Times 29067 – peace be with you, and goodnight…

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

I don’t have an exact time for this one, because I went off-piste to Wikipedia mid solve to look up the origins of 4a, but it must be close to a personal fastest; this seemed more like a Monday quickie than a Wednesday workout. But it’s a perfectly good puzzle and I enjoyed it while it lasted.

EDIT apparently this was one of the Championship first round puzzles; it seemed very easy, to me, compared to the other two.

Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, [deleted letters in square brackets].

Across
1 Scrounge a large one (6)
BUMPER – BUM (scrounge), PER (a, e.g. a head, per head).
4 Controlling figure succeeded; very English — The Greatest! (8)
SVENGALI – S [ucceeded], V[ery], ENG[lish], ALI as in Muhammad Ali. I knew the general meaning of Svengali, but had to look it up in Wiki to learn about the original novel from which it comes. Doesn’t sound like my kind of book.
9 Large sighs heard following umpire’s decision (7)
OUTSIZE – OUT as the umpire raises his finger; SIZE sounds like SIGHS.
11 One leaving Italian region, say, reflected resentment (7)
UMBRAGE – UMBRIA loses its I, then E.G. reversed.
12 Return to manage hotel for a period (5)
EPOCH – COPE (manage) reversed, H[otel].
13 A vote introduced by British PM for disused weapon (6-3)
BATTLE-AXE – B[ritish], ATTLEE with A X inserted.
14 A style of dress worn by geek back to front, hence the rush? (10)
ADRENALINE – A, NERD reversed, A-LINE a style of dress.
16 Stop big name in NYC sport making a comeback (4)
STEM – the METS are a New York City team in one of those American sports, I think it’s probably baseball. Here they are reversed.
19 My waterproof shoe? A pound wasted (4)
GOSH – GALOSH loses A L.
20 With which to direct cast delivering line? (7,3)
FISHING ROD – vaguely cryptic definition, sort of misdirecting you to think about Thespian things.
22 US newspaper owner, drug dealer, carrying about 454 grams? (9)
PUBLISHER – a drug dealer is a PUSHER, insert 1LB reversed meaning about a pound, or about 454 grams.
23 Global outbreak has Democrat fleeing in terror (5)
PANIC – PANDEMIC loses DEM.
25 Elevate university commendation (7)
UPRAISE – U (university), PRAISE = commendation.
26 Troop formation has no shelter retreating, Switzerland admitted (7)
ECHELON – all reversed, NO LEE with CH then inserted.
27 City of Olympus almost ruined prominent couple from Thebes (8)
PLYMOUTH – (OLYMPU)*, TH[ebes].
28 Uptight, nursing temperature, oxygen off the scale (6)
ATONAL – uptight = ANAL, insert T, O, for temperature, oxygen.
Down
1 Postwar child peeled tropical fruit that’s seen in Australia (9)
BOOMERANG – a postwar child like me is a baby BOOMER, then [M]ANG[O].
2 Police on radio evacuated transit network (5)
METRO – MET (Greater London police force) R[adi]O.
3 Sudden insight: northbound Tube convenient when dropping daughter (8)
EPIPHANY – PIPE reversed, then HAN[d]Y.
5 Roughly 4 hour wait finally for buck (8,5)
VAULTING HORSE – (SVENGALI HOUR T)* where the T is “waiT finally”. Easy to write in the answer, but took me a minute or two to unravel the anagram fodder using the answer to 4a.
6 Visiting Namibia on vacation, ordered blue Crab for one (6)
NEBULA – (BLUE)* inside N[amibi]A.
7 Art Basel reeling after mag exposed material used in column (9)
ALABASTER – [m]A[g], (ART BASEL)*.
8 Peace-loving inspiration finds herself in dire need (5)
IRENE – hidden lady as above, IRENE or EIRENE the Greek goddess of peace.
10 Hemlines and belt tailored to capture masculine finishing touch (13)
EMBELLISHMENT – (HEMLINES BELT)* with M inserted.
15 File blunder in Times article on Bush? (9)
RASPBERRY – RASP a bit like a file, BY = times, insert ERR for blunder.
17 Curative network set up to support wealthy Florentines (9)
MEDICINAL – MEDICI the wealthy Florentines, LAN (local area network) reversed.
18 Photo of biscuits fresh from the oven? (8)
SNAPSHOT – SNAPS (biscuits) HOT from the oven.
21 Drive empty Bugatti into swimming pool (6)
LIBIDO – B[ugatt]I inside LIDO.
22 Roly-poly pudding for starters topped with fruit (5)
PLUMP – PLUM a fruit, P[udding].
24 Breaking news: yellow regularly ignored in material (5)
NYLON – Y [e] L [l] O [w] inside N N = news.

 

71 comments on “Times 29067 – peace be with you, and goodnight…”

  1. 31 minutes, so this ranks as quite easy for me. There were a few unknowns, METS, IRENE as a goddess and A-LINE as a dress, but in all cases I was confident they had to exist. I particularly liked the ‘galosh’ clue.

  2. 13.22

    The VAULTING HORSE fodder was good though I biffed it without quite realising what was going on to begin with.

    Greek handy again for IRENE

    Thanks Pip/Setter

  3. Just under 20 mins for me, so a good day but with a silly typo. I think PUBLISHER is Pusher with 1LB reversed and inserted.

  4. 14’13”, delayed by NW. What is an A-line?

    I had no idea what was happening with VAULTING HORSE – although I do the Guardian each day I have a compartmentalised mindset.

    Thanks pip and setter.

  5. About 80 minutes. Moved steadily through it. FOI FISHING ROD then BATTLE-AXE and NEBULA. Liked VAULTING HORSE, EPIPHANY, ADRENALINE, ECHELON and RASPBERRY. LOI UPRAISE
    Thanks Piquet

  6. 11:57
    I biffed VAULTING HORSE without reading the clue, and then forgot to try to parse it; clever, but ‘buck’?

  7. 16 minutes, with quite a bit of biffing. Must get some sleep now, after following the Presidential Election.

  9. I completed this fairly quickly with only VAULTING HORSE unparsed, I never thought of cross-referencing.

  10. Unfortunately in my haste to submit a rare sub-10 minute time, I forgot to revisit ATONIC/MEDICINIC. Very annoying, nonetheless I thought this was a lovely, fun crossword.

  11. Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie,
    O, what a Panic’s in thy breastie!
    Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
    Wi’ bickering brattle!
    (To a Mouse, Robert Burns)

    20 mins pre-brekker. Only struggle was twigging the anagram fodder in V Horse.
    Ta setter and Pip.

  12. Like Pip, I enjoyed it while it lasted. More like a slightly tricky Monday…..

    FOI SVENGALI
    LOI ADRENALINE
    COD PLYMOUTH (once I parsed it afterwards)
    TIME 8:12

  13. Loved the device of anagramming another answer. At first I hoped ‘4’ would have to be converted to IV to form part of the fodder – since this was a trick I tried in my entry to this week’s cluing competition. I don’t have high hopes that it will be looked upon favourably.

  14. Yes, another quick one .. though I never did parse vaulting horse. The V should have tipped me off, if nothing else.
    Unlike our esteemed blogger I am well-informed about baseball 🙂 .. my sources tell me the Mets lost in the world series semis, and the Yankees reached the final and lost there.

    1. Baseball – my tongue was firmly in my cheek, I think a certain stateside TfTT person has made me aware of more about baseball than I wished to know!

  15. 4:26. On the wavelength today, haven’t been under 5 minutes for a while.
    I think the only thing I didn’t know was that a buck is a type of VAULTING HORSE but I just bunged it in from crossing letters so both definition and wordplay passed me by completely.
    Edit: Ha, no wonder I was on the wavelength, I’ve done this before! No mention on the club site and I had completely forgotten it. I did find it the easiest of the three on the day but not that easy!
    If starstruck reads this, could you remove my record from the SNITCH?

    1. Luckily I remembered half way through that we did this one in London, so submitted without leaderboard. I agree that it was the easiest on the day. It still took me over 7 mins today though. Nice puzzle.

    2. Hi Keriothe, I can’t do it easily while still “on tour” in the UK, but will try to resolve it later to fix your top stats.

  16. 9:19. Two sub-tens and a 30-minute DNF so far this week, who knows what tomorrow will bring.

    Forgot to go back and properly parse VAULTING HORSE, but I’m not sure I’d have been able to anyway.

    Thanks setter and Pip.

  17. Not mentioned on the Club site, but this was #3 of the qualifying round in the championships – another reasonably quick one for me which set the tone for finishing the first.

    Like many I never parsed Vaulting Horse (either today or 3 weeks ago)

    2. Thanks for that Mike. That means I finished the three of them in a combined 32:23. Ostensibly fast enough to progress to the next round but on paper in exam conditions…who knows?

      Still hoping to have a crack at it one day (mainly for the beer drinking).

      1. I’d definitely try to make it if you had a crack at it. Merely to make up the numbers, but, as you say, there are compensations.

      2. Easily fast enough Gallers. I got through them in a sedate 37 minutes and qualified in 42nd (58th was the cut-off).

  18. 30 mins and a pleasant romp. LOI ATONAL.

    COD, VAULTING HORSE, never properly parsed. Clever really.

    Topically, we did have vote, Democrat and Bush as well as US and NYC!

    Thanks pip and setter.

  20. Very very easy for me, so not surprised to learn (thanks Mike) that this was a qualifier.

    It might even have been a QC! For midweek it was, shall we say, rather gentle, though with this morning’s global news, perhaps some of us have more complex scenarios to contemplate. Dear oh dearie me.

  21. DNF, with a very stupid ‘roseberry’ bunged in unthinkingly late on rather than RASPBERRY.

    – Biffed ADRENALINE once I had enough checkers, not knowing an A-line dress
    – Didn’t fully parse PUBLISHER
    – Had no idea how VAULTING HORSE worked

    I see this one was set by Rob Jacques. Thanks to him and piquet.

    COD Plymouth

  22. 9:05 but submitted off the scoreboard as I realised about 3/4 of the way through that I’d seen this one before.

    I found this much the easiest of the 3 on the day and I’d estimate it took about 15 minutes before I went back to making a hash of #1.

    Thanks to both.

  23. 28 mins, so can’t have been difficult, but oddly it felt like it was. NHO of ‘buck’ as VAULTING HORSE, so needed all the crossers to get it. LIBIDO and PLYMOUTH also resisted to the last.

  24. This was a Compy? It doesn’t say so, but for me it would have been a flash of hope in the middle of the pressure – 12.54.
    Why a US newspaper owner? Don’t British ones publish any more?
    And as for PANIC, “Global outbreak has Democrat fleeing in terror” is there something prescient we should be told about?
    I have to concede my heart wasn’t really in it this morning after “the greatest political movement of all time.” I shall retreat into my small world and tend my crosswords and hope to find solace!

  25. I remembered some of this from the champs (and remembered the schedule was for these puzzles to come out on Wednesdays, so the three SF puzzles to go), but enjoyed returning to it. In a less pressured environment, I appreciated the fun all the more.

    Thanks both.

  26. 13:32

    A strange experience. Was galloping through when I realised I was doing the Quick cryptic by mistake. Changed over and found this didn’t seem any more difficult. Don’t normally do the Quick but maybe is a useful limbering up exercise.
    A good puzzle. I biffed VAULTING HORSE, having missed the link to SVENGALI. I liked PLYMOUTH, BATTLE AXE and ADRENALINE.

    Thanks to pip and the setter.

  27. Found this one quite easy. Almost top to bottom solve, but had to leave ADRENALINE and FISHING ROD until I had some checkers.
    I didn’t understand the wordplay for 5d- how Guardianesque!
    Loved the NEBULA clue.
    Thanks Pip and setter.

  28. Very enjoyable.
    All I know about Svengali is that the name of the girl and the play and novel, Trilby, survived to name the hat.

  29. 15:20 – it had to be VAULTING HORSE, but I was unfamiliar with the definition and didn’t bother with the cryptic.

  30. Gosh, was this a champ puzzle?

    All 3 in 44:22, a considerable improvement over last year. Pretty sure exam conditions plus pressure would mean I failed to complete all 3! More practice required.

    I liked this, even the Guardianish VAULTING HORSE.

    11:18

  31. 13:49

    Surprised it was a competition puzzle as I don’t recall a quicker time.

    COD ADRENALINE, thanks all.

  32. Took an age over my LOI ADRENALINE because I didn’t think it was spelt correctly. But apart from that a steady solve.
    FOI OUTSIZE
    COD EPIPHANY

  33. All done in 19 minutes. Agree with our blogger that it was more like a Monday puzzle. One of those rare days where you just write in the answers as you go along and they all turn out to be right.
    FOI – OUTSIZE
    LOI – ADRENALINE
    COD – BUMPER
    Thanks to piquet and other contributors.

  34. All quite easy, 26 minutes, although VAULTING HORSE was entered without knowing why except that it fitted and only parsed afterwards. In PUBLISHER pusher is carrying 1 lb reversed. In other words it’s carrying ‘about a pound’. That’s if you accept that 454 gms is exactly 1 lb. But it isn’t. It’s about a pound! If it was carrying this it would be carrying ILB not BLI.

  35. 18:49 for me, which must be close to a record. Biffed a couple towards the end (ECHELON & RASPBERRY) so as not to waste time.
    Not sure if anyone else has pointed it out, but I would say that the definition in 15d is actually ‘article on Bush’ rather than just bush, otherwise ‘article on’ is serving no purpose.

  36. I thought this was comfortably the easiest of the three qualifying puzzles, and nothing delayed me to any great extent giving me a finishing time of 25.15. Everything was parsed as I went although I totally failed to parse VAULTING HORSE. Reference to another clue is not my favourite device, and I just didn’t get the direction to do it. When I first read the clue without the benefit of any checkers, I thought the five letter ending would probably be WATCH, with reference to a four hour watch at sea.

  38. 22:17. Yes, the easiest of the three qualifying puzzles but still a very satisfying one to solve. Lots of nice twisty clues. LOI PLYMOUTH, totally panicked at first by the Greek stuff, then so relieved that I didn’t need to know it. I liked EPIPHANY, BUMPER and ADRENALINE

  39. Daphne du Maurier’s granddad – the Trilby and Svengali man. 11’39” and this time no mistypes.

  40. I also totally failed to correctly parse VAULTING HORSE. I read ‘vaulting HORSE’ rather than ‘VAULTING horse’ which gave me ‘buck’ as in a horse bucking. Right and wrong, as well as fortuitous!

  41. Good fun, and all the better for not realising it was a competition one, as the pressure was off consequently. No unknowns, but unable to parse VAULTING HORSE. Not a device I’ve come across before, but I don’t do the Guardian. Liked FISHING ROD, ECHELON and ADRENALINE. LOI LIBIDO – it took a while to think of that kind of drive and also the pool.

  42. I solved this in 13,51, but unfortunately messed up 3d by removing the last letter instead of the D from handy. What a plonker! I seem to have a blindspot reading down answers. That’s several times this week I’ve blundered similarly. Thanks setter and Pip.

  43. 32:21 . I enjoyed this – good level for me. as usual I spent an inordinate amount of time on some fairly easy ones that I should have seen straight away. RASPBERRY was one. I biffed VAULTING HORSE as I didn’t think to look at 4a… thanks both!

  44. Enjoyed this one finishing in circa 30 mins Most of them were write-ins but then struggled with last few. VAULTING HORSE I didn’t parse – so thanks to Piquet – I was doubtful that V (five) could be clued as roughly 4 but brain persevered with that line of attack. Couple of other hold-ups for some reason forgot that ADRENALINE has an E on the end so couldn’t make it fit. Also wrongly input OVERSIZE slightly grumpy that ‘OVER!’ is not really the umpires decision. The justified anger quickly dissipated when it became clear that my solution didn’t even fit.

  45. Wow I managed a championship puzzle in under 11 minutes, that’s cheered me up after the election news. Means I might have just got all 3 done in the hour😊

    Some enjoyable clues just seemed to flow today for some reason not really held up anywhere. COD to adrenaline, LOI snapshot.

    Thx pip and setter

  46. 6.09. Easier than the other two as others have said. And that would be quicker if I wasn’t doing it on the bus with a phone that doesn’t register the letters I press. 9.32 and 10.31 (ignoring typo due to fat thumb) the last two Wednesdays so 26:12 for the three.

    I also do the Grauniad, I and FT and each day. Between all papers I think this is the third or fourth time SVENGALI has featured in the last month.

  47. Like everyone else I biffed VAULTING HORSE. Then I spent ages trying to parse it, and finally concluded they must simply have printed the wrong clue. 29 minutes.

  48. Gosh, can’t believe I finished a competition one at all, let alone in 19:53. Amazing. Couldn’t parse VAULTING HORSE, though, because I didn’t realise the number meant a cross ref (someone has explained this code to me before but it’s on the list of “things I mean to remember but don’t”).

    COD to PLYMOUTH, a most enjoyable PDM. Many thanks Pip.

  49. 19.53 Much easier than the other two. And fun. I had no idea what was going on with VAULTING HORSE. We’ve had NEBULA clued with a crab before so I should have seen it more quickly. And I don’t know why N is news. Thanks piquet.

      1. I was fixated on journalism. I don’t think I ever would have spotted the plural. Thank you.

  50. 27:53
    I don’t usually like clues that reference other clues, but I thought VAULTING HORSE worked well.

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