Times 26,873: 1ac and 1dn inevitable, when we go 9dn in tomorrow’s 12ac?

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Friends, I regret to inform you that you’re going to have to end the essentially wise and benevolent reign of the tyrant Magoo yourselves tomorrow: after the York binge last weekend and a similarly raucous wedding in Wales this Wednesday, I’m all at sixes and sevens, a condition that’s almost as fatal for being able to solve crosswords as Sudokus. So not for the first time this week I kept grinding to a halt on a difficult but not unfair puzzle; rallying enough to take down the top half, but then sputtering to an aporetic halt in the bottom.

Okay, 21dn might be a *little* unfair, I don’t see why anyone should know their NHS advisory bodies if they don’t work in or near the NHS, they’re not culturally essential Greek heroes or books of the Bible for goodness’ sake. Additionally 20ac with its sneaky construction baffled me for the longest time, I had the SINGLE but couldn’t get past COMMERCE for the second word, which was at least better than CHINESCE, which was all my poor overwrought brain could make from “from Asia” for a good long time, the idea that I could be looking for an Asian food never occurring to me. But I have no excuse for staring blankly at 23ac and 19dn as long as I did. What a time for my internal thesaurus to desert me!

I really liked the topical (on both sides of the pond) clues at 11ac and 22dn, and there was some very very neat cluing elsewhere much of which I only untangled post-submit: 12ac, 2dn, 3dn, 8dn, 9dn. A really good puzzle, in other words, too good for the likes of me *sob*. I wasn’t quite sure about 5dn if I haven’t missed something is just a cryptic definition, but I guess it’s sufficiently misleading either way. What did you like, and how are competitors feeling about tomorrow? More 14ac then me I hope… look forward to seeing you there!

ACROSS
1 Pick up wood with odd bits of bark in desolation (10)
HEARTBREAK – HEAR TEAK [pick up | wood], with B{a}R{k} in
6 Something instrumental in rejection of neo-bourgeoisie (4)
OBOE – hidden reversed in {n}EO-BO{urgeousie}. Easy FOI.
10 Satisfied about pattern of stress (5)
METRE – MET RE [satisfied | about]
11 Fake news’s ending with one smear having recently come in (9)
SIMULATED – {new}S with I MUD [one | smear], having LATE [recently] come in
12 Notes certain company in card game providing stressful situation (8,6)
PRESSURE COOKER – RES SURE CO [notes | certain | company] in POKER [card game]
14 Confident when Communist tours Soviet Union’s capitals (7)
ASSURED – AS RED [when | communist] “tours” S{oviet} U{nion}
15 Links support with leaders of nation after general election, probably in minority? (7)
TEENAGE – TEE [links support] with N{ation} A{fter} G{eneral} E{lection}. Only the oldest teenagers are in their majority, at least around here.
17 Drum out tosser, roughly at first (7)
CASHIER – SHIER [tosser], CA [roughly] at first
19 Ring dispatcher to tangle with endless love (7)
MATADOR – MAT [to tangle] with ADOR{e} [“endless” love]. A matador dispatches beasts in a (bull)ring.
20 Multinational payment arrangement enclosed in one-way fare from Asia (6,8)
SINGLE CURRENCY – ENC [enclosed] in SINGLE CURRY [one-way | fare from Asia]. Cruel that the “single” looked to be defined by “one-way fare”.
23 Make compatible drug, concentrated in nettle (9)
RECONCILE – E CONC [drug | concentrated] in RILE [nettle]
24 Three-line form reported power grab at top level? (5)
HAIKU – homophone of HIGH COUP [“reported” power grab at top level]. The haiku poetry form always has three lines, obviously.
25 Sparsely separates these characters — victims (4)
PREY – four separated characters in {s}P{a}R{s}E{l}Y
26 No upright member of holy Eastern church backing its symbol? (10)
CROSSPIECE – PI E CE [holy | Eastern | church] backing CROSS [symbol of aforementioned]

DOWN
1 Strike to get time off for depression (4)
HUMP – {t}HUMP [strike, “to get T (for time) off”]
2 Marks for special attention inefficiency, with cut leading to dangers (9)
ASTERISKS – {w}ASTE [inefficiency, “W (for with) cut”] leading to RISKS [dangers]
3 Book from finance departments, that is coming up light (8,6)
TREASURE ISLAND – TREASUR{ie->EI}S [finance departments, “IE (that is) coming up”] + LAND [light]
4 Echo and start to spread in turn? (7)
RESOUND – E [echo] and S{pread} in ROUND [turn], &lit
5 Support for upper body member in seat (7)
ARMREST – simply a cryptic definition… I think?
7 Riband’s middle strip over patterned cloth (5)
BATIK – {ri}BA{nd} + KIT reversed [strip “over”]
8 Past packs go bad under more mature fruit (10)
ELDERBERRY – BY [past] “packs” ERR [go bad] under ELDER [more mature]
9 Disorderly house interrupting finished actor (3,4,3,4)
ALL OVER THE SHOP — HO [house] “interrupting” ALL OVER THESP [finished | actor]
13 Eyeball components swivelling, which holds face in place? (10)
WATCHSTRAP – WATCH [eyeball] + PARTS reversed [components “swivelling”]. Face as in the watch-face that tells you the time.
16 What food enhancer containing Charlie might be? (9)
ADDICTIVE – ADDITIVE [food enhancer] “containing” C [Charlie], semi-&lit
18 More like Stones with a heavier beat? (7)
ROCKIER – double def
19 More than one mouthful of mushrooms, gobbling seconds (7)
MORSELS – MORELS [mushrooms], “gobbling” S [seconds]
21 Suitable position hospital’s got in NHS advisory body (5)
NICHE – H [hospital] has got in NICE [the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, apparently]
22 Project Fear’s secondary element for unwelcome arrival in Britain? (4)
JUTE – JUT [project] + {f}E{ar}. The rascally Jutes were much involved in invading Britain circa the 4th century, stealing jobs from the locals and pushing up hut prices, when are they and all their descendants going to be packed back off to Denmark, that’s what I want to know.

67 comments on “Times 26,873: 1ac and 1dn inevitable, when we go 9dn in tomorrow’s 12ac?”

  1. Thanks for the explanation. I had the right answer from biffing, but unfortunately my parsing took the R from ‘roughly at first’ i.e. R{oughly}, leaving me with the other 6 letters to account for. So I then looked them up on-line and wished I hadn’t! Using words like ‘t—-r’ in a clue is more PE than The Times and did not reassure me that there might be an inoccent explanation (which there is as it turns out). When attempting to discuss this in the Club forum I found that my contributions were deemed unacceptable until I removed the offending word as quoted from the clue. Double standards, methinks.

    Edited at 2017-11-03 08:32 am (UTC)

  2. Now on the puzzle generally, I found it an excellent challenge and was pleased to finish it unaided although I needed exactly an hour to do so with one clue incorrectly parsed (see above).

    Edited at 2017-11-03 10:17 am (UTC)

  3. Well it would be as i finished it which is uncommon. But i went well over my one hour limit because it was such fun. A lot of biffing that had to be checked later, but i knew most of the odd references, inc nice. Good start to a (now) busy day.
    Other Nick
  4. A straightforward solve for me with no real problems. NICE is a body heard whenever the words “money” and “NHS” are used together (which is almost every day in the news). I liked Fake news, Links support and no upright member.
  5. 55 mins with yoghurt, granola, banana, etc. Reasonably enjoyable although chewy in places.
    Convinced myself 26ac would start with Grand (No upright) and that delayed the Mushrooms for a good while.
    Thought of thump immediately for 1dn – but depression? Quite the reverse, I thought. I guess it is the Hump you get rather than trip over.
    Mostly I liked: Ring dispatcher, Asian fare, Sparsely separates (very original), Eyeball and ‘All over the shop’.
    Thanks assured setter and V (and may you have the very best of good fortune this weekend).
  6. 13:53. I seem to have been on the wavelength for this one, in marked contrast to yesterday’s. I biffed quite a lot, so missed some of the subtleties.
    Anyone who pays even cursory attention to the news will be familiar with NICE. This seems much more fair game to me than all these silly old books.
    The way I see it, v, you have got your rare off-wavelength puzzle out of the way just in time for tomorrow. See you there!
    1. I did have to tackle this at 6 in the morning, when it’s pretty clear that my brain doesn’t warm up until at least noon. *checks what time his prelim is tomorrow* *shakes head sadly*

      I pay great attention to the news, but sadly it’s the news of 1864, back when news was PROPER news.

      Edited at 2017-11-03 09:54 am (UTC)

  7. A trilogy. Took me 15 minutes to get not very far at all, but when I got pressure cooker the whole thing nearly fell out completely. However I was prevented from sleeping last night by some lunatic with a hammer on the street outside, and my overtired brain could not see currency, addictive, matador, or morsels…I had even put in the ADOR of matador, but I had to resort to my usual technique of pen, paper and confused muttering. Bah

    So easier than yesterday I reckon

    Mostly a good puzzle, but can someone explain what the “way” is for in 20ac? Seems like it’s just there to sugar the surface….

  8. I couldn’t come up with JUTE today, instead going with NUKE on the tentative basis that we wouldn’t want one in Britain and perhaps Britain was somehow doubling up as UK in NUKE. I had no expectations of it being a correct guess. I would never have come up with JUTE from definition but with hindsight jut is straightforward for project so I might have got it if I’d persevered. Given that in my trawl of the alphabet JU_E was far from my mind probably not though.

    Other than that I found this fairly tough, not being helped by not bothering to parse ALL OVER THE SHOP and so the actor reference giving me ALL OVER THE SHOW for some time.

    1. Yes, but the ‘way’ seemed superfluous and arbitrary to me. I gather now single is some kind of angloslang for a one-way ticket….down here in the colonies we just say ‘one way’
      1. Ah, I see your point now. Yes, single is synonymous with one-way in UK rail ticketing.
  10. 51 minutes, ending with MORSELS. Biffed NICHE in pretty quick order, so the fact that I’ve never heard it on the Hong Kong news didn’t bother me unduly. At least, the clue made a lot more sense than some I could mention recently.
  11. 27.53 for me, with neither RESOUND nor PREY understood, though as it turns out, not because the clues were duff.

    I’m also not totally convinced by HUMP for depression, not simply because it’s more usually the opposite of a depression, but because when I get the hump I’m usually aggressively cross about something, like the appalling lack of wheelchair access at Wembley.

    But I did like the gruesome homophone of high coup: bet the Japanese don’t pronounce it anything like that.

  12. Fibre sacks are one of my pet hates, but I could not understand why the rest of the country would not welcome them. This was my LOI, and my COD. Also HUMP joins my list of words which can have opposite meanings (along with cleave, sanction…..). A really enjoyable puzzle today. 33′.

    As regards jack’s comment re tosser, I see that on the front page of today’s Times a government minister is described as a c***. So it’s ok as long as you use 2d.

  13. Nice blog , Verlaine , but suggest you stop drinking ’til after the competition.

    Edited at 2017-11-03 09:51 am (UTC)

    1. Rest assured no drop will have touched my lips between Wednesday’s wedding and Saturday’s competition. Though there were a lot of bad influences in York at the weekend – John Henderson is well known for having won a championship while completely plastered one time (he thought he’d lost already), and Richard Grafen told me that his best ever placing in the competition was when he threw caution to the wind and allowed himself to have a nice drink between prelims and finals.
      1. I was amazed John made it to the final pub on Friday, as he tacked from one side of the pavement to the other. Mind you it was his birthday and he had been led astray during the afternoon as well.
      2. My late husband had three lunchtime pints before he went out and passed his driving test at the first attempt. Of course, that was back in the day…
    2. I think he should start now – might give some of us lesser mortals at least a glimmer of hope.
  14. Finished this fine test in 34 minutes, only to come here and find NUKE was wrong. Never would have put in JUTE even if I’d trawled the alphabet solver for options.
    Good luck to all tomorrow, maybe Magoo will slow down and let V in!
    1. Oh, I had PUKE, just on the grounds that I was desperate and it (a) fitted, and is (b) UK slang, (c) projectile and (d) unwelcome 😀
  15. …53 minutes with SINGLE CURRENCY biffed but neither parsed nor making sense on the literal level. HAIKU also biffed, at least making sense and confirmed by the resulting JUTE. LOI WATCHSTRAP. I see a watch as more than a pretty face. COD ALL OVER THE SHOP, as that was what I was. But I got under the HUMP and finished. Thank you to V and setter. Good luck to all tomorrow. I’m hoping to make The George and look forward to meeting some of you once you’re out of the PRESSURE COOKER. That’s if you survive.
  16. A slow end to a slow week. Am I over thinking or not thinking enough? I may have to think about it.
  17. Plodded down a cunningly woven way in 34.26. Good to see my favourite card game as the alpha and omega of a stressful situation.
  19. Interesting puzzle, presumably set by someone who had Brexit and/or Donald Trump on their mind. Those four letter words with no helpful crossers are always my bete noire, so I was another who was glad to avoid NUKE, which wouldn’t stop springing to mind once I’d thought of it.

    21dn was no problem, as my Comedy Tourette’s means I cannot hear a newsreader mention “The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence…” without turning to an imaginary camera and joining in, as per the Fast Show, with “…nice”.

  20. 18 plus change, so not bad by my normal Friday standard.

    Glad to have got 14a early, otherwise would have spent WAY too long trying to fit CLOCK-something in at 13d.

    In other (not fake) news, I have managed to secure a partial pass-out for tomorrow, which includes the green light for drink to be involved. I suspect I’ll need it.

    Edited at 2017-11-03 11:41 am (UTC)

  21. Two days and not a wavelength in sight. Very difficult but for some reason I found it more enjoyable than yesterday’s. I had the wrong parse on CASHIER too, thinking oh well “cashie” was a DNK slang word. The acronym in NICHE didn’t seem too far-fetched. JUTE came from Sellars & Yeatman’s waves of Angles, Vandals, Goths, Huns etc. “Kit” as strip flummoxed me a few months ago and I managed to remember it this time. 24.11.

    very best of luck to all tomorrow – I’ll certainly be thinking of you.

  22. Similar to above, I began with PRESSURE COOKER which then got me going steadily. ARMREST seemed to be an invader from the non-cryptic version.
    However I came a cropper with FORCEPS for 19d, except that ‘gobbling seconds’ didn’t seem to match the description. Didn’t help that apart from the F the rest of the clues fitted in. However HAIKU and JUTE defeated me and I had to come here. Good luck to all who are participating – now that I am retiring (today! hooray!) maybe next year…
    1. I spent five minures juggling between forceps and triceps, before the tasty morels presented themselves. We never used to have so much choice. I quote Lonnie Donegan’s ‘My old man’s a dustman’.
      “My dustbin’s full of toadstools.” “How do you know it’s full?” “Cos there’s not much room inside.”
  23. 21:20 and all correct, but struggled to fully parse a few (11a, 20a, and 2d) so thanks for the enlightenment, Verlaine. A good puzzle. 20d my favourite now I understand it! It will be my first time tomorrow – hoping to avoid the blog title, and looking forward to meeting some of you.
  24. Just what you want on the eve of the champs, a DNF. It was HAIKU and JUTE what did for me. Whereas Verlaine gallantly fought through the “staring blankly” stage I couldn’t see mine ending, so gallantly gave up. In retrospect it wasn’t that awkward a pair of clues.

    I admired the plethora of well-hidden definitions today.

    1. I once warmed up for a match-winning knock of 91* against Jonathan Agnew et al by having my stumps rattled by our scorer three times in the nets before play.
  25. Those who enjoy a bit of wackiness with an anti-vivisectionist slant should try C.S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength, which features the NICE (National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments), along with Merlin.
      1. Ah, well, that is probably the best of the three. Perelandra has beautiful descriptions of floating islands but is a bit too “religious” for a sci-fi book, while That Hideous Strength is like a don on an acid trip.

        Edited at 2017-11-06 04:00 pm (UTC)

  26. No idea of time on this one, but something like half an hour on what felt like a reasonably enjoyable and straightforward puzzle.

    Like some others, I’m dubious about HUMP in either sense of the word.

    Is it just me, or has there recently been a welcome dearth of obscure trees/cricketing terms/salmon growth-stages and other arcania?

      2. I sell baobab powder in my (soon-to-be-ex) shop! There again I also sell Niaouli, Hiziki, Arame, Centaury, Luffa, Plantago, Matcha, Moringa, Camu Camu, Amaranth etc. Interestingly the last was the only one not underlined in red by spellcheck.
        1. I hope you enjoy your retirement as much as I do. It was great to be able to sign up for the S&B in York last weekend without worrying about whether I’d be on call, and whether anyone would swap with me, and the ability to stay in bed on a morning if so desired: I could go on and on……….
      3. Baobabs feature in The Little Prince, which of course everyone should have read. That didn’t stop me, in my current frame of mind, confidently entering BAMBOO in their place…
        1. According to my unbiased classification system, a word is only obscure and unfair if I don’t know it. So baobab is fine.
  27. After battling my way through this in 41:33, I was distressed to find I’d fallen at the last hurdle and that my PUKE for PROJECT was incorrect. Too many Hoskins and Eccles recently methinks! I was prepared for a tricky session after reading Jack’s comment on the QC, but after 10 or so minutes with only OBOE and ELDERBERRY(which I never did get round to parsing)solved, I began to make progress. I managed to parse all the rest bar SINGLE CURRENCY and CASHIER, where I guessed a CASHIE was some sort of chucker. Good luck to all those taking part in the finals tomorrow. A challenging puzzle. Thanks setter and V.
    3. Ah! It’s only when I get to page two of the comments that I find out I wasn’t alone! Great minds think alike, clearly.
  28. 64m but needed extra help to get there with JUTE, though I wish I’d failed with PUKE as John did. Very good puzzle and blog today. Looking forward to putting avatars to faces tomorrow. See y’all in the George!
  29. So pretty normal for a Friday really. I knew HAIKUs have seventeen syllables but the three line hint meant nothing to me. JUTE might have come to me if I’d kept going, as might ASTERISKS but an hour was enough.

    NICE used to be the National Institute for Clinical Excellence. They added Health later but kept the acronym. A missed opportunity I always felt. Clinical changed to Care a few years after.

    Thanks for the blog and good luck to everyone taking part tomorrow.

  30. I forgot to mention that 24ac reminded me of one of the finer examples of the genre I saw recently:

    They told me I should
    Write a haiku but I said
    No, no, no.

  33. My sister worked in the NHS for many years, changing titlle, department, unit, section – what have you – with every email she sent me. At least you knew what all those consultants they hired were up to.

    Maybe it’s time for NICE to have a makeover, sorry, undergo a rebranding enhancement procedure. The Community Led Initiative for Care and Health Excellence (CLICHE) has a nice ring to it.

  34. Enjoyed this one for 55 minutes but still a DNF as I popped in NUKE @22dn and not JUTE.

    My parsing of 24ac HAIKU was slightly awry as in China ‘hai-ku’ is an official form used to designate one’s immediate family for local tax purposes and property rights. My WOD.

    FOI 14ac ASSURED LOI NUKE!!

    COD went to 9dn ALL OVER THE SHOP although I was wary of SHOW.

    Bests to all those in Crosswordland tomorrow – I was always put off by smart ‘arses jumping up after 4 minutes and holding their treeware aloft, whilst yours truly was still working on my FOI!! I don’t think that happens anymore as three puzzles in an hour is the requirement! I presume the Magoos of this age are aloft within 13 minutes! Depressing!

    Mood Meldrewvian! Brain antedeluvian!

  35. I gave up early, cheated on a couple (just to give me an entry) and then quite enjoyed this. I was really hoping Puke was the answer to 22d (=Project !). Fireworks and a curry tonight (not necessarily in that order). Good luck in the champs all – I don’t think I will ever get to that stage.
  36. About 30 minutes, ending with the well disguised CASHIER. I don’t know the slang meaning of ‘tosser’, but finally did see the not-too-literal meaning and put the required ‘CA’ in front, but only because all the checkers were sitting there. JUTE was very good, but I sympathise with all who had trouble finding it, because I can’t explain how it flashed into my heads myself. Regards.
  37. Crept through this in about 24 mins and have no particular comments. Best wishes to all contenders tomorrow.
  38. At one point I had RESOUND for both 4d and 14ac. In the latter it makes perfect sense: RED surrounds SO(viet) UN(ion). I thought there must be a meaning of CONFIDENT I hadn’t heard of and our setter was being extremely devious.
    Nice blog, verlaine. I enjoyed the Farage-esque demolition of the Jutes. In response I’ve been trying to think of something funny to say about that little-known Thomas Hardy novel, Jute the Obscure, but I’ve given up.
  39. Can’t help thinking of CS Lewis’ This Hideous Strength’ in which it stands for the National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments . Spooky book. Difficult to judge what time of day i’m at by best and on Saturdays it’s different. Arbitrary in the end . The goal for is me the elusive clear round. Always one or two clues off
  40. 20-Jan-2018 SCMP
    Great crossword with some fine wordplay: happy to complete after yesterday’s tumble at the last.
    Thanks to setter, blogger (especially for “aporetic” which I will try to use socially) and commenters (especially for the PUKE nonsense, which made me lol).

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