a second error.
    On the other hand, where the scruff of the neck is and whether hair ends there is conjectural, surely. Since I decided not to trouble my barber ever again, my hair goes a lot further down, not scruffily either once it’s pony-tailed in what I confidently believe is a relaxed, growing old disgracefully style.
    I’m not certain how Aneurin Bevan became NYE, but my wider family has a Welsh dimension so I have a way of entering with confidence .
  5. Biffed here and there, although in some cases I was able to parse once I’d typed the thing in (RIBOSOMES, for instance, or CORPOREAL). DNK DPC (is that what I’d call weatherstripping?), or maybe I came across it once here; DNK the robin. POPOCATEPETL yesterday, BRAHMAPUTRA today; tomorrow MONONGAHELA maybe?
  6. 30 minutes but the last 10 were spent on 1ac and 10ac.

    I had 1ac wrong actually as I never heard of the answer, nor of OS as a bone (although I know ‘ossa’ well) so I went along with the word play, taking ‘a’ for A and RIBS as ‘two bones’ (which I’d agree would be a bit cheeky).

    I’ve never met DOTARD as an adjective before so the defintion at 16ac gave me pause for thought and I lost more time there.

    CAN is ‘prison’ and CON is ‘prisoner’ so it was as well I already had SOUTHEND in place at 18ac enabling me to be sure of a misprint at 15dn.

    Edited at 2017-07-26 06:20 am (UTC)

  7. I guess a coral reef is rocky (not stony?), but coral is living animals i.e. I was totally bamboozled by the clue even with all the crossers. Otherwise good solid Times fare, though biffed SLEEP IN not really seeing spin as sally. A few minutes over 20 for the DNF.
    Rob
  8. 45 mins over porridge – but DNF due to Dotard. Thought Dotire must be a word. I know.
    Otherwise a good one. Avoided my usual betes noires in the plants (including the edible one), the random boy (Les again), sally and its various dodgy meanings and Asian rivers. Biggest hold up was Southend.
    Thanks setter and Pip.

    Edited at 2017-07-26 07:41 am (UTC)

  9. Finding that I had one error I read through Pip’s blog and ticked them all off, half expecting to find that SITUS was wrong. Two scans of my completed grid later and I haven’t found it yet, which is more perturbing than making the error in the first place.
  10. …spoiled a good recent run with my LOI DOTARY. And that was after thinking about it for a good three or four minutes. Well, obviously not a good three or four minutes as it turned out.

    COD to BRAHMAPUTRA, because it’s easier to spell than POPOCATEPETL.

    Thanks setter and Pip.

  12. Too pleased with myself for making such good progress, with everything in after 24 minutes, but carelessly bunged in ‘sites’ for 22, so a DNF. I obviously haven’t done enough crosswords. Didn’t really get SCRUFF and bunged in CONFINED uncertainly but everything else was understandable. RIBOSOMES was quite a tough clue, as was DOTARD, which I took to be a noun.

    I liked CHARGE D’AFFAIRES – a dodgy sounding occupation if you ask me.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

  13. I too had One Error, but mine was at 1ac where I had a mombled ‘rib+a+sum+os’. I chose to rely on wp rather than what word actually looks more likely to be a biological-type word (if that pesky volcano yesterday is an actual thing, then so is ribasumos, surely…?). The others went in correctly in 30mins, with SITUS and BRAHMAPUTRA from wp, and DOTARD from a half-memory…

  14. Found this tougher than a 94 snitcher, taking 45 minutes yet again. Couldn’t parse SOUTHEND. My East Londoner wife says I can’t pronounce it properly either. DNK SITUS but clear from cryptic. Similarly with DOTARD, maybe because that’s what I am. Hard anagrams to solve today, although I did see DAMP-PROOF COURSE straightaway. RAGGED ROBIN took a long time, partly because I misread the clue and was looking for a garden plant. COD RADICCHIO, the ruination of a good salad. LOI RIBOSOMES. Like most physicists I’m totally ignorant of Biology. Thank you Pip and setter.
  15. is, I assume, the correct pronunciation of SOUTHEND! Loverley juberlly!

    I snuck home in 29 minutes in what was a fairly easy puzzle.

    WAGGED WOBIN was a write-in as it would be for Mr. Rotter.

    1ac RIBOSOMES was clear from the word-play – I’d sort of heard of it.

    FOI 15dn CONFINED. LOI 26ac OGLES ‘cos it’s there at the bottom!

    6ac PANIC involved no grass this time, unless Lords had a double meaning! I refer of course to the Cricket Ground.

    COD 2dn BRAHMAPUTRA. WOD 13dn RADICCHIO

    Edited at 2017-07-26 09:54 am (UTC)

  16. 31 minutes for a nice easy one today. CORPOREAL being the LOI and had to come here for the explanation. Obviously not done crosswords for long enough as I had to look up SITUS.
  17. For a while I could quite work out the parsing of this clue, because “not quite” seemed to be needed in the definition, as well as to chop the Y off “tardy”. I think the answer is, the definition of this one is actually the whole clue, aka an &lit if I understand the jargon.
    1. Indeed it is a cracking &lit, and I didn’t even notice! The party in this case is a person. Slang (chambers def 6), as well as legal(chambers def 4).
  18. Slowish (again) on 35.50. Senile as aged is harsh, if technically (just)allowable. The Brahmaputra’s a mighty river, which I’ve been lucky enough to travel on. Somehow I rather like the crossing with damp-proof course. – joekobi
  19. I enjoyed LEGLESS becoming REGRESS, but would have struggled with the plant if the wordplay had been less clear, or the anagram fodder lent itself to more than one likely looking solution.
  21. Managed not to mess this one up in 35:44. FOI PANIC, (I didn’t) LOI CORPOREAL. Hadn’t heard of RIBOSOMES but managed to construct them correctly. I was trying to put something for seawater inside of THE for a while before the penny dropped at 18a. I spent quite a bit of time in Southend in the 70s as my company had a training centre there. It brings back memories of a time when there was no M11 or M25 and we were cast out to travel back up North at 4pm on a Friday afternoon, to enjoy sitting on the North Circular for a couple of hours! Having the crossers, I said Aha to myself at 15d and flung in CONFINED without noticing the Prison/prisoner erratum. I think we had RADICCHIO in a recent puzzle, so that was straightforward. Liked REGRESS. Nice puzzle. Thanks setter and Pip.

    Edited at 2017-07-26 12:14 pm (UTC)

  22. I spent 24mins on this in the morning and got about two thirds done. I took 16mins at lunchtime to complete the grid. FOI 6ac. LOI 18ac. 1ac derived from wordplay and vaguely remembered but I’m more “arts” than “sciences” so ones like that are always tricky. Very satisfying to construct COD 2dn from wordplay although again, it sounded familiar. DNK the prayer at 8dn but saw what was required. DNK 12dn but the anagram and checkers were fairly gentle. Raised an eyebrow at “prison” in case I was missing something but no real trouble solving 15dn. I bunged in “situs” and assumed it had something to do with the expression “in situ”. Like brnchn above I also took 16ac to be an &lit with the whole clue being the definition. I think Southend, Dotard and Collected were the ones which held me up the most.
  23. I assume COD = clue of the day, but what of LOI et al? Could some kind soul educate me?
    1. Yes, COD = clue of the day. FOI = first one in (i.e. your first answer entered into the grid) and likewise LOI = last one in.
    1. What? Yes. Surely you read the blog. Definition underlined. Please add a name or ID to your posts if you don’t have a (free) LJ account.
  25. Sorry to be so late here today, so in the event anyone sees this, I’ll report 20 minutes, with the only comment the same puzzlement regarding ‘con’ as prison. My LOI was WEIGHT, for which density on my part I have no good explanation, so I won’t proffer one. Regards.
  26. Thirty-three minutes, with CORPOREAL holding me up at the end. I think it’s fair to describe coral as “stony”, since it (or at least its dead part) is stone-like. Indeed, you can give someone a stony look and be stony broke. Moreover, Wikipedia tells me that Scleractinia are also known as “stony corals”.

    I puzzled over the prison(er) at 15d, but shrugged and moved on. No problem either with RIBOSOMES, which are much more important than PEDIMENTS, SOUTHEND (particularly) or CHARGE D’AFFAIRESes – in fact, you have roughly 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 (yes, all those zeroes) of them in your body, so there’s really no excuse for not knowing what they are. You may or may not (probably the latter) be interested to know that if you took them all out of your body they’d weigh about a pound and you’d be dead.

  27. (Apologies for not posting earlier, particularly for such an interesting and enjoyable puzzle.)

    10:58, held up at the end dithering over SITUS, which I don’t recall coming across before. (I spent some time trying to justify SITES, but eventually concluded that “to SITU” must mean to put something in position, thus establishing it “in situ”!)

    COD to 17dn (REGRESS) with 16ac (DOTARD), a particularly fine &lit, as runner-up.

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