Times 28233 – nothing too complex for a Wdnsdy.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A bit easier than last Wednesday, I thought, no really obscure words and a couple of chestnut clues. My CoD is a toss up between 22a (nasty Brexit) and 26a (no swimming costume). 20 minutes all parsed.

Across
1 Quite loud at the end of family party (4,2)
KIND OF – KIN (family) DO (party) F (loud).
5 Tough leader‘s sarcasm about left wingers in Auckland (4,4)
IRON LADY – IRONY (sarcasm) goes around L (left) A D (outside letters of Auckland). No strange birds involved.
9 It excites pique, keeping tots in a rage (3,5)
HOT STUFF – (TOTS)* inside HUFF = pique.
10 I’m leaving — then I’m back for Asian furnishing (6)
TATAMI – TATA (I’m leaving) I’M reversed. Japanese floor matting.
11 Thick bagel given to a school member (6)
OAFISH – O (a bagel, a zero, as in e.g. 6-0 in tennis) A FISH a school member.
12 Knock down hotel along with manual worker (8)
DECKHAND – DECK (knock down) H(otel) AND = along with.
14 Tripe‘s eaten, and sticky stuff in coating of yolk (12)
GOBBLEDYGOOK – GOBBLED (eaten) GOO (sticky stuff) inside Y K (coating of yolk).
17 President, say, no longer chilled: hard and less fresh (6-6)
OFFICE-HOLDER – OFF ICE = no longer chilled, H = hard, OLDER = less fresh.
20 Created hot pants in gold colour (8)
AUTHORED – AU, (HOT)*, RED.
22 So perhaps Brexit nasty for this woman? (6)
EUNICE – if Brexit were nasty, the EU might be NICE for her. Strangely, I’ve just finished an excellent book (Black Diamonds) in which Eunice Kennedy Shriver featured at times, so she was top of mind.
23 Twenty-four hours without any answers for firm (6)
STURDY – SATURDAY (24 hours) loses both of its As (answers).
25 Some in triumph arise excitedly for old sectarian (8)
PHARISEE – hidden as above.
26 Hardy character crossing river, swimmer with no trunks? (8)
TREELESS – the Hardy character is TESS, of the d’Urbervilles fame. Into her insert R and EEL (river and swimmer).
27 Pope concealing weapon smoothly (6)
LEGATO – LEO (popular name for Popes, there were thirteen) insert GAT a kind of gun. Musical term for smoothly.

Down
2 Sign of pressure thus internalised by current staff (6)
ISOBAR – SO (thus) inside I (current) BAR (staff). A line joining places of equal pressure on a chart.
3 Pick out suit with shindig having been arranged (11)
DISTINGUISH – (SUIT SHINDIG)*.
4 Story about alcoholic perhaps going down the toilet (9)
FLUSHABLE – FABLE (story) around LUSH (drunk).
5 Elected communist, one with controversial ideas (7)
INFIDEL – IN (elected) FIDEL Castro.
6 Concerned with one sensory organ stealing power of another (5)
OPTIC – OTIC (concerned with the ear) has P for power inserted.
7 Burned books (3)
LIT – double definition.
8 Control old car seized by gangster (8)
DOMINION – O MINI (old car) goes inside DON (gangster as in Mafioso).
13 Drunk on pungent gin stirred at the top (4-7)
HIGH-RANKING – HIGH (drunk) RANK (pungent) (GIN)*.
15 Ruse by Liberal Party that’s raised game (9)
DODGEBALL – DODGE (ruse) L, LAB (liberal, party) reversed. I’d never heard of dodgeball until we had it recently.
16 Excited gambler may have this (8)
AFLUTTER – a gambler may have a flutter, a small bet.
18 Originator of complex work cut by journalist on paper (7)
OEDIPUS – OPUS (work) is cut by ED (journalist) I (UK paper, the i, was the Independent once).
19 Accountant turned up little cash — this may be grave (6)
ACCENT – CA reversed, CENT a little cash; grave pronounced graahve.
21 Recital of Frost’s poetry (5)
RHYME – sounds lke RIME = frost.
24 Edith Piaf’s way to experience regret (3)
RUE – French for STREET, so Piaf’s ‘way’.

65 comments on “Times 28233 – nothing too complex for a Wdnsdy.”

  2. 7:18 – pretty steady solve. AUTHORED was my last in. I enjoyed EUNICE and the wordplay for GOBBLEDYGOOK.
  3. I didn’t find this so easy, 45 mins or so. LOI AUTHORED which wasn’t that easy even with the checkers (I wasn’t realizing I had to lift-and-separate “gold color”. It all seems very easy now so I should have been faster.
  4. Biffed a couple: OPTIC (never worked it out), IRON LADY (parsed post-submission). No idea about ‘bagel’. I thought of STURDY long before I saw how to get it. I tried to make something out of FATHERED at 20ac before thinking of AUTHORED. Liked EUNICE.
  5. Ill admit that I should have thought harder about FATISH (definitely thicker than Oafish, but equally definitely less parseable), but I also think that DOCKHAND works just as well as Deckhand. Elsewhere there was a lot of wit to enjoy, and I enjoyed it. Thx setter.

    Edited at 2022-03-09 03:39 am (UTC)

  6. This was thoroughly enjoyable. Last one parsed OPTIC.
    Some really fun clues. Like EUNICE (this one isn’t controversial, is it? Ha).
    If I have any reservation, it is that Freud is the “originator” of the “complex,” though it is named after the hero of the eponymous play by Sophocles.

    Edited at 2022-03-09 06:41 am (UTC)

    1. Sorry to be pedantic, but the Oedipus myth was well-known at least 400 years before Sophocles wrote Oedipus the King, appearing in Homer’s Odyssey. So the complex is named after the myth, not specifically Sophocles’ version of it.
      1. Don’t apologize. I had originally written “the mythic character” but then seemed to remember that Freud had referred to the plot as presented in the play (a detail, though, that I haven’t checked).
  7. 34 minutes. Pleasant and not too challenging, though OAFISH and DOMINION held me up a bit before taking longer on my LOI DODGEBALL, which I had forgotten we’d had before. Another to like the clue for EUNICE.
  9. Well, he was the first to be ‘attested’ as having it, so in that sense he was the original.
    1. Well, he was the example taken from ancient tragic theatre to symbolize the concept when Freud first put it forth. As the complex involves phantasms of desire while in the Greek tragedy the actions of Oedipus, presented as concrete reality, are not products of even unconscious desires but only contingent results of sheer blind Fate (he did not know he was killing his father nor marrying his mother), I think it would be too much to say that Oedipus “himself” had the complex of Freudian theory.

      But perhaps Sophocles meant to symbolize something he had perceived more generally in the men around him—maybe Oedipus was always already meant to depict the psychological type Freud would recognize… 

      Edited at 2022-03-09 07:27 am (UTC)

    2. No. Apart from Oedipus not being a real person, even if he was he would have been blissfully unaware that his behaviour was a complex.
  10. Apparently my cylinders are all firing this morning as I raced through this in 20m. 23 STUDY was probably my favourite. 8d gave me a bit of trouble despite the fact I drive a MINI!
  11. Thanks, Pip. Like you, I liked EUNICE and TREELESS. I also liked STURDY.
    LOI was OAFISH because, like Kevin, I struggled to make sense of ‘bagel.
    No parsing problems here either.
    I’m glad I went back to check 14ac. I had biffed GOBBLEDeGOOK.
    COD to STURDY and EUNICE

    Edited at 2022-03-09 07:18 am (UTC)

  12. I was done in by an errant DOCKHAND. I think it nearly works but admittedly deck fits “Knock down” better than dock does.
    1. More importantly a “deckhand” is a “thing”, but a “dockhand” isn’t. He says, after working almost 40 years on boats, and visiting many ports.
  13. Dead men naked they shall be one
    With the man in the wind and the west moon;

    30 leisurely mins pre-brekker savouring these excellent clues.
    Mostly I liked Authored, Sturdy, Flushable, Infidel, Oedipus and Rue.
    Thanks setter and Pip.

  15. …the inspiration for 5a? 34 minutes with LOI OAFISH. I didn’t know TATAMI but the cryptic plus crossers were kind. COD to TREELESS. I did find this quite tricky in places, but without ever feeling confounded. A good puzzle. Thank you Pip and setter.
  17. Hi. I’m another long term lurker who has just joined so I can send Vynil1 an email address. I find this site invaluable for those clues where I’m pretty sure I have the right answer but with no idea why. I generally take around 20 mins to do all but the last couple, then the same again on those, often let down by lack of knowledge of botany, astronomy or Asian flooring.
  18. Just on 50 mins, but finished at least. Last two in, DODGEBALL and OAFISH held me up at the last. Didn’t remember the game if I’ve seen it recently.

    GOBBLEDYGOOK has to be word of the day. I also liked EUNICE, STURDY and TREELESS. An enjoyable exercise today.

    Thanks Pip and setter.

    1. I initially spelt it ‘gobbledegook’, which I see is an alternative spelling. Yes, right up there with numbskull and nincompoop as excellent words. So much more to recommend them than horrid words like moron and cretin.
  19. Started off quite slowly – one of those where solutions spread evenly across the grid. Then as completeness approaches it all comes together, with 50% of the grid in the last 10 or 12 minutes. Really enjoyed that sprint finish today as the juices started to flow…

    …though it took me 2 or 3 to get LOI OAFISH _ I was unaware that “bagel” cab decode as “o” and had to alpha-trawl it, eventually relieved I wasn’t constructing an obscure Yiddish word. Thanks Pip and setter.

    1. I’ve not come across ‘bagel / 0’ before but I eventually worked it out as I remembered we have had ‘doughnut / 0’ or possibly ‘donut / 0’ at least once. I suppose anything ring-shaped would suffice.
      1. In the last few years I’ve heard bagel used quite commonly in tennis scores to denote a 6-0 set, so I was pretty sure that was what they were doing here. Still took an age to get OAFISH though.
  20. I could quibble about whether irony and sarcasm are synonymous, but I won’t as it was overall a fun crossword. 17:14
    1. That’s what my reference to Alanis Morissette was alluding to. Maybe the irony was her whole song, a lyrical &lit, always assuming I’ve got what that is right..
    2. Sarcasm is a form of irony so technically I guess this is a definition by example.
  21. Got through this steadily for a quick time (for me) other than another dockhand and having no idea about oafish. Wondered whether a danish had ever been described as a thick bagel!

    Perhaps operating more smartly this morning as I’m up early and on the train to spend a day in the London Library for the sheer pleasure of it.

    Thanks to the setter for an entertaining puzzle and to Pip for the explanations.

  22. NHO bagel = 0, so OAFISH just a guess.

    Think I’ve seen TATAMI here before, built from cryptic.

    Just outside my Snitch target — 82 when I checked.

    1. I meant to mention TATAMI: when it showed up recently, there was some NHOing, belongsinaMephistoing, etc., and I was wondering what would happen this time.
      1. Yep, I was a NHOing for TATAMI. worked it out from the cryptic and looked it up post completion. A Japanese mat indeed!
  23. Totally on the wavelength for this one — all solved and parsed in under the hour (I am a very slow coach!). Loved Treeless and Hot Stuff, which both resisted biffing, and no NHOs. Thanks for a great puzzle.
  24. Good fun, even if I was foolish enough to believe there might be a foodstuff called an OA, and only remembered (eventually) the tennis players’ bagel, or even the legendary double bagel; I’ve also heard commentators talk about players in other sport “posting a doughnut” for socring zero, but clearly that hasn’t achieved the same mainstream status yet. Mmmm…doughnuts.
    1. Spent a while in the US, their slang for a score of zero is “On the Schneid”. More often in the negative, after teams score they’re “Off the Schneid”. Even though I have no interest in tennis I know of a bagel as 6-0.
  25. Had my doubts about 0 = bagel, but perhaps it’s a nice new step forward in setting, taking us beyond things like ’round’ and ‘nothing’. 38 minutes. I also wondered if a Danish was a thick bagel. So OAFISH was my LOI.
  26. Nice snappy puzzle this with a slightly American flavour. I took a few beats to unravel HIGH-RANKING but otherwise this was a LEGATO solve. Good one. 12.56
  27. 8:32, WOE. I generally check my answers but sometimes if I get a bit stuck towards the end I check what I’ve done up to that point and then rely on accuracy for the last few. Sometimes this is a bad idea and I type in something like DODGEGALL. Drat.
    Other than that user error, I really enjoyed this. Not difficult but beautifully put together.
  28. Thought I knew most games but DODGEBALL eluded me. In the end I needed the second D to get it. That meant that I had to give up on US presidents, specifically IKE, and think a bit more generally. Nicely put together crossword, well done setter…
  29. 51:48. I found this enjoyable tricky and thought I was doing well until I saw the snitch. I really have to speed up. I liked OAFISH and RUE
  30. solve for a puzzle with a suprisingly low snitch, at least in my opinion…

    Lots to like, and I enjoyed the puzzle, HIGH RANKING was last in.

    34:58

  31. 24:35. All fair if a tad unremarkable. I think I have seen the O(P)TIC device quite recently (a Mephisto?) and for once I remembered a cryptic device and slotted it in on sight.
  32. I thought TREELESS was the clue of the day for its very misleading surface. It reminded me of a trip to Rejkjavik years ago when the hosts told us an Icelandic joke.

    Q. What do you do if you are lost in an Icelandic forest?

    A. Stand up …..

    Mind you anything would have been funny after eating the revolting pickled shark!

    Thanks to the setter and solver. This was all very fair I thought.

  33. Quite a good time for me. Seems to help doing all the acrosses then downs (like most others I believe) rather than getting one right and working round from there. (Though I do use that method for the Quickie)

    Here by the end of my passes through most of the blanks were fillable with a bit of thought

    Liked TREELESS though had TUSKLESS for a bit which I thought was rather good till I realised it was wrong!

    No problem with 0 for bagel

    Ps Do I need to send an email to Vinyl or will it already be evident? With my handle (and a quick google) you can imagine that this conflict is causing a lot of worry to the in-laws

  34. 10:57 No hold ups in a steady solve of this neat puzzle. I enjoyed EUNICE and the bagel most. Thanks Pip and setter.
  35. ….of checking every answer as I enter it meant no typos today. I must keep it up ! GOBBLEDYGOOK was thrown in and only parsed afterwards. I enjoyed this one.

    FOI KIND OF
    LOI LEGATO
    COD EUNICE*
    TIME 9:03

    * My neighbour of that ilk definitely voted “LEAVE” 😂

    Edited at 2022-03-09 02:56 pm (UTC)

  36. Enjoyed today’s very much. Thanks, Setter and Pip for the confirmatory elucidation. I particularly liked the ‘Brexit nasty’ clue!
  37. 21.50 while watching the rather excellent cricket (so far). I did like the conceit that produced STURDY.
    Having just returned from my fortnightly pillaging of Tesco’s, I still took a while to remember the shape of a bagel, and confused TATAMI with something to do with sushi.
    I didn’t parse HOT STUFF, as I couldn’t see pique as anagram indicator and thought rage too strong for HUFF, thanks as ever Pip for putting me straight.
  38. 40 minutes whilst Mrs R ascended Arthur’s Seat, which provided a very nice alternative to fat bloke trying to ascend it. Some entertaining clues here, including EUNICE, IRON LADY and STURDY. Thanks both.
  39. OAFISH was the last to go down as I hadn’t considered the possibility of it starting with a vowel, even when I saw how most of the clue worked. Very pleased to get my first sub-30m time today, especially with clues like 18d which I thought had a very nicely hidden def. Thanks P and S.
  40. JUST under an hour for a very enjoyable puzzle. I got off to a very slow start and about 5 minutes before the hour I still had three or four clues to solve, but they all went in very quickly (OAFISH was my LOI, DOMINION, LIT and TATAMI just before that). For OAFISH I spent a long time convincing myself it really couldn’t be DANISH (a bagel is not that which is called a Danish in the U.S. or at least in New York). Many very clever clues, like STURDY and AUTHORED and EUNICE.
  41. I loved this puzzle. Just the right degree of difficulty and so much to smile about. More, please, setter!
  42. 16.56. A fun puzzle much enjoyed. Finished up with the crossing sturdy and aflutter.
  43. Zoomed through the northwest (bar oafish) in about two minutes , but then slowed down a bit. Much fun had. But is Liberal Party for LLAB a bit cheeky?

Comments are closed.