Times 28179 – birds of a different kettle of fish, perhaps.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

So, my eighth New Year of blogging arrives and I’m still here doing the Wednesday duty. A lot has happened, globally and personally, since 2014. But I’m keeping the little grey cells active. This puzzle was no disappointment, a steady twenty minutes and nothing too scary, although 1d seemed a bit questionable to me. No less than three homophone clues for us today and a couple of meaty anagrams at 1d and 8d should get you well into it.

Across
1 Food brought up from the mouth (5)
BREAD – “from the mouth” = “sounds like” BRED = brought up.
4 A very quiet artist is a learner being examined by supervisor? (9)
APPRAISAL – A, PP (very quiet) RA (artist) IS A L(earner).
9 Put back controls, seemingly unbelievable (9)
REINSTALL – REINS = controls, TALL as in a tall story.
10 Sarah’s boy is a Bill (5)
ISAAC – Isaac was the son of Sarah and Abraham in the Bible. IS A AC (bill).
11 Arguments going the wrong way I’d avoided in organisations (3-3)
SET-UPS – DISPUTES = arguments, reverse it SETUPSID and delete ID.
12 Claim of fairy alone, not one seen as “queenly” (8)
IMPERIAL – I’M PERI = claim of fairy (peri being the original Persian word for a fairy) AL(ONE).
14 Regard admissions of debt as flippant (9)
FACETIOUS – FACET = regard, IOUS = admissions of debt.
16 Wild animal behaving with love to the end (5)
DINGO – DOING = behaving, move the O to the end.
17 Loud day of religious rejoicing — no hesitation to provide a banquet (5)
FEAST – F (loud) EASTER loses ER… hesitation.
19 Time to demand church to form working group (4,5)
TASK FORCE – T, ASK FOR, CE.
21 One toughening up an item for the pew, we hear (8)
ANNEALER – sounds like A KNEELER for kneeling in church.
22 Leaving home to be entertained by wine supply expert (6)
BOFFIN – OFF (leaving home) inside BIN (where you keep wine).
25 PM shown as pagan type when passing on measure (5)
HEATH – HEATHEN loses EN a measure.
26 Good girl battling against male’s ultimate fiascos? (9)
GLASSWARE – G(ood) LASS (girl) WAR (battling) E (end of male). Apart from meaning an ignominious failure, a fiasco is also a glass wine bottle such as those used for Chianti.
27 Girl falling short is sort to trouble pedants (9)
RIGORISTS – (L)RIG) = girl falling (reversed) short, then (IS SORT)*.
28 Give weary maiden backing to achieve a good grade (5)
MERIT – Reverse TIRE M = weary maiden.

Down
1 Bad forefather is recollected in family group? (5,2,1,7)
BIRDS OF A FEATHER – (BAD FOREFATHER IS)*. A bit strange, I thought ‘birds of a feather’ meant people of similar character or interests, and my ‘family group’ certainly are not. or is not.
2 What may come from the dictator? (5)
EDICT – hidden as above.
3 Damper spot had to be blasted (7)
DASHPOT – (SPOT HAD)*.
4 Sailors said to follow a classical hero (4)
AJAX – A, JAX sounds like Jacks = sailors.
5 Chum with misstep involved in a sort of cover-up (10)
PALIMPSEST – PAL (chum) (MISSTEP)*. A palimpsest is a manuscript where the parchment or skin  has been erased and re-used.
6 Something deemed medicinal I understand and must swallow (7)
ANISEED – I SEE (I understand) goes inside AND. Aniseed has medicinal effects, digestive or anti-flatulence, as well as its distinctive flavour as used in Pastis, ouzo etc.
7 Trader in railway location, one down the line from Victoria (9)
STATIONER – STATION (raliway location) ER (Her Majesty as a decendant ‘one down the line’ of Queen Victoria.
8 College man on TV right to pull apart council admin, say (5,10)
LOCAL GOVERNMENT – (COLLEGE MAN ON TV R)*.
13 Nerve needed by head of board when acquiring fuel (7,3)
BOTTLED GAS – BOTTLE (nerve) DG (director-general, head of board) AS (when).
15 Oppressed group of workers (excellent/no good?) in endless reorganisation (5,4)
CHAIN GANG – AI (excellent) NG (no good) inserted into CHANG(E) = endless reorganisation.
18 Short school period to accommodate every one individually — so I work less? (7)
TEACHER – TER(M) = short school period, insert EACH.
20 Rubbish in lean period halved, a good deal being kept (7)
FLOTSAM – FAM(INE) = lean period halved, insert LOTS.
23 Style is something flashy, reportedly (5)
FLAIR – sounds like FLARE.
24 Deep fish (4)
BASS – double definition, deep as in bass note, bass a kind of fish.

73 comments on “Times 28179 – birds of a different kettle of fish, perhaps.”

  1. When I started with Burrroughs Machines, back in 1973, we still had a large population of mechanical full keyboard adding machines, one of which formed the practical test during the interview for the job. The interviewer would ask how a particular function worked and you had to examine the workings and explain it. There was a dashpot which acted as a damper so the mechanism didn’t bounce after you’d let go of the handle and give wrong results, “miscasts”. This had to be checked and topped up with oil during preventative maintenance visits. Anyway, that one was a write it for me:-) PAILIMPSESTs were actually remembered, but I was glad of the checkers to get the spelling correct. FIASCOS as flasks was not known and GLASSWARE was my POI with LOI, AJAX, requiring an alphabet trawl. 22:03. Thanks setter and Pip, and congratulations on the blogging milestone.
  2. With much of the time, as above, trying to work out where the H in AHAB came from. I had to run through in my head all the crossword sailors before the penny dropped. Nothing to add to what has already been said, just glad to have my brain back again.
  3. Thanks for the parse on SET-UPS Pip. I thought it might be something to do with “upsets”=arguments and moved on. It took a few beats but I remembered our local Italian joint used to have FIASCOS of Chianti on the menu and it always made my husband giggle. 18.47
  4. Much like yesterday’s – another largely straightforward one taking 23 minutes. I didn’t know the definition given for GLASSWARE, but the wordplay was easy.It took a while to see SET-UPS, but my LOI was the unknown RIGORISTS. Otherwise nothing partcularly taxing.
  5. 16:35, with a vaguely recalled DASHPOT and a leap of faith for the heavily signposted GLASSWARE. I thought “something deemed medicinal” was an overly general pointer for ANISEED. Isn’t just about every herb or spice deemed medicinal by somebody?

    Edited at 2022-01-05 12:41 pm (UTC)

  6. Rigorist does seem to exist, surprisingly.
    Regard = facet if you are discussing say a facet of an argument?
    Dashpot no problem if you ever worked on an SU carburettor, but I was a bit surprised to see it.
    Fiasco=bottle OK. Botticelli’s name (really a nickname) = Little Bottle or Minor Fiasco, always worth a smile.
    Andyf
    1. SU carburettor – that takes me back 60 years, when I did mess around with the SU carburettors (on my MG, I think).
    2. I just watched Ed China refurbish a pair of twin SU carbs on an old Volvo PV544, and set them up, on Wheeler Dealers a couple of nights ago:-)
  7. Struggled to get under twenty minutes but just made it. COD 5dn Palimpsest – with WOD to ‘fiasco’ which I DNK. Fortunately Glasswear wasn’t difficult. Had it been clued with Fiasco as the answer…..who knows?

    Edited at 2022-01-05 01:54 pm (UTC)

  8. 16.10 with FOI appraisal. God, how glad I am that they are now only a bad memory. I don’t know which was worse, being appraised or appraising.

    Couple of unknowns, rigorists was a new one to me as was the glassware. Bit puzzled by annealer for a time. I thought that was a Cockney doctor. Boom ,boom.

    Thx setter and blogger

  9. Thanks for explaining the first bit of RIGORISTS, my LOI. But I agree with others that this should have been a down clue with that reversal device.
    Held up a bit at the end, with the GLASSWARE sense of “fiasco” not entirely clear but dimly remembered and not seeing the Director General in BOTTLED GAS for a while.
    Hesitated a while on DASHPOT because “pot” is already altogether in the anagrind.

    Edited at 2022-01-05 04:52 pm (UTC)

  10. I got palimpsest and glassware! Unfortunately ANNEALER was unknown to me. I quite liked the puzzle though, and was pleased to get the long anagrams to get me started.
    Congratulations Pip on your 8 years at the Wednesday helm!
    Andrew
  11. 26m so I found this straightforward enough, probably because i didn’t agonise over the oddities for once — all mentioned above already. Just wanted to say thank you to Pip and all the other bloggers as well. Your efforts are always appreciated.
  12. 46 minutes, ending fortunately with a proofread of the answers, thereby being reminded to reconsider AHAB, so I didn’t fall into that trap. I wasn’t quite sure about BOFFIN either, but I couldn’t find a more convincing alternative. Apart from those, no real problems. I remembered PALIMPSEST as a word, but not what it meant. My FOI was actually BIRDS OF A FEATHER after I couldn’t think of anything reasonable for 1ac right off and therefore decided to start with 1dn for a change.
  13. 12:56. Out all day so late to this. I liked it.
    DNK DASHPOT or the bottle but did know PALIMPSEST.
    Fiasco is an interesting word, same root as German and Scandinavian equivalents as well as flask. ‘Bric del Fiasc’ is the name of a very good Barolo, I now realise it must mean ‘Bottle Hill’.
    I agree with others that regard/FACET is questionable. ‘In that regard’ is close but not quite close enough IMO.
    Congratulations on the milestone Pip. I have a similar one coming up.
  14. Flying start but made heavy weather of northeast: aniseed, stationer, dingo and isaac taking up a good eight minutes. Never heard of either dashpot or fiasco as a bottle. Nearly had set-tos for 11ac, which would have worked for the definition part (arguments). Much fun as ever, Thanks to all
  15. 20.07. Got through this one ok but never felt exactly on it. Odd that I was comfortable putting in the the unknown glassware definition of fiasco from wordplay straightaway but dithered for ages on the similarly unknown dashpot.
  16. Liked it. Pleased to work out the nho ANNEALER. PALIMPSEST remembered but not its meaning.

    Anyway may I add my fulsome congratulations and thanks to all our wonderful bloggers and of course Mr K today. Your efforts really are appreciated

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