Times 27471 – Thick as a parrot.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A jolly puzzle of moderate difficulty, a little risqué at times, good for biffing and with a few clues a bit more tricky to explain. Some nice smooth surfaces, notably 17a, 20a, 28a. FOI was 1a and LOI was 21d. Around 19 or 20 minutes for me then a minute to parse 13a.
If it’s not out of order to comment; I wouldn’t be surprised to hear someone use the word at 11d in reference to the current PM, the Benn Act and a certain date, any time soon. Stormy weather ahead!

Across
1 Leader of Conservatives blocking change leads to dispute (11)
ALTERCATION – C inserted into ALTERATION = change.
7 Cricket side jeer, opening pair having been dismissed (3)
OFF – SCOFF loses its opening 2 letters. OFF as opposed to ON.
9 Point about much reduced page is so long (6-3)
TOODLE-PIP – TIP (point) goes around OODLE (oodles, much, reduced), and P for page.
10 Affluent heiresses, in reduced circumstances, becoming possessive (5)
THEIR – Hidden in AFFLUEN(T HEIR)ESSES.
11 Scoundrel climbed for wild plant (3,4)
DOG ROSE – DOG = cur, scoundrel, ROSE = climbed.
12 Ready to change a long time ago (4,3)
YEAR DOT – (READY TO)*. A phrase which seems to have originated in the late 19th century.
13 Cats with second cast for addicts (5)
USERS – Took a mo to see how this works. MOUSERS are cats and lose their MO = second. Nice work.
15 Get garage rebuilt for a sum (9)
AGGREGATE – (GET GARAGE)*.
17 Rent boy hanging around church with speed (9)
LACERATED – LAD (boy) has CE (church) and RATE (speed) inside.
19 Heads for starters (5)
PATES – Double definition, I assume the setter is meaning paté could be served as an entrée or starter,
20 Bums are on view from behind in eg cossies (7)
TOERAGS – A saucy surface, where we find ARE is ‘on view’ reversed inside TOGS = cossies,
22 Describe former flat (7)
EXPLAIN – EX = former, FLAT = plain as in salt flat.
24 Without outside assistance, Head Office going to be engaged (2,3)
IN USE – IN HOUSE (without outside assistance) loses its HO (head office).
25 Quietly living in Cleveland, perhaps (9)
PRESIDENT – P (quietly) RESIDENT (living in). The only US President so far to serve two non-consecutive terms.
27 One in Sweden’s ready for a drink (3)
KIR – KR = kronor, Sweden’s currency, insert I (one). Apéritif drink of dry white wine with added cassis or similar flavouring such as violette, peach, raspberry.
28 One may have a nap on the flight (5,6)
STAIR CARPET – cryptic definition.
Down
1 A small flat is fitting (3)
APT – abbreviation of APARTMENT.
2 G-string aria for one with a lisp (5)
THONG – Thing a thong of thickspence, for example. Not the air on a G-string. I have a feeling there’s a subtle difference between a thong and a G-string, but I don’t want to be seen as an expert in these matters.
3 Deodorants applied during bowls (4-3)
ROLL-ONS – Is this simply ROLLS = bowls, with ON = applied, inserted? Where ON means applied as in a sticker was on my windscreen. Seems a bit weak to me.
4 A little application and skill used to make dessert (5,4)
APPLE TART -An APPLET is a little APP, and ART = skill.
5 Intimate spotted taking a pee (5)
IMPLY –  take a P from PIMPLY.
6 Maybe almond covering for fruitcake (7)
NUTCASE – almond NUT, covvering = CASE.
7 Extra doctor back is what attracts interest (9)
OVERDRAFT – OVER = extra, DR = doctor, AFT = back.
8 I foster spring breaks without golf (5,6)
FIRST PERSON – (FOSTER SPRIN )*, spring without G in the anagrist.
11 Simultaneously accepting opposing beliefs, possibly both unliked (11)
DOUBLETHINK – (BOTH UNLINKED)*. First used by Orwell in his book 1984.
14 Former auditor spoken of in the Treasury (9)
EXCHEQUER – sounds like EX (former) CHECKER (auditor).
16 Who’s greeted a gismo’s introduction with excitement? (9)
GADGETEER – (GREETED A G)*. Not an everyday word, but it exists.
18 American in residence supplying drilling tools (7)
REAMERS – RES short for residence has AMER(ican) inserted.
19 27 served up in pop is something spicy (7)
PAPRIKA – PAPA = pop has KIR reversed inserted.
21 Arabic work (not old) written up above (5)
SUPRA – AR = Arabic, OPUS = work, drop the old = PUS, reverse (written up) = SUP RA. Latin for ‘above’ used in referring to a previous bit in a text, e.g. as ‘vide supra’.
23 One’s heard a sheep consumed (3,2)
ATE UP – sounds like A TUP, a male sheep.
26 Little spirit shown by football club’s front three (3)
TOT – First three letters of TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR? What next? ARS? ACC(rington Stanley)? Ninety or so football clubs for setters to pick. Is your MOTHERWELL?

​

45 comments on “Times 27471 – Thick as a parrot.”

  1. 33 minutes delayed by reading the first word at 20ac as ‘b u r n s’ thinking surely The Times wouldn’t have ‘bums’ in a clue. How wrong I was! Isn’t it about time they changed their font to avoid this problem?

    Also all these flights of stairs are getting a bit much at the moment.

    Edited at 2019-10-02 05:26 am (UTC)

    1. I was so sure it was “burns,” and I’ve never seen the word TOERAGS before, so I couldn’t finish unaided, which was frustrating!
      Yeah, the Times should change the font. How about one of the many variants of… Times, eh?
  2. “Little spirit shown by football club” would well describe Tottenham of late, and served to remind me of their 7-2 thrashing by Bayern Munich last night (as if I could forget). I admire Pip’s restraint in not making reference to this.

    I solved most of this pretty quickly then got held up at the end by TOERAGS and REAMERS. I wasn’t confident with the latter but had a vague feeling that I’d heard of such tools. Often such vague feelings are imagined so I was pleased for that not to be the case in this instance.

  3. Odd experience today, having raced through all but two in about fifteen minutes. Another fifteen staring at 20a and 18d had me throwing in the towel. I was halfway there on both a couple of times, but couldn’t see either definition or “Amer” for American or “togs” for “e.g. cossies”. Baffling performance!
    1. Same here, Matt. Thought I was on a PB until I hit toerags, reamers and lacerated.
  4. I felt I was a bit slow on this, held up by TOT (how many possibilities for unknown English football teams?), REAMERS (with the unfamiliar shortened forms, and considering ROUTERS for quite a while) and STAIR CARPET, which was an unfamiliar phrase.

    I didn’t fully parse IN USE and SUPRA, so thanks, Pip, for the explanations.

  5. Identical experience to gothick_matt. All done bar two in about 14 mins. Toerags and Reamers refused to tumble.

    COD: STAIR CARPET.

  6. Thanks to everyone who’s chipped in to make me feel a bit less alone in my shipwreck!
  7. … an everyday story of investment banking folk. 28 minutes, with very similar experience to Matt and Aston Villa. I think I knew REAMERS and eventually had the courage to enter it . Then finally the penny dropped with TOERAGS. COD to STAIR CARPET and THONG jointly. Playing four up front, my team run away..Thank you Pip and setter.
  8. 15 mins to leave three to do. Toerags leading to Reamers and Supra took another 10.
    Realisation that the hold-up was due to misreading Burns and to Amer in Res was a tad disappointing.
    Strangely, as I am not Amer, mostly I liked: President and Apple Tart
    Thanks setter and Pip

    Edited at 2019-10-02 07:42 am (UTC)

  9. Easy one this. Don’t like 26D, “football club’s front three” far too broad. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anybody actually say TOODLE PIP. Liked 16D
  10. Same as Matt. I even wrote in REAMER and rubbed it out. Annoyed at myself for not getting TOERAGS.
  11. Easy, bar one or two .. toerags last in. Not sure I have ever seen one, in the literal sense.
    Also held up by the very annoying bums/burns problem. In the old days you could alter the clue font to one of your choice but now they are .pdfs there is not much to be done.
    11dn a clever clue, I thought.
  12. Most went in without too much trouble, then I became stuck in the SW corner. I suppose we’ve had AMER for ‘American’ before, but it didn’t ring a bell and I took a while to spot the now very obvious anagram for 11d. Finished in 32 minutes.

    I parsed GADGETEER as an &lit, or close to it. Anyway, I both like the word and can identify with it. Favourite was TOE RAGS. Good (or not so good) old DI Burnside instantly came to mind.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

  13. Multiple allusions to the potential disaster at the end of the month: TOERAGS, ALTERCATION, DOUBLETHINK as noted in blog, EXCHEQUER, NUTCASE, OVERDRAFT and YEAR DOT (could we start again please?), plus French and Hungarian food and drink.

    16′ 34”, TOERAGS LOI like others.

    I have definitely used TOODLE-PIP.

    I wondered if a roll-on was a shot in bowls? (On edit, no, but roll-up is a term).

    Thanks pip and setter.

    Edited at 2019-10-02 09:27 am (UTC)

  14. I was about half way to a clean sweep in 2 minutes when the phone rang … an important call that I participated in through gritted teeth. Turns out my irritation was quite unjustified as I couldn’t actually finish the puzzle! I got frustratingly stuck on the little huddle of semi-obscurities and non-standard abbreviations in the SW. Didn’t know REAMERS or SUPRA, and would never equate bum with toerag. I’d probably have got there if I’d persisted but the moment was gone.

    Some nice easy clues elsewhere, and I love the word GADGETEER. An odd mix of a puzzle.

    I’m sure Z8 would normally be thrilled to see a Tottenham reference in a puzzle. But I glanced at the BBC sport page before coming here and saw a headline reading “Embarrassing, abject, pitiful” which is apparently about his beloved Spurs. Ouch.

  15. If memory serves gadgeteer was the word that had to be clued in an Azed competition many moons ago..

    Midas

  16. Spurs walloped and then the subject of a dodgy Times clue that nobody likes.
    29 mins – most of that on toerags and reamers. My issue with the toerags clue is that cossies are swimming costumes, and togs are clothes. A cossie is meant to get wet while you’re wearing it; togs are not. You get out of your cossie and put your togs on (or vice versa). They are not the same thing.
    Thanks pip.
    1. I beg to differ, for me as a child and after, putting on my swimming togs or my swimming cossie would be the same thing.
  18. Like others I was flying until I hit the SW corner, where I was confused by AR for Arabic and AMER for American. I was a bit unsure about REAMERS as drilling tools as they are actually used to smooth or enlarge holes already drilled, but I suppose they just about fit the description. I suspected that there might be a reversed ARE in 20a and then pondered what cossies could be T__S, to come up with my LOI, TOERAGS. Another MER at TOT here. ALTERCATION was my FOI. Nice puzzle. 25:11. Thanks setter and Pip.
  19. 20 min. but failed on toerags – annoying since as a translator of Tagore have been accused (by my son) of addling him. Threw in Thebans as unlikely slang for something or other.
  20. ….but TOTtenham appear not to have fielded a credible back five last night. My candidate for the poorest clue of the year so far, followed closely by the pathetic “homophone” at 23D. I wasn’t keen on the Grauniadesque offering at 19D either.

    All of which is rather a pity, as there were some good clues to be enjoyed elsewhere in the puzzle.

    I was another to be held up in the SW quadrant, not helped by biffing “doublespeak” (you should always DOUBLETHINK before you doublespeak of course). My LOI added around 2 minutes to my time due to alpha-trawling. I’d already wasted time on it earlier trying to find a reverse hidden !

    FOI ALTERCATION
    LOI TOERAGS
    COD STAIR CARPET
    TIME 13:10

  21. Another one here who hit the brakes in the SW corner. I confuse TOERAGS and do-rags and neither of them come to mind readily. There seemed to be a lot of deducting of one or two letters in this one – not complaining, just noticing. 16.24
  22. To expand on Midas above, in Azed 1641, November 2003, this was the clue-word. A.J. Wardrop got a VHC for ‘Who’s greeted a bit of gismology excitedly?’, which is very similar to 16dn. It looks like the original with a bit of sensible editing for Times solvers. Is this a) an indication of who the setter is, b) pure chance or c) a spot of plagiarism?

    Edited at 2019-10-02 11:07 am (UTC)

  23. I blitzed through most of this in about 15 minutes (bearing in mind that my definition of blitzing is slower than most of yours), before being stumped by 20ac. An alphabet trawl, plus realising the reversed “are” got me there in the end, but not until 20 minutes had elapsed.

    Regarding the font – I also find “rn” and “m” too similar, and had to zoom my screen to be sure. A little tweak to the keming wouldn’t go arniss.

  24. 14.31. Similar experience to others here. I did about three-quarters of this in about 4 minutes, but then got completely bogged down in the SW and spent at least 5 minutes at the end on TOERAGS and the unknown REAMERS.

    Edited at 2019-10-02 10:27 am (UTC)

  25. Like almost everyone else, it seems, I was zipping through this until the SW corner held me up. I should have had LACERATED earlier, as I thought of it but was convinced that the definition was “with speed” for quite a while.

    TOERAGS was the last to fall, having eventually got TREPANS out of my head (as it were). 10m 21s.

  26. Lovely puzzle

    Enjoyed it

    Held up by inserting magic carpet which also fits the clue as far as I can see apart from not being an actual thing of course!

  27. I think there’s an echo around here. A good 4 minutes to get my last 2, which were, guess what? REAMERS and (LOI) TOERAGS, of course. 14:40.
  28. As often happens, I come here to find that my solving experience was near-universal, at least in terms of a fairly brisk journey slowing to a crawl at the TOERAGS / REAMERS interface. I caught up on the football last night after being out at a pub quiz, where, coincidentally, my team was level at half-time and very much not level at the end.
  29. Same experience as others for this strangely uneven offering. A bit like Leeds last night, bossing the first half (5½ minutes), playing at pace and getting most of it all done on first look, then having to grind out a result and taking a further 5½ minutes to get LACERATED, SUPRA, TOERAGS and REAMERS.
  30. Wouldn’t the Tottenham clue be better located at 7 down, or if you’re a diehard, 2 across?

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