Times 27736 – twice shy

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Time taken: 8:43.

Relieved to have an all-correct this time, since I managed to make silly mistakes in both Monday and Tuesday’s daily puzzle and the Monday quick cryptic. Fortunately there was no spelling of Latin phrases that would certainly describe this year.

Very nice puzzle, some unusual words with very clear wordplay. A little bit of a US flavor to it. I hope you are staying safe and sane, and enjoying the crosswords.

Away we go…

Across
1 Charlie and girl adored being seen around — no longer a secret (12)
DECLASSIFIED – C(Charlie) and LASS(girl) inside DEIFIED(adored)
9 One involved in assassination in Japan? (5)
NINJA – the entire clue is the definition, the wordplay is hidden in assassinatioN IN JApan
10 Old male with nowhere possibly for shelter — unlike me? (9)
HOMEOWNER – O(old), M(male) inside an anagram of NOWHERE
11 Person showing loyalty — one, say, to be embraced by old lover (8)
LIEGEMAN – I(one), EG(say) inside LEMAN (old lover)
12 Farewell rendition by one singer no good (2,4)
SO LONG – SOLO(rendition by one singer), NG(no good)
13 Go off script maybe as performer in front of people at stadium? (8)
DIVAGATE – DIVA(performer), in front of GATE(people at stadium)
15 Bird abandoning river afflicted with wound? (6)
BITTEN – the bird is a BITTERN, remove the R(river)
17 With inner energy not ace, fictional hero just about manages (4,2)
GETS BY – E(energy) replacing A(ace) in the great GATSBY
18 For poet the smallest thing leads to row (8)
WHITTIER – WHIT(smallest thing), TIER(row) for the American poet John Greenleaf WHITTIER (known for terrible lines like “success is failure turned inside out”)
20 Fatter one’s abandoned food store (6)
LARDER – LARDIER(fatter) missing the I(one)
21 Perform with diplomacy, after right answer’s only half comprehended (8)
TRANSACT – TACT(diplomacy) containing R, and half of ANSwer
24 Maybe pictures of New York in a camera needing to be developed (9)
AMERICANA – anagram of IN,A,CAMERA
25 Prepare to be original (5)
PRIME – double definition
26 Sticks around striker, showing guts (12)
CHITTERLINGS – CLINGS(sticks) surrounding HITTER(striker)
Down
1 Position held by theologian was loose and kept shifting? (7)
DANGLED – ANGLE(position) inside DD(theologian)
2 Firm reservations arranged for rooms on ground floor (14)
CONSERVATORIES – CO(firm), then an anagram of RESERVATIONS
3 Knowing a sport will be broadcast (5)
AWARE – sounds like A WEAR(sport)
4 Sloppiness in school unknown, introduction of mentoring key (8)
SCHMALTZ – SCH(school), Z(unknown) containing the first letter of Mentoring and ALT(key)
5 Celebrity‘s unavailability — not at home (4)
FAME – FAMINE(unavailability) missing IN(at home)
6 As one studying certain relationships, I got close, involved (9)
ECOLOGIST – anagram of I,GOT,CLOSE
7 What’s nasty dictator repeatedly in on? This, maybe (14)
INDOCTRINATION – anagram of DICTATOR, two INs ad ON
8 Fellow taking kid aboard yacht (6)
DRAGON – DON(fellow) containing RAG(kid, tease). A racing yacht – there used to be a Summer olympics event specifically for them.
14 Big Herb is relaxing in bunk (9)
GIBBERISH – anagram of BIG,HERB,IS
16 Dearth of hard men in acting profession (8)
SHORTAGE – H(hard), OR(men) inside the STAGE(acing profession)
17 Golf ever mostly in Irish location (6)
GALWAY – G(golf) then most of ALWAYs
19 Pigs and horses, maybe, heading off (7)
ROTTERS – TROTTERS(horses, maybe) missing the first letter
22 Plane crashes in mountainous territory (5)
NEPAL – anagram of PLANE
23 Jeer with any number leaving stressed (4)
TAUT – TAUNT(jeer) missing N(any number)

53 comments on “Times 27736 – twice shy”

  1. Biffed HOMEOWNER, CHITTERLINGS, parsed post-submission. Hesitated over DRAGON, but like Vinyl thought of dragon boats. Thought of AWARE immediately, then wasted time trying to think of a sport that sounds like WARE. It was nice to see ‘old lover’ ≠ EX. LOI PRIME; needed to do some alphabet-trawling.
  2. I think Dragon yachts are different to dragon boats – though it strikes me as likely that the kind of adult who owns the one may well have started as a schoolchild with access to the other.
    Like vinyl I found the construction plus the vocabulary difficult In places and faced with one or two letters often didn’t know where to start. I liked Ninja and So Long and, because it’s a bird I thought of quickly, Bitten. Thanks, GH
  3. I’ve added a note to DRAGON – I thought they had popped up here before but they are a small style of racing yacht. They are pretty popular in Australia – I’ve crewed a dragon before, though my rather lowly role was to be human ballast and lean as far out as I could without falling in. I did stay reasonably dry.
    1. I’ve crewed a Dragon too .. but nowadays my preferred style of yacht would include a quarterdeck and a gin and tonic. Leaning as far out over the side as you can, so the waves can hit you full in the face, no longer appeals
  4. Found this too hard.

    I was going to add LEMAN to my list of crossword words, only to find it already there.

    Its now got 1,359 entries from a=per to zealous apostle=simon, so is too big to be of much use!

    1. Mine’s bigger than yours – 1,721 entries from “a battuta” to “zymurgy”. LEMAN is right near the middle at entry number 851.

      In some ways an exercise in futility – at a rough guess, I’d remember about 5% if I’m lucky – but I’m aiming for the 2,000 target anyway.

  5. I can’t tell if this was a bit harder than yesterday’s or only seemed that way because I worked yesterday’s right before this one. It seems we’ve seen the bittern perched in a few grids recently so I kicked myself when I finally saw what bird was missing an R.
    1. I thought of you yesterday when I saw Mme K on MSNBC. Hadn’t seen her in a while – she was excellent of course.
      1. I just passed your compliments along in our virtual staff meeting.
        She said she hadn’t done it for four months, but figured it was like riding a bicycle…
  6. I was held up by a few unknowns today – both DIVAGATE and WHITTIER and the Leman bit of LIEGEMAN. I thus wondered if I was going to end up with egg on my face after submitting, but for once my faith in the parsing was well placed. Count me as another more familiar with dragon boats than dragon yachts.
  7. 45 minutes, so definitely the hardest of the week so far for me. Slowed down mostly by unknowns—DIVAGATE, CHITTERLINGS, WHITTIER—but also by things I didn’t really understand, like 10a HOMEOWNER, and forgotten things like DRAGONs being yachts. I think I went to put the yacht definition in my Big List O’ Words last time it came up, but was stymied by it not being in any of my dictionaries… As with other people, I’m more familiar with the Chinese racing boats.
  8. I also found this tricky and lost a lot of time by having UNCLASSIFIED at 1ac.

    NHO DIVAGATE worked out from wordplay despite sounding more like a scandal at an opera house than its actual meaning.

    As the hour approached I didn’t have the energy left for a letter trawl on ?A?T at 23dn as my LOI so I used a thesaurus to remind myself of synonyms for ‘jeer’ looking for one to remove an ‘n’ from.

    Edited at 2020-08-06 06:37 am (UTC)

  9. Tricky in places without ever being tortuous. Derived both DIVAGATE and WHITTIER from wordplay. Enjoyable but no real standout clues.
  10. …For bread and clothing, warmth and light.
    30 mins with yoghurt, granola, banana, – but I divagate.
    Lots to invent from wordplay today.
    My alphabet trawl was LOI, Taut.
    Mostly I liked Shortage.
    Thanks setter and G.
  11. 24:42. Well off the wavelength today taking ages to decipher some clues. LOI SCHMALTZ, which has got me before. NHO WHITTIER and hesitated over the unknown CHITTERLINGS as I failed to see HITTER = striker for way too long.
  12. 46 minutes, with LOI INDOCTRINATION. I must shamefully confess that I’ve never heard of WHITTIER, which I constructed early on but put in late just in case there was an Atomtier. I think CHITTERLINGS were available in the UCP tripe shop in Bolton, not that I’ve ever had them. I liked the Cowheel there though. I vaguely remembered LEMAN from past encounters. COD to HOMEOWNER. A toughish puzzle. Thank you George and setter.
  13. A bit trickier than yesterday, what with DIVAGATE and WHITTIER, which I had only the vaguest of neurons firing for. For some reason spent ages thinking of DANGLED.

    COD: NINJA for the &lit

    Yesterday’s answer: the PM with the shortest term was George Canning. Great clue, myrtilus!

    Today’s question: assassin in Nigerian capital has red wine at séance board. What’s the connection?

    1. All five characters finished off by the same couple? Yes, said the Bodenfelde Black Widows
      1. Regardless of the answer (which I cannot fathom) that is a very fine clue, Myrtilus!
    3. Got most of the answers inspired by Ninja and was struggling with the red wine until I looked at the bottle I was drinking from (not by the neck you understand!)
      Andyf
  14. I found this one difficult, not helped by having Unclassified for 1A, corrected after a voyage around the grid.
  15. As I weighed into the discussion here recently around whether soppiness, which is how I understand schmaltz, is the same as sloppiness, I should have paid attention to the general view that sloppiness and soppiness are synonymous, at least some of the time; then I might have twigged it this time.
    Richard
  16. I found this one of those puzzles which makes you feel cleverer than you are: most clues fell with a sense of “not a lot of people know that”, plus surprise at clutching the wordplay out of thin air (and finishing in under 18 minutes)

    Like Jack I started with UNclassified (unified is a bit iffy for adored but you can smudge it) and gave up on it only when even I couldn’t come up with a theologian beginning with U, other than Ulrich Zwingli who doesn’t fit.

    Inevitably my last in was TAUT: for that and CHITTERLINGS I had to write the checkers out and muck about with them.

    I have competitively raced a dragon boat, and still have the silver medal. Lucky (I guess) that I know a dragon is also a yacht.

    Top quality cluing without ever being nasty. Clear blog and excellent time, George!

  18. Finished in 21’35”, as it turned out, correctly. WHITTIER, DIVAGATE, DRAGON all unknown.

    Thanks george and setter.

  19. I was also delayed by putting ALPEN at 22d, until I worked out the vaguely remembered CHITTERLINGS. NEPAL opened up TRANSACT and completed the SW. WHITTIER, DIVAGATE and LEMAN were derived from wordplay. A bit of a toughie. 40:41. Thanks setter and George.
  20. I didn’t know whit was a very small amount and I had not heard of Whittier. So unconvinced I went with “chit”, as in “a mere chit of a girl”. At least I didn’t compound the error with Whitterlings!

    Edited at 2020-08-06 10:01 am (UTC)

  21. 11:02. No real problems in spite of not knowing DIVAGATE or WHITTIER, and putting in a more or less feasible ALPEN at 22dn.
    1. We must have been separated at birth! 😀 (but your time is much better than mine!)
  22. 26’20, stopping the slide. Gatsby’s more of an antihero. Trapped for a time at the end by looking for a four-letter jeer. Liked the homeowner clue. joekobi
  23. ….DRAG ON and I didn’t much enjoy it.

    However, 2D reminded me with a smile of my late father’s stylish way of handling cold callers by feigning interest before totally putting them to the sword. One evening he told me a double glazing outfit had rung that afternoon. He had the salesman practically drooling as he priced up every available extra that could be fitted to a top of the range conservatory. It was fully 15 minutes before Dad asked if there was any extra fitting charge as he lived in a fourth floor flat….

    FOI LIEGEMAN
    LOI TAUT
    COD CHITTERLINGS (or “chittlins” as Granny Clampett would have it in “The Beverley Hillbillies”)
    TIME 11:20

  24. Another “alpen” here and I also only knew the Chinese boats. I never did find the groove with this so I’m glad to see others struggled a bit too. Whitman didn’t have enough letters for the poet and I went blank until I remembered a bit of Richard Nixon trivia. He grew up poor (and had a chip on his shoulder ever afterwards) in WHITTIER Cal., named for the poet, and went to college there. Ou sont les presidents d’antan. 20.34
    1. Nho Whittier, and never previously thought of Gatsby as a hero.. was he? I understood he was a flawed capitalist oligarch, but then again, I haven’t actually read the book 🙂
    2. George W Bush, with a W, was recently at the funeral of John Lewis. Along with other presidents Clinton, Obama, and Carter (by internet). As much as his presidency was probably the 3rd worst of all time – thank-you, Dick & Don – I actually rate George W Bush as a decent human being. The presidents of yesteryear (except Nixon) are OK, IMHO. But then again, look what they’re compared against, currently…
      1. Warren G Harding for one wouldn’t agree with you: ‘I am not fit for this office and should never have been here’.
  25. I was miles off wavelength today and found this more of a chore than a pleasure. I also made my own problems by managing to type SHOETAGE instead of SHORTAGE which made TRANSACT impossible until I spotted the gaffe.

    Pfft.

  26. Mostly OK but NHO DIVAGATE nor WHITTIER nor LEMAN so some educated guesswork there.

    TAUT was LOI after an alphabet trawl.

  27. Found this hard, took so long – 52 minutes – to get it done and needed to check a few guesses were right – never heard of Whittier or seen devigate (got from wordplay alone). Made the same deviation to ALPEN for a while before seeing the excellent CHITTERLINGS. Good puzzle nonetheless. Thanks George.
  28. His ‘Snowbound’ is probably still anthologized in US high-school textbooks, but surely no one else would have a reason to have heard of him? Poetic gifts aside, he was an energetic abolitionist.
    1. John Greenleaf Whittier is probably best known for writing the words of the hymn ‘Dear Lord and Father of Mankind’
  29. 33.54 but unfortunately I missed the fact I hadn’t completed divagate. To be truthful, I would probably have put in dovegate so a proper DNF.

    I found this tough going. FOI was ninja but had to wait till I got americana for a second entry. LOI transact. Despite making heavy weather of it, I enjoyed the crossword and I have another new word to file away in divagate.

  30. Lots to chew on here and it took me just over 39 minutes which was the same time as yesterday’s 15×15 which I didn’t tackle until late in the day.
    I didn’t know DIVAGATE, WHITTIER or ‘leman’ in LIEGEMAN and was confused by SHORTAGE as I don’t understand how ‘or’ can mean ‘men’ – maybe I’ve been affected by the hot weather!
    SO LONG, TRANSACT and CONSERVATORIES were all satisfying and I think that INDOCTRINATION deserves to be my COD for its clever cluing.
    Thanks to both setter and blogger.
    PS – I’ve just seen that OR means ‘other ranks’ so I’ve put myself out of my misery…

    Edited at 2020-08-06 03:58 pm (UTC)

    1. OR I think refers to Other Ranks, hence men as in army. Like you, Divagate, whittier and leman were unknown to me. But they are now!
      2. Sorry. Just realized that you’re not the blogger.
        Hard to work it out on my iPad.
        Thanks anyway.
  31. Well, I got through this in 36 mins and then realised that I not entered 23d. And an age later I still had nothing, so I gave up. I hate clues with no first letter checker. NHO WHITTIER or DIVAGATE, though they were gettable. Another ALPEN to start with. Ho hum here’s to tomorrow.
  32. Rather laboured solve today, and then totally discombobulated because of ALPEN, which seemed correct. WHITTIER too obscure for this philistine.
  33. 23:57. A promising start with FOI declassified in almost straight away and a few more coming off it. Slowed down by some hesitancy at a few unknowns (divagate – it must have been tempting to clue that as a scandal involving a demanding and highly strung performer, too obvious perhaps – Whittier – surprised not to have heard of him he seems to have been a figure of some significance – and dragon yachts). I found this a very satisfying solve.

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