Times 27925 – Steady Paddy!

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A puzzle that seemed to play to my strengths, so perhaps my time of 18:35 will be around the WITCH, which is very unusual for me on blogging day. Last in was 3 down, as I recall.

ACROSS

1 Irishman reading stuff current in newspaper? (7)
PADRAIG – PAD (reading stuff – I thought it could more accurately be called ‘writing stuff’) I (current) in RAG (newspaper). On the other hand, we can parse it like this: [You may arrive at the Irish man’s name by ‘reading’ the clue as] PAD (stuff) I (current) in RAG (newspaper). The best known ‘Porregg’ must be golfer Harrington, who had a golden spell in the mid/late noughties, winning back to back Opens and a US PGA, if I recall correctly – all in super slo-mo. Thanks to Myrtilus for the alternative parsing of this clue.
5 Way of getting around remoter areas after boat returns (7)
POSTBUS – POST (after) SUB reversed
9 Emperor backed an Iranian language, banning son’s imperial title (3,6)
RAS TAFARI – TSAR reversed A FAR[s]I
10 Speak at length with enough for meeting, no question (5)
ORATE – [qu]ORATE
11 Contribution is not properly used thus at first (5)
INPUT – initial letters of words 2-6
12 Single-minded and certain to hold volunteers back (9)
DEDICATED – TA in DECIDED all reversed
14 In disrepair, old-time banners unable to be shown (14)
INDEMONSTRABLE – anagram* of OLD TIME BANNERS
17 Press particular management groups to act (5,3,6)
TREAD THE BOARDS – TREAD (press) THE BOARDS (particular management groups)
21 Elders apt to get drunk — very drunk (9)
PLASTERED – ELDERS APT*
23 Mammal’s milk, iodine rich primarily (5)
TAPIR – TAP (milk – verb) I (iodine) R[ich]
24 Provide food initially to everyone boarding railway carriage (5)
CATER – T[o] E[everyone] in CAR (railway carriage)
25 Steer regularly seen around short cattle breed for this reason (9)
THEREFORE – [s]T[e]E[r] around HEREFOR[d]
26 The French emperor’s land in Africa (7)
LESOTHO – LES (the French) OTHO (emperor); Otho was the second of four Roman emperors in 69AD – a record held until 193, when there were five
27 Quarrel with one jeweller (7)
TIFFANY – TIFF (quarrel) ANY (one)

DOWN

1 Agree to what one might do to unruly hair (6)
PERMIT – if you had enough hair, you might perm it, if it got a bit long
2 What will help one stay clean in dodgy stand-up (7)
DUSTPAN – STAND UP*
3 Help about element helium separation (9)
APARTHEID – PART (element) HE (helium) in AID (help)
4 Matriarch possibly needs thousand marks extra (11)
GRANDMOTHER – GRAND (thousand) M (marks) OTHER (extra)
5 Hard dividing an irrational number, which Diophantus once showed (3)
PHI – H in PI; The ‘ph’ of Diophantus would be represented by the letter ‘phi’ in Greek. See Rob Rolfe below for a mathematical explanation involving φ (phi), which is very compelling, though all Greek to me
6 Job, perhaps one dividing half of sheep up (5)
STOIC – I in COTS[wold] reversed
7 American boy outside shouting where are hidden presents? (4,3)
BRAN TUB – RANT in BUB
8 Supported small tree that has given up the ghost (8)
STEADIED – S TEA (tree) DIED
13 Is old mattress I found in hollow breaking the rules? (11)
DISOBEDIENT – IS O BED I in DENT (hollow)
15 Complain after ancient coin found in rhubarb dish (5,4)
ROAST BEEF – BEEF (complain) after AS (coin) in ROT (rhubarb); the ‘as’ was a bronze, and later copper, coin used during the Roman Republic and Roman Empire.
16 Play I act badly out of character (8)
ATYPICAL – PLAY I ACT*
18 Helper of St Paul in eastern Tarsus, travelling (7)
ERASTUS – E TARSUS*; not as well known as Barnabas, Silas and Timothy, Erastus was once sent to Macedonia and once remained in Corinth. Seems like he was a money-man…
19 What might confer a degree of tact when cutting cold Yankee (7)
DIPLOMA – DIPLOMA[cy]
20 Sinister rising member of upper house cutting Young Conservatives (6)
CREEPY – PEER in YC all reversed
22 Raised to desert pack (5)
TAROT – TO RAT reversed
25 Time with old couple (3)
TWO – T W O

74 comments on “Times 27925 – Steady Paddy!”

  1. How shall I begin to enumerate the amount of this puzzle I didn’t understand? I am deeply indebted to ulaca for the parsing here.

    Still don’t feel great about PAD (and did not know PADRAIG). Didn’t know BRAN TUB, and certainly didn’t get the wordplay for ROAST. RAS TAFARI, CATER, STOIC, and DIPLOMA went in easily from their definitions, but without understanding the full wordplay.

    I imagine if I’d known less I would have done far, far worse on this puzzle. Easily double the time.

  2. … a dumb typo in INDEMOMSTRABLE! And I checked my answers.
    Thanks ulaca for the education today..
    Didn’t know OTHO was an Emperor, that AS was a coin or that PH = PHI.
    I did wonder about the sheep but shouldn’t have as, only a few years ago, I lived in the Cotswolds for a while and used to see the Cotswold Lion breed regularly.
    My LOI was PERMIT as I had decided that what you did with unruly hair was ‘part it’ and it took ages to work it out.
    My COD to ORATE.
    PS….I liked the way Y and C in 19d and 20d were handled differently.

    Edited at 2021-03-15 01:48 am (UTC)

  3. FOI ORATE, POI 12ac–it took me that long to see that it wasn’t just TA that was reversed–LOI STOIC, which I only got from the C. Can’t say that STOIC is a good descriptor for Job. DNK POSTBUS, ERASTUS, AS. Biffed RAS TAFARI, BRAN TUB, DISOBEDIENT, ROAST BEEF; it would have taken me a good deal longer if I hadn’t.
    1. I had a brain freeze on Job and was thinking of Jonah, who was even less of a stoic. Job certainly endured a great deal of sorrow and suffering, but refused to accept the fairness of life until God said “look, mate, I’m bigger and belter than you, so shut it” (Today’s Eastenders Version).
      1. Northrop Frye comments somewhere as to how Job might not be that contented to have his daughters killed and replaced by three new ones, however impressively named.
        Archibald Macleish has someone, Satan probably, say:

        If God is God He is not good;
        If God is good He is not God;
        Take the even, take the odd.

        1. I have long regarded Job as the worst defence of a benign deity in scripture. Happy to take a bet on his “servant” Job that results in the elimination of vast numbers of livestock and an entire family (apart from a rather unsympathetic wife) and a particularly unpleasant disease falling on Job himself, and then relying on superiority and inscrutability to get him off the hook. Not even “sorry about all that, but a bet’s a bet”.
  4. I found this pretty hard and ATYPICAL for a Monday, with POSTBUS, BRAN-TUB, OTHO and ERASTUS unknown, PHI unparsed and AS for a Roman coin forgotten. I didn’t really understand PAD for ‘reading stuff’ either. Eventually home, last on the Club leaderboard at the time, in 55 minutes.

    Highlights were the COTS[WOLD] ‘sheep’ and TAPIR, neither of which I remember having met in crossword land before.

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

  5. I left ??DRAIG unfinished (and I can see why now!), so didn’t get the punning 1 down either. Oh, well. I was glad to have remembered BRAN TUB and to have done as well as I did—not a very Mondayish entry, eh? Worked online because my printer is on the bli nk.
  6. All correct, but little parts of answers that I didn’t know, like OTHO or AS coin. Definitely not a “Monday” puzzle.

  7. 30 minutes may be a PB for me for a puzzle with so many unknowns in it. My list appears to be much the same as for others so far:

    PADRAIG (name)
    OTHO (Emperor)
    AS (coin)
    ERASTUS (St Paul’s pal)
    PHI (PH)

    One that hasn’t been mentioned yet is INDEMONSTRABLE although I would have known ‘undemonstrable’ for sure.

    I’m still slightly baffled by ‘reading stuff’.

    Edited at 2021-03-15 05:23 am (UTC)

  8. thanks to Ulaca for the blog, where I learned that Otho was an emperor, an ‘as’ is a coin, there is such a thing as a ‘bran-tub’ and there is a Cotswold breed of sheep, though the missing GK didn’t prevent a successful finish in 22’55”.
    ………and there’s a nina in the fourth row.
  9. Going through your blog again, U, I found a couple of slips:
    DEDICATED That’s TA in DECIDED, both reversed.
    PLASTERED ELDERS APT
    APARTHEID HE (helium)
  10. An unenjoyable puzzle capped off by opting for ESARTUS rather than ERASTUS. I was originally thinking ERASTUS then I thought maybe I was drawn to that by thinking of Erasmus and further thought made ESARTUS seem equally plausible. A bad start to the week.
  11. …O, Life is sad and Death is sweet indeed.

    30 mins pre-brekker, but the last few puzzling over Cots=half of sheep and Tea=tree.
    In 1ac, I just took the ‘reading’ to be a link word, i.e. Padraig is ‘read’ as stuff=pad, etc.
    Thanks setter and U.

  12. 21 minutes with all parsed but the ROAST part of the BEEF, with Emperor OTHO also unknown but nominatively determined to be part of a crossword clue. Mr Harrington gave me 1a. Job as a STOIC sounds a bit anachronistic but whatever…COD to RAS TAFARI. Clever Monday offering with added extras. Thank you U and setter.

    Edited at 2021-03-15 07:55 am (UTC)

  13. Same comments and DNKs as others above. Gave up on 7d on the hour and bunged in BEAR TUB. Needless to say, I have NHO BRAN TUB. Hard for a Monday I thought. Oh well. Thanks U for the enlightenment.
  14. 7:41. One for the classicists here: several things I didn’t know, but none of it cause me problems apart from Otho, who made me question whether I really knew how to spell LESOTHO. OTTO seemed a more likely emperor for the checkers, and my usual rule is to follow the wordplay. In the end I trusted my spelling, which for me is never entirely comfortable.

    Edited at 2021-03-15 08:41 am (UTC)

    1. I thought this was the QC clue of the day. African country beginning with LE? (or LES, it doesn’t matter). So there must have been an Emperor Otho.
      1. Try to imagine that experience, but with a nagging doubt born of a tendency to make extremely stupid spelling mistakes.
        1. I’ve always followed Sherlock Holmes’s famous saying: “When all the impossible spellings are eliminated, you’ll probably type the correct one wrong anyway.”
  15. I am slow but can normally parse
    Though today was no masterclass
    My brain felt quite “stiff”
    And so i had to biff
    All correct, but a bit of a farce
  16. Tricky. Knew PADRAIG, BRAN TUB, AS, PHI but not ERASTUS, OTHO or the sheep.
  17. Tricky, same as others.

    In 1ac, isn’t ‘reading’ an indicator?

    BRAN TUB is an American thing, it’s a ‘lucky dip’ here.

    What is a POSTBUS?

    The Diophantus clue is very clever, I think the main point is PHI = the golden ratio 1.618….., which Diophantus worked on, as he developed rational approximations to irrational numbers.

    19′ 12″ thanks ulaca and setter.

    1. Agree with all your points .. 5dn definitely my COD.

      Remote areas had post vans to deliver the mail, eventually it occured to some bright spark that if they put a few extra seats in they could make more money, hence a postbus, combined minibus and van.

    2. BRAN TUB American? I’d never heard of it (before seeing it here once or twice), so of course it can’t be.
    3. None of the usual dictionaries show BRAN TUB as American, and the OED has a quote from the Westminster Gazette from 1909. I’m not sure it’s a term I’ve ever seen outside crosswords though.

      Edited at 2021-03-15 10:42 am (UTC)

      1. We definitely had them in our Shropshire village fetes some 60 years ago and they were called bran tubs. In our rural backwater it really was bran, into which the ‘gifts’ were hidden. I seemed to have an unerring knack of a) never finding the packets of sweets and b) finding the more ‘girlie’ gifts.
    4. I agree re. reading: should be read as ‘it reads as.’

      (If that’s not too many reads.)

  18. A long breakfast solve for me. My biblical knowledge is sketchy, as is my knowledge of sheep breeds, but the c at the end brought stoic to mind.

    Like others, didn’t know Otho, but did know Lesotho so that went in on assumption. Like jackkt I wasn’t sure about indemonstrable, but the anagram was clear.

    Have just spent some enjoyable time on Wikipedia looking up the Year of the Five Emperors, so thanks to ulaca the history lesson as well as the crossword blog!

  19. 15:39 with the same several unknowns others have already mentioned. Thanks for explaining ROAST BEEF and BRAN TUB which I failed to parse. I’m another who still doesn’t get “reading stuff” in 1A.
  20. Well I loved this crossword .. all correct despite several nhos, surely a sign of a brilliant solver setter. Thanks to him/her and also to Ulaca, who had plenty of work to do with this one.

    As Myrtilus and Robolfe mention above it is not “reading stuff,” it is just PAD = stuff. The reading is additional misdirection

    Edited at 2021-03-15 09:36 am (UTC)

  21. FOI: ATYPICAL but couldn’t get PERMIT without help. Like others kept on with PARTIT. Is it to do with male solvers not having perms? POSTBUS — what is it?
  22. Close, but never heard of 9A and couldn’t work it out, tho thought it must involve Farsi. Doesnt seem to have troubled anyone else so far, I notice. All the rest done and, mostly, parsed, so my 15×15 apprenticeship stutters on. Thanks for the very helpful blog.
  24. I think the reason it didn’t trouble us (for long) is that it’s popped up with this enumeration a few times before.
  26. ‘Rastus was a character in the Uncle Remus stories and then in minstrel shows. For good reason he’s long since dropped out of sight. Unclear why it’s taken so much longer for Aunt Jemima to vanish. PADRAIG is just in time for his day on the 17th. 17.06
    1. There were, apparently–thankfully even before my time–Rastus and Mandy jokes; one can just imagine, although I’d rather not.

  28. FOI 16D: ATYPICAL
    LOI 7D: BRAN TUB

    Steadily worked through the lower half of the grid and then the NW corner. After about 17 minutes I seemed close to finishing, even though I was unsure about ERASTUS and hadn’t parsed LESOTHO. Struggled (too) long over POSTBUS and then managed BRAN TUB (but meanwhile had fortunately remembered to check 14D, which I had originally entered as UN… rather than IN…

    Thanks to ulaca and the setter.

  29. 45m in the end, but a very slow start, finding nothing I could do on the first trawl through. However it gradually fell into place, though RAS TARAFI only possible because I must have come across it in a previous puzzle (and of course immediately forgotten it). It was also an unusual puzzle in that I spent much more time trying to reverse engineer the cryptics -STOIC and BRAN TUB for example — than in getting what seemed a suitable answer. Thank you for the further enlightenment, U. Much appreciated as ever. Thank you, setter, too, for the challenge and also extending my general knowledge.
  30. though Tiffany from EastEnders she isn’t. A lumbering 24’05 here, everything known but slow to parse and therefore quick to pause en route. As I remember a bran tub was a normal part of party or village fair entertainment in my (UK) childhood.
  32. Like many, loads of unknowns here that slowed me down but pleased to have worked my way through the cryptic parts of those in about 33 minutes.

    Tough for a Monday but trying to do better at finishing crosswords that seem difficult at first

  33. Made a right pig’s ear of this one by biffing UNDEMONSTRABLE, which is a pretty stupid error of reading the anagrist (presumably because my brain saw the UN in “unable” and didn’t work it through). Also ended up with INPPT, though I suppose I wouldn’t have done that with pen and paper.

    Slightly annoying, when I’d successfully cracked the more difficult elements. OTHO was on my mind, as I very recently identified the Year of the Four Emperors in a quiz as 68AD, and didn’t even get a “One Year Out” T-shirt from Ken Bruce for my trouble. Also, 1ac reminded me that we are entering the time of year when it is necessary to gently correct Americans who refer to “Patty’s Day”. Pretty bracing for a Monday.

  34. I’m pretty sure that bran tub is originally British, and can also remember village fetes in the 50s where there was a bran tub with real bran.

    Got the parsing of LESOTHO wrong: it seemed to be le + Sotho. Sotho at the back of my mind was an emperor, but now I discover that it’s a rare language.

  35. 22.19, so ATYPICAL Monday fare, though I didn’t help myself by mis-anagramming 14 as UNMENTIONABLES, which I thought was rather clever of me and of the clue – wrong on both counts.
    We seem to be divided between those of us that frequented village and chapel fetes and those that (disgracefully?) stayed away.
    ERASTUS is possibly not the best known of Paul’s helpers, and I would be pushed to identify him securely without looking him up.
    OTHO likewise, really, especially since he managed Emperorship for a bare three months. From my point of view, he might just as well have been SOTHO.
    Quite a lot of Mephisto quality gen in this, requiring either Mephisto style checking in Chambers or lucky, slightly informed guesses. I managed the latter.
  37. On the wavelength today, done in 5m 4s. Some of this was beyond my general knowledge – e.g. OTHO – but I thought that the clueing was mostly generous and allowed a bit of biffing. A few ‘first letter of this’ clues helped.

    My very pedantic MER was DUSTPAN, which I would have thought would help you to get something clean, rather than keep it clean.

  38. For 1ac I interpreted pad as a synonym for stuff in the sense of ‘padding out’. Makes more sense than reading stuff to me, as someone mentioned above — pads have a stronger association with writing that reading
  39. 20.26 so another atypical Monday according to my experience. FOI Ras Tafari, LOI postbus. NHO it so a bit of a guess . Glad to see the blogger’s explanation which shows how dim I was- took me ages before I put the answer in.

    Another unknown was Erastus but once I recognised the anagram seemed pretty straightforward. Lesotho was another sticky one but I believe Otho was number three in the year of the four emperors.

    Good puzzle . Thanks setter and blogger.

  40. Def not Monday fare. Took me longer than Sat’s prize puzzle, which I have to admit I enjoyed more. ERASTUS probably doesn’t deserve a place in the Times backpager, and OTHO is not really suitable imperial fodder. So, bit bah humbug, but then maybe that’s because I was expecting a Monday stroll? (coming soon….)
  41. Considering how much I didn’t know (Otho, As, etc), I really surprised myself by managing to finish, albeit in my customary slow fashion. Loi was 7d, Bran Tub, which I must have come across somewhere, but by that stage I felt I was definitely riding my luck. A very odd solve. Invariant
    1. Ditto! I finished it, but in quite a few clues I didn’t really know how I got there 😅
  42. A struggle, and a long one at that. FOI input. Only four acrosses on first pass. Nothing down until grandmother. Then it began to unravel a bit. Guessed at some, e.g. padding, medic, which later were clearly incorrect as they did not allow more obvious answers. Some suggestions from disinterested husband were appreciated – some were right, e.g. stoic, some led me to make connections. LOI steadied. Had the died right enough, and the small, but tea for tree was not at the top of my list, shall I say. I do enjoy a good struggle, especially if I eventually finish, and even if when complete, it isn’t fully parsed. And lots wasn’t, by me, today. No particular feeling of a job well done by me today, just very pleased to finish. Erastus was a lucky biff as NHO. Held up by the break in Ras Tafari, as did not know there was one. Lots of candidates for COD but choosing one – tapir. Thanks for the blog and the entertainment. GW.
  43. Enjoyed this. Struggled with several parsings -as others have but ended up with two annoying errors -failed to get RAS TAFARI and PHI (which I had pencilled in).
    RIS RAFANA was a guess too far.
    David
  44. “A game of two ‘alves saint” in memory of the late Ian from last week.

    Very slow start then things began to fall into place before returning to the now biffable north west corner. Lots to like in this for me especially as my unknowns such as Otho Erastus and Postbus were all generously indicated. Can’t comment on whether Job was stoic or not but the wordplay left no alternative.

    23:36 thanks U and setter

  45. But for some extraordinary reason I put partit for one down! Can I really have thought the word existed?! Evidently.
    1. I’ve mombled much much worse in the past. And must admit to wondering whether COMBIT was a word here…
  46. 24.52. I struggled to get started with this but eventually built from the bottom up. DNK Otho or the as coin and the presence of both annoyed me. Was able to recall the Hereford cattle but not the Cotswold sheep. Dredged up Erastus from somewhere.
  47. Post dinner, 2 glasses of wine effort. Got there in the end so a superb puzzle naturally but it was in a bit of a fog.

    Thanks all

    Ps Many of you have asked but none have replied … what on earth is a POSTBUS…?

    1. In rural areas the post office did deliveries in minibuses which they also used to ferry people around. Don’t know whether they still do!
  48. FOI 21ac PLASTERED

    LOI 1ac PADRAIG

    COD 25ac THEREFORE

    WOD 9ac RAS TAFARI Tuff Gong!

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