Times 27,875: He Floats In The Air With X, Ys and Zs

I didn’t find this a pushover, but more to the exotic vocabulary choices rather than anything especially devious about the cluing: the parsings below are largely straightforward. CASCARA went in early but I was rather surprised not to have to amend it before the end; LOI PIONEER even though I had the “ONE” in mind, my brain couldn’t get past PHONEME. I especially liked the “early euro trouble” at 28ac and a special award to 23ac for escaping my full comprehension until after submission. A nice Friday puzzle, thumbs up to the setter responsible. And now, over to you in the comments!

ACROSS
1 Tree house in Italy needs a lot of care inside (7)
CASCARA – CASA needs CAR{e} inside. A North American buckthorn with laxative bark

5 Some backed cappuccino, some tea (5)
CUPPA – hidden reversed in {c}APPUC{cino}

9 Tea popular in several hotels? (5)
CHAIN – CHA IN [tea | popular]

10 See tsar perhaps cut by old upper-class — tough (9)
LABORIOUS – LA BORIS (Godunov?) “cut” by O U

11 Swell chaps replacing us in a month (7)
AUGMENT – AUG{us->MEN}T

12 At sea, repeat securing unknown yachtsman’s harness (7)
TRAPEZE – (REPEAT*) “securing” Z

13 I go in and start, somehow (10)
INSTIGATOR – (I GO IN + START*), &lit

15 Pasta shell abandoned by Russian wolfhound (4)
ORZO – {b}ORZO{i}

18 Puts on commercials on the radio (4)
ADDS – homophone of ADDS

20 Queen, regularly uneasy, thrilling as knights sought the Grail? (10)
QUESTINGLY – Q + U{n}E{a}S{y} + TINGLY

23 American native with a soft-soled shoe (7)
CREEPER – CREE [American native] with PER [a]. Gonna bet I’m not the only person who submitted this assuming that a “creeper” was just some kind of American bird

24 Note brave men with hearts dropping in remote islands (7)
FAEROES – FA + {h}EROES

25 Terribly nice mass, one inspired by Jesus? (9)
MESSIANIC – (NICE MASS*) “inspiring” I. Or possibly just (NICE MASS I*)

26 Wood resin running short (5)
BALSA – BALSA{m}

27 A divine cut in America is antelope (5)
ADDAX – A DD AX [a | divine | cut, in America]

28 Country set right after early euro trouble (7)
ECUADOR – R after ECU ADO

DOWN
1 Seaweed in lettuce? That will cause a stink (4,3)
COAL GAS – ALGA in COS

2 Plain type of hospital shoots up (8)
SANSERIF – SAN + reversed FIRES

3 Issue of voting system abandoned by British (5)
ALLOT – {b}ALLOT

4 Keenly targeting goal but I aim so badly (9)
AMBITIOUS – (BUT I AIM SO*)

5 Motor on old office machine used for meeting in town (6)
CARFAX – CAR on FAX. Easier for Old Oxonians who remember Carfax Cross from their college days

6 Developer surrounding unit with buttress (7)
PIONEER – PIER “surrounding” ONE

7 Way through area on Java? (5)
AISLE – A on ISLE

8 Nervous complaint: spies twitch it has introduced (8)
SCIATICA – CIA TIC, “introduced” into S.A. [it]

14 To the very end of August in Paris managed empty café (1,8)
A OUTRANCE – AOUT + RAN + C{af}E

16 Like a long journey? Yes, and so must get moving (8)
ODYSSEAN – (YES AND SO*)

17 I have grub, regularly entering red channel (5,3)
RIVER BED – I’VE {g}R{u}B, “entering” RED

19 Directed to drop advert put on clothing (7)
DRESSED – {ad}DRESSED

21 Small iceberg, one getting bigger outside loch (7)
GROWLER – GROWER “outside” L

22 Serious offence outside public house by puzzler (6)
SPHINX – SIN outside P.H. + X [by]

23 Butterfly order with no northern distribution initially (5)
COMMA – COMMA{n}{d}

24 Cape songbird down by new university (5)
FICHU – FI{n}CH + U. This is a cape as in a lacy thing worn by women covering the neck and throat

78 comments on “Times 27,875: He Floats In The Air With X, Ys and Zs”

  1. I’m simultaneously surprised to have finished this puzzle at all, and to not have finished faster. Puzzles chock full of misleading wordplay and rare words usually stymie me. And yet, somehow I was on the wavelength, and the first thing I tried seemed to work for every answer. Perhaps the clues were of the tough variety, but there weren’t too many misleading garden paths to get lost on.

    Was held up for a bit by GODAX for ADDAX and ARSTE for AISLE, otherwise no real head-scratchers.

    Edited at 2021-01-15 12:55 am (UTC)

  2. Not the stinker I was expecting after yesterday’s puzzle. DNK TRAPEZE. Biffed FAEROES, COMMA, parsed post-submission. I confidently typed in LO (‘see’) at 10ac, which slowed things down some; in fact LABORIOUS was my LOI. And I realize now that I never did figure out CREEPER; I thought of the plant rather than a bird. I also thought of A OUTRANCE early on, but thought the phrase was A L’OUTRANCE and gave it up.
    1. I realize now I never did parse LABORIOUS. I also tried LO at first. What’s the LA doing?
      1. Familiar to me mostly from doing a lot of barred puzzles – as best as I can make out it is, essentially, Shakespearean for “lo”…
  3. Just over an hour and ended up missing out on LABORIOUS and FICHU. Pleased though to have got a few others such as A OUTRANCE and ADDAX which were new to me. I liked the ‘puzzler’ at 22d.

    Congrats to setter on his/her milestone and thanks to verlaine

    1. Oh very nice! I didn’t spot the things down the side at all. The CD is a particularly nice touch.

      Edited at 2021-01-15 01:50 am (UTC)

        1. There is another NINA word FOUR across the middle. So the milestone seems to be 400 puzzles.

          Either side of the FOUR there is CD, Roman numerals for 400.

          All good crossword fun.

          I loved this puzzle and was going to write a longer comment but just posting this for now.

          Don

  4. I went for CASSAVA at 1A (although I know “save” isn’t quite “care”). So one wrong. I worked out all the other complicated stuff I’d never heard of.

    I think at 2D “type” needs to be underlined. SANSERIF is a “plain type(face)”

    Edited at 2021-01-15 02:01 am (UTC)

    1. Oh yes, that makes sense. Not sure if I like “of” as a link between wordplay and definition, but this setter clearly has no problem with it!
  5. I wasn’t sure of LA for see and thought of quite a few five-letter endings for Quest before the right one dropped in.
    I liked Cuppa and Sphinx.
    My principal Carfax association is the eponymous chippie, still there I hope.
    Thanks v, and setter.
  6. Tough, but in the end not slow, 23 minutes. Got there fully parsed, except for LA as See like Paul above. Only unknown was probably fichu; seen sundry deer, carfaxes, trees etc in previous puzzles. Slight MER at Borzoi for wolfhound – our local dog-walking park features both, I wouldn’t equate them..
    1. The Wiki entry for Borzoi is unexpectedly interesting … technically they are sighthounds but they did indeed hunt wolves with them. Of course the ones in your local park would probably be the Irish variety
  7. All in except 15ac ORZO – I remember ORSO’S – so a DNF

    A complex puzzle which a few clues belong in the IKEA wharehouse such as 21dn RIVER BED and 28ac ECUADOR

    21dn Growler a small lettuce!? Anyone?

    FOI 4db AMBITIOUS

    (LOI) 14ac A OUTRANCE!!

    COD 23dn COMMA without mention of punctuation, or yellow

    WOD 24dn FICHU

    Remember The Grauniad’s Island of San Serife?

  8. I’m surprised no-one has yet mentioned ‘brothel creepers’ as a type of shoe re 23ac.

    Given that there were so many unknowns here I did rather well to come within two letters of completing the grid correctly. The unknowns were TRAPEZE as the yachtsman’s harness, ADDAX, A OUTRANCE (not very fair to require knowledge of French for both definition and wordplay), QUESTINGLY (!) and FICHU. But the one that did for me was ORZO where I NHO the pasta and would never in a million years have thought of {b}ORZO{i}from the definition ‘Russian wolfhound’.

    Mystified by “see = LA” which I had to come here for, and wonder why I have never met it before in 55 years of solving cryptic puzzles. I see it’s in Chambers printed edition (not the free online version), and Collins on-line via Webster’s who state that it’s American English. Elsewhere Collins has LA as an interjection of surprise but does not mention ‘see’.

    Edited at 2021-01-15 07:22 am (UTC)

    1. The Chambers Dictionary app certainly has it, defined rather enthusiastically as “Lo! see! behold! ah! indeed!”
      1. I’d meant to ask. I’ve seen ‘La!’ occasionally, but not in the sense of See! Behold! But my E-J dictionary (Kenkyusha) gives two definitions:1) look! or indeed! (emphasis), and 2) [expressing surprise] They cite Shakespeare–ironically, Coriolanus, which I’ve just finished reading–“Indeed, la, ’tis a noble child”
        1. In both Singapore and Liverpool ‘LA’ is used as an affectational affirmative – ‘indeed’ at the end of a sentence. In HK my Singaporean secretary Diana Griffiths was known as Diana-la.
  9. Like Paul I had a CASSAVA, having similarly thought that “save” could loosely mean care. I’d also gone for LOBORIOUS, thinking that “See” could only be “lo” and assuming it was a word I didn’t know. Perhaps I should have trusted in the definition. Elsewhere I had found FICHU and ORZO very hard to come by so my satisfaction at having teased them out somewhat compensates for my errors.
  10. Blimey, our setter has marked his/her milestone by eating the dictionary:
    CASCARA, ORZO, ADDAX, CARFAX, A OUTRANCE, COMMA and FICHU.
    At least I had heard of CARFAX. There’s one in Horsham in Sussex.
    And I also knew of Borzoi because we used to see a couple who bred Borzois whenever they walked their dogs around the grounds of a chateau in France at the same time as we walked ours.
    No real COD. LOI was FICHU
    1. Indeed. Perhaps more ammunition for those (I’m not among them) who argue that puzzles often suffer when the setter has decided to construct a Nina. See the discussion of Tuesday’s QC set by Juno.
  11. DNF, but would have been 32:46. I had QUESTINGLE for 20A so spelt ODYSSEAN wrong. Stuck on SE corner for ages – LOI ORZO. Lots of unknowns CASCARA, LA for look, ADDAX, FICHU, QUESTINGLY and A OUTRANCE and I missed the Nina. Not my finest solve to what is a great puzzle. Thanks V and congratulations to the clever setter.
  12. Another CASSAVA here and had to look up the pasta so it was a DNF anyway in about 40m. Very tough on the vocab but loads of witty definitions and some very clever wordplay left me satisfied even though vanquished. Well done centenary setter and thanks V for explaining several I had entered on wings and prayers.
  13. …For idleness to cosset, nurse, and dandle.
    After 30 mins I had three left – the three that were impossible for me.
    The setter wins.
    Thanks, and V.
  14. 28a always makes me think of the late John Grant, who, in the days when there were qualifying puzzles, welcomed us to one of the Glasgow heats of the Crossword Championship with the words, “Congratulations on being able to spell ECUADOR.”
  15. I battled through this until I was left with 10a, 15a and 24d. Decided on LABORIOUS despite not understanding LA/SEE. I knew I was looking to remove the outer letters from a Russian wolfhound, but didn’t know the pasta and couldn’t think of the dog’s name, so I Googled Russian wolfhound and then assumed the pasta existed. I was totally baffled by the unknown cape, so needed assistance with that too. 41:34 but with a little bit of help. Thanks setter and V.
  16. For the second week I have saved my best to last and recorded the lowest WITCH of the week on the hardest crossword, having struggled on all the others . I’m putting it down to Thursday night having been Joan Hickson Miss Marple night for the last two weeks and so I am solving with a “Mmmm” and an “Oh I think……”.
    Great puzzle, all the unknowns, and there were a few, all gettable from the word play, here’s to the next hundred. Thanks V for the blog.
  17. 12:17, but with a silly typo I somehow didn’t spot when checking my answers.
    I loved this puzzle, because I love deducing unknown or unfamiliar (I did actually know most of them) words from wordplay. I didn’t find this one particularly hard, but I did need the wordplay for almost all the clues.
    That said I have sympathy for anyone who hadn’t heard of ORZO because I’m certain I wouldn’t have deduced the answer from the dog. Other than that I thought the wordplay was fair.
    So thank you very much setter and congratulations on the milestone.

    Edited at 2021-01-15 11:04 am (UTC)

  18. I flew out the traps but then ground to a halt. After 35 mins I submitted with two wrong. I guessed correctly at FICHU but went for LOBORIOUS and my pasta guess was ARCO. Not heard of BORZOI or ORZO so that clue was never going to reveal itself to me.
  19. …And I’d do even more to save the world if it wasn’t for this SCIATICA. 34 minutes with LOI FICHU, one of five unknowns, the others being CASCARA, ADDAX, A OUTRANCE and GROWLER. The cryptic plus crossers gave me enough confidence to put them in. The FAEROES aren’t that remote in the grand scheme of things, unless an Antipodean set the puzzle. They’re in our Shipping Forecast. COD to ECUADOR. A good puzzle apart from my ratio of unknowns to knowns was a bit high. Thank you V and setter.

    Edited at 2021-01-15 09:54 am (UTC)

  20. Happy with that time, and I loved the chewiness. Plenty of words half-known that had to be teased out. Like paulinlondon, Carfax will for ever be the Oxford chippy in my mind – though now I think about it I can’t even remember was it a shop or a van. I admit to checking cascara, but I was not tempted by cassava (or cassata). Fichu in this sense I had never heard of. OED says it comes with the sense ‘carelessly thrown on.’ Fanny Trollope (Anthony’s mum) in her Domestic Manners of the Americans (1834) tells how ‘a scarlet fichu relieved the sombre colour of her dress.” Addax first appears in Pliny.
  21. …cheated with CASCARA – I had CASSAVA written in even though I thought it’s not a tree, so did check this before submitting.

    Otherwise, some unheard-of words: FICHU, GROWLER (as iceberg), ADDAX, A OUTRANCE, but for each, the parsing was generous.

    Was in Oxford back in August when we could all still move about freely, so CARFAX still relatively fresh in mind.

  22. Agree with V, a good Friday puzzle. Worked through all the tricky stuff in about 25 minutes, while watching Sri Lanka cricket then Hawaii golf; ending with 10a where I couldn’t see an answer with a tsar beginning with LO. Was Boris a tsar? Amazed that LA can mean LO. The lower half was fun. Seen FICHU before and familiar with Carfax and Addex and liked the COMMA(ND) clue. Disappointing finish to a great puzzle.
  23. In quizzes, my least favourite rounds are food & drink and (particularly) breeds of dog. So no prizes for guessing my failure today: never heard of ORZO or BORZOI, so I was left guessing ?R?O… although if I’d spotted the Nina then I’d have had one of those sorted out for me.

    Lots of tricky vocab here that I didn’t know, so I was fortunate just to have one word wrong. CASCARA, A OUTRANCE, CREEPER, FICHU, GROWELER, CARFAX & ADDAX – just to prove that there are still more antelopes out there in crosswordland.

    15m 37s with the error. Proper Friday stuff. Congrats to the setter on reaching 100!

  24. Very good work-out and congrats to the setter (um where does the 400 come in?) Same as others with the Lo/la thing though I guessed right in the end. In Jane Austen’s work she has some of her less attractive female characters use LA as an exclamation, as in – La, you must have had some very smart beaux. Speaking of the Austen era, a FICHU was used to cover a decollete that was unsuitable for daytime wear. Spent time trying to squeeze a moc[c]asin (poisonous water snake) into 23a.

    I had a (post submit) slightly different parse for ECUADOR. I took it to be CURE=set right after putting E for euro at the beginning (early) containing ADO=trouble. It just about works I think.

    1. FOUR is across the middle, set between C and D, possibly initials. The HUNDRED and PUZZLES (as you probably already know) occupy the 2nd and 14th columns.
    2. I’d love to agree with your parse, but I don’t; I’m sure the setter meant ECU as the “early Euro”. In your parse you have to take “early euro” to mean move the E of CURE to the front, while at the same time putting ADO into CUR, which is a big ask.
      1. Weell. Reluctantly yes ok because I now see why the ecu is there which didn’t quite add up for me before. In fact it still doesn’t really but it won’t keep me up at night….
        1. In gestation it was called the European currency unit or ECU until they (no doubt a team of expensive consultants nose in trough) came up with EURO.
          1. Thanks Pip – I may have known that, once. I just thought of it as a very old French coin
            1. I think the fact that is is a very old French coin is why the French thought it would be a good permanent name for the currency, and everyone else felt that the otherwise inelegant Euro was a better option.
  25. The weirdness of this puzzle was entirely explained by the requirements of the NINA. I was well under way to another “easy” score when I crunched up against the Mephisto words, FICHU, ORZO, A OUTRANCE (really?) and FAEROES spelled that way (the footy team isn’t). The first two I eventually dragged out of memory, the other two I decided to trust the relatively unequivocal wordplay, but by then my time had pretty much doubled to 25.08.
    I think I’ve seen SANSERIF as one word and a paucity of Ss before. But don’t quote me.
    As for LA for see(!), I’d have thought that was pretty common, though I’d assumed it was with the French connection.
  26. FOI 3D: ALLOT
    LOI: 15A: ORZO

    I submitted thinking convincing myself that 1A would be CASSAVA (same reason as others before me). I have never heard of CASCARA, ADDAX or FICHU – so 3 incomplete/incorrect (6 pink squares). I struggled for a while trying to shoehorn KELP into COS, was unsure of both CARFAX (even though I’ve been up the tower in Oxford), and SANSERIF (as a single word) but trusted the wordplay.

    Thank you, verlaine and the setter.

  27. A decidedly back-of-the-pack 45 minutes. Very tricky with enough obscurities to keep me guessing whether at least four were correct until coming to the blog, for which thanks. The nina is clever, but I am not sure the satisfaction it affords the setter is not at the expense of the solver, presented with a somewhat compromised puzzle as a result.
  28. I was pleased to finish this one – luckily Borzoi came straight to mind. I was left with A-DAX and guessed correctly for the antelope.
    Not sure why DD means divine – is that Doctor of Divinity or Domini Deus?
    (Designated Driver, apparently!).

    Edited at 2021-01-15 12:35 pm (UTC)

    1. Yes, Doctor Divinitatis, but it’s just as easy to think of it as Doctor of Divinity.
  29. All words familiar to a Scrabble player … including addax, fichu, cascara, orzo & carfax
  30. 45m but with aids needed on the pasta, a previously NHO. I thought there was a lot of unnecessay obscurities until coming here revealed the NINA and the choice of words became clearer. Congratulations to the setter – 400 for the Times would be quite something, if that were indeed the milestone. One a week for more or less eight years is probably more puzzles than I’ve actually solved. Thanks for the blog, V.
  31. 23.45 so most definitely not as straightforward as yesterday. FOI chain, LOI carfax. NHO this setting but fax was the obvious old office machine, though still used in my GP.’s surgery apparently. Didn’t put carfax in with confidence so glad to see a post check agreed. To be honest, same applied with addax and fichu. All now safely stored in the cranium for future reference.

    Wasn’t too sure about the pasta shell. Is Borzoi perhaps capable of being spelt Borzoy?

    Thanks setter and blogger- are you still stuck in the US or back to safer climes?

  32. No problem with ORZO (we’ve got some in the house) but I’m another CASSAVA. It never occurred to me that the word to be truncated might be the one actually in the clue although I’m well aware that it’s a root thingy and not a tree thingy.
  33. I either need new fingers or a new keyboard.

    Excellent puzzle. Congratulations to setter and thanks to blogger

  34. Gave up on the hour with 4 unsolved NHOs. You know the ones. Didn’t see the NINA either. Obviously half asleep this morning. Only excuse was a number of distractions dulling the grey cells, what’s left of them anyway. Thanks V for the clarifications and well done setter.
  35. Pleased indeed with the time and to finish with a clear round despite a few unknowns which were, however, generously clued I think. My LOI was FICHU.
  36. Good to see LA as the see instead of the overworked Ely.
    Considered all the traps before rejecting them ( cassava, cassata, loborious, audax et al ) and Carfax only known from its previous appearance in one of these puzzles. LOI FICHU.
    I was expecting the green dream to hit the Friday buffers- but it didn’t ! 33’18”
  37. Super difficult this but I got a few. Weirdly my FOI was A OUTRANCE as I know the French for August and proceeded from there.
    There was lots I didn’t know and got wrong. CASTENA at 1a with Tend for Care. And many more.
    I did not get FICHU and did not know that meaning; c’est fichu sums up my performance.
    David
  38. With an annoying typo A OUTRANDE not that I knew it but the cryptic was very clear.
    ADDAX I knew at the age of 5 from my precious book of mammals which I read every night. Still have it!
  39. Needless to say, this was a (very) steady (slow) solve that ultimately fell short with Addax, Fichu and Orzo outstanding. On the positive side, I did get the unknown Carfax, Cascara and A Outrance, and most of the completed parsing, needing the blog for just Laborious and Creeper. Invariant
  40. ….that 98% of Ninas are lost on me, as was this one. On Tuesday week I was contemptuously scathing of Juno’s QC, which I thought was a “look at me, aren’t I clever ?” puzzle. Not so this one !

    I thought this was an absolute cracker of a puzzle, and my only unknowns were TRAPEZE in a non-circus context, and A OUTRANCE (fortunately what’s left of my French vocabulary still extends to the calendar !)

    Here’s to another DC puzzles to get the setter to the big M !

    FOI CASCARA ( not in my CUPPA thanks !)
    LOI LABORIOUS
    COD ECUADOR
    TIME 9:38

  41. 35.17. I found this tough and was glad to finish all correct under my own steam. NHO the growler iceberg, fichu, a outrance nor cascara and needed to convince myself that there wasn’t another word for care that might, foreshortened, squeeze into the casa. With some of the vocab on offer I had an anguished moment pondering whether loborious might actually be a word before rejecting it. Struggled to construct Ecuador (where I was once briefly a millionaire – there being about 7500 sucre to the pound at the time). LOI was orzo, I’ve heard of the pasta, have some in the cupboard I think, just had the wrong end of the stick with the clue and the Russian wolfhound drew a complete blank.
  42. What’s an ERIF? Because SANSERIF means “without an erif.” Really, this is atrocious… But I see that there are, apparently, people in the world who spell it that way. Of course there are.

    I filled in a bunch without crossers first and was thinking I was in for a fast solve, but nooooo… In retrospect, it seemed like there had been good handful of previous unknowns I had to construct from wordplay, but truly unknown were only CASCARA, ADDAX and that particular sense of TRAPEZE. Felt accomplished to finish, but missed the Nina (as always).

    Edited at 2021-01-16 07:51 pm (UTC)

  43. Late to the party but still enjoyed it. Lots of “well I certainly don’t know this word…wait, perhaps I do, after all…” Today’s ear-worm, courtesy of A OUTRANCE, is The Intro and the Outro by the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. Big hello to Big John Wayne, xylophone…
  44. Congrats indeed to our setter
    But I’m now a paranoid vetter
    As I’m sure you have heard
    A tree CREEPER’s a bird
    So for five hundred try to do better!!!

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