Times 27919 – Not for another two years!

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Time: Not taken
Music: Rimsky-Korsakov, Scheherezade, Kondrashin/LSO

Yes, I forgot to note my starting time, so no time tonight.   I put the record on and sat down to solve, and flipped it about 2/3 of the way through, but I got stuck at the end and didn’t finish until the middle of the fourth movement – probably about 40 minutes or so.   This could have been an easy puzzle, but I had the wrong end of the stick for one of the big down answers.   The key to being a good solver is to quickly abandon ideas that don’t work out, but unfortunately I persisted, and pencilled in likely letters for the wrong literal.

I don’t think this was as easy as many Monday puzzles, but it certainly wasn’t as hard as I made it.   Besides the one that I got stuck on, there were several where I did understand the literal and saw how the cryptic worked, and still couldn’t see them.   We will probably see better times from those who were more on the wavelength.

Across
1 Sinister, much like MI6 man? (6)
SPOOKY – Double definition, one jocular and slangy.
4 Catholic chosen to protect head of charity, I see (8)
ECLECTIC – E(C[harity]LECT + I + C.   Cleverly disguised by making the lower-case catholic the first word.
10 Loudly insult a contemporary and depart (9)
DISAPPEAR – Sounds like DIS A PEER, which has been known to happen nowadays.
11 Blaise Pascal’s a person to take heart from (5)
UNMAN – UN + MAN.
12 Dog’s had a heart transplant? Goodness me! (3)
COR – C(-u,+O)R, not very hard to guess what new letter is needed – you only have four choices.
13 Jockey let teeth rot: exactly! (2,3,6)
TO THE LETTER – Anagram of LET TEETH ROT.
14 Toffee-nosed woman drawn to another not all there? (2-2-2)
LA-DI-DA –  LAD[y] + IDA, today’s random lady.
16 Swaggering customer who’s on the pull at Christmas? (7)
PRANCER – Double definition, one pointing to Santa’s reindeer.
19 Fashionable to take a bit of coke? It helps in an emergency (7)
HOTLINE – HOT + LINE.
20 I must block unacceptable idea (6)
NOTION – NOT (I) ON.
22 An air of resignation? (3,4,4)
QUE SERA SERA – Cryptic definition.
25 Mass is bishop’s responsibility, I hear (3)
SEA – Sounds like SEE, as in a sea of troubles.
26 Unusually old paintings from the east (5)
EXTRA – EX + ART backwards.
27 Impatience in chess? It’s disastrous (9)
ITCHINESS – Anagram of IN CHESS IT.
28 Vineyard obstructing second microscopic examination (8)
SCRUTINY – S (CRU) TINY.
29 A Whistler in the kitchen? (6)
KETTLE – Cryptic definition.
Down
1 Imagine arresting French nobleman in bed! (6)
SEDUCE – SE(DUC)E, where bed is a verb.
2 Devout old man embracing bishop (9)
OBSERVANT –  O (B) SERVANT, with man in the sense of a gentleman’s gentleman.
3 Useless demanding £1000 plus a deposit (5)
KAPUT –  K + A + PUT.
5 Letters of agreement (14)
CORRESPONDENCE – Double definition, a very simple one.
6 Once a mighty worker, full of life (9)
EXUBERANT – EX + UBERANT, as in ubermensch, presumably, and not the ant who drives for Uber.
7 Reactionary occupant of No 10 in offensive sweet-talk (5)
TEMPT –  TE(PM backwards)T.
8 Troublesome guerrilla army oddly ignored (8)
CONTRARY – CONTRA + [a]R[m]Y – and not Che this time.
9 Condition guarantees pain for someone getting on (14)
SEPTUAGENARIAN – Anagram of GUARANTEES PAIN.
15 Drifter having intent air? That’s unlikely (9)
ITINERANT – Anagram of INTENT AIR.
17 Exults over supporters showing signs of age (5-4)
CROWS-FEET – CROWS + FEET, in entirely different senses.
18 Draughts in our leader’s country pile? (8)
CHEQUERS – Double definition, a chestnut.
21 Girl’s deceit taking Charlie in (6)
LASSIE – L(ASS)IE.
23 Someone swallowing fire in Bow? (5)
EATER – [h]EATER.
24 Left for example in isolation (5)
ASIDE –  A SIDE.

89 comments on “Times 27919 – Not for another two years!”

  1. I’m glad to see I wasn’t the only one thinking I was making unduly heavy weather of this. I wasn’t at all sure of SEA, but it couldn’t be anything else. And I was sure I was missing something in LA-DI-DA, though I parsed it as did Vinyl. COD to EXUBERANT.

    Thanks to Vinyl and the setter.

  2. Also found it tricky, held up by a few all round the grid: SPOOKY, SCRUTINY, SEA, ASIDE. But then unexpectedly finished in a speedy 17 minutes. Enjoyable puzzle, made you think but nothing obscure. Liked Que Sera Sera, Prancer, Tet and Contra blasts from the past, and exuberant where I’ve tried (and failed) to read Zarathustra, so my music of choice was California Uber Alles by The Dead Kennedys.
  3. I also made heavy weather of this, getting held up at the end by UNMAN and CONTRARY. I wasn’t sure UNMAN really meant take the heart out of. Also SEA went in with a shrug, although after when I looked it up in Chambers the first definition is “a mass of water…”
  4. At a little under an hour I also found this tricky in places and was unable to complete without seeking assistance with 6dn. On reflection I might have got this from the definition and existing checkers, but I was missing the all important U-checker and although I had the EX- and the -ANT I was left floundering as to what word meaning ‘mighty’ could possibly fit –E-?

    With EXUBERANT finally in place I immediately saw UNMAN as the missing answer at 11ac.

    I suspected SEA at 25ac from the start but it didn’t go in until I had confirmed both checkers.

    Edited at 2021-03-08 05:36 am (UTC)

  5. At 44 minutes, this ended up taking longer than it should have, but, well, 22a. Stuck in the SE corner, thinking ‘Charlie’ in 21d had to be C and initially putting in ‘alone’ for 24d, presumably as intended.

    Favourites were the not so obvious part of speech in the def for SEDUCE and QUE SERA SERA (playing in the background as I type this) for the reminder of the lovely Doris.

    Thanks to vinyl1 and to setter

  6. Thanks, vinyl. I was going to query why there was nothing to indicate “on the radio” in DISAPPEAR but, as you indicate, “loudly” does that job.
    I was also going to query SEDUCE but I didn’t appreciate that “bed” is a verb here until I read your blog.
    19ac foxed me for a while because I was focused on “hip” as being fashionable.
    FOI: TO THE LETTER
    LOI: SEA/LASSIE.
    No real COD.
  7. I held myself up slightly by having ALONE instead of ASIDE, thinking it fitted the definition of “in isolation”, it had L for “left” in it and I thought that “one” might loosely be an example. I did at least have the good sense to maintain a nagging doubt. I finished hesitantly with ECLECTIC and TEMPT. For the former I didn’t know the definition of “catholic” and for the latter I’m still not sure where the “tet” comes from. Can someone enlighten me please?

    Nice choice of music in the Scheherazade vinyl. It’s one of the few classical pieces I know as it was the soundtrack to the computer game Tales of the Arabian Nights which I used to play on my Commodore 64.

    3. Thanks both. Chambers has “The Vietnamese lunar new year festival” for Tet which didn’t help me.
  8. COD to UNMAN. “We know the truth, not only by reason, but also by the heart”.
  9. Bonie lassie, artless lassie,
    Wilt thou wi’ me tent the flocks,
    Wilt thou be my Dearie, O?

    And they say Burns is overrated.
    20 mins pre-brekker, so on wavelength.
    Ticks for: Prancer, Notion, Seduce and double tick for Que Sera Sera.
    Crosses for: “I see”=IC and ‘reactionary’ as reversal indicator.
    Thanks setter and Vinyl.

    1. Who can forget ‘D’ye ken Jim Pubes’?
      Ullo me Dearie, O?
      RIP Rambling Syd Rumpo.
  10. Will I ever sing that again? 53 minutes with LOI ASIDE. I enjoyed dissing the peer and Rudolph’s companion but COD has to go to QUE SERA SERA. UNMAN was also irritatingly clever, having rejected WAGER and thinking for far too long under pressure what other pensées Blaise might have had. A tough start to the week. Thank you V and setter.
  11. Earlier I was told I was banned. Hopefully seems OK now (if this gets logged!)

    46 mins and quite tricky in parts I thought. Liked PRANCER and QUE SERA SERA. My mother used to sing it when she was cooking or doing the housework.

    Thank you v and setter.

    1. If I’m not logged in I’m told I’m banned, but I can still post. When I log in I’m not banned.
    2. It seems to be some sort of Livejournal glitch. TfTT almost never does anything like that.
        1. Thanks Jack, first time, and hopefully the last, I’ve come across it. The screen was all green and weird and finally I found a little box that said log in. That seemed to solve it.
  12. 10:24 FOI SPOOKY LOI UNMAN, which I failed to parse, although it is obvious in retrospect. I hesitated over SEA, but LASSIE confirmed it. Time to put on the ECLECTIC KETTLE for another cup of coffee. Mine doesn’t whistle.
  13. 14:55
    Zipped through without too many pauses. Snitch a bit higher than I thought it would be. Thanks v.
  14. UNMAN was the only answer I wasn’t sure about, not helped by taking a while to figure out TEMPT. Finally got 4a after much head-scratching – ‘catholic’ in the non-religious sense did occur to me, but I needed all the checkers to see ECLECTIC. Spent a long time trying to fit C into 21d before the penny dropped that this Charlie was an ass. No great problems otherwise though, and was finished in about 25 minutes.

    FOI Cor
    LOI Eclectic
    COD Seduce

  15. Not a typical Monday, I knew that after thirty seconds. Some great clues, particularly SEDUCE, QUE SERA SERA, EXUBERANT. Also liked the unseasonal PRANCER.

    SEPTUAGENARIAN LOI, didn’t spot the anagram until afterwards. Hesitated over SEA, then thought of a ‘sea of faces’.

    26′, thanks vinyl and setter.

  16. It felt like I took an age to get started (the NW corner yielded nothing) but once I had a few answers in I was really at the races.
  17. 24.25 so a bit slow for a Monday. Nice to see the setter keeping us on our toes. FOI correspondence, LOI scrutiny which delayed reaching the finish for a couple of minutes: a very neatly constructed clue with the challenge of finding another word for a vineyard eluding me till I biffed the answer.

    Observant my COD with contrary a close second.

  18. I found this quite tricky and clever.

    COD: K SIR R SIR R. Seems to suggest Sir Kier Starmer to me. Will he ever become a reactionary occupant of Number 10? Whatever will be will be.

  19. Poor old Harry. Maybe he’ll emerge well from the interview. Held up a little at the end finally managing to parse ‘seduce’. Loved the mighty worker; rather loathed IC/I see. 22’56.
        1. In that case you can’t be banned, at least not by us. Live Journal may have other options but since you are continuing to post anonymously I don’t see the problem. I suspect another glitch in their system.
  21. 23.35, so more Friday than Monday, except it didn’t really feel like a challenge, more an irritation. Start with the number of things MI6 men might be – I even tried LEFTIE, since that’s pretty sinister and suits the Burgess McClean era – add a dash of Random Letter Change, 2 cryptic definitions (haven’t seen a whistling kettle in 50 years) that didn’t raise a smile, and the potential second random woman that was LASSIE, needed to confirm the dubious SEA, and the ITCHINESS factor rose throughout the solve.

    I got sidetracked (of course) trying to work out which of the things Blaise Pascal was famous for could have an application here, even wondering whether a Blaise might be a Pa something. Wager? Triangle? Theorem? How does a 5/3-letter word lose its heart? Didn’t think of UBER until I wrote the crossing letters (less U) out flat.

    OK, I did like 9 for it’s surface (with which I’m slightly too familiar with lockdown encouraging creaking around in slippers) and the excellent anagram. 1 out of 30 will have to do.

    1. No. The game can be spelt either way but the PM’s house is only spelt CHEQUERS.
  23. Definitely not all that Mondayish.
    Who still has a kettle in their kitchen that actually whistles? No-one, that’s who.
    Had a bit of trouble accepting that mass = sea, though it does. S’pose.
    I was going to say the only Blaise I knew was Modesty, not quite true but couldn’t resist.
    Did like 16ac, though…

    Edited at 2021-03-08 10:58 am (UTC)

    2. We don’t even have a kettle: we have one of those boiling water tap things. It’s brilliant.
  24. Several MERs for me here: tempt = sweet-talk, unman = take heart from, sea = mass, unusually = extra, in isolation = aside. OK I realise that one can often think of two sentences where they are interchangeable, but they don’t seem close enough. Or perhaps it was just that they held me up.

    But what’s wrong with C = see? Chambers has it under ‘see’.

    1. Text-talk inflicting itself on written language outside texts. I know there are no rules for language change but some things can seem a little brutalist at the outset.
      Alternatively letter-spelling as in el. (?) In which case opening the gate to a crowd of little unsightly fellers.
      1. It’s not text talk: it’s of the same type as ‘em’ and ‘en’, which both (obviously) predate texting.
          1. Ah yes, sorry. Chambers has entries for all the consonants along the same lines: bee, dee, ef, tee, ex. But not, as far as I can tell, the vowels, which is a bit odd.
      2. Yes but on this site people often shrug their shoulders and say ‘it’s in the dictionaries, so we just have to go along with it’. Most (but not all) of the letters of the alphabet are in Chambers under ‘jay, bee, tee’ etc so don’t we simply have to put up with it?

        Edited at 2021-03-08 12:41 pm (UTC)

    2. I often have similar MERs. But in fairness I think that finding connections which are accurate but sound unlikely, eg those you quote, are a basic setting technique; and if the dictionaries confirm the connection we must accept it .. some setters like to use the technique more than others but none are exempt, in my experience anyway. It is akin to the “any word I haven’t come across is automatically obscure” idea that pops up here regularly
      1. Agreed re: if it’s in Chambers it’s allowed. But at the same time I think Chambers should be banned as a reference, they make up too many words and definitions on a whim, ones that don’t/never did exist in real life.
        1. Isla, it may be worth noting that Chambers is not considered a principal source of reference for Times cryptics – these are Collins and the ODE/Lexico, both of which are available free online. It’s very rarely that a meaning unique to Chambers is relied upon.
        2. In order to deliberately confuse us crossword solvers? Struggling with the motivation, here ..
  25. Didn’t think this was overly difficult, completing corner by corner with the SE and NE being the last — didn’t see ITCHINESS for a while which confirmed LASSIE and the weak SEA.

    In the NE, CONTRARY gave all the checkers for 11a which went in with a shrug. Is there something I’m missing about Blaise Pascal in particular rather than any other French person?

    1. Any french person would do. However, I gave it my COD (see the quote above). Google him and ‘the heart has its reasons’, if you are interested.
  26. I started off with KAPUT, COR and __DUC_. SEE took a bit longer to, er, see. I then wandered off to the SW where EATER gave me a start and SCRUTINY popped up. THE LAST POST held a few up until ITINERANT and CHEQUERS pointed me in the right direction. SEPTUAGENARIAN took an age to get to and CORRESPONDENCE was my ante-POI, leaving 27a and 24d, where I had ALONE, which held up ITCHINESS until the end. I had suspected it however and was happy enough to ditch it for ASIDE. Liked ECLECTIC and EXUBERANT where, like Vinyl, I pondered on a taxi driving ant momentarily. An enjoyable puzzle. 30:07. Thanks setter and Vinyl.
  27. Similar to Penfold though he picked up speed faster than I did. I was briefly confused as to what the customer was doing in 16a and had to get rid of the mental image of someone on the other end of a cracker or a wishbone.. 15.48
  28. 9:58. No unknowns today, which helped. My holdups, such as they were, were thinking 8dn must start with CHE and putting CRACKER in from the definition.
  29. Finished before lunch so did not take me too long once I got stuck in.
    LOI was SEPTUGENARIAN which I guessed and then saw the anagram -a clever clue. Other hold-ups were LASSIE, HOTLINE and OBSERVANT.
    Enjoyed this. LIKE Vinyl, I wonder when EXUBERANT will be someone who used to drive a taxi?
    David

    Edited at 2021-03-08 12:44 pm (UTC)

    1. An Uber is NOT a taxi ! Don’t bloody start me, or any other PROPER cabbies who come here !
      1. As you probably know Phil, “Taxi” is a shortened version of taximeter cabriolet. (Hence taxicab) and really only applies to London black cabs.

        My first proper job was a fitter for black cabs in West London. Great characters the drivers were too. They bent ‘em, we fixed ‘em.

        Definitely not the same as Uber or minicabs in general, I agree.

  31. Relieved to see that I’m not the only one to make heavy weather of this. Felt vaguely irritated by several clues while doing to and now can’t really see why.

    Perhaps just general lockdown grumpiness. The curfew here is going to get increasingly tedious as the weather improves and the evenings get longer.

    Thanks to Vinyl and setter

  32. I have always thought that double transformations aren’t allowed.

    They way I read it, you first have to transform dog to cur, then transform cur to cor.

    Am I misunderstanding a ‘rule’?

    I put cur in, but felt uncomfortable with it.

    1. I’ve never seen a rule to that effect, Stuart, and I’m pretty sure that most days we are expected to think of a word and remove a letter from one end or the other, which is not really different from changing a letter in the middle of short word. However I shall be interested if other seasoned solvers wish to discuss this further. I wonder if perhaps you are thinking of indirect anagrams where to be expected to think of a word and anagram it is a definite no-no.
    3. I see what you’re getting at, but I think the first of your transformations isn’t really a transformation at all (it’s just ‘find a synonym’), so you’re left with just one transformation, so all is okay.
  33. 21.14. An odd solve, never really felt on it at any point. Always seemed to have the wrong end of the stick which made it feel a bit disjointed. I could see the homophone but didn’t understand until coming here how sea meant mass so thanks for the explanation.
  34. 24 minutes but a DNF really as held up for far too long by scrutiny which I only got with recourse to aids.

    Excellent puzzle but I see we have all made heavy weather of today so my time would have been pretty good otherwise.

    Liked exuberant and seduce and scrutiny once I saw it😊

    Thanks vinyl and setter

  35. ….SEPTUAGENARIAN, after failing to realise that “condition” was an anagram indicator until the fourth time I visited the clue. I’m glad I wasn’t alone in finding this a difficult-ish puzzle for the wrong reasons.

    Didn’t like “mass” as a definition for SEA. My “FOI” was “deduce” which was a massive hindrance. I only parsed LA-DI-DA afterwards.

    REAL FOI COR
    LOI ECLECTIC
    COD QUE SERA SERA (by Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band — happy memories of my misspent youth)
    TIME 13:45

  36. Difficult for a Monday with four unfinished in the NW corner. Still do not see catholic for a definition of eclectic. The former means universal whereas the latter means selecting from a wide range. A selection from the universal is not universal. Rant over.
    Loved the Blaise Pascal clue despite not solving it. Frustrating not to see contra for guerilla as they appeared in the novel I was reading yesterday. (The Power of the Dog by Don Winslow).
    Thanks to setter and blogger.
    1. ‘Catholic’ also means ‘comprehensive in interests, tastes, etc; broad-minded; liberal’ (Collins).
      1. I’m with Joe. Eclectic either means specifically picking and choosing, or taking some but not all on a hopscotch basis. Catholic either means hewing to the dogma, or broadly accepting of all things. Picking and choosing — however organised — falls between taking the narrow accepted view taking and a universal view.
        1. Eclectic means drawing from a wide variety of sources. To me if you describe someone as having catholic or eclectic tastes you’re saying essentially the same thing: they like a lot of different stuff!
  37. 52:36 with more hard work than I was expecting on a Monday. But all doable in the end. I liked the little quirky ones — SPOOKY, LA-DI-DA and KAPUT — but COD EXUBERANT
  38. but for an annoying typo.
    Definitely not so Mondayish today. LOI TEMPT and ECLECTIC
  39. Did this earlier this morning, but had too busy a (medical) day to blog before. Didn’t much enjoy this,got done in 25 minutes or so, with UNMAN and SEA put in for want of nothing better. Liked the song (earworm time) and the 9d anagram.
  40. A joint solve with Mrs S today …
    … and we turbo-charged each other to a solve in just under 20 minutes. We were also briefly seduced by Alone for 24D, but we could not make it parse and the anagram for 27A made it impossible anyway.

    FOI 13A To the letter, LOI 25A Sea — sea = mass understood but a bit of a shrug from me.

    Many thanks to Vinyl for the blog
    Cedric

  41. 46 minutes, but with THREE pink squares at the crossing of 22 ac with 18 dn. However, I have now learned a great deal about the song at 22 ac, which I remember from when it was on the charts some centuries or so ago. Obviously the pronunciation in the song and the ethnicity implied made it clear that this was an Italian mother and so the spelling of the first word should be CHE, not QUE. But as I now realize, then the verb conjugations are wrong. In fact, Wikipedia says this has been a popular motto for several centuries but it is used only in English contexts and is ungrammatical in all four Romance languages. And the song title does usually seem to be written with QUE. (I was wondering why CHEQUERS was being spelt CHECKERS here, but it didn’t seem too implausible).
    This was only one of several things I did not like about this puzzle. One other was the “I see” for IC at the end of ECLECTIC without a homophone indicator. And no really brilliant clues — most of them remind me of the mathematical method humorously referred to (by mathematicians, of course) as “proof by intimidation”.

    Edited at 2021-03-08 06:55 pm (UTC)

    1. Sad as it is, I’m afraid we now have to be prepared for text speak etc to appear in crosswords from time to time, and that’s what’s going on here rather than omission of a homophone indicator. Collins has IC: messaging & social media – abbreviation for ‘I see’.
  42. Like others, I found this slower going than most Mondays. I agree with joebooth about Eclectic. I wasn’t keen on loudly for a homonym indicator. Of course I’d be more tolerant if I’d finished more quickly.
  43. Well, the good news is that I did manage to finish, all correct and most of my parsing was OK as well. The bad news is that the process took several hours. Some of this was self inflicted — I had a confidently bifd The Last Post at 22ac for far too long, and I missed Condition as an anagram indicator in 9dn, until nearly all the crossers were in place. LOI was 4ac, Eclectic, another one that seemed a bit iffy (Unman, Extra, Seduce…) at the time, but nothing else would fit. Invariant

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