Times 28619 – many called from the vasty deep

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

57:24

I was glad to finish in under an hour, as I found this quite difficult, particularly the SE corner. I biffed, and guessed, and lifted and separated (and googled). Here’s hoping and expecting the more experienced solvers had less difficulty!

COD to 15ac.

Definitions underlined.

Across
1 Empty fajita, very hot on the outside, in the main (9)
SEAFARING – FajitA (i.e. empty) with SEARING (very hot) outside.
6 Might one be a surrogate father? (5)
LOCUM – cryptic definition, a stand-in clergyman.
9 Company that delivers, bagging credit increases (7)
UPTICKS – UPS (company that delivers) containing TICK (credit).
10 Casual worker missing work to begin with (7)
OFFHAND – HAND (worker) with OFF (missing work) at the start.
11 Live entertainment not primarily what a crossword may provide? (10)
BEMUSEMENT – BE (live) and aMUSEMENT (entertainment).
12 Booty from large house picked up (4)
HAUL – sounds like “hall” (large house).
14 Not firm figure in French radio, perhaps (5)
UNSET – UN (one, a figure, in French) + SET (radio perhaps).
15 Alcohol and some cocaine — last bit of crack (9)
PUNCHLINE – PUNCH (alcohol) + LINE (some cocaine).
16 European arriving at chamber for event (4,5)
POLE VAULT – POLE (European) + VAULT (chamber).
18 One getting into flash car? (5)
RACER – &lit. with ACE (one) inside RR (Rolls Royce, flash car).
20 Man with issue twice a year (4)
PAPA – 2 x P.A. (per annum, a year).
21 Group receiving direction before start of Long March (10)
BORDERLAND – BAND (group), containing ORDER (direction) and the start of Long. March meaning borderland between two territories was one of those definitions I didn’t know I knew.
25 Hide eastern articles in both hands (7)
LEATHER – E (eastern) and A + THE (articles), all inside L+R (both hands).
26 The spirit of Henry IV, say (7)
BOURBON – double definition. Henry IV of France was from the House of Bourbon.
27 Some perfumier he interested in eau de Cologne locally (5)
RHEIN – hidden in perfumieR HE INtersted. Literally, the local name of the water flowing through Cologne.
28 Henry quits Asian bank, perhaps he goes in last (9)
TAILENDER – ThAI (asian) missing ‘h’ (Henry), then LENDER (bank, perhaps). Easy if you’re a fan of cricket.
Down
1 Short, stout person rowing up to the half-way mark (5)
SQUAB – SQUABbling (rowing) up to half-way.
2 Periodically cheers up, given what you may be reading now (2,5)
AT TIMES – TA (cheers) reversed + TIMES (what you may be reading now).
3 Appeal after copper stops working case (10)
ACCUSATIVE – S.A. (sex appeal) after CU (copper), contained by (stops) ACTIVE (working).
4 Briefly with or without Mary? (2,3)
IN SUM – the definition works “with or without ‘mary'”, since briefly = IN SUMmary.
5 Venue for sports fan getting snack food (9)
GROUNDNUT – GROUND (venue for sports) + NUT (fan). I only knew this as an oil, and now wonder what they taste like as a snack.
6 Story including Fitzgerald’s opening sentence (4)
LIFE – LIE (story) containing Fitzgerald’s first letter.
7 Bread and a little butter, with spicy drink going around (7)
CHAPATI – PAT (a little butter) contained by CHAI (spicy drink). Not a ram to be seen.
8 Where hammer and anvil are extremely tough taken from Tolkien’s realm (6,3)
MIDDLE EAR – MIDDLE EARth (Tolkien’s realm) missing the outermost letters from ‘tough’. The malleus (hammer) and incus (anvil) are bones of the ear.
13 Kind of green plan to recycle (10)
CHARTREUSE – CHART (plan) + RE-USE (recycle).
14 Not in country club with tree outside for all to see (9)
UNPOPULAR – UN (country club), then POPLAR (tree) containing U (universal, for all to see).
15 Privileged person with clout drunkenly punching twit (9)
PLUTOCRAT – anagram of (drunkenly) CLOUT, contained by (punching) PRAT (twit).
17 Mathematician climbing mountain in pretty fabric (7)
LAPLACE – ALP (mountain) reversed inside LACE (pretty fabric).
19 Perverse creature who might pinch twirling girl attending many parties (7)
CRABBED – CRAB (creature who might pinch) + reversal of DEB (debutante, girl attending any parties). Not a word in my vocabulary.
22 Call e.g. ChatGPT capital (5)
DUBAI – DUB (call) A.I. (e.g. ChatGPT).
23 Day with stormy rain one’s spent in Algeria, say (5)
DINAR – D (day) + an anagram of RAIN.
24 Character from Jerusalem I name in support of peace! (4)
SHIN – I + N (name) underneath (in support of) SH (peace!). From the (very old) Hebrew alphabet, but new to me.

77 comments on “Times 28619 – many called from the vasty deep”

  1. 24:28, which is very solid for me. Would’ve been slightly quicker had I not insisted on parsing IN SUM before entering, which took a bit of thought. Probably my standout, alongside PUNCHLINE. I’d just about heard of HAMMER Horror, although I’ve never seen one, and like others I dragged out SHIN from Shin Bet, with a shrug for SH meaning ‘peace’.

  2. 6m 46s – must have been on the wavelength today. RACER was very nice, that was my COD.

    For LOCUM I had rather unpleasant ideas of what it could be talking about, but rejected them as unworthy of the Times (and cryptically unacceptable… maybe in the Guardian).

  3. DNF, in OWL club again after putting ‘squib’ rather than SQUAB. Was tempted to biff ‘Wonderland’ for 21a for a while until I figured out BORDERLAND.

    COD Accusative

  4. 51:42

    Not so keen on grids where I don’t know much of what’s going on. NHOs first:

    SQUAB – knew as a baby pigeon, but not as a synonym of short and fat
    IN SUM – who says this? If I said it at the end of a presentation in my office, no one would understand
    GROUNDNUT – heard the word, indeed bought the oil, but no idea it is a peanut
    LAPLACE – added to my list of mathematicians
    SHIN – I can think of much easier definitions for this word
    CRABBED – not heard of this = perverse
    BOURBON – would have been nice to know that we were talking about a Henry IV from a completely different country – it’s hard enough keeping up with English royalty

    On the plus side, no parsing problems plus the following:
    – There was a LOCUM priest at my church when I was a kid
    – UPTICKS – well known if you dabble in stocks and shares
    – DUBAI – got this from first and last checker – I had heard of ChatGPT via my university-going son

    Thanks for unravelling William

  5. 36:32 today, less than 4 Verlaines on a chewy Friday very satisfying. Loved the Eau de Cologne hidden. Everything crossed when entering squab.

    Thanks William and setter.

    PS as a retired IT person, I loved Islas AI discussion above. I agree with her but I think if most laymen call chatGPT AI then it’s fair enough in crosswordland.

    1. Hi Grumpyoldmag,
      Name notwithstanding, I’m a he, not a she.
      And I agree with you it’s a perfectly valid clue in crosswordland, as I agreed with Keriothe above. I got to the clue with the final I in place and instantaneously realised it ended AI. Dubai was very quick.

  6. 29.13 with a lot of time spent on the South East corner. ‘Shin’ went in with a hope and a prayer.

    1. A wing and a prayer were in my mind for this clue as I pressed the button.

  7. Around an hour, picking away at this after golf while watching entertaining tennis. It was quite hard, but fun, I thought. I took an age to see SQUAB(BLING) but not as long to see IN SUM(MARY). HAUL was LOI as I had thought of it but was looking for a better definition and reversing L *** with a three letter house. Also took an age to see why it was BORDERland not WONDERland, when the Welsh marches came to mind.
    Although I got DUBAI from DUB and checkers, I had to go afterwards to find out what ChatGPT was as had no idea.
    Well blogged william_j_s.

  8. Around 20 mins
    Steady solve – enjoyed it. Thought locum was only a doctor, so learnt something today.
    Thanks, setter and w.

  9. Rowing not rowing, you p(lutoc)rat!
    It’s funny how being familiar with a topic often proves to be either a handicap or distraction. I should have seen Laplace earlier once the alp seemed likely. Having half an eye on the test helped with the SE.
    There is a Guardian clue of interest to Times solvers today – nothing new under the sun. Muggins almost foxed by the same trick in the space of a week.
    Compliments to the setter for some very elegant clues and thank you William and contributors.
    Early pace, ran on at one pace, never nearer:
    35′ 51”
    (+10′ if I’d not parsed ‘in sum’ in retrospect)

  10. Finished in 40 minutes. Happy with that for a Friday. Happy with the ChatGPT/AI part of DUBAI, too many quibbles from other commenters. Didn’t know Henry IV was House of Bourbon, but put it in without hesitation. Amused at number of folks who didn’t know groundnut = peanut! Anyway, a pleasant 40 mins sat in the sunshine.

  11. About an hour. Done in two parts and messed up the timer. Bit of a struggle but perseverance rewarded. Bottom half was particularly tough going with my LOIs being Bourbon, crabbed, racer, chartreuse and finally borderland.

    Good ending to the week, thanks setter and blogger. COD tailender, which I rather suspect I might be in the league table.

  12. Just under the hour after an exhausting day stuck in jams. NHO SQUAB in that sense, thought it was a pigeon

  13. Yes I was pretty sure that Friday’s would be harder — I took just over an hour and had a few bits of help from lists. Several that caused difficulty: I never knew that a LOCUM was also a stand-in clergyman; or that UPTICKS were increases; or that a SQUAB was a short stout person; or that CRABBED meant perverse; or that a SHIN was a Hebrew character. The sum/Mary clue was good. I parsed GROUNDNUT less than perfectly. My heart sank with the Tolkien clue, since I have no intention of ever reading him, having read 30 pages of The Hobbit and chucking it away in disgust, but in the end it was OK.

  14. This took me over an hour but got there in the end. Very enjoyable, with no iffy clues. Some words I’d never heard of (Squab, Shin, Laplace) but they were all perfectly gettable.

  15. 1 hour 10 minutes and two longish interruptions were needed for me to finish this, but perseverance did pay off, as I eventually got SQUAB, RACER and CRABBED (my LOI). Everything else was not quite so hard. Enjoyable puzzle.

  16. 25:21. Solved a day late. Like others I got stuck in the SE corner with PUNCHLINE, BORDERLAND and CHARTREUSE all taking quite a while. DNK SHIN was a letter. I enjoyed the BENUSEMENT – bith the puzzle and the clue. Thanks William and setter.

  18. Like others, delayed start due to a few obscurities, then kicked off with a carefully parsed BEMUSEMENT and HAUL. Certainly went over the hour, but enjoyed every bit – clever concise clueing included. Also stumped in the SE by unusual definitions, eg CRABBED and BORDERLAND, but happily knew that a groundnut was a peanut ( they abound in Queensland!). Worked hard to get SEAFARING and LOCUM, but POLE VAULT, PAPA, RACER, and LAPLACE and TAILENDER were satisfying PDMs. Never did get SHIN , BORDERLAND or IN SUM. All up a good Friday work-out.

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