Times 27871 – Damme, where’s that clue?

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Time: 31 minutes
Music: Beethoven, Piano Sonatas, Wilhelm Backhaus.

This was a bit more difficult for a Monday, although I managed to race through most of it in about 15 minutes before getting stuck.   I was also slowed down when I discovered that my printout was missing the last word and enumeration of 29 across, and had to start up a computer to get the missing bits.   There is a little obscure vocabulary here, as well as a few convoluted cryptics, but the bulk of it is straightfoward enough.   It’s probably about average overall.

Now for some important blog business.   Simon Hanson, a long-time Jumbo blogger, has been forced to resign due ot ill health.   I have gotten a temporary substitute for the next one, but we need a permanent blogger.    I am therefore seeking someone who wants to join our crew of volunteers at Times for the Times, and is willing to blog a Jumbo cryptic about once every five weeks.  You can either just indicate your interest in your comment, or sent me a LiveJournal private message.

Across
1 What is true about English I love, America being flippant? (9)
FACETIOUS – FAC(E)T + I + O + US.
6 Place for Jacob’s ladder, not hotel plant (5)
BETEL –  BET[h]EL, if you have the crossers your weak Biblical knowledge should not matter much.
9 Survive in the open before bad turns (7)
OUTLIVE – OUT + EVIL backwards.
10 A broadcaster in Ireland, female, almost a goddess (7)
ARTEMIS – A + R.T.E. + MIS[s], an obvious biff.
11 Set against warrant officer, everyone appears insignificant? (5)
SMALL – S.M. + ALL, that is Sergeant Major, and not W.O. as you might suppose.
13 Covering church fellows provided with time for memorial slab (9)
HATCHMENT – HAT + CH + MEN + T, a word not everyone will know.
14 Seek changes in accommodation for minister and be reasonable (4,5)
MAKE SENSE – MA(anagram of SEEK)NSE.
16 Holy circle in church a lot (4)
HALO –  Hidden, in [churc]H A LO[t].
18 Continue to be someone foolish (4)
GOON – GO ON, a chestnut.
19 Lousy rent — raise various amounts paid in advance (9)
RETAINERS – Anagram of RENT + RAISE.
22 One making a song and dance, these days, always going on (9)
BALLADEER – BALL + AD + EER.
24 Swimmer finished poetically, clinching races (5)
OTTER – O(TT)ER.
25 Protester did wrong breaking into vehicle behind back of school (7)
LUDDITE – [schoo]L + U(anagram of DID)TE.   There aren’t too many three-letter vehicles starting with a vowel.
26 Flats maybe by trail in Cornish town (7)
PADSTOW –  PADS + TOW.
28 Spaniard to make departure twice? (5)
DIEGO – DIE + GO.
29 Something edgy about sport bringing bit of bad language (9)
SWEARWORD – S(WEAR)WORD, easy enough if you have the whole  clue!
Down
1 Wet rubbish? Female in the morning collects a great deal (7)
FLOTSAM – F (LOTS) AM.
2 Nursery item’s function (3)
COT –  Double definition, a child’s bed and a cotangent.   I initially put COS, thinking of the wrong kind of nursery.
3 Competitor making mistake, not quite among the top people (8)
TRIALIST – TRI[p] + A-LIST, I think.   This was a very hesitant biff, since I couldn’t figure  out what “among” was doing.
4 Honour a husband, showing a sort of charm (5)
OBEAH – OBE + A H.
5 Most hare-brained guy meeting restrictions on entering street (9)
SCATTIEST – S(CAT + TIES)T.
6 Bishop getting uncomfortable becomes spiteful (6)
BITCHY – B + ITCHY.
7 Agency worker taking time signified outspoken attitude (11)
TEMPERAMENT – TEMP + ERA + sounds like MEANT.
8 The foreign boozer, little house in the country (7)
LESOTHO –  LE SOT + HO.
12 Recognise legend, wacko in peculiar guise (11)
ACKNOWLEDGE –  Anagram of LEGEND WACKO, although some solvers may play around with LEGEND + GUISE.
15 Feeble or calm and collected? (9)
NERVELESS – Double definition.
17 Hell, with a group of religious folk creating chaos (8)
DISORDER – DIS + ORDER.
18 Gulped, giving brief account of what happened when tooth came out? (7)
GOBBLED – GOB BLED, not what the turkey said, but what the hungry folks did at the feast.
20 Fixed a strip of wood or metal around front of window (7)
SCREWED –  SCRE(W)ED.   A strip of wood or metal is about the 5th definitin of “screed”.
21 Boy in love is in clover (6)
LADINO –  LAD IN O.   One I didn’t know, but the cryptic hands it to you.
23 Regret when school subject is squeezed — money found (5)
RUPEE – RU(PE)E, when I couldn’t get ruble to work.
27 Number in company excessively audible (3)
TWO – Sound like TOO, a clue escaped from a Quickie.

72 comments on “Times 27871 – Damme, where’s that clue?”

  1. Has anyone explained what ‘among’ is doing (they might have done, but at a first pass of the comments I don’t think I saw anything)? vinyl1 calls it a hesitant biff, and I wasn’t at all sure either, particularly with the trialist/triallist factor.
    1. A-list is an adjective, so I guess you could say that if someone is not A-list they’re not among the top people.
    1. Your suggested alternatives would be valid if solving the clue in isolation but I don’t think it’s unreasonable for compilers to set clues in the context of the crossword as a whole that rely on checked letters to eliminate possibilities. The second letter here, A, is checked which eliminates many 3-letter men’s names from the equation, whilst leaving Pat and Sam as plausible alternatives if one doesn’t know of the plant in question.
      1. Yep, thanks jack, my bad – momentarily forgot about the A, which narrows it down a fair bit. All out of sync today as not at home today – with family support bubble while piano techie is regulating and tuning my pride and joy in lonely lockdown isolation 🙂
      2. Or Dan, Hal, Ian, Nat. And less convincingly but not invalidly Baz, Cal, Gaz, Jay, Mat, Mac, Rab, Val. It was partly the sheer number of possibilities that led me to believe it had to be the generic LAD rather than any one example.
  3. After a slow start, I speeded up on the down clues. I was left at the end with the usual suspects which I eventually just bunged in on a wing and a prayer (just looked up the origin of that expression – fascinating. I always assumed it referred to angels not a line from John Wayne). Agree with all on the NHO LADINO where I plumped for the generic rather than a specific name.
  4. Par for a Monday. Hatchment and Ladino were both fingers-crossed punts.

    Didn’t Diego Ladino play for Real Madrid?

    1. Diego Fernando Ladino never played for Real Madrid – but did turn out twice in the Spanish third tier for Athletico Almeria 1926-1927. An anagram of his name is ‘I noddie goal’ which indicated that he was a centre forward, who usually played for the juniors.
  5. Knew it as a word from Countdown though couldn’t have said what it meant. If those six letters come out with 3 nasty ones it’s quite handy. I agree it’s unfairly clued really as the 3 vowels are the crossers. 28ac is a bit of a nothing clue and by changing that there would have been more options available for 21d. Not heard of UTE though so that went in with a shrug, and can’t see how DIS = hell, though with the crossers it couldn’t be anything else.

    Old Vic

      1. The City of Dis from Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’. Talking of all hell, should the USA have Trump face Capitol Punishment? Viz have a lovely POTUS 45 Commemorative Plate on offer this week at just £9.99.

  6. Very close but no cigar because of LADINO. I considered Lad, Pat, Sam, Ray and Cam. SAMINO sounded most likely to me.
    How do we know when a random name is preferable? We don’t.
    Otherwise successfully guessed BETEL, OBEAH and HATCHMENT.
    A plant too many for me in this puzzle but some good clues otherwise. An hour or so.
    David
  7. ….I must have had LADINO stored away, because, despite not having a clue what it was, I put it straight in and never considered further. Maybe I was a tad fortunate. I also fell for a lettuce at 2D before OUTLIVE put me right, and, as mentioned earlier, had to amend “gabbled”.

    The BITCHY bishop made me smile.

    FOI FACETIOUS
    LOI RETAINERS
    COD GOBBLED
    TIME 7:31

  8. Like many, got LADINO from wordplay, and a quick search suggests this is the first appearance of the term since a Mephisto seven years ago, so a strange obscurity. Otherwise was very much on to the wordplay and came in at 7:25.
  9. Meh. When there’s more than a few obscurities that you’ve got to guess, and the average word count of the clues is about 9, and there’s random names (in foreign languages)… the sort of crossword that I really dislike.
  10. 24.07 . A bit of a trial really with my FOI being retainers. Not helped by working out the ious of facetious and spending too long trying to front fill instead of actually solving some clues.

    LOI ladino but a complete guess. Bit tougher than the typical Monday but enjoyable. Liked betel, artemis and hatchment in particular but pride of place to lesotho if only because it’s so unusual as a crossword answer.

  11. Hi vinyl1, I would love to do some Jumbo blogging but I don’t think I can currently justify taking on two blogging posts. That may well change in a few months’ time but not immediately. And people now seem to have got to know me in my QC slot and I’ve sort of found my ‘voice’ so I would be loth to trade places.

    If I can help as an occasional blogger though while you sort things out I’d be very happy to do so. I would just ask that any such assignments take place on a different weekend from my QC spot.

    Kind regards

    Don

    1. By the way, is Backhaus your favourite interpreter of Beethoven piano works? I love Emil Gilels personally.

      Kind regards

      Don

  12. ‘Meh’ seems an appropriate comment for a puzzle with too many unknowns and not enough wordplay help to make them a bit less so. DNF, but my mistake was not in OBEAH, LADINO or HATCHMENT where I was expecting it, but in the RUPEE-PADSTOW crossing, since I never doubted RUBLE and BEDSTOW seemed to fit. Not quite sure what obscure British school subject BL might have been, though. COD to GOBBLED.

  14. Took me a long time but got there in the end. I can usually only finish easy ones so happy to see this was at least average difficulty. I read feeble as a cryptic clue for NERVELESS rather than a definition, ie lacking nerve.

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