Times 27,035: The River Horse In The Room

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I thought this was good and commendably Friday-hard, with the tough combination of (a) very few definition parts that immediately suggest their answers and (b) very few completely straightforward wordplay parts. It may turn out to have been a wavelength puzzle and if so it’s one that I surely wasn’t on – I still don’t understand 1ac, for starters, which I stared at for long minutes before submitting last night. Someone put me out of my misery on that one please…

FOIs 18ac and 24ac probably, 15ac might have been pretty quick to arrive too but I can’t remember for sure. LOI (apart from the hippo drop) the unfamiliar archaic term at 27ac. I really liked the straightforward elegance of 21ac; Agatha Christie made a guest appearance in Doctor Who about a decade ago, but I must point out that hardcore Doctor Who fans will get miffed if you call it Dr Who, as 25ac comes perilously close to doing!

The surfaces all hold up in the cold morning light and there is definitely some inventive stuff going on with the multiple cryptic definitions and &lits. 12dn is my Clue of the Day for being a really clever re-interpretation of a cliched phrase that we all take for granted, pointing our poor brains off in the wrong direction entirely. Very glad not to have any ambiguity at all about the spelling of 1dn: I like to think of myself as a very good speller, but HOUYHNHNM lies outside even my confidence zone. Imagine how many “scare the horses” comments it could have generated as an anagram! Thanks to the setter for generally not sparing the horses though, 1-0 to you this Friday I’d say, sir or possibly madam. Grr!

ACROSS
1 What township police would need? (5)
HIPPO – hidden quite obviously inside {towns}HIP PO{lice}, but I still don’t get it. Hippos are just the ponderous semiaquatic African mammals, and township police and just township police, aren’t they? I never thought the twain would meet. ETA: a Hippo is an Armoured Personnel Carrier used by South African police. Which I guess it probably had to be really. But I did like the idea of them needing an actual hippo. Another &lit eh!

4 Vessel’s very unusual coupling hooks (6,3)
LOVING CUP – V, “hooked” by (COUPLING*) [“unusual”]

9 North Eastern hotel, full up, sadly offering no accommodation (9)
UNHELPFUL – (NE H FULL UP*) [“sadly”]

10 Absurd sentimentality about distant land (5)
GONZO – GOO [sentimentality] about NZ [= New Zealand = distant land]

11 In private, I agree to receive Republican minister (4,9)
HOME SECRETARY – HOME [in] + SECRET [private] + AY [I agree] “to receive” R [Republican]

14 Large piece of skin ought to be put back evenly (4)
HUNK – the even letters of {s}K{i}N {o}U{g}H{t}, reversed

15 Company department whose business is first to pick up? (4,6)
CALL CENTRE – cryptic def, the call centre being the part of the business that fields incoming phone calls

18 Flowers a symbol some mostly abandoned (3,7)
MAY BLOSSOM – (A SYMBOL SOM{e}*) [“abandoned”]

19 Place such as Washington wouldn’t do for everyone (4)
LIEU – LIE [such as (George) “I cannot tell a lie” Washington wouldn’t do] + U [for everyone]

21 Position, say, in which murder committed (6,7)
ORIENT EXPRESS – ORIENT [position] + EXPRESS [say]

24 Demanding return of books: we’re disgusted (5)
TOUGH – OT [books] reversed + UGH! [we’re disgusted]

25 Who, perhaps, uses it’s elaborately turned out? (5,4)
DRESS SUIT – DR [Who, perhaps] + (USES IT’S*) [“elaborately turned out”], &lit.

27 One that can suddenly drop a clanger, speaking in cheap theatre (5,4)
PENNY GAFF – PENNY [one that can suddenly drop] + homophone of GAFFE [a clanger, “speaking”]

28 Ship touring Caribbean’s in race (5)
SWISS – SS [ship] “touring” WI’S [Caribbean’s]

DOWN
1 Cases of hitherto ugly, half-forgotten Hanoverian mares appearing in fabulous horse race (10)
HOUYHNHNMS – H{ithert}O U{gl}Y H{alf-forgotte}N H{anoveria}N M{are}S. The civilised talking horses from Swift’s Gulliverian fable.

2 Old man’s audible exclamation of contempt (3)
PAH – homophone of PA [old man “is audible”]

3 Russian department closing after student departed (6)
OBLAST – LAST [closing] after OB [= old boy, student departed]

4 Body drawing from biography about girl (4,5)
LIFE CLASS – LIFE C LASS [biography | about | girl]

5 Brussels throne room turned up treasure (5)
VALUE – EU LAV [Brussels | throne room] reversed

6 Row when entering eg on a fancy here? (2-2,4)
NO-GO AREA – OAR [row], when entering (EG ON A*) [“fancy”], semi-&lit.

7 Civil engineer incorporating fellow’s jolly design (5,6)
CANDY STRIPE – CE [civil engineer] “incorporating” ANDY’S TRIP [fellow’s | jolly]

8 One holding chair for piano opposite (4)
PROF – FOR P [for | piano] reversed. ETA: Anonymous’s parsing is even better! PRO [for] + F [= forte = piano’s opposite]. Thanks anon!

12 Reserve ready for the match? (5,2,4)
MONEY TO BURN – cryptic def, money to burn being money you have in “reserve”, that theoretically you could happily take a “match” to…

13 Needs about a pound when daughter’s going places (10)
REQUISITES – RE [about] + QUI{d} [a pound, “when (D for) daughter’s going”] + SITES [places]

16 Behold ring being used to bind each type of folder (5-4)
LOOSE-LEAF – LO [behold] + O [ring] + SELF [being] used “to bind” EA [each]

17 Whacking small boy could end in outcry (8)
ALMIGHTY – AL [small boy] + MIGHT [could] + {outcr}Y

20 The works of O Henry missing from promotions? (6)
OPUSES – O + PUS{h}ES [“(H for) Henry missing from” promotions]

22 Girl climbing a mountain finally needing a hand up (5)
NADIA – A {mountai}N reversed [“climbing”], + AID [a hand] reversed [“up”]

23 Over from a spinner (4)
ATOP – A TOP [a | spinner]

26 Reading maybe for which one has no time (3)
UNI – UNI{t} [one “has no (T for) time”]

84 comments on “Times 27,035: The River Horse In The Room”

  1. I was rather hoping that your lordship would get to the bottom of the Hippo!
    Sounds like a Flanders & Swann job.

    1dn HOUYHNHNMS was excruciating but got there in the end quite Swifly – my LOI COD, WOD

    Very tough even for a Friday but I finally ended in just under an eternity.

    FOI 8dn PROF

    Rest of the day to myself!

    1. It’s an armoured police vehicle in South Africa.

      Edited at 2018-05-11 06:26 am (UTC)

      1. Of course! A Casspir! Why didn’t the setter let on?

        Edited at 2018-05-11 06:43 am (UTC)

      2. And there was me thinking that if a Town’s hip it might need a HIP P(olice) O(fficer) 🙂

        Edited at 2018-05-11 05:00 pm (UTC)

  2. Is an anagram of an acronym (I bet that would frighten Jimbo!)
    The name ‘Casspir’ is an anagram of the abbreviations of the customer, the South African Police (SAP), and the design authority, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR – Applied Chemistry Unit that later became MECHEM).
    As six-wheeler is a Sesspir –

    Doubtless Hippo sounds better!

    Edited at 2018-05-11 06:40 am (UTC)

  3. 45 mins with half a fat rascal (hoorah).
    I really enjoyed this. Clever cluing.
    Mostly I liked: Orient Express, Candy Stripe and COD to the short but perfectly formed… Lieu.
    Thanks setter and V.
  4. I *really* enjoyed this crossword .. if it was a wavelength thing I must have been on it. Our esteemed blogger doesn’t give a time but I might have been close to it .. under 20mins, anyway. Like him, most grateful for the unambiguous clueing of 1dn
    Did not know that meaning of hippo but put it in regardless; Also unfamiliar with 27ac, my LOI.
    Lots of fine clues .. many thanks to setter, and blogger
  5. My solving time was off the scale and I was unable to finish this without resorting to aids.

    I had no idea what was going on at 1dn and although I spotted the ‘cases of’ device as a possiblity, the letters it threw up didn’t seem to work much beyond H{ithert}O. ‘Ugly half forgotten’ suggested UG{ly} as the next two letters and the checked H from 11ac led me to HOUGH as the first half of the answer so I was onto a loser from then on. If I ever knew of the literary horses I had forgotten them completely.

    I won’t embarrass myself any further by listing the many unknown words and/or references in other clues.

    Is SWISS actually a race?

  6. 51 minutes, but ‘situ’ for LIEU. Didn’t recall the myth and I guessed he would have been the type not to sit for portraits, which turns out to be sorta true: http://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/presidential-precedents/

    Nice stuff here on the same website on the cherry tree lie myth: http://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/cherry-tree-myth/

    Race is a yucky concept, so the Swiss, as well as, say, the Chinese, might as well be called it. Odd clueing, though.

    1. Evidently, the standards Americans require of their presidents have shifted significantly over the years!
          1. It was the worst cherry tree ever and planted by a terrible, terrible President. We’re gonna have a much better tree, an amazing tree standing there in no time, just you wait.
  7. Back in circulation after a short stay in hospital for straightening my foot, hence (with many thanks) George’s sub for me yesterday. I’ve discovered trying to solve the crossword on an Android phone is and interesting experiment in minimalism, a tiny patch of grid appearing on screen at any one time. Managed it a couple of times.
    This one was a beauty to come back to, full of downright eccentricities, the setter presumably taking on the Swift horses in a fit of self flagellation, or perhaps GONZO compiling.
    I half knew the Hippo as a mine resistant police vehicle from apartheid era South Africa, but I may be half mistaken.
    I certainly didn’t know the cheap theatre, and blinked a bit at the rather ugly OPUSES.
    But LOVING CUP was good, with its nod in the direction of an &lit, and I completed in 25 minutes. Good Friday.
    1. I hadn’t thought about potential &littishness of the LOVING CUP clue, but that *is* clever assuming it’s intentional, and why wouldn’t it be…
  8. DNF and I’m afraid I didn’t like some of this. Not keen on 1 down especially. I did all but three in 50 mins. Couldn’t get Penny Gaff, although I considered both words – but not together. I invented Pense Naïf, a French neologism for a naive thinker. Also failed to find Almighty – I had Alf instead of Al, and Oblast.

    I liked Money to burn. COD Orient Express.

  9. 75 minutes on this. Much was a NO-GO-AREA for a long time. I just put in both 1a and 1d in despair, having no idea about either definition. I may have been a few minutes quicker if I’d gone to the LIFE CLASS before attempting a life study. It’s as well I have an old friend in New Zealand or GONZO, not a word I’ve ever used, wouldn’t have occurred to me. ALMIGHTY was pretty perverse and my penultimate. LOI was PENNY GAFF from cryptic. I’ve no idea if that is the theatre or one of the backstage staff. Cod to ORIENT EXPRESS, the only solution that made me smile. Can we get the setter on to a train and all stab him there? No, it was a good puzzle, a bit too good for me? Thank you V and setter.
  10. I got to 8 down by a slightly different route: PRO (for) and F (forte, as in piano opposite)! Same end result, and agree it was a terrific crossword to get the day off in a stimulating frame of mind!
    1. I like that a lot better than my parsing, as “opposite” doesn’t really mean “upside down”! It’s an interesting clue if you can come at it from two directions, either way…
  11. Only about half of this solved in the 20 minutes or so I like to spend on a daily puzzle, and no great motivation to push on with it. I’m not really getting much pleasure from the puzzles at the moment — not sure if it’s me or the puzzles — so I’m going to take a sabbatical from them for a while. Will no doubt be back to lower the tone at some future date. Ta ra for now
    1. We will count the hours till your return! I can’t say I’ve been getting quite the same glee out of the Times puzzles in recent months either, but I’ve been putting this down in to mental burnout from (a) having to work about a million hours a week at the moment and (b) having a Magpie subscription which means I may have crossed a line into tackling too many damn hard puzzles a month…
      1. We’ve had quite a few puzzles with ‘the wrong kind of difficulty’ for me, but puzzle burnout is definitely a thing. I’ll let you know if a period of abstinence rekindles the flame
        1. S: I know the feeling, but since I started doing the Guardian as well, which has more variety of level and is sometimes themed, I am recovering from Times tedium and bothering less about my speed and finishing, I just do it if it’s fun. Don’t go away; your insight is always a joy to read.
          1. Thanks, Pip. But I really do need a break. As the man (machine?) said, I’ll be back …..
    4. I thought that you were going to arrête demain?
      Let’s hope that abstinence makes the heart grow fonder.
  12. Not my basinful of fun. Ground to a halt after 18 minutes with about 10 clues missing, and waved the white flag after half an hour when still 8 short.

    Came here and picked up CALL CENTRE, which I really should have got, and that enabled me to solve a few more. Eventually checked ORIENT EXPRESS as well, and that enabled me to mop up the remainder.

    Whilst there were some excellent clues (notably MONEY TO BURN, VALUE, LIEU, and ALMIGHTY), I really didn’t like HOUYHNHNMS, NADIA, or OPUSES.

    Vaguely knew those horses, and OBLAST, but DNK PENNY GAFF, or the usage of HIPPO (I like it now I know !)

    Just the sort of puzzle I dread facing in the Championship.

  13. 35:40. Lots of lovely clever clues which took a lot of unravelling. I liked ALMIGHTY, LIEU and ORIENT EXPRESS. I couldn’t parse 20, looking for a word missing OH – thanks for clearing that up V. SWISS my LOI.
  14. I enjoyed the wackiness and particularly ORIENT EXPRESS, LIEU, and HIPPO but HOUYHNHNHMS goes in the clunky clue of the year box.
  15. Very tough for me. No time posted because I was forced to complete the puzzle in the online newspaper and not on the Club site. I use Firefox on my MacBook Pro but I had a double problem today. In the Concise the cursor would not move to the next square and in the Cryptic, the grid wouldn’t open at all. The Help Desk suggested I clear the cache and cookies, which I did but to no avail. They also suggested using Chrome. I have already migrated from Safari to Firefox at the suggestion of the Help Desk. I’m rather miffed at being told that Chrome is now the browser of choice.

    Anyway, I was also miffed at MAIL CENTRE being marked as wrong. And apart from the small matter of the checking letters not matching, DIANA fits well into 22d I think!

    1. Martin, Firefox and Chrome both work for me, on PC, but I do print off the PDF to solve, most times. On my Android it’s rubbish, you can’t see the whole thing at once.
      I had MAIL CENTRE for a long time too, but it didn’t feel right.
  16. Wrong wavelength for me today, spelt 1d with UG in the middle not UY, didn’t know LIEU or GAFF hence not NADIA. Gave up with those unfinished after 45 minutes, to go to the Grauniad, but some others were good – ORIENT EXPRESS once the P dropped, was best. Didn’t know why it was HIPPO either, on holidays have avoided areas in SA where one might be seen.

    Well done jerryw and V for speed on this one, glad it wasn’t a Wednesday.

  17. I couldn’t finish this, but I got Hippo, from St Augustine of Hippo, an old name for a town(ship) in Algeria. Still on towns, I took Reading as a town, not uni, and omitted the t to get “own”, forcing “has” as the definition . Sigh!
    Pterodactyl
    1. I spent a lot of time wondering about dear old St Aug, but I couldn’t recall him ever doing much tangling with the local police!
      1. He probably got into a few scrapes with the law – not to mention husbands – as he was a very naughty boy.
  18. I gave up on this. Saw that 1ac might be a hidden but couldn’t make sense of the clue. Saw how the wordplay might work for 1dn but dismissed the possibility of a word starting HOUYHN. Realised PENNY _A_F was something I didn’t know and was never going to guess. Bah humbug.
    1. HOUYHNHNMs came up (very improbably) in another crossword recently didn’t it? I’m assuming it wasn’t a Times or else everyone else would have mentioned it. Maybe it was a Magpie or a particularly wacky Indy puzzle.
      1. Not in a puzzle I’ve solved. It’s a curious clue: the wordplay is absolutely clear and unambiguous, and in a way I kind of solved it, but it was still, from my perspective, impossible to actually solve in the ‘put the answer in’ sense. And putting the answer in is undoubtedly an important element in the solving process.

        Edited at 2018-05-11 09:49 am (UTC)

  19. Well this was a proper Friday puzzle like we used to get, before we were officially told that Fridays absolutely, definitely aren’t harder than the rest of the week 🙂

    Anyway, my (comparatively) swift solving time suggests this was as much on my wavelength as a puzzle can be while remaining this tricky. I can certainly understand why some people would wonder if a puzzle can be a 100% fair challenge when it involves so much guesswork, and taking so much on trust, even if you end up with the correct solution (in particular, I’d never heard of the PENNY GAFF or the HIPPO, though I’d assumed it was perhaps some sort of baton used by the local police, so I suppose I wasn’t that far adrift). And to be fair, the immensely tricky 1dn was clued in perhaps the only fair way the word can be – I knew of the word, and even then, if I’d attempted to spell it without any assistance, I would have needed several goes. All in all, I enjoyed this, though I realise I’m speaking from a somewhat privileged position. But that’s Fridays for you…

  20. White flag after 76 mins, with the HIPPO/OBLAST pair unsolvable for me. Yes, I saw the hidden ‘hippo’ but, like Verlaine, couldn’t make it fit the clue. The clueing was certainly tough: e.g. ‘goo’ for ‘sentimentality’ as a component in the rather obscure GONZO; or the very distracting ‘hooks’ along with the loose definition (‘vessel’) in 4a; the very oblique definition of NO-GO AREA. On the other hand, I particularly liked the clever and entertaining ORIENT EXPRESS, MONEY TO BURN, UNI.

    The Swiss can not be defined as a ‘race’. And HOUYHNHNMS is an impeccable clue and solution — the setter even spells it out for us.

    Proper blog. Thank you, V.
    Proper brain-teaser of a puzzle. Thank you, setter.

    Edited at 2018-05-11 10:48 am (UTC)

  21. Oh dear. It took me slightly under an hour to finish with one error.

    Everyone knows that, in addition to being truthful, George Washington was an impatient man who famously said “I cannot sit”. Hence “situ” for 19ac.

    Sometimes I look at myself and wonder if evolution was really worth all the trouble.

    1. Yes! I did the same. Washington refused to sit for any further portraits: therefore SITU.
      1. Well, depending on your preferred aphorism, that makes us both either great minds or fools.
  22. Strewth. Glad to finish, in a few minutes under the hour. Fascinating verbarium. Oh no, I see I put mail centre in. Still, many congratulations to the setter, despite the half-ugly uni and opuses. Penny gaff eh?
  23. I assume the setters use such words as HOUYHNHNMS in the same way that Silas uses a metal cilice in that incredible film The Da Vinci Code.

    I agree about ‘putting the answer in’.

  24. I’ve been looking at this on and off all morning but finally gave up without HOUYHNHNMS and OBLAST and with an incorrect SITU instead of LIEU. Can anyone tell me how HOUYHNHNMS is pronounced?

    But just as I accepted defeat on this puzzle the postman brought me the great news that I’m in the Championship in November! I look forward to putting some faces to pseudonyms.

    1. Well done on the qualification.

      I’m quite a way from my post at the moment, so don’t know if I’ve got anything along the same lines. Fingers crossed though.

      As for this, definitely a tricky one, 31 minutes with too many put in with crossed fingers for my comfort.

      1. I think I’m in the morning prelim as usual in recent years – hope to see lots of people there…
        1. Letter was indeed here – afternoon prelim for me so no lunchtime drinkies this year.
          1. I’ll be there too… and in the morning prelim, so I’ll get to drink all afternoon again. Looking forward to meeting people there again.
    3. If I recall correctly, its ‘winnims’. Recall what? you may ask, for all the good it will do you.
      1. According to learned people online, it’s pronounced “hoo-IN-um” or “HWIN-um.” Ah, I wonder why the search engine / portal went for YAHOO!

        “The Houyhnhnms and Yahoos represent two extremes of mankind, with Gulliver both literally and figuratively stuck between them: the Houyhnhnms represent absolute innocence and icy-cold reason, and the Yahoos represent the depravity of mankind.

        As much as he tries to become like the horses, Gulliver cannot rid himself of his Yahoo-ness, and the Houyhnhnms send him away.”

    5. I don’t know how it is pronounced but I’m looking forward to seeing it in the ‘Missing vowels’ round in Only Connect.
      1. So am I, but after 37 episodes and numerous near-finals, it’s finished for now, more’s the pity.
    6. Congratulations, look forward to seeing you there. I got my letter today too. I’ve been put in the morning session but will try and get moved to the afternoon given that I have to get to that London from Yorkshire and drinking from noon until 10pm makes me feel sick.
  25. Well, I thought I was sort-of on the wavelength for this one, until I came unstuck in the NE, and had to resort to aids to complete this. In particular, I was quite convinced that was such a thing as an OOLUE. Once I had got VALUE, I had then got LOVING CUP, but little else. This was the sort of puzzle which requires several ‘go away and let my brain process this’ moments. Fortunately we now have a pause button which works….
  26. I’m not to be considered an authority, but I just pronounce it whinny’ms.
  27. 45 minutes – a similar experience to others (1ac not understood, thanks for being shown how to spell 1dn, MAIL at 15ac which sort of fits) – also a carelessly biffed STOP for 23dn.

    Edited at 2018-05-11 11:17 am (UTC)

  28. 38′, delayed by putting MONEY IN HAND thus making SW even harder. Guessed HIPPO was an armoured car or suchlike. COD OPUSES, a new word for me, have hitherto used OPERA. Thanks verlaine and setter.
  29. Crumbs, 38 mins for this. That said, the Snitch is through the roof on 173. 1dn – what can you say? The only thing that stopped me bunging it in straight away was its sheer implausibility. Got a no on the first championship qualifier (it did take me a while, I’m afraid); two more goes ahead. Only got through on the third go last year. Through on first go the year before that; must be slowing down 🙂
    1. Did they actually write to tell you you’ve missed out or are you inferring that from the lack of an envelope flopping onto your doormat?
  30. The sheer unlikeliness of 1d caused me to pause, even though the apparent crossers all seemed to fit. I still screwed up though, by taking half of half-hearted in the mix and putting an F where I should have put an N. Bah! It was, however, of no consequence in the final reckoning, as I had SITU for LIEU. Double Bah! and Humbug! My justification for 1a was that if a Town’s hip it might need a HIP P(olice) (O)fficer. Knew gaff as a place of abode, quite commonly used in these parts, so once the penny had dropped it was a fair bet. I had OOLUE for a while until LOVING CUP put me right. Despite the 77:50 this took, I quite enjoyed it, with lots of Aha moments: too many to list, although MONEY TO BURN was high on the posited list. ALMIGHTY took an almighty length of time to fathom. Thanks setter and V.
  31. Guardian 25887 by Crucible was a themed puzzle based on Gullivers Travels. 13a. Such are the houyhnhnms, in the author’s estimation (6).
  32. After around 30 minutes I threw in the T with OBLAST and the GAFF part of the theatre missing and George W not sitting.

    John Henderson behind this one?

  33. I needed an hour for most of this and then about 10 minutes after work to get a handful in the SE corner (lieu, dress suit, uni and requisites). Tough all over this one and I was pleasantly surprised to find all my unknowns correct. Didn’t know that type of hippo but was confident from word play, oblast and the gaff bit of penny gaff entered with fingers crossed, knew what I was looking for at 1dn grateful for the clue’s assistance with the spelling though.
  34. Happy to have crept in under 20 minutes for this. Struck lucky with NADIA which I arrived at from A = (Mount) IDA reversed and the N from ‘needing’ blissfully unaware that it was at the wrong end. Left the horses as LOI because although HOUY was a giveaway if you already knew the word I realised that getting the rest of it right would require a bit of parsing.
  35. Fine clue! Wasn’t a problem for me.

    Edited at 2018-05-12 02:48 am (UTC)

    1. I was a bit surprised by the sense of humour failure over this one too. Surely it’s funny just imagining the setter wondering “how the heck do I even clue this”?
    2. Did you know the word? I’ve never actually read Gulliver’s Travels, so whilst I’m aware of the Lilliputians, Brobdingnagians, Wottingers and so forth I had never heard of these horses. Without that knowledge it didn’t look anything like a possible word.
      1. Yeah, I knew the word, or the basic shape of it, although the precise spelling is wild enough to give one pause, but that is where the wordplay was explicit.
  36. The only thing I had to cheat for was PENNY GAFF (though I must have seen that here several years ago…) There was some hesitation at 1d: “Wow, is it really spelled like that?” But it looked right once I simply followed directions and wrote it in. I had put two word-breaks in the wrong places in the bleary hours of the night and that slowed me down today when I tackled this again. This was a fine puzzle, but I was glad to see here that it was difficult in spots for other folks too.
  37. Messed this one up. Never heard of the 1d horse, but I had heard of longchamp. And the wordplay gave me HOUGHCHAMP which seemed maybe a horserace. Like everyone else, I had HIPPO immediately but wasn’t 100% sure it was right, so maybe it didn’t even start with H.

    And I put MAIL-CENTRE which first the cryptic definition in the sense of picking up the mail before delivering it.

  38. I had a completely different SE corner. 26 down: OWN (Reading Town without the T). Hence 25 across DREAM BOAT (seems reasonable). But then the best I could do for 28 ac was SINDS (people from SIND) and 20 down OPIMES (small opuses, since O. Henry was known for his short stories) but I feared this might be a made-up word since it was not in my dictionaries.

    from Jeepyjay

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