Times 26973 – very comma very tasty

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Seems a bit of a foodie theme today, with one obscure word at 23a which did ring a faint bell once the wordplay suggested it. The top half went in smoothly but the lower was a little more intractable, although it’s one of those puzzles you look at afterwards and wonder why it took so long. About half an hour in two tranches with an interruption.

Across
1 Plates and saucers etc, still not drinking cups! (3,3)
TEA SET – My reading of this is TT = not drinking, with EASE = still inserted. At a stretch i think EASE could mean still as a verb. but perhaps there’s a better idea.
5 Anti-war protester curtailed agreement, one with weapon in hand? (8)
PACIFIST – PAC(T), I, FIST = weapon in hand.
9 Serious about credit, it is ruined (8)
DECREPIT – DEEP = serious, aorund CR, then IT.
10 Energy entering a crowd, a tiny shape-shifter (6)
AMOEBA – A, E inside MOB, A.
11 Meat in fringes of fire, served lit (6)
FLAMBE – LAMB inside F(IR)E.
12 Postprandial drink like coffee ultimately suits when knocked back (8)
DIGESTIF – DIG = like (1960s speak), E = end of coffee, FITS = suits, reversed.
14 I’m going to eat starters of real authenticity: Indian spices for dip (12)
TARAMASALATA – TATA = I’m going, insert R A (starters of real authenticity) then MASALA being Indian spices. I think taramasalata is a bit more than a dip, the real ‘cods roe salad’, when you get it in Greece, but it’s a bit more dippy in Tesco.
17 Beating ancient Greek volleyball team, perhaps, close to defeat (3,2,3,4)
SIX OF THE BEST – Well, there must be 6 players in a volleyball team, because this is SIX OF THEBES for the Greeks followed by T the ‘close’ to defeaT.
20 After better rock music for something spicy (8)
CAPSICUM – CAP = better, beat; (MUSIC)*. I thought capsicums were the large red and green peppers which aren’t spicy, and I hate, not the little chillies that I love, but I see the species includes chillies as well.
22 Grass-coated hide of elk smelt (6)
REEKED – E(L)K inside REED.
23 Wind is returning, low and menacing at first (6)
SIMOOM – SI = is returned, MOO = low, M(enacing). A dusty desert wind; the word means ‘poison wind’ in Arabic apparently and can be spelt several ways in our alphabet. Poison wind in our house is usually blamed on the dog. I DNK it but plumped from the wordplay.
25 Poorest off welcoming very brief stay (4-4)
STOP-OVER – Insert V (very) into (POOREST)*.
26 Theatre boxes always the cheapest accommodation (8)
STEERAGE – Insert E’ER = always, into STAGE.
27 Daughter and curious man avoiding gentle breeze (6)
DODDLE – I liked this one. D, ODD = curious, then remove the GENT from GENTLE to leave LE. A doddle, a breeze, a piece of cake.

Down
2 Name coming up in Waugh, in impartial manner (6)
EVENLY – EVELYN Waugh has his N moved up in the word.
3 Tasty struggle on the field — good to hold back in fact (11)
SCRUMPTIOUS – SCRUM is a rugby ‘struggle on the field’ (weren’t England terrible against the intrepid Scots?). then insert T (back of FACT) into PIOUS = good. I thought the word might have interesting etymology, but it seems to be unknown.
4 With sensitive information, European Community in bizarre protest (3-6)
TOP-SECRET – Insert EC into (PROTEST)*.
5 After uprising, foolish to quit German city (7)
POTSDAM – All reversed; MAD, STOP = foolish, quit.
6 Family planning in the end sound as a bell? (5)
CLANG – CLAN, G.
7 Back hopper to lose tail (3)
FRO – FROG loses its G. FRO as in to and fro.
8 Reshuffle by Tories: that’s a serious state (8)
SOBRIETY – (BY TORIES)*.
13 Went back for a moment (5,6)
SPLIT SECOND – SPLIT = went, departed; SECOND = back, support.
15 In slayer, assume a possible offender? (5,4)
SWEAR WORD – Insert WEAR = assume, into SWORD = slayer.
16 Great author has little time for criminal (8)
BIGAMIST – BIG = great, AMIS (Kingsley or Martin, to taste) (EDIT as pointed ot below, Martin is still with us, so you have to take Kingsley), T(ime). for some reason I was misdirected to the wrong end for a definition and this was my LOI, although it could have been easy had I thought I was looking for a law-breaker.
18 Arrangement of names, some without order, all together (2,5)
EN MASSE – (NAMES S E)* where S E is SOME without the order OM.
19 Celebrate screening a show (6)
REVEAL – Insert A into REVEL = celebrate.
21 Butterfly mark (5)
COMMA – Double definition. Polygonia c-album (comma) is a food generalist (polyphagous) butterfly species belonging to the family Nymphalidae. I used to see them in swarms on the Jurassic Coast as a boy, but I suspect they are less common nowadays.
24 Lines often dedicated to defending harbours (3)
ODE – Hidden in T(O DE)FENDING.

73 comments on “Times 26973 – very comma very tasty”

  1. The novelist in 16dn has to be Kingsley as Martin does not yet qualify for the Times daily.

    27 minutes with SIMOOM from wordplay. I think STILL = EASE either as verb or noun in the sense of ‘calm’.

    Edited at 2018-02-28 07:08 am (UTC)

  2. 35m, with a few biffs along the way, so thanks for the parsings, Pip.

    FOI 1a TEA SET, LOI 27a DODDLE, COD 15d, WOD SIMOOM, which I vaguely remembered from somewhere. WOD TARAMASALATA, which I find looks pretty much the same in Crete as it does in Tesco, though definitely tastes better in a taverna…

  3. a lot of that time being taken up with SPLIT SECOND (COD) and that damned dip, which I only knew because it showed up here some time ago, and was my LOI today. Also wasted time trying to think of a great novelist +T rather than great + novelist + T.
  4. Biff city for me last night (after rolling in late from a long evening of quizzing in the pub, where the quizzing was definitely just a sideshow to some of the other activities one can get involved in in a pub); in order to compete with the times of the New Australian Magoo I definitely have to throw caution/parsings to the wind and hope for the best, these days!

    Edited at 2018-02-28 07:45 am (UTC)

  5. 27 mins with toast and the unparalleled Lime&Gin marmalade (you know where from).
    Only the unknown Simoom held me up while I reeled off all the old makes of VW I could think of. Why wasn’t there a VW Simoom?
    MER at ‘still’=’ease’.
    Mostly I liked: Split Second (COD), like=dig, 6 of the best, man avoiding gentle, ‘swear word’ and Amis.
    Thanks spicy setter and Pip.
    1. Good idea! If there was one, I’d buy it, I’ve had almost all the others (Beetle, Golf, Sirocco, Polo, Touareg, Passat, and next a Tiguan perhaps)
    2. Surely you remember “Life could be a dream–simoom- if I could take you up in paradise up above …”.
  6. 13:03. Once again I was taken well over the 10-minute mark by a single clue. This seems to be happening a lot at the moment. This time it was SIX OF THE BEST, for no particularly good reason I can think of. I’d never have got there from the wordplay, having no idea about how many volleyball players make a team, but still.
    MER at 11ac: when were you ever served anything that was actually on fire at the moment of serving? I do this with prawns quite regularly: it has no discernible effect on the flavour but it impresses the kids.

    Edited at 2018-02-28 08:19 am (UTC)

    1. Sambuca?

      As for flambe dishes I think it’s reasonable to say that serving begins when the dish is brought to the table or adjacent trolley.

      1. Yes I agree really. The eyebrow raise was very minor, but the wording did bring to my mind an image of someone in a restaurant with a burning plate!
      1. I don’t know about you but in my house we tend to wait until the flames are out before we serve it!
          1. Upgraded to Club on an American airline, the nice lady said “What would you like for your dinner? I bet you’ld like a Flaming Yonne” I thought, “Wow, they do flambé in the aisle on this airline!”. Turned out she meant Filet mignon.
  7. Good fun. I liked SIX OF THE BEST and SPLIT SECOND. As Myrtilus, I thought I knew my winds from Lamborghini Bora, Khamsin, Ghibli etc.
    Perhaps there was a Simca Simoom?
  8. 12:45 … I’m awarding myself a time, despite yet another silly typo, because I’m worth it.

    I now realise that several of the parsings here went right over my head, some clever wordplay in some guessable clues.

    COD to the absurd Six Of Thebes clue, though I’m not sure the ‘ancient’ is needed. The city is still there and has been since ancient times, apart from a 20-year break when Alexander flattened the place and sold everyone into slavery who wasn’t related to the poet Pindar

      1. When the Syracusans captured a bunch of Athenians once, the ones who could recite the poetry of Euripides were set free, the others meeting a grisly end. So far I haven’t been able to use the recital of classical poetry to my advantage in life, but I live in hope…
        1. I was trying to think what the modern equivalent would be. I suppose it’s the North Koreans invading and saying “Right, we’re locking you all up except for JK Rowling’s family. We’re big fans.”
    2. Maybe our setter was aware that the Egyptian Thebes is no more (ruins in a suburb of Luxor) but not aware the Greek one is still there, a pleasant market town I have visited.
  9. 20 minutes, with nothing particularly easy but mostly succumbing to a second look. TEA SET was the only one I didn’t parse, though I can’t now see another way of doing it than Pip suggests.
    Perhaps the most outlandish clue was that ancient Greek volleyball team, inviting a possibly offensive SWEAR WORD at the end of “what the….?”. Brilliant and amusing.
    SIMOOM I can’t see without thinking of that McCartney song which has always sounded to me like “simoom, simoom, simoom are we”, which made no more sense than “revved up like a douche” from Manfred Mann, though on that one, I’ve become enlightened.
    Not your normal puzzle, then, but truly scrumptious. Thanks setter and Pip.
    1. I was sure that Elvis sang (in Return to Sender), ‘We had a quarrel, a lover spat’, until my sister, the Elvis fan in a family of Beatlelovers, enlightened me. Mind you, a ‘lover’s pat’ was even more confusing for a 9 year old, growing up on a dairy farm, where ‘cow pats’ were all too common.
      1. Phil Jordan : Surely the King sang of ” a lovers’ spat” ? Not the greatest of his hits, my late father thought he was singing “She rode upon a returner cinder”.
        1. Oh Phil, I do hope you’re right. Nearly 60 years later and finally evidence that my big sister was wrong …once anyway.
  10. ‘To tell the truth our mum ran off with someone else’s father
    Went for two weeks’ holiday in Taramasalata’

    Familiar with the Greek resort from that lyric. Now I find it’s a dip as well. Must try it some time.

    1. I think Elvis Costello was ‘avin a larf. I suppose you could fill the pool with it, for a holiday, like Cleo and the asses’ milk bath. Then it would be a ‘dip’.

      Edited at 2018-02-28 10:27 am (UTC)

  11. Hurrah! 29.07 today so at last a sub-30m but it was nip and tuck as after a flying start, I crash landed in the SW. Held up by the wind, the Billy Bunter beating and the criminal in that sector, as well as the *** offender. But eventually scrambled home with a bit of luck and guesswork. I BIFD a few of these – the dip and the digestif for example – without seeing the parsing, so thank you, Pip, for the elucidation and also the setter for an enjoyable nearly 30m! DODDLE was my pick for today, but I also liked the simple clarity and clear surface of SPLIT SECOND.
  12. I’ve just been rejected as spam. I’ll try again. That was more like it today in 21 minutes. DNK SIMOOM but it fitted the crossers and parsed. 17 across has made me realise after all these years that there are Greek and Egyptian THEBES, both of which I knew about but have kept in separate brain circuits. The volleyball game against Sparta was, I understand, always a feisty affair. COD to LOI SWEAR WORD, one of which yesterday I forswore not to swear. So Pish. Enjoyable puzzle. Thank you Pip and setter.
  13. I found this the hardest yet this week, finishing with the unlikely SIMOOM. I wasn’t confident that was going to be right but couldn’t find any other possible parsing.
    TARAMASALATA reminded me of a clue from some years ago that I liked, “Every other one’s a Greek dish”. Interesting to see the return of POTSDAM after little more than a month.
  14. Yay, finished with no cheating, COD sobriety.

    In 15d, wear = assume, is that as in he wore a smile, he assumed a smile?

    Edited at 2018-02-28 09:40 am (UTC)

    2. Congratulations on finishing without aids. If that’s the first time, it’s a significant milestone!

      I parsed assume=wear as you did. My Concise Oxford app has definition 2 for WEAR (v) as BEAR, …, assume.

  15. Pleasant enough without ever being taxing. No idea about the volleyball team but biffed from definition and 3,2,3,4 construction. No real stand out clues today.
  16. Twenty-five minutes for this one, with BIGAMIST my LOI. I also spent a long time staring at SIMOOM and wondering whether it was too euphonious to be a real word, but apparently it is. My two CsOD are DODDLE and SPLIT SECOND.

    There’s now a third of an inch of snow on the ground, which means that East Anglia will soon come to a standstill, though it will be hard to tell.

    1. In darkest Rutland there’s 4 or 5 inches and still snowing, we’re supposed to be leaving on Friday but fat chance. We may need a helicopter food drop or the pub might run out of beer.
      1. My parents used to live at Carlby – just in Lincs.

        I never really got on the right wavelength with most of thw north going in easily enough but 17ac SIX OF THE BEST and my LOI 15dn SWEAR WORD held me up to 50 minutes.

        FOI 21dn COMMA

        COD 13dn SPLIT SECOND

        WOD SIMOOM

  17. Really enjoyed this one. 21m. Some lovely clues and just the ‘simoom’ unfamiliar but easily gettable.
  18. 13.07 today. FOI 10A, then progressed steadily (biffing 5A, and later 3D where I couldn’t parse the T – thanks Pip !).

    After 11 minutes I was down to just 17A and 16D, and initially wrote in TEN OF THE BEST before realising where “beating” fitted into the scheme of things, and finally Kingsley Amis hit me.

    COD 13D

    Enjoyed this one very much, thanks to the setter. Perhaps tomorrow will be the Beast from the East (or elsewhere !)

  19. Very pleasant. I have seen the Greek dip spelt with an O in some shops (even though it always looks wrong to me), so I was glad to see the clue made it quite clear which the setter favours. Held up briefly by being clever enough to spot the Greek city, but not clever enough to avoid thinking it was THEBAN, rather than OF THEBES, so I thought I was looking for a mysterious BAND to begin with. SIMOOM, like Scirocco and Chinook and Mistral, is one of those things I think I must have picked up from quick crosswords or pub quizzes.
  20. held up by the BIGAMIST/SIX OF THE BEST crossing at the end for far too long. As above, I couldn’t split great and author in my mind.
  21. Snuck under 20 minutes on this enjoyable offering. Am busy learning modern Greek in preparation for a first holiday there in 40 years. At first, the pronunciation is a bugger for those who recited Ancient Greek, but it’s actually much easier in the sense that many of the vowel distinctions have been flattened. I’ll be able to order a beer, but will probably be baffled by any reply.

    I am the surrogate dog in my family of female selective blame agents.

  22. Lots of biffing today: TARAMASALATA, SIX OF THE BEST, ODE & the first half of DIGESTIF all went in with parsing. The only tricky bit was convincing myself that SIMOOM was a believable word. 6m 30s all told.
  23. Like Tim I was glad the setter made the desired spelling of the dip clear. And I’d forgotten DIGESTIF as a drink – I tend to think of biscuits. So we had two of the biggest curmudgeons in Eng. lit., Evelyn and Kingsley, a very peppery pair. Speaking of curmudgeons, BIGAMIST always reminds me of Groucho. 17.23
    1. Me too; I think I’m more used to the “O” spelling, because my parents live in Crete. Having looked it up, it’s a word with a great heritage, with the “tarama” coming from Turkish and the “salata” from Italian, joining together in Greek and finally making it into English. No wonder it tastes so good.
  24. Slow, eventually finishing after 53 min, but at least all correct. I was thrown for a start by SIMOOM which I thought ended with an ‘N’, (I now see that this is an alternative spelling) but the wordplay was unambiguous.

    No idea about a few such as TEA SET which were entered from the def. Couldn’t parse ODE – sad but true. Oh dear.

    I liked the ‘tiny shape-shifter’. Remember those pseudopodia from Form 1 Biology? DECREPIT is also a good word; a bit harsher than ‘frail’ but maybe sometimes more accurate.

    Thank you to setter and blogger.

  25. TEA SET went in unparsed as my first entry, and stayed unparsed until I came here. The rest of the NW followed and confirmed 1a. I enjoyed reading EW’s Brideshead Revisited after a trip to Castle Howard. I then dotted around the grid, leaving 13d, 15d, 14a and 17a as my last ones in, although I went back to the unknown SIMOOM for a rethink after having a chortle at the Greek team. I decided it fitted the wordplay well enough and submitted at 27:34. Nice puzzle. Thanks setter and Pip.
  26. 17:29 and I was a bit slow of brain today. For instance at 12 I considered FITS reversed at the end but decided there wasn’t a word like that and at 4d, whilst I could see what was required, I was looking for something far less simple than TOP SECRET (possibly some Latin bollocks).

    The wind was a case of hit and hope and “weapon in hand” for fist caused a few eyebrow hairs to twitch.

    1. I was expecting something Latin rather than TOP SECRET as well, though I’m not quite sure why.
  27. 9 min 25 secs. My best time in years. Helped by doing the puzzle in the paper rather than on line and lots of risky biffing. I didn’t know Simoom so was relieved that it was right.
  28. Taramasalata was an excellent clue. Never heard of Simoom. 7 letter German city with 5th letter a D – it must be Dresden ( is Potsdam a city)? Smelt or smelled? – either, I suppose – doesn’t one smelt aluminium?
  29. I found this very satisfying. Nice surfaces and a lot of it biffable. But I enjoy parsing as I go. Clocked out at about 18 minutes. I remembered SIMOOM from an old Victorian ballad that my grandfather used to sing. A harrowing melodrama called “The Desert” by Louis Emanuel. Stirring stuff. Later I used to play this song for assorted uncles to warble at family gatherings. Lots of chromatic scales to represent the Simoom. Strange how these childhood memories cling on. Here’s the first verses:

    Alone in the desert, alone, I’m alone,
    My good steed exhausted, my false guide hath flown.
    My path to recover I’ve sought all in vain,
    Oh God! I am lost in this desolate plain.

    No stream can I find, the cool waters to sip,
    Or wildfruit to moisten my blood-swollen lip;
    Still more faintly I draw the life parting breath;
    No breeze but the SIMOOM, whose hot kiss is death.

    For assistance in vain my glance wildly I fling,
    Not a speck in the air save the Vulture’s dark wing:
    Soon shall I feel his keen beak in my breast
    And the desert’s hot sands prove my last couch of rest.

    (I notice that it’s actually been recorded by Gerald Finley – on a CD that includes the Erl King! Another melodrama…) Ann

  30. About a year ago I stumbled upon this site and posted my appreciation for the insights.
    I vowed to post again when I reached the milestone of ‘sub one hour – no aids’.
    Today’s the day – 59 minutes.
    Breaking open the Winter Warmer.
    Next milestone – sub 30 minutes.
    I would avoid holding your breath.
    1. Yes indeed! Well done 😀 Enjoy that winter warmer. (Definitely the night for it. I’m cracking open the Laphroaig in a bit.)
      1. I got a bottle of Laphroaig for Christmas and have claimed my square foot of Islay. I’ll be going to visit it in April when I go to Mull with the family. Apparently we can get a ferry that takes in Fingal’s Cave and the distilleries on Islay. Can’t wait!! 🙂
        1. Ahh, you’ll love it. Laphroaig is within spitting distance of Ardbeg and Lagavulin, so if you can take those in, do. The Ardbeg distillery has a really good cafe/restaurant, and Lagavulin is a little step backwards into the past—the place feels like a 1950s British Rail ticket office.

          If you can head toward the north of the island, though (and you might have to, as the ferry can suddenly switch destinations depending on whether Port Askaig or Port Ellen has more favourable weather!), for me the most picturesque distillery on the island is Bruicladdich. Lovely view over the Sound of Isaly to Jura from their pier. (It’s a not dissimilar view from Caol Ila, but their distillery’s just some elderly concrete boxes, despite the great product :D)

          Enjoy!

    3. And congratulations from me too. It certainly took a very long time indeed for me to ditch the training wheels of ref. sources (and I didn’t discover TfTT until comparatively recently). AND it’s a pleasure to hear a new voice here.
  32. 23:02. FOI 1ac. LOI 17ac. A bit hesitant over the odd looking 23ac but it had to be. I’m another who can’t see 16dn without thinking of Groucho’s: “…it’s big-a-me too”. A small article headed “Computers clued up” on page 4 of today’s Times reports one prolific setter’s view that human crossword compilers will be redundant in 15 years as robots take over. I’m not sure how realistic a prediction that is but I can’t help feeling slightly saddened by it.
  33. Or the two that beat me: I didn’t know the dip (isn’t it remarkable that all the non-checker letters are A? EDIT: I see that pootle73 has beat me to this observation, and provided an example of the kind of clue I was imagining for this…) Nor did I know, or remember, the British phrase for corporal punishment… seems they really have (or had) a thing for that over there…

    Edited at 2018-02-28 10:25 pm (UTC)

  34. That makes two that I’ve finished this week without electronic aids (I allow checking of unknown words, like Simoom, as I go along). That’s a sizeable fraction of my total for the last 6 months, so they are either getting easier, or QC practice and reading tftt is working. Invariant
  35. 43 minutes today, the last 10 or 15 of which were spent staring at SIX OF THE BEST (or rather ?I? O? THE ?E?T) before seeing THEBES in it and deciding SIX was the only three-letter number with an I in the middle. SIMOOM of course also went in from wordplay. Very enjoyable puzzle with many clever clues.
  36. Thanks for the blog Pip. I’ve only just got round to finishing this and resorted to my trusty word finder app in the end.

    I didn’t care much for 15d and I didn’t understand 1a but I think you’re absolutely correct – Collins Thesaurus has ease = still as a verb, although curiously not the other way round!

  37. Breakfast + 5 mins, whatever that was. Very nice clues. COD: SPLIT SECOND. Had a little trouble with SIX OF THE BEST because T_E indicating “THE” suggested ATHENS to me. Thanks all.

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