Times 27531 – Being furious in Florida

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I whipped through this in 20 minutes, parsing some afterwards, coming to a halt with just 9d to finish. Playing around with the seven unchecked letters of the anagram yielded a possible or likely answer as early operas often have Italian names. I was (and still am) wondering if there’s more to 5d than meets the eye. The rest of it was pleasant if not taxing, (unlike yesterday’s, which I failed to finish in the hour), with some nice surfaces e.g. 10a, 28a, 3d. The two homophones are, for once, sans controversy I think! Toodle Pip!

Across
1 Old-fashioned runner going round Government department (6)
DEMODE – Demode, properly spelt démodé, arises when the River Dee ( a runner) goes around the MOD or Ministry of Defence. One of the few UK Government departments not to have had its name changed several times by incoming regimes.
4 Fond memory — larks, no end (8)
ROMANTIC – ROM or read-only memory, ANTIC(S) = larks no end. Seemed a stretch for a synonym to me, but Collins has it.
10 Was a top performer embarrassed to be placed next to bad actors? (2-7)
CO-STARRED – (ACTORS)* + RED = embarrassed.
11 State chief given a hearing (5)
MAINE – sounds like MAIN = chief.
12 Travel, coming to stream, by which sits a wild animal (7)
GORILLA – GO (travel), RILL (stream), A.
13 Positioned across street is what interrupts a journey (7)
ASTRIDE – ST interrupts A RIDE
14 King possibly deprived of honoured companion in French city (5)
ARLES – King CHARLES loses his C.H. Arles is a very pleasant city in Provence.
15 Sailor with ornament was obliged to entertain head of Navy (8)
DECKHAND – DECK = ornament, as a verb; HAD (was obliged) has N inserted.
18 By-products given dubious PR by nobs, heading off (4-4)
SPIN-OFFS – SPIN is dubious PR of a political nature; TOFFS (nobs) loses its heading T.
20 One shifting up after film’s ending (5)
MOVER – M end of film, OVER = up. As in time’s up.
23 Comedian will meet Queen repeatedly, I bet (7)
WAGERER – WAG (comedian), ER, ER. One who wagers. In Collins as a ‘derived form’.
25 Remembers sports grounds accommodating everyone (7)
RECALLS – RECS has ALL inside.
26 Support bridge team for a few years (5)
TEENS – TEE = support, as in golf; N S north-south in bridge. Seven years, precisely.
27 Financially embarrassed? That may be exaggerated (9)
OVERDRAWN – double definition.
28 To limit injuries finally exert no wrenched muscle (8)
EXTENSOR – (EXERT NO)* with S (injuries finally) inserted. Any muscle that flexes or extends a limb.
29 Two-dimensional chart artist turned over (6)
PLANAR – PLAN = chart, RA reversed.
Down
1 A measure of substance in unusual card game (8)
DECAGRAM – (CARD GAME)*. Ten grams of something.
2 Kangaroo court maybe has released one: a blow (7)
MISTRAL – MISTRIAL loses an I. Cold wind in Winter in the Rhône valley.
3 Andy’s idle, wickedly manifesting one? (6,3)
DEADLY SIN – (ANDYS IDLE)*.
5 Designer of maps briefly provided for Ordinary Seaman (8,6)
ORDNANCE SURVEY – Unless I’m missing a subtlety, I think this is simply that OS is an abbreviation for both.
6 Receive commercial institution in America (5)
ADMIT – AD = commercial, MIT = American university. I can’t be bothered to spell out Massachusetts in case I spell it wrongly. Oh, all right then.
7 University training? Feeling not fashionable (7)
TUITION – INTUITION (feeling) loses its IN (fashionable).
8 Having sailors using filthy language audibly maybe? (6)
CREWED – Sounds like CRUDE.
9 Fool in ardour so changeable in opera (7,7)
ORLANDO FURIOSO – Clearly an anagram, play with the letters and checkers, come up with this opera or more correctly dramma per musica by Vivaldi. I’d never heard of it, and I don’t want to hear it; there seem to be four recordings of it, no doubt vinyl1 has more than one.
16 Brutal house — end up with police probing origin of law-breaking (9)
HOMICIDAL – HO (house) AIM reversed (end up) has CID inserted, L first letter of law-breaking.
17

Individual in force runs to get convict (8)
EDITED by the setter later in the day to:
I run after force that’s tailed a convict (8)
PRISONER – PRIS(E) (force tailed) has ONE inserted and R for runs added. See setter’s comment below.
19 Colour of holy chap holding Mass (7)
PIGMENT – Holy chap = PI GENT, insert M for Mass.
21 Brum team at home? One performing may get booed (7)
VILLAIN – Aston VILLA is a Birmingham footie team, they’re IN = at home.
22 Strike by hospital employees at first that covers a wide area (6)
SWATHE – SWAT = strike, H E first letters of hospital employees.
24 Most of Ulster’s soldiers turning up? I may get to bow (5)
ROSIN – NI’S OR would be Northern Ireland’s soldiers; reverse them. Rosin is a solid processed resin obtained from pine trees and used by violinists.

​

52 comments on “Times 27531 – Being furious in Florida”

  1. Once again my heavy-handed typing doubles a letter (the R of CREWED in this case), and once again I don’t notice, giving me 2 errors for the price of one. Other than that, this was an enjoyable puzzle (other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, …). FOI 10ac, POI 8d, LOI 4ac. I biffed 5d and never bothered to parse it; it belongs in a QC, if anywhere. I didn’t know Vivaldi had written an Orlando; I only knew of the epic poem by Ariosto (if you don’t want to hear the opera, Pip, you will be even less keen to read the 38,000 lines of the poem). Kangaroo courts are, almost by definition, unfair, but are they–or do they end in–mistrials?
  2. I worked most of this lighting my clipboard with my phone while waiting for a musical performance to start, finished it quickly after I got home. Very enjoyable, but I think there’s a problem with 17. If PRISE had ONE inserted, and R added, it would be PRISONEER.

    By the way, a very strange thing happened the first time I posted this comment. It acquired a subject line that made no sense to me and that I didn’t put in.
    I’d sure like to know how that happened.
    I couldn’t find the Edit button at first so wound up replying to but then just deleting my first post.

    Edited at 2019-12-11 08:21 am (UTC)

  3. No time to report, but no problems in the solving either. I’d not heard of the opera but ORLANDO shouted out at me from the anagrist and the remaining grist made a known word (FURIOSO is a musical direction) so I went with the flow.

    Like Guy, I was also unable to make sense of the wordplay in 17dn but the answer was clear enough.

  5. Orlando Furioso is a great read, if you like Spenser and that sort of caper. Never heard of the opera. I had a careless ‘resin’, and imagine I am not the only one, even though I know ROSIN.
  6. A quiet stroll around the park apart from the opera (never heard of it) and 17D which I see the setter has just commented upon. Agree 5D a bit weak.
  7. 18 with a very careless ‘resin’ (anything ulaca can do) … I’m pretty sure that’s not the first time I’ve made that exact mistake. I should probably try parsing clues now and then.

    Enjoyable all round, but I really love the clue for GORILLA. It reads just like a line from one of the old text-based fantasy games, Colossal Cave Adventure or whatever. Nice. xyzzy

  8. 30 mins with yoghurt, banana, granola, etc.
    NHO the opera but do-able, just.
    Mostly I liked: Co-starred, Gorilla and COD to Teens.
    Thanks setter and Pip.
  9. After getting FOI 5d I thought I’d see if I could quickly knock off the other long answer. Turns out I couldn’t, but at least trying to work out the last word got me the bottom half of the grid done.

    I then headed for the top and finally got all the crossers thus letting me work out the unknown opera before I came back for my LOI 7d TUITION, which took a while. I even had a reasonable idea how the wordplay worked, but I still had to come up with the answer before I worked backwards to confirm it.

    Didn’t even spot the problem in 17d at the time.

    50 minutes all told, and pleasantly educational. I’ve just spent a while reading about Arles’ amphitheatre…

  10. About 35 minutes, interrupted by saying a ROMANTIC goodbye to Mrs BW, who’s abandoning me for a whole week for a holiday with our daughter. LOI EXTENSOR, after the unknown ORLANDO FURIOSO was finally biffed. I just assumed that the PRISONER had lost energy in his cell. Mind you, the compiler has a challenge if he’s going to recall all printed copies and have them re-delivered. Our newspaper guy will already have gone home. COD to TUITION. I liked GORILLA too. Decent puzzle. Thank you Pip and setter.
  11. Seventeen and a bit minutes, with ages on the unknown opera. I assumed, wrongly, that PRIS is a force.

    I found today’s QC very hard.

    Thanks pip and setter.

  12. I had PLANER for PLANAR which was a silly mistake as I knew PLANER didn’t work. I also had RESIN for ROSIN.

    COD? It has to be VILLAIN.

  14. 30 minutes, but for that E in 24dn, not spotted on pre-submit check. I’d heard of 9dn (though didn’t know of an operatic version) so only needed a few checkers to get it.
  16. I see your careless RESIN and I raise you a biffed TRESS, taking the definition at 26A to be ‘support’. It seems due care has gone out of the window since the Championships.
  17. ….a DEADLY SIN in crossword land ? I biffed five answers here, and on returning post-solve justified them all. Alas, my justification for PRISONER was indeed based on “prisoneer”.

    I tried for a while to play with “movie” at 20A, and I’ll be amazed if I was alone in that

    Obviously NHO the opera, and had to write out the anagrist.

    FOI CO-STARRED
    LOI ORLANDO FURIOSO
    COD DEADLY SIN
    TIME 7:54

  18. Nope I didn’t spot the anomaly in PRISONER either. This was a relief after yesterday’s drubbing. I did briefly try to make an anagram of “PR by nobs” in 18A but luckily my heart wasn’t in it. ROSIN was a bit of a snare after we had “resinoid” just the other day. 17.54
  19. Learned a thing or two today that I didn’t already know – the opera, although with all the checkers in place, the anagram pointed to a pretty convincing answer; démodé, though if you’re familiar with, say, déclassé, that’s not a huge leap either; and I, too, thought I’d come across a new French import in PRIS, though it turns out there was a simpler explanation there. Otherwise all good and pleasant; and until I had the checkers, I spent a good while inventing non-existent kings…ROUENCH, LILLECH, CHREIMS.
  20. Delayed a little by the wrongly shackled prisoner to end in 22’41. A light workout but one scarcely feels one’s been in a fight. (There must be a better clue for 5.) Still the various levels are needed and this is a fair example of its kind. joekobi
  21. 11m 48s and slow on the anagrams today.

    ORLANDO FURIOSO came up in ‘Ximenes on the Art of the Crossword’, as he used it in a clue for LARDOON if I remember rightly. I’d never heard of it when I read the book many years ago, but clearly it has stayed with me.

    A kangaroo court is surely not a mistrial…?

    Edited at 2019-12-11 12:48 pm (UTC)

    2. Maybe it’s a play on the term ‘mistrial’ rather than the formal term of a trial void due to error. Though normally such devices are accompanied by a question mark.
      1. For me, the “maybe” in the clue offers as much wiggle room as a question mark—perhaps even more…
  22. 19:01. NHO of the opera and didn’t notice the problem with PRISONER. At least I checked the wordplay and corrected RESIN to ROSIN. I was a bit slow getting started with 20A my FOI, but there wasn’t really anything too obscure or difficult. A nice middle-of-the-rad puzzle, I thought.
    1. ‘Middle-of-the-rad’: somewhere between an ollie and a railstand nightmare flip.

      Edited at 2019-12-11 09:11 pm (UTC)

      1. I seem to be prone to them. And not just when typing. I needed the rubber on the end of my pencil several times last Saturday!
      2. OK. You got me. I can’t work it out. “somewhere between an ollie and a railstand nightmare flip”?
        1. Skateboard moves, one very simple, one much more complex (or as a skater might put it ‘rad’) than the other. Full disclosure: google was used in the production of this facetious remark.

          Edited at 2019-12-11 09:52 pm (UTC)

          1. Crikey. Does that count as required General Knowledge for the Times Crossword these days? Maybe we should be permitted to google when solving, but I don’t think that would be enough to defeat Magoo… or you, for that matter, lol.
  23. Really struggled today despite no DNK ‘s – 40:03. Got stuck in the NE for no apparent reason since the clues were straightforward,
  24. I mis-spelled Homicidal (Homocidal! ) and had resin for rosin (thinking unthinkingly something about polishing violins!). Both mistakes would have been avoided with a bit of care and less haste. I also spent far too long trying to remember what a collective of larks is. Of course I now remember it’s an exaltation and see it has nothing to do with the clue. Deliberate or not, it was a good red herring.
  25. Obscure anagram in a foreign language, my favourite clue. No. Even if I got it without too much trouble. Otherwise straightforward, except prise, where I saw the problem but then immediately justified it with pries. Forces.
    No, me neither.
  26. My only encounters with Orlando have been the airport and the marmalade cat (who was, presumably, furry but perhaps not oh so), but with all the checkers it wasn’t too hard. I was puzzled by PRISONER but then forgot my puzzlement. Out of curiosity, does anyone keep track of how often errors get into the puzzle?
  27. Got to the crossword late in the day. After yesterday’s trial this one was therapy. 13 minutes in the end. Last one in was 5 down, just couldn’t believe it was that literal!
  28. This seemed more difficult than the snitch suggests. Struggled with SW but that was nothing compared to NE which took ages to unlock. Several clues not fully parsed. Oh well, just one of those days I guess.
  29. For a while I had STRETCHED tentatively for 27ac. It seems to work OK and is quite possible I think. Not as good as the actual answer, though.

    Edited at 2019-12-11 06:27 pm (UTC)

  30. After yesterday’s stinker I was very pleased with today’s puzzle and my reasonable time, but … DNF (RESIN instead of ROSIN, of course, and it’s not really in my vocabulary but I’m sure I’ve seen it before).
  31. I’ve been absent a bit, and for the sake of candor I’ll admit that I failed at yesterday’s, so this one was a less taxing experience. About 15 minutes to get through, and I didn’t notice the overload on the PRISONER clue. And I even followed the wordplay to ROSIN, and ORLANDO … Regards to all..
  32. I did this puzzle this morning, but didn’t have time to comment, as I was due to meet the Burroughs/Unisys oldies at Slingsby for our Christmas Lunch, which went very well, apart from my getting stuck in traffic at various stages of the journey, behind, a Drain Cleaner, a Speed Camera Van and a Muck Spreader, all on country roads with big queues of traffic behind them. My (ex-)colleagues were all champing at the bit by the time I got to the pub. The journey home was much less stressful. Anyway the puzzle was a straightforward affair apart from PRISONER, which I assumed to be an error. Didn’t know the Opera, so checkers and paper were involved. Started with GORILLA and finished with TEENS. Missed the anagram of ACTORS in CO-STARRED. Luckily, as a fiddler, I’m more familiar with ROSIN than RESIN, but started deriving the answer from OR for soldiers anyway. 29:18. Enjoyed it! Thanks setter and Pip.

    Edited at 2019-12-11 07:14 pm (UTC)

    1. Hi John – Unisys! That’s a blast from the past. I have here in front of me two copies of Unisys News from the late 80s.
      1. 🙂 I just had a clear out and put several issues in the recycling. I started with Burroughs in 1973 and retired from Unisys in 2016 after 42 and a half years. I was a Field Engineer/Customer Service Representative. What was your connection?

        Edited at 2019-12-11 09:00 pm (UTC)

        1. I was consulting editor of said newspaper from 1987 to 1992. I didn’t work in-house, but spent a lot of time at Stonebridge Park as you can imagine. I wonder if I ever did a story about you? I hope you gave those venerable papers a good send-off!
          1. Nice one! It’s possible that I was included in a team that got a mention, but nothing springs readily to mind:-) I am based in the NE but spent time at Milton Keynes(Southend in the old days) and did a course with Victor Se in Holborn once. I never visited Stonebridge Park. If my memory serves me correctly it was abandoned due to subsidence eventually! I’m afraid I didn’t perform any rituals over the disposal. At least they didn’t go in the shredder like the bills, statements and company confidential stuff from the 90s, noughties and teenies that I disposed of at the same time:-)
            1. You didn’t miss much in north London – as I remember, it was a pretty grim location! But all the same, it’s such a small world, isn’t it!
  33. Around 45 mins but shot myself in the foot and used aids to untangle 1ac and 2dn. I saw kangaroo and thought Aus so put austral for the wind at 2dn meaning I couldn’t get 1ac. No problems with the rest of it. I took care to put rosin not resin. I knew of the Italian epic poem from reading The Faerie Queen at university, so the opera wasn’t too much of a stretch. By the time I came to it the clue to prisoner had been amended so no problems there either.
  34. 9:55. Late to this, so the clueing error had been corrected. I don’t know if I knew that ORLANDO FURIOSO was an opera, but I knew the poem, probably for exactly the same reason as special_bitter, so in it went.
    The first few across answers read like a review of a rather seedy movie.

    Edited at 2019-12-11 09:56 pm (UTC)

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