Times 272363

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A fair, middle of the road puzzle today, with some straightforward wordplay and parsing, nothing especially witty or memorable, but nothing to complain about either. 20 minutes with DENOUNCER my LOI. I did remember the tropical bird and the nymph, which helped.

Across
1 Flying mammal healthy cricketer observed, disturbed by game (5,3)
FRUIT BAT – A healthy cricketer would be a FIT BAT, insert RU the game.
5 Diamond is article giant bird’s swallowed (6)
TROCHE – THE swallows ROC the fabulous bird. A troche is a diamond shaped lozenge or pill, EDIT even though it can be / should be circular from its etymology, see comments below.
9 Castigator denied swapping sides (9)
DENOUNCER – Denied = RENOUNCED, swap the first and last letters round.
11 Performer meddling in movie at first with little hesitation (5)
MIMER – M eddling I n M ovie then ER.
12 Conflict dividing city mostly on the sheltered side (7)
LEEWARD – LEED(S) has WAR inserted.
13 Prognostication connected with terribly bad stomach (7)
ABDOMEN – (BAD)* then OMEN = prognostication.
14 Cap charges for clothing new son, a royal (5,8)
CROWN PRINCESS – cap = CROWN, charges = PRICES, insert N, add S(on).
16 Reporter’s right to interrupt person cited in divorce case (13)
CORRESPONDENT – Person in divorce case = CO-RESPONDENT, insert an R.
20 Draw game? He painted frescoes and altarpieces (7)
TIEPOLO – TIE = draw, POLO a game. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, b. Venice 1696, d. 1770.
21 Letter and old poem about Islamic territory (7)
EMIRATE – All reversed; ETA Greek letter, RIME old word for rhyme.
23 In retrospect it heralded support for the church (5)
TITHE – IT in retrospect = TI, THE. &lit. EDIT: and / or parsed as a hidden, RETROSPEC(T IT HE)RALDED
24 Conductor’s chosen way to be announced (9)
ELECTRODE – ELECT = chosen, RODE sounds like road = way.
25 Wild dog old Yankee kept in small shelter (6)
COYOTE – COTE = small shelter, insert O and Y.
26 Woman associated with revolutionary king (8)
ETHELRED – ETHEL is associated with RED revolutionary.
Down
1 Scam exposed by theologian dipping into dossier (6)
FIDDLE – DD (doctor of divinity) goes into FILE = dossier.
2 Bones a girl finally broke grabbing end of wall (5)
ULNAE – UNA a girl, E end of broke, insert L end letter of wall. Plural of ulna.
3 Travel firm covering area producing crested bird (7)
TOURACO – TOUR = travel, CO = firm, insert A for area. African bird more interesting than some, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turaco
4 Liable to mishaps, confounded doc with recent pain (8-5)
ACCIDENT-PRONE – (DOC RECENT PAIN)*.
6 Graduate in drama school gaining name fast? (7)
RAMADAN – RADA = drama school, insert MA, add N for name.
7 Source of protein politician fed to pet? (9)
CAMEMBERT – MEMBER = politician (not MP for once), insert into CAT a pet. Seems an odd choice of definition as camembert is 20% protein and 36% fat.
8 Ghostly atmosphere always hanging over island loch (8)
` EERINESS – E’ER = always, I = island, NESS a loch.
New layout of back row designed to exclude centre (13)
REARRANGEMENT – REAR = back, RANGE = row, ME(A)NT = designed with centre A excluded.
14 Better access securing backing for woodworker’s craft (9)
CARPENTRY – CAP = better, verb; ENTRY = access, insert R being the backing of foR. Or as below, the def. is just ‘Craft’ and the R is from the end of woodworker.
15 Rapturous new sect — Greek, by the sound of it (8)
ECSTATIC – (SECT)* then ATIC sounds like ATTIC, for Greek.
17 Dashed over to save animal shelter wearing away (7)
ERODENT – TORE = dashed, reverse it and insert DEN = animal shelter.
18 Communication left in European skiing area (7)
EPISTLE – E(uropean), PISTE = skiing area, insert L.
19 Nymph originally nameless before getting identification (6)
NEREID – N, ERE = before, ID = identification.
22 University lecturer’s back after a second affair (5)
AMOUR – A, MO = second, U(niversity), R = last letter of lecturer.

​

61 comments on “Times 272363”

  1. 11:17 … very biffable but for a couple of tricky bits of vocab.

    My Chambers app gives “A round medicinal tablet” for TROCHE, Collins and 2 other places I looked online also give ’round tablet’ as the def., coming from the Late Latin for ‘little wheel’. Is there an authority for ‘diamond-shaped’?

    Biggest delay was an attempt to recall the name Æthelflæd, as I thought for a while I was looking for a female at 26a — a nice misdirection.

    Edited at 2019-05-29 06:07 am (UTC)

    1. Didn’t know TROCHE, so looked it up with the same Major Eyebrow Raise.
      Collins has it, but indirectly: A troche is a lozenge (pill), linked to a lozenge (shape) which is a rhombus, according to Collins. Not sure if a three-point turn through a dictionary works as well as through a thesaurus, but that’s above my pay-grade.
      Other online & paper dictionaries agree: a troche is round.
      1. It’s certainly weird, especially given the etymology of the word. I was going to say that a rhomb-shaped wheel would be an odd thing indeed, but looking up ‘rhomb’ in Chambers I get “4. A magic wheel” !

        One of those occasions where the English language is clearly in need of a good editor.

      2. Chambers only has ’round’. Collins on-line has ’round’ in its American listing.
      3. OED has a troche as a “flat round tablet or lozenge..”. It has a lozenge as a “..tablet, originally diamond-shaped..”.

        It seems clear that a lozenge, while originally diamond-shaped, now means a medicinal tablet of any shape, and that a troche is a round tablet or lozenge (in that sense).

        Just another example of Collins getting the wrong end of the stick and providing a misleading definition.

        Derek

        1. I have just re-read isla’s and sotira’s posts above and I think I am unjustly maligning Collins. I withdraw that comment with apologies.

          Derek

          1. It’s all terribly confusing. To make matters worse, I just googled “troche diamond” again and the top result was this page! We are now the authority.
  2. Bit of an Arabian theme with Ramadan, crown prince(ss) and Emirate.

    55 minutes, so probably a PB.

    Dnk touraco, troche, or tiepolo.

    Think 23a is also a straight hidden.

    Cod ethelred.

    Ps the times number in the blog has an extra 2.

    Thanks

    Edited at 2019-05-29 06:15 am (UTC)

  3. Biffed a couple, which helped keep me under 10′. I wasn’t sure about the first R of CARPENTRY: ‘backing for’ didn’t seem to work as ‘backing FOR for’, and I took it to mean ‘backing for woodworker’. In which case wouldn’t the definition be simply ‘craft’? TROCHE looked vaguely familiar (as opposed to ‘trochee’, which is familiar), but it’s not in ODE; no doubt it is in Collins and Chambers. An OMEN isn’t itself a prognostication, although it can be the basis for one. Nice to see TIEPOLO back; maybe an OMEN of a forthcoming TREE.
  4. Mostly straightforward, 15 mins. Touraco forgotten and troche unknown, both easily constructed. Nereid remembered, Tiepolo like an old friend.
    I parsed R as back of woodworker, and the definition simply as “craft”, like Kevin.

    Edited at 2019-05-29 06:39 am (UTC)

    1. Yes, ‘backing for woodworker’ has to be the r source, surely, with the unnecessary but apt carry-over to type of craft.
      1. I see it not as unnecessary, but as excellent clueing, where wordplay suggests the answer: woodwork suggests carpentry. Not quite an all-in-one/and-literally, but strongly suggesting that.
      2. Particularly as ‘backing for’ doesn’t mean ‘the backing of for’, just as ‘first person doesn’t mean ‘the first letter of person’ despite the fact that you often see such.

        Edited at 2019-05-29 06:33 pm (UTC)

  5. Would have been 15′, but defeated, unaccountably, by CAMEMBERT.

    Got the very nice TIEPOLO, NEREID, ECSTATIC.

    Thanks jack and setter.

    1. Thanks, but I’m not guilty today, Rob, unless you were referring to my comment!
  6. 30 (plus) mins with croissant and some marvellous Lime Marmalade from a generous donor. Hoorah!
    The (plus) was all spent on the ‘Bird fed article’ arrangement and the ‘source of protein’. At least it reminded me of the following:

    Customer: “I thought to myself, ‘a little fermented curd will do the trick’, so, I curtailed my Walpoling activites, sallied forth, and infiltrated your place of purveyance to negotiate the vending of some cheesy comestibles!”
    Owner: “Come again?”
    Customer:(Very silly voice) “I want to buy some cheese”

    Mostly I liked: Elect Road
    Thanks setter and Pip.

  7. 31 minutes, so not too bad for me considering there were a few unknowns or fogottens here – TOURACO, TROCHE, NEREID.

    Biffed CARPENTRY only understanding the ‘access/entry’ bit of wordplay. Also EMIRATE.

    There are apparent contradictions in the usual sources re TROCHE which some have as ‘usually circular’ or they describe it as ‘a lozenge’ which is separately defined as ‘having four sides of differing lengths’. This clue to it appeared in January this year, also blogged by Pip:

    Tablet provided with article about enormous bird (5)

  8. … but not necessarily in the right order.T’internet still down here at our holiday place so still on phobile mone. BT Openreach are said to be on the case. We went to Carnforth Railway Station museum yesterday, after stopping off at Morecambe to see Eric’s statue. We had tea and cake in the famous refreshment room. 16 minutes with LOI and COD CAMEMBERT, so a brief encounter. DNK TOURACO and NEREID was only vaguely familiar, but the instructions were clear. I was ready for ETHELRED. Thank you Pip and setter.
  9. Biffed a few including CARPENTRY and CORRESPONDENT but most of it straightforward. Did not know the bird so had to rely on aids for that one.

    Still don’t understand the TITHE clue. How does heralded come into play there?

    Enjoyable start to the day. Thanks!

    Running total 32/34.

    WS

      1. So it is, but I parsed it the same way as Pip and assumed the heralded bit was just “goes in front of as a support for”, though I winced a bit. Pleased to see it’s better than that
      2. Doh! Thanks! See it now and oddly remember seeing it briefly during the solve but not after. A bit like something drifting in and out of focus. Must get a brain one of these days…

        WS

  10. 40 minutes, but it felt like longer, as I was wrong-footed here and there, mostly by the flying mammal (which I assumed was unknown but wasn’t), the TROCHE, which I carefully noted down using its Chambers definition the last time it came up, the unknown TOURACO, and 2d, where the wordplay first led me to “gable”. Well, it has something to do with the end of a wall, right?

    FOI 1d FIDDLE, LOI the bird, after finally sorting out my gables from my ULNAE, working out DENOUNCER and therefore eliminating TREKACO and TRIPACO, which were the only two possibilities I’d thought of. D’oh.

    If you do a Google image search for “troche pill” you’re hard-pressed to find anything that looks like a diamond, but perhaps the meaning has changed over time.

    Edited at 2019-05-29 07:45 am (UTC)

  11. Easy .. managed not to be worried about the definition of troche, never having heard of it..
    Pip, 23ac is not an &lit, (some churches still have them!) .. it is just a straightforward hidden clue
  12. 19 minutes, dithering over TROCHE because I didn’t know it. Having looked it up, it does seem a bit odd as a diamond, like cluing lion with whip because they both go via cat.
    CAMEMBERT not so much a source of protein as a source of that funny smell in my fridge. Two iffy definitions that happened to cross made them my last in and made submission a trepidatory enterprise.
  13. 12:27, with a bit of a pause at the end over TROCHE/CAMEMBERT. I took the former on trust but the definition does seem to be iffy.
    Fun puzzle though.
  14. After 15 minutes I only had TROCHE and CAMEMBERT left. I didn’t like either of these for reasons already given. I am reading about Alfred, Ethelred et al at the moment. Actually most of them begin with et, al or at, come to think of it.
  15. Easy top to bottom solve with TROCHE derived from wordplay and severe doubts over definition – clearly shared by others

    There was a time when dear old TIEPOLO appeared nearly every week to the point where it became a standing joke. Happy to see him make a reappearance but hopeful that he will now disappear again for some time to come.

    1. The worry about banishing Tiepolo is that we might get Finzi back instead
  16. I vaguely remember Fortnums (or was it Harrods or both?) used to purvey ‘Almond Trochees’ I assumed that 5ac was an Anglised version or the setter had misspelled it.

    20ac TIEPOLO was a write in and brought back memories of another artiste, The Tupelo Mississippi Flash! Jerry Reed and later the Steve Gibbons Band – great song and guitar.

    FOI 2dn ULNAE

    LOI 20dn NEREID

    COD 3dn TOURACO I initially thought the travel firm might be TUI.

    WOD 5ac TROCHE

    The letters @ 15ac almost formed the words EAT ARSE but fortunately not quite.

    6dn RAMADAN was seasonal

    Bang on 30 minutes over toast and my very own gin and grapefruit marmalade!

    Edited at 2019-05-29 09:00 am (UTC)

  17. Last two were Camembert and Troche. I was relieved that Troche was correct.

    COD: Abdomen.

  18. 33 minutes in 2 sessions, with most going in pretty easily before getting stuck at the top with the unknowns already mentioned. I also couldn’t parse EMIRATE (I wondered if there was (improbably) an old poem called an ‘irate’) and spent a while getting CAMEMBERT.

    I liked (Wile E) COYOTE and ETHELRED (the Unready) keeping each other company. Best for me was the surface and sneaky hidden for TITHE.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

  20. One of those puzzles with vocabulary which teetered on the edge of my comfort zone (TOURACO, NEREID), and went right out of that zone with TROCHE, but provided pretty generous wordplay in each case. Seeing that it ended _E_T, I was convinced that the protein was going to be a MEAT, so CAMEMBERT was a surprise for more than one reason.
  21. FRUIT BAT went in first followed by ULNAE and FIDDLE. A fast start to the NE didn’t result in a rumbling ABDOMEN, that came later along with the rest of the recalcitrant corner. Moving on to the SW was more productive and I was ECSTATIC to spot TIEPOLO quickly, but had to biff CARPENTRY, and with my confidence non-ERODENT, moved on to the SE where I inserted an ELECTRODE before composing an EPISTLE to my AMOUR. Having completed all bar 5a and 7d, with NEREID remembered, and the bird assembled from wordplay, I came up with TROCHE, again from wordplay(and a wing and a prayer), before noticing the iffy smell at 7d. Totally missed the hidden TITHE and biffed from IT reversed and the already present central T. A fun puzzle. 19:56. Thanks setter and Pip.
  22. Could have been easier if I hadn’t tried to fit MP into 7d. Would have been a quick finish otherwise. When I eventually got CAMEMBERT I was left with the controversial TROCHE (see above). Had to come here to understand CARPENTRY. Not that this blog is the source of knowledge of the subject, of course. Liked the misdirection in NEREID, which I vaguely knew.
    1. Sorry Mr. Gnome, I see you got there first on this – we overlapped.
  23. 20’30. ‘Mimer’ I suppose a precursor of what seems the more professional ‘mime’. Second part of Tiepolo clue surely a tad clunky? Didn’t know troche. Good to see nereid accepted without the oread outcry of a while back. Liked the source of protein.
  24. TROCHE, TOURACO and TIEPOLO were a trio of Ts unknown to me – fortunately they were all very fairly clued so the “obvious” answer turned out to be correct. 6m 57s with CAMEMBERT the last to fall.
  25. This might have been a rare under-10 for me had it not been for the same dithering as others over the cheese/diamond combo. I think of CAMEMBERT as a source of calcium rather than protein but I see from Google it has both in good measure, and it certainly announces itself with that pronounced whiff. A couple of good misdirections by the setter leading one to think the N might need to be dropped in NEREID (nameless) and the TITHE clue read backwards (in retrospect). 10.57
  26. …but interrupted for over 20 mins by a couple of phone calls, so actually pretty quick. Like most others here my last two in were TROCHE/CAMEMBERT. Never heard of TROCHE so happy to rely on the wordplay.
  27. 11:18 (*shakes fist at Sotira*)

    Like others I took a while at the end to get the not actually a diamond and the smelly cheese.

    Tiepolo wasn’t the write-in it should have been so it must be a few months since since he last barged his way past ole Beerbohm to get his name in lights.

    I’d never realised that correspondent and corespondent were two different words. Maybe I should get divorced more often (or by some of the corespondent, two-tone gents’ shoes that the dictionary says exist).

  28. Dithered mainly over TOURACO, TROCHE and NEREID. The rest were comfortably solved.
  29. 8:28, bit of a mix of biffing and good wordplay here, in the case of TROCHE the wordplay left no other option, so I didn’t worry about the definition. My last in (and biffed) was REARRANGEMENT which had most helpful checking letters.
  30. I found a lot of clues where the “this before that” or “this inside that” were in the slightly awkward “that, this before” or “that, this inside” form – and that always adds minutes to my time. Otherwise straightforward and fun enough.
    Like Pip I thought about Camembert as a protein source, but looked it up and found even beef is 30% fat, 14% protein.

    Edited at 2019-05-29 02:24 pm (UTC)

  31. Fairly easy, that is until the end with TROCHE first, from wordplay only, then CAMAMBERT which I parsed after seeing that it fir the checking letters. I hadn’t heard of the TOURACO either, but it didn’t present a problem. The word, when constructed, sort of looks like it should be a bird. Regards.
  32. ….and statistics. My finishing time would suggest that I found this straightforward, but in fact it was a battle. I was amazed when I stopped the timer, as I seemed to take much longer.

    Started to write “cockatoo” into 3D and was immediately in some difficulty. Luckily I knew TOURACO and soon enough got out of the hold I’d dug.

    I biffed three. EMIRATE and CARPENTRY were parsed post-solve, but I just couldn’t see ERODENT until I came here. My LOI caused a “duh !” moment.

    FOI MIMER
    LOI CAMEMBERT
    COD RAMADAN
    TIME 9:41

  33. 30 mins. I’m undoubtedly being dense here, but the wordplay in 5ac (TROCHE) looks back to front…
    1. I’m with you – I didn’t get this clue (today’s puzzle being well beyond my abilities, I retreated after a while to the quick cryptic), but I agree I was looking to put an article in a bird.

      The requirement to read “article giant bird’s swallowed” as “article; giant bird [i]s swallowed [by it]” as opposed to the natural “article [which] giant bird [ha]s swallowed” always strikes me a rather artificial way of justifying a dubious clue – I don’t regard it as particularly fair if I’m required to infer a whacking great semi-colon into the clue in order to make the cryptic bit make sense. There’s enough ways to mislead and trick me at the setter’s disposal without having to resort to leaving out critical punctuation.

      But no doubt I’m just grumpy because it always stops me in my tracks.

      1. Thanks anon. You’re right, I think the setter’s being a tad unfair in this case.
  34. Whether the definition is iffy or not, ‘troche’ Is completely out of sync with the rest of the crossword, which is basically a write-in even for me. Camembert was a bit iffy as well I suppose. . .Mr Grumpy
  35. DNF, and it now occurs to my that I should be able to use my solving time (or abject failure in this case) to estimate my recent alcohol intake (zero), rather than vice versa.

    I had the same thoughts as [harmonic_row] regarding the back-to-frontedness (or rather, inside outedness) of 5ac. I read it as “…[that] giant bird has swallowed”, but I now see that it should be read as “giant bird is swallowed”. In any event, TROCHE is beyond my ken I failed to get it.

    I also failed on CAMEMBERT, because I was thinking only of MP, rather than member. It’s a shame, because only recently I was thinking what a complete member-up they’ve have made of Brexit.

  36. Finishing one of these is still a rare enough event that I don’t begrudge the 2 hours required. Today’s success was particularly pleasing as three of the answers (Troche, Touraco and Tiepolo) were completely unknown words. Invariant
  37. 30:57 nice puzzle. Held up by the unknown or forgotten troche (though it seems not being fully conversant with the definition was advantageous) and by spending too long trying to fit an article into a giant bird rather than the other way round. Also took time over the crossing camembert with its sneaky definition and thinking of MPs first before members.
  38. Thanks setter and pip
    Like others got off to a flying start in the NE corner which continued through the rest of the puzzle with it only taking 25 min (quick for me) to complete it. Had parsed 23a the same as the original blog, but see that the hidden is a much better way. Thought that CAMEMBERT had a clever word play and didn’t think too much about the definition when I’d worked out the ‘polly in the pet’.
    Finished in the NE corner with EERINESS (which had to be corrected from AIRINESS) followed by that TROCHE (where my ignorance on all things lozenge and round, caused no issues with the definition until coming here).

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