Times 26961 – flummoxed again by Poets and Polynesian Powers

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Another challenging Wednesday, with some fine clueing and smart wordplay, enhanced, or spoilt (depending on your knowledge, or lack of it) by a couple of “general knowledge required” answers which were otherwise hard to guess from the wordplay. It took me 21 minutes and I had to check 18a and 25a afterwards to be sure I was right.
CoD awards to 26a and to 5d for the fine anagram and relevant surface.

Across
1 Officer’s plan again to retreat (6)
WARDER – to REDRAW is to plan again, reverse it.
5 Tribe has bewildered language expert (8)
HEBRAIST – (TRIBE HAS)*.
9 Looked at team getting embarrassed after trick (10)
CONSIDERED – CON = trick, SIDE = team, RED = embarrassed.
10 Island for the nobs featured in back issue of periodical (4)
GUAM – U = upper class, for the nobs, inserted into MAG reversed. US run island in the Pacific which Rocket Man has his beady eyes on.
11 Reduce something bloody, having got back in time (8)
DEROGATE – GORE something bloody, reversed inside DATE = time. At first I was trying to parse it with RED and AGO but not so. I thought derogate meant detract from, or deviate, but I can see reduce is a ‘more or less’ synonym.
12 Endless chatter around a fellow’s clubs (6)
LATHIS – TAL(K) reversed then HIS = a fellow’s; a lathi is a heavy stick used by angry policemen in Asian countries, and often found in crosswords.
13 Sheep runs that may hold water (4)
EWER – EWE, R.
15 This person is probing your old-fashioned food content (8)
THIAMINE – I AM (this person is) inside THINE (your, old-fashioned). Vitamin B1, otherwise properly named 2-[3-[(4-amino-2-methylpyrimidin-5-yl)methyl]-4-methyl-1,3-thiazol-3-ium-5-yl]ethanol.
18 Poet’s line, one on compassion (8)
LOVELACE – LOVE = compassion, L(ine), ACE = one. I looked at *O*E*A*E for a while with so many options and no poet springing to mind (you will recall I cultivate my ignorance of poetry). Apparently Richard Lovelace was a Cavalier poet and socialite who, when in jail for a year, penned that well known bit about ‘stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage’. In your dreams, chum, they were quite effective else you’d have escaped.
19 Bed or mattress? It may be found in here (4)
DORM – Slightly hidden word in BE(D OR M)ATTRESS.
21 Affected by bugs, get cold after first day of month (6)
SEPTIC – SEPT 1 followed by C.
23 Melting tarmac starts to restrict some vehicles (8)
TRAMCARS – (TARMAC)* then R S = initial letters of Restrict Some.
25 Magical power of weaver in story spoken of (4)
MANA – This wins my Obscure Double Definition Homophone of the Year Award. MANA can mean a few things, one of which is supernatural power in Pacific cultures; Pronounced MAR-NA, it sounds the hero of ‘SILAS MARNER: the Weaver of Raveloe’, the full name of the book by Geogre Eliot. I had never heard of the magical power and I didn’t know Mr Marner was a weaver; apart from that… and *A*A would tempt you to bung in SAGA on the basis of ‘story spoken of’.
26 Priest and French actor performing? It’s uplifting (10)
LEVITATION – LEVI the priest, Jacques TATI the French actor, ON = performing. A refreshing change from the usual priest abbreviations and ET for French ‘and’.
27 Base established — cycle around it? (8)
PEDESTAL – PEDAL around EST.
28 Perversion is admitted by unfortunate male (6)
SADISM – Insert IS into SAD M(ale).

Down
2 Pole’s few lines of poetry (5)
ANODE – AN ODE even I can see would be a few lines of poetry. ANODE being one pole of a battery, the other being the cathode.
3 Sure to be upset following party conversation (9)
DISCOURSE – DISCO = party, (SURE)*.
4 Spoke favouring reform — not Conservative (6)
RADIAL – RADICAL = favouring reform, drop the C.
5 Several faiths TV represented in a religious celebration (7,8)
HARVEST FESTIVAL – (SEVERAL FAITHS TV)*. Nice one.
6 Short chum sits on meadow, squashing one plant (8)
BUDDLEIA – I knew today’s plant, having one, a butterfly bush, in the garden. BUDD(Y) = short chum, LEA = meadow, insert I.
7 Strong tastes, first to last, creating uncomfortable feeling (5)
ANGST – TANGS would be strong tastes, drop the T from front to end.
8 Trader giving one artist supply (9)
STATIONER – (ONE ARTIST)*. Not the first time we’ve had a stationer recently.
14 With something large in the environment, lose out completely (9)
WHOLESALE – I see this as an anagram of LOSE inside WHALE = something large in the environment.
16 Resolved to restrict cold with health-giving ingredients (9)
MEDICATED – Insert C for cold into MEDIATED = resolved.
17 Inscribed within church window maybe see knight (8)
LANCELOT – If you BIFD this and didn’t parse it, go down a snake. A LANCET (apart from being a top medical journal) is a slim, pointed church window or arch. Insert LO for ‘see’.
20 Love appearing in underwear in funny shows (6)
PANTOS – Put O into your PANTS.
22 Traffic needs to speed up heading for Edinburgh (5)
TRADE – DART = speed, up = reversed, E(dinburgh).
24 Cheats and criminals caught out (5)
ROOKS – CROOKS have their C removed.

83 comments on “Times 26961 – flummoxed again by Poets and Polynesian Powers”

  1. 20:55 … but not submitted to the board, thanks to Pip’s Obscure Double Definition Homophone of the Year Award. MANA was the first thing I thought of with an instant weaver=Silas Marner association, but I then spent 5 or 6 minutes trying to convince myself of the magical powers bit. Eventually checked the dictionary.

    Some very satisfying stuff elsewhere, especially THIAMINE

    1. I thought of magical mana instantly (wasted youth playing Magic the Gathering) but never even got the Silas Marner reference, egad!
  2. I wanted it to be SAGA, too, but ultimately settled for MANA, from the definition, without parsing, as I didn’t know the occupation of Eliot’s Silas. LOI.

    Learned a new word: LATHIS. Oh, and that sense of “lancet.” That’s the one I simply forgot to parse.

    Edited at 2018-02-14 07:16 am (UTC)

  3. Got there in 45 minutes with a few guesses and deciding life is too short to waste it parsing the obvious answer at 17dn when it’s not one’s own blogging day. Lost time at 25ac wondering how to make Bottom sound like a 4-letter word. Was rather pleased to come up with the correct answer at 12ac using wordplay only to discover that I already knew the unlikely looking result. In the singular it has caught me out before on more than one occasion.

    Edited at 2018-02-14 07:25 am (UTC)

  5. No finish for me. Spent so long struggling with 11 DEROGATE, which I thought was my LOI, that I missed 25a! Noticed as I came here, but still couldn’t get it, and given that I didn’t know the definition or that Silas Marner was a weaver, I probably wouldn’t ever have got there. Oh well.
  6. 40 mins (except for Mana) with yoghurt, compote, etc.
    But wait – we have to subtract the time spent opening valentine’s cards. So that will be 40 mins.
    Spoilt (I think) by the doubly obscure one.
    Lovelace should be ok – if only via the “Stone walls do not a prison make…” line.
    Mostly I liked: Levitation as I am a Jacques Tati fan. Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday is genius.
    Thanks setter and Pip.
    1. There’s a first time for everything as it seems it has taken 19 appearances in a Times Cryptic for Tati to be clued as an actor!

      On previous outings he has been:
      Film director x 8
      French director x 3
      French film director x 1
      French film maker x 2
      Film maker x 1
      European film director x 1
      Old director x 1
      Former film director x 1 (must have been yesterday’s setter that day!)

      I should get out more.

      Edited at 2018-02-14 09:31 am (UTC)

      1. Playtime is phenomenal!

        My last sighting of M. Hulot was in a cameo appearance in Truffaut’s “Bed & Board” – though not played by the great Tati himself on this occasion.

  7. Actually knew MANA, sort of, but couldn’t come up with it after an alphabet run, perforce incomplete given _A_A. No idea about the weaver bit. Rather TLSish, no? No major prob otherwise, damn it.
  8. After years of doing this “weaver” says either “bottom” or “marner” so guessed 25A was MANA, not understanding the rest of it. Awful clue.

    At 18A why pick the poet? An opportunity to champion Ada LOVELACE who with Charles Babbage produced the first computer. Why can’t setters see beyond their literary blinkers?

    Well blogged Pip

    1. Good point. She deserves an inclusion. There’s a blue plaque recalling her in St James’ Square, London, on the outside of what I think is now a political think tank, and a few doors away from the memorial to Yvonne Fletcher opposite the old Libyan embassy
      1. She was quite a lady. She wrote of how the machine could be programmed with a code to calculate Bernoulli numbers, which some consider to be the first algorithm to be carried out by a machine and thus the first computer programme.

        She was a visionary who predicted that computers could do more than just crunch numbers. She foresaw the multi-purpose functionality of the modern computer. Although Babbage believed the use of his machines was confined to numerical calculations, she mused that any piece of content—including music, text, pictures and sounds—could be translated to digital form and manipulated by machine.

        2. Ada was on my shortlist of daughter names, but sadly it proved just a bit TOO popular among computer programmer types…
        3. We seem to be having a bit of a fad, where any female one can name has somehow been shamefully overlooked as the inventor or discoverer of something or other. But Ada Lovelace, on the other hand, is a genuine mathematician who fully deserves her recent revival in popularity. Especially as being Byron’s daughter can’t have been very easy..
      2. And Nancy Astor (first female to take her seat in Parliament, not the first female MP though) has her blue plaque next to the old Libyan embassy on what is now the Naval and Military Club (the In and Out).
    2. Please do not insult the setter who is scientifically educated, but who has knowlege beyond science too. It just happens that the first idea coming to mind fitted the poet better, that’s all!
      1. I could not love thee, dear, so much, lov’d I not crosswords more. Lovelace makes the short list of poets that I can quote (or misquote) at reasonable length from…
      2. You are anonymous, which I don’t normally respond to. But just in case you are the setter .. nobody intended an insult, I’m sure. But there is *definitely* a feeling that science and literature are deserving of a more balanced presence than Times crosswords provide. Or the media generally, if it comes to that. Which it seems the function of a forum, to express
      1. As you’re the same anon as above I’m betting you are the setter. Don’t be shy in future – say who you are and we’ll respond

        I used to hate it when the editor did that to my clues but no forum back then to prove what I always felt – that my effort was better than his!

        1. The editor always gives the setter advance notice of any clue changes.
          No complaint was received in this instance 🙂

          The Editor

  9. I thought story spoken of must be ZAGA (dodgy homophone for Saga) since I had no idea what MANA was or that SIlas Marner was a weaver. I think it was a terrible clue, since both ways to get to the answer were so obscure. Or maybe it’s just sour grapes, on the usual basis that “obscure” just means “unknown to me”. Whereas if LOVELACE had been clued with Ada, it’d have been a write-in for me.
  10. Another beaten by MANA (I suspect it won’t be a very exclusive club). Double definitions where both elements are unknown are just about unsolvable; even guesswork or an alphabet trawl was unlikely to help as Chambers gives 86 suggestions for -A-A. I agree with Jimbo.
  11. … having ploughed and scattered in too many fields, in total for 48 minutes. Is the setter a 28ac practitioner? Dare I now admit to enjoying the challenge? I read and enjoyed Silas Marner once upon a time, and so eventually wrote in the unkown MANA over the top of the biffed ‘saga’, which never looked right. LOI another unknown, LATHIS, constructed hesitantly. COD to THIAMINE by a short head from the neat PEDESTAL, on which I place all those who did this in under the half hour. I’ m usually with Jimbo in wanting more science/ engineering/ technology clues, but I’m pleased the setter went for Richard rather than Ada, who I’ve never heard of! Thank you Pip and setter.
    PS On edit, I feel really bad about not remembering Ada now. I watched that episode of Victoria.

    Edited at 2018-02-14 09:36 am (UTC)

  12. … but count me in that not very exclusive club. Another ‘saga’ here… before that I took an age to get ANODE, LOVELACE and an unparsed LANCELOT.

  13. Missed DEROGATE, which I considered but dismissed as not fitting the def., and MANA which I would never have parsed in a month of Sundays. Down the snake with LANCELOT and guessed LOVELACE which at least fitted the wordplay.

    Time off the scale and (partly as a result) can’t say that this was one of my favourites but I did like the ‘Spoke’ def. and learnt a new word in HEBRAIST.

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

  14. DNF. I am genuinely at a loss to understand how setter and editor can look at a clue 25ac and think ‘yeah that’s a good one’.

    Edited at 2018-02-14 09:52 am (UTC)

    1. I quite agree, especially when there are so many options for *A*A (86 someone said). Editor to comment?
  15. Defeated by LOVELACE, Ada being the only one (suitable for the Times) that I’ve heard of, and MANA, a not-in-a-million years answer. Stopped after 35 minutes. Thanks pip and setter.
  16. I’m in the popular club of those who didn’t get MANA. I’m not familiar with Silus Marner or Polynesian culture so never stood a chance. I also invented the poet LONECARE – he’s French, with an accent on the final e, pronounced similarly to the polymath Poincare.
  17. As usual I can get the hard ones but not the easy ones – in my case couldn’t see ANODE was my LOI. Didn’t help that I had an unparsed ABROGATE for a while. I saw MANA, but not appreciating the the pronunciation of it, couldn’t work out who MANNER was, so bunged it in anyway. May I add myself to the ‘complaints to the editor’ club, please?
  19. I’m in the club too. But I did consider GAIA for a while. Not sure why. And I’m still not convinced about 14d really, because the ‘lose out’ (ie oles) is not directed to be ‘within’ the whale. Anybody?
    1. I think that “in the environment” means that the large thing (WHALE) goes around the mixed-up letters of LOSE.
  20. 60m DNF for the same reasons as others above but also the clubs which if I’d met here before – likely – I had long forgotten. I would never have got the poet had it been clued Ada or mathematician so I’m ok with that one at least. Blog much appreciated, crossword less so. Nuff said.

    Edited at 2018-02-14 11:22 am (UTC)

  21. Oh! It was also a DNF after 66mins for me — but not because of the (as I thought, fairly-clued 25a) but because of the *extremely* obscure (well, I certainly haven’t heard of them!) Indian clubs. A good work-out, this one. And being a literary type, the Lovelace and Silas Marner clues weren’t a serious problem.

    Thank you, pipkirby, for a fine blog.

  22. Lots of things I wondered about in this one. ANODE didn’t feel much like a pole: I mean, I know it’s one end of an electrical connection, but thought poles belonged to magnets. I knew MANA, but have always pronounced with a short A, to the manor born, like manna in the wilderness, in the manner of – well, you get what I mean. Made Marner impossible to remember until I submitted in hope, and got all green.
    And I always thought LATHIS were thin, whiplike things, not clubs, though I think they received an airing in Gandhi.
    Both DEROGATE (really?) and LOVELACE were unbiffable from the extremely common crossers.
    “Something large in the environment”? A rather odd definition for a WHALE, and I spent some time wondering how HOLE could fit the same description. My local environment has a large hole in the road, but that probably doesn’t count. And I also thought “With” equals W in these things or why is it there? Thanks for the authentic parsing, Pip.
    So 27 minutes with a furrowed brow. And why does HARVEST FESTIVAL turn up on Ash Wednesday/Valentine’s Day, surely an enticing combination for the more enterprising setter?

    Edited at 2018-02-14 11:49 am (UTC)

  24. As a practising Scotsman, one invisible ‘R’ in a homophone is bad enough, but two is completely unacceptable, especially given the obscurity of both elements of the clue. (And, yes, I did read the damn thing about forty years ago.)
    1. Likewise, this northern Irishman. Silas is the only literary weaver I ever heard of but although having never read the book, I watched the series on TV many years ago. Ben Kingsley, I think. Excellent.
  25. Beaten by MANA (I plumped for Gaia), and less excusably by HEBRAIST.

    Regarding z8’s qualms over “ANODE”, “poles” can definitely be electrical as well as magnetic. For instance, if you reverse the polarity on your car’s battery, it will not end well. There are bipolar transistors (and not because they have extreme mood swings), single-pole and double-pole switches…

    Edited at 2018-02-14 12:20 pm (UTC)

    1. I have done exactly that, Thud, and as ever, you are very right .. though sometimes, I think transistors *do* have mood swings. I definitely had a radio like that
  26. Well that SW corner was a tester, and no mistake. I ended up, unsurprisingly, contemplating _A_A, and realised I needed to turn my thoughts away from Bottom (oo er, missus), at which point Silas M.’s occupation finally sprang to mind*, and I went with MANA on the grounds that there surely couldn’t be a third literary weaver, so it now fitted at least half the wordplay. Not a clue about the magic bit, of course, and if pressed, I would have guessed it was from India rather than Polynesia.

    As to whether it’s fair or not, I guess deciding what’s “acceptable” vocabulary for the daily puzzle opens up a similar debate to what constitutes “general” knowledge. However, it’s the sort of clue guaranteed to spoil a lot of people’s day if used in the championships…

    *A site search reveals Peter B. in an early blog from nearly a decade ago, commenting that his wordplay memory needed to tag Mr Marner as a miser as well as a weaver, whereas I had the opposite trouble.

    1. I got as far as Bottom and Silas M but decided that because I knew the latter was a miser my mind was playing tricks and he couldn’t be a weaver as well.

      So, like Lancelot’s contemporary Brave Sir Robin, I gave up and ran away.

      1. I was asking myself similar questions, and wondering if I’d imagined him being a weaver, and not just a miser; then it occurred to me that he probably didn’t have a passport, but if he did, he must have had something other than “miser” in it as occupation, so he could, at least in theory, be both. Perhaps I need to read the book (or, quite possibly, I already know exactly as much as I need to about the man).
  27. ANODE my last one in as well, science being considerably more beyond my ken than magic (with or without dodgy homophones).
  28. Same as others juggling Bottom and Silas. ANODE from the NY Times puzzles. I never did parse WHOLESALE because I was thinking of the hole in the ozone layer which is supposedly an environmental biggie, with an anagram of “lose” – oh wait – never mind. Our TfTT house HEBRAIST is Zabadak. 19 and 21 evoked the nasty memory of younger daughter’s college DORM being infested with bedbugs. It was so bad they sent everyone home while it was fumigated and I made her empty her luggage in the apartment building hallway and remove all her clothes (well I let her inside for that!). 21.36
  29. I submit that calling a homophone clue a “double definition homophone” (indicated by underlining both clauses in the clue) is misleading. We wouldn’t call 1-Across a “double definition reversal” or 5-Across a “double definition anagram.” 25-Across is a homophone clue, plain and simple.
    1. You are right, of course, except that, given the correspondence above, it’s not plain and it’s far from simple.
  30. Well I did enjoy this crossword, but I liked the comments far more. I would like to nominate “Mana” for Worst Clue of the Year, and this blog and its comments, for “Best Supporting Blog.”
  31. I have to agree with the comments on 25a. After 35 minutes or so I was left with _A_A and knew it wasn’t going to be SAGA. Not having read or watched Silas Marner, I had no idea of his profession, and having no ideas on magic other than Juju or Voodoo I resorted to Google. I had no trouble with LOVELACE, but failed to parse Guinevere’s bit on the side. LATHIS actually rang a bell, and HEBRAIST seemed very likely. I second Jerry’s nominations. Great blog. Thanks Pip.
  32. I knew “mana” from Keri Hulme’s The Bone People, which I loved, but I accept that, despite winning the Booker Prize, it’s not on everyone’s reading list. I seem to remember a lot of people saying they didn’t know Silas Marner was a weaver last time he came up. I trust they are not the same people…
  33. 25ac MANA!! I went for SAGA with little faith, A DNfF!
    2dn ANODE wasn’t much cop either. An odd ode.

    Setter to the naughty chair for upsetting the congregation.
    FOI 13ac EWER
    COD 15ac THIAMINE
    WOD 12ac LATHIS

    Edited at 2018-02-14 04:34 pm (UTC)

  35. I’m with the majority here: no chance on MANA. I looked it up, found the Pacific magical power, and it still seemed too obscure to me. Beyond the pale, that. No idea what Silas did either, had I made the oddball homophonic leap from Marner to MANA. Which I did not. Regards to all.
  36. The weavers that came immediately to mind were Bottom, Silas Marner, Penelope and Arachne. A fairly limited choice. Once I had -A-A the answer was fairly obvious, in spite of my not knowing MANA. I think people are protesting far too much about this clue. One person’s obscurity is another’s general knowledge. Ann
    1. For precisely that reason I regard it as good form for setters to give the setter who doesn’t know something at the edge of what might be considered general knowledge another way into the clue. A certain level of knowledge is expected but these things aren’t supposed to be quizzes.
  37. Mana is fairly ubiquitous to anyone who’s played a couple of computer games (or who lives in Not Zimbabwe)
  38. DNF. Bah! Like others I was stumped by 25ac. Too fixated on trying to crowbar crosswordland’s number one weaver, Bottom, in there. Read Silas Marner yonks ago and vaguely recollected his miserliness but not his weaverliness. Dnk the Polynesian magic. I didn’t even get far enough to consider the long vowel sound and potential homophones. Well and truly snookered by that one. 17dn was biffed with the window unknown or unremembered.
  39. Thanks for WHOLESALE, Pip and especially for the decryption of MANA. I put MAYA, because although I didn’t understand the clue, I knew that Maya is a supernatural power in Hinduism, partially from George Harrison’s song, “Beware of Darkness’ wherein there is a line that goes “Beware of Maya”.
    Guam is an interesting place. I used to go there on a few occasions per year as part of my work for a US cargo airline which flew on contract for the US military. If one’s B747 Freighter happened to sit on the tarmac at Andersen AFB for more than a couple of hours, prior to departure, the snake dog had to be brought out to inspect the plane. It’s handler would put it up into the wheel wells, for example, to sniff out brown tree snakes which have populated the island and depopulated it of birds. Guam is also popular with Japanese honeymoon couples.
    Oh, love your new user pic, Pip!
  40. That he could escape in his dreams, in both the real and figurative sense, was of course exactly the poet’s point.

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