Times 27352 – a number and a number

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Time taken: 13:09.

The last two daily puzzled I blogged each had something I didn’t like about them, but the setter has come through today with a rather fun offering that I enjoyed immensely. It took me a little while to pore through some of the anagrams (one for a word that I often mis-spell), and I didn’t record the fastest time, but not too far out of my normal range.

The first definition is underlined – away we go…

Across
1 Possible mafioso’s crime — receiving lashes? (8)
SICILIAN – SIN(crime) contatining CILIA(a lash on a cell). Reference to the mafia family in Mario Puzo’s novel The Godfather
5 Small harbour without locks (6)
SHAVEN – S(small), HAVEN(harbour). I am not without locks at the moment, having grown a beard for a role. I am counting down the days until the ratty face plague can be removed.
9 The spirit of Trafalgar, Magna Carta (8)
ARMAGNAC – hidden inside tragalgAR MAGNA Carta
10 Nation grew, say, every second? (6)
RWANDA – Cute clue – the alternating letters in GREW, SAY are R, W, AND A
12 Possible range, to some degree (2,3,2,2,4)
AS FAR AS IT GOES – double definition
15 Double to host a US writer (5)
TWAIN – TWIN(double) containing A
16 Food in some countries the same, or different (9)
HORSEMEAT – anagram of THE,SAME,OR
17 Score also broadcast as mark made on pitch (6-3)
TWENTY-TWO – TWENTY(score), then sounds like TOO(also) – a mark on a rugby pitch
19 Asian’s heading to the Far East, heart of big country (5)
HAITI – the Asian is THAI, move the T to the end, then add the middle letter of bIg
20 Trousers with hole repaired, tailor initially wears the trousers! (5,3,5)
RULES THE ROOST – anagram of TROUSERS and HOLE, then the first letter in Tailor
22 Harpy’s head covered by artist with a plant (6)
DAHLIA –  first letter in Harpy surrounded by Salvador DALI, then A
23 Craft used near submarine (8)
UNDERSEA – anagram of USED,NEAR. Submarine is an adjective here
25 Motorway madness? See it to believe it? (6)
MIRAGE – M1(motorway) then RAGE(madness)
26 Footwear — a slipper? (3-5)
ICE-SKATE – double definition

Down
1 Off masking pretence with it, a hanger-on? (10)
STALACTITE – STALE(off) containing ACT(pretence), IT. A hanger-on of cave roofs
2 River where coat hauled up (3)
CAM – MAC(coat) reversed
3 Shackle on press (3-4)
LEG-IRON – LEG(on, in cricket), IRON(press)
4 Number Ten at sea, this proving disastrous (12)
ANAESTHETIST – anagram of TEN,AT,SEA,THIS
6 Residence fitted with old loo — why? (3,4)
HOW COME –  HOME(residence) containing O(old), WC(loo). This was my favorite clue of a good bunch
7 A disarmingly beautiful work of art? (5,2,4)
VENUS DE MILO – cryptic definition
8 Clean without water (4)
NEAT – double definition
11 As noise all around here, opt for a change in sound (12)
STEREOPHONIC – SONIC(as noise) containing an anagram of HERE,OPT
13 Recent parts more distant, one’s out of touch (4-7)
FLAT-EARTHER – LATE(recent) inside FARTHER(more distant). Out of touch? I live in a land packed with them!
14 Drinks guzzled by band, performance taking off (10)
STRIPTEASE – TEAS(drinks) inside STRIPE(band)
18 Significant relation (7)
TELLING – double definition
19 Control speed rounding bow of naval ship (7)
HARNESS – HARE(speed) containing the first letter(bow) of Naval, then SS(ship)
21 God’s first son on Jesus’ first morning? (4)
ADAM – the first morning of Jesus would be an AD(anno domini) AM
24 Music genre, origins in sunny Kingston apparently (3)
SKA – first letters of In Sunny Kingston

63 comments on “Times 27352 – a number and a number”

  1. Finished but used the check button a lot, as I biffed a few.

    Foi how come.
    Cod striptease.

    Thanks.

    Edited at 2019-05-16 04:57 am (UTC)

  2. Took a while to find my way in—starting with a bit of 24d SKA and petering out down there, then doing better once I’d been on the 9a ARMAGNAC—but once I was going, I ran through this one in 32 minutes, which is pretty quick for me.

    Nothing to raise an eyebrow, no unknowns, finishing with 14d STRIPTEASE. The band/stripe equivalence seems to be one of my blind spots! COD 10a RWANDA.

    Edited at 2019-05-16 05:23 am (UTC)

  3. 21:39 .. I found some of the wordplay here very challenging.

    It would have helped if, like flashman, HOW COME? had been my first in rather than one of my last, as this would have led me to RWANDA a whole lot sooner. As it was, I spent a long time trying to figure out why a house would need an old loo.

    I don’t quite get the AD AM thing, but it’s close enough.

    Thanks setter and hirsute blogger

  4. Biffed a bunch; too many, as one was 20ac, where for no reason I saw CALLS THE SHOTS, which of course didn’t help me solve a bunch of downs. 7d and 24d seem to have wandered in from QC land. I still don’t get 21d. A number of people seem to believe that Jesus was God’s son, but I’ve never heard that claim made for Adam, who was no one’s son. And Jesus’ second, third, … mornings up to the crucifixion would be ADAM. Like George, I liked 6d. George, 24d is Sunny Kingston Apparently. I don’t know where isk originated.
      1. Right, but wouldn’t that mean every morning of his life would be AD AM? At least to the same extent that his first morning would. So I don’t get the ‘first morning’ bit. (I also don’t get the ‘first son’ bit, either. All in all, I don’t get the clue.)
        1. Oh right, sorry I misread your comment. I think you just have to read ‘morning’ figuratively as the very beginning.
          Adam is god’s first son though, no? Theological questions are not my strong suit.
          1. Only to provide an example, and not to make any theological claim as such, this is the truncated genealogy of Jesus in Luke’s gospel (ch 3): He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli [….] the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.
            1. Presumably that elipsis stands for about 150 generations, all listed in the original text.

              Edited at 2019-05-16 09:15 am (UTC)

              1. 150 generations is a decent calculation, given that Adam took his first breath sometime on the afternoon of Friday 28th October 4004 BCE, though some of the early generations were quite a bit more extended than 25 years or so. Luke only gives 77 (he liked 7s) including God at one end and Jesus at the other, but tracing Jesus back to God via his “supposed” father Joseph seems a bit odd given the peripheral role Joseph played in Luke’s story of Jesus’ conception.
                I figured our readership might be a bit miffed if I used up all the space implied in the elipsis.
    2. “Son ” implies “came from “and AD without a number is the first year ” of our lord”. Don’t see a problem except in the surrounding concept!
  5. Nodding off when I got stuck about half-way through led to another abandonment overnight. On resumption this morning I took ages to get going again but all of a sudden things started to come together.

    1ac, 1dn and 4dn gave the most trouble. The breakthrough answer this morning was HORSEMEAT which suddenly came to mind as it had given me a problem in anagram form (more haste) only last Thursday.

    Edited at 2019-05-16 06:04 am (UTC)

  6. Of course, twenty two was twenty five when I was a boy, still sounds odd to me. Like others, not sure about ADAM, cryptically and factually. COD SICILIAN, which took a while. RWANDA nice clue, only half parsed.

    Twenty two minutes, really.

    Thanks gl and setter.

  7. Nice steady solve with several biffs which had to come here for, including HAITI and STALACTITE. Finished in the SE where ICE SKATE wouldn’t come for some reason. Once I’d worked out that 19d wasn’t a kind of boat after all, it all fell into place. Oh yes – Iona. Seems like the world and his wife decided to go there yesterday, I blame Brexit. Nice beaches, once you get away from the hordes. Think I’ll stick with my dolphins here on Mull.
  8. The Snitch rates this harder than yesterday’s but it took me half the time. I’m not quite sure why but I found today’s eminently biffable.

    There was somewhat of a musical theme to my mind – we had the STEREOPHONICs, 80s band MIRAGE (anyone remember them?) and my wife’s musical bete noire, SKA. I’m quite partial to a bit myself.

    Edited at 2019-05-16 07:06 am (UTC)

  9. 8.43, but if I had pored through wordplay for words I often misspell I wouldn’t have written STALAGTITE. Which is presumably a long-term resident in a German POW camp.
    1. A STALAGMITE is on the ground, like the STALAG POW camp. A STALACTITE hangs from the roof and has to hang on TITE.
      1. I knew the mite/tite thing but I have somehow managed to reach the age of 46 without realising that these words had a different letter in the middle.

        Edited at 2019-05-17 07:58 am (UTC)

  10. I tried SICILIAN HORSEMEAT once, when we lived just outside Catania. Bit too rich for my taste.
    I guess FLAT EARTHERs would also believe in chemtrails in your country, wouldn’t they George?
  11. 34 minutes. LOI TELLING. I didn’t think ADAM quite worked for two reasons. Adam isn’t usually described as God’s first son, being formed ‘of the dust of the ground’, whence we shall too soon return, and doesn’t AD require the number 1 in front of it? But I got it eventually. I didn’t parse HAITI, nor know of CILIA in SICILIAN. Once the STALACTITE grew long enough to hit me on the head, it was obvious though. STEREOPHONIC was also biffed from crossers. COD to FLAT-EARTHER. Those unintelligent aliens out there may also see us as just that. I didn’t quite get on with this one. I think I needed a belly laugh clue today. But thank you George and setter.

    Edited at 2019-05-16 08:35 am (UTC)

    1. I decided that all men and women are God’s sons and daughters, and gave the first morning bit a pass – sort of an A for effort.
  12. Ignoring my doubts, I had Anaesthetise where I should have had an Anaesthetist. Plus one typo – Sttreophonic.

    COD. SHAVEN – for its smooth surface. Geddit?

  13. See boltonw below. Adam was nobody’s son (prompting heavy theological discussion over whether he had a navel). And given the enormous weight placed in some circles on Jesus as the son of God, I think the idea of Adam as “God’s first son” would not sit well with said circles. So watch it. On edit: On the other hand, see Z above; I think I’ll shut up now.

    Edited at 2019-05-16 08:13 am (UTC)

  14. Top to bottom solve with a lot of biffing. Definition of STEREOPHONIC is a bit loose as Jerry has mentioned. I also don’t understand the ADAM clue. Quite liked STRIPTEASE.
  15. I initially thought this was tough, as nothing sprang out in the top left to give me a start, but once I did get going it pretty well whizzed in, taking a gnat’s crotchet over 15 minutes.
    But… I got grumpy over ANAESTHETISE (sic, sadly) because it is number only by association. If only I counted the letters properly.
    I imagine the implied slandering of SICILIANs and FLAT-EARTHERs might well be dangerous for our setter: stand by for a deluge of abuse (and possibly a sly stiletto) on fora less charitable than our own.
    George, like Kevin I appreciated your interpretation of the wordplay for 24d, and look forward to hearing some ISK music soon, hopefully in stereo.
    2. ‘If anything it’s the spherical-earthers who are the out-of-touch metropolitan liberal elite…’
    1. Indeed, but that didn’t last long. Once Adam and Eve got fruity they were begatting all over the place.
      As for Adam’s naval, I was taught that at the end of the clay baking process, God had to poke him somewhere to be sure he was done.
  17. Isn’t the definition “As noise all around” , with a changing here opt in “sonic” for sound?

    Thanks Blogger and Setter.

    1. I read it that way .. though it’s a poor definition of stereophonic, which only spreads sound sideways a bit
      1. That was how I read it too, although I didn’t really look for the anagrist and just biffed it with the checkers I had.
      2. That’s what stereo physically does to sound (spread it sideways a bit), however it appears to generare “surround” sound, or “as noise all around”?
  18. Generally smooth progress, pausing to make sure I understood how ADAM worked, which I didn’t, really, for reasons already discussed here. All in all, loose but not without charm, which is probably a more respectable compliment if used of a crossword than it would be of a person.
  19. FOI 3dn LEG IRON
    LOI 14dn STRIPTEASE
    COD 10ac RWANDA
    WOD 24dn SKA

    Not HORSEMEAT every week, surely!?

    Edited at 2019-05-16 10:02 am (UTC)

  20. Harder than yesterday’s, 32 minutes, pleasant puzzle but with some loose ideas, like the Adam God thing and the Stereophonic. Had 4d as ANAESTHESIST as spelt in France which left me with S** for the end of 17a, then saw there were three T’s in the anagrist. HAITI was clever.
  22. A lovely puzzle today, with some great imaginative clues and definitions – I particularly enjoyed ADAM, SICILIAN, UNDERSEA and FLAT-EARTHER. Not so sure about the clue for VENUS DE MILO, which is more of a weak joke than a cryptic definition.

    8m 54s but unfortunately I’m another who wrote ANAETHESTISE without thinking enough about it.

  24. Managed this one in 24:59, with ADAM more or less understood if not fully endorsed and RWANDA only partially parsed until I had another look at it after submitting. Clever! I assumed the definition for 11d was “As noise all around” but didn’t really analyse the clue, as I biffed it from definition and checkers, and moved on. HORSEMEAT took a while to digest, but I got there eventually. FOI, CAM, LOI NEAT. Nice puzzle. Thanks setter and George.
  25. I always have to remind self that a STALACTITE holds tight to the ceiling while the stalagmite pushes up with all its might from the floor. My son-in-law’s family were originally SICILIAN but I don’t think any of them were mafiosi – at least I hope not. Nice puzzle although my mind wandered a bit recalling the Flanders/Swann number – cognac ARMAGNAC burgundy and beaune, and an old book my father kept in the gents where the VENUS was captioned – see what happens if you keep biting your nails. 14.19
        1. I’ve never considered the two as linked John, but now you mention it, it’s a better mnemonic the other way round!
  26. 12:41. Only held up (for the last 3 minutes) by idiotically writing in SHAVED for 5A when I knew the answer was SHAVEN… Of course that left me puzzling over 8D for some time. Neat puzzle. COD to ANAESTHETIST for the topical surface.
  27. Yet another to be stumped by how ADAM worked and I also was unsure of whether the def. for 11d was at the beginning or end of the clue. Everything else went in without too many hold-ups and I finished in 36 minutes. The R, W AND A was an original variation on the alternate letters clue and I liked the ‘hanger-on’, my last in.

    Best for me was the ‘Asian’s heading to the Far East’ bit of wordplay which, as I’m sure was intended, had me travelling to the East Indies, not the West.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

  28. I found some nice clues, and didn’t have difficulty with Adam. We’ve seen the AD thing before (year of Jesus’s birth – ADO, etc), and while the morning bit seemed a bit loose it also seemed clear where the setter was going. As mentioned above, I decided that all mankind are God’s sons and daughters in some biblical passages (not to mention “Our father, who art in heaven…” ), so all the parts were there. More usefully to my knowledge, I looked it up, and Wiki says Mafia are specifically Sicilian. The other organised crime groups have different names.
  29. Greetings from sunny Kingston (Jamaica) where I am working.
    I am not doing the crosswords but am reading the blog. Back next werk.
  30. After a couple of easier puzzles this week, this was way too obscure for me.

    Wasn’t enjoying it and gave up. Look forward to tomorrow!

    1. I am in Kingston, Mandeville and Montego Bay leading the production of the National Spatial Plan.
  32. Pretty fast but not a PB. Spent far too long thinking that 17a’s broadcast was an anagrind of ‘score also’ and got nowhere with that, obvs.

    Plenty of material here for the archives, particularly broadcast=sounds like

    FOI AS FAR AS IT GOES
    LOI DAHLIA
    COD ANAESTHETIST (classic pun!)

    Three month challenge: 24/26.

    Thanks blogger and setter!

    WS

  34. 25:18. Another fun but not too difficult puzzle. My only hold up was uncertainty over whether it was Venus dE Milo or Venus dI Milo. My instinct was to go with the latter but it didn’t take too long to see that 16ac was an anagram whose anagrist did not feature an I. Glad the letter was checked. Same feeling as others over the looseness (theological and otherwise) of Adam but I could see what the clue was driving at. Luckily spotted that anaesthetise didn’t quite square with the Def number and revisited that one to change the last letter to a T.
  35. Only got to this late, and spent the last minute and a half alpha trawling STRIPTEASE.

    FOI SHAVEN
    LOI STRIPTEASE
    COD FLAT-EARTHER
    TIME 11:22

  36. Thank you. Yes I am enjoying the rum punches and my suit and tie are strangely suited to ska.
  37. Thanks setter and glheard
    A nice crossword that took a few sittings to get out in our sixth week of lockdown. Started off easily enough by writing in LEG IRON and ARMAGNAC immediately, but then it became a bit more challenging.
    RWANDA is a great clue and I think that I’ve seen it similarly clued before. This sense of TWENTY-TWO went straight by me, having no interest in rugger and thought that it must be somehow related to a cricket pitch – so basically just biffed.
    Finished with ANAESTHETIST (had to do a double take to get the T at the end), HORSEMEAT (with a bit of an ewwww – did see it on a menu in Paris once, but would sooner watch them race than eat them !) and STRIPTEASE (which also required an alphabet trawl) as the last few in.

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