Times 27921 – a piece of that confection

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
We bloggers are not supposed to say whether we found a certain puzzle hard, easy, or very easy, in case it discourages other less accomplished solvers or damages their self-esteem. So I won’t. I will say it was close to a PB time for me, in spite of needing no biffing – all was clear to parse. Even the regulation ‘plant’ was familiar. Our overseas solvers might not know about 5d, perhaps, but I expect to see a low SNITCH rating for this. All a bit disappointing, really.

Across
1 In Scotland go south, crossing eastern river (6)
GANGES – GANG = ‘go’ in Scottish talk, insert E for eastern, add S for south.
4 Jittery type with an eye for the birds? (8)
TWITCHER – double definition.
9 Old French city stocking razors ultimately lacking blades (7)
OARLESS – O (old) ARLES (French city) insert S = razors ulitmately.
11 Breaking into cash drawer briefly, aim right and shoot (7)
TENDRIL – TIL(L) = cash drawer briefly, insert END (aim) and R.
12 Northern girl trapping extremely active moles, perhaps (5)
NAEVI – N (northern) VI (a girl) insert AE = extreme ends of ActivE.
13 Senior officer’s first sailing-vessel — expensive, they say (9)
BRIGADIER – BRIG A = brig number one, first sailing vessel; DIER sounds like DEAR.
14 Transparent drinking receptacle outside hotel at York, say (3-7)
SEE-THROUGH – York being a SEE, TROUGH a drinking receptacle, insert H for hotel.
16 Comfort male dog from the east (4)
BALM – M, LAB(rador) reversed.
19 Stolen goods Oscar found in French department (4)
LOOT – O inside LOT, department 46.
20 Material used by writers — still, we hear! (10)
STATIONERY – which sounds like STATIONARY. I am constantly irritated by seeing the wrong word used in print, by people who should know better. Likewise seeing confectionARY meaning sweeties. I am a humbug.
22 Cried out, cutting cook’s wedding confection (9)
BRIDECAKE – BAKE (cook) has CRIED* inserted. I’ve never seen this word before but it doesn’t surprise me that it exists.
23 Minister’s current vehicle parked by entrance to villa (5)
VICAR – V(illa), I (current) CAR.
25 Girl you reportedly allowed to make a small ring (7)
ANNULET – ANN (girl) U (you) LET (allowed).
26 Work hard, gathering in fine wrapping material (7)
TINFOIL – IN F(ine) inside TOIL.
27 Escorted back, knowing where Dover is (8)
DELAWARE – LED reversed, AWARE = knowing, Dover being the capital and second largest city of Delaware state; more top of mind recently because of President Biden’s connections. I did mess with ideas about SE and Kent thinking Dover, England, initially.
28 Funky tear in trousers youths initiated (6)
TRENDY – T Y (initial letters of trousers youths) has REND = tear inserted.

Down
1 Reason the Spanish will produce unwanted plant (9)
GROUNDSEL – GROUNDS (reason) EL (the Spanish). Groundsel is a weed which grows all to easily and is a host for a fungus which kills various crops (peas, soya, carrots, tomatoes…).
2 Language once spoken in Bergen or Senja (5)
NORSE – hidden as above.
3 Sense the old spirit at first in rowing crew (8)
EYESIGHT – YE (the old) S (spirit at first), all inside EIGHT.
5 Old way gentle artist laboured to support wife (7,6)
WATLING STREET – W(ife), (GENTLE ARTIST)*. Roman road in Britain from Dover to London to Wroxeter, nowadays making up much of the A2 and A5 roads. Wroxeter is a village in Shropshire which was apparently the 4th largest Roman city in Britain.
6 Metalworker initially travelling as member of crew? (6)
TINMAN – T (initially travelling) IN (as member of) MAN (crew).
7 What’s left outside front of mean retreat (9)
HERMITAGE – HERITAGE (what’s left) outside of M(ean).
8 Person in authority that must be straight! (5)
RULER – double definition, a bent ruler would be no use.
10 Captain of warship maybe securing job as mail worker (3-10)
SUB-POSTMASTER – the MASTER of a SUB secures a POST.
15 Poignant proposal accepted by European male (9)
EMOTIONAL – MOTION (proposal) inside E, AL a chap.
17 After springtime exam, finally get key civic office (9)
MAYORALTY – MAY (springtime) ORAL (exam) geT keY.
18 Reminder of archdeacon, one tucking into tart (8)
SOUVENIR – VEN (archdeacon) 1, inside SOUR = tart.
21 Senior member of college tumbled over wicket (6)
FELLOW – FELL (tumbled) O(ver) W(icket).
22 Proposal to clothe artist in interwoven fabric (5)
BRAID – BID (proposal) with RA inserted.
24 Gloat over new trophy, perhaps (5)
CROWN – CROW (gloat) over N (new).

​

86 comments on “Times 27921 – a piece of that confection”

  1. I thought of WATTING STREET–had the STREET, thought I remembered WATTING, and looked it up, so a technical DNF. I was surprised to see BRIDECAKE, as the only time I’ve ever come across it was in “Great Expectations”, where Miss Havisham uses the term to refer to the rotting heap on her dining table; and it’s annotated in the Penguin edition I have.
  2. Easyish, but nowhere near a PB. And one 50-50 out-and-out guess required for NHO/forgotten moles. Almost went with NAEDI, it rang a faint bell, but I think it was nematode that gave the dejavu (a close homophone? well, it has the N and the D). So a lucky guess. Watling street rang a faint bell, too, but bridecake was a NHO.
  3. Unless there’s been a directive that I haven’t seen there’s no ban on bloggers using the words hard, easy or whatever when discussing puzzles, and nor should there be in my opinion. I find it interesting that Pip, although without actually using the word, implies he found this puzzle easy when I didn’t particularly (needing 40 minutes) and that sort of thing is surely what the forum is here to discuss.

    BRIDECAKE has passed me by all my life, or at least for as long as it has been around. It’s a horrible, ugly, tacky word so I’m pleased to have been unware of it until today.

    I came within a dog’s whisker of putting CALM at 16ac as my LOI and was just about to stop the clock when BALM featuring LAB reversed occurred to me.

    NHO Dover in DELAWARE but the state jumped out at me from checkers and I just assumed.

    The unknown NAEVI came from wordplay.

  4. For Mistress Bride the wedding-cake:
    Knead but the dough, and it will be
    To paste of almonds turn’d by thee;
    Or kiss it thou but once or twice,
    And for the bride-cake there’ll be spice.

    20 mins. Not my cup of tea.
    Thanks setter and Pip.

  5. Faced part way through with S_B/_O_T_A_T_R the fact that SUB CONTRACTOR fitted so nicely proved too tempting for me. I did have a doubt when I put it in, wondering what the definition was but I didn’t have the good sense to go back and check. Indeed I failed to practise one of my better habits of recent times in leaving a letter out as a reminder if I have a doubt.

    My company’s office backs onto WATLING STREET — I remember it vaguely from when we used to go to offices. This time next week it will be a year to the day since I was last there.

    1. “Subcontractor” was a word I knew, in contrast to SUB-POSTMASTER. And I had all the rest pretty quickly, so what the hell… I hope the UK postal service is in better shape than ours.
  6. A few possible traps: like jack I nearly bunged in ‘calm’, and like pip spent a while trying to get INSE as Dover’s location. Always thought that NAEVUS was a sort of skin birth stain, rather than a mole. Wasn’t sure about TINMAN, the word is surely tinsmith or whitesmith. York is an archdiocese as well as a See.

    Why so few posts as I submit?

    14′ 37″, thanks pip and setter.

  7. NAEVI, NAEFI, NAEDI? If the setter cannot be bothered to help me, I cannot be bothered either. Stodgy crossword after yesterday’s.
    2. I agree. It was when I thought of Naedi that I remembered Naevi. I never thought of Fi (my wife’s name).
    4. Yes, also agree — especially as I plumped for “Naedi” as the most likely-sounding.

      Wasn’t mad keen on “Tinman” either ( in = as member of — not very convincing IMO).

  8. I agree with Pip. I don’t particularly like it if bloggers describe a puzzle in definitive terms and for the same reasons as Pip.

    In this case, I must have been on the setter’s wave length as I found nothing that I couldn’t parse at the time. Like isla3, though, I thought of NAEDI iso NAEVI for 12ac.

    In my previous life as a B747 Loadmaster for a US cargo airline, I’ve been to Dover, DE many times. There is a massive air base there. Those who remember the original film, M.A.S.H. may remember Donald Sutherland (I think) referring to he and Elliott Gould as “the pros from Dover”.

    Edited at 2021-03-10 07:48 am (UTC)

    1. It’s also well-known Martin in a rather depressing way as the base to which the remains of US servicemen and women killed abroad are returned to the US. Presidents before the one Biden refers to as “the former guy” used to go there every now and then to pay their respects.
      1. Thanks, Olivia. Sadly, thanks to my work as a B747 Loadmaster, I know only to well about the repatriation of the remains of US service personnel as we carried many of those caskets. I was also present on many occasions in Kuwait when they were loaded. On every occasion there was a simple but very moving ceremony that accompanied the loading process.
        In Dover, all of us who had arrived with the plane were required to leave before the caskets could be offloaded.
        One aspect that may not be well-known is that, initially, caskets would be sent on to destinations across the USA by commercial airline flights. It was discovered that in some cases they were not being treated with due respect so the military contracted with one of our fellow cargo airlines, but operating much smaller planes than B747s, to fly the caskets to their destination.
        Even today, just writing about it makes me quite emotional.
  10. Almost a PB for me too.
    At junior school I was taught “the car is stationary because ‘Arry drives the car”. It’s stupid, but it works. As a result I’ve never got this wrong in over 60 years.
  11. that’s what I am, as I finished this in 20 mins, all present and correct. Definitely a PB. Luckily, I knew WATLING STREET and managed the trickier clues (NAEVI, BRIDECAKE and DELAWARE) without ado. I initially had TINNER at 6d but changed it to the correct TINMAN when I got BRIGADIER. Thank you Pip and setter. PS I have no objection to bloggers’ comments re xword level of difficulty as when I come here I have already made a personal decision and it is nice to compare it to better solvers and the blogger’s view.
  12. 16 minutes with LOI TINMAN, which I didn’t feel sure of. BRIDECAKE was unknown but it had to be. COD to SUB-POSTMASTER in this pleasant but straightforward puzzle.Thank you Pip and setter.
  13. 8:29. I thought this was going to be a sub-5 but the bottom hard proved a little bit trickier than the top. BRIDECAKE was unknown but not hard to deduce, and I managed to resist the temptation to bung in CALM.
    In my last job our office was close to WATLING STREET, so I was aware of it and also knew somehow that it was an old Roman road.
  14. The satanic TWITCHERs are near
    They inTEND RILing me, it’s so clear
    I’ve GROUNDS ELaborate
    For this EMOTIONAL hate
    But infiDEL AWAREness lives here
    1. Bad luck Astro_Nowt — on a day when there are no birds to be seen, the setter bungs in a Twitcher ! Enough to make you snap your binoculars.

      Personally, I’m OK with birds — it’s obscure poets/painters/authors/sculptors and composers that get me jittery.

  15. 13:16 LOI BALM. I knew NAEVI but failed to parse it. NHO BRIDECAKE but it had to be. No stand-out clues for me today.
  16. Didn’t find this very easy at all. NAEVI? GROUNDSEL? BRIDECAKE? DELAWARE? I had no idea.
  17. 15.38 but I did use a checker for naevi. It had to be either that or naedi and whichever was a NHO for me.

    FOI Norse and LOI Tinman which I havered over before deciding I couldn’t think of anything better. Spent a good while over the Dover clue before the checkers reminded me that Dover is in fact the state capital of Delaware.

    COD Sub Postmaster if only because its solution stopped me from continuing to try and make sub commandant fit!

    Thanks setter and blogger for a rewarding midweek work out,

  18. Straightforward, despite nho bridecake, (why no groomcake?) but none the worse for that. A MER at tinman, the only one of those I know was in Wizard of Oz. Tinsmith, surely?

    When it comes to state capitals, I tend to flounder. Was there a competition once, to pick the most obscure town in each state to be its capital?

    The full title of this blog is “Times for The Times,” so words such as easy or hard are nearly impossible to avoid. Sorry if that offends, but then, doesn’t almost everything, these days?

    Edited at 2021-03-10 08:48 am (UTC)

    1. No International Men’s Day, or Man’s Hour on Radio 4 either. Pure discrimination.
  19. This was a breakfast completion crossword so I assumed a low SNITCH.

    Like others, NHO of bridecake or naevi. Also considered calm as being more likely since I wasn’t sure about balm as a verb (or comfort as a noun), but went with balm.

    I was put right about stationery/stationary in my first job, having missed it at school. More recently I made myself anonymously unpopular by correcting the spelling on some cabinets in the office.

  20. 14 mins with naedi. Thanks pip. I guess posted times and the snitch already give a good heads up on how tricky a puzzle is 🙂
  21. Foiled by NAEVI – I went with ‘Naedi’, not knowing any better. I didn’t find this too tricky otherwise, as the words I wasn’t familiar with were otherwise reasonably clued. Liked DELAWARE as a clue, though I will doubtless forget that it has its own Dover.
  22. Being of a medical background, naevi flew onto the page with the same smug smile that I imagine gardeners smile when the answer is yet another plant that I have never heard of. But I had heard of groundsel so I got one over the gardeners today. And it was a PB.
  23. From their album ‘Holiday’:- Tin Man – 1974
    ‘But Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man’ One of my favourite bands -saw ’em live twice.

    22 mins with NAEDI – who knew!? On edit Dr. Rich did!

    FOI 2dn NORSE

    LOI 28ac TRENDY = funky, only in America!

    COD 5dn WATLING STREET

    WOD 22ac BRIDECAKE one man’s meat………!

    Operations ‘Postmaster’ and ‘Sub-Postmaster’ Ian Fleming and his Naevi.

    Edited at 2021-03-10 09:43 am (UTC)

  24. Just slight pauses over NAEVI and TINMAN. I’m not convinced that “as a member of” works for IN and if you take it as parsed by Pip then what is “as” doing?

    Watling Street known from having been brung up near Dartford and Gravesend.

    1. My bad, as they say, i meant to type “as member of” not “a member of”. Correcting now.
  25. With my delicate self esteem inevitably dented by Pip’s opening inferences, this was nevertheless near my PB, whatever it may be, as I only occasionally stray from the QC and rarely complete the 15×15. However, it did all eventually fall into place including the NHO moles, ring and cake, and it’s still morning.
    Much pondering on many others but I do feel I am starting to get the feel of how clues go together, at least some of the time. Thanks to the kindly setter for encouraging me, especially for the two long and accessible down clues, and (sniff) to Pip for clarifying the finer details.
    1. My apologies, plymouthian1, if I dented same, it was not my intention, in fact the opposite. After all this is “Times for the Times”, we are expected to report our speed or otherwise. Personally I am more interested in whether a puzzle was challenging and satisfying to me, rather than too easy or too hard; my 11 minute PB is often 3 times Verlaine’s or Mohn2’s regular times, yet I am not dispirited.
      1. My tongue was very firmly in my cheek. I was delighted to finish. A bit like climbing Everest for me, to worry about how long it took would be ridiculous. But thank you for your kind message — you and your fellow bloggers are unfailingly kind and helpful in my efforts to become vaguely competent.
  26. “In the naevi…tum ti tum ti tum ti tum!” Whatever happened to Village People?

    A very gentle stroll and I feel slightly cheated it’s now over. Balm was the last one in. Tinman seems a bit weak and I’m with the blogger on Birdcake. I did like Delaware and Hermitage, though.

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

    1. Village people are still going, albeit with some 30 different members, over the years .. these pop groups become a valuable brand name, after a while, not to be binned ..
      1. Glad to hear it. The idea of the Beverley Sisters being binned is too awful to think about
        1. I KNOW .. they made the big mistake of tying it all into the family. Scissor Sisters, Puppini sisters, and you would have been still good to go.
  27. Just over 7 minutes. International Men’s Day is on November 19th, but not widely celebrated, it would be like the other 364. Stationery has “E” for envelope, that’s my mnemonic.
    1. I remember as a child being told by one of my older relations ‘E for notEpaper’
      1. How these things work is beyond me. I wanted to reply to jonny peacock, yet my post is nowhere really near.
  28. Straightforward and pleasant. Paused for thought at BRIDECAKE and TINMAN, but wordplay led there pretty clearly, and they both looked very plausible. Also glad that I stopped long enough to dismiss WARM and CALM before alighting on the dog.
  29. Thank you for the tip, I shall bring it to the attention of Mrs K and hope for recognition (but not hold my breath!)
    1. That is what Fathers’ Day is for, isn’t it? Tough on those who aren’t, mind you. Or have ungrateful offspring, I suppose
  30. 22m with a fatal stumble at NAEVI. I had also never heard of ANNULET, BRIDECAKE or TINMAN but the cryptics helped. I suppose the occasional memento DNF keeps one humble.

    Edited at 2021-03-10 11:24 am (UTC)

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