Times 27439 – In the beginning was the word…..

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Time: About 30 minutes
Music: Bizet, Carmen Suites, Markevitch/Lamoureux

My time is uncertain because my solve was interrupted by a phone call from my niece.   As usually happens, when I returned to the puzzle, some of the clues I could make nothing of became immediately obvious.  I made pretty good progress until the end, when the unpromising crossers for 17 down proved rather daunting.    There are some good clues with a lot of original ideas, and I nearly made a blunder by biffing ‘Iris’.    Fortunately, when I was was working, I was worked on an MIS system called ISIS, so we naturally looked it up – it’s the Egyptian goddess of nature.

Overall, I don’t think this puzzle was terribly difficult, and if you happen to get the long anagrams quickly you might post a good time.  I was not so fortunate, and had to fill in a lot of the medium-length answers to get started.

Across
1 Copyist with pen slogs, working to produce holy books (8,7)
SYNOPTIC GOSPELS – Anagram of COPYIST + PEN SLOGS.
9 Administrative assistant with style causing harm for one sort of factory (5,4)
PAPER MILL – P.A + PERM + ILL, a mixed lot if there ever was one.
10 Fighting unit of soldiers retreating into cover? (5)
TROOP – T(OR backwards)OP.
11 Plan made by the French youngster, hours having been spent (6)
LAYOUT –  LA + YOUT[h].
12 She may provide a service, work on one’s back? (8)
MASSEUSE – MASS + [on]E + USE.   An half &lit:  ‘use’ for ‘work’ is a little inexact, but at least it’s not a cryptic definition as some might suppose.
13 Answers in short red book (6)
REACTS – RE[d] + ACTS.
15 One should know what’s in store — as usual first (8)
STOCKIST – STOCK + IST.  A bit ambiguous, since ‘what’s in store’ points to ‘stock’, although it is actually cryptically defined in ‘as usual’, e.g. a stock answer.
18 Spiced up with vitality, looking hot after gym? (8)
PEPPERED – PEP + P.E. + RED.
19 Gasp with a cold, having rolled over in sleep briefly (6)
CATNAP – PANT + A C, backwards.
21 School subject the girl coming in top loved (8)
RELISHED – R.E. + LI(SHE)D, our old friend Religious Education, rather than one of the three R’s as you might think at first.
23 Catholic in retreat — Paradise he denied, being fearful (6)
CRAVEN – R.C backwards + [he]AVEN.
26 Musical composition charming to listen to (5)
SUITE – Sounds like SWEET.
27 Maiden possibly meeting horrible thing during dark period (9)
OVERNIGHT – OVER + anagram of THING.
28 Reeling sensation heightened as LSD diffuses (15)
LIGHTHEADEDNESS – anagram of HEIGHTENED AS LSD.
Down
1 Provider, one out to be more flexible (7)
SUPPLER – SUPPL[i]ER
2 Piece of material that is smart, concealing the head (5)
NAPPY – [s]NAPPY.
3 Rake in hell, heartless type in a spin (9)
PIROUETTE – PI(ROUE)T + T[yp]E, a beautifully formed clue.  Many solvers will think ‘spin’ is an anagram indicator, rather than the literal.
4 India with little girl seen as a goddess (4)
ISIS – I + SIS.   If you biffed Iris, you forgot to check your answer against the cryptic – I can’t think of any girl’s name that matches RIS_.
5 Dashing youngsters, workers overcome by bitterness (8)
GALLANTS – GALL + ANTS.   I think ‘youngsters’ is a bit misleading for fellows in their 20s, although they’re much younger than most of us!
6 Clue-writers not getting English right? They may be “badgered” (5)
SETTS – SETT[er]S, my FOI.  Setts, of course, are badger dens.
7 Old Conservative involved in clean-up act demonstrates skill in speech (9)
ELOCUTION – O.C. inside ELUTION, an obvious biff once you have the crossers.
8 Wise fool that is not heartless (7)
SAPIENT – SAP + I.E. + N[o]T.
14 A sharp sound conveying power, completely shocking (9)
APPALLING – A P(P, ALL)ING.
16 Embarrassed smile when meeting native finally in African country (9)
CHAGRINED – CHA(GRIN + [nativ]E)D.   Embarrassed is often used to indicated ‘red’, and this one ends in -ed, so it is easy to get on the wrong track here.
17 Girl of five escaping from cover after papa appears (8)
PENELOPE – P + EN[v]ELOPE, where many solvers probably tried CO[v]ER first.
18 Part of article, note, that’s put up in The Sun? (7)
PARASOL – PARA + SOL.
20 Gods had to be captured by writers (7)
PENATES – PEN(ATE)S.   If you don’t know the Lares and the Penates, you might get stuck here.
22 During a day our lot toil for little reward (5)
SWEAT – S(WE)AT, i.e. Saturday.
24 Very fit, also absent-minded (5)
VAGUE – V + AGUE.
25 We had reported a garden intruder? (4)
WEED – Sounds like WE’D.

25 comments on “Times 27439 – In the beginning was the word…..”

  1. The last 3:14 were taken up with PIROUETTE, where it took me that long to think of ROUÉ. (I thought for a while that ‘rake in’ might be the def.) Biffed 1ac once I got GALLANTS and SETTS, and once I remembered SYNOPTIC. I didn’t get 7d, but looked it up just now: ELUTION is indeed the act of eluting, to ‘remove (an adsorbed substance) by washing with a solvent’, says ODE. Coming soon to a Mephisto near you.

    Edited at 2019-08-26 02:53 am (UTC)

  2. are the Biblical works of Matthew, Mark and Luke. My FOI from years of doing the British & Foreign Bible Society Crossword. So a good start.

    Time 23 minutes – so an easy Monday for me, however, I would not recommend this for the QC-ers as there are several Mephistophelian elements as Kevin points out.

    LOI 20dn PENATES a case in point!

    COD 9ac PAPER MILL

    WOD 2dn NAPPY which never caught on stateside. DIAPER I believe simply means a geometrically cut piece of cloth (1590) and a nappy is the diminutive use of napkin. Serviette is non-U!

    Please note my piece on the ‘Club Monthly Special’ in Sunday’s blog.

  3. I didn’t find this at all easy. NHO PENATES or SYNOPTIC, both appearing for the first time apparently. At 7dn, with only the checkers E?O?U in place, the answer that came to my mind for ‘skill in speech’ was ‘eloquence, and it was hard to get past that. It wouldn’t parse, but then neither would ELOCUTION once I’d thought of it as I have never heard of ELUTE/ELUTION which is also making its first appearance.

    Eventually I worked out all of the above for myself, but in the NW quarter I was stuck on the 2dn/13ac intersection and was only able to break the deadlock by using aids to fill in the gaps in R?A???. I can’t imagine that REACTS would be in my top 20 possible synonyms for ‘answers’ even if I knew for sure that ‘answers’ was the ‘definition. I had thought RE for ‘short red’ but I didn’t get anywhere with ‘book’ = A??? bearing in mind that I was missing the ‘T’ checker. If only I’d thought ‘Bible’! And with hindsight, given 1ac, perhaps I should have done.

    Edited at 2019-08-26 04:45 am (UTC)

  4. 15:04 … tastier than the average Monday, but then this is a bank holiday.

    A lot of nice things — VAGUE and STOCKIST and ‘la youth’ all stood out for me.

    Cheers, vinyl and the setter

  5. I started like Ben Stokes and finished like Ben Stokes – albeit with no Joel Wilson to give me a hand over the finishing line. Heartwarming to see SYNOPTIC GOSPELS appearing, with one of the ‘authors’ also ‘penning’ the Acts of the Apostles. 27 minutes, and still in shock…
  6. 18:43. Held up at the end by 2D and 1A, struggling to remember what those gospels were called. Resolved when I stopped trying to put a T (the head) inside 2D and found NAPPY. PENATES and ELUTION were new words for me. Lots of lovely clues – I liked PAPER MILL, LAYOUT, REACTS and CRAVEN, but COD to MASSEUSE. Thanks Vinyl and setter.
  7. 35 mins with yoghurt, granola, blueberries, etc.
    Mostly I liked: cover=tup, badgered, fit=ague and ‘not’ heartless.
    Or maybe cover was ‘top’. Doh!
    Bravo setter and Vinyl

    PS I know a girl called Rish, but figured the setter didn’t.

    Edited at 2019-08-26 07:40 am (UTC)

  8. Made heavy weather of this in just under 30 minutes, actually thinking it was not a hard as I was making it.
    I got the bottom half before much of the top, remembering my PENATES even without their usual Lares. I needed more than a few crossers before the GOSPEL light dawned (mild embarrassment here) and LOI (re)ACTS only occurred once had worked out there really was a word with ROUE in the middle.
    Thanks to Vinyl for clearing up MASSEUSE: I was one who stuck with it being “just a CD” as I couldn’t make work mean USE, or indeed “one’s back” into a helpful contribution.
  9. 14’40”, after being unable to play online, site down?

    SYNOPTIC GOSPELS FOI. PENELOPE LOI, heart having sunk seeing only vowels. Knew ISIS from Dylan, and then ancient Egypt, featured in a Tom Baker Doctor Who once I think.

    Dnk ELUTION, but knew ABLUTION so seemed OK.

    Thanks vinyl and setter.

  10. I’m. a bit late posting as we’re on holiday in Lancashire. I must have been drawn to the death throes of my team. Yep, the cricket victory yesterday was magnificent, making the M1/M6 traffic jams almost tolerable, but it’s nearly 67 years since I first saw Wanderers and I never thought it would end like this. To the puzzle. 32 minutes. It was benefit day for St Luke, armed only with proto-Mark, Q. and his memories, and also for a a chap with a divinity degree. But I didn’t know PENATES which needed all crossers. LOI and COD was PIROUETTE, seen then parsed. CHAGRINED does sound Franglais, Never heard of elution, but ablution made it a runner. None too Mondayish, or maybe I’m in shock. Thank you V and setter.
    1. Sincere condolences on the plight of your football club BW. Tragic.

      Best wishes.

  11. 26:52. I found this very hard, but like z8 I had a distinct feeling that I was making unnecessarily heavy weather of it. I went down every blind alley and grasped the wrong end of every available stick.
    Never having heard of the SYNOPTIC GOSPELS was probably a disadvantage: the anagram was obvious but I wasn’t able to construct it until late in the solve. ELUTION and PENATES also unknown.
  12. I’m in a minority here: I thought this was seriously difficult, and a right slog. 52 mins. Just couldn’t get into a groove, and it was pulling teeth all the way. There seemed to be a lot of tricky synonyms to find, which can be an attritional experience. Wonder when the snitch will be back? Thanks v.
  13. 21:13 a quickish solve for me. 1ac went straight in as soon as I saw gospels in the anagrist so that helped get me going. DNK elution or penates but I didn’t find them too difficult to work out. Pirouette and Penelope both had me foxed for a time but I eventually managed to crack the wp to get there in the end. A very enjoyable bank holiday puzzle.
  14. Sort of average, but a bit harder than a usual Monday. Like others, my LOI was PIROUETTE which just didn’t shout out from the available letters. MASSEUSE was just a biff Thanks for the explanation.
  15. Tough for me today, as I didn’t know of elution or the PENATES, but worked them out from wordplay. But I needed aids to find SYNOPTIC, though I had the GOSPELS part I couldn’t make anything out of the anagram fodder for the first word. So a DNF for me. Oops. Regards.
  16. As already observed, harder than usual for a Monday, but enjoyable. The Gospels took me back to ‘O’-level R.E., and it’s been a while since that happened.
  17. Got ’em all!… but I didn’t have a clue what was going on with “elution.”
  18. An entertaining puzzle mostly, but how on earth can “Answers” lead to REACTS? Jeffrey
    1. Let me be the first to answer / react:

      As mentioned in my comment above, I couldn’t think of it whilst solving but have to admit it’s fair enough.

  19. Another one who struggled through this. I got there in just under 30 mins but with one typo. Gallantd.

    COD : Layout.

  20. So was I the only one who had relieved for 21a? I was so confident of the parsing that I didn’t even bother to look at the definition! This of course made 22d impossible.
    A really enjoyable crossword and a step up from the usual Monday fare.
    Very sorry to hear about the Wanderers’ fate, BW. Fingers crossed for a last minute saviour.
  21. Bury and Bolton – it cannot be allowed to happen to two historic Lancashire teams – especially Bolton as a founder member of the League.
  22. Finished – but had to look up “Penates” and “Synoptic” to be sure I’d finished!
  23. Was away golfing over the Bank Holiday so wasn’t able to tackle this until this morning. Didn’t know ELUTION or PENATES. SYNOPTIC GOSPELS were lurking somewhere in the depths and eventually emerged after GOSPELS went in. I was slowed down by biffing EVOCATION for ELOCUTION and CHASTENED for CHAGRINED, but stuck with the wordplay until the parsing worked. 36:33. Thanks setter and Vinyl.

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