Times 27,857: Three Hos Before The Mast

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A medium difficulty puzzle that should hopefully not interfere with the digestion of anyone’s Christmas dinner. I very much liked the use of “eg” in 5dn and the neighbouring &lit was cute too. A very merry Christmas to the setter and all of you at home – see you all in the long-awaited year of 2021!

ACROSS
1 An entrance’s variegated stones (6)
AGATES – A GATE’S

5 Unwelcome invader to stay in hotel — try to intervene (8)
VISIGOTH – VISIT H, with GO “intervening”

9 Unable to move currently, journalist in the wrong (6,2)
SNOWED IN – NOW ED, in SIN

10 Pollster‘s message of increased bitterness (6)
GALLUP – or GALL UP

11 Plant a message to establish social distancing? (5-2-3)
TOUCH-ME-NOT – cryptic def

13 Appropriate opinion (4)
TAKE – double def

14 Name for religious leader, holy American (4)
PIUS – PI U.S.

15 People accused brilliant workers? There’s concealed purpose (10)
DEFENDANTS – DEF ANTS, “concealing” END

18 A love that’s bad then good in authentic sort of film? (10)
TRAVELOGUE – A (LOVE*) G, in TRUE

20 Frost in December I’m expecting (4)
RIME – hidden in {decembe}R I’M E{xpecting}

21 Match ending in magnificent victory (4)
TWIN – {magnificen}T WIN

23 Suggestion of big road race confronted by negative response (10)
NOMINATION – M1 NATION [big road | race], (con)fronted by NO

25 Shelter Yankee in a poor part of Harlem? (6)
ASYLUM – Y in A SLUM. “Harlem” only since it makes for a better surface alongside “Yankee”

26 A condition for being carried by pallid bargee? (8)
WATERMAN – A TERM being carried by WAN

28 Legs covered in grass got worse (8)
RELAPSED – LAPS “covered in” REED

29 Repetition of extra terminal message (3-3)
BYE-BYE – repeated BYE [extra]

DOWN
2 Maybe a Venetian doge in role mostly awkward (9)
GONDOLIER – (DOGE IN ROL{e}*)

3 Hits nails — hard wood initially to penetrate (7)
THWACKS – TACKS “penetrated” by H W{ood}

4 Blue fish not caught (3)
SAD – S{c}AD

5 Late in the day escaping from eg poison (5)
VENIN – {e}VENIN{g}

6 Without vetting ultimately, possibly guessing then? (5,6)
SIGHT UNSEEN – ({g}UESSING THEN*), &lit

7 Nymph coming to life, having light refreshment in a marquee? (7)
GALATEA – or GALA TEA. Pygmalion’s statuesque other half

8 Vehicle hit with its top shearing off (5)
TRUCK – {s}TRUCK

12 Anna has two — Lucy and Jane are among other possibilities (6,5)
MIDDLE NAMES – {a}NN{a} does indeed contain two N(ame)s in the middle. Not sure if Lucy and Jane have any special significance, apart from being names that could easily be used middlingly…

16 Number cut by half, amount that can be ignored? (3)
FIG – FIG{ure}, as in “I don’t give a fig”, probably.

17 Sorrowful about politician and other men as fly-by-nights? (9)
TEMPORARY – TEARY about M.P. + O.R.

19 Ordinary sort of castle maybe for a knight to occupy (7)
VANILLA – VILLA “occupied” by A N

20 Third-Ager on Scottish island (7)
RETIREE – RE TIREE [on | Scottish island]

22 Refuse a dish wife served much earlier (5)
WASTE – A STE{<-W}, with the W(ife) moving from last position to first

24 Cut, or style, of broadcaster (5)
MOWED – homophone of MODE

27 Bill is one sort of cricketer on the up (3)
TAB – reversed BAT

44 comments on “Times 27,857: Three Hos Before The Mast”

  1. Had FAG for FIG. Of course, here in the US we never expect to see FAG/FAGGOT in crosswords (or generally in print), but I figured, well here we go, thinking of a butt of a cigarette as an amount that can be ignored. I assumed FAGGOT could mean number, and now I see that in fact a ‘faggot’ can be “a soldier numbered on the muster roll, but not really existing”. But that’s not it, of course. It was half of FIGURE, I now see, but I didn’t know the requisite meaning of FIG.

    Merry Christmas!

  2. 37 minutes with a few crossed fingers along the way as I wrote in the unknown VENIN and TOUCH-ME-NOT. I spotted GALATEA as a possibility from looking at the checkers and knowing the title of the Handel opera Acis and Galatea, although nothing about the character. I wasn’t completely sure of S{c}AD as a fish but thought I remembered seeing it in a crossword recently.
  3. LOI FIG; I had to spend some time contemplating FOG and FUG before thinking of FIGure. DNK ‘third-ager’, but did, fortunately, know of TIREE. Biffed WASTE, only worked it out post-submission. Is there some reason for ‘unwelcome’ in 5ac? Invaders aren’t likely to be welcome. COD to VENIN, which I somehow knew, via French.
  4. Parsed FIG as half of five, plus amount G ( for gram ), giving the required answer, though not as elegantly as V.

    In 15a DEF= BRILLIANT? Is this UK slang? NHO, but the answer had to be defendant. A rare week with no pink squares.
    24’34”

    1. Me too – I have no idea why DEF and BRILLIANT are synonymous. Help!
      Otherwise a good, pretty tough crossword today. About 38 mins. Merry Christmas to all!
      1. DEF is not just UK, and not particularly new. Def Jam Records was started in the 80s, for example.
            1. According to Wiktionary:
              Adjective
              def (comparative deffer, superlative deffest)
              (African-American Vernacular, slang) excellent; very good
              Andyf
              1. my African-american vocabulary is mostly from “The Wire”. I did notice the rejoinder ” mos’ def ” cropping up from time to time, and assumed it meant ‘most definitely’. Maybe it didn’t.
  5. No Guardian FT or Indie (though the placeholder leads you all the way to a blank square) by way of a warm up so a scoop for the Times which i make heavy weather of. Understandably distracted i’m telling myself . Touch-me-not and Venin unfamiliar to me. Thought the plant might be poisonous from the name but turns out to be just overly sensitive . . . hmmm plenty of them around.
  6. 30 mins pre-pancakes.
    Slightly puzzled by Harlem and Lucy and Jane and a castle being a villa.
    Thanks setter and V. And God bless us, every one!
  8. 16:34 Very entertaining. I enjoyed the wordplay for VENIN although I didn’t know the word, nor TOUCH-ME-NOT. I liked that BYE-BYE was at the end. I was left wondering who Lucy and Jane are. Thanks V and setter and Happy Christmas to all.
  9. Had TRIKE for 8D initially, which is a reasonable answer to the clue, but GALLUP forced a rethink.

    You’ll notice this contribution isn’t in verse.

    I managed to shoehorn all the answers in yesterday’s grid into five limericks, and hence think you’ve suffered enough

  11. 13:41. What harmonic_row said above. I would add ‘interesting’. NHO TOUCH-ME-NOT and VENIN and GALATEA are in the ‘vaguely familiar but need the wordplay’ category.
    Merry Christmas everyone!
  12. To say, I’ve done this, no problems except had to guess the plant, and Happy Day to everyone. Thanks V.
  13. ….noli me tangere (which was inscribed on a pound coin if memory serves), the English use as a plant was new to me. I struggled in the NE corner, but it was an enjoyable challenge.

    FOI GONDOLIER
    LOI FIG
    COD TRAVELOGUE
    TIME 15:48

    1. You may well be thinking of nemo me impune lacesset, which was inscribed round the edge of a Scottish themed pound coin – it’s the national motto of the Kingdom of Scotland.
      Noli me tangere, as well as being from the Latin bible, is often used as a title in Christian art depicting Jesus meeting with Mary Magdalene after the resurrection.
  14. I can’t understand the wordplay for 5dn. It says ‘escaping from eg’, which is quite the opposite of what it means, it seems to me: ‘eg’ is escaping from ‘evening’. There are plenty of alternatives to ‘escaping from’ that could have been used, such as ‘dropping’, leaving’, ‘missing’ etc., and the setter could surely have chosen something appropriate. What am I missing?
    1. I just commented and then realised I had completely misread the clue and I think you’re right! I had read it as VENIN escaping from EG (which would work), but that’s not what the clue says.
      1. It passed OK with V. Perhaps he could explain how it works. I can’t see that the blog does.

        Edited at 2020-12-25 01:37 pm (UTC)

          1. But in the clue it’s EVENING that escapes, not VENIN. If X escapes from Y it is still X after it has escaped.
        1. The point is that if (as the clue says) EVENING escapes from something, then it is – in the absence of other instructions – still EVENING after it has escaped.
  15. Adopted leisurely approach some 5 minutes in, when offered glass of something orange and fizzy (dutifully accepted). Would have needed to guess 7D, had I not prematurely clicked ‘Submit’ thinking I was finished. Now off for a Christmas walk before I tackle the QC. Thank you to the setter and verlaine, and to all those that contribute to TfTT.
  16. Just about right for a day when hopefully not too much mental exertion is expected. VENIN and GALATEA were the only two to raise much doubt, although I didn’t know the significance (if there is any) of ‘Lucy and Jane’ either.

    All done in a leisurely 38 minutes.

    Festive greetings to all, not least our blogger and setter

  17. A sluggish 43:07 whilst getting to grips with the iPad instead of my laptop. Enjoyable puzzle though. Lots of happy noises around me as the grandkids and their Dad assemble various pieces of Lego while Mum potters around in the kitchen, and while I cruciverbalise and imbibe Newcastle brown. I also needed wordplay for VENIN and TOUCH-ME-NOT. SAD was my FOI and VANILLA brought up the rear. Thanks setter and V and Happy Christmas to all.
  18. Therefore no time – but got there in the end with all correct including 18dn FIG.

    For Lunch Spring Chickens with most of the trimmings. Since M&S closed Shanghai is crackerless. No mince pies or even Stollen. Cointreau (the nearest to sherry I could find at ‘City Super’) Champagne – and Vedett for supper with cold cuts.

    FOI 4dn SAD

    LOI 26ac WATERMAN – not the onion variety!

    COD 18ac TRAVELOGUE

    WOD 5ac VISIGOTH – Alaric the Unwelcome – sacked Rome in 410AD

    A Happy Christmas and a Merry Christmas to one and all.

    Edited at 2020-12-25 02:53 pm (UTC)

  19. 25.40. Nice puzzle. For a three letter word with two checkers, fig held me up for a ridiculously long time at the end. With fag, fig, fog and fug all possible I had to wait for the penny to drop before I could finally finish.

    Happy Christmas everyone!

  20. Ignore my 5 hour time… Xmas intervened and forgot to pause. I liked this, a good challenge for Christmas Day
  21. …amidst xmas day hubbub. But typo gave a pinkie – didn’t know VENIN but guessed from the checkers.
  23. 19 minutes and change for this at the soporific end of Christmas Day while Herself is watching the relentlessly tragic Call the Midwife. No real problems, although the lower left took a while to resolve, along with everyone else’s NHOs and VHOs.
    Apropos of nothing much, today I have been wearing a cheerful penguin jumper, to which I have attached a badge saying “Mr Flibble’s very merry”. Since no-one else understood it (our Church was open today, so I did meet people) it would be encouraging to have a flicker of recognition from you lot. Any takers?
  24. 45 minutes, but DNF because in 20dn I was convinced Scottish was going to be ERSE. I finally settled on hoping that RETERSE would be the name of an island I had never heard of, with RET being ret., i.e. third-ager. Instead TIREE turned out to be the name of an island I had never heard of. Otherwise, Merry Christmas! (a bit strenuous, but our goose was very good).
  25. Nearly an hour: almost gave up on SW corner, as I was convinced that 25a could only be BOWERY (my knowledge of New York geography is rather hazy) – a shelter + y giving somewhere i Harlem.
    After erasing that, the checkers immediately let me see what was really needed.
  26. Got there in the end. No trouble with TIREE since I lived in Scotland for years as a postgraduate. Went to Mull by canoe. Isla, and Jura by ferry but then cycled around. Ditto the Western Isles aka the Outer Hebrides. Aran too, which is a perfect circumference for a day cycle ride. But Col and Tiree remain unvisited (Eigg, Muck, and Rum too).

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