Times 26,939: A Hot Crumpet Burning My Cheeks With Shame

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Last night I dropped in at the Malbec meetup where I participated in a few glasses of Magpie in the company of many, many brilliant setters and not a few notable solvers (Magoo himself and Richard G springing to mind); mindful of my blogging responsibilities I departed early, even though full glasses were still being pressed into my hand even as I made for the door. Anyway on evenings of sobrietal doubtfulness, and I’ve had a few this week, my own solving ability is all up in the air and I see in the cold light of a January morning that this took me 12 minutes on the clock, could’ve been worse.

This was a very witty puzzle with some entertaining vocabulary (WOTD to *that sense* of 5ac!) and some really fun definitions that begin right out of the gates with 1ac. My Clue Of The Day is, and was from the moment I first twigged what was going on, 4dn and its brilliant definition part. FOI 21ac (always a bit alarming when it you’re more than halfway down before anything clicks), LOI 12dn which it took me *way* too long to see was a simple hidden: steer clear of the demon drink, ladies and gentlemen, steer clear.

Many thanks to the setter. I pronounce this proper Friday fare!

ACROSS
1 Jersey-carrying possibly affected half-wit catching cold (4,4)
WITH CALF – (HALF-WIT*) [“affected”] “catching” C [cold]

5 Avoiding blame when our language teaching gets no backing (6)
TEFLON – TEFL [our language teaching] gets NO reversed [“backing”]

8 Cod with unpleasant smell circling round one’s washing (10)
SHAMPOOING – SHAM [cod] with PONG [unpleasant smell] “circling” O I [round | one]

9 Not the white team, we hear (4)
YOLK – homophone of YOKE [team, “we hear”]

10 Too trendy to win round barristers, in general (4,3,7)
INTO THE BARGAIN – IN TO GAIN [trendy | to | win] “round” THE BAR [barristers, in general]

11 Play set in a Southern English town (7)
STAINES – (SET IN A*) [“play…”] + S [Southern]

13 Idiotic of doctor cutting French department back (7)
TOMFOOL – OF MO [of | doctor] “cutting” LOT [French department], all reversed [“back”]

15 Going on pig’s back, following ox with family (7)
YAKKING – {pi}G, following YAK [ox] with KIN [family]

18 It follows return of airmen to this point (4,3)
THUS FAR – THUS [it follows] + reversed RAF [“return of” airmen]

21 Content in the style of old magazine? (7,2,5)
PLEASED AS PUNCH – cryptic definition playing on the two (differently pronounced) meanings of content.

22 Demanding head should not be involved in quarrel (4)
TIFF – {s}TIFF [demanding, “head should not be involved”]

23 Shortest section of the track Nine Ladies Dancing (6,4)
INSIDE LANE – (NINE LADIES*) [“dancing”]

24 Girl recalled attempt to chop wood (6)
MYRTLE – TRY [attempt] “to chop” ELM [wood], all reversed [“recalled”]

25 Craft displayed by heads of European Science Institutes (8)
LAUNCHES – LAUNCH [craft] displayed by E{uropean} S{cience}

DOWN
1 Small boy tethers dogs (7)
WESTIES – WES TIES [small boy | tethers]

2 Where to stand round at breakfast? (5,4)
TOAST RACK – cryptic def, “round” as in a round of toast

3 Rotating machine showing effect of sun after eclipses (7)
CAPSTAN – TAN [effect of sun] after CAPS [eclipses]

4 With pride, she and I performing in reduced circumstances (7)
LIONESS – I ON [I | performing], in the “circumstances” of LESS [reduced]

5 What was a woolly bear’s extraordinary girth to me! (5,4)
TIGER MOTH – (GIRTH TO ME*) [“extraordinary”]. The woolly bear being the creature’s caterpillar stage.

6 Rugby player’s sneaky little drink (3,4)
FLY HALF – FLY [sneaky] + HALF [little drink]

7 Men network at party in US resort (7)
ORLANDO – OR LAN DO [men | network | party]

12 Potential miss — not entirely upset when it’s enregistered (9)
ERNESTINE – hidden reversed in {wh}EN IT’S ENRE{gistered}

14 Composer not keen on a pop screening please note (9)
OFFENBACH – OFF EACH [not keen on | a pop] “screening” NB [please note]

16 Papa with family forms to fill out (7)
AMPLIFY – (P + FAMILY*) [“forms”]

17 Reinforced building before attack: a healthy practice (4,3)
KEEP FIT – KEEP [reinforced building] before FIT [attack]

18 Russian leader’s wife volunteers to hide chemical weapon (7)
TSARINA – TA [volunteers] “to hide” SARIN [chemical weapon]

19 A lot to bear with difficulty from Cockney youth (7)
UMPTEEN – ‘UMP [to bear with difficulty, “from Cockney”] + TEEN [youth]

20 Woman’s brought up slippers for repairs in cobbler’s? (7)
REHEELS – HER reversed [woman’s, “brought up”] + EELS [slippers = things that are slippery]

70 comments on “Times 26,939: A Hot Crumpet Burning My Cheeks With Shame”

  1. 35 mins with porridge (surprise) and banana. Cups (Illy 2012).
    I liked this; some original bits of wordplay (‘a pop’, slippers) and modern synonyms (Teflon).
    But not keen on Ernestine (however well concealed).
    Mostly I liked: Into the Bargain (COD), our Myrtle, Wooly Bear and Fly-half.
    Thanks setter and V.
    1. I have a soft spot for Ernestine, as she was Lily Tomlin’s telephone operator character (“Is this the party to whom I am speaking?”).
  2. I seem to have wasted a good deal of time enduring senior moments: I had the KKING (after finally remembering RACK; had the TOAST) and still couldn’t think of an ox; I had HES early on, couldn’t think of a craft. I biffed TIFF from the F, but thought ‘demanding’ lost its head and couldn’t think of a word from which to delete the D, so I de-biffed. That sort of thing. Biffed ERNESTINE, then finally discovered the hidden. Does FLY mean ‘sneaky’? I thought it meant ‘clever, knowing’. Liked YOLK.
  3. 9:25. Obviously on the wavelength today. Quite a lot of semi-biffing: the answer going in on the basis of the definition and some element of the wordplay without anything like full understanding.
    Nothing completely unknown, although I couldn’t tell you what a CAPSTAN is. Other than that it’s a rotating machine, obvs.
    Fun puzzle.

    Edited at 2018-01-19 08:22 am (UTC)

    1. You don’t really need to open it to know that it considers that almost every word in the English language can be abbreviated to its first letter.
      Collins has something similar but says it’s mainly Scottish.
  5. Splendid puzzle, lots of wit, 22 minutes. I time my checking phase today and found it added slightly more than a minute, but was just as well as I corrected DAMFOOL to TOMFOOL: There might just as well be a French department that supplied the missing letters.
    Very much liked TOAST RACK and was happy to remember the TIGER MOTH larva. ERNESTINE my last in, recalling too late the maxim that if the clue makes no cryptic sense it’s probably a hidden.
  6. Nice puzzle. I particularly liked some of the surfaces today – ‘Girl recalled attempt to chop wood’ was nice, but my COD to ‘Play set in a Southern English town’. I biffed STAINES from crossing letters and it was only when I looked back afterwards that I saw what a neat clue this was.

    TEFLON puts me in mind of my son, who my wife and I often call ‘Teflon Tom’. Nothing’s ever his fault!

    1. Ha! I have a couple of those. Eldest son once said ‘it’s not fair, you blame me for everything I do!’
  7. An excellent puzzle that required a lot of thinking about but I was never stuck. Finished in 43 minutes which suggests it was a good workout for this non-speed-merchant.

    I’ve known what a capstan looks like, at least I had an image of it in my mind, from an early age as pictured on the packet of the eponymous brand of cigarettes, but it never occurred to me that it was a machine, just a vertical spindle that navy types wound rope around.

    “Teflon Tony” was Blair’s nickname for a long time until unfortunate events of his own making finally overtook him.

    Edited at 2018-01-19 09:15 am (UTC)

    1. It’s both the rope-winding maritime device from the cigarette packet and a machine, very vaguely like a lathe, used in engineering. An engineer would probably contradict me but that’s acceptable in crossword land. Bob K.
    2. I was a bit surprised at first; but a) a couple of guys walking in a circle singing ‘yo, heave, ho!’ can only lift so much, and b) levers, pulleys, and screws are (simple) machines.

      Edited at 2018-01-19 11:59 am (UTC)

      1. I have actually seen one used in real life by a group of men installing replacement harbour lock doors just down the hill from me in Bristol. The doors are normally hydraulically operated but they have a backup mechanism that they used to open and close the doors before all the plumbing and wiring was in place.

        It was quite odd to wander down to the ferry stop and find a bunch of navvies trundling around a large capstan, two to a lever…

  8. 25 mins of pure pleasure here. Just the right level of difficulty for me; a quality offering.
  9. Interesting puzzle with some original definitions that required application. Had forgotten the woolly bear but luckily anagram was easy. Liked the LIONESS. Thank you setter and well blogged V
  10. Just finished this watching the cricket and with interruptions by a roofing contractor assessing the ravages of winter (to the house and not to me) so no accurate time to offer, but I wouldn’t have been quick. LOI STAINES, which I should have seen earlier. COD TOAST RACK, a piece of equipment that doesn’t keep toast warm enough for my taste but I guess that’s difficult to achieve. I loved LIONESS too. KNEW TEFL(on) from my nephew’s career. Coincidentally he has a WESTIE. Wouldn’t have known how to spell YAKKING without the clue. Did not parse OFFENBACH but crossers left no doubt. Enjoyable puzzle, apart from when we lose another wicket. Thank you V and setter.
  11. Just over an hour while multitasking. YOLK and ERNESTINE LOsI. Like our blogger, really liked TEFLON. A great Friday puzzle. Thanks verlaine and setter.
  12. 30’15. Entertaining. Wasn’t too sure of the network. Nice to have a toast rack popping up – a great symbol of all that truly matters, now slowly beaten backward into the past.
  13. Very testing, not so much in terms of how long it took to solve, or how obscure the vocabulary, but in that lots of clues needed to be looked at from every angle before you could see what it was you were looking for in the first place. That takes great skill, I think. I also think it’s part of the informal consensus here that if a hidden word clue is your LOI, it’s a good ‘un, which was the case for me and the elusive ERNESTINE (I have now added Z’s maxim on that subject to my short list of rules, which is, in fact, mostly just the one rule, that any solution you can’t explain is almost certainly wrong).
  14. DNK TEFL but it had to be. It reminded me of the “Teflon Don”, the mafioso who was often in the news some years ago. Same as Kevin with ERNESTINE. “One ringy dingy” and “we don’t care, we’re the telephone company”. Got all the way to THUS FAR without a nibble – the mark of a good puzzle. Thanks to Jimbo for the CAPSTAN tobacco reminder, which in turn put me in mind of Dud and Pete and Bollard, the man’s cigarette. 20.42
    1. I’d forgotten, Olivia, that you were in the Land of the Free long enough ago to remember when SNL was funny. But if you’ll permit, it was “The telephone company: we don’t care, we don’t have to.” Or words to that effect. (For those of you on the other side of the pond, Bell Telephone for years was a monopoly; and in those days, black and white, left and right, male and female, the nation was united in its detestation of that company.)
  15. Got there in the end, but I found that tricky. My last 3 in were STAINES, ERNESTINE and INTO THE BARGAIN, where I’d been trying to make an anagram out of (too trendy to win)*. I found the NW the most elusive, although TOAST RACK was my FOI. I had a furrowed brow over TEFLON which was obviously correct, but I can only assume is an indirect reference to teaching English as a Foreign Language? I biffed MORONIC at 13a until ORLANDO put me right. LIONESS was clever and kept me guessing for a while, even though pride suggested lions immediately. An enjoyable puzzle. Thanks setter and V. 48:32.
    1. To answer your question, yes – TEFL is Teaching English as a Foreign Language. I biffed it and had to google to confirm the abbreviation.
  16. 18:29 … with what’s currently a pattern for me — solve all bar one in 13 minutes then spend 5 worrying at a single clue. Today’s, of course, was ERNESTINE. That ‘Potential’ doesn’t quite compute in my mind, so even once I’d guessed the answer I wasn’t happy with it. Of course, it would have helped if I’d noticed the hidden.

    Great fun elsewhere, with the canny definitions for the LIONESS and the expectant ungulate getting my vote

  17. 26:39, stuck for an age on my last two LAUNCHES and UMPTEEN. Lots of fun to be had here with some very sneaky definitions. I particularly liked 1a, 8a and 9a, but LIONESS my favourite. Thanks setter and V.

    Edited at 2018-01-19 01:14 pm (UTC)

  18. An hour for this, so a good day to inadvertently press the ‘submit without leaderboard’ button and protect my SNITCH.

    Staines will always be a) in Middlesex and b) simply Staines, and not the posey invented Staines-upon-Thames.

  19. A puzzle of the highest quality that kept me thoroughly entertained for 16:51. The only thing that left me puzzled was the T in TEFLON as I thought the language things was just EFL (thereby preventing folk from talking about teaching TEFL).

    Thanks to setter and blogger. By the way V, your addled mind allowed you to reference the non-existent 12ac in your preamble.

  20. Thanks for the blog. I just scraped in under an hour at 58:54 but with a few unparsed.

    I eventually spotted the hidden ERNESTINE but I’ve still no idea who she is – could someone enlighten me please?

    1. I think it’s just an (obscure!) female name, but if you want to be a hit at parties you could always drop into conversation the fact that Ernestine was an early comic opera from the pen of Choderlos de Laclos, before he went on to write Dangerous Liaisons…
  21. Cracking puzzle, just tough enough to keep me fizzing.
    Although 12D’s. “ Potential Miss” derailed me into pre-op gender realignment territory.
  22. Well over the hour today and didn’t spot or get near ERNESTINE. Like Sotira I was misled, perhaps unfairly ( certainly worth a VAR) by Potential and still can’t see why it is there in terms of the cryptic. No doubt more evidence of my growing dimness. Other than that I enjoyed today’s challenge, especially the moth and the lioness. Thank you to the setter and as ever to V for the enlightening blog.
  23. Took over an hour but fell asleep a couple of times as lying on couch full of the cold. Kicking myself for not seeing the hidden ERNESTINE and eventually just putting the answer in with a shrug as it couldn’t be anything else. I’ve drilled myself time and again for decades to check for hidden words, but still got caught. Nice puzzle; great blog V, thanks.
  24. To begin with Lemonsoles aren’t cod (and arent pluralized that way), but they are an anagram of smells o ones. Which is a round about way of saying that my LOIs were all in the NW. I enjoyed the mis-direction in almost every clue.
  25. I thought this was one of those very well done and entertaining puzzles, that reminds me why I do these things. Thanks to the setter. But it took me 45 minutes or so, never finding any wavelength, or perhaps having to find a different wavelength for each clue. LOI was YOLK and generally I found the NE area the toughest, and didn’t know of TEFL prior to today. Thanks to Verlaine also, and regards.
  26. A DNF here, with two-and-a-half answers left in the top-right corner. After my hour expired, I looked up rugby positions and after putting in 6d FLY HALF managed to come up with 5a TEFLON and 9a YOLK quite quickly. Not sure I’d have managed them any other way, though, especially as I didn’t know the definition for 9a, or of “fly” in 6d, though I had at least heard of TEFL.

    Then again, maybe I was just being dense today, as I got a DNF in the QC, too…

    Edited at 2018-01-19 05:38 pm (UTC)

  27. PS: Thanks for the title reference, V. I can just see him now, being grilled on his Latin vocab…
  28. I found this tricky and didn’t get very far with it for 20 mins on the morning commute. 40 mins at lunchtime had it all sewn up. All fair though, in fact, the only unknown element for me was the woolly bear in 5dn but the anagrist was quite workable and it didn’t really hold me up too long. FOI 1ac. LOI, like others the hidden 12dn (why is it those hiddens are always in the last place you look). A couple of highlights among many were 16dn and 19dn. A high quality puzzle and I very much enjoyed the challenge.
  29. Forty-one minutes, which is my ideal solving time – much less and I figure the puzzle’s too easy and I haven’t got my money’s worth; much more and I tend to give up.

    FOI was THUS FAR, LOI was INTO THE BARGAIN, as I hadn’t a clue how to parse it. Well, of course, technically I did have a clue. In any event, I was perilously close to putting in the completely untenable “into the curtain” until I was saved by a last-minute alphabet trawl.

    Very nice puzzle.

    On a sadder note, I see that Peter Wyngarde has passed away. It was a double shock to discover that not only had he died, but that he had still been alive up until now.

    1. He was a very spooky Peter Quint in The Innocents (The Turn Of The Screw) where he played a ghost! I thought he was dead too….
    2. It was de rigeur in the early seventies for young businessmen to set off their loud, flared suits and kipper ties with a Jason King moustache, a look I carried off very badly. With an electric razor, I could never get the two ends the same length.

      Edited at 2018-01-20 06:12 am (UTC)

      1. I’d never heard of Jason King but I like the sound of it: “When a case proves too baffling for the minds of Interpol, they turn to the talents of Department S”
          1. It was ejaculated by Arthur Daley when unexpectedly encountering DCI Chisholm on the Orient Express during a Christmas special episode of ‘Minder’ in the early eighties. Classic British comedy of its day.
            1. Ah, Patrick Malahide. He turned up as a beautifully self-aware old-school London gangster in an episode of Luther I watched last week. One of those actors who’s been entertaining me all my life…
  30. Like others, I enjoyed this puzzle, though had to use aids for UMPTEEN. Does “Hump” really mean “bear with difficulty”?
  31. Enjoyed the blog but … as a newcomer to commenting here, I don’t know whether I’m allowed to say that it makes me feel small when one of you clever people say: “my own solving ability is all up in the air ….. this took me 12 minutes”. I couldn’t even write in the answers that fast! No offence meant BTW. Best wishes, Richard
    1. Welcome, Richard, it’s good to have your contribution. The solving speeds are all relative; Verlaine’s average over the last 6 months is around 8 1/2 minutes, so 12 is a slow day for him. But many long-term solvers still enjoy the challenge with an average of 30-45 minutes. Many of us would still struggle to do even that consistently. With regard to maximum speed, the fastest solvers occasionally break 3 minutes, though the fastest average time (for real solutions) is around 6 minutes.
    2. It may sound a bit odd, conceited at first, but this site (as per its name) was set up to compare times. All of us mortals have felt awed by the times some of the geniuses manage, but I also think that part of the charm (not to mention, edge) of this site derives from the very fact that there’s a gratifying lack of an over-reverential approach to The Art of the Crossword, as well as a platform for all types to be themselves without apology.
  32. Mr Lemon Cello thinks 12 mins is slow I assure it is not!
    I took 10 minutes to fill in the top half and a further ten minutes to fill in the bottom half. With a large gap in the middle known as Fridayitis!

    FOI 2dn TOAST RACK
    LOI 6ac TEFLON (TEFL?)pathetic!
    COD 12dn ERNESTINE
    WOD 15ac YAKKING

  34. About 15+15=30 minutes solving all told, but with a nice nap in the middle. There are some very fresh ideas. COD: TOAST RACK. TEFL is a common term here in Hong Kong. Can someone explain where “potential” comes in, please? I don’t see it. Thanks all.
    1. I believe that one was remarked upon as being a little odd on the day. I mean an Ernestine could be a miss or a Mrs of course… It all makes for a nice surface reading at least.
      1. Thanks Verlaine. So Wes is definitely a boy, Myrtle is definitely a girl, but Ernestine is only possibly a Miss? Ah well, best not to push for cross-clue consistency too hard: this isn’t mathematics.
        1. I think Ernestine is almost certainly a girl, but it’s hard to determine her marital status from just her name!
          1. Sorry for not being clearer about my point, such as it is.

            Your argument is: Ernestine is a girl, but might be married, so to cover this possibility, we are told that Ernestine is a potential miss.

            Compare though: Wes & Myrtle are boy & girl i.e. children. But people called Wes & Myrtle might be adults. So to cover this possibility, why aren’t we told they instead that they are *potential* boy & girl?

            I hope you can see that the treatment is inconsistent.

            I’ve a feeling the Wes/Myrtle thing may go back to Victorian culture, when only children were addressed by their first names. So unspeakably modern Ms Ernestine is breaking the rules, god bless her.

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