Times 27885 – add time to reminisce.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
An enjoyable puzzle, free from obscure plants, antelopes and poets; it took me about the usual 20 minutes. That was excluding my time to wander off piste and remember Galsworthy’s epic televised, and do some homework on the origins of giant bottles. I’m expecting to see some speedy times for this one.

Across
1 Stole from cupboard finally put on bishop in formal dress (6)
ROBBED – ROBED (in formal dress) around B for bishop.
4 Break up day with snarled-up traffic (8)
DIFFRACT – D(ay), (TRAFFIC)*. For me, a word usually seen in relation to a light beam or x-ray beam in physics and chemistry.
10 Refined rough girl, slim-waisted (9)
HOURGLASS – (ROUGH)*, LASS = girl.
11 Sprinted, heading off being tracked down (5)
RACED – TRACED loses T.
12 Store to have to keep one in always for Christmas, say (4,7)
BANK HOLIDAY – BANK (store) HOLD (have) AY (always) insert I.
14 Two bits left smoother (3)
OIL – 0 and 1 are the first two bits in a byte; L for left.
15 Being agitated may be a source of quarrels (7)
AQUIVER – a quarrel of arrows may be in a quiver
17 French city boundaries visited by ambassador (6)
RHEIMS – RIMS has HE inserted.
19 Hopeless sort of case one finally checks out? (6)
BASKET – double definition, a basket case is a hopeless one, and we check out our baskets in a store.
21 When one knocks out November, calendar gets less complicated (7)
PLAINER – PLANNER has an N replaced by I.
23 Son has left aforementioned charity (3)
AID – SAID loses S.
24 Analysing joining the cast? (6,5)
TAKING APART – taking a part = joining the cast.
26 Doctor short Panorama feature (5)
MOVIE – MO (Medical Officer) VIE(W) = short Panorama.
27 I’m wearing green, following party instructions (2-7)
ON-MESSAGE – ON ME’S SAGE = I’m wearing green.
29 Level an area for building? It depends (8)
PARASITE – PAR (level) A SITE, a parasite depends on another organism, e.g. mistletoe.
30 Axes regularly pronounced in surplus (6)
EXCESS – a X e S = XS, sounds like excess.

Down
1 A lot to drink as engineers tramp over a mile (8)
REHOBOAM – RE (engineers) HOBO (tramp) A M(ile). A rheoboam is a large wine or champagne bottle, holding 4.5 litres or equivalent to 6 normal bottles. It’s named after Rheoboam, a Biblical chap who succeeded Solomon as King; he had 18 wives and 60 concubines, so he’d need more than one rheoboam to keep the party going.
2 Bear being bowled? Disaster (5)
BRUIN – B for bowled, RUIN = disaster. Bruin is an old English folk term for bear, from Dutch bruin meaning brown.
3 Say, good source of protein (3)
EGG – E.G., G(ood).
5 Prisoner, maybe, one of an exclusive group (7)
INSIDER – a prisoner is “inside”.
6 Go faster, say, translating a trilogy (7,4)
FORSYTE SAGA – (GO FASTER SAY)*. I remember watching the TV series with Eric Porter, Kenneth More, Susan Hampshire and Nyree Dawn Porter, on Sundays in 1967-9; my parents were addicted but I probably didn’t fully appreciate it at the time (except for fancying Susan Hampshire). Apparently it was the first TV to be sold to Russia (then USSR) by the BBC.
7 One presenting an unwelcome task left incomplete by crew (9)
ANCHORMAN – AN, CHOR(E), MAN = crew.
8 Swallowing 10cl, neat, may make one this? (6)
TIDDLY – 10 cl make a decilitre or dl, insert dl into TIDY = neat.
9 Screw top of jar I dropped into real mess (6)
JAILER – J(AR), I inside (REAL)*.
13 A cat may be very nervous (4,7)
HAVE KITTENS – double definition.
16 Sort of door sadly unproved to secure area (2-3-4)
UP-AND-OVER – (UNPROVED A)*, A from area.
18 Assembly workers eating the last of their fried food (8)
FRITTERS – FITTERS has R (last of their) inserted.
20 On application obtain perhaps licence to kill (4,3)
TAKE OUT – double definition.
21 Airline no longer flying over a country (6)
PANAMA – PAN AM (defunct airline), A.
22 Intensify struggle over stupid person abandoning pet (4,2)
WARM UP – WAR (struggle) then MUPPET (stupid person) loses PET. I had a few possibilities for this with PUP involved, such as RAMP UP, but this one works best.
25 A month’s said to be stunning (5)
AMAZE – sounds like A MAY’S.
28 Happens to be over ten? Apparently not (3)
SIX – IS = happens to be, “over” = SI, X = ten.

​

88 comments on “Times 27885 – add time to reminisce.”

  1. At last somebody (thanks mauefw — since posting I see z has also said the same thing) has expressed some discomfort with the take out clue. I thought I was missing something. Perhaps we both are. How is ‘On application obtain perhaps licence’ a definition for ‘take out’? I can see nothing in the definition that leads you there.

    Put it in, based on the second definition and the checkers, with a shrug.

    Edited at 2021-01-27 11:23 am (UTC)

    1. I think it’s OK. One can obtain/take out a driving licence perhaps as one can (if only!) a library book.
  2. The poor Macduff boy must have thought that the ultimate insult. Found this fairly easy to dispatch though didn’t know one checked out the basket rather than its contents. A little held up by slinging in ramp up and reheboam, but managed to sort out both. 16’58.
  3. I had similar misgivings about checking out your basket rather than the shopping in it, but on reflection the word can stand for the contents as well as the container. A straightforward solve in 30 mins enjoying some cleverness (on the part of the setter) along the way.
  4. on wavelength today, with no diffraction to cause interference.
    I see the Korean Oscar-winning movie “Parasite” got an appearance in the SW. This was one of the better things that occurred in 2020.
    16’31”
  5. About 60m today with brief interruptions — never on the wavelength and some guesses as I would never have parsed OIL (and had a doubt if it was a ‘smoother’ anyway ) or TIDDLY for example. So thank you for the explanations, Pip.
  6. I struggled to get started, as I dithered between the wordplay and a bottle I’d actually heard of at 1d, but penciled in JEROBOAM, which eventually led me to BANK HOLIDAY. Much later after JAILER and INSIDER were in HOURGLASS led me to review 1d and put in REHOBOAM. ROBBED and BRUIN came much, much later, just before LOI BASKET, which I only understood the first part of, until coming here. I seemed to get on the setter’s wavelength after a while and quite enjoyed the puzzle. I did manage to parse ON MESSAGE. 32:52. Thanks setter and Pip.
  7. No errors, but I needed to press PAUSE and my monitor was doing strange thinsgs (when I completed an answer in the grid, the clue was no longer appearing on screen (blank space) and the wheel in the top right hand corner disappeared. I came back about an hour later and it had reappeared.

    FOI 3D: EGG
    LOI 18D: FRITTERS

    Rebooting before tomorrow!

    Thank you, pipkirby and the setter.

  8. All pretty straightforward today. FOI Forsyte Saga. As for FRITTERS, the singular form was the target word for a recent Sunday Times ‘write a clue’ competition. Don’t think result has been published yet, so will be interesting to see how close the winning clue is to today’s clue.
  9. Enjoyable and rather chewy in the SW corner. As is often the case, most pleased with the answer I corrected (having biffed TIDILY, I then realised that it didn’t actually make sense, and finally worked out what was going on). Saving myself from spoiling a solve with a careless pink square, that always improves my day no end.
  10. My FOI was EGG, then I struggled a bit. But once I got into this -FORSYTE SAGA was a big help, it flowed quite nicely.
    I solved the top half ,then struggled again with the bottom. But I never got really stuck as I did on this morning’s QC.
    LOI was FRITTER, a word I’d spent quite a long time thinking about for the clue writing contest-as mentioned above.
    There was a lot to like in this puzzle. High quality I thought.
    And I see coming here that I got one wrong. Once I had thought of CASKET, it just went straight in. Not much longer than the QC.
    David
    PS enjoyed the CRF discussion.
  11. DNF. A 24 minute solve spoiled by a typo at havv kittens. I was a little bit slow on this one, overthinking a few like take out, plainer and basket. COD to hourglass.
  12. Pretty straightforward, though I agree with those who feel on message and take out are both a bit iffy. I never saw the TV version, but stills from it are on the covers of my contemporaneous edition of the Galsworthy saga. Must have been my mother’s. I read it a few years ago, and was surprised how much I enjoyed it. I was under the impression there were more than 3 books.
  13. ….OIL (thanks Pip), and not knowing that the FORSYTE SAGA was a trilogy (I’m more Bill Tidy than Galsworthy), I enjoyed this, although I didn’t really pause to consider TAKE OUT, and it seems fine now that I do.

    FOI AQUIVER
    LOI WARM UP
    COD HAVE KITTENS
    TIME 10:51

  14. Fairly straightforward however the dreaded pink square appeared as I’d typed PLANNER.
    Little anecdote for you. For reasons only explainable by my age, I left my iPad on top of the car. On returning home, I couldn’t find it, so using findmyphone, I located it on the slip road to the A55. On arriving there, it was somewhat camouflaged in the middle of the slip road and had been driven over multiple times. However a new glass front and it is as good as new!
    3. My grandmother, when she was alive back in the 60s and I was still a child, once used a kettle to put water in the engine of her car before commencing her two hour car journey. Not realising, before setting off, that she had left the kettle on the roof of the car. When she arrived at her destination, there was the kettle still sitting, undisturbed on the car roof. Or so I seem to remember – or was told at the time.
  16. Steady solve with no revolutionary Russians to stymie me today. Biffed some and could not really understand the second definition of TAKE OUT which was my LOI.
  17. No drama, with pauses only to appreciate the several clever clues, of which Six was my particular favorite. With others, above, I thought Basket was a little awkward. Same with Have Kittens. Not unfair, just awkward.
  18. I’m sure there are plenty of speedy times, but some of us are still grateful just to finish one of these. Having successfully negotiated several tricky bits, and even managing to parse a few as well, I now see that a careless Casket at 19ac denied me that small pleasure. CoD to 8d, Tiddly, for reminding me that I once considered ‘trois deci’ to be a generous volume of wine… Invariant
  19. Agree with our blogger that it’s nice to see a puzzle with no plants/poets (nor, indeed, composers/artists/authors). I’m ok with antelopes!
  20. Coming to this very late …
    … after a disastrous day at the QC (don’t ask — safe to say I got both more answers and more satisfaction in the 15×15 today).

    One query: I parsed 1A differently from Pip’s blog, as “cupboard finally” (ie D) “put on” (ie at the end of) “bishop in formal dress” (ie B in ROBE, or ROBBE). Otherwise, what is cupboard finally doing in the parsing in the blog?

    Cedric

    Edited at 2021-01-27 10:48 pm (UTC)

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