Times 27,929: Lateral Basilica

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Some relatively straightforward clues in the mix today, but also some that required sideways jumps to make sense of: 6dn proved my personal nemesis as I spent a long time unable even to discern where the definition part might be, at the end. I hope you yourself were on the wavelength. COD to 28ac for its audacious verbiage.

Thank you dear setter and now, by the power of subliminal advertising, I’m off to find a gobstopper to lick!

ACROSS
1 Cold listener dressing in coat, say? (8)
RAINWEAR – our “cold listener” is a RAW EAR, which is “dressing” the word IN. You might certainly wear a coat in the rain.

5 Drawn, revolutionary illustrations on Christmas cards, possibly? (6)
TRACED – DEC(ember) ART, reversed

10 Relative kidnapped by thin, mean and vile criminal in book (3,9,3)
THE INVISIBLE MAN – SIB “kidnapped” by (THIN, MEAN + VILE*)

11 Great, top athlete (4,6)
HIGH JUMPER – great is HIGH and a JUMPER is a top that you wear

13 Crummy pudding (4)
DUFF – double def, FOI

15 Representative I came across in bed, retired (7)
TOTEMIC – I MET “in” COT, the whole reversed

17 Lift in holiday centre going the wrong way, uncle’s head stuck in it (7)
TROUSER – RESORT reversed, with U{ncle} in it. “Lift” as in pinch, nick or half-inch.

18 Seem discombobulated by twisting of Polish language (7)
BURMESE – (SEEM*) by reversed RUB

19 Echo a little bit, penetrating rupture (7)
RESOUND – a SOU is a little bit (of coinage), here “penetrating” REND

21 Lap pace (4)
LICK – double def. The cat licks up the milk at a fair old lick.

22 Player is in current contest (4,6)
DISC JOCKEY – the current is DC as opposed to AC; it has IS in it, and is followed by JOCKEY, a verb meaning the same as vie or contest (stress on the second syllable)

25 Game spelt out or encrypted in series of calls (7-4,4)
WHISTLE-STOP TOUR – WHIST [game] + (SPELT OUT OR*)

27 Head of government in Scottish town backed complaint (6)
NIGGLE – G{overnment} in ELGIN, reversed

28 Drunk portrayed having dispensed with last of sherry in tumbler when maudlin? (8)
TEARDROP – (PORTRA{y}ED*). A teardrop is something that tumbles (down your cheek) when you are maudlin!

DOWN
1 Couple of scoundrels, second of which knocking out a tool (7)
RATCHET – RAT + CHE{a}T

2 Fury in Liberian uprising (3)
IRE – hidden reversed in {lib}ERI{an}

3 Boat in current fix over foreign waters (10)
WINDJAMMER – WIND [current] + JAM [fix] + la MER francaise

4 A team order that’s generally accepted (5)
AXIOM – A XI O.M.

6 Part of cylinder coming out of trap? (4)
ROLE – a ROLL (of paper?) might be cylindrical. The trap is someone’s mouth, quite a cunning homophone indicator!

7 Fail — as may loose dentures? (4,7)
COME UNSTUCK – a cryptic definition that seemed a bit weak to may, but I’m sure the pang of recognition that would have made this a better clue for me won’t be more than a decade or two in coming now…

8 Reportedly, brown square finished (4,3)
DONE FOR – homophone of DUN FOUR (the square of two)

9 Superb striker cutting wood (4-4)
FIVE-STAR – the striker is a VESTA match, “cutting” FIR

12 Nail excellent start (3,8)
GET CRACKING – NAIL [get] + CRACKING [excellent, as in toast]

14 Sweet, soft lump, goalkeeper (10)
GOBSTOPPER – GOB [soft lump] + STOPPER [goalkeeper]

16 Minister reduced by hack’s comic verse (8)
CLERIHEW – CLERI{c} by HEW

18 Plain land for Conservative statesman (7)
BALDWIN – BALD [plain] + WIN [land]

20 Transfer tardy on ridiculously cheap excursion (3,4)
DAY TRIP – (TARDY*) on 1P – much cheaper than chips, can you buy ANYTHING for one penny these days?

23 Lovely metal link (5)
CUTIE – The metal is CU as in copper, + TIE [link]

24 Up past midnight with all the others (2,2)
ET AL – reversed LATE [past midnight]

26 Blade on another razor, initially (3)
OAR – O{n} A{nother} R{azor}

79 comments on “Times 27,929: Lateral Basilica”

  1. Tough but do-able. My only unparsed was ROLE… I understood the definition to be ‘part’, and took ‘trap’ to be ‘mouth’ right away, but foolishly never considered it as a homophone indicator. I was trying to figure out what letter or letters ‘cylinder’ might connote. Clicked ‘Submit’ on a wing and a prayer….

    Thanks, v, for the parsing!

    2. If I were doing a NYT crossword, I wouldn’t have the nerve to ask if, for example (Woodrow) Wilson was “just some dude”.
          1. No Jeremy! MIKE Baldwin from Number 10 Coronation Street was Prime Minister of Northern England in the seventies.
            Harold Wilson?
            We are not amused!
  3. 6 was my LOI! I put it in from the def then stared in perplexity. And felt stupid when I got it.
    First one I’ve worked on paper for almost a week.
    Saw THE INVISIBLE MAN from the enumeration and a crosser or two and seemed to lock in to the frequency. West side was finished with only OAR yet in the east.
  4. Excellent puzzle, but I was right off the wavelength, thinking fuzzily. Had come unglued, but that doesn’t mean fail, day tour as an anagram of tardy on(!), other minor hiccups. Clerihew LOI, for some reason couldn’t remember cleric. One of those days. Cylinder such an unusual word to find in a clue – a technical geometrical thing? Hardly. Part of a car? No. So I actually got role with only the L in place. Had heard of Baldwin, but didn’t know he was conservative.
    FOI The Invisible Man
    COD trouser
  5. Our unknown setter
    Could scarce have done better
    That ROLE was quite tough
    With nothing else DUFF
    1. DUFF limericks are what I do
      FIVE-STAR lines are regrettably few
      I may well COME UNSTUCK
      But perhaps with some luck
      I could manage the odd CLERIHEW

      Our Friday setter
      CLERIHEW begetter
      Uses poetry words
      And not stupid birds

    2. Edmund Bentley
      Evoked quite so gently!
      It’s clever of you
      To give us a cl(erih)ew
  6. Got off to a very slow start–FOI 2d, yet–and didn’t pick up much speed. To the point that, as I wanted to get to the gym, I thought of pausing and finishing at lunch; but I rather quickly got a bunch by biffing, and finished without checking the biffs. DNK VESTA, so I was wondering about FIVE-STAR. Didn’t care for TEARDROP; ‘tumbler’ seemed a bit of a stretch. COD TROUSER.
    2. Vesta is the match, apparently named after the Roman goddess of the hearth. Swan is the brand name. There was also Brymay, who created the safety match, I.e you needed the box to strike it, as opposed to the Vesta which you could strike against any rough surface, such as a wall. Very cool in my day…
  7. I got there in the end, but definitely not on wavelength. One of those puzzles where I ended up with 3 or 4 clues to fill in that didn’t interesect, so getting one would not help any of the others. I eventually saw the homophone indicatoer for ROLE, and LICK for lap and pace.
  8. At 33 minutes I came within a whisker of hitting my half-hour target, which would have been a rarity on a Friday.

    My only queries were RATCHET as ‘a tool’ as I think of it more as a mechanism, but as I’ve come across it as a feature of a tool (e.g. a ratchet screwdriver) my answer went straight in.

    I also wondered about ‘nail/GET’ because to nail something is to achieve it whereas to get something is to understand it. Perhaps I’m not thinking of the right context.

      1. As in ‘The Mountie always gets his man’? Yes, I can see that, just about. Thanks.
  9. With two successful solves on the bounce I feel I might have sacked my inner Mourinho. Hopefully Spurs can follow suit and sack their outer Mourinho.

    Reading through afterwards I was a little surprised to realise I had parsed all but one as I went. I found ROLE particularly tricky, and was tempted to biff ROLL for “cylinder” so I’m pleased I paused for thought there. My one unparsed answer was CUTIE, having correctly thought the definition to be “lovely” but guessing that maybe there was also a metal link known as a “cutie”.

    I’m now left wondering if anyone has ever eaten a DUFF. And do they exist in any variety other than plum?

    1. Bring back Poch!?
      At residential college circa 1970s we were often fed rolled boiled pudding, usually served with custard – is that duff? Random cake-y flavours, never plum.
  10. Wouldn’t necessarily expect you to know about a British brand of match, Kevin.
    1. I couldn’t tell you the name of a US brand of match, either. Never would have occurred to me that matches have brand names that anyone would know.
      1. My parents were smokers so I got used to seeing boxes of “Swan Vesta” matches around the house.
        1. At boarding school we had grace said before starting our tea. Usually it was just “Benedictus benedicat” One innovation from an atheist teacher on duty was the grace “Asbestos, Domestos, Swan Vestas, Amen”. My favourite, though, was “For bread and jam and beans on toast, praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost”. And yes… that evening it was beans on toast.
      2. Bryant & May – Scottish Bluebell- Captain Webb – England’s Glory – UK

        Srikalight – America’s First – True American – Domino -Peerless – USA

      3. You just need VESTA and LUCIFER, the classical matches.

        Edited at 2021-03-19 04:49 pm (UTC)

  11. Thank you, verlaine, for the decode of RAINWEAR, WHISTLE STOP TOUR and DAY TRIP but I’m not impressed with ‘raw ear’ for ‘cold listener’. And I thought DEC ART strained the friendship as well although the presence of “possibly?” just about justifies it.
    ‘tumbler when maudlin’ = TEARDROP is also another that stretches the boundaries.
    Pre-Hislop, ie in the days of Richard Ingrams as editor, Private Eye had a “CLERIHEW Corner” Sample:
    “Elias Canetti
    Ate a bowl of spaghetti
    While writing one day
    Auto-da-fe”

    FOI: IRE
    LOI: TRACED/ROLE

    My last thought is that if you do a Times crossword, you shouldn’t be asking if BALDWIN is “just some dude”.

    1. Was wondering if it was a Hollywood pun, but “The Dude” was a Bridges brother, not a Baldwin brother.
  12. …And inferior
    Bacteria.

    35 mins pre-brekker on this excellent test. No crosses. Lots of ticks, mostly Totemic and (like this puzzle) Five-star.
    Thanks setter and V.

  13. …but that was 1d. (One old penny, nothing to do with RATCHET.) 31 minutes with LOI ROLE, which I did parse after a couple of minutes. Having been informed that we shouldn’t use 27a earlier this week, which I never knew of before, I now don’t know if I should have felt guilty putting it in. COD to TOTEMIC. A mixed bag but a decent enough puzzle. Thank you V and setter.
  14. 30.40 but roll instead of roll. Dumb. I seem to make at least one stupid mistake every week.

    Still, took me ages to get going with 24dn being my FOI so the end was much better than I expected at the beginning.

    Once I picked up a bit of momentum, progress was reasonably solid. Allin all not a bad week and enjoyed all the puzzles.
    Thanks setter and blogger.

  15. Normal service resumed today after two days of struggling and DNFs. 50 mins for this very enjoyable, for me anyway, crossword. FOI IRE, LOI RÔLE. I liked DAY TRIP, TROUSER WINDJAMMER and GET CRACKING best. I also liked the surface of 18 ac. Will we one day say “Mayanmarese”?
    As you say, V , you can’t even spend a penny for a penny today!

    Thank you V and setter.

  17. Well, I was doing ok and heading for the average (for this week) of around 20 minutes when I arrived at the top right. Took ages to get DEC ART (I thought, therefore I struggled) with no help whatsoever from 6d ROLE, which I think qualifies as the most impenetrable clue of the decade, burying its definition so completely in plain sight. So 28.14.
    I also didn’t have a clue what was going on in 1a, apart from EAR for listener, but that didn’t seem to matter so much.
    Both the long ones suffered from enumeration disclosure, which was just as well, because again the definitions were not kind. I mean, “book”? Narrows the field, not.
    Thanks v for unscrewing the inscrutable.

    Edited at 2021-03-19 08:56 am (UTC)

  18. 13:12. An enjoyable, chewy puzzle.
    Edwin Drood
    Was just some dude.
    It’s a sad history:
    His death was a mystery.
  19. 20’02” to end a good week. ROLE very clever. Liked WINDJAMMER and FIVE STAR.

    Thanks verlaine and setter.

  20. 22:55 Great fun again. We have had rather a good week of puzzles this week, I think. Like others, my LOI was the unparsed ROLE. I was rather slow to get going and finished in the NE corner where I eventually became UNSTUCK with the groan-worthy DONE FOR. Lots of great clues. I liked DISC JOCKEY and TRACED, but COD to ET AL.
  21. As soon as I’d got the (transparent) Invisible Man (sleeping in your bed) I got a Ghostbusters earworm – then at 14D: “Who you gonna call?” – gobstoppers. Good puzzle for a Friday, thanks all.
  22. Spring has sprung and the bul-buls have arrived in our garden.

    I had just an hour and only just completed this thorny puzzle.

    FOI 2dn IRE

    LOI 6dn ROLE

    COD 9dn FIVE STAR

    WOD 10dn BALDWIN a proper-joined up Conservative PM, but I didn’t vote for him.

    Does anyone remember Donald J. Trump walking in front of the Queen on his visit to Windsor!? She had to have two large G&Ts, a lie down and the rest of the day off!

    Will Jeremy and Kevin be on the ticket for 2024? That would be fun!

  23. After a disastrous week of solving, finishing this in 45 minutes with all parsed apart from the ip of day trip, I expected there to be a chorus in the comments of how easy this was. But not so. I even found 6dn straightforward.
    I will approach the rest of the day with a spring in my step and a song in my heart (hopefully neither Tumbling Tears or the ghostbusters theme!)
    COD to 28ac, loved tumbler when maudlin as a definition.
    Thanks Verlaine and setter
    PS the only thing I don’t understand is the title of your blog.
  24. I got most trouble, in different ways, out of the mouths, trap and gob, which got me wondering if, in the crossword, there were now more drawings from the english slanguage than once there were. I don’t mind, mind you, I was just wondering.
  25. The clerihew that came to mind is the one about a rough contemporary of Verlaine’s. Alfred de Musset called his cat “pusset” – which was rather affected, as might have been expected.
    BALDWIN was PM during the crisis the last time a British royal married an American woman. Which led me to recall that US Vogue took a British newspaper to task for juxtaposing the word NIGGLE with a photo of Mrs. Sussex. Oh dear.
    Excellent puzzle in an excellent week. Much enjoyed. 18.18
  26. Are we all becoming a bit more relaxed about things? A few years ago setters might well have said, for 6dn, ‘… cylinder, perhaps …’ or some such. After all a cylinder is only one type of roll; a roll is not definitely a cylinder.

    But it’s a great nuisance for setters if they have to fill their crosswords with ‘perhaps’ and words like that and nowadays all over the place we see unindicated definitions by example. I remember Peter Biddlecombe once saying a while ago that he hardly noticed them, and this struck me as a bit odd. Now I wonder if he wasn’t ahead of his time.

    Edited at 2021-03-19 11:22 am (UTC)

    1. “metal” for CU and “past midnight” for LATE as well… there were borderline liberties being taken passim.
  27. Prizes to 6d for finding an original homophone indicator. Not sure about the ‘it could only be a crossword clue’ sound of 28a, but that is a nice definition.

    One of my favourite podcasts is Football Cliches, where they make the bold claim that a ‘stopper’ is always a defender, whereas a ‘shot-stopper’ is a goalkeeper, but there you go – it’s one of the few times I’ve disagreed with them. Glad to have the Times crossword backing me up.

    On the wavelength today, 6m 47s with RAINWEAR (??) and RATCHET the last to fall.

  28. Very enjoyable. However my Friday solve usually takes 2 sittings, so I what am I going to do this afternoon? Was it ROLL or ROLE? No, I didn’t see the homophone indicator either.
    And thanks to everyone for the CLERIHEWS. Very entertaining!
  29. Another cracking puzzle and a not so cracking time. 43m, with a good 10m at the end staring at the TRACED/ROLE nexus. Opted for, but couldn’t parse, ROLE so thanks for the enlightenment.
  30. No problems except landing the ROLE. I had DECorations for Christmas cards rather than DECember but it didn’t matter.
    1. It does have a whiff of ‘art dec(o)’ about it, so decoration is in the air.
      Took me for ever to get this and its crosser ‘role’ (except I went for roll as I had not parsed trap)
  31. Another who finished with an unparsed ROLE and submitted with bated breath. IRE went in first, then I made steady progress with several PDMs to brighten the journey. Lots to like. 31:30. Thanks setter and V.
  32. didn’t set a cracking pace for this one, but finished finally in 42’24” with all parsed, the last quarter-hour on ROLE and TRACED. This after thinking it might be an easy Friday with IRE hiding in plain sight.
  33. I put ‘hatchet’ for 1d, which left me stumped on 1a.
    ‘Hatchet’ is a tool, ‘che[a]t’ is obvious, and I assumed that ‘hat’ was old slang for a scoundrel, as in ‘bad hat’, or indeed the more modern ‘black hat’ for malicious computer hackers. ‘Ratchet’ didn’t occur to me, and even if it had, I don’t accept it for ‘tool’. Part of a tool, maybe, but not a whole one.
    1. It passed me by at the time but you might have a point regarding ratchet. Chambers has “A pawl and/or ratchet-wheel” both of which are tool parts.
      1. Agreed that ratchet is a mechanism, but it’s informally also a tool – the 1/4″ or 3/8″ or 1/2″ or 3/4″ or 1″ or 1 1/2″ drive mechanism used to turn sockets is called a ratchet.
  34. Successfully negotiated although “Role” was hit-and-hope as I’m another who missed the clever homophone.

    Saw Windjammer but thought that was some kind of rainwear (!) then realised I was thinking of Windcheater and that Windjammer was probably a boat after all.

    Enjoyed the puzzle — glad I didn’t try yesterday’s which looked very tough from reading yesterday’s blog.

  35. I biffed Role and was grateful for the explanation. Trouser and Five Star held me up for a while, both excellent clues.

    “Cracking” (like “smashing”) seems to have more or less disappeared as a word of approbation, so I’ll settle for saying this was a sick crossword, and it’s been a wicked week.

    Thanks to Verlaine and setter

  36. Like some others, I didn’t get the ‘trap’ part of ROLE, but luckily I didn’t need to. WINDJAMMER was new to me too, and ended up as my LOI only once I got RAINWEAR. I also struggled to get THE INVISIBLE MAN, thinking of just about every three-letter word for a relative other than ‘sib’, which isn’t something I’ve ever heard or used myself. I really liked the ‘tumbler when maudlin’ definition in 28a once the penny dropped.

    FOI Ire
    LOI The Invisible Man
    COD Teardrop

  37. No time, cos I fell asleep mid-solve. Probably around the half-hour mark. Very nice crossword – enjoyed it.
    Thanks v.
  38. ….on a ROLE — nor, indeed, on the setter’s wavelength. Biffed eight of them correctly. 15 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back.

    At 16 across
    I was not at a loss,
    But I hope that this setter
    Does better.

    Edited at 2021-03-19 03:05 pm (UTC)

  39. 23’42”. but wrecked by a roll in 6dn. Good to know verlaine struggled on this one too! Lessens the pain.
  40. BTW at 20D (DAY TRIP) you’ve underlined the wrong bit of the clue. The definition is “excursion” not “transfer” which is the anagrind.
    1. It’s a fair cop. If only we got pink highlights when we submitted an incorrect parsing to LiveJournal!
  41. Felt more comfortable with today’s grid. After a slow start, the answers rose to the top in reasonable time, leaving me with an alpha-trawl on ROLE.

    Could have been 10% faster but I can legitimately blame my covid vax for making me feel as rough as a bear’s backside.

  42. Left with only 6D to solve, and GOBSTOPPER there already, it struck me 6D could well be a further confectionery reference, so in went ROLO …
  43. DNF. I found this a satisfying tussle but came undone at the last on role. Silly, I saw part and thought it must be role but missed the homophone and then overthought it along the lines of rolling trap to get part or something and ended up putting in roll. I also struggled to see the invisible man but that was only to be expected.
  44. After being about 10 short yesterday, progress of sorts today left me just a couple shy. The unknown/unremembered Clerihew, and Role — though I did finally get the latter from the intro to the blog. Lots to enjoy along the way, including Done For and Day Trip, but Whistle-stop Tour was my favourite. Invariant
  45. Total time wasting crap from this now abomination of a publication. The death of the print media is not far away.

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