Times 27975 – thank goodness for Wikipedia …

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
You don’t have to be a Hebrew scholar to finish this puzzle, the wordplay can see you through, but I think our setter must be much more erudite in such matters than I am; I had to resort to internet research to find out what the full story was at 5d and 25d. We also had a piece of clerical garb I’d never heard of, and a Latin plural of a Greek plural word which I was surprised was “allowed”. Most of the clues, though, were far less obscure and gave no trouble at all; twenty minutes saw it done. I thought 14a and 23d were rather unsatisfactory.

Across
1 Given this, one must hit the right note — it’s essential to get on (8)
KEYBOARD – KEY = essential, BOARD = get on, e.g. a train.
6 Only some of brigade armed? I’m shocked! (4,2)
DEAR ME – hidden, as above.
9 Bit of food in hospital eaten by boy, going the wrong way (4)
DHAL – LAD goes the wrong way, with H inside.
10 Joined two workers outside home (4,2,4)
HAND IN HAND – HAND HAND = two workers, insert IN = home.
11 That Cockney fellow allowing a little kiss, it’s said, being virtuous? (10)
IMPECCABLE – ‘IM = that cockney fellow (HIM); PECCABLE sounds like PECK-ABLE = allowing a little kiss.
13 One helping girl to avoid extremes (4)
AIDE – (M)AIDE(N).
14 Forget about request by snail mail? (5,3)
WRITE OFF – I suppose if you “write off” for something, you have to send the request in the post. But it would need to be “write off for” to make sense, not just “write off”.
16 Player of instrument shows excessive desire to hold note (6)
LUTIST – TI, a note, goes inside LUST = excessive desire.
18 This writer’s wearing fur maybe — a frilly covering? (6)
PELMET – ME (this writer) inside PELT.
20 Boy terribly shy one in front of papa giving formal address (8)
LADYSHIP – LAD (boy) then (SHY)* then I then P for papa.
22 Only half the local outlets offering healthy food? (4)
BRAN – half of BRAN(CHES) = local outlets.
24 Finish filled with wrath — is put at risk (10)
ENDANGERED – END (finish) ANGERED (filled with wrath).
26 Tired as Bradman was on coming to the wicket for the last time? (7,3)
CLAPPED OUT – batsmen beginning their last innings before retirement are often applauded on their way to the crease, so presumably Don Bradman was. It was before my time.
28 Units of resistance in people’s ’ouses being reported? (4)
OHMS – sounds like HOMES with a dropped H.
29 Lavish old lover to get locked up, we hear (6)
EXPEND – EX (old lover) gets PENNED (locked up) which sounds like PEND. Lavish as a verb here.
30 Make an effort leading smart meeting (8)
TRYSTING – TRY (make an effort) STING = smart as in hurt.

Down
2 Passing things in record time across border (English) (9)
EPHEMERAE – EP (extended play record) HEM (border) ERA (time) E (English). This is a bit of an odd word, as Ephemera is already a plural, of ephemeron (Greek), and means passing things, but Collins seems to allow it to be Latinised to ephemerae meaning the same, or classes of transient things.
3 Most brave, better than all others, inwardly worn out? (7)
BOLDEST – OLD (worn out) inside BEST (better than all others).
4 Casual notice — wine in short supply (2,3)
AD HOC – AD = notice, advertisement; HOC(K) wine shortened.
5 European abandoning European tribe (3)
DAN – DANE loses its E. Apparently the DAN were one of the tribes of Israel according to the torah. I didn’t know that.
6 Journey over valley, on reflection, made little sense (9)
DRIVELLED – DRIVE (journey) then DELL (valley) reversed.
7 In that broadcast conflict comes across (7)
ATHWART – insert WAR into (THAT)*.
8 Extracted material to be brought up (5)
MINED – DENIM (material) reversed.
12 Bewildered female escaped, having upset sailor earlier (7)
BAFFLED – AB (sailor) reversed = BA, then F (female) FLED (escaped).
15 Refusal to get up — those folk stop getting better (2,3,4)
ON THE MEND – NO (refusal) reversed = ON, THEM = those folk, END = stop.
17 Prim dean’s turned into superhero (6-3)
SPIDER-MAN – (PRIM DEANS)*.
19 Fellow has to squeeze inside clerical garment (7)
MANIPLE – MALE (fellow) has NIP = squeeze inside). Apparently a band worn by a priest on the left arm near the wrist, during the Eucharist; news to me.
21 Look after that rising river with old form of technology (3,2,2)
SEE TO IT – the River Tees rises = SEET, O for old, IT for form of technology.
23 Loose dog maybe nipping the Parisian (5)
RELAX – your dog could be called REX (or any other name you like); insert LA as French for ‘the’. I think ‘loose’ here is a verb meaning the same as loosen, hence relax.
25 Smart part of America accommodating a Rechabite? (5)
NATTY – NY (New York) has A TT inserted. Apparently the Rechabites were an ascetic Jewish sect descended from a chap called Rechab, they refused to drink wine or live in houses; in 1835 a sect of the same name began in England, as a strict abstinence movement. Never heard of it.
27 Grazing animal’s heading off for grass (3)
OAT – GOAT loses its G.

​

85 comments on “Times 27975 – thank goodness for Wikipedia …”

  1. It took me 15 minutes to get everything but MANIPLE and CLAPPED OUT. I thought of MATE for ‘fellow’, and working with that wasted some time. Finally ‘manciple’ came to mind for some reason –didn’t know what it meant and of course it’s too long–and that gave me MALE. DNK Bradman, of course. DNK Rechabite, equally of course. I had EPHEMERAL at first, but not knowing Latin or Greek, was happy to change the L to E. I liked ATHWART.
  2. Lord Ulaca adds such vital information. Might I add that Bradman was bowled second ball, by the Hollies googly, which he normally read so well. It was the talk of the entire fifties! So I was there!

    DNF as I lucked-out on MANIPLE after half an hour. I did actually write it in but only in ‘pencil’ – which doesn’t count in my book.

    FOI 6ac DHAL

    COD 25dn NATTY

    WOD 30ac TRYSTING away to the sound of Chubby Checker

    Not all 18ac PELMETs are frilly! (Swags’n’tails)

    1. Dear Horryd, I do all my crossies in pencil. Does this now mean that I never really finish? I am distraught.
      1. Dear Rose,
        How very sweet. Which type? Propelling?
        However the pen is mightier than the sword – no mention of the pencil!
        Please note I put ‘pencil’ and not pencil – much like playing ‘air’-guitar as opposed to the real thing!
        Un-distraught!
          1. I have always believed that writing in answers in pencil is plain wrong and bad practice. Have we solved the clue, or haven’t we? If we have we should be bold and use ink. If we haven’t, we shouldn’t write it in at all. Using pencil encourages sloppy thinking and wishy-washy guesses that as often as not are wrong and only confuse matters..
            There, I’ve said it … sorry!!
            1. Not all of us have such certainty. Often you (meaning I) think you might’ve solved the clue, from crossing letters and/or definition and/or cryptic, but are unsure. There’s often one or two or three words per puzzle that I don’t know or can’t parse the clue and have to guess. So then I pencil in any empty checkers in case it helps me the crossing words. I’m with rosedeprovince on this question.
  3. Didn’t get CLAPPPED OUT or MANIPLE. I used aids for MANIPLE since I’d never heard of it (and even then I didn’t spot MALE and thought the fellow was MAN). Then I realized CLAPPED OUT. I’d tried SLOGGED OUT but couldn’t make it work (and though I knew Bradman was one of the best batsmen of all time, SLOGGED seemed a bit too derogatory). And it turns out SLOGGED OUT is not even a phrase when I checked later. So DNF for me.
  4. Bradman at the Oval in 1948 is a bit of a special case, as he needed just four runs for a career Test average of 100. In the event, he was bowled by Eric Hollies for nought and retired with an average of 99.94.

    To put his record in perspective, only six other players (with a minimum of 20 innings) average/have averaged in the 60s (and none of those reached 62). What is more, he played in the era of uncovered pitches, which meant that batting was considerably more difficult.

    1. The 99.94 thing was so at the forefront of my brain for that clue that I couldn’t see anything else for a good while. And believe me, it’s hard to get ninety nine point nine four into a (7,3) formation.
  5. I was just able to dredge up both MANIPLE and DAN and knew about ‘Rechabite(s)’ as teetotallers; they’re still going here as the Independent Order of the Rechabites. I was BAFFLED by EPHEMERAE which I thought was already plural as ‘ephemera’, as pointed out. DRIVEL as a verb was also new.

    Even with the ‘maybe’ I thought REX for ‘dog’ was a bit, er… ‘Loose’, but it brought to mind the much-loved “Inspector Rex” Austrian TV series. The not so favourite bit was the reminder of the Eric Hollies googly at The Oval in 1948. Even worse than the equivalent in my time, the Larry Mize chip at The Masters in 1987.

    Finished in 32 minutes.

  6. I thought this was very breezy but was rather undone by CLAPPED, MANIPLE, and PELMET. (I had BRAN as a guess but had no confidence as I couldn’t see what it was half of.) NIP for ‘squeeze’ was not probably something I’d have gotten.
  7. 23 minutes. I gave up worrying about how WRITE OFF worked and even with Pip’s explanation I find the clue unsatisfactory and wonder why the editor didn’t query it.

    I knew all the references except Rechabite, but the answer was clear and once I saw TT I realised what was going on.

    My only other hiccup was at 2dn due to a temporary glitch at 9ac where I had spelt the food DAHL as in Roald.

  8. Similar… didn’t know RECHABITE or DAN but it didn’t matter, didn’t really get WRITE OFF, misspelled DAHL, couldn’t think of a BRAN___ 7-letter local outlet I could pluralise, thought EPHEMERA was plural but was happy to add an extra E in blissful ignorance of Latin and Greek.
    MANIPLE known. Must be from a previous Times crossword, no other place I could have come across it.
    Enjoyed it nevertheless, breezed through a tad quicker than normal. Probably liked REX best of all; it reminded me of “Saw dog restrained by lead (7)”

    And surprised to see the blog up so early; normally Pip posts about 7 or 8 AM UK.

    Edited at 2021-05-12 07:24 am (UTC)

    1. I was asked by our leader to post earlier so that America could have first stab at comments before their bedtime. Not sure that would get a nod as “fair” from the British solving community, but i duly complied. In early days i used to solve and post at breakfast time, on the day, but since I acquired a tardis that’s eased the stress of early rising!
      1. I was wondering where that TARDIS got to. Midnight UK is 7 or 8 AM here in West Oz, good timing for a morning solve. I’m sure someone – Jack from memory – had the puzzle solved and the blog up before midnight UK on one occasion, mentioning the TARDIS… (frantic googling)… Not quite: It was Jack, but he posted a few minutes after midnight after spending well over a half-hour solving.
        26384
      2. So it really is ‘America First!’
        Looking at their efforts today Pip, you really should have had an early night.
      3. Young people today, you don’t realise how easy you have it … I used to have to stay up til midnight, solve the puzzle, and then blog it all before bed.
        Though come to think of it, I did quite enjoy it. Being able to do it any old time rather takes the shine off 🙂
        1. As I was then in France, it meant 1 a.m. to see the puzzle then solve and blog, so I preferred an early morning session; I’m also faster in the mornings, not a night owl. But I prefer the current routine, can take more time expanding (or waffling on) in the blog.
        2. Here in New Zealand, I get up at the normal time and do yesterday’s crossword over morning coffee. No stress and I get a full blog!
  9. The clue for ENDANGERED, O DEAR ME!
    A CLAPPED OUT device certainly
    KEYBOARD BAFFLED briefly
    WRITE OFF delayed chiefly
    But DAN’s an IMPECCABLE COD

    The glossary contains COD for the best clue of the day, but seems to have no term for the worst.

    Can i propose CLOD (CLunker Of the Day)?

    You’ll understand that I will END ANGERED if this suggestion is not accepted! 🙂

  10. And in the moon Athwart the place of tombs,…

    After confidently writing in Nosh, I changed it to Dahl, then Dhal. What a mess. Then took another 15 mins to guess what a Rechabite was and invent Maniple. (By the way, why do men have nipples?).
    Do you put white wine in your cooking? Only on an add hock basis.
    I’m here all week.
    Thanks setter and Pip.

    1. ‘Cos we all start out as female embryos, apparently!

      Edited at 2021-05-12 09:09 am (UTC)

    2. I say, do you put herbs in your cooking? Only when I’ve got the thyme.
    3. In the African Aka tribe the men will look after babies and suckle them on their nipples to sooth them while the women are out hunting…

  11. Yesterday I had the second best NITCH and at time of writing today I have the second worst. It’s some comfort that the one solver more off the wavelength than me is Verlaine!
    KEYBOARD held me up for some time, yet another example of me being foxed by a compound word. I did at least think it was likely to be a compound word this time.
    My biggest hold up was the SW corner. I thought of lax for loose early on but it took me some time to think that loose might be being used as a verb and make the leap to RELAX. I finished with the unknown MANIPLE, where like paulmcl I expected MAN to be the fellow mentioned. That left me trying to find a word for squeeze and remove the ends to give me “squeeze inside”. After leaving it and returning to it after a while it finally fell into place.
  12. 40 mins. Similar to others, got bogged down in the SW. I didn’t like the dog clue, very loose as someone said, and a only got MANIPLE after all the checkers were in. Then I checked it. ATHWART is a strange word too. I also had EPHEMERAL for a while. Thank you Pip as ever.
  13. 28 minute with LOI MANIPLE, more constructed than known. I saw Lindwall and Miller bowl at Old Trafford in 1953 when I was seven but never saw the Don. As relayed above by H, his being bowled by Eric Hollies was already part of the folklore. Here’s the great John Arlott’s radio commentary. “Hollies pitches the ball up slowly and …he’s bowled…Bradman bowled Hollies … nought …and what do you say under these circumstances? I wonder if you see the ball very clearly in your last Test in England, on a ground where you’ve played some of the biggest cricket in your life and where the opposing side has just stood round you and given you three cheers and the crowd has clapped you all the way to the wicket. I wonder if you see the ball at all.” So, COD to CLAPPED OUT. Good puzzle. Thank you Pip and setter.
    1. Wow!The Orson Wells of Croggieland!

      My English grandad worshipped The Don and also the ‘Black Bradman’ – George Headley.

      1. His grandson Dean also played for England and is a sports teacher at Stamford School and a member of our Burghley Park Golf Club. And a nice bloke.
  14. 7:30. Very much on the wavelength today, with the lowest NITCH on the SNITCH at the time of writing.
    A bit of a weird puzzle for all the reasons mentioned by others, but I just got lucky with the curiosities I guess. MANIPLE, for instance, an obscure word I’ve only come across in crosswords.
    I put SIMKIN at 18ac initially, which is a very convincing momble. Fortunately 15dn sorted that out almost immediately.
  15. DNF. I needed aids to find MANIPLE to finish with CLAPPED OUT. I was surprised by EPHEMERAE and “loose” for RELAX, and didn’t know the rechabite. Bah! Tomorrow is another day.
  16. Didn’t know the tribe of DAN and had no clue about rechabites but the answers were easy enough to guess.

    MANIPLE was the only thing that gave me any lengthy pause for thought.

  17. Put DRIBELLED instead of DRIVELLED, realised it was wrong and then forgot to change it. Serves me right for feeling smug about knowing EPHEMERAE and MANIPLE.

    Thanks to Pip and the setter.

  18. I suppose the early indoctrination at RC Primary school helped with DAN and MANIPLE, although the latter still took a bit of dredging to haul from the depths. The Rechabites, on the other hand, were totally unknown, but easy enough to deduce from the wordplay. I was another with EPHEMERAL as a first guess, but PELMET corrected that and I cogitated no further on its roots. I wasn’t bothered by WRITE OFF, but raised an eyebrow at RELAX. BOLDEST and KEYBOARD were my last 2 in, and accounted for a few minutes. Nice puzzle. 19:44. Thanks setter and Pip.
  19. Nice puzzle but held up in the SW corner, mainly by the MANIPLE (I knew the Roman military term, but not the vestment) and also by the double plural of EPHEMERAE, which looked all wrong, even to a classicist as rusty as me.

    John Arlott speculated that the Don might have had a tear in his eye after his walk to the wicket, and this would explain his dismissal, but most accounts describe him as a particularly unsentimental man, even for an Australian (PS please note this is a joke I know and like many Aussies, hashtag smiley face)

  20. I am sure I remember this garment coming up here quite recently.
    Andyf
    1. Most recent example I can find was 4 years ago. I had a feeling another priestly garment came up recently but I can’t remember what it was.
  21. most of which was spent trying to fathom out the last few. I knew that Bradman finished with a duck, so I agonised over ways of dismissal that fitted. And MANIPLE would have helped had I known it. Also held up by DAHL for quite some time, and my attempts at fitting IM or IVE into what turned out to be PELMET were also frustrating.
    The rest was a doddle….
  22. 8m 39s with MANIPLE causing problems (I don’t think I’ve ever seen a minister wearing one), and BRAN my LOI unparsed.

    ATHWART is a lovely word.

  23. We had a very realistic electronic barking dog called Rex, with motion sensors, that we used to use to persuade the woodchucks and chipmunks not to eat our porch plants – until the neighbours complained. No hold-ups with this one. 14.33
  24. I found this tough but fair. Keyboard was the last to be typed. Relix for Relax. Not quite sure why. I intended Relex! So not a typo.

    COD: Keyboard.

  25. A mix of fairly obvious guesses for the recondite Jewish tribes/sects and some dredging of memory for the long-forgotten priestly clobber. BRAN, MANIPLE and CLAPPED OUT the only hold-ups. 22 mins.
  27. My concern is for the definition of ‘ad hoc’ being ‘casual’ in 4d. It most definitely does not mean casual, rather ‘special to purpose’ or ‘as necessary’ or similar. I think though that the term is undergoing one of those transformations which results from innumerable misuses.
    1. That was me tringmardo) as I seem to have been ‘banned’ from this forum. This has hapenned before and I don’t understand why. Please sir, I ain’t never said nothin’ bad!
      1. tringmardo, I can confirm that you are not banned from this forum and I suspect you are subject to a Live Journal glitch.

        If you sign up as a member of TfTT that should help with future problems so I have sent you an invitation email to become a member which you will need to respond to.

        Edited at 2021-05-12 12:47 pm (UTC)

    2. Funnily enough there was a similar comment yesterday regarding “antisocial”. There was a time when words changing through misuse would have irked me until I heard Susie Dent say that many words we use today had different meanings in the past. I now accept that language evolves.
      1. I would agree but for the fact that ‘ad hoc’ is a pure Latin term, and it would seem strange for this to be subject to evolutionary change. Imagine future scholars of this wonderful language having to cope with such a problem!
        1. This is also quite common. ‘Agenda’ is a pure Latin term whose meaning is different in modern English. Having said that I found the definition of AD HOC quite loose. You could make a case that it overlaps with ‘casual’ in the sense ‘improvised’.

          Edited at 2021-05-12 01:49 pm (UTC)

  28. ….but totally wrecked my effort by going Welsh when transcribing 23D as “rwlax”. I’d checked it too, but I still missed it. Rats !!!!

    Surprised to see LUTIST rather than lutenist, which I think we had recently, and by the unnecessary hyphen in SPIDERMAN — he’s a superhero, not a construction worker.

    I should have been even quicker, but carelessly biffed “ephemeral” which caused me trouble with PELMET.

    As I recall, after his somewhat truncated final innings, Bradman was all too soon “clapped in” !

    FOI DEAR ME (not exactly my words when I saw pink)
    LOI BRAN
    COD SEE TO IT
    TIME 7:15

    1. Yes, it’s a valid alternative. Flute players get three options: flutist, flautist and flutenist!
      2. Lutanists get four: apart from lutenist and lutist there’s also luter. Unsurprisingly, LJ spellchecker doesn’t know three of them.
        1. Lutenist is definitely the most elegant. It is what I would be, in the unlikely event that I could play the lute.
  29. I agree with Pip that “Write Off” was not the best clue, although I’m OK with “Rex” for dog, maybe.
    Also, wasn’t that impressed with the clue for “Keyboard” — the reference to the “right note” had me baffled.
    Never heard of the “Dan” tribe but I got there eventually by a process of elimination of other four-letter Europeans.
    Thanks for the blog.
  30. Didn’t parse BRAN, relied on the wordplay for MANIPLE and had no idea what a Rechabite was for NATTY, so thanks for the explanations. Needed EPHEMERAE to be sure that DHAL wasn’t spelt like the author. Took me a while to remember that ‘valley’ can be ‘dell’ as well as ‘dale’, which held up DRIVELLED. Vaguely recalled the DAN tribe, but couldn’t have told you where they were from.

    FOI Aide
    LOI Bran
    COD Baffled

  31. A late-ish solve for me today, on a puzzle that felt both stickier and slower than my 13.41 makes it.
    I’m delighted to see the encyclopaedic knowledge of Bradman’s last innings on display. I spent ages trying to remember how it was concluded, knowing that it was 4 runs too soon, so that I could cleverly put that as my solution. Sadly, none of the ten (theoretically 11) official ways of being out fit either the space or the wordplay, and only one fits the history. Mind you a thousand or so years of that great adjunct to cricket, the commentary, could supply an almost infinite ways of describing a dismissal.

    My knowledge of MANIPLEs derives from Asterix, and as far as I know he never attended a Catholic or Anglo-Catholic
    mass. There are an awful lot of “probably”s and “perhaps”s both the history and etymology of the priestly handkerchief.

    Another fine and fair blog from Pip.

  32. 14.49 a fairly straightforward solve apart from a few in the SW – struggled to recollect maniple, Rechabite didn’t mean anything to me so had to assume they were TT from the apparent definition, LOI bran entered with a pang of anxiety I could see the healthy food but couldn’t come up with the local outlets which had been halved and as ever when something is not fully parsed couldn’t help wondering if I’d missed a better solution. I thought the definition for keyboard was a bit loose.
  33. Struggled a bit in the bottom left. Several clues that i could have solved if I had already solved the others … eventually, a breakthrough as clapped out came to mind. I sense irony there.
    Last time we had bran it was defined as refuse, now it is healthy food. Make your mind up, setters..

    Edited at 2021-05-12 02:52 pm (UTC)

  34. 17.48. LOI ephemerae mainly because I misspelled dhal initially but realised in time. Uneventful apart from that and enjoyable.

    Thanks etc etc…

  35. Nothing too controversial here for me. Although Maniple, Dan and Rechabites were no more than vaguely familiar, I thought the cluing was fairly generous.
    Biffed Bran (LOI) but saw the light after posting. A time of 11:38 which is better than my personal average, so a good day for me . No doubt reality will kick back in tomorrow!
  36. Thanks to our blogger for parsing BRAN, which I got but without parsing. A comfortable 30 minutes for me with the same uncertainties about NATTY DAN as our blogger mentioned, and yes, now you mention it (though not before), there are a couple of weak clues here.
  37. Late solve today post golf seemed to do the trick as I raced home in a mere 25m. No qualms with any clues to day, though I’m far from convinced that bran is healthy (but then as a very low carb/high fat dieter battling type 2 diabetes I would say that wouldn’t I?). Lovely puzzle and blog today. Thank you, setter and Pip.
  38. Steady solve today. Not timed because I had to fit the puzzle in around other activities which is a pity because it was a fast solve – by my standards. Delayed on 2dn by misspelling dhal but there are only so many combinations of EP, time and border plus E. Didn’t parse bran. Never heard of rechabite. But the benefit of having been an altar boy became clear with maniple – not used now I believe but it was a regular item in my day.
    Thanks to blogger and setter.
  39. Just to add my thoughts about the confusion over “write off” it makes sense if you see it as cancelling a debt or favour. “So no need to pay me back, consider it written off, forget about it, I’ll write off that debt’
    Hope this helps
  40. Evening solve post-dinner which is always slower than in the morning because too many distractions. I share doubts about the write off clue, and as a one-time classicist I was truly flummoxed by ephemerae. What else could it be though? I guess there must be other examples of double plurals but I can’t think of any offhand. We don’t say phenomenae.
  41. Surprised myself by finishing this one after a long blank stare to start with. Had to biff 1d and 19d but patting myself on the back for getting the words from the wordplay of the clues. Just under an hour. Respectable. A silver star day.
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