Times 27819 – light relief, and another 72 days to wait.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A fairly gentle challenge for a Wednesday, I thought. I had to think about how to make 1a have 13 letters, not just 11, but it really does. 7d is a bit medical but quite a well known posh word for hives. 6d is a bit odd if you haven’t learnt about the printers’ ENs and EMs which often appear in crosswords. And even I had heard of the French novelist, who for some reason is usually only referred to by her surname. Perhaps because Sidonie-Gabrielle is a bit of a mouthful. For once, I don’t think I have any issues with the parsing unresolved here. But a legal challenge is open to you, even if there are no grounds whatsoever for it!

Across
1 Foreign noble at a fine high-class French palace (13)
FONTAINEBLEAU – (NOBLE AT A FINE)* + U for high-class.
9 Governed as certain lines may be (5)
RULED – double definition
10 Shocking weapon to put out by extremities of tower (9)
TRAUMATIC – TR (extremities of tower), AU(TO)MATIC.
11 Payment hard old woman initially invested in drink (10)
HONORARIUM – H(ard) O(ld) NORA (woman) RUM insert I(nvested).
12 Repeat part of speech occasionally (4)
ECHO – hidden in SPE(ECH O)CCASIONALLY.
14 Humdrum character given note by European national (7)
MUNDANE – MU (greek character), N(ote) DANE.
16 Endlessly respect a Liberal naval commander (7)
ADMIRAL – ADMIR(E), A, L(iberal).
17 Woman touring hot area north of a desert (7)
SAHARAN – SARA = woman, insert A, H(ot), add N(orth).
19 Unleavened bread originally ideal with tea and a little butter (7)
CHAPATI – CHA (tea) PAT (a little butter) I(deal).
20 Become tedious letter-writer, by the sound of it? (4)
PALL – sounds like PAUL as in St Paul who wrote letters to Ephesians, etc.
21 Philosopher with authority becomes factory designer (10)
MILLWRIGHT – MILL (philosopher) W(ith) RIGHT (authority).
24 Tough soldiers tight-lipped about start of invasion (9)
RESILIENT – RE (sodiers) SILENT (tight-lipped) insert I(nvasion).
25 Follow Europe’s directions to return (5)
ENSUE – Reverse: EU, S,N,E.
26 Stealthy new Tories stir up unions at first (13)
SURREPTITIOUS – (TORIES STIR UP U)* The U from unions.

Down
1 First pair of thespians engaged in leading role, mainly (3,3,4,4)
FOR THE MOST PART – FOREMOST PART (leading role) insert TH(espians).
2 Synthetic polymer unknown in northern half of capital (5)
NYLON – N(orthern) Y (unknown) LON(don).
3 Tree a woman planted outside new councillor’s office (10)
ALDERMANRY – ALDER (tree) MARY (woman) insert N(ew).
4 Teachers meeting with old actor: that bears fruit (3-4)
NUT-TREE – NUT (teachers’ union) TREE (old actor, Herbert Beerbohm Tree).
5 A snag over admitting curtailment of party spirit (7)
BRAVURA – A RUB (snag) reversed – BURA, insert RAV(E).
6 Mutton graduate gives girl (4)
EMMA – EM = mutton, an old printing term; MA = graduate.
7 Rash old city teacher primarily in charge of some music? (9)
URTICARIA – UR (old city) T(eacher), IC (in charge of) ARIA (some music).
8 Teacher takes train, overcoming motorway tension (14)
SCHOOLMISTRESS – SCHOOL (train) M1 (motorway in England) STRESS (tension).
13 Flaw in flyers plugging this writer’s point (10)
IMPAIRMENT – I’M (this writer’s) PT (point) insert AIRMEN (flyers).
15 Negative thinkers sit in his complex outside Lima (9)
NIHILISTS – Insert L for Lima into (SIT IN HIS)*.
18 Greenness of mineral water upset over ends of table (7)
NAIVETE – EVIAN reversed, T E (ends of table). Another brand name used in The TImes!
19 French novelist briefly keeping island bird (7)
COLETIT – COLETT(E) (French novelist briefly) insert I for island. Apparently a variant spelling of COALTIT, I’d never seen it used before but it’s in dictionaries.
22 Travel round America, having time and energy (5)
GUSTO – GO (travel), insert US and T(ime).
23 Smear second book excluded from promotional hype (4)
BLUR – BLURB (promo hype) loses its second B.
EDIT I am inclined to agree with those below who reckoned SLUR parsed as well and fitted a slightly different meaning of smear, but it didn’t occur to me at the time. Editor?

​

68 comments on “Times 27819 – light relief, and another 72 days to wait.”

  1. I had SLUR instead of BLUR for 23d. Can I argue that this is a reasonable answer, noting as SLUR fits the definition for “smear” and you can parse it as S + (B)LUR(B) (i.e. with all instances of B=book excluded from BLURB)?

    Overall, I enjoyed this workout. (I must be getting experienced with crosswords when I guessed that EM as “mutton” would be a printing term without knowing it.)

    1. With S clued by ‘second’ that seemed reasonable at first glance, but wouldn’t it then have to be ‘bookS excluded’?
      1. Like Myrtilus, I didn’t have a problem parsing it this way. The use of “excluded” is quite strong – if I said that the letter “B” should be excluded from the word BLURB, I’d be expecting LUR to be the result and not BLUR or LURB.
  2. Old actors never die, it would seem. And he’s joined by two arbitrary women, NORA and SARA. I biffed URTICARIA & IMPAIRMENT, also BRAVURA, which I never did work out. COD to TRAUMATIC.
    1. Not to mention EMMA, if you didn’t know THAT meaning of mutton. I wondered how EM could mean deaf.
      1. Ah, but at least this woman wasn’t arbitrary; she was the solution. Not, I should add, that I knew about mutton=em; given E_MA, I figured wotthehell.
  3. Pleasant and not too taxing 35 minute solve. The only ones I couldn’t parse were TRAUMATIC and EMMA which I thought might have been a “lift and separate”, with ‘mutt’ for EM suggesting some unknown canine association. Wrong.

    I look forward to the time in the next century when I see or hear the word ALDERMANRY used again.

  4. I really thought we had seen the last of TREE as ‘old actor’! I was thinking this only a couple of days ago in connection with some clue or other and nearly mentioned it at the time. It seems my very thought of him must have disturbed and conjured him up from beyond the grave. Can he never be left to RIP?

    31 minutes, so really quite easy for a puzzle I suspected early on was going to give trouble.

    I was pleased to remember EM / mutton, but now I’m trying to think of the equivalent for EN and I have so far been unable to track it down. Surely it must exist?

      1. No, you didn’t. Many thanks!

        SOED: Typography. nut – more fully nut quad, nut quadrat. = en quadrat. E20

      2. Using that particular NUT in 4d might’ve been pleasing, especially as the National Union of Teachers merged with another union in 2017 and changed their name.
  5. Our setters must surely now know
    There are too many avians, so
    We’ve made it quite clear
    For most of this year
    To COLETITS et al we say NO!
    2. As birders we have no objection to avians, only to obscure versions buried in dictionaries that nobody uses except crossword setters (eg ree for ruff, whitecap for redstart, and coletit for coal tit)
  6. Well, I think I got rather lucky today when it comes to GK (if one can include having suffered in the past from URTICARIA as lucky, anyway…) and powered through this one in 22 minutes, including noticing, but not falling into, the trap at 23d (sorry, starstruck!)

    FOI 1d FOR THE MOST PART, LOI 19d the unknown spelling of COLETIT, WOD SURREPTITIOUS. COD to 1a, perhaps, as a good surface for a tough anagram.

  7. I went from being on the wavelength yesterday to being completely off it today given that the SNITCH rates both puzzle about the same but today’s took me about 2.5 times yesterday’s.

    It was mainly in the NE corner that I got stuck. I thought that the palace should be FONTAINEBLEU and couldn’t decide where the extra A needed to go. I thought weapon was going to be arm in 10A so was bemused trying to think what word began TRARM. I didn’t know mutton for EM and not knowing URTICARIA I thought maybe there was another meaning of araucaria so tried to make that work. With all those wrong paths it was satisfying to eventually finish.

  8. I got totally stuck at the end since I’d put FOR THE MAIN PART instead of MOST, and ALDERNANCY insted of ALDERMANRY (it almost works, but there is an extra new in the wordplay I didn’t notice). So then I couldn’t get the desert. When I eventually sorted it out and submitted, it turned out I’d put URTICURIA (which seemed more likely as a medical issue that I’d never heard of, although if I looked I knew that URIA is nothing to do with music). Oh well.

    And I agree it is time to retire the actor tree (and the SA/IT thing). I lived in France and I’ve stayed in the Fontainbleau Hotel in Miami, and having told a French person he’d spelled it wrong, I learnt where the extra A goes, so that was a write in for me after I already had the F from 1D (although, ironically, I had 1D wrong, but not the first letter).

    Edited at 2020-11-11 07:33 am (UTC)

    1. I stayed at that hotel too once Paul, eons ago, and I recall that they pronounced it “fountain blue”.
      1. This prompted a vertiginous dive into my childhood memories, and having double-checked, apparently they’re correct. I read my mum’s copy of Jackie Collins’ Lovers and Gamblers at some point in the 1980s, when I was far too young for that sort of thing, and yes: a key location is the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami, which must be where I first came across the word…
    2. The name is pronounced by Miami Beach residents, mainly snowbirds from New York, as the Fount’n’blue.
  9. 16 minutes with LOI MUNDANE. I had a slight hesitation on BLUR/SLUR and I might have gone the wrong way if I hadn’t thought of ‘blurb’ in time. I liked FOR THE MOST PART and BRAVURA (there’s the rub), but COD TO MILLWRIGHT. I didn’t know URTICARIA but crossers and cryptic were kind. A pretty straightforward but pleasant puzzle. Thank you Pip and setter.
  10. I had to think about the spelling of 1ac as well. Thought it ended ‘…bleu’.
    Nearly put slur i.s.o. BLUR for 23d.
    I liked TRAUMATIC the best as I enjoyed “to put out”.
    Thanks Pip.
  11. I did exactly the same and would make the same argument. ‘Book excluded’ to indicate all instances of book seems perfectly natural to me.
  12. …Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

    25 mins pre-brekker.
    I saw the Second and a de-booked Blurb and put SLUR.
    I thought I had read that the Times was going to stop using Beerbohm Tree and possibly also Ur? But maybe that was the Sunday Times.
    Thanks setter and Pip.

    Edited at 2020-11-11 07:47 am (UTC)

  13. 4:58. Talk about being on the wavelength: my WITCH is 40! And at the time of writing I’m top of the leaderboard ahead of some illustrious names.
    I had I feeling I was in luck when FONTAINEBLEAU went straight in (been there many times) followed by most of the first downs, where I recognised Tree (seriously, ed?) and the crosswords-only ‘mutton’. A biff-fest ensued.
    So thanks setter for putting a spring in my step this morning (although I see I’m no longer top of the leaderboard).

    Edited at 2020-11-11 08:21 am (UTC)

    1. In my attempt to get off to a fast start I biffed Chateaubriand for 1 across. So a reasonable time despite that false start.

      COD: Fontainebleau.

    2. When that happens to me (you can’t open the hidden comments on the app) I revert to using Chrome as on my PC. Works fine then, and in some respects better than the app, when the responders’ carefully crafted headlines disappear.

      1. Thanks. Must be formatting issues. I rarely post but almost always read blog and enjoy your (and your other Half’s) posts

  14. All done in 50 mins so at the harder end for me. FOI NYLON and then FONTAINEBLEAU. It’s interesting that a lot of English speakers I know pronounce the palace Fontaineblur rather than Fontaineblow, which , of course would suggest « eu or eue » at the end. Good clue I thought. Needless to say NHO URTICARIA but painstakingly worked it out from the wp. Very IKEAN as horryd would say. I really hesitated about TREE too as the word is the first word of the previous clue and I thought, surely they wouldn’t do that! But they did.

    Funny that today, I was almost as excited to see our Astro-man’s verse re the bird than to find out if I’d got everything right. Good one A-N.

    Didn’t know Mutton for em either, but it had to be. Thanks for the explanations Pip, and setter.

  15. In under 14 minutes today for a spelling test of a puzzle: the chateau, obviously but also SURREPTITIOUS, NAIVETE, URTICARIA and COLETIT spelt that way and as one word.
    I didn’t think of an alternative to BLUR, and I am inclined therefore to think “second book” can really only apply to the second B. But then I would, wouldn’t I?
    Never, ever came across that meaning of mutton before, so that was hit, hope and pray.
    1. But in the alternative interpretation ‘second’ indicates S so the question is just whether ‘book excluded’ can be taken to indicate that all examples of B should be removed. I don’t see why it can’t.
  16. 12:25. Struggled to spell 1A, so needed most of the checkers for that. Never seen that spelling of COLETIT and didn’t know “mutton” was another name for an em space. So same as plenty of others, I think!
  17. Easy today, mutton = em we have had before I think. My main problem was spelling fontainetcetc.
    Using “book” to remove two Bs doesn’t quite work for me.
    1. Same here re. 23d. I think that if the setter had intended SLUR, then he/she would have seen the requirement to be more explicit about the number of books
      1. But I never slowed down enough to correct my SLUR.
        Knew Urticaria from the first puzzling paragraph of a book where the protagonist comes to on Rockall with urticaria. Weird book, forget its name.
        I had to look up em in the dictionary to find mutton, then realised I had looked it up before. Nuts.
        21a Millwright super clue but so so easy!
        Andyf
  18. A fast time that involved a lot of biffing, from 1a and 1d onwards. Luckily paused at SLUR/BLUR and decided the latter was better. NHO EM for mutton, COLETIT instead of coal tit.

    COD: RESILIENT for the surface.

    Previous answer: Noah’s grandfather was the legendarily long-lived Methuselah.

    Today’s question: what is technically (by which I mean ‘according to Wikipedia’) the world’s largest desert?

  19. …if only. Got in a tangle with spelling the palace and the bird. Went for slur as being more of a smear but on reflection believe blur is better as otherwise the plural of b would more naturally have been indicated. Most went in very quickly. About 23 minutes.
    1. It now occurs to me that …to contain “R”… would work well. I wonder if the Covid R-rate will ever become a crossword staple. I trust not.
  21. Stupidly put in PALE for PALL and thought ‘I’ll come back to that’ and then didn’t. Dreaded pink square. Also held up by thinking there must a bread called ICHARAM before I got to the down clues.
  23. Slowish today. My main hold-ups (aside from a lack of medical training) were misreading the definition for BRAVURA as “split” rather than “spirit”, and not quite believing that COAL TIT could legitimately be spelled COLETIT.
  25. I also had to do some jiggery pokery with the letters to get FONTAINEBLEAU, but was helped by being fairly sure that EMMA was correct, with EMs and Ens coming to mind. I was also given pause by the alternate spelling of COLETIT, but the checkers convinced me. Needed the checkers for the end bit of ALDERMANRY. An enjoyable puzzle for the most part. 24:47. Thanks setter and Pip.
    1. I too went there once, by train, mid 70s, to visit a friend who was at INSEAD. I remember a pleasant town with forests around, and a nice restaurant, but didn’t see a palace! And I’d never have made it have 13 letters without the enumeration for 1a. Apparently it had become “Fontaine belle eau” by the 1600s, which explains why it’s bleau not bleu.
      1. I too remember the woods Pip. I think Louis XIV used to hunt there though how they managed to ride in those get-ups is beyond me.
  26. 12 and a half but with a typo in the middle of SCHOOLMISTRESS – boo hoo. Dithered over blur/slur and the bird spelling but no other hold-ups. I had quenelles de brochet for the first time at a very ordinary-looking cafe on the main street of Fontainebleau and I don’t remember anything about the palace.
  27. Aldermanry? What a camel of a word. Ealdor + man from Old English I suppose, with a French -erie ending tacked on. A word made by a committee, probably in a town hall full of…aldermen.
  28. it’s usually clued by reference to which B is to be removed. Although tbh I never really considered the alternative solution.
    I was also another who thought it was a COALTIT. Slow to start but all came in a rush at the end. ALDERMANRY had to be confirmed. Ugly….
  29. Another fast time spoiled by SLUR, which I parsed exactly as did my esteemed colleague starstruck_au. I even remember thinking as I moved on from the clue, “They should have said ‘books’, right?”, but kept moving. Alas and alack… but keep moving!
  30. But with “Slur” instead of “Blur” – on which opinion seems to be divided as to whether I can get away with that!
    “Tree” went in with a prayer as NHO said actor.
    Mutton=em rang a bell, fortunately.
    I always thought a Millwright was a technician/engineer within a mill as opposed to a mill designer, but learned today that it can mean either.
  31. Par-ish for me. Interrupted by telephone halfway through but straight back on it on resumption.

    Didn’t fully parse TRAUMATIC, BRAVURA nor EMMA (tho pencilled that in early given likelihood of ending MA or BA

  32. 17.37. An interesting puzzle but I’m not sure about coletit as an answer. Whichever way you spell it , it’s usually two words as per blue tit, great tit etc. Hey ho…

    FOI ruled, LOI cole tit. COD for me millwright.

      1. The clue is justified by Collins but they are the exception amongst the usual sources, and even they define COLETIT as ‘another name for coal tit’. The Oxfords have ‘cole tit’ but only as an alternative to ‘coal tit’.

        Until this morning I had never come across the ‘cole’ spelling before. The bird takes its name from the blackness of part of its plumage so I’m at a loss to understand why cabbages should come into the equation!

        Edited at 2020-11-11 02:34 pm (UTC)

        1. It’s odd, isn’t it? I see from Wiki that they used to be called ‘Kohlmeisse’ in German, which could be translated either way. More likely it’s just a misspelling!
  33. I put SLUR in without further thought, on looking at the clue (definition and wordplay), but I agree BLUR works just slightly better. My guess is that the SLUR possibility did not occur to the setter. Thanks to blogger and setter.
  34. I really enjoyed puzzling over this one and only had a few unknowns – the pesky ALDERMANRY, URTICARIA and COLETIT – so thanks to Pip for explaining these.
    Favourites included TRAUMATIC, CHAPATI and SCHOOLMISTRESS – and my COD has to be the wonderful anagram SURREPTITIOUS.
    Thanks to the setter for keeping me absorbed for 36 minutes.
  35. ….on paper, than screwed up my Club stats by entering “bbavura” online.

    FOI RULED
    LOI/COD IMPAIRMENT
    TIME 7:33

  36. Very easy, 33 minutes, but I too had SLUR and never thought of BLUR. When I saw the pink square I was very angry … with myself, because I knew what my mistake was and why, even if SLUR was possible, BLUR was, shall we say, cleaner, since it does not depend on fuzziness about the number of Bs to remove.
  37. Just occasionally, I start to think I’m getting the hang of this game. Quite a few of today’s answers were biffed (and more than one was spell checked as well), but I did manage to parse everything, albeit with half remembered type spaces and French authors not beginning with Z. I’m also relieved to have made the right choice with 23d – with a confidence that I can now see wasn’t entirely justified. No doubt I’ll be back to DNFs and two day finishes soon enough, but for now I’m content. Invariant
    1. Good stuff, invariant. I was in your shoes ten years ago. Then I found this blog, and then in 2014 I started blogging. Some early mornings, panicking that I wouldn’t be able to solve and parse one in time for a post. Now I can crack them, but I’m nowhere near the TfTT superstars of speed or the mephisto masters. Speed is a very secondary thing for me. Keep at it and the answers will come, and more satisfaction, to boot.
  38. DNF. I got through this engaging puzzle in around 29 mins. I successfully negotiated the trickier vocab but went for slur over blur.
  39. Another slur here. We may be in the majority. In fact I know we are. We’ll sue , or take it to the Supreme Court.
    20:38

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