Times 27873 – light and dark, hard and soft.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
One of those puzzles which has loads of straightforward clues and a few really tricky ones, with a couple of obscurities at 13d and 16d. I fell into a bear trap at 26a, but climbed out in time to escape being cloddish, although I didn’t much like that either. Nice to see a French person of note cropping up, and strange to see 15a again so soon, obviously different editors at work.
5a, of course, is my clue of the day.

Across
1 Stunned response around high ground reduced for some time (6)
AWHILE – AWE (stunned response) around HIL(L).
4 They keep watch, perhaps, aboard ship (8)
STICKERS – TICKER (watch, perhaps) inside SS for ship. I suppose stickers keep things in place.
10 Revolutionary support about to be attached to dresses (11)
ROBESPIERRE – ROBES (dresses) PIER (support) RE (about). Revolting French chap, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre, 1758-1794.
11 Extra work? (3)
RUN – double definition, the first a cricket reference.
12 Photo leading to surprised comment about large instrument (7)
PICCOLO – PIC (photo) then L in COO (surprised comment).
14 Shirt’s back occupied by most of succinct descriptive comment (7)
EPITHET – TEE (shirt) reversed around PITH(Y) = most of succinct.
15 Damaging material in the environment one can pick up? (5,9)
NOISE POLLUTION – cryptic definition, I’m not allowed to tell you where it appeared very recently in case it helps you win a prize.
17 Much older partner lends character, somehow (6,8)
CRADLE SNATCHER – (LENDS CHARACTER)*.
21 Is question on radio about parking in town? (7)
IPSWICH – IS, sounds like WHICH, with P for parking inserted. County town of Suffolk.
22 Live in hitherto untouched tower (7)
MINARET – ARE (live) inside MINT (untouched).
23 Classic character: tense, almost to the end (3)
TAU – Greek T; almost TAUT.
24 Old man, fanatic about missile briefly, not backing emergency device (5,6)
PANIC BUTTON – PA (old man) NUT (fanatic) with ICB(M) inserted, NOT reversed.
26 Gazpacho, say, showing little change? That would be stupid (8)

CLODDISH – I fell into a trap with this one, I wonder who else did? I first put in CHILDISH thinking it was a homophone for CHILL DISH, childish to me could mean stupid. That gave me the Italian art ending in I so I just thought, okay, usually O but maybe a plural version.

So it is not ‘childish’. It’s COLD DISH with the COLD changed to CLOD, which explains why it says  ‘little change’ in the surface. But I wasn’t keen on cloddish as a word to mean stupid either.
27 US writer in recording backing European nation (6)
PEOPLE – LP with POE inside, reversed, add E.

Down
1 Poison left to rise up in a wine unopened (8)
ATROPINE – A , PORT (left) reversed, (W)INE. I could go on about the chemistry of atropine, it’s interesting (to me), but I’ll let you look it up in Wikipedia.
2 Writer’s rating limiting University centre (3)
HUB – HB pencil has U in the middle.
3 Learner is not a little flexible (7)
LISSOME – L, IS, SOME = not a lttle.
5 Agricultural partner was responsible for these detailed figures (5,5,4)
THREE BLIND MICE – De-tailed, ha ha! The farmer’s wife was she, who did it with a carving knife.
6 One dispenses with finally being taken in by church obscurity (7)
CHEMIST – H (with finally) in CE (church) MIST (obscurity).
7 After change of heart, married alternative sensual woman (5,6)
EARTH MOTHER – (HEART)*, M(arried), OTHER (alternative).
8 Possessing reason for one to accommodate fool (6)
SANITY – SAY = for one, insert NIT for fool.
9 Lad keeping it working: are French workers to stay idle? (3,2,4,5)
SIT ON ONES HANDS – SON insert IT = SIT ON: ON (working) ES (you are, tu es) HANDS (workers).
13 Shady image, representation of Horus and Cairo with minimum of colour (11)
CHIAROSCURO – (HORUS CAIRO C(olour))*, if you’re vague about what it is, and interested enough, check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiaroscuro
16 Cotton fabric: there’s concern after losing a large amount (8)
CRETONNE – CARE loses A = CRE, TONNE = large amount. My LOI and needed Mrs K to confirm it was a thing.
18 Day rent fell? (7)
DRIPPED – D (day) RIPPED (rent).
19 Cut on head: not upset? Absolutely (7)
TONSURE – NOT upset = TON, SURE = absolutely.
20 Better information requiring strategy to make switch? (3-3)
TIC-TAC – TACTIC is switched.
25 Point(er)? (3)
TIP – double definition of point/pointer. A TIP can be a point of e.g. a pencil, or a pointer in the right direction, i.e. a hint.

​

83 comments on “Times 27873 – light and dark, hard and soft.”

  1. Biff City, with maybe a half-dozen answers going in with parsing done, or done completely, only after submitting. Including the mice, which I biffed from ‘detailed’. I think this is the first time I’ve seen ES clued as ‘are French’ rather than ‘French art’; slowed me down a bit. I didn’t know TIC-TAC, which I didn’t put in until I got CLODDISH. Which seemed OK to me.
  2. I thought this was going to be tough after I started by being unable to get any of the three letter answers then read through several further clues without being able to answer any. Once I got going it didn’t prove to be quite so challenging as I thought it was going to. I had one unknown in CRETONNE, but that was generously clued. I spotted CHIAROSCURO early but wasn’t sure how to spell it and feared I was going to end up with vowels out of order but once I got the crossers they seemed they could only go in one way. And I’m agreed with THREE BLIND MICE as COD. Though we’ve seen this use of “detailed” before it wasn’t some time before I spotted it – it was well disguised in the surface today.
  3. I note that Washington DC (Biff City) punch-up continues. As the New Zealand PM Jacinda Andern said on 14 May 2019, ‘I don’t understand America. Why not tighten up your gunlaws!?’

    FOI 19dn TONSURE

    LOI 8dn SANITY rhymes but doesn’t chime with HANNITY!

    COD 2dn HUB – ‘hard-black’ simples!

    WOD 20dn TIC-TAC – on course bookies assistants’ (Tic-Tac men) hand-signals – incredible to watch. Another world.

    Time not recorded for bizarre reasons! About an hour.

    Edited at 2021-01-13 07:08 am (UTC)

    1. A friend of mine in Oz sent me a very funny take on the Washington punch up. Some blokes in Australia thought it would be a good idea to storm the capital then realised that was Canberra so they canned it as Canberra is so boring and nowhere to go for a decent pxxs-up afterwards!
      1. Tres amusant Martin! Luckily I’ve never been to Canberra.

        It has always staggered me that Donald Trump doesn’t drink. Perhaps a few ‘Jim Beams’, to go with his Diet Coke, might lighten him up a bit.

          1. With gerrymandering, voter suppression, the daft Electoral College, and two senators per state, ‘democratic’ is over-egging the pudding.
              1. Kevin you stand there in your Court Jester outfit – but we are certainly not amused. Laughable is the word – not ‘amusing’. Trump is an un-democratic cancer who deserves the Perkin Warbeck treatment.
                He will find little support in any English forum, except perhaps The Monday Club and The Farragistas.
                Check out Arnie Schwarzenegger’s fine words. America hang your head, in shame.
                1. Yes, the Terminator was spot on Horryd. I’ve been seeing DJT as America’s crazy ex-boyfriend writ large. She’s kicked him out in favour of someone else so he comes to burn her house down with a few of his mates who have similar problems. Law enforcement sees “domestic dispute” – too dangerous to wade into – and does too little too late. When the initial mayhem doesn’t succeed they make plans to go and burn down all the relatives’ houses. We’re not through this yet.
                2. Unfortunately, even in The Times, you can find Trump apologists among the readers who comment on articles.
                  Look out for people with screen names such as “An Englishman”, “Sylvie Lueders”, “Ruby Montana” and “Jon Woolery”. The last-named is, though, I believe, a real name.
              2. There are palpable weaknesses in the US political system, but these in no way exonerate those involved in the disgraceful scenes last week.
                  1. Kev mate, like Rudi Guiliani, it wasn’t clear what you were being. If you change your avatar to either Jim Jordan or Joe Manchin, we might have a better idea.

                    Edited at 2021-01-13 01:19 pm (UTC)

                    1. I’m sure Kevin would find neither of those choices apt, and both insulting.

                      Edited at 2021-01-13 06:26 pm (UTC)

                      1. OK let Kev decide who his new avatar might be, but not Tucker Carlson as he’s spoken for (Mr. Mauefw) and Anderson Cooper is a tad too Vanderbilt – and was quite horribly drunk when the ball dropped a couple of weeks back! On New Years!

          2. Humour can be found in almost anything. Private Eye has proved that. This spoof IS very funny and typically Australian.
      2. Surely a “punch up” is too anodyne a term and implies a mutual row, rather than clearly distinguishable attackers and attackees.
  4. 54 minutes, with much of that spent at the end in the SW, not helped by needing the crossers for the vowel positions for CHIAROSCURO and, after toying with ‘chowdish’, eventually submitting with CLODDISH unparsed.

    Yes, ‘these detailed figures’ were very good. Some others I liked included the second appearance of LISSOME in a couple of weeks, the misleading ‘large instrument’ in the clue for PICCOLO and the not obvious CRETONNE.

    A good mid-week, mid-level of difficulty challenge. Thanks to setter and blogger.

  5. 42 minutes once I had my first answer but I suppose honesty requires me to add in the first 10 minutes I spent staring blankly at an empty grid. After that it was steady but slow with only CHIAROSCURO giving me real problems. I knew I knew of the word I was looking for and what it meant, but even having deduced the anagrist I was unable to assemble it until I had all the checkers in place.

    CLODDISH didn’t bother me in the heat of solving but on reflection I might agree with Pip that’stupid’ doesn’t quite capture the meaning of the word. It may be part of it, but clumsy and awkward and slow are the dominant characteristics. It’s possibly more a physical thing than a mental one.

    1. From Wiktionary:
      cloddish (comparative more cloddish, superlative most cloddish)
      1)Like a clod, a person who is foolish, stupid or parochial.
      He was a cloddish man, like he’d just fallen off the turnip wagon and hadn’t quite woken up yet from his long trip from the country.
      2) Of or pertaining to lumpy soil.
      Andyf
  6. Cloddish bothered me. As Pip states CHILDISH properly captures the meaning.And gazpacho is a chilled dish and not a cold dish! Today I bought ‘pumpernickel’ and tomorrow I will make gazpacho for luncheon. Chill!

    Edited at 2021-01-13 07:28 am (UTC)

  7. Not too difficult (except I had a typo that I didn’t notice so one pink square). My only problem was working out the most likely order for the vowels in CHIAR…O which is a word we’ve probably had before but I’m unfamiliar with. For some reason I knew CRETONNE the moment I realized it started CRE. I liked the mice, although the enumeration was a bit of a giveaway.
  8. Feeling robbed: as I hesitated over 4ac having originally put in STICKERS but thought “They keep” as a pretty weak def so changed it to STOCKERS which seems much more apt and a watch does TOCK as much as it TICKs … I really think either should be accepted. Anybody else on my side? (Chambers gives: STOCKER as “a person who stocks” and TOCK as “the sound made by a clock or a watch, like a tick but deeper and more resonant” (and it is a verb as well, of course)… Rest was tricksy in part, but always fair …
    1. I do think you have a case. Certainly STOCKERS seems to fit the definition better than STICKERS.
  9. …untimely Dripped.
    30 mins pre-brekker. Some clever stuff, maybe too clever.
    And I erred as NHO Cretonne, but I thought I had heard of Bretonne. I know, I couldn’t see how Bare meant Concern either.
    Thanks setter and Pip.
  10. I found this rather contrived, in particular the stretched (to breaking point) definitions at CLODDISH and STICKERS; the superfluous hitherto in 22a… and how does SANITY equate to possessing reason? That would be sane, surely? A grumpy solve in about 43m.

    Edited at 2021-01-13 08:39 am (UTC)

    1. agreed – 8d would be better without “possessing”. Simply
      “reason for one to accommodate fool” defines SANITY.
    2. The old gerund trick. Eating cake is bad for your health. Skiing is fun. Possessing reason is an admirable thing.
    3. I’m with plusjeremy. It’s a deliberate deception. You’re led to think it’s a participial phrase meaning sane. In fact it’s a gerund: the possessing of reason = sanity.
  11. I took some time seeing AWHILE, LOI and CRETONNE had me flummoxed for ages too. So over 50 mins for today. Some good clues though. I too liked ROBESPIERRE, not literally of course, EARTH MOTHER and CRADLE SNATCHER. Thanks Pip and setter.
  12. 5d… fabulous… that is why I keep doing the Times crossword… for moments when I just laugh out loud… the three blind mice made my day!

    36 mins otherwise as I got stuck for a while on the unknown cretonne

    Thank you oh brilliant setter!

  13. Nothing in the grid after 2-3 minutes, then hit the panic button at 24a. It helped. NHO LOI cretonne, but it parsed well.
    The Green Streak lives on ( assuming last Saturday and Sunday were ok ) 28’26”
  14. 43 minute with LOI the unknown CRETONNE. I think I remembered TIC-TAC from Charlie Chester in Educated Evans. Anyone else that old and dissolute? COD to THREE BLIND MICE. As you say, Pip, a mixed bag today, but with some delicious words and phrases.Thank you Pip and setter.
    1. Tic-Tac Tom and Ron the Runner worked for Murphy the bookie in Athol Mulley’s joke. Murphy was devout and generous, so when he died he had the full funeral in the cathedral. Tom and Ron crept in the back to pay their respects.
      “I can’t believe Murphy’s dead”, said Ron.
      Watching the elaborate ceremony with the Bishop moving his arms in the sign of the cross and other symbols, Tom replied “I’ll say he’s dead – he’s drifted to 33s.”
  15. 46.00 but two mistakes. Also fell into the gazpacho trap. Kept thinking of soup dish so went for the impossible psoudish . Tactic couldn’t help as I resolved that tip top was an alternative meaning of better and had the added advantage of having tip as the first part of the answer. Wouldn’t mind but I worked with a guy years ago who’d been an on course bookie and could demonstrate tic tac for anyone who cared to ask. Lovely guy,

    Ah well on to tomorrow. Had a run of 10 without mishap till today so not too dispiriting.

  16. Took forever to see CRETONNE, and much longer to believe that the sanity clause made sense. Not looking at the Snitch today.
  17. With the first four checkers of 13d in place, could detect it might be a foreign word – CHIARO means something in Italian, so took it from there.

    CHILDISH didn’t occur to me, as the O checker was now in place. CLODDISH seems a clunky word.

    On the RHS, was left with THREE BLIND MICE which took a while for the penny to drop, MINARET was a write-in with the first three checkers (didn’t parse), and then LOI CRETONNE dragged up from the depths.

  18. Count me as another who initially had CHILDISH at 26. Thankfully the I from the fodder for the arty anagram was checked or I might have ended up double-pink.
  19. Beaten by Robespierre. Didn’t know he was a revolutionary, and just couldn’t make sense of the clue or see a word that fit. Chiaroscuro no problem, 2 simple Italian words. Like others, a MER at sanity. Took a while to get awhile, writing with my NB pencil and putting in NUB for 2 down.
  20. We get Marat from time to time so it was nice to get ROBESPIERRE for a change, although I wouldn’t have wanted to meet either of them. I didn’t know that the “sea-green incorruptible” had an aristocratic “de” to his name, he probably kept it quiet. I’d almost forgotten about the TIC-TAC men – I think of them as the little mints in a plastic dispenser. Very slow start and equally slow finish with PEOPLE taking far too long to twig. 19.19
  21. 50m but needed help with the cotton and the poison – perfectly fair clues, except that they exposed my lack of GK in those areas. Enjoyed the rest of the puzzle especially the mice, but many of the smooth surfaces appealed too. Thank you, setter and blogger.
  22. I enjoyed this – struggling for the first 10 minutes and then gradually it gave way as I managed the four 14 letter and four 11 letter answers. However, after 35 minutes I was one answer short and spent 10 minutes on 16D: CRETONNE before conceding.

    FOI 2D: HUB
    LOI (before conceding) – 27A: PEOPLE

    Thank you, pipkirby and the setter.

  23. On the tricky side with the NW corner proving recalcitrant. A lame 40 mins, mostly spent on inventing improbable wine names to mangle into some version of ATROPINE and a a synonym for revolutionary beginning with ARB, which as every fool knows is invariably what is meant by “revolutionary support”.
  24. Unfortunately, I thought this was a very loose puzzle in places. There was some lovely stuff and it was a nice difficulty level – took a while to get going and then they fell steadily – but three pretty big issues for me:

    – foreign word clued as anagram – and it was CHIORASCURO for me. Always a frustration

    – I had STICKERS and changed it to STOCKERS, where the definition works much better and the cryptic seems to be just as good

    – NOISE POLLUTION was a loose cryptic definition for me, not helped by the fairly common use of SOUND POLLUTION – and the fact that LIGHT POLLUTION was arguably just as good an answer, with a play on the meaning of light and ‘one can pick up?’

    All in all, I’m rather grumpy today, I’m afraid. 9m 33s with three pink cells.

    1. Given a Petrie dish and a the right conditions, quite a lot can be achieved with just three pink cells!
  25. CHIAROSCURO seems to come regularly as clockwork but I still can’t spell it. LOI CRETONNE unknown.
    COD THREE BLIND MICE didn’t get the de-tailed bit till coming here though
  27. about 45 minutes: with a few checkers biffed ROTISSERIE at 10a, though it didn’t fit – which made 2d HUT , so spent several minutes failing to parse them before deciding to submit anyhow.
  28. After 35 minutes I had all but CLODDISH and CRETONNE. I eventually saw how CLODDISH was supposed to work, but after 51 minutes I gave up and looked up CRETONNE. I submitted off Leaderboard to find all correct. A disappointing finish. Took me ages to see the parsing even after I had the answer. Thanks setter and Pip. I am now awaiting the delivery of my replacement shower from Amazon. The old one expired on Monday evening, with a cloud of steam issuing from the shower head after the water shut down normally but the boiler didn’t cut off. Just hoping the water inlet lines up!
  30. The clue for 8 down is simply wrong. Possessing reason is sane, not sanity. The word possessing should have been edited out. The it works.
      1. Thanks for that Jeremy. I had a feeling there was some sense in which it worked but I wasn’t sure how (I was schooled in the era that grammar was unfashionable). I’m going to go and research gerunds.
  31. Very slow start with PANIC BUTTON my only entry on my first pass of the across clues. My LOI was CLODDISH where I thought the definition was OK. As an habitual biffmeister, I had an inkling that there must be a NW French material called “Bretonnne” but fortunately revisited it in an attempt to parse it.
  32. Like many have said, there was a lot of biffing going on, and I also managed a very decent time. ROBESPIERRE was tricky. Originally I had ARB… (reversal of BRA) to start, but once I had the R from ATROPINE my biffing brain clicked on.

    I have on old Times crossword book from 2008 or so and just last weekend had the answer TIC-TAC, so that was fortunate. Ended with CRETONNE where I took a good minute or two to come up with CARE.

    As for ‘possessing reason’ = SANITY, this is the old gerund trick. It comes up every few weeks or so. Eating cake is bad for your health. Skiing is fun. Possessing reason is an admirable thing.

    Edited at 2021-01-13 01:55 pm (UTC)

  33. Some good chewy material there. LOI cretonne. Nice to see the sea-green incorruptible make an appearance.
  34. This from another post:

    The old gerund trick. Eating cake is bad for your health. Skiing is fun. Possessing reason is an admirable thing.

  35. Like others, I felt a certain looseness about this one which left certain clues nagging at me, though I wouldn’t go so far as to say I didn’t enjoy it. I suppose it’s not necessary that every clue have such solid wordplay that there is absolutely no question that you’ve got the right answer. Each to his own goo, as the French have it.
  36. Nearly there. Failed to get ATROPINE and CRETONNE and a couple more.
    Could not improve on CHECKERS at 4a (draughts on a board in US?). That made 5d hard; my first word was HORSE.
    But I knew the shady image and got CLODDISH from that.
    David
  37. 10:56 – reeling from the shell shock of the QC which has now been corrected. Slow but steady solve, of all things my last in and the one I was least confident of was TIP (agonizing over TIP or TOP, since the clue didn’t make any sense).
  38. ….is the TIC-TAC man. They used to be great to watch, and the late John McCririck often used the signals on Channel 4 Racing.

    There was plenty here to annoy the more picky among us, but I switched on my pedantry filter and thoroughly enjoyed the puzzle as a result.

    FOI PICCOLO
    LOI AWHILE
    COD THREE BLIND MICE
    TIME 10:01

  39. I am NO EXPERT with materials but cretonne is not at all unfamiliar. To be fair, I can rarely identify a material from a physical sample, but I thought that cretonne shows up in lots and lots of novels, so eminently gettable.
    Andyf
    1. Well I didn’t know “Cretonne” and therefore resorted to aids for this last clue. Like others, I had a feeling that I had heard of “Bretonne” – any points for getting a wrong answer that rhymes?
      A curate’s egg of a puzzle, I thought.
    3. Does no-one else recall Neddy Seagoon being dressed in a “floral cretonne dress”?
      Gasman
  41. 23:49. I made very heavy weather of this, particularly in the NW where I put in NUB and didn’t reconsider it for ages. Even then it took me a long time to see AWHILE for some reason. Those two clues alone probably doubled my time.
  42. A straightforward solve in 40 minutes despite the obscurities (or CHIAROSCURO ties). TIC-TAC and CRETONNE purely from wordplay. I enjoyed CRADLE SNATCHER, but COD to THREE BLIND MICE.

    Edited at 2021-01-13 07:24 pm (UTC)

  43. 31.08. I found this pretty tricky. Definitely had the wrong end of the baton with LOI Robespierre where I think I was looking for a term from haute couture for dresses. I liked cradle snatcher. Cretonne and cloddish were a bit of a struggle, I was mulling more the soupiness than the coldness of the latter, which always makes me think of the dying words of Arnold Rimmer, no doubt that’s where I first came across it. Ipswich seemed out of place in a puzzle of minarets, chiaroscuro, Robespierre, cretonne, tonsure and epithet (sorry Ipswich).

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