Times 27333 – another midweek middle of the road

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
19 minutes for me to solve and parse this one, nothing to frighten any horses here. It has a slight literary flavour, with Kipling, Dickens and Shakespeare (for example) cropping up. I’ve never read Kipling’s poetry, which seems to be regarded as non-PC these days, but 1a was clear enough. I remembered 9a from Dickens’ David Copperfield, although I only read now that Dickens’ own father was incarcerated there for a while.
I can’t think of more to say about it, except that it was pleasantly straightforward and fair. No obscure elements, antelopes, plants, subatomic particles… nothing for a scientist to drivel on about.

Across
1 Crew beginning to digest a poem — one by Kipling (8)
MANDALAY – MAN = crew, D(igest), A, LAY = poem.
5 Podgy head of company introducing partner (6)
CHUBBY – C(ompany), HUBBY = partner.
8 Way to engage English class (3)
SET – ST = street, way; insert E.
9 Old prison mother will inevitably visit, do we hear? (10)
MARSHALSEA – MA = mother, SHALSEA sounds like ‘shall see’. Old prison in Southwark, referred to often in Dickens’ works.
10 Fairly plump soldiers about to take a French course (8)
ROUNDISH – OR = soldiers, ordinary ranks; reversed = RO: UN = a in French; DISH = course.
11 Detached territory, one with seaside feature spanning lake (6)
ISLAND – I = one, SAND = seaside feature, insert L for lake.
12 Terminates alliances (4)
AXES – Double definition.
14 Pirate captain twinkles, entertaining last of many children (10)
KIDDYWINKS – KIDD being the pirate captain; WINKS = twinkles; insert Y being the last of manY.
17 Geometrician rejected books, heading off one arguing in defence (10)
TOPOLOGIST – OT = books; rejected = TO; (A)POLOGIST = one arguing in defence, with the head removed.
20 Exploit of daughter on river (4)
DEED – River Dee, D for daughter.
23 It may be fired about 45 inches in temper (6)
PELLET – An ELL measured 45 inches; insert it into PET which can mean a fit of temper.
24 Wicked one put out by my sneering? (8)
SCORNFUL – wicked = SINFUL; drop the I (one put out), insert COR = exclamation my!.
25 Limited view initially of girl missing point, hating some Brits (10)
ANGLOPHOBE – ANGL(E) = limited view; O = initially of; PHO(E)BE = girl missing E a compass point.
26 Aristocrat using good French in retirement (3)
NOB – French for good, reversed.
27 Port Wellington left before onset of engagement (6)
BOOTLE – BOOT = Wellington, L = left, E = onset of engagement.
28 Delaying getting accommodation for books, perhaps (8)
SHELVING – Double definition.

Down
1 Perpetrator of terrible crimes — a soldier, possibly (9)
MISCREANT – (CRIMES)* then ANT = soldier possibly.
2 Carved toggle teens sported touring our country (7)
NETSUKE – (TEENS)* around UK. NETSUKE, as I have seen on the Antiques Roadshow, are small Japanese carved pieces, made of ivory or more recently of hippopotamus tooth. They are usually in the form of a toggle to close a bag with a string, as Japanese robes had no pockets so chaps had to carry a pouch or box for their bits and bobs.
3 Naval force represented by rising male artist (6)
ARMADA – ADAM = male, RA = artist, rising = reversed, ARMADA.
4 Striking? Police officers are doing it regularly (9)
ARRESTING – Double definition.
5 Miss Pecksniff, for example, showing wariness about appeal (7)
CHARITY – CHARY = showing wariness, IT = appeal, insert IT into CHARY. Charity Pecksniff was one of two daughters in Martin Chuzzlewit (the other was Mercy).
6 Pure evil on the up! Not taken to court about it? (9)
UNSULLIED – evil = ILL; reversed (on the up) = LLI; insert into UNSUED = not taken to court.
7 Attend prison, leaving note for 1950s dropout (7)
BEATNIK – If you attend prison you would BE AT NICK, drop the note C.
13 Draw attention to rebuff outside bank (9)
SPOTLIGHT – SLIGHT = rebuff, insert POT = bank, as in pot of money at poker perhaps.
15 Outmanoeuvre Charlie, reluctant washer-up (9)
DISHCLOTH – DISH = outmanoeuvre, C for Charlie, LOTH = reluctant.
16 Carrier starts to ship goods, securing awfully bad deal (9)
SADDLEBAG – S and G being the ‘starts’ to ship, goods; insert (BAD DEAL)*.
18 Circles in which literary princess is offered culinary herb (7)
OREGANO – REGAN daughter of King Lear, goes inside O O being circles.
19 Result of the writer supporting public business enterprise (7)
OUTCOME – OUT = public, CO = business, ME = the writer.
21 High-ranking old Turk’s aim visiting parts of Fife (7)
EFFENDI – END = aim, goes into (FIFE)*.
22 Trying experience of boy turning up during exam (6)
ORDEAL – ORAL = exam, insert ED reversed, Ed being a boy’s name.

52 comments on “Times 27333 – another midweek middle of the road”

  1. LOI, ironically, was 1ac; ironical since it’s one of 3 Kipling poems that I know of, the others being ‘Gunga Din’ (“You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din”) and the inevitable ‘If’ (“If you can keep your head when everyone around you is losing theirs/ Then you probably don’t understand the situation”), but I just couldn’t recall it. ON EDIT: Good grief, how could I have forgotten ‘Take Up the White Man’s Burden’? Given the (to me) non-homophony of 9ac, it was lucky for me that I knew of the prison, which I associate with Dickens’s ‘Little Dorrit’. Dickens, like David Copperfield, had to go to work in a blacking factory once his father was imprisoned for debt, and he resented for the rest of his life that his parents were in favor of his continuing there, instead of going back to school, once Pa was released.

    Edited at 2019-04-24 06:12 am (UTC)

    1. With hindsight, Dickens’ parents could not possibly have been more short-sighted!
  2. 13:54 … I always felt confidence in the setter’s wordplay, which was just as well for things like TOPOLOGIST (no idea what it had to do with geometry) and CHARITY (Chuzzlewit is on my ‘ought to read but almost certainly won’t’ list).

    If some of Kipling’s words wouldn’t pass today’s PC muster, its good to be reminded that when living in India the people he upset were his fellow Brits, who were appalled by his mingling with the natives (very close mingling, often all night long) and horrified by the biting accounts he wrote of their dry-as-dust gymkhanas and white tie dinners and all-round emotional constipation. And he couldn’t half rock a ballad.

    Compliments to the setter. Thanks, Pip. COD to CHUBBY for the nice image

  3. 39 minutes with several unknowns along the way for which I had to rely on wordplay although UNSULLIED went in on the strength of ‘pure’ and a couple of checkers and I returned to worry about wordplay after completion. I knew the Kipling poem from the song THE ROAD TO MANDALAY as recorded by the Australian Peter Dawson.

    Edited at 2019-04-24 05:16 am (UTC)

  4. A puzzle to point out the gaps in my literary education, but I still managed 26 minutes, which is good, for me.

    FOI 1a MANDALAY, as at least I’ve heard of it, even though I’ve not read it. I get the impression I’ll enjoy Kipling when I get around to him.

    LOI 9a MARSHALSEA; I’ve just started with Dickens, but in this case Great Expectations was no help, as though it starts with a prison ship and passes through Newgate, MARSHALSEA is nowhere to be found. That one also took longer because I’ve not read Martin Chuzzlewit for 5d, either…

    The rest of it was a pretty steady top-to-bottom, with increasing amounts of biffing.

    I’d only just learned that “elbow” comes from “el(l)” (forearm) + “bow” (bend), sadly I’d forgotten that the ell got lengthened from a cubit to 45″ by the time it got to be a tailor’s measurement, so 23a took a while to see, too. Thank heavens for metric.

    Thanks to Pip and the setter.

    Edited at 2019-04-24 06:30 am (UTC)

    2. The BBC’s 2008 production of Little Dorrit introduced me and many others to the Marshalsea debtors’ prison. It’s still worth a viewing. Clair Foy as Amy Dorrit and a all-star British cast. Btw, I’m another who thought we are in the running for a King Lear week. Ann
      2. Thanks, Ann! About halfway through the Beeb’s Little Dorrit and enjoying it.
  5. LOI MARSHALSEA took a while to puzzle out. Had HIGHLIGHT for a while at 13d which delayed the entry of TOPOLOGIST otherwise fairly plain sailing.
  6. 35 mins with yoghurt, granola, etc.
    LOIs were Kiddywinks and Pellet once I dredged up the pirate and the measure.
    Nice to see the geometer who knows all the songs from Fiddler on the Roof.
    Thanks setter and Pip.
  7. The toggle and the prison were constructed from wordplay, but the rest of the puzzle was within my ken, so I made good progress with it. FOI was ARMADA, followed by MANDALAY. LOI was TOPOLOGIST, preceded by MARSHALSEA. 23:30. Thanks setter and Pip.
  8. I enjoyed this hint-of-TLS offering, finishing inside 16 minutes in the top right corner, an anticlockwise steady slove.
    ANGLOPHOBE I only parsed as it turned to green, thinking the girl was ANNE without an N, and wondering what GLOP and HOB had to do with limited views.
    I rather liked BE AT NICK and decided CHARITY Pecksniff sounded familiar.
    Do flyin’ fishes really play on the road to Mandalay?
  9. I seem to remember waxing lyrical about the flying fishes a couple of weeks ago. Synchronicity? Or are we being spied on? 24 minutes with LOI SHELVING. COD has to go to TOPOLOGIST with SCORNFUL deserving of a mention. Lord Derby named some BOOTLE streets after Oxbridge colleges, although I used to tell my brother-in-law that his old college Oriel was named after a street in Bootle. I think some BEATNIKs did work by day and drop out only by night. We can’t have the foul calumny inflicted regularly on Teds by setters visited on Beats too. I didn’t know Charity Pecksniff in this Martin Chuzzlewit benefit week, but the cryptic was so generous that I wrote her straight in without crossers. Enjoyable. Thank you Pip and setter.

    Edited at 2019-04-24 08:26 am (UTC)

  10. I don’t come here every day, though I enjoy it when I do, and I haven’t looked at this crossword. A question – I see the term “MER” from time to time. What does it mean? Keep up the good work!
        1. A pleasure. My twitchy MER today was at Outmanoeuvre=Dish, but it was only a twitch.
  11. No problems with this one.

    I associate “the nick” with the copshop rather than a prison, which is more likely “the clink”. A visit to Bankside, south of the Thames and west of London Bridge is well worthwhile. Some of the walls of Marshalsea have been preserved and the original clink prison museum is excellent

  12. I had to guess CHARITY, with everything else parsed more or less. My Dickens isn’t up to much and I had to dredge up MARSHALSEA from Patrick O’Brian. I once heard someone describe watching “Antiques Roadshow” as a guilty pleasure, but it does come in useful at times as I would otherwise have never known NETSUKE.

    I liked, and can identify with, the ‘reluctant washer-up’.

    A 24 minute solve after an alphabet trawl to get AXES at the end.

    Thank you to setter and blogger.

  14. This took me 32 mins, which seems to be rather slow by comparison with the regular commenters’ times posted here. I had no real problem with any of it. My Eng Lit knowledge foundered at Pecksniff first names, and again at Kipling poems that are not ‘If’. Luckily Regan was instantly recognisable, and Dickens’s debtors’ prison was familiar. Had I ever heard of EFFENDI? Once the wordplay constructed the solution it seemed vaguely as if I did know it. It was my LOI.
    I thought SCORNFUL was very well clued.
    Thanks for the blog, Pip.
  15. A good puzzle for beginners methink.

    My time was a zippy 22 minutes with waffles and honey.

    FOI 1dn MISCREANT
    LOI 24ac SCORNFUL
    COD 9ac MARSHALSEA
    WOD 14ac KIDDYWINKS

    horryd East Molesey

    1. Hmmmm, Anonymous… I am suspicious that you might be some interloper impersonating myrtilus and not horryd at all. Or you may be myrtilus masquerading as an anonymous horryd.
      1. 22 mins is too hot for me and I’m not allowed waffles. I think H is on his grand tour.
  16. Almost dished by Marshalsea but got there in the end – a lovely meta-crossword so to speak. No time but probably about half an hour. Your comment on Kipling appreciated Sotira. ‘Kim’ has the most wonderful experience of roadside India close up and with no stuffiness at all. But these days we’re so myopically superior about people who may have been in small part defined by what are now non-PC views. ‘Mandalay’ a delight.
  17. ….but of course it’s all down to budgetary constraints.

    Thanks to Pip for parsing SCORNFUL and ANGLOPHOBE. No other significant difficulties.

    FOI CHUBBY
    LOI TOPOLOGIST
    COD DISHCLOTH
    TIME 11:31

  18. Good to see REGAN in a pre-Sweeney incarnation. ANGLOPHOBE was LOI, and what do you call someone who hates all Brits? Too many amusing comments to mention, especially re TOPOLOGIST, but am spending today proving that a teacup has to be a doughnut rather than a saucer.

    About 25′, thanks Pip and setter.

  19. Some tricky vocabulary today but fairly nicely clued. I’d never come across NETSUKE or MARSHALSEA and was in two minds about MANDALAY but no real hold-ups. Shame about the definition by example in 27a.

    EFFENDI is a bit of a sore spot as it cost me the bronze at the championship a couple of years ago – having never heard of it, I tried EFFUNDI instead.

    7m 09s in all.

  20. Thank goodness – a bit more on the ball this morning for this very nice puzzle (TLS-ish as some have pointed out). No hold-ups except that I thought the Charlie in DISHCLOTH was a clot until that got sorted out. I was well on in years when I finally learned how to pronounce NETSUKE, not having had any reason to do so before. They fetch eye-popping auction prices from people who like that sort of thing. 12.26
  21. 10:58. I was fretting a bit that the prison might be spelled MARTIALSEA but needn’t have worried.

    I’m not overly familiar with that meaning of dish and the toggle was a new one on me (the only time I keep my bits and bobs in a pouch or box when I’m out and about is if I’m playing cricket).

  22. Back from my 65th birthday jaunt in RSA and Mozambique. Clearly my brain has been addled by the sun and wines. Lovely crossword to reintroduce me to the rigours of daily solving.
    Thanks all.
  23. A couple of these weren’t familiar to me – the prison, the Pecksniff family tree (the Pecksniffs in general, for that matter), that word for children – but the cluing plus a couple of crossers made it a fair and enjoyable test. I knew the Kipling poem anyway, but it was top of mind due to a recent Foreign Secretary horrifying the local HE by reciting bits in public while on a visit to Myanmar.
  24. 11:15. No problems today in spite of a few unknowns. Like Paul MANDALAY was fresh in my mind because of Boris Johnson’s gaffe.
    Lot of Chuzzlewit about at the moment.
  25. Nice and easy but no idea of time as I fell asleep. Prob too many biffs to comment on the cleverness of the clues, had to assume the first name of Miss Pecksniff. Not just Victorian GK here, we had UNSULLIED as well – right up to date, although I’ve still got an episode to catch up on yet.
  26. Reckoned that it must be either Pellet or Zealot (as zealots are “fired up”). Not knowing that an ell is 45 inches nor that pet=temper, I was stumped. Also, did not parse Scornful.
    Otherwise, good puzzle. The Butlins redcoats used to call us Kiddywinks way back when.
  27. Nothing to add except that I’ve always enjoyed Mr Kipling (especially with a nice cup of tea). He’s still very readable and mostly had attitudes in advance of his times – which makes the racist accusations somewhat ironic. (Mowgli must be the most famous Indian child in literature and film.) What’s more, his poems rhyme and scan which is always a plus for me. I’ve recently re-read the Barrack Room Ballads . Imo, the British Empire can’t have been all bad when it produced stuff like this. 23 minutes. Ann
  28. 25:57 nice puzzle, I seemed to have all the required vocab / GK. Finished off in the SW corner where pellet, spotlight and anglophobe took a while to reveal themselves.
    1. From Collins: ‘a celebrity or idol who attracts much publicity and a large following’.
      Which puzzle is that in?!

      Edited at 2019-04-24 06:10 pm (UTC)

  30. I also seem to have had the GK, except for wordplaying my way to NETSUKE and KIDDYWINKS. But got there with no great heartburn. Regards.
  31. Times 27,323 – just over a week ago. 7d Article is probing famous person’s affair (7)
    LIAISON – A IS [article | is] “probing” LION [famous person]

    Never in a million years would I get any correlation between lion and famous person.

    1. The OED says it comes from the practice of taking visitors to see the lions which used to be kept in the Tower of London, and its most recent reference is from Trollope in 1889, so I think one might conceivably call the term somewhat dated.
  32. Yes, I know what you’re thinking – 2h is a slug’s pace and wouldn’t get me even cleaning the Bletchley Park toilets, but I’m a bit new to this big 15×15 difficult format, and I am speeding up a little. Some tricksy parses like 24 and 25 meant a bit of biffing so thanks as usual to the bloggers here for exegesis. Also I had BELLOW for 23 which made everything difficult – BOW around ELL resulting in a word for temper, but it was not to be. DEED confused me I kept searching for a river called EED, then realising it was of course DEE. When a clue says A on B I think AB first not really BA, but I suppose both reasonable?

    Loved 26, made me smile. outmanoeuvred=dish a bit recherché, so that required a dictionary, as did the prison and the poem, apart from which (and ELL) no new words today for me, just twisty definitions. I’ve realised, for me, what makes some puzzles harder than others is when more than one word is used for the definition and on top of that when the definition is especially cryptic. I guess in those situations one relies more on the wordplay and the checkers. I remember a few times coming up with the correct solution from the wordplay without knowing the word; that’s cool, but rare.

    The whole NW corner wobbled like a vague gaseous phantom then suddenly sublimated into concrete form with LOI 1A.

    Thanks to bloggers, setters and those in between.

    3 month personal challenge: 5/7

    Edited at 2019-04-24 08:55 pm (UTC)

    1. Congrats on the PB, a sure sign of progress.

      As regards ON as a position indicator in a down clue A on B will always mean AB. In an across clue it will almost always mean BA.

      Multi-word definitions with a cryptic slant (e.g. “use shower” denoting, say, a water meter being a device that shows how much water has been used) are a bit of a trademark of the Times Crossword and one of the features that mark it out as the Daddy, as it were. With practice you’ll get used to spotting such misdirection straight away.

      1. Thanks ever so for the encouragement. I’ve just started Don Manley’s wonderful book Chambers Crossword Manual which is helping to solidify ideas too.
  33. Thanks setter and pip
    Don’t know why I didn’t find this as easy as some, taking a couple of 20 min sessions and a couple of shorter ones to get it out. Not helped at all by a number of incorrect initial entries in at 6d, 15d, 19d and 28a.
    Knew the MANDALAY poem which was an early get and TOPOLOGIST eventually dawned on me when I remembered by semi-major in a degree some 40 odd years ago. Didn’t know BOOTLE or CHARITY Pecksnif though.
    NOB was the first one in with the corrected DISHCLOTH and SHELVING the last couple in.

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