Times 27,989: There’s Only One Way To Solve, And That’s Your Own, Your Own, Your Own

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Tersely clued, but with a good sense of humour throughout. I liked 15ac a lot: a short and unusual word makes for a good “hidden”, and groaned appropriately when I worked out the logic behind the initially biffed 3dn. 16dn also excellently concise. The laconism is proving a bit contagious so I will say: thank you setter! And leave it at that.

ACROSS
1 Get back on with putsch (6)
RECOUP – RE [on] with COUP [putsch]

5 Getting at bandleader wearing nothing ostentatious (8)
NOBBLING – B{and} “wearing” NO BLING

9 Old radical populist with two pounds in bank at end of year (8)
LEVELLER – L L in LEVEE at {yea}R

10 In bowl, article that may accompany coffee, (6)
DANISH – in DISH, AN

11 A sort of dance? Move slowly if necessary (2,1,5)
AT A PINCH – A TAP [sort of dance] + INCH [move slowly]. FOI

12 Thought anyone but myself available (6)
NOTION – NOT I [anyone but myself] + ON [available]

13 Similar-sounding old name given to animal and insect (8)
ASSONANT – O N given to ASS, and ANT

15 Stage a new abridged production of The Cherry Orchard (4)
GEAN – hidden in {sta}GE A N{ew}. The sweet/wild cherry

17 Fresh United back finally ready (4)
DEWY – reversed WED + {read}Y

19 Liked a river, but forced to divert round it (5,3)
CARED FOR – A R, with (FORCED*) around that

20 Close contract finally, with some help around (2,4)
AT HAND – {contrac}T, with A HAND around

21 Poison developed from a protein (8)
ATROPINE – (A PROTEIN*)

22 Better organised revolutionary holding one childish opponent back (6)
TIDIER – reverse all of: RED “hilding” I, + IT [the person trying to catch you in a children’s game]

23 Members of union run into worries (8)
BROTHERS – R “into” BOTHERS

24 Two dots, for example, representing small island (8)
COLONSAY – COLON, SAY. Scottish island in the Inner Hebrides

25 Me and my best friend? (6)
SETTER – double def, one human and one canine

DOWN
2 Regular and predictable movement late in the day (8)
EVENTIDE – EVEN [regular] + TIDE [predictable movement]

3 Such an office aiming to eliminate handwriting? (4-4)
OPEN-PLAN – or O PEN PLAN = zero pen plan

4 Yearn extremely to visit the ends of the earth: one reaches a group of islands (9)
POLYNESIA – Y{ear}N “visiting” POLES, + I + A

5 One of Jane’s, her baby not unusually filled with rage (10,5)
NORTHANGER ABBEY – (HER BABY NOT*) “filled” with ANGER. Jane Austen, ofc

6 Confirm escape of wild animal? (4,3)
BEAR OUT – with a jokey second def

7 Start bland description of restaurant experience (8)
INITIATE – or “IN IT, I ATE”

8 Suspended, getting in bloody fast (2,6)
GO HUNGRY – HUNG in GORY

14 Wicked Olympic city unfortunately unsafe to tour (9)
NEFARIOUS – RIO, “toured” by (UNSAFE*)

15 Really great performance — furious father’s left (8)
GIGANTIC – GIG [performance] + {fr}ANTIC. LOI

16 Lily has a special house key (8)
ASPHODEL – A SP(ecial) HO(use) DEL(ete)

17 Some medicine stolen? One may win in court (4,4)
DROP SHOT – DROPS [some medicine] + HOT [stolen]

18 Supply wren with suet feeder (3,5)
WET NURSE – (WREN + SUET*). Anagrind is “supply” as an adverb, not noun

19 Is youngster allowed to eat here? (7)
CANTEEN – CAN TEEN [is youngster allowed], semi-&lit

60 comments on “Times 27,989: There’s Only One Way To Solve, And That’s Your Own, Your Own, Your Own”

  1. 21.19. A very pleasant early afternoon solve. I had some difficulty in the SW largely of my own making having biffed an unparsed to hand rather than at hand and would have been a fair bit quicker but for the unravelment then required. I find the Christmas Cracker humour of in it I ate and zero pen plan irresistible.
  2. ….where I was left with the SW corner at the 8 minute mark, and only really broke through once I dragged ASPHODEL from the dark recesses of what’s left of my mind. NHO GEAN, didn’t consider “it” as a childish opponent, and only parsed POLYNESIA afterwards.

    FOI AT A PINCH
    LOI. COLONSAY
    COD GO HUNGRY
    TIME 10:39

  3. 14:53. After yesterday’s trials I found this much more to my liking. I deliberately began away from the NW corner with FOI 17 d “Drop Shot” and made good progress by my standards, enjoying much of the clueing on the way.
    COD 15 ac – carefully concealed and I was fortunately able to recall having a gean tree in our garden around 65 years ago!
    Thanks to Verlaine and to the setter for providing a pleasing end to the week for me
  4. I went to this restaurant — initiate and officiate.

    Two bites of the cherry on this one with a short break in between. About one hour in total. I was pleased that the NHO four-letter word had four crossers.

    Excellent puzzle. Thanks all.

    Mike C

  5. Have been out of solving for a while. The ‘NOBBLING’ clue puzzles me a bit. Surely bandleader is a bit loose? The isolated ‘B’ could be leader of band, maybe? Or are the Ximenean principles now gone?
    1. I’m never entirely sure what strict Ximenean principles are, but ‘bandleader = B’ seems fine to me whether complying with them or not.
      1. I also think it’s fine — Bandleader immediately suggests the letter B — one of the few gimmes in this excellent puzzle

        Edited at 2021-05-29 10:25 am (UTC)

  6. I was a galactic. No wonder I couldn’t parse it further than the great performance. D’oh!
  7. Thought I was going to be quicker but that SW was tough

    Saw GEAN but didn’t know it and couldnt parse it. Eventually eked it all out but threw in a careless TIDIED as couldnt work out what was meant to go backwards in the clue and the childish opponent stumped me (but liked the pdm on coming here)

    Thanks Mr V and today’s excellent setter

  8. NHO ASPHODEL and never seem to spot the various keys – DEL in this case, but also occasionally ESC. A DNF in 42 mins as I simply couldn’t solve that one. Fun otherwise though, and thanks to our blogger for filling in my missing answer.
  9. I very much enjoyed this, though it took 53 minutes. Lots of witty clues and fair clues requiring very careful reading, and none of the many unknowns was really atrocious, as they sometimes are. I liked the childish opponent (much better than other ways of cluing IT). Congratulations to the best friend, then!
  10. I drifted a little off the wavelength today, but a very fine week of puzzles all round. Worked all through the islands to get to the right one…Stronsay, Copinsay, Shapinsay etc., all except the right one for a while. If asked in isolation, I would have said a gean was a young animal of some sort, so this wordplay was helpful.
  11. I gave up without Colonsay — the fact that dit dit (two dots) in Morse Code is the letter “I”, which is also a valid abbreviation for (small) island had me flummoxed.
  12. 13:02. I solved this first thing this morning, but in the interim have had a full day including a 7-hour drive to Cornwall so haven’t had a chance to comment. I thought this was very good. GEAN might have caused me problems if I had had to solve it. I’ve seen IN IT I ATE before somewhere.
  13. Thrilled to finish this. Well, nearly. Didn’t know ASPHODEL. I’m awarding myself a gold star anyway but I’ll knock off one of its points. 1ac and 2d FOI and progressed steadily from there. Very enjoyable and satisfying. Thanks, all.
  14. Had RÈDO for Çherry Orchard which I thought worked well ‘red o’. Made LHS very difficult

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