Times 27843 – something of a quickstep.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
In the time it probably took Verlaine to finish this, I had read all the clues and put in only a couple in the lower half. Then suddenly I saw more and quickly completed almost all of the grid except 14a, 3d and 12d. Those last three took as long again and I had to enter 3d from best of options as I didn’t know what a ratline was. Slow, slow, quick quick slow, you could say.
But it’s an enjoyable puzzle with some interesting words (4d, 23a) and another reference to the TSE play. Congratulations to the setter especially for creating an anagram for the Russian city from relevant surface fodder.

Across
1 Always contributing to raid as individuals (9)
SEVERALLY – insert EVER (always) into SALLY (raid). As in the legal term “joint and several”.
6 Vote against party (5)
BEANO – to vote against is to “be a no”.
9 Return to the stage and do double-take? (5)
REACT – RE-ACT would be to come back to acting.
10 VIP swaps penthouse finally for a ministerial residence (9)
PARSONAGE – PERSONAGE swaps E for A.
11 Having work in cafe, give up spot in play (7,3,5)
WAITING FOR GODOT – WAITING (having work in cafe), FORGO (give up) DOT (spot). I nearly wrote that we had a reference to this in Sunday’s Robert Price, but then remembered it was still open for entries.
13 Couple study a length of part of digestive system (8)
DUODENAL – DUO (couple) DEN (study) A L(ength).
14 Some soldiers not exactly right to return ammunition (6)
TRACER – RE (soldiers) CA (circa) RT (right) all reversed.
16 Matey greeting observer heard (6)
WOTCHA – sounds like watcher. Not sure how far outside southern England this term is familiar.
18 Bribe given to a disreputable house (8)
BUNGALOW – BUNG (bribe) A LOW (disreputable).
21 Having conducted surgery, pipes up about working to finish all off ? (4,2,9)
TAKE NO PRISONERS – TAKEN OP (conducted surgery) RISERS (pipes going up in a building) insert ON (working).
23 Be a fine scout, tricky to confuse (9)
OBFUSCATE – (BE A F SCOUT)*.
25 Country has moved a range of mountains (5)
CHAIN – CHINA moves the A inside.
26 Jet, for example, crossing Peru regularly (5)
SPRAY – SAY (for example) insert P e R u.
27 Breathy sound of dogs reaching pole, having kept north (9)
HUSKINESS – HUSKIES and S (pole) insert N.

Down
1 Sucker with no science subjects upset (5)
STRAW – All reversed, W (with) ARTS (no science subjects). For a minute I was thinking why would WARTS mean no science. Stupid, really.
2 Vodka, lots drunk, I see consumed here? (11)
VLADIVOSTOK – (VODKA LOTS I V)* the V = vide, see. From what I’ve seen of that city (Simon Reeve on TV for example) drinking a lot of vodka would be essential to sanity.
3 Rung in later, shattered (7)
RATLINE – (IN LATER)*. I deduced from checkers that this was the only likely word to fit, but didn’t know the exact meaning; it’s a horizontal rung of a rope ladder in a ship’s rigging.
4 Deficient writing has edge over good stuff (8)
LIPOGRAM – LIP (edge) O(ver) G(ood) RAM (stuff). A lipogram is a piece of writing (sometimes a whole book) with one letter not used, often E or S. (From Ancient Greek: λειπογράμματος, leipográmmatos, “leaving out a letter”; the Greeks had examples leaving out sigma). I’ve tried writing one and it’s harder than you’d think.
5 Raised concern about a plant (6)
YARROW – WORRY raised about A. A common hedgerow plant or weed.
6 Poster of British lumberjack (7)
BLOGGER – B(ritish) LOGGER.
7 In hearing, assist a woman (3)
ADA – sounds like AID A.
8 Bonus run in passage of play by means of wide (9)
OVERTHROW – Today’s cricket clue. OVER (a passage of play, 6 balls), THRO(ugh) W(ide).
12 Mild exposure leads to debility entering university: I’m grateful for admission (11)
DECOLLETAGE – DE (leads to debility) then TA (I’m grateful) admitted inside COLLEGE.
13 Abbey not quite so upright, receiving onset of lightning strike (4,5)
DOWN TOOLS – DOWNTON (fictional Abbey in TV series) loses its end N, then SO reversed (so upright) insert L = onset of lightning.
15 Firm sort of wave in middle of kiss (8)
BUSINESS – SINE wave inside BUSS which means to kiss or brush with the lips
17 Sharpen pen, being blunt perhaps (7)
HONESTY – HONE (sharpen) STY (pen).
19 After study put up companion in private Italian course (7)
GNOCCHI – Inside GI (private) put CON reversed and CH companion.
20 Accepting pressure, substantially cut prominent article (6)
SPLASH – insert P into SLASH.
22 Wrong American gets a hole in the head (5)
SINUS – SIN (wrong) US.
24 Cope shortened to a considerable extent (3)
FAR – FARE = cope, shortened.

71 comments on “Times 27843 – something of a quickstep.”

  1. It’s Beckett isn’t it? Not TSE.

    I raced through this and got held up on a couple at the end too. About 45 minutes of actual solving i think.

  2. Similar: decolletage and tracer last in. Ratline as a guess in early having the crossers and the anagrist, without having any idea if it was a word or what it might be. Climbed plenty of rope ladders in my time, too, during safety training in pools for falling off ships.
    A pleasant mix of the odd chestnut (beano), just that one obscurity, and some nice clues. Down tools my COD – having the D and the W (wotcha known here in Oz, perhaps from Minder?) I thought Downton Abbey but there was no way downto could be the start of a word.
  3. I don’t mind a mistake like yesterday’s CHUMP but a typo really annoys me. Especially as I was well on the wavelength for this, being done in just over 12 minutes. I finished up with the unknown RATLINE and immediately seeing I had one error I thought I’d made up something stupid, but no, it was OVEETHROW that did for me.

    Dare I call BEANO a chestnut 😉

  4. Like I suspect a number of other 1-error solvers, I switched the E for the A all right, but to get PERSONAGE. I was sure I’d checked this properly before submitting, but clearly not. Damn. Biffed GODOT, TAKE NO ETC., STRAW, DOWN TOOLS, parsed post-submission. DNK LIPOGRAM. DNK the cricket thing, of course, and wondered if something had been left out of the clue; is it grammatical? An enjoyable puzzle, except for the looking at the answers part.

    Edited at 2020-12-09 06:50 am (UTC)

  5. “The cricket thing”!!? – is it grammatical? Kevin. It’s just not cricket, Sir!

    COD 8dn OVERTHROW

    FOI 7dn ADA – for the love of SOI 2dn VLADIVOSTOK was a gimme – rather obvious at first sight.

    LOI 20dn SPLASH

    WOD 18ac BUNGALOW बंगला

    Time 11ac

    Edited at 2020-12-09 07:18 am (UTC)

  6. Gave up overnight at 54 minutes having been staring at the missing 12dn and 14ac for about 10 minutes. Another 12 minutes this morning failed to bring anything to mind so I used aids to get DECOLLETAGE and then wrote in TRACER immediately. Just as well, as I was nowhere near spotting the wordplay of the former and even having found the answer I needed extra time to work out how it applied to the definition.

    We had BE A NO very recently but I didn’t see it until I had all the checkers in place.

    Wasted time with LATRINE at 3dn without having any idea how it fitted with ‘rung’ and changed it to RATLINE when 1ac went in. I was going to say I didn’t know this word but mention of ship’s rigging in the blog has brought it back to me.

    NHO SINE = wave but I was pleased to remember BUSS as ‘kiss’.

    Had doubts about cope = fare but just about see it now.

    GNOCCHI as a course rather than a garnish in soup was new to me but didn’t prevent me solving the clue.

      1. Well it’s in the soup whether one describes as a garnish or not. I’ve never been to Italy but have eaten such soups many a time in Austria.
        1. Yes it’s probably just a question of terminology: like isla3 below I’ve eaten dishes of pasta (sometimes GNOCCHI, more usually some sort of parcel like ravioli or agnolotti) ‘in brodo’ but I’ve always thought as the broth bit being very much secondary.
    2. Gnocchi is a course – a primo. Comes between the antipasto and the secondo. I have seen gnocchi in broth, but as the most important element, not a garnish – the course is gnocchi(in broth).
  7. I do hope this is the second of the intended championship puzzles, as I finished in 16′ 45″.

    OVERTHROW didn’t need parsing, and I failed to parse LOI TRACER. Dnk LIPOGRAM.

    Loved WOTCHA, one of my favourite songs.

    Thanks pip and setter.

  8. 17:13 … was this another from the Champs that never was? I’m doing Wednesdays in Advent on that assumption. Let’s say it was.

    Trickier than last week’s, with a few things that took some revisiting to make sense of. I enjoyed the lipogram, the huskies and the parsonage.

    I never watched Downton Abbey but feel as though I did.

  9. That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
    Lest you should think he never could recapture
    The first fine careless rapture!

    After 25 mins pre-brekker I had the Décolletage/Tracer combo left undone. And after 30 mins. And after 35 mins….
    Note to self: study more ammo and bustlines.

    Lots of ‘a’s today and not one of them a dangler.
    Thanks setter and J.

    1. I love your “dangling a” campaign. Perhaps the expression should go in the Glossary?
    2. I see I got so interested in your post J, that I thanked you for the blog.
      Sorry Pip – and thank you both.

      Campaign slogan: Call out the danglers!
      Any other slogan suggestions gratefully received. Where’s Cummings when you need him?

  10. 9:39. Steady. No out-and-out unknowns although if you had asked me to guess wat a RATLINE is I’d have got no further than ‘some sort of rope’.
      1. Yes! To me the word conjures up the idea of a line of escape.
        However OED tells us that this is a derivation of ‘ratlings’ or ‘rattlins’, so nothing to do with rats. Rather like ‘apologetics’, one word fuses with another in the way we understand them.
        I now have completely free access to the full OED, having joined my local library. It’s wonderful!
        1. If anyone wonders, I didn’t scrutinize that link too closely. It was meant to be a mere example of the context in which I had heard the term. I hope it is not necessary for me to say that I don’t believe Hitler didn’t die in the bunker. (But you can’t be too careful these days.)

          In any case, I sincerely apologize to anyone to whom I may have given that distressing impression.

          If James will forgive my pedantry, I would like to point out that “apologetics” and “apology” are from the same root, whereas “ratlings” or ‘rattlins” are not cognate with “ratlines.”

          Originally, that is to say, an “apology” is a defense.
          The sense the word has long taken, though, is that of an admission of guilt with an expression of remorse.

          Edited at 2020-12-12 04:48 am (UTC)

  11. 17:10 Held up at the end for ages by DECOLLETAGE and TRACER. Some fun clues. I liked BUNGALOW best.
  12. Well done Pip! Your blog was done as a lipogram , completed without using X or J….. though a LIPOGRAM sounds as though it should be a message written in fat.
    Annoyed myself by spelling WOTCHA as WATCHA. 33’06” otherwise.
  13. Held up toward the end for a long time by DECOLLETAGE and TRACER. Some pleasant pieces of information. I preferred BUNGALOW best.
  14. All finished finally but slow, 58mins. Another stuck on TRACER/DÉCOLLETAGE. Mild exposure indeed! If this was a competition crossie then I am pleased to have completed it. I liked the VLADIVOSTOK clue, very clever, and 21ac was fun too. DNK RATLINE but bunged it in hoping. Thanks Pip and setter.
  15. 34 minutes with LOI the unknown RATLINE. COD to DOWN TOOLS, that immortal line from Carry On Up The Jungle, I think. I didn’t know LIPOGRAM either but the cryptic was kind. Also, the BUSS of BUSINESS was a bit of a biff. Decent puzzle. Thank you Pip and setter.

    Edited at 2020-12-09 09:15 am (UTC)

  16. Logic would say this was the second “competition that wasn’t” puzzle, as last week’s was the first. The feed number (47528) however is consistent with yesterday’s and tomorrow’s (whereas last week’s Wednesday was not) so we can’t say for sure. To me it seemed too easy for a competition puzzle, especially as there could be a high level of 100% solutions so the winner relies on self-reported speed !
  17. See glossary for examples of lipograms. Georges Perec famously wrote an entire novel with no e’s, no easy matter in French. Impressive, but uncomfortably analagous to pushing a peanut for a mile with your nose ..
    Ratline familiar from Hornblower books ..
    A search shows that this is the fourteenth time BE A NO has appeared, since 2008.
    1. I also liked the translation of La Disparition as A Void. Misplaced ingenuity, perhaps, but still impressive.
  18. DNF . Gave up after an hour having failed to uncover décolletage or to locate tracer. Of course, once I saw the answers it was a smack to the head moment. Never mind, sometimes the blank proves stubbornly impossible to fill.

    1. Always here in spirit, if not in the the living avatar. My plan was/is to do all the Championship puzzles but it sounds like this may not even have been one. So much for that plan …
  20. A pleasant puzzle with DECOLLETAGE and then TRACER last 2 in. Liked HUSKINESS. Didn’t know what a RATLINE was. SEVERALLY was my FOI. 34:25. Thanks setter and Pip.
  21. A review of the frocks on the red carpet at the Oscars (the only part I watch) suggests nothing mild about the exposure. 20.55 after a very slow start.
    1. Indeed ! My first boss had a stunningly beautiful secretary, whose DECOLLETAGE was anything but mild, and made me wish I was older….
  22. Relative newcomer to cryptics ( a mere 17 years of solving) but not sure that university is a synonym of college??
    Just sayin’…
  23. Not far short of 20 minutes, so just about OKI for a Championship hour run. If I’d stopped to parse TAKE NO PRISONERS I might well have used up the whole hour anyway.

    There are too many possible anagrams of IN LATER (7, according to my Magic Chambers) and I spent an early while trying to justify RELIANT.
    I also failed to call FARE to mind as equivalent to COPE, so put in FAR on definition alone.
    DÉSHABILLÉ I thought was a better fit for mild exposure, but I gave up trying to spell it in such a way as to fit the wordplay and the space.
    Pretty Impressive Anagram Clue of the Day to VLADIVOSTOK

    1. I hope you didn’t toy with those anagrams in the latrine….

      Edited at 2020-12-09 04:57 pm (UTC)

  24. After a good start to the week, this one defeated me – gave up after 15 or 16 minutes, with half of that time spent trying to get DECOLLETAGE & TRACER. Looking at it now, they shouldn’t have caused so much difficulty, but I’d become convinced that I needed LSE in the former, alas.
      1. I just found out that David Parfitt confirmed last Wednesday that the 2nd and 3rd Championship puzzles would appear on the 9th and 16th December.
  26. All correct, with fingers crossed for ratline and rather more so for the medical sounding lipogram. Somewhat delayed by trying to fit 27a into 26a (note to self: numbers on grid generally tally up with numbers on clues)
  27. In 16a although your blog has “Matey greeting observer heard” the online version I’ve been attempting has “Matey greeting from timekeeper we hear before answer”. I prefer the second because many people really pronounce it with a Y in (“WOTCHYA”) and obviously WATCHYER doesn’t work for observer.
  28. Had DUODENUM for a long time – the Greek symbol for micrometer looks like UM – which held me up at the final hurdle, until I parsed the unknown LIPOGRAM.

    Apart from that, the NE seemed trickier than the rest until DECOLLETAGE gave me TRACER and the rest wrote themselves in.

  29. Like many others, TRACER and DECOLLETAGE were my LOIs. Hadn’t heard of RATLINE but trusted the anagram. BEANO has come up three times in recent weeks, at least, and previously I think it’s had a question mark when clued like that. I slowed myself down by putting in “duodenum” for 13a, thinking of μm as the length, which scuppered LIPOGRAM until I had another look. I liked OVERTHROW, which had me trying to fit “extra” in for a while.

    FOI Ada
    LOI Decolletage
    COD Overthrow/Waiting for Godot

  30. Dodged a banana skin with cosiness/business.

    Perec’s lipogram was translated by Gilbert Adair -which somehow seems an even more impressive feat.

  31. Nice crossword. But didn’t we have exactly the same BEANO clue in Saturday’s jumbo? I have recycled it already so can’t check. Thanks for the blog
    1. Checked mine and it’s not in there but it does feel recent. However there was a clue that was almost exactly the same in Saturday’s regular and Saturdays Jumbo!
  32. Interestingly, in the “hard copy” paper version, “Wotcha” is clued “Matey greeting from timekeeper we hear before answer”.
    Like many others, I hung up for ages on Tracer/Decolletage. When I saw the latter ended A-E, I was looking to fit Yale in somehow.
    Pleased to finish this one in around the hour mark.

    Edited at 2020-12-09 02:34 pm (UTC)

  33. the badge of honour for a T-for-the-T blogger. Slowish (again) in 38’14. I take it you know the Chas’n’Dave song ‘Gertcha!’, Mike (above)? If ever a person (Chas’s dad) was brought to life in a word… Not quite sure about fare and cope, as a badge-sporter…
  34. A bit slow today, held up by TOOK NO PRISONERS which made VLADIVOSTOK rather impossible. RATLINE I knew from Scrabble, but as usual with Scrabble, has no idea what it meant. No idea about TRACER so thanks for the explanation
        1. I’ve only started doing The Times cryptic these past 2-3 weeks, so still trying to pick up many of the apparently familiar abbreviations, shortened forms, etc. Good stuff, though.
  35. Surprised to find so many didn’t know ratline, but on consideration I realise I only knew it from assembling an Airfix sailing ship (possibly Golden Hind) sixty + years ago and gluing on a transparent strip of acetate with the ropes printed on in black. It wasn’t a very pretty result.
    Andyf
  36. ….and I only fully parsed PARSONAGE, TAKE NO PRISONERS, DECOLLETAGE, and GNOCCHI afterwards. I never did unravel DOWN TOOLS (oh, THAT Abbey !), so thanks Pip.

    FOI SEVERALLY
    LOI TRACER
    COD GNOCCHI (once I saw it !)
    TIME 11:25

  37. Marked wrong for putting in WATCHA … I live overseas and was only vaguely aware of the phrase at best, and surely it’s just any old spelling of some phonetic version of “What’s you(r)” rather than any sort of proper English word? Seems out of place in a Times backpager in all events, and I do hope that it was not one of the puzzles that were going to be used on the sleepless Americans et al in the ‘Championships’ So felt tad hard done by…. enjoyed most of the rest of this.
  39. 23.02. A fearful racket outside the office made for less than ideal solving conditions. A satisfying solve though with some intricate piecing together. FOI duodenal at 13ac. LOI coming full circle, tracer at 14ac. As with others the decolletage took a while to reveal itself making that and tracer my last two in.
  40. “write that we had a reference to this in Sunday’s Robert Price.”
    (I only finished that corner a few hours ago.)
  41. I had, oups, “watcha.”
    I also finished with TRACER (POI) and DECOLLETAGE.

    Edited at 2020-12-10 11:44 pm (UTC)

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