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’m not blogging until tonight, so I’m safe to say this was a crossword in which my 12.16 felt like a missed opportunity to complete my 10 sub-tens. I slightly stymied my chances by attempting to go straight through the acrosses: it’s a way of making an apparently simple crossword a bit more of a challenge. I got as far as 12 before getting help from the downs.

    I very much like mrkgrna’s suggestion that TINMAN is an Oz-based &lit, elevating it from a much scoffed at dodgy word answer to a very good clue.

    I thought BRIDECAKE sounded a bit Bardic, and thanks are due to Myrtilus (who else?) for confirming the same.

    I knew NAEVI. Just saying.

  2. And by the way, the STATION(E/A)RY confusion is enshrined in the old rag-mag joke: “excuse me, miss, do you keep stationery?”
  3. Entered NAEDI, thought about NAEVI, but then decided to stick to my guns. Bad choice… just over 7m with that mistake. I didn’t find this one particularly on the easy side, partly because I’d never heard of WATLING STREET and was convinced I was looking for a STRAIT.
  4. Another Oz connection here for the TINMAN – I was trying to make “tinker” work. Tinman was a pejorative term for an unscrupulous seller of aluminum siding (a kind of cladding for houses popular in US suburbia in the 70s). I think a naevus is what Gorbachev has but it’s not a mole. 11.13
    1. Gorbachev has (had?) a port wine stain. I knew NAEVI by chance, having had what was at first diagnosed as a Spitz naevus, then as a melanoma, scooped out of my shoulder last December; they’re evidently hard to distinguish.
    2. I think ‘naevus’ is what New Yorkers should be with Putin’s finger on the button?
  5. nice and quick today, except for LOI BRIDECAKE, which I had never heard of, and was contemplating BRIDEWARE, which was meaningless. NAEVI known from Scrabble.
  6. They deliberately put them away from the financial and commercial centres to separate business from politics and mitigate the threat of corruption. See also Ottawa, Canberra, Brasilia etc. It doesn’t seem to have been very effective.
    1. That sounds too selfless to be true. As an alternative, perhaps it is a way of sorting out competition between the bigger cities: Toronto/Montreal, Sydney/Melbourne, Rio/Sao Paulo. There is an interesting book in here, somewhere..
      1. At many weddings there is a Groom’s cake (often chocolate) in addition to the Bride’s / Wedding cake (almost always white).
        In addition to state capitals, Washington DC was also built on a “neutral” site which lay in between the financial and trading centres of Philadelphia and Boston (New York wasn’t important until the Erie canal made it the gateway to the midwest 50 years later) and the agricultural areas of Virginia and the Carolinas.
        1. My extensive historical study of the period* tells me that it was more a compromise between Hamilton and Jefferson whereby the federal government assumed war debts and in exchange the capital was put somewhere closer to the slave-holding southern states.
          Surely the neutral site between Philadelphia and Boston would have been… New York!

          *watching Hamilton

          Edited at 2021-03-10 09:00 pm (UTC)

  7. Foiled by thinking the random girl was DI. Bah humbug! 21:16. WOE. Thanks setter and Pip.
  8. Could not see stationery at all. Was looking for a material with a homophone of writers still. Doh.
    Another naedi. Didn’t even think of Vi. Had never heard the word so would have preferred wordplay which didn’t offer an option. Never heard of annulet, bridecake, tinman (other than in Oz) or Dover in Delaware. On that basis, I was rather pleased with a time of about 40 minutes with one wrong and one not completed.
    Certainly better than yesterday when I didn’t even comment having failed with half a dozen.
    Thanks to setter and blogger – who should hold forth on their views without worrying about the reactions of the readers. When I first started reading the blog, I would have struggled for ages to complete half the grid only to find the blogger had knocked it off without too much trouble in ten minutes. Much gnashing of teeth and bad language occurred, followed by a determination to do better the next day. Pretty much the same process now except that I often finish in under an hour!
  9. 22.07. I don’t seem to have found this as easy as others. Can’t see anything too hard now I look back. Perhaps I was just making harder work of it than I needed to. Took a while to get started. Lucky enough to have seen naevi in puzzles several times before so that wasn’t a problem for me. Wasn’t sure about the definition of tinman.
  10. A bit of a mer from me for NAEVI. Obscure words should be clued more explicitly in the wordplay surely? Glad to see I’m not the only NAEDI😊

    22:38 otherwise — nice puzzle but did not find it as easy as snitch and leaderboard and indeed pop suggests.

    Thx pip and setter

  11. ….so few problems encountered. A rather anodyne puzzle.

    FOI GANGES
    LOI SEE-THROUGH
    COD GROUNDSEL
    TIME 7:51, but checked before submitting in 8:14

  12. I thought there were quite a few difficult or unusual words today. I was lucky to know Watling Street (not the sort of thing I’d expect non-UK solvers to know) and Dover (not the sort of US city I’d expect UK solvers to know); Groundsel and Naevi were just not in my vocabulary. Bridecake (as vs Bride’s Cake), Sub-Postmaster (who he?), and Tinman instead of tinsmith were accessible but not familiar. Thanks pip.
  13. I couldn’t bring myself to put Tinman in as the “man” but can’t mean crew unless you use it as a verb in which case the “in” bit doesn’t make sense. Grrr
    1. As Pip says in the blog it’s not as member of crew = INMAN.
      It’s as member of = IN, crew = man.
      Lift and separate!
  14. 41 minutes, but DNF, though I feel a bit better seeing that other people have made the same mistakes. I did correct TINNER to TINMAN (BRIGADIER wouldn’t have fit otherwise), but nothing rescued me from SUB-CONTRACTOR. NAEVI was OK, since it seemed much more likely than the alternatives. It can’t have been a too interesting puzzle, since I fell asleep for about 10 minutes in the middle of it.
  15. Really enjoyed this — just the right level for those of us moving up from the QC. Surprised myself along the way by remembering Naevi, and working out Delaware, Bridecake, Balm and Ganges. Nearly fell at the last fence, with Oarless a huge pdm after spending time trying to think of obscure names for swords. Invariant
  17. The snark hunters included a Baker who could only cook BRIDECAKE — so that easily came to mind.
  18. As a ,usually, non-blogger I will admit that I finished in a rather less than impressive time for me, a rather un-accomplished solver. Two chaps, one croon, maybe haughty, dear Pip. But I am not discouraged.
  19. My cod was 22ac, being a tribute to Lewis Carroll though, I must admit, it gave me an agony in eight fits for a short while.
  20. This one wasn’t much trouble at all. My LOI was TINMAN. I’m not convinced this is even a word; it certainly isn’t in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. The only Tin Man I’ve ever heard of is the one in the Wizard of Oz. Having done some further research, I can be excused for not knowing it – the word is obsolete and has been more or less so for over 100 years. I still put it in though because I couldn’t think of anything else, and I could see how it parsed so I was sure it was right. Call it sour grapes, but I thought it was a pretty lame, clumsy clue.

    Edited at 2021-03-11 08:31 pm (UTC)

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