Times 27100 – definitely not 4 across!

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Addendum: I’m sorry I did not include my own time, which was 25:40. I am usually in the 9-14 minute range, so this was a long way from my typical time. It also appears to have blasted away records on the SNITCH, matching a puzzle that was a repeat of an older puzzle (which I didn’t even attempt) and the only regular daily to crack 200. Today’s setter has popped in to clear up a question in the comments.

Well, for those of you wondering when the next stinker was coming, welcome to Thursday! I was worried I was not going to be able to complete this at all, in a reading of the across clues not a single one came to mind, and a first run through the down clues only netted me 1 and 17 down.

I am certainly not the target audience for this puzzle, there’s a cryptic definition that nearly made me throw my laptop through the window, and a bunch of strangely clued place names and proper names.  The presence of 25 down made me wonder if I was missing something hidden in the grid, but I’m not seeing anything.

First definitions are underlined in clues

Away we go…

Across
1 Bolt that is attached to drive (5)
SCRAM – bolt in this case meaning to leave quickly. SC(scilicet, that is), then RAM (drive into)
4 A stroll in the park leads up garden path to gorge (4,5)
KIDS STUFF – KIDS(leads up garden path, lies to), STUFF(gorge)
9 A computer network block is in binary (9)
ALDEBARAN – A LAN(computer network) with DEBAR(block) inside. Aldebaran is a binary star
10 War hero off to meet the Queen (5)
BADER – BAD(off, turned) and ER for Douglas BADER
11 Endless confounded traps alternating current and past state (6)
THRACE – THREW(confounded) missing the last letter and containing AC(alternating current) – former Roman state
12 Leaves visibly embarrassed hosts with no other option? (8)
REQUIRED – QUIRE(an amount of paper, leaves), inside RED(visibly embarrassed)
14 Music to send nanny’s boy to sleep? (10)
ROCKABILLY – you may need to ROCK A BILLY goat
16 Coup d’état removing number two by force (4)
FEAT – remove the second letter of ETAT and put F(force in front of it)
19 Clobber with blow after spinning round (4)
GARB – BRAG (blow, boast) reversed
20 Ball girl chosen for final footie match (10)
CINDERELLA – cryptic definition
22 Peers in time bother to hold end of debate up (3,5)
AGE GROUP – AGGRO(bother) containing the end of debatE, then UP
23 Bucks, might one possibly say, and cuts loose? (6)
UNDOES – bucks could be UN(not) DOES
26 Take courses provided by university somewhere in Italy (5)
UDINE – DINE(take courses, eat) next to U
27 Dieter’s pal possibly cut starchy, fatty food he’s just started (9)
FRIEDRICH – the starchy fatty food is FRIED RICE, remove the end and add the first letter of He’s
28 Article on a smart UK foreign relations manual (4,5)
KAMA SUTRA – A(article) with an anagram of A,SMART,UK
29 Understand whose turn it is to catch one, say (5)
DIGIT – DIG(understand) and when it is your turn to catch, you are IT

Down
1 Unduly complacent about cunning doctor’s thought-provoking prescription? (5,4)
SMART DRUG – SMUG(unduly complacent) containing ART(cunning), DR(doctor)
2 Run after players in training, locating kit (5)
RADAR – R following RADA(players or actors in training)
3 One favouring gangsterism as a rule, or combat manoeuvres (8)
MOBOCRAT – anagram of OR,COMBAT
4 Edge of fibre, knotted up, frayed at edges (4)
KERB – hidden reversed in fiBRE Knotted
5 Employee in school yard up for keeping secret with boy (6,4)
DINNER LADY – YD(yard) reversed containing INNER(secret) and LAD(boy)
6 Deputy deserts master (6)
SUBDUE – SUB(deputy) and DUE(just deserts)
7 Get a poor price for German and Irish lines (9)
UNDERSELL – UND(German for AND), ERSE(Irish), LL(lines)
8 A lot coming with commercial storage unit (5)
FARAD – FAR(a lot) and AD(commercial) for the unit of electrical capacitance
13 Snackbar at first makes its sandwiches in batter (10)
MINIBUFFET – I thought this had a hyphen? It has a hyphen in Chambers, and isn’t in Collins. Anyway, M(akes) I(ts) containing IN, then BUFFET(batter)
15 Short drama piece broadcast live for now (5,4)
CARPE DIEM – anagram of DRAM(a),PIECE
17 End of story which is told initially by bowler? (5,4)
THATS THAT – THAT’S(which is), T(old), HAT(bowler)
18 Island’s criminal society keeping racket up (8)
TRINIDAD – TRIAD(criminal society) containing DIN(racket) reversed
21 Appliances seen often in gents clubs? Not very (6)
DRIERS – hand dryers, presumably. DRIVERS(golf clubs) missing V
22 Answer jumped-up Lord or Lady in frenzy (5)
AMUCK – A(answer) and then Lord or Lady MUCK
24 Taking in too much limited-overs cricket not good (5)
ODING – ODI(one day international), NG(not good)
25 Maybe miss out with odd bits of insignia (4)
NINA – alternating letters in iNsIgNiA

60 comments on “Times 27100 – definitely not 4 across!”

  1. I could only work about half at dinner, but I eventually got it all unaided, and with the only thing unparsed the cricket reference in ODING. The clues often made me look for something more complicated than what turned out to be the answer (“Oh, so it’s just another German guy who could be Dieter’s mate…”). And then for others the answer seemed obvious enough but not the parsing. UNDOES is as corny as a cryptic definition can get, but I had to laugh (with relief) when I finally got it. A tip of the hat to the anonymous setter!

    Edited at 2018-07-26 04:05 am (UTC)

  2. After an hour of steady struggle, I was in two minds: did I really want to finish this unaided, submit with leaderboard and see my NITCH go south or did I want to cheat and submit without leaderboard. Okay, so it was a bit of a no-brainer really and after cheating on three I happily took the latter route after an hour and three-quarters of masochistically enjoyable travail.

    If George is referring to the CINDERELLA clue as the egregious CD, then I can’t agree. Like Vinyl, I thought it was top notch. I didn’t know schools still had dinner ladies. I thought they had Jamie Oliver now.

    Edited at 2018-07-26 03:21 am (UTC)

  3. As 90 minutes approached with half-a-dozen answers outstanding I decided enough was enough and gave myself a boost by checking a couple of unknown answers and finally resorted to ‘Reveal’ and Word Wizard for a couple of others.

    My only totally unknown words were UDINE and AMUCK not spelt ‘amok’. Rather annoyingly I had considered both answers but they didn’t mean anything to me so they didn’t go in until aids proved otherwise.

    Even more annoying was not getting ALDEBARAN as I didn’t make the connection with ‘binary’ and ‘star’. If ‘star’ had been in the clue I might have stood a chance as the answer has appeared on at least 6 past occasions (clued as ‘star’) and 3 of those were on my watch!

    I also wondered if a Nina might be lurking in view of 25dn and the round number of the crossword.

  4. Well, I finally did it; took an hour and a half, probably, but much to my surprise–I had CARPE DIEM, UDINE, & KAMA SUTRA, with a guess at CINDERELLA, after 25′–I did it. Just about stood up in the coffee shop and screamed, “I did it!”, but I remembered in time what they told me the last time I did that. DNK DINNER LADY, or ODI, DNK that ALDEBARAN is a binary, and barely if at all knew Lord/Lady MUCK (but I did know the spelling). I guessed CINDERELLA from ‘ball girl’, but the parsing escaped me until near the end, when I had one of many D’oh! moments; I agree with Vinyl and Ulaca. My one MER came at UNDERSELL; does it mean that? A bunch of splendid clues, but I think I’ll give my COD to UNDOES.
    1. UNDERSELL has two meanings: to sell below the price charged by [another seller], and to sell too cheap. As a boy, I knew only the second meaning (the one used in the puzzle) and so I was baffled by the John Lewis slogan ‘Never knowingly undersold’.
  5. DNF. I ended up putting OWING for ODING since it was the only word I could see that fitted, and I figured it could just about be “taking in too much”. I had no idea about the cricket reference but OWI seemed as likely as anythng. Then I put in ABDEBARIN (debar in A BIN, short for binary). I thought of LAN when I first read the clue, before I had any checkers, but I couldn’t think of anything starting ALAN… that had anything to do with the clue.

    It was tough (well, okay, too tough) but I enjoyed it.

  6. Wiki tells me that “Dieter Friedrich is a retired East German slalom canoeist who competed from the mid-1950s to the early 1960s”. So I think the answer to your question is “no”, other than the misdirection of di-eter in the context of the clue.
    1. … and FRIEDRICH BADER was a highly decorated officer in the Wehrmacht …

      … while our own Douglas BADER was on this day in history “commissioned as a pilot officer into No. 23 Squadron”

      I think I’ve spent enough time on this!

  7. Time off the scale, eating into my preparation time for Granddad Duty today. Amazing time, George, and I was glad this wasn’t mine except…except….oh, the glory of being able to elucidate all these impossibles for the rest of us mortals!
    The ones that really held me up were
    DRIERS: appliances could be so, so many things including surgical
    ODING: an ugly word anyway, and I couldn’t find a way of fitting in T20
    UNDOES: aaaargh! Just aaargh!
    FEAT: almost impossible to unsee coup d’etat as a single entity.
    A brilliant, complete B’stard of a crossword.
  8. OK, I can stop grumbling about the long run of easy puzzles 🙂

    Time …. 40-something minutes but I couldn’t get FEAT and maybe never would have. Leaderboard times show this was up there with the hardest puzzles, and the Snitch currently has it at 198 — Starstruck’s going to need a bigger scale.

    Some brilliant stuff in here — I especially loved the ‘relations manual’ and the DINNER LADY (beautiful surface).

    I can’t improve on z8’s description of the puzzle. Thanks, setter

  9. Is there anything more to the Dieter/Friedrich thing than that they’re both German names?

    Brilliant puzzle!

  10. Stopped after 60 mins with a few left – while enjoying yoghurt, blueberries, etc.
    Some gems: 4ac, 10ac, 28ac, 2dn
    Some horrors: 9ac, Feat, Un-does, good grief.
    Thanks for the work-out setter and for explaining it all G.
  11. … like Lego, much too hard for adults. Bloody hell! I got into more impossible positions than are in the KAMA SUTRA. DNF by some distance even after 75 minutes, not managing the FEAT of getting to the MINIBUFFET to meet FRIEDRICH on ALDEBARAN. I was surprised at some of the answers I did get. Is the orange one a MOBOCRAT? UNDOES wins worst pun of the century. Surely ODING needs some punctuation or spelling out? COD to CINDERELLA. Well done George for blogging this one and thank you to the setter for the torment.
  12. Music ELO Live at Wembley (double album) and Bach’s Violin Concerto in E (Spivakov). Jerusalem.

    Breakfast Boiled Egg; Marmite Soldats, Jamaica Blue Mountain by De Longhi, yoghurt mit Priesselbeere conserve by D’Arbo. Lunch Sushi at The Avenue – Gubei.
    Coffee and chocolate and hazlenut cake at Pain Chaud – Gubei.

    FOI 3dn MOBOCRAT

    LOI 15dn CARPE DIEM

    COD 26ac KAMA SUTRA

    WOD EXCULPATORY!

    All parsed and correct.

    Mood Smuggo!

    George? What was your time!? Don’t be shy.

      1. Two ELOs + Bach + Jerusalem!From breakfast until after lunch – as stated – with toilet breaks etc. I do feel the bloggers should give their times (they invariably do) as this is the ‘Times for the Times’. George always gets under 15 mins – but probably not today!?
        (We know that Putin and Trump took two and a half hours the other Monday, but without a clue and no answers.)

        Edited at 2018-07-26 04:05 pm (UTC)

        2. I don’t time myself. I take my own sweet time, and often don’t do it all in one fell swoop.
      1. I knew it was well over 20 minutes and I’m usually closer to 10. Sorry, forgot to include it when I wrote this up last night and today I’ve been in meetings and on the road, so haven’t really had the chance to catch up. At least I had no typos today!
  13. Beaten by the NE corner. ALDEBARAN unknown and missed the anagram of the unlikely looking MOBOCRAT. No complaints though, I thought it was absolutely brilliant. Would I want it every day? Probably not, but great as an occasional treat.
  14. Yesyesyes! 85′ and it was worth it. Too many brilliant clues, but if pushed FRIEDRICH for its misdirection and UNDOES, still churning in my head. Oh, and ODING, wonderful. I got 4ac when considering ‘nanny’s boy’ at 14ac, and CINDERELLA eventually came to mind – it’s atype of film plot which I’d read on page 5 before attempting the crossword. Thanks George and setter.
  15. It’s good to feel frightened occasionally. Only one across answer in my first run through. (Two if I admit to a speculative ‘Sparta’ at 11a.) 21.21 now looks like a pretty good time for this one.

    Like others, I looked for a Nina. Mainly I wanted to make something of the anagram of 10a (BADER) in the centre of 9a (ALDEBARAN). But I couldn’t make that or anything else lead anywhere.

  16. Well, we all knew this puzzle had to turn up eventually, and it didn’t disappoint. Tremendously chewy, and very much enjoyed. No biffing, just a lot of hard (and often lateral) thinking.

    Edited at 2018-07-26 10:29 am (UTC)

  17. Phew! Very satisfied to have completed this under my own steam — even if it took an hour and forty minutes. MOBOCRAT, FARAD, ALDEBARAN and UDINE were at the very periphery of my GK, so didn’t come easily. The word ‘footie’ in 20a alerted me early on to some devious device, but it was an hour later before it clicked.

    I thought the wordplay for FEAT was distinctly dodgy: can the “d'” be simply dismissed with an airy wave of the hand?

    Despite my dismal progress after the first half hour, I was enjoying the mental struggle and persevered: a measure, I think, of the puzzle’s quality.

    Thanks to the setter, and to George for an excellent blog of a devilish puzzle.

    1. I reconciled this by reading the first half of the clue in French, so the D (short for ‘de’) is a wordplay filler word like ‘from’. I don’t know if this is what the setter intended, and it’s certainly unconventional, but it worked for me!
      1. Yes the d’ was a bit of French thrown into the cryptic – I figured it was fair in a pretentious sort of way 🙂
        1. Can you confirm that we are wasting our time looking for a NINA?

          Thanks for a terrific challenge by the way.

  18. This took me about two and a half hours but I got there in the end. As my par time is about 20m this was off the scale for me. I wonder if we have a new setter on the block? There were so many devious and original clue formulations that my mind was well and truly boggled by the end. I wonder if anyone else was held up by trying to justify The Lords for 22ac, or Loofas for 21dn? COD Dietrich I think, but many other possibilities.
  19. Happy to have finished this one unaided. It did take me two fifty-minute sessions, with a short break to pop out and buy a new car in the middle, but given the comments I think I’m glad to have just got through it at all!

    FOI 3d MOBOCRAT, believe it or not, LOI REQUIRED where I was finally saved by the “see a U, try a Q” rule, so thanks for everyone for helping me to remember that tip over the years I’ve been learning here.

    Thought this was a brilliant puzzle—hard but fair, with some great devices. Thanks setter, and well done George!

    Edited at 2018-07-26 12:11 pm (UTC)

  20. Admitted defeat after well over an hour – couldn’t make sense of 24ac, while although alphabet trawl at 24dn gave ‘oding’ as a possible, rejected it as versification was obviously irrelevant. Also failed to see the hidden at 4dn, so entered KERF, which I was actually mentally confusing with the typographic KERN. A MER at far=lot at 8dn, too.
  21. Cooer. The other shoe finally dropped. Magoo clocked in at 11.57 and he posted this on the Club Forum which includes his take on this baby. [I haven’t watched it yet.] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e447GnmzY6o

    Two or three I didn’t parse (UNDOES forsooth!) thanks George – great time indeed. This puts the leaderboard cheats in stark relief. 32.47 and now I’m going to write home to Mum.

    1. Needed to put it down for half an hour and come back later to finish it. 90 minutes from first look to finish, the usual target is 20.
      The Magoo video explains 27a more fully: Dieter is not someone from Worms, but pronounced differently it’s a German forename, as is Friedrich. I’d read vinyl’s mention of Worms, but somehow missed the import of brnchn/zabadak/sotira’s exchaneg. D’oh. I can actually name a Dieter: Dieter Hoeness who wikipedia tells me played in the 1986 World Cup which I watched (where Cinderella was a ball-girl? The footie bit took me well after the 90 minutes before it clicked). I can also name a Friedrcih: Engels, co-author of The Communist Manifesto. So I’m no longer unhappy at what I thought was the one weak clue.
      Strange: nanny’s boy sent tyo sleep had me wondering if KIDNAPPPING was a musical.

      Edited at 2018-07-26 02:13 pm (UTC)

  22. All I can say is thank you, George, for unraveling this. I gave up after an hour or so, with half a dozen still to go. Brilliant blog, and a brilliant and memorable puzzle. Regards to all, setter especially. CINDERELLA! Wonderful.
  23. I enjoyed each and every one of the clues I solved, which would be about two thirds of the total offer. I tried Vinyl’s take a break and try again method without much luck. I didn’t get all the way to Gothick-Matt’s buy a new car during the break embellishment. Next time.
  25. Oooff! That was a snorter. Didn’t get a toehold until THAT’S THAT in the SE, then spotted NINA. UNDOES came shortly after that, with a chuckle, when UNTIES didn’t parse. The rest of the SE followed without too much aggro, with the choice between OWING and ODING clinched by the One Day International. Some exceptional clueing in this puzzle. Loved CINDERELLA and SMART DRUG. The unknown MOBOCRAT originally went in as MOBACTOR until ROCKABILLY showed the error of my ways and I changed it to MOBOCTAR, until a final proof read made the penny drop. The only clue I failed to parse was CARPE DIEM, but the definition and crossers were convincing. 82:31. Thanks setter and George.

    Edited at 2018-07-26 09:28 pm (UTC)

  26. It did seem to clear my mind, but I economically-speaking, I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it.
  27. I withdraw any previous offer to blog a 15 x 15 should the need arise, after failing miserably with this one. I’m not sure I could ever have finished, even using aids. Well-blogged G, and hats off to you, and all who did finish. Outstanding.

    On edit – I forgot to say – in 1a (one of those I did get) I had RAM as like a drive on a computer, rather than ‘drive into’

    Edited at 2018-07-26 01:31 pm (UTC)

  28. 40:04. I solved this with quite a lot of distractions but I think it actually helped. So many of these clues required you to keep looking at them in different ways that being nagged for something by a child can help jolt you out of a thinking rut.
    I thought this was wonderful from start to finish. Very, very hard but all (just about) fair and a real sense of sparring with a first class setter at the top of her or his game.
    So thanks setter and well done George for sorting it all out.
  29. Over two hours and in the end just failed on FEAT, which I too thought was a bit iffy. Lots of great clues which made it all worthwhile though ( I think… maybe).

    ROCKABILLY, the ‘final footie match’ for CINDERELLA and UNDOES were my favourites. Having a 25d would have topped it off nicely, but mustn’t complain.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

Comments are closed.