Times 26800 – was this to your 8?

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time : 17:36 – one of the more difficult solves for me, though at the end I’m kicking myself for some fairly simple wordplay that I was just too dense to see at the time. This is a very tricky puzzle with five proper nouns, some phrases that are not in common usage and one word with a triple letter that we have seen before, but still looks unusual when you see it in a crossword. I think I’ve sorted out all the wordplay though.

Away we go…

Across
1 KNOCKABOUT: KNOCK(criticize), ABOUT(touching). This definition of physical comedy isn’t in Chambers but it is in Collins
7 JILL: cryptic definition, think of the nursery rhyme
9 MORIARTY: I got this from definition for the Sherlock Holmes villain – I had not heard of a MORI poll, a UK market opinion company. Add ARTY(pretentious)
10 SUDOKU: another from definition – I think the two in the special relationship are the UK and the US, with an OD(overdose) in the middle reversed.
Logic puzzle, probably on the same page in the paper.
11 JASPER: JILL is 7 across, remove ILL and as AS PER(according to)
13 PIEDMONT: anagram of MP,I,NOTED and my first in
14 SAVE ONE’S SKIN: SAVE(excluding), O, NESS(girl), KIN(family)
17 SECOND FIDDLE: double definition
20 NO WONDER: anagram of ONE,N,WORD
21 OXYGEN: Odd clue this one – the cattle facts could be OXY GEN and inspiration refers to breating
22 PLENUM: hidden in amPLE NUMbers
23 ATTESTED: anagram of DEAT(h) with TEST(trial) inside
25 BRRR: B(book) then the three R’s
26 STAYCATION: STATION(office) surrounding A,Y(year),C(roughly)
 
Down
2 NEONATAL: NEON light then A, TAL(k)
3 CHI: CHapter I
4 AIRER: river AIRE, R
5 OLYMPUS: anagram(rare) of LOUSY,PM
6 TO SPEAK OF: S, PEAK(rise) in FOOT(pay) reversed
7 JUDGMENT DAY: JUDY (from Punch and Judy, a not particularly PC puppet show) surrounding an anagram of MAGNET,D
8 LIKING: double definition
12 POET’S CORNER: POTS(shots) CORNER(hog, monopolize)
surrounding E
15 NICODEMUS: IN reversed, CODE(set of laws) then SUM reversed
16 ALTER EGO: the ALT key, followed by ERE(before), GO(work)
for the lesser used definition of the phrase
18 NIRVANA: I and RV(revised version) inside NANA(fool)
19 BOILER: B(rought), OILER(salver, one applying a salve)
21 OPTIC: OPT(plump), and the middle of mICe – my favorite clue today – an OPTIC (in Collins, not in chambers) is that attachment to a liquor bottle that measures a shot when turned upside down, so it measures shorts
24 SAT: double definition, one being short for SATURDAY

46 comments on “Times 26800 – was this to your 8?”

  1. 35 minutes with several clues harder to parse than to solve. I particularly liked SUDOKU and BRRR, which I don’t recall seeing before.

    Edited at 2017-08-10 12:12 am (UTC)

  2. Pretty tough going so all but two in 45 mins but another ten minutes exposing 9ac MORIARTY – my COD.

    7ac JILL was also noteworthy.

    LOI 4dbn AIRER which I thought to be pretty lame.

    FOI 22ac PLENUM

    WOD BRRR!

    I actually noted the use of the word 26ac STAYCATION in The Times a couple of days ago. What a dreadful piece of nonce! We’ll be having GOLFCATION before long!

    Edited at 2017-08-10 02:13 am (UTC)

  3. OXY GEN made me literally groan. I can barely see (squinting) how “rare” can be an anagrind (uncooked?), so I was looking for an anagram where Vinyl was before the penny dropped for OLYMPUS (when I had KNOCKABOUT). I flew thru most of the bottom part but then was hung up bit at the top and broke for dinner. MORIARTY I got from “arty” and only then did MORI ring a distant British bell, as I’ve seen it here before. I agree with Horryd that AIRER is lame.

    Edited at 2017-08-10 02:48 am (UTC)

    1. I was also fooled into thinking ‘lousy’ was the grind and PMS RARE was the grist. On checking I found ‘rare’ in the list of anagrinds in Chambers so I looked up its meanings and the only one I could find that might fit was ‘extraordinary’. It still seems a bit of a stretch to me, but there we go!

      I’d also say that AIRER (my LOI) was feeble considering the fine quality of clue demonstrated elsewhere in this puzzle.

      Edited at 2017-08-10 04:05 am (UTC)

      1. Here in Suffolk, “rare” is synonymous with “rum”, usually used in a pejorative sense.
      2. I can’t myself see much wrong with “rare” as an anagrind. “Strange”, which can mean much the same thing, often serves that function. Having two potential anagrind candidates — “lousy” and “rare” — in the same clue was a neat deceptive device. I agree with you and others that AIRER was surprisingly feeble in a puzzle of otherwise high quality.
        1. Outside Suffolk, a direct link to “strange” seems… rare these days, though it’s a short jog from “rare” to “uncommon” to “strange.” An anagrind isn’t an uncommon form of the answer but a deliberately “strange” rearrangement (encryption) of the letters. Yeah, I’m just mad it fooled me for so long.
  4. 27:09. I struggled with this, even allowing for impairment by a generous amount of good Chianti over dinner and a lot of noise from Child 3’s bedroom. I’m not sure what they were up to in there but they were obviously having fun. A challenging and entertaining puzzle with a glass of wine to hand and the sound of happy progeny in the background is just fine by me, so thank you setter.

    Edited at 2017-08-10 03:32 am (UTC)

    1. Oh man, the time I might have achieved on this one if I’d been fuelled by a generous amount of good Chianti…
    2. As I solve these things by getting the paper (I know!) I feel disadvantaged at not having a large glass of pinot to hand at 10am. So this is my excuse for a DNF (NW corner). I love difficult 10a and thoroughly recommend http://www.sudokuwiki.org/sudoku.htm as a primer for advanced techniques (the author also has a very cheap, excellent app). Thanks blogger for explaining all this to me
    3. As I do these things on hard copy I’d feel a bit guilty prising the cork at 9am! So I claim this as my disadvantage as I found this too hard for me. I love the difficult 10 acrosses and thoroughly recomend http://www.sudokuwiki.org/sudoku.htm as a primer for advanced techniques (the author also has an excellent app at fery modest price). Thank you blogger for explaining this so well.
      2. I normally solve on the train in the morning but I’m on holiday in Canada so I have a time-zone advantage. Back to normal next week. 🙁
  5. 23:10 … challenging — for the setter, too, I would think — and very satisfying in the end.

    My last in by some distance was POETS CORNER, where the definition was hiding in plain sight.

    COD to the JILL / JASPER combo — that’s really neat. Cheers, all.

  6. 22.48, so for me about the same as yesterday, but a very different kind of puzzle. I can’t be the only one who thought it must be JACK, though to be fair the clue mentioned something bout tumbling later – can’t remember the precise wording, but once you’ve completed online, the clues disappear.
    SUDOKU one of those answers you stick in and then erase several times because while it’s got DUO for couple in there somewhere, nothing else works. Clever.
    Knowing Nick O’Demus, the only known Irish pharisee, was a bonus, and went straight in, as did the MORI bit. Sometimes one is just lucky with the GK.
    1. The clues don’t actually disappear (as I eventually worked out). They just get overlaid by the puzzle stats. There’s an X you can hit towards the top-right corner that brings them back.
  7. Knockabout 2 mins off an hour for this one – with overnight oats to chew alongside. Very satisfying to finish and parse it all – with some devious definitions. Mostly I liked Moriarty, Sudoku, and 21dn (my COD): plump mice, hilarious.
    One eyebrow raised at the random girl (Ness? Really?). Thanks devious setter and blogger.

    Edited at 2017-08-10 07:44 am (UTC)

  8. 32′, with a fair bit on JASPER. 7ac fairly straight in, necesssary to sing the first verse. ALTER EGO open to biffing – perhaps key for ALT ESC etc. being overused? Very ugly word STAYCATION, and its meaning seems to have changed from ‘staying at home’ to ‘staying in the same country’. Thanks gl and setter.
    1. While I know there are bigger things happening in the world, I get annoyed at people who have conflated “staycation” and “holidaying in your own country”. While it was always an ugly word, in the beginning it did at least describe a new concept i.e. going out and seeing sights, visiting attractions etc. while coming home to sleep in your own bed; in other words, a decent compromise when economic times are hard. If you’re simply talking about going to the Lake District or Brighton, you don’t need to invent a horrible neologism for it.
  9. A hard puzzle today. 45 minutes with POETS CORNER LOI. Entered BRRR very hesitantly. FOI NICODEMUS, a none too certain Pharisee. I’m surprised I saw JASPER, usually a cad when in human form but my only experience was a pal’s friendly cocker spaniel. I think a STAYCATION is a break at home, not from. Is that a distinction between dative and ablative? If only we had a classicist good at crosswords who read this site. Anyway, somehow I finished, achieving NIRVANA. Thank you Setter for the challenge and George for the blog.
      1. I was in the school playground in a more innocent age (?) listening to the rude boys singing “Oh Sir Jasper do not touch me.”
  10. One of those puzzles one is very pleased to finish and fully parse – an excellent challenge. One or two such as POETS CORNER from definition alone but mostly hard graft with NW corner the toughest for me.

    Thank you setter and well done George

  11. …like a Bahamian 400 metres runner in 44:12. Abandoned the struggle at the top and solved bottom up. The NW corner probably took over half my total time, despite getting MORIARTY quickly. COD to OPTIC for the wonderfully disguised definition. Will this prove to be just the heat before tomorrow’s Friday final I wonder?
  12. Just over an hour on this ripper. 9a was especially good, I thought. Bottom of the class again, I see, but I have a sneaky feeling that might change.
  13. I discovered yesterday that if you have the browser zoom set one step too high, you don’t get the X to get rid of the stats, and even the grid is hidden from view.
    1. Thanks for that: I’d found (thanks to galspray) that I needed 90% to get the puzzle to display for solving, but it needs to be 80% to be able to see it on review.
    1. I do have a friend called Ness, so I’ll let this one slide! Not that I even bothered to parse it at the time…
  15. I struggled to get a foothold in this puzzle, and finally started by entering ONES as the middle word of 14a. This gave me NICODEMUS, and I was off the mark. I ploughed into the SE corner and from there extracted answers like a dentist until I arrived back in the NW corner. I finally stopped trying to make a high rise out of PM’s rare, which together with the arrival of that cad JASPER, gave me a way in to finish off with the dastardly MORIARTY. I was so relieved to complete the SE with OXYGEN, and tickled by the element of inspiration, that I forgot to parse the clue fully and missed the bovine info aspect, which brought a belated chuckle when I read the blog. A cracking puzzle which kept me going for 59:41. Thanks setter and George.
  16. I’d just been thinking of Punch & Judy because one of the characters in the show is Scaramouche – the namesake (appropriately) of Anthony Scaramucci who recently and rapidly got the boot from the Trump White House. Good puzzle. 22.30
    1. Do you remember Raphael Sabatini’s swashbucking “Scaramouche”? One of my favourites when I was a teenager. Along with Georgette Heyer and Baroness Orzy. Sabatini also wrote “Captain Blood”. He seems to have kept Errol Flynn in business!
  17. 34 min, with a typo at 10ac (thanks to john_dun enabling me to see it on review). NW corner was difficult, expecting ‘criminal’ in 9ac to be anagrind (and not ‘rare’ in 5dn) – I also needed to think for a while about 11ac before I was sure enough to submit.
  18. 40 minutes on this excellent puzzle. The last 10 minutes were for JASPER. I just couldn’t see it. Typically so simple once explained. Ann
  19. This lasted about 45 minutes, I think, but that’s very inexact. But my delay also was up in the NW area, where I struggled with 9 and 11A and 3D for some time after everything else was done. I finally saw MORIARTY but it required taking the unknown ‘MORI’ on trust. That led to (the relatively weak) AIRER, and another few minutes to see the (in retrospect) glaringly obvious JASPER. Nicely done puzzle, and thanks to the setter for it, and George for parsing, and evidently having no trouble at all with it. Regards.
  20. Lots of enjoyable chewiness here. I ended with a bit of a guess, as I was familiar with broiler chickens, but not boilers. I’ve clearly been spoiled over the years when it comes to poultry.
  21. This was not without difficulty. After 23 mins this morning the grid still seemed fairly empty. FOI 22ac. It took another 37 mins at lunchtime to sort it all out. Knockabout, neonatal and Moriarty took ages to fall – even though I thought of MORI quite early on. Biggest hold up was entering Jack not Jill at 7ac and staring at C-K-N- for 8dn for far too long before spotting the error and quickly entering my LOI “liking”. The “not bad” in 11ac made more sense once I had corrected 7ac. I thought 9ac very good so that’s my COD.
  22. Well, I certainly had a lot left over at my new 45-minute limit this morning, but I was enjoying it (once I finally got properly started), so I came back to it this evening. Another eighteen minutes saw the NW finally finished off.

    FOI 3d, LOI JASPER, very soon after POETS CORNER. Plenty of clues where I could see what I was meant to do but just couldn’t conjure the wordplay. “Ness” is going to be a very, very long way down most people’s mental lists of arbitrary girls names, I would think… Thanks for the parsings, especially for that one and SUDOKU.

    WOD and COD to 25a just for being such fine little toughie—”well, it surely must be the ‘three Rs’, but there aren’t any words with RRR in them, surely!?”

    Edited at 2017-08-10 08:16 pm (UTC)

  23. Did no one else make 1ac impossible by putting PHI in 3d? First part of Bible book Phillipians.
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