Times 27957 – Anky Panky

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I’d a prime time in sunny Broadstairs near the ‘arbour over the weekend, saw lots of beachwear, had a pint in the Smugglers, and ended up acquiring a new (rescue) dog – a poodle not a tosa – yet I am glad to be back in the realm of non urban Rutland where the atmosphere is unsullied and the sky is currently free from mares-tail clouds. This epic puzzle kept me amused for 25 minutes; it could have been done on green paper…. [that’s enough of this dismal contrived nonsense; Ed].

Across
1 Article seen by chief is to come (5)
AHEAD – A, HEAD = chief.
4 Fail to get great deal that would assist higher aims? (9)
BOMBSIGHT – Bomb (fail) SIGHT (great deal, as in “a sight more than…”)
9 Correspondence about a break in cloud (5-4)
MARES-TAIL – MAIL about A REST. Mares-tail clouds are those thin, wispy, hooked shaped clouds which appear when a warm front is approaching.
10 Escorts abandoning hotel customers (5)
USERS – USHERS = escorts, lose the H.
11 Star hides much being a deranged killer (3-7-3)
SUB-MACHINE-GUN – the star is the SUN, into which put (MUCH BEING A)*.
14 Henry sort of cross with horse coming first (4)
HANK – an ANKH is a form of cross with a looped top; move the H to the front to get Henry’s nickname.
15 Those wanted are dead? It’s uncertain (10)
DESIDERATA – (ARE DEAD ITS)*
18 Tirade on socialist dog is something fruity (3,7)
RED CURRANT – RED CUR = socialist dog, RANT = tirade.
19 Despite everything one finds legendary creature (4)
YETI – YET = despite everything, I. Not the daughter’s Skoda.
21 Rozzer has run inside: crime writer almost catching us in college (6,7)
CORPUS CHRISTI – Put R into COP, then CHRISTI(E) as in Agatha almost, then insert US. Choose from the Cambridge one founded in 1352 or the relatively recent one in Oxford, founded 1517.
24 Best quality piano introducing old poem (5)
PRIME – P + RIME.
25 Broad line curls round belt (9)
BANDOLIER – (BROAD LINE)*
27 Lady of the Lake (9)
CONSTANCE – as in Lake Constance, Europe’s third largest lake, on the Rhine, otherwise known as the Bodensee. MartinP1 would no doubt point out there’s one in NZ as well.
28 Silver coin added to millions in kingdom (5)
REALM – REAL + M.

Down
1 Mood cheers up with doctor on department (10)
ATMOSPHERE – TA (cheers) reversed, MO (doctor), SPHERE (department). No ENT department, for once.
2 Musical talent gets attention (3)
EAR – double definition.
3 Miserable face sergeant-major wears (6)
DISMAL – DIAL = face, insert SM.
4 Swimsuits composer carried across East River (9)
BEACHWEAR – E (east) goes into BACH, then WEAR as in the River Wear up north.
5 Staff outside the Italian financial centre (5)
MILAN – IL (the in Italian) inside MAN = staff.
6 Runner showing increased complacency circling lake (8)
SMUGGLER – L inside SMUGGER = more complacent.
7 Documents for discussion in genre slammed by media (5,6)
GREEN PAPERS – (GENRE)* then PAPERS = media.
8 Boozer turned on initially amenable canine (4)
TOSA – SOT (boozer) reversed, A (initially amiable). A rare Japanese breed of dog, not a very amenable type I expect.
12 Monk one taking place in church service (11)
BENEDICTION – BENEDICT founder of the Bnedictine order of monks; I (one) ON (taking place).
13 Peaceful border in Asian region (7,3)
PACIFIC RIM – PACIFIC = peaceful, RIM = border.
16 Corrupt state? On the contrary (9)
INNOCENCE – cryptic definition. Is this supposed to be a dodgy homophone for IN A SENSE? Or IN NO SENSE?
17 Zealot on charter round island promoting growth (8)
NUTRIENT – NUT (zealot) then I (island) inside RENT (charter).
20 Bower Eliza Doolittle’s refuge? (6)
ARBOUR – Eliza might have pronounced “harbour” (refuge) as ‘arbour.
22 Duke leaves South African port for city (5)
URBAN – DURBAN loses D.
23 Majestic European prince appearing regularly (4)
EPIC – E (European) P r I n C e.
26 Operatic role thought to release energy (3)
IDA – iDEA loses E for energy; as in Princess Ida by G & S.

​

50 comments on “Times 27957 – Anky Panky”

  1. 26 minutes for me, with the last 5 or so spent on HANK since I’d never heard of ANK as a cross…which wasn’t surprising, since it is actually the even more unlikely ANKH that is the cross. I must have seen TOSA before, I expect, but it also seemed unfamiliar, although the wordplay was generous and it couldn’t be much else (well, BUPA or RABA I guess).
  2. Oh dear! Sorry, Pip, I had no idea that there is a Lake Constance in NZ! And I’m currently on holiday on an escorted tour of the South Island! My only excuse is that we went from Auckland to Wellington by train, crossed over the Cook Strait the next day, spent a night in Blenheim before heading directly to Christchurch, thus bypassing said lake.
    I’m pleased you have a new rescue Poodle, Pip.. You must add a photo to your portfolio!
    No problems with the puzzle. I went to a Catholic primary school and every Wednesday afternoon at 3pm we had to attend Benediction.
  3. There were few long-worded gimmees, with the exception of Pacific Rim, my FOI, so it took some solid parsing for me to get this one completed in about 50 minutes.

    NHO of mares-tails, my LOI, but generous word play.

    COD —innocence, when it finally dawned on me!

  4. POI MARES-TAIL; it took me that long to see that x-MAIL wasn’t the way to go. LOI ATMOSPHERE, where somehow I couldn’t see where the checkers were leading me; I finally biffed, and only parsed post-subission. The 2 hyphens in SUB-MACHINE-GUN were a major cause of delay in solving. I’ve never seen a TOSA dog (in the flesh), and I never hope to see one. I took INNOCENCE as being a play on ‘in no sense’.
  5. I think 16d is a homophone: INNOCENCE sounds like ‘in no sense’ = on the contrary.
    1. I thought there ought to be more to it, and your explanation might be appealing, but where’s the homophone indicator?
      1. I took “state” as the homophone indicator, but wasn’t quite sure if the clue worked. On reflection, I wonder whether “corrupt state” is the homophone indicator and it’s an &lit.
        1. I took it as definition being the whole clue, and wordplay being ‘state on the contrary,’ with ‘state’ being the indicator.
      2. Sorry, just seen this but yes, I thought state was the homophone indicator too and that it was something of an &lit. It doesn’t quite feel great whichever way you slice it, though.
  6. 19 minutes, with LOI MARES-TAIL. I also assumed that INNOCENCE was a dodgy homophone of IN NO SENSE. I didn’t know the cross but have listened to country singers and Shadows’ guitarists called HANK. COD to ARBOUR, as that’s what we pretentiously call the trees at the bottom of our garden. An enjoyable puzzle. Thank you Pip and setter.
  7. I found this a puzzle of two halves. The bottom half was a biff fest to the extent that I forgot my recent better habit and stuck in BENEDICTINE. Fortunately CONSTANCE came to me quickly enough to prevent too great a hold up. I found the top half much trickier, and enjoyed having to rely on the parsing to tease out the answers. No more so than on DESIDERATA, which I recognised as a word but didn’t know what it meant before now. So I’ve learned something today, as indeed I do with the crossword most days.

    Edited at 2021-04-21 06:54 am (UTC)

  8. …gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

    20 mins to leave the ones I thought might be Benedictine and Innocents, making Constance ungettable (although I have been there and it is beautiful and, er, memorable).
    And I thought Mare’s Tail would be today’s stumbling block, unstumbled.
    Thanks setter and Pip.

    Edited at 2021-04-21 06:58 am (UTC)

  9. My eye was drawn immediately to the 3-letter word at 2dn and EAR went straight in, but I was unable to make progress elsewhere at the top of the puzzle so I skipped to the corresponding 3-letter answer at 20dn and wrote in IDA.

    Building on that proved very easy and before I knew it the lower half of the grid had almost completed itself.

    Moving back to the top I was stuck again but chipped away at it and eventually wrote in BOMBSIGHT at 4ac to finish in 37 minutes.

    Edited at 2021-04-21 06:33 am (UTC)

  10. HANK LOI, after an alphabet trawl, ANKH is also half of the city along with Morpork.

    A TOSA is one of a breed banned under the rushed and unworkable Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 brought in by Kenneth Baker.

    Isn’t REDCURRANT one word? cf blackcurrant, blueberry etc.

    INNOCENCE is a bad homophone, I would pronounce it inna-sents, which is the opposite meaning to that intended in the clue.

    23′ 31″ thanks pip and setter.

    Edited at 2021-04-21 07:44 am (UTC)

  11. 15.21, so a relatively easy solve. Another with BENEDICTINE at first, though it made no real sense of whatever the wordplay was.
    As for INNOCENCE, I couldn’t see that it had much to do with the clue except that it wasn’t corrupt(ion), and I’m still not convinced.
    I now know that MILAN is Italy’s Frankfurt/London/New York. And I thought it was just the home town of two greedy football franchises looking for a super league to play with.

    Edited at 2021-04-21 08:05 am (UTC)

  12. 34 minutes with the unknown TOSA as LOI. Yes, seemed it could be little else with crossers and wordplay, but you’re never quite sure. Semi-guessed MARES-TAIL and didn’t really understand INNOCENCE, just thinking it was a not very cryptic def. Saved from a couple of alphabet trawls by not getting into a stew and seeing YETI and HANK pretty early, undoubtedly helped by those first two famous words of DESIDERATA.

    Thanks to setter and Pip

  13. FOI 1A AHEAD

    This would have taken about 35 mins (give or take) had I not been distracted by an email necessitating a phone call (and forgetting to ‘Save for later). And after taking too long over LOI BOMBSHELL I submitted to discover I had somehow not even read 20D let alone spotted that the answer was missing from the grid! Went back and got ARBOUR immediately – but the damage had been done. All of that said, I thought this was an enjoyable puzzle – INNOCENCE was entered without grasping the wordplay – so thank you for explaining the homophone..

    Thank you, pipkirby and the setter.

  14. ….so a happy bunny today. Another LOI MARES TAIL which I did not know but finally sorted out once I saw how the clue worked. We could do with a few of those clouds down here in an unseasonably cold spring in (not) sunny Provence. I had BENEDICTINE for a while which did not help with the Lady of the Lake. I liked the well hidden anag at 15ac too. My COD.

    Thanks Pip and setter.

  15. Usual time and no real problems. Enjoyed HANK and DESIDERATA. I prefer Lake Constance to the River Ankh, the most polluted waterway on the Discworld.
    1. Seems there was a mini-Pratchett theme today — my wife said she knew desiderata from his books.
  16. No probs today, about 15 mins with some of that time pondering 16dn .. which is either a pig’s ear of a clue, or too clever for me. Could go either way.
  17. DNF for a second day in a row defeated by my last one – this time HANK. DNK TOSA, but trusted to the wordplay. I liked BOMBSIGHT best.
  18. I’m familiar with the tune by Les Crane called DESIDERATA — I’m presuming there is some reference from a higher plane which I’m unaware of — so guessing I have ninja-turtled this.

    Top half was slow to fall but came through bit by bit — had second (and third) thoughts about BOMBSIGHT — was thinking that isn’t spelt correctly, should be BOMBSITE…. then I twigged.

    Did better in the bottom half, though LOI was NUTRIENT.

  20. Tut,tut….”only travel when necessary”….Rutland to Broadstairs for a pint?????
    1. 4 nights in a self catering cottage, as now permitted by Mr Whitty. Mind your own business and / or don’t be anonymous!

      Edited at 2021-04-21 10:17 am (UTC)

      1. That’s QAnon once again – when are we only allow ‘members’ to post!? Mind you, Pip, I reckon the local beer in Rutland is in a class above that at Broadstairs.

        Edited at 2021-04-21 05:32 pm (UTC)

  21. I just had h + ank, assuming that ank was an alternative spelling of ankh. Chambers and Collins don’t support this, but Google seems to. Pity if it does, because the clue as no doubt intended was rather better than my parsing gave it credit for.
    1. I parsed it the same way when solving, and the OED gives ANK as an alternative spelling so the parsing would seem to work. I think the cleverer version is probably what the setter intended though, since ANKH is clearly more usual.
  22. EAR was my FOI, followed by DISMAL and AHEAD. I then made steady progress, with the vaguely remembered dog put in from wordplay. CONSTANCE went in before BENEDICTION so I wasn’t distracted there. My steady progress was brought to a grinding halt by my LOI, HANK, where I had to do an alphabet trawl and eventually remembered that it’s a form of Henry. I was only vaguely aware of the cross. 24:21. Thanks setter and Pip.
  23. One of those where the answer was easy, but only when you’ve worked it out. Does that make sense? Not sure. Anyway held up at the end by a wrong BENEDICTINE and my LOI SMUGGLER, where I was trying to work out if a SNUGGLER was a runner.
    Liked HANK and ATMOSPHERE.
  24. 9:51. Somehow not difficult in spite of all the funny words.
    I still don’t understand 16dn. If the explanations offered here are all there is to it I don’t think it works. Perhaps we’re all missing something.
  26. 21m, so easier (or at least faster) than yesterday. Knew the Egyptian cross, but was less sure about Hank as a version of Henry. Couldn’t parse INNOCENCE — I see the “in no sense” bit now but am not sure the whole hangs together properly. Department = sphere seemed a little iffy too, but I suppose the slang usage (viz. “not my department, guv”) just about works.
  27. HANK took a long time to come – I only got it from reading up on Hank from Breaking Bad and remembering that Hank is short for Henry, as I’d never heard of the cross. MARES-TAIL and TOSA were NHOs constructed from wordplay, and if I’d seen the word BANDOLIER on its own I couldn’t have told you what it was. Not too much trouble otherwise, though it was a while before the penny dropped for SMUGGLER and USHER.

    FOI Ear
    LOI Smuggler
    COD Corpus Christi

  28. DNF in around 26 mins. A quick start in the NW then nothing until the bottom half of the grid. Eventually worked everything out except H-N-. Began an alpha-trawl, got to hand and unfortunately stopped there, taking “with” to be “and” and “horse” to be “H” and assuming I just couldn’t see the definition. Should’ve persisted with the alpha-trawling until the much better Hank arrived.
  29. 21.00. Struggled a bit with the short answers today- hank and ahead coming slowest. The rest was reasonably fluent. FOI ear, LOI hank.
    Arbour was my COD from what was a very good puzzle I thought.

    Thanks setter and blogger.

  30. Fairly chewy. Hank was the first one in. Mare’s tail the last (Morse Mail anyone?). Thought Corpus Christ and Sub-machine-gun both very good.

    Thanks to Pip and Setter.

  31. So did this as well as the QC.

    22:48, so pretty decent for me. A couple of minutes trying get HANK though, I had H for horse, followed by a ANK (being a variant of ANKH) in mind, rather than moving the H of ANKH to the front. The latter is probably the right parsing, but a solve is a solve!

    I liked SUB MACHINE GUN and PACIFIC RIM.

  32. ….but at least I finished this eventually, so I’m on the SNITCH for the first time in a week.

    I was hampered by thinking MARE’S TAIL was a grass, and by wondering why “housers” were escorts (yes, I know. I’m not myself right now for some reason). These two were parsed post-solve, along with SUB-MACHINE-GUN, and ATMOSPHERE.

    FOI AHEAD
    LOI NUTRIENT
    COD ARBOUR
    TIME 14:25

  33. I knew “Ankh” from the science fiction film “Logan’s Run” — as worn beguilingly by Jenny Agutter.
    I knew “Pacific Rim” from the science fiction film … er …. “Pacific Rim”.
  34. A puzzle of two halves, as someone said above, and I also found the bottom half straightforward with a bit more to think about up top. The misdirection at 6D had me scratching the bean for a while. 39 mins plus some for me, which is middle of my range.
  35. But I did not complete – owing to 9ac MARE’S TAIL – which, like the fast phading phil, I thought was grasseous. And ‘the cloud’ was some new fangled type of email, of which I was not cognizant! MORIS-MAIL has sadly not yet been invented, but why then is MARES-TAIL hyphenated? MORIS-MAIL will be!

    FOI 2dn EAR

    LOI Let’s not go there

    COD not 27ac as WINDERMERE is a far better answer, just too long. I was a big fan. Nor the IKEAN 11ac SUB-MACHINE GUN with two hyphens (as per Kevin). So no COD – hyphen-boy!

    WOD 12ac DESIDERATA

  36. Dnf as undone by Hank. Had hand : h for horse and (+) cross. Only Hank I thought of was the Williams variety and he was a Hiram. Google says can also be used for Harry. Prince Hank has a certain ring to it…
  37. 37 minutes, my LOI being TOSA, which I had never heard of. I spent a few minutes wondering whether the canine might be dental again and the answer might be TUSK (SUT being a dialectical alternative to SOT and K being the first letter of kind=amenable), but fortunately I decided that would not be a fair clue and TOSA might be a word after all. HANK was no problem, but then I am almost old enough to have been around in ancient Egypt, where ANKHs were all the rage. I couldn’t quite see how the wordplay for BENEDICTION worked, since my monk was not the founder of the order Benedict, but any old Benedictine. And to top it all, when I wrote in MARES-TAIL, it took me quite a while to refocus from the Latin? word MARES to the female horse, and of course only then did it make any sense at all. So I suppose I must plead my INNOCENCE.
  38. I can tell when a Wednesday comes around… Successful bottom half of this one but top half – above Hank and Desiderata – defeated me. Kicking myself when I see the answers. They’re not so hard once you know, are they? Good brain exercise all the same. Thanks, all.
  39. Only got round to this this morning! FOI DESIDERATA, LOI the wretched TOSA. Wasted too much time trying to parse “tusk”. Agree with all the comments about INNOCENCE. Had to dredge up MARES-TAIL from the dim recesses of childhood memory, but (also) with the nagging feeling that it was some sort of plant.
    COD CORPUS CHRISTI (a.k.a. “Christ Church stables”, but actually a charming place well worth a visit). I also understand they have something named similarly in the other place on the fens, so a double definition!
  40. Reasonably smooth. TOSA seemed right; liked the GUN; couldn’t immediately see what was happening with ATM (POI) and needed a minute or so with LOI HANK but it seemed clear we needed another name for Henry so for a change my alphabet trawl was successful.

    Thanks all

  41. The answer that seems to have eluded everyone is “In Nocence”.

    Nocence being a state of guilt or corruption, and the opposite of being in that “corrupt state” is innocence- “on the contrary”. I assume ‘state’ is used a second time for IN, but you could read it as literally being “in nocence”.

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