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.

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