Times 27529 – Mother and Father of Mondays

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
For those looking for a gentle reintroduction to the art of solving after losing a brain cell or two at Times HQ or in the George, this was a nigh-on perfect puzzle. One or two bits and bobs requiring a little thought – indeed, potential hiccoughs to the inexperience, unwary or hungover – aside, this was the type of puzzle that invites PBs and a Duncan Fergusonesque dash down the touchline.

I managed a rare sub-11 – possibly my fastest time in a Mon-Sat cryptic and conformation of my burgeoning reputation as a flat-track bully.

ACROSS

1 Marketplace abandoned by old Indian city (4)
AGRA – AG[o]RA
3 Strange pursuit for an athlete, smuggling illicit liquor (3-7)
RUM-RUNNING – RUM (strange) RUNNING (pursuit for an athlete)
10 Extracts first of substance after a couple of months (7)
DECOCTS – DEC OCT S[ubstance]
11 Very cold press employee introducing cipher (7)
SUBZERO – SUB (-editor) ZERO (cipher)
12 Poor men on novel grant not involving elected rulers (3-12)
NON-GOVERNMENTAL – anagram* of MEN ON NOVEL GRANT
13 Calmly start to live in US city with first lady (6)
EVENLY – EVE L[ive] in NY
14 Break off from detective’s son permanently (8)
DISSEVER – DIS (detective’s) S EVER
17 Erotic setting for one opposed to jamboree (8)
CARNIVAL – I (one) V (opposed to) in CARNAL
18 Work with puppet, perhaps, getting lump of food? (6)
DOLLOP – DOLL OP
21 Go to Paris in good year after filming sporting facility (8,7)
SHOOTING GALLERY – ALLER (‘go’ for a Parisian, or ‘to Paris’) in G (good) Y (year) after SHOOTING (filming)
23 Examine pitch at first, possessed by cricket, perhaps? (7)
INSPECT – P[itch] in INSECT
24 Where nuts may be placed — though he won’t thank you for them! (7)
INGRATE – The nuts refer to coal nuts, which of course can be found, once they have been tipped out of their sack, in a fire’s grate; an INGRATE will decline to thank you for going to the trouble of placing then there, especially if you spill some on his trousers.
25 Pleasurable meeting? (10)
SATISFYING – DD
26 Sassy pro bumping off former partner (4)
PERT – [ex]PERT

DOWN

1 A northern poet’s leisurely movement (7)
ANDANTE – A N DANTE; if it’s not DONNE, it’s DANTE
2 Storyteller overturned vehicle on new route round base of mountain (9)
RACONTEUR – CAR reversed [mountai]N in ROUTE*
4 A French setting, we hear, in text for translation (6)
UNSEEN – UN SEEN (sounds like scene)
5 French couturier upset about English wrongdoing? Sticky! (8)
RESINOID – DIOR reversed around E SIN
6 Go and be involved with bells’ noise — status demands it (8,6)
NOBLESSE OBLIGE – GO BE BELLS NOISE*
7 Popular old record, though initially unsuitable (5)
INEPT – IN EP T[hough]
8 Unfriendly dog maybe primarily guarding oarsman crossing lake (7)
GROWLER – G[uarding] L in ROWER
9 Teacher in coach overcoming motorway tension (14)
SCHOOLMISTRESS – SCHOOL M1 STRESS
15 U-turn, large, in ballot features (5-4)
VOLTE-FACE – L in VOTE FACE
16 Chief support where sea ultimately meets river (8)
MAINSTAY – MAIN [meet]S TAY
17 One who conspired with accountants originally installed in S America (7)
CASSIUS – CAS (accountants) I[nstalled] in S (south) US (America)
19 Discharge male employees, having finally set remuneration (7)
PAYMENT – PAY (discharge, as in ‘I discharged my debt to the bookies’) MEN (male employees) [se]T
20 Some open-air guides climbing like Magyars (6)
UGRIAN – reverse hidden in opeN-AIR GUides; UGRIAN is an adjectival reference to a subdivision of the Turanian people, who include the Samoyeds, Voguls, Ostyaks, and Magyars (Collins)
22 Outbreak where filming takes place (5)
ONSET – ON SET

55 comments on “Times 27529 – Mother and Father of Mondays”

  2. No pb here, but always happy to be under 20′. I biffed 6d, only verified post-submission. FOI AGRA, POI RESINOID (not a word I knew), LOI UNSEEN (DNK). 20d slow in seeing the hidden, as always, but I remembered that Hungarian is a Finno-Ugric language.
  3. Great time, U – well done.

    My 20 minute time was spoiled by a simple typo, where I clearly did not check well enough. You cleverly save your typos for blogging (e.g. check 3a, RUM) which is a much more sensible approach.

    DNK, RESINOID but it made sense and the cryptic was generous. Similarly on UGRIAN, after initially trying to fit UIGUR in somehow.

  4. 30 mins for me, but doing it on my phone which always takes forever since the keyboard on the crossword doesn’t behave like the normal iphone keyboard so I mistype all the time. NHO RESINOID or UGRIAN but I just went with the wordplay.
  5. I found this quite straightforward for the most part but came unstuck with the last remaining clue (4dn) and eventually gave up on it after a long alphabet trawl and resorted to aids. I had come across the definition of UNSEEN before but not since schooldays where I associated it particularly with Latin studies rather than modern languages. I gave up Latin at the age of 14 so it was a very long time ago.

    At 8dn I would certainly have put ‘resinous’ if the I-checker hadn’t already been in place.

    Also, but for close attention to wordplay I might have settled for GUN-RUNNING at 3ac as that’s a much more familiar expression to me than RUM-RUNNING.

    Edited at 2019-12-09 05:45 am (UTC)

  6. …he thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
    15 mins with yoghurt, blueberries, etc.
    A nice confidence booster.
    Thanks setter and U.
  8. 24 minutes, with no real hold-ups apart from dodging the bullet before going for RUM-RUNNING. LOI DECOCTS. I’d never heard of RESINOID but it had to be. COD to INGRATE. One of the great metaphors of how life has changed is in its early morning rituals. Riddling the ashes has been displaced by emptying the dishwasher. Easyish start to the week. Thank you U and setter.
    1. I have never heard of coal nuts, but thanks to the season I thought straight away of chestnuts roasting on an open fire, so assumed that was what this was about. I have now got that stupid song stuck in my head for the rest of the day, a matter made worse by the fact that that’s the only line of the song I know.

      PTF

  9. Recalled UGRIAN from not so long ago when the language was referred to.

    Nothing too difficult here – just irritated by not being able to do this on paper, there being none at the station this morning.

    So had to resort to phone which eats its battery for fun. Electrical socket on train not working so hooked up to laptop to drain its battery instead.

  10. 10:52 … ulaca’s increasingly Magoovian performances duly noted. The end times are upon us.

    It’s strange to think of a puzzle with words like DISSEVER, DECOCTS, UGRAIN and RESINOID as easy, but somehow it was — at least, for old hands.

    Mind you, I was perilously close to biffing CARDINAL at 17a, thinking that might be someone opposed to jamborees (I have to admit I have no evidence that cardinals have ever opposed jamborees, but still).

    1. I also nearly had a stern CARDINAL frowning on the whole concept of having fun (it didn’t help that I watched Fellini’s 8½ last night, which features just such a cardinal…)
      1. That’s a very sophisticated reference you casually threw in there, Matt. Blimey. I was watching The Marvellous Mrs Maisel
        1. I’m trying to get my money’s worth from the free week you get when you sign up to BFI Player on Amazon Prime. My aim is to watch one classic film that I’ve not seen for each decade of the last hundred years before I have to start paying.

          So far, 8½ is the film I’ve liked least, but then I never thought Citizen Cane was much cop, either, so I have previous when it comes to disliking much-vaunted classics. (Other films so far are The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, Le Règle du Jeu, Bicycle Thieves and The Seventh Seal, and I preferred every one of those to Fellini’s offering…)

          Mrs Maisel is already on my “to watch” list; everyone I know who’s seen it seems to have recommended it to me!

          1. Neither of those are my favourites, either, though, then again, Le Règle du Jeu is one of the very few films I gave up on half way through. Renoir’s Boudu Saved from Drowning and La Grande Illusion are much better, IMO.
    2. Just two seconds outside your time. Which gives me the opportunity to crow about beating our blue-stocking New Yorker for the first time the other day.

      So glad to be able to slip that seamlessly into the conversation.

      1. I’m going to have to speed up. I don’t think I could take the humiliation of eating ulaca dust. What’s happened? Are you getting coaching from galspray or something?
  11. 33 minutes, with a fair bit of shrugging and moving on, especially at RESINOID and UGRIAN. A minor eyebrow raise at “old” for EP—they’re still being released by the bucketload, if Spotify is anything to go by. It didn’t help that I felt that INAPT might better fit the definition there, too…

    Well done on everyone who went to the champs. Sounds like fun was had, if the main discussion thread is anything to go by!

  12. 16’02”

    I seem to have spent the morning doing puzzles, GK2, Quintagram, Polygon, QC…and now this, but total time <33′

    Some strange words today, but all gettable. RUM RUNNING a write in after reading boyhood adventures. SCHOOLMISTRESS and UNSEEN similarly from youthful experiences.

    Thanks ulaca and setter.

  13. Numerous interruptions but solving time was probably around 15 mins +/- 2 mins.

    COD: INGRATE

  14. 28 mins. NHO Ugrian, resinoid, dissever. Every day’s a school day on here. Thanks u.
  15. Well done U. I’ve also noticed your average time improving! I was flying through this until I hit the SW and became becalmed for a while. Eventually CASSIUS cleared the way and CARNIVAL finished the job. Unfortunately a careless UGDIAN(I have no idea how that D got there) brought my travails to nought, making a full set of today’s puzzles with 1 error. Woe Woe and thrice Woe. Thanks setter and U. 24:32 WOE.
  16. As has been pointed out, there were some quite difficult words in here, but when it came to it, they weren’t impossibly difficult to deduce (especially if you’ve heard of Finno-Ugric languages, and clearly more than one of us has).
  17. Same as others with Ugric/Ugrian. Back when I had to worry about them eons ago my schoolmates and I called UNSEENs “obscenes” because we hated them so much. Nice puzzle.
  18. … despite hovering for a while over 7dn. ‘Unsuitable’ is a little too misleading IMO.
  19. 17’58, don’t agree with the non-governmental or unsuitable defs. (latter surely inapt). Otherwise satisfying I suppose in a clue-dimmish way. 4 brought back vivid memories of Latin and Greek unseens. joekobi
  20. A fun puzzle which I found pretty easy, but with enough to chew on to make it satisfying. Like others, I trusted dissever, Ugrian and resinoid from wordplay. Didn’t fully parse ingrate so thanks U for the explanation. Also got slowed down in the SW corner until a PDM with mainstay. Got subzero easily today thanks to zero=cipher appearing somewhere last week! Always something new to learn 😊

    Lots of French references today, which is apposite as I’m off shortly to my first French conversation class in many years. Au secours!

    FOI Agra
    LOI Carnival
    COD Andante
    WOD Dollop
    Time About 25 mins today, so feeling quite chuffed.

  21. 11:28. I didn’t find this desperately easy, and I don’t think it was the funny words that slowed me down. AGRA for instance is one of those clues that would be impenetrable to any normal person but is a write-in if you’ve been doing these things for a while. I also remembered nut from previous appearances, and UGRIAN from linguistics at university (where the group of languages was always Finno-Ugrian). Bunging in RESINOUS did delay me a bit but the DISSEVER quickly forced a rethink.
    The definitions for 12ac (elected?) and 7dn (INAPT, surely?) struck me as a bit iffy.
  22. 14:46. A fairly gentle Mondayish crossword… apart from some of the vocab. Like keriothe, I biffed RESINOUS for 8D, which held me up with DISSEVER too, so that serves me right. I also share K’s MER with INEPT, thinking from the definition it should be INAPT. I considered for a moment that I’d got SUBZERO wrong until I checked the wordplay. Otherwise, all rather pleasant. Well done on the cracking time U!

    Edited at 2019-12-09 02:31 pm (UTC)

  23. …no, don’t stop the CARNIVAL”. Whether the Championship found a better way is open to conjecture. Session 1 for me next year, then I don’t miss the George. Apologies to those who hoped to meet me.

    NHO RESINOID, and had “resinous” with a query in the margin until I saw Tony’s devilish relative DIS SEVER. Biffed CASSIUS, thought PAYMENT was a poor clue in an otherwise enjoyable puzzle.

    FOI RUM-RUNNING
    LOI CARNIVAL
    COD DOLLOP
    TIME 10:52

  25. Good start to the week, 13 minutes but no doubt will get tripped up as the week progresses. Therapy after Saturday which took me over an hour and still left me guessing on 17ac and 4 dn.
  26. After absorbing so much crossword expertise on Saturday, I had to give this a go. Took me two sessions, the second after mowing the lawn. Maybe that freed up the mind. LOI was CARNIVAL,narrowly avoiding an error with the unerotic CARDIGAN.Prior to that CASSIUS. Several unknowns all derived from the clues. UNSEEN reminded me of school Latin.
    I do like the term:flat-track bully. Graeme Hick comes immediately to mind. Was it coined for him?
    David
  27. Struggled through this, feeling dim and tired after a tough 18 holes in a freezing gale. DK RESINOID so needed an aid, put in UGRAIN (why?) so had a problem with 24a for a while. Can see now it’s not difficult but it just shows you need to be more than half awake to do an easy puzzle. Liked PERT and UNSEEN which was dredged up from schooldays or piano lessons.
  28. This was easy and I would have managed about half an hour if I hadn’t spent another quarter-hour trying to understand what UNSEEN might have to do with translations. Wrong upbringing. Wrong country. Why must I do puzzles in a foreign language, anyway (although some of my best friends are British)?
    1. Well I wish someone would explain what they think the problem is.

      SOED has: inept – adjective. M16.

      1 Unsuitable for (or to) a purpose, unfit (arch.). In Scots Law, invalid, void. M16.

      2 Lacking in judgement or skill; foolish, clumsy, incompetent. E17.

      3 Not suited to the occasion; out of place, inappropriate. L17.

      in which meanings 1) and 3) cover ‘unsuitable’, the definition in the clue, and all the other usual sources have similar.

      1. Good point. But I’d never heard the word used in senses 1 and 3 before and don’t consult a dictionary when solving. And so another seed of knowledge is planted in my desert of general ignorance. Thanks!
  31. This was a nicely balanced puzzle for me – slow to get started, quick in the middle, then unaccountably slow at the end for a grand total of 42 minutes.

    I did spend a while trying to convince myself that a “suor” was in some way a French couturier, before conceding that “resinous” must be wrong and deciding that RESINOID was probably a word. My longest time-waste, though, was over CARNIVAL/CASSIUS, which I stared at for several minutes without progress.

  32. 24:33. I cruised through most of this at quite a lick entirely on autopilot but then got stuck on carnival, Cassius, satisfying and mainstay at the end. I kept going round and round in an infernal circle looking at the clues for each of them and the checkers in turn over and over again until eventually one of them finally yielded and allowed me to crack the rest.

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