Times 27433 – Sting in the scale?

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A tricky fishlet, which required the solver to have some knowledge of the Cheshire/Lancashire boundary that was, or to rely on a lucky punt (or, indeed, to actually know the finned youngster), provides the only real test in this otherwise very Mondayesque puzzle, into which a leaky boatload of asylum-seekers from the Quickie have slipped in under cover of darkness. Well, I suppose the Celt may cause some people problems, and then there’s the Verdian operatic character and the dance that features eponymously in what I always felt to be an unbearably twee song. But surely the pastoral poem will pose no threat this time round, unless there a few residual ‘eulogues’ still milling around in the system.

I give my COD nod to 12 across, since it is such a fine word, by no means onomatopoeic but conjuring up nonetheless the sense of the thing it denotes by its sound and by its form. Just under 16 minutes for me.

ACROSS

1 Hole-dweller nipped by male ferret (6)
HOBBIT – HOB (male ferret) BIT (nipped)
4 Fork out immense amounts for explosive warheads (8)
PAYLOADS – PAY (fork out) LOADS (immense amounts); an admirable clue, since the weapons industry spares no effort in delivering solutions that will burn holes in the deepest pockets
10 Gear Oscar hired out to a court jester (9)
RIGOLETTO – RIG (gear) O (Oscar) LET TO (hired out to) for the chap in the opera whose main claim to fame is the aria La donna e mobile (‘My wife has her own car now’)
11 Head of Leeds University entertained by eccentric Scotsman (5)
CALUM – LU in CAM (an eccentric or cam is ‘a slider or roller attached to a rotating shaft to give a particular type of reciprocating motion to a part in contact with its profile’; tsk! as if we didn’t know that)
12 Very small amount of tin trapping biting insect (7)
SMIDGEN – MIDGE in SN (symbol for tin)
13 Go back in time ultimately with idea for poem (7)
ECLOGUE – GO reversed in [tim]E (time ultimately CLUE (idea)
14 Model banker at table’s description of what he does? (5)
IDEAL – this is not the chap who give himself enormous bonuses but the fellow who works say in a casino and deals cards
15 Strong dislike of retired minister visiting a Swiss town (8)
AVERSION – REV reversed in A SION (Swiss town)
18 Work in city randomly accepting notes to emend (4-4)
COPY-EDIT – OP (work) in anagram* (‘randomly’) of CITY in which a couple of musical notes, to wit, E and D, are placed
20 Young greyhound, perhaps — one kept by king and queen (5)
RACER -ACE in R (rex) and R (regina)
23 Provoke current lover (7)
INFLAME – IN FLAME
25 Greek character, very small, working outside (7)
OMICRON – MICRO in ON (working)
26 Developed form of life — the writer’s, in the past (5)
IMAGO – I’M AGO
27 Feature of marsh plant, one ruminants rejected by loch (9)
REEDINESS – reversal of I DEER followed by NESS
28 Gizmos DIYers principally obtain in Indiana port (8)
GADGETRY – initial letter of [D]iyers GET in GARY; a quick look online shows that there is some debate, nay, controversy, about whether or not Gary, IN, (which gave us Michael Jackson and his siblings) should be considered a port
29 Lazy time brought forward by new hospital doctor (6)
INTERN – INERT (lazy) with the T brought forward N

DOWN

1 Owned vessel crossing river for trial (8)
HARDSHIP – R in HAD SHIP
2 Live north of African state, missing a dance (7)
BEGUINE – BE on top of (north of) GUINE[a]
3 Sick friend keeping keys without authority(9)
ILLEGALLY – EG (more musical stuff) in ILL ALLY
5 Previously cited supervisors entering sadly on a diet (14)
AFOREMENTIONED – FOREMEN in ON A DIET*
6 Expression of amusement about leaders of creatures at watering-hole (5)
LOCAL – C[reatures] A[t] in LOL
7 Everybody, say, runs over, moving quickly (7)
ALLEGRO – ALL EG R O
8 Trafford town market finally stocking minute young fish (6)
SAMLET – M (minute) in SALE (town in Trafford, Greater Manchester) [marke]T
9 Normal old expedition attendant, one carrying the flag (8-6)
STANDARD-BEARER – STANDARD (normal) BEARER (old expedition attendant)
16 Welsh girl securing a way in for a native of Cagliari? (9)
SARDINIAN – A RD In in SIAN; cue one of the greatest players ever to play the beautiful game (an honorary Sardinian and arguably its most famous son)
17 Generous sum initially spent on young relative (8)
GRANDSON – GRAND (1,000 pounds, so generous sum) S[pent] ON
19 Not on, worker being so casual! (7)
OFFHAND – OFF (not on) HAND (worker)
21 Fellow soldiers outside get up for procession (7)
CORTEGE – GET reversed in CO (fellow) RE (Royal Engineers, soldiers)
22 Broadcasting a set of operas, including Idomeneo at first (6)
AIRING – I[domeneo] in A RING; a hybrid of Wagner and Mozart; I know who I would vote for
24 A fellow European’s place of residence (5)
ABODE – A BOD (fellow) E[uropean]

61 comments on “Times 27433 – Sting in the scale?”

  1. Mostly easy, but every day’s a school day. Not only did I learn that Rigoletto was a jester and hobbits live in holes (I’d thought they had little houses) but also that since forever I’ve been mixing up Gigi Riva and Gianni Rivera. I’d thought it was Rivera who had the Cagliari connection.
    Found more than a few answers were easier to fill in than to parse – grandson, local, inflame, gadgetry.
    1. In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort – J.R.R. Tolkien (1937)

      And so began the whole wretched saga…

  2. Well under 20′, but the fish did for me: NHO SAMLET, DNK Trafford or its towns, so gave up. If asked, I wouldn’t have been able to say that RIGOLETTO was a jester, but the wordplay worked and then I remembered.
  3. Pretty Mondayish, but bleary-eyed I threw in ‘abovementioned’.

    I also struggled for a while with RACER, looking for something meaning young or offspring. Why is “Young” in the clue at all?

      1. Me (a long time ago): Your dad keeps racing greyhounds, doesn’t he?

        My pal: Yeah, but they keep winning.

    2. Because only young ones race, maybe? Which is why there seem to be so many retired greyhounds about
    3. I have some friends who foster retired greyhounds and find new homes for them; typically the retirement age for a racer is around age 5, it’s a young dog’s game, apparently.
      1. I’ve adopted 3 greyhounds over the years. All arrived at age 3, retired for being not quick enough. Two had had about 45 starts, one only 25 but he had a few injuries along the way. That was poor old Paddy – he died a week ago, bone cancer in his legs, but he was 11 so he’d had a long and happy life. Now just Roxy left.
    4. Old greyhounds don’t die, they just lose their hare.

      Biffer’s lament sounds like a greyhound’s name?

  4. 29 minutes. Enjoyable fare with many answers going straight in and others coming easily to mind once I had a checker or two in place. My only unknown was SION as a Swiss town but the main definition left no room for doubt. ECLOGUE might have held me up if it hadn’t appeared so recently.

    Just realised another unknown was CALUM with only one L, but on looking it up on Wiki I found the vast majority of famous people who spell it that way are footballers and others associated with sport. I wonder if there’s a reason for that?

    Edited at 2019-08-19 05:45 am (UTC)

  5. Hmm, great minds, Z ..
    Very easy today, though I discover that all these years, I never new what a beguine was. Even though I remember being asked to begin one, by some crooner or other
  6. ..from a delightful holiday cruising on the Rhine, half a stone heavier. 27 minutes with LOI RACER, plumped for once I’d joined the CORTEGE. I did think of Sale and come up with the unknown SAMLET quickly, but for me Trafford is forever Lancashire and Sale Cheshire. Your knowledge of the boundary conditions is unfortunately the reality, U. Curses to the blasted Heath yet again. DNK of GARY, nor that RIGOLETTO was a jester, but this was the right sort of puzzle to return to. Thank you U and setter.
    1. I like the look of those cruises (though it’s possible I’ve just been brainwashed by watching too much ITV3).
      1. We’ve enjoyed both the Danube and the Rhine, Tim. Most guests are there for a mix of the culture, the food and the drink, so it is convivial. If you already know the places you’re visiting though, it’s not so good because all it can provide is an introduction.
    2. I recently returned from a Danube cruise which was very enjoyable. My home town of Warrington crossed the line from Lancashire to Cheshire, which I will never accept (do Cheshire have a cricket team?). It was Lord Maud what done it (possibly under instructions from Heath).
      Tougher than usual Monday, I thought, and I did resort to aids. The corner with Samlet and Eclogue (2 NHO’s) plus a random man’s name defeated me without aids.
      1. We did the Danube last year. Did you get east of Budapest? I’d forgotten the role of John Redcliffe Maud in the latter-day harrowing of the north, but I’m still going to blame the Grocer, one of the few prime ministers to be worse than Lord North.
        1. Hi BW. Yes – we started at the Black Sea and progressed through Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary up to Budapest. Those reaches of the river are remarkably undeveloped. Passed through the “Iron Gates” which are comparatively tame these days due to the dam. Also the “Tabula Traiana” marking where Emperor Trajan built a stone bridge over the Danube. Thinking of sailing Budapest to Vienna next year.
          1. We started and ended in Budapest, going west upstream through Esztergom, Bratislava, Durnstein, Melk, Linz with coach to Salzburg, then returning downstream via Vienna to Budapest. We could have done with more time in Vienna and Budapest, but it was a great holiday.
  7. 30 mins pre-brekker.
    DNK the Swiss town or Indiana port. Otherwise ok.
    LOI Samlet. Silly word.
    Thanks setter and U.
  8. 15.46, so yes, on the easy side but didn’t really feel like it and I was quite surprised I wasn’t in the twenties. I think that’s because the required GK took a while to kick in: Trafford/Sale, jester/Rigoletto, Cagliari/Sardinia, Indiana/Gary and the wee fish. The sort of connections where you bludgeon or stumble your way to the answer and only then make the link.
    But I had fun, and learned I’ve been spelling smidgeon wrong all my life.
    1. No you haven’t. ‘Smidgeon’ is in Collins and Chambers as an alternative, and Chambers even offers ‘smidgin’.
  9. 36 minutes and still with a swig of coffee left in the cup.

    Definitely a puzzle where my acquired crossword knowledge came in handy, not just for RIGOLETTO, ECLOGUE and IMAGO, say, but also in general terms, like knowing that there are about 600 words for immature fish (my Big List includes sild and parr among other tiddlers) so one should just trust the wordplay…

    A fairly straight top-to-bottom today; FOI 1d HARDSHIP LOI 29a INTERN. Thanks for the parsings, especially of 21d CORTEGE, where at least thinking of “corps” got me to the answer, even if it was the wrong word.

    Edited at 2019-08-19 08:26 am (UTC)

  10. There were a couple of tricky bits in a generally easy puzzle, but fortunately ECLOGUE had cropped up very recently and I knew SALE was over Manchester way, so the wordplay did the rest. I knew the opera, but not that RIGOLETTO was a jester, but it certainly wasn’t much of a leap of faith to come to that conclusion. Took me a while to see LOL for expression of amusement, so I had to wait for PAYLOADS to get that. I didn’t know that the BEGUINE was a dance but am very familiar with Cole Porter’s song. An enjoyable start to the week. 21:15. Thanks setter and U.
  11. Your reference, ulaca, to ‘la donna e mobile’ reminded me of ‘per ardua ad astra’ which translates as ‘I wish these Vauxhalls had power steering!’
    Never owned an Allegro but didn’t they come from the era when cars rusted as they came off the production line?
    From conversations i’ve had with owners, young greyhounds may race but old ones are couch potatoes.
    How many tads in a SMIDGEN? Or is it the other way round?
    1. Allegros allegedly also bent in the middle if you jacked them up to change a wheel, making it difficult to open the doors.
    2. The Allegro also came with a ‘square’ steering wheel. I’m not sure they were particularly prone to rust, but Vauxhalls and Hillmans were. Rumour has it this was because of frequent strikes and stoppages interrupting the production process so that vast backlogs of untreated chassis and body parts had to be stored outside open to the elements, and when work resumed they just sprayed paint over the rust that had started to form in the meantime.

      Edited at 2019-08-19 09:04 am (UTC)

  14. As said above, I learned today something new, as I do most days. I had thought SMIDGEON or maybe SMIDGIN were the options. Whizzed through this until a long head scratch at 28a, couldn’t get away from looking for a port (GDANSK in another language version maybe?) and DK Gary Indiana, so had to resort to a word trawl to get the final answer.
    Fortunately we’d had ECLOGUE somewhere recently otherwise that might have been a stumbling block.
    The rest was easy enough and fun.
  15. Straightforward and pleasant Monday puzzle, finishing with a brief delay to construct the previously unknown SAMLET.
  16. 35 minutes, but with interruption by post with package. First thought for 4ac was MEGATONS, but couldn’t see why ‘fork’. 16dn biffed, trusting there was some relevance of Sian to Sardinia (haven’t yet googled for that) – also other geography DNK at 15ac 28ac and 8dn, so guessed.
  17. I was motoring very nicely when on 33 mins I hit a speed bump up in the north-east. Then a bit of a car crash!
    I’d just stuck in 4ac PAYLOADS and 13ac ECLOGUE as recently noted. However at 11ac I had parked MALUD (MAD round LU) assuming it was the Scots for MI’LUD or summat similar.CAM deary me!
    So what were 6dn 8dn? A ‘DNF officer’ and I passed the breathalyser, OK, no gin in the marmalade.
    For some reason I have always thought CALUM was Paddy not Jock! 6dn I should have gotten but 8dn SAMLET – SALE is in Cheshire!! As noted by The Old Boltonian. Trafford ain’t. Please note Joe Bloggs and Irish setter!

    FOI 9dn STANDARD BEARER

    COD 10ac RIGOLETTO (Kevin – please do not dis yourself!)

    WOD 2dn BEGUINE which I knew but have never danced.

    I must crossword more carefully. Mood Meldrevian

    Edited at 2019-08-19 12:18 pm (UTC)

  18. If you put La donna e mobile into Google translate it comes up with “The woman is mobile” which is pretty close to her having a car.
    Use translate with caution!
    Andyf
  19. Predictions of hordes arriving from the QC may be overstated.
    I had a look at his over lunch and came here for enlightenment with just over half done.
    I knew Gary (but not Calum) and currently am having an eclogue a day so that was no problem.
    At 8d I correctly thought of SALE so I had Salmet, a form of salmon? And I began the BEGUINE but did not finish it; Ghana was my country of choice.
    So not easy for this QCer.
    David
  20. Steady solve, held up by a few unknowns. Especially RAB which I assumed must be some kind of ferret. My garden is swarming with hole-dwellers but have never seen any HOBBITS so far. SAMLET had to be confirmed. LOI GRANDSON where I thought the young relative was SON and was looking for the wrong literal.
  21. I live near a village called Llansamlet. “Llan” means “church”. Does anyone here know if there was a Welsh saint called Samlet? My LOI and I needed all the checkers. Lots of biffing in this puzzle and no real problem apart from that fish. 24 minutes. Ann
  22. Another Abovementioned – a Boveman sounds possible enough, doesn’t it? – but the real hangup was that Salmet made a lot more sense to me as a baby Salmon than Samlet. And, this is the second time in a month I’ve tried to use Eulogie where Eclogue is due. It didn’t parse well last time, either. I liked Local, partly for the misdirection to Laugh, and partly because, as Ulaca says of Smidgeon, it’s a nice word. I’m going there now.

  23. 14:30. Hob was new to me, as was SAMLET but I know my Greater Manchester Boroughs and what towns are where as I had a spell working with AGMA, the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities.

    The use of random musical notes / keys in two clues jarred a smidgen.

  24. ….are imaginary towns created by the 1976 Local Government Act, probably because there was no one settlement within their boundaries that was noticeably bigger than the others (eg Bolton, Rochdale). Both boroughs contain towns that were traditionally in Lancashire or Cheshire.

    This caused the Royal Mail a lot of head-scratching over postal addresses and postcodes, so Stretford is Manchester with a similar postcode, Sale is Cheshire with a Manchester postcode, and Altrincham is Cheshire with a Warrington postcode (Warrington having always been in Lancashire before this idiocy took hold !). So people think I live in Warrington (14 miles away) rather than Manchester (only 8 miles).

    It was lucky that I spent years of my working life in Sale, since SAMLET was a new one on me.

    I’d never thought of PAYLOADS in the given context, spotted “or = soldiers” and caused myself an unnecessary parsing problem, wondered if a marsh might be “reeky”, and was misled by my grandson spelling his name with a double L.

    And that’s quite enough bloody Tolkien for this year thank you !

    Hard work for a Monday.

    FOI RIGOLETTO
    LOI ABODE
    COD INTERN
    TIME 12:22

  25. All done and parsed in about 40 minutes. Some of those regular words are finally sinking in – when I saw eccentric, I immediately thought ‘cam’, and as aforementioned, eclogue seems to be appearing quite often. Am still not entirely sure what type of poem it is, though!

    On the subject of those boundary changes, I’m still aggrieved that all the nicest bits of Berkshire got given to Oxfordshire and we got Slough in return!

    FOI Rigoletto
    LOI Ideal – just the way the clues fell
    PDM / COD Payloads – it took a while but suddenly clicked, and a great (if dark) surface
    Earworm – La donna e mobile (obvs)

  26. Apparently there are 274 different terms for various juvenile stages of salmon. I only knew 273 of them, and have no knowledge at all of Trafford and its constituent towns. Nevertheless, I got SAMLET from the wordplay, finishing in 28 minutes.

    I was pleased to see the return of ECLOGUE, which turned up here not so long ago. I still have no idea what it means, but my life does not seem the poorer for it.

  27. Nearly an hour, but I am actually quite proud of myself for even having gotten* SAMLET right, not knowing the fish nor the town. But the -LET ending seemed likely, leaving only one vowel to pick, and SALE or SOLE were the only likely town names, with SOMLET being rather unlikely as the name of a fish.

    * if I were actually British and lived in the geography required here, this would have been much easier, but as you can see I am not.

  28. Same story: flew along but had to head scratch and guess SAMLET as LOI. I threw it in based on wordplay and checking letters. Not a familiar term, but with
    ?A?L?T and assuming I was inserting “M”, it seemed likely. Didn’t know the town in question, nor the young fish. Regards.
  29. 6:31. I didn’t get to this until quite late today, but when I did I whizzed through most of it with a combination of biffing and half-understood wordplay. I was slowed down a little bit by a few at the end, including GADGETRY and of course SAMLET.

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