Times 28197 – is this a museum piece?

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving this was a demanding task; parsing some of the answers fully was even more so, a wee dram of finest malt was required to soften my headache. I think I have unravelled all but 27a, although 14d is not entirely convincing. Some clever stuff, but also some relying on obscure knowledge 17a, 15d for example. That’ll teach me to comment about Wednesdays getting easier.

A reminder, as someone didn’t clock last week how my definitions were marked; definitions are underlined, DD means double definition, anagram indicators in italics, anagram fodder (IN BRACKETS)*.

Across
1 Do reduce your litter! (4,1,3)
SELL A PUP – well if you sold one pup you’d have a smaller litter remaining. “Do” as in con, swindle.
9 Machine chopped fruit that a human regularly bags (8)
AUTOMATA – TOMAT(O) = fruit chopped, goes inside A, U A where U and A are alternate letters of hUmAn. Either this is an error or I am missing something, because ‘machine’ is singular and automata is the plural of automaton. It’s Greek not Latin. It should be ‘machines’.
10 Standard, one consistently falling short (6)
COMMON – standard as in practice, common practice. Why? You ask, as I did, then came the PDM. We have a comma (after standard) and ONE, both of which are ‘short’ i.e. COMM ON.
11 Jack, with tyrant’s role, taking time out — making it permanent? (10)
ABDICATING – AB (Jack, sailor) DICTATING (what a tyrant does) lose the T for time = AB DICATING. I guess if you abdicate, you are gone for good, permanently.
12 Go free from Baltic? (4)
ZING – I looked at this, baffled for a while, then thought: Baltic is Scottish slang for rather cold. Freezing your bits off. Then I thought, freezing, with free removed; ZING meaning go, energy.
13 Tips on weapons hardware, so varied (10)
ARROWHEADS – (HARDWARE SO)*.
16 1000, say; slightly more ones and zeroes (7)
MEGABIT – M (a thousand in Roman) EG (say) A BIT (slightly).
17 A quiet moment with the French chap behind the museum? (7)
ASHMOLE – A, SH (quiet) MO (moment) LE (the in French). Easier, if like some of us, you spent a few dissolute years allagedly studying in Oxford. Elias Ashmole was a wealthy collector of stuff and the instigator of the famous Ashmolean Museum, England’s first, founded in 1667.
20 Elders quietly replaced by trees next to railway (10)
PRESBYTERY – P (quietly) then (BY TREES)* then RY for railway. I did always wonder exactly what a presbytery was, it’s a group or meeting of the elders of a church.
22 Where cricketers practise catches (4)
NETS – DD.
23 Bloomer, with Latin stars receiving letter from Greek detectives (10)
ASPIDISTRA – Latin for stars is ASTRA, insert PI (Greek letter) and DIs (detective inspectors). Time for a reprise of Gracie Fields?
25 Evidently need oil pipe (6)
SQUEAK – DD.
26 Link with Brussels bureaucrat so ruefully if partially recalled (8)
EUROSTAR – well hidden, reversed as above in a relevant surface.
27 Poet’s light, mostly obscene book (3-5)
DAY-LEWIS – DAY = light. LEW(D) = mostly obscene. Why does IS = book?

Down
2 Drive away reformed killer, perhaps, wiser after case dismissed (8)
EXORCISE – an ORC is a horrible Tolkein creature that kills things, so an EX ORC could be a reformed one, then add (W)ISE(R).
3 What shoppers do after failure to find cooking ingredient (5,5)
LEMON GRASS – a LEMON is a failure, and shoppers shop you or grass on you.
4 Capital made of gossip — PC covered in shame (6,4)
PANAMA CITY – biffed then eventually decoded. PITY = shame. insert ANA (literary gossip) MAC (an Apple PC).
5 Day trip in need of whacking great deposit (3,4)
PAY DIRT – (DAY TRIP)*.
6 Jerk wanting nothing at first to do with loan request from Antony? (4)
OTIC – O (nothing) TIC (jerk). Mark Antony wanted his friends, Romans and countrymen to lend him their ears, and OTIC means to do with ears.
7 Graduate getting zero on a stiff paper (6)
MANILA – MA (graduate) NIL (zero) A.
8 Gifts the first thing Santa has for picking up? (8)
LARGESSE – Sounds like ‘LARGE S’ which Santa has at the start.
14 Vague desire maybe to get husband for Yankee lady at last (5-5)
WISHY-WASHY – WISH (desire) Y (yankee) WAS H(usband), then Y the end of LadY.
15 Animated cow in garden to barge in after hesitation (10)
ERMINTRUDE – INTRUDE (barge in) after ERM… = hesitation. I used to be a big fan of THE MAGIC ROUNDABOUT where she was a friendly cow in the garden, but this must be a mystery for some?
16 Force king to accept a top politician’s charter (3-5)
MAP-MAKER – MAKE R = force king, insert A PM = a top politician.
18 Low calorie helping reduced by a third, people learned (8)
LITERATI – LITE (low calorie) RATI(ON) = helping reduced by a third.
19 Old sailor wearing light, tight garment (7)
LEOTARD – O TAR = old sailor, insert him into LED = light (emitting diode).
21 Come to a halt by front of pub in Ireland (6)
EXPIRE – EIRE = Ireland, poetically, insert X (by) P (front of pub).
24 Hint — minor — that’s dropped every so often (4)
IOTA – alternate letters of m I n O r T h A t.

70 comments on “Times 28197 – is this a museum piece?”

  1. Got COMMON but erased it again having missed the significance of the comma (sheesh!). Also missed ZING and EXORCISE. Overall quite pleased with self; just don’t ask how long I spent on it…

    My COD was 15dn because I’m very fond of The Magic Roundabout, but I thought it would be v. tricky bordering on unfair for many. ASHMOLE seemed similarly selective, although perhaps at the other end of the intellectual spectrum.

    FOI ARROWHEADS
    LOI MEGABIT

    David

    Edited at 2022-01-26 01:01 pm (UTC)

    1. Ooh! Just ‘got’ the parsing of LARGESSE. I think that’s a better COD… love it.

      David

  2. Finished in two goes; about 20 mins altogether. For some reason, I found this one straightforward, although I did bung in COMMON with a shrug and my fingers crossed.
    THanks, pip.
  3. Not too many problems for me — LARGESSE was held up by initially going down the ABDICATION route.

    Couldn’t see the parsing for LEMON GRASS nor PANAMA CITY at all but seemed like reasonable guesses with the checkers at the time.

    ERMINTRUDE a write-in if you’re British and of a certain age. Didn’t overthink DAY-LEWIS, it fit with my semi-parsing. SQUEAK, my last in the SE corner jumped out after a few minutes thought.

    ZING was last in, giving most food for thought. Very surprised by the high Snitch — didn’t think this was all that bad.

  4. Couldn’t get ZING until thinking about it later — saw the “go” bit but not the cryptic. Some clues are too clever for their own good. No time but at least an hour.
  5. Must admit that it was a bit of a toss-up between NORMAN and COMMON here as well, and I made the right call (also one of those times where I broke my own rules and submitted without full parsing – also a good call, as I suspect I’d still have been there this afternoon if I’d gone down that route). The singular AUTOMATA pulled me up a bit, though I had lots of enjoyable PDMs with the likes of the Large S.
  6. I eventually finished in 23:26, but submitted outwith the leaderboard because I’d resorted to aids to try to justify COMMON. In the end I failed to justify it, but couldn’t do any better and chanced it, so many thanks, Pip, for the enlightenment.
    A failure also properly to understand 27ac – don’t remember having come across IS used as an abbreviation for book in the crossword before, although it’s fair enough when you point it out. Plenty of other bits of head-scratching before the PDM: ZING, PRESBYTERY, ERMINTRUDE, WISHY-WASHY. Phew. Challenging.
    Thanks again, Pip, and Setter, naturally.
  7. 30.02, clever, chewy stuff. I preferred common to norman on the basis of on(e) falling short at the end but otherwise failed to parse it. Abdication held up largesse for a while. (Free)zing was a long alpha-trawl and a PDM. Never quite parsed wishy-washy, can sort of see it now though. Ex orc was far from being my first thought for reformed killer but exorcise arrived at last. Pleased to finish in what was a reasonable time given the SNITCH and the number of DNFs.
  8. DNF. Actually quite liked ABDICATING, which seems to have flummoxed many solvers today. Nice bit of self-reference since “MAKING IT PERMANENT” has to refer back to “TAKING TIME OUT”.

    Thought ORC was a very weak bit of construction. DNK ANA or DAY-LEWIS as a poet, or ZING.

  9. Pleased to finish in 40 minutes, with COMMON, ZING and DAY-LEWIS my last entries. Lots bunged in without fully understanding the wordplay initially. In the end all worked out except for the clever clue to COMMON. I also liked the clues to LEMON GRASS and DAY-LEWIS. I wasn’t keen on the wording of 25a (SQUEAK) or 14d (WISHY-WASHY)and I thought ‘reformed killer, perhaps’ was a bit fanciful for EXORC.
  10. Correctly guessed COMMON and ZING from the checkers but had to come here for the parsing. I feel lucky to have finished. I thought it would be very difficult for non-Brits what with ASHMOLE and ERMINTRUDE. 51 minutes. Ann
  11. 38 mins but missed 27 ac. Completely dumbfounded as to whether it referred to a poetic term for light or a book. Day Lewis is fair enough I suppose but like the blogger the is is a bit of a puzzle to me. Good workout and frustrating to have been beaten in the end. Mind you zing went in without having a clue as to why it was right, thanks blogger for the explanation.
  12. I had a guest last evening so couldn’t start till late, then got too sleepy to finish the NW and SE before morning. Very meaty. I should have seen that damn comma in COMMON! But of course I didn’t know the freaking cartoon bovine—only by the wordplay…

    Edited at 2022-01-26 09:14 pm (UTC)

  13. With the Snitch at 147, I suppose I should be less unhappy than I am with a 60min DNF with four clues absolutely refusing to yield. But overall I was left a bit grumbly by this one, even with some of the clues which did work for me. The plural AUTOMATA clued with a singular definition was the start; it had to be EXORCISE, but I’ve never read any Tolkien and have no desire to do so; and IS as a book, now explained above but previously unknown (I can’t abbreviate any of the other 65 either), feels as lazy a piece of clueing as the oft-complained-about ‘girl’ or ‘woman’ for any one of hundreds of proper names. Some good stuff, no doubt, but it’s always the niggles that stick, and today there were a few. Heigh-ho! Better tomorrow, I hope.
  14. All fine until the end when I guessed Norman and Wing! Very devious – which is how we like ’em! I was up to that point feeling rather proud of myself for being equally at home with Ashmole and Ermintrude. Many thanks. I should have got zing.
  16. Did anyone else spot (as I did after using aids!) that the departure of the Baltic states from the Soviet Union was dubbed the Singing Revolution? So I reckon that SING is just a good an answer as ZING bizarrely.

    Robin

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