Times 27208 – take it away, setter…

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 10:36, which is about on my average, but there is only one faster time than me on the club board at the moment (great time, aphis99) and a few of the regulars seem to have taken longer than usual.

Stellar puzzle for wordplay, particularly the subtraction in 6 down that is a great spot, but may result in the clue being biffed by many, since there is only one plausible answer for the checking letters.

First definitions are underlined in clues

Away we go…

Across
1 Caught a musical, say, about Charlie, a real money earner (4,3)
CASH COW – C(caught, dismissal in cricket), A, SHOW(musical, say) surrounding C(Charlie)
5 Rolled bran flakes with very little appeal all round (7)
VIBRANT – anagram (well I thought it was an anagram, just seems to be normal) of BRAN with V(very, little), IT(sex appeal) surrounding it. Vibration can be considered a rolling of a surface
9 Map routes all round Cheddar? (9)
MOUSETRAP – anagram of MAP,ROUTES, since the cheese could be used as such
10 Argument over railway concern (5)
WORRY – ROW(argument) reversed then RY(railway)
11 Duck is able to get across eastern sea (5)
OCEAN –  O(duck, more cricket), CAN(is able to) surrounding E(eastern)
12 Museum investing millions in cultural inheritance (9)
HERMITAGE – M(millions) in HERITAGE(cultural inheritance)
13 One predicting bank clerk’s after a lot of money (7-6)
FORTUNE-TELLER – a bank TELLER after FORTUNE(a lot of money)
17 Spring kept looking good (4-9)
WELL-PRESERVED – WELL(spring), PRESERVED(kept)
21 Small mammal, disturbed, Welshman’s hidden? (4,5)
TREE SHREW – THREW(disturbed) containing the Welsh name REES
24 North American food, mostly (5)
NACHO – NA(North American), CHO(w). The whole clue is the definition
25 What’s in Thai, like our Eastern verse (5)
HAIKU – the middle letters of tHAi, lIKe, oUr
26 Travellers’ aid in electronic Scottish Bible? (9)
GUIDEBOOK – A Scottish Bible could be a GUID(good), E-BOOK
27 Tear on freeway regularly and hit the vehicle in front (4-3)
REAR-END – REND(tear) after alternating letters in fReEwAy
28 Meet is outside of Filey on Saturday (7)
SATISFY – IS and F(ile)Y next to SATurday

Down
1 Butterfly with tail flying about open piece of land (6)
COMMON – the butterfly is a COMMA, remove the end and add ON(about)
2 Maybe a lot of cool tea as flu cure is crackers (9)
SAUCERFUL – anagram of AS,FLU,CARE… I have relatives who do this, pour tea out of the cup into the saucer and slurp it. Always struck me as pretty gross.
3 Carbon more efficient and less polluting (7)
CLEANER – C(carbon), LEANER(more efficient)
4 Storage facility a great bed used to be in (9)
WAREHOUSE – reference to the Great Bed of Ware, which I saw at the V&A museum in my first trip to Lonfon
5 Asp that is without power to puncture old queen? (5)
VIPER – IE(that is) surrpunding P(power) inside VR(Queen Victoria, who has a museum with a big bed in it)
6 Where there are pins keeping back the galley with key rope (7)
BOWLINE – this is amazing wordplay – pins are in the BOWLING ALLEY – remove GALLEY and add the key of E
7 Note men on Territorial Army vessel (5)
AORTA – musical note A, OR(men), TA(Territorial Army)
8 Result of crossing Scottish bridge railway keeps ending in Dundee (8)
TAYBERRY – the TAY BR(idge) then RY(railway making a second appearance)
14 Alpine ewes slide all over the place (9)
EDELWEISS – anagram of EWES,SLIDE
15 Farcical game’s cut short and one croupier’s losing support (9)
LUDICROUS – LUDO(game) cut short then I(one) and CROUPIER’S missing PIER(support)
16 Bird around with cherries half gone? Who could want that? (8)
TWITCHER – TIT(bird) surrounding W(with) and then CHER(ries).  A TWITCHER is a bird-watcher
18 Historical river meadow (7)
PASTURE – PAST(historical), URE(river)
19 Name of famous artist included in opening (7)
VINCENT – INC(included) in VENT(opening). Presumably Van Gogh
20 Jack skinned salmon in manoeuvre (6)
JOCKEY – J(Jack) then SOCKEYE salmon missing the outside letters
22 Anger arising about Heath, say (5)
ERICA – IRE(anger) reversed, then CA(about)
23 Hard to tamper with identity (5)
RIGID – RIG(tamper with), ID(identity)

58 comments on “Times 27208 – take it away, setter…”

  1. 17:11. Whizzed through most of this biff-fest but a careless un-parsed well-presented cost me a good 5 minutes. Once corrected I immediately got Vincent and then the rest of the SE corner fell quickly.
  2. 34:57 – no real problems to begin with. Slowed down with eleven clues left. Did not know the butterfly, the salmon or the Great Bed, did not know that TAYBERRY is a cross but all were easy enough to biff from the checkers. Like GUID E BOOK but can see why those more cerebral liked BOWLINE more. Clever setter.
  3. 34:57 – no real problems to begin with. Slowed down with eleven clues left. Did not know the butterfly, the salmon or the Great Bed, did not know that TAYBERRY is a cross but all were easy enough to biff from the checkers. Like GUID E BOOK but can see why those more cerebral liked BOWLINE more. Clever setter.
  4. I just went to the club forum and found the following from the editor:
    Apologies, a late edit led to mangling of the clue to 5ac: for “bran flakes” it should have read “(grain) husks”
  5. Got this done quickly apart from 5ac. I trusted the clue, which effectively eliminated vibrant as a possibility, then spent around half an hour going over and over it looking for something that wasn’t there. Finally, after 42 minutes, I shrugged and bunged in vibrant anyway. NHO the bed or the butterfly; also NHO a tree shrew, but these were not problematic. Wanted to enter patrimony for 12ac initially. It was all a bit OTT on plants and animals for my liking. Great blog, cheers.
  6. ….in fact a SAUCERFUL. I see Roger Waters is touring next year with the album as his theme, so “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” if your tastes were that way inclined 50 years ago.

    The same gripes as previous commenters, and both TREE SHREW and BOWLINE biffed using the law of “couldn’t be anything else”.

    FOI CASH COW
    LOI NACHO
    COD GUIDEBOOK
    TIME 11:37

    I got a new phone yesterday, so now Google Chrome doesn’t recognise me on here. I shall be blogging anonymously, and if I forget to append my name, most regulars should recognise my style by now !

    Phil Jordan

      1. You would think so – but it doesn’t work, and the same on two other forums ! On one of them, I’ve had to create an extra email account before I could have a new id.
  7. Must have been one of my better days, I knocked this off in 12 minutes an equal PB, with one – BOWLINE – not really parsed, now I see it is very clever. Don’t understand the problem with VIBRANT, surely it is V for very, BRAN inside IT = appeal? and def Rolled? No anagram suggested?
  8. Surprised I got this one all correct as I had serious doubts about Vibrant, Bowline and Tayberry.

    COD Guidebook

  9. Well, this was taking too long as I tried to deal with wordplay, so after a time I just biffed BOWLINE, GUIDEBOOK, WAREHOUSE and VIBRANT, which looked to be what was intended, but why I couldn’t have told you. Other way round for TWITCHER. The great Bed of Ware? How big is it? Regards.
    1. The answer to the question “Great Bed of Where? is now the V&A, and as for size, they say it’s “reputedly able to accommodate at least four couples”, though that might depend on what they were attempting.
  10. 32:14. Would’ve been a lot quicker but for vibrant, bowline and tayberry. Twigged bowling but not bowling alley in 6dn and thought galley an odd way to clue the letter “G” for deletion. Doh! Eventually saw the berry in 8dn and finally succumbed to the inevitable vibrant at 5ac lacking full understanding but wondering if flakes was meant to indicate that bran splits the V and the It.
  11. A steady solve, albeit over a 2 hour timescale – very reminiscent of my early days tackling the QC with each individual answer bringing a sense of achievement. I actually parsed Bowline as it went in, but had no idea what was going on with Vibrant and Warehouse. Invariant
    1. Well done that man! If you plough through the rest of the comments, you’ll see that there was an error in the clue for VIBRANT. Kevin G posted this…. “VIBRANT:
      I just went to the club forum and found the following from the editor:
      Apologies, a late edit led to mangling of the clue to 5ac: for “bran flakes” it should have read “(grain) husks”
      1. Thanks – I had seen that, and realise I wasn’t the only one who struggled with that particular clue. Never come across the Great Bed of Ware though.
  12. Came here expecting to find record times, as we found it straightforward (15mins). Like everyone found definition of VIBRANT mystifying and explanation of mistake did not alter our opinion!!
  13. I too saw this on my first (and so far only) visit to London.
    Four couples? They’d have to be very friendly. Maybe the V&A could do a cgi experiment?
    Dalefromoz.

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