Times 28029 – quatorze juillet, and a storming crossword.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Once again our mystery setter has delivered the goods, I think, with a very enjoyable and erudite puzzle; it does require a little GK (1a, 4d, 19a, 24a, 16d) but there’s almost nothing my 11 year old granddaughter would consider obscure. (I think!). I did have trouble parsing 12a, and haven’t yet fully understood how 21d works, but the answers are obvious enough. Happy Bastille Day! Santé!

Across
1 Sausage trimmed in small rooms in Manhattan home (3,6)
LOS ALAMOS – SALAM(I) inside LOOS (small rooms). Not a condo in New York, the home of the Manhattan project in WWII. Clever.
6 Snare left like this (5)
LASSO – L, AS SO = like this.
9 Nose back to side of road shortly in banger (7)
KNOCKER – CONK (nose) reversed, KER(B) = side of road shortly.
10 Give a lift to employment, packing pair in somehow (7)
UPRAISE – USE = employment, insert (PAIR)*.
11 Sacred text I removed from clothes drawer (5)
SUTRA – SUIT = clothes, remove I, add RA for artist, drawer. Sutras are ancient Hindu sacred texts, the only one I’ve come across is the KAMA SUTRA which tells you all you need to know.
12 Boots may be showing lout in a bad light (9)
HOBNAILED – a HOB is an old word for a lout, amongst other meanings (says Collins); (IN A)*, LED = light (light emitting diode).
13 A measure of money — coins not initially sufficient for good book (5)
MICAH – M1 is somethig to do with money supply in economics; CA(S)H is coins without S (initially sufficient). Micah is the sixth of the twelve minor prophets books of the Old Testament.
14 Trace reported fault with steering device (9)
SCINTILLA – double homophone; SCIN sounds like SIN (fault) and TILLA sounds like TILLER of a boat.
17 Hunger — it’s terrible, no doubt (4,5)
SURE THING – (HUNGER ITS)*.
18 Pine produces this flower, cut to take home (5)
ROSIN – ROS(E), IN = home.
19 Make an accurate plan of PM’s residence (9)
CHARTWELL – Where Churchill lived. CHART WELL = make an accurate plan of.
22 In husband’s absence, warm through and polish off (3,2)
EAT UP – HEAT UP loses H.
24 Don’t start stupid song about Shakespeare’s country (7)
ILLYRIA – (S)ILLY, AIR (song) reversed. Illyria in Shakespeare was the fictionalised setting for Twelfth Night, in ancient times it was on the Adriatic coast of the Balkan area.
25 Red slogan I must follow, and join in (7)
CHIANTI – CHANT = slogan (?) insert I and add I.
26 That is nothing for a fool to admit (2,3)
TO WIT – insert O (nothing) into TWIT.
27 Appointed period in which to put name on back of certificate (9)
DESIGNATE – DATE = period, insert E (back of certificate) and SIGN (put name on).

Down
1 Satisfies thirst — not principally in their water? (5)
LAKES – SLAKES = satisfies thirst; drop the S.
2 Wear short muffler, one that goes with a zip (6,3)
SPORTS CAR – SPORT (wear), SCAR(F) = short muffler.
3 Willingly enjoy drink of spirits (4,1,4)
LIKE A SHOT – double definition, one colloquial.
4 Island outlet stocks French wine ready to be drunk (7,8)
MARTHAS VINEYARD – MART (outlet) HAS VIN (French wine) (READY)*. Easy one for Transatlantic chums.
5 At first, snipping cascading black hair presents obstacles (9,6)
STUMBLING BLOCKS – S(nipping) TUMBLING (cascading) B(lack) LOCKS (hair).
6 Burden almost overwhelms Catholic poet (5)
LORCA – RC inside LOA(D) = burden almost. Spanish poet killed by Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War.
7 Son is going to drink a lot (5)
SWILL – S(on) WILL = is going to.
8 Too tense thus at the bank? (9)
OVERDRAWN – &lit.
13 One taking pains to enjoy Russian resort: nuts about it (9)
MASOCHIST – MAST = nuts (of beech tree); insert SOCHI, resort beloved of Mr Putin.
15 Sailor receiving heartless victimisation (9)
TARGETING – TAR = sailor, GET(T)ING = receiving, heartless.
16 Italian bombing has caught American ship — it sank (9)
LUSITANIA – insert US into (ITALIAN)*.
20 Smouldering with rage, at heart depressed (5)
AGLOW – AG = rage at heart; LOW = depressed.
21 Turning up, bang on about leader of Rat Pack (5)
TAROT – this looks like TO(R)AT reversed, R being the leader of Rat. But how does TOAT mean bang on? My dictionaries say it is an alternative spelling of TOTE, but that makes me none the wiser. Enlighten me!
Thanks to jackkt and others for pointing out it’s TO A T as in “it fits me…”.
23 Prepare to paint very formal European (5)
PRIME – PRIM = very formal, E(uropean).

​

72 comments on “Times 28029 – quatorze juillet, and a storming crossword.”

  1. Quickish today in just over 17, and happily pink free.
    I did think ROSIN would sink a decent few, and their behalf have researched both the river RES? and the actual flower. No joy, sorry, though there is someone called River Resh on FB, living in Colorado.
    I’m disappointed with myself for not spotting the Oppenheimer connexion, blindly assuming there was a bit of New York remembering the Alamo. The cryptic was unmistakable.
    The only Russian resort I could think of was Sochi, because of the Olympic connection: it just took me a while to believe it could be part of a real word.
    I was content with HOB NAILED, stretching nailed as in pinned down or arrested for being shown in a bad light. Whatever works!
  2. Definitely an advanced grade puzzle with many a cleverness within, sometimes perhaps a step too far (“drawer” for a member of the Royal Academy is imho borderline disparaging). Didn’t fall into heffalump trap. Loved “Manhattan location” and neat inclusion of SOCHI in MAST (thankfully the clue had very kind definition). But, when all was writ and done, was impressed and so big thanks to setter and to blogger (on a tough day to blog).
    Still monsoon season here … in Geneva!
  3. Happy Bastille Day to Philippe and Francois. The latter (Rose de Provence) helped me to the correct pine product. No trouble with ILLYRIA thanks to the very boring Olivia in that play. I was nicely bamboozled by the Rat Pack for a while. 18.24
  6. ….for parsing MICAH which was actually the only query I had. Mind you, I came within a whisker of falling into the “resin” trap !

    A great puzzle, and I was on the setter’s wavelength.

    FOI LASSO
    LOI TAROT
    COD MARTHA’S VINEYARD
    TIME 9:13

  7. KNOCKER defeated me, for some reason. Frustrating. The rest of this was challenging but fun.
  8. 50 odd minutes for a pink square, ah well…
    Quatorze Juillet and France is erupting in protest. Wonder if it will make the news.
  9. Finished this in two sessions, but I didn’t even remember starting my Sunday blog last night and there it was on my desktop, so I must have been blitzed. Had STUMBLING BLOCKS and most of the right half when I took it up again. MARTHA’S VINEYARD was my POI, so not so easy for this Yank. I had to fetch up the “nuts” meaning of MAST from some dim mental recess, and never actually finished parsing KNOCKED, I see only now, but I had the right answer! CHARTWELL was a guess (I am always much more confident in the morning!) and I didn’t know the “lout” meaning of HOB either, so that was my LOI, after the island. ILLYRIA was neat, MICAH and SUTRA fiendishly hard to parse for such short words.

    Edited at 2021-07-14 06:13 pm (UTC)

  10. Very clever and a very enjoyable 37 minutes. I also didn’t see TO A T, but TAROT was biffable, and although I would usually spell it RESIN, there’s no flower I know of that starts RES?, so no problem there. LOS ALAMOS was superb and SWILL drew a loud chuckle, but there was lots of other good stuff.

    Edited at 2021-07-14 07:21 pm (UTC)

  11. 19.40. I felt more on the ball today. The lout meaning of hob was not remembered and M1 as a measure of money was unknown but no other stumbling blocks. Satisfying to puzzle out the rest of it.
  12. 19:57 with a late start this afternoon, after our up and over garage door decided to implode over Mrs P’s car (for which we’d just negotiated a private sale yesterday). Somehow we managed to get the door re-locked without any damage but now we’re petrified to open it again! No matter we have notified our favourite garage door company and intend to let them earn their corn.
    After all that excitement this puzzle came as a pleasant relief.
    I found it a lot of fun and personally stretching although I was helped by being aware of most of the GK. I also confess to a few biffs ( 9 ac knocker, 22 ac Hobnailed, 13 ac Micah where I knew M1 money supply but couldn’t parse the “cah” and LOI 21d “tarot” — where I couldn’t see how “taot” backwards meant anything like “accurate”. Nice one, setter!
    Here’s hoping for a quieter day tomorrow!
    Thanks to Pip for an enlightening blog and to setter for a very enjoyable workout
  13. Not a hope with this one! Got a measly three and had to give up, and reading pipkirby’s answers and explanations, I can see I never would have got any further no matter how long I toiled. Words I’ve never heard of, GK I don’t have, and clues that were just too clever for me. Well done to all who completed.

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