Times 27109 – Monday Quickie

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
This really was as easy as it gets, and I would be surprised if there were not a few PBs flying around. There are though four or five place names, so I suppose that if you haven’t been to or heard of the town in the West Riding (or only know its Shakespearean equivalent) or if you refrain on principle from watching anything post-Blackadder by Richard Curtis (who once played female lead against my male lead in The Bathroom Door) or if you’ve never heard of the state down under which has the distinction of having managed to produce both Joh Bjelke-Petersen and Pauline Hanson, you might struggle a bit. Talking of giants of the Antipodean political scene, Robert ‘Piggy’ Muldoon had a fine tea-towel produced by the good ladies of Palmerston North prior to his election as PM in 1975 with the words ‘Not just a pretty face’ (scroll down a bit) emblazoned on it.

Anyway, this took me just over 14 minutes, so thanks to the setter for both an enjoyable offering and for restoring my confidence after a long run of puzzles where I was doing these things as if I were Dawid Malan trying to bat or take slip catches. Music: Suk, Serenade for Strings

ACROSS

1 Unknown Parisian who comes first in game show? (4)
QUIZ – QUI (‘who’ in French) Z (maths unknown)
3 Protect fan working in Yorkshire town (10)
PONTEFRACT – anagram* of PROTECT FAN
10 Brilliant English bloke securing return of sailor’s tackle (9)
EFFULGENT – LUFF reversed in E GENT; a luff is a useful Scrabble word meaning
‘the edge of a fore-and-aft sail next to the mast or stay’
11 Take to court outside say, and play on without pause (5)
SEGUE – EG in SUE. The extended non-literal meaning of segue constitutes one of my least favourite words. Others in the pantheon include egregious, feckless, cognitive dissonance and passive aggressive.
12 Northern Irish camper, possibly, approaching a blissful state (7)
NIRVANA – N IR VAN A
13 Apathetic, initially underrating boring part of book (6)
SUPINE – U[nderrating] in SPINE
15 Industrial action creating a bit of a storm? (9,6)
LIGHTNING STRIKE – double definition or as near as dammit
18 London street good at plugging revolutionary Ellington hit (7,4,4)
NOTTING HILL GATE – G AT in ELLINGTON HIT*
21 Tiny bird in tear-jerking film (6)
WEEPIE – if you were of a particularly poetic bent, you might look out the window, see a fledgling magpie on your lawn and say, ‘Look at that wee pie’
23 Deceive surgeon about firm manufacturing bird shelter (7)
DOVECOT – DO (deceive) CO in VET
26 Article one’s involved in writing up (5)
AMISS – A IS in MS (writing as manuscript); nice definition, ‘amiss’ as in ‘What’s up, mate?’
27 Drink served by assistant reportedly in William and Mary’s house? (9)
ORANGEADE – if you were working for Dutchman William III, you might be called an Orange aide by the sort of person who looked out of the window, saw a fledgling …
28 Opening with responsibility for where mail may be left? (10)
PIGEONHOLE – HOLE for opening is easy enough, but where I earn my corn today is by pointing out that pigeon can be used to mean responsibility, usually in negative phrases – naturally – like ‘Look, mate, that’s not my pigeon’
29 Smooth character on the staff (4)
FLAT – a flat, as well as a sharp, a natural, a double sharp, a dou (that’s enough, ed), may be found on a clef

DOWN

1 Left with cats to go over distant state (10)
QUEENSLAND – L (left) AND (with – yes, quite cunning) after QUEENS (cats)
2 Deduce speaker’s wearing ermine, for example? (5)
INFER – oh, gosh, I’m not going to try and explain this play on words beyong saying that ‘speaker’s’ is the homophone indicator
4 Opportunity strikebreaker provided for knight working in theatre (9)
OPERATING – OPENING (opportunity) with the N (knight in chess) replaced by RAT (strikebreaker – I have only come across ‘scab’ – another word I detest – in this sense, but Collins has it for strikebreaker)
5 American singer’s first book (5)
TITUS – US followed by TIT (songbird). Naughty, naughty if you haven’t mugged up your Good Book’s books yet
6 Following American ship, shoot at old woman (7)
FUSSPOT – F USS POT (used of shooting for game predominantly). I wonder if it is sexism that a woman can hardly be described as an old woman in this sense?
7 A Republican woman burying senior officer in state (9)
ARGENTINA – GEN (senior officer) in A R TINA
8 Person securing a row of seats, perhaps (4)
TIER – DD after a fashion, I reckon
9 Flexible scheme I adopted on the third of October (6)
PLIANT – I in PLAN [oc]T[ober]
14 Army corps posted soldiers east at last, provoking ill feeling (10)
RESENTMENT – RE (army corps) SENT (posted) MEN [eas]T
16 Understanding crowd (9)
GATHERING – bona fide DD
17 Awfully dull gal initially housed in civic building (9)
GUILDHALL – DULL GAL H[oused] I[n]*
19 One too old for probing instant painting technique (7)
IMPASTO – I (one) PAST (too old for, as in ‘She’s past it’) in MO (instant)
20 Enjoy consuming a good herbal flavouring (6)
LOVAGE – A G in LOVE
22 Bob maybe up for catching start of chemistry period? (5)
EPOCH – C[hemistry] in HOPE (Bob maybe) reversed
24 Stroke head of cat on green overlooking lake (5)
CRAWL – C[at] RAW (green) L (lake). Swimming stroke, of course
25 Complain pettily, vehicle accommodation being out of ark (4)
CARP – vehicle accommodation is CAR PARK; subtract the ‘ark’ and you have CARP

61 comments on “Times 27109 – Monday Quickie”

  1. Well, after last week’s farracle I was glad to have an easy time of this one, finishing in 22min. The last five of those were spent pondering 26ac, where I failed to spot the surface.
  2. Reading through today’s comments and bon mots today’s 15×15 brought out brilliant rays of sunshine from all parties.

    I notice in contrast The Club Monthly solicited only one comment and and two DNFs! Not even Lord of the Blogger’s quite managed it!
    And that is it after over a week. I rate it at about a thousand on the Snitch – and this Month’s looks like a real toughie – after 29 read throughs.

    Could we please have something else each month that might bring out a more ‘Clubby’ reponse and rays of sunshine!?
    A bit more TLS than Mephisto on opioids!

    Donald J Trump #FakeCWTCMS

    Edited at 2018-08-06 03:34 pm (UTC)

  3. Just under the 30 mins. I am highly delighted, as someone famous once said. FOI QUIZ, LOI AMISS which took me at least five mins to figure out. As a sometime guitarist, Clapton is one of my heroes and Smokestack Lighting a great example of the genre. Those sixties bands really were the best. Does anyone remember “The Marquee” club in Wardour street? Five bob on a Monday night to see the likes of ,the Yardbirds, John Mayall, Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin inter Alia. Those were the days….. Thank you U and setter.
    1. Oh, come on now! …. surely Clapton is rather more than ‘a sometime guitarist’?
      1. My apologies for the late reply pserve, I was referring to myself as a “sometime guitarist “ and certainly not the maestro. Sorry for the confusion. Francois.
  4. Today’s was quite a quick solve, no problems, except having misspelled the town as PONTREFACT at first. The FUSSPOT straightened that out. Best to all.
  5. As a newcomer to the 15×15 I agree that most of the answers flew in but then I got stuck on my last four and eventually gave up. DNK 10a EFFULGENT or LUFF. I couldn’t solve 5d TITUS suspecting the answer to be a book of the bible but my limited biblical knowledge and the dubious wordplay didn’t assist. DNK 19d IMPASTO and was trying to solve the wordplay using ALSO to mean too. Without the checker from IMPASTO I then couldn’t solve 26a AMISS. I must remember that writing often translates to MS.
  6. 16:29 for this confidence booster and I am delighted to say I am one of the PBs flying around predicted by our learned blogger. I found this a pretty easy going (clearly) top-to-bottom-ish solve. I didn’t know luff but I wasn’t going to reverse anything else in the middle of E….GENT to get brilliant. Titus not the first book of the Bible to spring to mind but remembered from somewhere.
  7. It was too hot to play golf today in SE England but we did anyway. So I looked at this after a relaxing beer and shower.
    I had a couple unparsed: LOI was Flat without seeing the musical bit; did not know Luff and struggled a bit with Amiss before seeing the Up meaning.
    Orangerie as first stab at 27a did not help but in the end all correct. An hour or so to do this. That’s quick for me. David
  8. Going too fast to be accurate! 1 wrong IMPASSO just bunged in because I thought I remembered that that’s what it was.
  9. Well, I didn’t find this easy at all and took nearly an hour with a break. But then, my knowledge of British geography is patchy (so it took ages for PONTEFRACT to ring the tiniest and tinkliest bell — at least it really was an anagram), my knowledge of the New Testament is too (wrong religion), so TITUS popped into mind only because it did seem more likely than RATUS, and what the PIGEON was doing in PIGEONHOLE was also not clear. I’m happy I finished at all — it’s been a rare experience the last few days.

    Edited at 2018-08-06 09:58 pm (UTC)

    1. If your knowledge of historical places in the Mediterranean is up to scratch, NT books shouldn’t cause much of a problem, with the possible exceptions of JUDE, PHILEMON and TITUS, given that most of the rest of the books are common given names (of recipients of letters).
  10. Late to this (didn’t get time yesterday) but I didn’t find it desperately easy, even if it wasn’t exactly a toughie. 9:04.

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