Times 27267 – nothing to complain about or shout about.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A pleasant if somewhat vanilla puzzle today, mostly straightforward wordplay and only one word and parsing at 19a which caused me any delay in my 20 minute solve. Hard to pick a special clue out of these, but I’ll settle for 28a for a relevant surface.

Across
1 Burst ball seen after Slav fouled (5)
SALVO – (SLAV)*, O for ball.
4 State capital has no love for religious ritual (9)
SACRAMENT – The state capital of California loses its O.
9 Furious Berber perhaps put back in guest accommodation (5,4)
SPARE ROOM – SPARE = furious (as in ‘he went spare’), MOOR = Berger, reverse him. No room in our spare room, it’s full of boxes since we downsized.
10 American author, Tolstoy’s hero (5)
LEVIN – Double definition; hero of Anna Karenina, and choose an Amercian author, Ira, Robert, Mark, Michael, and probably more.
11 Song always going round is atmospheric thing (1,5)
E LAYER – E’ER goes around LAY = song; the E LAYER is one of several radio-reflecting layers (D, E, F1, F2…) in the ionosphere.
12 Remove sozzled sot in plane put at the front (8)
JETTISON – JET followed by (SOT IN)*.
14 A bloomer, moving east in ultimate people carrier? (10)
HEARTSEASE – (EAST)* inside HEARSE, the ulimate people carrier. Viola tricolor, a pretty little wild flower.
16 Hindu music about to make contribution to culture? (4)
AGAR –  A RAGA is Indian music, reversed it makes the medium used for culturing bacteria.
19 Head’s lack of heart in grilling? (4)
NOLL – The heart or middle of grilling is LL, so a lack of that would be NO LL. Old fashioned word for head, or crown of head.
20 Oh, for tale of adventure on high seas! (8,2)
WESTWARD HO – HO going ‘west’ becomes OH. Or vice versa. Novel by Charles Kingsley.
22 One leaving restaurant worker means to serve course (8)
WATERWAY – WA(I)TER, WAY.
23 Water level reversed by old king in cutter? (6)
EDITOR – TIDE reversed, O(ld), R = king.
26 Round relative sheds pound in weight (5)
OUNCE – O = round, UNCLE loses his L.
27 End of hip strain announced (9)
INTENTION – IN = hip, with it; TENTION sounds like tension.
28 Daughter, in splitting huge cost, pays thus? (4,5)
GOES DUTCH – D inside (HUGE COST)*.
29 Neat looker appears in small window (2-3)
OX-EYE – OX = neat, EYE = looker. Small circular window, more usually left in the French as œil de bœuf.
Down
1 One martyred in street on walk with female (2,7)
ST STEPHEN – ST, STEP = walk, HEN = female.
2 Fools seen within the French city (5)
LHASA – HAS = fools (as in ‘he had me that time’) inside LA = the in French.
3 One takes beating over races amid scuffle (8)
OMELETTE – O = over, MELÉE = scuffle, insert the TT races.
4 Hard ground outside with hooves protected? (4)
SHOD – SOD outside H.
5 Firm 21 admits writing articles in attempt to limit damage (10)
COMPENSATE – CO = firm, 21 = friend = MATE, insert PENS.
6 Skilled nurses are there principally to do surgical removal (6)
ABLATE – ABLE = skilled, ‘nurses’ A and T being initial letters of are there.
7 English newsman packs travel document as predicted (9)
ENVISAGED – ENG ED has VISA inserted.
8 Join group that’s on the rise (5)
TENON – NONET is a group of nine musicians, reversed. I didn’t know you could have TENON as a verb to mean ‘make a tenon joint’, but obviously the setter did. Or maybe kevingregg below is right and join is a noun, alternative to joint.
13 All-rounder needing some Linnaean classification? (10)
GENERALIST – Well, a LIST of GENERA would be piece of Linnaean classification.
15 Simultaneously everyone agreed to accept Conservative (3,2,4)
ALL AT ONCE – C for Conservative goes into ALL AT ONE = everyone agreed.
17 Answer found in ordering afresh for banker (3,6)
RIO GRANDE – (ORDERING A)*.
18 Dance enthusiast circling with energy (8)
FANDANGO – FAN encircles AND = with, GO = energy.
21 Devil embraces Remainers’ leader, being intimate (6)
FRIEND – R inside FIEND.
22 Grace maybe saving man — but there’s wickedness! (5)
WRONG – W G (Grace the cricketer) encircles RON a bloke.
24 Public rights guardian bans one Parisian race (5)
TRIBE – TRIBUNE the public rights guardian, loses its UN = one in French.
25 American location in Connecticut a haven (4)
UTAH – Slightly hidden in CONNECTIC(UT A H)AVEN.

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43 comments on “Times 27267 – nothing to complain about or shout about.”

  1. I was enjoying this until I ground to a halt after 25 minutes. I spent another 17 minutes faffing about with NOLL. I did an alphabet trawl but eventually biffed it because there wasn’t another word to fit the checkers. I did know that NOLL meant “head” but the parsing beat me. I hesitated at LEVIN because, although I knew the Tolstoy Levin, I couldn’t think of an American author. The only other Levin I knew was Bernard who used to be a regular columnist on the Times. Besides the clue seemed straightforward GK rather than cryptic. Ann
  2. What’s even worse about the clue is that if you don’t know your Tolstoy and your knowledge of American authors only extends to about ten people, none of whom is a Levin, there is absolutely no way you can solve it properly. Checkers and guess, as probably several people did.
  3. Way off the wavelength with this one, perhaps not helped by background TV. But then:
    No too impressed by “splitting” as an anagram indicator, to the extent of not actually spotting the anagram.
    NOLL is clever, of course, if you see it. For the benefit of NOLE champions, it was Shakespeare’s spelling for “head”.
    E-LAYER has a hyphen in Chambers.
    LEVIN was not in any Tolstoy I can pretend to have read. The Times should have referenced Bernard, of course.
    Didn’t make the HAS/fools connection – I think I’ve been had. LHASA on crossers only.
    I don’t think I knew that’s what a tribune did
    I did like WESTWARD HO, but that’s about it.
    Well done everyone who found it easy. I’m off to feel chastened, hopefully only until tomorrow.
  4. 32 minutes, with me (again) thinking I wouldn’t finish. COD generalist (well, I am a wildlife ‘guru’). LOI tribe.

    Liked the slightly hidden definitions dotted around.

  5. After 39 mins at lunchtime I still had 10ac, 12ac, 6dn and 8dn left to get. I tidied those few up in another minute or two after work. I share the same reservations as others about the clue for Levin. Noll on the other hand had a set of nicely devious cryptic instructions which I saw quite quickly and followed to get the answer. I’m not sure I even bothered to consider whether it was an actual word or not because the wp seemed so solid.
  6. I liked this puzzle, which seems to have divided opinion.

    As others, I don’t see why LEVIN had to be so easy (or difficult, as Wil Ransome points outs so admirably above), as the other clues were not particularly hard.

    28a my CoD amongst some very well-worked ideas.

  7. I gave up on this, and I’m glad I did. 10ac and 19ac are both awful clues. 8dn is pretty dreadful too, IMO.

    Edited at 2019-02-07 12:10 am (UTC)

  8. Finished Anna Karenina not so long ago so was familiar with the semi-autobiographical LEVIN. Guessed NOLL and E LAYER not having heard of either. I enjoyed this one.
    1. it’s the answer to 21D
      usually, non-spelt out numbers refer to other clues (thankfully not too often in The Times)

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