Times 27009 – aarrr, Jim lad, avast ye!

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
What larks! Three quarters of this little beauty done in under fifteen minutes, with occasional recourse to a sip of the grog. The north-west corner was looking odd, with a two-letter word ending in V and another V lurking in 1a. I re-checked 6d in case I’d made a typo, the anagram was clear enough. Then I dimly remembered my Merchant of Venice for O Level and popped in 4d. Back to 9a. I’m not keen on that as a two-letter word ending in V, but it had to be, unless the answer was a regnal number. I didn’t know the phrase, but it fits the word play. The light dawned on 1a, once I saw the double definition. Leaving us with 2d, H_A_T. Only one thing it could be, but as I write this a completely satisfactory explanation escapes me.
The other three-quarters of the puzzle I thought was witty in places, notably 8d, but not difficult.

Definitions underlined, anagrinds in italics.

Across
1 Break up in manifest cold (6)
SHIVER – double definition. The expression ‘shiver me timbers’ dates back a few hundred years before Robert Newton in Treasure Island, where the word ‘shiver’ has the meaning ‘break up’ or shake apart, as in a cannonball or large wave hitting a ship. And if you’re shivering, you’re manifesting being cold.
5 Give woodwork final smoothing, receiving time and a half (5-3)
STAND-OFF – SAND OFF = final smoothing of the woodwork, insert T for time. Stand-off being a rugby term for one of the two half-backs, the one who is not the scrum half.
9 Fall asleep in wagon, very voyeuristic viewing (3-5,2)
CAR-CRASH TV –  CART = wagon, insert CRASH for fall asleep, and V for very. I didn’t know the term, but I see it is in Collins and not only applied to scenes of cars getting totalled, although YouTube has no shortage of those. Somehow I don’t think of TV as a two-letter word, more of an abbreviation, or the internet domain name for Tuvalu. Which used to be a Pointless answer.
10 Pipe suddenly lowered for sounding (4)
DUCT – Sounds like ‘ducked’ = suddenly lowered. Duck!
11 In fight, large Italian twisting blade (8)
STILETTO – SET TO = fight, insert L IT reversed (twisting).
12 Put off woman and survive without one (6)
SHELVE – SHE = woman, L(I)VE = survive, remove the I.
13 Religion, but no Mass, for Scots girl (4)
ISLA – ISLAM loses its Mass.
15 To wed money, they say, can be a bloomer (8)
MARIGOLD – MARI sounds like marry, GOLD = money.
18 Cherries, see, covered in fungi (8)
MORELLOS – Insert LO = see, into MORELS a tasty kind of mushroom.
19 Pressure on buzzer creates alert (4)
BEEP – Add P for pressure to BEE for buzzer. Seen this before recently, probably on a Sunday.
21 A Sikh has one billion fish (6)
BANGLE – B for billion, ANGLE verb to fish. All Sikhs have a bangle or KARA, one of the five K’s.
23 Concerned with opening blade, I trust (8)
RELIANCE – RE = concerned with, then insert I into LANCE = blade.
25 Some beef? Wrong to eat horse (4)
SHIN – Insert H for horse into SIN = wrong.
26 A detective story, the ultimate gift for cellist? (3,4,3)
HIS LAST BOW – Double definition, one a suggestion. Conan Doyle published a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories under this title. Not sure why our setter chose a cellist, as Sherlock played the violin!
27 Not happy to travel regularly on such rubber? (5-3)
CROSS-PLY – CROSS = not happy, PLY = travel regularly. Do cross-ply tyres still exist on new cars? Maybe in India.
28 Old guard losing heart a total failure (6)
TURKEY – TURNKEY loses its N, i.e. middle letter or heart.

Down
2 Enthusiasm of boxer finally ready to mate? (5)
HEART – MY LOI because I couldn’t parse it to my satisfaction. My current explanation of this is a little woolly, something to do with being ON HEAT = being ready to mate and R (boxer finally) being inserted. But there’s no ‘ON’ and HEAT alone doesn’t. mean ready to mate. I suppose ‘to mate’ could be doing double duty, meaning ‘mate’ the R with the HEAT? Explain.
3 Dither, as everyone is caught up in active moving (9)
VACILLATE – ALL inside (ACTIVE)*.
4 Head from court case over to business centre (6)
RIALTO – (T)RIAL = court case without ‘head’, add TO. ‘What news on the Rialto?’ says Salanio to Salarino in the MoV, Act 1, talking business.
5 Son indifferent about husband, I emphasise in my case, as one dealing with children (15)
SCHOOLMISTRESSY – Messy wordplay for a clumsy old word. S for son, insert H for husband into COOL = indifferent, then insert I STRESS into MY.
6 Warning notice avoids funny lines (8)
ADVISORY – (AVOIDS)*, RY = (railway) lines.
7 Magistrate seizes duke in quick move (5)
DODGE – Insert D into DOGE.
8 Apparently that of Helen being a thousand ships? (4,5)
FACE VALUE – &lit. Witty, if it’s original.
14 Struggling actor hems old garment (9)
STOMACHER – (ACTOR HEMS)*.
16 Rock, overturning large table across front of room (9)
GIBRALTAR – BIG reversed (overturning large), ALTAR = table, insert R(oom).
17 In public he rubbished safe sort of investment (4-4)
BLUE-CHIP – (PUBLIC HE)*.
20 Be very eager to employ Liberal, one that’s flexible (6)
PLIANT – PANT = be very eager, insert L and I.
22 Kind of an Einstein? Not I (5)
GENUS – Einstein was a GENIUS, remove the I (not I).
24 Cut part of bulb (5)
CLOVE – Double definition.

79 comments on “Times 27009 – aarrr, Jim lad, avast ye!”

  1. So close, Pip… “In heat” means “ready to mate.” Referring to dogs, say.

    After working this, I had to look up the Sikh/BANGLE connection (their bracelet is known as a “kara”), MORELLO cherries and what the hell was going on with STAND-OFF (rugby! Of course! Ha). I’m not sure that “Head from court case” really says one wants a decapitated word for “court case”; it seems to say you want the head, rather. I haven’t gotten to HIS LAST BOW in the Holmes stories yet, but if I wind up staying in Brooklyn for my vacation next month I probably will.

    Edited at 2018-04-11 05:03 am (UTC)

    1. Yes, IN heat or ON heat, but neither IN nor ON appears in the clue. So we have to find IN HEAT as a synonym for ‘ready to mate’ then chop r off the boxer and put it ‘in’ the word heat? A bit ultra Ximenean for my taste.
  2. I was a bit surprised by HEART, because ‘in heat’ is a US term, the Brits saying ‘on heat’; which may be why Pip was puzzled. It was DNK City for me: STAND-OFF, ISLA as a girl’s name–knew it as the source of my daily tipple–MORELLOS, that Sikhs wear a BANGLE, CROSS-PLY. 10ac my LOI.
    1. I’m sure I’ve always said “in heat”! Though I’m not the most British British citizen you’ll ever meet.

      ETA: I suppose it may depend on whether you prefer to think of “heat” as being more like “a state of arousal” or “drugs”.

      Edited at 2018-04-11 07:30 am (UTC)

    2. FWIW both Collins and Brewers list ‘in/on heat’ without reference to one of them being American. Chambers defines ‘heat’ in this context without any mention of being ‘in’ or ‘on’ it. Only the Oxfords have ‘in heat’ followed by ‘on heat’ as ‘chiefly American’, but not exclusively so.
      1. My Chamber has “in heat” (and on heat) towards the end of the entry with precisely “ready to mate”. I thought the clue was rather amusing.
      2. That’s what I get for trusting ODE, which is categorical: ‘on (or

        [Error: Irreparable invalid markup (‘<n.>’) in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]

        That’s what I get for trusting ODE, which is categorical: ‘on (or <N. Amer.> in) heat’. (And then they give several examples, all US English, including one ‘on’!) In any case, I assume that ‘on heat’ is common enough in UK English to make the clue a rather questionable one.

        Edited at 2018-04-11 07:46 am (UTC)

        1. With a certain amount of trepidation, I Googled “b***h in heat” and got a decent number of UK entries, so it seems common enough.
  3. A lot of GK needed to finish this confidently. I just about passed the test with the SIkh, the rugby player and the Holmes, but I was so unsure about RIALTO and SHIVER that I didn’t click submit.

    Pedant’s corner: is “such rubber” at all accurate for CROSS-PLY? I thought, and a web search seems to confirm, that this refers to a tyre construction using rubber and nylon.

    About 19 minutes for all but the northwest corner, where my quizzly skills ran dry

    1. I tend to agree Sotira. If “rubber” is replaced by “tyres” in the clue it becomes more accurate.
  4. 40 mins with apple and ‘nakd’ bar.
    Not keen on Cross-ply. Isn’t it hyphenated?
    Mostly I liked Stand-off. Isn’t it hyphenated?
    Must dash.
    Thanks setter and Pip

    PS on the I-pad where the numeration is (5,3). I see Pip has the hyphens. Maybe it is an I-Pad thing?

    Edited at 2018-04-11 06:19 am (UTC)

      1. Are you looking at the ‘Mindgames’ section of the Times online app?
        Mine are definitely commas.

        Website is ok. Must be the app.

        Edited at 2018-04-11 06:43 am (UTC)

  5. Isn’t that Fox & Friends?

    55 minutes

    FOI 25ac SHIN

    LOI 26ac HIS LAST BOW rubbish clue IMO

    COD 5dn SCHOOLMISTRESSY

    WOD Ditto!

    2dn HEART – no one has ever stated if The Times indeed an American (or Canadian) setter? I think we should be told!

    Edited at 2018-04-11 08:26 am (UTC)

  6. Quite a few unknown words or meanings or bits of wordplay here so I struggled a bit but never doubted I would finish unaided. 50 minutes was what this took. HIS LAST BOW was my LOI though I had guessed correctly that it was probably a Holmes reference, a character who has little appeal for me on screen so I never got round to reading any of the stories or being aware of their titles other than ‘A Study in Scarlet’ and ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’. Didn’t know the required definition of STAND-OFF. TV is a write-in for me now whenever there’s a two-letter word ending in V, as it has caught me out so many times in the past.
  7. Exactly the same time as yesterday—57 minutes—for this fun puzzle, where I lacked a fair bit of requisite knowledge (the rugby position, “ply” for regular travel, RIALTO, STOMACHER) but got it all done in the end.

    FOI 3d VACILLATE, LOsI 24d CLOVE followed by 28a TURKEY. Glad that I knew HIS LAST BOW, and had put the break-up meaning of SHIVER on my crossword vocab list after the last time… COD 1d HEART (personally I enjoyed the device.)

    WOD SCHOOLMISTRESSY. Thanks to Pip, whose experience “two letters ending in V!?” mirrors mine—I was trying to think of the fourth instalment of some film for ages—and to the imaginative setter.

  8. I got a bit more sleep last night, not enough more sleep, but a bit more sleep, and was able to polish this off inside of 7 minutes. Had no idea what was going on with the definition part of STAND-OFF… I guess I should have guessed, what with the number of barred puzzles I seem to have done that have tormented me with sporting themes recently. Thanks for the elucidation Pip.
    1. At the moment I realised what the definition was, about, I thought ‘Verlaine will not know that… better explain it.’
      1. Please tell me that they play rugby in Mexico so it’s possible to be a Mexican stand-off!
  9. 17.29, so another perfectly average puzzle, but none the worse for that – HEART was my favourite of the day for that “in heat” idea.
    LOI CLOVE, as I was thinking of the wrong sort of bulb and couldn’t remember whether any bits of one had special names. Filament doesn’t fit.
    I admit to blinking briefly when SCHOOLMISTRESS didn’t make it to the end of the space. Then I read the clue properly.
  10. Unlike others who have mentioned the NW, the SE was where I struggled, and indeed thought I’d never finish it. With hindsight, nothing there looks too challenging.

    I’m not sure if I’ve heard of RIALTO as a business centre before, but I do recall the Reliant Rialto, the successor to the Reliant Robin. For those non-natives here Reliant were a British car manufacturer who in the 70s and 80s decided it was a good idea to make three wheeled cars.

      1. It was a Reliant Robin i.e. Robin model made by Relaint. You don’t say Mondeo Ford!
        1. But for some reason they were commonly referred to as Robin Reliants. I’ve no idea why.
          1. I had the predecessor, a Reliant Regal, then the Supervan variant of the Robin. They had their good points, but not many. I lost my third exhaust system in eight months at 70mph in the middle lane of the M1 while delivering payroll data at 2am. Soon after that, a friend showed me exactly how the steering to the single front wheel was configured. I never took it on a motorway again.
    2. Rialto came up in a London quiz league question recently along the lines of “name the historic business district of Venice that was also the name of a 90s Britpop band”… ashamed to say I got the answer from the latter not the former!
      1. That’s scraping the bottom of the Britpop barrel. They’ve got to be sub-Menswear!
        1. Sub-Menswe@r?! Wash your mouth out sir! Monday Morning 5.19 was a (very) minor masterpiece.
          1. Let’s be honest, though, they were no Strangelove (this also makes me think you could write a whole round of quiz questions based on alternate meanings of Britpop band names…possibly to the delight of a quite small proportion of the contestants).
  11. Like Pip managed everything except NW corner with no fuss. 26A a write in, even if it should have been a violin

    Guessed 9A had to end TV so derived an answer – not a phrase I’ve met before. Guessed HEART and subsequently had penny dropping moment – quite a clever piece of setting

    Well done Pip

  12. 16′ 33”, so better than Monday. Loved the Holmes reference, but as pointed out should have been a violin – jack you must try the stories. Agree SCHOOLMISTRESSY clumsy. Used to have a female dog when young. (Trauma alert) . Parents had her put down, because when she was in season dogs used to form a semicircle at the bottom of our garden. The illogicality of this gets to me even today. Thanks pip and setter.
  13. This was frustrating, with all but four in the NW solved in 15 minutes, followed by at least 15 minutes teetering over the road edge.. The four were of course CAR CRASH TV, HEART, SHIVER and RIALTO. I had a feeling that it was RIALTO, although I’m not sure if that was from TMOV knowledge or the Saturday morning matinee flea pit I attended, but in it went. I’d been thinking that two letters ending in V had to be IV and had gone though every pub, king , queen and pope before TV hit. The crash in a cart followed quickly once I’d had this insight. I then biffed in a bemused HEART ( the two dogs I’ve had have both been male but I’m sure they would have sniffed out that part of the answer quickly) and then it had to be SHIVER, not properly understood either as I’ve never bothered before to think about if or why timbers could or should be shivered. So I took 48 minutes in total. I thought Sherlock played violin too. BANGLE was constructed early and then put in confidently on a totally erroneous BANGLA basis. CROSS-PLY went in quickly after sourcing my son’s tyre yesterday, but it was a radial we bought. Many decades ago I was told that you shouldn’t mix the two or you’ll get a CAR CRASH. That’s what this so nearly was. COD FACE VALUE, which you couldn’t take this puzzle at. Thank you Pip and setter.
  14. I didn’t think that Del Boy’s Reliant Rialto could be the required ‘business centre’. It transpires that it was a Reliant Regal in any event. Putting in RELIABLE made the bulb LOOSE -fitting. Generally an over reliance on biffing.
  15. 37 mins. The GK requirement for this one was an enjoyable challenge. I didn’t see the STAND-OFF def, but when Pip pointed it out I realised I *did* know it from my compulsory rugby at school. DNK the Holmes story (I’ve only read The Spotted Band and it didn’t entice me to read any more of them).
    I thought ‘R in heat’ was a very clever bit of clueing. BTW, I am firmly of the opinion that Collins dicts are preferred by Times setters as benchmarks on meaning & usage — I used to work for HarperCollins Dicts division — and the evidence presented by commenters here (that Oxford regards “in heat” as US, whereas Collins treats it as normal UK) tends to support my view.
    I have no problem with “rubber” for car tyres: common usage, I believe. Agree that 5d is a clunky clue for a clunky word.
    Thanks to setter and blogger!
    1. I agree with you on rubber being OK. Burn rubber. Where the rubber meets the road. Buy new rubber. Plus, having the conjunction of rubber and crossers x R x S x encourages people like me to stare at Erase for too long.
  16. I struggled with this and nearly gave up a few times. I had Shiver and Heart early on but was not sure of either. Not heard of a Stomacher before; nor the non-existent religion Misla, which formed part of my word play for Isla. I’d heard of Rialto but didn’t really know what it meant. I thought Advisory was nicely disguised – which was my last one in, after tumbling into and emerging from the wreckage of Car-crash TV.

    41 min 56 secs.

    Edited at 2018-04-11 10:14 am (UTC)

  17. Nice puzzle, ending with me slightly bogged down on the junction of CLOVE and TURKEY, a delay which was only resolved by an alphabet trawl which dismissed CHOIR, CHORD etc. until the right option dawned on me, ironically in a sort of lightbulb moment. I also really liked the penny-drop moment which gave me 2d. Today’s earworm is not music, but comedy, specifically the Fry and Laurie sketch in which three absurd British travel writers discuss how backpackers are ruining “our Venice”, including the Rial-to.
    2. Thank you Tim and Sotira for this Venetian treat. Along with Horryd’s F&F car-crash-tv this gave me a much-needed giggle this morning (and every morning now). My fingers typed in “moroning” which may be telling me something.
    3. My trawl only got as far as Choke, which passed my (but not the ed’s) ‘close enough’ test as the center of an artichoke bulb and to, e.g., choke off.
  18. 12:15. I thought this was a really fun and interesting puzzle with a great range of references. Some of them were a little arcane, but everything was fairly clued.
    I have always said ‘on heat’ but knew that ‘in’ was an alternative so this didn’t cause me problems.
    I was by coincidence thinking about the Rialto yesterday evening: we went to see Julius Caesar and the phrase ‘many a time and oft’ brought back a sudden, random, vivid memory of a discussion at school about whether the line ‘many a time and oft in the Rialto have you rated me’ could be read as ‘many at time – and oft in the Rialto – have you rated me’. Memory is a strange thing at times, particularly for someone like me who struggles to remember what he had for lunch yesterday.

    Edited at 2018-04-11 09:25 am (UTC)

  19. 36 min, but needed aids to remind me of possible equivalents for ‘sleep. at 6ac and ‘failure’ at 28ac.
    2dn went in at once, guessing that ‘in’ was OK as alternative to ‘on’, but was reluctant to submit 5ac., as couldn’t see a definition – should have remembered that for Times setters RU is the only sport.
  20. 25 mins… A pleasure to be reminded that a millihelen is the standard of beauty required to launch one ship.
  21. 35 minutes, confirming my outlier status by finishing in the SE corner. I’m sure I’ve been to a cinema called the Rialto – certainly didn’t recall the word from Shakespeare, but then I seldom do.
    1. The Hard Rock casino on Coventry Street in London is in a Grade 2 Listed Building which was originally the Rialto Theatre.
  22. Same DNKs as others except that I did know RIALTO because it used to crop up in the NY Times puzzles quite regularly. Unfortunately for me nowadays they tend to go with tv characters I’ve never heard of and other pop culture stuff (she sniffs disdainfully). Pip, in your intro, your MOV reference goes with 4d not 3d (but that’s just being nigglesome). I confidently put “stress” at the bottom of 5d and worked my way up only to find an empty light. Hmmm. Good puzzle. 19.51
    2. I did the same thing with Mistress, but solved the problem by adding an extra S in the middle: Misstress. Played havoc with the bottom bit.
  23. Same as others: held up by shiver/heart/rialto in the NW, even wanting 4dn to end in O right from the start and knowing MoV. Got them after a while, but had to go away and come back to get CLOVE and TURKEY.
    Though I rarely comment here I always read the blog with great enjoyment. Have seen in recent times the 8(?)-Z Thursday Zabadak puzzle, and Verlaine and Jack.T both appearing as answers in the past few weeks. Have I joined such exalted company today?
  24. Del Boy’s van was indeed not a Robin, but a Supervan 3 version of the earlier Regal (see earlier critique of said vehicle).

    FOI MORELLOS (a little worried not to solve a single clue in the entire top half !)

    LOI RIALTO

    COD HEART

    WOD VACILLATE

    STAND-OFF halves appear primarily in Rugby League, my late father’s sport of choice, rather than Union (which I don’t much enjoy).

    Only biff 5D where I was trying to put SCHOOLMISTRESSLY, but parsed immediately on entry.

    12:58 with thanks to Pip and the setter for another enjoyable offering.

    1. My first thought for 18ac was TOMATOES! – that which parseth all understanding!

      You’re darn good on Reliants what about Karmann Ghias?

      1. Excellent.

        Sums up my biffing today.

        I was musing on three wheeler cars and wandered onto three seater cars. Remembering the Matra Simca Bagheera?

  25. I had to work hard at this one, with the SE and NW proving particularly resistant to my efforts. I was convinced 4d started with C, so that held me up. Spotting the In HEAT trick finally got me sorted in the NW, RIALTO then following from SHIVER. Once I’d spotted the wordplay I had no problem with the definition as I spent my 50th birthday in Venice. Here is a link to a couple of pics I took of the Rialto Bridge with its evening business centre at the bottom of the steps and lots of pretty lights. https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtISbwJlBmVW0GrsveAbc8xEK2mp
    MORELLOS was my LOI, with ISLA being delayed by a biffed DOGA until reality took hold. STOMACHER rang a very faint bell after ISLA appeared. I didn’t know the Holmes novel, but once PLIANT and CLOVE were in, the wordplay got me there. DODGE and SHIN were my first 2 in. I liked FACE VALUE. 51:19. Great puzzle. Thanks setter and Pip.
  26. I found this one quite tough going, and required frequent refreshment to keep my brain cool. CAR-CRASH TV and RIALTO were new to me, as was the Sikh bangle, but all were clear enough. For some reason, TURKEY/CLOVE held me up at the end.
  27. Nothing to scare the horses – all quite doable – except that I didn’t do it. Must be on the wrong wavelength for this, as I came in a couple of seconds short of 60 mins.
    It was the NW and SE that did for me in the end – I got SHIVER but too unsure to enter it. SE was not difficult, but just didn’t see them.
  28. DNF, resorted to aids to find out about CAR-CRASH TV ( I got the TV part) and the Holmes book, despite having all the checkers. I didn’t know about Sikh BANGLEs either, but I did get that. Not enough knowledge in my head to get through today. Oops. Regards.
  29. I thought a lot of this was clever – I’m with Pip in finding Face Value pleasing, and agree with many others about Heart.
    Still, very much a DNF, mostly due to adding an extra S in the middle of Schoolmisstress (sic) leading to The Last Bow, and subsequent problems that I don’t need to detail, but which produced quite a large number of newly invented words. I’m still not completely sure that …mistressy fits the definition – it seems to me to be an adjective rather than a noun, and the clue seems to call for a noun.
    Thanks Pip, setter.

    Edited at 2018-04-11 04:43 pm (UTC)

    1. If you look carefully you will see that Pip has underlined ‘as one dealing…’ for the definition, which requires an adjective.
      1. You are right. That would make two errors I made in a clue I knew (roughly) the answer to. Thanks, k
  31. I thought I had finished and was feeling pretty pleased with myself – then I realised that I had entered “choke” instead of “clove”. Ah well – not too bad otherwise – although I did have to check on “His Last Bow”. Not sure that a lance is a blade – being pointy rather than slashy?
  35. I did most of this in about 30 mins this morning but got very bogged down in the SE corner, which ended up being very attritional and done in about another 20 mins over a couple of further sessions. My last two in, clove and turkey, required a lot of staring fruitlessly at the checking letters whilst desperately willing lightning to strike. I didn’t know the Sherlock tale but it was easy enough to guess, I didn’t know the tyre or the Sikh bangle but got there from wp and checkers. Lots to enjoy with face value the stand out for me.
  36. Like most I had difficulty with 2D. In the end I thought it was that a boxer is often described as having HEART when enthusiastic. So that is the definition. And then if you add on Y (finallly readY) you get the nautical ‘mate’ HEARTY, as in heave ho me hearties! Still doesn’t quite parse though as there seems to be a hanging ‘to’.

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