Times 28,013: 4ac in Friday’s Clothing

80 comments on “Times 28,013: 4ac in Friday’s Clothing”

1. Thanks verlaine!

   I was doing rather well (for me) with the right-hand side of this crossword; paused it and saved it to briefly do something else, and when I reloaded it I was presented with what was clearly someone else’s solve in progress – they’d filled in the left-hand side of the grid in a much quicker time than I’d managed! I resisted the temptation to complete the answers I’d already got and record a PB… anyone else run into this bug? I’ve emailed support.

2. I just noticed we have ENDEAVOUR MORSE. Is that significant? This was a rather gentle puzzle for a Friday, where I didn’t biff a thing; well, I couldn’t get the TAD T of DARMSTADT. DNK ROMNEY MARSH. I read HAND-ME-DOWNS as V does.
   1. And Fancy.
   2. Yes, there’s BRIGHT and STRANGE and THURSDAY, Morse’s colleagues. I think the first and last were only in the TV sequel (called ENDEAVIOUR) but STRANGE was also in the original. I’ve never read the books, so don’t know about those.

      Edited at 2021-06-25 07:28 am (UTC)

      1. Don’t forget FANCY, as well as TREWLOVE cleverly hidden in the 13th row! 😀

         A marvellous puzzle for Morse fans. Is there a special reason why, or did the setter just fancy a tribute?

3. I went for DARMSHAST, with HAS for “takes” and T for “little time”. A bit frustrating as I had my doubts, and I knew stadt was German for town. It was BOURNE which held me up for most of my time though. Every time I pondered it I thought of “bore” for “carried” but it took me a long time to make the small leap to “borne”. I didn’t know the word but funnily enough I’m visiting friends in Lower Bourne this evening!
4. Meet in her aspect and her eyes;

   After 25 mins enjoying a croissant and confiture artisanale, cassis, I had finished, but didn’t understand several, chiefly: classify=range, two mixed up girls and the bizarre Hand-Me-Downs.
   Nice to get so many Morse characters in though.
   Thanks setter and V.

5. Hi, can anyone on the site tell me how to access a specific Times cryptic (I’m a Times subscriber). I need a relatively straightforward one- 28009 looks about right.
   Thanks
   Andrew
   1. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/puzzles/times-cryptic-no-28009-2mtfzt0nl via https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days
   2. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/puzzles/times-cryptic-no-28009-2mtfzt0nl
   3. Try this link: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/puzzleclub/crosswordclub/puzzles-list?filter%5Bpuzzle_type%5D=Cryptic&filter%5Bpublish_at%5D%5Bfrom%5D=&filter%5Bpublish_at%5D%5Bto%5D= and search for the required number
      1. Thank you very much,
         A
6. Much BRIGHT ENDEAVOUR, THURSDAY
   SAD STRANGE INCOHERENCE today
   Twas a HARDNUT to crack
   With odd words like BARSAC
   And some FANCY GISMOS in play
   1. BARSAC is a wonderful wine
      It has a sweetness that is truly divine
      With botrytis cinerea
      It’s an instant panacea
      Don’t forget it when you next wine and dine!
7. Good to see ENDEAVOUR MORSE as well.
   1. And THURSDAY
      1. True and as jackkt says BRIGHT and STRANGE also FANCY
         1. I wondered about FANCY but dismissed it, thinking of Fancy Smith in Z-Cars (played by Brain Blessed before he took to shouting everything), but now I see there was a George Fancy in series 5 of Endeavour.
         2. Don’t forget TREWLOVE, cleverly hidden between the words in the 13th row! 😀
      2. You sneaked in when I was writing!
8. Not so easy for me as I struggled with a few clues and needed about 45 minutes to crack it all.

   My unknowns were SATYRA, BOURNE as ‘boundary’ and HOA which apparently only Chambers (of he usual sources) recognises, although Collins offers E HOA = hallo, from Maori.

   Never really came to terms with HAND-ME-DOWNS although the answer went in easily enough.

   1. I’ve never come across HOA, and hesitated to enter it. BOURNE I only know from Hamlet’s soliloquy: “…death, the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns …” And of course Matt Damon.
9. Just over the hour, but with interruptions. Very enjoyable today for us mere mortals:). Held up by PPOI HAND-ME-DOWNS which then led to STREW and GISMOS. COD BARSAC, lovely stuff. Thanks V and setter.
10. Quite the easiest of the week at 15.26, but pleasant enough.
    I took HAND-ME-DOWNS in two bites: the conventional second hand clothes, and the whimsical delivered from a higher level ones. Worked OK for me.
    Most of the Morse stuff (and doubtless wonderful episodes) I missed, though I couldn’t avoid the famous revelation of his first name. Instead I was taken with the reference to my Hackney mechanic, Alf Driveshafts, and was surprised the setter knew him too. Funnily enough, he had a very strange tomcat.
    Such serendipity brightened up a dull morning.
11. 18:44 DNK the sheep and was hesitant over range = classify. I enjoyed the Morse theme. Thanks V and setter.
12. 34 minutes either side of the dog walk. LOI BEEFIEST. I loved all the Endeavour character references and am greatly looking forward to Series 8. COD to HARD NUT, for the moment when I said to myself that it couldn’t be tundra backwards only to realise that it could. SATYRA was assembled from instructions, and DARMSTADT fortunately has a football team I’ve heard of. I just assumed that HOA was a WHOA to the stallion who’d lost his head. A good mix of easy and hard with a couple of dodgy moments. Thank you V and setter.
13. was known and I half-expected a NINA but I simply don’t know all the characters – I only managed to watch one season of ENDEAVOUR. This took me just over the hour with my LOI BOURNE (the name of a small Lincolnshire Town and home to the great Raymond Mays.)

    FOI 3dn (W)HOAas per Mr. Notlob.

    COD 17ac Uncle Sam’s TOMCAT – the Grumman F-14 – designed to keep order?

    WOD 30ac SATYRA – she has a beautiful pheasant named after her – Tragopan satyra – from Nepal.

    Early in the play I wished 18dn to be ‘SWISS SIX’ – had the rollover at 21ac been DAW!

    Edited at 2021-06-25 09:39 am (UTC)

    1. “I only managed to watch one season of ENDEAVOUR. This took me just over the hour” You must have a very impressive fast forward….
       1. Quite an endeavour!
    2. Thank you H for reminding me of Raymond Mays. One of auto racing’s greats, as you say.
       1. A good friend of my grandfather’s.
          1. Wow! Did you ever meet him?
14. I see everyone refers to Inspector Morse, but these characters are definitely the group from the prequel ‘Endeavour’. STRANGE later became Morse’s boss. Fred THURSDAY was Endeavour’s mentor, it has yet to be revealed why he is never mentioned later. Reginald BRIGHT was loyal to his staff. George FANCY, as mentioned, made a memorable appearance. No JOAN or JAKES or TREWLOVE though (Shirley Trewlove was my favourite)

    I don’t remember an ALF. I think this is a poor clue, just removing an H from ‘half’, pronounced arf, and leaving alf, pronounced alph.

    I knew BOURNE from Hamlet, but apparently it’s spelt without an ‘e’.

    16′ 55″ thanks verlaine and setter.

    1. sTREW LOVEsongs
       1. Wonderful, well noticed!
       2. Well-spotted!
    2. I disliked ALF too, for the same reason. I put GAF in first (your gaf might be a semi, and it’s a semi-gaffer). It doesn’t work, and it doesn’t fit. But I still like it better than ALF
15. I was warned when I first lived in London (Shepherd’s Bush) that QPR had a star sheep from Kent in their first XI – one Rodney Marsh! Thus ROMNEY MARSH is my COD, with DARMSTADT noted as a city and not a town. It was ‘City of Science 1997’ when I last visited.
    1. Rodney Marsh:- “Iron Gloves” to Australians, was a great cricketer but not well-received when he started, dropped 4 catches in his first test from (very imperfect) memory.
       1. I believe Mr. Edward Pine was referring to a different Rodney Marsh – the footballer ‘Rodney Marsh – Superstar! Who the..’ went the anthem! Rod Marsh was the Oz cricketer.
          1. I remember that Rodney Marsh, too – vaguely remember Match of the Day on TV, and I watched it as George Best was playing for Fulham, alongside Marsh. They tried a flick-up free-kick, but got pinged for handball, and Best later chipped the keeper but hit the crossbar. My memories of 1970s soccer.
16. An unusually meek offering for Friday. Took a while to parse HARD NUT and had never heard of Mrs Satyr, but that was about all. 27 mins
17. 43:08
    Bit slow on this. Found the left hand side a bit tricky.
    Thanks, v.
18. 13m on the nose. Another good ‘un: it’s been a good week.
    I wondered about classify=range but it’s one of the definitions in Collins.
    Like Kevin I knew BOURNE from Hamlet but I didn’t know the sheep and HOA looked odd.

    Edited at 2021-06-25 09:06 am (UTC)

    1. As a foodie I thought you’d know the sheep. Because they graze on salt marshes the lamb comes pre-seasoned.
       1. When does the pre-season start?
       2. I know salt marsh lamb but it’s not necessarily connected to a particular breed and in my experience it usually comes from Wales!
       3. There is a Romney Marsh in Kent. Perhaps the sheep came from there?
          1. Yes they do
19. ICE as “kill” ??

    FORCE as “stallion”?

    Can’t see connection – “put on ice” perhaps but…..??

    1. ‘Ice’ is American slang for ‘murder’. You’ll probably have heard it in a gangster movie at some point.
       In the horse clue ‘stallion’ doesn’t directly indicate FORCE. The FORCE of a REIN is what would control a stallion.
       1. I’d always half-assumed the iceman in The Iceman Cometh was a killer, but it turns out he’s just there to deliver ice (and maybe woo some bored housewives) after all.

          “Ice” must mean “kill” because you put your victim on ice, in the morgue?

20. I found this hard going and fell at the stallion, where, obviously with ‘Orse on my mind, I typed REINFORSE. Merde! Might have spotted it if had been an across clue. Ah well, another day another failure. Enjoyable puzzle though. 46:05 WOE. Thanks setter and V.
21. Perplexed at the end as I misconstrued the anagram and ended up with SIGMAS which wasn’t right. Took a while to realise my mistake.
    The actor that plays BRIGHT (Anton Lesser) also a very good audiobook reader, does the Victorian Philip Pullman series. Recommended.
    1. A few years ago I got audiobooks of The Iliad and the Odyssey read by Anton Lesser. Hours and hours of listening pleasure.
22. I’m still not convinced by the hand-me-down clue, which nobody seems to have explained more than vaguely.

    At 5dn I now see that the ‘over’ in the blog’s parsing is not the same as the ‘over’ in the clue, since ‘going over’ refers to the freezing plain. H is only over (tundra)rev. because it’s a down clue. Which was why I had some difficulty with it. I couldn’t see how an ardnut was a freezing plain.

    1. I rather liked this clue when I saw the answer. I took it that when the clothes(gear) were first passed down they were second hand. Next time they were passed on it would be third hand etc
       1. That was what I thought, too.
23. I found this a real struggle, taking 13m 26s and putting in DARMSHAST — never likely, and particularly annoying as I knew Stadt. Definitely not on the wavelength (yes, it’s a thing) today.

    Should have known I wasn’t going to have a good day when I put BREACH in straight away.

    Not sure what’s going on with FANCY — I expect you’re right, Verlaine, but I don’t much like it. HARD NUT was a very nice spot, though.

24. I was somewhat slow on this one but “endeavoured to persevere” and was pleased to finish all correct.
    Must have been in a daze because I didn’t even notice the Morse link until coming here.
    Very enjoyable.
25. Enjoyed the theme even though I didn’t twig until almost finished. I knew the sheep from Georgette Heyer’s Unknown Ajax for some reason. Good puzzles this week. 19.43
26. Had no idea about the boundary meaning of BOURNE or what a SATYRA was, so they went in with fingers crossed that I’d got the wordplay right. DARMSTADT took a long time to come, as did CURATOR thanks to the vagueness of ‘one in charge’. I would spell 19a ‘gizmo’ rather than GISMO, but once I’d figured out that it was an anagram it had to be the latter.

    FOI Ska
    LOI Gismo
    COD Thursday

27. Meant to say that it could also be a combo of Fan[ny] with Cy[nthia].
28. I chuckled on remembering J. B Morton’s classic line “ that Bourne from which no Hollingsworth returns”.
29. As usual, I failed to spot the theme, despite having watched all the Endeavours. Proper policing, from the days when a DI would always wear a hat, so he had something to take off when roughing up a wrong ‘un down the station. SATYRA and HOA seemed to have wandered in from a harder puzzle, but the wordplay and checkers didn’t leave much scope to put anything else. Thought 25dn was pushing it a bit, but good entertainment.
30. I liked the theme, even if I couldn’t identify all the thematic references. A few semi-parsed ones such as FANCY, but most made sense. Favourite was SKILLET. I’ll try to remember BOURNE as a boundary so it doesn’t hold me up for so long at the end next time.

    Thanks to setter, especially for the theme, and to verlaine

    1. I’ll try to remember BOURNE as a boundary so it doesn’t hold me up for so long at the end next time

       Does that qualify as a Bourne ultimatum?

31. ENDEAVOUR & MORSE were hard to miss, but a hat tip to those who spotted all the others.

    As a Fulham Supporter ( now semi-detached) ROMNEY (Rodney) MARSH raised a smile.

    “The Bourne from which no Hollingsworth returns” (Beachcomber)

    Thanks to Verlaine and the setter.

32. ….but the 40 second hold-up at the end caused by the unknown definition was a minor inconvenience. My thanks to V for the parsings of HARD NUT and IRISH SEA which were biffed confidently. HOA wasn’t entered until both H and A were firmly in place !

    FOI THURSDAY
    LOI BOURNE
    COD TOMCAT
    TIME 10:23

33. 24.42. I found some of this tricky without ever really getting stuck. Wasn’t sure about that meaning of bourne or range for classify and didn’t know the sheep. Deciphering love songs and a couple of others in the SE held me up. I liked the queen’s consort clue.
34. Delightful, and I would have finished sooner if I hadn’t confidently put in DON for the “Chap in East London semi” and stubbornly held to it even most crossers REINFORCEd the suspicion that I could by some stretch of the imagination possibly be wrong. I first thought of “sack” in relation to BARSAC because of the reference to “wine,” not “fire.” Had to identify the sheep purely by working the anagram. BRIGHT and HOA were my last ones in, and at this writing (and before reading what others have come up with), I haven’t found a dictionary reference to the call.

    Edited at 2021-06-25 05:11 pm (UTC)

    1. Whoa imp. verb
       1—a command (as to a draft animal) to stand still
       2: cease or slow a course of action or a line of thought : pause to consider or reconsider — often used to express a strong reaction (such as alarm or astonishment) Merriam-Webster.

       Chambers – Stop!

       I too thought of DON – but it were ALF what dunnit!

       1. Yeah, I know all about “whoa,” David. GEE.
          Jackkt says HOA is indeed in Chambers, which I, alas, do not possess a copy of.
35. I put in the right word here, but I couldn’t quite make it work for me. “Cynthia” flitted thru my mind, though the only Cy I know of is Twombly. There seems to be a relation to the theme, which of course I missed entirely, which perhaps makes the clue more acceptable for this particular puzzle. It’s a nice trick when the theme can help in solving…
    1. As a fellow New Yorker you will of course know Cy[rus] Vance Jr. who has some rather important investigations going on at the moment. The theme didn’t help me either but was nice when I saw it.
36. I had no problem with assuming RANGE means classify (Chambers says it does, second meaning) since “ranger” means classify in French. I wasn’t quite sure about the two girls either but with the checkers FANCY was clearly the answer. Even though it was easy, I thought there were lots of nice clues. I’ve never seen any of the Morse stuff so I totally missed that. I didn’t even notice ENDEAVOUR MORSE even though I did know his name since it has come up her before. I took it on trust that ROMNEY MARSH was a type of sheep (I lived in Kent for a time so I had heard of it as a marsh).
37. I thought my geographical knowledge was okay but clearly not. 30 mins for all but DARMSTADT then 6 mins to chuck in the towel. Couldnt get the meaning of “track” otherwise probably could have got it as considered the stadt ending.

    BOURNE not known but trusted the w/p

    Thanks all

38. Interesting comments on the severity or otherwise of this, because while most regulars found it pretty easy and enjoyable, this beginner found it almost impenetrable. And yet when Verlaine breaks down the clues and answers it seems so simple! It highlights the difference between the experienced knowing all the clues to the clues – eg that supply indicates an anagram – and the inexperienced naively taking words at face value. It’s going to take years to catch up! No criticism, not asking for easier puzzles – the point of them is to challenge. FOI ENDEAVOUR. LOI SKA and REINFORCE. And lots of gaps! 30 minutes of head scratching. .
39. Sbeginner, you took the words right out of my mouth! I’m also a newbie, especially to the 15×15, and found this one exceptionally tricky, but always so obvious when you see the excellent blogs. So enjoyable to solve but clearly a long way to go as lots unanswered before giving in.
    Some new words for me — HOA and ‘bight’ in BRIGHT. Thanks setter, V and all.
40. ….cheated with DARMSTADT which I’d NHO.

    Wasn’t too keen either on HOA which seemed like a bit of a copout (I’ve got an H and an A, let’s pick some random noise as the answer).

    BOURNE was my LOI

Comments are closed.