Times 27063 – cunninger than a Baldric Cunning Plan

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Looking at the SNITCH of recent months, I see that Wednesdays vie with Fridays for offering the sternest tests; apart from the ‘yesteryear’ challenges which crop up occasionally (another one next week I expect), there are quite a few which push into orange territory and sometimes red.
When I started this one, I steamed along thinking I was getting off lightly for a Wednesday. The RHS seemed to go in quite quickly. There was even a film I knew about. (The Michael Caine version, at least). Then I got bogged down. Gradually pennies dropped, the Middle Eastern airline wasn’t ETIHAD or EMIRATES or even GULF, and I understood 27a and 14d. I confess to looking up 16d once I had written it in, as it seemed likely but I didn’t know the expression. All in all, I admit to around 45 minutes to do and parse. I’ll be interested to see what SNITCH makes of it.
Thanks to all who expressed good wishes – I can now see all there is to see, although it feels like I’m partly naked without the Nick Robinson specs.
EDIT: the SNITCH is steady at around 113, so it thinks this is orange = fairly tough.

Across
1 Means to cover certain parts of diagram with thumb (3,4)
FIG LEAF – FIG = fig. as in figure 1 in a diagram, LEAF = thumb, as in to thumb through a document.
5 Damaging allegations about gallery took new form (7)
MUTATED – MUD was flung around the TATE.
9 Company found document for customer (5,4)
ORDER FORM – I’m a bit iffy on this one. Company = Order? as in a ivery company and an Order of chivalry perhaps? Form = found, create, make, I can see. But if I had nailed it cold, you’d have no comment to make.
10 Left tips for kitchenmaid and butler under lamp — or place high up (5)
KABUL – the left-most i.e. first letters of the five words from kitchenmaid onwards are K, A, B, U, L. Kabul is 1,791 metres above sea level, apparently, although I’d have thought there were more exciting ways to direct us to this war-torn dump that seems to be impossible for foreign powers to get straight. Now someone’s going to tell me it’s the ‘Madrid of Asia’ and great for the weekend.
11 Film of novel I judge a notable hit (3,7,3)
THE ITALIAN JOB – (I J A NOTABLE HIT)*, the J for judge. I’m not a great movie watcher, as you may have gathered, and even then can’t often remember who was in it or who directed it (so would have a bad time on ‘Pointless’) but I have seen the original version of this, the one where His Sir Caine-ship says “you were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off” in his silly accent. Sold a lot of Minis, I believe.
13 Arab airline personnel at home visiting capital (8)
BAHRAINI – As mentioned in the waffle above, I visited my repertoire of ME airlines looking for wordplay, before deciding to think of an Arab who fitted the checkers and then working out why. I think; BA = airline, HR = personnel, the IN = at home goes inside A1 = capital, spiffing, hunky dory.
15 Wrong number set back this performer? (6)
SINGER – SIN is wrong, REG is number (on a UK car I presume), reversed.
17 Work that one might turn down (6)
VOLUME – Double definition.
19 Trading centre outside disturbed this bird (5,3)
MARSH TIT – (THIS)* inside MART = trading centre.
22 Blows to Conservatism? (5,2,6)
WINDS OF CHANGE – Cryptic definition I think, on the grounds that Conservatism by definition opposes change*. EDIT As pointed out below by JerryW and others, this likely refers to MacMillan’s Winds of Change speech in Africa in the sixties; It did ring a faint bell (although my politics then were a few miles further left than SuperMac) but I forgot to go and look it up before blogging.
*In which case why is a Conservative government changing the UK’s status in such a fundamental way? Cameron D., the architect of disaster. (Yes I know, 52%, or really 37%, said Leave, but I was denied a vote. The case really is being heard by the ECJ in July).
25 Basic themes returning in radio, potentially (5)
TOPOI – Hidden reversed in RAD(IO POT)ENTIALLY. Greek, plural of topos, place, Used in literature to mean a subject which could be questioned or debated.
26 Income Zoe’s blown? She may have to! (9)
ECONOMIZE – (INCOME ZOE)*. I don’t like the Americanism of using a Z when an S is needed, but I looked it up, and it seems the two are options of equal stature, not especially American to spell it -IZE. Ho hum.
27 Go back on sailing vessel on river, say (7)
REGRESS – R (river) EG (say) RE (on) SS (sailing vssel).
28 Made easy advance in working methods studied (7)
MOSEYED – MOS = modus operandi, plural, EYED = studied.

Down
1 Stream in gorge rising (4)
FLOW – WOLF (gorge) reversed.
2 Don’t pay for each other’s fare, people! (2,5)
GO DUTCH – Cryptic definition. The phrase arises from Dutch etiquette where it is usual for a couple dating to each pay for their own drinks or meal. I’m not surprised, the Dutch I’ve met are reluctant to pay for anything. They block the lanes of France with their RVs full of their own potatoes and bacon and … (enough! Ed.) EDIT As below, it’s also GO = fare, Dutch = people.
3 Noise coming from ghostly and isolated place (5)
EYRIE – Sounds like EERIE.
4 Ignoring public invading pitch (8)
FLOUTING – OUT = public, invades FLING = pitch. As in ‘flouting the law’.
5 Doctor getting cross about slur? (6)
MUMBLE – Well, it could have been MOMBLE, that would be a first. But it’s not, it’s MB for doctor inside MULE for cross. I suppose if you slur your words you might be thought to be mumbling, but it’s not a good synonym IMO.
6 Misinterpret move to end bachelorhood? (4,5)
TAKE AMISS – If you TAKE A MISS you could be heading towards no longer being a bachelor, if you were so inclined. Plenty of room for other options though.
7 Drinking vessel that could bring ultimately nothing but joy (4,3)
TOBY JUG – (G BUT JOY)*, the G from the end of nothinG. I looked up the origins of a Toby Jug, as I inherited one from my Grandfather, but there are several versions so I direct you to Wikipedia if you are that curious.
8 Food store getting carpet measured (10)
DELIBERATE – DELI a food store, BERATE to carpet, admonish.
12 Solvent, moisture-based? (5,5)
ABOVE WATER – Euphemism for being ‘in funds’ or solvent.
14 Agreement to stop battling regularly hairy and dangerous driving conditions (9)
ARMISTICE – hAiRy regularly = A R, MIST and ICE could create dangerous driving conditions.
16 Privy to American airline informally employing mantra (8)
BATHROOM – BA the airline (again), THRO informal spelling of through, OM a mantra. Can someone Transatlantic explain why Americans use this ridiculous and inaccurate euphemism? I have yet to see a bath in a public toilet, and in France toilets in houses are almost always separate rooms from showers or bathrooms.
18 Human flesh once found in pine over gorge (4,3)
LONG PIG – LONG (for) = pine for, PIG = gorge, stuff oneself. Apparently this is or was a phrase used by cannibals in the Pacific to refer to eating human meat, which (so they say) resembles a nice piece of pork.
20 Financial institutions, etc, hit by reforms, losing billions (3,4)
THE CITY – (ETC HIT Y)*, the B of BY is omitted from the anagrist.
21 Beams, forgoing starter for dessert (6)
AFTERS – RAFTERS = beams, loses its R.
23 Retreats, when there’s nothing but rejection? (5)
NOOKS – If there is only rejection then there are NO OKs, see.
24 Patch marks boundary (4)
MEND – M for marks, END for boundary.

55 comments on “Times 27063 – cunninger than a Baldric Cunning Plan”

  1. This was chewy enough, but not frustrating. No unknowns in the answers. BAHRAINI was my last one in, as I didn’t lift and separate “Arab” and “airline” at first either. I also questioned ORDER = “company” and the definition for MUMBLE. I forgot to fully parse BATHROOM. In most, and by far, American homes, the toilet is in the same room as the bath. I’ve noticed, and found it rather odd (and inconvenient), that in Europe the toilet is often in a room without even a sink to wash up in. Public toilets here are more commonly called “restrooms,” rather than “bathrooms.” Of course, people are often careless about what term they use in speech.

    Edited at 2018-06-13 05:09 am (UTC)

  2. I wonder if WINDS OF CHANGE is meant to hark back to the days of Harold MacMillan, a Conservative PM, of course. It was he who delivered the famous Winds of Change speech somewhere in southern Africa in the early 60s?
    Didn’t know TOPOI but the clue was easily deciphered. My main difficulty was with MOSEYED.
    As for BATHROOM, the Americans are not alone with euphemisms. ‘Spend a penny’
    is very British as far as I’m aware.
    Like Pip and Guy, I’m dubious about ORDER = company.
    2. With the introduction of the European currency in 2002, our continental cousins ceased to spend a penny. They now Euronate.
  3. 18:25 with a couple of interruptions, so I didn’t find it too hard.

    Enjoyed this a lot, even the iffy “moisture-based” (I suppose it’s ABOVE WATER in the way a statue is ‘above plinth’).

    Entertaining vocabulary and witty cluing. Thanks, setter.

    I don’t know about Harold MacMillan, but thanks to WINDS OF CHANGE I now have a not unpleasant ear worm of the Scorpions song (OK, the song is ‘wind’, singular, but still), a pop song that earns a place in history on more than one count

    1. Whatever people say about The Scorpions, they aren’t David Hasselhoff.
      1. I suppose historians will long argue about who really brought down the Berlin wall, Scorpions or Hasselhoff? I’m with Team Scorpion myself, though I respect Hasselhoff’s contribution, and am mindful that Bowie and Springsteen were also instrumental (as it were)
        1. You, lowbrow? No way. You’re just younger than some of us, and at a time when intelligence was still on the rise according to reports today.
    3. That brings back memories of my teenage years. Coincidentally I listened to it recently for the first time in maybe 35 years
      1. Glad it gave you a blast from the past. One of the things I love about the internet is how random conversations and links lead you to music you didn’t know you wanted to hear or had forgotten you loved. Happens to me all the time!
  4. In around 53 minutes, with a guess at washroom rather than BATHROOM. So, quite tricky overall.

    Other clues I eventually decoded, finishing with BAHRAINI.

    Pip, I had fare = go and people = Dutch in 2d. Thanks for the blog on a “cunning” test. Thanks also to the setter.

  5. Medium one this, not easy but still a one-cup. Carelessly I put washroom, I know not why, so a rare dnf fo me.

    Pip, I prefer -ise too but arguments about ise vs ize are usually lost since the z version is more traditional English,(Pepys would prefer it) and supported to this day by the OED.

    “Going Dutch” is nothing to do with the actual behaviour of Dutch people, it is one of a number of pejorative phrases (Dutch uncle, Dutch courage etc) dating from when we were at war with them (Pepys’ times again!)

    winds of change definitely a reference to Macmillan’s speech

    1. Jerry, Pepys may have had something to say about them, but my experience, and Wikipedia, suggest the derivation stems from ‘actual behaviour’ !
    2. ‘Ize’ versions are also preferred (listed first) in Chambers.
      The setter perhaps intends a reference to Supermac in 22ac but the clue works fine without it.
    3. In matters of Commerce,
      The fault of the Dutch
      Is offering too little
      And asking too much.
  6. 38 minutes with BATHROOM not fully parsed – I know THRO for ‘through’ but I don’t see ‘through’ in the clue. Is the idea ’employing = through’ and we’re supposed to abbreviate it from there? If so, it’s a bit much, although the answer was easily biffable.

    I don’t have a problem with ‘order/company’ as they can both mean ‘institution’.

    Edited at 2018-06-13 06:25 am (UTC)

    1. That’s what I thought, but wasn’t convinced enough to spell it out. ‘He got there through / by employing hard work.’
  7. No problem with this one, sailed through it and no problems along the way

    Wind of change a write in -remember the speech well. He also said “you’ve never had it so good” to which my father retorted “because thanks to your lot we had bugger all until we threw you out after the war”. Such gems formed the basis of my early political education!

    1. As I understand, he actually said: “some of our people have never had it so good” – i.e. he was rebutting an accusation in an interview, not boasting that everything was all right.
      1. “Indeed, let’s be frank about it. Most of our people have never had it so good,” is what he’s quoted to have said. It wasn’t that boastful a comment. It followed the depression of the thirties, the six years of war and a further decade of gradually reducing rationing. It was 1957 and those constraints were over. In my life, my first year at grammar school, suddenly we were eating cream cakes for Sunday tea and the Corona man was in our street for a couple of bottles of pop each week. That’s why the Tories won the 1959 election. Then came Profumo, That Was The Week That Was, The Beatles and The Stones and Philip Larkin’s 1963. I canvassed for Labour in 1964!

        Edited at 2018-06-13 03:46 pm (UTC)

  8. Tough today, with BAHRAINI LOI. Much time spent on accurate parsing, but still couldn’t do ORDER FORM. Surely 12d has to be preceded by ‘head’? Have never heard or read it without this, Dnk TOPOI. I rewatched THE ITALIAN JOB this week, still stunning after nearly fifty years. 31′, thanks pip and setter.
    1. Especially since the crash of 2008, it is used in the US to refer to some mortgages: the ones that aren’t under water.
  9. It’s always heartening when our blogger starts by saying it was a difficult puzzle! I must have been on wavelength, as I got through this one in just under the half hour. TOPOI was an NHO, but apart from that I 28ac my way through this fairly steadily. The northleft corner was the last to go in, with ORDER FORM needing a little thought to parse.
  10. A miss is as good as a mile, or in this case an ‘eerie’ is not as good as an EYRIE, my only miss for a DNF in 54 minutes.

    A bit of a US feel to this with BATHROOM (perfectly reasonable for the loo in my book), ECONOMIZE which I chose to spell with an ‘S’ given this was (sort of) part of the anagram fodder, and MOSEY, my word of the day.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

  11. A frightening 34 minutes, lots spent crawling through the alphabet for the crossing pair of ABOVE WATER and VOLUME. I feared the former might be some technical stuff out of my ken (ebony water, anyone?) and the latter I expected to involve turning down coverlets and such.
    Feeling chuffed with (for once) spotting two typos in review before submitting, I omitted to revisit my confidently biffed WASHROOM. Of course, I have no idea how WASHRO is an informal airline (though it could be based in Western Australia). But then I couldn’t get to grips with company/ORDER either.
    Equally, the FORM bit wasn’t helped by having MUDDLE crossing it: a DD is a Doctor (of Divinity) and although I wasn’t entirely happy with slur as a definition, I was prepared to let it ride.
    I’m quite certain Supermac only envisaged one WIND OF CHANGE in his speech (but called his memoir Winds of Change).
    The B’stards of the Tory party (John Major’s coinage) were upset enough to form the Monday Club to argue for true, deep blue Empire conservatism, so the clue is perfectly accurate, and clearly continues to be to the present day.
    Well blogged Pip: you surely had a Wednesday toughie to play with.
  12. 48 minutes with LOI the totally biffed LONG PIG. I didn’t really parse REGRESS asI thought SS was a steam ship. Am I missing something? I remember the Macmillan speech well, although he did use the singular, unlike his Bobship and Adele. Much as I like Anton Lesser, I didn’t think he got Supermac right in The Crown. He was a stylish act until Profumo. and the night he sacked half his cabinet. “The wrong half, as it turned out,” replied Harold Wilson. I ‘ve not said MOSEYED for yonks. Thinking about it, I haven’t said Yonks for yonks either. A tough puzzle for me. Thank you Pip and setter.
    1. I thought about the sailing vs steam ship, too.
      On the ise vs ize topic, I tried to figure out a rule when I first met it years ago. I did a moderate amount of reading up, but without much success. For a time I thought I had it down to Public School or Grammar School Latin, but then I saw an episode where Morse explains to Lewis (in his usual charming way) that the writer of a note was clearly uneducated – an ignorant clot I think he said – because he or she used of the ise form.

      Edited at 2018-06-13 12:59 pm (UTC)

      1. At first I thought ISE was UK and IZE American when I started writing, but then I read it was the other way round. I’ve made my indecision final and average about 50:50 between the two I think.
  13. The sort of challenge I like, tricky wordplay without depending on obscure vocabulary (I appreciate other opinions may exist on whether Greek words can be called “everyday”, of course, assuming you aren’t actually Greek to begin with). Held myself up with a confident ORDER BOOK, which needed amending, and was slightly surprised that the same airline appeared twice, making me think that it must be something else the second time, until it became clear that it wasn’t. Also excited that we might be about to get MOMBLE in a puzzle until I remembered the whole point of the word is that it’s non-existent. For now…
  14. 33 minutes, with 1dn being LOI, as I don’t really get 9ac, though I did eventually put ORDER in as nothing else seemed to fit. I also had serious doubts about 27ac, as SS = ‘screw steamer’ (as opposed to PS = ‘paddle steamer’) – I suppose ‘sailing’ can be used in the sense of ‘seaborne’ without signifying anything more specific.
  15. My first visit to the big boys’ playground, as I called it on the QC blog yesterday. The lovely folk there encouraged me to read and comment over this side, so here I am! Been crypticing (?) for just over a year, and must be improving as I’ve been consistently getting 50-90% on the 15×15 recently.
    I found this tougher than Tuesday’s puzzle; biffed quite a few without seeing exactly how they worked (BAHRAINI, TOBY JUG). Spent a long time looking for an anagram of “this bird” for a trading centre…and didn’t find one. A DNF (of course!) due to MOSEYED, the pesky MARSH TIT and TAKE AMISS (great clue, gutted I failed, there). Thanks Pip for the super-helpful and entertaining blog.
    I will keep trying the back page and see if I get any better!
    1. Keep going, Lucy. It was a toughie today. There are no big boys here, just folk well practised in hiding our insecurity.
    2. Lucy, Welcome. You cannot get worse! I used to be astonished at those who could finish the 15×15 on my daily commute (about 45 mins) and while I am nowhere near the levels of Magoo, Mohn, Verlaine etc, I am much faster now. It helps (as I have mentioned before) that the dog does not get his first walk until I have finished.
  16. 14:32. This felt tougher than my time suggests: there were a few clues where I had absolutely no idea what was going on, until suddenly I did. This is the best kind of clue.
    I didn’t know about the MacMillan speech, but it struck me when I solved 22ac that the capital C in ‘Conservatism’ was one of those cases of misleading punctuation. The current crop of Conservatives are anything but conservative.
  17. The BATH/ WASH option was a real bind here for me, as one not getting the THRO bit sorted out. Really annoying! I suppose that with having a slightly offbeat definition and SI you could blame the puzzle, but OTOH there it was, to be solved, as it was by many. Drat.

    I enjoyed the rest of it however, and thanks for your great blog, too.

  18. DNK TOPOI so I tried PODIA which didn’t seem like themes, but obviously wasn’t as nothing fitted it. My main problem was with MOSEYED which started as ALLAYED and then transformed into ASSAYED, but that left a problem with the loo at 16d. Took me a while to connect the American bit to the loo, but it all went in in the end.
  19. Privy isn’t quite synonymous with BATHROOM around here because it denotes outdoor plumbing and would likely be called an outhouse. In the surviving so-called “cold water flats” in NYC the bathtub is actually in the kitchen rather than the bathroom! I daresay Macmillan was on the Privy council. I was nearing the 20 minute mark with a lot of empty spaces still staring at me but a second cuppa did the trick. 25.36
  20. I began fairly quickly on this and then ground to a halt with about half of it done. Had to chip away at the rest for half an hour and finished with MOSEYED which I almost gave up on, on the grounds that it didn’t look like a real word – until the penny dropped.

    Welcome, Lucy! It’s always nice to see a new face. I found that it takes quite a while to learn all the Times Crossword conventions but it does get easier with practice.

    Time: all correct in 41 minutes.

    Thank you to setter and blogger.

    Dave.

  21. Good to see Lucy on this side.
    I had a quick look at this puzle. Got Bahraini fairly quickly (interesting that it delayed so many) and then Go Dutch. Looking at the other clues it seemed like a tough one today so I came here. Well-judged I think.
    I’ve got to work on my stance before playing golf tomorrow.
    David
  22. First pass through I didn’t have much to show, but fortunately I had plenty of time. Which I used, except for the crossing of Order Book and Muddle. The worst part was I thought about tigons and mules, but never re-thought the unparsable ‘book’. ` Cunning blog, Pip. Nice puzzle, setter.
  23. Made heavy weather of this, then came here to find that my 17:10 had been washroomed.

    Since I biffed no less than 6 answers I guess my downfall was slightly predictable. Among them were two DNK’s in MARSH TIT and TOPOI.

    COD WINDS OF CHANGE.

    Must concentrate better tomorrow.

  24. No real trouble today, around 25 minutes. LOI was REGRESS after realizing that the sailing vessel wasn’t a ‘ress’, and seeing what the ‘on’ was doing. That had blinded me for a bit. Regards.
  25. I found this tough and had five left to get after 49 minutes at lunchtime. I polished them all off in 10 mins after work. The troublesome ones were eyrie, not a word I’ve ever used but had I ever used it it would not have been homophonous with eerie, I fancy I would have (mis)pronounced it ay-ree, marsh tit where I was looking for more anagrist than was actually there, moseyed where I couldn’t find anything to fit until it did, nooks where nothing but rejection did not immediately lead me to no oks and finally bathroom where I eventually twigged privy to American but had no idea how the wordplay worked. A stiff test.
  26. I came to this late after a busy day meeting up with some retired colleagues for lunch near Malton and then scooting over to Darlington Snooker Club to meet up with a fellow Folkie for a session on the green baize. A large glass of Shiraz and some cheese and biscuits eased me though the puzzle, which I moseyed through in 33:10, albeit with a careless EERIE at 3d. I’m not going to beat myself up over it as I found the clue confusing anyway. Slightly irritating having negotiated the tougher clues though. Thanks setter and Pip. Good to hear the eyes have it!
  27. Stuck on “Order Form” and “Mumble”. Otherwise enjoyed the puzzle today.

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