Times 27969 – here’s Archie Medes, the chap who brought screws to Greece.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Four anagrams for you, and plenty of “put this into that” wordplay, all making for a mostly straightforward puzzle which took me about twenty minutes, and no problems with the parsing. I tried to spell the candle thing wrongly at first, and took longest over my LOI 22a in seeing it was that sort of “walkover”. If you’ve never had a tropical fish-tank, 23d could be guesswork from wordplay.

Across
1 Two insects circling horse that’s monstrous (8)
BEHEMOTH – BEE and MOTH are circling H for horse.
5 Package right put in place for sorting (6)
PARCEL – put R into (PLACE)*.
10 Limitation as art reworked in autocratic approach (15)
TOTALITARIANISM – (LIMITATION AS ART)*.
11 Mathematician once corresponded in a matter of law (10)
ARCHIMEDES – CHIMED (corresponded) inside A RES (a matter of law, Latin).
13 Hold meeting to involve king in satirical piece (4)
SKIT – put K into SIT.
15 Drunk goes around talking about this evening (7)
TONIGHT – ON (talking about) inside TIGHT (drunk).
17 Composer shown way outside having great knowledge (7)
LEARNED – insert ARNE the composer into LED = shown way.
18 Expert needing to make firm solvent (7)
ACETONE – ACE = expert, TONE = make firm, as in muscle tone.
19 Devil leaving Black Death region in London (4,3)
EAST END – BEAST (devil) loses B for black, END = death.
21 Bay tree lacking in width (4)
ROAN – the ROWAN tree loses W for width.
22 Pay for game that provides a walkover? (10)
FOOTBRIDGE – FOOT (pay for) BRIDGE (game). Nice misdirection of definition.
25 Maybe Iago’s characteristic Richardson exemplifies? (15)
HARDHEARTEDNESS – we find HARD at the “heart” of Richardson.
27 Mystery writer covering bananas in fragrant ointment (6)
POMADE – MAD (bananas) inside POE as in Edgar Allan Poe.
28 One put to bed happened to have a bad back (8)
CAMELLIA – CAME = happened to, A ILL reversed.

Down
1 Mouthpiece separate: might player want more than this? (3,4)
BIT PART – BIT = mouthpiece, PART = separate, as verb.
2 Track down missing note in cabin (3)
HUT – HUNT loses its N for note.
3 Crucible girl can put on good snooker shot (7,3)
MELTING POT – MEL (a girl) TIN (can) G (good) POT (snooker shot).
4 Money short then endlessly given in tax (5)
TITHE – TI(N) = money short, THE(N).
6 Analyst’s initial manner is remote (4)
AWAY – A (analyst’s initial letter) WAY (manner). I was thinking AFAR as being more like remote, but couldn’t make FAR out of the surface.
7 Elegantly smart acquaintance paid a pittance (11)
CHICKENFEED – CHIC (elegantly smart), KEN (acquaintance, as in beyond our ken), FEED (paid).
8 Small child stuck in helmet that’s narrow (7)
LIMITED – MITE (small child) inside LID = helmet.
9 Staunch supporter certain at heart to regret waste (4,4)
TRUE BLUE – T (“heart” of certain) RUE (regret) BLUE (waste, as verb).
12 Diabolical cur: damnable one made to support the wicked? (11)
CANDELABRUM – (CUR DAMNABLE)*. Not candleabrum, which was wrong and prevented 11a being correct.
14 Cardcastle collapsed in game (4,6)
CATS CRADLE – (CARDCASTLE)*. I suppose it’s a game, of sorts, more of a kid’s amusement.
16 Being dry, wild duck swallows energy drink (8)
TEETOTAL – TEAL (wild duck) swallows E TOT.
18 Hindenberg for example spreads with it (7)
AIRSHIP – AIRS (spreads) HIP (with it).
20 Bass note heard in the remotest ocean? (4-3)
DEEP-SEA – sounds like “deep C”.
23 Fish seen regularly in Trent area (5)
TETRA – small tropical fish, I had some once in an aquarium.
24 Ground outside hard, but provided with boots (4)
SHOD – insert H for hard into SOD = ground.
26 Measure height missed in the lower regions (3)
ELL – HELL loses H for height.

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68 comments on “Times 27969 – here’s Archie Medes, the chap who brought screws to Greece.”

  1. Another afar here even though I could see that it did not fit the wordplay. 56 minutes including preparing lunch and talking to the guy who is going to give us a quote for a new back door so I think that puts me into my fastest times – apart from not having finished correctly. Doh.
    What’s the convention on the wording ‘Devil leaving black’ which then takes B off a word for Devil? Surely devil has to be losing black or black leaving devil?
    Thanks to setter and blogger.
  2. bit of a MER with Hindenburg-gate .. otherwise fine though a few dodgy surface readings. And my usual hesitancy over spelling candelabrum .. I wonder if anyone ever has actually *said* that word? “Come this way, duchess .. but do mind out for the candelabrum” ..
  4. No complaints about this time, which is only my sixth best! But I had almost half the puzzle (top half) done after 3 minutes and thought I might finally crack the 10-minute barrier. Sadly it was not to be. Interestingly, I found this puzzle much easier than yesterday’s (where I felt I lucked into a good time), but the SNITCH has them dead even.
  5. I was on the road this morning so never really was able to concentrate in a proper fashion. Lunch was fabulous at a new Italian Brasserie (if that goes!)

    FOI 18dn AIRSHIP (Hindenberg!!)

    LOI TRUE BLUE I just saw BLUE as as a homophone for BLEW.
    fyi True Blue is a small village on Harbour Island, Bahamas – rare postmark, as displayed

    COD 1ac BEHEMOTH – no ANT involved

    WOD 7dn CHICKEN FEED

    COCK-UP at 6dn AFAR and not AWAY

    Edited at 2021-05-05 03:22 pm (UTC)

  6. … by entering “Afar”.
    It’s a pity because I really enjoyed this crossword.
    Never heard of “blue” as a verb for waste — got a bit confused thinking of “blew” as in wasted.
    Interestingly, “Behemoth” means “Hippopotamus” in Russian — I understand that it was originally a Hebrew word meaning a large river-dwelling monster, so fair enough.
  7. My CAMEALIA worked in every respect but one!

    Edited at 2021-05-05 04:48 pm (UTC)

  8. Straightforward enough, bar the unknowns but had to be Tetra and Blue/waste. Decoding of the latter wasn’t helped by West and Mile being early possibilities for the London region. I also don’t think I’ve come across Deep C in music — I’m sure lower C is the usual term. Quibbles apart, I thought this was a handy stepping stone up from the QC. Invariant
  9. I might struggle with double definitions, long Ikean clues and doing anagrams in my head but the memory hasn’t gone yet so as soon as I see “wicked” I think “candle”. Unfortunately I was a candleabrum which held up my LOI ACETONE. Otherwise enjoyed it. No one’s mention the smooth surface of PARCEL which I thought was rather good as was the Iago clue. Take Myrtilus’s point on one or two of the surfaces but what’s not to like about a smoothish 20 min solve?

    Thanks Pip and setter

  10. ….at lunchtime, I never noticed that the AIRSHIP was spelled incorrectly. I know three people called Mel, and all of them are blokes.

    FOI PARCEL
    LOI MELTING POT
    COD CANDELABRUM
    TIME 8:56

  11. Felt it should have been quicker, as it was all straightforward stuff. True Blue and East End were the last in. I had a wobble worrying that True Blow might be a variant of True Blue. It would make more sense (if you don’t know the other meaning of Blue) and ties in neatly with a possible West End. And I never parsed East End, so I could have gone for it! Happily I dredged up a vague memory of seeing the other meaning of Blue in a previous puzzle. All was saved.
  12. 63 mins, good recommendation on the QC blog that this was the easier end of the scale. NHO ARNE or TETRA. DNK BLUE=waste.

    I only get a true solve once a month or so, but pleased with this effort.

  13. 19.49. I was rattling along quite nicely until I got completely stumped by the clue for LOI candelabrum. Eventually twigged to wicked. Hats off to Mohn2, 2.45, an astonishing time.

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