Times 28165 – Rider of waves, indeed!

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
This was definitely a step-up from usual Monday fare, with some cunning misdirection, lots of multi-word definitional bits and one or two bits of obscure (for some) vocabulary. I came a bit of a cropper, inventing an inflammation and an archaic northern region, but I enjoyed sorting it all out later and putting myself in a position where I can hopefully give succour to anyone out there who is less experienced/more dumb than me, if he/she exists.

And may I be the first to wish you all a most joyous and silly-argument-free Christmas!

ACROSS

1 Runny glue a shilling? I’m stuck for a name for it! (11)
THINGUMABOB – THIN GUM A BOB (slang for shilling in pre-1971 Britain)
7 Bad actor giving up halfway through major role (3)
HAM – HAM[let]
9 Loud gale circulating round large Welsh town (9)
DOLGELLAU – anagram* of L in LOUD GALE; DOLGELLAU is a town with a population of less than 3,000 in north-west Wales
10 Bird back around a village in Africa (5)
KRAAL – LARK reversed around A
11 Backing my company after way of working leather (7)
MOROCCO – COR (my) reversed after MO (way of working) CO (company)
12 Source of present British managed boat (4,3)
BRAN TUB – B RAN TUB
13 Work out volume — something under a foot all round? (5)
SOLVE – V (volume) in SOLE
15 Be too much to get part of pub mob at soccer turning back? (4,1,4)
COST A BOMB – reverse hidden in puB MOB AT SOCcer
17 Set aside phone receiver (4-5)
RING-FENCE – RING FENCE (receiver of stolen goods)
19 Channels in sea area around island (5)
MEDIA – I (island) in MED (sea) A (area)
20 Melodious South Pacific (7)
SIRENIC – S IRENIC; well, them sirens did a lot of luring with their tonsils
22 Knight and men secure ancient upcountry region (7)
NORLAND – N (knight) OR (other ranks) LAND (secure, a fish)
24 Ends financial penalties (5)
FINES – double definition, first Latinate for end of a book, for example (pronounced FEE-nay)
25 Outstanding concert in marquee, but only one tango (9)
PROMINENT – PROM (concert) IN
27 What’s regularly claimed to be buried in a particular place (3)
LIE – [c]l[a]i[m]e[d]
28 Torched mine, excitedly taking in heat (11)
ENDOTHERMIC – TORCHED MINE*; therm- has just got to be in there somewhere

DOWN

1 Small amount of time used with advantage (3)
TAD – T AD
2 Middle gear learner driver engaged in frightful ride (5)
IDLER – L in RIDE*; ‘a gear placed between two others to transfer motion from one to the other without changing their direction or speed’
3 Sergeant perhaps breaking into song in historic Scots village (7)
GLENCOE – NCO in GLEE
4 Mark every killer whale, any number from Balearic area (9)
MALLORCAN – M ALL ORCA N; IKEAn clue
5 Information on jacket smear, black (5)
BLURB – BLUR B
6 Eastern sweetmeat the French exported from port in Crimea (7)
BAKLAVA – BA[la]KLAVA; sweet but tasty
7 Try a couple over daughter that’s found concealed in trunk (9)
HEARTWOOD – HEAR TWO O D; more IKEAn assembly – the innermost, and dead, part of a tree
8 Rider of waves swelling a way to south of African country (6,5)
MALIBU BOARD – I failed on this, as I was looking for a dude rather than a thing ; MALI north of BUBO (swelling of lymph glands) A RD
11 Suspecting obscure fungus almost directly (11)
MISTRUSTFUL – MIST (obscure – verb) RUST (AKA rust fungus) FUL[l] (as in ‘hit full in the stomach’)
14 Looking well ahead, relative finally settling in without a partner (4-5)
LONG-RANGE – GRAN [settlinG] in LONE
16 Severe damp I eliminated at the far back of the ship (9)
STERNMOST – STERN MO[i]ST
18 At home getting involved in ordinary diplomacy? (7)
FINESSE – IN in FESSE (ordinary or horizontal bar in heraldry)
19 Second fall of water? European glacier could end with this (7)
MORAINE – MO RAIN E
21 Hero accepting elevation as god (5)
CUPID – UP (elevation) in CID (of the El variety)
23 Note fish out of river to the side of the boat (5)
ABEAM – A (random musical note) B[r]EAM
26 Tiny involuntary convulsion, primarily (3)
TIC – initial letters of the first three words

91 comments on “Times 28165 – Rider of waves, indeed!”

  1. Lots of obscure stuff here. I won’t parade the full range of my ignorance now, but my two main failures were the NHO Welsh town where I guessed wrongly where the unused vowels went, and the NHO MALIBU BOARD.
  2. At 20ac Melodious = Musical = South Pacific innit!? Mood Meldrewvian.

    Edited at 2021-12-20 01:15 am (UTC)

  3. I think i’m with jackkt — an embarassing richness of unknowns and shoulddaknowns which I won’t go into. Other than tricky vocabulary, I thought the clueing was both cute and clever.

    I do have to admit to losing time wondering if astro_nowt is going to be able to work the Spanish island and the difficult Welsh and possibly less difficult Scots towns into the limiting meter of a limerick. I’ve been well impressed in past, so l’ll check back later, fingers crossed.

    Edited at 2021-12-20 01:38 am (UTC)

    1. If you couldn’t SOLVE this, don’t sob
      A TAD tricky, and the vocab’s a job
      DOLGELLAU, GLENCOE
      Places few people know
      So the setter’s a THINGUMABOB
          1. When I clicked on ‘parent’ I got jerry’s comment and yours, with the ‘like’ icon visible. Go figure.
    2. In the headlights I’m caught, like a bunny
      My task “Use MALLORCAN, be funny”
      But are all bunnies sMALL
      OR CAN they grow tall?
      Paul-in-London, hand over the money!
      1. Gladly! Take that, geographical jumble!

        Birds and plant names were thin on the ground
        Leaving Astro_Nowt scratching around
        For a subject deserving
        Of Lear-ical skewering
        What good luck, then, that Welsh towns abound

        We thought Atlas a world-bearing monster
        One on Herakles’ yet to-do roster
        But we found when we looked
        It’s a damn referenece book
        Filled with Welsh words whose letters match crossers

        Edited at 2021-12-20 01:40 pm (UTC)

    1. Dolgethly as it is pronounced is base camp for those ascending Cader Idris, in Snowdonia. It is fairly well-known. The population figure you quote 2,688 is from the 2011 census – Covid 19 may well have diminished it. It is twinned with Wolumboola down under – pop 28 (2016).
        1. We are in talks with The Studio – Idris Elba has a part but not as Bond – Meldrew (‘M’)
          1. Will part of the screen test be a walk up an obscure Cambrian mountain? Or the ability to pronounce Welsh place names without a crib sheet?
        2. All I can remember is the old ad: I drink Idris when I’s dry…. sung to some strange tune.
      2. Thank you for that pronunciation lesson! I will store that one away and feel sure it will come in useful at some point in time. There again, I do live in New Zealand!
        1. There was an old man of DOLGELLAU
          Who had so much fire in his bellau
          That he tried mountaineering
          Before reappearing
          When his legs had quite turned to jellau
  5. Maybe some enchanted evening I might solve this, just not today. A DNF in 55 minutes, putting the unused letters of the anagram fodder in the wrong order for the NHO Welsh megalopolis. Plenty of other new words and unparsed clues which went in unconfidently but turned out to be correct.

    I did like the oceanically related MALIBU BOARD and ‘Melodious South Pacific’ and the very iffy sounding ‘obscure fungus’.

  6. I typed NORMAND for some reason, even though I was typing from my printed copy. So having finally whittled down my 8 errors to 1, this month I’m back up to 4. DNK the Welsh town, of course, and used aids to check the spelling. DNK NORLAND, let alone Normand, SIRENIC, FESSE, MALIBU BOARD; what kind of Monday is this?
    1. It was only through living right on the edge of (Lower) Normandy that I discovered the two départements are so called because the Vikings sailed up the Seine in their longboats. Not sure if you still can, but if your car was registered in Upper Normandy you could have a symbol of a longboat and the département number on your licence plate.
  8. But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove?
    His Psyche true!

    Having guessed a few things: the Welsh spelling, that an Idler might be a gear, that a Fesse might be something ordinary — after 30 mins pre-brekker I was stumped by Sirenic. Good grief.
    Thanks setter and U.

  9. I thought that was a good test with several Rumsfeld-like known unknowns…or were they unknown unknowns?
    NHO IDLER, IRENIC, BUBO, FESSE.
    Had a ‘d’oh’ moment with HAM(let).
    Thanks for MISTRUSTFUL, ulaca!
    In 24ac I was very unsure about FINES. I thought ‘end’ was FINIS as in Finisterre but I pressed submit more in hope than in expectation.
    Our setter seems to have gone to town on Bs in the top half -6- but only one in the bottom half.
    Re THINGUMABOB, I like to think that somewhere in Britain there is still an old gas meter that will only accept old shillings and that the Royal Mint still produces a supply just for that meter.

    Edited at 2021-12-20 08:08 am (UTC)

  10. 52 minutes while watching the cricket with LOI, appropriately enough, STERNMOST. SIRENIC, MORAINE, NORLAND, HEARTWOOD and the BOARD behind MALIBU were all constructed. I would have spelt and pronounced it THINGUMMIBOB but I followed the instructions when I couldn’t have two M’s. I was expecting my subject to be ‘This Nearly Was Mine’ until it all fell into place. Tough but fair. Thank you U and setter.
  11. Well, I really struggled with this one. Same unknowns as others and, although I managed to finish, I had SERENIC, and had to look up the obscure IMHO Welsh village. Very tough for any day, let alone a Monday. Roll on tomorrow.

    Thanks U and setter.

  12. This was something of a car crash. DOLLEGLAU for the Welsh town — no regrets about that as a guess. SERENIC instead of SIRENIC thinking that pacific had something to do with serene. And KRALL for the African village which was careless. It could have been worse as at one point I’d come up with an obscure word for suspecting (“Suspecting obscure”) which was MUSHROOMFUL!
      1. It’s a stretch to suggest I was thinking at all today let alone thinking of Diana Krall (I was also off the wavelength with her thinking she had recently duetted with Robert Plant — I was thinking of Alison Krauss).
  14. Hmf, another serenic here, feeling not so serene.

    However there are some rather good clues tucked in amongst the obscurities.. 13 and 15ac, for example.

    Been to Dolgellau (“Dolgethly”) several times, it is on the Cambrian Way and Snowdonia Way long distance footpaths.
    Welsh towns fall into two distinct categories: friendly, and unfriendly. Dolgellau is definitely one of the friendly ones, and if you are thinking of going I can talk you through the pubs in some detail. It feels bigger than it apparently is – no suburbs to speak of, which might keep the numbers down, but several streets of shops etc.

    1. Well enough known to any bus enthusiasts on here (probably just me) as Crosville had a depot there. I challenge any of our setters to clue its sister depot at Machynlleth…..
  15. 50 mins but SERENIC and THINGUMYBOB were two letters out. Thought serene = pacific. Thank you all.
  16. Certainly extraordinary for the “normal” Times no matter what day of the week it is. I cruised through in 13 minutes, however, with thanks to Mephisto for many of the obscurities. I suspected we were in for an interesting ride from clue 1: my Chambers lists no fewer than 9 alternatives for the whatchamacallit so close attention to the WP was de rigeur.
    FINES went in on such trust assumed as the plural of Jane Austin’s triumphant cry at the end of her novels. It didn’t help that it crossed with the only slightly different FINESSE, which I know from Mrs Z’s bridge exploits. FESSE I knew only really as (presumably singular) French for a but-tock, and “ordinary” as a penny farthing, but somehow construed a satisfactory explanation.
    SIRENIC on wordplay and reference, as U suggests, to the shipwrecking chanteuses.
    Doll gech lea I knew, and how to spell it. Been there, I think.
    BRAN TUB has, I believe, occasioned blank looks round here before. We had one a week ago at our famous Festival of Christmas Trees.
    I quite enjoyed this, but might have got a bit tetchy if stuff was genuinely unknown rather than pleasingly fringe.
  17. 17:18. I got badly stuck at then end because I had put in BACLAVA, which made the African village even more difficult than it already was. It’s an accepted spelling for the sweet stuff, and BALACLAVA is the usual spelling for the garment, but apparently the place is always K.
    A bit too heavy on the obscurities, this. Any setter who thinks FESSE is suitable for use in a daily crossword should be taken aside by the editor and given a little talking to if you ask me. FINES isn’t much better, and the Welsh village is not suitable anagram material IMO. I got lucky with the letter placement, or perhaps I had met it before and retained a subconscious memory.

    Edited at 2021-12-20 10:24 am (UTC)

  18. I was wondering how on earth I knew the Welsh village, then remembered I’d been there pony-trekking in my early teens. NORLAND I associate with one of our horrible nannies (shudder). So far I seem to be the only one trying to shoehorn Gretna into 3d. Once upon a time I had a grasp of what happened in the massacre at GLENCOE but it’s gone fuzzy now. Like Z I was perplexed by the axis of FINES and FINESSE. Must admit I enjoyed this one but probably only because I just about knew the necessary stuff. 17.33 P.S. Thank you for the Christmas wishes Ulaca – may yours be Irenic!

    Edited at 2021-12-20 10:56 am (UTC)

        1. Fine by me Olivia, but the inhabitants may be a bit sensitive.. folk have been known to poke fun at their size, y’know .. 🙂
    2. I started with Gretna, but thought that Gretna Green was too much; not to mention it doesn’t work at all.
  19. I thought this was actually easier than some recent Mondays, finishing in 25 minutes. Several giveaways, and no unknowns apart from the Welsh town, but a lucky distribution of the unchecked letters from the anagram fodder got me the right answer. I also entered BACLAVA at first, but once I had MALIBU the answer to 10 was obvious.The only other hold-up was thinking 25 began with E, with (t)ENT as a container.
  20. ….but I got there somehow, almost in spite of myself. I’m a founder of the More Dumb than Ulaca Club, having to use his excellent blog to unscramble MALIBU BOARD (NHO bubo), COST A BOMB (superb reversal), FINES (and me with O level Latin !), and, to my possibly eternal shame, HAM. I enjoyed the challenge, but I can clearly see why others didn’t.

    FOI THINGUMABOB
    LOI CUPID
    COD MORAINE
    TIME 10:10

  21. Several Mephisto-like words which I didn’t really know and for which I had no qualms about using a checker. 52 minutes. As usual the hidden reversed was my LOI.
  23. 25:37. NHO a BUBO but I knew the MALIBU BOARD. DOLGELLAU was an informed guess and NORLAND needed all the crossers. Inventive stuff (not least on my part).
  24. I used to click on “expand” and see the full comment in the same place on the page. But now clicking on “expand” catapults me to a new page where I see only the comment I’ve clicked on. Has something changed, and is there a way to expand comments without having to then return to the original page?

    Jim R

      1. And now I see that you can add a “like” to a reply but not to the original comment. Bit of a mess.
    2. I agree this is a pain. It would be helpful if contributors on the subject would mention the type of device they are using e.g. PC, phone, tablet etc – app or web.

      One thing that may help a little is to go to the contribution at the head of the collapsed comments and click on its ‘Thread’ option. I think this opens everything beneath it although it’s annoying that it throws you out of the main discussion and you have to click ‘back’ to return to it.

  25. 23.10 but had to check a couple. NHO Fesse but at least I’d worked out how the clue was put together and sirenic which was another NHO. Very enjoyable but hard work .
  26. I don’t feel quite so bad about the total bo**ocks I made of this having read the rest of the comments. I did the same as Matt: DALGELLAU(can’t even read the anagrist now!) also NORFAST and MALIBU BOAST Doh! I managed to get to SERENIC, as Jerry did, but I checked it and found it was just a software company and had another think, then looked up the meaning of IRENIC, which fitted the bill. I had the 3 other errors anyway. A bit of a shambles. Thanks setter and U.
    On edit: Oh and 39:10 for the debacle.

    Edited at 2021-12-20 01:01 pm (UTC)

  27. … Diana that is, and, sadly, not a village in Africa. Ah, well…one learns.

    Definitely a bit more lively than most Mondays, Parsing FINESSE and MISTRUSTFUL took some pondering. I was feeling quite pleased to have finished, until I hit the “send” button

    A run of pink squares recently. I’ll be having nightmares about marshmallows soon.

    Thanks to Ulaca and the setter.

  28. This is an annoying anomaly that appeared last Friday along with the addition of the “complain” option and the subtraction of the “like” etc option. It went back to normal over the weekend but needs adjusting again. It’s something introduced by Live Journal and isn’t under the control of TFTT. The purpose of the “complain” option is explained by Jackkt if you scroll back to his post on the subject on Saturday Dec. 18th.
      1. I don’t have “parent”, and my expand works just like it always did. I wonder what I’m doing wrong.
  29. Flew through this today, remarking to myself that there was a lot of obscure vocabulary which I happened to know. Ninja turtled MALIBU BOARD from the drink. DOLGELLAU (doll-gek-clow) is a very Welsh town, whereas nearby Barmouth is very English.

    13’15” thanks ulaca and setter

Comments are closed.