Times 27,725: Turning Base Clues Into Gold

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
After a pretty tough crossword mid-week I was half expecting a slight disappointment today but it turned out to be a good ‘un, with lots of rather deviosities to contend with. I went in strong with 1ac and 1dn going straight in but hit some speedbumps later on, with the barred puzzle strength clue at 26ac crossing with the deceptively simple 16dn (where I spent a long time wondering if there might exist such a thing as an EDGE FOIL) giving me no end of gyp.

Theme of the day goes to all the comedy Scotsmen dressing up bishops or possibly hiding them under their kilts; clue-wise I think I most enjoyed the perilous escapades of 10ac. Nice one setter; much enjoyed!

ACROSS
1 Killer whale lying back by sea, not large, certainly agile (9)
ACROBATIC – reversed ORCA [killer whale] by BA{l}TIC [sea, minus L for large]

6 Stock set with food as image shows (5)
ASPIC – a somewhat cryptic definition of the meat jelly, also shown by AS PIC [as | image]

9 Surrender accepted here, many papers reported (5)
REIMS – homophone of REAMS [many papers]. Where the Germans surrendered unconditionally to the Allies at the end of WW2.

10 Film featuring boy — one as swamp attack victim? (9)
GLADIATOR – LAD I [boy | one] has been eaten by a GATOR. Cute

11 Let in again to study with Cambridge college (7)
READMIT – READ [to study] with M.I.T. [Cambridge (Massachusetts) college]

12 Second drink for anonymous person? (7)
ANOTHER – cheers, I’ll have another! Or A. N. Other, an anonymous person

13 Poke fun at swimmer thus leading the course (4,6,4)
MOCK TURTLE SOUP – MOCK TURTLE SO UP [poke fun at | swimmer | thus | leading]

17 One smuggled in under kilt when suspect has to go in haste (3,4,3,4)
RUN LIKE THE WIND – (UNDER KILT WHEN*) [“suspect”], “smuggling in” an additional I

21 Country person of vulgar manners, heading out soon (7)
LEBANON – {p}LEB [vulgarian, minus its “heading”] + ANON [soon]

23 Seeds eaten by parrot satisfy (7)
APPEASE – PEAS eaten by APE [parrot, as in mimic]

25 Ladette cunningly keeps doctor engaged in controversy (9)
EMBATTLED – (LADETTE*) [“cunningly”] “keeps” MB [doctor]

26 Thumb small book with two rings binding (5)
OVOLO – VOL{ume} “bound” by O O. An “ovolo” is “a convex moulding having a cross section in the form of a quarter of a circle or ellipse. Also called: quarter round or thumb”. Crazy stuff!

27 Leitmotiv used by Keith Emerson (5)
THEME – hidden in {kei}TH EME{rson}, who was in The Nice and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, of course

28 Time to study philosopher in dreary routine (9)
TREADMILL – T READ MILL [time | to study | philosopher (John Stuart)]

DOWN
1 Display skeleton perhaps as body in flight (8)
AIRFRAME – AIR FRAME [display | skeleton perhaps]

2 Asian recipe found in area educated woman covers (5)
RAITA – A(rea) “covered” by RITA [educated woman. I thought she was only in the process of being Educated though? I guess that was a long time ago, she’s probably done by now]

3 Corrupt spy chief and others lead for example (4,5)
BASE METAL – BASE [corrupt] + M [(Bond’s) spy chief] + ET AL. [and others]

4 More strictly controlled near royal woman (7)
TIGHTER – TIGHT [near, as in miserly perhaps] + E.R. [her maj]

5 Painter having drink — something bitter (7)
CHAGALL – CHA GALL [drink | something bitter]

6 Friend takes a minute with soldier making climb over (5)
AMIGO – A M(inute) + reversed G.I. [soldier] + O(ver)

7 Up at loch when swimming one finds scented shrub (9)
PATCHOULI – (UP AT LOCH*) [“swimming”] + I [one]

8 That which brings stillness on the Dart? (6)
CURARE – cryptic def for something you’d find tipping a poison dart

14 Convivial and available for a bash? (9)
CLUBBABLE – a word which has always sounded to me descriptive of somebody who needs a good clubbing to death…

15 Persuaded to include loud supporting character from Dickens’s pen (9)
SHEEPFOLD – SOLD [persuaded], “including” F [loud] supporting Heep [Uriah, a very ‘umble character from Dickens’ David Copperfield]

16 Have advantage over minion, one much applied to grindstone (4,4)
EDGE TOOL – EDGE [advantage] over TOOL [minion], simple as that

18 Parking, not standard, allowed for minor dignitary (7)
KINGLET – {par}KING minus PAR = standard, plus LET [allowed]

19 Scots couple dressing bishop left in pants (7)
TWADDLE – TWAE [Scots two = couple] “dressing” DD L [Doctor of Divinity = bishop | left]

20 Einstein, maybe one having links to time? (6)
ALBERT – double def with a watch-chain

22 Fool about to produce explosive component (5)
NITRE – NIT RE [fool | about]

24 Meat cut up served in excellent sauce (5)
AIOLI – LOI{n} [meat, “cut”] reversed in A1 [excellent]

86 comments on “Times 27,725: Turning Base Clues Into Gold”

  1. 1A went in almost after just reading the first two words. Killer whale just has to be ORCA

    OVOLO was a bit of a guess since it could be one of the short books of the bible or even TOMe. EDGE TOOL crossed it and might have been something else. But there was lots of clever stuff here, with some well-disguised definitions, even though it wasn’t overall fiendishly hard.

    My LOI was the swamp guy since I wasn’t quite sure what I was looking for until the penny dropped.

    1. I too reached OTOMO first, but that didn’t sound like a word at all, whereas OVOLO did as soon as it occurred. Though there was no way I could have told you how it had anything to do with thumbs.
  2. This definitely got harder moving NW to SE. I hadn’t realised how many films there which have about 9 letters and begin with A G until 10a popped up. Godfather, Godzilla, Gallipoli, Goodfellas, Goldfinger
    I liked Twaddle, especially for DD instead of B or RR, and I could have done without Patchouli. Really.
    Thanks Verlaine, setter, and ed
    1. Double snap Paul. I thought you’d be the one to spot the MIT thing and PATCHOULI has always smelt awful to me.
  3. 16d LOI by a long way. Sat staring at EDGE-*O*L for ages, and even an alphabet trawl unhelpful. A sword FOIL might be edged on a grindstone? Could a MOLL be a minion? Finally saw I was being a TOOL. 34’54”
  4. Surprisingly easy, although I’d never heard of an OVOLO and hadn’t a clue as to ‘thumb’. Biffed MOCK TURTLE ETC. and RUN LIKE etc., never bothering to check on the latter. Didn’t know the other meaning of ALBERT. I also wasn’t sure who surrendered at REIMS. CURARE from the Rs, the C giving me ASPIC. What Paul said about MIT, and about PATCHOULI (‘scented’? How about ‘stinking’?).
    1. I always had a soft spot for the idea of PATCHOULI because it was meant to be associated with Goths, or was it hippies (maybe one is just the other in monochrome)? But I’m sure it’s rather unpleasant in practice.
      1. Actually, the shrub may be delightfully aromatic for all I know; the goop that some people put on their hair is vile. I have no idea how goths smell; but I remember when patchouli was all too popular among hippies.
      2. I immediately thought of Al Stewart-The Year of the Cat:
        “While she looks at you so cooly
        And her eyes shine like the moon in the sea
        She comes in incense and patchouli
        So you take her, to find what’s waiting inside
        The year of the cat”

        Who else could find a rhyme for Patchouli?

    2. What’s that about MIT? I even looked it up, yes it’s in Cambridge. Back in the day when I studied electronics MIT was the second-most prestigious university in the world, behind Berkeley. Is it now beyond the pale? Or is it that Harvard University was called Harvard College when it was founded in the 17th century, not changing its name to university until about 19th century?
      1. It’s just, as Paul said indirectly, that MIT is a university not a college, a nit some of us have picked a few times here over the years, to no avail.
        1. To much avail… for instance thanks to this site I know MIT is a university, not an Institute of Technology. Though surely Harvard University is a university also, not a college?
          1. And obviously it doesn’t help when Americans speak colloquially about their “school”, when they mean their college. Or, er, university.
        2. There’s a loose definition of “college” which is pretty much a synonym for university though…
      2. MIT is in Cambridge, isla, but it is an Institute (the I in MIT). It could also, technically, be a university. It is not a college.
        Harvard University has a particular part which it calls Havard College, and that bit is also in Cambridge.
        Lesley College, again in Cambridge, changed to be a university about 20 years ago.
        Cambridge College doesn’t do what the label says – it is actually located across the river in Boston.
        People are more careful with Boston College / Boston University – since there is one of each.
        1. First def for college in Collins: “An institution for higher, professional or vocational education”. My other half also swears that it would be legit for an American teen to say “I’m going to college at MIT this fall”.
          1. Point taken. Still, it’s cheating a little – if the clue correctly referenced a Cambridge institute a university, then the mis-direction wouldn’t have worked.
    3. Et tu Kevin. Sorry, I hadn’t scrolled down to you yet. We used to get OVOLO in the NY Times but haven’t seen it in ages.
  5. I was somewhat off the mark, having forgotten the Albert on my Hunter and went for ALBEIT instead of BERTIE! Lord knows why. DNK OVOLO although once owned a VOLVO, which is obviously the Norwegian for thumb..? MY ‘LOI’

    FOI 12ac MOCK TURTLE SOUP

    COD 9ac REIMS

    WOD 7dn PATCHOULI – ever remembered

    Name a KINGLET anyone?

    1. Kenneth II of Scotland and Máel Coluim I of Strathclyde must be kinglet-ish having been amongst those who rowed King Edgar down the Dee as an act of submission. Stephen
  6. Curare was hard, needing an alphabet trawl. OVOLO beat me, had yet another permutation OSOTO: S for small, OT for books. Also went with FOIL – in Australian English a tool is something very different to a minion, and I’ve never heard of an edge tool as a “thing”. Otherwise quite liked it. Sheepfold devious, COD.
  7. No way ovolo and thumb mouldings ar the same thing. They don’t even perform the same function – ovolo are supporting and thumbs are binding – like eggs – not to be confused with egg and dart – and don’t even start me on curare. And neither are quarter round! I should know, having spent many hours scouring demolition yards looking for the once popular but now very elusive ovolo, only to discover reams of quarter round. Who writes thesauruses these days?

    Gosh, I come here for the first time in 5 years and I’m straight back into curmudgeon mode. What did I think of the crossword? Apart from OVOLO and CURARE? Not bad.

    1. Welcome back, koro! It’s great to hear from you again. Don’t leave it so long next time.
      1. Thanks, jacket. It’s nice to be remembered. I really came to be told how ALBERT worked. I thought ALBER must be a golf course in the Hebrides, even though the chain is a reasonably frequent visitor to The Times.
  8. At least I’m in good company here, what with CURARE, SHEEPFOLD, OVOLO and EDGE TOOL being the ones that really slowed me down. I started off quite well, but got bogged down to a slow trudge towards the end, finally finishing in 56 minutes. Still, it was definitely enjoyable along the way…
  9. 38 minutes with LOI EDGE TOOL on a wing and a prayer, along with OVOLO who sounds like an extra from Twelfth Night. What with those and the barely known PATCHOULI, I feel like I’ve been taken through the wringer this morning. The Cisco Kid was big though when I was as primary school and Adios AMIGO a familiar farewell, to be used a few years later by Jim Reeves. COD to CURARE for its grotesque concept of stillness. Thank you V and setter.
    1. Happy memories of Pancho crying “Let’s went” before they galloped away at the end of an adventure.
  10. The whole of the LH side went in reasonably easily but with the exception two or three clues (notably PATCHOULI was amongst them!) I really struggled on the RH side and after a while the lack of helpful checkers had me reaching for assistance.

    I recognise this was a quality puzzle by comparison with the thing that was inflicted on us on Wednesday but the concentration of difficult clues intersecting with each other proved to much for me.

  11. Doing well until having to guess at OVOLO and TOOL. CURARE is a Marmite clue, I expect. I quite liked it. GLADIATOR, AIOLI and under the kilt are all good but COD to SHEEPFOLD.
  12. Keith Emerson and patchouli… 1972 was a classic year for me as a 14 year old prog rock nut (Close To The Edge by Yes, Foxtrot by Genesis and Trilogy by ELP all released that year). I had an Afghan coat which stank, so wearing patchouli oil was an improvement and almost de rigeur like loons (mail order from small ads in Melody Maker) and suede boots. Happy days.

    I liked this puzzle though ALBERT and OVOLO were entered with hope rather than confidence. Thanks V for the excellent blog – and setter for the memories!

    1. I too was a big Melody Maker reader but it sounds like it might have been a bit different by the early 90s!
      1. Yes, sadly absent now, as is Q Magazine I see. Once upon a time you could scan MM and know all the important albums to be seen wandering around school looking cool with. Now there’s more music released in a week than you could listen to in a year (that’s research-based, not hyperbole); it’s all invisible and most of it is terrible.
        1. Some of it computer-generated, too! Apparently it’s an earner to create random Spotify “albums” that ensnare just enough mostly-accidental listening time for the pennies to roll in.
  13. I’m officially paranoid….initially assumed 23A involved another obscure avian….but no!
    1. Let me feed your (justifiable) paranoia: “a KINGLET or crest is a small bird in a group that is sometimes included in the Old World warblers, but is frequently placed in its own family, Regulidae, because of resemblance to titmice.
    2. Your life is turning into a cruciverbal remake of Hitchcock’s The Birds!
  14. I was with isla3 having gone with OSOTO. Personally I think that with ovolo being a pretty obscure word the cryptic should have been less ambiguous – as others have said OTOMO was another possibility. Oh well, one to file with the ogee and the scotia.
  15. Fairly slow but steady, then got completely bogged down in the SE corner with SHEEPFOLD/OVOLO/EDGE TOOL, eventually putting in EDGE FOIL. Bah, but at least my SNITCH average won’t suffer! It didn’t help that I’d put AOILI in my mistake.

    COD: PATCHOULI nice surface.

    Yesterday’s answer: Dorothy Gale was in the Wizard of Oz, not necessarily from WICHITA, just an unspecified place in Kansas.

    Today’s question: which other country’s flag has a (whole) tree on it other than Lebanon?

      1. I was thinking of real current countries, but Gondor would qualify otherwise!
    4. On a related note, be careful not to confuse Lebanon and Norfolk Island in picture quiz rounds… I’ve seen it done, to my team’s cost.
    5. There are others (not all countries mind); including Belize, Guam, Cocos Islands, West Papua, Fiji and Verlaine’s beloved Norfolk Island (and maybe not all trees either – it’s hard to tell sometimes)
  16. Query:
    9ac: REIMS. As far as I was aware the unconditional surrender was made on Lüneburg Heath.
    NHO OVOLO, EDGE TOOL or ALBERT as a watch chain.
    COD to GLADIATOR.
    1. That’s what I thought too, but apparently that was Monty’s acceptance of the surrender of German forces in the West, on 4th May, and the surrender at REIMS 3 days later was of all German forces, east and west. Things I haven”t yet learned from the History Channel’s interminable dissection of WW2.
      1. Thanks, Z. Back in the day when we had access to the History Channel we liked the channel’s promo clips which merged scenes from then and now. For example, a scene of a woman and child playing on a beach would merge with allied soldiers coming ashore on the same beach on D-Day.
    2. Lüneburg Heath apparently was the scene of the unconditional surrender of German forces in the Netherlands, north west Germany, including all islands, Denmark and all naval ships in those areas (Wikepedia) but Reims was the full monty.
      Andyf
  17. All I know about MIT is that lots of people here know what it is and what it isn’t, and setters don’t care and use it according to their fancy.
    So much stuff I took on trust in this thing: OVOLO, of course, DD for bishop (most bishops are honorary DDs, but not all DDs are bishops), PATCHOULI which I vaguely knew as something that smells, EDGE TOOL which only looked likely, and who surrendered at REIMS (though I’ve no idea why I didn’t know that)
    I also got ALBERT confused with the more intimate Prince ALBERT and wondered about the redundant time reference.
    On the other hand, CURARE went in with a grim grin, and CHAGALL with a warm feeling, as his art I always find overwhelmingly wonderful.
    A challenging and sometimes controversial puzzle, which kept me EMBATTLED, especially in the lower half, long enough to reach 27.32.
    1. Not far from me in Kent is Tudely church, all of the wonderful stained glass windows of which were designed and installed by Marc Chagall.
      I am generally not keen on modern art, or on stained glass come to that, but these windows are truly stunning. Don’t go anywhere near without seeing them

      1. Thank you so much: it’s on my list when conditions permit. By coincidence (or design?) Reims cathedral has a magnificent set which quite blew me away, not least because I didn’t know until I saw them. I believe there are several “National Chagall’ museums in France: I warmly commend the one tucked out of the way in Nice, which moved me to tears, not least the Song of Songs set with his handwritten dedication:
        À Vava, ma femme, ma joie, et mon allégresse.
        (”To Vava, my wife, my joy, my gladness.”)
        How beautiful is that?

  18. DNF. Guessed OTOMO for 26A and EDGE MOLL for 16D. Double fail. I thought CURARE was a bit sneaky, but it made me smile. I enjoyed the smuggling under the kilt most.

    Edited at 2020-07-24 07:34 am (UTC)

    1. Yes, sadly missed. Eddie Offord (who should know) said he was by far the best of the prog keyboardists, stunningly immaculate and able to overdub complex parts first time with total precision.
  20. Thanks, v, for an enlightening blog but surely ‘DD’ does not equal ‘bishop’? A DD is not necessarily a bishop and a bishop is not necessarily a DD; of course, some might be both! Kind regards, Bob K.
    1. Per Wikipedia, “Bishops of the Church of England have traditionally held Oxford, Cambridge, Dublin, or Lambeth degrees making them Doctors of Divinity”, so I guess that makes sense. I like the idea of Lambeth being one of the three great academic institutions of England in the eyes of God.
  21. DNF. I whizzed through most of this but then ground to a halt with two unsolved. I considered both OVOLO and OTOMO but I couldn’t decide between them and didn’t really believe either was a word. I had got as far as considering EDGE FOIL at 16dn and might have got TOOL in the end but as I was clearly not going to finish with any confidence I gave up.
    Mood: grumpy.
  22. Oh dear – where Verlaine considers and decides wisely, I leap in head first: both OTOMO and EDGE FOIL for me. Not that I would have been confident of OVOLO or EDGE TOOL if I’d thought of them. 8m 3s with those two errors.

    In my sixth form days I helped out some drama student friends by playing Lopakin in a scene or two from The Cherry Orchard, and one of the other characters commented that I (in character!) smelled of patchouli. The only time I’ve ever come across, but it stuck with me.

  23. All correct, but not entirely happy about being forced to guess at the existence of OVOLO. I think that if you’re going to use obscure words as a setter, especially if they cross with a second obscurity (and yes, I know a thing is only obscure if you don’t happen to know it), you should clue them in a way which leaves the solver feeling reasonably confident that they’ve found the right unknown. A shame, as I enjoyed most of it.

    (I shan’t describe it as a curate’s egg, as my current bugbear – even overtaking the phrase “the proof is in the pudding” – is people in public life failing to understand what a curate’s egg actually is. Invariably it’s people who also don’t understand how rotten apples and barrels work. Thank you for your indulgence.)

    1. With you on OVOLO/EDGE TOOL. Eventually found the phrase “Play with edge tool” meaning much the same as play with fire, but couldn’t find edge tool per se. We used to call a strange crescent shaped “spade” used to tidy the edge of the lawn an edger or edge tool, but that was not especially sharp, so was never put to the grindstone.
      Could not find the word “thumb” in a google on ovolo or quarter round, so I think that was poor; but then I would as I do not know the relationship whereas I assume the setter does.
      Otherwise a super puzzle.
      Andyf
      1. Indeed. I suppose, to be fair to the setter (and I’ve observed in myself when setting quizzes) that if you know a word/fact, it can be hard to put yourself in the mind of someone who doesn’t know it. Which is how you end up setting a stiffer – and less enjoyable – challenge than you intended.
    1. One of those words where people from this side of the Channel usually feel very self-conscious about pronouncing it the right way, as though the French have done it on purpose to embarrass the English.
    2. It’s pronounced the same as ‘rinse’ in French, but then Paris is pronounced ‘paree’… but this is an English crossword!
      1. About two months ago I was corrected regarding my pronunciation of REIMS (my grandfather sketched the Cathedral in 1914, on his way to war!). I was utterly mystified.

        Now we have ‘Ranze’ from Midas and ‘Rinse’ from Lord Keriothe. Just what is it – ‘Ranse”!?

        1. It’s ‘rinse’ as the French pronounce that word, so ‘ranze’ is a reasonably close approximation in English. ‘Ranss’ is a bit closer.
          If you’re speaking English though, just say ‘reams’.
    3. Can you ask them if that’s what Serge Gainsbourg is singing about in “Je t’aime… moi non plus”? Je vais et je viens
      Entre Reims… Makes perfect sense now.
  26. Another FOIL here. Bah. Had to look up OVOLO to make sure it wasn’t OTOMO too. EDGE TOOL applied to a grindstone? A tool edge maybe. A good puzzle ruined for me. I had all bar those 2 clues done in 30 minutes, but by the time I’d settled on EDGE FOIL I was up to 58:35. Thanks for the blog V.
  27. A DNF in 56 minutes. Done in the SE corner. I couldn’t think of AIOLI – it’s surprising how many 4-lettered meats there are – and I didn’t know, or had forgotten, OVOLO. I wasn’t aware that REIMS was the site of the German surrender – I’ve always associated it with a (very fast) motor racing circuit.

    Getting CURARE almost made up for the disappointment of the pink squares and SHEEPFOLD was pretty good too.

  28. Nap…couldn’t finish it. Completely stuck on 8d, 19d, 20d and 23ac. Thanks v for the clarifications. Definitely one step too far for me today.
    I mentioned the Nice (Rondo) the other day and lo, Keith Emerson’s name comes up . Bizarre. The French almost spit out the word REIMS with a very guttural first syllable so it’s more like Rrrince. Just to add to the confusion. Thank you V and setter.

  29. Threw the towel in after 45 minutes completely bamboozled by the SE corner. Ovolo , aioli and edge tool just passed me by. Disappointed as all the rest was done in under 35 minutes.
  30. Managed all except OVOLO before coming here to see what it was, rather than doing a wordsearch cheat. Thought the rest was all good stuff. especially the NE quadrant.
  31. DNF in something approaching 40 mins. Well that’s it, a clean sweep, a DNF everyday this week. I got most of this ok, saw curare early but had to work hard to winkle out sheepfold and edge tool. Unfortunately I was left with the unknown word at 26ac. I could see what the wp required but couldn’t work out the correct small book, was pondering Hos. for a time. I started an alpha-trawl but couldn’t be bothered to see it through to the bitter end. There’s no guarantee that had I done so I would’ve plumped for ovolo over ohoso or otomo. So I looked it up. A disappointing end to a disappointing crossword week.
  32. A bit over half an hour. Held up by sheepfold – nice clue – at the end – too busy thinking of Dickensian characters starting with S. Albert as watch-chain new to me.
  33. As seems to be the rule for this week, DNF, defeated by one clue, 26ac: OJOBO, anyone, an obscure Japanese fastener for holding kimonos together? This was not the only unknown, but at least the others (ALBERT, perhaps EDGE TOOL) were clear from the wordplay.

    I’m not even that disappointed, since for most of us there was no way to solve this clue other than by guessing, and that is really not the point of the daily cryptic. I suppose I can be happy enough that I managed to solve the other obscurities correctly, and there were quite a few enjoyable ones. But OVOLO was not deceptive, since I did know how the wordplay worked, but getting it right was just a matter of throwing dice, and that does not speak well for the setter.

    Edited at 2020-07-24 10:26 pm (UTC)

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