Times 28035 – from Our Man in Rutland.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Not in Havana, unfortunately from a nice-weather viewpoint, but at least Rutland is not on the amber list. Actually we’re moving again, from 1 mile inside Leicestershire (but only 4 miles from Oakham, Rutland’s capital town), to a real Rutland village (18 houses and a post box).
This was another pleasant puzzle, not as hard as last Wednesday’s I think, it took me 25 minutes or so. I learnt 3 new words, all obvious from wordplay (15a, 23a, 27a) and a new meaning at 24d.
Sorry if the formatting looks a bit odd, I had to rescue what I could when the LJ posting went pear shaped the first time.

Across
1 Degenerative state of Venetian magistrate keeping volunteer army once (6)
DOTAGE – DOGE keeps T.A.

4 One at home in Madrid perhaps — and Paris, surprisingly (8)
SPANIARD – (AND PARIS)*.

10  Blessedness of bishop with key position, so to speak (9)
BEATITUDE – B (bishop) E (musical key) ATITUDE sounds like attitude, position.

11  Eg Hammerstein’s very large limousine (5)
OSCAR – OS (outsize) CAR (limo).

12  Rowdy lout initially stabbing poet with little hesitation (7)
HOODLUM – HOOD, UM (hesitation) insert L = lout initially. Thomas Hood was an English poet 1799 – 1845, but   I didn’t know that, being a poetrignoramus, I guessed him.

13  Mineral popular in Oman’s capital, as it happens (7)
OLIVINE – O (Oman’s capital), LIVE (as it happens), insert IN = popular.

14  Stuff wrapped round last of wholesome dairy product (5)
CREAM – CRAM = stuff, around E last of wholesomE.

15  New decanter full of sugary fluid (8)
NECTARED – (DECANTER)*. I didn’t know something could be “nectared” i.e. filled with nectar, but I see no reason why not.

18  Weaken resistance of son frequently before beak (6,2)
SOFTEN UP – S(on) OFTEN (frequently) UP = before magistrate.

20  Famous clown taking a drink (5)
COCOA – COCO the clown has A inserted.

23  Short song a girl’s written about an alien (7)
ARIETTA – A RITA has ET the usual alien inserted. I assume an ARIETTA is a short ARIA.

25  Picture the writer’s opposed to, enormously at first (7)
IMAGINE – I’M (the writer’s) AGIN, E(normously).

26  White mineral artist found in chest (5)
BORAX – insert RA into BOX. Sodium borate.

27  Like one part of speech attorney recalled, insignificant (9)
ADNOMINAL – DA reversed, NOMINAL = insignificant. It means adjectival, more or less.

28  Army musician, possibly, with sergeant-major in bar (8)
BANDSMAN – BAN = bar, insert AND (with), SM.

29  Unlimited load of French ship entering Black Sea Port (6)
ODESSA – O A = load “unlimited”, insert DE (of French) SS (ship).

Down
1 Little bird caught by peasant after severe upset (8)
DABCHICK – BAD (severe) reversed, = DAB, C (caught) HICK (peasant).
2 Came about supporting husband dismissed from the plant (3,4)
TEA ROSE – AROSE (came about) “supports” T(h)E.
3 Diving bird’s culpability, eating most of fruit (9)
GUILLEMOT – GUILT eats most of LEMO(N).
5 Advance ideas of newspapers mostly about fertilisation (14)
PRECONCEPTIONS – insert CONCEPTION into PRES(S).
6 Ruth’s mother-in-law’s current grumble going north (5)
NAOMI – I (current) MOAN reversed. As in the Bible story.
7 Turn up, dropping round initially for church record store (7)
ARCHIVE – ARRIVE (turn up) drops an R and gains a CH.
8 Deepen colour of chest in study (6)
DARKEN – ARK in DEN.
9 Novel a Moravian nun originally absorbed happily at sea? (3,3,2,6)
OUR MAN IN HAVANA – insert H A (originally Absorbed Happily) into (A MORAVIAN NUN)*.
16 Noted assertion of right accepted by fab duke (9)
ACCLAIMED – CLAIM (assertion of right) goes into ACE (fab) D(uke).
17 Shrub Conservative woman planted across lake (8)
CAMELLIA – C, AMELIA has L for lake inserted.
19 Old man holding sound-enhancing device — a character! (7)
OMICRON – O for old, RON a bloke, has MIC(rophone) inserted. 15th letter of Greek alphabet.
21 Customers not exactly silent when screwed (7)
CLIENTS – C (circa, not exactly) (SILENT)*.
22 British sailors gathering round African tree (6)
BAOBAB – B (British) AB AB (sailors), insert O (round).
24 Try one’s manipulative procedure in the theatre (5)
TAXIS – TAX (try, as in try one’s patience) I’S (one’s). In surgery taxis means to move bits about without hacking into them. Or in posh medical speak, a manipulative procedure.

46 comments on “Times 28035 – from Our Man in Rutland.”

  1. Helped by a couple of QC-level clues (Venetian magistrate, Ruth’s mother-in-law). I biffed 9d from, I think, the U, an N, and an A, never did get around to parsing it. DNK TAXIS. Not a particularly challenging puzzle.
  2. I did not employ the finest speed-solving strategies, wasting far too much time on clues rather than just moving on — especially since there were some real gimmes in this puzzle, as Kevin mentioned. Lots of unknowns, but (unlike some recent puzzles, in my opinion) all very gettable from the wordplay.
  3. Last few days I’ve taken to doing the quickie as a warm-up before the cryptic – but I think the elevated ambient temperature at the moment caused an overheat condition…
    …got myself into a complete mess on the 13×13, and resorted to the Reveal button after glumly staring at the clock passing 27 minutes.

    So it was with some trepidation, after a cooling glass of lemonade, that I hit “Play Now” on 28035. Almost immediately got FOI SPANIARD, plus a slew of others, and I knew I was in with a shout of beating my previous PB (32:03 a couple of Saturdays ago). Sure enough, I was able to keep up a good pace, and complete in an orderly manner.

    LOI = TEA ROSE
    COD = BAOBAB – brought a smile to my face because I attended a concert a few years ago by the truly excellent Orchestra Baobab (think The Rolling Stones of W. African music)

    Maintaining the African connection – but moving across the continent, I’m going to treat myself, by way of celebration, to breakfast at the local Somali café. Yum!

    New PB – 28:29

    Best wishes, Denise

    1. Well done Denise, glad you’re becoming a regular 15×15 person. Local Somali cafe? You don’t live in Rutland then!
      1. Thanks, Pip!

        I live in the Trembletown area of Manc-ville, not far from the site of the old Maine Road ground – now the heart of the local Somali community, businesses, eateries, etc.

        Unfortunately, my state of excited anticipation was short-lived. I found my favourite breakfast spot shuttered – it appears that Eid al-Adha is to blame – so I resorted to celebration breakfast plan “B”.

        I’ll definitely be making good the shortfall of Somali-ness when normal service resumes. I really enjoy my visits there – great food and a warm welcome every time (from staff and other customers).

        I remain completely mystified as to how Somali men retain their stick-thin figures, whilst cheerfully demolishing dustbin lid-sized platefuls of lunch.

        1. You had me wondering about the level of internet connection you might get in Mogadishu! As for the “stick-thin figures”, I wonder if it’s all that khat that Somalis and others from that region chew on?!
  4. 32 minutes but with one letter wrong at BAOBAB where I guessed BAABAB as in a moment of desperation I wondered if African might be abbreviated to A. There were some other unknowns but the wordplay got me to those: ADNOMINAL, TAXIS as a procedure, OLIVINE and BORAX as a white mineral – I only knew it as a detergent.

    On checking I see that BAOBAB has appeared several times previously, including a QC, so I should have known it.

    Edited at 2021-07-21 04:59 am (UTC)

  5. Under ten minutes today, which is as fast as I ever get, and faster than I prefer.
    Several tricky words but all carefully clued. This would be a good crossword for the QCers, it is so important to develop the confidence to follow the wordplay and write in words you don’t know.
    Hope your move next week goes well, Pip. Mine never have!
    1. Thanks Jerry. This will be move number 22, in 48 years, we are resigned to the pain now but at least we know what to expect.
  6. was a write-in as it has appeared for thirty years (1932-62) as the only image on the postage stamps of Bechuanaland. Stanley Gibbons called it, ‘Baobab Tree and Cattle drinking.’ Strangely not one of the cattle are actually doing so!
    FOI 1ac DOTAGE

    LOI 24dn TAXIS

    COD 4ac SPANIARD – failed to see the anagram until the bitter end!

    WOD 9dn OUR MAN IN HAVANA – what a brilliant story, which reveals some little known truths about vaccuum-cleaner salesmen and his like. Alec Guinness was glorious in the movie.

    Time 32 minutes – which I note was the English benchmark.

    Edited at 2021-07-21 07:18 am (UTC)

  7. …To the Tender ship, you see’;
    ‘The Tender-ship,’ cried Sally Brown
    ‘What a hard-ship that must be!’

    25 mins pre-brekker, with a few struggling to see Box and thereby the devious Borax/Taxis crossers.
    If you like a good pun, try Faithless Sally Brown by Thomas Hood.
    Thanks setter and Pip.

  8. More often than not I submit with one or two lingering doubts so it was nice to finish today with all either parsed or confidently biffed.

    Pip mentions learning some new things from the puzzle which got me thinking that I must learn something new from the puzzle every day. Today’s education included the pronunciation of BEATITUDE, which I had thought was pronounced BEAT… rather than BE-AT… I’d spent some time dragging “benison” from the recesses of my mind as a possible answer, another word learned from the Times Crossword. So thanks to the setters for the continuing education!

  9. 36 minutes on this mix of easyish and pretty tough. LOI was ADNOMINAL, needing all the crossers for a word I don’t think I’ve heard before. I knew neither the type of theatre or the procedure itself in TAXIS. Remembering how to spell the African tree when it’s in prospect is a recurrent problem I have. COD to OUR MAN IN HAVANA, a book I greatly enjoyed in my youth. Thank you Pip and setter.
  10. With the first two across clues straight in, a fast time beckoned. A satisfying puzzle, but as noted some more difficult clues only got by crossers / wordplay and some very biffable (GUILLEMOT, OUR MAN IN HAVANA). Nho TAXIS.

    13′ 41″ thanks Pip and setter.

  11. Close to my record time for this. Would have been ideal Monday fodder but perhaps too many write-ins and overly generous definitions for mid-week…Anyhow, very nearly achieved a double of QC + main puzzle <10, just 15 secs too long … one day (probably if I upgrade my PC software to latest versions, things might speed up by themselves…) Thanks to setter and blogger, as ever.
  12. Always good to solve in under 30 mins but, like many, I found this very straightforward.
    I echo Pip’s comments about NECTARED, ARIETTA, ADNOMINAL and TAXIS.
    My sense of humour would make a cartoon out of “The Doge Loredan” by Bellini by adding a word bubble saying “woof woof” with the caption underneath of “Beware of the Doge”…..Well, I think it’s funny.
    Best of luck with the move, Pip! After 6 major moves in the past 20 years including intercontinental ones, I’m “Dunmovin”.

    Edited at 2021-07-21 08:20 am (UTC)

  13. 28 minutes with the NHO ADNOMINAL as LOI, like boltonwanderer mainly from the crossers. Learnt a couple of new minerals (like Jack I only knew BORAX as a cleaning agent), another sense for TAXIS and a new poet.

    I wasn’t all that keen on NECTARED, but there it is in the usual places. Favourite was the surface and clever anagram for SPANIARD.

    Thanks to setter and Pip

  14. 12:59 Another who saw the novel almost immediately without needing to do the anagram. DNK ADNOMINAL or that meaning of TAXIS. COD to the ex-pat Spaniard in Paris. Thanks Pip and setter.
  15. Exactly the same as yesterday, bah. After 30 mins, 95% completed and then sat staring at A-I—-A and —X-S for another 15 mins. Couldn’t make head nor tail of it. Gave up and came here for solace. I was pleased to work out other NHOs OLIVINE and ADNOMINAL. I knew the tree as we have a local garden centre called the BAOBAB (pépinières). Thanks Pip and setter.
  16. Up very early this morning, so definitely not firing ion all cylinders. Spent too long on four across, imagining it to be far harder than the very basic clue it was. Arietta turned up in the Spectator the other day, and I notice there is an alternative – ariette.
  17. I managed to construct the unknown ADNOMINAL, TAXIS and NECTARED, but fell over with a careless short LIMe in an improperly parsed GUILLIMOT. 36 mins WOE. Thanks setter and Pip. Good luck with the move!
  18. As per yesterday (though with a bit more biffing), everything you needed was in the wordplay, even for things you’d never heard of, like ADNOMINAL. From listening to the news, I gather that most teaching of English these days starts with an argument about whether children need to know what a fronted adverbial is, so it was clearly along the same lines (as a classicist, I was drilled in all sorts of grammatical concepts, but I don’t recall learning that one – caveat: that applies to lots of things).
  19. Nice puzzle – love reading Graham Greene – it is hinted that the original story of ‘The Tailor of Panama’ came to David Cornwall (JlC) via Greene – based on a real tailor and a partner of Ian Fleming – L Barrington Smith. My COD to 9dn.
  20. Bah! TAXES instead of TAXIS, otherwise very pleased with my effort here. Nice to have two birds, plants, minerals and a bit of biblical knowledge all in this puzzle.
    All the best
    Andrew
  21. 38:38. Hurrah. A rare completion. Several went in with fingers crossed — those noted above — but with reasonable confidence.
    Again, some tricky ones in an otherwise straightforward puzzle. This seems to be a thing recently, or am I being paranoid? Even those at the simpler end of the scale contain one or two clues that are stinkers, causing me to crash and burn after an otherwise successful solve. Really, it’s not fair!
  22. Nice to see a new use for TAXIS. I think there’s a German princely house called Von Thurn und Taxis. I re-read OUR MAN recently and was startled (I had forgotten) to see the N word right there on page one. This was a speedy 12.14 for me but certainly enjoyable.
    1. issued postage stamps (roulette perf.) from 1859-1867 when the Prussian Postal Administration took over their monopoly. The Count of Thurn resided in Germany and the Count of Taxis in Austria. A sort of 19th Century philatelic ‘anschluss’, if you will.
      The stamps are quite horrible – but worth a few quid nevertheless.

      Edited at 2021-07-21 03:19 pm (UTC)

  23. Just under 15 minutes, so not that tricky. Might have been quicker if I hadn’t mysteriously written in BABOAB, which meant BORAX couldn’t emerge readily. TAXIS couldn’t really be anything else: do we have medics aboard who have done it?
    CAMELLIA looks a it odd, but again had to be.
    Pleasant if undemanding puzzle.
    1. This retired medic hadn’t come across TAXIS in the surgical sense.
      My careless error of the day. The wordplay was clear. Hey ho
  24. Didn’t know TAXIS in the theatre sense or that BORAX is a white mineral, so that intersection was a bit of a hit-and-hope. Also didn’t know that Hood was a poet, which made me hesitate over HOODLUM, and I took a while to get away from Bonsai before I remembered BAOBAB, but otherwise this was a reasonably smooth solve.

    FOI Oscar
    LOI Taxis
    COD Clients

  25. ….going through an awful pink square period at the moment with both the QC and the main Cryptic affected. That’s three out of the last four. HAVANA clearly doesn’t have an M in it. Don’t want to have to start doing the crossword on paper if I can do it online, but I shouldn’t have to check my bl**dy typing after every entry.

    Grrr. Grrr. Grrr.

    Otherwise, this was pretty straightforward.

  26. Very fast until I hit the BOABAB, TAXIS and BORAX quadrant. Not sure I will ever remember exactly where the O goes in the first; it’s not a word I get to use much. 25 mins.

    On edit re BAOBAB: QED

    Edited at 2021-07-21 12:38 pm (UTC)

  27. But got there in the end, after about 50 minutes in two sessions. DNK TAXIS, or ADNOMINAL or OLIVINE.
  28. 28m with the last five or so staring blankly at what turned out to be ARIETTA on top of the TAXIS. Eventually put in what seemed right and unusually it was. Thanks for the fun, setter, and the explanations, Pip.
  29. CAMELLIAS seem to be very popular at the moment, useful as I now know how to spell them
    Only one holdup being ADNOMINAL, which didn’t look likely as a word. As above with the other unknowns.
  30. 7:37. No problems in spite of a few unknowns: OLIVINE, BORAX (I would have said it was a plant), ADNOMINAL, who Ruth’s mother-in-law was, TAXIS. As others have noted you just had to follow the wordplay.
  31. Quite straightforward throughout until I hit the last, 19D. Nobody has commented on it, so I imagine it is GK, but I had no idea and eventually gave in, as I couldn’t fit LS, AMP or HP into the spaces. After 35 years in broadcasting, I know that a MIC doesn’t enhance sound, it converts it into an electrical signal, so it never occurred to me to put it in. A case of too much specialist knowledge, and too little general…
    Gill D
  32. ….when I’d got into a mess with the shrub. NHO ADNOMINAL, and doubt I would have got it.
  33. 16.18 so a quicker finish than the last couple of days. A couple of words which I hadn’t come across before- taxis and adnominal – but very fairly clued. FOI dotage, LOI acclaimed. Guillemot was immediate having just seen – and smelled- a bunch of them on the Farnes. Puffins still there in numbers if anyone fancies a visit but be quick!

    Thanks setter and blogger.

  34. I was quite surprised to see that the Snitch has this appreciably lower than Monday’s and Tuesday’s puzzles. Admittedly I did manage to finish this one, rather than fall a few short, but it took hours (yes, plural), with the nho’s Adnominal, Taxis, Arietta, Olivine and loi Dabchick having to be teased out with a crowbar. Invariant
  35. 14:25 late this afternoon. I’d made the mistake earlier of trimming a couple of hedges, before virtually dissolving in the unaccustomed heatwave conditions.
    So I summoned my dwindling reserves of energy and settled for a steady solve. By the end, I reckoned that there would be some fast times on show.
    NHO “adnominal” nor “taxis” in the medical sense but the cryptic elements were generous.
    COD 7 d “archive”.
    Thanks to Pip and setter.
  36. DNF in a bit less than 19 mins. I didn’t know arietta, the same way I didn’t know it last time it appeared here at the end of April. On that occasion I had no problem but this time I rather unthinkingly fixed on Anita as the girl and moved on too quickly.
  37. I didn’t start until this morning, US time, and was pleased to get ten across answers before I had any downs… but the rest took longer than I anticipated, partly because of the incursion of the day’s distractions (i.e., work), but also because I didn’t know the required sense of TAXIS, ADNOMINAL is a bit odd and the GUILLEMOT a bit exotic. I also deliberately ignored the fact that I had forgotten that “beak” could mean an officer of the court.

    OK, I’m all set to comment on the Thursday puzzle…

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