Times 28003 – Yes, another man’s Persian.

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Time: 23 minutes
Music: Natalie Merchant, Tiger Lily

This was interesting. I had to look around for my first one, and unfortunately my first entry turned out to be wrong, as I found out when I was trying to finish.   The bottom went in fairly easily, although I had to check the anagram letters of schadenfreude very carefully to make sure I was right.   I biffed and then erased bravura, only to  come back in five minutes and parse it.   I erased the momble cemablo, put in thesaurus, and then remembered the right word.    My LOI was the annoyingly elusive belief.

No, I don’t have an LP of Tiger Lily – it doesn’t exist.   I ventured forth to the barbershop yesterday, not knowing what to expect, and much to my surprise my two barbers were still at their posts, cutting hair.   Since one is 84, and the other is 79, I was a bit worried, but they have been cutting my hair for over 50 years and I wanted to keep the streak going.   After getting rid of my pandemic ponytail, I decided to go to a charity shop where I have gotten good deals in the past.   The lady volunteers had gussied up the shop, and I was afraid that might mean higher prices, but the CD display said 4 for $1, so I picked up a few things to listen to in the car.

Across
1 Supporter about to enthuse briefly before United’s brilliant display (7)
BRAVURA – B(RAV[e])U)RA.
5 Verbal report of one missing glossy coating? (7)
LACQUER – Sounds like LACKER.
9 Flexible directions for entering illuminated residence (9)
LITHESOME – LIT + H(ES)OME.
10 Ancient Asian country’s means of communication? (5)
MEDIA – Double definion.
11 Ghostly atmosphere finally invading republic to the west (5)
EERIE – EIR([atmosphher]E)E backwards.
12 Wordbook the governor’s brought into house (9)
THESAURUS – T(HE’S)AURUS, an astrological house, which we haven’t had for a while.
13 A briny-sounding dish, something tackled by soldiers in training (7,6)
ASSAULT COURSE –  Sounds like A SALT COURSE.
17 Ultimately hesitate and defer such misguided gloating (13)
SCHADENFREUDE –  Anagram of [hesitat]E AND DEFER SUCH.
21 One tells where a schoolkid may be, with a set of books (9)
INFORMANT –  IN FORM + A NT.
24 A doctor probing eyes, we hear, and feet (5)
IAMBI – I(A MB)I.   As usual – couldn’t we have a cretic or a molossus, just for variety?
25 Like some old Peruvians ready to broadcast? (5)
INCAN – IN CAN.
26 Mushy journalist tires boss out (3,6)
SOB SISTER – Anagram of TIRES BOSS.
27 Cheese the old soldiers provided with good game (7)
GRUYERE –  G RU + YE + RE, a compendium of cryptic cliches.
28 Complaint demanding attention by a guerrilla leader (7)
EARACHE – EAR + A CHE.
Down
1 Disguise the nature of feminine opinion (6)
BELIEF – BELIE F.
2 Consequences of a fine period of work at Harrow, primarily (9)
AFTERMATH – A F TERM +  AT H[arrow].   In the US, we had World History after Math, but that wouldn’t work in the UK.
3 Rituals the French introduced, serving no purpose (7)
USELESS – USE(LES)S.
4 After a fight, go for a change of direction (5-4)
ABOUT-TURN – A BOUT, TURN.
5 Superior, say, tucking into pork pie (5)
LIEGE – LI(E.G.)E.
6 Keyboard instrument Melba and co recollected (7)
CEMBALO – Abagran of MELBA and CO.
7 Subservient to a French communist revolutionary (5)
UNDER – UN + RED upside down.
8 Cook run into by duke’s open car (8)
ROADSTER – ROA(D)STER.   More commonly, roaster refers to what is cooked!
14 Rotating platform finally built by high-class sailors on board (9)
TURNTABLE –  [buil]T + U R.N. + TABLE.
15 Hurt, I came falteringly, having joint pain (9)
RHEUMATIC –  Anagram of HURT I CAME.
16 Ambitious individual initially employed in a period of growth (8)
ASPIRING –  A SP(I[ndividual])RING.
18 Confuse reigning monarch in endless peril (7)
DERANGE – D(ER)ANGE[r], with a rather lose literal, IMO.
19 It makes one girl extremely eager to support college (7)
UNIFIER –  UNI + FI + E[age]R, not the Queen this time.
20 Drill first of recruits in section (6)
PIERCE –  PIE(R[ecuits])CE.
22 Light shawl originally fashionable in central Manchuria (5)
FICHU –  F[ashionable] I[n] [man]CHU[ria].
23 Man, say, overcome by a passage in church (5)
AISLE – A + ISLE, an escapee from the Quickie.

49 comments on “Times 28003 – Yes, another man’s Persian.”

  1. Don’t know why this took me as long as it did. Had trouble with FICHU, BELIEF, MEDIA, and a mistaken ABOUT-FACE (which hadn’t made sense) held me up from seeing SCHADENFREUDE.
  2. Like our blogger I solved the lower half first as nothing before ASSAULT COURSE leapt out at me. 42 minutes. The intro reminded me I have a CD of Circus Songs by The Tiger Lilies — weird stuff but hypnotic.

    How quickly we forget! I knew as soon as I read ‘shawl’ at 22dn that the answer had come up here not that long ago* but could I think of it? Of course not, and I was even unable to construct it from wordplay until I had every checker in place.

    *It was in #27875 in January.

    Edited at 2021-06-14 07:47 am (UTC)

  3. I had an odd solving session. A pass through the acrosses initially only yielded three of them, but then I got almost every down entry on a first look. Filling in the missing letters meant I was done at 6:44, which is still looking pretty nifty.

    My biggest holdup was agonizing between MEDIA and MEDEA but since there was no indication of a homophone it had to be the first.

  4. I biffed SCHADENFREUDE with a couple of checkers, didn’t actually parse it until after submission. I hesitated on USELESS, as I wasn’t confident that USE had the requisite meaning; didn’t put it in until I had BRAVURA. CEMBALO for some reason took me some time to sort out. POI LACQUER, LOI ROADSTER.
  5. Finished in 32 minutes, with the 1a and 1d crossers my last in too. A few chestnuts in ‘feet’ and ‘Like some old Peruvians’ at 24a and 25a, but these were compensated for by some not so obvious words in LITHESOME, FICHU and CEMBALO.

    Favourites were SCHADENFREUDE, because I like the word, and LIEGE, one of those interesting auto-antonyms.

    Thanks to vinyl1 (including for introducing me to the verb “to gussy up”) and to setter.

  6. Like others I was slow to get going on this one and thought I might be in for a toughie but once I got going I found it fairly straightforward. PIERCE was my LOI after I’d decided to come back to the strange looking _S_R_E having earlier put in IAMBS. A reminder, if any were needed, that it often pays not to dwell on clues for too long (that is of course provided you have others left to solve!).
    1. It would have saved me a lot of time if I’d got PIERCE before I got IAMBS.
  7. I ran through this in the same time as our horourable blogger at 23 minutes.

    FOI 5dn LIEGE – Standard clue

    LOI 20dn PIERCE

    COD 22dn FICHU which is French but I thought Portuguese for some reason – perhaps Luis Figo (figo = to 20dn in Latin)

    WOD SCHADENFREUDE – radio host Richard Phillips fave word.

    I think the QC Squad might fall slightly short – but its their best chance this week the Snitch is at 74 presently. I note Mr. Snitch was 152 last Wednesday when he had a couple of days off!

    Edited at 2021-06-14 05:59 am (UTC)

  10. …And pass into the panting heart beneath

    25 mins after struggling with LOI Belief and guessing right on Cembalo.
    Looks like the first/last letter indicator fiend again: finally, ultimately, primarily, finally, initially, first of, originally.
    Thanks setter and Vinyl.

  11. 14 minutes, held up by finding a combination of the letters in 6d which gave a means of communication for 10a. Fortunately I hit on one which turned out to be right. Otherwise, I was right on wavelength. I didn’t know the shawl but the instructions were clear. WOD rather than COD goes to SCHADENFREUDE. Thank you V and setter.
  12. 29:57, so a bit laggy on this one. Nothing of any great difficulty; I just sort of drifted through it 🙂
    Thanks, v.
  13. Would have been faster but took a while to see LOI PIERCE and NHO CEMBALO.

    V you are missing the “AT” in the parsing of AFTERMATH.

  14. …plumped for MEDEA as being an ancient land “means” “of communication” indicating a homophone … but it doesn’t really sound like MEDIA so that was a poor start to the week. Rest of puzzle was quite Mondayne (my new word for Mondayish) … thanks to setter and blogger.
  15. plumped for MEDIA. Mondayne indeed – Trux20! COD CEMBALO – the harpsichord plain and simple. SCHADENFREUDE not – as the clue was a bit strained.
  16. A pleasant start to the week, with ABOUT TURN FOI, followed by BRAVURA and AFTERMATH. Then filled in the grid in a clockwise direction, finishing in the SW with ASPIRING. Pleased I didn’t think of IAMBS. SCHADENFREUDE was my penultimate, so no trouble with the spelling. CEMBALO was vaguely familiar, but it was nice to have the crossing letters to confirm it. 22:51. Thanks setter and V.
  17. 14.54, with quite a lot of it used up in the top left corner, especially on the elusive BELIEF, which rather lent itself to non-woke musings. That sort of ties in with my inability (refusal?) to equate “supporter” with BRA, which slowed things down. LITHESOME was not a word that easily sprang to mind.
    IAMBS never occurred to me, partly because setters only tend to use IAMBI when they have an awkward couple of Is to fill.
    Another very neat blog, V.
  18. 9:24. My solving experience matches George’s more or less exactly, just at about two-thirds the pace.
    I was a little bit worried about CEMBALO, an obscurity clued with an anagram, but when I came to it at the end there really was nowhere else to put the letters.
    I’m glad I didn’t think of IAMBS.

    Edited at 2021-06-14 07:31 am (UTC)

    1. Once again, one man’s obscurity etc. I was surprised to see you and several others not knowing of it; I was annoyed with myself for playing with so many other arrangements of the letters before it hit me. But then I listen to an early music program every morning before breakfast.
      1. It’s come up a couple of times before, and it did actually seem vaguely familiar once I had constructed it. I wouldn’t hesitate to call it an obscurity though.
  19. 9:46 Held up like Pootle by having IAMBS for 24A at first making PIERCE, my LOI, hard to find. Like George I wondered whether 10A was MEDEA as I thought that was how the country of the Medes was spelt, but the wordplay disabused me of that. COD to SCHADENFREUDE, a lovely word.
  20. 28 mins so a good time for me. FOI AFTERMATH, LOI BELIEF after finally working out BRAVURA which took a bit of time. Pretty simple fare today but enjoyable. I managed to get the jumble of letters right for CEMBALO (NHO), thankfully. FICHU is an odd word, means various other things in French, some of them not so pleasant!

    Thank you V and setter.

  21. 12.00 almost to the dot. A sluggish start before returning to 1 ac and getting bravura. After that, pretty constant progress but like our blogger took me a while to work out belief which was also my LOI. Almost made a hash of sob sister by not reading the clue correctly and rushing in sub editor but all was well in the end.

    Goodstartto the week.

  22. Elusive belief is right. I lost the last three minutes on that one. Fichu we had recently, and I remember looking it up in the OED and giving a fascinating explanation of its French origin. Which I have now forgotten. I think it was along the lines of “thrown carelessly on”. Work at Harrow had me scuttling down a possibly deliberate agricultural side-track. The ancient country I would definitely have spelt Medea. Thankfully the clue meant that I didn’t. Medea – I now see — was Jason’s wife, and also a play by Euripedes. The Medes lived in Media. Still looks funny, though.
  23. Some arcane-ish vocabulary and a few unexpected definitions to slow down an otherwise straightforward crossie; FICHU, MEDIA and CEMBALO being among the former and LIEGE and USE(les)S among the latter. 14 mins.
  24. BELIEF and MEDIA held up longest. I wondered whether MUDRA — an Indian dance with hand gestures – might be the answer, especially as I had NHO an ancient Asian country called MEDIA, but having read up, it appears that the country’s means of communication is a language called MEDIA — oh well, every day’s a school day, as they say.

    Never heard of the term SOB SISTER either but with the first two checkers in place, it was plain enough.

  25. Ten minutes bang on the nose – that doesn’t happen very often. Another one hesitating between Medea and Media (have some Madeira) but recalled that in some stories Jason’s wife (after a life of domestic upheaval) moved to what’s now Iran and gave it her name in a slightly different form. Or something like that.
  27. NHO CEMBALO, or FICHU, or indeed a SOB SISTER. Already mentioned that IAMBS made PIERCE impossible until amended and my therefore my LOI.

    I did like LITHESOME and BELIEF was my favourite.

    A fair to middling 23:15 for me.

  28. A good half-hour’s entertainment. FOI Lacquer, since varnish didn’t parse or yield any useful checkers. Cembalo and under seemed to come easily, hence lacquer, which parsed but caused me a furrow or two in my brow. LOI belief. Some biffed. Not much for the biologist in this one, apart from rheumatic, so it gets my vote for COD. Thanks, V, and setter. GW.
  30. ….not kicking off until five clues in, and being slow to see parsings (LITHESOME, DERANGE, and PIERCE notably). My LOI took nearly a minute, as I didn’t see “belie” from the definition.

    FOI EERIE
    LOI BELIEF
    COD SCHADENFREUDE
    TIME 7:40

  31. Not sure as I had to come in from the sun when it got too hot, which entailed further delay to brew a pot of tea, then, having returned to Wi-fi range, I was interrupted by some inbound e-mail traffic which needed response. A nice puzzle to start the week with the NE corner providing the challenge (BELIEF LOI and, for some reason, one that didn’t yield easily).
  32. Nice puzzle — a few new words on which my fingers were crossed — Fichu, Cembalo, Sobsister, Media (as an ancient country).
    Thank you Vinyl.
  33. A very pleasant start to the week.

    RHEUMATIC, USELESS and LITHESOME. I suppose, at my age, two out of three ain’t bad.

    Thanks to V and the setter

  34. As Horryd predicted, a tad beyond my current solving skills. I gave up trying to shuffle the letters into a recognisable English word for gloating and so used aids to discover that was because it was a German one. Likewise the disguised harpsichord was holding up the NE corner, so that had to be uncovered as well. Belief and Lithesome were my final two no-shows before pulling stumps. Invariant
  35. 18:46. I felt that the 15 x 15 today was basically straightforward, however I had made the critical mistake of watching my national football team playing in the Euros before attempting to solve the puzzle.
    By the end of the game I was feeling as if I had been on an ASSAULT COURSE and as a result my brain was in a DERANGEd state, having given the players EARACHE over 90 minutes. Ah well all I can hope for is an ABOUT TURN before Friday and try to ignore the outpourings of SCHADENFREUDE from all quarters.
    I got too many “wrong ends” of too many sticks today and limped across the line with the occasional biff thrown in.
    So “nae happy” as they say in this part of the world but nonetheless thanks to V and setter!
  36. 17.48, a slow start and a couple of bumps in the road at the end with iambs preventing pierce for a little while and a struggle to make much of the crossing and unfamiliar Media and cembalo. Something to blow the cobwebs away.
  37. Couldn’t 2 down be considered an &Lit, since the original meaning was what was left after the harrow went through?
  38. Please to have logged a correct solve, in spite of NHO CEMBALO, FICHU, SOB SISTER or that use oF USE.

    Great clues all over, but COD INCAN. a Chestnut, no doubt, but new to me.

  39. Managed only a puny one-third of this, in the lower half, to mix my fractions. Took an hour for that much. Got THESAURUS without understanding why, and GRUYERE same, so thanks to blogger for explaining, and for illuminating the rest. As usual I’m amused by your weary sighs over “cryptic cliches”. So much to learn…

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