Times 27,383: No Horses Were Startled In The Making Of This Puzzle

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Is it Monday already? I jest, the days of the Friday puzzle usually being the toughest of the week are long behind us. This was a gentle crossword that will please those looking for good jumping-on points for graduating from the QC to the 15×15. My LOI, and COD, was 1dn; I thought this was nicely misleading, with the mention of Poles making me sure I was looking for NS inside something else, resulting in INSURERS or similar; well played, setter. Such familiar faces as NORMA and RHINO must become part of every hardened solver’s arsenal, and likewise many of the abbreviations herein will serve the would-be regular 15×15 solver well. And that, I think, is all I have to say. Have a good weekend everyone!

ACROSS
1 Unable to get on topic, men bail out (12)
INCOMPATIBLE – (TOPIC MEN BAIL*) [“out”]

9 Assemble before empty court (5)
ERECT – ERE C{our}T

10 Unaware, left island blocking patent (9)
OBLIVIOUS – L I “blocking” OBVIOUS

11 Antenna limits radio telephony along major roads (8)
ARTERIAL – AERIAL “limits” RT

12 Miss transporting large old bishop everywhere (6)
GLOBAL – GAL “transporting” L O B

13 Game frequently interrupts society dance (8)
SOFTBALL – OFT “interrupts” S BALL

15 Save visibly embarrassed Europeans getting married (6)
REDEEM – RED [visibly embarrassed] + E E [(two) Europeans] getting M

17 Teacher ignoring note put weight on (6)
STRESS – MISTRESS “ignoring” MI

18 Johnny-come-latelies stumped in high-class roles (8)
UPSTARTS – ST in U PARTS

20 Some hide mate married on the rebound (6)
DEWLAP – reversed PAL WED

21 One wearing medals running funny business (6-2)
GOINGS-ON – I “wearing” GONGS + ON [running]

24 Find the lady maybe, daughter hiding in trailer with haystack (4,5)
CARD TRICK – D hiding in CART with RICK

25 It may charge money (5)
RHINO – double def

26 Divert RAF importing what keeps firm afloat (6,6)
PROFIT MARGIN – (RAF IMPORTING*) [“divert…”]

DOWN
1 They cover Poles in charge of room facing north (7)
ICECAPS – I/C [in charge of] + reversed SPACE

2 Dearth of screws spoiled clothing unit (5,2,7)
CHEST OF DRAWERS – (DEARTH OF SCREWS*) [“spoiled”]

3 Drive second to right (5)
MOTOR – MO TO R

4 Sort of farmer employing cook for fetching (8)
ADORABLE – ARABLE [sort of farmer] “employing” DO [cook]

5 Capri for one is nearly all rented out (4)
ISLE – IS LE{t}

6 Maximum efforts make flat worst! (5,4)
LEVEL BEST – LEVEL [flat] + BEST [worst, as in beat; a notorious pair of words that can be synonyms OR antonyms]

7 Pelican alongside zebra? That’s cheating (6-8)
DOUBLE-CROSSING – two types of British road crossings

8 Shelter a poor area bringing in yen (6)
ASYLUM – A SLUM “bringing in” Y

14 Make mess of most of top pitch (9)
BESPATTER – BES{t} + PATTER

16 Small pot preserving queen’s tooth (8)
SPROCKET – S POCKET “preserving” R

17 Win over French nobleman in match (6)
SEDUCE – DUC in SEE

19 Setting time‘s free in most quarters (7)
SUNDOWN – UNDO [free] in S, W, N [(three of the four) quarters]

22 Finish off standard musical work (5)
NORMA – NORMA{l}. Bellini opera well known in both crossword and classical music circles.

23 Hum very loudly after returning home (4)
NIFF – FF after reversed IN

64 comments on “Times 27,383: No Horses Were Startled In The Making Of This Puzzle”

  1. I too considered SEDUCT but thpught better of it. I was trying to make SPREAD work at 17a for too long until (mi)STRESS popped up. Still took another minute or two trawling through what could follow BES. Now to try and finish Thursday’s – three left.
  2. Mainly not too difficult I thought. I could not improve on SEDUCE and I did think of “See You” in cards but still wondered whether it meant Match.
    In the end I got stuck on 14d and 17a. I invented Bombaster and Sirome to fill in the blanks.
    COD to GOINGS ON. David
  3. A quick solve but an embarrassingly long time, as I was interrupted and left the meter running. Ah well.

    Wishing everyone an enjoyable weekend.

  4. Got on the train this morning only to realise my phone had died, no battery. SO onto the unplugged version, aka dead tree variety, aka old skool paper one. No aids, just me, clues, grid and pencil. Got the top half almost complete with 7d FOI. Lots of other long ones like 2d, 1d helped the flow but the bottom half refused to yield easily, the main blockage being BESPLATTERED. I could parse the clue well enough to think that the def was make mess of, but pitch=patter totally elusive (one for the OneNote). In the back of my mind I was wondering if there was a register above falsetto that began with a B! Nothing BIFD at this stage, as slow parsing meant I’d registered everything.

    Commute over and lunch time arrived with charged phone so judicious aid-use broke the camel’s backs in various places getting me across the line with LOI, STRESS. Teacher=mistress obvious but not at the time and RHINO goes into the ‘Odd Meanings’ section of OneNote along with OUNCE and EXCUSE-ME.

    All this has given me an idea for my next 3 month challenge. I could try it unplugged for X minutes before giving up on the grey cells and falling back on aids, where X is like 30 or thereabouts. This would force various skills (it you can call them that) to improve. I get so much more enjoyment out of a puzzle when my brain has to do all the work, but it is a lot slower, so can be more frustrating especially when one hits a brick wall.

    Thanks to setter and blogger,

    My three month challenge now stands at 49/51.

    WS

  5. 22:33 a nice quick one to end the week. At 14dn it helped that I had seen patter for pitch or similar in a recent puzzle somewhere, as did having best already in mind from the level best clue. I didn’t even stop to wonder whether match could mean see at 17dn, as soon as I had the French nobleman, in it went. FOI the global gal, LOI the pooch from Fraggle Rock.
  6. I wasted good time comparing ISLE with ISLA (Isla de Capri), with the plausible LA being ALL rent (torn = remove the last letter to leave AL), then reversed “out”. I was feeling clever to see both, but was feeling less clever after I chose the less likely ISLA.

  7. Gave this a try following comments on the QC blog and was pleased to get down to my last two – yes, 17ac and 14d – fully parsed and without having to use any aids. At that point I had to admit defeat and used Crossword Solver. Both clues were perfectly reasonable and I should really have come back to them later in the day. I thought this was just the right level for those of us trying to move up a notch, so thank you setter. Invariant
  8. I too tried this after the ‘accessible’ comment from the QC site. I guess about 35% went in so easily and then I had to get more inventive when interpreting the clues. I had to resort to an aid to finally inch over the line tonight (17a STRESS and 14d BESPATTER), but it was a super learning opportunity. I only tackled this in fits and starts as I found opportunities to sit and think more deeply or didn’t have access to my usual diversion of the QC. This blog has helped me see the more sophisticated parsing – which, of course, becomes blindingly obvious eg 13 had to be softball, but getting SO + F + BALL still left me trying to fathom out T. Now of course it’s simple…

    The QC suggested yesterday’s (27385) is also accessible, so I’ll have a stab at that over the next few days…

  9. Thanks setter and verlaine
    Although ending up in the SW corner, my experience seems to be different from most here. BESPATTER and STRESS were both mid-solve answers and ICECAPS was one of the first few in. SEDUCE was another early-ish entry, although the SEE part went with a big ? until seeing the explanation above.
    Finished with SPROCKET and CARD TRICK (after remembering ‘find the lady’ was another name for the three-card-trick con).

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