Times 27193 – Epic Fails

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
To be honest, I was well stuffed by this one, albeit beaten by two rare words and one where I was looking for the wrong bit of underwear. Yes – one of the those days. The rest took me around 40 minutes and contained one of the great all-time words, beloved of Antipodeans. A lot of nice stuff here, I thought – just too much for my little brain.

ACROSS

1 Arrangement for art-house distribution (5-3)
SHARE-OUT – anagram* of ART-HOUSE
6 Instructions on what’s regularly used by chippies (6)
RECIPE – RE (on) C[h]I[p]P[i]E[s]
9 Chap’s rear squeezed into short item of underwear: laugh uncontrollably (6)
CORPSE – [cha]P in CORSE[t]
10 Old person, heading off towards port reportedly, finding shellfish supplier? (4,4)
ROCK POOL – [c]ROCK POOL (slang term for the city where the Scousers play; alternatively, as Jack points out, the rather more prosaic, albeit accurate, parsing is ‘sounds like POOLE’, the pleasant place that once was – and still ought to be – in Dorset)
11 A rodent from tail to head is so long (2-2)
TA-RA – reversal of A RAT
12 Secret group I dismissed, right away (10)
CLASSIFIED – CLASS I FI[r]ED
14 Defamed a journalist backing press changes (8)
ASPERSED – PRESS* in A ED; didn’t know it could be a verb – only ever heard them being cast
16 Hit, throwing stone in brawl (4)
RUCK – [st]RUCK (STRUCK with the ST thrown away)
18 Project with European material (4)
JUTE – JUT E
19 Former duke enters Cambridgeshire city in joyful fashion (8)
ELATEDLY – LATE D in ELY
21 Expert‘s way accepted by Pamela and Daisy (4,6)
PAST MASTER – ST in PAM ASTER
22 Composer’s brief to supply modern music (4)
RAVE – RAVE[l]
24 Obedient tot gets back into good book (8)
BIDDABLE – reversal of ADD in BIBLE
26 Down under, real scandal about injecting fluid (6)
DINKUM – INK in MUD reversed
27 Motif at entrance to this art museum (3,3)
THE MET – THEME T[his]
28 Thus row hasn’t finished about accommodation cost in Italian resort (8)
SORRENTO – RENT in SO RO[w]

DOWN

2 Ensnare a smoker (5)
HOOKA – HOOK A
3 Substitute set to appear after second match almost finished (11)
REPLACEMENT – CEMENT after REPLA[y]
4 Gloomy director’s position in theatre? (8)
OVERCAST – setter whimsy, since the director lords it over the cast
5 Punishes sailors with contaminated fresh tea (4,3,8)
TARS AND FEATHERS – TARS (sailors) AND (with) FRESH TEA*
6 Drivers one’s seen on motorway showing unacceptable prejudice (6)
RACISM – RAC IS M
7 What group of scouts mostly raised perhaps? (3)
CAP – PAC[k] reversed to give a nice all-in-one for what they do when they meet their elders and betters. If only…
8 Successfully tested class, securing good grade in French language (9)
PROVENCAL – PROVEN A in CL
13 Long suffering soldiers mostly exhausted, invading European country (11)
FORBEARANCE – OR BEA[t] (exhausted, dead beat) in FRANCE
15 Prudish girl attracted to Mennonite sect, without question (9)
SQUEAMISH – Q in SUE AMISH
17 Political reformer enlisted by US socialists in area of N America (8)
LABRADOR – RAD in LABOR for a part of Canada; cunning that
20 Songbird to flutter, chasing rail (6)
BARBET – and not ‘barbat’, which is a central Asian lute (or was when someone still played it); I’d just bought my tickets for the racing at Sha Tin and still couldn’t see past fluttering eyelashes. Tsk!
23 Very mature red ultimately missing in cellar (5)
VAULT – V A[d]ULT
25 Monk last to leave part of cathedral (3)
DOM – DOM[e]; not all cathedrals have domes, but some do, which is good enough for me

60 comments on “Times 27193 – Epic Fails”

  1. Can’t honestly say I didn’t know CORPSE, but I certainly wasn’t able to recall it, and was also unable to summon up words for underwear. Brawl=ruck was unfamiliar to me–although I suppose it came up once here. DNK BARBET, though, and took some time over it. I didn’t understand ROCK POOL, but I saw no other choice from the definition. Not what I expected for a Monday.
    U, your underline has taken over the blog.
  2. Another DNF here, as I gave up on the area in N America beaten by the wordplay. Also had an error with the unknown bird as BARBAT and BARBET both fit the wordplay and I plumped for the wrong one. Other than that I did reasonably well nearly completing in 35 minutes.

    Edited at 2018-11-12 01:12 am (UTC)

      1. Poole never left Dorset ulaca and is still part of it. You may be thinking of Bournemouth and Christchurch that were moved out of Hampshire into Dorset some years ago

        In 2019 the three urban areas will be merged into one new unitary authority Bournemouth-Christchurch-Poole with the remaining Dorset councils merging to form a new rural unitary

        1. Unitary! What an ugly word!

          Thanks for the correction, Jimbo. I do so much fact-checking in my job that I rather like to avoid Google when I blog, and sometimes my humanity slips through.

  4. Here in Oz we have been treated to multiple DINKUMS from the mouth of our recently-installed Prime Minister, thus burnishing his image as a man of the people (except that nobody else I know ever says it)
  5. My last two in were DINKUM and LABRADOR. But I had put in TA-TA, figuring there was something I was missing about the parsing, and never having heard of TA-RA. I also couldn’t parse ROCK POOL. But I’m glad to have finished this one, and with just the one little mistake.
    1. This showed up recently, I forget how; I’d never heard of it before (or since, until now), but luckily it stuck in my head, as most new information doesn’t.
      1. As you probably found out it’s a dialect variation on the more familiar ‘ta-ta’. It’s particularly associated with the north of England and became more widely known following its use as a sort of catch-phrase by the late TV presenter and singer, Cilla Black, who hailed from Liverpool and always ended her hugely successful TV shows with “Ta-ra for now!”.
        1. Now I remember it was connected with Cilla Black, who earlier I had never heard of when she was clued.
          1. Also Black Country, where leave-taking may elicit the phrase “ta-ra a bit” if the speaker expects to see you again soon.
  6. 30 mins then gave up on Labrador – while eating a Fat Rascal (hoorah).
    25 mins to leave Dinkum/Labrador. 5 mins more to recall Dinkum – but couldn’t fathom the N American stuff.
    Mostly I liked: Biddable
    Thanks setter and Ulaca.
  7. A random J that should have been a B crept in.

    Which led to 2 errors – I thought a single crossing letter wrong only led to one error these days, or have I missed something?

    MER at 22 – not being one for this genre I always thought the RAVE was the event rather than the musical style itself?

    Also 15 prudish to squeamish seemed a bit of a stretch. I’m squeamish about retrieving dead animals that the cats drop off for me, but not prudish about it.

  8. Stopped after 25′, unsure re BARBET, did not get DINKUM or LABRADOR either. How on earth is LABOR = socialists?

    Still, the sun is shining. Aqua earworm now set off by myrtilus.

    Thanks ulaca and setter.

    2. The Labour Party are traditionally referred to as socialists in some quarters whether they are true to socialist ideals or not. US indicates the American spelling Labor. I’m pretty sure you knew this and were making a broader point, but I responded just in case. Or perhaps others were wondering.
      1. Indeed jack, thank you. (Even more so, I believe, if we focus on the US, where ‘labor’ as a social force has even less to do with socialism).

        Incidentally, can I recommend yesterday’s ST?

        1. It’s a great puzzle, but I still have a couple of answers to get. Of similar difficulty/excellence to Friday’s Guardian 15×15 by The Enigmatist, which I also recommend (and I don’t think it’s too “Guardian-ish” for most Times solvers, if you know what I mean.)
          1. You just reminded me I had two left in the ST – yours 4A and 8D as well? Looking afresh this morning, I’ve just got them.
            1. No, though those were tough. My two are both 17s. I’ll have a look later and hopefully find myself unstuck.
  9. 25:25. Last 2 in DINKUM and LABRADOR, which I couldn’t parse. BARBET unknown, but I trusted the wordplay. A bit tricky for a Monday, I thought. COD to CORPSE.
    1. I trusted the wordplay too, but it got me to BAR (rail), BAT (flutter – as in flutter/bat an eyelid)
  10. I didn’t manage CORPSE or LABRADOR. With hindsight I should have got the former. For the latter I couldn’t work out the parsing and had two possibilities that fitted – LABRADOR and ZAPRUDER. I knew ZAPRUDER as a name having something to do with politics so guessed he might be a ‘Political reformer’. Turns out he’s known for inadvertantly filming JFK’s assassination. I also thought LABRADOR was in Europe.
  11. Another DNF, so I was happy to find myself in esteemed company on coming here. In my case, I’d managed successfully to come up with BARBET, ASPERSED, CORPSE and DINKUM in my 58 minutes, although the puzzle as a whole made me feel just out of my depth all the way through.

    Sadly, I managed to fluff JUTE, where I’d heard of Bute Fabrics and assumed that “but” could mean “project”, vaguely helped along by “abutment”, for example. Another one for my Big List of Words. I’ve just bought a flashcard app, so I might actually start practising my vocab at some point.

  12. …. pleased to see Buddy Holly is still modern. What, there’s been something else since? 32 minutes with all present and correct. I had RAVE/VAULT as ROCK/CRUET on a first biff but I didn’t think that could be right. LABRADOR was parsed as suggested but I thought I must be missing something. I assume RAD is a radical. COD to TA-RA which I would have always used in my boyhood, apart from the year when The Cisco Kid had us all say Adios Amigos. It’s seemed incongruous that the telephone directory is CLASSIFIED. Tricky Monday challenge. Thank you U and setter.
  13. 36 mins. Last three in — after taking a coffee break at 34 mins to refresh the mind — were the crossing DINKUM & LABRADOR, and finally CORPSE: I was also having great difficulty finding the right underwear. I vote for 9a as my COD, for its entertaining surface. TA-RA was very commonly heard (“ta-ra a bit, chuck!”) in Birmingham over the many years I was resident there. Is it still in widespread use in the Midlands, I wonder?

    Thanks to our blogger and our setter.

  14. 22.36, struggling with CORPSE and LABRADOR like everyone else. Not that it matters, but I took RAD from my (very limited) list of expressions beloved of skateboarders, snowboarders and other aspiring casualty admissions. BARBET was a guess, only failing to be BARBEL because of wordplay, though it fixed the E in my mind and I never thought of fluttering my eyelashes. And BARBEL’s apparently a fish.
    Like BW, I initially tried ROCK/CRUET. Did Modern Life’s Rocko ever compose anything? Is CRUDET a word?
    Tricky for any day of the week
  15. Quick start and as usual slow finish, with five minutes on Corpse, which is also my COD for driving me mad with variants of Dopple, Hopple, Mopple etcetera. The bird I had vaguely heard of, but isn’t it also a fish? Came close to putting in the non-existent ‘Olest’ in 23 D, but happily saw sense.
    1. You are maybe thinking of BARBEL as the fish. But BARBET is also, I found, when I looked it up, a breed of dog. The bird varieties are very pretty, though.
  16. On the wavelength this morning. 21:38 with the unknown BARBET from wordplay. Must dash now as I have to vacate my B&B in Cheddar and head for Northampton. Thanks setter and U.
  17. ….as our Metrolink system in Manchester is known locally as THE MET. Art museum ? Not here.

    Struggled through this, and frankly didn’t find it very enjoyable.

    FOI SHARE-OUT
    LOI LABRADOR
    COD DINKUM

    MER at “pack” for group of scouts. I’m sure I’ll have my knuckles rapped, but it was always a TROOP of scouts, but a PACK of cubs in my day (late 1950’s).

    TIME 15:33

    1. You’re right, Philip. “I promise to do my duty to God and the Queen, to keep the law of the wolf cub pack, and to do a good turn to somebody every day.” This is mine for today.
    2. Yes Phil, definitely.

      My daughter (modern times…) is a member of the local cub pack (if anyone’s interested, made up of sixes). The scouts are a troop (again if anyone’s interested) made up of patrols.

      I knew there was something else I wanted to mention when I sent my original post – this was it.

    3. Scouts don’t wear hats either, and when they did they were berets, not caps. Cubs wore caps.
  18. 39 tricky minutes, ending with CORPSE put in from seeing corset but no idea why it meant laughing. I thought HOOKAH always had a terminal H but it seems not. Good start to the week. Mrs K says Ta-ra is common parlance up Lancashire way. I thought it was Scouse.
  19. Fair dinkum is one of those common expressions that I use, which my wife finds very irritating, probably because I have never been or wanted to go to Australia.
  20. For some reason I just couldn’t see HOOKA for a long time – perhaps because like Pip I wanted it to have an H on the end but also because my brain insisted on looking for a volcano as the smoker. No problem with ROCK POOL thanks to bucket/spade/shrimping-net holidays in Brittany as a kid. And no problem with CORPSE, having been prone to it back in my performing days (although it is a problem if you can’t help doing it).
  21. DNF. I couldn’t get LABRADOR, but I had BARBAT anyway so it wouldn’t have mattered. Ambiguous wordplay for an obscure word, my favourite thing.
    I wondered about LABOR but according to (American) Collins it is used to refer to the Labor Party. From Wikipedia it seems there have been a number of such parties but I think it refers to this one.
  23. As usually happens, I find there is nothing new under the sun. Having correctly deduced the existence of the unknown BARBET, I had just the two left, but had to spend a long time waiting for inspiration to strike before DINKUM dropped, and LABRADOR straight after. Given that I’d tried to work BONZER in when I just had the N of 26ac, I can’t even claim that I didn’t know what the clue was looking for, but at least I wasn’t alone in taking a while to see it.
  24. Failed on dinkum (never seen it “unpreceded” by fair before) and Labrador. Got barbet right so well done me.
  25. I think I dodged a bullet here.
    I got Sorrento quickly and a couple of others including Tara but it looked like a hard puzzle so I came here. Lots of tough stuff.
    I have never seen Hookah without an H at the end -until today.
    I’ve still got most of the Sunday puzzle to complete so back to that.
    David
  26. All ok – FOI – BIDDABLE after getting nothing on the first pass at stupid o’clock this morning. Had to leave it and come back a few times and had those lovely moments when clue after clue falls….. and then it dries up again. LABRADOR and DINKUM like many others, were most testing – I too thought Labrador was European rather than N. American
  27. Had no idea that dinkum meant real: I always thought it meant nice, or good. So went for gen (real) with dum as gendum; a type of medically-administered fluid… That scuppered Labrador, natch. And I opted for bat in the bird clue. Try again tomorrow 🙂
  28. Took a while to get through this, so I thought. But I went for BARBAT, following the wordplay, as I didn’t know the ‘bet’ meaning of ‘flutter’. To top it off, I ignored the wordplay and went with TA-TA, since the other is also unknown. Following the wordplay did work for CORPSE, but I simply couldn’t see the wordplay for my LOI, LABRADOR, so biffed it. I only came to it after finally seeing DINKUM. So a fail here, but I’m apparently in good company. Regards.
    1. As in ‘have a flutter on the horses’; fortunately, not that it mattered, I never thought of BAT.
  29. To be picky – 7d – Scouts don’t hunt in packs (it’s troops) and they don’t wear caps – I think they still wear berets. Wolf cubs certainly used to do both – I suppose they are now called “Cub scouts” so maybe that’s sort of ok(?)
  30. Too late today to add anything. I really enjoyed this and seemed to have had the same problems as everyone else. BARBET unknown but easily got from the cryptic. I didn’t recognise RAD but the LABOR part of the clue easily gave the answer. 27 minutes. Ann

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