Times 28125 – I like those sweet little things.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A more straightforward offering than recent Wednesdays, I found, getting home in under 20 minutes. However when it came to parsing I found a couple of clues worried me – 5D and 8D – perhaps I’m being picky but they don’t quite add up for me. And there are no plants or antelopes to entertain me. I expect a SNITCH well below par.

Across
1 Quantity of opium churchwarden can consume? (7)
PIPEFUL – crfyptic definition, a chrchwarden being a kind of pipe with a long stem. They recently enjoyed a surge of popularity as some of the characters in Lord of the Rings are seen smoking them.
5 Justify book having new introduction (7)
DESERVE – book = reserve, replace the beginning R by D.
9 Operation inevitably includes staff (11)
PERFORMANCE – PERFORCE (inevitably) with MAN (staff) inserted.
10 Take drugs with half-cut Liverpudlian (3)
USE – SCOUSE is cut in half.
11 Director’s after Charlie’s guts? (6)
CLEANS – C for Charlie, LEAN as in David Lean, film director, GUTS as cleans in a fish.
12 A dreamer desperate for rum (8)
DEMERARA – (A DREAMER)*.
14 Secret place where drunkard might be found? (5,3,5)
UNDER THE TABLE – double definition, one speculation..
17 Ignorant to assume criminal’s out of control (13)
UNCONSTRAINED – UNTRAINED (ignorant) has CON’S (criminal’s) inserted.
21 Army reigns disastrously in foreign city (8)
TANGIERS – TA (army, territorial variety) (REIGNS)*.
23 City haunt making delicious pastry? (6)
ECLAIR – EC (City of London) LAIR (haunt).
25 Glaswegian’s rejection of celebrity losing millions (3)
NAE – NAME (celebrity) loses M. Scottish for no.
26 Belief of society long evolving (11)
SCIENTOLOGY – (SOCIETY LONG)*. Belief system entertained by Tom Cruise and some other nutters who want to give their money to L Ron Hubbard and his chums.
27 I defy you to be angry about article (2,5)
SO THERE – SORE (angry) goes round THE (article).
28 Member chosen for XI getting runs (7)
INSIDER – IN (chosen) SIDE (XI) R (runs).
Down
1 Office secretaries extremely coy (6)
PAPACY – PA, PA (two secretaries) C(o)Y.
2 Upstart parking on street almost grabbing king (7)
PARVENU – P (parking) AVENU(E) has R (king) inserted.
3 Disapproved of promiscuous female? No wonder! (7,2)
FROWNED ON – (F NO WONDER)*. First time I think I have seen promiscuous as an anagrind.
4 Heavy person best to shift piano (4)
LUMP – PLUM (best, as in plum job) has the P moved to the end.
5 D for dimwit? (10)
DUNDERHEAD – D is indeed the head of dimwit, and of dunder, but dunder alone doesn’t mean an idiot, it’s lees from distilling rum. I know what the setter meant in practice but does it work in theory?
6 Acquiesce, needing to conceal incident (5)
SCENE – hidden as above; scene as in create a scene, make a fuss.
7 Regret insult in speech? Rubbish! (7)
RHUBARB – sounds like (in speech) RUE BARB = regret insult.
8 Happy about Bible being promoted (8)
ELEVATED – ELATED (happy) has EV inserted. Was this supposed to be AV for Authorised Version? I can’t see how EV is a reference to Bible. It means Electron Volts in my world.
13 Hang about with French trainees, getting drunk (10)
FRATERNISE – (FR TRAINEES)*.
15 Dogged cardinal going over account with evidence of debts (9)
TENACIOUS – TEN (cardinal number) AC (account) I.O.U.S (evidence of debts).
16 Sweet little things found in harem perhaps (8)
SULTANAS – wives of sultans, perhaps.
18 Make Tory female firstly examine court (7)
CONFECT – CON (Tory) F (female) E (first of examine) CT (court).
19 No servant upset duke? Brilliant! (7)
DIAMOND – NO MAID reversed, then D for duke.
20 Grace perhaps, a sportsman changing sides (6)
PRAYER – PLAYER changes L for R.
22 Children’s edition (5)
ISSUE – double definition.
24 Article Congress backed — or opposed? (4)
ANTI – AN (article) IT (congress, sex) reversed (backed).

64 comments on “Times 28125 – I like those sweet little things.”

  1. Right on the money as far as the SNITCH and my personal targets are concerned. 78 = 29 mins.

    NHO churchwarden = PIPE but clear from all checkers.

    FTP (failed to parse): LUMP

    I too wasn’t convinced by the EV bible.

    David Lean took a while to come to mind even though I’ve recently watched Lawrence Of Arabia and his version of Oliver Twist which I found far more enjoyable than the musical version.

  2. I looked up the spelling of Glesga (you can’t be too careful here) and happened across Wiki in Scots, which I didn’t know existed and which has its charms. In the entry for Glesga it has “Glesga’s main sport is nae dout fitba” which further suggest NAE is aw reit.
    1. Surely you’re only confirming that it isn’t?
      Glasgow’s main sport is politicians lying about reducing greenhouse gases and ending deforestation WITHOUT ANY doubt football.
      I prefer the Uncyclopedia.

      Edited at 2021-11-03 02:17 pm (UTC)

    2. Naw it isny. The clue specifies a synonym for rejection. As mentioned earlier, NAE is a determiner. It is not a synonym for NO, in the sense required by the clue.

      I would normally bow to your erudition, but here you’re arguing with a native. NAW and NAE have different syntactic and grammatical functions, and NAE doesn’t work here.

      ‘Glesga’s main sport is naw dout fitba,’ to use your example, doesn’t make sense.

      Edited to add, from today’s Grauniad, from an article about Glasgow and COP26:

      ‘So were Glaswegians looking forward to Cop? Yes and no, or aye and naw, depending who you ask.’

      Edited at 2021-11-03 09:26 pm (UTC)

      1. I have learned through experience not to dispute Scottish issues with a Scot. I once (not here) innocently celebrated a particularly successful sporting weekend, I think including the English Cricket team, Lewis Hamilton and Andy Murray, and was subjected to a bitter and unforgiving discourse on how we English always purloin Scottish successes as if out own. I don’t think I did (I think the word British was part of my celebration), but no amount of mollifying stemmed to flow of incandescent rage. So I widnae dare.
  3. 25.08. Nice puzzle. I was off to a pretty fast start but got bogged down in the dunderhead / demerara corner, couldn’t quite parse the former and couldn’t quite unravel the latter. Also had a laborious alpha-trawl over sultanas at the end, nearly gave up at the first hurdle and threw in buntings, so glad I persevered.
  4. …. thinking I’d been awfully clever to see it (Turkish, harems etc etc). And that delayed me horribly until I realised it was wrong.

    Was left with PIPEFUL uncompleted. Defeated me because NHO a ‘churchwarden’ pipe.

  5. Slightly held up by think Fae must be Glaswegian for something. That made the only possible harem participants to be Mustafas. I thought about it.
  7. I had no trouble with 16d, remembering an excellent clue from long ago: a pound of sultanas (8): SERAGLIO
  8. Thought I’d finished – but I hadnae. Two pink squares since I put contest – test = examine, never mind the female, I thought. I couldn’t complete conf***? though I did see it. I thought wrong. Nevertheless, still well-chuffed with my effort in only forty minutes. Five unparsed or only partly so – pipeful, deserve, so there, frowned on, lump. Got from definitions. Didn’t see the anagram material for frowned on. Thanks, Pip, for the blog, and setter for a puzzle I could nearly do, and in a reasonable time.
  9. Had the same unease about DUNDERHEAD but “it had to be”. Didn’t notice the problem with ELEVATED till I came here, probably because it had an A in it and I didn’t parse it properly. FAE is in Chambers and I almost persuaded myself this was FAME without the M.

    COD and LOI ClEANS.

    Thanks to Pip and the Setter.

  10. 9:21 this afternoon. Just when I had doubted that I still had a sub-10 minute solve left in me, this friendly puzzle come along.
    FOI 1 ac “pipeful” — I’m sure I came across this meaning of “churchwarden” from a Times Crossword originally.
    One of these all too rare days where I seemed to pick up the correct understanding of the structure of each clue as soon as I looked at it. No doubt normal service will be resumed….
    Among a number of enjoyable clues I particularly liked 11 ac “cleans”, my thought process being ” C for Charlie + (David) Lean’s” — what’s that got to do with viscera?” Then the PDM!
    Thanks to Pip for the blog and to setter for making an old man very happy!
  11. 53 minutes, but I would have been much quicker without the 20 or so minutes spent looking for something more likely than CLEANS and then giving up in frustration. Obviously I didn’t know the director. As for ELEVATED, I just decided somehow to believe it. No other problems, really, although I thought UNDER THE TABLE a rather unspecific hiding place.

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