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

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
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. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. All words familiar to a Scrabble player … including addax, fichu, cascara, orzo & carfax
  4. 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.
  5. 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?

  6. 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.
  7. I either need new fingers or a new keyboard.

    Excellent puzzle. Congratulations to setter and thanks to blogger

  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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”
  11. 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
  12. 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!
  13. 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
  14. ….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

  15. 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.
  16. 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)

  17. 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…
  18. 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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