Times 26908. In which George stares at his phone in a dressing room and a bar

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time : 1:59:42. Yay – I came in under two hours. OK – this was the first time I did the crossword on my cellulite phone, in breaks during a show I was performing in. OK – time wise it was not too hot, but in the end I did rather like the interface for solving on a small phone screen with one clue at a time showing up at the bottom of the screen.

So the time is greatly inflated, but I did like the ability to do the puzzle in bits and pieces from a long way away from my laptop.

Apologies for the typos in the original post – I was “tired and emotional” as they say by the time I was deposited home.

Away we go…

Across
1 CHEAPO: CO(business) containing HE(fellow), A, P(bit of money)
4 DWARFISH: gold, gold, gold, gold, beard… D(daughter) then RAW reversed, FISH(seafood)
10 ON THE TROT: (m)ONTH(s) then E(European), TROT(leftie)
11 MAORI: I ROAM reversed
12 SMARTEN: an anagram of GARMENTS less G
13 HITTITE: HIT(struck) by sounds like TIGHT
14 UNTIE: U(university), NT(books), I(necessibl)E
15 PINOTAGE: PINT AGE(time for beer) containing O
18 JAM TARTS: JA(German yes), MARTS(markets) containing T
20 IMAGO: I’M(this setter), AGO(in the past)
23 ASIATIC: A, then SCIATIC(hippy – of the hip) missing the first C
25 ON A ROLL: double definition
26 ONSET: ON(leg), SET(put in plaster)
27 FATHEADED: A and THE(articles) in FAD(fashion), ED(editor)
28 AMETHYST: (f)AME, then THY(your, antique), ST(stone(
29 SENDER: hidden reversed in tiREDNESs
 
Down
1 CROSSCUT: C(a hundred), then an anagram of SCOUTS under R(river(
2 EXTRACT: EXTRA(another), CT(cent)
3 PRETTIEST: ETT(y) (British artist) inside PRIEST
5 WATCH ONE’S MOUTH: double definition
6 REMIT: TIME(prison sentence) reversed after (ma)R(ch)
7 IRONING: I, RING(toll) containing ON
8 HAILER: sounds like HALER
9 TRANSPORT CAFES: anagram of FRANCE’S TOP STAR
16 TAIWANESE: EAT(worry) reversed with WANE inside I’S inside
17 COLLIDER: COL(pass), L(learner) then RIDER(driver)
missing the beginning
19 AT ISSUE: or A TISSUE
21 AVOIDED: AD(publicity) surrounding an anagram of VIDEO
22 SAMOSA: S(son) in SAMOA… yum
24 TITCH: remove the top of STITCH

45 comments on “Times 26908. In which George stares at his phone in a dressing room and a bar”

  1. Another LOI CROSSCUT here. I was sure that “excavated” SCOUTS should be SS, not an anagram. Mind you, when I helped out on archaeology digs as a teenager I smashed a lot of stuff up that I should probably have been painstakingly scraping away at, so there may be something in this clue after all…
    1. I’d imagine that any archaeologist worth their salt would be more excited by the discovery of dozens of shards than one measly pot so I wouldn’t worry.
  2. The S on the end of scouts wouldn’t be accounted for and the river Ros would be too obscure.
  3. I didn’t find this easy, taking 46 minutes, but it wasn’t as tough as yesterday’s. That said, I am still in a sufficiently grumpy mood to take issue with “excavated” as an anagram pointer, and with PRETTIEST meaning “most effeminate”. I’m also unhappy with the ETT coming from Etty since (a) he (or she?) is fairly obscure and (b) notwithstanding (a), he (or she) came up yesterday. There must have been much prettier ways to clue that one. And I agree with Horryd that having “one’s” in the clue for 5d was clumsy.

  4. Pretty much agree with the comments that have already been made. I nearly came a cropper entering ‘cheapy’ at 1a but realised in time that 1. it didn’t parse, and 2. it would probably be spelled ‘cheapie’ if that was the right word. Somewhat underwhelmed, but better luck tomorrow maybe.
  5. “France’s top star,” that is. He could appear here any day now, though, having just kicked the bucket.
    I also balked at PRETTIEST for “most effeminate,” but it’s one of those British slang things, according to Collins: “informal | lacking in masculinity; effeminate; foppish.”
    We had our office holiday party yesterday, so I couldn’t really tackle this until today.
    PINOTAGE is a new one for me.
    As for CROSSCUT, I was assuming there must be a Ross River somewhere (and there is, with a viral disorder named after it), and so the “excavated” SCOUTS would refer to… actually, I don’t know what I was thinking! Ha.

    Edited at 2017-12-15 08:22 am (UTC)

  6. I did pretty much all but the SW in 23 mins this morning. I then had all but my LOI tidied up in 10 mins at lunch with amethyst opening things up in the SW but parsing that LOI 23ac pushed me on for another 8 mins beyond that. I just took ages to see hippy as anything apart from the sixties flower child sort, even though it was in inverted commas, and in a cryptic crossword clue. Eventually twigged the “not the first Conservative” bit and saw “sciatic”. I also was not sure about prettiest for most effeminate or excavated as an anagrind it feels like it lends itself more readily to indicating that all of the letters in the middle of the word should be thrown out, Concise OED: excavate 1. make (a hole or channel) by digging; dig out (material from the ground. 2. carefully remove earth from (an area) in order to find buried remains. Other dictionaries and definitions are of course available but this does feel more like a remove the insides type of a word than a mix them all up type.
  7. Busy all through the day today — so did this one just before bedtime: 46mins after wasting ages on ‘crosscut’ (LOI) and ‘Taiwanese’ (POI – penultimate one in). I agree that the setter seemed to be trying too hard: I’m uneasy about the wonky definitions (prettiest = most effeminate? titch = youngster? crosscut = tunnel?), the stray ‘a’, ‘excavated’ as an anagrind, and the repeat of ‘one’s’ in 5d.

    And these Ettys? Just like buses, aren’t they?

    I have many times done the Cryptic on my clapped-out iPhone4 — it’s a bit like looking up words in the Morse-code version of the OED. I reckon under 2 hours is pretty damn good!

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