Times 27021 – not Dante, the chap with the Idyll.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Another cracking Wednesday job, not too easy but not too difficult or too spiced with obscurities. 4d got me on the ice and I’d finished the RHS in good time. The LHS proved more intractable but fell in due course, the easier 18a being a help. 14 a surprised me, it had to be what it was but I’d always imagined the second word had no L in it.
It’s a toss-up between 20d and 22d for my CoD. Took me about 25 minutes all told.

Usual rules; definitions underlined, anagrist in italics, CD cryptic def, DD double def. I’m not going to repeat this blurb next week.

Across
1 Divine comedy actually starts in wood (8)
FORECAST – Insert C and A being the ‘starts’ to comedy actually, into FOREST. My heart sank at first as I thought Dante or Greek divinities, but thankfully no.
5 Set up, male supplied with pens (6)
FRAMED – Insert a male RAM into FED = supplied with.
9 Upset, wrong, and wound up (8)
OFFENDED – OFF = wrong, ENDED = wound up.
10 Saws taking a long time with last bits of balsa wood (6)
ADAGES – End letters of balsA wooD then AGES.
12 Dash into toilet, as terrified (5)
TASTE – As in a dash of Tabasco. Hidden word in TOILE(T AS TE)RRIFIED.
13 Private club hosts going with the flow? (9)
DOWNRIVER – OWN = private, inside DRIVER a golf club.
14 Fast lap, yet resolved to leave (7-5)
LICKETY-SPLIT – LICK = lap, (YET)*, SPLIT = leave. For some reason I knew the expression as lickety-spit, so I am one word the wiser today.
18 Allowed to wear neck-warmer still for illness (7,5)
SCARLET FEVER – SCARF, a neck-warmer, goes outside LET, then EVER = still.
21 A writer figures in extended European feature (9)
APENNINES – A, PEN, NINES = figures. Long mountain range hence extended.
23 Persian is taking service back (5)
FARSI – All reversed, IS, RAF. The Persian language.
24 Run, as filly and hack? (6)
GALLOP – CD.
25 Subordinate after complete power (8)
DOMINION – DO = complete, MINION = subordinate.
26 One hand drier contains small tool (6)
TROWEL – TOWEL, a drier, contains R as in right hand.
27 Drunk eats dish that’s most dodgy (8)
SHADIEST – (EATS DISH)*.
Down
1 Light grass in rush (6)
FLOATY – Was slow to see this one. OAT = grass inside FLY = rush.
2 Don’t accept trash (6)
REFUSE – DD. Different pronunciations.
3 Nice to get thicker bags in, pulled up (9)
CONGENIAL – IN reversed inserted into CONGEAL = get thicker.
4 Holding short ski, edge past in novel winter sport (12)
SPEEDSKATING – Anagram of (EDGE PAST IN)* with SK(I) inserted.
6 Actors relieved initially, finding system (5)
RADAR – Nice definition. RADA = actors, R = relieved initially.
7 Herb lifted into empty mineshaft — much force required (8)
MEGAVOLT – The herb we need is LOVAGE, which is reversed inside MT being an empty mineshaft. I hereby start a debate as to whether a VOLT is a force, the unit of force being a Newton, and a Volt being a measure of potential from which a force can be created.
8 Verbally restrained individual (8)
DISCRETE – Sounds like DISCREET = restrained.
11 Lazy hanger-on, the old sot, drunk after a couple (3-4,5)
TWO-TOED SLOTH – TWO then (THE OLD SOT)*.
15 Legendary prince, say, after brief misdemeanour, really felt the heat? (9)
SIEGFRIED – SI(N) for brief misdemeanour, EG for say, FRIED = really felt the heat. I don’t like Wagner’s operas but the orchestral bits like the SIEGFRIED IDYLL are nice enough.
16 Key words of a thief, slimy customer? (8)
ESCARGOT – ESC = key on keyboard, ARGOT could be underworld slang.
17 Subsequently getting head down in court battle (8)
WATERLOO – WOO = court, LATER = subsequently, move the head L down = ATERL and insert into WOO.
19 Cheer up after opening of present (6)
PRAISE – P followed by RAISE = up, as a verb.
20 Bird thrashing skyward? (6)
LINNET – Well, TEN NIL would be a thrashing, in any game. Skyward = reverse it, to get the bird made famous in the song. No larks ascending.
22 Twelve men in the middle — how many more for a jury? (2,3)
NO ONE – Clever, this. NOON = twelve, E = men in the middle. NO ONE is needed to add to the twelve already there.

59 comments on “Times 27021 – not Dante, the chap with the Idyll.”

  1. I had PRIMED, though I could not parse it. Thought of FRAMED, but didn’t think of RAM for “male,” was stuck on M. Oh, well. Don’t know if I’ve ever heard anyone use FLOATY. Are TWO-TOED SLOTHs really lazy? I thought that was a figure of speech… ;-D
  2. Lumme, that was hard for me. And I’m another PRIMED — I thought I had parsed this but I now realise I was confusing ‘pried’ with ‘plied’.

    Some brilliant things, and hats off to all who completed this inside 20 minutes (only Jason, verlaine and fshephe so far). A Championship final-worthy puzzle, I would say. Good time, Pip

  3. Got reallly held up at the end at 26A as to whether there was another word, since I’d parsed it as “hand drier” = towel and then couldn’t see why “R” was small. But TROWEL was a tool. I had the same problem with FRAMED but got that one sorted. And for 1D I could only see SPOTTY, which means light (as in spotty rain), and pot means grass, and STY might be a type of rush (as in the reed sense). Then I realized.
  4. I’ll join the debate: As an electrical engineer who hates ignorant people using words such as force, power, energy in completely the wrong sense, I had no problem with force for voltage. In the past voltage was known as EMF (electro-motive force), so in the crossword-world the dictionaries probably have it.
    Outside crosswords, in real life I’d hate it.
    A slowish 29 minutes, but all right. LOI linnet a guess – forgotten the bird, and 10-0 as a thrashing is meh.
    Really liked the “finding system.”

    Edited at 2018-04-25 06:30 am (UTC)

    1. My vote’s for MEGAVOLT being okay, too. A higher voltage feels like a stronger force to me (and I was taught by a reasonably pedantic electronics teacher!)
  5. Oh and gallop a CD, or GAL for filly and LOP for hack – another clue I really liked.
  6. 57 minutes, and pleased with that given the quality of the puzzle. As with Pip I started with 4d after not much else sprang out at me, but then gradually got a foothold in the SW, and worked my way back up to the top, oddly finishing with the comparatively easy 9a OFFEND.

    Then again, much of this one seemed deceptively easy once you’d worked out the answer, which is usually a good sign.

    Confused by a few—I was with Paul on 26a TROWEL, for one—but mostly happy with my parsings along the way.

    COD 20d, WOD LICKETY-SPLIT, naturally. Luckily I knew this from Red Dwarf, where Arnold Rimmer’s intended career path was “up the ziggurat, lickety-split!”

  7. Not too difficult, huh? Well I needed just under 90 minutes to complete it with judicial use of aids for a couple of clues in the NW corner once the hour had passed. And I still had one wrong answer as, like Guy, I had PRIMED at 5ac although I was unable to account for it. FWIW I found the lower half somewhat more straightforward than the top half.

    Edited at 2018-04-25 06:00 am (UTC)

  8. Altogether now….
    45 mins with yoghurt, granola, etc. and I really liked it.
    All fair wordplay but with some twists to make it interesting: e.g. the use of ‘pens’, ‘bags’ to hide containment and the ‘Private club hosts’ and ‘One hand drier contains’.
    Good stuff.
    Like Pip, I thought Sp(l)it – but I have now been educated.
    Mostly I liked lots of gems in the downs today: Radar, TT Sloth, Siegried, Waterloo, No One and COD to Ten-Nil.
    Thanks brilliant setter and Pip
      1. Ahh, so Abba succeeds where Hall & Oates and Rupert Holmes have failed this week.
  9. Another ‘primed’, relying on an unknown meaning of ‘pried’ (which is true in a way). So FRAMED COD for me for defeating so many solvers with not a saint or a heretic in sight.
  10. Good fun but very hard at the same time and took well over an hour, eventually defeated by 5a. I too almost convinced myself that ‘pried’ could do for ‘supplied with’ but I suppose it doesn’t really work. LICKETY-SPLIT took ages but was satisfying to have worked out and I liked ESCARGOT and the ‘Bird thrashing skyward’.

    Hope there’s a simpler word for 11d for future crossword use.

    Thank you to setter and blogger.

  11. I thought of Framed – unfortunately I thought of it about 2 seconds after pressing submit. Agree with others that this would have been a good championship puzzle
  12. Very good crossword .. I took about 25 enjoyable minutes on it.
    Count me as another engineer happy with volt = (em)force
  13. Crashed and burned with this: simply couldn’t get going anywhere with every trick of the setter completely bamboozling me. Finished with PRIMED (of course, assuming the setter had a Japanese cousin who pried him with flied lice) and struggled with everything else. A really, really good puzzle for somebody else.
  14. Currently on the Snitchometer this crossword is on the cusp of Hard/Very Hard so I’m pleased to have finished it at all. I was tempted by PRIMED for my LOI, but finally saw the parsing of FRAMED just before finishing.

    COD to TROWEL for causing me to think this clue was surely a misprint – how can S into TOWEL make TROWEL? Nice one setter.

    1. At 9am there are still only 5 legitimate times below 20 minutes, so I would think this is at least very hard
  15. Excellent puzzle and well blogged Pip. A number of instances where I ‘saw’ the answer from def & checkers but struggled to see how the clue worked. Biggest self-kicking and laughing moment was LINNET. And nice to see uncommon terms like FLOATY and LICKETY-SPLIT.
  16. I thought this was tough fare but also very fair. And clever. 44 min and 51 secs with one wrong. Flouty for floaty. I thought 1 ac was very well disguised and I liked the Ten Nil thrashing.
  17. Count me in – very difficult puzzle that was hard work but enjoyable. Quite happy with volt=force. Thought 22D a real cracker of a clue

    Thanks to setter and well done Pip

  18. 20′, but with FLOUTY ( grass = out ), which is a word, but now, I discover, only in the urban dictionary. A very enjoyable puzzle. Thanks pip and setter.
  19. I’m happy with volt as force, as Isla says, for the definition given in first-form Physics as above more than from anything I did later. A volt can’t be directly converted to a newton though with the ratio between volt to newton being a meter per coulomb, so I also have sympathy for the doubters as well. The force certainly wasn’t with me today. I struggled with this puzzle taking over 70 minutes. with LOI LICKETY-SPLIT needing all crossers. It did then sound vaguely familar I correctly biffed FRAMED simply to mean set up as in a corrupt investigation. Lennon thought ‘For No One’ McCartney’s best song. That’s how I happened on 22 down, which was as as well or it would have been a crossword that could have lasted years. Thank you Pip and setter.

    Edited at 2018-04-25 08:39 am (UTC)

  20. Happy to finish this and discover that no, it wasn’t just me, and it really was as tricky as I’d imagined. A perfect example of how a setter can use clever misdirection rather than obscurities to hold you up. Like just about everyone else, it seems, I was tempted by PRIMED from the very start, but luckily achieved enlightenment right at the end; I also found FLOATY hard to see until I saw it – so many possibilities as to what that clue could mean! Very good all round.
  21. 55 mins. A toughie for me. Like several others, I grumped at MEGAVOLT — but not because of the physics, rather because of the ‘required’ in the clue: ‘much force’ is *not* required , it’s generate/ produced/ supplied. I grumped about PRAISE = ‘cheer’ (in which linguistic universe does that work?) and ‘one hand drier contains’ — like Yoda non-English syntax this setter uses. Oh, and NO-ONE is never two discrete words, but always hyphenated. Meh!
    On the plus side, the 10-0 thrashing was fun. The sloth clue was jolly good. LICKETY-SPLIT was fiendish, I thought, but enjoyably taxing. And COD to FORECAST.
    Very fair blog, Pip, thank you.
  22. Forgot to mention that one of the problems here was the complete absence of 3- / 4-letter answers. I usually rely heavily on them to get myself started.
    1. Indeed, and then long ones of which there were none either (I don’t count 12 as long!).
    2. Snap! When nothing sprang out as solvable I thought my usual, “well, I’ll just knock off a couple of the little ones and see where that leads…” only to be stymied by the complete lack of ’em!
  23. Excellent crossword that beat me. I guessed PRIMED was wrong but ran out of time. Also had SAGE as the reversed herb giving MEGAS**T. Didn’t remember that in Physics (but then, I don’t remember much from Physics at school except Newton because that was the teacher’s name). Alexander ‘Sandy’ Clay taught me Soils at Pershore Ag College for a term as well. It all helps. Thanks setter and Pip. COD from many to LINNET.
  24. I’ve noticed ‘no one’ is more and more frequently two words unhyphenated these days. 44’12 but another ‘primed’. Very well-framed puzzle – humorous, sinewy, accurate (if it ever wants an ad for Puzzles Singles).
  25. 17:46, but another PRIMED here. I agonised over it, considering both that and FRAMED but unable to parse either. Eventually I plumped for PRIMED on the basis that PRIED at least means something, whereas FRAED isn’t a word. Like Neil above I realised my mistake a couple of seconds after submitting.
    This was tough, and I would call it rewarding rather than enjoyable. That isn’t just sour grapes because I thought it before I failed to finish.
    As an English literature graduate I was fine with power for volt on the basis that they are both electronicy physicsy thingies.

    Edited at 2018-04-25 09:26 am (UTC)

  26. Clearly not my week – 15m 12s, having spent some time staring at 15d and eventually bunging in STEWFRIED just to get it over and done with. Somehow, as soon as I hit the button I realised it was SIEGFRIED. I also took a long time to work out why FRAMED was right, having got ‘male = M’ stuck in my head.
  27. 43 minutes: after finding longer answers, grid falls into quadrants which had to be solved separately. NW done quickly, but got nowhere with SE, as I’ve never thought of Siegfried as a prince – so was trying to get one from SWELTERED somehow. In SW, I was trying to make something with SNAIL at 16dn until I remembered the key – parsed 24ac as filly=GAL + hack=LOP. NE was last, after rejecting MEGAS—, and finally seeing that 5ac wasn’t using male=M.
  28. Well it was briefly 5-0 last night, until the unfortunate end, so I won’t call it a thrashing.
    Too many aids used to say that I have done this one myself – liked much of the misdirection including the divine comedy – tried PARADISO for a while. Guessed at SPEEDSKATING but didn’t see the anagram. Well done Pip – it was much harder than you thought!
  29. Glad to be in good company. After 10 minutes my grid was very sparsely populated and I began to think it would be my WATERLOO. The two long down clues to the rescue and that was more like it. I have a new summer dress that’s sort of FLOATY so that was ok but I kept trying for “borage” in 7d which was never going to work, and then remembered Lettice And Lovage. Count me in as a fan of LINNET – the only problem being that I’ve now got “my old man said follow the van” on the brain. Yup, that would have weeded me out of the champs all right. 24.58
  30. Volts are a measure of electromotive force (abbrevated to emf) so I say that is fair enough. Andy Fisher
  31. 14ac LICKETY SPLIT was my WOD and there were plenty of candidates for COD but for me it was 20dn LINNET. Working up from the base, I didn’t want this one to stop but it did at 52 minutes A really fine example of the art of the setter.A joy!

    11dn TWO-TOED SLOTH is the Scrabble stalwart – AI.

    FOI 23ac FARSI
    LOI the aforementioned 20dn LINNET just after 5ac FRAMED

    1dn FLOATY was most rewarding.

    Did not manage to parse 3dn CONGENIAL

  32. 19:33 so I look forward to Sotira doffing her hat for me.

    Lots of clever stuff here and no child-beatings or poorly-clued religious obscurities so I have to say I enjoyed this.

    I did mull over FRAMED for a while and eventually saw the RAM for the trees. Perhaps I was fortunate that PRIMED didn’t occur to me.

    COD to the 10-0 reversal.

    2. PRIMED didn’t occur to me either, I thought of FRAMED for meaning set up and then linked the male RAM to the idea of it being in a PEN, a subtle hint for the kind of male we needed I thought. Should have said this in the blog, but it might have been me over-analysing an unintentional link by the setter.
  33. I thought I should have done better than 29:03 for this, but clearly it was tougher than I gave it credit for. Too many fast times of late – lured into a false sense of security.

    FOI TASTE
    LOI LINNET – also COD.

    I didn’t much care for NO ONE, but Chambers gives it with or without the hyphen. I always use “nobody” as my default. Never seen SPEEDSKATING as a single word, but again Chambers concurs.

    Biffed FRAMED as more likely than “primed”. Thanks for that one Pip, I was in thrall to the “M” trap !

    And thanks to the setter for a really good puzzle.

  35. I took an hour, but I did finish correctly, solving on a train. Most of it was straightforward, but I took ages for 5ac and 6dn, although I did biff FRAMED right away. But I also couldn’t stop equating the M with “male” and FRAED penning it made very little sense. Fortunately I couldn’t justify ORDER for 5dn and eventually thought RADA was far more likely to be an association of actors, which again made FRAMED viable and I finally saw the RAM. Lots of really nice clues, but I particularly liked LINNET (and NO ONE, which is somehow similar).
  36. I had PRIMED and wasn’t convinced. I meant to go back to it but was distracted by a courier bearing my new strimmer (My old one exploded dramatically last Monday) Great crossword – a real challenge for me but with lots of delicious eureka moments. 48 minutes. Ann
  37. Another DNF due to 5A, and I didn’t get RADAR either for that matter. I entered FORMED and ORDER. Couldn’t parse either at all, so expected them to be wrong. So I was correct in at least that regard. And regards.
  38. Kind of late to come here, but it looks like I’m not the only one who agonized over it only to put in PRIMED! Oh and I had another typo somewhere on the left side.
  39. I could mention that I zipped through this one in about 11 minutes, but that would be wrong of me, since it actually took well over the hour. DOMINION was my LOI, but the whole thing was slow going. An excellent puzzle.
  40. I was very late to the puzzle today, as I went to a rather boozy funeral to celebrate the life of a lovely lady who was the mother of some friends, and had reached the grand old age of 90 before departing this mortal coil. Having taken 62:10 to solve the puzzle correctly, with PRIMED discarded for FRAMED, and correctly parsed, with ESCARGOT and GALLOP my last 2 in, I was mightily miffed to discover my fumbling fingers had overwritten the S in ADAGES with an E as I tried to enter DISCRETE. Bah! With a very sparsely populated grid at the 40 minute mark, I almost gave up, but a second cup of tea gave me fresh inspiration. I have to say that the aforementioned boozy do was not ideal preparation for this puzzle! Thanks setter and Pip.
  41. 38:45. I didn’t find this particularly difficult and my time is not totally embarrassing relative to the many, very good solvers commenting here. This either means I’m improving as a solver or that every dog has his day (tune in for tomorrow’s inevitable debacle to see it must have been the latter). I was held up a little in the NW, like eniamretrauq I thought of Dante’s Paradiso before lifting and separating the Divine comedy. My LOI was 5ac. My first thought was primed but I couldn’t justify it. An alphabet trawl got me to framed. Like others I was oddly unable to see the male ram. I pondered the male “m” surrounded by “fraed” and the male “Fred” supplied with “am” and finally “fed” but it was still only post solve that the parsing penny dropped. Nice to share in this odd bout of collective ram-blindness.
  42. Belated message from the bottom of the world. Agree with you wholeheartedly about 20d and 22d, Pip. Splendid clues!
  43. Ran out of time yesterday to finish this and came back today to complete the NW corner. About 28mins in total, but I’m another “PRIMED” for 5a. That was a shame. I was feeling quite pleased to complete without aids. Like Pip, I thought the phrase was LICKETY SPIT. Some lovely clues. LINNET my favourite.

Comments are closed.