Times 27112 – posted from a 9

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 7:31.  I made a pretty good fist of this one, though there’s going to be one or two that I have to re-think while I write up the blog. This post is a little later than usual, this afternoon a big thunderstorm knocked out electricity to a large chunk of my town, and although the power came on about two hours ago, it didn’t come with internet. I was reduced to reading! Oh the humanity.

There’s a few words in here that you don’t see everyday, but most of them are well indicated by the wordplay, which puts it very much in my wheelhouse.

First defintions are underlined in the clues… away we go!

Across
1 Picked up Mob’s store of money (5)
HOARD – sounds like HORDE(mob(
4 Calm old representative retained by firm? Yes (9)
COMPOSURE – O(old), MP(representative) inside CO(firm) and SURE(yes)
9 Dress outside army technician’s van in quiet place (5,4)
GHOST TOWN – GOWN(dress) surrounding HOST(army) and the first letter (van) of Technician
10 Disrespect shown by loud, aggressive sort (5)
FLOUT – F(loud), LOUT(aggressive sort)
11 Help politicians to follow virtuous book (4,2,7)
JUST SO STORIES –  SOS(help!), TORIES(politicians) after JUST(virtuous). Book by Rudyard Kipling
14 Stuff knocked back is intoxicating stuff (4)
MARC – CRAM(stuff) reversed for some brandy
15 See Frenchman’s housing in this? (4-1-5)
PIED-A-TERRE – The wordplay is DATE(see) inside PIERRE(Frenchman), leading to a definition of the whole clue
18 Original sinner claiming saint is to preach (10)
EVANGELISE – the oriinal sinner was EVE, containing SAINT(angel) and IS
19 Don headgear: sombrero’s back (4)
CAPO – CAP(headgear), and the last letter in sombrerO for the Don of the mob
21 Merchant keeping upright boss on track (13)
STATIONMASTER – STATIONER(mechant) containing MAST(upright)
24 Daggers sheathed in Nobel Institute (5)
OBELI – hidden in nOBEL Institute
25 Assess accounts of corrupt statesmen (5-4)
MEANS-TEST – anagram of STATESMEN
27 Speculation I rejected with fury as anathema (4,5)
BETE NOIRE – BET(speculation), then ONE(I) reversed and IRE(fury)
28 Red Sea round cape (5)
MEDOC – MED(sea), O(round), C(cape) for the red wine

Down
1 Rank top athlete (4,6)
HIGH JUMPER – HIGH(rank, smelling), JUMPER(top item of clothing)
2 Excited, one head of government going past (3)
AGO – AGOG(excited) with one G(overnment) missing
3 Recoil from media bigwig up on trial (6)
DETEST – the media bigwig is the ED, reversed on TEST(trial)
4 Charge after pass for winger (9)
CROSSBILL – BILL(charge) after CROSS(pass)
5 After a piece, leave tropical food (5)
MANGO – MAN(piece in chess), GO(leave)
6 Wrong step: I moved on less common routes (3-5)
OFF-PISTE – OFF(wrong), then an anagram of STEP,I
7 Close to you, swell man’s inattentive (11)
UNOBSERVANT – (yo)U, NOB(swell), SERVANT(man)
8 Scoff, with British retiring from defeats (4)
EATS – remove B from BEATS(defeats). Scoff is a noun in this case.
12 Programme woman’s included in broadcast film (11)
SPREADSHEET – SHE(woman) inside SPREAD(broadcast), ET(film)
13 Popular comic rated poorly (10)
DEMOCRATIC – anagram of COMIC,RATED
16 Most of record hire for free (9)
DISENGAGE – DIS(c) (record) then ENGAGE(hire)
17 Country air taken in by doddery gran (8)
AGRARIAN – ARIA(air) inside an anagram of GRAN(anagran?)
20 Wanting drug, smuggled a bit for dirty money (6)
RANSOM – remove E from RAN SOME (smiuggled a bit)
22 The writer’s drawn to men and women’s feet (5)
IAMBI – the writer is declaring I AM BIsexual
23 Public schoolboy half-cut? That’s grave (4)
TOMB – the schoolboy is TOM BROWN from the Hughes novel, remove his last half
26 Back in study, with head down (3)
END – DEN(study) with the first letter moved to the bottom

70 comments on “Times 27112 – posted from a 9”

  1. 21:42 but failed to parse PIED A TERRE, so thanks for that George. I thought this was quite fun. IAMBI my COD once I got it… I originally had IAMBS which left me head scratching until I saw BETE NOIRE and corrected my mistake.
  2. 17:58. Great time George! I struggled at the end with four clues that fell very slowly, one by one. SPREADSHEET was one of them because I don’t think of as a programme, but as mentioned above I don’t think the definition can be faulted.
  3. Not sure of MARC so was pleased to see it confirmed. Openly laughed in the pub at IAMBI. LOI RANSOM having struggled with SE. By chance, thought of Cape Cod which was enough to get 28a. 44 mins.
  4. I don’t know enough about IT to quibble over SPREADSHEET. I had all the checkers, saw the word “programme” and just bunged it in. Sometimes ignorance can actually be an advantage. I failed to parse PIED A TERRE because, although I spotted PIERRE I couldn’t see the DATE=SEE connection. But quite a smoothish solve nevertheless. 26 minutes. A pleasant puzzle. Ann
  5. DNF, as I am in the FROST crowd, too, but when I submitted and saw where the mistake was, it was not hard to see what it should have been. So the problem was pure laziness and not making the effort to rethink what was obviously a rather weak guess at the answer. Of course I couldn’t parse PIED-A-TERRE either (other than as a weak &lit), but I enjoyed much of the rest, particularly IAMBI and the JUST SO STORIES (the TORIES were pretty clear, but I needed checked letters to see the rest).
  7. About 3 hours, off and on, (good job this was an easy one), but it joins a very select band of successfully completed 15x15s, so I am a happy bunny tonight. Invariant

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