Times 27519 – cor blimey it’s the vernal and the vernacular.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Highly amusing puzzle today, with some tricky post-biff parsing for your blogger once the grid was completed in about half an hour. Compliments to the setter, please give me one of these every Wednesday!
Special mentions for 12a and 19d for tricky parsing, and 6d for a concise triple definition. I’m not 100% happy with my explanation for 17d, but the rest, I think, is satisfactory.
We are talking Vernal at 16a, vernacular at 9a, 2d, 28a.

Across
1 One’s accompanying the Queen visiting military hospital and mess (8)
MISHMASH – M.A.S.H being the military hospital, as in the superb TV series (Suicide is painless, remember?). Insert (i.e. visiting) I’S HM.
5 Gridlocked, perhaps, in transport leaving city (6)
STATIC – EC (the City) leaves ECSTATIC = “in transport”. Well, I think that’s it.
9 My part reduced after reflecting (3)
LOR – ROLE (part) is reversed and is reduced. Collins says “Exclamation of surprise or dismay”, shortened from Lord.
10 Vegetable to go after in place of game (6,5)
SQUASH COURT – SQUASH = vegetable, COURT = go after, woo. Today’s chestnut.
12 Dickensian orphan Twist in desperate reversal, having no one (5,5)
EDWIN DROOD – Eponymous orphan in Dickens novel. Fiendish wordplay, reverse engineering for me, take away WIND (twist) leaves you with ED ROOD, reversal > DOOR DE, which is DO OR DIE (desperate) without the I.
13 Work for a while that doctor may take, briefly (4)
TEMP – Double definition, the Doc can take your TEMPerature.
15 Legendary red ointment for child that’s really dear (6)
CHERUB – CHE (Guevara, the legendary red), RUB (ointment).
16 March features one short horse with bullock following? (7)
EQUINOX – EQUIN(E), OX.
18 These usen’t to get worked up about harmful emission? (7)
ECONUTS – CO, carbon monoxide a harmful emission, inside (USENT)*.  Def &lit.
20 Exotic bit of verse could go oddly astray (6)
ESCUDO – alternate letters of v E r S e C o U l D g O. I don’t see what’s exotic about a ‘bit’ of Portuguese currency before its final removal in as late as 2012 after the euro was introduced in 1998.
23 Pants one would be expecting to be up! (4)
DUFF – Duff, pants, no good for use. If you’re a lady up the duff, you’re expecting. A phrase I heard only last evening watching an episode of Peaky Blinders, possibly the best thing on TV (apart from Masterchef, sport and politics, of course).
24 Insults mate with false respect (3,7)
LIP SERVICE – LIP = insults, cheek; SERVICE = mate, for animals not people perhaps.
26 Very close, offering affection (4,2,5)
HAND IN GLOVE – HANDING (offering) LOVE (affection).
27 Put out, I carp (3)
KOI – K.O. = put out, knock out; I.
28 Something digital newspaper makes undesirable (6)
TOERAG – Well, a TOE is digital, and a RAG is informally a newspaper. My LOI.
29 City brothels in kinky shows (8)
HELSINKI – Beautifully hidden city in BROT(HELS IN KI)NKY.
Down
1 Fungus, note, will, finally, before the day’s up (6)
MILDEW – MI (note), L (end of will) WED reversed.
2 Thursday broadcast’s before 9 (7)
STREWTH – STREW = broadcast, TH = Thursday. Another exclamation like the answer to 9a, corrupted from God’s Truth.
3 What male dinosaurs could make you? (10)
MISANDROUS – (M DINOSAURS)*.
4 To get around scale, after old-fashioned drill (6-7)
SQUARE-BASHING – SQUARE = old-fashioned, BAG = to get, insert SHIN = scale, as in shin up a tree I presume.
6 Gather friar eats in school (4)
TUCK – clever triple definition.
7 Born bully? (7)
TAUREAN – someone born under the sign of Taurus the bull.
8 Commander leading a team reaching peak in S America (8)
COTOPAXI – CO (commander) TOP (leading) A XI (a team, an eleven). Active volcano in Ecuador, 5,897 metres high. Remembered from my O Level Geography or numerous quizzes. There are about 75 even higher peaks in the Andes, eleven over 20,000 feet (6100 m) but not so many active volcanoes. It’s on my bucket list.
11 Seeks zoom lens to snap area imposing restrictions (9,4)
SMOKELESS ZONE – (SEEKS ZOOM LENS)*. When I see an anagram fodder with a Z in it, and ‘area’ mentioned in the clue, I quickly look for zone as part of the answer. I liked ‘to snap’ as the anagrind, after zoom lens.
14 Expend least effort, as chiropodists do without hesitation (3,7)
CUT CORNERS – Well, chiropodists may CUT CORNS, so insert ER for hesitation.
17 Chap getting publicity free, still concentrating on features? (8)
HEADSHOT – HE gets AD (publicity) get SHOT (of) = get FREE (from). At least, I think it’s that, not ADS HOT as hot doesn’t mean free, but I’m not too thrilled with shot = free, without the ‘of’.
19 Wrong start, therefore ignoring that (7)
OFFENCE – Another tortuous bit of parsing. OFF = start, as of a horse race. ENCE = HENCE (therefore) (not ‘THENCE) with the start (i.e.’that’) removed.
21 Readily accept doctor, popular with family (5,2)
DRINK IN – DR (doctor) IN (popular) KIN (family).
22 A house and a car for one turning heads (6)
GEMINI – EG (for one) reversed, ‘heads’ MINI a car.
25 City just to the west of delta in ricefields (4)
LIMA – in the NATO alphabet you’d finish the spelling out of ricefields with ‘Foxtrot India Echo LIMA Delta Sierra’.

59 comments on “Times 27519 – cor blimey it’s the vernal and the vernacular.”

  2. Not referring to COTOPAXI, but to this puzzle as a whole. I can’t say what my time was since it took 3 attempts, but probably an hour all told. A lot of biffing needed by me. I won’t go into details, but my only foul up (amazingly) was the widely shared PISA for LIMA, also via the route through the paddies. LOI was TAUREAN. A real mind-bender. Thanks Pip, and setter, and regards.
  3. ….NHO ECONUTS so cheated with that one.

    MER for no ‘the’ in the DUFF clue – you don’t say ‘up duff’ do you? You say ‘up the duff’.

    Slow trudge around the grid with many clue-parts unparsed. Didn’t get the MISH though got the MASH. Couldn’t work out STATIC at all. EDWIN DROOD was kindly checkered but apart from the WIND, had no idea what was going on. STREWTH – got from checkers. Missed the SQUARE BAG though got the SHIN. HEADSHOT mostly happy with. OFFENCE (WTF).

    Wasn’t sure whether MILDEW was actually a fungus.

    FOI TOERAG (started at the bottom).

    LOI ECONUTS (cheated)

  4. I actually saw it as DUFF UP as in a physical roughing up, never thought of UP THE DUFF, although I do know the expression.
  5. 49:28. I found this a real struggle but there were some excellently fiendish clues and it was very satisfying to persevere and complete all correct. I benefited from having heard of Cotopaxi and Edwin Drood (didn’t come close to parsing the latter). COD 7dn which produced a PDM and a smile. Plenty of other candidates though.
  6. About an hour to be left with the three cities and of course guessed the wrong one. Good to get a monster occasionally. Misandrous isn’t in my OED (full variety). Thought it might mean disliking men rather than males. Fabulous crossword nonetheless.
  7. Crawled through this in 50 minutes in a late solve with some programme involving cockroaches being thrown at people in Australia burbling on in the background. I had no idea what was going on in the LIMA clue but got it by intuition. DUFF I understood by not looking too close at the clue. Tough, would have been virtually impossible (for me) at the Champs.

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