Times 27,995: John Arrests: 85% Less Funny In San Marino

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Fairly tractable for a Friday, even though I started poorly by trying to bung in ELECTRONIC at 8ac. Lots of answers that were exactly what you’d expect them to be, having located the definition part; the couple of less familiar words (14 & 19d) pretty easy to make given a few crossers. Good surfaces: my COD is the elegant 15ac (you have to know about Soul Train for American trivia, too) and I laughed at the unusually long alternate-letters clue at 23ac. Thanks be to setter!

ACROSS
1 Swim poorly, swallowing tons — idiot! (8)
DIPSTICK – DIP SICK [swim | poorly] “swallowing” T

5 Just impediment, see (6)
BARELY – BAR ELY [impediment | see]

8 Relating to certain communications, push to abandon America amid rigged election (10)
TELEPHONIC – P{us}H “amid” (ELECTION*)

9 Chuck and Mike gate-crashing party in NI (4)
DUMP – M “gatecrashing” the D.U.P.

10 Audacity of the courts installing Democrat in district (4,2,3,5)
NECK OF THE WOODS – NECK OF THE WOOS [audacity | of | the | courts] “installing” D

11 Coppers heading off to arrest John in Vatican City, say (7)
ENCLAVE – {p}ENCE “arresting” LAV

13 Unexpected debt I’m beginning to experience when retirement’s due (7)
BEDTIME – (DEBT I’M*) + E{xperience}

15 Get back into Soul Train (7)
CORTEGE – reversed GET “into” CORE [soul]

18 Mostly offensive, he may be a member of the diplomatic corps (7)
ATTACHÉ – ATTAC{k} + HE

21 What toddler does — briefly fidgeting when fast asleep (4,2,3,5)
DEAD TO THE WORLD – (WHAT TODDLER DOE{s}*)

22 Heard animal whimper (4)
MEWL – homophone of MULE

23 Celestial body — object realigned, unseen — nothing odd in that (10)
BETELGEUSE – {o}B{j}E{c}T {r}E{a}L{i}G{n}E{d}U{n}S{e}E{n}

24 Two ways to overcome resistance fast (6)
STARVE – ST(reet) + AVE(nue) “overcoming” R

25 Making a comeback, group is live with online content (8)
WEBSITES – SET IS BE W [group | is | live | with], the whole reversed

DOWN
1 A mutual easing of tensions inside ten terraced houses (7)
DETENTE – “housed” by {insi}DE TEN TE{rraced}

2 Dash around island and cut up cruiser, maybe (6,3)
POLICE CAR – RACE C I LOP [dash | around | island | cut], the whole reversed

3 Sports chiefs tucking into endless snacks and some sort of pudding (7)
TAPIOCA – I.O.C. [International Olympic Committee] “tucked into” TAPA{s}

4 Laugh when officer turns up, interrupting task (7)
CHORTLE – reversed LT “interrupting” CHORE

5 First couple of builders chisel around power unit in plant (9)
BUCKWHEAT – BU{ilders} + CHEAT “around” KW [kilowatt]

6 Old belligerent Republican: last of the Washington crop (7)
REDCOAT – R {th}E D.C. OAT

7 Politicians invested in large universities with millions in one-off payment (4,3)
LUMP SUM – MPS “invested in” L U U M [large | university | university | millions]

12 Food item‘s in middle of oven, within reach (9)
VEGETABLE – {o}VE{n} + GETABLE. What kind of monster doesn’t spell it GETTABLE

14 Popular revolution protects rights over time: that’s moral (9)
INCORRUPT – IN COUP “protects” R R, + T

16 End of rum — crew ultimately upset (7)
ODDMENT – ODD MEN [rum | crew] + {upse}T. If oddments are “ends” then how come people say “odds and ends”, and not just “odds”, answer me that

17 At sea, Walter Raleigh’s first vessel (7)
TRAWLER – (WALTER R{aleigh}*)

18 Sportsman‘s father not taking sides, accepting foul shot (7)
ATHLETE – {f}ATHE{r}, “accepting” LET [bad tennis shot]

19 Old-fashioned fuel was not good for cooking (4,3)
TOWN GAS – (WAS NOT G*)

20 Shunned by all after taking Friday off — this is ongoing (7)
ENDLESS – {fri}ENDLESS

83 comments on “Times 27,995: John Arrests: 85% Less Funny In San Marino”

  1. Around 30 minutes though I had all bar mewl sorted in just over 20. Put seel in after convincing myself it was an old english word for wail. Never managed to totally convince myself and a tube ride gave me the time to think again. After a frustrating series of rounds of alphabet trawling, finally recognised mewl as more likely. That made me cross especially as “ Heard cross animal whimper” would have made for less toil even if it would defeat the object of the exercise.

    Anyway, at least I finished which I should do now rather than witter on.

    Thanks setter and blogger.

  2. A nice stroll for Friday. As noted above, I tried Howl until crossers made me change, and I saw Redcoat as a definition right off, but couldn’t parse it and wasn’t sure enough that it wasn’t an unlikely-to-be-known Americanism, so LOI. I liked Neck of the Woods.
    1. HOWL as a homonym for OWL? Do you need to change your username to Paul_in_East_London?
      1. In a comment earlier Isla, I explained that I was willing to consider H(eard) to be an accepted abbreviation. That doesn’t work, either, but that’s what I got to.

        Edited at 2021-06-04 10:37 pm (UTC)

          1. Ba-dum tish

            Sadly, i DID consider the cockney bit, along with the even less of a whimper Bawl — Bull. I was pretty sure that if discussion got started at least one of us would’ve had a great aunt from somewhere we’ve never heard of who used to pronounce Bull as Bawl. Surprising what you can come up with when you can’t get the right answer.

  3. ….and needed a hefty alpha-trawl for my LOI. MER at “cruiser = police car”. Is a let really a foul shot ? TAPIOCA parsed post-solve.

    FOI DETENTE
    LOI INCORRUPT
    COD ENCLAVE
    TIME 12:10

    1. “police cruiser” definitely registered with me as a thing, such that my eyebrows remained more or less in place and I moved quickly on…
  4. Thank you Verlaine as always for the great blog, even if (for once) I didn’t need any help with the parsing. I’m surely not the only benighted heathen baffled by the heading, though. Please explain and allow a Doh! moment. Jeffrey
    1. Re the surface for 11ac, maybe it was just me but I read the John in the surface as possibly referring to its “client of a prostitute” meaning. That’s a much bigger story if it happens in one of the two landlocked Italian microstates than another…
  5. Enjoyed this puzzle with most clues falling into place. I especially enjoy it when I find certain clues relatively straightforward which other commenters have found difficult – such as redcoat today. Not sure whether this is a sign of a healthy desire to measure my improvement against the best or a sad need for reassurance.
    Didn’t get mewl which I would claim to have never heard of until a commenter referred to mewling and puking. Bah.
    Was ironic that it took me so long to work out the power unit in buckwheat as I had just come off the phone to British Gas where I pointed out that they had made a mistake with my meter reading resulting in usage for the last quarter in excess of a million kWh. Would have been an interesting bill.
    Thanks to the setter and to Verlaine for the blog.
  6. 16:11. Not as tough as many Friday experiences as many of you have pointed out but I still found the setter provided plenty of challenges for me.
    Indeed 23 ac Betelgeuse was interesting – I don’t think I’ve ever seen a longer clue of this type before but at the time I biffed it, so thanks Verlaine for the parsing. I wonder what setters think of their favourite clues getting biffed?
    I thought 11 ac “Enclave” could have come straight out of the Grauniad!!
    LOI 22 ac “mewl”. Glad to see I wasn’t the only one to say this. I got it from the definition and the homophone then confirmed it.
    COD 10 ac “Neck of the Woods” – just enjoyed how the setter put the clue together.
    Thanks to Verlaine and setter for providing a good end to the week.
  7. Surprisingly amenable Friday, much enjoyed. Not easy, still a few clues that needed teasing out, but no hold-ups at the end. Ready to harumph at Betelgeuse, seeing the U_S_E_ were the even letters but not how it worked, but that was quite good.
    I’ve always wanted to clue police car as Polar bears get frozen cold flat-feet here or something, but never quite been able to marry the clue and the surface reading.
      1. Better, but still doesn’t quite nail it. There’s the old joke about the polar bear cub:
        “Am I really a polar bear?”
        “Of course you are”
        “Then why are my feet so ******* cold

        i.e. the clue has to include feet

        Edited at 2021-06-04 09:04 pm (UTC)

  9. Felt sluggish after healthy (ie unhealthy) portion of pasta and wine but got it finished even though missed the parsing for DEAD TO THE WORLD (very good and COD for me) and struggled to make head or tail of ODDMENT.

    Thanks Messrs Setter and Verlaine

  10. 11:47 Doing this a day late is I was out yesterday. Surprisingly straightforward for a Friday. Biffed a few so good to see what I missed on the solve – didn’t spot the excellent alternate letter clueing of BETELGEUSE, which makes it my COD. Thanks V and setter.
  11. In spite of myself I had a go at this and for the first time ever got precisely zero. Not a one! And yet when I look at Verlaine’s beautifully explained parsing, every answer is right there in each clue. It’s really not that hard. Sigh. One day….

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