Times 26,975: Mr Clues Goes To Town

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Well, horryd certainly called it yesterday: after a week of fairly gentle 15x15s we were due for a stinker. Doing this first thing in the morning on a snow day, with the kids blasting out YouTube videos next door didn’t help, but even so the quarter hour came and went and I still had a few recalcitrant customers to polish off.

My overall impression of this one is that there is some virtuoso cluing going on – three &lits or thereabout, an excellent cryptic def, fine surfaces, a great mastery of the setter’s arsenal on display (I know it’s completely obvious what’s going on whenever it comes up now, but I am still tickled by “sandwiches” as a containment indicator) – but somehow I didn’t enjoy this as much as some tough Friday fare, there being a few clues that felt slightly forced into shape. The peasant in 19ac would be completely fair game in a barred puzzle but I’m sure many of us won’t have known it without looking it up here; I was a bit confused about the grammatically convoluted definition “being arranged again” at 22ac (though fair play to the clue for making me waste long minutes pondering RESISTING and RESITTING before finally getting there); is an ovoid really an “egg”; plus a couple of bits of sporting terminology, one of which at least was quite difficult, that always rub me up the wrong way, though I accept that the flaw is in my not in sports, which I do now have to learn much more about, for quizzing purposes…

But yes, I did love the multiple &lits, of which 2dn was I think my favourite, and the cryptic def is clever enough that I think I might even give it my COD. Thanks setter! How did everyone else fare with the today’s tricksiness, mostly irk or mostly smirk?

ACROSS
1 Pack up stuff for temporary abode (5,3)
CRASH PAD – CRASH [pack up, as in a computer] + PAD [stuff, as in a bra, maybe]

5 Noisy pigeon set about quiet old Hollywood actor (6)
COOPER – COOER [noisy pigeon] set about P [quiet]. Gary Cooper, who won Best Actor Oscars in 1942 and 1953 for Sergeant York and High Noon.

10 This could be M’s part? Yes (9)
SPYMASTER – [“this could be”] (M’S PART YES*), Bond-based semi-&lit. FOI

11 Daughter, passionate, celebrated nude (5)
DAVID – D AVID [daughter | passionate]. Michelangelo’s David which you can find in Florence.

12 Finally blow into warm club providing cosy environment (4)
WOMB – {blo}W {int}O {war}M {clu}B

13 He’d put out east from the Caymans, somehow? (9)
YACHTSMAN – (TH{e} CAYMANS*) [“somehow”], nautical semi-&lit

15 Nothing, within reason, eclipsing first of these, apparently (10)
OSTENSIBLY – O [nothing] + SENSIBLY [within reason] “eclipsing” T{hese}

17 Have a go at someone’s short cut (4)
SNIP – SNIP{e} [have a go at some one “is short”]

19 Old peasant to rear woodland creature (4)
HIND – triple def with multiple levels of obscurity

20 Promise fair puzzle (4-6)
WORD-SQUARE – WORD SQUARE [promise | fair]

22 Opposed to golf, on balance, being arranged again (9)
RESTAGING – AGIN G [opposed to | golf], on REST [balance]. Slightly confused about whether the definition has the same transitivity as the answer?

24 Fall for American, not half: love his car! (4)
AUTO – AUT{umn} [fall for American, “not half”] + O [love], to get an American word for car.

26 Starter of duck becoming duck and egg (5)
OVOID – {a->O}VOID. Duck is AVOID, make its starter into a duck [O] and get something that is approximately an egg.

27 Bloomer as drug agent sends out missing drug (9)
NARCISSUS – NARC [drug agent] + ISSU{e}S [sends out, missing E]

28 Fur coat owner’s embarrassed admission? (6)
ERMINE – punctuate differently to get the diffident claim of ownership “er… mine”

29 Declined to pot, for example, first and second reds (8)
LEFTIST – LEFT [decline to pot, for example] + IST + S. In snooker, the “leave” means the position in which a player leaves the balls for the next player, and I assume it works as a verb too.

DOWN
1 Attack pacifist leading appeal for peace (4)
COSH – CO [= conscientious objector = pacifist] + SH! [appeal for peace]

2 Desperate option many tars ponder ultimately? (3,4,2,1,5)
ANY PORT IN A STORM – [“desperate”] (OPTION MANY TARS {ponde}R*), &lit.

3 Lockkeeper to become a leading musician? (8)
HEADBAND – lock-as-in-hair-keeper; and to HEAD a BAND is to become its leading musician.

4 Even pieces of carpet I lay so as to fit (5)
APTLY – every second letter of {c}A{r}P{e}T {i} L{a}Y

6 Refusal to lift tax for working (2,4)
ON DUTY – NO reversed [refusal “to lift”] + DUTY [tax]

7 They need walk-on parts for their sketches (8,7)
PAVEMENT ARTISTS – cryptic def, the pavement artist being one that sketches on the parts of street people walk on

8 Fish from tin, roughly prepared sandwiches (3,7)
RED SNAPPER – SN [tin], “sandwiched” by (PREPARED*) [“roughly”]

9 Ran slowly in what’s deceptive light (8)
TRICKLED – TRICK [what’s deceptive] + LED [= light emitting diode = light]

14 One expecting the right to wear second medal (6-2-2)
MOTHER-TO-BE – THE RT [the | right ] to wear MO OBE [second | medal]

16 Africans, a Welshman, and some Scots? (8)
IVORIANS – IVOR [a Welshman] + IANS [some Scots], Ivorians being inhabitants of Cote d’Ivoire. Still not as good an African people’s name as Equatoguineans though…

18 Time to stop a curiously old-fashioned etching technique (8)
AQUATINT – T [time] to “stop” A QUAINT [a | curiously old-fashioned]. AQUATINT is a word that comes up in crossword puzzles more than you’re expect.

21 Benefit that people must carry over (6)
MAIDEN – AID [benefit] that MEN [people] must carry. A maiden is an over in cricket in which no runs are scored.

23 Stuff essential for giving or getting (5)
GORGE – hidden in {givin}G OR GE{tting}

25 Article female related unaltered (2,2)
AS IS – A SIS [article | female related]

54 comments on “Times 26,975: Mr Clues Goes To Town”

  1. Hmm, or maybe a restaging (n.) is an entity (being) that has been arranged again? I should just stop worrying about this. Or go get myself more coffee, yes, that seems like a good plan…
    1. By all means get more coffee V, but I think you were quite right to find the definition of “restaging” at 22A unsatisfactory. Me too.
  2. 55 mins with a home-made Fat Rascal (pictured, hopefully). Hoorah!
    A long time chewing over some bits – not made easy by MERs like Pack up = Crash (ok, computers, I see) and Attack = Cosh.
    But it was worth it as there are some great clues.
    Mostly I liked: Noisy pigeon, Lockkeeper, M-to-be, &Lit 2dn, and COD to the Pavement Artist (nicely done).
    Thanks elegant setter and V.
  3. Found this medium difficulty,possibly because of not having to cope with the same handicaps as our esteemed blogger.
    Nearly put ostensible.. but didn’t.
  4. Magoo and V both hitting double digit minutes make my 28.53 look pretty nippy. Most time extension for me was caused by the innocuous WOMB, simply not applying the “finally” to anything except blow, and not helped by having HEADLINE for “become a leading musician” with “line” something to do with hair.
    MAIDEN in the SW was another beast of a clue, making OVOID look as if it might be wrong.
    I did like the plethora of &lits, though, and have learned that HIND is an old (Chambers says Scottish, I say Posh) word for peasant. Good stuff.
  5. As blogged above, plenty to be unpacked in this puzzle, so just the thing for a day when I am voluntarily housebound (the snowpocalypse is much more pleasant when you only have to look at it through the window while drinking tea and solving crosswords, and don’t actually have to get anywhere in it). Found myself stuck on the RESTAGING/MAIDEN junction, unable to get RESISTING and the unjustifiable BURDEN out of my mind, which made it harder to see alternatives.
    1. Yes, I had BURDEN in my head for an unconscionable amount of time too. Great minds (and me) etc…
  6. Fought through this like a midget in a snowdrift only to fall flat with ostensible rather than ostensibly.Bah!
  7. 11:37. I seem to have been on the wavelength for this. I’m at home (I did try to get to the office but when I saw the sign saying the next train was coming in 40 minutes I thought ‘sod it’) so I thought I’d have a go at solving on paper. I realised after starting that most of 27ac had been scratched off, but in the event a few checkers and ‘drug agent’ was enough to solve it.
    Very much not a fan of 19ac. One person’s obscure is another’s commonplace of course but this one plainly escaped from a Mephisto.
  8. Somewhere around 20 minutes for all but MAIDEN, which I simply couldn’t get, even after taking a break. It looks simple now, which I suppose makes it a fine clue.

    Same concerns as V over the ‘transitivity’ (what a good word) of RESTAGING, but otherwise it’s all good stuff.

    Snow days not appreciated here. My rented rural property has an antiquated private water supply that has been frozen solid since Wednesday evening. Turns out the life of an eighteenth century HIND is not all that idyllic

  9. 65 minutes on this stinker. LOI MAIDEN. Couldn’t see RESTAGING with resetting/ resisting in my head with ‘opposed’ being ‘anti’ rather than ‘agin’. I should have remembered earlier my Dad used to talk jokingly about being “agin everybody” as the only rational stance. HIND biffed as a deer with the rest of the clue not understood. LEFTISTS eventually seen and the snooker reference then understood, but I wouldn’t have seen it first. CODs jointly to Gary COOPER, DAVID and RED SNAPPER, which I did get. Thank you V and setter.
    1. I managed to persuade myself that 22a was RESTATING, on the convoluted grounds that it was REST + anag of ANTI +G for golf. Trying too hard to be clever, missing the obvious.
  10. 30 min and 15 secs. Restaging and Maiden last ones in. Maiden was very well disguised, I thought.
  11. My dear Verliane, this was no stinker! My fastest Friday time for ages at 22 mins.(I do suffer from Fridayitis) With another 19 mins on Monday and 14 mins on Sunday I am back to my old self – ish!

    FOI 25dn AS IS
    LOI 21dn MAIDEN
    COD 10ac SPY MASTER
    WOD NARCISSUS (Conrad)

    I look forward to Monday’s stinker!

    Edited at 2018-03-02 10:21 am (UTC)

    1. Well done you! However I beg to differ with your assessment. It was a stinker….
  12. I found this chewy rather a stinker. Some excellent clues that needed thinking about but mostly yielded to analysis. I also struggled over RESTAGING but HIND was a write-in. 2D is my favourite. High Noon a good trip down memory lane.

    Complete chaos here. Dorset is not geared up for snow. All major roads impassable last night and a trainload of commuters stuck outside Christchurch with no heating, light, food or drink. Thank goodness we can sit indoors and follow it all on the internet!

  13. I’d echo Jim, although I biffed a couple (27ac from NARC, 8d from enumeration and def), solving post hoc. HIND the peasant definitely an intruder from Mephisto country, but unlike half the Mephisto words, I knew it. Could make no sense of CRASH PAD or LEFTISTS — still don’t get the latter — and thought several times I had sussed OVOID, but then thought otherwise. But everything else seemed fairly straightforward. Except for MAIDEN (LOI), which somehow came to me in a delayed stroke of satori. I suppose RESTAGING works if you take it as gerundive: the restaging of Pygmalion/ Pygmalion’s being arranged again. Or maybe not.

    Edited at 2018-03-02 11:29 am (UTC)

    1. In snooker if your opponent leaves an easily to pot ball at the end of his break, you may decide that it would be a unsafe shot for you to take, as it may not give you an advantage or may be easy to go in off from. In which case you would leave it and play a different shot. You would therefore have left it and declined to pot it.
      1. Am not convinced about this, in snooker commentary to ‘leave’ a ball nearly always means that a mistake has occurred.
        1. My (admittedly very inexpert) understanding of this is that a player might ‘leave’ the most desirable ball (the black, say) because the shot is difficult and a mistake would leave him exposed. As you say this would normally arise as a consequence of a mistake.
            1. Sorry I see now that I completely misread your original comment. I won’t bore you with what I thought you said!

              Edited at 2018-03-02 11:25 pm (UTC)

        2. In that sense, yes, a poor shot can leave a ball over the pocket for one’s opponent, but my interpretation(as a regular player) of an alternate scenario stands.
          1. I’m with you on this one. I can hear John Virgo now – “Well he’s left the red and decided to play safe. He’s obviously worried about going in off the black/knocking the pink in/getting stuck in the pack” etc.
            1. Which reminds me of the famous Ted Lowe quote.. “Steve is going for the pink ball – and for those of you who are watching in black and white, the pink is next to the green.”
      2. Ah. So in snooker one pots balls. Who knew? Well, you, obviously, and everyone else who plays snooker, but. Thanks. (I like ‘go in off from’; reminds me of the little boy complaining about his father’s choice of bedtime reading: What did you bring that book that I don’t want to be read to out of up for?)

        Edited at 2018-03-02 01:02 pm (UTC)

  14. with all but 5 clues done in 20 minutes. I was trying to think of all the African countries ending in ….ia, and could only come up with gambia and zambia – seeing as I (only just) live in Wales, I’m afraid that Ivor escaped me for too long. That left 20a, where I couldn’t be sure which was the literal, and was looking for GOOD something. AQUATINT vaguely known from previous Xwords, and then all I was left with was a HIND to be biffed with a shrug. Tx to all contributors.
  15. Just a thought, V: can we persuade Nestor to come clean on the Club Monthly Nina? I suspect we’ve been had!
  16. DNF in about 45 min, with 21dn/22ac being my downfall – after getting 29ac (not fully parsed, though) at about the half-hour mark had to resort to aids, which showed what would go at 22ac. (I’d been trying to make something of RESTORING or RESETTING) However, I couldn’t see 21dn even when I had all the possibilities to fit the checkers, as I was sure that ‘benefit’ is the definition, so eventually bunged PARDON in to have something to submit.
    I must take the opportunity to say that I liked the semi-&lits, and 19ac, where I had heard of all three meanings.
  17. No wonder I couldn’t parse it, thanks V. Another “burden” here but saw it in time. We heard about your snow and I’m afraid there were some smug remarks made. We do tend to get a lot of it and Rhinebeck is expecting a foot of the heavy wet stuff (the worst) later today. Vinyl will be in the same boat but fortunately we’re in NYC for now which looks like escaping this time. 29.10
  19. Very nice puzzle on the whole – I enjoyed most of the originality and quirkiness.

    My failure was on the nasty 19a where I seem to have come up with a unique wrong answer.

    Old peasant = HUN (well they’re old and some of them must have been peasants)
    To rear woodland = D, obvs
    Creature = HUND (German dog).
    QED

  20. Wow that one shook the cobwebs away. Thinking cap required with bells on! I struggled to get a foothold, and then kept on struggling. However, persistence paid off and I successfully submitted at 61:17. I didn’t get a nibble until AUTO, and that sat as a lonely entry for quite a while longer. ERMINE was next, closely followed by MOTHER TO BE, then there was another prolonged hiatus. Like Z, I was fixated by trying to fit something around (blo)W at 12a, almost to the end. HIND eventually went in as a triple definition with the peasant guessed. OSTENSIBLY gave me my LOI IVORIANS which had been sitting as ARABIANS(yes I know RAB is Glaswegian, but…) until WORD SQUARE cast it aside. Quite a challenge. Thanks setter and V.
  21. I’m glad it wasn’t just me who found this one a toughie! 13m 54s in all, with a lot of that time spent gazing at 1a and 3d – I was convinced that the lockkeeper was going to be something from Greek myth or similar, exposing my lack of classical knowledge.
  22. Came down to earth with a crash on this one, looking up MAIDEN after 80 minutes of slog. HIND no problem, as the English version of Men of Harlech that the HK Welsh Male Voice Choir used to sing contained the words:

    Be they knights or hinds or yeomen,
    They shall bite the ground! (referring to the English, of course)

    and I actually bothered to look ‘hinds’ up at the time.

    Incidentally, the closing words of the song were gloriously jingoistic: ‘Cambria, God, and Right!’

    Gary Cooper, as well as being a fine horseman, was also a dab hand at comedy, as Ball of Fire with Barbara Stanwyck amply demonstrates.

    Edited at 2018-03-02 01:55 pm (UTC)

  23. I had Hoopoe for 5a for a while hoping that Bob Hope and OP somehow combined (a gorgeous bird of course) before the fish forced a rethink. I thought I was doing well but DNF in about 40m as I couldnt get Maiden and biffed Squarist for Aquatint. Watching the S.Africa cricket and didn’t get Maiden! COD 16d which made me think of Africans with red hair and a dislike for Eddie Jones. Thanks all
  24. Came to the blog late today and am pushed for time at this moment so have not read all the comments and hope I’m not repeating what has been said already.

    I found this the nearest to a stinker we have had in a while but that was mainly down to the SW corner which I found above average in difficulty, but elsewhere were gifts such as PAVEMENT ARTIST. I couldn’t decide between SENSIBLE and SENSIBLY at 15ac but eventually plumped for the required answer whilst remaining unconvinced that the alternative is not also valid.

    Edited at 2018-03-02 02:17 pm (UTC)

  25. Most Times puzzles are chewy to me, but I did ok on this one, part from carelessly putting in ‘SNAP’ at 17- well, if you snap at someone…
    With stinkers, I’m usually lucky to get 3-4 clues.
    My flu must be Geri g better!
    BW
    Andrew K
    1. Well done Andrew. There are some experts here, but some of us readily admit to being (slow) improvers. But the natives are very friendly and really do help, so why not sign up and join the fun? Alan
  26. 41 mins but with crash mat instead of crash pad as my LOI shortly before having to return to work. Similar hold-ups to others but I saw agin + g fairly quickly and restaging was then a write in. This is a par time for me so I must have been close to the setter’s wavelength. Thanks to him / her and V for explaining hind and ovoid which I didn’t fully parse when solving.
  27. DNF 26.30

    I started well enough, and had the whole right hand side complete in 6 minutes, BUT….

    I biffed three clues among that, and two more followed later.

    Eventually beaten by 21A (which I thought was poor), and 22D (which I award COD, as it beat me fair and (word)square.

    19A went straight in, though being an aficionado of AZED may have helped. I was denied my Sunday treat this week because they printed an 11 x 11 grid for a 15 x 15 puzzle, and doing it on a smartphone is a poor option. New style, but same old Grauniad I fear.

  28. I’m late to the blog, because at breakfast time, after 10 mins, I could only see MOTHER-TO-BE and ERMINE so went off to do some pootling around the house (completely snowed in here in Devon) and came back to finish off after lunch. 50 mins, but enjoyable with several witty and clever clues. I agree entirely with the points made in V’s assessment. My COD most definitely 2d — what a beauty!

    Thank you, setter. Thank you, Verlaine.

  29. Enjoyably chewy here, too. DNF (that would be you 22 and 23) due to time constraints, but was lucky to see the definition in most of the difficult ones right away – on the wavelength I guess – and writing in the two long downs to start helped. The right side went quicker than the left; the top faster than the bottom.
  30. This was chewy enough, but I was making good time before I ran up against:

    RESTAGING: No, no, no, “being arranged again” does not define that word; “arranging again” would. Massive fail, setter.

    HIND: I suspected an obscure third def., but wasn’t in a place where I could check it.

    OVOID: I had the same question as V, but this was mainly myself making heavy weather of it.

    LEFTISTS: Could not parse—snooker!

    MAIDEN: Could not parse, though I’ve seen the cricket term here before, admittedly.

    And “pack up” = CRASH, as in computers, somehow? How? Not that this was one that hung me up.

    The &lit I liked best was the one for SPYMASTER.

    Fun fact: In the Thursday NY Times puzzle (so the same day I worked this), the theme answer was WORD SQUARE. Eerie.

    Edited at 2018-03-02 05:24 pm (UTC)

  31. I can’t call this between stinker or no, as I was so sleepy-headed this morning having stayed up too late that it was hard to tell if the puzzle was being hard or I was being dense.

    Still, coffee to the rescue and I squeezed just inside my limit at 58 minutes.

    FOI 4d APTLY, LOI 16d IVORIANS. Lots of “I like that!” exclamation marks in the margins, for 10a, 11a, 2d and 9d, especially the TRICK LED.

    Thanks to setter and V.

  32. DNF. Bah! I struggled with this for about an hour but still had two left, 22ac and 21dn. I returned to the puzzle after work and got them both in about 5 more mins only to now find that my “bond square” is every bit as nonsensical an entry as my nagging thoughts had feared. Chewy with lots of clever stuff. I liked the celebrated nude, the first and second reds, the one expecting, trickled and any port in a storm.
  33. DNF here too. Shame, as it started reasonably well but I gradually petered out and gave up after an hour with WOMB and HEADBAND still missing.

    It doesn’t seem too outlandish to have RESTAGING as an intransitive but I can’t actually find a dictionary that has it as such.

    A chewy stinker IMHO.

    Thanks as ever for the blog V.

    1. Beaten by 22ac and, as a result, I have no choice but to agree with Verlaine and cry foul. Closest I got was “rescaling”, on the grounds that re=on, g=golf, and there’s a vaguely balance-related “scalin’ ” in the middle.

  34. Please put me out of my misery. What’s an MER? I’ve only started seeing it in recent days.
    2. It’s another bit of shorthand, like BIFD(Bunged In From Definition, hence biffed). It stands for Minor(or Major) Eyebrow Raise and was coined by Myrtilus.
  35. Hardish, and I half-expected some red cells when submitting (couldn’t fathom the CO part of COSH, unsure about HIND too). My main delay was the area around WORD SQUARE.
  36. 31:45. I’m a chewy rather than stinker voter. Held up forever by my last three OVOID (which I eventually parsed, but didn’t like the definition), RESTAGING and, MAIDEN. I was doing OK until then. Apart from those I thought this was good Friday fare and kept my braincells warm while it snowed outside.

    Edited at 2018-03-03 03:47 pm (UTC)

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