Times 27771 – Bally dancing

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
17a is not a place to be seen wearing green. It’s Liam Neeson’s home town; he was offered the freedom of the borough but the charming DUP blocked that and gave it to Ian Paisley instead. Anyway, I’d prefer to be in the Swedish university city at 10a, the fourth largest in the country. [enough politics – Ed]. This was a pleasant exercise in wordplay, sprinkled with a few interesting words; a fruit, a plant, a Greek monster, an instrument. I’m not sure I fully understand 26a, and I wasn’t convinced about CO for the peace protester in 15d, but for me the rest was fine. How did you like it?

Across
1 Ben follows drunk sailor, but not literally (2,2,5)
SO TO SPEAK – SOT (drunk) OS (ordinary seaman) PEAK (ben).
6 Blimp maybe one caught by wind condition (5)
COLIC – COL (Colonel Blimp?) I, C(aught).
9 Recalled letter by queen and one by king bearing fruit (7)
KUMQUAT – All reversed (recalled): TAU (letter) Q (queen) MU (letter) K (king).
10 Heightened pressure sadly set back Swedish university (7)
UPPSALA – UP (heightened) P (pressure) ALAS reversed (sadly, set back). Pleasant university city north of Stockholm.
11 Instrument’s one needed earlier during part of flight (5)
SITAR – STAIR being part of flight, move the I forward. Indian stringed instrument.
12 Sodium and potassium — deadly mixture — in plant (5,4)
NAKED LADY – NA (Na, sodium) K (potassium), (DEADLY)*. The Belladonna Lily plant.
13 Beds, for example, or large, heavy drawer (5)
SHIRE – double definition, a county or a shire horse.
14 Issue of spouse of Liberal visiting rebuked: should have rung earlier (9)
STEPCHILD – STEP (rung, before) CHID (rebuked) insert L.
17 Woman chasing my large dog back in Irish town (9)
BALLYMENA – MY L LAB = my large dog, reverse that and add ENA a woman. Town of 30,000 people in Northern Ireland.
18 Females opening have to cut mistakes (5)
MUFFS – MUS(T) = have to, cut; insert FF females.
19 Sort of water supply perhaps not encountered before near delta (9)
UNMETERED – UNMET (not encountered) ERE (before) D(elta).
22 Bound to be fired after penning note (5)
LIMIT – LIT (fired) has MI (note) inserted.
24 Possibly using medium of culture noire, short ITV broadcast (2,5)
IN VITRO – (NOIR ITV)*, where NOIRE loses its E (short).
25 Enrage local feeling with speech (7)
INCENSE – Sounds like (with speech) IN SENSE = feeling.
26 What keeps drawing animal home (5)
EARTH – double definition, one an animal home, and the Earth draws because of gravity? EDIT thanks to pootle73 being first to explain it, it’s ART = drawing, inside EH = what?
27 Paintings have captured a horse race on island (9)
TAHITIANS – TITIANS (paintings by him) has A H(orse) inserted.

Down
1 Lavish kisses somewhat revolting, they believe (5)
SIKHS – hidden reversed in LAVI(SH KIS)SES. “They believe” seems an odd definition for these people, lots of religious people believe in something.
2 Miler at it, for a change? (4,5)
TIME TRIAL – (MILER AT IT)*.
3 A saver by nature, gentleman shortly arrives at bank (9)
SQUIRRELY – SQUIR(E), RELY (bank).
4 European pays to listen to solicitor brood (3,4,5,3)
EAT ONES HEART OUT – E(uropean), ATONES (pays) HEAR (listen) TOUT (solicitor).
5 Punch with a couple of slices of bread? (7,8)
KNUCKLE SANDWICH – cryptic definition, slang for a punch in the mouth.
6 Prize presented to aforementioned boy with a bow (5)
CUPID – CUP (prize) ID (idem, the same as above, Latin).
7 Climber in a fix on the ascent (5)
LIANA –  A NAIL reversed up. One of those jungle creepers you might see Tarzan using.
8 Big Eddy’s cautious, beady eyes (listening to me) (9)
CHARYBDIS – CHARY (cautious), B D I’S (sounds like beady eyes). Charybdis in Greek legend was a monster who created a whirlpool in the Straits of Messina with another monster Scylla on the opposite side. A bit like being caught between a rock and a hard place, today.
13 Being considered in case daughter must tap into reserve energy (3,6)
SUB JUDICE – SUB (reserve) JUICE (energy) has D for daughter inserted.
15 Peace protester and politician allowed in bed together (9)
COMPLICIT – CO (conscientious objector? pacifist) MP, LICIT (allowed).
16 The latest thing? Fashionable aim of an eccentric (9)
INFOMANIA – IN (fashionable) (AIM OF AN)*.
20 One advancing with month remaining (5)
MOVER – M (month) OVER (remaining). Movers and shakers, perhaps.
21 Little one originally trained in technology can’t handle (5)
TITCH – Initial letters of T rained I n T echnology C an’t H andle.
23 Lock head of state away after uprising (5)
TRESS – ASSERT (state) is reversed and then loses its head A.

57 comments on “Times 27771 – Bally dancing”

  1. I was in obtuse mode today, eg taking undue time to fill in __U__ SANDWICH, thinking of Colonel Blimp but not of Col., thinking of CHARYBDIS but not getting big Eddy, thinking of SHIRE immediately but not of the horse, failing to see TITCH (POI!), etc. NHO BALLYMENA, of course. Never figured out TRESS. Like Pip, I had a MER at CO, and at the definition of SIKHS, and I interpreted EARTH as he did, with the same ? I do wish setters would stop using ‘race’ as in 27ac.

    Edited at 2020-09-16 04:54 am (UTC)

  2. Mostly went straight in, until LOI shire needing an alphabet trawl. I like its tricky first definition.
    Only one NHO, Naked Lady, though Belladonna known. Same ? at earth as others, 25 ac parsed as inn/sense homophone.
    COD to time trial, just ahead of shire. Very pleasant puzzle.
  3. I feel like I was fortunate to know all the words which might be considered obscurities – UPPSALA, CHARYBDIS, SUB JUDICE – the latter of which has appeared earlier this year I think. If I hadn’t known them I think I would have taken a lot longer.

    EARTH is ART (drawing) in EH (What).

  4. At 3dn SQUIRRELY was a word from Letterkenny! My LOI.

    Pip your opener should be 17a.

    FOI 2dn TREAD MILL – until TIME TRIAL popped up! So my true FOI was UPPSALA.

    COD 27ac TAHAITIANS who were a race until the word was ‘skunked’ by Kevin & Co; so now we are supposed use ethnic group – but that would have screwed up the clue, would it not!?

    WOD CHARYBDIS with their obols, as per Goldfinger.

    5dn Knuckle Sandwich I believe originated in The Bowery, NY.

    1. TAHITIANS aren’t an ethnic group either, they’re just people who live in Tahiti. I think that’s Kevin’s point.
      1. Actually, that wasn’t my point, although it’s a good one. The word ‘race’ as a term to classify humans has such an ugly history that it’s been generally abandoned, at least in scientific discourse; talk of the Tahitian race, or the Jewish race, or the English race, is nonsense at best.
        1. Fair point. I would argue that we still need the concept of race (if only to discuss racism) but it certainly has no relevance here.
          1. So is the setter therefore guilty of racism?
            Tahitians are part of the human race – or is that not relevant here?
            1. The setter is just wrong IMO. There is no sense in which Tahitians are a race.

              Edited at 2020-09-16 09:59 am (UTC)

              1. The annual Heivā I Tahiti Festival in July is a celebration of traditional culture, dance, music and sports which includes a long-distance race between the islands of French Polynesia, in modern outrigger canoes (va’a).
  5. A smattering of things I’d not heard of here took me to 49 minutes. A few went in unparsed, to boot, including 23d TRESS and, more sadly, 8d CHARYBDIS, because the B-D-Is bit was fun once it was pointed out.

    I’ve not heard the word 16d INFOMANIA but the definition’s certainly familiar. I believe the cool kids call it “doomscrolling” these days. Anyway, I’d best go check Twitter…

    Edited at 2020-09-16 06:46 am (UTC)

  6. Crashed and burned in the NW corner by misspelling CUMQUAT, biffing SECTS and pretending to ignore the lack of justification in wordplay. However the rest was lots of fun; got all the obscurities but had to come here to understand the excellent EARTH and TRESS. Thanks Pip, Pootle and clever setter.

    Will Bale come to Spurs? We certainly need something after the dismal opening game. A front three of Bale, Kane and Son would be quite something.

    1. I didn’t know you were a fellow Spurs fan. That’s you, me and Zabadak. I expect there are more who don’t like to admit it.

      I’d be surprised if the Bale move happens but we need something to change. We’ve fallen so far since reaching the CL final 🙁

      1. Yes I have been posting gloomily in the sports pages. I likened Mourinho to an electron: carrying negative charge at all times.
  7. Had half impaired the nameless grace
    Which waves in every raven Tress,
    Or softly lightens o’er her face;
    Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
    How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

    Lovely. 25 mins pre-brekker (which will be a Fat Rascal, hoorah).
    Thanks setter and Pip.

  8. 16’15”, got KUMQUAT and spent a while failing to parse it. Did parse EARTH. COMPLICIT LOI as fixated on cot for bed.

    Liked CHARYBDIS.

    Thanks Pip and setter.

  9. Really enjoyed it. EARTH, NAKED LADY and TAHITIANS are excellent but the mischievous MUFFS had me laughing out loud so has to be my COD.
  10. I really screwed this one up at the end, needing aids for CHARYBDIS and to check UPPSALA (NHO or forgotten).

    Additionally, and even worse, I missed the obvious wordplay leading to TITCH – glad I was not alone, Kevin – and eventually biffed TITLE (handle). Then at 26ac out of desperation I put EYRIE, but at least there I’m still not entirely sure why the answer is EARTH.

    Edited at 2020-09-16 06:23 am (UTC)

    1. You’re also not alone with TITLE, and EYRIE (animal home); I was on the verge of submitting like that, but decided to take another look.
  11. I found that very enjoyable. My only query was on the parsing of Kumquat which Pip has now answered.
    I appreciate the point about using ‘race’ to describe TAHITIANS but once I had decided the definition was at the end and not the beginning of the clue, it went in relatively easily. However in the early stages I did wonder if ‘race on island’ might mean the IOM TT races, especially as I had the second T as a checking letter.
    I also have no problem with CO as ‘Peace Protester’.
    My landlady has NAKED LADIES in her garden next door so no problem there.
    As for CHARYBDIS, my old school song mentions the perils of the “Bab-el-Mandeb Straits”. They were a metaphor for the corridor outside the old headmaster’s study where errant pupils waited for six-of-the-best from the Head.
    Too many really good clues to pick one COD but I did like EARTH and SITAR.
    Thanks, Pip!
    1. There’s also a mention of Charybdis in the Police song “Wrapped around your finger”

      I shall now go back to hanging my head in shame.

      They gave us a planet and I failed to parse it properly.

      O me miserum

  13. 14:50. I thought this was consistently chewy: never easy but I didn’t get stuck at any point. Very enjoyable.
    I did get a bit muddled with 15dn where I was convinced it would be something in COT.
  14. The phone rang as I pressed ‘play’ so quickly pressed back and it seemed not to start the clock. Good to know. Reasonable time, reasonable crossword.

    COD: CHARYBDIS for Big Eddy.

    Yesterday’s answer: the real Lady Macbeth has various spellings, e.g Gruoch.

    Today’s question: if something wasn’t made of earth, air, water or fire, what adjective was used to describe it? (14)

      1. ‘I had a salient squinte in my little dictionary but could finde no element.’ Samuel Pepys

        Edited at 2020-09-16 01:42 pm (UTC)

  16. … stop picking on me. Puppy walking took precedence today, so I’m a late arrival. 38 minutes. COD to CHARYBDIS for its cleverness, with many other good clues in this meaty offering. LOI was the absolute LIMIT. Thank you Pip and setter.
  17. Lots not fully parsed.

    KUMQUAT – got that with just M and T checkers but couldn’t work out all of the reverses.
    EARTH – no idea what was going on here – I thought it was something to do with gravity.
    CHARYBDIS – understood the CHARY, missed the BDIS trick.
    TRESS – biffed with checkers in place.

    Honourable mentions:

    BALLYMENA – biffed from the A checker and worked backwards.
    UPPSALA – vaguely remembered – didn’t know it was a university town though.
    INFOMANIA – MER at definition.
    NAKED LADY – NHO
    SQUIRRELY – LOI

  18. Took far too long to get the Beds especially as I grew up there. Just my level of obscurity without being impossible. The other one that held me up was the INFOMANIA anagram which wouldn’t come without a lot more checkers than I had. Concur with the MER at the definition.
  19. I made reasonable progress until I was left with CHARY_D_S. I assumed it would end IS, but failed to see the rest of the wordplay and looked it up. Having done so, it rang the very faintest of bells, but I wouldn’t have known what it was. 33:21 with that one cheat. Ejoyed the puzzle otherwise. Thanks setter and Pip.
  20. Slowish solve today in 26.19. I completed the entire RHS in short order without getting anything on the left.

    I do believe the setter was trying to get us into trouble googling some of the answers: NAKED LADY, of course, the positively wicked MUFFS, and KUMQUAT also has “naughty” uses.

    I failed to parse both TRESS and EARTH, the former because head of State is S, of course, and SERT doesn’t mean anything useful, the latter because it’s just a bit too clever for my limited brain and I settled for the unsatisfactory gravity version.

    BALLYMENA took a while to parse, as I tried to work out which of the burgeoning number of MYs was involved with Irish towns, I rather feel I need to be sure of the wordplay because Irish towns can be any collection of letters illogically arranged.

    1. Dear Zed, I am very fond of the KUMQUAT and have made marmalade from them more than once – quite exotique!
      But please do let us into the ‘naughty’ uses of this little fruit (gently) as there is no hint of this in ‘The Song of Solomon’. Meldrew & Myrtilus?

      1. You might like to try that Bible of the exotic, the Urban Dictionary. My daughter’s generation have it as a general snigger word of indeterminate meaning not in the UD, which is where my naughtiness rating comes from.

        Edited at 2020-09-16 01:52 pm (UTC)

  21. … of the world for ever, it seems.
    No time as completed in fits and starts but only a few needed. Surprised at the single squirrely l. It’ll be a shame if a race can no longer be the people of a place, loosely defined as such by the sense of a cultural DNA … but the language and its development seem likely to be put on choke-hold. Liked infomania though it was not a thing I knew about.
  22. Pleasant reminder of Flanders & Swann whose Orpheus and Eurydice were SUB JUDICE. I saw the Irish town was going to be Bally, but what? If the race that lives there prefers Paisley to Neeson then I don’t need to bother with it anyway. A sluggish 22.15
  23. ….where I found it a chore.

    Thanks to Pip for COMPLICIT and TRESS.

    FOI UPPSALA
    LOI SIKHS
    COD SHIRE
    TIME 21:41

  25. Sadly, a technical DNF as I entered “Charybdus”, sorry to say.
    Spent about 15 minutes staring at S_I_E before putting that one to Bed.
    Good puzzle though.
    1. CO is conscientious objector in this puzzle, too; the question, as Pip suggests, is whether a CO can be defined as a peace protester.
      1. In favour of peace and ready to protest by not signing up for regular services? I don’t see a problem in crossword terms.
  27. by this one. I could not fathom the SE corner at all. Thought TRESS but could not see why. NHO INFOMANIA and didn’t get the anagram, etc. Traumatic morning at home today with broken door locks and internet conking out. Perhaps that upset my concentration. That’s my excuse anyway. Thank you Pip for the light-shedding.
  28. But one of my finest performances. I was absolutely chuffed to have all but one in 23 minutes. But 20 more minutes of brain-straining didn’t help me get SHIRE, which was really beyond my capabilities. I knew ‘Beds’ was probably not referring to the ones we sleep on or garden beds and the like, and that it was probably short for something, but not sure how I could have guessed it. Didn’t know the other meaning, either. Of course, a quick search for ‘beds’ in Collins turned up the answer immediately.

    Am I the only one who thought ‘heavy drawer’ was going to be RUBEN?

  30. Nice wordplay for an enjoyable puzzle and I pretty much liked them all – if the definition wasn’t clever, the cryptic was, and vice versa (and often both).
    I don’t have a problem with crossword reference to an identifiable group of people – Tahitians, eg – as a race.

    Edited at 2020-09-16 03:40 pm (UTC)

  31. Some 45 minutes, with a few very tricky and enjoyable clues. SHIRE would perhaps be my COD and I wouldn’t have had a chance with it until I had the S to help me along. And I, too, couldn’t parse EARTH, but I thought it would be drawing current, in the electrical sense (when the circuit is closed). No problem with CHARYBDIS, but it peeved me that for a while I couldn’t remember SCYLLA to go with it, not that that mattered.
  32. Very enjoyable. I failed to parse EARTH and TRESS but luckily nothing else fitted. 28 minutes. Ann
  33. Very pleased with a successful solve of this tricky but enjoyable puzzle in 43 mins. Thank you setter and Pip for an informative blog much appreciated as always
  34. 20;35. I felt like I was struggling with parts of this so pleased to polish it off in a decent time. Got off to a good start having the GK for Uppsala and Charybdis meant they went straight in and I was able to build on them in the RHS. Failed to fully parse earth and tress. Took a long time to discard the IOM TT races in working out Tahitians. Always nice to see a knuckle sandwich.
  35. 20.31 A late entry as cock up with golf slot meant I had no time to spare. Tricky I thought. FOI colic and LOI shire- whoops,fat finger almost made that rather scatalogical.

    COD kumquat, can’t remember the last time I saw that as an answer. Wasn’t wholly convinced by earth and biffed muffs due to looking for a reduced opening rather than have to.

    Now to turn my attention to today’s offering.

  36. “17a is not a place to be seen wearing green. It’s Liam Neeson’s home town; he was offered the freedom of the borough but the charming DUP blocked that and gave it to Ian Paisley instead.”

    This is absolutely not true.
    In 2000 Liam Neeson was to be awarded the freedom of the borough, but declined due to objections that had been raised by the DUP previously.
    In 2013 he finally accepted the award.
    Ian Paisley had received the award years previously: it was nothing to do with it

    FGBP

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