Times 28027 – Rodent infestation – get the cat!

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Time: 11 minutes
Music: John Coltrane, Coltrane Jazz

This was definitely very easy, and I was hoping to break 10 minutes.   Unfortunately, my last two, Berliner and newsagent, held me up for several minutes and I was unable to crack the single-digit barrier.   I had to try a number of possible parsings of the cryptic for newsagent before the obvious answer popped into my head, and then I spend another minute on Berliner.   Not a bad try, I just lost a little momentum at the end.

Naturally, going this fast, it was mostly a biff-fest with occasional glances at the cryptics, so I’ll have to parse a few ex post facto.   I don’t think they’ll give me much difficulty.   I’m sure there will be some ridiculously fast times for this puzzle by the fastest solvers, maybe under five minutes.

Across
1 Amuse pedant coming out of his shell (6)
TICKLE – [s]TICKLE[r], my FOI.
4 German bishop to sin — policy for covering up (8)
BERLINER – B + ER(LINE)R, my LOI.
10 Cornish location where Jerry may hide? (9)
MOUSEHOLE – Double definition, where Jerry is the mouse.   Whether Tom is a cat wearing pyjamas is not stated.
11 Bird exercising with tail cut (5)
PEWIT –  PE + WIT[h].
12 Tom’s bedroom attire? It’s the best thing going (3,4,7)
THE CATS PYJAMAS – Cryptic hint, barely.
14 Lukewarm old rocker gets holy inside (5)
TEPID – TE(PI)D.
16 One US President, bad vote-loser (9)
ROOSEVELT – Anagram of vote-loser, for a man who was just the opposite.
18 Work with one university doctor starts to explore new systems in drug centres (5,4)
OPIUM DENS – OP + I + U + MD + E[xplore] N[ew] S[ystems] for an answer most solvers will just biff.
20 The wife‘s language (5)
DUTCH – Double definition, a chestnut.
21 Benevolent female, falling short, yet got rid of harm somehow (5,9)
FAIRY GODMOTHER – anagram of YE[t] GOT RID OF HARM
25 Ecclesiastical wear with which French chum goes to church (5)
AMICE – AMI + CE, appropriately containing some rodents.
26 As a genial drunk, feeling no pain (9)
ANALGESIA – Anagram of AS A GENIAL.
27 A theology graduate absorbing crack is forgiven (8)
ABSOLVED – A + B(SOLVE)D.  Crack as in crack the cryptic.
28 Like some animal bedding that’s crude in pigs’ home (6)
STRAWY – ST(RAW)Y.
Down
1 Desire generated by office worker joining establishment, putting leader off (10)
TEMPTATION – TEMP + [s]TATION.
2 Twosome, left to go away in car (5)
COUPE – COUP[l]E.
3 Haul fish up away from the wind (7)
LEEWARD – DRAW EEL upside-down.
5 Abrasive English line this writer penned (5)
EMERY – E(ME)RY.
6 The situation in Paris for a mathematician (7)
LAPLACE – LA + PLACE, the fellow with the transform.   If you have never heard of him, you might put Leplace, and get a pink square.
7 Original wise fellow with Scripture who purveys information (9)
NEWSAGENT –  NEW + SAGE + NT.  No anagram of wise used!
8 About to absorb old books as a way to learn (4)
ROTE – R(OT)E.
9 Prisoner to wait for nurse (8)
CONSERVE – CON + SERVE, serve as to wait on tables, nurse as to nurse a beer.
13 After a short time that lot will embrace study — keen to get going? (2,3,5)
AT THE READY –  A + T THE(READ)Y.
15 Proper stars in schools (9)
PRIMARIES – PRIM ARIES.
17 Rock band I love is playing (8)
OBSIDIAN – Anagram of BAND I O IS.
19 Poet having something wonderful with extra line (7)
MARVELL – MARVEL + L.
20 Problem bringing dryness? Doctor has nothing, not initially (7)
DROUGHT – DR + [n]OUGHT.
22 It’s good to freak out in a place of grief (5)
GRAVE – G + RAVE, a fine and private place.
23 Man with unfaithful wife among those admired (5)
HOSEA – hidden in [t]HOSE A[mired].   A fact that I did not know, nor did I need to know.
24 A male sheep knocked over a rodent (4)
MARA – A RAM upside down, giving a Patagonian coney.

73 comments on “Times 28027 – Rodent infestation – get the cat!”

  1. I tried (wise)* for a while, but there’s not much one can do with it, and I moved on. It took me a while to think of the mouse, and a different while to see how TICKLE worked. DNK MARA, outside of Japan, where it’s not spoken in polite company. Also DNK Hosea’s marital problems. Biffed OPIUM DENS, parsed post-submission.
  2. Pretty fast here though no record, but hard to tell exactly as my mind was on the baseball in the background. (That had a better result for me than the earlier football — I’ve been fielding emails from my stateside pals all evening). I took Pewit, Hosea, and Mara on trust in the cryptic, and I smiled at Leeward. Thx vinyl
  3. Yes, one for the speed solvers. A top-5 solving time for me with a few unknowns put in from the cryptics (e.g. MARA, MARVELL, AMICE and vaguely-remembered PEWIT). I was fortunate to know LAPLACE and the Biblical references.

    I was a bit slow to work out what the theology degree was in 27a, given that I have a BD!

    Great blog – thanks, Vinyl. You have small typos, I think, on 1a and 13d.

    Edited at 2021-07-12 02:49 am (UTC)

  4. Held up by almost the simplest clue in a not very hard crossword, ROOSEVELT. It’s no excuse, but I was put off by the ‘One’ – ? to indicate either Teddy or Franklin D – and more tenuously by BERLINER reminding me of JFK. A few less familiar ones in AMICE, MARA (yes, two rodents), OBSIDIAN and HOSEA gave some sense of achievement in earning all those green squares.

    21 minutes. Not last on the site anyway.

    Commiserations to English supporters about the football result. My local football team here haven’t won a premiership since 1964 so I have some idea of how you’re feeling.

  6. I finished just within 30 minutes so achieved my target but I didn’t think this was all that easy with so many unknowns or forgottens: AMICE, MARA, MARVELL (knew his name but the two L’s hadn’t ever registered), OBSIDIAN, and LAPLACE. I’m not sure I’ve ever had cause to use the word STRAWY either, so I relied on wordplay to ensure it had to be right.

    Who knew that our QC setter MARA was a rodent? Perhaps like his colleague Oink he has been setting us name-related clues all these years and we’ve never noticed! I trust not.

    WOD: THE CAT’S PYJAMAS. I hesitated over this wondering whether to go for PY- or PA-, so I went to 5dn first to obtain the checker. Actually since it’s an American expression (from the 1920’s) one might have expected the American spelling PA- to have prevailed.

    Edited at 2021-07-12 06:11 am (UTC)

  7. I’m presuming we were given a gentle one today to ease us over the disappointment of last night’s football. Like vinyl I did wonder if there might be some LEPLACEs from those not knowing the mathematician — being from a maths background it was straightforward for me but I don’t know how familiar others would be. I hesitated slightly over my last one in, CONSERVE, where I wasn’t sure about the definition but then my thought process was again aligned with vinyl’s as I considered the idea of nursing a pint — a thought which is anathema to me 😉
  8. 20 mins, held up by using an IPad in bed on hols in Northumberland.
    DNK Mara and tiny MER at the need to de-initialise Nought as Ought ought to work too.
    Thanks setter and Vinyl.
  10. …liking doughnuts as I do. Let them come to Berlin. 19 minutes with LOI OBSIDIAN, anagram fodder finally found, having decided on MARA and not TARA similarly to mrkgrrnao. COD to LAPLACE, but had need of an hypothesis to solve it. I got on well with this even on the morning after the night before. Thank you V and setter.
  11. Yes, straightforward, though I did briefly invent a new biblical figure, Osead.
    Anyone who thinks fairy godmothers are benevolent is clearly not a Shrek fan..
  12. 8:40. Easy, but not that easy. DK MARA, or anything about HOSEA. I know OBSIDIAN from playing Minecraft with my kids!
  13. I was amused at your headline, Vinyl. In my experience the cats who have deigned to allow me to feed and shelter them and generally tend to their needs, including my current Tabby, have brought mice in, then let them go so they can “enjoy” a game of chase. Often the mouse wins. Chauncey, my Tabby, is more ruthless with rats. They get killed and eaten but Chauncey is kind enough to leave the remains by the side of my bed…
    Nice straightforward puzzle with a few unknowns. My COD to day was PEWIT.
    1. My cat hasn’t quite got the hang of the chase game. Last week I found him batting a dead mouse around the kitchen and chasing it.
      1. Ha ha!! 😀 I can relate to that. I once caught Chauncey batting a dead mouse round the kitchen. This mouse was caught in a mouse trap!
  14. 8:32 Held up for over 30s at the end by COUPE. DNK MARA but sort of remembered AMICE so it had to be that rather the PUTA, which I also vaguely remembered was a word… and now I look it up, not a polite one. DNK STRAWY was a word either. I liked FAIRY GODMOTHER best.
  15. It must be me, then, to own up first to LEPLACE. Alarm bells were ringing even as I submitted but check it I didn’t.
    Otherwise rather simple with the odd words like MARA, AMICE and HOSEA well within my slumdog range.
    I think I’d have difficulty pronouncing STRAWY, should I ever have occasion to.
  16. Very straightforward, though MARA was new to me.

    The Guardian was a Berliner before it went tabloid, So was JFK, but he was a red top.

    Thanks to v and the setter.

  17. Shot off at a fast pace, but as usual slowed to a crawl in the latter stages. AT THE READY held me up as I’m using a new browser which doesn’t highlight the demarcation lines clearly, and I missed the enumeration instruction in the clue. Then BERLINER and NEWSAGENT took a while to see. As was mentioned earlier, who knew Mara was a rodent! I was also surprised by HOSEA’s marital disarray. Liked FAIRY GODMOTHER. 19:21. Thanks setter and Vinyl.
  18. I thought the Guardian in Berliner format was superb. The photographic section in the middle was terrific.
    Solved fairly steadily from top to bottom. Technically an aided completion, as I checked PEWIT (I’ve always thought it was PEEWIT), AMICE, STRAWY and MARA in Chambers. Not well known areas of my Vocabulary.
    Many thanks to blogger and setter
    BW
    Andrew
  19. Didn’t know LAPLACE, so went for ‘Leplace’. Merde. Otherwise this would have been my quickest solve ever with only BERLINER and NEWSAGENT holding me up otherwise, although I relied on the wordplay for the unknown PEWIT, MARA and MOUSEHOLE.
  20. PS, there’s an interesting’Red Box’ article in The Times comment section on Maths education policy, and it mentions ‘tropical geometry’. Sounds very hot and sweaty, but I presume it’s topological geometry?
      1. I was a bit unhappy with this. Teds were teddy boys (such as DorsetJimbo in his youth). Rockers came a bit later and had fights with the Mods. They weren’t the same thing I’m pretty sure, but perhaps for those younger than a certain age they were all much the same.
        1. I think it’s OK if you take “rocker” in a generic sense rather than the specific sense of Mods & Rockers.
              1. Ah, but using it as the first word in my post I didn’t need to commit myself on that one!
        2. I thought it was Ted Nugent — a bit abstract (there are lots of old rock stars) but it made more sense to me than Teddy Boy for the reason you give
  22. Straightforward enough, though NHO THE CAT’S PYJAMAS and the NE corner held me up for a few minutes. Pleasant start to the week even so.
  23. My fastest time and first under ten. COD 10ac MOUSEHOLE
    pronounced ‘muzzle’ I understand?
    2. ‘Mao-zul’ I believe. I’ve actually been there, and there is a fairly well-known children’s book (The Mousehole Cat) about it.
  24. About 25 minutes. No real hold ups once I got started. Didn’t know 19dn MARVELL or 24dn MARA but the cryptics were clear. Nice to start the week with an easy win.
  25. Although I did have a MER over BERLINER. LOI ABSOLVED. I didn’t know the BD so considered ADSOLVED, but that’s a different meaning I think.
  26. I knew the PEWIT only with a double E, but no complaints. Home in 10mins — a few seconds shy of a single digit solve, which might have been a record.
  27. 20 minutes today, so on my easier side. No real problems beyond not seeing the obvious such as MOUSEHOLE (nho) and how ABSOLVED worked. Pleasant puzzle, thanks V and setter for the entertainment.
  28. after watching England throw it away, after taking a second minute lead I had a torrid night! Didn’t get to bed till six – rose at eleven and took it out on the crossword later in the afternoon: 14 minutes says it all!

    FOI THE CAT’S PYJAMAS – thought of swapping the ‘Y’ for an ‘A’ but no. Film about Hearst with Eddie Izzard? Very Good!

    LOI 2dn COUPE ‘my little douce coupe’ Beach Boys!

    COD 20ac DUTCH – or in my case Mandarin

    WOD 28ac STRAWY – never used it!

  29. Thought this was going to be easy, but ground to a halt over STRAWY (didn’t link animal and bedding at first), and PEWIT which I felt sure was spelt PEEWIT and wanted to be PIPIT. The rest as 12 minutes.
  30. But I should have been quicker. That was very easy, and should have been an under-tenner. Held up at the end by Berliner, Laplace and Newsagent. That Roosevelt anagram is almost too good to be true. Probably it’s quite famous, but I’d never seen it before.
  31. PB for me.

    This seemed very straightforward, even the mildly-unknowns e.g. AMICE, MARA, HOSEA, LAPLACE were kindly clued.

    Only TICKLE unparsed but bunged in with all checkers in place.

  32. For those of us playing in the lower divisions where completing the xwd is the goal, rather than concerns about time taken, this was ideal.
    Although a number of DNK’s they were all biffable.
    FOI 16a ROOSEVELT
    LOI 19d MARVELL
    COD 1a TICKLE
  33. Eventually had to get help for the Berliner but managed otherwise, with several unknowns found by concentrating on the clue, so pleased with my effort.
  34. Yes, easy one today – my second fastest ever time, at 4m 5s. I wasn’t sure about MARA but it couldn’t really be anything else.

    It was only relatively recently that I discovered that the actress Kate Mara (and presumably her sister Rooney) pronounce it MARE-A. No idea if that’s true of the rodent too.

      1. I hadn’t come across Kate O’Mara before. Now I’m wondering if there’s a Chris Dowd or a Peter Toole out there.
  35. Thanks for the MARVELLous nudge Vinyl drawing attention to the juxtaposition of the poet with GRAVE and his (probably) best known lines to his coy mistress. Mohn and Jason were on time’s winged chariot with this one, coming in under 4 minutes and I made it in 9.49. On another dismal wet morning in these parts I could have done with something that would take a bit longer but no complaints, it was a nice puzzle.
    1. I noticed that mohn took 3:19 which according to the WITCH was over par for him!
      1. Yes it’s pretty amazing Pootle – I couldn’t do it that fast even if I’d already solved the puzzle and just typed it in.
        1. the quick cryptic today – solved it pretty quickly, so wanted to see where I was on the leaderboard – typed it in, checked for errors, and failed to wait for my actual time to come around before pressing submit. I got the same time as Verlaine, and was slower than other genuine solvers…

          I still reckon some of these guys *think* the solutions onto the site, rather than relying on quaint old writing or typing.

  36. Squeaked a sub-40 finish (OK, I had to look at the clock from an acute angle), so this was comfortably my best time on a 15×15. Feeling quite pleased at getting a few unknowns, Mara, Marvell and Obsidian, from wordplay, and remembering Amice from previous puzzles. The cats pyjamas rang a very faint bell, but the more common cats whiskers didn’t fit the cryptic, nor the available number of squares for that matter, so it had to be. CoD to my loi, Mousehole, which I only saw once I gave up on —cove and realised just what sort of Jerry the setter had in mind. Invariant
  37. About 40 minutes for me with LOI PRIMARIES; was thinking of the wrong sort of schools. Keep it simple!
    Quite a few unknowns -AMICE, LAPLACE etc. -but all derived.
    I did think of Mara the QC setter and assumed that was the answer.
    MOUSEHOLE and BERLINER were late in.
    Good fun.
    David
  38. Not so easy here, but due to fuzzy-headedness rather than difficulty. E.g. saw the elements B / ERR / LINE immediately in 4ac but it was still my third LOI. Closely followed by newsagent – not a thing, no longer exist, need a “once” indicator? – and pewit which I don’t think I’ve ever seen spelled like that.
    Know Laplace, but don’t know if place is French for place which the clue seems to demand, no-one has explicitly confirmed that yet. Hosea was in the bible. OK.
    COD tickle.
    1. … eg Place de la Concorde in Paris

      On edit: or you can have Placer (v) = to place

      Edited at 2021-07-12 03:14 pm (UTC)

      1. Of course! I’ve been following the Tour avidly again this year, and next Sunday they’ll be zipping across the Place de la Concorde at 70 kmh a few hundred metres from the the finish.
  39. Well under the. hour which is good for me as I’m still in transition from Quick Cryptic really. Hosea was a write-in as I first learned about him and his wayward wife in school years ago. PEWIT was my loi as I know it as PEEWIT (or lapwing) so it didn’t occur to me unril it was obvious.
  40. Pretty straightforward even if I had to hope and pray that Mousehole was right … as far as LAPLACE not sure clue works as PLACE means a SQUARE in the context of La Place de la Concorde as seen above … (same idea as PLAZA, PIAZZA, etc) … definitely somethingg cooky going on what with CAT’S (pj’s), MOUSE(hole)/(a)MICE etc
    PS: So frustrated to be proven right re footy… oh if only Grealish had been on from the 3rd minute … (or the first) … and a few others …
  41. Glad this was such a breeze, as I didn’t get to it last night. It really felt like a quickie. Call that gang over!
    MOUSEHOLE came up on one of my Sunday blogging stints, as the home of the ineffable STARGAZY PIE.
    MER at STRAWY. I think 999 times out of a thousand one would just say “straw bedding.”

    Edited at 2021-07-12 03:42 pm (UTC)

  42. About 27 — so very fast for me. It helped that I’ve been to Mousehole on holiday. Agree that “Strawy” is a word that can barely have been used in humany history.
  43. ….is that the parsing should lead you happily to a word that you don’t actually know — in my case MARA and AMICE — but it didn’t work for LAPLACE. Fortunately he was lurking somewhere in my grey matter. Never realised that HOSEA was cuckolded.

    FOI TICKLE
    LOI PEWIT
    COD OBSIDIAN
    TIME 5:51

    Final word on last night :

    (Sigh !) real cock-up. Maybe HE should have taken a penalty (8)

  44. My vegetable love should grow vaster than empires, and more slow. I’m more slow than you lot. Pleased to complete, with the help of the word checking facility online in the NE corner. I had to do an alphabet trawl for newsagent, but it gave me Roosevelt, pewit, Laplace and hence LOI Berliner. FOI tepid. NHO the cat’s pyjamas but whiskers didn’t fit. NHO Hosea or amice. COD Fairy Godmother. Thanks, Vinyl, and setter. GW.
  45. 7:17 after a brisk walk. My personal SNITCH tells me this is my second best time ever but I still can’t make it into the Club Top 40, so I continue to hold no ideas above my station!
    It was clearly one of the easier 15x15s but I nonetheless thought that some of the clues were quite clever.
    Couldn’t see 1 ac “Tickle” immediately so worked from FOI 1d “Temptation” and solved pretty steadily from then on , with the growing realisation that a low time could be on the cards. My LOI was 24 d “mara” which I fortunately changed at the last minute from “rama”, then submitted. Too hasty to even consider the alternative possibility of “tara”.
    Can honestly say I have NHO 28 ac “Strawy” but it had to be.
    Thanks to Vinyl for an enjoyable blog and to setter.
  46. Very easy indeed, under 23 minutes despite a few unknowns (MARA, AMICE). Probably my best time ever. No problem with LAPLACE, but then I’m a mathematician (and anyway, if the whole thing is in grammatical French it has to be that and not LEPLACE). NEWSAGENT, BERLINER and then EMERY were my LOI.
  47. DNF in around 16 mins. I had a hit and hope that like some animal would be stoaty and that oat would somehow mean bedding that’s crude. Back to the drawing board.
  48. I think this one must have been easy because it’s the first 15×15 I’ve completed in ages! Nice feeling all the same. FOI 2d COUPE, LOI MARVELL though NHI. An enjoyable 45 minutes, no records being broken, but hey, I finished it. Thanks to vinyl1 and, especially, kindly setter!
  49. Great puzzle, perfect to take my 13yr old through. Big thank you to the setter.

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