Times 27517 – Absolutely spliffing!

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Quite a few double definitions (DDs) and cryptic definitions (CDs) in this more difficult than usual (SNITCH allowing) Monday offering from a setter who was either in his/her most mischievous mode or had perhaps been on the wacky backy (‘I adduce 20 down as evidence, M’lud’.). I sputtered home in 40 minutes, continuing my ordinary form after a purple patch early last week. How got ye on?

Forgive any careless errors, but I am still a bit groggy after staying up half the night celebrating the success of my two ‘nephews’ (the brothers Pang) in the historic local council elections here in Hong Kong. Keep up the support, O international community! And keep printing the truth about heinous regimes everywhere!

ACROSS

1 Fruit in small wood one end to the other (4)
HAWS – SHAW with the S postponed; I had vaguely heard of SHAW but couldn’t be shaw what it meant
3 What one can see in forest or mountain is restricted by weather (10)
STORMBOUND – odd/ingenious clue this; we have STORM hidden (or STORM ‘bound’ in [fore]ST OR M[ountain]) leading to the definition ‘restricted by weather’. YMMV…
9 Bird‘s mum runs around endlessly (7)
MARABOU – MA R ABOU[t]; never heard of this avian
11 They can see half a dozen vessels (7)
VIEWERS – VI (half a dozen) EWERS
12 Maybe Durham employee entertains unknown American (3,6)
NEW YORKER – NE (in the North East of England) Y (unknown) in WORKER (employee); Olivia is the most famous one I know…
13 Benders observed moving back when faced with king (5)
KNEES – K SEEN reversed
14 Fellows penning choice of language offering words of ill-will (12)
MALEDICTIONS – DICTION in MALES
18 A possible basis for laying down sentences (7,5)
WRITING PAPER – cryptic definition (CD)
21 Fish giving old men inner energy (5)
POPES – E in POPS; no, never heard of these either
22 Retreat that is concealing means of identification to the east of small island (9)
HERMITAGE – TAG in IE after HERM; one of the smaller Channel Islands. Um, never heard of this either
24 Impressive river suits someone who likes the good things of life (7)
EPICURE – EPIC (impressive) URE; a river with something of an identity crisis, not being allowed to have its dale named after it and having its name changed (to the common-or-garden Ouse, no less) before it reaches the sea
25 Maybe a conventional fifties-style fellow given symbolic representation (7)
NOTATED – NOT A TED; hah! Over to our Dorset correspondent…
26 Deviating from course, going to the other side crossing lake (10)
DEFLECTING – L in DEFECTING
27 Bess’s partner heading off for wild celebration (4)
ORGY – [p]ORGY; I got plenty of nuttin’…

DOWN

1 Skate and skate? Oh m-my, son will go sprawling! (8)
HOMONYMS – anagram* of OH M MY SON; sort of clever but weird
2 Monster in dread, wiping out a climbing plant (8)
WEREWOLF – [a]WE FLOWER reversed; tricky wordplay. Please let me know if you needed me for this. I’ve been going through an insecure phase
4 Vehicle in traffic (5)
TRUCK – DD
5 One river’s being diverted, going back to former course? (9)
REVERSION – ONES RIVER*
6 Critical stress on tip, it may be inferred (8,5)
BREAKING POINT – this setter certainly defies pigeon-holing! I reckon this is best described as a CD, since BREAKING POINT is the point at which something gives way under strain (or STRESS), and a tip is a POINT – which is sort of inferred by ‘critical stress on tip’, I reckon. Sheesh! I’m not a logician. I need a lie-down. And a new brain. As Anon points out, one making an anagram of ON TIP could be said to be ‘breaking POINT’.
7 As inconsistent as this clue? (6)
UNEVEN – If I were less charitable, I would say the setter is now taking the you-know-what. In line for the title of crypticest of all cryptic definitions, I suggest. (We are talking about a clue numbered 7, and therefore odd, AKA UNEVEN, if you are still bamboozled)
8 Stop one’s little boy going up on street (6)
DESIST – I’S ED reversed followed by ST. (ED here is a ‘little boy’ in the crossword sense that he is an abbreviation)
10 Brooder’s pulse is abnormal — a possible cause for medical concern (5,8)
BLOOD PRESSURE – BROODERS PULSE*
15 Happen to see fellows over time in particular area (9)
CATCHMENT – CATCH (happen to see) MEN (fellows) T (time)
16 Drop of liquid stuff initially dumped on plate (8)
SPLATTER – S[tuff] PLATTER
17 China may be thus, or Tonga’s islands? (8)
FRIENDLY – DD; Tonga became known in the West as the ‘Friendly Islands’ because of the congenial reception accorded to Captain James Cook on his first visit
19 Cover food put out on table? (6)
SPREAD – DD
20 Second person in court ain’t put away for providing cannabis (6)
SPLIFF – S PL[aint]IFF; a ‘something or other’ for providing cannabis, I reckon
23 Keep racing and continue in the same line (3,2)
RUN ON – DD; the second related to printing, I think, specifically, the absence of indenting

66 comments on “Times 27517 – Absolutely spliffing!”

  1. I think this one’s a reverse cryptic of “on tip”

    And thanks for the WEREWOLF explanation, had no idea what was going on

  2. 13:47 for me, a quick return to earth after a personal best on the quick cryptic. HAWS and SPLIFF from definition, so thanks for unraveling them.
  3. I sputtered home in 40 minutes. And well done to the ‘nephews’ et al.

    Sorry but at 1dn ‘Skate and skate’ still parses me by?

    FOI 10ac MARABOU is a Saharan stork.

    LOI 7dn UNEVEN Indeed extracting the urine! What a stupid clue – can do better, setter!

    COD 18ac WRITING PAPER

    WOD 12ac NEW YORKER A truly great magazine in every sense – the art of the cover story.

    1. Skate (a thing you put on your foot for sliding across ice) and skate (fish) are examples (indicated by the question mark) of HOMONYMS.
      1. Yes, but the two words are spelt the same! Of course they are homonymic! Axiomatic! As Lord Ulaca states weird!

        Sofa and Chauffeur (Lonnun Engerlish) won’t work for you!?

        1. I agree that the two words being spelled the same was confusing, but they still fit the definition of a homonym. And there are counterexamples – buffet meaning food laid out on a table and buffet meaning to strike are not homonyms.
        2. Are homonyms ‘same word, different possible meanings’ as opposed to homophones ‘words that sound the same but are spelt differently’? Not sure, but could be that 🙂
          1. The latter surely!
            Homonyms are difficult territory at the best of times.

            North v South – English v American – this doesn’t help a bit – skate is skate!

            And by the way which skate is which? Or are they perhaps the verb v the noun?

            Edited at 2019-11-25 12:20 pm (UTC)

  4. 40 minutes. Great fun. Well served by remembering obscurities that have come up before such as the POPE fish last seen in August 2018, and SHAW = wood which was in Ulaca’s ‘Poisson d’Avril’ puzzle this year.

    Edited at 2019-11-25 05:22 am (UTC)

  5. 15:14. A good challenge, which would have been far harder without the esoteric knowledge you pick up after a few years doing these things. I had forgotten POPES but with all the checkers it really couldn’t be anything else.
    Thanks to anon for explaining BREAKING POINT, I didn’t understand it.

    Edited at 2019-11-25 06:13 am (UTC)

  6. A steady solve today, finishing with HAWS, not helped by not knowing or not remembering shaw. COD to my penultimate answer, WEREWOLF, and an honourable mention to BLOOD PRESSURE for a nice anagram.
  7. Strange crossword? I knew all of the GK so no real problems. Had to eradicate WISTERIA before the WEREWOLF appeared. Never parsed BREAKING POINT.
  8. …not a Ted. 31 minutes. LOI was the unknown POPES after I ventured SPREAD as a possible answer to both definitions. I wondered if DURHAM, with the second word having a K, was a ‘SEEKER’ but Judith wasn’t a new one, so NEW YORKER was constructed. I saw HAWS early as I knew that a shaw was a wood from the place near Oldham, where genealogy has revealed a distant relative. BREAKING POINT wasn’t fully understood and MARABOU needed all crossers before construction. I’ll risk Jim’s wrath and make NOTATED COD. I never felt comfortable solving this, but that may be down to Saturday’s football score. Thank you U and setter.

    Edited at 2019-11-25 09:06 am (UTC)

    1. I saw the highlights yesterday. One of the harshest red cards I’ve seen this season, as if Wanderers haven’t had enough to cope with lately.
      1. It was a poor decision, in clear contradiction of the double jeopardy guidance given to refs. The EFL also seem to believe in double jeopardy with disciplinary commissions. But when the team plays so badly afterwards, any excuse sounds lame. Are you going to be about at The George on Championship day, Phil? It would be nice to meet up.
  9. 40 mins to DNF.
    After negotiating Shaw, Pope, Herm, I was disappointed to leave Friendly undone. NHO the Friendly Islands and thought of every other meaning of China. Pah, I need to do more crosswords.
    Thanks friendly setter and U.
  10. I had problems getting started with this one, finally kicking off with 27a ORGY. I slowly picked up speed and in the end didn’t do too badly at 39 minutes. It might’ve been longer had I opted for trying to parse 3a STORMBOUND rather than just trusting my guess. Couldn’t see the wordplay for the life of me…

    Along the way I bumped into an unexpected bird, discovered that Herm was an island, found yet another crossword fish, and have just educated myself on the subject of Tonga (LOI 17d FRIENDLY.)

    Helpful coincidence: I’ve been listening to the back catalogue of the In Our Time podcast, on the grounds that it’s both generally educational, and also helpful for crosswords, and yesterday my chosen episode was the one on Epicureanism…

  11. Many of these clues were easier than they first appeared, but this was tough. My chief problem was that I put in STORMCLOUD which I couldn’t parse but just assumed was correct, which left me floundering for the rest, especially as that gave me CRACKING POINT. It wasn’t until I got VIEWERS that my error was apparent, by which time my clock had run over. Surprisingly POPES I’d seen before.
  12. I Also found this rather strange and made heavy weather of it – maybe as a result of entering a STORMCLOUD. Along with CHECKING POINT and OPENER, I completed this in 29 mins with three errors.
  13. I rather lost confidence in this and abandoned ship, though I was probably just too far off the wavelength. I quite like most of it now I know how it all works.

    BREAKING POINT and STORMBOUND were simply too clever for me. MARABOU I had totally forgotten (and couldn’t see the wordplay — ‘runs’ for a single R never sits well with me).

    I didn’t get WEREWOLF, either, partly because I don’t see them as monsters — I mean, werewolves are people, too — and partly because I felt sure the def. was “climbing plant”. Roll on Tuesday.

    1. I thought defining werewolf as “monster” was rather harsh as well .. after all, none of us is perfect..
    2. A cricketer’s bowling analysis would be in the order of O M R W i.e. Overs Maidens Runs Wickets – as a former cricket club scorer/statto, it’s pretty standard.
  14. 19:54. I thought this rather entertaining with some clever clues. I wasn’t quite convinced by STORMBOUND, but I guess it works as an &lit. I liked BREAKING POINT when I saw the reverse cryptic. I liked UNEVEN and WRITING PAPER too. I had the same unknowns as our blogger, but HERM did ring a bell when it emerged from the sea of letters at 22A. LOI WEREWOLF held me up most looking for a climbing plant.
    1. I’ve just amended my explanation (surreptitiously – forgive me, Popper) away from the &lit theory. Doesn’t quite seem to satisfy the criteria.
  15. Really enjoyed this. Knew all the GK and quickly latched onto the setter’s wavelength. Only UNEVEN lets the side down – a bit weak

    As to NOT-A-TED being described as unconventional is far preferable to “thug” and all the other misconceptions. The Teddy Boy fashion was a teenage rebellion against overwhelming stuffy convention – so thank you setter

    Well blogged Ulaca

  16. A bit of a struggle for me this morning, with nothing revealing itself until I reached the SW corner, where I began to SPREAD a few letters about with EPICURE and SPLIFF. BLOOD PRESSURE then allowed me to speculate on the fish. After a lot of neuron bashing I eventually finished with HERMITAGE, having discounted SURRINAME(before I had CATCHMENT, but decided it wasn’t an island or spelled correctly) and HURRICANE. Thanks U for the parsing of WEREWOLF. I also thought UNEVEN was a bit vague. 46:57. Thanks to the whimsical setter, and to U for sorting it all out.

    Edited at 2019-11-25 10:51 am (UTC)

  17. Hard work this Monday morning, never parsed STORMBOUND, vaguely knew POPES, and ORGY LOI, having earlier discounted -rown.

    Self-referential clues are often difficult to spot, and I think that UNEVEN is not the same as ‘not even’, although the answer is clear once the penny drops.

    27′, thanks ulaca and setter.

  18. 38’47 but with a careless maribou. Hard going, nearly at 6 with many 14, dangerous 10, all 17 now, the inner crisis of the crossword, to which real life is as nothing.
  19. Yes I too went looking for “wisteria aka wistaria” and took a few other wrong turns. That device in BREAKING POINT turns up in the Guardian quite often, usually in company with “heart”, but I wasn’t looking for it here until it couldn’t be anything else. I remember my maternal grandmother had an enormous fan of pink MARABOU feathers – I doubt if that would be allowed now. A schoolfellow years ago lived on Herm otherwise I’d have been stuck there. Even then I was chasing “ait” for a while. Difficult puzzle this. 25.21

    Several other famous NEW YORKERs you know from here Ulaca. Until recently your fellow Monday blogger Vinyl was one, as are Paul and Guy du Sable and Jeremy over on the QC. Congrats on the election – I wish ours would come sooner. Of course you-know-who is backing Xi.

    1. It’s soft cop, tough cop in tandem with Pence, who has said some great things. Many people here like Trump, because they discount his Xi-is-my-best-friend stuff and focus on the actions that hit China where it hurts and where they care.

      Edited at 2019-11-25 02:45 pm (UTC)

  21. Really enjoyed this, good effort setter and thanks.. also to you Ulaca with congrats on the HongKong elections .. it always seems strange to me that the world’s most venerable civilisation has never been able to grasp the benefits of democracy, to the point where even after all this time, it barely seems civilised at all .. cf Tibet, as well as HongKong, and their treatment of various minority groups
  22. Got through it okay; no time as just dozing today. Surface readings are not this puzzle’s strong point: 1 dn, 1ac, 13, 22 are all a bit weak, I think. I like a good surface reading 🙂
    Thanks u.
  23. I totally agree, but could never understand why Britain never gave the Honkies Universal Suffrage back in 1992, not even close. Chris Patten was blind-sided. When I left in 1998 the locals bemoaned this, except for the conservative few who were busy grabbing Canadian passports and hedging their bets.
  24. ….a POPE was a wooden club used to stun the fish once caught. Only seen now on antiques programmes. So one could strike a POPE with a POPE. Enough of this codswallop – no more red herrings I promise.

    Oh – but then there’s skate to consider – definitely fishy ! (That really is enough of that – Ed.)

    I was glad to be able to parse MARABOU straight away, or I could have easily fallen for “maribou”.

    FOI KNEES
    LOI HERMITAGE
    COD BREAKING POINT
    TIME 11:36

    1. In my seldom used fishing tackle box, I have one of those devices for stunning fish. This one is called a “priest” as it administers the last rites. The “pope” must be reserved for big fish:-)
  25. This puzzle didn’t necessarily veer into obscurity, but it certainly tested my memory of words I’ve previously made a note of, specifically SHAW, which my Big List tells me I didn’t know 2 years ago; managing to remember that helped unblock the tricky NW corner. MARABOU also came to mind from the Irvine Welsh book, ‘Marabou Stork Nightmares’ which is on our shelves, but unread (by me). I am reminded that the Japanese apparently have a useful word – tsundoku – meaning the habit of buying more books than you will ever have time to read…
    1. tsundoku: *definitely* a word I have been needing ..

      Do they have a word that means “Unable to dispose of a book, no matter how useless or uninteresting it may be?”

  26. Another tough one, particularly for a Monday. I needed you for STORMBOUND, you’ll be pleased to know.

    14m 44s after a particularly fruitless start.

  27. For a Monday I found this hard going for a good 40 minutes. Of course, it didn’t help that I had “stifle” as the answer to 8 down for a significant portion of that time. I think you could define a little boy as an elf, don’t you!?

    What will the rest of the week hold I wonder!

  28. Didn’t know MARABOU nor that Tonga is a FRIENDLY island but favourable checkers. LOI POPES.
  29. On the side of the “off the wavelengths.” 1ac and 1dn went straight in, but half an hour later I was totally becalmed and went away to do Real Work(?) for a while. Finished in the end with only stormbound unparsed – and having seen the explanation I’m still not convinced it works. Lots of unknowns, but shaw wasn’t one of them – must have done too many crosswords.
  30. Ok I was up at six for a long drive back from the country. I’m a bit knackered. But surely I should have done a bit better than 52’26”! Was it that hard? 7 down was certainly weak; and I missed the hidden anagram in breaking point. But it was easy to guess. Not entirely convinced by stormbound either, now I think about it.
  32. Great fun, 40 minutes, agree with jimbo and jerryw remarks. POPES the only guess. 6d my CoD.
  33. Like Sotira I had my doubts about werewolf = monster. It’s not in Chambers Crossword Dictionary but is in Bradford.

    Strange crossword: I became utterly becalmed and could make no progress at all with only about half done. Then I started to put some more in and all the answers came with a rush. Well not a rush, actually, but a rush by my standards.

  34. A day of two halves! The quickie was great fun and super times were scored by many. After a difficult afternoon at work, I was looking forward to a Monday-style 15×15 with a Danish pastry and a nice cup of tea. But it was not to be 😟

    I can never get to grips with clues like 3a stormbound and 6d breaking point. I have enough trouble unravelling regular anagrams, so no chance with reverse anagrams!

    So … challenging. All the same there was much to enjoy on the way to a non-finish – I liked New Yorker, Epicure and Spliff in particular.

    Marabou storks, on the other hand, are horrible – big and scary looking, and smell of fish (as I know from a too-close encounter with one many years ago).

  35. Under 2 hours, but I had to check several answers (Shaw, Marabou, Popes) along the way. I also had some trouble with the second parts of Stormbound (cloud, front) and Writing Paper (prose, poems) while I was short of checkers. Needless to say, I had no idea of the parsing to Werewolf and Spliff, but still found this an enjoyable challenge overall. Invariant
  37. 42:47 I found this a bit tricky for a Monday. I wasn’t quite ready for all of the novelties on display. I also made hard work for myself being very thick over the parsing of spliff, deflecting and a couple of others. I had a hass avocado in at 1ac for a while (S(mall) ash with both ends swapped), this had me stumped at 2dn for quite some time. I knew 9ac marabou from the Irvine Welsh book referenced above by topicaltim but was still tempted to cross it with a reindeer and enter maribou fortunately I paid just enough attention to wp to avoid doing so. The pope fish was a new one on me too.
  38. This was a real curate’s egg for me, exemplified by a pair of anagrams. 10d is very neat, whereas 1d is possibly the worst anagram I have seen in The Times.
    Nevertheless, this was an enjoyable challenge, so thanks to our setter.
  39. I was feeling a little disheartened as it took me a lot longer to solve this than usual, but having read some of the comments, I’m feeling a little smug that I parsed several of the tricky ones and that I knew that Herm was an island (although I admit that I didn’t know POPES and SHAW).
    I’m fairly new to solving the main Times crossword after being an avid fan of the quick cryptic for years. Loving this blog – a great help when stuck on an answer, or on the parsing of an answer. Many thanks.
    1. Sorry, accidentally posted above comment while not logged in. Thought I’d better introduce myself as I think I’m going to be a regular visitor now …
    2. Sorry, accidentally posted above comment while not logged in. Thought I’d better introduce myself as I think I’m going to be a regular visitor now …

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