Times 27895 – Around here, we do study there…so to speak.

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Time: 19 minutes
Music: Khachaturian, Violin Concerto, Oistrakh/Khachaturian/MRSO

Another easy Monday, I would say, and so far the results in the SNITCH are confirming this.   I did biff a quite a few answers, but had to think about a some of them.   There is a little knowledge required, but most regular solvers should be up to the task.   If you can spell Addis Ababa, and know your clergymen and authors, there’s not much to stop you from posting a very good time. 

Across
1 Prince given a drink and a cut of meat over by hotel (9)
MAHARAJAH – A JAR + A HAM backwards + H[otel]
6 Mine accommodates East Anglia’s first religious painting (5)
PIETA – PI(E)T + A[nglia]
9 Temporary way old people initially getting break (7)
STOPGAP – ST + O[ld] P[eople} + GAP.
10 Dependent on a set of books about Long Island (7)
RELIANT – RE (L.I.) A N.T, with the standard abbreviations for long and island, since the actual Long Island is not usually so abbreviated. 
11 Amphibian Buddhist monk caught in power-driven polisher (10)
SALAMANDER – SA(LAMA)NDER, a clue I’ve seen before.
12 See member with a seductive woman (4)
VAMP – V + A + MP.
14 Army doctor has wobbly about decorative design (5)
MOTIF – M.O. + FiT backwards.
15 Parliamentarian leader following prescribed course (9)
ROUNDHEAD – ROUND + HEAD, in entirely different senses.
16 Southern fellow restraining endlessly caustic church worker (9)
SACRISTAN – S (ACRI[d]) STAN, our random chap of the day.
18 Asian banker’s attempt to quit business (5)
INDUS – INDUS[try], a chestnut.
20 Loathe contributing to church at Easter (4)
HATE – Hidden in [churc}H AT E[aster]
21 Offensive old goat misbehaving in part of Ulster (10)
DEROGATORY – DER(anagram of OLD GOAT)RY.
25 Priest about to enter quiet curve in road (7)
PREBEND – P(RE)BEND. 
26 A vain, strutting person, Thomas Love! (7)
PEACOCK – Thomas Love Peacock, to be exact – it helps if you went to grad school in English lit.
27 Liqueur not at all unknown to the French (5)
NOYAU – NO Y AU, which I didn’t exactly know, but the cryptic hands it to you.
28 Headgear secured by male volunteers finally on island (9)
MANHATTAN – MAN (HAT) TA + [o]N
Down
1 One who laid down the law: Grandma, possibly? (5)
MOSES – Gradma MOSES, the folk-art painter, who still fetches surprisingly good prices at auction.
2 Obstruction holding up pirate — not much of a catch (7)
HOOKLET – [captain] HOOK + LET.
3 resultsUrchin’s bungled action limited by resistance once more (10)
RAGAMUFFIN – R AGA(MUFF)IN.
4 Varnish judge used on a vessel (5)
JAPAN – J + A PAN.
5 Sort of duck, fast mover, one of five crossing lake (9)
HARLEQUIN – HAR(L)E + QUIN.
6 Requirement of patient initially under the weather? (4)
PILL – P[atient] + ILL. 
7 Call up Greek character over issue (7)
EMANATE – NAME + ETA, each one upside-down.
8 A despot in foreign, diametrically opposite territories (9)
ANTIPODES – Anagram of A DESPOT IN.
13 A doctor and a couple of bachelors swallowing up one’s capital (5,5)
ADDIS ABABA – A DD (I’S) A + BA + BA.
14 Twisted young woman beginning to harass a writer (9)
MISSHAPEN – MISS + H[arass] + A PEN.
15 Swimmer in river crazy about Dutch port (9)
ROTTERDAM – R (OTTER) + MAD upside down.
17 Charlie replaces top of accumulator in Tom’s place (7)
CATTERY –  (+C,-b)ATTERY.
19 Doctor abroad securing work for hippie (7)
DROPOUT – DR (OP) OUT.
22 Briefly express view about end of tractor plant (5)
ORPIN –  O([tracto]R)PIN[e]. 
23 Canadian territory the solver studies, so to speak? (5)
YUKON – Sound like YOU CON. 
24 Bill of fare that’s united soldiers at the front (4)
MENU – MEN + U, one escaped from the Quickie.

62 comments on “Times 27895 – Around here, we do study there…so to speak.”

  2. We thought this was pretty straightforward although NHO noyau so we invented noydu!

    FOI: Japan
    LOI: hooklet
    COD: harlequin

    Thanks to the setter and blogger

  3. I thought this was quite hard for a Monday ( always thought that Monday’s 15×15 were less tricky to ease us into the working week…) a few biffs , 27ac for example, hadn’t seen ‘au’ before in a cryptic . Liked 11ac, they are strange creatures, remember seeing some high in the Picos of northern Spain on a walking holiday. Those were the days.
    Biffed orpin , had heard of Thomas Love Peacock.
    Solving interrupted by the cricket. What a treat though.
    At least a finish, always feels good.

    Thank you blogger and setter.

  4. Not too taxing, but a fair bit of biffing. Thanks for introducing Thomas Love Peacock, of whom I had not heard. My brain sent me (briefly) down to the file marked T.S.Eliot.
  5. The usual holdup at the end, SACRISTAN being the guilty party. All the other unknowns had obvious parsing, but just never saw ACRID.
    1. vide is Latin, ‘see!’, imperative of videre. Where ‘video’ comes from…

      Edited at 2021-02-08 03:46 pm (UTC)

  7. A steady solve apart from a few hold ups with unknowns like Orpin, Prebend and Noyau. Sacristan was close enough to sacristy to make it plausible, and it seemed a good fit to the cryptic. Loi was 2d, Hooklet, but only once I had managed to resist the tempting Hooklat(ch). Having lived a sheltered life, 12ac Vamp also took a bit of working out. Invariant
  8. 38 minutes for me. Not fast by blog standards but I’m always happy to complete the 15×15 at all. Would have been quicker if I hadn’t had to correct Rotterdam for Amsterdam – well it is at least a Dutch port.
  9. Fast time (for me) but much guessing …
    .. with all done in 25 minutes, but that included real “hit and hopes” for 27A Noyau, 22D Orpin (both NHO) and LOI 2D Hooklet, which I really didn’t expect to be a real word.

    Much fun, and even if not all parsed, I shall count it as one of my rare 15×15 finishes.

    Many thanks to Vinyl1 for the blog
    Cedric

  10. This took me about 32 minutes, with no real problems and few unknowns (ORPIN, NOYAU). Noyau means “pit” in French and is made from apricot pits, which explains the name. I would like to chime in on the LI discussion. I grew up on Long Island (smack dab in the middle of it, in the town in which Hitler’s English nephew settled after breaking with his uncle and joining the US Air Force!, but I didn’t know that at the time, nor did anyone else). But that was so long ago that I can’t really remember how common the LI abbreviation is. However, the trick I applied was to Google “Eastern LI” and voilà! there are indeed companies and organizations which have that, so abbreviated, in their name — it is not as common as NY for New York or LA for Los Angeles, but certainly used freely when it is convenient.
  11. 13.14 a pleasant and straightforward solve, the only difficulty of my own making when I mis-biffed Amsterdam but Rotterdam wasn’t too long in coming. The whiff of a bygone age about this one.

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