Times 27,347: The (Good Kind Of) Agony In The Garden

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Well I thought this was a thoroughly marvellous puzzle, with virtually every clue having something something exceptional or interesting about it. The only clue I marginally didn’t care for, was 17ac, because I was worried that I might not have found the right synonym for “punch” in the first half, but even there the great surface made it all worthwhile. I guess the barely cryptic and cross-referential 27ac may irk some purists, but personally I loved it. I was tempted to give clue of the day to 6dn because a “triple homophone” feels like some kind of setting achievement, but 16dn edges it for me, with a brilliantly groanworthy misleading definition slotting perfectly into a superbly crafted surface. Chapeau, setter, chapeau!

12 entirely enjoyable minutes on the clock for me, and as I write the second midnight solver appears to have just staggered across the line in almost 40, so I have the feeling this might prove to be a tester. Let me know how you all enjoyed the experience…

ACROSS
1 Objective of criminal carrying weapon (8)
BALANCED – BAD [criminal] “carrying” LANCE [weapon]. That’s objective as an adjective, not a noun.

9 Opera, one performed without me love! (8)
IDOMENEO – I [one] + DONE [performed] “without” ME + O [love]

10 Letting go right before audience, person who flourishes (6)
WAIVER – homophone of WAVER [person who flourishes]. Thank goodness only one of these words fits, or else I’m sure I wouldn’t have known which to enter.

11 Sort of track something boring, if listened to (3-7)
ALL-WEATHER – homophone of AWL WHETHER [boring | if]

12 It may stand in the way, note (4)
STET – in ST [the way], TE [note]

13 He met Agnes sneakily in the garden (10)
GETHSEMANE – (HE MET AGNES*) [“sneakily”]. My, and I expect keriothe‘s, FOI.

16 Act to help penurious soldier, 20, to catch Irish girl (4, 3)
POOR LAW – P.O.W. [soldier, imprisoned (the answer to 20ac)] to “catch” ORLA [Irish girl]

17 Punch back of leg and hide (3,4)
BOX CALF – BOX [punch] + CALF [back of leg]

20 Given time, one’s inclined to accept one’s daughter (10)
IMPRISONED – I’M PRONE [one’s | inclined] to “accept” I’S [one] + D [daughter]

22 He passed on watch in return for old coin (4)
OBOL – OB. [he passed on] + reversed LO [watch]

23 Alias agent used in part of this country (4,6)
EAST ANGLIA – (ALIAS AGENT*) [“used”]

25 What the righteous have initially got going, gradually (6)
NOSING – the righteous have NO SIN, + G{ot}

26 Cold War leader’s fall within a month … (8)
ANDROPOV – DROP [fall] within A NOV [a | month]

27 … a lift to his opposite number? (8)
ELEVATOR – simply enough what Andropov’s opposite number during the Cold War, or any other American, might call a lift.

DOWN
2 After a hellish experience, refusing to drink old liqueur
AMARETTO – after A MARE [a | hellish experience], TT O [refusing to drink | old]

3 Daredevil coming up, briefly, to perform again (10)
ADVENTURER – ADVENT [coming] + reversed RERU{n} [to perform again]

4 Something to blow about, primate’s handling large fine (3,7)
COR ANGLAIS – C ORANG’S [about | primate’s] “handling” L A1 [large | fine]

5 These linguists are keen gardeners? (7)
DIGLOTS – if you DIG LOTS, you’re probably a keen gardener. Probably.

6 Came by bike? Or by boat? Or motorway, if picked up?
RODE – not sure if I’ve ever seen a triple homophone before! Of, in this case, ROWED [came by boat] and ROAD [motorway].

7 Girl is deaf, missing tips (6)
ANTHEA – {c}AN’T HEA{r}

8 The solver emphatically in good form? (8)
YOURSELF – if you are feeling YOURSELF, you are feeling in good form.

14 Potentially dangerous steps end with cowards running (5,5)
SWORD DANCE – (END + COWARDS*) [“running”]

15 Old bags one put in train, turning up somewhere in Pacific (10)
MICRONESIA – CRONES I [old bags | one] “put in” reversed AIM [train]. I’ve fallen into the Micronesia/Macronesia trap before now so had to parse this one very carefully, I can tell you!

16 Damage shower, adjusting cold tap: endless grief (5,3)
PRICE TAG – (C TAP GRIE{f}*) [“adjusting…”]. Damage shower as in, something that shows you “the damage”, as in to your wallet!

18 Give impression of being keen on probe (4,4)
LOOK INTO – if you LOOK like you’re INTO something, you’re giving the impression of being keen on it

19 Rarely seen clasps can bind? (7)
ENSLAVE – (SEEN*) [“rarely”] “clasps” LAV [can]

21 Latin local glad as opponent’s showing up (6)
POSADA – hidden reversed in {gl}AD AS OP{ponent}. This is a Spanish-speaking, not a Roman, inn.

24 Shots that some doctors give, bending over (4)
NIPS – some “doctors” provide SPIN, which you will need to reverse here.

57 comments on “Times 27,347: The (Good Kind Of) Agony In The Garden”

  2. And only 7 takers! ‘Nuff said!

    FOI 13ac GETHSEMANE but no clue on 5dn DIGLOTS!

    LOI quite a few!

    COD 17ac BOX CALF

    WOD 22ac OBOL par example see Chopping’s original ‘Goldfinger’ dust jacket.

    Royal WOD ARCHIE HARRISON! Had he been the progeny of Prince Andrew, would he have been ARCHIE ANDREWS!?

    DNFF

    Edited at 2019-05-10 03:56 am (UTC)

    1. Wasn’t Peter Brough Archie Andrews’ father? Perhaps not. Whatever, you couldn’t see his lips move on our wireless.
      1. Indeed, Archie’s dad was Peter Brough – both Max Bygraves and Anthony Hancock were his tutors once upon a time.
  3. 30:52 … and a definite phew! The hardest corner was undoubtedly all of them.

    Lengthy delays at the end for both OBOL and BOX CALF, where I took forever to come up with punch —> box (as in box someone’s ears, I guess).

    I’d almost forgotten Andropov, and for some reason he was pegged in my mind as a place-holder of a leader, but scanning his Wikipedia page now I see he deserves infamy, not least for his roles in both the Hungarian Uprising and Prague Spring. A thoroughly nasty piece of work.

    Great time, verlaine, and still on top at 6.30am, so it’s going to take some beating.

    Thanks, setter. I think.

  4. Thanks, verlaine. If you get this in 12m which is at least double (treble) your normal solving time, then that gives me some cold comfort.

    This was more of an exercise in mashing the dictionary and the check button (oh for a check button in the printed version!) than an adult thinking experience. For the first time in 22 crosswords I entered an answer, knowing it was correct, but couldn’t see the definition at all, namely 16d with the beautiful cryptic definition. This is a puzzle I enjoyed more in the denouement rather than the doing. Didn’t we have ELEVATOR yesterday or is it my imagination?

    Much for OneNote here, particularly OB, short for obituary I guess. That was COD for me as I read ‘old coin’ and immediately thought of OBOL then had to work out why (and couldn’t as I didn’t know OB). I think all the other clues had me sufficiently confused.

    Thanks to setter and verlaine.

    3 month challenge total: 20/22

    WS

  5. Not feeling quite so bad about my efforts on this one now, having just read that vinyl needed 2 hours to solve it. At 75 minutes I fully expected to be the slowest of the blogger/contributors (yet again!).

    Unknowns or forgottens were BOX CALF, OBOL, DIGLOTS and POSADA.

    I was going to report a problem with ‘rarely’ as the anagrind at 19dn, but ‘rare’ is in the Chambers list and I suppose if one takes that as a synonym for ‘unusual’ its validity is beyond doubt.

    Edited at 2019-05-10 05:36 am (UTC)

  6. 27:53. GETHSEMANE was indeed my first in. It didn’t have much company for the first 10 minutes or so.
    An absolutely superb puzzle, requiring lots of effort but full of eureka moments. Thanks very much setter and well done v – amazing time!
      1. That was me of course, on my peripatetic telephonic apparatus. I’d like to stress that nobody else but me is allowed to tease keriothe about Biblical obscurities.
        1. Restricting the scope of fields in which it is permissible to take the piss out of me seems a waste of opportunity. I know that my kids would resist such an egregious constraint on their natural freedoms.
  7. About an hour and a quarter including a pause for breakfast to give the brain a rest. Exceptionally difficult but well worth the effort with some fiendish but outstanding clues. Thank you setter very much and the mighty V for explaining 3d and 8d which I got, but couldn’t quite justify.
  8. Over the hour with still the unknown IDOMENEO missing. FOI was GETHSEMANE, which is a wonderful experience to visit even if the olive trees aren’t quite 2000 years old. This puzzle was too hard for me and I lost confidence, struggling even to parse ANTHEA for quite a while. Everything was known though, apart from the opera, POSADA, DIGLOTS, BOX CALF and OBOL, and last four were guessable. My COD goes to PRICE TAG, which was more at my level. Thank you for explaining a lot, V, and setter for the humiliation. Now for a day at Lord’s. Judging by the forecast, that could do with being ALL-WEATHER too.

    Edited at 2019-05-10 08:45 am (UTC)

  9. 57:21. Phew! I managed to get there eventually without aids, but was held up for ages in the top 3rd until I got COR ANGLAIS. WAIVER my LOI. I see I failed to parse ALL-WEATHER – thanks for explaining that, V. I loved the triple homophone, “given time” and “damage shower”. Thanks V and setter.
  10. Splendid puzzle. I was pleased that I solved it with the only aid being one visit to a thesaurus. Thank you Verlaine for explaining ADVENTURER. M y favourites were DIGLOTS (I don’t, never have) and ANTHEA.
  11. 32.43 was my given time. And COR is the word. Thank goodness for the anagrams or this would have been a sure DNF. Several left unparsed – ELEVATOR among them. I think I spent 5 minutes at the end on *O* CALF – “moo calf” perhaps? Knew POSADA because Jorge Posada was a long-time catcher for the Yankees and my husband used to call him Jorge B&B.
  12. Wow that was a beast! I got there with all understood, apart from needing to look up synonyms for punch, having been stuck for the best part of 10 minutes with my LOI, the never heard of, _O_ CALF. DIGLOTS made me laugh out loud, as did PRICE TAG and MICRONESIA. I’ve been to a pub called the Crown Posada, so that wasn’t such a surprise when I worked it out. POOR LAW was my FOI. After constructing the opera, I found I’d actually heard of it! Excellent puzzle. 46:34. Thanks setter and V.
  13. ANTHEA was the one I entered without parsing: never thought to include the apostrophe. Tuff stuff all through, no clue (except repeat from yesterday ELEVATOR) yielding without a struggle. Embarrassed not to see GETHSEMANE straight away, not that long after Easter.
    Does anyone here know of an ORLA (without resorting to Wiki)? She’s not even in my “some first names” section of Chambers. I had to take it on faith that she’s an entity.
    44.41, about double my Snitch. Not sure whether to cheer or just breathe a sigh of relief.
    1. The BBC have a correspondent named ORLA Guerin. She is Irish, and reports from war zones in the way that Kate Adie used to.
    3. To be really Irish, I expect it would be Orlaith or Orlagh or something, wouldn’t it?
  14. ….used to DIG LOTS.

    An excellent puzzle, and definitely Championship standard. I was lucky to know IDOMENEO and was at the opposite end to Bolton Wanderer’s experience.

    A couple parsed post-solve (IMPRISONED, YOURSELF), and thanks to Verlaine for ADVENTURER which I held back on for a while before biffing it.

    Did deaf ANTHEA miss any good tips for tonight’s ALL-WEATHER card at Wolverhampton ? I fancied Whatwouldyouknow in the 7.40, but it’s been scratched.

    FOI IDOMENEO
    LOI ADVENTURER
    COD ANTHEA
    TIME 21:57

  15. I didn’t time myself but this was a tough coffee-break puzzle for me. For all the world, it looked like a setter setting for setters, given the obliqueness of some of the definitions and constructions. Clever stuff, but one on the edge for everyday solvers methinks!
    1. As a representative of the class of everyday solvers, I felt completely out of my depth on this one, cheating like mad just to finish and failing to parse five thereafter.

      Kudos to all who finished under their own steam.

      1. Thank you for making me feel I might still have even one marble since I gave up and cheated after an hour. Greek failed to suggest to me that keen gardeners might adjctivally diglate
    2. An interesting point sir! I had intended to point out, but then forgot during the actual writing of the blog, that there’s a lot of stuff in here that a hardened solver might think pointed in one direction, but in fact turns out to be entirely misleading. “Old bags” springs to mind, as I for one am now inured to immediately trying to turn “bags” into a containment indicator.

      We wouldn’t want one of these every day, but I think they’re great as the occasional challenge for hard puzzle connoisseurs.

  16. One of those days when finishing in only double your usual solving time feels like a bit of an achievement, lots of long-drawn out penny drop moments but ultimately all there when you see it. Very much in the Friday idiom. The only thing I’d say bordered on unfairness was the obscure and previously unknown BOX CALF; I see I wasn’t the only one left wondering how to fill in _O_ (I realised that BOP CALF sounded even more unlikely, but until I submitted successfully, I wouldn’t have been surprised to find there was another, correct, alternative that simply hadn’t occurred to me).

    I was fortunate that everything else met my “general” knowledge test – the OBOL from early Greek lessons, the DIGLOTS by working backwards from polyglots, and POSADA from the Crown Posada, which is a beautifully maintained Victorian pub in Newcastle (and the place where I initially assumed the barman was from some far-flung part of Eastern Europe, until I realised the accent which my soft Southern ears found impenetrable was actually Geordie in its purest local form).

    1. Yes I remembered it too. Crikey. I have drunk there, but it was, um, about 42 years ago, when I lived in Whitley Bay.
  17. Glad to find others found this one tricky. After half an hour this morning, I had two answers. I decided that perhaps my brain wasn’t up to the challenge and quit, starting again at lunchtime. After an hour more I only had about a quarter of the grid filled in. I’ve certainly done far better on Mephistos in the past…

    DNK Idomeneo, the ALL-WEATHER track, the POOR LAW, BOX CALF, OBOL, DIGLOTS or POSADA, which didn’t help. Quite glad to have given up after my ninety minutes!

  18. I think I may have outdone Vinyl timewise, although I didn’t keep track; the standard half-hour on line, then over lunch, then over dinner. Gottenu. LOI BOX CALF, what I never heard of, but after playing with the alphabet I could think of nothing better. Much to my surprise, I managed to parse just about everything, aside from ADVENTURER and MICRONESIA (which was one of my first guesses, but which I refrained for the longest time to put in precisely because I couldn’t parse it). NHO DIGLOTS, but I knew ‘diglossia’, a phenomenon found in eg Arab countries or German-speaking Switzerland. CODs abounding.
  19. Wowsers. 29:19.

    I lost a bit of time at the end on POSADA thanks to my P in IMPRISONED looking like an R.

    Had never heard of the opera so had to piece that together carefully from wordplay and hope that the unlikely-looking result was a thing.

    I’m another who struggled to come up with the BOX part of 17 and assumed that a DIGLOT was a less gifted POLYGLOT.

    I couldn’t bring Andropov to mind and he only surfaced once I got to NOV in my run-though of months.

    Someone on here recently mentioned a very similar clue to the one for PRICE TAG so the COD gong for today has to go to ANTHEA.

    Thanks setter & V.

    1. I was the one who mentioned the similar ‘damage shower’ clue on here recently. Sorry if I spoiled that one for you! I was reminiscing about a clue that was a real lightbulb moment for me in terms of the mindset for solving cryptic crosswords.
  20. Great challenge. Did it in two sessions, so no time. Thanks, V and setter.
  21. About an hour and a half, with much resort to aids, as I had only 13ac and 23ac in the first half-hour.
    Never did parse 27ac, as was trying to make the soldier O.R. as usual, and had no idea of the girl – neither Bradford nor Chambers was of help.
  22. 18m 19s for me. PRICE TAG was also my COD, getting a little tick in the margin, and I agree there were a number of fine clues – that being said, I didn’t think much of 27a (as Verlaine guessed some of us might not) and ‘used’ is a bit of a weak anagrind in 23a. I didn’t understand YOURSELF and I’m still not sure I do.

    Plenty of hopeful answers where the vocab was unknown to me, including IDOMENEO, BOX CALF, OBOL, ANDROPOV, POSADA & my LOI AMARETTO (since I’m one of those “refusing to drink”).

  23. I had to go off and do other things, I was so slow on this one. I knew I was in trouble when I started contemplating Car Afghans for 4 down. Got there in the end except for a stupid slip with enclave for enslave. As Verlaine says, a great crossword. I feel well and truly sorted into the goat fold (assuming they’re the slow ones).
  24. Whew! Got there in the end. LOI and hardest was WAIVER which didn’t quite work for me. Otherwise a real test Not sure about the opera being suitable for a daily Xword, certainly a bit obscure for me, but there again I don’t know anything about opera, being a folkie. COD was ANDROPOV for me, esp as I forgot about the ‘opposite’ bit and was looking for an American.
  25. DNF, and proud thereof (I think). I had to cheat for Cor Anglais, and I had Top Calf – knowing top leather but not box leather. NHO Anthea, but I followed the cryptic, plus I couldn’t figure any way to make a more plausible Althea work. And I took a while thinking over Poor Law – I had thought that mostly the Poor Laws were detrimental to the poor, putting them at the mercy of a local parish whose frequent goal was to keep expenses down by keeping enrollment down. Melvin Bragg did an In Our Time on the Poor Laws recently, but since I fell asleep listening to it, I wasn’t completely sure of the details. Thanks to the setter for a true gem, and to Verlaine for the edifying blog
  26. Starting with the positives, 11a and 16d are great clues. . . Mr Grumpy
  27. The explanation for 18 down has been put in the across section (between 25 & 26)!
    1. Ah! I cut and paste from the “printout” and sometimes the clues do go all over the place. Thanks, will rectify at once!
  28. Yikes. That was extraordinary. Happy to finish at all after godknowshowlong, but with 2 errors: biffing POOR TAX, (oops, never heard of Orla, but should have seen the POW) and guessing the wrong one for the Pacific islands. Never saw the ‘crones’ in there so the interior apart from ‘aim’ for ‘train’ was a mystery to me. Quite a doozy of a puzzle, that clearly beat me. Somehow solved the rest of it, so I’m going to feel proud of myself anyway. Regards.
  29. Pleased to read the comments on the difficulty of this one. Didn’t come close to finishing after 2hours so gave up for the first time in ages.
  30. 1 hour 47, with one mistake, STET, never heard of. Pleased enough, given the comments from experienced solvers here.
  31. So I am the only one who thinks 8D is referring to the form YOUR GOOD SELF?
    1. Possibly? I just opened up my Collins app and it gives one of the definitions of “yourself” as “in good form”, so I still think it’s just a double definition to be honest.
  32. 39:34. A late, late solve but I seem to have been on the wavelength for this tricky offering and whilst I could sense that it had a bit of an edge, I didn’t really notice it being particularly difficult when solving. The box of box calf required an alphabet trawl but fortunately I did the trawl in alphabetical order so box wasn’t too far along. Knew the opera. Well heard of it at least. Missed the cross referential nature of 27ac entirely and just biffed elevator from ‘lift’. I mentioned a similar clue to 16dn on here quite recently so that one went straight in from damage shower. FOI Gethsemane. LOI adventurer. Lots of excellent stuff in between.
  33. Still 9 left after 90 mins. From the blog, NHO OBOL or DIGLOTS nor the opera. Oh well
  34. There was a lot I didn’t like about the clues in this crossword.
    17ac first part could be almost anything, not adequately indicated.
    19dn I had ENCLAVE from ENVE(lope) CLA(sps).
    16dn PRICE WAR could be cause of endless grief (ICE RAP is cold tap).
    2dn MARE is not “a hellish experience” just a female horse.
    10ac LEAVER lets go, each (EA) person (I or one) who flourishes (LIVER)

    from Jeepyjay

    1. Enough people seemed to have had a mare solving this puzzle, colloquially speaking.

      Edited at 2019-05-11 04:04 pm (UTC)

    2. Collins: a very unpleasant or frustrating experience
      ODO: A very unpleasant or frustrating experience
      Chambers: a calamitous experience
  35. Strewth. An hour and sixteen minutes, but failing on PRICE TAG, where I opted for “price war”.
  36. We feel compelled to add our thanks for this delightful offering, even though doing it 2 months after everyone else. Eventually got there in 78mins, which is more than double our usual time. 9a idomeneo went in on a wing and a prayer, but it parsed well enough to be despairingly entered. The alphabet trawl for 17a _o_ calf failed on the first letter run through , bop occurring but not box until the final moments of the second letter trial.
  37. Thanks setter and verlaine

    Would have to be one of the hardest puzzles that I’ve done this year so far – a combination of unusual words – GETSEMANE (yep, some of us live in partial biblical ignorance), BOX CALF, ANDROPOV (and in Russian political history), AMARETTO, DIGLOTS and POSADA – and very tricky parsing, although OBOL was the only one that was unparsed in coming here. Required a lot of referential aids and over 2 hours of solving across several days to get it sorted.
    Interestingly, I was aware of the IDOMENEO opera and it was the second or third in and had no issues with MICRONESIA not all that long after.
    Did enjoy working my way through many of the convoluted charades with COR ANGLAIS one of the favourites.
    Finished in the SW corner with POOR LAW (and the previously unknown Irish name), the very clever PRICE TAG and the tricky, but very funny DIGLOTS the last few in.

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