Times 27495 – when the railways were fast (they still are in France).

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Once again, after a reasonably challenging Monday this week, I find Wednesday is more in a Monday vein. I worked steadily through the clues with no hold-ups and not even a mild ER. 20 minutes not rushing. It’s a pleasant puzzle with some nice surfaces but nothing special; Jimbo might say ‘vanilla’. I think 19d gets my CoD vote for linking Aden and Suez in a neat way.

Definitions underlined. Anagrams thus (FODDER)*, anagrists in italics.

Across
1 Flagrant European aspect in Shakespeare? (9)
BAREFACED – Shakespeare is our BARD, into him insert E and FACE = aspect.
6 Drop clean brush (5)
SCRUB – Triple definition.
9 Appearance of hole in wounded insect’s wing (7)
SECTION – O for hole in (INSECT)*.
10 Carrier taking off with one bachelor aboard (7)
MINIBUS – MINUS = taking off, insert I B.
11 Scheduled worktime unknown for husband? Not mine! (5)
YOURS – HOURS = scheduled worktime, swap the H for a Y (symbol for an algebraic unknown).
12 Second editor leaving, reprimanded (6,3)
TICKED OFF – TICK (second) ED(itor), OFF = leaving.
14 I object when old craft’s brought back (3)
BUT – TUB reversed.
15 Where travellers accumulate strain that can’t be recovered from? (3,8)
AIR TERMINAL – Strain = AIR, song; TERMINAL = can’t be recovered from.
17 Less than attractive enterprise (11)
UNDERTAKING – UNDER = less than, TAKING = attractive, as in ‘I’m very taken with her’.
19 Shrinking firm close to bankruptcy (3)
COY – CO = firm, Y = end of bankruptcy. Shrinking as in violet, perhaps.
20 Seeing fiery criminal in tie, one’s enamoured (9)
BOYFRIEND –  BOND = tie, insert (FIERY)*.
22 Range woman designer has on display (5)
ANDES – Hidden word in WOM(AN DES)IGNER.
24 Chance losing face when hugging old flame devoid of passion (7)
ASEXUAL – CASUAL = chance, as in encounter; drop the C (losing face) and insert EX (old flame),
26 Go with disdain, having no time for feral cat (7)
FLOUNCE – FL = FERAL without ERA (no time), OUNCE a cat.
27 Investigate key vote, centre having fallen away (5)
DELVE – DEL = key on keyboard, VE = VOTE without its centre.
28 Neighbours often share this celebration with everyone (5,4)
PARTY WALL – PARTY = celebration, W = with, ALL = everyone.

Down
1 Arrest Yankee, needing a lot of support upfront? (5)
BUSTY – BUST = arrest, Y = Yankee.
2 One making frequent court appearances: fraud only spoken of? (7)
RACQUET – Sounds like RACKET which could be fraud.
3 That’s just Clement, Saint Clement (5,4)
FAIRS FAIR – CLEMENT weather is fair weather, so we have FAIR, S(aint), FAIR. I did wonder initially if there was some famous Fair named after said Saint, but no.
4 Dismay as prisoner at the back put away (11)
CONSTERNATE – CON (prisoner) STERN (at the back) ATE (put away). A word not often used as a verb, more familiar to me as the noun CONSTERNATION.
5 Gloomy doctor holds one up (3)
DIM – MD insert I and reverse all.
6 Lapse before church and after (5)
SINCE – SIN (lapse), CE (church).
7 Sand treatment post-exercise (7)
RUBDOWN – double definition.
8 Deliver a thorough whack, looking sheepish (9)
BASHFULLY – If you BASH FULLY you deliver a good whack.
13 Put off after clubs restrict game (6,2,3)
CHEMIN DE FER – C (clubs), HEM IN (restrict), DEFER (put off). Chemin de Fer is a version of Baccarat; apparently so named because it was a faster game than the original and when the game was devised the railway was then the fastest means of transport. (Seems a dodgy explanation to me).
14 Sporting student to take on uxoricide (9)
BLUEBEARD – BLUE as in Oxford or Cambridge Blue, one who represents the university; BEARD = take on, as in ‘beard the lion in his den’. BLUEBEARD, according to the folk tale, was a rich nobleman who repeatedly killed off his wives. Bartók wrote an opera about the story called Bluebeard’s Castle: I like Bartók’s music but this is a bit heavy going even for a Bartók fan.
16 A grim, drunken politician on the move (9)
MIGRATORY – (A GRIM)* then TORY.
18 Plain accommodation in order for current provider (3,4)
DRY CELL – DRY could mean plain, e.g. without gravy or sauce. a CELL can be accommodation, albeit penal. A dry cell is a form of battery.
19 Noted passage roughly skirting port close to Suez (7)
CADENZA – CA = circa, roughly. Into that insert ADEN (a port) and the Z = close to Suez. Violin concertos usually have a cadenza near the end of the first movement, where the soloist shows off.
21 Broadcast foundation course (5)
ROUTE – Unuslally a second homophone clue; sounds like ROOT = foundation.
23 Sense deception when Frenchmen comes in (5)
SMELL – a ‘SELL’ can be a form of deception; into that insert M(onsieur).
25 End of classical work cut (3)
LOP – L = end of classical, OP = opus, work.

48 comments on “Times 27495 – when the railways were fast (they still are in France).”

  1. I was making respectable steady progress on this until I was left with only the SW segment but there I ground to a halt and my solving time went off the scale. I was pleased to get through it eventually but shall not embarrass myself by revealing my total time.

    NHO CONSTERNATE although it didn’t delay me unduly.

    We’re a J short of a pangram and I lost even more time looking for one to get me out of hole I was stuck in.

    Edited at 2019-10-30 06:56 am (UTC)

  2. This did have something of a vanilla flavor to it–although as Keriothe would point out, vanilla is a very nice flavor–so it’s a bit surprising to see the SNITCH scores. Like Pip, I thought there might be a St. Clement’s fair; unlike him, I never really gave up the idea, although also thinking there might be a CRS word involved; anyway, I managed to spot the def, and ‘solved’ the clue without understanding it. At 26ac, I thought of FLOUNCE all right, took OUNCE to be ‘feral cat’, and wondered where the FL came from. I stopped wondering only when reviewing the puzzle over lunch. Not a particularly sensical surface.
  3. Didn’t quite break 10 minutes, but then I never do. Zipped through with nary a hold-up, but a few unparsed… D for key and elective for vote missing its centre? No, parse it later, except I forgot to. Clement Fair a UK famous person I’d never heard of? No, as it turns out.
    I liked bashfully and since, and route to mess up the non-English speakers from e.g. Scotland and USA. And I guessed the order with plain accommodation was religious – do nuns and/or monks live in cells?
    1. Friar Lawrence’s cell is where Romeo and Juliet are married, so indeed monks and nun are accommodated in cells, hence the “in order” in the clue.
  4. 18:58 … you’d think they could make everyone’s internet the same, wouldn’t you, but mine had a different puzzle to some people’s — mine wasn’t at all Monday or vanilla!

    It probably helped (the setter) that I thought BLUEBEARD was a pirate so was very slow to get that one. And I had the wrong end of the stick on 1d, looking for some ‘bra’ involvement in the wordplay before realising that was more the definition.

    COD to the nicely surfaced ASEXUAL

    Was the setter having a bad day? They’ve signed the puzzle on row 5: YOURS, TICKED OFF

    1. Maybe her(?) barefaced undertaking to snag a bashfully coy boyfriend was met with an asexual flounce.
  5. One of my mother’s favourite sayings was FAIR’S FAIR, so I guess that helped a bit. Nice puzzle – COD to FLOUNCE. 35’
  6. So the snitch looks about right.

    I never really got going and strong nor’easters awaited.

    FOI 25ac LOP

    LOI 7dn RUBDOWN

    COD 19dn CADENZA

    WOD 13dn CHEMIN-DE-FER a favourite of E Phillips Oppenheim and Ian Fleming.
    Shimmy in the US where Bacarat is favoured.

    No BRA at 1dn! On edit I note Sotira got there first.

    Edited at 2019-10-30 08:47 am (UTC)

  7. Like Sotira, I was both happier with, and more detained by, this puzzle than the early comments suggest. The SW corner was the slowest to yield, and I failed to parse DRY CELL, seeing neither the plain=dry (though it does) nor the “accommodation in order” cell until coming here and seeing Pip hadn’t twigged it either! Thanks Pip for the illumination elsewhere, though, especially on BLUEBEARD – not the pirate, then.
    CONSTERNATE shouldn’t exist, and I’m gruntled it’s not a back-formation.
    I liked the AIR TERMINAL clue, perfectly encapsulating the rush, queue, hang around, overspend, feel like a criminal torment of Gatport Airwicks.
  8. 45 mins having got stumped by the SW, mainly Bluebeard.
    If this was vanilla then it had a few fruity ripples too and a flake in it.
    My eyebrow twitched at attractive=taking and deception=sell.
    But I really liked it; mostly: Busty, Minibus, Fair’s fair and COD to Bash Fully.
    Thanks setter and Pip.
  9. I did Bluebeard at school in a French lesson, maybe he’s more famous there. ASEXUAL a good answer. A few short write-ins.

    18’50” thanks pip and setter.

  10. 36 minutes. Why were the Frenchmen plural in 23 down? Am I missing something? I’m not sure if I can admit to liking BUSTY, particularly having spent time trying to put some padding into a bra, so I’ll make ASEXUAL COD. That’s what a bad back does to you. I saw BLUEBEARD straightaway and didn’t stop to explain the ‘beard’ bit to myself. I think we learnt that in French class too, although it sounds a bit strong for ‘Nos Voisins Francais‘. I was happy enough with this. Thank you Pip and setter.
  11. 12:46. I didn’t think this particularly vanilla (even though, as Kevin says, I do like vanilla). I thought it was quite tricky in places. In that sense I suppose it was a standard Times puzzle, which is to say excellent.
  12. Frenchmen – I think it may be a misprint for the singular as ‘Frenchmen comes in’ isn’t grammatical
    1. Neither is it correct – as ‘MM’ is the abbreviation for messieurs.

      Edited at 2019-10-30 05:27 pm (UTC)

      1. But the solution requires only one M, hence my suggestion that the ungrammatical ‘FrenchmEn comes in’ was a misprint for ‘FrenchmAn comes in’, singular.
  13. 43 minutes, and though I lacked a bit of GK here and there it was mostly the NE, where I had all the requisite, that slowed me down. (And I very nearly left my original MINISUB in 10a, which would have made for even slower going!)

    Still, not too bad from FOI 11a YOURS to LOI 21d ROUTE, which I needed to leave and come back to to get “rouge” out of my head. I was somewhat surprised to find CHEMIN-DE-FER and CADENZA springing out quite readily—I watched a couple of CADENZAs on Saturday, but I wouldn’t have been able to tell you that at the time…

    I’m in the “thought BLUEBEARD was a pirate” club, but then as I also didn’t know what “uxoricide” meant it didn’t really matter!

  15. I had all but Asexual and Route done in about 18 mins. Eventually I went with Adexnal(!!) and Range. I also had Recruit for Racquet.

    COD: Boyfriend.

    Edited at 2019-10-30 10:28 am (UTC)

  16. Count me as another who didn’t find this all that easy – it took me quite a while to get going. Some very high quality Madagascar vanilla beans in this one, AIR TERMINAL and BLUEBEARD among them. I’d chucked in a careless “omnibus” in 10A which muddled things in 5D when I got round to it. The only quibble I might have would be in 26A – if I FLOUNCE out of the room I’m being more petulant than scornful. 22.16
    1. I’m sorry, Olivia, but I beg to differ.

      I can’t imagine you ever flouncing out f a room…

  17. ….CONSTERNATE me, as I’ve never seen the verb used, although familiar with its noun.

    Messed around with “shift” at 11A, and was some time starting, and lastly breaking the SW corner alpha-trawling my LOI.

    FOI COY
    LOI ROUTE
    COD BLUEBEARD
    TIME 17:22

    1. According to sources(MW) consternate as a verb has been on the go since 1651.It probably hasn’t had time to settle in.
  18. I found this puzzle quite enjoyable and tricky in places, but managed to solve it in a minute or 3 under my SNITCH average time. I got off to a good start with BAREFACED going in almost immediately. BLUEBEARD took a lot longer! I’ve never come across CONSTERNATE before but the wordplay was convincing. Liked BUSTY and BASHFULLY. Took a while to parse FLOUNCE, but got there eventually. DRY CELL was my LOI, but I spent a minute or two proof reading and trying to justify SMELL before I submitted. Saw M for Monsieur, but had a MER at SELL for deception. 31:30. Thanks setter and Pip.
  19. As others have suggested, this may have been vanilla, if you remember that vanilla is a wonderful flavour and very highly-prized; just not showy, like some flavours of crossword. Occasional delays were down to exploring blind alleys, such as a word like SZIFT, which obviously doesn’t exist.

    The internet has given people many more opportunities to flounce than there used to be, but I also tend to think of it as being exaggeratedly angry rather than disdainful. However, nothing here to provoke a walk-out.

  20. Why is ‘only in the clue? It seems to me that it would read perfectly well without it, probably better. It slowed me a bit because I thought there was some significance in it.

    Edited at 2019-10-30 12:05 pm (UTC)

    1. I think it’s a reference to the alternative spelling of ‘racquet’ for ‘racket’ in the sense of sports equipment’ whereas ‘racket’ can only be spelt ‘racket’ when speaking of fraud.
  21. SW 15mins the rest 10mins. Clueless with BLUEBEARD and clueless with DRY CELL, which I thought wasn’t the best clue either, certainly not up to the standard of the rest. On reflection, I saw the anagram for FIERY but didn’t spend long enough thinking it through. Had I got BOYFRIEND the rest would have fallen into place.
  22. Happier today, despite the ongoing sciatica (sympathies Bolton Wanderer).

    I enjoyed this – one man’s vanilla etc. Perhaps a bit more Kelly’s Honeycomb ice cream for me – a nice mix of creamy vanilla and crunchy bits 😊 I spent 55 minutes working steadily through the grid. Got a bit stuck in the SW corner but resolved it finally, I think. I say that because I changed my mind a few times in 18d and can’t read my writing! I’m not sure if I wrote DAY or DRY cell – a day cell is somewhere where monks spend their days, no? Perhaps not …

    FOI Fair’s fair
    LOI Dry (or day) cell !
    COD Bashfully
    WOD Flounce
    Probably have to admit to DNF and a score of 31 and a half out of 32

  23. 15:18. I’m going to go my own way and say I didn’t enjoy this much. I wasn’t keen on taking/attractive, casual/chance and sell/deception. wilransome has mentioned the unnecessary “only” at 2d. I was about to say that I was similarly peeved by “in order” at 18d but a cell can be a small room in a monastery.

    Pip, you’ve fallen into the old across/down trap in naming your COD.

  24. … and the SW corner took a while, but the rest went in without undue delay. ‘Blackbeard’ is the pirate, BTW.
  25. Not tough, but not a cinch by any stretch. I was slowed down by thinking 28 across had to be party line, not wall. On my mind because of listening to Bob Dylan’s theme time on the theme ‘party’ in which he devotes a long section to the old shared phone. Also fell for that old trap in ‘feral cat’ – where you think the adjective is being an adjective, when it ain’t.
  26. 36 min., a bit of a trudge. All perfectly fair if a tad uninspiring.’Consternate’ is a word that should be quietly allowed to expire, unlike ‘veridical’ of yesterday.
  27. I was quite pleased with DOLEFULLY. Took me far too long to realise something was amiss
  28. After a very slow start this puzzle finally clicked. There was nothing I didn’t know but I took a long time getting there. 32 minutes. COD for me was CADENZA. I admired the use of Aden and Suez in the same clue. Re. BLUEBEARD: Welsh National Opera have scheduled Bluebeard’s Castle for next season with Bryn Terfel playing the famous uxoricide. I normally try to get to any opera in Cardiff if Terfel is singing but I’m giving this one a miss. I’m not a big fan of Bartok although his piano music has its moments. And the theme of the opera is unlikely to guarantee a jolly night out!
  29. Agree with others about the vanilla flavor to this; nothing really out of the ordinary. I think I was about 15 minutes, ending with ROUTE, which I think does sound like ‘root’. Sort of a top to bottom solve. Oh, except that I thought BLUEBEARD was a pirate too. Regards.
  30. I found a lot of words, both definitions and answers, that weren’t the first nuance I thought of. So, like others, I found clues which should have been straightforward trickier than it says on the box. I liked the Minibus, and Fair’s Fair. Thanks, pip and setter
  31. A shade under the hour. A game of four quarters – three easy, one much tougher.

    No idea about BLUEBEARD – needed all of the checkers.

  32. Time spent on the puzzle: 28 mins
    Time spent kicking myself after realising I had hit submit before entering Dry Cell: the rest of the day.
  33. “less than attractive enterprise.”

    An “Undertaking” is an enterprise, yes. “Under” can mean “less”, yes; but “taking” is not the same as “attractive” nor is “taken” the same as attractive as in “was very taken with”. Surely, “taken with” in that sense would be an equivalent to “attracted”(past tense). Am I being pedantic? I think the clue would have made sense if it had been “Carried out but less than attracted.” Then the answer could have simply been “undertaken” as a straight clue for “undertaken.” Of course, then it wouldn’t have fitted in with some of the goods clues.

    1. From Chambers: taking, adj: captivating; alluring; infectious, catching. I think that’s close enough
  34. A bit over an hour, but finished correctly, although I couldn’t explain how the D got cryptically into BLUEBEARD (for me, “take on” pointed just to BEAR). And I didn’t parse UNDERTAKING correctly — I just assumed an UNDERTAKING was an enterprise, and being an UNDERTAKER is less than attractive (although I do not want to cast any aspersions on that profession — not having them around would be a far less attractive prospect although I would prefer not to need their services very soon).
  35. I’m glad I’m not the only one who took over an hour for this one. BLUEBEARD, of course, made no sense to me whatsoever until clarified by Pip. Everything else, though, seems straightforward in retrospect.

    No problem with DRY CELL, but I can never resist the temptation to be pedantic: a dry cell is not a type of battery. A battery is a collection of two or more cells (dry or otherwise). A cell produces a voltage that depends on what redox reaction it is doing, and if you need a higher voltage, you just string together a battery of cells. Irritatingly for us pedants, the familiar A, AA and AAA cells are called batteries by the people who make them, even though they each consist of a single cell producing about 1.5 volts. If you take apart a 9v battery, you will see that it is made of six cells. There – I’m glad I got that out of my system.

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