Times 27223 – A mug’s game?

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Time: 42 minutes
Music: Mahler, Symphony 9, Levine/Philadelphia Orchestra

While I did manage to solve this puzzle in a reasonable time, I can’t say it was easy.   There are a few obscurities in literals, the cryptics, and the answers, and not every solver will have every bit of knowledge needed to finish.   There is still one that I can’t quite explain, although there are several possible theories.

Because of the trickiness of some of the clues,  I will be a bit more explicit tonight than with the usual Monday puzzle.

Across
1 Weapon in range, however, not the first (7)
CUTLASS – The evident answer, but the cryptic is rather obscure; I biffed it when I had all the checkers.  Some possibilities: CUT [c]LASS, CU([a]TLAS)S, C([b]UT)LASS.   I think the last of these is the most likely, but your comments are invited.
5 Giant uphill in pastoral setting (7)
ORCHARD – ORC + HARD.   In Tolkien, orcs were not particularly large, but the reference here may be to some other usage.
9 Physicist supreme idiot, they say? (3,6)
MAX PLANCK – sounds like MAX PLANK, which depends on the UK slang meaning of ‘plank’.
10 Bridge put out (5)
CROSS – double definition, and a fairly simple one for this puzzle.
11 American jerk seeing worker maybe with daughter, bowled over (5)
DWEEB – BEE W/D backwards.  I’m not sure how familiar this slang term would be to UK solvers.
12 Engulfed by flames, amphibian remains (9)
LEFTOVERS – L(EFT)OVERS, as in ‘old flames’.
14 Game taking day, touring the terraced houses (5-4,5)
THREE-CARD MONTE – MON inside an anagram of THE TERRACED.
17 Upset over Tibet, on having confined priest, surprisingly? (7,2,2,3)
BELIEVE IT OR NOT – B(ELI)EVE IT OR NOT, where the enclosing letters are an anagram of OVER TIBET, ON.  As soon as I thought of ‘Eli’, I saw what this must be.
21 Standard type of blood a short distance inside arm (9)
ORIFLAMME – O + RIFL(A MM)E.   An obscure word with a rather tricky cryptic, which I was able to biff once I had the blood and the distance.  Not that I was at all sure what exactly it was, but it seemed right.   “The Oriflamme (from Latin aurea flamma, “golden flame”) was the battle standard of the King of France in the Middle Ages. It was originally the sacred banner of the Abbey of St. Denis, a monastery near Paris.”
23 Youngsters finding last of salmon in river (5)
TEENS – TEE([salmo]N)S, a rather easy one for this puzzle.
24 A personal assistant, I’m going bust, finally (5)
VALET – VALE + [bus]T, another rather easy one.
25 Irritating thing this explosive, a bomb (9)
HISTAMINE – anagram of THIS + A MINE.   If there are antihistamines, there must be histamines, right?
26 Conceal oneself behind green coat taken from stock (7)
RAWHIDE – RAW + HIDE, a rather straightforward cryptic with a more complex literal.
27 Figure working alongside someone who never complains? (7)
NONAGON – NO NAG + ON.
Down
1 Fun with gas and air — look out of it! (6)
COMEDY – CO + ME[lo]DY.   I had to ponder quite a while before I saw how this one worked.
2 North of the ground, steer into that empty part of Liverpool (7)
TOXTETH – T(OX)T + anagram of THE.   Never heard of it, but the cryptic allows you to build it up with little room for error, especially if you have checkers.  
3 Always delivery turns up after a term for musicians (4,5)
ALLA BREVE – A + EVER BALL upside-down.   A very vague literal indeed, since these musicians have quite a number of terms, as we have learned.
4 Food requiring refrigeration in cosy place — cry about that (6,5)
SINGLE CREAM – S(INGLE)CREAM.   The approximate equivalent of ‘light cream’ in the US.
5 Current fine restricts hooligan (3)
OIK – O(I)K, where current = ‘I’ and fine = ‘OK’.   We have no oiks in the US, which is probably just as well.
6 Tree approximately twice the height of oak? (5)
CACAO – CA + CA + O[ak].
7 Furthest away, a vessel into which I must climb (7)
APOGEAN – A P(EGO upside-down)AN.    A rather difficult one, and my LOI.
8 Around South Africa, driest winds blow? (8)
DISASTER – anagram of DRIEST around SA.
13 The winner, me? (5,6)
FIRST PERSON – double definition, presumably the first person to cross the finish line.
15 Observe, over time, victory inspiring a writer (4,5)
MARK TWAIN – MARK + T + W(A)IN.
16 Odd characters rubbed out, maybe detective a forgiving type (8)
ABSOLVER – [m]A[y]B[e] + SOLVER, for once not ‘you’.
18 Suffering hilly area, one almost entirely dug up (4,3)
LAID LOW – WOLD  + I + AL[l], upside down.   Another one where biffers may struggle to understand how the clue works.
19 Opportunity to play in championship finally gone (7)
OPENING – anagram of IN + [championshi]P + GONE.   Again, the answer is easy enough, but where is the cryptic?
20 Seeing that schooner, following ship (6)
ASTERN – AS +| TERN,   But how is a tern a schooner?   If you are thinking of some obscure type of bird, you are wrong.   The correct answer, from the glossary at the Age of Sail: “Tern Schooner: North American term for a three-masted Schooner of 200 to 400 tons. Most cargo carrying Tern Schooners were built between 1870 and 1920 along the coast of North America.”   Aha!
22 In Bengal, a thick club (5)
LATHI – hidden in [Benga]L A THI[ck].    A bit of an &lit, as a ‘lathi’ is an Indian policeman’s truncheon.
25 Giant lacking good complexion (3)
HUE – HU[g]E, one that I found strangely elusive, as it turned out to be quite simple.

47 comments on “Times 27223 – A mug’s game?”

  1. I battled with this for just on an hour and seriosly wondered whether I would be able to finish it without excessive reference aids, but in the end the only word I cheated on was ORIFLAMME. This has come up just once before (in October last year) when its appearance passed without comment from me, from which I conclude that, as the definition on that occasion was the same as today, I must have found the wordplay more helpful.

    I had no idea what was going on with ASTERN.

    We’ve had a long-fought campaign to discourage setters clueing Teddy boys as hooligans and that seems to have been won, but now we need to stand up for OIKS as, whilst they may have many faults including being socially inept and boorish, they are not intrinsically given to violence and antisocial behaviour whereas hooligans are.

    Edited at 2018-12-17 05:43 am (UTC)

    1. At least, if you had to submit a guess as to what a “tern schooner” was, mine of “a three-masted schooner?” did turn out to be correct. Or perhaps “tern out”.
  2. I think your third choice in 1ac -c([b]ut)lass is correct.
    Regarding Toxteth, it was the scene of race riots in 1981 and on dates since then. I was living in Liverpool at the time and, allegedly, Toxteth became a no-go area for the police. Many of the houses in that suburb were once rather grand and owned by ship owners who could survey their vessels down on the River Mersey. However as the fortunes of the port declined, the owners moved on.
    If you are correct about ASTERN, that really is rather obscure.
  3. No idea what happened last time, but this time I was done by ORIFLAMME, thrown by the use of ARM (singular) for weapon. Packed it in with this unsolved after the hour.

    Definitely, not your average Monday.

  4. I forgot to say that I went for third explanation of CUTLASS too with UT derived from {b}UT.

    TERN defined as ‘three-masted schooner’ is in Collins. I can’t say I’d ever heard of it but it’s no more obscure than many meanings that appear here.

  5. 2dn suggested a football ground and I have a vague recollection of one end of Anfield being known as the TOXTETH end the other being The Kop – but being a United fan I may be wrong. Last night’s 3-1 drubbing being a case in point.

    35 minutes but started out very slowly.

    I still cannot parse 6d CACAO – more illumination please.

    FOI 5dn OIK!

    LOI 7dn APOGEAN

    COD 2dn TOXTETH

    WOD 21ac ORIFLAMME

    I bet the Bolton Wanderer has a few tales about 26ac!

    1. Welcome back horryd.

      I wondered about CACAO, too. I can see the “approximately twice” but is the height of oak meant to infer the first letter? In an across clue?

      I didn’t finish in 30 minutes and felt that the setter didn’t really think how the solver might make progress if the obscure words and cluing led to substantial gaps.

      1. It’s not an across clue!

        I definitely worked it out from thinking of a tree and then justifying the wordplay, rather than the other way around.

      2. Height of Oak works (just about) alright in a down clue, which this is (unless I’m reading at a 90⁰ angle).
        1. I don’t see any problem at all, as ‘height’ can mean the highest part or top of something, and here it indicates the top of the tree i.e. O{ak}, rather than top of the word as viewed.

          Edited at 2018-12-17 11:53 am (UTC)

      3. Thank-you Mr Sawbill! Pray tell – where is your palm-fringed avatar located? Hawaii or Torbay? Koh Samui or Florida?
        1. Kerala (clearly I am better on palms than oaks).

          From previous posts do we have a parallel past in places such as Port of Spain and Heidelberg??

  6. 29:20. Are we sure it isn’t Friday today? This took some deciphering! I failed to parse 1A (but I think your third option looks right) and 19A. I also had never heard of TERN as a ship. APOGEAN my LOI. Lots of nice clues, but COD to COMEDY. Great puzzle! Thanks setter and Vinyl.

    Edited at 2018-12-17 07:54 am (UTC)

    1. I’ve missed you too – especially at breakfast time.
      This morning I had Canadian rolled oats with Turkish dried (black) apricots and Marmite toast with wonderful Blue Mountain Coffee obtained recently from ‘Takashimiya’, Kyoto – a beautiful department store. The food hall in the gin-ormous basement is to die for. On the seventh floor the eel restaurant is wonderous.
      How’s the Gin & Lime going?

      Edited at 2018-12-17 02:24 pm (UTC)

  8. 45 mins to give up on Oriflamme, while enjoying yoghurt, banana, granola, etc.
    Back from deepest Bavaria.
    DNK Tern=schooner and struggled to parse Cutlass.
    Mostly I liked: Disaster and Histamine.
    Thanks setter and Vinyl.
  9. Feeling quite good over 25.41 for this, top right being hardest to crack. Constructed APOGEAN from cryptic and the more familiar apogee. I wondered about ORCHARD being pastoral, apple trees having not much to do with sheep, and orcs being (in my book, and Tolkein’s) merely unpleasant. CACAO (very clever, how high is an oak?) my last in after CUTLASS fell with all the checkers – version 3 for me too.
    ORIFLAMME from dark recesses, HISTAMINE on the same anti- logic as Vinyl, ASTERN with a shrug since nothing else worked: the schooner’s in Chambers but not in my comfort zone.
    No problem with OIK and hooligan, Bertie Wooster I think would concur. Chambers gives “a crass-witted, inferior person; a boor or lout; a cad” – are you sure you haven’t got at least one in America?
    Pretty meaty stuff, and not just “for a Monday”. Thanks for an extensive and explanatory blog

    Edited at 2018-12-17 08:57 am (UTC)

  11. Well, I wasn’t expecting that. Meaty with more than a bit of gristle. Almost entirely a bottom-up solve although ORIFLAMME was FOI from the blood type. LOI APOGEAN here too. Thanks for the hard graft with the parsings Vinyl. My venerable SOED gives a usage for ORC dated 1590 meaning OGRE (from Italian ORCO). If that’s the explanation it must rank alongside TERN as today’s UMPHRE (usage most people have rarely encountered).

    Edited at 2018-12-17 09:27 am (UTC)

  12. I’m surprised I’m here so early with several unknown or scarcely known answers. My sister lived in a seedy flat in Princes Avenue back in 1960, where she had her first child, but it was always referred to as Liverpool 8 and not Toxteth in those days. Upper Parliament Street was the real tough area then. It’s several miles from Anfield, H. The stand opposite from The Kop is the Anfield Road end, with the Main Stand and the Kemlyn Road stand at the sides, if they haven’t acquired sponsors since Bolton last played there. 48 minutes with LOI APOGEAN. DWEEB scarcely known but dug up from somewhere. There have been several Americanisms lately. I hope the setters are not going to assume that we all watch the US box-set series, however good they might be, because I don’t have the inclination. FOI, MAX PLANCK of course. COD to LEFTOVERS. The best meal at Christmas is always Boxing Day lunch. Thank you V and setter.
  13. Tough puzzle that is perhaps over reliant upon obscurity to create difficulty. TERN for example. I took the third route for CUTLASS but reverse engineered after biffing the answer from checkers. Not sure “O” as “height of oak” really works

    Agree with Jack on OIK. Socially inept but not violent or destructive.

  14. ….Dean Meyer on a Monday (if I’m wrong in pointing that particular finger, I’ll apologise to him !)

    My biffing was at Tyson Fury level this morning : CUTLASS, ORIFLAMME, CACAO, OPENING, and ASTERN all needed to be explained, so muchas gracias to Vinyl1 for doing the honours. I concur that the third option for CUTLASS is the intended construction.

    Whilst TOXTETH is memorable for the riots, I do think we’re on shaky ground with suburbs of British cities. Wythenshawe anyone ?

    FOI TOXTETH
    LOI APOGEAN
    COD RAWHIDE
    TIME 17:36

    1. I really don’t think this is Dean Mayer, much though he is the only person anyone ever guesses when they guess the identity of a weekday puzzle.
  15. 24:29. I didn’t like this much. As Jim says it’s over-reliant on obscurity to create difficulty, and obvious biffable answers with completely impenetrable wordplay are the exact opposite of my favourite kind of clue. There’s lots of obscurity bordering on the ridiculous here, but ‘schooner’ for TERN is downright silly.
    I agree with others that it must be C(bUT)LASS but ‘range’ for CLASS is a stretch IMO.
    DWEEB is familiar but means ‘nerd’ rather than ‘jerk’ to me.
    Thanks to vinyl for sorting out the ones I couldn’t (or couldn’t be bothered to) parse. Too many to list!

    Edited at 2018-12-17 10:40 am (UTC)

    1. It did seem a little dry. It took me ages to finish actually, which even with me isn’t normal for a Monday, so musta been a toughie.

      I liked the Tibet one. A bit.

  17. Just happened to know this thanks to amateur water-colour my great-grandfather did of his family’s house there (long since gone), otherwise it would have given me just as much trouble as CUTLASS, ASTERN etc etc ditto everyone else. Thanks Vinyl for doing all the parsing. And I was beating up on myself for what seemed at the time to be a very slow 19.41
  18. Beaten at the last by APOGEAN, having tried all the other vessels but pan. I normally enjoy a tough one but I was losing the will to live towards the end of this one.
  19. 35 mins – but with two wrong. Outland for Orchard and Tecto for Cacao.

    That was tough!

    COD: COMEDY.

  20. I got nowhere near this. Feeling very dozy first thing, I struggled to get ten answers in 45 minutes. Coming back to it later, I had it narrowed down to a few left after another 45 minutes, but eventually gave up. Much too much in the way of unknown knowledge for me, this one!
  21. Great puzzle, bit much for a Monday. Several times I put in an answer, looked at it then erased it, some were always right, some not: SINGLE CREAM went in and out until I parsed it. ORCHARD took a while, knew there was something to do with apogee but couldn’t pin it down, ASTERN no idea, like everyone else. I regularly take antihistamines, so know a bit about HISTAMINE, but still it was my LOI.

    30’11”, thanks jack and setter.

  22. 45 minutes, but with only a few scattered around after nearly half an hour (2dn was FOI, but not 1dn) resorted to Bradford, when the list of weapons gave me 1ac – parsed in third way. I didn’t bother to verify TERN in 20dn, and wasn’t happy about several other definitions, as noted by others above.
  23. No easy lead in to the week here! I did remember DWEEB and ORIFLAMME from previous puzzles, but still had to work the latter out the hard way. I parsed CUTLASS the third way. A biffed ORCADIA was corrected by DISASTER. OIK was my FOI and APOGEAN my last. Surprisingly I did manage to parse everything before submission, although some were reverse engineered. 41:12. Thanks setter and Vinyl1.
  24. LOI APOGEAN which took a bit of brainpower. ORIFLAMME was unknown but thought it would contain RIFLE when I only had the L and the E checkers. Third version of C([b]UT)LASS for me too.

    Two “The Young Ones” references in a single grid:

    TOXTETH topically (only a couple of years post-riots) appears in the ‘Bambi’ episode of UK anarchic sitcom The Young Ones, where on the show’s version of University Challenge, the answer to both of: “The world’s record for stuffing marshmallows up one single nostril (604)”; and “World’s stickiest bogey” is Toxteth O’Grady, USA.

    The second reference comes from the chant of the opposing team’s (Footlights) supporters, is “Rah, rah, rah, we’re going to smash the OIKs”

  25. I think “challenging” is a word they use for a puzzle like this. I had no real expectation of finishing but it did eventually come together. FOI, OIK and LOI, APOGEAN. In between a fair amounf of biffing went on. I never managed to parse ASTERN – though I found vague explanations for the rest. 55 minutes. Ann
  26. About an hour. Strewth! I found this one a real beast. Glad others thought it tough too. Took ages to get going with 23ac eventually FOI. I vaguely remembered tern for schooner from a previous puzzle. Histamine broken down from wp then justified using our blogger’s logic. At 2dn saw ground, thought field, then saw Liverpool and thought Anfield but couldn’t get AN in there. Finally worked out Toxteth. Took ages to figure out the parsing of laid low. Oriflamme, histamine, apogean and alla breve all at the limits of my vocab.
  27. Almost finished. Had to look up “Apogean”. Entered “Cocao” instead of “Cacao” and “Ork” instead of “Oik” – put in R for current and convinced myself that an Ork must be a hooligan! Apart from those howlers, good puzzle. Fortunately, I knew of Toxteth.

    Edited at 2018-12-17 09:08 pm (UTC)

  28. Over an hour and similar to above finished on APOGEAN not having thought of the EGO bit and very confused about where the I was going. TOXTETH my home about 40 years ago. Only was referred to as TOXTETH after the riots. A very slow and rather painful solve

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