Times 27811 – Welcome to the working week!

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Time: 15 minutes
Music: Elvis Costello, Spike

Looks like easy Monday is back.   I flew through this one, biffing some of the longer answers which had obvious literals.   Getting these really opens up the grid, and makes the remaining entries fairly simple.   There was just a little bit of a pause at the end, before I saw the jackal/ancient crossing and completed the grid.  We do have one plant, but experienced solvers will have seen it many times before.   Now I have to figure out all the parsings I didn’t bother with as I solved.

My musical selection is the result of starting with My AIm is True on Friday, and deciding to continue on.   It’s certainly an interesting canon, which has a large number of  English/American usage and vocabulary examples. 

Across
1 “Every dog has his day” — including this wild one? (6)
JACKAL – A cryptic allusion to the film, “Day of the Jackal”.
4 A couple of points established in successor’s examination of feet (8)
SCANSION – SC(A, N, S)ION.
10 Smoker’s requisite produced by daily on tube (4,7)
PIPE CLEANER – PIPE + CLEANER, in entirely different senses.
11 Most important vessel coming from the East (3)
TOP – POT backwards, a Quickie clue.
12 Girl and boy wrapping last of durable fabric (7)
NANKEEN – NAN + KE([durabl]E)N.
14 Female ultimately worried about male issue (7)
EMANATE – [femal]E A(MAN)TE.
15 Party requisite causing agitation in Manhattan? (8,6)
COCKTAIL SHAKER – A Manhattan cocktail that is.   However, a Manhattan is usually stirred, not shaken.
17 Misses out, presumably, in these privileged occupations? (4,3,3,4)
JOBS FOR THE BOYS – MISSES are not eligible for this employment.
21 Way retired copper enters in manner of vampire (7)
DRACULA – RD backwads + A(CU)LA.
22 One resisting old person’s first question (7)
OPPOSER – O + P[erson} + POSER.
23 Cetacean that kills seabird, by the sound of it (3)
ORC –Sounds like AUK, presumably, in some dialects – not mine!
24 Late 16th-century blaze in the area being developed (11)
ELIZABETHAN – Anagram of BLAZE IN THE A.
26 NCO needing a lot of books after material (8)
SERGEANT – SERGE + A NT.
27 Working American president touring capital of Louisiana (6)
USABLE – US AB(L[ousiana])E.
Down
1 Short girl crossing European river by a rosaceous shrub (8)
JAPONICA – JA(PO)NIC[e] + A
2 Better covering for the head (3)
CAP – Double definition
3 Ensign concerned with touring island group (7)
ANCIENT – AN(C.I.)ENT.   Both anent, and ancient meaning ensign, may not come to mind very quickly.
5 Chatty fellow countryman digesting a lot of poetry (14)
CONVERSATIONAL – CO-N(VERS[e])ATIONAL.
6 Final release of vehicle trapped in blustery rain (7)
NIRVANA – NIR(VAN)A, where the enclosing letters are an anagram of RAIN.
7 Type of injection sadly not universal — not quite (11)
INTRAVENOUS –Anagram of NOT UNIVERSA[l].
8 Small child — one with a bite! (6)
NIPPER – Double definition, one jocular – or so we would hope.
9 Soldiers in Spanish port with share in renewal of energy (14)
REINVIGORATION – RE IN VIGO + RATION.
13 Magician in Tyneside clubs, one telling fanciful lies (11)
NECROMANCER – N.E. + C + ROMANCER.
16 Alienate bishop leaving most agreeable mountain chain (8)
ESTRANGE – [b]EST RANGE.
18 Embrace monarch largely unknown in some quarters (7)
SQUEEZE – S(QUEE[n] Z)E.
19 Sovereign English politician meets on ship (7)
EMPRESS – E MP + RE + SS.
20 Disgusting old woman thus turning up outside university (6)
ODIOUS – O + DI + S(U)O upside-down.
25 Centre identified by married man dropping by (3)
HUB – HUB[by]

69 comments on “Times 27811 – Welcome to the working week!”

  1. I had a feeling this puzzle would be up your alley, vinyl — after all, there’s a reference to a book. As for me, I also found it very easy until I made my way back to the starting corner. There, the JAPONICA / JACKAL / NANKEEN / ANCIENT crossings held me up for nearly half my solving time. I knew none of these words in their intended meanings. I was able to work out all four from the wordplay alone, though I admit I did confirm them before pressing ‘Submit’.
  2. I was home in 19 minutes and thus can recommend this to the troops of the QC Brigade.

    FOI 2dn CAP – in memory of Nobby Stiles who won 28 for his country.

    LOI 3dn ANCIENT hardly a great clue.

    COD 24ac ELIZABETHAN a clue that filled itself in, ere I realised it was an anagram.

    WOD 1dn JAPONICA from which is pruduced quince jelly. Dear me! One of the most delicious combinations with a good Manchego and a ‘parafino’. There’s a little tapas bar in Walthamstow village that sells it by the slab! It’ll probably be closed by Thursday, so do hurry!

    Good Luck!

    Edited at 2020-11-02 01:34 am (UTC)

  3. Not an easy Monday for me, but I think it was more me being dumb than the clues being hard; I thought of ESTRANGE but thought it wouldn’t fit, thought of DRACULA and couldn’t see how it worked, couldn’t think of what followed COCKTAIL, and so on. ANCIENT finally gave me JACKAL and then JAPONICA, and about damn time. Iago was Othello’s ANCIENT, or I wouldn’t have known the word in this sense.

    Edited at 2020-11-02 02:08 am (UTC)

  4. The intro and earliest comments made depressing reading for me as I needed only 1 minute short of an hour to get through this one, so I was relieved to see Kevin’s comment which at least agrees with my opinion that this was not as straightforward as all that. And once again I would certainly not recommend it as suitable for newer members of the QC brigade.

    Having said all that, my only actual unknown was the ANCIENT flag, but too many times I found myself guessing answers from definition and/or checkers and reverse-engineering to understand the wordplay, some of which did not come easily.

    Edited at 2020-11-02 06:09 am (UTC)

    1. I note Mr. Rotter crossed over and was home in around 30 mins. All the best for the forthcoming lockdown – and stay safe.
  5. ANCIENT as ENSIGN was unknown to me, so naturally I thought the clue a little unfair. Chambers marks that meaning as obsolete, which doesn’t appear to be signalled.

    Anyway, on the topic of Elvis Costello – I taught English for a year in a French boarding-school, and once used ‘Good Year for the Roses’ as a cloze test (gap filling). Bit of a story to unpack for a class of teenagers.

  6. From previous comments it seems this puzzle has divided solvers into those that found it straightforward and those who found it quite tricky. I’m in the latter camp. I must have spent the best part of ten minutes at the end looking at 3D and wondering why ANCIENT seemed to be the only thing that fitted when it didn’t bear any relation to the clue. In the end I bunged it in and awaited the pink squares that didn’t appear. Chambers has this definition of ancient as obsolete and anent as “mainly Scot” which makes this clue Mephisto level in my book.
  7. No one remembers Ancient Pistol from Henry IV then? He’s not old, he’s Falstaff’s standard-bearer!
    1. I remember Pistol, from the famous schoolboy quote “Pistol’s 0000 is up”, but not the ancient bit!
  8. Knew not the ancient meaning of ANCIENT. Found this otherwise uncomplicated. Big fan of early EC. Generally a shame about the last 30 years.
    1. My favourite EC album is Brutal Youth from the 90s! But then I was part of the Britpop generation…
  9. I knew ANCIENT from previous outings—even remembering Ancient Pistol from the discussions, V!—but I still found this one to be towards the tricky end, taking 42 minutes all told.

    FOI 2d CAP, as 1a took a while to figure out even though I’ve both seen and read Day of the JACKAL more than once. LOI 16d ESTRANGE, which was a lot easier to come back to once I had all the crossers. I’d even thought of best before, but was trying to put it in the wrong place. D’oh. COD 17 JOBS FOR THE BOYS, the name of a particularly good Yes Minister episode.

  10. 10:18 with ANCIENT my LOI after JAPONICA and JACKAL. I checked in the dictionary afterwards and now vaguely remember ancient = ensign from somewhere. Henry IV? If so, only from a synopsis. Otherwise no hold ups; unlike some, I found it quite Mondayish.
  11. Quite pleased with my 40 mins for this today. Bunged LOI, ANCIENT as it seemed the only word that would fit, having no idea what it meant in this context. So thanks v for the explanation. COD 17 ac. NHO SCANSION but again, it could only really be that, following the wordplay. Horryd, what exactly is « parafino », I’ve never heard of it! Fino Sherry maybe?

    2. I love Fino but I prefer the dry tanginess of a Manzanilla, aged in the bodegas of Sanlucar de Barrameda by the ocean which has a lovely saltiness to it. Also fab with your Manchego. Cheers. Francois.
  12. The setter’s a (metaphorical) gent
    As I found that most answers went
    In the grid pretty fast
    Including the last
    Which was, but of course, ANCIENT
  13. The Kraken sleepeth.
    20 mins pre-brekker including long puzzling over why Ancient was right.
    Thanks setter and Vinyl.
  14. …lived up to its intractable history. Like others, a steady solve to that point then ages trying to get the shrub, the dog and finally many minutes staring blankly at ANCIENT. Ninja turtling was not helpful as the only cultural (?) reference that kept coming was Ensign Crusher in Star Trek TNG, which is probably as far from Falstaff as it is possible to go. I do think that cluing one archaic obscurity with another is out of order, bard or no bard.

    Thanks otherwise setter for a fun puzzle and Vinyl for the excellent blog as always.

    Edited at 2020-11-02 08:57 am (UTC)

  15. Good fun for a Monday. Despite identifying Manhattan as a COCKTAIL I struggled to come up with SHAKER.
  16. Whipped through this until left with the slightly unsatisfactory ANCIENT. Thankfully it was the only word I could get to fit.
    1. ARCHEST fits the checkers, but not the clue. I was delayed a while looking for ANCIENT as LOI, wondering if W and X could be there to make the pangram.
  17. Fast start to the week, after about 10 days off with too many distractions to do the Times crossword (where is my sense of priorities?!). ORC causing trouble for us rhotic pronouncers.

    COD: INTRAVENOUS for topicality.

    Today’s question: adding four letters to one of today’s answers gives one of the longest possible one-word anagrams what is it?

  18. 28 minutes. LOI REINVIGORATION. COCKTAIL required a south to north tour of Manhattan before the penny dropped.That definition of ANCIENT and ANENT resisted memory recall, so I biffed from crossers and the Channel Islands. COD to JOBS FOR THE BOYS. I didn’t find this as easy as you did, V but thank you to you and setter for a decent start to the week.
      1. Surprisingly for me, it was Ella Fitzgerald and not Leonard Cohen that I was channelling, Phil. And tell me what street compares with Mott Street in July?
  19. Anyone help me on this query? My employer’s kindly offering to put me on a Times subscription. It is a joint one, and various others have access, but I shall be the only crossword solver. I want to keep my profile in the club – but how? It’s not the end of the world if I can’t, of course, but I’ll lose my brilliant back record!
  20. I believe that an orc is the name of some kind of warlike monster, and the cetacean/killer whale is actually an orca.
    1. SOED has:

      orc noun. Also ork. L16.

      †1 Any of various ferocious sea creatures; spec. the killer whale. L16–M19.

      2 A devouring monster, an ogre. In the stories of J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973): a member of an imaginary warlike race of short stature and ogreish characteristics. L16.

      orca noun. E18.

      The killer whale.

      So both terms, it seems, are valid for cetacean.

      Edited at 2020-11-02 10:57 am (UTC)

  21. 18 minutes is a fair romp by my own standards raising the ensign again of How is a 3min dash even possible? Whatever. . . Elvis Costello making his presence felt this weekend with new CD Hey Clockface and attendant appearances in the Saturday Review and on R4’s Loose Ends amusingly
  22. I would agree that there are some things which are probably a bit obscure out here in the real world, less so in Crosswordland, so this puzzle is one of those which provides a benchmark of your age maturity. Enjoyed spotting the right Manhattan, and even I, with my black thumb, can get the plants if the checkers are along the lines of J_P_N_C_
  23. Rattled through 26 clues in not much time, then remembered NANKEEN, so was left with 3d A_C_E_T. No idea why ANCIENT was the right (or only?) answer or about ANENT, so had to look it up, so technically a DNF although only one clue short of a possible PB!
  24. 8:15, so no problems here. I’m familiar with ANCIENT from Shakespeare (and past appearances here) but the clue does seem a tad unfair.
    I don’t really understand 1ac. Is there some way in which the expression ‘every dog has its day’ is particularly relevant? Or is it just that the expression has the word ‘day’ in it? If the latter it seems very weak indeed.
    MER (major eyebrow raise) at the idea of making a Manhattan using a COCKTAIL SHAKER.
  25. Unlike most people, I found this one quite chewy, ending on JACKAL (didn’t think much of that clue) and ANCIENT – not knowing ANENT or ANCIENT, I entered it with very little expectation that it was correct.

    Add to that JAPONICA, two random names in NANKEEN, the semi-unknown VIGO (I know the football team Celta Vigo but didn’t make the connection) and I found the NW tough to break down. 11m 21s. Hopefully – for me, at least – we don’t get this kind of puzzle in the championship.

    1. A beautiful little northern Spanish port where the odd U-boat headed for Argentina after the war. It was on the cruise-line route down to Lisbon and Estoril. Stick it on your bucket-list!
  26. With a good four minutes on ancient before I decided it could be nothing else. One across a bit of a weak clue, no?
  28. Almost exactly the same comments as plusjeremy, our first commenter, together with others stuck looking for a way through the North West Passage. SCANSION was another to add a sting in the tail to what until then had been pretty gentle going.

    Finished with you know what as LOI in 35 minutes.

    Thanks to setter and Vinyl

  29. has all the land performing exercises…

    Straightforward enough though I agree ‘ancient’ with ‘anent’ was somewhat arcane. I knew both meanings well enough but it was still the last in. Conversely the ‘nipper’ clue is too much of a gimme – clues have to be a little taxing. I quite like the jackal clue with its whimsical “what-if” way in (but irrationally I suppose wish a title famous as a book did not so often have to cede place to the film). I’d have thought a scion is a son or descendant who may or may not succeed. 18’48.

    Edited at 2020-11-02 12:03 pm (UTC)

  30. Very slow start for me – clearly Vinyl was on a roll. Like Kevin I got ANCIENT from Iago, after a longish detour trying for “pennant”. Also distracted by the “shaken not stirred”, which was certainly timely – quite accidentally I imagine. NANKEEN from Georgette Heyer as usual. 20.22

    Edited at 2020-11-02 12:07 pm (UTC)

  31. ANCIENT (3dn) is about 5 standard deviations away from the difficulty implied by the rest of the clues. It refers to two obscure words (while, I’d only vaguely heard of ANENT, and never heard of ANCIENT in that usage). I’m sure this clue crept in from a different puzzle …
    1. These curve-balls are thrown in all the time. I’m probably the most vocal critic of the practice but unfortunately I’m in a small minority. But my view is that if the setter isn’t held to account for it, they’ll keep throwing them in. They get a bit of an easy ride on here.

      At least this one had enough checkers in place, albeit in the most difficult corner. Often though, there will be little assistance given, so that a crossword which is perhaps a 99% write-in, is rendered unsolvable for mere mortals by the existence of one or two eccentricities, and thus a complete waste of time. Consistency should be the watchword. All clues within each crossword should be of a similar level or within certain skill margins.

      What it does show is that the crosswords aren’t ‘road-tested’ in any way whatsoever. I can’t believe that any editor trying to solve 3D would have waved it through in the context of the rest of the puzzle. I think we deserve better for our money really. But hey!-I’m just an old-fashioned type of guy. Mr Grumpy (still don’t quite understand what’s going on at 1A either)

  32. but had to come here to confirm ANCIENT. Was about to write what sheapey just wrote….
  33. Curiously slow at 19.00 for me, possibly because the NW section was reluctant. I initially tried to work out how COYOTE could emerge, then how DINGO could be stretched, before lighting on JACKAL (and spelling in jackEl just to mess up ANCIENT) and the then obvious shrub (aaarrrgh!) beginning with J.
  34. JACKAL/ANCIENT and SCANSION/NIPPER were the crossers which held up longest. Didn’t know ANCIENT = ENSIGN, but couldn’t think of much else that fitted.
  35. I got one wrong in the QC this morning (a Paul Pogba moment) but I managed to finish this correctly in 35:16.
    LOI was ANCIENT having spent rather a long time trying to find a better alternative. I did recall that ANENT is a word but no idea what it means. Prior to that REINVIGORATION worked out the hard way.
    Enjoyable puzzle. The sun is now out so the golf course beckons for a few holes before what looks like lockdown (there is a petition to stop it for golf courses).
    David
  36. < 14′ with JACKAL / ANCIENT LOsI, although I know the book and film well and did Henry V for O level.

    Thanks vinyl and setter.

  37. ….although I suspect the setter had one in mind when he commenced. WXY also missing.

    I was very slow starting as my FOI testifies, but then I bludgeoned it to death.

    FOI ORC
    LOI SQUEEZE
    COD JOBS FOR THE BOYS
    TIME 8:25

  38. I had all bar 4 in the NW corner done in 20 minutes, but by the time I’d got those last 4, in the order, NANKEEN JAPONICA, JACKAL and ANCIENT,for which I knew neither the flag meaning or what ANENT meant, and so looked it up to confirm, having biffed it from the CI group, the clock had advanced to 35:28. I find myself siding with those who found the clue a little unfair, with those 2 obscure routes to the answer. Thanks setter and Vinyl.
  39. Similar solving experience to John Dunn but was able to complete the same last four clues quite quickly helped by anent being one of those words that has stuck in my mind from a long time ago and ancient / ensign rang a vague bell. I sympathise with those for whom both words were unknown. I was in the same boat with the marsh / tree clue last week. 28 mins.
  40. 16.15 with a very slow start. Tricky Monday I thought with ancient being an answer based on not very much. NHO ensign in that context. COD scansion but liked all the long clues which I thought well constructed.

    Thanks blogger and setter.

  41. Sorry to ask but what has this word to do with examining feet.I thought it related to poetry.
    1. SOED:

      scansion – the metrical scanning of verse; the division of (a) verse into metrical feet; an example of this.

  42. Couldn’t get Ancient/Nankeen. Never heard of the ensign, never heard of “anent”, never heard of “nankeen” and since when was Nan a girl or girl’s name? Phooey.
    1. It’s a convention that girl’s name usually refers to a diminutive form, and in this case NAN is a diminutive form of Ann, or so says my Chambers “Some first names”. Probably just as ancient as anent. KEN as boy’s name follows the same convention.
      1. Thanks z8. As ever, live and learn – which is one of (many) reasons to do crosswords!
  43. 18:58. I found this one to be a decent workout, more stretching than most Mondays. Ancient from wp alone.
  44. A little surprised that this counts as an easy Monday. In parts a very painstaking solve from my perspective, with Jackal, Nankeen and Ancient(!) my last three, with each of those slowly extracted long after I should have given up. Invariant
  45. Just wondering how Vinyl pronounces ‘AUK’ if not as a homophone of ‘ORC’? They both sound the same when I say them and I don’t think I speak “dialect” – they also have the same phonetic transcription in the Oxford Concise Dictionary, so I’m intrigued…
  46. I was surprised that we were given a “requisite” in both 10ac and 15ac. Is it regarded as good practice to repeat words in different clues?

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