Times 27,935: So You’ve Been To School For A Year Or Two And You Think You Know It All

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
When the top row went straight in I thought I might be in for a relatively easy ride this Friday despite feeling a little blah, but no such luck! Few of the definition parts in this one were willing to give up their secrets without a fight, and I spent a long, long time over the likes of 10ac (if only to check it wasn’t that vexatious b*gg*r COWHEEL from a few weeks ago, back to cause more mayhem). 14ac and 6dn also caused many minutes of agony, until an alphabet trawl revealed ___BURN and the penny dropped, thankfully ruling out CAREER APPROVAL, a type of qualification wholly invented by my tired brain.

To cut a long story short, this was a brilliant puzzle with some gorgeous surfaces, that very nearly did for my self-image of being the kind of guy who can solve any three of these things inside an hour. Very nicely done, setter, very nicely done indeed. I’m still a bit sore from multiple blows to the cryptic face to decide on my favourite COD – but I did like 26ac as I cried “uncle!” to an incomplete and unsympathetic grid, with the seconds ticking by apace. What was yours?

ACROSS
1 Project close to failure: sacking may come from it (4)
JUTE – JUT [project] + {failur}E

3 Peer at home drinking tea, forming attachment to hunter? (5,5)
WATCH CHAIN – WATCH IN [peer | at home] “drinking” CHA [tea]

10 Brief corporation on railroad, maybe, that’s to go round Jersey? (7)
COWBELL – BELL{y} on COW [railroad, as in bully]. I got very confused for a long time thinking that CO was the brief company (not the same as a corporation of course!) and the railroad must be EL or ELL – in fact I had TUMBREL in for a while, hopelessly…

11 Alien craft, one commandeered by humans (7)
MARTIAN – ART I [craft | one] “commandeered” by MAN [us]

12 Kid to make relay race a bit shorter? (4,8,3)
PULL SOMEONE’S LEG – or cryptically defined, “pulling” a leg from someone’s relay race would certainly make it shorter.

13 Pour from this running water through milk dispenser (6)
TEAPOT – PO [running water] “through” TEAT [milk dispenser]. EA may be running water in some dialect and Scrabble word list, but if you tried to work out how TPOT is “milk dispenser” like I did, only confusion and disappointment would be your lot.

14 Soreness from multiple blows to the face? (8)
WINDBURN – Cryptic def, the “blows” being gusts of wind.

17 Feverish, tearful end to supplicant’s squirming (8)
AFLUTTER – (TEARFUL + {supplican}T*)

18 Works quietly to stop old habits (6)
OPUSES – P [quietly] “stops” O USES

21 Still in fear of returning, remains in American park (9,6)
PETRIFIED FOREST – PETRIFIED [still in (due to) fear] + reversed OF + REST [remains]. A U.S. national park not far from me currently (relatively speaking anyway), in Arizona.

23 Ace crippled in battle (7)
ALAMEIN – A LAME IN [ace | crippled | in]

24 One raising a glass kitchen appliance (7)
TOASTER – double def, the first as in “one who toasts”

25 Bed of roses with trees, as yet to be replanted (4,6)
EASY STREET – (TREES AS YET*)

26 Begging, one puts one’s cap on the floor? (4)
KNEE – cryptic def. If you get down on your knees to beg, the knee-caps end up on the floor.

DOWN
1 Tar over grass, constructing pool (7)
JACKPOT – JACK over POT

2 Painter I brought in to supply bathroom fitting (5,4)
TOWEL RAIL – R.A. + I “brought in” TO + WELL [supply (noun)]

4 Pop up and see doctor: being collected (6)
APLOMB – reversed PA [pop, as in dad] + LO! M.B. [see | doctor]

5 Eccentric graduate taking in cricket match in unlikely place? (8)
CAMBODIA – CAM B.A. [eccentric | grad] “taking in” O.D.I. which I hope, but am not certain, stands for One Day International. They don’t play much cricket in SE Asia, one assumes.

6 Qualification time given by race official (6,8)
CAREER DIPLOMAT – DIPLOMA T [qualification | time] by CAREER [race]. I had the CAREER bit quite early but the second part took ages!

7 Side motorists adopt left of imaginary line (5)
AXIAL – XI [side, as in team of eleven] “adopted” by the A.A., plus L

8 Drama introduces Harry: touching figure! (7)
NONAGON – NO [drama] before NAG [harry] + ON [touching]

9 Reason for going to press witness: he’s worn out (14)
NEWSWORTHINESS – (WITNESS HE’S WORN*)

15 Not having used sheets until pens deployed (7-2)
UNSLEPT-IN – (UNTIL PENS*). If a bed does not have used sheets, it is unslept-in

16 Formally request private to be new recruit? (8)
BEGINNER – BEG INNER [formally request | private]

17 Tango in a bit, you understand — now resting (2,5)
AT PEACE – T, in a homophone of A PIECE

19 Unit on the house becoming loose (3,4)
SET FREE – SET [unit] + FREE [on the house]

20 Girl, on reflection, regretted one-woman shows (6)
ODETTE – hidden reversed in {regr}ETTED O{ne-woman}

22 Closed trailers bring hoppers (5)
TOADS – TO ADS [closed | trailers]. TOADS gonna hop

68 comments on “Times 27,935: So You’ve Been To School For A Year Or Two And You Think You Know It All”

  1. I was glad I persisted with this. A difficult puzzle which continued to deliver right to the end. Too many delights to single one out. 55 min.

    Edited at 2021-03-26 12:48 pm (UTC)

  2. That COWHEEL is my nemesis. Wrong a few weeks ago when I didn’t know it, wrong today when I thought I did.

    A 66 minute DNF, but v. satisfying, enjoyable and challenging all in one nonetheless.

    Thanks to setter and verlaine.

  3. Like Verlaine, getting the first two straight off gave me a
    misleading sense of confidence and the rest had to be teased out very carefully. Almost convinced myself that Ariel was the imaginary line, but the correct answer suddenly popped, almost unbidden, into my head. So odd when that happens. A very enjoyable Friday puzzle with Cambodia being COD.

    Thanks to Setter and Verlaine.

  4. Given the SNITCH currently at 146, quite pleased to finish this in under an hour.

    Didn’t correctly parse COWBELL and was wary of COWHEEL so glad to see no pink there.

    LOI CAREER DIPLOMAT — not aware of the term — got the second word first and then had to come up with another word for race which appeared after a short alphatrawl, by brain too frazzled to simply come up with an answer.

    Some nice clues here — spotting that 9d was an anagram cleared up the left side, and OPUSES was the clincher on the right.

  5. A superb puzzle which after 53 minutes of struggle defeated me with a damn pink square typo.

    Some superb clues here — particularly liked teapot and Alamein

    Thanks V and setter

  6. Persevered my way through this excellent puzzle but, in the end, resorted to aids for 16dn — I couldn’t see beyond “Resigner” or “Designer” and didn’t spot “Beginner”, embarrassingly. I think I’m the only solver to fall at such a straightforward fence.
    I wonder why the plural of “Opus” isn’t “Opi” — can some classicist explain?
    1. Ah, well, you see, it’s very simple: if it was a second declension masculine noun like “servus” it would have the plural “servi”, or a fourth declension feminine noun like “quercus” it would have the plural “quercus”, but given that it’s a neutral the plural has to end in “-a”, but obviously it’s not “opum, opa” so we need to know how things decline here and that’s “opus, operis” to leave us with opera. Not to be confused with the first declension feminine singular noun opera (pains taken) which pluralises to operae. Hope that’s cleared it all up for you…

      Edited at 2021-03-26 05:13 pm (UTC)

      1. Thanks V. It has cleared it up, but I fear I will not be able remember it for long!
        So, the answer should have been “Opera”?
        1. A Roman would not recognise “opuses” as the plural of “opus” but Britons are permitted to 😀
  7. I had a small holdup because I usually spell the drama Noh (and am informed that Nou is increasingly used), another when Unslept-in didn’t look right with the hyphen, or without it, or as one word either, and a big holdup when Foreign fit most of the alien crossers. I ran the proverbial alphabet on all the EPL and Championship football stadiums I could remember looking for Something Forest.
    Thanks, verlaine, thanks Ed, and real thanks setter.

    Edited at 2021-03-26 04:54 pm (UTC)

  8. I gave up at 17 minutes, unable to see AXIAL, and having biffed “cowheel”. So many great clues, but COD to CAMBODIA.
  9. FOI was PULL SOMEONE’S LEG, which I almost couldn’t believe was right but entered in ink anyway. That helped me get most of this fairly quickly (for its chewiness) last night, but I had to wait till this morning to finish the northeast. The only one with no letters yet was MARTIAN, which suddenly seemed rather easy, d’oh! Remembering the “hunter” WATCH was one of the last pennies to drop. So they don’t have cricket in CAMBODIA, eh?
  11. 1 hour 6 minutes after a longish break before the last three answers went in (OPUSES, which came up from the wordplay but for reasons beyond me didn’t immediately register as an actual word; then AXIAL, and finally CAREER DIPLOMAT which helped correct PETRIFIED DESERT to PETRIFIED FOREST). Nice but certainly not easy puzzle. I actually guessed, as it turned out correctly, what the ODI in CAMBODIA might mean, but of course CAM and BA didn’t leave any other choice for the answer.
  12. DNF. Gave up after an hour having failed to get knee. Just couldn’t see it. Some clever stuff but was rather ground down by an arduous solving experience at that point.
  13. V, you’re probably long gone, but…
    …you gave me an ego boost as The Dead Kennedys song came to me, too, with the Cambodia clue. I’m now trying to kid myself that our brains operate in similar ways!
  14. Not quite sure what went right here. Thought it was one of those easy Fridays so was cursing myself for not being quicker especially as the FOREST and the DIPLOMAT were my last two in and I always assume I’m being dim if I can’t biff the long ones with a few checkers

    I did think KNEE and WINDBURN were good ones to have sprung to mind but like others hopelessly confused by COWBELL and TOWEL RAIL — they went in; they came out; they went in….

    I’ll give those my co-CODs

    Superb and entertaining blog as normal. Enjoy the weekend everyone!

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