Times 27117 – “The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is most likely to be correct.”

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Today is a public holiday in my neck of the woods – Assumption – so I have a much needed respite from the daily grind of trekking 220 km by taxi, at the nation’s expense, for a 10 minute treatment. And only 2 more to go, so, soon I shall have my life back, for a while.
I was able to solve this at leisure, sitting still, and found it a pleasant, middle-of-the-road puzzle, nothing too obscure or controversial, a 22 minute solve and only one clue – 1a – required a look-up afterwards to make sure I wasn’t in Cloud Cuckoo Land. And so 1a is a fitting clue for a largely Catholic holiday, as is 21d. And the chap with the razor must have been a crossword fan.

Across
1 Decorative work in cape and vestment (7)
CROCHET – C for cape, ROCHET is a white dress worn by Catholic (and some Anglican?) priests in a choir situation. I remember my gran’s fingers moving at warp speed doing this without taking her eyes off the television.
5 Getting into beds, start to abandon clothes (5)
COATS – A starts abandon, goes into COTS = beds. I think CLOTHES here is a verb.
9 Encourage holy person after word of disapproval (5)
BOOST – ST for Saint, after BOO.
10 Teddy hugging wife in long apparel on holiday? (9)
BEACHWEAR – W for wife inside ACHE for long inside BEAR for teddy.
11 Rough during performance that involves old flame (7)
INEXACT – My LOI because I couldn’t spell 8d properly and had 11a beginning with an S. Twit. EX for old flame, inside IN ACT for during performance.
12 Rev. is about to lead church worship (7)
SERVICE – (REV IS)* followed by CE for church.
13 Region of USA to horrify a nameless pal (10)
APPALACHIA – APPAL = horrify, CHINA = pal loses his N. One presumes, the area of USA where one finds the Appalachian Mountains, of which one had heard.
15 Bird in head ornament with tail knocked off (4)
CROW – CROWN loses its tail.
18 Community to triumph, but one missing out (4)
TOWN – TO WIN = to triumph, lose the I.
20 Say word of warning to players, having got cross enough (3,7)
FOR EXAMPLE – FORE ! = word of warning, to golfers; X = cross, AMPLE = enough.
23 Religious group of idiots enthralling a thousand (7)
MORMONS – MORONS enthrall an M.
24 Vehicle, traveller round planet, featured in diagram (7)
CHARIOT – CHART = diagram, insert IO a moon which travels around Jupiter.
25 Moggy kept by doddery oldies is put out (9)
DISLOCATE – CAT inside (OLDIES)*.
26 Blank out needing peace? That’s about right (5)
ERASE – EASE = peace, insert an R.
27 Composer has meal, finishing early (5)
SUPPE – SUPPER ends early. Franz von Suppé, chap born in Split in 1819, d. 1895, wrote light opera and jolly overtures. He looks like Edward VII’s decoy man.
28 Miss sent in a spin by your old man? (7)
TIMOTHY – Miss = OMIT, in a spin = TIMO, add THY = ‘your old’. Just a random man’s name. Not great.
Down
1 Intimate photo of couples misbehaving (5-2)
CLOSE-UP – (COUPLES)* it’s that easy.
2 Terribly foul salt water discharges (8)
OUTFALLS – (FOUL SALT)* it’s that easy.
3 Way sailor gets into clobber (5)
HABIT – AB = sailor inside HIT = clobber, as Ben Stokes can get away with it appears.
4 Vehicle dropping one with prominent church feature to be discovered (9)
TRANSPIRE – TRAIN drops an I, SPIRE.
5 Enclosed space with house for university group (6)
COHORT – COURT = enclosed space; replace the U with HO for house.
6 Provocative goddess, one reclining in studio (7)
ATELIER – ATE was the Greek goddess of mischief, delusion, ruin and folly. Add LIER for one reclining.
7 Pair in Durham, say, for drinking bout (5)
SPREE – Durham is a SEE or Bishopric, insert PR for pair.
8 Old boy beginning to enthuse is worker kowtowing to boss? (8)
OBEISANT – OB = old boy, E(nthuse), IS, ANT = worker. Stupidly I first wrote in OBESIANT which, as noted above, screwed up 11a and delayed a finish.
14 Food item in can is sort that’s been processed (9)
CROISSANT – (CAN IS SORT)*. I prefer a pain au raisin.
16 Struggled with those left, then took the initiative (8)
WRESTLED -W for with, REST = those left, LED = took initiative.
17 Scottish solicitor with a wit advanced cases (3,5)
LAW AGENT – A WAG = a wit, inside LENT = advanced.
19 Notts town acts with river rising (7)
WORKSOP – WORKS = acts, then the river PO rises. I’d heard of it as the home town of golfer Lee Westwood. Apparently it’s also home town to Basil Boothroyd, Donald Pleasance and Graham Taylor, although I expect they don’t or didn’t crow about it.
21 Quiet woman holding scripture lessons maybe in school (7)
PRIMARY – P – quiet, MARY a woman, one such whose Assumption is celebrated today, insert RI for Religious Instruction.
22 Merry man eating lettuce (6)
JOCOSE – See lettuce in a clue, think COS. Insert into JOE.
23 Unfortunate king in motorway dash coming to premature end (5)
MIDAS – M1 motorway, DAS(H). Moral of story; if things you touch turn to gold, don’t touch your daughter. Go look for a Cameron, Rees-Mogg or Johnson to touch.
24 The best stuff, full of energy (5)
CREAM – Stuff = CRAM, insert E for energy.

63 comments on “Times 27117 – “The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is most likely to be correct.””

  1. Yes, and Le Canard enchaîné, which normally appears on mercredi, is skipping an issue because of the holiday (but extending my sub a week)!
    I didn’t know ROCHET either, looked it up later. WORKSOP and LAW-AGENT are also new to me.
    TIMOTHY was one of my last few in; devious clue!
  2. DNK ROCHET. My grandmother crocheted two afghans for my brother and me; mine came in handy years later when the guy who broke into my apartment used it to carry away the TV. Also DNK WORKSOP, my LOI. I had the same doubts as Jack on ease=peace, but suppressed them; they’re back now.
    1. My experience was similar, but Oxford has as the second definition of “ease”: Freedom from worries or problems.
      ‘a life of wealth and ease’
      …which seems close enough.

      Edited at 2018-08-15 06:44 am (UTC)

  3. I found this quite straightforward and was expecting to finish well within my half-hour target but exceeded it by 4 minutes because of being caught up on the intersecting LAW AGENT and ERASE. To be fair, I had thought of ERASE for ‘blank out’ quite early on but was doubtful of the wordplay so it didn’t go in until I had the E-checker from the Scottish solicitor to confirm it was probably right. Even now I don’t quite see EASE for ‘peace’ but my thesaurus is happy with it so perhaps I have just failed to come up with a substitution test that works.

    Edited at 2018-08-15 05:32 am (UTC)

  4. 35 mins with yoghurt on the day when Croissant appears.
    Law-agent LOI. It is one of those sort of words.
    Mostly I liked: Timothy and COD to For example.
    Thanks setter and Pip.
  5. Poor Mr. Myrtilus missed his 14dn. I believe BEETROOT and PILCHARDS will be in tomorrow’s answers, so you can ‘insider breakfast’!

    Time:- 45 mins held up by the LAW AGENT at 17dn, my LOI.

    FOI 1dn CLOSE-UP – simples!

    COD 20ac FOR EXAMPLE with 28ac TIMOTHY a close second and APPALACHIA third.

    WOD 27ac SUPPE – I once had a tooth out in Split.

    If we ever get invaded by the Yanks, might I suggest we all hide in 19dn WORKSOP!? My solicitor lives there – although I am not sure how big his house is.

    If Typhoo put the T in BRITAIN…..

    Edited at 2018-08-15 07:56 am (UTC)

  6. Much easier today and finished in 25 minutes, with LOI LAW AGENT. Everything parsed provided a rochet is a vestment and not a sneaky shot in croquet, and that SUPPE is a composer. Isn’t WORKSOP big enough not to need a county identifier, which was a giveaway? COD to FOR EXAMPLE, nicely masked. I thought of Myrtilus having his CROISSANT, only to find that it was a yoghurt day. What a disappointment! Thank you Pip and setter.
  7. A (relatively) simple puzzle in which my range of possible errors slowed me down.
    1ac CLOTHES (wordplay must be in there somewhere) eventually corrected with similar expectation to CROCHET. I don’t know the vestment: I suspect you have to be in the Single Men in Frocks tendency of the CoE to be in the know.
    I misread pal in 13ac as pet, and hit that same wall as yesterday when I couldn’t see it as anything else, deciding eventually that pet/mate CHINA might just work.
    24ac started out as CARTOON: goodness knows how the M of Moon became a T.
    Durham is not in the SE, surely? (d’oh!). Mind you, Worksop’s one of those towns like Sidcup which no-one can place on a map, so I could have been wrong. It’s SE of somewhere. (I did SEE the light eventually!)
    17 LAW AGENT? Make a shrewd guess at the answer from the more prosaic reaches of Scots then work out a convincing case for the wordplay.
    16d Remember W(ith) happens.
    23d MIDAS I thought too easy given that M1 DAS was explicitly in the clue, so didn’t trust it.
    3d Way=HABIT was a bit of a stretch, especially when clobber=HABIT was just as possible.
    I took clothes to be a perfectly satisfactory noun for COATS, Pip, but I see what you mean. Hope you can soak up some UV instead of gamma on this feast day. The UK is nowhere near as generous in its public holidays, and may be due a smiting for ignoring this one.
    1. It has always seemed to me that protestant countries prefer to grind the workers into the ground whereas catholic countries prefer long lunches and holidays. Surely one of catholicism’s more marketable features
      1. When we lived in Ireland, I recall Catholics could go to Sunday Mass on Saturday night, after the pub, thereby being able to play Gaelic Games or do nothing Holy on a Sunday; and they could buy the scurrilous “Sunday World” redtop on the way home at midnight. That’s a user friendly religion.
        1. In that way, yes; in other ways, much less so. They seek to rule out any element of “choice” for example …
  8. Straightforward today but some lovely clues .. 1dn is particularly neat but there are lots of excellent surfaces. Thank you setter! & Pip .. I hope your treatments have done what was intended
      1. I wish you well in your recovery. I went through the same last year and now my 6 months has just become 12 months.
        Stay well and remain steadfast and cheerful. Bests.
  9. 24′, would have been ten less but got stuck in SE, never did parse LAW AGENT. ROCHET unknown, despite being in an Anglican choir and about to train as a Reader. SUPPE with a shrug, dnk. Rather liked PRIMARY, but like blogger not fond of TIMOTHY, ‘man’ could be up there with ‘plant’ in the setters’ book. Thanks pip and setter.

    Edited at 2018-08-15 08:34 am (UTC)

    1. Be grateful for small mercies: today’s JOE, MARY and TIMOTHY are actually recognisable as names, unlike past monstrosities such as IRENA, ROSHEEN, EUSTACE, INEZ.

      Edited at 2018-08-16 01:27 am (UTC)

  10. 35 minutes, which seems to be the par score. WORKSOP, along with STAINES, must be in the running for ugliest town name in England.
    1. The US is in the competition, with Flushing, NY, and Drain, Oregon. (There is, of course, the notorious Wankers Corner, also in Oregon, but it’s not an incorporated community.)
      1. What about Trumpton and Bumf***, Idaho (Pop.7)!? Or are they the same place?

        Edited at 2018-08-15 07:55 am (UTC)

    3. I remember whizzing past PENISTONE on the M6 and also the seaside town of PENISCOLA on the A7 to Valencia.
      1. Penistone is near Sheffield, and therefore familiar to me from my youth but remarkably, this is the fist time it has ever dawned on me that it contains the word penis .. thank you for bringing it to my attention, Pip. Scunthorpe I knew about, it has regular attention from those software program(me)s that don’t like rude words, as does my local, the Cock Inn. LJ doesn’t seem to have any of that!
        1. Ditto Jerry – I just remember the crag from Wuthering Heights, no other thought occurring.
    5. Ugley in Essex must be in contention. Lots of Piddlexxxxs in Devon too (all of which are beautiful). Happy to finish this in 30 mins after giving up yesterday. Hope Ben Stokes socks it to the opposition. Thanks all
      1. Scunthorpe is a useful word for recording passwords etc, as each of its 10 letters are different. 4167 would be NSHO. Do not even start to consider all the possibilities!
      3. Ugley in Essex is just over the border from Nasty in Herts, leading to the (unfortunately apocryphal) headline of “Ugley woman marries Nasty man”
        There was, however, the “Ugley Women’s Institute” that was sadly rebranded the “Women’s Institute of Ugley”

        Other contenders are Les Arses in Switzerland, Piles in Greece and no doubt many others available via Mr Google

  11. 15:39. I thought it was going to be one of those easy puzzles with a sting in the tail when I was left with just CROCHET and LAW AGENT. I spotted the required type of agent but CROCHET went in on a wing and a prayer. We needed three random names today so it gets marked down heavily for that.
  12. 25:11. I was surprised that my LOI, LAW AGENT, was correct as I didn’t know it and couldn’t parse it.

    If I were a Mormon, and I’m not, I wouldn’t be happy with the surface reading of 23ac. As it is, I have no problem! Any Mormons among TftT regulars?

    COD – Law agent.

      1. I should think so too.

        I regret to say I quickly lose patience with people who take umbrage at such as crossword clues. My placard ‘all Mormons are idiots’ is in the cupboard, and if provoked I will bring it out to illustrate the difference.

        I’d call this one generally easy but good. It took me 25 minutes, which for me is fairly speedy.

        Many thanks.

        Edited at 2018-08-15 03:11 pm (UTC)

      2. Curiously, the reaction of the LDS has been impressive, taking out adverts in the programmes (there was one when I saw the show) along the lines of “you’ve seen the musical, now read the book”. Rather like Life of Brian, it works along the lines of the faith is okay (however redeveloped) but the followers are a problem. If you wave placards condemning the show, or take a public stance against it, you’re going to lose. Malcolm Muggeridge and Mervin +Stockwood famously made sad fools of themselves trying to do down Life of Brian, and it looks as though the LDS have learned that lesson rather well. Rumour has it there are converts to Mormonism because of the show.
        Arguably, there is no such thing as bad publicity not from such lampoonery, anyway.
  13. 17 minutes, with a nod to 7dn for realising that ELY is not the only see, but 21ac would have been better for a reference to the Bible or else grass. Coincidentally 13ac also came up in another cryptic elsewhere, so no problem there.
  14. Don’t you think that JOCOSE should be used more often? ‘I’m having a jocose day today’ etc. I shall endeavour to include it more often. Some nice misdirection here and a couple of unknowns (SUPPE, LAW AGENT) but generally a gentle tea break. COD FOR EXAMPLE
  15. Chugging along with no undue pauses till son thoughtlessly rang. With thanks to the setter for a quiet nifty puzzle, and to Pip with good wishes for his treatment, from a lettuce-eater.
  16. As mentioned, the second crossword appearance today for APPALACHIA(n spring), so that one was almost a write in. Still, give me the Light Cavalry Overture any day.

    ROCHET was my only unknown. Most others went in pretty steadily for a 33 minute solve.

    Liked the simple but not easy to spot def for FOR EXAMPLE.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

  17. This one made me laugh. Under the present regime I’m afraid “moron” gets howled at the tv all too often in our house. Good news Pip and I hope you spring back quickly once the ordeal is over. 17.56
    1. When I contributed to a largely American, very ‘liberal’ forum online, I was amazed how often the words bigot, liar and moron cropped up as snarl words. I once suggested such use of prefabricated phrases might lead to the abolition of thinking…and was predictably called, well, you’ve guessed it.
      1. The general standard of US based forums, facebook pages etc. seems to have degenerated into just violent slanging matches lately. They seem in a bad way over there
  18. I also didn’t know ROCHET or LAW AGENT. I was held up on CROCHET by an earlier biff of SABOT(clobber for the foot) at 3d, but revisited it and saw the error of my ways when I was unable to come up with anything for 1a. LAW AGENT was my penultimate. I wondered about MORGONS and MORKONS at 23a until the wet fish hit me between the eyes. A pair of Mormons once approached my Dad and me, as we were fishing on the pier at Hartlepool, and tried to convert us. They didn’t get very far, what with our being of the RC persuasion! The SE held me up most. Knew Franz Von. Liked CLOSE UP a lot. It was my FOI. Had SPIRE for a while at 4d before TRAN joined it. Nice puzzle. 29:49 with at least the last 5 of those spent on 1a and 17d. Thanks setter and Pip. Glad to hear the treatment is approaching its finale.
  19. 19:45. Similar experience to others in not knowing ROCHET or LAW AGENT (my LOI), got only when I eventually saw ERASE. I liked FOR EXAMPLE.
  20. Uneventful and mostly steady solve. The only real pause for thought was the same as pretty much everyone today, it seems, deciding if there was a word other than the unknown ROCHET which might fit the bill. I assumed there wasn’t and turned out to be right.
  21. I went through top to bottom in for me a quick 12 minutes or so. As Tim says above, the only pause was to wonder about the existence of ROCHET. I stopped wondering and entered it, and moved along. Regards.
  22. Don’t you think that JOCOSE should be used more often? ‘I’m having a jocose day today’ etc. I shall endeavour to include it more often. Some nice misdirection here and a couple of unknowns (SUPPE, LAW AGENT) but generally a gentle tea break. COD FOR EXAMPLE
  23. Excellent puzzle, I thought, which kept me entertained for forty minutes, give or take. My LOI was CROCHET; I very nearly opted for that well-known momble from Greek architecture, the ctophat.

    LAW AGENT was an NHO, as was the goddessly part of ATELIER. Given how long history has been running for, I’m pretty sure there must be at least a minor deity for every possible three-letter combination. Either that, or some gods must be sharing names, which would be dreadfully confusing. Perhaps this is the reason why we have had to stop inventing new gods.

    Thanks to the setter, and also to Pip for the blog.

  24. ….but not in WORKSOP. Actually I’ve meandered from Mansfield to Nottingham, and only got round to this late in the day – so luckily it was a 9:27 stroll.

    FOI COATS

    LOI CROCHET (knew rochet from somewhere, but it DIDN’T leap out and hit me).

    Biffed BEACHWEAR.

    COD COHORT

  25. Tricky; 39 mins. SE corner was a pickle. Interesting that the setter didn’t opt to clue 19d with a reference to 6d.
  26. 42:40 a fairly steady solve but a minor hesitation at 1ac not knowing the vestment and at 27ac not knowing the composer. Law agent my LOI needed to be teased out from the wordplay.
  27. 14:40. Quite gentle, with a couple of funny words to slow me down.
    I generally hate musicals but The Book of Mormon is hilarious.
  28. Sorry I missed your puzzle, Pip. I had gone to bed before your blog appeared and I was diverted elsewhere this morning.
    In Italy, 15Aug is also a holiday, Ferragosto. We lived in Sicily for three years and every parish splurges on fireworks which, in our case, used to start about 5am. It was hell for the pets.
    Good luck with your final treatments.
  29. …for me at 31 mins. I found this relatively easy though NE held things up, LOI being COHORT. Biffed CROCHET, though born catholic, never came across this during years of enforced attendance…
    1. “How do you solve a problem like Sharia?”
      “Eid-ul-weiss”
      “Salaam, farewell…”

      Am I in enough trouble yet?

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