TImes 27,707: Moanimalism

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I didn’t manage to go off to the races, Monday-style, on this one, but only because, if anything, there was too little to get my head around, not too much – dull words straightforwardly clued, which is a complaint I prefer to have about Jumbos than Friday puzzles. 9ac is I guess an interesting word, but the clue veers dangerously close to “foreign obscurity clued by anagram” territory, not that there’s much chance of getting the letters in the wrong squares for this one.

COD to 19d, which while simple, did make me smile with its definition “proud words”, as in ones that stand out from the page. Very nice, thank you, setter!

ACROSS
1 Reserve bank works here (9)
BOOKSHELF – BOOK [reserve] + SHELF [bank], resulting in a place where you’d find “works”.

6 Add space for printer’s family emblem (5)
TOTEM – TOT [add] + EM [space for printer]

9 Company accepting blame replaced instrument (7)
CEMBALO – CO “accepting” (BLAME*). Who’d heard of a cembalo before? Apparently it’s a harpsichord, not something you clash together.

10 Troops short of time prescribed treatment (7)
REGIMEN – REGIMEN{t}

11 NHS uses tin complex as service accommodation (6,4)
NISSEN HUTS – (NHS USES TIN*). A word I was familiar with, but probably only through crosswords.

12 Dog that always investigates leather leads (4)
TAIL – T{hat} A{lways} I{nvestigates} L{eather}, F{irst} O{ne} I{n}.

14 View street through fences (5)
VISTA – ST “fenced” by VIA [through]

15 Not entertaining girl, American, when visiting China (9)
UNAMUSING – UNA, plus US “visiting” MING

16 Planned route I go around in time (9)
ITINERARY – I + TRY [go] “around” IN ERA

18 Grand book stolen from dope? (5)
NOBLE – NOB{b}LE

20 Queen avoids sickly piece of cake (4)
EASY – {qu}EASY

21 Saxophonist’s first recently to hide fitting round mouthpiece? (4,6)
SOFT PALATE – S{axophonist} + OF LATE “hiding” reversed APT [fitting]. Mouthpiece as in, “part of the mouth”.

25 Church member mislays clubs belonging to ancient invaders? (7)
ANGLIAN – ANGLI{c}AN

26 Top soprano initially improvises (7)
NOODLES – NOODLE = head = top of the body? Plus S{oprano}. I hope I’ve missed something though because this feels like a really lacklustre clue if that’s it.

27 Many adopting universal yoga position (5)
LOTUS – LOTS “adopting” U

28 Remove housing officer, revealing clothing (9)
DECOLLETE – DELETE “housing” COL(onel}

DOWN
1 Stop eating firm meat (5)
BACON – BAN “eating” CO(mpany)

2 Slow absorption I found in very big Scottish bog (7)
OSMOSIS – I, found in O.S. MOSS, which is allegedly a word for a bog in Scotland

3 Sheepish journalist follows fake eatery up (10)
SHAMEFACED – ED follows SHAM + reversed CAFE

4 It takes ages to manage rearing horse (5)
EPOCH – reversed COPE + H(orse)

5 Eve welcoming half-cut Adam in for starters (5,4)
FIRST LADY – FIRSTLY [for starters] “welcomes” AD{am}. Slightly winceworthy definition…

6 One-piece garment not new in Friendly Islands (4)
TOGA – TO{n}GA

7 They get beaten up in a mine skirting motorway (7)
TIMPANI – reversed all of IN A PIT, “skirting” M

8 In Paris, my old box contains top-class speech (9)
MONOLOGUE – MON [in Paris, “my”] + O(ld) + LOGE [box] “contains” U

13 Bird flu wigeon spread around area (6,4)
GUINEA FOWL – (FLU WIGEON*) “around” A(rea)

14 Call recorder perhaps active man picked up (5,4)
VOICE MAIL – VOICE [perhaps: active] + homophone of MALE

15 Blue Berets loved defending northern plain (9)
UNADORNED – U.N. ADORED “defending” N

17 Understanding paper conservationists import pine (7)
INSIGHT – i [paper] + N(ational) T(rust) “import” SIGH [pine]

19 Proud words misled Liberal (7)
BRAILLE – (LIBERAL*)

22 Unionists embracing Northern Irish outfit (5)
TUNIC – T(rades) U(nion) C(ongress) “embracing” N.I.

23 Follow guarantee, ignoring Republican (5)
ENSUE – ENSU{r}E

24 Gentle touch of some gracious Sikh in retirement (4)
KISS – hidden reversed in {graciou}S SIK{h}

78 comments on “TImes 27,707: Moanimalism”

  1. I was thinking, as I finished up, “Verlaine will be cross today”. Nothing really stood out, aside from the fact that we’ve had KISS, TUNIC, & NOODLES quite recently. DNK MOSS. Did know CEMBALO, though, as, I’m sure, do Jack, Vinyl, and Jerry. But as V says, it wouldn’t matter if one didn’t. Biffed ITINERARY & NOBLE, parsed afterwards; a pity, in a way, because the cluing was clever. Is ‘revealing clothing’ the definition of DECOLLETE? As a noun, the word means a kind of neckline. I started to raise my eyebrow at BRAILLE, but then thought of ‘proud flesh’; evidently–just checked ODE–this is a UK meaning. V, you’ve got a typo at 15d; forgot the N.
  2. I liked Braille. Clever that. I had the same question regarding the technical definition of Décolleté as Kevin. Thx Verlaine.
  3. but I knew Verlaine would be disappointed, as I was myself, a little.
    NISSEN HUTS is something I know only from working these things, which so far is the only context in which this knowledge has been useful.
    Worked the NW last. Had seen OSMOSIS as likely earlier but wasn’t confident of the parsing…
    COD BRAILLE.

    Edited at 2020-07-03 02:13 am (UTC)

  4. I was please that this was on the easier side for a Friday.
    I ambled home in 39 minutes.

    FOI 24dn KISS snooker-speak

    LOI 21ac SOFT PALATE I’m a tad light on Saxophonists Dick Heckstall-Smith, Acker Bilk and Ralph Ravenscroft are on my shortlist.

    COD doubtless 19dn BRAILLE

    WOD 11ac NISSEN NUTS invented by Major Peter Nissen – for some reason always remembered!

    WOW THE LONE RANGER and PRONTO!

    1. Acker Bilk? Never saw him play anything but clarinet. John Dankworth would surely be towards the top of any Brit’s list.

      Edited at 2020-07-03 05:28 am (UTC)

      1. I spent quite some time trying to think of another Zoot whose surname fitted.
      2. Sorry, Jack – I had forgotten ‘Acker’ loathed the saxophone ‘Stranger on the Shore’ was transcribed for alto sax duet by David McKeown.
        JD is not on my list as I have a horryd aversion to Cleo Laine’s singing. Room 101 for her.
        (I saw Keifer Sutherland’s band the other night on a German TV show. Wow!)
        1. I don’t mind Cleo as long as she’s not singing scat or her own dreadful lyric to Cavatina (The Deer Hunter theme). I have an aversion to Dankworth’s type of jazz but I have to concede he was a brilliant musician.
    3. Delete Acker (Clarinet) Bilk and add Michael (“Still Crazy After All These Years”) Brecker. And I believe it was Raffael Ravenscroft, or perhaps he decided Ralph was too staid and re-invented himself. Oh, and then there’s Bobby Keys who added heaps to the Stones in their pomp.
  5. I thought there was a minor percussive theme going on today with TIMPANI and CEMBALO, but like Verlaine I was surprised to learn that you don’t normally bash a cembalo, though I guess you could if you wanted to.

    BRAILLE was far and away my COD; I thought it an excellent clue. Succinct, a very nice anagram and a great definition. Nice one setter!

    1. CEMBALO (or harpsichord) still counts as a percussion instrument, as does the piano. No bashing is involved in the former but plucking is involved, albeit hidden away in the mechanism.
      1. So it does, I never realised that. If I had looked at my Chambers more carefully when I looked it up I’d have seen that it comes from the same root as cymbal.
  6. After my statutory half-hour I came to a complete standstill with only TUNIC and UNADORNED in the SE quarter and after staring at the remainder blankly for another 10 minutes I retired for the night. Inspiration was still lacking on resumption this morning so eventually I cheated on a couple to break the deadlock.

    These were DECOLLETE – a word I had been seeking last night but was unable to bring to mind – and BRAILLE which I regretted I’d given up on as it was surely going to be an anagram of ‘Liberal’. The remainder then fell into place.

    Oddly enough I had considered NOODLES at 26ac much sooner and before I used the kick-start, as it was fresh in my mind from yesterday’s puzzle where I’d come across the ‘improvise’ meaning for the first time. But it didn’t go in immediately today because this time I’d never met NOODLE meaning top in the sense of ‘head’. I’d have said ‘noddle’ for that.

    Yes, as a former music student I had no hesitation over CEMBALO. It’s used as the German for ‘harpsichord’ so appears on countless record sleeves such as those issued by Deutsche Grammophon and Archiv.

    Edited at 2020-07-03 06:03 am (UTC)

    1. Decollete is not a word you should be seeking at night or else you might end up needing Braille.
  7. Here in Orkney we have the world’s most beautiful Nissen huts, converted by Italian POWs who were building the Churchill barriers into an extraordinary and exquisite chapel. So that one was a write in for me. COD to BRAILLE, for reasons already mentioned by others. Otherwise an UNADORNED offering though nothing to be SHAMEFACED about. Thanks setter and V.

    Edited at 2020-07-03 06:53 am (UTC)

    1. I just looked those Nissen huts up. They are marvellous! Nissen Dorma….not to be confused with Nissan Dormer which is a Japanese camper van….
      PS…Back in the late 70s, I worked at Scatsta Airfield in Shetland and used to fly over Scapa Flow on the way to and from on my time off. On a very clear, still and sunny day, I remember seeing the outlines of the scuttled German fleet.

      Edited at 2020-07-03 09:01 am (UTC)

  8. …that’s Melania, to change the old Music Hall. joke. 35 minutes. LOI FIRST LADY. Unlike many of you above displaying your musicality, I didn’t know CEMBALO, for me an obscurity clued in an anagram, but it looked a better bet than CEMLABO, the only feasible alternative. COD to BRAILLE. I thought this was a decent enough puzzle, and we’re getting spoilt if we’re expecting more. Thank you V and setter.
  9. Got in a terrible mess with BOOKSTORE rather than the shelf – and did not have the presence of mind to check for oh so long. Another disaster: Setter-2, Napasai-0.
  10. 25 minutes, principally because the synonyms seemed easier to spot than is usual on a Friday
  11. Was expecting today’s to be hard given the rest of the week wasn’t that hard, but no, it’s snitching as the middle crossword of the week. NHO CEMBALO or loge as part of MONOLOGUE, it’s a theatre box.

    COD: BRAILLE by a mile, ‘proud words’, ho ho.

    Yesterday’s answer: the longest country name with alternate vowels and consonants is the 18-letter United Arab Emirates, impressive, eh?

    Today’s question: is Melania Trump the only US First Lady not born in the United States?

    2. Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, … quite a few, I’d imagine, were born before there was a United States.
  12. 13:46. No complaints from me – a neat puzzle I thought. Nice to see CEMBALO which I knew from my interest in early music. LOI SOFT PALATE. BRAILLE best of the day.
  13. …What is all this sweet work worth
    If thou kiss not me?
    30 mins with a croissant and strawberry jam, hoorah!
    Mostly I liked Unadorned and Braille.
    Today’s had a lot of ‘subtract a letter’ clues: short of time, book stolen from, mislays clubs, not new, ignoring Republican.
    Thanks setter and V.
  14. The musical theme of the QC was mirrored to some extent in this one. Could the setters be closely related perhaps? Still, I’ll be able to go and queue up outside a pub soon and I’ll be able to visit a barber ere long.

  15. I have to agree with V – this puzzle was a bit boring. Had come across CEMBALO somewhere – Mephisto probably. NISSEN HUT no problem – they were still in quite extensive use on RAF bases in the 1950s. BRAILLE a stand out clue.
    1. Jim, been waiting to mention (and can do so now that the solution is out) that Jumbo 1446 clued TED as a wordplay element as “old-style rocker”. Little victories eh?
      1. Thanks for letting me know Penfold. Today my brothel creepers will have an added spring in their step.
  16. 10:44. I started very quickly on this but then slowed down, particularly in the SE corner. CEMBALO is indeed an obscurity clued by an anagram but there’s nowhere else you can feasibly put the letters.
    BRAILLE is very good.
  17. Thanks, Verlaine for 16ac, 20ac, 21ac and 7d. Solved all of them correctly but failed to parse them properly.
    COD to BRAILLE, unsurprisingly.
  18. A typo. Unadorned. Really annoyed by this as I did a pink square check and spotted a misspelt Braille but not this one.

    COD: BRAILLE stood out.

    2. It’s high time the Times started applying Artificial Intelligence to the dishing out of pink squares. Give you the benefit of the doubt for an obvious typo, blank square, or mis-shuffling of letters in an “obscure foreign word clued by anagram” scenario but give you the raspberry where you’ve fallen into a trap, or spelled iguanodon with an a.

      Edited at 2020-07-03 11:57 am (UTC)

      1. Also being caught by auto skip of filled cells (I had a duplicate N today)
  20. Liked BRAILLE. Same reservations about DECOLLETE. Like several others here, no problem with CEMBALO. And there’s nothing ‘alleged’ about MOSS. I live about fifteen miles away from Flanders Moss, which, according to Scottish Natural Heritage, is ‘one of the largest lowland raised bogs in Britain,’ and ‘one of the most intact raised bogs in Europe.’

    Though I always thought a raised bog was a toilet on a plinth.

    1. And not exclusively Scottish either. There’s Moss side in Manchester, and also the Chat Moss in Lancashire which nearly became the insurmountable obstacle to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Mr Grumpy
      1. My beloved Altrincham FC play at Moss Lane, which may explain the frequency with which we suffer postponements due to waterlogging.
  21. Slow today, nearly 35 minutes, with about half on the SE. Inexplicably took ages to get GUINEA FOWL.

    We had NISSEN HUTS at my school, some used for classrooms – immensely cold in winter. (There was a small brick building nearby, signed ‘Decontam’, to be used in case of nuclear war).

    Agreeing with others: as jack, the word for head is noddle; as many others, DECOLLETE means showing your decolletage – the revealing clothing is deshabille or dishabille.

    Thanks verlaine and setter.

  22. CEMBALO was actually my first in even though I’m not aware that I knew the word. It fitted the wordplay and “felt” like the right answer.

    Today’s Boston Spa link (after Boycott’s house yesterday): Our village hall recently(ish) played host to a gig by session SAXOPHONIST Snake Davis (any relation K?) who has played on records and at gigs by the likes of M People, Lisa Stansfield, Ray Charles, Tom Jones, Culture Club, George Michael, Tina Turner, Take That, Cher, Beyoncé, Kylie, Paul McCartney, and Motörhead (!?).

    1. Boston Spa (lovely village, btw) is a music hotspot! Snake Davis, Rick Wakeman… Who’s next? 🙂
  23. Eventually 17.36, with the south east section slowing progress to a crawl.
    It didn’t help that I had the Harry Lime theme going through my head most of the time, which is weird because a CEMBALO is not a cimbalon, and in any case it was a zither.
    DECOLLÉTÉ will do for revealing clothing for those of us who can remember those innocent days when it was an exciting word to know, promising insights into the mysteries of the female form.
  25. Have to agree, this was by no means a bad puzzle, but perhaps rather plain fare apart from the excellent BRAILLE.
  26. 8m 26s and no real hold-ups other than putting BOOKSTORE for 1a (which I believe does work – other than the fact that it’s an Americanism), and not realising the error until FIRST LADY came in.

    Speaking of which, that clue doesn’t really work, does it? ‘Eve’ can be first lady as the cryptic part of the clue (e.g. “President’s wife, Eve?”) but can’t be the actual definition. Disappointing.

    On the other hand, BRAILLE was outstanding – to steal a joke that’s already been done – and made me smile.

  27. Aptly for a morning puzzle, my first entry was BACON(I wish). Will have my porridge shortly. I didn’t know CEMBALO, but had all the crossers, so there was no other arrangement that would fit. A biffed VIDEO at 14d held me up until I decided 20a couldn’t start with O, then ITINERARY slotted in. Liked BRAILLE a lot. SOFT PALATE was my LOI. 30:22. Thanks setter and V.
  28. Somewhat bizarrely Collins has separate entries for decollete and décolleté. The former has ‘a bodice that has a very low neckline’, which is a bit closer to being a piece of clothing.
    1. It’s a noun in French. Wiktionnaire:

      Forme de la vêture féminine qui laisse apparaître en partie le cou, le dos, la poitrine, les épaules.

      Va-va-va-vooom!
      The second definition, by extension, is the part of the body partially exposed (front or back).

      Edited at 2020-07-03 02:53 pm (UTC)

      1. “Forme de la vêture féminine qui laisse apparaître en partie le cou, le dos, la poitrine, les épaules.”

        For some reason this is giving me flashbacks to the last act of Henry V…

  29. All geared up for a toughie today, but this wasn’t it. Held up at the end by NOODLES, for which both meanings were a bit obscure, which gave me BRAILLE, which I really liked.
    LOI ANGLIANS, which I have always thought of as a people that moved in rather than invaded, but I may be wrong. See Bernard Cornwell’s Last Kingdom for more information.
  30. ….although I needed Verlaine’s wisdom to parse ITINERARY, and only parsed INSIGHT after I’d submitted. I enjoyed this one.

    FOI TOTEM
    LOI SOFT PALATE
    COD BRAILLE
    TIME 9:03

  31. 25 minutes, loitering over noodles at the end as didn’t know it as ‘improvises’ and couldn’t see the ‘top’ till I used my noodle. While it wasn’t wildly witty I didn’t find this puzzle drab as some seem to have. Nissen Huts brings back memories.
  33. Braille was a blinder of a clue.
    19’25”, so snuck in under 20 for two in a row. Are Fridays getting easier?
  34. Finished this with coffee after lunch. Noodles on the menu again but only in the crossword. I have never seen Noodle meaning Head; I thought it must be a piece of clothing.
    LOI was CEMBALO as I carefully dismissed inferior contenders; NHO this instrument.
    Another vote for BRAILLE as COD. This was much easier than yesterday; but very enjoyable to me. David
  35. A bit late coming to today’s puzzle but glad I did. Finished in 20.30 . FOI bookshelf which gave at least temporary encouragement. Thereafter steady rather than explosive progress with the SE corner rather than the SW of yesterday slowing me down. Guessed noodles and had a flash of inspiration for soft palate which I then saw fitted the cluing! COD decollete but quite liked unamusing too.
  36. It’s been a rubbish week – I don’t think I’ve completed one. Every day there have been a couple I’ve had to cheat on in order to finish, and today was no exception. Apart from that, I quite enjoyed this, although even I thought some of the clues were more at Quickie level. I couldn’t believe that we had NOODLES again quite so soon. I did suspect that there would be a few – shall we say – disappointed posts today.

    FOI Tail
    COD Braille
    DNF

    Hoping for better results next week

    Thanks setter and Verlaine

  37. Interrupted (by teenager) start maybe knocked my radar out for a while, but otherwise a straightforward solve particularly for a Friday.

    DNK CEMBALO but with checkers, what other combination would have worked….

  38. A middle-of-the-road puzzle but BRAILLE made it all worthwhile. I stupidly put the answer to 23d in the space reserved for 22d and didn’t notice it until I hit the buffers. My eyesight is getting problematic. (Though today I actually got a long-delayed hospital appointment with my opthalmologist so things must be getting back to normal) 23 minutes. Ann
  39. 36 minutes, but with a typo not seen in pre-submit checking – once again I miss ones in down words. Delayed ar beginning by starting with BOOKSTALL at 1a.
    Otherwise, like others MER at DECOLLETE and kudos for BRAILLE.
  40. Late again after golf and busy afternoon; agree with those above, a disappointing Friday challenge. Liked BRAILLE. Unhappy with meaning of décolleté and guessed cembalo. The rest was faintly vanilla. Just done the P Eye 680 which was more fun.
  41. 18:30. A solid puzzle if lacking the whizz-bang-ery of some Friday offerings. Agree that Braille was very good.
  43. My Junior School in Hull was a Nissen hut – deafening when it rained.
    Puzzled by 1ac. Surely a shelf is horizontal but a bank is inclined.
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