Times 27093 – no acrobatics required

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Another Wednesday which I don’t think will take us far into the orange zone on SNITCH, with some fairly obvious or biffable answers – even if the wordplay was often intricate and very clever. If I’d done it in one go, it would have been 21 minutes, with parsing 13a being the longest task.

UPDATE: As I suspected, this hasn’t reached the 100 mark on SNITCH, it’s now 13 days since we had an orange one, never mind a red (apart from the yesteryear effort). Is it the hot weather dumb down season, or are we in for a run of toughies?

Across
1 Shortest possible gathering devoted to French cheese? (8)
BRIEFEST – We could all have fun at a BRIE FEST(IVAL).
5 Actor theatre brought back to pen lyric (6)
PLAYER – LAY (LYRIC) inside REP reversed.
10 Nearly all money got from subsidiary job by male with deputy (6-2-7)
SECOND-IN-COMMAND – Most will just write it in, but it’s SECOND INCOM(E) for ‘nearly all, money got from subsidiary job’, then M for male and AND for with.
11 Designate weapon to be carried by English ship (7)
EARMARK – ARM inside E, ARK.
12 Perennial outside’s no cross (7)
ETERNAL – EXTERNAL (outside) loses its X.
13 A rolling county (8)
SOMERSET – Double definition, one obvious (county) the other being an old spelling of SOMERSAULT hence a rolling situation.
15 Tons come down to exercise (5)
TRAIN – T for tons, RAIN = come down.
18 Change state support to include energy (5)
RESET – E inside REST = support, as in snooker for example.
20 Ravel preludes caused dislike (8)
REPULSED – Nothing to do with Maurice’s music, which is mostly superb; ravel is the anagrind, (PRELUDES)*.
23 Gallons carried out in barrel for homeless (7)
VAGRANT – G for gallons, RAN for carried out, both inside VAT for barrel.
25 Buns nibbled in fancy bars (7)
RABBITS – BIT inside (BARS)*. BUN was an old word for rabbit, from which we get the more familiar bunny.
26 Poor being made to pay for strikes? (8,3,4)
STRAPPED FOR CASH – Well, if you have to pay to be whipped, you’d be strapped, for cash.
27 Unlikely refusers of Arab country importing ultimate in arms (3-3)
YES-MEN – YEMEN has S inserted, S being the end of armS.
28 Argue excessively in boozy Blue Boar (8)
BELABOUR – (BLUE BOAR)*. Is there a link between BEING LABOUR and arguing excessively?

Down
1 In punt, request a picnic hamper? (6)
BASKET –  Put ASK into BET = punt. Or go on the Isis but don’t let go of the pole.
2 Lacking interest, fall liable to debts? (9)
INCURIOUS – If you INCUR I.O.U.s you’d fall liable to debts.
3 Flourish provisions for keen supporters? (7)
FANFARE – FARE for FANS.
4 Puncture made by small parasite (5)
STICK – S for small, TICK a parasite. you can STICK a pig, amongst other things.
6 Quantity of light batter has to stay in the same condition, right? (7)
LAMBERT – A Lambert (I remembered from my A level physics) was a measure of luminance, not in the S.I. system, but equal to 1/π or 0.3183 candela/cm². Lambert was a Swiss chap who lived from 1728 to 1777 but I have no idea why his uninteresting unit has survived. Or maybe it hasn’t outside of crosswords. LAM = batter, BE = stay in the same condition, ( as in ‘Let it Be’?) , RT = right. A clue not to repeated, IMO.
7 Long period of time before November (5)
YEARN – YEAR, N for November. LONG for = yearn for.
8 Change one’s mind about note being suggestive (8)
REDOLENT – RELENT = change ones mind, insert DO as also in DOH the note.
9 Man in check cap (8)
SCREWTOP – To CREW a boat is to MAN it, insert that into STOP = check.
14 Drink that’s small for each, without ostentatious luxury (8)
SPRITZER – S = small, PER = for each, insert RITZ.
16 Coffee giving out nice aroma (9)
AMERICANO – (NICE AROMA)*. Not really coffee, more a watery brown liquid served by Starbucks for a ridiculous mark-up. I said ‘Americano’ to Mrs K and she has given me an earworm with that song from that Talented Mr Ripley movie.
17 Birds start to turn in attempt to take off (8)
TRAVESTY – TRY = attempt, insert AVES = Linnaean or Latin for birds and T first letter of turn.
19 Step on public transport: request stops early (7)
TRAMPLE – TRAM = public transport, PLE(A) = request stopping early.
21 Left Western Europe for part of West Africa (7)
LIBERIA – L for left. Well, IBERIA is a part of Western Europe, hardly all of it.
22 Part of Bible’s there? (6)
ESTHER –  Hidden word in BIBL(E’S THER)E. Book of OT.
24 Causes of disease resistance in cat’s eyes, perhaps (5)
GERMS – R inside GEMS.
25 Weapon force used during upset (5)
RIFLE – F inside RILE = upset.

54 comments on “Times 27093 – no acrobatics required”

  1. So 35 mins on this one.

    FOI 1ac BRIEFEST.

    LOI 17dn TRAVESTY – Roman birds!

    COD 14dn SPRITZER

    WOD 13ac SOMERSET which went in early. Shades of Sergeant Pepper?

    Buns = rabbits! Whatever next!?

  2. Seemed like a QC, almost, but I was hung up for a while on LAMBERT, which I didn’t know, and wrote in only after checking online. I so wanted it to be LAMBENT, but that indicates a quality, not a quantity, of light, and the definition still wouldn’t work grammatically.

    I also raised an eyebrow at “buns” for bunnies.

    1. bun L16.
      [ORIGIN Origin unkn. Cf. bunny noun².]

      A squirrel; a rabbit. Also used as a term of endearment to a person.

      Also, more specifically it can be a hare’s or rabbit’s tail.

  3. 20:04 … with almost half on LAMBERT, where I’ll just second Pip’s comment. Personally I’d put RABBITS and SOMERSET (the clues, not bunnies and the west country) in the same category, but I suppose they’re a matter of taste. As with BRASS HAT yesterday, I’m wondering if anyone can remember seeing SOMERSET used in anger for ‘somersault’. I’ll wait for new convert Keriothe to tell me it’s in Georgette Heyer.

    Everything else was very straightforward. EARMARK is very good.

    1. And Mr. H. will demonstrate
      Ten Somersets he’ll undertake on solid ground
      Having been some days in preparation
      A splendid time is guaranteed for all
      And tonight Mr. Kite is topping the bill.

      I’d better note that Horryd was there first!

      1. Ah, I didn’t understand Horryd’s reference, so thank you for spelling it out. I doubt I’ve ever seen the lyrics printed before.
        1. If memory serves – the lyrics were printed on the inside of the album. I was just seventeen in 1967 – the summer of love at Frinton – Radio Caroline – The Admiral Robbie Dale – happy daze!

          Edited at 2018-07-18 07:49 am (UTC)

          1. Not only that, but you were “just seventeen, you know what I mean” I trust the way you looked was indeed “way beyond compare”.
    2. Not yet, but it can only be a matter of time. I noticed ‘shabby genteel’ the other day.
      1. I would be surprised if it wasn’t in Federica, somewhere, with that dog and those boys…
                1. A bit late in the day I know but as a charter member I feel I ought to weigh in. I must be a bit out of it because I didn’t know Keriothe was a Heyer convert. I don’t actually remember any SOMERSETs (other than the county) in any of her works but she does refer to Astley’s Amphitheatre in several of them and they had exactly the kind of programme that Sergeant Pepper quotes. Jane Austen has Astley’s too. On a completely different subject I thought an AMERICANO was something with campari and cinzano – didn’t know about the coffee.
  4. About 40 minutes. Didn’t know ‘somerset/somersault’ and assumed it had something to do with rolling cheeses which seems to be a popular pastime in that part of the world.

    Edited at 2018-07-18 05:39 am (UTC)

  5. 30 mins with yoghurt, superfoods, etc.
    I liked lots of this – and the cute grid. My last 4 in were the 4 spiralling out of the centre.
    Mostly I liked: Brie-fest (hoorah), Fan-fare, Earmark, Buns!, being strapped for cash. COD to the man in the check cap.
    Lots of lyric opportunities today: Eton rifles, Eternal flame, Fanfare for the ….(maybe not).
    Thanks setter and Pip.

    Altogether now: You won’t stop talkin’, why don’t you give it a rest. You got more rabbit than Sainsbury’s, it’s time you got it off ya chest…

  6. 17 minutes, with the NE corner providing most strife. For those of you that don’t like science LAMBERT could have been better tied in with Simnel, the Great Pretender, or Constant, of Rio Grande fame, just to annoy those of you that don’t like history or fine arts.
    ESTHER was a very neat “hidden”: it’s also the only OT book that doesn’t turn up in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The fact that it’s the only one that doesn’t mention God is surely coincidental. BRIEFEST (might be an oldie) was the other one that tickled my fancy today.
    We had a BUN called Hotcross. Don’t argue!
      1. Why thank you – someone has to counter Chas and Dave for earworm of the day!
  7. Aha, thought I, ‘For the benefit of Mr. Kite’ – but horryd and z there first – and my partial knowledge of ESTHER, an illustrative Jewish folk-tale which somehow made it into the canon, topped by the lyric. Anyway, COD to SCREWTOP. 25′, thanks pip and setter.
  8. I had no idea about SOMERSET so thanks for clearing that up for me. Also like guy_du_sable I very much wanted LAMBERT to be LAMBENT but trusted in the parsing.

    Some great surfaces today – notably ESTHER, AMERICANO and INCURIOUS, but my COD to the best of the lot, SCREWTOP.

  9. Got this done in 38m, which was something of a surprise, as I thought I was running quite long.

    13a SOMERSET/somersault equivalence unknown, although the county is virtually next door to me. (While I own the aforementioned album I think I probably came a little too late to the Fab Four to be studying the lyric sheets and singing along…)

    Also lucky to have remembered 6d LAMBERT as a unit of light from a past puzzle, as even after I’d written it in on the grounds of that and the “RT” for “right” I couldn’t see the parsing.

    FOI 1a BRIEFEST, which raised a smile. LOI 9d SCREWTOP, which probably took five minutes. I’m still dreadful when I haven’t got a first letter to get me going.

    All done over a very pleasant non-Starbucks AMERICANO. (If there are other coffee nerds on the forum, I’m an Aeropress man, and my favourite tipple is Extract’s Cast Iron Espresso, a local roast…)

    1. I’ve been thinking of changing from my pod machine for a while (for environmental reasons) and up until now I was settling on a drip machine. However I didn’t know about the Aeropress and it sounds like it might be what I need – it’s definitely going into the equation. Thanks Matt!
      1. Pleasure! I swear by mine; great for making a very good single cuppa, basically, and pretty environmentally-friendly. They last for years and all you use per cup is a single small paper filter. Much quicker and easier clean-up than a French press, too.

        A couple of my nearby hipster coffee places offer Aeropress coffee, so it might be worth seeing if you can find somewhere you can try the results before you make the (fairly small) investment.

  10. Finished in 33 minutes, but not with a satisfied glow or with a mic drop, a phrase I didn’t know until yesterday. It had to be Somerset from crossers, and it’s certainly true that we did call forward and backward rolls somersaults at primary school, so I should have made the tortuous connection with Mr Kite quicker. Another form of sado-masochism in 26 across didn’t appeal either, and buns for bunnies was pushing it. STICK was obvious from the other half of the clue and I guess if you’re up for the rest then pigSTICKing would guarantee a splendid time, if not for all. I did remember LAMBERT from my cgs A level days, the switch to mks and SI being one of the many confusions of the transition to University. ETERNAL for PERENNIAL doesn’t seem right, with the latter to me meaning yearly or recurrent when used more metaphorically, but then I’m usually too lazy to check the dictionary. Thank you Pip and setter.
  11. Liked this one, another not-so-easy-as-all-that one.

    May I please repeat my occasional request for bloggers not to put answers to clues into the blog heading? Gmail displays the header, which made 13ac easier than it should have been (not that it was difficult, mind).. thanks!

    1. Sorry J, I did know I was transgressing but thought the answer was a write-in even if one definition wasn’t obvious. And nothing else prompted a headline idea. Pas encore.
  12. 8:56. Straightforward stuff I thought, although I had no idea about SOMERSET. The required meaning isn’t in Collins or ODO, but what else could it be?
    1. It is in Collins

      somersault or summersault /sumˈər-sölt or -solt/, also sometimes somerset /sumˈər-set/
      noun
      A leap or other movement in which a person (or animal) turns heels over head
      intransitive verb
      To turn a somersault

  13. A flying time but sadly not a perfect finish as once again my dozing through science-y type lessons at school came back to haunt me. I could only think BERT was BENT so chucked it in alongside the similarly unparsed SOMERSET and RABBITS. Still, as Meatloaf, said two out of three ain’t bad.
  14. 15:09. SOMERSET my LOI with a shrug. Thanks for the explanation, Pip. It didn’t help that I was looking for a country for a while. Fortunately I remembered LAMBERT. I know others didn’t like it, but I enjoyed RABBITS. COD to the neat hidden ESTHER.
  15. I think we’ve had LAMBERT before, but if so I’d forgotten it. ‘Candela’ was in the Guardian yesterday and as a result I now know (for today at least) the difference between luminous intensity and luminance. Any physical property which has a measure called a ‘nit’ must have something going for it – or maybe not.

    Had to guess SOMERSET and liked the Sgt. Pepper’s link.

    Finished in 30 minutes. For some reason, SCREWTOP, my LOI, appealed most of all.

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

  16. ….Peter Banks, and Tony Kaye were the original YES-MEN I suppose. I have the first album, with its interesting treatment of the Beatles’ “Every Little Thing”, but they rather lost me after that.

    FOI BRIEFEST – a pleasure denied me with this damned diet

    Thanks to Pip for parsing SECOND-IN-COMMAND (“Brief time at helm for deputy” is remembered from somewhere !), and yes, I did biff it (the only one today).

    Heaven knows where I remembered LAMBERT from, but it went straight in. Relieved to spot ESTHER after recent struggles with encapsulations.

    LOI SPRITZER

    Tempted to award COD to RABBITS, but just prefer STRAPPED FOR CASH.

    9:52 saw me successfully to the finish.

  17. Well, that’s annoying: thought lambert and a little later wrote in lambent. Otherwise 22’50. I do like the ‘briefest’ kind of clue. Unfamiliar with the archaisms (somerset, buns) but had to be; and they’re not unwelcome in crosswordland I guess, balancing the new new. Good to see Chas’n’Dave in the Comments – about time we had mention of something authentic in the banal current of modern lyric feeling.
  18. Thought I was on for a record score here but held up by biffing LUMIERE which left me a bit baffled for the rest. In the end I didn’t know LAMBERT anyway although think I have seen it before. It was a bit of a curve ball in the middle of a very easy crossword. Tx
  19. Most went in easily, only pauring for Lambert/Lambent. So about 30m. But I didn’t enjoy this, starting from the groanworthy 1a. Buns? -whatever next! I thought Somerset must be something to do with the local dialect. Right I’m off to buy some chese for my for my tartiflette (no, not the girlfriend) but NOT BRIE. Thanks blogger
  20. I’ve just watched the Very English Scandal with Hugh Grant which makes mention of a supposedly infamous letter written by Jeremy Thorpe in which he called his young lover “bunnies”. Until then I’d completely forgotten the entire episode but I don’t think I’d have made the rabbit connection here otherwise. 16.38
    1. Something like ‘Bunnies can and will go to France.’ But I wouldn’t investigate the sub-text too closely.
  21. After 30 minutes I was left with 6d, 9d and 12a to do. LAMBENT was the only thing that would come to mind, but as a quality rather than a quantity, I resisted biffing it. It was more than 10 minutes later that the block was lifted when I saw what “outside’s” was doing at 12a and saw E(X)TERNAL, at which point I remembered the LAMBERT from a previous puzzle. A few minutes later I finally saw CREW for man at 9d and the job was done. ESTHER was well hidden! SOMERSET rang a vague gymnastic bell. Liked INCURIOUS. 44:44. Thanks setter and Pip.

  22. DNF in 40 minutes. Spent ages trying to work out SCREWTOP and finally came here for enlightenment.

    I saw YES live at the Penthouse club in Sheffield in 1969 – it was only a small place and I spent most of the evening in the corridor by the toilets where the volume was just about bearable.

    The only gig that went to that was even louder was Jimi Hendrix at the Imperial College gym, but this time there was no escape. I was jammed up against his right-hand speaker bank for 75 minutes and couldn’t hear a thing for three days afterwards.

    Probably explains the impaired hearing and tinnitus.

    Happy days!

    Thank you to setter and blogger.

    Dave.

  23. I notice I’ve put question marks by SOMERSET and STICK. The answers were all pretty obvious and successfully biffed. I also failed to see the connection between a bun and a rabbit until I came here. A couple of archaisms too many imo. 29 minutes inc 5 minutes spent on SPRITZER, my LOI. Ann
  24. Mostly straightforward, but another who put in SOMERSET without full understanding but what else could it be? Apparently I have never paid enough attention to Beatles lyrics…
  25. Wasn’t keen on buns, nor somerset. Found SCREWTOP hard to parse initially and nearly biffed TRAIPSE for TRAMPLE, but luckily read clue again and changed from my first instinct. Found whole thing a bit variable. Just over 12 mins after fast start.
  26. This is only my fourth attempt at the 15×15 and my least successful. Even when I biffed an answer as in 13a SOMERSET and 8d REDOLENT the checkers proved unhelpful in solving 14d SPRITZER and 15a TRAIN (clearly I was overthinking this one). DNF with 6 to go, 4 of which were in the NE corner and 2 in the SW corner. Thanks for the blog.
  27. I parsed LAMBERT as Allan Lamb (batter) followed by inert (stay in the same position) with right somehow signifying the loss of in. Ingenious but wrong!
  28. This took me about 35 minutes. Several unusual entries mixed up with some very straightforward things. All the weird and archaic things, well I didn’t know them either. SCREWTOP very good and LOI SPRITZER, which obviously eluded me for a while, and is pretty clever too. Regards.
  30. 34 mins. The brie fest raised a smile even if it was a little too easy to get. I wasn’t sure what rolled in Somerset so biffed it from the o checker. I was a bit slow to see that sort of Ravel in 20ac and in working out spritzer and LOI screwtop which was cleverly disguised. A pleasant workout.
  31. I have been meaning to dip a toe for ages based on the recommendations from you and others here, finally got round to it with Frederica and enjoyed it immensely. I have bought three or four more and plan to read them over the summer.

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