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. 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)

  2. but had to come here to confirm ANCIENT. Was about to write what sheapey just wrote….
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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
  6. < 14′ with JACKAL / ANCIENT LOsI, although I know the book and film well and did Henry V for O level.

    Thanks vinyl and setter.

  7. ….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

  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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.

  11. 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.

  12. 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!
  13. 18:58. I found this one to be a decent workout, more stretching than most Mondays. Ancient from wp alone.
  14. 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
  15. 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…
  16. 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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