Times 28113 – no more PDMs for me.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Well this puzzle is 13d with good things, I think; two types of wine, an antelope, a capital city I knew, and an egg cell which reminded me of my off piste adventure last week in parsing OVA. Then the best bit was looking up the etymology of 22a (which was something I’d never thought about) and finding it was fun too! Thank you Mr Setter once again.

Across
1 Space travel in chaos (8)
INTERVAL – (TRAVEL IN)*.
6 Just not opening original text, leading to unease (6)
QUALMS – (E)QUAL = just, not opening; MS = manuscript, original text.
9 Release document one has to vacillate about (6)
WAIVER – I inside WAVER = vacillate.
10 Field boundary run exhausted energy (4,4)
GOAL LINE -GO (run) ALL IN (exhausted) E (energy).
11 Queen of fish? (4)
PARR – double definition, a young salmon and Catherine, 6th wife of Henry VIII.
12 Liberator of Brazil from drugs in turn corrupt (10)
NUTCRACKER – CRACK (drugs) inside (TURN)*. EDIT: CRACK and E, two drugs, as pointed out below. Apparently they don’t use real brazil nuts in the purple ones in Quality Street any more, yet another sign that the end of the civilised world is getting closer.
14 Wine Soviet intelligence secures with credit (5,3)
GRAND CRU – the GRU was the foreign intelligence branch of Soviet forces: into it insert AND CR for ‘with credit’.
16 Keeping a sort of light twinkling all around cell (4)
OVUM – After last week’s debacle when I invented a complicated and obscure explanation for OVA, when it was simply “cells”, I was more ready for this one. UV (sort of light) is reversed, with MO (twinkling) also reversed, around it. Or create MUVO that way then reverse it all around, if you prefer.
18 In the past, at this straightaway (4)
ONCE – if you say “at once” it means straightaway.
19 Attempted robbery, good sort of news? (8)
BREAKING – a BREAK IN is an attempted (sometimes successful) robbery, add G for good.
21 Peak stuff, something that sounds a warning (10)
MATTERHORN – MATTER = stuff, HORN = a thing that sounds a warning.
22 On tramp, force paperwork (4)
BUMF – BUM = tramp, F for force. If you’re ready to know, it’s of 19c origin and short for BUMFODDER.
24 Write chapter in story “A Defence against Demons”? (8)
PENTACLE – PEN (write) TALE (story) insert C for chapter. A talisman against evil.
26 Cynic heartlessly keeping our redeveloped hotel for a squat (6)
CROUCH – C C (cynic heartlessly) has (OUR)* inside, then H for hotel.
27 Promise of power, large advantage (6)
PLEDGE – P (power) L (large) EDGE (advantage).
28 The tanks destroyed Asian city (8)
TASHKENT – (THE TANKS)*. Capital of Uzbekistan, home to 2.5 million people.
Down
2 Some to choose from many a large antelope (5)
NYALA – hidden as above. I just love it when an antelope I know comes along.
3 Inventor failing to maintain staff living conditions (11)
ENVIRONMENT – insert MEN (staff) into (INVENTOR)*.
4 Flower girl sick at heart in Romeo’s home (8)
VERONICA – Romeo came from VERONA, so into that insert IC, being the ‘heart’ of sICk. A flower and a girl’s name.
5 Sudden awareness no great importance attaches to cry that floats up (5-4,6)
LIGHT-BULB MOMENT – As my FOI I was about to pencil in “penny-drop moment” until I thought, how does that work? Cry? Then I had the B from 19a and the light came on. LIGHT MOMENT (one of no great importance) insert BULB (blub reversed, cry that floats up)
6 Where to dig out one’s prey? (6)
QUARRY – double definition, or witty &lit. if you prefer.
7 I bore a well — its first litre (3)
AWL – A, W(ell), L(itre).
8 Chap, born one of large family, is a dummy (9)
MANNEQUIN – MAN (chap) NÉ (born, French) QUIN (one of 5 born-at-same-time children).
13 See pawn and a bishop boxed in with nowhere to move (5-1-5)
CHOCK-A-BLOCK – to CLOCK means to SEE; into that insert HOCK (pawn) A B (a bishop).
15 Signal pupils to assemble perhaps: sound familiar? (4,1,4)
RING A BELL – double definition, one referring to calling children to class in a school. It still happens at my granddaughters’ primary school.
17 Gives repeat performance of scene, adapted with art (2-6)
RE-ENACTS – (SCENE ART)*.
20 After the start, rowing boat is a source of revelation (6)
ORACLE – I looked first for things beginning with T and then a type of rowing boat, but no, it’s CORACLE for the boat and ‘after the start’ to drop the C.
23 Red cape worn by revolutionary leader torn at the bottom (5)
MACON – C for cape has MAO around it (C wears MAO) then N from the end of torN. A red wine appelation from the south of Burgundy.
25 A little bit of information shortly turning up (3)
TAD – DAT(A) (information shortly) is reversed.

90 comments on “Times 28113 – no more PDMs for me.”

  1. Not sure how long I took as there were several interruptions and I forgot to pause the timer, but I think about 30-35 minutes. Agree that the wife of a king is called a queen, but not the other way round. Goodness knows why — as a small child I thought Prince Philip was the king, being so used to the Queen Mother.

    Wear: I have always felt that it is much more natural for ‘AB wears CD’ to be C(AB)D. But we do sometimes see it the other way round, as A(CD)B, which seems to make less sense. I suppose if you wear a brooch you sort of surround it.

    Yes I fear we get dimmer in our dotage, tringmardo.

    Edited at 2021-10-20 10:18 am (UTC)

  2. Nice puzzle today, with plenty of biffing (LIGHT-BULB MOMENT, OVUM, GOAL LINE), some “I only know it because of crosswords” words (NYALA, TASHKENT), and a bit of hope with GRU. 5m 46s in total, with the last minute or so of those alphabet-trawling to come up with PARR.
    1. Extraordinary that so many had problems with GRU when it was in the news a great deal not long ago with reference to tourists in Salisbury.
        1. Fair point. But! The thing is, what you know to be right is irrelevant. Chambers says a coracle is a rowing boat. Even if it isn’t/wasn’t, that doesn’t matter – crosswords are predicated on what the dictionaries say, not on what any individual solver might believe. Or what is actually true or not.
  4. Steady and pleasant enough solve, with some alphabet trawling required to make me realise I did know the fish and the cell, even though they weren’t immediately obvious. My brain always thinks of MACON as a white, so clearly I need to broaden my wine horizons.
    1. approximately 90% of macon is white. curiously this is the second time that i remember that it has been clued as red. maybe the same setter?
  5. I got becalmed in the NE corner, which doesn’t seem to have happened to anyone else. QUALMS is a very good word but I got stuck with spasms, alarms, whatever, for quite a while. That made QUARRY hard to see which was stupid of me because there’s a Slate Quarry Road a couple of miles from here. NUTCRACKER reminds me to see if I’m allowed to take the unvaccinated grandchildren to the City Ballet this year. 17.12
    2. I agree. I failed to get qualms, quarry, awl and ovum. Despite that, it was an enjoyable puzzle. COD to nutcracker for the definition.
      Thanks setter and blogger
  6. 41:23. Very slow start and an even slower finish, hindered by my perverse determination to spell MANNEQUIN with a K, some part of my brain obligingly filling in the resulting empty space with an extra N, which the rest of my brain noticed only on the point of throwing in the towel with OVUM.
  7. I must say that us non-wine drinkers are discriminated against. Otherwise after a slow start, it all fell into place very quickly. LOI GOAL LINE, straightforward clue but just couldn’t see it.
  8. Just sneaking in under the 20-minute mark, having only the last two acrosses in when halfway through the clues, the floodgates opened…..

    ….though some biffing was evident: CHOCK A BLOCK from two checkers; LIGHT- BULB MOMENT from three; OM/MO in OVUM; GRAND CRU just from the R checker; ONCE; ENVIRONMENT from checkers; MACON from all three checkers (thought somehow the cape might be MAC but obvs couldn’t work out the O).

  9. DNF. This one took me just over 17 mins but I had one silly error and one careless typo. Some qualms about attaches as a containment indicator for the elevated blub in light-bulb moment though I can sort of see it. I also thought break-in would have to relate to premises and therefore burglary rather than robbery but perhaps the dictionaries are satisfied by the anticipated unlawful taking of property element. Didn’t quite parse chock-a-block. Enjoyed the Liberator of Brazil.
  10. DNK a fish of this name, and there were just too many possible Queens in history to go through in the hope of lighting on the one that was also a fish. Pity, because everything else came pretty quick. COD GOAL LINE

  11. Well done, everyone. I am much slower than all of you. Solving this sitting waiting for a parcel near the door because sometimes the delivery drivers hardly knock then swear we weren’t in then take the goods back to the depot and we have to do it all again, though most of the drivers are very good. So anyway, an hour and a half for two here. Husband supplied Veronica, as a random woman’s name, without knowing why, so as I worked it out I considered he had a lucky strike there. He also supplied goal line which neither of us could parse. FOI Tashkent, would like to go there. LOI Parr, oh yarr! Super puzzle. Always glad to finish one (DNF yesterday by a long way). Five biffed today from definitions that were enough on their own. Thanks for the blog explaining these and more, Pip, and setter for the puzzle.
  12. 19.40 but failed for the third day in a row . This time ovum did for me, preferring onus. I know, pretty dim ( despite the light) but made desperate sense to me at the time.

    Started off really slowly with my FOI being crouch but gradually got the measure till the last small step. Nice puzzle.
    Thx setter and blogger.

    1. Not dim. Know what you mean. I didn’t see the light either, just biffed from cell. I had anon for once until it messed up environment.
  13. was my COD with Matterhorn close behind, Brazil nuts are found inside a large cannonball type endocarp, arranged in up to three whorls something like a pomello. Quite delicious when fresh, but they rarely are. Brazil had no liberator as such. Rio de Janeiro was the capital of Portugal from c.1804 to 1820 – pub quiz chestnut.
      1. European Cup is a club championship not a national championship? Uruguay have never won it!
    1. Chambers is often wrong. They make up – invent – lots of words just for a joke, words that aren’t actually real words. Their editors seem to have a perverse sense of humour, taking the mickey out of setters and solvers who are forced to use their output as “gospel”.
      Do the times crossword daily and get used to it.
  15. “And now here’s Daphne Whitethigh with handy household hints: How to get rid of ugly “stain(e)s”.
    First, blow up the bridge!
  16. Slowed way down (as usual) when I’d done 90 percent. That could be because the last clues are the hardest; but it could also be a kind of mental block I have. Chock-a-block should have been a write-in but I stared at it for hours, thinking there was some obscure old-fashioned expression like Crook-a-brook. Surprised and depressed to see such a low snitch. Veronica makes me think of the great song by Elvis Costello and Paul McCartney. Ovum I never fully parsed (though I did see the UV).
  17. 8:47. Early start, long day out today so only I only just solved this. Just wanted to pop in to say 1) I really enjoyed it (especially the LBM, as we’ll have to call them from now on, ‘liberator of Brazil’ and… see 2) and 2) nice to see another of my kids in here, this time in nickname form.

    Edited at 2021-10-20 10:02 pm (UTC)

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