Times 26857 – King Arthur, Teste David cum Sibylla?

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
It is rare for me to say that puzzles on my watch are anything but Mondayesque – even as Tuesday continues to consider its M&A options with regard to Friday – but this offering has at least the bonus of an antiquitous sting in the tale, more specifically the SE corner, to offset the high biffability quotient.

Which is not to suggest I didn’t appreciate the setter’s work. I enjoyed the smorgasbord of vocabulary, the Cook’s Tour around the Mediterranean, and the nod to the original and arguably the best valuer of junk in people’s attics at 23 across. A flying visit to Blighty last week added to my education in two ways, at least: first, that Antique Roadshow style progs are still all the rage, and second that the word Blighty is derived from Hindi (via Arabic).

Talking of progs, on the flight home I watched the latest Coogan/Brydon vessel, a feature length docufilm called A Trip to Spain. The highlight for me, just edging out the segment where Coogan’s attempt to educate his mate on the Moors is stillborn when the mention of Moor sets Brydon off on a Roger Moore impression that becomes a stream that won’t be staunched, is when the two recreate an iconic sound of the 80s, at least for erstwhile listeners of Radio 2. Coogan’s Wogan is uncanny, while Brydon handles the less enviable task of doing Ken Bruce (AKA Bruce Kent) with aplomb.

26 minutes for me, which will improve my NITCH, but how will it stand up against other regulars?

ACROSS

1. SANDBANK – The Rev’s ‘band sank’.
5. GRATIS – RAT in GIS.
9. DIAPASON – an organ ‘stop’; reversal of AID followed by PA and SON.
10. EMBRYO – an anagram* of BY ROME gives this battlefield word in ‘debates’ between pros and antis.
12. CUBAN – CUB + AN.
13. LINEAMENT – AN in LINEMEN + T. ‘A facial outline or feature’ is the first sense of three given by the dictionary. Embarrassingly, I knew none and thought it was a lotion spelled ‘linament’. I was wrong again there, of course, as that is spelled ‘liniment’.
14. LAISSEZ FAIRE – SALE IS* + F in ZAIRE.
15. ROUGH DIAMOND – sounds like RUFF followed by DIAMOND.
21. BROADCAST – CAST by B-ROAD (a scenic type of highway in Britain, which it is fun and relaxing to drive on till you get stuck behind a tractor. I took the B3134 in the Mendips twice last week and can recommend.
23. NEGUS – Collins has ‘a tile of the Emperor of Ethiopia’ for this, and since he was designated ‘King of Kings’ that passes muster, which may be obtained by reversing GEN and adding US (a British slang word for useless, deriving from unserviceable).
24. BORAGE – O in BRAG (card game) + E.
25. PEDIGREE – PE + DI (generic female) + GREE[n].
26. ENTRAP – ENT + RAP.
27. STARGAZE – Z (the third unknown quantity in an algebraic expression) in A STAGER*.

DOWN

1. SEDUCE – CUD reversed in SEE.
2. NEARBY – NEARLY with L ‘forked out’ (removed) in favour of B.
3. BRAINWASH – IN + W + A in BRAS + H.
4. NEOCLASSICAL – Sir John Soane was an English architect who specialised in the Neo-Classical style, flourishing 200 years ago. Now, mostly known via the museum named after him.
6. RUMBA – U + MB in RA.
7. TURMERIC – sounds like TERM (appellation) followed by ERIC[a] (a type of heather).
8. SHOETREE – HO in SE + TREE (Herbert Beerbohm – British actor). I had SHOEHORN, courtesy of Kenneth Horne (sic) for a while.
11. INTERMITTENT – IN + TERM + IT (Italian) + TENT (a deep red sweet wine chiefly from Spain, used especially as sacramental wine and in crosswords).
15. FINANCIER – ‘gnome’ (as in gnomes of Zurich); IN in FANCIER. The day may come when GNOME is clued as ‘garden ornament in the form of a bearded man with a pointy hat’, but probably no time soon.
16. PROBABLE – OB in PAR[a]BLE (or P[a]RABLE, for those with OCD).
17. AUTOCRAT – AUTO + R (abbreviation for run(s) in cricket or baseball) in CAT.
19. EGERIA – a nymph attributed a legendary role in the early history of Rome as divine consort and counsellor of Numa Pompilius, the second Sabine king of Rome – eponymous for a female adviser; EG + reversal of RE ‘about climbing’) + I + A (initial letters (‘peaks’ rather good) of ‘in Alpine’. I plucked this out of somewhere – eventually – which perked me up no end.
20. ESSENE – ‘ascetic’ (member of an ancient Jewish ascetic sect of the 2nd century BC–2nd century AD in Palestine, regarded as the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls); ES (‘French art’, as in Tu es belle) + S[c]ENE (SCENE without the final letter of [academi]C).
22. DOGMA – G (central letter of reliGious) in DO [an] MA.

65 comments on “Times 26857 – King Arthur, Teste David cum Sibylla?”

  1. Stuck in the SE for an age, mainly because I’d thrown in heritage, severe, and noise for 16a, 20d & 23a. Noise in particular I was almost confident about…but couldn’t get 19d to work so I deleted everything that didn’t parse 100% and: pedigree became obivious, negus I knew from Oprah Winfrey via Kendrick Lamar(!), but I had to construct and then confirm with google the unknown Egeria and Essene…tough

    After all that I couldn’t be bothered thinking about 8d any longer and just threw in the totally unknown but luckily correct shoe tree…and thanks for all the parsing by the way, but how do I get tree from Herbert Beerbolm ???

    1. Ah, simply by adding the surname Tree to his forenames. The luvvie is a bit of a crossword chestnut.
  2. DIAPASON was my LOI, put in only because nothing else fit the checkers; then I saw the wordplay, then sort of remembered what the word meant. I had ‘shoe-horn’ for a moment, too, but only because I couldn’t think of anything else to finish ‘shoe- ‘ (and perhaps unconsciously reluctant to think that Beerbohm (H, Ulaca, not L) would appear yet once again. I only knew EGERIA from ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’; didn’t know she was a nymph.
    1. Thanks. I’d like to claim it was a typo, but I think it’s probably more an inability to keep what I’ve just read in Wikipedia for more than ten seconds.
  3. Raced through this and then struggled since I’d never heard of ESSENE (or forgotten), and EGERIA, and so took an age to get PEDIGREE. Then discovered I’d mistyped TURMERIC when I submitted. Several, like DIAPASON (and ESSENE and EGERIA come to that) that I worked out from wordplay and just hoped were right.
  4. I was totally baffled by the SE corner!

    After 45 mins I simply resigned.

    DNK 19dn EGERIA nor 20dn ESSENE

    All I had was 27ac STARGAZE.

    I never knew that Arthur Negus was Ethiopian.

    I thought 25ac was either HERITAGE or HERITRIX but could parse neither.

    PEDIGREE is a really stupidly rotten clue IMHO worthy of an IKEA award.

    FOI 10ac EMBRYO

    COD 22dn DOGMA

    WOD 8dn SHOE TREE

    Mood Meldrewvian.

    Edited at 2017-10-16 01:51 am (UTC)

    1. I don’t know what you mean with the IKEA comment, but I agree with you about the clue for PEDIGREE. If setters can’t do better than that, I’m afraid I’m not interested. I threw the towel in as soon as I “cracked” that piece of rubbish.
      1. Where much assembly of ‘bits’ is required in order to get the answer – much like following IKEA’s instruction sheet when assembling a table. One inevitably ends up with an unhappy bookshelf!

        The IKEA award goes to the most convoluted of these horrors.

        It may well have been Jimbo who coined the expression.

        Edited at 2017-10-17 12:29 am (UTC)

      2. I don’t suppose setters take much note of such comments, but as a community we have certain standards when it comes to courtesy and civility, and this sort of comment has no place on this site.
  5. A laborious 21:45 spoiled by a typo (DOGNA).

    Shame — I was pleased with myself for assembling EGERIA from wordplay.

    Felt like I was in a bit of a time warp here. Enjoyable blog commentary, ulaca, which retrospectively increased my enjoyment of the puzzle.

  6. The SE corner was almost completely out of tune with the rest of the puzzle which had been pretty straightforward.

    Like Horryd, I resigned as my solving time came close to doubling with three clues unsolved in the same quarter. ESSENE and EGERIA were unknown and even having thought of ‘French art’ = ES in one, and ‘say’ = EG in the other, the words wouldn’t come to mind. I also agree that PEDIGREE is a poor clue.

    Does anyone remember the vocal group called The Stargazers?

    Edited at 2017-10-16 03:57 am (UTC)

    1. I wouldn’t say PEDIGREE is egregiously bad although it’s clearly not a classic – I give it props for making me take so long over wondering how the wordplay could possibly lead to HERITAGE, for one thing.
      1. I wanted that to be the answer too, but then reflected that “lineage” probably wouldn’t clue another word ending in -age; that would be somewhat inelegant.
    2. I remember The Stargazers, Jack. Helped a bit by Wiki, you’ve just had me sing “Hot Diggity, dog ziggity, boom what you do to me” after a a chorus of “I see the moon, the moon sees me.” They were formed by Cliff Adams who went on to ‘Sing Something Simple’, the bane of the Sunday evening Light Programme. “Not only listening but joining in we hope to all these songs you love so much.” Puke. Single handedly, he turned the young ‘me’ into a rocker! Mum loved the show. My Dad agreed with my view, saying The Keynotes were much better!
      1. I remember SSS as Dirge Something Dreary or “music to slit your throat to”. The Stargazers were quite fun though. Jackkt
  7. I started off fast and the ground to a near-complete halt in the SE – no, this wasn’t very Mondayish, was it? EGERIA was a familiar name though you’d never catch me being able to tell you what she actually did; but my real problems were in the cross between the unknown NEGUS (the wordplay was suggesting to me NEGSU at best) and 20dn where I was looking for an actual French art gallery or movement and ESSENCE didn’t ring true for either. But in the end I bunged it in because what else was it going to be – sadly over 10m had passed at that point. Ah well, c’est la vie!
      1. Yes, but that’s not an Ethiopian king! It probably makes it harder when you think “well, it can’t very well be that, that’s a word for a spiced drink”…
      1. My American guest left this morning, so here’s hoping I can get back into the old rhythm before too many weeks have passed! Bit worried that the York S&B weekend may totally whack me into the long grass though.
  8. 45 mins with porridge and Scottish raspberries. And all done, but I came here with fingers crossed regarding the SE corner.
    DNK Egeria, Essene or Negus (and couldn’t parse the ‘worthless’ bit so the US was a guess).
    Tricky vocab today – and who is this Tree chap? Not my favourite.
    Thanks setter and Ulaca.
  9. Only just over 50 minutes with all biffs correct, which is nigh on a miracle. Like Horryd, I hadn’t realised that the presenter of Going for a Song had previously been King of Ethiopia. If I had heard of either DIAPASON or LINEAMENT then I’d forgotten. EGERIA didn’t even look likely. Just a word in your EGERIA? I wasted a couple of minutes too wondering how can you STARGAZE in the day. ESSENE biffed from crossers but unparsed. I’ve also realised that I have conflated Sir Hans Sloane and Sir John Soane for the last many decades. I was another SHOE HORNer until COD LAISSEZ-FAIRE put me right. Kenneth Horne’s inability to act was all part of the joke in Beyond our Ken and Round the Horne so I wasn’t happy with the first answer. Thank you U for sorting out so much, and setter for an unexpected Monday treat.

    Edited at 2017-10-16 09:17 am (UTC)

  11. Perhaps I just woke up grumpy today but I was underwhelmed by this puzzle with its wordy clues. I did it in 21:67 but with no smiles or PDM, just a steady grind. Like BW, I wondered about stargazing during the day. Sid James was Sir Sidney Ruff-Diamond in Carry On Up The Khyber. Harrumph! Thanks U
  12. 22 minutes with a careless typo, which I failed to spot before submitting. No unknowns – I think Essenes hit headlines for Dead Sea scrolls, but don’t recall how Egeria came to my notice.
  13. Is there anything worse than a typo (SANNBANK) on a Monday having posted a passable time? Well, yes. It’s biffing (LAISSER-FAIRE) without bothering to read the wordplay.
  14. 10:14 but with yet another silly typo. And there I was congratulating myself on checking my answers – in spite of the fact that it took me over the 10 minute mark – because I spotted and corrected one. I seem to have discounted the possibility that I might have made two.
    Not for the first time I was helped by the habit small financial institutions have of naming themselves after obscure characters from antiquity. As far as I know there isn’t one called ESSENE but I followed the wordplay: I’m glad the ‘French art’ trick has come up before.
    I thought Beerbohm Tree had finally been retired but it seems that was wishful thinking. His continued appearance is ridiculous, IMO.

    Edited at 2017-10-16 10:31 am (UTC)

  15. Forgive me but the SE corner is absurd. French art for (select deity of choice)’ sake! These things are meant to be fun (aren’t they?). I know I attended scumbag college but aren’t these things better in a different sort of crossword? I can forgive the setter for mentioning Sir John Soanes. A visit to his museum in London is a wonderful treat. Waste of 40 mins for a DNF.
    1. French art = es is one of those little little things that pop up from time to time. Tent = wine is another one; it was in today’s crossword. You’re quite right, they’re a bit wacky, but I guess once you know them you’re okay. Main problem for me is that the setters leave them out just long enough for me to forget them, and then they chuck them in again!
  16. DNF and like some others I failed to get NEGUS, EGERIA or ESSENE.

    I thought PEDIGREE was fine and got it quite quickly. SHOE TREE was obvious from checkers but I think the reference to an obscure Victorian actor is a little unfair to those of us under the age of 100.

    And (last grumble for today) I don’t think 23a works at all. It gives either NEGSU or USNEG.

    I hope this doesn’t set the tone for the week!

    Thanks for the blog.

    1. You are overlooking or misinterpreting “first” which tells you to put the reversed GEN before US.

    2. ‘Worthless information about first’ can and here should be read to mean ‘information about’ i.e. gen reversed = NEG comes before (first) ‘worthless’ = US.
  17. I’m going to draw a veil over my miserable attempt. Suffice it to say 4 wrong mainly in the SE after 75:43 and with aids.
    Mood: MELDREW.
    What a way to start the week, and that’s after Microsoft’s latest update has screwed my laptop internet connection twice in two days. An the b*gger next door is off with his sodding hammer and drill again. #@”!$£%
    BTW Thanks Ulaca
  18. Nice blog; thanks, Ulaca. Okay puzzle, bit of a grind. I don’t want to be a grouch, but I thought one or two of the surface readings could have done with a bit more finesse. 7dn in particular doesn’t read plausibly no matter how I squint at it. That said, the majority of the surfaces were okay…. and I couldn’t compile a crossword any better, that’s for sure. 🙂
  19. Thanks for the parse on this Ulaca. I only knew the drink from Georgette Heyer (naturally). ESSENEs turn up all the time in the NY Times, as Vinyl will know. And EGERIA from literature as per Kevin. 15.27
  20. 23 mins so certainly not straightforward for a Monday. When I entered the majority of the NW quadrant on first read I thought it was going to be a breeze, but I slowed up considerably after that. The two I struggled with the most were DIAPASON and EGERIA. The former, even though I’ve come across it many times before, refused to fall for ages and I even spent time considering “diamason” and “diadason”. The latter was completely forgotten if I’d ever come across her before, and it took me much longer than it should have done to tease her out from the WP.

    I’m off all this week and if this is an indication of the level of difficulty coming up it will be an interesting few days. The more I do cryptic puzzles the more reluctant I am to criticise any setter. As far as I’m concerned they’re the equivalent of architects and builders and we are merely competent demolition contractors by comparison.

    1. I second Andy’s reluctance to criticise the setters. Those of us who have struggled to come up with just one passable clue for Sotira’s Chrismas Turkey are well aware of the skill it takes to produce these things.
      1. Setting requires hard work and skill, but criticism is surely allowed where the skill is absent on occassion.

        I note about 80% of our corresponents thank the setter and blogger reflexively.

        I used to write ‘Thank-you to setter and adjudicator on my A-level papers! Hardly worth the effort.

        Praise where praise is due.

  21. Please may I ask someone to explain to me the point of the dots in 12 and 13 ac. As I see it the clues stand independently and I’ve never heard of a Cuban Lineament. So, what am I missing?
    1. In this instance the dots are being used to indicate that the surface reading of the two clues should be combined. Setters use this device from time to time, but every so often the dots have a different meaning so the solver shouldn’t always assume a linked surface reading.
      1. I don’t see how these two readings could be combined; ‘feature’ would have to be ‘features’ to make the combination grammatical, and as Simon says, the clues stand independently of each other. My experience has been that the dots are there a) because the 2d clue’s surface would be awkward if presented on its own, or b) simply because the two clues can be linked superficially. In today’s case, I can’t see any reason for the dots.
      2. Andy, thank you. However, if you read the two clues together, they make absolutely no sense. At least they didn’t to me. So, as I see it, the dots served no purpose at all. On the assumption that I am missing something, how did you read the clues so they made sense to you. I appreciate your help.
  22. 39m with a lot of that, or so it felt, gazing blankly at the SE corner so very pleased to find I wasn’t alone in that at least. However ESSENE magically floated into my mind and I didn’t even know I knew it ( and I bet it was from a previous crossword). EGERIA eventually put in because it seemed to fit the wordplay and likewise with NEGUS. But the rest of it seemed quite straightforward and Mondayish. Oh yes and I was another HERITAGE until I couldn’t make anything but HER fit the cryptic. Thank you, setter and also our entertaining blogger.
  23. Well now, that wasn’t very simple at all. Gaps in my GK were highlighted at DIAPASON, NEGUS and EGERIA. That stretched things out close to an hour, although I was handicapped by both a football game on television and a few glasses of wine. Regards.
  24. Like everyone else I was doing well until I hit the buffers in the SE corner. I’d heard of EGERIA and thought I knew NEGUS as an Ethiopian king. But I’d never heard of US as short for “useless” so had problems parsing it. Bunged it in anyway. Then had problems with ESSENE – my LOI by a long 5 minutes. I finally remembered that they were the lot in biblical times who committed mass suicide or something after a siege. 30 minutes. Ann
    1. Actually, the Essenes inhabited, among other places, Qumran, which is perhaps 30 miles north of Masada, where the “suicides” (deaths certainly) took place in AD 74.
  25. 20:45. For once, I actually knew all the obscure words, so didn’t get stuck in the SE corner. ES for ‘french art’ comes up often enough that 20d came to mind quickly. I was a rubbish organist never mastering the technique of hands going one way and feet in the other direction, but DIAPASON was nonetheless familiar enough. 24a my COD for the neat surface.
  26. Allow me to join the Meldrews with an unfinished SE corner. I got a kick out of remembering DIAPASON well enough to take it in my stride at the start, but after 52 minutes this morning I still had a few left on the board. Another fifteen minutes this evening and I’d polished off all bar NEGUS, ESSENE and EGERIA, all unknown.

    I’d scribbled a few things that looked like EGERIA down in my search; I’d pencilled in the NEG of NEGUS, and I like Verlaine I was racking my brain trying to come up with more French art movements… And suddenly I just lost the will. There’s only so much staring I can do on a weekday puzzle!

    So glad I could come here and find myself in such good company, at least. Thanks to all and setter.

    1. I got DIAPASON too(I’ve even played about with the button on an organ built by my brother), but after the kerfuffle in the SE, I was sufficiently browbeaten to miss the AUTOCRAT and finished up with EUROCRAT, despite seeing the parsing correctly, I just couldn’t see a car in _U_O. Must be all the Brexit bad news getting to me!
  27. Herbert Beerbohm Tree?! Never came across that particular (according to ulaca) chestnut TREE. I got the answer, just couldn’t parse it. And I still think a shoe-horn would stretch an Oxford more than a -tree. I couldn’t parse LAISSEZ-FAIRE either; it’s almost a rule violation to not explicitly name the “old country,” but that word isn’t anagrammed itself, so it’s kosher. Whew. I found a lot of these clues fiendish in their ingenuity.
    I’ve heard the phrase “diamond in the rough” a lot more than “rough diamond,” but my real problem with that clue is that there seems to be two examples of wordplay and no “straight” def: “uncouth” (rough) “goodie” (diamond)—one in suit (diamond) with lace collar, we hear (ruff=rough): There’s no definition that ties the two words together.

    Edited at 2017-10-16 06:51 pm (UTC)

      1. But “uncouth” does not mean “rough” in the sense that applies to a diamond. So that’s not a “straight definition,” and the two words together do not constitute a cryptic definition either.
        1. A rough diamond is “(Brit.) a person who is generally of good character but lacks manners, education, or style” (ODE)
          1. Ah, I thought that definition applied only to the phrase “diamond in the rough.” TA!
  28. Spent about 20 mins on this in the morning and another 20 mins at lunchtime. Finished with two errors. Despite knowing diapason from previous crosswords I followed the wp to diamatot and did not question it hard enough. Stuck for ages like others in the SE. Thought of the correct French Art early on but only dredged up “Essene” after considerable further thought. A bit hung up on the possibility of heritage at 25ac until pedigree went in. Egeria went in purely on wp and fingers crossed. DNK Negus and bunged in Negas for my second error not remembering the unserviceable US and thinking SA might mean something like the ever sweet FA. Very tough to have Negus, Egeria and Essene all intertwined like that.
  29. 2 Jan here in South China Morning Post

    Quick progress at first, but I eventually used a crossword dictionary to find PEDIGREE & EGERIA, which as soon as I saw them were obviously right. At least I didn’t biff in HERITAGE, despite the “her” and “Rita”, but this word was still shouting so loud in my mind that although I guessed PE, I couldn’t finish it.

    Remarkably large number of DNKs: Soane, Tent, ESSENE & EGERIA. And a large number of words that I knew of, but couldn’t have *precisely* defined: DIAPASON, LINEAMENT, ERICa, BORAGE, SHOE-TREE, NEGUS.
    But these were all very guessable, so quite educational.

    I *did* guess EGERIA, even without the “R” from PEDIGREE, but Google sent me to Wikipedia “Egeria the Pilgrim” page on which there is no disambiguation link to other Egeria entries! Naughty wikipedians…

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

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