Times 28287 – two kinds of firsts.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

My first time blogging for the new site then copied here, as opposed to last week’s when that process was reversed. As it happened, I found this puzzle an easy one and set a new PB by completing it in 10 minutes and a few seconds. Afterwards I looked up 17a on Wikipedia, it was a word I’d heard of in a calendar context but didn’t know what or when it was. Not much else to add about this one.

This was copied and pasted from the new website which creates larger spaces between some lines, sorry about that but I’m not going to edit every line of HTML to make it tighter. [Editor: Fixed in new site].

Definitions underlined in italics , ( Abc )* indicating anagram of Abc, deletions and [] other indicators.
Across
1 Intimidate son interrupting discussion in plant (3,7)
COW PARSLEY – COW = intimidate, PARLEY = discussion, insert S for son.
7 Person singing in new boat (4)
NARK – N for new, ARK a boat.
9 Furore over books in part of Belfast (8)
STORMONT -STORM = furore, O = over, NT = books.
10 Scandinavian food tucked into by a knight on board (6)
DANISH – A, N [knight in chess] both inside DISH = food.
11 Extremely significant widespread conflict (6)
STRIFE – S T (extremes of significant) RIFE [widespread].
13 Administered church, inspiring priest’s trust (8)
RELIANCE – RAN [administered] insert ELI the usual crosswordly priest, CE = Church of England.
14 Student of life misused Bitcoins site (12)
BIOSCIENTIST -(BITCOINS SITE)*.
17 A game is set up, oddly, for a day in church (12)
SEPTUAGESIMA -(A GAME IS SET UP)*. It’s the Sunday between seventy and sixty days before Easter, hence the name derived from the Latin for seventy. No doubt a more religiously inclined person can expand (or read Wiki like I did).
20 Tedious book lying around Irish quarters (8)
TIRESOME – TOME [book] has IR and E S inserted.
21 Benefactors having no right to infiltrate parties (6)
DONORS – DOS = parties [plural of DO], insert NO R.
22 Newspaper ’s revolutionary work plugged by Times leader (3-3)
RED-TOP – RED [revolutionary] OP [work] insert T for Times.
23 Acclaim register, one used endlessly by Brussels (8)
EULOGISE – EU, LOG (register) I, USED = used endlessly.
25 Cook disturbed by a brawl (4)
FRAY – A inside FRY.
26 Improving technique increases murder rate (10)
UPSKILLING – UPS KILLING.
Down
2 Surpass old-fashioned tourists finally on excursion (8)
OUTSTRIP – OUT [old-fashioned], S (end of tourists], TRIP [excursion].
3 This standard giving rise to censure (3)
PAR – RAP [censure] reversed.
4 River horse, or cow, by the sound of it (5)
RHONE – sounds like ROAN, which can describe the white and coloured patchy coat of horses, cows, and other animals.
5 More recent article identifies site of Roman basilica (7)
LATERAN – LATER [more recent], AN [article]. The oldest of the four basilicas in the Vatican.
6 Singing and shouting odds regularly inside (9)
YODELLING -YELLING has the alternate letters of OdDs inserted. Debatable whether yodelling is singing – then again, remember Frank Ifield?
7 Accepting new power, not a single craftsman is unbiased (3-8)
NON-PARTISAN – NO ARTISAN has N P inserted.
8 Cut out part of support covering financial centre (6)
RESECT – not 100% sure, but I think this is REST (support, as in snooker) with EC (City of London, hence financial centre) inserted.
12 Unusually tiny, listens with determination (11)
INSISTENTLY -(TINY LISTENS)*.
15 Off-the-cuff claim to be on time at university (9)
IMPROMPTU – I’M PROMPT = claim to be on time, U for university. A bit of a chestnut.
16 Lock up woman concerned with protecting elected member (8)
IMPRISON – IRIS (a woman) ON (concerned with) has MP inserted.
18 Ineffectual American drug? Not so (7)
USELESS -US (American) E (drug) LESS (not so).
19 Like a style of painting some revel in early (6)
LINEAR -hidden as above.
21 Capital Henry invested in high-quality food shop (5)
DELHI – H for Henry inside a DELI. I could take issue with this as the capital is NEW DELHI not just Delhi, which is a larger urban area in which New Delhi is sited.
24 Set cricket side up (3)
GEL – LEG reversed.

 

58 comments on “Times 28287 – two kinds of firsts.”

  1. PAR and OUTSTRIP fell into place just before the COW PARSLEY and I was off. Slight pause over the cow as a roan, but it had to be. RESECT took a little thought, but was familiar when derived. UPSKILLING was LOI at 11:40. Thanks setter and Pip.
  2. 11:10 but overconfident about the nth Sunday around Easter which thus acquired an errant “I” as I failed to check the anagram. A quick google suggests plenty of churches, which have rather less excuse, can’t spell it either. Otherwise no problems biffing my way to a speedy solve.
  4. I found this the easiest of the week so far. 16 minutes, with a minor hold-up entering EULOGISE since I’d carelessly entered DELHI as DHELI. But for that I might have got below 15 minutes.

    I’ll add my praise for Sabre’s Listener – a brilliant set of clues, and a superbly constructed puzzle (with the emphasis on ‘puzzle’).

  5. Must have missed the email that said this was going to be particularly easy (Snitch 55 at the moment which for me, would be a target of 17.5 mins).

    With better GK, might have been more confident seeing COW PARSLEY, STORMONT, LATERAN first time through.

    Parsing somewhat astray too, RHONE with a shrug (heard of a roan as a horse, but suppose it applies to cows too), IMPRISON and TIRESOME bunged in without checking.

    Fortunately familiar with SEPTUAGESIMA from seeing it referenced in many a diary, but couldn’t have told you what it referred to.

    LOI NHO RESECT

    Edited at 2022-05-11 11:06 am (UTC)

  6. Pushing for the under ten, I was a bit hasty, but my guesses proved correct. My worry about Rhone was that it might not actually be a homonym of Roan. In my head I’d always pronounced the horse row-an. Wrongly I’m sure. Maybe mixing it with the riders of rohan. Otherwise very straightforward. Septuagesima no problem to anone who spent time in schooldays in bored contemplation of hymn- and prayer-books. No idea then or now what it means.
  7. 8.19 and a new PB beating my previous time by 20 seconds so very satisfying for me. I found this to be a pretty easy top-to-bottom solve with the exception of the crossing re-sect and nark in the NE corner which I couldn’t see and had to leave until the end. Once I had discarded altos and basses and thought of another type of singing, nark went in. I then had to trust to the wordplay for LOI resect. I didn’t know the word and was a little hesitant over entering it, I might possibly have shaved a few more seconds off my time had I been more confident with that one.
  8. Yes, straightforward today, and add me to the throng that hadn’t heard of roan cows…

    Solved in an idyllic clearing in the Landes forest in the Vendee, while listening to cuckoos.

    Edited at 2022-05-11 03:19 pm (UTC)

    1. We’ll be in the Vendee later in the summer. Any recommended places to visit or walk?
  9. LOI Rhone with the same hesitation as everyone else. On holiday, so completing on the iPad which may have contributed to the faster time. I find that if a puzzle is difficult, I need to solve on paper. Once a certain level of competence has been achieved (e.g. for me with the QC) then it is possible, and much quicker, to complete online.
    Thanks to the setter for providing a relatively easy puzzle and to Pip for the explanations, particularly of tiresome and the ‘ise’ of ‘eulogise’ which I failed to parse.
  10. 20.10 with LOI the unknown resect. Took me a while to get started with redtop my FOI- which says it all really. Eventually got some momentum, helped by septuagesima- I knew my early altar boy training would come in useful sometime.
    Liked nark and bioscientist but my COD is awarded to upskilling. Classic😊👍
    Thx setter and blogger.

    How do you access the new website? Intrigued.

  11. Goodness! I was racing through this one so fast I thought I’d started the quickie. But no. I see from comments above that this was as easy as it seemed to me. The SNITCH hasn’t shown a lower score since 13 July 2020. What shall I do now?

    Edited at 2022-05-11 04:31 pm (UTC)

  12. Was I the only who bunged in RHONE once I had all the checkers without paying too much attention to the definition. Seems so, so maybe a lucky escape there. Otherwise had to keep checking it wasn’t the 13×13 grid but no less enjoyable for it being an easy one. Knew resect which helped

    Liked UPSKILLING

  13. 27 minutes, so yes, very easy and no real problems except maybe RED-TOP, which I had never heard of, and perhaps RESECT and RHONE (STORMONT made sure it couldn’t be RHINE, but separating out the wording of the clue took some time).

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