Times 26997 – on a different wavelength

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

I struggled with this one. Even when I had all the answers in and thought they were correct, I still found it a stretch in some cases to reconcile the definition with the answer or parse the clue properly. Maybe I was just having one of those days when my cat’s whisker refused to get tuned in. Maybe the whole thing will seem more obvious as I write the blog. I’ll let you know. 35 long minutes to finish plus I’m still parsing a few as I do this.

Now I’ve blogged it, I wonder why it took me so long. But I was had for a 20a by 20a.

Definitions underlined, anagrinds in italics.

Across
1 Doubly outstanding damage, superficially (6)
DEFACE – Outstanding in two ways, DEF(initely) and ACE a simile.
4 Compares singular food and drink (6,2)
STACKS UP – S(ingular), TACK = food, SUP = drink.
10 Serviceman stabbed by a scurrilous patriot (9)
GARIBALDI – RIBALD inside GI. Does ribald mean scurrilous? Thesaurus thinks so, I wasn’t so sure.
11 Retired lawman receiving fresh commendation (5)
AWARD – DA the lawman receives RAW = fresh, ‘retired’.
12 Agreed on Chinese taking part (3)
SET – Hiidden word CHINE(SE T)AKING
13 Clearing books one has stopped cancelling (11)
NEGOTIATING – NEGATING = cancelling, insert OT, I. I can’t find in thesaurus.com where these two are synonyms, I think it must be something to do with banking, clearing cheques.
14 Hunted species picked up by some (6)
SOUGHT – Sounds like SORT = species.
16 Going round, express a word of thanks in a single go (2,1,4)
AT A TIME – All reversed, EMIT A TA = express a word of thanks.
19 Stirring music from remote East introduced by devotee (7)
FANFARE – FAN (devotee) from the FAR E(ast),.
20 Fish, one to be had without difficulty (6)
SUCKER – A double definition. Not very comfortable with this one. I can see the definition, to be ‘had’ easily, but I didn’t know there were several species of fish called suckerfish or white suckerfish until I looked them up.
22 Project inserting second bit of tooth into spare denture (11)
EXTRAPOLATE – EXTRA = spare, PLATE = denture, insert O being the second letter of tooth.
25 Provide clue for little reward (3)
TIP – Double definition.
26 Bill likely to change (5)
ADAPT – AD = bill, APT (to ) = likely (to).
27 Rebel comrade commandeering chief exec’s bashed vehicle (6,3)
DODGEM CAR – Insert DG = chief exec, into (COMRADE)*. I don’t remember seeing REBEL as an anagrind before. Does DG = Chief Exec anywhere except the BBC?
28 Actually preferring rapper’s introduction to two lines in formal language (8)
LITERARY – I hadn’t worked this out until I write this blog… LITERALLY = actually, then exchange the LL for R (rapper’s introductory letter).
29 Input device‘s phraseology almost American (6)
STYLUS – One for Vinyl1, this kind of input device. STYL(E) = phraseology, almost, then US.

Down
1 Girton’s top dons reach conclusion on blessed fellow’s summary (6)
DIGEST – Took me an age to parse this. DIE = reach conclusion, insert G = Girton’s top, i.e. G ‘dons’ DIE, then ST = blessed fellow.
2 Oldest trees divided, bushes primarily retained (9)
FIRSTBORN – FIRS (trees) TORN (divided), insert B(ushes).
3 About to jettison plane’s passenger section (5)
CABIN – CA = circa, about, BIN = jettison, throw away.
5 Novel outings — no parking required, with public transport available (8,6)
TRISTRAM SHANDY – I had to get most of the checkers first, as there are a million novels to choose from. TRIS = Trips (outings) losing its P(arking). then TRAMS = public transport and HANDY = available.
6 Horse involved in accident after tailing vehicle (9)
CHARABANC – Another one to parse afterwards. ARAB is the horse, inside CHANC(E) = accident, tailed.
7 Holy man raising current crops — for birds (5)
SWAMI – Reverse all; I = current, MAWS = crops for birds.
8 Pass water round mine, on descent (8)
PEDIGREE – PEE = pass water, insert DIG = mine, RE = on. even when I had P+D at the begninning, it took an age to see, I wanted mine to be PIT and the definition to be a pass.
9 Lawyer’s leader in conflict with judge — evidence of disaster in case? (6,8)
FLIGHT RECORDER – Insert L(awyer) into FIGHT = conflict, then RECORDER = judge, of a sort. Nice definition.
15 Voucher for university pinched by arrogant drunk (9)
GUARANTOR – (ARROGANT U)*.
17 Like Dead Ringers broadcast in dialect (9)
IDENTICAL – (IN DIALECT)*.
18 Bringing up the rear, despite one’s efforts? (5,3)
AFTER ALL – Double definition, one literal.
21 Radio officer finding space for recreation aboard (6)
SPARKS – SS = ship, insert PARK.
23 Auditor’s monitored land area (5)
TRACT – Sounds like tracked, monitored.
24 Sporting contest opening online, as it were? (5)
EVENT – An E-VENT could be an opening online?

59 comments on “Times 26997 – on a different wavelength”

  1. 16:12 … and hardly a biff in sight (this is a good thing, yes?).

    OK, some very wordy clues but I think they all make sense in the end — 1d DIGEST deserves an award for convolutedness so I’ll give it a COD

    I liked this, but in a masochistic way

  2. I also found this hard, and for the second time in the past week I had to abandon the puzzle overnight and return to it this morning when it still gave me a lot of trouble. Part of the problem was was having 1ac and 4ac as my last ones in so I was missing all the checkers they would have provided had I solved them early on.

    I never did see the wordplay at 1ac, so thanks for explaining it, Pip.

    I also only know DG with reference to the BBC but Chambers specifies it usually relates to the CEO of a non-commercial organistion, and perhaps there aren’t too many of those around these days. Not even sure the BBC qualifies really now.

    Edited at 2018-03-28 06:12 am (UTC)

  3. 50 mins with yoghurt, granola and some ‘typically tropical’ fruits.
    A frustrating first 10 mins spattering the grid with sparse answers. Then got a toehold in the SW, completed the bottom half then moved north.
    My memory of the day is WC Fields saying, “Never give a sucker an even break, ….. or smarten up a chump.”
    Mostly I liked (lots): Def Ace, Ribald, Extrapolate, Literary, Tristram, Pedigreee – and my COD for the Sucker.
    Thanks clever setter and Pip.

    PS I think ‘negotiating’ for clearing might be in the sense of negotiating a piece of difficult terrain.

    Edited at 2018-03-28 07:15 am (UTC)

  4. 16.49, so I think I’d have to call it average, but there was some very tricksy cluing. I never did get the wordplay for CHARABANC because it’s such a satisfying word in its own right: I just assumed the wordplay would be OK. But I did sort out 1d DIGEST because I wanted to see how that rather evocative surface resolved into the answer. Indeed there were a lot or really excellent surfaces: hats off to setter, and congrats to Pip for unscrambling them all.
  5. I made an ominously slow start to this one but once I got going I found it fairly tough, but not as tough as I thought it was going to be. Looking back at it now I notice a distinct lack of obscurities so compliments to the setter for coming up with a challenging puzzle without them.

    I’m sure I mentioned this last time it came up but whenever I see LITERALLY it irks me that this can now practically mean ‘not literally’. Although that might make for a good clue!

  6. Unusually for me, I did this one online and relatively early – normally I solve at lunchtime – and I’m not sure I’ve ever biffed as much as this. Thanks for explanations, I can make my peace with almost all of them… but DEF for outstanding takes a bit of swallowing. Perhaps slang that I’ve not picked up. 7m 56s for me.
        1. Goes back about 20 – 30 years – Def Jam records, the artist Mos Def, etc. I think it’s probably uncool to say it now!
          1. Thanks for the explanation (and Jimbo). I always thought ‘def’ was slang for ‘definite(ly)’ when it it is ‘definitive(ly)’.
          2. In the latest episode of Crossword Coincidences I put the radio on at lunchtime and heard the DJ mention Def Jam records.
    2. I arrived at 1a by a different route – the outstanding bits of DAMAGE are DE, superficially might mean ‘on the face of it’, and DOUBLY to indicate that it works twice over: superficially damage = DEFACE.

      A bit convoluted, and not altogether convincing, but I got to the right place, taking the long way round.

  7. Enjoyed Tristram Shandy because the use of the word ‘novel’ at the beginning had me looking for an anagram involving the word ‘outings’. 49m 45s
  8. 45 minutes, struggling to get going at the top with DEFACE and STACKS UP initially impenetrable. Once I’d read, marked, learnt and inwardly DIGESTed a GARIBALDI biscuit, I got going. I both got and didn’t get NEGOTIATING. I knew SWAMI but not MAWS. I was dimly aware of SPARKS. Spotting TRISTRAM SHANDY from crossers was a big boon.27a presented a big problem in my youth. In Blackpool they were called Bumper Cars, in Southport DODGEMs. I’ll go with the former. I’m not sure if that’s a mark of aggressiveness or that as a teenager I preferred walking down Blackpool prom eating candy floss with a Kiss me Quick hat on to viewing the boulevards of Southport Lord Street. I remember them both fondly now, the sound of a brass band on a Sunday afternoon from the Lord Street bandstand forever in my ears. COD EXTRAPOLATE. Thank you Pip for making sense of this where sense could be made. Thank you setter for a worthy toughie.

    Edited at 2018-03-28 08:37 am (UTC)

  10. In line with many others I found this a bit tricksy – especially the IKEA loading bay in the NW corner.
    As with Sawbill didn’t like 1ac DEFACE or 20ac SUCKER- also 16ac AT A TIME my LOI.

    FOI 12ac SET
    COD 5dn TRISTRAM SHANDY
    WOD 27ac DODGEM CAR

    There was little satisfaction on completion.
    Mood Meldrew.

  11. I found this quite difficult, like Pip and others struggling to reconcile a solution derived from wordplay with the definition – such as DG for CEO

    But a satisfied feeling once I’d finished so a good puzzle. Thank you setter and well done Pip

  12. DNF. I had Negotiation for Negotiating so Pedigree wouldn’t drop. All the rest was done in about 45 mins. I thought “pass water” was probably “pee” but was still a bit surprised to see “pee” in the Times Crossword. Mind you, in my desperate attempts to find something to fit in 8 down, I’m ashamed to admit that I did briefly consider a 4 letter synonym for “pee” that also begins with “p”. Enough said! After that shocking revelation I need a comfort break.
      1. That reminds me that yesterday with the definition ‘hooker’ and the anagram fodder I had ‘_________/GIRL’ pencilled in and was looking forward to discussion of that before I came up with GRAPPLING IRON.
    2. Exactly the same problem – had negotiation for negotiating. Thought of charabanc but couldn’t see why – was even thinking charabang with bang being an accident ( it is usually pronounced charabang?)
      Also did not get swami nor deface (I biffed defect).
      Good and proper DNF today.
  14. I liked FIRSTBORN, FLIGHT RECORDER, EXTRAPOLATE and PEDIGREE.

    Didn’t like DEFACE or SUCKER.

  15. I enjoyed this a lot, even though it took me 50 minutes. PEDIGREE gets me every time, however it is clue. My last in NEGOTIATE (where I was looking for a word beginning NIGHT) made clever use of the show-jumping use of ‘clear’.

    TRISTRAM SHANDY is among a select group of books which I have read twice.

    1. I congratulate you, as it’s among a select group of books which I have attempted to read numerous times, because so many people recommend it; despite their efforts, my record remains page 72.
  16. The tough week continues, but 30′ not bad.

    I too could never understand why they were DODGEM cars, when the object as we saw it was to hit another, preferably unexpectedly.
    2d definitely put me in mind of the Beiderbecke Connection – anyone remember that, and the name of the child?
    TRISTRAM SHANDY, though unread by me, features in lots of literature courses.
    Thought DEF was an abbreviation of DEFO, which was….etc. but find I was wrong AFTER ALL.
    RECORDER is a particular rank of judge in the English legal system.
    Good puzzle.
    Thanks pip and setter.

    1. Ivan.
      Stayed in a hotel once in Scarborough where there was a Bix B themed weekend of jazz scheduled, but it was cancelled when we arrived!
    2. Re Beiderback Tapes. I always remember James Bolan’s bedtime story which started “Once apon a time there was a little boy called Bix…” Such brilliant writing. Ann
  17. Oh dear — 64 mins. This was a slog: a series of MERs and “meh”s — negotiating=clearing? def=outstanding? at a time = in a single go? recorder=judge?
    SET as a hidden in “Chinese taking” was really lame, I thought. NHO tack as food, and it isn’t in my Oxford Dict of Eng (but did show up in an old Collins English Dict — BTW, The Times’s parent News International is sister company of HarperCollins, so I believe that Collins dicts are the preferred source for Times setters.)

    I agree with Horryd’s choice of COD: TRISTRAM SHANDY.

    But not much satisfaction gained on completing this ordeal.

    Thanks to our blogger for a neat explication.

  18. I found this very tricky, but after reading Pip’s excellent blog I think some of the wounds were self-inflicted.

    FOI SOUGHT, although I had entered the “sup” at the end of 4A. Like Myrtilus I sailed through the SW corner, and then most of the SE, but ground to a halt around 14 minutes in. I had trouble with both of the long down clues, but FLIGHT RECORDER is my COD, and, having had Mr.Sterne here very recently, I really should have nailed TRISTRAM SHANDY more quickly. Biffed NEGOTIATING, but then parsed it immediately – biffed CHARABANC and didn’t !

    I thought PEDIGREE was a Guardian clue again. Had to come here to check DEFACE which I was 98% sure of, but count me among the “dislikers”, and also as regards SUCKER, where I wondered if there was an obscure fish called a sitter.

    LOI the biffed DODGEM CAR (quite apt I suppose !) where I too failed to parse DG. We used to think of them as bumper cars, until four of us were thrown off the ride at Wythenshawe Fair for ramming anything in sight. The large teddy boy in charge informed us in a rich Black Country accent that they were called dodgems because you were supposed to dodge the collisions rather than cause them. We tried out that hypothesis in Blackpool later that summer. It was no fun, but a good preparation for the M6 in later years.

    19:04 when I finally limped over the line. Too many ifs and buts here to render it an enjoyable experience though.

  19. Like Myrtilus, I struggled(although for a bit longer) with a few sparse entries(mainly on the Eastern edge of the grid, for the first 20 or so minutes, before getting a toehold in the SW, from where I gradually extracted enough answers to get a new lease of life, EXTRAPOLATE being the key to progress. I managed to untangle all of the parsing, DIGEST seeming to be the most convoluted, and finished with SUCKER. FOI was SET. Quite a challenge. Thanks setter and Pip. 45:46.
  20. Relieved to see I was in good company. This was the third recent puzzle where I had to go deep in the underbrush to get started. There were some minor US/UK usage differences that also held me up. DODGEMs are definitely bumper cars here and while I’ve retained the British pronunciation which makes SOUGHT and sort homophones, everyone else around here sounds the R in the latter. And news reports always seem to refer to FLIGHT data RECORDERs. I never did get around to parsing AT A TIME so thanks for that Pip. You’d be more likely to meet the PEDIGREE clue in the Guardian I agree with Astonvilla. FIRSTBORN was neat. Just to put the lid on it I had a crossword championship anxiety dream just before waking up. 22.34
    1. I’m an avid watcher of the Aircrash Investigation programs(for the technical not the ghoulish aspects) and each plane has two Flight Recorders, the FDR, Flight Data Recorder and the CVR, Cockpit Voice Recorder.
      1. Ah yes, you’re quite right. Unlike you I’m no expert but I had a feeling there was a bit missing. For puzzle purposes that’s a quibble but for solving purposes it did provide just a temporary mental block.
  21. It’s safe to say this was never going to be a puzzle I had a chance of finishing, though after grinding it down, I was left with only a seemingly unsolvable 6 Down. Since I have zero retained knowledge of either horses or obscure vehicles, I gave up.

    As it turned out, I had two errors: SITTER for SUCKER (and I was so proud of that one, too), and SPORTS for SPARKS, the former error making 6 Down not only seemingly impossible, but actually impossible.

    In general, though, this puzzle was full of more British lingo and esoteria than I have ever seen in a puzzle (and I usually pride myself on doing all right with the linguistic barrier): AD for ‘bill’; DODGEM and the accompanying DG for ‘chief exec’; ‘crop’ for ‘stomach’ (and I even knew MAW and had guessed and crossed out SWAMI!); RECORDER for ‘judge’; SPARKS for ‘radio officer’; DEF for ‘outstanding’, to name a few I had to check.

    In all I felt a bit hapless as an American solver. Especially since the wordplay was deliciously deceptive throughout — some of the best I’ve seen.

    On a final note, I guessed LING(O)+US for 29 Across at first. As it turns out, it ain’t.

    EDIT: As for SUCKER, I’ve definitely heard of fish by that name, but that could almost be a cryptic definition, no? We can definitely call the target of a con a ‘fish’.

    Edited at 2018-03-28 12:13 pm (UTC)

  22. I’d be ashamed to mention that this one took me most of an hour, so I won’t. Fortunately, a typo made my time irrelevant.

    Very heavy going, and quite a similar flavour to yesterdays – no obscure answers, just obscure clues, which is probably how a good crossword should be.

  23. Done in 2 sessions, as I had to lie down for a breather afetr the first one. LOI STACKS UP wasn’t sure if TICK could be food, and I’m not sure if stacks up = compares or not? There was a lot of misdirection here eg was convinced that it was the New Testament in 13a, and thinking that the judge was a REF in 9d. Is the recorder a judge in the afterlife?
    1. TACK means food of any description. Hard TACK is a ship’s biscuit and soft TACK is bread.
  24. 25 mins. Pretty steady, really. Nice puzzle and good blog, thanks. Snitch says it’s a 132, so fairly pleased with my time.
  25. Tricky. I fell asleep with a few clues missing and finished in the morning, so the time on the clock wasn’t very useful. I’d guess 45 mins in total (with 7 hours in the middle). Several I couldn’t parse. As some others have pointed out, it sets you back when 1A is one of the last ones in (and always makes a great start if you can write it in the moment you look at the blank crossword).
  26. 67 mins. Similar experience to others in finding some of the wordplay a little loose. Glad to finish with all correct.
  27. DNF. Bah! Hopelessly adrift in this one. Never found any concrete certainty in either wp or def to allow me to enter negotiating, at a time or pedigree with any confidence. I can see them all now but they were out of reach while solving. Very frustrating. I also had defect rather than deface because I couldn’t think of anything better. There are almost certainly Deffer (more Def?) examples but I do remember Janet Street Porter’s Def II “yoof” programming so I now understand the doubly outstanding Def and Ace.
  28. 15:17. I really enjoyed this one. Another wordplay number.
    Nothing horribly obscure but a couple of things I didn’t know: a SPARKS to me is an electrician, and I don’t remember seeing the SUCKER fish before. No doubt we have though.
    You see DG in French: the equivalent of the CEO is the PDG, président directeur général.
    1. We used SPARK in the singular for an electrician in the CEGB. We also used Director-General for the five heads of the geographic regions. I’m not sure how that plays against an earlier view that DG is only used in the non-commercial sector! We were meant to be a profit-making organisation. It didn’t pan out quite that way in my first year as CFO though, 1984/85, the year of the miners’ strike. We lost £2 billion.
      2. Ouch! In your time at the CEGB, did you ever come across a guy called Graham Bland? He was involved in updating the control systems for Magnox reactors, and he’s married to my cousin. He once took me on a tour of Wylfa.
        1. The name rings a bell, John. I wouldn’t have known him at Wylfa, which was in NW region, where surprisingly I never worked. My experience of magnox was earlier in my career in the south-east region and later at the Board when the debates about magnox closure with the larger-than-life Walter Marshall were in full swing, as well as sorting out the AGR problems and getting consent for Sizewell PWR. In between, I was Financial Controller in the Midlands Region where we burned coal for a living. Was Graham in the research division or a central engineering function? The CEGB was a great place to be, almost collegiate in nature. The quality of the engineers was second to none.
          1. I don’t know too many details of his career, but he started in Harrogate and moved around with the job, finishing up in Macclesfield where he’s now retired. I know he was involved in fitting electronic control systems to replace the originals, not just at Wylfa, and also travelled to China doing similar work after the CEGB was superceded. One of his sons is now with Apple at Cupertino and helps design the cameras for iphones.
  29. Phew! A struggle throughout. I had to wrestle with so many clues I almost gave up. I can’t say I enjoyed this but I got there in the end. 50 minutes Ann
  30. Pleasing, and also challenging, especially when you find that you’re another solver whose initial choice of NEGOTIATION (without even really considering the possibility of NEGOTIATING) has made PEDIGREE an even tougher clue than it needed to be.
  31. I am another person who did better on the second leg after a night’s sleep. No problem with DEF, but some thought before certainty that Deface was “minor” damage. Similar thought for many of the clues. Tricksy indeed. And, another slightly surprised at Pass Water / Pee appearing.

    When I was an engineer, a colleague proposed a design contest for a WOM – write only memory. The idea failed when someone else pointed out that flight data recorders had already sorted out the best application. One of the reasons I moved on into economics.

    1. I remember seeing a cartoon many years ago proposing WOM. When asked what it would be useful for, the character replied “Labour party manifestos”
    2. I remember a device called a Jukebox at Hartlepool Power Station. It was described as a WORM(write once read many) but from my recollection it was far better at forgetting what was written to it than anything else:-) It used glass discs. Another bit of state of the art technology used there was thick ethernet. It certainly wasn’t flexible! However, you couldn’t say that they weren’t prepared to lead the way in the new technologies. One of my golfing buddies used to work there on the actual reactor, doing mechanical stuff before he retired….
  33. Sorry for the anonymity of the last post, John. I’d been knocked off without me knowing. Harrogate was the north-east region headquarters. Stockport, not that far from Macclesfield, was the north-west HQ but by the end of the CEGB a functional reorganisation had taken place intended to curb these regional robber barons. In fact it meant that nobody knew who or what they were. Ask your cousin’s husband if he remembers that or me.
    1. I didn’t even notice you’d become anonymous. I’ve sent a message to Mary to ask Graham if he remembers you:-)
  34. Easy enough, but I wanted to be quite sure–and found, to my surprise, that my dictionary (Collins, 1990-ish) had never heard of TACK meaning food.

Comments are closed.