Times 26,801: Keep Calm And Carry On

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I don’t think this puzzle was quite as tricksy as yesterday’s number (I haven’t checked the Club leaderboard for confirmation yet though), but thanks to a few clever clues it ended up taking me approximately the same amount of time, somewhere approaching 10 minutes. I’d made life hard for myself by entering DRIVEL for 21dn – well, it *almost* works – and so that whole corner needed some extra unravelling. My LOI and my COD was 16ac – how brilliant to hide a reverse telescopic inside the type of hospital professional you fully expect to see in all crosswords anyway, and for the definition to be legitimately in the centre instead of at the start or end of the clue. I suppose if I’d been a bit more on the ball I’d have asked *why* 19 letters were being used for the professional when 6 are normal and more economical, but needless to say I am never on the ball.

Talking of balls, my ire at thinking I saw multiple sports-related terms on one day was defused when I discovered that 25ac was not actually about sports. I also liked some of the surfaces a fair bit – 4dn and 6dn, neither of which are tremendously difficult clues, nevertheless both tick all my boxes, both having cleverly misleading definitions which are then entirely bolstered by the wordplay. Kudos and thanks to our setter!

ETA: Some interesting capitalisation features worth discussing here too, as we were talking about such things at one of our New York meetups. Note how West in 10ac *must* be capitalised even though the surface suffers slightly as a result, as small-w could never suggest the actress; whereas it’s not unfair that Harrow is capitalised in 24dn, as that’s a perfectly good synonym of Rake… at the beginning of a sentence. Well *I* thought they were interesting anyway!

Across
1 University lacking in perception first to decline judgment (8)
SAGACITY – AC{u}ITY [“U{niversity} lacking in” perception], first SAG [to decline]
5 Disgust resulting from away goal (6)
OFFEND – OFF END [away | goal]
10 Sailor turning West across his vessel? (5)
ABEAM – AB [sailor] + reversed MAE [“turning” West]
11 Projectile from lake is found in sea (9)
BALLISTIC – L IS [lake | is] found in BALTIC [sea]
12 Unmethodical toys ruled out (9)
DESULTORY – (TOYS RULED*) [“out”]
13 Put away ball cutting forcefully (5)
HOARD – O [ball] cutting HARD [forcefully]
14 Easy-going relative given the push (7)
RELAXED – REL AXED [relative | given the push]
16 Retired medical practitioner’s still content (6)
PLACID – hidden reversed in {me}DICAL P{ractitioner}
18 Pulped dessert to consume ordered from time to time (6)
PUREED – PUD [dessert] to consume {o}R{d}E{r}E{d}
20 Tinker getting last of tasty dishes perhaps (7)
POTTERY – POTTER [tinker] getting {tast}Y
22 Silent bird trapping bill (5)
TACIT – TIT [bird] trapping AC [bill]
23 Commercial breaks less fraught for singer in the evening (9)
SERENADER – AD [commercial] breaks SERENER [less fraught]
25 Force trained up, expending energy for new form of attack (3-3-3)
TIP-AND-RUN – (TRAIN{e->N}D UP*) [“force…”]
26 A chief with great strength, once (5)
AMAIN – A MAIN [a | chief]
27 Obscure female, one with two daughters to accommodate (6)
HIDDEN – HEN [female], I D D [one with two daughters] to accommodate
28 Virgin taking off after scene (8)
SPOTLESS – LESS [taking off] after SPOT [scene]
Down
1 The usual colours (8)
STANDARD – double def
2 Grand means of viewing Scottish lowlands? (5)
GLENS – G LENS [grand | means of viewing]
3 Grammar term from Oedipus’s bird? (7,8)
COMPLEX SENTENCE – A jail SENTENCE is bird, and Oedipus suggests the COMPLEX.
4 Mirror for one, old and a bit cracked (7)
TABLOID – (OLD + A BIT*) [“cracked”]
6 Hostess, say, needing someone present below stairs (6,9)
FLIGHT ATTENDANT – ATTENDANT [someone present] below FLIGHT [stairs]
7 Chance to resolve deadlock that prison rioters may be given? (5,4)
EXTRA TIME – can resolve a draw in a sportsball game, or be added to the sentence of misbehaving convicts.
7 Interpret letter describing how goods may be delivered (6)
DECODE – DEE [letter] describing C.O.D. [how goods may be delivered]
8 Turn the spotlight on drama at college (4,2)
PLAY UP – PLAY [drama] + UP [at college]
15 Origin of long journey Spooner’s pot boy makes (6,3)
LAUNCH PAD – Spoonerised PAUNCH LAD [pot | boy]
17 Water sources running dry in county (8)
HYDRANTS – (DRY*) [“running…] in HANTS [county]
19 Limits of destitute father’s aspiration (6)
DESIRE – D{estitut}E + SIRE [father]
20 Talk up bargain veg (7)
PARSNIP – RAP reversed [talk “up”] + SNIP [bargain]
21 Output from sewer long undermining roadway
STITCH – ITCH [long] undermining ST [roadway]
24 Adventurer from Harrow died coming north (5)
DRAKE – RAKE [Harrow], D [died] coming north

85 comments on “Times 26,801: Keep Calm And Carry On”

  1. I got most of this on my fifteen-minute subway ride home, felt that was pretty good for a Friday, but just realize now that I didn’t look hard enough at PLACID. Suspecting that hiding in there was some UK abbreviation for a special sort of “medical professional,” I was seeing “content” as the definition, and feeling that was a bit off. I also didn’t parse SAGACITY until long after completion. I had HIT-AND-RUN at first, for the simple reason that I had never heard of TIP-AND-RUN. I took SNIP as “bargain” on faith. “Coming north” is an odd way to refer to the top letter; coming from where? Here’s another HYDRANT already!

    Edited at 2017-08-11 07:43 am (UTC)

      1. That was a typo. But also what I nearly put in before realizing it was an anagram.
      2. As frequently practised by the England one day squad, you were too polite to point out…
    2. I liked the “coming north” a lot because, as you imply, that would normally suggest reversal, in a down clue; but I don’t see why you *shouldn’t* say “coming north” instead of “coming at the top (of a down clue): – nice mislead!

      TIP-AND-RUN is also some kind of cricket variant, which is what I assumed was going on when I wrote it in.

      1. You nearly sold me on the brilliant “mislead,” V, but the more I think about it… “Coming at the top” is a little different from “coming north,” which actually implies motion. “North” isn’t a place in the latter idiom but an adverb modifying “coming.” An equivalent idiom to “coming at the top” (“coming” would usually, I should think, be extraneous) would be “coming at the north.” “Coming” there actually means “occurring,” not “moving.” Well, sometimes it isn’t a good idea to think too long about these things.
  2. I knew 1ac was SAGACITY but for some time it ‘parsed all understanding’!

    FOI 12ac DESULTORY an easy anagram. LOI 24dn DRAKE with the capital H more Holmes than Watson.

    Thus this was a slow fox-trot and I was out-foxed for much of this merry dance!I thought yesterday’s 15×15 was far easier!

    4dn and 6dn were indeed very clever but my COD was 10ac ABEAM with the capital W more Watson than Holmes.

    Time – unsure as I wasn’t feeling too bright.

    WOD DRIVEL – why ever not!?

    Edited at 2017-08-11 07:47 am (UTC)

  3. 35 mins with overnight oats. A couple spent alphabet trawling for Amain (DNK but wordplay works) and 5 spent trying (and failing like Horryd) to parse Sagacity. Otherwise all good and some very enjoyable wordplay and surfaces. I don’t like ‘ball’ as O (what, just ‘cos a ball is round?).
    Mostly I liked: West and COD to 16ac for (as V says) having the definition legitimately not at the end.
    Also a very honourable mention to 21dn which has a surface that is so far away from the solution.
    Thanks witty setter and V.
    1. I sort of like “ball” for O but I can see how it might irk the purists. This reminds me that I *don’t* really like DEE for “a letter”, does anyone really think of a D as such?
      1. But if ball for O, whatever next? Stepladders for A?

        I agree about Dee – and with regard to 8dn, I’ve never really liked ‘describing’ as a containment indicator. But hey ho.

        1. ‘O’ clued by ‘egg’ has come up more than once but it’s the first time I remember seeing ‘ball’.
            2. I think we’ve also had OO clued as ‘wheels’.
              Keriothe and I have had several discussions of the “DEE” issue, and I think there would be agreement that we’re not fond of sounds which could be spelled phonetically one of several ways, and which don’t have a standardized spelling. In addition to the alphabet letters, there is word for the sound of a sneeze or cough, and just on the edge of acceptability are the DO v DOH, TI v TE v TEE, etc variants for the notes.
              Channeling the Mad Colonel, my view is that the fact that each of the variants appears in one or another of our dictionaries is a damningly serious flaw in the editing of the dictionaries, which should be corrected at the next printing.
        2. Hadn’t thought much about “describe” but it does seem a bit shady… I guess if you “describe a circle” you do enclose it by writing something around the edges of it, just about!
          1. I know that is the theory, but you are really defining the circle: the bit you are enclosing is a disc. Similarly with other shapes. But, as I say, hey ho; it is a crossword standard.
            1. As an engineer with technical drawing & 4 years of maths at University, describe for “draw around the outside of” sounds and feels right. But none of the dictionaries allow it – circumscribe is the word I should have been using these past 40 years.
              Egg/round/ball for O have appeared often, he says somewhat unconvinced.
              Not timed, but quite fast as no real holdups.

      2. Not really. I just use ‘D’ for that. The setter could have gone for Sandra, Kiki, Simon, Sands of, or just River. Maybe that’s why he/she chose letter!
          1. I can just see it: “Taking the Mick out of Beaky and Titch, the other fellah feels left out surname-wise.”. Maybe not.

            Edited at 2017-08-11 11:50 am (UTC)

              1. Any bloke who unwraps a chocolate bar, chucks away the chocolate and eats the wrapper is a soul-mate of mine.
                1. Just looked up on Wiki how Dozy got his name. I’d forgotten that Dave Dee was a police cadet who attended the crash when Eddie Cochran was killed.
  4. 35 minutes with LOI PLACID. I got TIP AND RUN from the cricket variant also. Vaguely knew AMAIN solved from cryptic with crossers. All the HYDRANTS recently installed about the place helped too. COD to the SPOTLESS virgin. Maybe she/he can be on the LAUNCH PAD today. Wasn’t convinced about SAGACITY at first, but crossers confirmed it and the parsing then became clear. Not too hard for a Friday. Thank you V and setter.
  5. Crossed fingers for AMAIN, which sounded right. With others re PLACID, brilliant and LOI. Didn’t we have both GLEN and HYDRANTs this week? COD to LAUNCH PAD. Thanks V and setter. 23’17”.
  6. Put in AGAIN after an alphabet trawl thinking the chief might be AGA. I didn’t know AMAIN. An excellent crossword. Toss up between PLACID and TABLOID for COD.
    Relaxed and placid. Tacit and hidden.
  7. 12:28 … with ABEAM the last in after the penny dropped on COMPLEX

    I had a question mark against TIP-AND-RUN, not knowing the ‘attack’ meaning. The Chambers dictionary app only has it as an adjective for the military sense:

    adjective
    Denoting a raid in which the raiders make off at once

    SAGACITY was biffed and parsed with some difficulty after submitting. Very clever. Much to enjoy.

  8. 40 minutes, but I was so near to achieving the 30 that would have been within my target. With 29 minutes on the clock I had only the intersecting 24dn and 26 unsolved, but between them they did for me for a while.

    I’d never heard of AMAIN but guessed it eventually from wordplay. I couldn’t think of a synonym for ‘harrow’ other than perhaps ‘plough’ which was obviously of no use and in any case, taking the wordplay at face value (not always the best option), I assumed that the synonym would have a D in it which would then get moved up the rankings to provide the name of an adventurer. I don’t quite know how it all came together eventually, but it did, and I then checked that AMAIN existed and meant what it was supposed to.

    If anyone’s still interested in printing issues I have added a new comment to the ‘Changes’ discussion here at TftT which is about to be unstuck later today, and have also posted similarly in the CC General forum (topic ‘New Webpage’). It’s about printing from the e-paper which I don’t think has been mentioned before.

    Edited at 2017-08-11 07:51 am (UTC)

  9. 25.07, completing a foursome this week all around the same time for me, but placing me wildly up and down the leaderboard. This new stats-heavy system is captivating.
    SAGACITY I only parsed shortly after submission by bludgeoning it into shape. Judging by other comments, I think it qualifies as Most Opaque Clue of the week.
    I agree 16 is a cracker.
  10. btw, I’m now an enthusiastic convert to the new online solving system (not the print-out, which definitely needs work).

    So it’s taken me a week to do a complete about-face. I should go into politics.

    1. Part of the problem with politics is that if you admit to changing your opinion, even if it’s a very reasonable response to the facts changing, or being persuaded by logic, you get noisily accused of doing a weak-willed U-turn 🙂

      Resign!

    3. I confess to being puzzled (arf) by all the complaints about the printing problems. The new format (linking to a pdf) is what the Graun has done for years and I think it’s great. What am I missing?
      1. It’s just the print size, which many of us find too small to read without squinting
          1. I’m also finding the greyness of the text is cocking up the printing on my mono laser printer—if I labour to change it to black, I can read it fine in the size it is, though I think I’d rather it were bigger. As you say, though, it doesn’t seem like it should be too hard to fix (though as a computer programmer myself I shudder to think what the Times’s existing codebase must be like to work with…)

            Edited at 2017-08-12 03:52 pm (UTC)

  11. Another AGAIN here since I decided AMAIN was unlikely, even though it obviously fitted the wordplay (which AGAIN didn’t really, at least the IN bit). So DNF. Also took forever since I went to bed with AMAIN still blank and put in AGAIN in the morning when no new inspiration had come to me during the night (which happens surprisingly often, funny how brains work).
  12. Steady progress until I, too, hit the 24/26 roadblock. Finally saw DRAKE but don’t like the coming north device and then plumped for AMAIN with everything crossed just because it seemed such a Timesy sort of word.
  13. A tad surprised by ballistic as noun, desultory as unmethodical, serenading as an evening pursuit, tip-and-run as anything but juvenile cricket, but you live and learn. 21.12 for a standard piece of pottery. – joekobi
    1. Is “ballistic” a noun? Projectile weapons = ballistic weapons. Serenading seemed to imply the evening when you think of “buona sera”, but perhaps that’s a false friend! A desultor in ancient Rome was an artiste skilled at leaping between horses and chariots, and I bet he had to be anything but unmethodical!
      1. Online Etymological Dictionary: 1640s, “musical performance at night in open air” (especially one given by a lover under the window of his lady), from French sérénade (16c.), from Italian serenata “an evening song,” literally “calm sky,” from sereno “the open air,” noun use of sereno “clear, calm,” from Latin serenus “peaceful, calm, serene.” Sense influenced by Italian sera “evening,” from Latin sera, fem. of serus “late.” Meaning “piece of music suitable for a serenade” is attested from 1728.
      2. Indeed, and that is the origin of the modern word: jumping from one thing to another. I confess I confused it with ‘sultry’ for longer than I’d like to admit.
    1. Then “coming” would be there only for the surface. Leaving “north” hanging.

      Edited at 2017-08-11 04:31 pm (UTC)

  15. 36 with time wasted by putting in ‘added time’ at first – and me a sports nut. Sometimes a lot of learning is a dangerous thing. Thanks to the setter and our best-looking blogger….
    1. Alas, my gorgeously moustachioed avatar is not actually me, for any ladies (or gentlemen) who have been all aflutter…
      1. Excellent – sounds like a perverted love of incarceration. There may be a video of that name on the top shelf.

        Edited at 2017-08-12 02:47 pm (UTC)

  16. Just commented on the complaints site that I am still solving on the main Times site – I seem to be the only one now, so maybe my setup is wrong for it.
    A propos this crossword, a steady solve if a bit on the slow side. 3d solved by running through Tom Lehrer song in my head (because he loved his mother…). Most chuckleworthy clue goes to 7d. LOI AMAIN (unknown)
    1. You’re not the only one: I still can’t use the puzzle site on my windows laptop. Fortunately I have an alternative (iPad with a Bluetooth keyboard) which works well enough.
  17. I noticed 14a and 15a form a nice pair. There are a few nice combinations. Perhaps I have a Tabloid Desire to take The Mirror occasionally instead of that awful Times thingy. Nearly had Glenn’s launchapd too. Found this surprisingly easy for a Friday – about 30 mins. I liked the discussion about letters – i’m sure B could be an interesting convention. Thanks V (can’t think of an alernative for this other than a Harvey Smith)
  18. 50m today of which the last 20 I spent wrestling in the NW until finally STANDARD and then GLENS came in a hurry. SAGACITY was a guess or I suppose a biff if I was being kind. I found this much easier than yesterday’s which I failed to finish within my allowed 60m. PLACID was the pick of the bunch for me. Thanks you, V and setter for much entertainment.

    Edited at 2017-08-11 11:35 am (UTC)

  19. More tricky stuff in this one. I was fixated on SIGHT for perception in 1a until COMPLEX hove into view. I managed to spot the parsing just after entering SAGACITY. Complex led to ABEAM and I finished off filling A_A_N with AMAIN after deciding AGAIN didn’t parse. STANDARD was my FOI. Lots of clever misdirection I thought. Liked LAUCH PAD and FLIGHT ATTENDANT. PLACID was really well hidden too. A biffed ELBOW ROOM at 7d held me up in the NE until BALLISTIC put me right. Another penny drop moment was when I stopped trying to put a STENCH into 21d. 36:40. Nice puzzle. Thanks setter and V.

    Edited at 2017-08-11 11:49 am (UTC)

  20. This was a top class crossword, I thought. Some excellent surfaces.. those who say they don’t look at them should go back and see, because 4dn for example is as neat a clue as they ever get.

    On the subject of capitalisation, it seems to me that there are only two logical positions to take. Either (a) all capitalisation is to be ignored or seen as deception. So setters can capitalise or not, entirely at their whim. Or (b) capitalisation should be correct. So if it is needed, it must be there.
    But neither is what happens, because as I understand the “unwritten conventions,” if a capital is due, it must be used (Turkey cannot be clued as turkey) but if it is not due it can still be used anyway (turkey can legitimately be clued as Turkey). That just cannot be right!

    1. I think the latter example is legitimised on the basis hinted at by Verlaine – at the start of a sentence turkey would be Turkey.

      I don’t share your and V’s appreciation of the surface for 4d. What is a “mirror for one”?

      1. I agree that if a word is the first in a sentence then it is legitimised .. so apparently we are agreed that if it is not then a capital should not be used unless it is a proper noun. Which is not what happens

        Re 4dn, note that it is not mirror for one, it is Mirror for one .. an example of a tabloid..

          1. Admittedly the “for one” is a fly in the ointment, but I still think there’s a marrying of inventive definition and wordplay that is rather agreeable here…
            1. I thought for a while I was looking for some obscure word for a hand-mirror. In my mind it was probably French, and mentioned exactly once in Pride and Prejudice…
        2. The logic is that wordplay elements can be, indeed have to be, treated as isolated elements. So in wordplay terms ‘I hate Will’ needs to be read as [I] [hate] [Will]. [Hate] can be a noun, because we ignore its position in the (surface) sentence and treat it in isolation. By the same logic [Will] can be ‘will’, because we ignore its actual position in the sentence and it could be the first word of another sentence. This doesn’t apply the other way round: the name Will can never be written as ‘will’.
          Having said all that, it’s a convention I don’t like.
    2. Turkey (the bird) can legitimately be clue as “Turkey”, because look, there it is with a capital right at the beginning of the sentence.

      Turkey the country cannot be clued as “turkey” because look, in the middle of the sentence it is still Turkey with a capital.

      Substitutability rule!

      1. No.. Turkey cannot ever be clued as turkey. But turkey can be clued as Turkey anywhere in a sentence, not just at the beginning. Is that not so?
  21. 14:07 so maybe slightly trickier than average. I could parse SAGACITY at all (thanks V) and finished with PLACID which I did eventually see having decided against biffing.

    Like others I didnae ken the military meaning of tip and run.

  23. That “Hants,” in HYDRANTS, is a county. (I was going to add this to my original summation, but Horryd had already replied.) Apparently there are more than one by that name. But this was striking: “Hants may refer to: Hampshire, a county in England, abbreviated Hants in print.” How “Hampshire” becomes “Hants” may not be as mysterious to an Englishperson as it is to me… I don’t know if this fact is well enough known to qualify “Hampshire” as a reference to “Hants” in a clue.
    1. “Northants” is Northamptonshire so I think you can just randomly abbreviate things to “ants” in England. Rumours that it’s okay to refer to south-easterners as a bunch of Kants are greatly exaggerated though.
        1. Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law, that’s my motto.
  24. I got through fairly quickly, say 15 minutes, but that was due to biffing in a few, rather than stopping to completely parse them. SAGACITY and POTTERY for example. LOI DRAKE. Regards.
  26. DNF. Bah! Defeated by 26ac. I couldn’t choose between amain (which fitted the wp but just didn’t sound right) and again (which fitted, well, the checkers basically but was definitely a word). I usually go with the wp however unlikely the result seems but on this occasion, after trying one word then the next over and over (like Jack Palance repeating the names of the nemesis cops ruining his drug smuggling operation: Tango and Cash, Cash and Tango) I went for again. I couldn’t see the parsing of sagacity or decode and had a question mark at the parsing of 24dn, so thanks for explaining. I liked 10ac where I saw the sailor and then abeam long before Mae West dawned on me. Thought 4dn was very neat but COD 6dn which had me thinking Upstairs Downstairs / Downton Abbey (neither of which I’ve ever seen) for far too long before the penny dropped.
  27. Steady solve but not fast. Clocked out at 35 minutes. No serious hold-ups except for BALLISTIC which, though obvious, I had to hesitate over. I didn’t know it could be a noun. I’m having problems with the small printout which is causing delays. Squinting through a magnifying glass is not a fun way to do the crossword. Today for the 1st time I printed out the Guardian puzzle. Nice big print and grey grid. It seemed strangely different. Is there a Guardian equivalent of TftT? I could use the help.

    Edited at 2017-08-11 07:35 pm (UTC)

  28. DNF here. My routine was disturbed yesterday, so I did the QC in the morning (at 5am!) and the 15×15 at lunchtime at work. That went okay, but I was still left with a pair of crossers.

    I have no idea why I didn’t see STANDARD, but I don’t feel so bad about not getting to the parsing-resistant SAGACITY, nor about the crossers of the unknown AMAIN—literally not in my dictionary!—and DRAKE, where even though I’d actually thought of him I couldn’t justify it, not knowing that meaning of “harrow”, and thinking that “coming north” did indeed mean backwards-in-a-down-clue.

    But anyway. A longwinded way of saying I was roundly beaten by this one, even with an extra half-hour of staring last night and this morning… Thanks to setter and V.

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