Times 27880 – horses for courses

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Time taken: 15:59.  I struggled with this one, and crawled my way around the grid, relying heavily on checking letters, and in one case I only have half of the answer, but I hope I can figure it out before I’m done writing this up.  Since I am solving a little later than usual, I had a look at the SNITCH, and there is quite a distribution – those of us who are usually in the 10ish minute range found it hard, and those with longer solving times found it easier, so there may be some benefit to being on the setter’s wavelength.

Hope you did well!

Away we go…

Postscript (added Thursday about 4pm GMT).  As many of you know, I live on the East coast of the USA, so at the time comments come thundering in, I am passed out, so I only get interactive with early comments. I’m going to add a postscript of comments on comments when I blog.  It seems the clue causing the most difficulty is 4 down, where I had a bit of an advantage.  One of the things you need to memorize for the US Citizenship exam, which I took in 2014, is the names of the recognized Native American tribes and languages, so CREEK came quickly. Similarly CREEK meaning estuary is listed in Collins as a chiefly American usage, though I think it is the case in Australia that the terms are interchangeable.  For those of you wanting the author Kingsley Amis, who will return to crosswords soon enough, I would be surprised if the Times clued an author by their first name unless that is their most common pseudonym. Collins also confirms NICE as “calling for great care, accuracy, tact etc”.  I often mess up LICENCE/LICENSE but I don’t think there’s any way you could come up with NSE from the last part of the wordplay.

Across
1 A source of energy and relative growth (9)
CARBUNCLE – CARB(carbohydrate, a source of energy), and UNCLE(relative)
6 Most important horse is fed carefully at first (5)
FOCAL – FOAL(horse) containing the first letter of Carefully
9 More than a couple of Italians running late (7)
OVERDUE – OVER(more than) and DUE(two, or a couple, in Italian)
10 Address mostly full of comic potential in epic style (7)
HOMERIC – HOME(address) then remove the last letter of RICH(full of comic potential)
11 Keep time or we go wrong (5)
TOWER – anagram of T(time), OR, WE
13 Novelist, not English, has new name for town (5,4)
KINGS LYNN – The novelist is Charles KINGSLEY (Hereward the Wake, Westward Ho!).  Remove the E(English) and then N(new), N(name)
14 Real logic dealt badly with hidden meaning (9)
ALLEGORIC – anagram of REAL,LOGIC
16 Nielsen, perhaps omitting start of chorus from ballet (4)
DANE – remove the first letter of Chorus from DANCE(ballet), referring to the Danish composer Carl NIELSEN
18 Card from company doctor (4)
COMB – CO(company), MB(doctor) – card can mean to comb wool
19 Memorial for Bradley? (9)
HEADSTONE – This was one of my last in, and now I see – Bradley HEADSTONE is a character in Our Mutual Friend, which is one of many Dickens pieces I have not read
22 Statement offering little put detail awkwardly (9)
PLATITUDE – anagram of PUT,DETAIL. Nifty clue!
24 Gold jaguars Inca regularly displayed (5)
AURIC – alternating letters in jAgUaRs InCa
25 Reduced voucher against wine (7)
CHIANTI – remove the last letter of CHIT(voucher), then ANTI(against)
26 Test chemical engineers by proxy (7)
REAGENT – RE(engineers), and AGENT(proxy)
28 A number really get Information Technology (5)
DIGIT – DIG(really get) IT(Information Technology)
29 Note former cane plant with yellow flowers (9)
GOLDENROD – G(musical note), OLDEN(former), ROD(cane)
Down
1 Island area or cape — climbing country (7)
CROATIA – AIT(island), A(area), OR and C(cape) all reversed
2 Eggs coming inside from hen (3)
ROE – the middle letters of fROm and hEn
3 Anger after nude running showing a lack of necessary maturity (8)
UNDERAGE – RAGE(anger) following an anagram of NUDE
4 Estuary language (5)
CREEK – double definition, the language being that of native Americans of the southeast
5 European friend keeping very good herbal remedy (9)
ECHINACEA – E(european), CHINA(friend) containing ACE(very good)
6 Go very hungry dividing food around a million (6)
FAMISH – FISH(food) surrounding A, M(million)
7 Hot dish suggestion — learner’s left to seek approval (5,6)
CURRY FAVOUR – CURRY(hot dish) and FLAVOUR(suggestion) missing L(learner driver)
8 Freedom from parasites requiring careful attention getting rid of one (7)
LICENCE – LICE(parasites) and NICE(requiring careful attention) missing I(one)
12 With good intentions, PM’s lacking style going round poor (4-7)
WELL-MEANING – the prime minister is Arthur Wellesley, Duke of WELLINGTON. Remove TON(style) and insert MEAN(poor)
15 Finding new home for unfortunate neighbours losing billions (9)
REHOUSING – anagram of NEIGHBOURS minus B(billions)
17 Exploit computer key to copy both sides of advert (8)
ESCAPADE – ESC(computer key), then APE(copy) containing AD(advert)
18 What’s outstanding in New England? Better eastern seafood (4,3)
CAPE COD – CAP(better), E(eastern), COD(seafood)
20 Very active Conservative splitting left (7)
EXCITED – C(conservative) inside EXITED(left)
21 Songbird left where it could be trapped? (6)
LINNET – L(left) and it could be trapped IN NET
23 Record single rising — around number four in chart (5)
ENROL – LONE(single) reversed, containing the fourth letter of chaRt
27 Mistake taking rook with queen (3)
ERR – R(rook) with ER(queen)

76 comments on “Times 27880 – horses for courses”

  1. Also struggled, though I’m about double your average time of 10 minutes. Totally didscombobulated by being unsure of Creek as a language and not believing creek = estuary? I think of the Thames Estuary as between e.g. Kent and Essex (or Suffolk) – hardly a creek. Closer to home the Swan River has a huge estuary just down the road from here. Not a creek. Never seen home for address, and it didn’t feel right; ditto for nice/requiring careful attention; and NHO Bradley.
    On the plus side, guessed them all correctly, and really liked Cape Cod, focal, carbuncle and allegoric.
    1. Wiktionary
      creek (plural creeks)
      (Britain) A small inlet or bay, often saltwater, narrower and extending farther into the land than a cove; a recess in the shore of the sea, or of a river; the inner part of a port that is used as a dock for small boats.

      Neither did I know of the language:
      Proper noun
      Creek
      The Muskogean language of the Creek tribe.

      So the setter won twice on vocab! Andyf

  2. I had no idea about HEADSTONE’s second meeting (I’ve not read it either). At 4D I went for CZECK, which isn’t even the right spelling of the language I realized later. But I didn’t know CREEK as a language (although I did know CREE as tribe), but it seemed a bit of a stretch to call a creek an estuary.
  3. Glad to finish today after yesterday’s silly error. The left half went in lightning fast! Only to slow down considerably on the right half. But it was all work-out-able in the end. Thanks for clarifying the PM and Bradley!
  4. 36 minutes. I’m another who had no idea what Bradley was doing in 19ac (Walsh or Wiggins? but both are still living). The answer came easily enough from ‘memorial’ as I had most of the checked letters by the time I got to it. ECHINACEA was also unknown and was my LOI constructed from wordplay and checkers.

    I surmised correctly that the parsing of 10ac was intended as HOME (address), RIC{h} (full of comic potential)[mostly] but I think it’s an unsatisfactory clue. ‘Home/address’ has already been mentioned and I can’t see them as equivalents. ‘Rich’ can indicate a vein or source of many a thing of which humour or comic potential is just one possibility.

    I had the same misgivings as others over ‘estuary/creek’.

    I admit I also thought of Amis before Charles re 13ac.

    Edited at 2021-01-21 05:13 am (UTC)

  5. I doubt very much that I’ve ever recorded a faster time than George, and I don’t expect to again. Biffed HOMERIC, never got around to parsing it. Biffed WELL-MEANING & KINGS LYNN, parsed post-submission. ‘Our Mutual Friend’ is my favorite Dickens novel, but the only Bradley I could think of was Omar. I knew that US CREEK is different from UK CREEK–ours is a brook or small river–but didn’t know what it is in the UK, so ‘estuary’ didn’t bother me. The Creek are now mainly in Oklahoma, having been forced to move there by the US government. There are maybe 5000 speakers of Creek, which makes it a rather poor choice for ‘language’.

    Edited at 2021-01-21 05:42 am (UTC)

    1. Thank-you for doing what I didn’t do, and looking up the dictionary: a creek is a small inlet or estuary in UK, apparently, a small river or brook in the rest of the world.
      1. Creek for estuary still bothers me a bit – it’s not in any of my OEDs or Collins – but I’ve only really been bothered by it since coming here. Did not parse 12d, but otherwise I didn’t find this particularly tricky, though my time (42mins), as ever, comes nowhere near most of the posters’ here.
        2. It is in Collins online:
          3. (chiefly in Atlantic states and Brit)
          a recess or inlet in the shore of the sea
          4. an estuary
  6. 35mins and finally finished one this week. Yippee. I had no idea, as others as to some of the answers which were never parsed: COMB, HEADSTONE, CREEK, ENROL, ROE. Spent at least five mins on the ENROL/REAGENT CROSSERS. FOI CARBUNCLE, LOI REAGENT. COD CHIANTI, why not? Thank you George for the enlightenment and setter.
  7. …Singing alone, Combing her hair
    Under the sea, In a golden curl
    With a comb of pearl,…

    25 mins pre-brekker.
    Hmmm…I liked it but the eyebrow was mobile concerning Rich, Nice, Record… and NHO Creek as a language, nor Bradley Headstone.
    Thanks setter and G.

  8. This is becoming a solving week to forget with this my third failure of the week thus far. For some reason I thought of creek as the N Am/Aus/NZ definition – a small river or brook – so not an estuary. Having disregarded this I was then left with CHECK which sounds like a language but otherwise didn’t make much sense. Oh well, at least I learned two things – the UK definition of creek and the language.
  9. 29 minute with LOI DANE. I’m afraid Mr Nielsen was solved as a generic Dane, not knowing Carl. Like others, I thought CREEK was a small inlet, the most famous of which is to be entered without a paddle. Bradley HEADSTONE was known and was biffable. I’m not sure which came first. ECHINACEA was constructed. Do they sell it at Holland and Barrett? I’ve only ever been there for the chocolate covered dates which are an excellent remedy for hunger pangs. COD to WELL-MEANING. A strange mix of easy and tough. Thank you George and setter.
      1. Of course it could. This was meant to be a joke about the efficacy of herbal remedies as opposed to more conventional cures, such as eating.
  10. Today’s fall from grace is the LINNET
    It’s another accursed bird, innit
    Words aplenty to use
    But avians they choose
    I’m just glad it was not pianet

    The word pignut would have fitted you see
    And its not a bird but a tree
    And what would you do
    For the rest of the clue?
    Try “two words that describe DJT”

  11. Unlike Kevin, I did not enjoy Our Mutual Friend, HEADSTONE passing me by. CREEK as a language unknown, and I need to modify my idea of ‘estuary’. Not sure at all why nice = requiring careful attention.

    As well as The Water Babies and the (well-known to quizzers) Westward Ho!, Charles Kingsley wrote a long book about Hypatia.

    23′ 11″ thanks george and setter.

    1. I think it is nice as in “that is a nice question, whether x or y”
      def 8 in wiktionary
      Showing or requiring great precision or sensitive discernment; subtle.
      Andyf
    2. It was a new meaning on me too. It’s still unclear to me which the setter had in mind but my Chambers app has “over due” definitions which could fit:

      5. Calling for very fine discriminations (that’s probably the most likely)
      7. Delicate
      9. Fastidious
      10 Hard to please
      11. Over-particular

      Those last three could apply in the context of a “high maintenance” person.

      Edited at 2021-01-21 11:35 am (UTC)

  12. Put me down for Kingers too.
    27:01
    One of those puzzles where you’re not slow, but have nagging doubts about being able to finish it.
    Thanks george.
  13. 10:07. My only real problem here was CREEK, where like others I only knew what turns out to be the US version of the watery meaning and was very unsure about the language. Strange that there’s a UK meaning of a word that so many Brits were unaware of.
    I also thought of Kingsley Amis, but Charles must be intended. No idea about Bradley. I did know ECHINACEA but had to take great care with the spelling.
    1. But I was reassured by remembering Frenchman’s Creek. Wikepedia says “is a 1941 historical novel by Daphne du Maurier.” Definitely a smallish inlet of the sea rather than what is generally understood.
      Andyf
  14. 11:45. Like others, DNK the Dickens character or that CREEK was a language. I also biffed WELL-MEANING and forgot to go back and parse. This was one of those where mostly the answers came first and the wordplay retro-fitted. FOI CARBUNCLE LOI CREEK. COD to REAGENT.
  15. 17.52. Quite pleased as there were a few unknowns along the way- headstone was a good and obvious guess but didn’t have a clue about the clue. I always cringe when I see botanical references but got lucky with this puzzle . Echinacea was my COD.

    FOI famish, LOI excited.

    Thanks blogger and setter.

  16. Foiled in the end by GOLDENROD. I had all the checkers, but I parsed “former” as simply “old” and then put “Goldeared” without checking the rest, feeling quite pleased with myself. Oops.

    Also didn’t parse HOMERIC – I thought “comic” in the clue was giving us Eric, as in Morecambe, but couldn’t make it fit so it eventually went in with a shrug. Thanks to the blogger for explaining it.

    Nice = requiring careful attention is new to me.

    FOI Dane
    COD Rehousing

  17. An average-ish 17.36, while not being anywhere near sure of everything. HEADSTONE would have been fine in a TLS, and I half expected a pink on the second C of LICENCE even though I’d thought of N(I)CE. Plant paralysis struck with GOLDENROD, only twigging when all the crossers were in. Cree and CREEK are apparently two different groups, only one of which I knew, but estuary was close enough to confirm.

    On the other hand, ECHINACEA flowed in from Mrs Z’s penchant for weird infusions: I think the one we have is with raspberry, and Twinings undoubtedly says it has remedial properties, whether it does or not.

    Many thanks for the blog, George, and for allowing me a chance to come within a gnat’s crotchet of your time.

    1. One would hope the infusions have remedial properties as in my experience they certainly shouldn’t be drunk for their taste 😉
    2. I took ECHINACEA for a short while (during which time I seemingly mis-pronounced it) as a relative recommended it as a good way of staving off the common cold.

      All the time I took it I had constant sniffles. Proper snake oil if you ask me.

      1. I think herbs are often allergenic.
        However preventing the common cold is a claim too far!!
        Andyf
  18. Didn’t get the HEADSTONE reference, though ghoulishly I did think of boxer Bradley Stone who came to an unfortunate end.

    KINGS LYNN was the key for the top half for me, though couldn’t spot whether LICENCE should be spelt the English or American way – plumped for English.

    And CREEK = Estuary? I don’ think so. Only stuck that one in as I had all of the checkers…..

  19. Some biffable answers sped things up, even if no idea of the Dickens connection for Bradley. CREEK couldn’t really be anything else.
    Interesting to see both Magoo and Verlaine erring (in otherwise very fast times); not sure where that would have been. LICENSE? ECHINACIA? Answers on a postcard, please….
  20. One can have a “nice” point of law so I wasn’t troubled by that part of 8d but I did hesitate between the US and UK spellings – one or two members of the former president’s entourage are at risk of losing their law licenses. The stream that runs through our property is called Crum Elbow Creek but I happened to know about the Creek tribe so that nailed it. As Z says, rather a TLS flavour to this one. A nice point of law about the wool-carders of Barchester features in Trollope’s The Warden. 18.07
  21. Slowed towards the end as I encountered things which were buried quite deeply inside my memory palace, such as the Dickens character and the plant; also being careful to get the LICENCE rather than the LICENSE. I remembered coming unstuck on a clue before by not knowing of the existence of the Creek (and confusing them with the Cree), so I got that, but raised an eyebrow for the other definition, as all the estuaries I can think of are on the large side for what I previously thought of as a creek. Still, that’s language for you.
  22. Was relieved when neither CREEK nor LICENCE returned pink squares. Same head-scratching as others on those two and HOMERIC. As you’ll have seen above I knew ECHINACEA.

    I was pleased with my time as I paddled up a few blind creeks, for example at 25 where I wasted time looking for a word meaning reduced made up of [token]RED.

  23. Half an hour, quite slow to see some but nothing that was a real problem. Had no idea about Headstone but put it in anyway, nice to see Carl Nielsen getting a mention, I like his clarinet concerto. Never heard of the Creek tribe but not unhappy with creek for estuary. Liked CARBUNCLE and REAGENT.
  24. for the bent goldenrod and the lost sea smell. Drawn back to these enticing puzzles now and then only to find myself in a decidedly tougher landscape than envisaged. Here foolishly threw in Corpuscle at the end for a dnf in 35’27. I find my times going down now I’m solving (or trying to) less often. Much to appreciate in this one though.
  25. FOI 4dn DELTA – up *** creek paddle free!

    Take 2

    FOI 7dn BAKED ALASKA – Hot = BAKED – L = Learner – to seek = ASK – approval = A is for answer ***! Close but still no paddle.

    Take 3

    FOI 18ac COMB – bingo!

    LOI 5dn ECHINACEA – a daisy native to America. Daisy Duke?

    And all in 35 minutes after all that!

    COD My second marriage was at The Reg. at 13ac KINGS LYNN, close to where Bad King John lost his treasure.

    WOD NORMALITY – I have heard nothing but the word ‘NORMALCY’ on CNN today; FOX used ABNORMALCY; the Beeb and Deutsche Welle NORMALITY!

    Edited at 2021-01-21 02:32 pm (UTC)

  26. Never heard of Bradley Headstone or Carl Nielsen. These would be more at home in a general knowledge crossword. Otherwise, all okay. ‘Headstone’ went in okay because of crossing letters and ‘memorial’.
  27. 35m today finding the south much easier than the north. I started with Headstone, a recent rewatching of the BBC’s excellent adaptation of OMF, with a manic David Morrissey as the aforesaid teacher, helping with that clue. Also hesitated like other more notable solvers over ‘nice’ and CREEK. No trouble with the herbal remedy as a regular user. Thanks to setter and blogger today.
  28. Nice to see ECHINACEA from my erstwhile profession as a health shop owner. It boosts the immune system, by the way, and is best as a tincture. Preventative not a cure.
    Main difficulty was LOI DANE which had ballet in it, which word gives me the same feelings as our bird loving poet above, but fortunately it wasn’t the name of a ballet. And I’d never heard of the composer either.
  29. I biffed HEADSTONE being unaware of the character, hesitated over LICENCE/LICENSE, was unsure of both meanings of CREEK and biffed HOMERIC. I also had to carefully construct ECHINACEA. I didn’t bother parsing KINGS LYNN once I had the crossers. The rest of the puzzle was a gentle enough exercise. 30:10. Thanks setter and George.

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