Times 27,473: Dah It All

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Despite some in my opinion overly simple clues for the day of the week, I was going to give this puzzle a Friday passing grade based on quite a few fun clues – one man’s simplicity is another’s pure minimalist elegance, after all. That was until I submitted at 6.23 to be met by the dreaded pink square. At time of writing only 1 of 13 submissions is correct, probably because the clue has an equally valid but better answer, and if that proportion increases over time I can only imagine it’s because later solvers will say “eh up, everyone so far has got 1 wrong, what’s going on here then”. C’mon ed, I know for a fact that these puzzles used to be test solved… but I can’t imagine this could possibly have got past such a process. What gives?

So COD is stripped from 9ac and given to 3dn. Anyway, I’m sitting in an airport lounge in SFO and we should probably head for our gate, as our Heathrow-bound flight is taking off in an hour… got to get some “coping with jetlag” practice in before December. See you anon!

1 Criminal came up with lawyer initially entering a confession (3,5)
MEA CULPA – (CAME UP*) [“criminal”], with L{awyer} “entering”

5 Commentator’s spotted a spinner (6)
SPIDER – homophone of SPIED A [spotted | a], or is it? I asked my Scottish travelling companion and was told “God no!”, so you decide.

9 How Morse represented his end? (3)
DIT – I thought this was a very good clue, . being the representation for {mors}E in Morse Code, until I discovered that we were somehow meant to intuit that the correct answer was DIT (the spoken representation of a Morse .) and not DOT (its written representation). ..-. — .-. / -.-. .-. -.– .. -. –. / — ..- – / .-.. — ..- -.. -.-.–

10 Did tramp and vagrant let go of dogs? (11)
FOOTSLOGGED – (LET GO OF DOGS*) [“vagrant”]

12 Slight resistance in cabal backing city (10)
FRACTIONAL – R [resistance] in FACTION [cabal] + reversed LA [city]

13 Look after horse’s mane? (4)
HAIR – AIR [look] after H [horse]

15 Greatest medics featured in Universal Times (6)
UTMOST – MOS [medics] featured in U T T [universal | (two) times]

16 Radical doctor caught swigging wine (7)
DRASTIC – DR C [doctor | caught] “swigging” ASTI [wine]

18 A reservation briefly claimed by very old rancher (7)
VAQUERO – A QUER{y} [a | reservation, “briefly”] “claimed” by V O [very | old]

20 Knight of long ago approaching (6)
NEARLY – N EARLY [night | of long ago (as in “early man”)]

23 What is necessary to train bird (4)
RAIL – double def. A train can’t run without rails.

24 Ancient scar one overlooked distorted hospital monitor (3,7)
CAT SCANNER – (ANC{i}ENT SCAR*) [“distorted”]

26 Where pickup is most effective, officially (2,3,6)
ON THE RECORD – double def. Two different types of records.

27 Fruit soften, tons chucked out (3)
HAW – {t}HAW [soften, minus T for “tons”]

28 Bare American guy grabs gent, pinching coat (6)
DENUDE – DUDE [American guy] “grabs” {g}EN{t}

29 What botched repairs by learner may lead to — from client? (8)
REPRISAL – (REPAIRS*) [“botched”] by L [learner], semi-&lit

DOWN
1 Adapt “instant” home improvements with female in residence (6)
MODIFY – MO DIY [instant | home improvements] with F [female] “in residence”

2 Draw cheers when looking up pamphlet (7)
ATTRACT – reversed TA [cheers] + TRACT [pamphlet]

3 The slim apparently housed, not having got to bed? (10)
UNFATHOMED – UNFAT [the slim, apparently] + HOMED [housed]. Bed as in seabed.

4 Relative worried, with expert helping up front (13)
PROPORTIONATE – ATE [worried], with PRO PORTION [expert | helping] beforehand

6 Outcome of intriguing storyline? (4)
PLOT – double def

7 Carrier taking moggy across river tail first (7)
DOGCART – CAT [moggy] “across” R [river], DOG [tail] before that. Were dogcarts ever actually pulled by dogs? I’ve never been sure.

8 Heartless rogue Frank set on a different course (8)
REDIRECT – R{ogu}E + DIRECT [frank]

11 Monolith‘s reputation not changed in home counties (8,5)
STANDING STONE – STANDING [reputation] + (NOT*) [“changed”, though more reversed, really] in SE [home counties]

14 Elevated Commie sadly admitting worker’s a coldblooded type (10)
SALAMANDER – reversed RED ALAS [Commie | sadly], admitting MAN [worker]

17 Reckless cricketer’s task completed, we hear (8)
OVERBOLD – homophone of OVER BOWLED, bowling an over being our cricketer’s task.

19 Placate ruler, introducing technology bit by bit (7)
QUIETEN – QUEEN [ruler], introducing IT [technology] piecemeal: QU{I}E{T}EN

21 Eats third of plaice taken from boats (7)
LUNCHES – L{a}UNCHES [boats, minus the third letter of {pl}A{ice}]

22 Absorbent cloth wrapping builder’s last tool (6)
TROWEL – TOWEL [absorbent cloth] “wrapping” {builde}R

25 Borders of hostile land occupied (4)
HELD – H{ostil}E L{an}D

66 comments on “Times 27,473: Dah It All”

  1. I left the problem clue to the end because my first instinct was DIT (probably the result of reading Biggles, I think), but I also immediately saw the alternative, and had no idea which was supposed to be right, so submitted without leaderboard. And still had an error because apparently neither of them is right. Tsk, the very definition of hashtag First World Problem grumpy face emoji.
  2. You have to admire the 3/85 people so far who have entered DAT (even more impressively, one of them completed the grid in 2m 16s. Of course they did).

    8m 14s and naturally a DOT. At least the setter / editor were kind enough to offer up 1a in advance.

    Nothing much else to say, other than wondering if QUERY = reservation, and noting the CAT SCANNER & DOGCART keeping each other company.

    1. One more thing… MEA CULPA is an anagram of CAME UP with L(awyer)… plus A, and the definition is just “confession”.
  4. I also had dot. I slowed myself down with overdone for overbold and tew for haw but got there in the end.
  5. Of course, I had DOT. Maybe the odd DAT entry is really a typo. It happens. They can’t really mean DAT, can they? Regards.
  6. The puzzle has now been amended and re-scored, and there is an apology from DP in the puzzle comments. Yay!
  7. …. and see what Morse has to say about it.

    I had to look up “Vaquero” to be sure. I am a bit embarrassed, given my surname!

  8. Apologies, all. 9A has now been changed to DOT and the puzzle rescored. The clue originally led unambiguously to DAT, but was amended in a late change; however, DAT lingered on in the digital version. DIT is also technically a valid answer, although it seems the vast majority have gone with DOT.

    I’d still be interested to know what the clue could have been so that it “originally led unambiguously to DAT”. DAT as in the abbreviation of ‘dative’ or ‘digital audio tape’?

  9. Or is it Black Diamond Bay? – my source for VAQUERO.

    18’43”, with DOT, hooray! Late to the party, so missed all the controversy. I did assume puzzles were road-tested, but hey-ho. I’d be happy to join such a group….and a daily regime might stop the same word or clue appearing in both QC and 15×15.

    Yet another homophone which is slightly iffy – BOLD/BOWLED. Liked UNFATHOMED, FOOTSLOGGED.

    Many thanks to our esteemed setters, editors and bloggers, for all they do.

  10. From the editor

    The original clue where where is now one for DOT (DIT?) was one for DAT, which I disallowed on the grounds that it is an obscureish abbreviation only.
    So the setter offered a clue for DOT instead, which I accepted without thinking of the alternative DIT. Somehow, in the Times’s online processing, DAT has survived as the answer.

    I can well imagine the surprise of someone thinking they have picked the wrong Morse term, but finding that the “correct” answer is something else entirely.

    Apologies for the confusion: I believe the scores has been adjusted …

    RR

  11. 24:51 nice puzzle if a tad gentler than expected for a Friday, the controversy over 9ac aside. By the time I came to solve it dot was thankfully being accepted as a valid answer, dit and especially dat never even occurred to me. I was a bit hesitant at 28ac where bare seems to be an adjective and denude a verb, perhaps I’m missing something and there is a sense in which bare is a verb or denude an adjective?
  12. I went with DIT and got a pink square for it though comments suggest that either is right.

    But I also had a lazy REIN instead of RAIL – nho the bird

  13. All done in 50 minutes, inc Dot. Happy days 😊
    FOI Hair
    LOI Unfathomable – was going for Unfattened for a while!
    COD Dot

    Very late tonight – going to watch Marianne and Leonard now, with a nice glass of wine

  14. Sorry – that was me. Forgot to log in again.

    And the previous post too!

    Edited at 2019-10-04 10:19 pm (UTC)

  15. It really is just luck sometimes. I got vaqueros straightaway – all those years of Spanish classes have finally paid off! But vaqueros means jeans to me. If I remember correctly it’s slang, as cowboys wear jeans.
  16. Well I put DOT for 9 across in the iPad edition. Wrong. Then put DIT. Wrong. Put DAT. Correct! That’s got to be an error surely?!?
  17. I always thought that the vaqueros / cowboys worked for the rancher………..Ho hum.

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