Times 27952 – all this and some biochemistry

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Time taken: 14:47.  That is a little bit longer than my usual, and looking at some of the early scores, I think this is going to fall into the more difficult camp.

I am hoping that I can piece together a few of the entries that went in largely from definition, so this may be a puzzle that favors some specialized knowledge.  I’m curious what people make of 13 across, a term that I run across pretty regularly, but may be obscure and has some tricky wordplay.

Postscript: Looks like I was on the money with 13 across dividing the solvers, and thanks to those of you who said that my explanations were helpful. This is a tricky puzzle, but all the wordplay is in place. Check the comments from a vist from the setter!

Away we go…

Across
1 Conjecture Glen’s worked with a view to please? Unlikely (8,6)
CONCRETE JUNGLE – anagram of CONJECTURE,GLEN
9 Initially pleased that group holds unknown amount of capital (9)
PYONGYANG – first letter of Pleased, then YON(that), GANG(group) containing Y(unknown amount)
10 I’ll do that which is largely counted on at the outset (5)
WILCO – first letters of Which Is Largely Counted On
11 God-fearing husband’s left without theology degree, strangely (5)
ODDLY – HOLY(god-fearing) missing H(husband), surrounding DD(doctor of divinity, theology degree)
12 Sister loves visiting city in Oregon — lots to see there? (9)
SALESROOM – SR(sister) and O,O(loves) inside SALEM, the capital of the state of Oregon
13 Energy source that’s unappealing, first off, then endlessly powerful (8)
GLYCOGEN – UGLY(unappealing) missing the first letter, then COGENT(powerful) missing the last letter
15 American going around in saunas naked (6)
KANSAN – hidden reversed in sauNAS NAKed
17 Could mostly act deviously, unable to keep a secret (6)
OCCULT – anagram of COUL(d) and ACT missing A
19 Dance in the buff? Dare, perhaps, to proceed (8)
FANDANGO – FAN(buff), then DAN Dare, and GO(proceed)
22 Music maker’s nickname called out, with cheer echoing (9)
HARMONICA – sounds like MONICKER(nickname) after RAH(cheer) reversed
23 Arab sailor with a measure of intelligence (5)
TARIQ – TAR(sailor) and IQ(measure of intelligence)
24 Key player in commercial having change of heart (5)
PRIMO – PROMO(commercial) with a change of the middle letter
25 For this artwork, one needed to concentrate a long time? (5,4)
STILL LIFE – STILL(one needed to distil or concentrate), LIFE(a long time)
26 Film that’s certainly no light work (1,4,4,5)
A HARD DAYS NIGHT – double definition
Down
1 African head’s cloak looking rather on the bright side? (4,2,4,4)
CAPE OF GOOD HOPE – CAPE(cloak) then OF GOOD HOPE(looking rather on the bright side)
2 Twelve years on, and zero changes (7)
NOONDAY – anagram of Y(years),ON, AND,O(zero)
3 Game of golf needing fortieth round (5)
RUGBY – G(golf) inside RUBY(fortieth anniversary)
4 In Whistler’s paintings note revolutionary shift (8)
TRANSFER – REF’S(whistler’s), ART(paintings) all reversed, containing N(note)
5 To try to keep up with vessel, galley periodically used (6)
JUGGLE –  JUG(vessel) and then alternating letters in GaLlEy
6 Novel way into Polish I might be sold on (9)
NEWSSTAND – NEW(novel) then ST(street, way) inside SAND(polish).  “I” is referring to the i newspaper
7 Circles having lengths within bounds (7)
LOLLOPS – LOOPS(circles) containing L, and L(lengths)
8 Sandhurst NCO involved in what’s not a search for military success (6,8)
NORMAN CONQUEST – RMA (Royal Military Academy Sandhurst) and NCO inside NON QUEST (what is not a search).  This went in from checking letters and I had to scramble to find wordplay for the blog
14 Behold inspiration returned for us — what artist needs? (3,6)
OIL COLOUR – LO(behold) and CLIO(inspiration) all reversed, then OUR(for us)
16 One passed on from rich landed gentry, finally (8)
FATALITY – FAT(rich), ALIT(landed) and the last letter in gentrY
18 My name I keep quiet: it’s no longer spoken (7)
CORNISH – COR(my), N(name), I, SH(keep quiet)
20 Career, on reflection, Carol’s after? (7)
NURSING – RUN(career) reversed, followed by SING(carol). An all-in-one
21 Brushed and organised one’s desk (6)
KISSED – anagram of I’S,DESK
23 A large weight’s secured pile of cards (5)
TALON – A, L(large) inside TON(weight)

40 comments on “Times 27952 – all this and some biochemistry”

  1. This was certainly difficult for me, even though I biffed the two long downs (8d from the Q; never parsed it). DNK GLYCOGEN, and started off with GLYPOTEN; when I saw that wasn’t a word, I came up with COGENt. (I assume, George, that it’s 13ac not 12ac you’re thinking of?) DNK LOLLOPS. Couldn’t parse HARMONICA, and now I see why; MONICKER would never have occurred to me. LOI TRANSFER; it took me that long to see how it worked.
  2. I found this very hard and completed it with one error in only a couple of minutes under an hour.

    There was as lot of biffing going on and several clues or elements of clues that remained unparsed – not that I persevered for as long as I would on a blogging day as I was out of time after such an extended solve. The HAR of HARMONICA, the STILL of STILL LIFE, and NORMAN CONQUEST – which from an English POV I might be inclined to think of as a military disaster rather than a success!

    For TALON it was handy that its ‘pile of cards’ meaning has come up somewhere within the past week (in the Guardian if not the Times) as I don’t think I had met it before despite having been a card-player since childhood.

    The one I got wrong was 13ac, a word I didn’t know, so relied on wordplay to come up with {u}GLY (unappealing, first off), then POTEN{t} (endlessly powerful).

  3. Over the hour in two sittings, but thought it brilliant. Determined to finish and parse it all, and finally succeeded. Last 2 were glycogen where the glyco- was fairly certain, and transfer which just took ages to see, wondering what on earth whistles. Both took alphabet trawls. Also held up a long time having entered the famous Beatles film “A Long Day’s Night”. Oops.
    Glycogen is OK – unknown word, but back-formable from say hypoglycaemia which makes you weak, so seemed reasonable. Hardest part was equating cogent with powerful, though Chambers has that as its first definition. Best part was it wasn’t an anagram!

  4. Really struggled with TRANSFER (which was quite satisfying to get) and LOLLOP (which wasn’t quite).

    The CAPE as well as GLYCOGEN and NORMAN CONQUEST and plenty others went in with just a few crossing letters. That’s wavelength for you.

  5. Like isla, I loved this one – tough but very rewarding. No problem with GLYCOGEN (but I’m part of an extended family of science nerds). I liked 26a, which I fortunately guessed from having just the “Y” crosser. But it was just one of many good clues.

    Thanks, George, for the insightful blog. I biffed 8d and partly biffed several others, so thanks for all the careful explanations.

  6. 62 minutes with LOI TALON guessed from crossers. I had no idea there was a SALEM in Oregon, let alone it was the state capital, so SALESROOM was a struggle, not least because, if I have to go into a SALESROOM, I try not to look at anything. I only half-parsed the NORMAN CONQUEST before crossers made it inevitable. COD to TRANSFER with the ref blowing his little wooden whistle. Pleased to finish this one. Thank you George and setter.
  7. After 35 mins pre-brekker, I called it a day with four left.
    I thought they must be Harmonica and Talon, but I don’t know why. And Fat,Alit,y and the impenetrable Still Life! were never going to come.
    Thanks G and setter (you win)
  8. Finally finished in 55mins which I’m happy about considering the perceived difficulty of this one. Like others, I had a number unparsed, 4d, 8d,17ac, and the HAR bit in 22ac. COD to the Ikean FANDANGO, great word. Last two in TRANSFER and GLYCOGEN. Thanks G and setter.
  9. This seemed hard, and I was pleased to finish, and now see others’ times, so even more pleased (not that I compare myself with others, of course not).

    The nho TALON was last in, from wordplay.
    COD to FANDANGO for its inclusion of the Eagle hero.
    Knew TARIQ from the prominent left wing activist of yesteryear.
    Knew SALEM from a list of state capitals, its confusion with the one in Massachussetts, and a great short story by Ursula Leguin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.

    23′, thanks george and setter.

  10. I hacked my way through this in about 50 minutes as I had a fifteen minute kip in the middle.

    A MER at 14dn as an artist doesn’t need OIL COLOUR esp. if he/she is water-colourist, collage-ist or installationist! So rather gauche/guache.

    FOI 18dn CORNISH a dead language.

    LOI 16dn FATALITY- terrific clue but…..

    COD 6dn TRANSFER – I wanted it to be TRANSMUM!

    WOD 1dn CAPE OF GOOD HOPE – required some triangular thinking to get there.

    26ac Had me thinking of dear old Wilfred Bramble, who played Paul’s grandad – so cool!

  11. Terrific beast of a puzzle, one where biffing was often the only way in but which then rewarded working out the wordplay to confirm an unlikely answer.

    TRANSFER a case in point, once you guessed that shift on its own was the definition, and then marveled at REF’S ART with N included. What a surface! A quote from an article of Whistler: “Whistler called these revolutionary works ‘Nocturnes’, deliberately comparing their lack of narrative content to music.” That doesn’t happen by chance.

    That said, I failed (didn’t try) to parse NORMAN CONQUEST, though would have felt smugly brilliant if I had. George is to be congratulated for persistence.

  12. I must apologise to Cornish language speakers. It is of course spoken, albeit no longer as a first language.

    Re the previous comment, the setter never “wins” when a solver fails to finish. The solver should always win in the end.

    So more apologies!

    TS

  14. 21:08 Good stuff. I failed to parse HARMONICA and NORMAN CONQUEST. LOI OCCULT. GLYCOGEN took a while to get but I eventually remembered it. Lots of lovely clues. COD to TRANSFER.
  15. A few left after my 30 minutes. I would not have got a couple of them anyway I think. Thanks all.
  16. 17:01. A fairly stiff challenge, and highly satisfying to solve. GLYCOGEN and TRANSFER in particular caused me some head-scratching. Some of the definitions are very well-hidden: in 17ac for instance ‘unable to keep a secret’ is really good.
    Thanks setter and George.
  17. No words I didn’t know apart from PRIMO but that was gettable with the checkers.

    NHO OIL COLOUR as a term — guessed COLOUR but added OIL only with checkers.

    The four long answers around the outside all went in fairly painlessly, but got bogged down with some of the answers inside.

    No probs with GLYCOGEN — I thought this was a fairly common word.

    Failed to parse: TRANSFER (completely bamboozled — not even a whiff of what was goin on); NEWSSTAND (took ages to see that there could be a double S with the first four checkers in place but got there eventually); FANDANGO (got the ‘go’ bit but nowt else)

  18. … and yet I go back and back to the cauldron’s dire concoctions. Generally if I take over the half-hour I’m a tad (or more) disappointed but content if that’s the word to finish this in 36 minutes. Incidentally, George, that’s a fairly awesome parsing effort.
  19. 27.45. For what seemed like an age I was thinking 2dn was an anagram of and zero, hence the reference to Nahuatl . Fortunately, finally opted for glycogen at 13 across and my fears were confounded.

    Really good puzzle I thought . I confess to guessing transfer and fandango but seemed reasonable, especially now I’ve seen the blog.

    Nice to see Clio making a return appearance in 14 down. Favourites for me were salesroom , nursing and glycogen which was my COD.

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

  20. I spent over an hour and a quarter on this, but eventually finished with a green grid, plus all parsed as a bonus. I did know GLYCOGEN from Biochem days, though had almost forgotten the ‘cards’ sense of TALON. Took a long time to work out the parsing of NORMAN CONQUEST and HARMONICA amongst others. Favourite was FANDANGO, both for the surface and the reminder of DAN Dare.

    On the tough side, but regardless of the slow time, very satisfying to get there in the end.

  21. No complaint from me about 13A. I liked 8D but 22A and 18D made me grind the teeth a bit. I really do not like these non-words like “rah” for “cheer” and “cor” for “my”. We see them often enough that they don’t often make solving an impossible task, but I invariably find myself thinking these clues somewhat on the lazy side.
  22. After 60m with some five clues unfinished came here for enlightenment. So thank you, George, for providing it! I did enjoy the puzzle and no complaints about the ones I couldn’t do — perfectly fair clues, that I was not up to the challenge of. Thank you, setter.
  23. I thought this was a fantastic, tough and satisfying puzzle that took me a few minutes over an hour to solve and parse (save for the HAR in HARMONICA). LTI were PYONGYANG and TRANSFER (which I wanted to be tailspin, and forced me to reconsider GLYCOGEN). I only managed to parse the RMA of 8d because I used to use an office right across the road from its back gate. Excellent fare today, thanks Setter and George.
  24. 39.43. Tough, clever stuff which took an age to come together. Sent haring after many non-starters before alighting on the correct readings. Lots of reverse engineering after the fact to justify. There’s a lot of red and orange on today’s snitch, well done to anyone who came in yellow or green.
  25. Once again I needed a break for lunch, after which I was able to polish off the remaining clues — probably needed about one and a half hours in total.
    Very nice puzzle. The only parsing I missed was the concentration aspect of “Still” — I was thinking it must be along the lines of “Keep Still” or similar.
    Thanks for the blog.
  26. I started off with RUGBY and then struggled to get any further for some time. Eventually OIL COLOUR and PRIMO gave me a jump start and things progressed steadily. Getting A HARD DAY’S NIGHT and CONCRETE JUNGLE opened things up and I finished with a tussle in the SE where TALON(from wordplay) gave me STILL LIFE and TARIQ, which provided NORMAN CONQUEST. LOLLOPS, which had been long suspected was my LOI when I finally realised which end of the clue was the definition. 38:28. Thanks setter and George.
  27. What a wonderful puzzle! Fell asleep solving it last night and then finished it off pretty quickly this morning with a fresh look.
  28. About ten minutes in I had that slightly queasy feeling you get when you realise that a puzzle is going to be a lot harder than you first thought. By the end though, I thought this was first-rate with some cracking clues. Newsstand the COD for me with Fatality a close second.

    Thanks to glheard and setter.

  29. Gutted — 31 minutes of working diligently away at a beautifully tricky puzzle only to get a pink square because I can’t spell Pyongyang ( I somehow thought it was Pyongnag with n working as our algebraic unknown).

    Thoroughly enjoyed this and regarding 13 ac as a former biochemist turned tech I am always happier to see science and tech obscurities as opposed to the classical / religious/ botanical ones — blooming Clio today but at least we had her recently so I managed to drag that one out of my crossword cache😊

    Thanks George and setter

  30. A very enjoyable struggle with a fair amount of biffing. I was glad to finish in 38 minutes – it felt longer. Ann
  31. Nearly (another) same day triumph 😉, but I needed help with Glycogen and Fatality. The parsing of Occult (missed the significance of unable to keep a), Norman Conquest and Oil Colour were also beyond me, but I did see how Transfer worked — eventually. Invariant
  32. Half an hour and then i was done
    Much great cluing, it surely was fun
    Though a talon’s a word
    For a part of a bird
    It’s nowhere as bad as a whole one!
  33. Excellent stuff, although i am not sure if I is a newspaper? isn’t it i? Aye, aye … (enough) … but some crackers elsewhere, all pleasingly verifiable. Many thanks to blogger and setter

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