Times 27373 – I fear the Geeks, even when they bring Gifs

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Kαλως ηρθατε from sunny Naxos, where me and the missus are having a well-deserved rest away from the stresses of Hong Kong, reminding ourselves in the land where democracy was hatched just how far the land we call home has to come.

This was a pleasant little number whose Quickie-esque credentials were challenged only by a tricky wordplay/definition combo at 13a. Having stumbled there (and not helping myself by failing to see 7d), I came home in a little over 20 minutes.

Having already put paid to four of the longest books on the ‘world’s longest book list’ (Dance to the Music of Time, Infinite Jest (minus the footnotes), Clarissa and War and Peace), I have decided to bite the bullet and tackle In Search of Lost Time on this trip. I have warmed up by jumping the gun and starting it a bit early, greatly enjoying the first volume (Swann’s Way – surprisingly laugh out loud funny in places) but finding the second volume (Swann in Love) rather too, well – you guessed it – long for my taste. Without further to-do…

ACROSS

1 Where you might find Emma, destined never to meet her beau? (2,3,5)
ON THE SHELF – an extended cryptic definition, requiring knowledge of the Austenian oeuvre

6 Protégé of Fenland warrior, no longer here (4)
WARD – [Here]WARD, the most famous (only famous?) Wake and one of the leaders of the resistance to those pesky Normans

10 One critical about Papa’s barber? (7)
SNIPPER – P in SNIPER

11 Here one may end with bitterness and cries of pain (7)
GALLOWS – GALL OWS; I think we are in semi-&lit country

12 Tight-lipped Home Counties arty type has no answer (9)
SECRETIVE – SE (home counties) CRE[a]TIVE

13 Recharge, repositioning bits in the brain (2,3)
UP TOP – if you muck about with (reposition) TOP UP, you get the answer, no gimme in itself

14 Hardline Tories Sun ignored in unimportant articles (5)
DRIES – [sun]DRIES; back when I was a lad, you had two parallel descriptors of the major parties, one formal, the other informal: Conservatives/Tories and Labour/Socialists. While Tories has gone from strength to strength, Socialists appears to be on the endangered list.

15 Troubled son used Soho lodging place (9)
DOSSHOUSE – anagram* of S USED SOHO

17 Jingoistic individual having stupid row with German (9)
WARMONGER – ROW GERMAN*; I think the setter can just about get away with this clue so long as s/he doesn’t mention the war.

20 Duck from the east about to snuff it (5)
EIDER – reversal of RE DIE

21 Called back, finding large lump (5)
GNARL – L in RANG

23 Heroin found on press in train once (4,5)
IRON HORSE – HORSE (slang word for heroin) after IRON

25 Sound of a sneeze heard? That’s in dispute (2,5)
AT ISSUE – ATISHOO!

26 Disastrous main event? (7)
TSUNAMI – cryptic definition

27 Bet knocked back? I’m sometimes fuming! (4)
ETNA – ANTE reversed

28 Aggressive Finn rudely snarling (10)
UNFRIENDLY – FINN RUDELY* (snarling is the envelope-pushing anagram indicator)

DOWN

1 Island supporting penniless old folk’s refuge (5)
OASIS – OA[p]S IS (abbreviation of island)

2 Birdwatcher throttling me, getting increasingly jumpy (9)
TWITCHIER – I in TWITCHER

3 Struck dumb, maybe, but showing no emotion (14)
EXPRESSIONLESS – extended cryptic definition verging on double-definition territory

4 Put under pressure, rushed to get ‘A’ for university (7)
HARRIED – HURRIED with A for [u]

5 Mermaid is so very merry! (7)
LEGLESS – extended cryptic definition verging on double-definition territory

7 A part of the body that’s stirring (5)
AFOOT – A FOOT; yes, that easy, but I was trying many weird things such a ‘alung’ and even ‘elbow’

8 Insult a nobleman on air and suddenly depart (9)
DISAPPEAR – sounds like DISS A PEER, which one might do if one met Jeffrey Archer

9 Second chamber full of titters? It’s a shambles (14)
SLAUGHTERHOUSE – S LAUGHTER HOUSE; a shambles is an unusual word for an abattoir

14 Denigrate DA wronged in mix-up (9)
DOWNGRADE – DA WRONGED*

16 A foreign worker sheltering communist on way north? That’s devious (9)
UNDERHAND – RED reversed in UN (French for one) HAND

18 Chap from Conakry sanguine answering guards (7)
GUINEAN – hidden in [san]GUINE AN[swering] is the capital of Guinea

19 List including duck and fowl (7)
ROOSTER – O in ROSTER

22 ET, an enthralling tale (5)
ALIEN – LIE in AN

24 Woman serving up unknown fruit (5)
EMILY – Y LIME reversed

59 comments on “Times 27373 – I fear the Geeks, even when they bring Gifs”

  1. I was helped with 1ac by last Sunday’s puzzle; an expression one could do without, no? I failed to parse WARMONGER simply because I took ‘German’ to be the GER part, and couldn’t make sense of WARMON. Biffed 18d, but spotted the hidden as I typed. I also biffed SECRETIVE, and wondered about the definition, as I didn’t know ‘creative’ as a noun. UP TOP my LOI, after finally getting AFOOT; I only figured out how it worked after submitting. U, you have a typo at 8d.
  3. Finished in about 75 mins, or 21 Verlaines!

    About half of that on dries, afoot, up top and LOI ward, which needed an alphabet trawl, and it was the only word anything like protege.

    Dnk slaughterhouse was shambles.
    Cod Afoot.

    The puzzle number is 27373, not 27273 as I couldn’t find the blog on google.

    Thanks.

  4. In a rush this morning. Off for a few days to Munich for the beer. So was glad this didn’t take too long. 17 minutes. SNIPPER reminds me of a very elderly lady who used to live next door. She was a Miss Snipper and her father had been a barber. Happy Families. “Miss Snipper the barber’s daughter”. (I learned later that he had been an immigrant from Lithuania in the late 1800s and had chosen the name himself to help him blend in – a bit like Ford Prefect in Hitchhiker.)
    1. Ah, the Frühlingsfest! I’m envious. I could just do with a Stein of the Maibock.
  5. One of my early ones in was ‘Titanic’ at 26a, which I was very confident about, even if the definition was a bit loose. The crossers disabused me, with EMILY, my next to last in, showing the way to (in a crossword sense) true enlightenment.

    Guilty, M’lud, for not having read ‘Emma’ but 1a wasn’t too difficult even so. SLAUGHTERHOUSE for ‘shambles’ was good.

    Home in 29 minutes.

    Thank you to setter and blogger (and good luck with “À La Recherche du…”. You’re a better man than I am.)

  6. A DNF, having solved everything briskly then coming to a thudding halt with 14a. I suppose I should have realised that DRIES must exist as the complement of ‘wets’, but I don’t recall ever hearing it. As it was, I spent 10 minutes gnawing away at the wrong end of the stick, looking for a synonym of ‘trifles’, before giving up.

    For all of us so used to reading ‘main’ as ‘sea’, the TSUNAMI clue isn’t cryptic at all, is it?

    Enjoy your hols, ulaca. A Greek island and Proust sounds just what the doctor ordered for, well, anything, really

    1. If one were to be picky, I suppose one could point out that the disasters caused by tsunamis are on land; they’re hardly noticeable on the main. If one were to be picky; I couldn’t possibly comment.
      1. With only the starting letter, I originally entered “typhoon”, which works just as well.
  7. No solving time to offer as I nodded off briefly, not because I was stuck just v tired. This was all pretty straightforward but I lost a little time trying to get past CLIPPER* at 10 which had been my first thought but was obviously wrong. EMILY and TSUNAMI held out against me for longest.

    On 14acI’d have thought the plural of ‘Dry’ in this sense was ‘Drys’ and that’s how I seem to remember seeing it in print when the term was being bandied about in a previous Conservative Party civil war featuring Drys vs Wets. Anyway, FWIW Collins has both but my preference is listed first.

    *A little annoying as my town has both a ‘Clippers’ and a ‘Snips’, and ‘Snips’ is the one I have been using for the past 20 years.

    Edited at 2019-06-10 05:28 am (UTC)

  8. .. who really should have been Madeleine, U, to match your holiday reading. Enjoy your holiday. 18 minutes with LOI GNARL. I didn’t know where CONAKRY was, although it sounded vaguely Irish, so I was desperate there for a hidden. I gave COD to DRIES. Are there any other sort nowadays? Thank you both.
  9. I’m on a roll with two under 10 minutes in the space of a week. Looking back this was definitely helped by there being no obscure answers today (though there was an obscurity to me in the clues in the shape of Conakry).

    LOI DRIES which I’d looked at several times with bemusement but when it was all I was left with the parsing came quite quickly. It was only afterwards that I realised I did know the definition, albeit it’s not a term I’ve heard used often.

  10. 123.36, with only DRIES, GUINEAN and UP TOP (!) resisting for any length of time.
    I didn’t know Conakry was the capital of Guinea and was looking for a hidden Irishman (any series of letters, really) in the debris. I subsequently had to look it up to find out which Guinea it was.
    On the Tory hardliners, I spent much time trying to work out what needed an S taking out. John Major had a different word for them beginning with B.
    I did wonder which of “aggressive” and “snarling” was the anagram indicator and which the definition. Probably Ulaca’s conjecture, I think.
    Don’t think I could stay awake through much of Proust, but I did read Emma for A level, wondering why us blokes should be forced to read something so obviously Mills and Booney. I have changed my opinion since.
  11. On paper on Glasgow train. Alphabet trawls for A_O_T and D_I_S finished off. Both WARD and GUINEAN increased my general knowledge of Hereward and Conakry. I also entered TITANIC briefly but it did not last long. Liked GALLOWS.

    Read Swann’s Way years ago, pages and pages of description and not enough action or conversation. No inclination yet to move onto book two….

    1. On train OUT of Glasgow (to Greenock), and exactly the same two alpha trawls adding around 5 minutes at the end !

      FOI ON THE SHELF
      LOI DRIES
      COD LEGLESS
      TIME 12:56

  12. I was straight off the blocks with ON THE SHELF, and kept on running until I dried up at 14a, which was my penultimate entry. GUINEAN was my LOI which took a moment or two to spot. I wasted time looking for a fruit at 24d. Vaguely remembered that The Shambles in York was originally not a street of shops and cafes. An enjoyable puzzle. 14:55. Thanks setter and U.
  13. 12:45. Held up for a couple of minutes at the end with DRIES.. trying to get DRIPS to somehow work before looking for something else. Pretty Mondayish, really.
  14. All straightforward. Glad I didn’t think of TITANIC when I just had the ‘T’ like bletchleyreject above.
  15. 20 mins to fail, chewing yoghurt, granola, etc.
    Didn’t think of Dries, so put Dribs.
    Lime is certainly not an unknown fruit served up in this household.
    Thanks setter and U.
  16. Like others, straight off with 1ac, agree with kevin that we can do without the expression (see 3d).

    Sat next to Jeffrey Archer at the theatre once……

    Spent a while trying to parse TSUNAMI with an anagram of main.

    Have studied EMMA – it was filmed (loosely) as ‘Clueless’, must be a clever clue in there somewhere.

    Knew that Shambles is an area of York and that it was the butchery quarter, which helped.

    10’14” thanks ulaca and setter.

  17. Easy today.
    My son is in marketing and talks about “creatives” all the time. Usually disparagingly.
    Ulaca, do stick with the Proust, it picks up nicely from the Guermantes Way on. If you do finish it you might like to try a little Gibbon? Decline & Fall has the same attribute of appearing endless, but having such wonderful writing that it doesn’t (much) matter..
  19. 9.07, or 2.7 verlaines. He’s not bad at these things, is he?
    I’m not sure if I’ve come across DRIES before, and it took a little bit of time at the end to make the connection with the more familiar ‘wets’.
    I agree that we can do without the expression at 1ac but then we largely do these days. It’s a very dated concept.

    Edited at 2019-06-10 08:08 am (UTC)

  20. 16’15. It’ll be a sad world in which phrases such as 1 ac. are disallowed. As various intimate the wets and dries are both as one recalls of Tory vintage. I like the jumpy (or bird-watching) comparative. Well, so far from the great classics I’m re-reading Simon Raven’s ‘Alms for Oblivion’ series which is delightful, unexpectedly telling, and surely a minor one.
  21. Why does 1ac upset our Jester so!? Note to setters, spinster or bachelor preferred.

    I am disparaged by Jerry’s boy. I was in advertising for many years and quite happy to be ‘a creative’ even Creative Director. We ‘creatives’ do tend to get up people’s noses.

    Time 24 mins.

    18dn GUINEANS was a write-in as I know the west coast of Africa pretty well.

    FOI 6ac WARD (Hereward local hero)

    LOI 14ac DRIES

    COD 11ac GALLOWS

    WOD (18dn) CONAKRY

    Do I hear the tinkling of bells?

    Edited at 2019-06-10 11:26 am (UTC)

  22. I think it works as follows: “Struck dumb, maybe” = an example of an expression. “But” = “less,” followed by definition.

    As for 26a, we’ve had two alternative sea disasters, beginning with T, mentioned here: doubtless there are more.

  23. Thought I was on for a record score here, but held up in the NE. Left high and DRY by WARD which I had to come here to parse, not remembering much about Hereward the Wake. TSUNAMI too non-cryptic to get.
  24. Hello again; this is becoming a habit. 49:15 on my clock but that includes time helping my wife to bring in the shopping. LOI was AFOOT having tried ABOUT without confidence.
    I have certainly heard of wets and dries in the Tory party, perhaps in the recent Thatcher documentaries as well as in newspapers. On the shelf reminded me of Frau -sehr gut.
    COD to AT ISSUE -childish fun I know. My dog’s got no nose …etc
    David
  25. Never heard of the DRIES either but I had a few dates with one of the Wets back in that era (much nicer). Jonny Lee Miller makes a surprisingly good Mr. Knightley in that adaptation. Like Z I had Emma for A level and yawned – then. Now I re-read it every so often. My long book list matches our blogger’s and the only one of them I regularly re-read is Dance. Haven’t dipped into Proust yet – I’m in the midst of the complete Maigret oeuvre which is a bit more digestible. 12.33
  26. 3m 52s, the first time I’ve ever gone sub-5 minutes, so a big day for me. Maybe I’ll buy a black & white cake to celebrate.

    WARD was entered with fingers crossed, as I wasn’t at all sure on HEREWARD, and EMILY would have gone in a few seconds quicker if my E in IRON HORSE hadn’t looked a bit too much like a C, but otherwise no real problems.

    Still not quick enough to beat Verlaine though!

    1. That’s a bit of a time! Now is an appropriate time to improve your avatar methink!
      1. Thanks! Not a fan of the avatar? A memory of my trip to Joshua Tree National Park some years ago.
    2. Cracking time! But for your first sub-5 to be sub-4 looks a bit too good. Did you use performance enhancing drugs?
          1. I got my sub-4m time today directly after coming back from a wine-tasting, so I recommend both wine and cookies, for a potential sub-3?
            1. I feel I could get away with cookies on the commute. I fear the wine may turn heads.
      2. I’d be very careful with taking drugs if I were you. You might inadvertently find yourself in the running for leadership of the Conservative Party.
  27. 10:58 with a few interruptions from a colleague, who began each conversation with “Sorry to interrupt you on your break, but…” Grrr! I was still amazed to find myself in only 50th position on the leaderboard though – it didn’t feel like a sub-5-minute puzzle to me. LOI was WARD, had to start trawling through the alphabet although it came to me when I got to M or thereabouts.
  28. Sprightly solve this morning made me feel pretty bright, though these things are put in context by Verlaine’s time, not to mention our blogger’s reading habits. Mostly pleased that I paused to find an alternative to the instinctive first reaction of ABOUT, as that would have been an annoying mistake. Pleasantly Monday-ish.
  29. 9:36 with about a minute of that on DRIES. WARD and AFOOT took a while as well.

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