Times 27045 – Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Nothing too exotic or obscure today – an easier puzzle, (edit: I thought so but apparently not so easy!) I suspect there are some fast times and a relatively low score on the SNITCH. It took me around 20 minutes, not rushing along, starting with 1a and ending with 8d once I saw what was going on with the second word.
I knew of the Norse God but his spelling here was unfamiliar, if obviously so for the answer to work. 7d gets my Clue of the Day award. Nothing else to say.

Across
1 Rescuer put cat on lithium (8)
LIFELINE – Li = lithium, FELINE is our cat. Anybody not have that as FOI?
5 Insect, shell-like, next to carpet (6)
EARWIG – EAR = shell-like, a 19th century phrase; WIG = carpet, reprimand.
10 Insensitive bully wrote for deputy (6,3)
NUMBER TWO – NUMB = insensitive, (WROTE)*. Not seen ‘bully’ as an anagrind before.
11 Boxer’s possible target, a fragile thing (5)
CHINA – CHIN would be a boxer’s target, A.
12 Cross — something afoot? (4)
MULE – Double definition; animal cross and a sort of footwear.
13 Filling in action, old TV reporter melted (9)
DEFROSTED – Sir David FROST is found inside DEED = action.
15 Norse god a bit rubbish (10)
BALDERDASH – BALDER a Norse God, usually spelt BALDR I think; DASH = a bit.
17 Keen little twerp’s back (4)
WEEP – WEE = little, P = back end of twerP.
19 Great seeing first of soldiers in tank (4)
VAST – S inside VAT.
20 Nude friars dancing for charity event (4-6)
FUND-RAISER – (NUDE FRIARS)*
22 Vessel covered in omelette, perhaps, not perfectly upright? (3-6)
BOW-LEGGED – BOWL = vessel, EGGED = covered in omelette perhaps.
24 Opener dropped on one, relieved initially (4)
DOOR – Initial letters of D ropped O n O ne R elieved. Surface is about cricket.
26 Free on account, bitter (5)
ACRID – RID = free, on AC.
27 Potential killer in family into mob violence (5,4)
RIFLE SHOT – FLESH meaning family, inside RIOT.
28 Stoop to collect small drawing (6)
DESIGN – DEIGN = stoop, insert S for small.
29 Dark scene, no shape in church (8)
NOCTURNE – NO, TURN = shape (as on a lathe) in CE = church.

Down
1 Ground net (4)
LAND – Double definition.
2 Speaking too soon, American entering incorrect format, Sod’s law! (6,4,5)
FAMOUS LAST WORDS – Insert US into (FORMAT SODS LAW)*.
3 Subjects right about English beauty (8)
LIEGEMEN – E, GEM = English beauty, inside LIEN = right.
4 Renowned — as is musical work? (5)
NOTED – Double definition.
6 Moor in ageless US city (6)
ANCHOR – ANCHORAGE, Alaska, loses its AGE = ageless.
7 Oil referee put out? (9,6)
WHISTLERS MOTHER – Referee = WHISTLER, SMOTHER = put out. Probably the most famous painting by an American artist housed outside America. The formal name of the work is Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1 and Mr Whistler’s mother was not the originally intended model, so I read.
8 Something sending elderly relative to sleep? Answer where nothing’s spoken (5,5)
GRAND OPERA – Well, a GRAN DOPER might put your Nan to sleep; add A for answer. All singing no talking.
9 In a mess, party formed a coalition (8)
CONFUSED – CON = party, FUSED = formed a coalition.
14 Honest chairman’s elevated position? (5,5)
ABOVE BOARD – Double definition, one prosaic.
16 Dickensian bound by tedious slog (8)
DRUDGERY – Barnaby RUDGE inside DRY = tedious.
18 Spanish architect set out to be most vulgar (8)
GAUDIEST – GAUDI, (SET)*.
21 Old sailor aged, so wrinkly (3,3)
SEA DOG – (AGED SO)*.
23 Killed the wrong way, certainly casually? (5)
DEFFO – OFFED = killed, reverse it for Deffo, casual speak for definitely.
25 Letters confiscated by provost yesterday — sore point? (4)
STYE – Hidden word in PROVO(ST YE)STERDAY.

54 comments on “Times 27045 – Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1”

  1. I typed ‘diffo’, even though I’d parsed the clue correctly; the finger has its reasons, I guess, which reason knows nothing of. LIFELINE was not, as it happens, my FOI, EARWIG was. I biffed WHISTLERS MOTHER from a couple of checkers, then noticed ‘oil’, and never got to SMOTHER. I always knew of Balder the Beautiful as Balder, but then I only ever read of him in children’s lit. Pip, at 11ac your underline shouldn’t include the A.
  2. Helpfully spurred on by forgetting to set my alarm properly and waking an hour late for work, I sped through this one in 36 minutes (speedy for me, anyway!)

    FOI 1a LIFELINE, LOI 3d LIEGEMEN, enjoyed 7d and either I’m very slow or 24a was very well disguised, I thought…

    Anyway. Best dash through the shower and head to the bus stop. Thanks to setter & Pip; a good start to the day.

    Edited at 2018-05-23 07:02 am (UTC)

  3. There’s little that can ruin one’s start to the day more than battling away for nearly every answer in a puzzle (I notched up about 85 minutes on this one) and then coming here and reading how easy it was. I know now how deflated some of the newbies who struggle with the Quick Cryptic must feel!

    I gave this one 25 minutes before retiring hurt for the night with only 8 answers in the grid. Resuming this morning presumably refreshed, I needed a full hour to complete the rest of it. I guess it was a wavelength thing as all but 3 or 4 answers were reasonably straightforward in retrospect.

    Considering his long career in television and all his multi-talents I don’t think ‘old TV reporter’ does justice to David Frost, or that it’s a very fair description of what he did.

    Edited at 2018-05-23 06:07 am (UTC)

    1. I was thinking the clue might specifically be a reference to The Frost Report…
      1. Good point. I hadn’t thought of that, but then we’re into the realms of obscurity as far as many, perhaps most, solvers are concerned. It was 28 half-hour shows more than 50 years ago and is really only rememberd now for bringing together the Two Ronnies, some of the Pythons, and the Goodies (remember them?).
        1. Not only do I remember them, but I have a DVD right here with a selection of the best episodes, including The Goodies and the Beanstalk and Kitten Kong 😀
    2. Jackkt – I am with you on this. It took me over an hour and my heart fell on reading ‘easy’. I thought it a brilliant crossword because each clue really challenged me but, in the end, there was nothing wildly obscure.
    3. Have to agree on David Frost. A pioneer that started with That Was The Week That Was – a real mould breaker of a show that changed the political landscape.
  4. 40 mins with yoghurt, granola, banana, etc.
    This demonstrated the 80:20 rule. 80% of the time on the first 20% to be filled in, then 20% of the time to finish off in a spurt. Maybe getting the long ones sooner would have helped; or not spending ages thinking of the Dickensian that ends in “Grind” only to find it doesn’t fit.
    Mostly I really liked: Bowl egged, Above board and COD to Whistler Smother.
    Thanks setter and Pip.

    PS I think Balder and Liegemen are less than run-of-the-mill, but maybe I should get out more.

    Edited at 2018-05-23 07:34 am (UTC)

    1. Anchor butter ? A New Zealand abomination that no longer passes my lips ! Lurpak every time in this household.
      1. Not sure about the butter – but the advert lyrics must have you singing them to the tune of the Sailor’s Horpipe, surely.
  5. Once seen , never forgotten, however hard you try. Tuesday and Wednesday switched this week? 19 minutes with LOI NOCTURNE. I saw the long ones quickly, with FAMOUS LAST WORDS spotted straightaway and WHISTLER’S MOTHER hitting me once the EARWIG crept in, along with GRAND OPERA. I think it was The Frost Report where John Cleese and the two Ronnies first did their upper, middle, lower class sketches. As a former Chairman of a few companies, I never thought I was ABOVE BOARD, nor acted that way, at least not until it was getting close to lunchtime. Let’s give COD to the awful DEFFO. Nice puzzle otherwise. Thank you Pip and setter.
    1. Agree with you on “Chairman” – I saw myself as a facilitator and certainly not above anybody
  6. 17.39 for me, so bang on average. Like Ming the Myrtilus, I took a while to get going, drawing a blank initially in the top corner, and rather blunderbussing around in a more or less clockwise fashion until the splendid 2d fell. Then the mists parted and everything became easy.
    I thought Balder was spelt with a U, and apparently he is if you play something called God of War on you wiitendobox.
    I would associate shell-like with Minder and such, but I can believe it has C19 origins.
    My twin favourites today were the smudge-togethers: whistler smother and gran doper – made me smile.
    Thanks Pip for a fine blog.
  7. A hard puzzle this. Joint COD to WHISTLERS MOTHER and DEFFO. Like others, kept having to work hard to get single answers. Didn’t parse EARWIG. TURN for shape is a bit iffy. On a perhaps pedantic point, Barnaby Rudge is an historical novel. Does not the word ‘Dickensian’ refer to a particular time period? Or view of Victorian society? (Pip would qualify)

    37′, thanks pip (even if I disagree with your assessment) and setter.

    1. While solving I thought of turn and shape as verbs in the “using a lathe sense”.
    2. I would have thought, a character in an eponymous novel by Dickens would be well described as a “Dickensian” character? Its period meaning is a secondary meaning derived from Dickens’ descriptions of his times (if not Rudge’s times)?
  8. What a delightful and deceptive puzzle (and with concise clues). Some neat surfaces such as SEA DOG and DOOR. Interesting anagram indicators such as bully, dancing, incorrect (next to format) and wrinkly. COD to the oil painting.
  9. 41 minutes, so not so easy for me, ending with LIEGEMAN. Balder best known to me from Henry Longfellow’s translation of Esias Tegner’s poem Drapa, quoted as a childhood influence by CS Lewis:

    ‘I heard a voice that cried,
    Balder the Beautiful
    Is dead, is dead!’

    I always found David Frost annoying, even though I do a pretty good impression.

  10. Just for something different Balder was known to me as the name of a boat I once worked on. Notable for having two huge cranes on the back ~3000 or 4000 tonnes each. Used to install oil platforms. Was Dutch-owned, presumably Norwegian-built, and had a plaque in the mess about its name. Otherwise found the puzzle quite hard in places. Gaudi’s church probably one of 2 architecturally significant buildings in Spain I could name, but took a while to dredge up his name. Rudge from previous puzzles, Frost known from a famous (but not seen) interview with Richard Nixon. Pre- or post-Watergate?
    Ultimately defeated by liegemen – lieges were obviously the subjects, follow the cryptic: add R for right and slap in an E to get LIEGESER, a momble synonymous with beauty. Sounds latinate soft at the start – leggero, in music?
  11. Hello, good morning, and welcome. Lots of good (and tricky) wordplay to unpack here; I think the sign of a tough puzzle is when you look at the solved grid and none (or practically none, depending on whether LIEGEMEN is a word you use regularly) of the vocabulary is really obscure, however long it might have taken you to get to it. I was another who would have favoured BALDUR in a context-free spelling test, so I was glad the vowel fell in a place where it was checkable. And I feared the worst for the Dickensian character, as my record with reading his novels mostly reads DNF; happily, it was one of the obvious ones.
  12. Finished in 13:13, and I found it relatively straightforward until struggling a little in the SE corner.

    Pip : as a non-scientist I didn’t immediately kick off with LIFELINE, though it fell into place fairly easily in due course. Thanks for parsIng CHINA, which I biffed whilst harbouring obscure musings on the Boxer Rebellion !

    FOI MULE
    LOI DEFFO – not in Chambers, and from my experiences of textspeak it usually has but a single F ! Otherwise the source would be “deffinitely”.

    Is a door strictly an “opener” ? If it were to appear as a “closer” would it still be valid clueing ?

    Generally a decent workout, and some nice touches to be enjoyed.

    COD WEEP but also liked GRAND OPERA and BOW-LEGGED.

    1. You took a gamble putting in MULE with no checkers. These 4 letter two-definition clues can be the devil. So here, “arch” fits the clue just as well as MULE
  13. Reasonably difficult puzzle I thought with an eclectic mix of clues, most of which needed some thought. Wasn’t sure about DEFFO but couldn’t think of anything else.
  14. Non puzzle related, apologies, anybody else get re-redirected to all sorts of random “you’ve won a prize” websites when viewing the blog? Happened to me a lot over the past week.
    Thanks
    Gary
    1. Hasn’t happened to me recently, but I got a similar thing when I first started using the current laptop (I think I may have accidentally downloaded something unwanted when I was re-installing various bits of software). Apologies if it’s an obvious question, but have you tried running an anti-spyware programme?
      1. It’s on my work PC and we have a fairly good IT and defence system in place, well I thought we did 🙂
  15. A fine puzzle today, and like our blogger I was on the right wavelength it seemed. 6m 13s in total, finishing on NOCTURNE. I’d never heard of Balder in any of his forms, but it sounded plausible enough that I didn’t have any particular worries on that one.

    7d was also my favourite today, bringing a smile. I also enjoyed the LI/FELINE breakdown, which might be a chestnut but I don’t recall seeing it before.

  16. Thought there might have to be a Spanish architect named Bawdi but saw the alternative. Found this hard, esp. the oil, but finished, if in slightly over the hour. Enjoyable…on retrospect.
  17. I didn’t see LIFELINE right away either and I agree with Gothick Matt and Sawbill that DOOR was very good of its kind (meaning it took me quite a while to spot it). David Frost came back into public view recently in the US thanks to the play-based movie Frost/Nixon with Michael Sheen and Frank Langella. I didn’t watch the original interviews. CHINA was neat – I believe that in the boxing world a “glass jaw” is a fighter’s Achilles heel. 16.34
  18. I didn’t see LIFELINE until near the end either. I found myself having to work hard for almost every clue, although after 35 minutes I had all bar 3 or 4 clues. All bar 3d eventually fell and I found myself messing around trying to fit combinations of LIEF LIEGE and LIEN into L_E_E_E_, but my best guess was the momble LIEFESER which failed the Google “does it exist” test, so I used a wordfinder and metaphorically banged my head on the table. I’d mentally discounted LIEGE as that’s the boss man. Anyway a DNF after 51:45. Lots to like in the puzzle though. BOWL EGGED, WHISTLER SMOTHER and DRUDGERY in particular. Thanks setter and Pip.
  19. A question: I had wig as carpet as rug as hairpiece. Is that valid? Or is it definitely wig as rebuke?

    Edited at 2018-05-23 01:14 pm (UTC)

  20. Man, this was like pulling teeth. 45 mins 🙁
    Cheers for the blog, Pip.
  21. I too ploughed on, hoping for respite. None forthcoming.

    Re the oil referee, am I alone in not really getting the surface?

    1. Seems OK to me, a referee has a whistle, so is a whistler, and to smother a fire is to put it out, and the answer is an oil = painting in oils, not a water colour.
      1. Oh hi Pip, thanks.

        No, I wasn’t quibbling about SI elements: I just felt the surface was a little strange. Normally the Times setters try to get some kind of sense in, and I’ve missed it on this one!

  23. Took about 30 minutes, after finally seeing WHISTLERS MOTHER. Well disguised, at least to me. LOI was DEFFO, a new coinage for me but it had to be ‘offed’ reversing. Regards.
  24. 12:07, with a delay at the end while the painting failed to come to mind. Must have been on the wavelength I guess.
    NHO Balder, however you spell him. One to remember.
  25. Somewhere between 22 and 23 minutes so clearly took me a while to find the wavelength but thoroughly enjoyed the quirky clues and vocabulary. Knew Balder from Matthew Arnold’s poem. It had to be GRAND something but my alphabet trawl was pitifully slow in coming up with the right answer.
  26. A peaceful 16 mins or so. DEFFO a bit problematic but I do have kids who used to be teenagers. Overwise just written slowly in
  27. I needed 37 mins at lunchtime to get all but three: liegemen, drudgery and balderdash, when I had to go back to work. Those last three fell in a couple of minutes on the train home. As others have said nothing that appears too tricky in retrospect but it didn’t feel so straightforward when solving.
  29. 27mins+. of which the last 8 on my last 2 clues, MULE (which required two alphabet trawls) and NOCTURNE, being stuck on thinking O + (a shape) inside CE for way too long. Otherwise, one or two challenges but nothing unfair or obscure. LIFELINE was not my first on in, that was EARWIG. DEFFO my favourite.

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