Times 27003 – what kind of jackkt was it?

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I enjoyed this moderately straightforward puzzle. I think it has a nostalgic, Empire feel to it, you couldn’t call it a theme exactly but knowledge of subcontinent currencies and carriages was helpful. As was some acquaintance with a Greek judge, a medieval jacket more often known by other names and an obscure breed of horse. But I have no complaints, all those answers can be teased out from wordplay and dropped in with reasonable confidence. Unusually, there is only one anagram.

25 minutes. Definitions underlined, anagrinds in italics.

Across
1 Buzzer’s high-pitched sound, quietly ignored by beadle (9)
BUMBLEBEE – Mr Bumble was the nasty beadle in Oliver Twist. BEEP loses its P and follows.
6 Model backed by a fabulous writer (5)
AESOP – POSE, A, reversed. Fable writing chap.
9 Cancel regular payment, getting round creditor (5)
SCRUB – CR(editor) inside SUB.
10 Conspirator, one causing fascination? (9)
INTRIGUER – Double definition.
11 Part of Ulster a gouty Frenchman recollected (6,9)
COUNTY FERMANAGH – (A GOUTY FRENCHMAN)*. Beautiful part of the world, which I used to visit in the 1970s but not without some trepidation as there were chaps with guns around.
13 Emphasis placed on police officer’s affliction (8)
DISTRESS – DI = policeman, STRESS = emphasis.
14 Show-off taking problem round university (6)
POSEUR – Insert U into POSER = problem.
16 Return of fantastic regiment protecting one part of Nigeria (6)
BIAFRA – FAB returned = BAF, insert I (one) add RA (artillery regiment). After seceding in 1967 and then losing the horrendous civil war, Biafra is still part of Nigeria although a ‘government in exile’ apparently exists in London.
18 Support from beneath, needing identification (8)
UNDERPIN – UNDER = beneath, PIN as in Personal Identification Number for cash machines or online banking.
21 Reportedly talked round those having a row? That makes you merry! (3,4,3,5)
ONE OVER THE EIGHT – Sounds like ‘won over the eight’ i.e. persuaded the rowing crew. Apparently the phrase is of military origin, ca. 1925, based on 8 beers being ‘enough’. Beer was a bit weaker then, but all the same…
23 Second medal for one replacing old tree (6,3)
SILVER FIR – SILVER = second medal, not gold for first; FOR has its O replaced by I = one.
25 Suit Italian leader abandoned for old jacket (5)
ACTON – ACTION = (law) suit, Remove the I (Italian leader). Originally an anglicisation of arqueton or aketon worn under armour, I think an Acton jacket came to mean a short doublet type jacket, but I can’t find much else about it. Mrs K thought there was a chap (Lord Acton?) for whom it was named, but I think not.
26 Brief expression of contempt about a Mexican plant (5)
YUCCA – YUC(K), C (about) A.
27 Short article by cricketer in London area (9)
BATTERSEA – BATTER is a cricketer. SE, A..Where is the SE coming from? Battersea is SW11 so it’s not the ‘London area’. EDIT As ulaca was first to point out, I was fixated on BATTER, it’s BAT plus TERSE (short) plus A for area. Doh.
Down
1 Fundamental, thus to support rise of upper classes (5)
BASIC – B, A = AB (upper classes) reversed; SIC Latin for thus.
2 Position of noble son settled in large tent (11)
MARQUESSATE – Insert S(on) and SAT (settled) into MARQUEE.
3 Seafood bishop fed to confused monarch (7)
LOBSTER – B for bishop inserted into LOST ER confused monarch.
4 Least extensive celebration in Berlin, starting with cheese (8)
BRIEFEST – BRIE is cheese, FEST German for a celebration.
5 Forcefully acquire gold held by former abstainer (6)
EXTORT – Insert OR (gold) into EX TT = former abstainer.
6 A contemptible person at Oxford initially, notedly restless (7)
AGITATO – A, GIT, AT, O)xford). Musical term.
7 Individual forks out pounds for old French coin (3)
SOU – SOUL loses its L.
8 One in lofty position astride heavy horse (9)
PERCHERON – A PERCHER could be one in a lofty position, ON = astride. For a recent birthday Mrs K gave me a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle bought for £3 in a charity shop; its subject was 16 or so breeds of horses illustrated on a plain white background. Too much white space to be fun to do, but one of them was a Percheron, so it wasn’t a total waste of time as I didn’t know the word before.
12 Members of High Court live over it, surrounded by attendants (11)
AREOPAGITES – ARE = live, O = over, PAGES = attendants, insert IT. I had to look it up, but no doubt Verlaine won’t need to. All to do with a 1C Greek judge chap who was converted to Christianity.
13 Hesitantly name tinker with evidence of debt (9)
DUBIOUSLY – DUB = name, Christopher SLY the tinker chap in The Taming of the Shrew, insert IOU = evidence of debt.
15 Hermit’s tedious task, filling a set of books (8)
ANCHORET – A, NT (set of books), insert CHORE a tedious task.
17 German four in broadcast going over French holiday region (7)
RIVIERA – Reverse AIR and insert VIER as in eins, zwei, drei, vier.
19 Raise tax invested in European shelter (7)
ELEVATE – Insert VAT (UK value added tax) into E, LEE = shelter.
20 Judge in Pennsylvania with second-class house (6)
PREFAB – REF = judge, insert into PA, add B for second class. Prefabricated small house prevalent in UK after WWII.
22 Heavyweight finally driving a two-wheeled vehicle (5)
TONGA – TON = heavyweight, (drivin)G, A. A Tonga or Tanga is a horse drawn vehicle in India, Pakistan or Bangladesh.
24 Reportedly be short of 100,000 rupees (3)
LAC – Sounds like LACK = to be short of. LAC also spelt LAKH as in Indian currency.

66 comments on “Times 27003 – what kind of jackkt was it?”

  1. ANCHORET! (Well, I knew “anchorite”…) ONE OVER THE EIGHT! (So that’s really an expression…) PERCHERON (That’s a horse of a different nomenclature…) COUNTY FERMANAGH! (Thank goodness this was an anagram.) AREOPAGITES! (Good thing I sometimes see “areopage” in Le Canard Enchaîné.) ACTON jacket! (Well, it fits…)

    Also, a SLY reminder of a Shakespearean character, Wonderful puzzle. Though it seemed unnecessary to specify “German” for FEST.

    I had to come here to find out how the “short article” part works in BATTERSEA (with the Whistler painting before my mind’s eye), and I find that this is still an open question.

    Edited at 2018-04-04 03:31 pm (UTC)

  2. a protracted 35 mins due to the AREOSMITH’S interjection at 12dn. DNK the convert chaps.

    FOI 1dn BASIC
    LOI 14ac POSEUR
    COD 1ac BUMBLEBEE
    WOD 27ac BATTERSEA pronounced Batt-ursia by the ‘Sloanes’. I used to live in Flaam!

    26ac YUCCA POTUS’s fave.

    Edited at 2018-04-04 09:43 am (UTC)

  3. Threw in the towel after 55 minutes, with the last ten spent staring at what I knew were mostly unknowns.

    Still, did okay to come up with BUMBLEBEE, not knowing even what a beadle was, let alone that particular one, the INTRIGUER, LAC, TONGA, AGITATO, ANCHORET, the unknown tinker for DUBIOUSLY. And I hadn’t got as far as learning the German numbers mentioned yesterday but still managed to come up with RIVIERA!

    Unfortunately PERCHERON, AEROPAGITES, BAIFRA, ACTON, MARQUESSATE were a few unknowns too far for me.

  4. I rattled through all but two answers in about 15 mins. I struggled to spot Percheron for quite a while – but eventually I got there. Then, like jackkt, I missed the O for over at 12 down and eventually plumped for Arespagites instead of Areopagites. So one letter wrong in 28 min 45 secs.
    3. Curses! I was sure I’d checked before posting exactly the same comment below. I was clearly missing on a couple of cylinders this morning…
  6. Oh, and the BATTERSEA is BAT + TERSE + A.

    Edited at 2018-04-04 06:35 am (UTC)

  7. 18:41 … one for the precision wordplay engineers, I guess.

    No apologies for checking that several words existed before submitting

  8. After getting through some difficult unknowns (MARQUESSATE, ANCHORET and PERCHERON) by trusting to wordplay I came a cropper at 12 where I missed the possiblity of O/over for my only missing letter and plumped for A instead.

    Edited at 2018-04-04 05:40 am (UTC)

    1. Likewise, although I somehow managed to biff it through without having to know vague Twist characters, Court members or hermits.
      Prefer real intelligence rather than high brow literary connotations
      Ordinary bloke
  10. 43 minutes for this quirky number. After AREOPAGITES , I wanted 8d to be PARTHENON.
  11. Very interesting puzzle with a lot of scope for using word play to derive an unknown solution that you then check to see if your derivation is correct. If you enjoyed doing that then try Mephisto. Thank you setter and well blogged Pip
  12. 29 minutes with AREOPAGITES, PERCHERON and AGITATO constructed before parsed. In Oxford, I think a GIT would properly be called a CAD. I was picked up there for describing the chap at the crease as a BATTER, and told that the word was BATSMAN. I didn’t learn as I constructed BATTERSEA on the wrong basis. Knew ANCHORITE so ANCHORET constructed easily. DNK an ACTON jacket, easily solved with crossers, and am not sure if that’s because I’m too old or not posh enough. The chip’s weighing me down today. WON sounds nothing like ONE in my world. COD to BUMBLEBEE, which I first wanted to put the wrong way round as in B Bumble and the Stingers. I enjoyed this. Thank you Pip and setter.
    1. Oh! I am really intrigued that you don’t pronounce ‘won’ like ‘one’. What part of the world is your bit?

      (I mean, it might be Bolton, but then the vowel difference between a Mancunian and a London speaker would, I had assumed, be consistent across both words.) It’s interesting to me that you distinguish these pronunciations.

      1. ‘Won’ pronounced ‘wun’ which southerners often suggest should be spelt ‘woon’, although I would rhyme that spelling with ‘moon’! One pronounced ‘wan’ as in ‘pale’. I suspect that at least a third of the UK population use this pronunciation as it is close to universal in the north, highly likely in the East Midlands and pretty normal in the West Midlands.
        1. Thanks. Hmmmm, I’m now baffled. I’ll try private messaging you, to move this discussion off the TftT site…
          1. I’m out at in-laws today and on iPhone. I’ll have a look for message tonight. With Bolton Wanderers I only get to say ‘won’ with respect to our opponents.
  13. Thought this was a QC with everything done in 12 minutes except AREOPAGITES and ACTON. This crossword was not for me, sorry. YUCCA, RIVIERA, LOBSTER, BRIEFEST really?
  14. Finished it OK but I confess I didn’t much enjoy this, and nor will Jimbo! [on edit: perhaps I am wrong about that!]
    For future reference Pip, the Areopagus (“Ares’ rock”) was a hill in Athens where a council of elders met in classical times, (ie before the 5thC BC), the Areopagites. Your reference no doubt is to Dionysius the Areopagite, an early Christian convert. etc etc etc… it is hard to think that this word has any place in a 21stC crossword, even The Times one.

    Edited at 2018-04-04 08:23 am (UTC)

  15. DNF. I stopped after 22 minutes to get the dictionary out and check I had the unknowns spelt right. I hadn’t – I got into a bit of a tangle with 2d, which left me struggling with BIAFRA until I spelt it right. Never seen ANCHORET before but knew PERCHERON and somehow came across AREOPAGITES recently. A bit too many obscurities for me.
  16. Exactly as Jimbo describes, gettable words which you then have to justify to ensure they are correct. Definitely a my-childhood feel to this – BUMBLE (as played by Harry Seacombe in the sanitised ‘Oliver!’); AESOP (are the tales still read?); BIAFRA (read Kurt Vonnegut’s staggering essay about this); ONE OVER THE EIGHT (picked up from fifties war stories and those returning from National Service); and of course the fabulous PREFAB (we should build many thousands more right now). 25′ thanks pip and setter.
  17. I like big vocab and I cannot lie. 6.5 minutes during which I was constantly awed and entertained by the beauty of our great language.

    No one has yet mentioned, I think, that you don’t need to know anything about Nigeria for 16ac as long as you have a passing acquaintance with the musical oeuvre of The Dead Kennedys.

    Edited at 2018-04-04 09:25 am (UTC)

    1. Ooh, I remember Holiday in Cambodia and Too Drunk…
      How about Spandau Ballet, who I think had a track called I Don’t Need This Percheron

      Edited at 2018-04-04 10:37 pm (UTC)

      1. I saw Dead Kennedys at Glastonbury last year – though sadly in a post-Jello Biafra incarnation of their lineup.

        I had to look up the Spandau Ballet track for the penny to drop, grr!

  18. This had me fooled for a while: I picked off a run of easy ones (BUMBLEBEE, BASIC, LOBSTER, BRIEFEST, YUCCA, COUNTY FERMANAGH, AESOP, SOU, DISTRESS, POSEUR — pretty much in that order) in about 7 minutes and was thinking I might be on for a good time.
    Milton’s Areopagitica was lurking deep in the murky recesses of my literature training, so I was well chuffed to get 12d without too much struggle. But I took ages with the Acton jacket and the heavy horse, so a time of 41 mins. I like the style of setting: the arcane vocab is made accessible by precise and fair word-play. COD to 12d for me.
    Thanks for the clear and engaging blog!

    Edited at 2018-04-04 09:28 am (UTC)

  19. 12:38. Helped by having all the required knowledge. Well, all the required knowledge except for Bumble the beadle, ACTON, PERCHERON, AREOPAGITES, Sly the tinker, ANCHORET, TONGA and LAC.
    As sotira says this is one for those who like precision wordplay engineering. I do, so I enjoyed it, but it certainly had a Mephistoish feel to it.

    Edited at 2018-04-04 08:44 am (UTC)

  20. Was on track for breaking 15 minutes, but then took a couple of minutes to remember 16ac, so done in 18 min – not all parsed, but did recheck for typos. (I did know 8dn & 12dn from somewhere, though had doubts about 25ac.)
  21. Unfortunately one wrong in 27 mins, as I misunderstood the clue for ACTON and thought the o was replacing the i, and finished up with ASTON. Well, I did google it and there is an Aston Jacket! Never mind that the parsing didn’t work at all.
    The rest of the unknowns (and there were many) were all gettable I thought.
  23. Who on earth would put in BEEBUMBLE instead of BUMBLEBEE for 1a? That would be someone with Nut Rocker going round and round in their brain at the time. That would be me. Finally changed my tune, and 2d and 3d quickly became clear. I had to laugh.
  24. I change over to the Observer on Sundays so don’t get to see Mephisto. I understand where those unhappy with the obscurities are coming from, but it’s nowhere near unbarred puzzle standard in those terms, the wordplay made the answers accessible enough, and I flattened it in 6:56 with the only biff being ONE OVER THE EIGHT.

    I’m totally with Bolton Wanderer on this “won”. As a Yorkshire born exile in Greater Manchester (it’s still Cheshire to me !) ONE rhymes with JOHN, and WON rhymes with SUN. I know our language develops over time, but to me this is sloppy clueing, albeit a clever enough clue if we accept it.

    That same progression of the English language also means “in Berlin” is unnecessary at 4D. FEST is commonly used as a suffix these days, probably thanks to our American cousins. For example, the group of loud young women in the pub on Sunday who forced us to move to another distant table were indulging in a GABFEST.

    FOI BUMBLEBEE

    LOI ACTON, which is only due north of BATTERSEA in this puzzle !

    COD UNDERPIN

    DNK ACTON, MARQUESSATE, or AREOPAGITES, but all parsed OK before entry.

    I was familiar with PERCHERON thanks to Jethro Tull’s “Heavy Horses”.

    Thanks to Pip for the usual excellent blog.

    1. And a quick search of the site confirms my suspicion that more than one person has used the word BIFF-FEST to describe past puzzles, possibly including me.
    2. Good man. Firstly for the Jethro Tull knowledge. Secondly for ‘one’ rhymes with ‘John’.
    3. Well this is the Times of London, and in London ‘won’ and ‘one’ both rhyme with ‘John’, and neither rhymes with ‘sun’. If we expect the setters only to use homophones that work in every variant of spoken English then there won’t be any homophones, so to describe this as ‘sloppy’ strikes me as harsh, to put it mildly.
  25. As often happens, I come here to find that my experience was not singular. With no context, I’d have already known MARQUISATE and ANCHORITE, so the precise wordplay gave me words which were similar enough that I didn’t have any doubts about them. TONGA and LAC came from long travels in Crosswordland (though these days, inflation means that cricket followers quite often come across the latter in the real world, when Virat Kohli is being given a giant cheque as Man of the Match, or having his services procured for a vast sum at the IPL auction). And obviously, any smart-arse Classicist worthy of the name is always delighted to come across the Areopagus.
  26. Drat!
    Despite a 20 minute yomp, failed at the last with YUKKA, not YUCCA, leading to LAK, not LAC (I notice that LAKH is an alternative).
    Double drat!
  27. 16 minutes, and that at a leisurely, not going for a record pace. I think this is a classic example of obscurities only being obscure if they’re not somewhere in your ragbag of known words you’re never likely to use. ANCHORET was the only one that I squinted at a bit, and realised that I’d typed it in as if it was -ITE which made it look even more interesting.
    I suspect MARQUESSATE doesn’t get used anywhere much.
  28. Same as Tim with adapting “marquisate” and him and others with “anchorite”. O level Greek didn’t get me to the judicial gits but A level Milton did (like Pserve). ACTON couldn’t be anything else though of course it wasn’t our familiar Jackkt as Pip says. PERCHERONs really are magnificent creatures and, in tune with the classical element of the puzzle they do look like something off a frieze. https://i.pinimg.com/736x/06/56/7b/06567be238c422a34e2b599f7edfd295–farm-show-show-horses.jpg

    A wavelengthy 12.22 here.

    1. Wow that is a Big Horse. Looked the same size as the others when illustrated on my jigsaw puzzle.
  29. I found this one the toughest in a while, and was surprised to discover I got them all right, given the number of lucky guesses. I didn’t know COUNTY FERMANAGH, MARQUESSATE, ANCHORET, PERCHERON or TONGA, only vaguely recalled ACTON and BIAFRA, and was able to deduce AREOPAGITES from having come across Areopagus in the Bible.
    Every single one of the setter’s traps seemed to get me as well – thanks for the explanation of BATTERSEA – and I was convinced I was replacing an I with an O for the jacket; I eventually persuaded myself that ‘act in’ could mean ‘suit’, which of course it can’t, but at least it directed me to the right answer.
    15m 19s after all that, and my head hurts.
  30. The region of Nigeria that seceded and called itself Biafra of course claimed NOT to be a part of Nigeria. Is there now a part of Nigeria called Biafra? (Aside from the so-called government in exile.)
  31. Recourse to the dictionary to check that ANCHORET exists, but could at least claim to be familiar with PERCHERON, from a detective story, The Deadly Percheron, by John Franklin Bardin, who seems to have been forgotten.
  32. I found this relatively easy – relative to me, that is. My biggest hold-up was MARQUESSATE, which didn’t look like a word but which fitted the cryptic. Apart from that no unknown vocab. 15 minutes. Ann
  33. Having constructed my way through all the obscurities bar one(as usual defined as things I don’t know), I was left with 1 space in the grid unfilled: ARE_PAGITES, but having had the 2 minute warning from my daughter that breakfast(bacon, haggis, egg, fried potatoes and toast) was about to be served, I decided life was too short and Googled the remaining letter. We were also on a short leash to catch the ferry to Iona. The sun shone, but ee ba gum the wind were a bit chilly! 35 minutes on the nail, with a little bit of help. Thanks setter and Pip.
  34. Ouch here. The unusual vocab was too much for me, as I didn’t know of the Greek folks, or what you call the state of being a Marquis/Marquess, the old jacket, or the ANCHORET. I wordplayed the latter 2 into the puzzle, but I surrendered and looked up the others. Well beyond the ordinary for me. Regards.
  35. Late today as in Bootle on business. Did you know Bootle has many roads named after Oxford colleges? And Cambridge ones? And Shakespeare characters? Apparently it was Lord Derby in the 1850s.
    So no brekker at all, let alone haggis. Or marmalade.
    And two shifts on the crossword totalling about 40 mins. Tough vocabulary but do-able.
    Mostly I liked: won over the eight. But the homophone is very dodgy.
    Thanks setter and Pip.
    1. Bootle Oriel Road is a railway station I would use once upon a time.You could walk to Goodison or Anfield down Balliol Road. Bank Hall station was a bit nearer.
  36. I currently find myself in Malaya, and can therefore use tropical brainrot as an excuse for not finishing this one. I never stood a cat’s chance in hell of getting AREOPAGITES, though I might eventually have got MARQUESSATE had equatorial lassitude not set in. As for ACTON, I don’t think I’d’ve believed it was a type of jacket even if I was wearing one – I settled for “apron”. I did, however, dredge PERCHERON up from down the back of my memory’s sofa. Having been around horses quite a bit (thanks to my daughter), I would have said that all horses were heavy, particularly if you get your foot under one of them.
  37. 31m here and for once knew all the rarer words, though hesitated over set/sat for settled in 2d which held me up in Nigeria. I’m almost inspired to try the Mephisto after Jimbo’s encouraging explanation. Almost. (Predictive text changed that to Mephistopheles which probably says it all). Needless to say, but I will, I really enjoyed this puzzle. And I’m definitely in the won/one don’t rhyme category. I can’t think of a poem/poet who has used it either, but I’m sure I’ll be put right on that soon. Thanks for the blog; enlightening as ever.
  38. Made a pig’s ear of this one with marquessage instead of marquessate, lak instead of lac and consequently yukka instead of yucca. A bit annoying to get some of the trickier vocab only to make some avoidable errors. I always remember the phrase “one over the eight” from a biography of Peter Cook who apparently wrote sketches early on in his career for a Kenneth Williams revue on the West End Stage called “One over the eight”. I was unaware of its military / boozy derivation.

    Edited at 2018-04-04 08:54 pm (UTC)

  39. Despite this having taken an hour and twenty minutes, I seem to be very educated, because about half of my answers were just educated guesses and nevertheless were right. I don’t have to list which ones, because they were the same for almost everybody. My knowledge of northern Irish geography being nil, even COUNTY FERMANAGH was an educated guess (it just looked to be the most likely anagram). Whew!
  40. 30 mins, so quite tricky. Lots of unknown vocabulary, but generous clues. Great blog, thanks.
  41. Chambers has marquess as an alternative spelling for marquis but not marquessate for marquisate. Your word processor agrees and underlines marquess and marquessate in angry schoolteacher red.

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