Times 28,103: Just a crouton in the cryptic 20ac

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Hello hello, I thought, this might be interesting, as I put in 9ac and 7d, an unusual pair of words if ever I met one, but in the end it all fell into place pretty easily thereafter. I think I liked the musical mashup at 13dn the best, but there were quite a few other fun cryptic constructions in here too, name your own favourite.

By popular demand I made a video of my solve, so if you REALLY want to know what my LOI is you’ll have to watch it for 8 minutes (or jump ahead).

Thanks setter!

Definitions underlined, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, {} deletions and [] other indicators.

Across
1 Showing nobility, pounds replaced by pair at financial risk (3-5)
SUB-PRIME – SUB{l->PR}IME. SUBLIME [showing nobility] with L [pounds] replaced by PR [pair]
5 Girl presented a note for discussion (6)
DEBATE – DEB A TE [girl presented | a | note]
8 Fish, confused, bled out (3)
GAR – GAR{bled}
9 Exposure to sun in quarantine, around noon (10)
INSOLATION – ISOLATION around N
10 Accountant set out agreement for gems (4-4)
CATS-EYES – C.A. + (SET*) + YES
11 How posh people used to pronounce actually spread disease (6)
INFECT – “In fact”, pronounced by Her Majesty the Queen or similar posho
12 Embargo applied to old port (4)
OBAN – BAN applied to O
14 Principled school looked after children? (4-6)
HIGH-MINDED – HIGH [school] + MINDED [looking after children]
17 A little yarn to line clothes for the summer ahead (5,5)
SHORT STORY – TO RY [to | line], with SHORTS [clothes for the summer] ahead
20 Very cheerful, but in trouble here? (4)
SOUP – SO UP [very | cheerful]. If you’re in the soup you are in trouble
23 Joker put round a new rumour (6)
CANARD – CARD put round A N
24 Girl “I just met” with Greek character making music in Mexico (8)
MARIACHI – MARIA [“I just met a girl called Maria”] with CHI
25 Through seawater ploughed giant ship (10)
BRIGANTINE – Through BRINE, (GIANT*)
26 A hard answer I suddenly see (3)
AHA – A H A
27 My clue confused lecture hall (6)
LYCEUM – (MY CLUE*)
28 Separate legs, taking seat across sides of tractor (8)
STRADDLE – SADDLE across T{racto}R
Down
1 Discerning in saint a goodness, right away (9)
SAGACIOUS – S A G{r}ACIOUS!
2 Unusual attire bishop’s put on? Yes and no (7)
BIRETTA – (ATTIRE*) with B put on. Not an unusual attire for a bishop, so a semi-&lit-semi-anti-&lit, or something
3 Passenger maybe arresting a looter (6)
RAIDER – RIDER “arresting” A
4 He entrances me, surviving at first in southern desert (9)
MESMERIST – ME + S{urviving} in S MERIT [desert, as in what one deserves]
5 Boxer’s in mire over philosophical principle (7)
DUALISM – ALI’S in MUD reversed
6 For work meetings at home, at first get into underclothes (9)
BRIEFINGS – IN G{et}, into BRIEFS
7 Vestment in large container left in reserve (7)
TUNICLE – TUN + L in ICE
13 Opera and musical in back-to-back clash, setting a standard (9)
NORMATIVE – NORMA smooshed together with reversed EVITA
15 One providing simple treatment as dog run over in robbery (9)
HERBALIST – reversed “LAB R” in HEIST. Simples are herbs
16 Party till early hours, in which I see texting double (9)
DUPLICATE – D.U.P. LATE, in which I C
18 Responsible youth’s pressure upset lout (4,3)
HEAD BOY – HEAD [pressure] + reversed YOB
19 Pistol not used at the front? (7)
SIDEARM – cryptic def
21 Nothing difficult about raising crops in the front garden (7)
ORCHARD – 0 HARD “about” R{aising} C{rops}
22 American organisation holds people up in darkened room (6)
CINEMA – C.I.A. holds reversed MEN

74 comments on “Times 28,103: Just a crouton in the cryptic 20ac”

  1. Sorry am I missing something? Surely combining Evita and Norma gives the letter “A” twice?
    1. It says that it is a clash, so the ‘words’ NORMA and ATIVE clash in that they share a space for the A.
    2. Iagree, although it caused no delay.
      Also in 16d DUP L IC ATE I thought that the cruciverbalist had simply omitted to delete the “o” from “do” thus allowing UP LATE to have a smoother surface IMHO.
      Andyf
  2. Didn’t find this terribly difficult, all clues working themselves out with a lttle thought. Only really held up through bunging in BESTRIDE instead of STRADDLE which ate up some minutes, then a long think at the end about what T_N_C_E might be
  3. 32.00. This was an enjoyable workout. I particularly liked the smooth ‘to line clothes for the summer ahead’ construction of short story. I finished up in the NE with LOI tunicle, tun being preferred to tin as a large container.
  4. friday offerings often take twice as long, with much soul-searching and gnashing of teeth. I didn’t get the full ration of mental torture today…..and, rather sadly, I miss it. Nevertheless , it was a beautifully crafted example of the setter’s art. TUNICLE was a nho, but confidently parsed and entered.
    20:17
  5. Am I the only poster baffled by Maria? Seems so. Absolutely no idea what was going on there so was left with _A_I_CHI at the end. Nho of Mexican music either. Deprived childhood no doubt.

    Liked INFECT a lot but SUB-PRIME even more. Don’t know why but the association of the word SUBLIME with the cause of the last crash was I thought v clever

    Struggled in the NE like others but teased them all out eventually

    Thanks all

    1. Maria is a song from West Side Story, the Bernstein musical.
      “Maria!
      I’ve just met a girl named Maria,
      And suddenly that name
      Will never be the same to me.”
  6. ….and a number of biffs, one of which was “realism” which held me up until I got SLOI DEBATE once I’d discounted the rogue R. In truth, I never recovered from a very slow start, being 7 clues in, then 12 clues in for my second answer.

    FOI OBAN
    LOI DUALISM
    COD NORMATIVE
    TIME 14:04

  7. 32:38. Got fixated on 1d as pointing to INSTA- something (right away) and proceeded to make a pig’s ear of the rest by putting two answers in the wrong place (and getting one of them wrong as well). Spent most of my time backtracking. By popular demand, I will not be posting a video of this solve.

    Edited at 2021-10-08 01:40 pm (UTC)

  8. FOI aha. Five on first pass = marginal whether to continue. The solve began to happen, though, and with two to go I stuck it in the online grid – to find I had made several mistakes. Realism, normalise, insulation. NHO insolation.
    These took some sorting out. Didn’t parse Gar, short story, sagacious, mesmerist, tunicle, herbalist or duplicate. LOI tunicle. All good clues. Entertained two of us for an hour. Thanks, V, and setter.
  9. Had to do this in 2 sittings, with the second one completing it fairly quickly. LOI SOUP most people’s FOI. Being a Friday, I was convinced that CARAND might be a thing which held me up somewhat.
    COD INSOLATION. At least I knew it.
  10. I was going great guns, but put ‘realism’ for ‘dualism;’. This meant that the last two clues – debate and tunicle — were decidedly tricky. It was 15 minutes before I spotted the problem. I see now the source of my stupidity. The ‘mire’ in the 5d clue. Without thinking, I made an anagram of mire and Ali’s – except of course it’s not an anagram. There’s an extra ‘i’.
  11. Didn’t parse SHORT STORY and didn’t see merit = desert in MESMERIST, but otherwise this wasn’t too bad, and my first completion for a while.

    Slightly ashamed to say the only reason I’ve hear of BRIGANTINE is because it features in the lyrics to a Stone Roses song…

    FOI Gar
    LOI Sidearm
    COD Herbalist

  12. Too sleepy when I started last night after writing Sunday’s blog, so was glad to finish it fairly quickly this morning as I waited for the kettle to whistle for my coffee. Funny thing, the phrase HIGH-MINDED occurred to me first while looking at 1A, “Showing nobility…” TUNICLE is cute. (Hope those priests keep their vestments on.)

    Edited at 2021-10-08 03:44 pm (UTC)

  13. A good puzzle for a Friday. I looked at it blankly first time round, but then managed to plough through fairly methodically, apart from the DUALISM and TUNICLE man-traps.

    COD NORMATIVE. INFECT made me laugh out loud. Presumably these were the same people who thought that sex was what the coal was delivered in.

    Thanks to Verlaine and the setter.

  15. 12:23 late this afternoon.
    Like others I felt this was on the easier side for a Friday, but at least it balances out Monday. I felt it was a well crafted puzzle and satisfying to solve.
    FOI 5 ac “debate” and then jumped around the puzzle seeming to pick up the setter’s wavelength.
    Held up early on at 5 d “dualism” where I was looking for a dog/dogma connection, until I tried substituting “ali” for “boxer”, another Crossword-land standby, and the answer appeared.
    COD 24 ac “mariachi”. I’ve always had a mental block when trying to recall the name of this music. The wordplay should help in future. In fact maybe the technique would be useful in general, for names that, for me, increasingly prove elusive?
    Thanks to V for the blog and the video and to setter for providing an enjoyable puzzle.
  16. Exactly the same as Jack- DIALOG was my FOI at 4ac! I then stuck in ARBITER at 2dn!! I carefully counted all the vowels! Never recovered and jacked it in on forty minutes – total lack of interest.

    7dn TUNICLE! played no doubt on an icicle

    20ac SOUP!! Was that a clue!!?

    1ac SUB-PRIME ain’t in my vocab. especially with ARBITER in place!

    COD 22dn CINEMA I can cope with the MEN in black- CIA

    WOD 24ac MARIACHI banned in our house – ‘er indoors find they get under her feet and she doesn’t like the food.

    Mood Meldrewvian, but I had a marvellous Thai Tuna sarnie for lunch, washed down with a large, cold Pinot G.

    PS I do wish Mohammed Ali would hang up his gloves!

    Edited at 2021-10-08 04:54 pm (UTC)

  17. Nice one! Held up in NE corner like many of the other solvers. TUNICLE and INSOLATION are new to me and will try to store them among the cobwebs in my mental attic. Liked 2dn BIRETTA, good wordplay.

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