Times 27835 – Or the Insular Ionan?

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Time: 29 minutes
Music: Ravel, Piano Music, Gieseking

This was not quite an easy Monday, but none of the answers were that obscure, and the literals were pretty obvious.   Experienced solvers will probably zip through in no time, and nearly everyone will finish without too much difficulty.  I was wondering what took me so long when I finished – on another day, this could easily be a sub-20-minute solve for me. 

This is my first blog since the failed online Championships, and I really feel sorry for poor David Parfitt.   Since he is non-technical, and the Crossword Club is probably the bottom priority for IT services, there was really very little he could do.   There could not have been more than a couple of hundred hits a minute on the competition puzzles, and properly tuned software and hardware should have handled the requests easily.   Oh, well, it’s back to the Times building and those little desks next year.

Across
1 African capital where an old banger may end up, do we hear? (8)
KHARTOUM – Sounds like CART ROOM, maybe?   Or perhaps something else, I had one letter and biffed it.
9 Lively friend dipping into a new set of papers? (8)
ANIMATED – A N I(MATE)D.
10 Old boy mostly existing with love in limbo (8)
OBLIVION – O.B + LIVI(O)N[g], biffed from the first two letters.
11 A right pain, a lemur, primarily living in tree! (8)
ARBOREAL – A R BORE + A + L[emur], another biff here.
12 Plain nurse’s distorted description of Iberia (10)
PENINSULAR – Anagram of PLAIN NURSE.
14 Sound made by chosen Caledonian tribesman (4)
PICT – Sounds like PICKED – a homonym that works!
15 Tack supplier’s son finally fell, bitten by snake (7)
SADDLER – S +ADD([fel]L)ER.
17 Token of victory originally that hurt reigning monarch (7)
VOUCHER – V + OUCH + ER.
21 Boss missing start of Disney film (4)
UMBO – [d]UMBO.   As a hard-core Mephisto solver, I saw boss and biffed.   This is the other kind of boss, the stud at the centre of the shield.
22 Bird top man and woman located in tree (10)
KINGFISHER – KING + FI(SHE)R.   Many solvers will apply “top” to the woman as well as the man, put E.R., and then wonder how the fish got in. 
23 Exist as male insect, or biblical monster? (8)
BEHEMOTH – BE HE MOTH, a chestnut.
25 A French cookery writer reportedly never surpassed (8)
UNBEATEN – UN + sounds like [mrs} BEATON, who was a…..cookery writer!
26 Sanctions optical aids, including insurance cover to begin with (8)
LICENSES – L(I[nsurance] C[over])ENSES.   I was looking for sanctions in the sense of punishes, so one for the setter.
27 The Spanish character long ago carrying priest’s ordinal? (8)
ELEVENTH – EL + E(VEN)TH.  Eth, em, en, some useful little words clued in various ways.
Down
2 Dance a woman’s beginning to accompany outside a bar (8)
HABANERA – H(A BAN)ER + A[ccompany].
3 Verbally control attempt to catch right type of woodpecker (8)
RAINBIRD – Sounds like REIN + BI(R)D.
4 Girl in party upset old poet (4)
OVID – O(VI)D, my FOI.  DO is our upset party.
5 Restrain fellow fighter pilot capturing head of Luftwaffe? (7)
MANACLE – MAN + AC(L)E.
6 Extremely low bite from wild animal (6,4)
TIMBER WOLF – Anagram of L[o]W + BITE FROM.
7 Soak one’s hair at first — it’s fairly excessive (8)
STEEPISH -STEEP + I’S + H[air].
8 Deal tiro organised for worshipper of false god (8)
IDOLATER – Anagram of DEAL TIRO, which accounts for the alternate spelling of tyro.  Count the letters – don’t put idolator!
13 Restaurant’s pronounced gamble over hotel on river (10)
STEAKHOUSE – Sounds like STAKE + H + OUSE.
15 Southern queen with capacity to grasp bishop’s argument (8)
SQUABBLE – S + QU AB(B)LE.   Remember to try a Q if you see a U!
16 Rise for poor peasant ringing about aquatic bird (8)
DABCHICK – BAD backwards  (C) HICK.  Is a peasant really a hick? They come from two different worlds.
18 Recce ship’s officer’s gun enclosure (8)
CASEMATE – CASE + MATE, trust the cryptic and the crossers.
19 Developing army corps set up information outlet at last (8)
EMERGENT –  R.E.M.E upside down + GEN + [outle]T
20 Wax lyrical in this way entering quarters (7)
ENTHUSE – EN(THUS)E, where E, N, and E are random directions.
24 French priest born in Lincoln? (4)
ABBE – AB(B)E, a Quickie clue.

68 comments on “Times 27835 – Or the Insular Ionan?”

  1. Not remotely on any sort of wavelength today: NHO casemate and needed all the checkers; didn’t see the wolf anagram even as I was writing in the answer; rainbird for woodpecker was a new one too – they are more likely to be called yaffles in this neck of the woods.
  2. I started of ANIMATEDly and then inserted TIMBER WOLF. Steady progress from there, although I also had to use wordplay to construct RAINBIRD and CASEMATE. I also had a slight mer at OBLIVION for Limbo. Liked KHARTOUM. HABANERA was dredged from memory eventually. DABCHICK was LOI. 25:10. Thanks setter and Vinyl.
  3. LOI CASEMATE which I had to check was a thing. UMBO for boss is somewhat of a crossword cliche, seems to come up every 10 puzzles or so. Being a scrabble player, there are certain words which don’t exist outside a scrabble board and are termed ‘scrabble words’. I would say UMBO is a ‘crossword word’.
  6. So I am happy.

    I need to drum “Umbo” into my declining quantity of brain cells. Same goes for “Eth”.

    Couldn’t see why “Dabchick” was correct until I came here to see all the MERs!

    I went to Khartoum once and we were taken to see the factory destroyed by an American cruise missile. It was a very accurate strike. The Sudanese government insisted that it was simply a toothpaste factory. Who knows the truth but my friend commented that the attack “wiped the smile from their faces”.

    1. I have often wondered why Sudanese Toothpaste is off the menu. Someone obviously got a rocket!
  7. I have to start these earlier. After waking up, I suddenly saw my last three in, SADDLER, UNBEATEN and CASEMENT, which was a guess. Some other guesses here (DABCHICK?), but I was confident of everything.
  8. 14.43. Nice puzzle. I slowed down at the end by having to dredge up the steep bit of steepish and had some hesitancy over the unfamiliar casemate. Rainbird and dabchick were unknowns. The car tomb was good fun.
  9. Presumably those complaining about the names of birds are happy about the daft ones used in golf?
  10. A DNF for me because even though I thoughtfrom the clue that 21ac might be UMBO, I’ve never ever encountered the word and couldn’t bring myself to write it in. I’ve also never heard of a rainbird (and I’m pretty good at natural history), so that didn’t go in either. I’ve seen them though, as I get green woodpeckers in my garden – perhaps we just don’t call them rainbirds in the south-east where I live.

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