Times 28021 – The cold in the cooler will get hotter as a rule-r

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I enjoyed this puzzle immensely, referencing as it did two of my favourite songs, one of which did double duty by prompting me to get the sciency clue without having to bother about what it all meant.

We also have a largely unread English poet, who I knew through my CS Lewis studies, a 70s sitcom that has lasted the course of time pretty well and possibly the best known work by Gilbert and Sullivan. Pompedy-pompedy pom! No Princess Ida to trip me up here. A self-confessed flat-track bully, I wonder if I might sneak under the WITCH again this Monday with my 24:10…

ACROSS

1 Mine closes branch that’s a bad place to be (6)
ARMPIT – PIT (mine) on (closes) ARM (branch); as in ‘Weston-super-Mare is the armpit of Somerset.’ Apologies to my sister and anyone else who live there.
5 Home before time, wound up fiancé (8)
INTENDED – IN (home) T (time) ENDED (wound up)
9 Player against work with piano nonet being composed (8)
OPPONENT – OP (work) anagram* of P NONET
10 Maroon thread (6)
STRAND – double definition (DD); my daughter put me on to Maroon 5 (the band whose lead singer cannot look at a camera without ripping his shirt off and showing his tattoos); I must confess to liking their 2019 number ‘Memories’, a riff on Pachelbel’s canon. ‘Memories bring back, memories bring back – yo’
11 Just the same as Ernie, perhaps (8)
LIKEWISE – LIKE [Ernie] WISE (of Morecambe and Wise fame)
12 A home to weep over in Balkan country (6)
BOSNIA -reversal of A IN SOB
13 Note a carrier with more than one iron canister of gunpowder? (3,5)
TEA CADDY – TE A CADDY (carrier with more than one iron – ho! ho! Fanny Sunesson and Steve Williams might be the most famous members of the breed of golf-club carriers cum psychologists); gunpowder is a type of green tea
15 Attempt to introduce the second of horses here? (4)
TROY – [h]O[rses] in TRY; so far as I know, there was only one attempt at equine deception in Asia Minor, so I am not sure the clue is entirely felicitous
17 Depend — only without me (4)
RELY – [me]RELY
19 Roll in once drunk for work (8)
NOCTURNE – TURN in ONCE*; Chopin’s nocturne in C-sharp minor (posthumous) was brought to a larger audience by the film The Pianist
20 Prohibit going either way in crossing (6)
FORBID – BI in FORD
21 Swap over shillings or sixpences, say (8)
EXCHANGE – DD
22 Mostly ill-tempered English poet (6)
CRABBE – CRABB[y] E; George Crabbe (1754-1832) was a poet, surgeon and clergyman. Byron described him as ‘nature’s sternest painter, yet the best’, so he obviously preferred him to Robert Southey.
23 Exhaust patent anger (8)
OVERTIRE – OVERT IRE
24 Not all there is to see in fourth rate feature (8)
DISTRAIT – IS in D TRAIT (aka ‘fourth feature’); absent-minded, as I am on occasion, especially with reference to almost anything told me by the wife
25 Origins of Pooh, Owl, Roo, Kanga, Eeyore, Rabbit and Piglet (6)
PORKER – the initial letters of all those AA Milne characters

DOWN

2 One who makes good dryer introduced by salesman (8)
REPAIRER – AIRER after REP
3 Things appropriate to youth at the outset (8)
PROPERTY – PROPER (appropriate) T[o] Y[outh]
4 Kid at home prepared for light work (3,6)
THE MIKADO – KID AT HOME*
5 Finally visiting the town we holidayed in most recently? (2,3,4,6)
IN THE LAST RESORT – hearing Don Henley sing anything is a delight, but I know every word of his Last Resort and have been known to sing along to it with a passion almost approaching that of the Texarkanan. ‘Call some place paradise, kiss it goodbye!’ They can put that on my gravestone.
6 Physical amount of energy left over in New York (7)
ENTROPY – reversal of PORT (left) in E (energy) NY; in simple terms, entropy is a thermodynamic quantity; or, as Michael Flanders puts is, ‘that’s entropy man!’
7 Note downpour develop over time and where it ends up (8)
DRAINAGE – D (note) RAIN AGE
8 Classic TV series — key dramas broadcast over years (4,4)
DADS ARMY – D (key this time) DRAMAS* Y – as you should jolly well know, Wilson…
14 A lot discounted spiteful gossip over Charlie and Rick (4-5)
DIRT-CHEAP – DIRT (spiteful gossip) C (Charlie) RICK (heap – as of hay)
15 Devious few do act false (3-5)
TWO-FACED – FEW DO ACT*
16 What elevates the way religious festival gets swapped around (8)
OVERPASS – PASSOVER becomes OVERPASS; simple as
17 Editor is embarrassed luvvy? (8)
REDACTOR – RED ACTOR
18 Lake supporting fish which may be close to the bottom? (8)
LINGERIE – LING on ERIE; a slightly Paul-in-the Guradianesque definition; what are times coming to?
19 Establishment making good bed covers? (4,3)
NAIL BAR – cryptic definition; the bed of the nail is the vascular epidermis upon which most of it rests. A nail bar is another formulation for a nail salon.

61 comments on “Times 28021 – The cold in the cooler will get hotter as a rule-r”

  1. After 19 minutes I had all but 4 answers in the SW corner but I needed another 22 minutes to crack those.

    Two of them, OVERPASS and FORBID came about half-way through with NAILBAR and DISTRAIT holding out until the bitter end with 41 minutes on the clock. Oddly enough the unknown CRABBE had gone in from wordplay on the very first reading of the clue as ‘mostly ill-tempered’ brought CRABB{y} to mind at once. Maybe it’s a temperament that I am only too aware of as I view the world through a jaundiced eye these days!

    I had lost a little time earlier thinking AS A LAST RESORT at 5dn but the enumeration didn’t fit so I changed it first to AS THE LAST RESORT, then AT THE LAST RESORT and finally IN THE LAST RESORT when I solved 5ac which provided the I-checker.

    Edited at 2021-07-05 05:01 am (UTC)

  2. I started quite quickly on this one, but the lower left was a killer for me. That wasn’t the reason for the DNF, though. I needed to look up LIKEWISE, as I really was stumped. (I also looked up IN THE LAST RESORT, DISTRAIT, and NAIL BAR, but I had those right.)
  3. O’er youthful peasants and declining swains;

    20 mins pre-brekker. I liked it. It seemed to have a gentle charm.
    Thanks setter and U.

  4. 21 minutes with LOI DISTRAIT. I started off like a house on fire only to founder in the SW. I saw OVERPASS and NAIL BAR, and then CRABBE fortunately flashed across my mind. DISTRAIT took another couple of minutes. COD to TEA CADDY. Good puzzle. Thank you U and setter.

    Edited at 2021-07-05 06:55 am (UTC)

  6. I spent an age on my LOI DISTRAIT, as for me it was 50/50 between that and DISTRACT. DISTRACT had the advantage of being a word I know and sort of fitting the definition — to be distracted could be “not all there”, However, DISTRAIT seemed to fit the cryptic better with “trait” definitely being a feature whereas I couldn’t see any way in which “tract” could be. Thus it was with great relief that I managed to go against Sod’s Law and get the right answer.
  7. ENTROPY is a PROPERTY taught
    To physicists. It is thought
    As we EXCHANGE energy
    Some is lost, so you sse
    We’ll all die IN THE LAST RESORT
  8. Defeated by DISTRAIT – I put ‘distract’ as I hadn’t heard of the former. Otherwise I got through this fairly quickly by my standards, even though I didn’t understand what was going on with NAIL BAR.
  9. 16.11 with the SW corner proving tricky. FOI strand, LOI distrait with crabbe, forbid and nail bed holding me up before. Nice puzzle. Thanks setter and blogger- I don’t have any association with Weston Super Mare so won’t be trolling you.😊
  10. 10:39. The NW corner held me up the most, particularly my last in ARMPIT. Anyone who’s taken the tube at rush hour knows that an ARMPIT isn’t a pleasant place to be but I didn’t recognise it as an idiom. It’s in all the dictionaries: Lexico says it’s an American usage.
    I had AT THE LAST RESORT initially but 5ac starting ‘home’ meant it didn’t stay in for long.
    1. We once had a boss who we christened “Axilla”. You may draw your own conclusions.
  11. Baffled by DISTRAIT where I put a desperate DISTRICT. Otherwise 27:15. Thanks setter and U.
  12. Well, yes, around 12 minutes until NAIL BAR and DISTRAIT pushed it to almost 21. If I’m going to have a gripe it’s that NAIL BAR is a CD, and, as often happens on Sundays, I spent fruitless time trying to tease out the wordplay elements. Even when you give up on that endeavour, for me “bed” is along, long stretch away from assocition with nail.
    With the R in place, DISTRAIT still took a long time to emerge, but I’ll concede that the setter crafted a swine of a lift-and-separate. My almost entry was DISTRICT, vaguely at least not all there is to see, but nothing else working. Trait and feature don’t associate particularly well with me, but Chambers has it.
    All the rest simples. Thanks U for the sublime musical interludes
    1. A medic will doubtless correct me, but isn’t the nail bed the live fleshy stuff beneath the dead cuticle (in fact, exactly as our blogger has it)? So NAIL as a bed cover seems legitimate to me.
      1. It probably is as described: that doesn’t change the fact that in my internal dictionary, bed and nail are not readily associated. So I’m educated, but may not necessarily carry the information forward to the next occasion!
        1. Absolutely! There are plenty of things I “learn” here, then forget and then “re-learn” next time.
  13. Monday is usually my best chance of finishing the xwd but, like some others, I had DISTRACT. I wasn’t comfortable with it but had never heard of DISTRAIT so wasn’t going to get it anyway.
  14. Very jolly and just right for a Monday.

    My Scottish wife refers to ARMPITS as oxters (though it’s not a word that comes up very often in conversation). It’s aiselle in French if you wanted to be derogatory about any French seaside towns.

    Thanks to U and the setter.

  15. Like others, the SW held up the longest. With TWO-FACED, OVERPASS and IN THE LAST RESORT all well in, I still needed a few minutes to spot FORBID, followed by NAIL BAR which gave the B for CRABB(y) (I had been wondering whether there was a poet called CRANKE) — and finally DISTRAIT after a few more moments.

    The rest was pretty comfortable though completed over two shifts with an 8-hour kip in between.

  16. First one for a while so pleased with the all-correct 24m. Thanks for the enlightenment, U, on FORBID and TEA CADDY. The golf connection never occurred to me. Doh! Thank you, setter, for the pleasant start to the week.
    1. Ditto on the caddy – brillint clue! And as a golfer I missed it completely, had to guess.
  17. All correct in 27 mins with about half that time in the troublesome SW, not helped by having carelessly written COCTURNE. How the mind wanders.
  18. I agree on The Last Resort – one of my favourite Eagles songs, absolutely beautiful.

    8m 59s today, with at least a quarter of that time spent on ARMPIT. Not a tricky clue, now I look at it, but a definition that I’m not terribly familiar with.

  19. Started slowly but whizzed through in the end. DISTRAIT was a favourite term of my mother’s which always rather annoyed me – it sounded affected. Around here if you say something’s the absolute pits it means the worst but I don’t know if it’s connected to underarms. What would we do without Flanders & Swann (and Sellars and Yeatman, Gilbert & Sullivan and probably some other legendary partnerships). 12.29
  20. and as little tricksier than the usual Monday. I was off like a greyhound but slowed to a corgi! Armpit and Crabbe took the time with distrait my LOI. COD Likewise – nothing to do with Premium Bonds my mother’s favourite flutter!
  21. Another curious Monday offering, with most of it easy, but the last 3 in the SW proving intractable, and I had to get some help to find the poet. However the NAIL BAR still proved elusive until DISTRAIT hoved into view.
    COD LIKEWISE
  23. I left this until after the CNN ‘Fourth’ Festival which even showcased Susanna Hoffs & Co. – The Bangles! Hence my manic Monday. Easy and toughish combined. Untimed – forgot – which was fortunate.

    FOI 5dn AT THE LAST RESORT – innit! No apparently IN! INTENDED was not quite what I intended! Does anyone have a fiancé anymore?

    LOI 1ac ARMPIT – yuk!

    COD 4dn THE MIKADO from G&S – hoorah!

    WOD 25ac PORKER! A Boris put-down.

    Ar 12ac Is not CRYNIA a CROAT enclave within BOSNIA itself? Perhaps not!

  24. Another DISTRACT here. I couldn’t see how it worked, and my gut feeling was correct!
    FORBID went in on the definition, but I didn’t understand the wordplay, so thank you for that and the rest of an entertaining analysis.
    Regards
    Andrew
  25. A stroll in the park to start the week, solved pretty well top to bottom.
  26. I have been reading this site for more years than I care to admit with the aim of being able to finish the times crossword on a regular basis. Finally got there during lockdown. I’m not quick but usually finish if I persevere. I would like to say that the site has given me an immense amount of pleasure, and still does, and I’m very appreciative of all the people who contribute.

    As for today’s crossword: I didn’t understand bed of nails but put it in anyway. Managed to avoid biffing distract but only just. I have had many DNFs through careless last entries so maybe I have learnt my lesson.

    Brett

  27. This was three-quarters very easy, and one quarter extremely difficult. I always struggle on clues where the definition is work – random book, or something else? Piece – the name of one, or a general def like nocturne? Poet – who knows any poets? The definition of entropy, studied muchly in physics at uni. The link between nails and beds, more than a little bit tenuous. And NHOs/forgottens like distrait, where it’s a fingers-crossed guess.
    Armpit also held me up, and the first word of 5 down – I started with as, like others. For those idiosyncrasies I probably didn’t enjoy it as much as most of you.

    Edited at 2021-07-05 01:26 pm (UTC)

    1. There are a few comments about the link between bad and nail being tenuous, but anatomically, as our blogger explains, the link really isn’t tenuous at all. I thought it was a great clue, in fact.
      1. Are you a specialist doctor, your specialisation being the anatomy and treatment of fingers and toes? I’ve never heard of a nail bed. I stand by my call of tenuous, but I might be calamitously wrong – everyone might know about nail beds except me 😉
        1. I’m not – it’s just a piece of mostly useless information I picked up somewhere. A bit like knowing the periodic table (I don’t, but other solvers here do) or which Greek scholar said what about whom (same point). Just because I don’t know something doesn’t necessarily make it tenuous!
          1. You’re right. One of the bloggers often says, “Everything I don’t know is obscure”. I’ve never heard of nail beds, so it’s tenuous (a joke with a smile).
            2. The only connection I knew between ‘bed’ and ‘nails’ was to do with hardship and suffering rather than digital maintenance.
  28. Brett – I think I’ve got noticeably faster since finding this blog a couple of years ago. I’m never going to be up with the speedsters, but that doesn’t concern me. I’ve definitely learnt lots from them and often I get an hour’s fun out of the crossword which only entertains the speedsters for a few minutes.
  29. Took ages over LOI DISTRAIT. “Not all there is to see in fourth rate feature” had me trying to shoehorn a ‘see’, such as our old friend Ely, into the answer. The “to see” part of the clue appears superfluous. It would work just as well as ” not all there is in fourth rate feature”, though it doesn’t scan as nicely. 21″51″
  30. Struggled woefully with an unknown loi in the QC earlier today, so came to the 15×15 for a different sort of challenge, only to repeat the process with Distract. Never heard of Distrait, so that was always going to be a stretch. I did however get Crabbe… probably because it’s quite close to my current mood. Likewise and Exchange were my two favourites today. Invariant
  31. Last Friday felt properly Fridayish and this was properly Mondayish. Only vaguely remembered CRABBE, but once the checkers were in, the bell rang a little louder. Some nice touches elsewhere with interesting surfaces (this sounds like an estate agent’s verdict).
  32. Being pedantic, Weston-super-Mare is no longer in Somerset as it’s now the Last Resort going south in that made-up county of North Somerset instead, as I’m sure your sister will inform you. Mind you, most people there say they still live in Somerset.
    31 minutes and glad not to fall into the DISTRACT pit.

    As a claim to fame, my great grandfather married the widow of Richard Temple who played the original Mikado.

    Edited at 2021-07-05 02:47 pm (UTC)

  33. but I liked this. Did half on the brink of sleep and finished in the clear light of day. LOI NAIL BAR. DISTRAIT came late, too, for someone who has often said, “Je suis trop distrait !” Focus…
  34. ….by forgetting to press submit. My time on the leaderboard is 8:36, but I was quicker than that (see below). I biffed my LOI (thanks Ulaca), and around here we usually say AS A LAST RESORT. Poet vaguely recalled from somewhere but I know nothing of his oeuvre.

    FOI INTENDED
    LOI DISTRAIT
    COD LINGERIE (a few “Private Eye” moments here !)
    TIME 7:12

    1. George Crabbe is probably best known today for his work The Borough, one section of which was the inspiration for Britten’s opera Peter Grimes. He was from Aldeburgh, in Suffolk, where it is set.
      Gill D
  35. 17:06. I enjoyed this puzzle a lot, plenty of witty clues and for me a little more difficult than the normal Monday fare.
    FOI 2 d “Repairer” and then a fairly brisk completion of the RHS before more of a struggle with the LHS.
    LOI 3d “Property” with a Biff for 19 d “Nail Bar” (thanks Ulaca for explanation)
    11 ac “Likewise” became easier when I stopped thinking about Premium Bonds.
    13 ac “Tea Caddy” helped by having heard of Gunpowder tea, although too nervous to have tried it!!
    Thanks to setter and Ulaca for an entertaining blog
  36. Re: Distrait

    The other day my wife said “You’re not listening to me”.
    I thought that was a strange way to start a conversation.

  37. 48 minutes with a few clues that required dusting out the mustier corners of my mind (CRABBE, DISTRAIT for which I wondered if it really was an English word as well as a French one), but also a few brilliant ones like TEA CADDY (which earned a guffaw when I realized what kind of gunpowder was being referred to) and NAIL BAR, which only went in after NOCTURNE told me it would not start with C. I took forever to parse or solve OVERPASS, LIKEWISE, even THE MIKADO, although parts of them were clear from the beginning.
  38. 22.35. Breezed through most of this rather Monday-ishly but ran aground in the SW and made no progress for ages until overpass (which was under-parsed), nail bar, forbid, Crabbe and distrait very slowly came together.
  39. Like many others, rattled through this until slowed down significantly in the SW corner. In the end, defeated by “Distrait” which is a new word to me. I should have figured it out from the word play but was distracted by “Distract”.
    Ah well.
  40. Whizzed through with biffing aplenty. I found that several clues were, while brilliant and witty, also very easy. eg Bosnia, Porker. Many thanks.
  41. Troy was famed for much more than the Hollow Horse.
    THE HIPPOI TROIADES (Trojan Horses) were twelve immortal horses possessed by the kings of Troy. According to some, they were sired by the North-Wind upon the mares of the Trojan King Erichthonius. According to others Zeus gave them to King Laomedon as compensation for the theft of Ganymedes.

    Perhaps the definition could be “horses here”.

  42. I’m surprised that nobody has mentioned Peter Grimes. My guess, although I know nothing really about this, is that Crabbe’s name lives on mainly because Benjamin Britten composed an opera based on Crabbe’s poem.
  44. Agree — or alternatively “Not all there is to be seen in fourth rate feature”

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