Times 27097 – Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
This bright and breezy, somewhat prototypical Monday offering took me 27 minutes, doing my NITCH no harm at all = not that I care or follow that type of thing very closely at all. Sometimes whole hours go by without me checking how I am stacking up against my fellow League One opposition. This puzzle’s claim to fame is that it features two weird sounding fish.

Congratulations to Frankie Molinari for breaking the Americans’ stranglehold on the golfing majors with his win at Carnoustie. The course has vivid memories for me, as it was there that, as a callow 16-year-old, that I had a stupendous round – by my standards – of 96. The tipping point was the sixth hole, where I was in a greenside bunker in five. I thinned my attempted splash out, the ball flying low across the green, hitting the broad metal flagstick and plummeting into the hole like a ferret down a Yorkshireman’s trousers.

ACROSS

1 Baseball players each finding home in London? (9)
BATTERSEA – BATTERS EA
6 Pernickety female quietly leaving Bombay, perhaps (5)
FUSSY – F [p]USSY for the rather scary looking hybrid black cat
9 Deceived, having leave withdrawn, broken by pressure (7)
TRAPPED – P in reversal of DEPART
10 Resentful judge has militant executed (7)
JEALOUS – J [z]EALOUS
11 Social misfit returned, having lost a Swedish coin (5)
KRONA – reversal of ANOR[a]K. I was working around NORK for a while, until I realised it wasn’t a word, before looking it up and finding it was. Those Aussies!
12 Uncover articles on a French novel (9)
UNSHEATHE – A THE on UN (‘a French’) SHE (‘novel’)
13 Fish this person’s caught in parts of Wales (8)
ALEWIVES – IVE in anagram* of WALES
14 Little resistance disturbs this form of jazz (4)
TRAD – R in TAD
17 Demon driver in Paris I hated unreservedly at first (4)
JEHU – JE (‘in Paris I’) + first letters of H[ated] U[nreservedly]
18 Haphazardly hosted party, then left in motor yacht (8)
RANDOMLY – RAN DO then L in MY
21 Outstanding feature, a draw at new part of city (9)
CHINATOWN – CHIN A TOW N (abbreviation for ‘new’ as in NY and NYC)
22 Salmon served in hotel in my quarter (5)
COHOE – H in COO E (quarter)
24 Element the same, only different one old poet’s misrepresented (7)
ISOTOPE – I O POETS*
25 Reluctant to wear church’s habiliments? (7)
CLOTHES – LOTH in CES (or C.E.’s)
26 Record books kept by English queen (5)
ENTER – NT in E ER
27 A man’s work introducing extremely holy religious doctrine (9)
THEOSOPHY – THEOS OP H[ol]Y for one of the many weird attempts to make Christianity mystical. Me, I’m with the bloke who said ‘It’s not the bits of the Bible I don’t understand that worry me; it’s the bits I do understand – they worry me.’

DOWN

1 Graduate set up equipment for printing process (5)
BATIK – BA reversal of KIT
2 React with irritation, greatly reducing one’s shock? (4,4,4,3)
TEAR ONES HAIR OUT – shock as in a shock of hair
3 Stress politician in east suffers on island (8)
EMPHASIS – MP in E HAS (‘suffers’ as in suffers nightmares) IS
4 Ancient Jew unhappy leader in Rome close to gate (8)
SADDUCEE – SAD DUCE [gat]E. The Sadducees were a politico-religious grouping in Israel that didn’t believe in the resurrection. They didn’t pretend to believe in it either, so at least they weren’t pharisees.
5 Settle bill, like Wallace’s four men? (6)
ADJUST – AD JUST (as in Edgar Wallace’s Four Just Men, which I’ve neither heard of nor read, tho’ I have a feeling that horryd may have done both – and even met the author)
6 Blonde with casual attitude swallowed up by bog (6)
FLAXEN – LAX in FEN
7 Speak bluntly, seeing film supplied by trendies? (5,4,3,3)
SHOOT FROM THE HIP – another sort of cryptic definition cum extended definition clue along the lines of 2 across, but not so good, I feel
8 Cry of joy about desert transformed very recently (9)
YESTERDAY – YAY around DESERT*
13 Part of speech club employee finally made, being in voice (9)
ADJECTIVE – DJ (club employee) [mad]E in ACTIVE (cf passive)
15 Hanger-on, one locking up pound by farm building (8)
BARNACLE – BARN L (pound) in ACE (one)
16 Greedy chap with plenty of room, ignoring the odds (8)
EDACIOUS – ED (chap) [sp]ACIOUS (SP is starting prices)
19 Courage of woman round ancient city (6)
VALOUR – VAL O UR
20 Secret deliveries taken into court (6)
COVERT – OVER (6 deliveries in cricket) in CT
23 Composition — first of Elgar’s symphonies, for example (5)
ESSAY – first letter of E[lgar] S[ymphonies] SAY (for example)

73 comments on “Times 27097 – Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment”

  1. The puzzle may have been bright and breezy, but I sure wasn’t; with the J and the definition, I still took forever to come up with ADJECTIVE. Not my LOI, anyway; that was TRAPPED, which I came up with early on but didn’t see it as meeting the definition, as well as not seeing the reversal. DNK the cat, DNK Wallace, DNK the spelling of ‘coho’ (and forgot that there’s COO as well as COR), DNK EDACIOUS. I would have thought that tearing one’s hair out was indicative of a stronger emotion than irritation; and I had thought that shooting from the hip was being quick, and perhaps rash, in expressing oneself, not blunt.
  2. I was thinking I’d lost a step (or more) whilst away from the puzzle attending to some family business, but maybe it was UNKs (several) and loose definitions (I’m with Kevin on both tear ones hair and hip shooting) that did me in.
    Like references to, say, US State capitals, when something like “baseball” comes along I’m never sure how much knowledge the setter assumes. Thanks, ulaca
  3. Was unknown and missed COO thinking COR thus a DNF.

    Otherwise 40 mins (I noted a 4 mins on the leaderboard!!)

    I plumped for the F1 rather than the golf – with Ferrari and F.Molinari going in opposite directions.

    FOI 14ac TRAD

    COD 4dn SADDUCEE

    WOD 17ac JEHU

    Re-1ac I love the Yorkist/Filofax pronunciation of 1ac BATTERSEA as BATTERCIA and Fulham as Flaam! Are there more?

    When I initially saw 6ac’s Bombay I thought of duck rather than cat. And on the subject of weird fish – Fish as opposed to Fishes disguised 13ac ALEWIVES rather well. Bit of a chestnut however for us Oldies.

    2. I’ve heard that the upwardly-mobile residents of Fulham refer to it as South Chelsea.
      1. Nice one Jack! And thanks aphis99 Claam – of course – nothing common thereabouts!

        Sweet Georgie Best – he even played for Flaam!

        Q. How does one know when Manchester United are playing at home?
        A. When the Chelsea Tractors start backing up on the King’s Road.

        I don’t think the gentrification of the East End has spawned any similar verbiage. Methink Shoreditch is still Shoreditch.

        Edited at 2018-07-23 06:04 am (UTC)

    3. Chelsea is no longer in London having relocated to Cley Next The Sea (pronounced Cly) and Burnham Market. Son is living in Blaam at the monent

      Hard crossword for me with two unknown fish. So DNF as per Jordan Speith. Thanks all

    4. St. Ockwell too.

      Oop ‘ere in Yorkshire we go for glitz rather than gentrification, hence Pontefract = Ponte Carlo, Castleford = Cas Vegas, Featherstone = Feverley Hills and Scarborough = Scarbados.

    5. ……Clarm (Clapham) St. Ockwell (Stockwell)

      Estate agents pre-gentrification euphemisms. T.

  4. I gave up with 13ac and 4dn unsolved. I actually know the word ALEWIVES, but it doesn’t exactly spring to mind and working from wordplay it’s quite hard to spot an anagram without an anagram indicator. I have to hand it to the setter for 4dn though: a horribly obscure word of course but my failure stemmed entirely from a failure to see that Rome needn’t be ancient. In my defence Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar is on my mind at the moment because I’m reading James Shapiro’s 1599: a Year in the Life of William Shakespeare. Anyway that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.
    Perhaps I should have attempted this at some point before the fourth bottle was opened. Ah well, there’s always tomorrow.

    Edited at 2018-07-23 02:29 am (UTC)

  5. My LOI was ISOTOPE, simply because I had biffed …. ONES HAIR CUT instead of OUT
  6. I have to come here to find out how to parse EDACIOUS after ED. “Starting prices,” eh? Which equals “the odds”? If you say so! Glad to have gotten all correct.
    1. Mark of a misspent youth traipsing around racecourses with my cousin, who was champion jump jockey, I’m afraid. Betting terms, both referring to the ratio between the amounts staked by the parties to a bet, based on the expected probability either way.

      Edited at 2018-07-23 05:32 am (UTC)

      1. In answer to Lord Ulaca’s mildly impertinent questionaire – I have not read the ‘Four Just Men’ series but am familiar with the title. Also King Kong and Hong Kong. Edgar was a tad before my time d.1932. I believe my grandmother used to skate with an old flame of his, Ethel at Deptford, prior to WWI – but I may be on thin ice here.
        1. Sorry – I thought he lived to the outbreak of WWII at least. I once went to the ASDA in Dartford and there were a lot of grandmotherly types there. Osmosis, perhaps?
          1. ASDA 1 Osmozil 0

            Wallace was a tremendous and notorious gambler; your cousin Mark probably bumped into him at Wincanton Fine Fare.

            Edited at 2018-07-23 12:59 pm (UTC)

  7. 13:54 … good stuff, with just enough help for the more unusual vocab.

    Last in the EDACIOUS COHOE pair.

    Fun blog, too, ulaca. Not having been able to watch the golf (I give Mr Murdoch enough money without subscribing to Sky) I’ll have to make do with the arresting image of your ferret moment on the sixth at Carnoustie.

  8. 28 minutes. BATIK as ‘printing process’ was unknown; it’s in Collins as such but it’s more usually thought of as a fabric. Didn’t know JEHU although it has come up twice before (2013, and 2015 also blogged by ulaca). I knew of COHO as a salmon and just took on trust that the E was an alternative spelling. No problem with ALEWIVES because I’d come across ‘alewife’ many a time and ‘fish’ is the standard plural of ‘fish’ in my vocabulary.

    Edited at 2018-07-23 05:19 am (UTC)

  9. 19.34, more of a stretch than virtually all of the last fortnight. ALEWIVES my LOI: I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in Tesco’s, but its native habitat appears to be crosswords. Also flummoxed by the much-easier-than-it-looks “parts of Wales” device.
    I wouldn’t have spelled COHO with an E, and had it as a plural (S is also a quarter) until ESSAY didn’t work.
    There’s a Bombay cat?!!
    JEHU of course from the days when any schoolboy would know what you were talking about. And the remarkable Hamilton yesterday, though Vettel possibly fits the furious driver reference more closely.
    Both long ones entered with only a passing nod at the clues: I gather that’s just as well.
    Cheerful blog on an eccentric puzzle: thanks! I’d have taken 96 just to have got to the second tee. Though I did once, on another course as dry as this years, get a birdie on a 155yd par 3 courtesy of a whack with the putter off the tee.
    1. I got there from Bombay tiger, myself, but there does also seem to be a domestic cat breed…
  10. 45 mins – with yoghurt, blueberries, etc.
    And 15 of that on the 4dn/13ac combo and 16dn. Tricky vocab.
    I have a vague memory (although it might be invented) of Verlaine once commenting, “whenever I see Salmon in a clue, I think Cohoe”. So that helped.
    Thanks ‘swallowed a dictionary’ setter and Ulaca.

    PS – 1 Dec 2017: “I now instantly think of COHO when I see “salmon” in a clue, which probably amply demonstrates I’ve been doing these things for a while now” (Verlaine)

    Edited at 2018-07-23 07:25 am (UTC)

  11. 18:28, but DNF as I had COHRE (my LOI) rather than the unknown COHOE. Bah! Other ignorances included Bombay for a cat, EDACIOUS, Wallace, that ALEWIFE is a fish not just a female brewer and JEHU only vaguely remembered.. I’m not sure I needed to find out what a NORK is, but thanks anyway, Ulaca…. and setter for enhancing my knowledge.
  12. Some tricky vocab and GK in amongst the more usual Monday level fare. I only know the salmon without the E and stared at the ALEWIVES for an eternity at the end. No time as the app has a bug at 8d which causes it to crash every time you open that clue. Around 25 minutes at a guess.
  13. I deliberately took my time today, gazing at COHOE and COHRE before deciding on the former. So patience was rewarded, although 42 minutes is a pretty lame time. I also didn’t expect ALEWIVES to be right but could construct nothing else. We used to talk of Fleetwood Fishwives. They were the fishermen’s redoubtable womenfolk, and they did the catching. EDACIOUS was half-known. I also got KRONA from a backward nork before eventually twigging the anorak connection. One man’s obscurity is another’s commonplace. SADDUCEE was a write-in along with JEHU and THEOSOPHY. COD to the multi-neutroned 24 across. I quite liked this one. Is there a CHINATOWN in every city? What about St Asaph? A friend tells me it has a great Chinese takeaway, so maybe it has. Thank you U and setter.
  14. Solving on the iPad app was not helped by it only allowing an 8 letter answer for 8d. A grumpy start to the week.
    1. Same here, and even if I tried to type in those letters the app crashed every time. Hopefully this is a one off.
  15. Far harder for me than anything from the past seven days, with the possible exception of the Mephisto, though I actually got started a lot faster on the Meph…

    My hour bell rang with 4d SADDUCEE, 13a ALEWIVES, 16d EDACIOUS and 22a COHOE all still to get. All but the fish were complete unknowns, and I wasn’t helped on 13a by the lack of an anagram indicator or the ambiguity of “this person’s”…

    Even if I’d got the rest, like Horryd I probably would’ve plumped for COHRE on 22a, as that’s what I had mentally pencilled-in for it.

    Still, at least I managed to piece together my other unknowns, BATIK and JEHU. Some small solace in the very un-Mondayish puzzle…

    1. I was going to address the absence of anagram comment in K’s contribution above but didn’t want to make the hangover worse. However, since you also mention it, I can’t really see a problem with ‘parts of’ as an anagram indicator, indicating its constituent letters as opposed to the whole, as it were. Rather creative, I thought, but then I latched on to it at once, so I suppose I would.
      1. Yes, I can see it now you put it like that. Oddly, I might’ve done better on that clue if it’d been in the Guardian, where I tend to be thinking with the attitude that virtually any word at all seems to be an anagram indicator to some of the setters…
      2. Can you please explain why E is a quarter? My only guess is that it is one of four compass points. Thanks for your help.
      3. Some indication that the parts are supposed to be mixed up is conventional.
        I don’t actually have a hangover, I’m glad to report: I didn’t drink four bottles on my own. However even fairly modest amounts of booze have a dramatically deleterious effect on my solving ability so I should have left it until the morning.
        1. fyi nork – usually plural, is a rude word upt’north

          Edited at 2018-07-23 01:14 pm (UTC)

  16. Easy again..

    I have read (and own a copy of) The Four Just Men, it is an entertaining, well-written book with some clever plots, and I recommend it. If you like it, there were several sequels to look out for too.

    1. I never read a word of Edgar Wallace but The Four Just Men was made into a very popular ITV series in the late 1950s starring Jack Hawkins, Dan Dailey, Richard Conte and Vittorio de Sica. They appeared all together only in the first episode and thereafter in the opening credits.
      1. Ah.. I was more into Picture Book and Rag, Tag & Bobtail in those days, Jack 🙂
        Don’t think we could get ITV then, either. I had to go round a friend’s house to watch Popeye..

        Edited at 2018-07-23 09:42 am (UTC)

        1. We didn’t have ITV until 1962 but FJM was repeated over many years. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned up again on Talking Pictures TV any time soon. Mind you, I only liked the episodes featuring Jack Hawkins.
    1. Google translation: Debut! How it flew, so was the glory!

      Hmm, possibly, the first time Herr (or Fraulein) Leibnix has finished the crossword?!

      Edited at 2018-07-23 09:42 am (UTC)

  18. Not having heard of a Bombay cat I googled ‘Bombay pussy’. Well…. maybe not very helpful…. I thought there was only 1 D in Sadducee which didn’t help either. Lots of DNK’s. My planned half hour break from decorating took rather longer than anticipated
  19. Pleasant, if rather fishy puzzle, nice blog. First I thought I was going to come up short when 13ac wouldn’t accommodate VALLEYS, and I couldn’t think of another general word for bits of Wales until the penny dropped. Then, while I was musing “Surely there’s no such word as COHRE”, something at the back of my mind kept telling me there was a sort of salmon which had proved useful in crosswords before? Once I remembered COHO, the variant spelling looked more likely than the complete unknown, so I got there in the end, if not with complete confidence. Every day’s a schoolday in Crosswordland.
  20. Couldn’t help noticing the pairings (as food writers say) of the Js and Ks, the Vs and the W and the X with the Ys but there didn’t seem to be any scheme to it. ALEWIVES used to be a regular in the NY Times puzzles and COHOE appears both with and without the E in the Collins Gem Puzzle Solver. Must have been within my range at 14.38
  21. I began my odyssey through this puzzle at 6d and then deduced my way through the unknown, PUSSY(nice one eniamretauq!), JEHU and EDACIOUS, only to find when I submitted at 31:04, that my misgivings about COHRE were correct. I knew there was a salmon beginning with CO that often inhabits crosswords, but couldn’t quite bring it to mind. COO for COR just didn’t present itself. Bah! Better luck tomorrow. ALEWIVES was my LOI after a flash of inspiration told me to throw the letters of WALES up in the air and see where they landed. Thanks setter and Ulaca.
    I forgot to mention that I would see “SHOOTING FROM THE HIP” as a rash action, and “SHOOTING FROM THE LIP” as rash words.

    Edited at 2018-07-23 01:11 pm (UTC)

  22. DNF because didn’t know the EDACIOUS / COHOE pair, and G3 tablet too slow in taxi to look words up. Otherwise a good Monday puzzle with some unusual words.
    Thanks for explaining KRONA which I biffed but didn’t see why.
    Carnoustie holds fond memories for me too, one of those courses where it sees like you’ve eaten the ‘make me smaller’ cake in Alice as everything is larger than usual and therefore seems closer than it really is. A great test indeed, in a stiff breeze. I remember too seeing Nicklaus hitting driver to the 16th and being short, into an easterly, where those guys yesterday were hitting 6 irons.
    Bravo Molinari indeed.
  23. Not feeling very bright today! DNF but after reading the blog I see others have struggled with ALEWIVES, JEHU (I had Pihu), COHOE (I still do not know why E = quarter), SADDUCEE, ADJECTIVE and EDACIOUS. Even the spell checker on live journal does not recognise three of the words. The use of Anorak as a social misfit did make me smile so I will forgive the setter for the unknowns.
  24. ….who enter “cohre”.

    10:25 for this traditional Monday offering, despite having biffed ADJECTIVE (thanks Ulaca), not knowing the cat, and being used to spelling COHOE without the E.

    FOI JEALOUS
    LOI ISOTOPE
    COD CHINATOWN (Stoke-on-Trent is one, but doesn’t have one).

    Whilst my life-long interest in buses qualifies me as an anorak, I do take exception to being dismissed as a “social misfit” !

      1. I once had a very nasty accident in downtown HK involving a large, modern, red double-decker…..

        “I’ll ‘ave you Butler!”

        1. He’ll get you too if you keep misquoting him.

          Edited at 2018-07-23 10:03 pm (UTC)

  25. Nightmare. Stuck in covetous for 16 dn on the strength of cove, and then – get ready – ranodmly for 18 ac without turning a hair. Didn’t miss a beat. All of which drove me to enter eehse for the salmon. Losing the plot; hope it’s just the heat 🙂

    Edited at 2018-07-23 02:36 pm (UTC)

  26. 11:58 – rather enjoyed this one though it was a sigh of relief that things came out all correct – FUSSY, ADJECTIVE, EDACIOUS and ADJUST all going in from definition.
  27. DNF today. Lots of words NHO and weird clues like Bombay cats and She novels and Wallace novels and Cohoe salmon and SP odds and Active voice. Not a crossword designed for engineers!
    1. It’s worth tucking SHE away, since 9 times out of 10 it’ll be the novel the setter wants you to use.
      The actual thing is still in print, but you can get it on project Gutenberg and similar. Worth a shot.
      1. I read it recently, as part of my crosswording education programme. If you can get past the inherent prejudices of its time, it’s not a bad read. Certainly stuffed full of the archetypes of adventure fiction. Also contains helpful antelope names 😀

        Edited at 2018-07-23 09:39 pm (UTC)

  28. Nice puzzle, although I didn’t know of JEHU, EDACIOUS, the Bombay or the old Jewish person. Wordplay clearly helped, along with the checking letters. The ALEWIVES were no mystery because I once lived on the corner of Alewife Brook Parkway, north of Boston, back in grad school days. The fish would run up this brook in spring, and people simply waded in catching dozens at a time in 5 lb. buckets. Regards.
  29. 12:48 with a last-minute change from COHRE to COHOE when I suddenly remembered that COHO was the salmony word I couldn’t remember. We bought a whole salmon at the Tatton Park Flower Show of all places on Saturday.

    Nice puzzle and blog.

  30. 27:49. Quite a few unknowns – the Mumbai moggy, the demon driver and the salmon spelt with an e on the end. Had a devil of a time parsing adjective for some reason and took ages to work out what both the chap and the odds were in LOI 16dn. Nice workout for a Monday.
  32. Please can someone explain cohoe. I get the h and the e, why coo? Comes to something when I can’t parse even with the answer and the blog in front of me!

    5 looked up, which is about average for me. 4, 12, 13a, 16, 22, none of which I am too ashamed about.

    Mighty

    1. It’s a trick used by setters every now and again; the “coo” is clued by “my”, as in “Oh my!”. “my” could equally clue “cor”, which steered a few people wrong on this clue, or “wow”, “gosh”, etc. Worth looking out for.

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