Times 29269 – A Truthfully ‘Uge Golf Course!

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

This puzzle took me on a nice journey into the past (that foreign country, where they do things differently). Nothing too difficult, I think. A little bit of this, and a little bit of that.

20:36

Across
1 Heron is flying close to coast (7)
INSHORE – anagram* of HERON IS
5 Charge leaders of illegal group infiltrating island (7)
ARRAIGN – I~ G~ in ARRAN; Arran is a large Scottish island visible from both Troon and Turnberry golf courses. I played Turnberry when I was 16 – toughest course I ever encountered. I watched Tom Watson win at Troon in 1982, before watching him at Turnberry in 2007 with my daughter, as he fell agonisingly close of winning again at the age of 59.
9 It’s on course to beat audience (9)
CLUBHOUSE – CLUB (knock about with a club) HOUSE (theatrical ‘house’); more golf
10 Is returning with fresh strength (5)
SINEW – IS reversed NEW (fresh)
11 Pop producer drops initial support for artist? (5)
EASEL – wEASEL; ‘Pop! Goes the Weasel’ is a popular song and country dance which found wider fame as a nursery rhyme. Years of watching Cartoon Network with aforementioned daughter implanted these alternative lyrics on my brain: ‘You don’t need pants for the victory dance / Cuz Baboon’s better than Weasel / I R Baboon big star of cartoon / I am Weasel’. You can’t make that stuff up!
12 Drunk did some decorating (9)
PLASTERED – double definition; I’ve done a bit of both
13 The boy with no logic developed “vital” industry (13)
BIOTECHNOLOGY – THE BOY NO LOGIC*; ‘vital’, since it involves the use of living parts such as cells or bacteria
17 Apex of road unfinished? Call boat! (4-5,4)
HIGH-WATER MARK – HIGHWAy TERM (call/term used as verbs – ‘Some call it PC; I term it madness’) ARK (boat)
21 Article with piece of advice regarding Italian food (9)
ANTIPASTO – AN TIP + AS TO (regarding); RISOTTO (see below) and ANTIPASTO are Italian food (always consumed with ASTI), as DIM SUM is Chinese and SUSHI Japanese. They eat nothing else.
24 Romeo, consumed by love, is gloomy (5)
DREAR – R in DEAR (as a noun, as in ‘O ducks/dear, you’ll never guess what’s been going on at No. 32!’)
25 Last couple leaving fashionable site in Texas (5)
ALAMO – A LA MOde; forever associated with Davy Crockett, the chap who offed a ‘b’ar’ when he was only three
26 Ignorant to expel knight wearing official regalia? (9)
UNIFORMED – UNInFORMED (N is chess notation for knight)
27 Track user with first-class bit of gear? (4,3)
TANK TOP – TANK (a vehicle which uses tracks) TOP (first-class)
28 Colonist enters mountain range mostly at a gentle pace (7)
ANDANTE – ANT in ANDEs
Down
1 After reorganization, the CID had a restless urge (6)
ITCHED – THE CID*
2 Insect’s obsession with diluted drink? (6,3)
SQUASH BUG – SQUASH (diluted drink) BUG (obsession)
3 Play with books and magazine (7)
OTHELLO – OT (Old Testament, AKA ‘books’) HELLO!; I must confess I’ve never had a subscription to this rag, a clone of Spain’s ¡Hola!
4 Male comedians wearing alien paraphernalia? (9)
EQUIPMENT – QUIP MEN in ET; I don’t think ‘quip men’ quite works for male comedians. The clue would have benefitted from the absence of ‘male’, but, well, you know, these days – sensibilities and all that…
5 Cook near a stadium (5)
ARENA – NEAR A*
6 Dish with a bit of ginger is Ottoman (7)
RISOTTO – hidden; ginger is not part of a traditional risotto. Then again, cream isn’t part of a traditional carbonara, but it tastes much better. Discuss.
7 Private tavern supported by the Queen (5)
INNER – INN ER
8 Not a chance advert bores son currently (8)
NOWADAYS – AD in NO WAY S (son)
14 Friend’s after short string instrument and wind instrument (9)
HARMONICA – MONICA after HARp; Monica (played by Jennifer Aniston) was a character in the long-running sitcom Friends. Oh, goodness gracious me! She was of course played by Courtney Cox. Is it cool not knowing who played who?
15 Islander’s monkey ran off (9)
ORKNEYMAN – MONKEY RAN*; always known them as Orcadians myself
16 Farm labourer catches start of hockey game (8)
PHEASANT – H~ in PEASANT; game as in a wild food source
18 Get rid of stated reason to look peevish? (4,3)
WIPE OUT – sounds like ‘Why pout?’
19 Robot’s revolutionary make-up famous designer reverse-engineered (7)
ANDROID – two reversals here: first DNA (‘make-up’ is ‘revolved’) then DIOR (‘famous designer’ is ‘revere-engineered’)
20 Union member pockets building’s last spanner (6)
BRIDGE – ~G in BRIDE (union member)
22 Mark 2? (5)
TWAIN – DD; rather good, I thought
23 Decline small piece of sugar, say (5)
SLUMP – S LUMP

64 comments on “Times 29269 – A Truthfully ‘Uge Golf Course!”

  1. 24 minutes. I didn’t get the parsing of HIGH-WATER MARK, so thanks for that.

    Didn’t understand MONICA in 14dn, but then I’ve never seen Friends.

    NHO SQUASH BUG.

    Given the attention to gender in the clue to EQUIPMENT as mentioned in the blog, perhaps 15dn should have read ‘Male islander’s monkey ran off’.

  3. 17:27
    I was going great guns for the majority of this and for a while I was on for a sub 10 until I wasn’t. Held up in the SW for some reason.

    An enjoyable start to the week though with EASEL my favourite even though it was a write-in.

    Thanks to both.

  4. Got the two long ones in early. going well until I got to ORKNEYMAN. NHO and took the MAN on the end to be the island DNF with this the last clue.
    Isn’t “wearing official regalia” the definition for 26ac?

  5. 16:11
    What Jack said, exactly, re HIGH-WATER MARK, MONICA, & SQUASH BUG.. I liked ‘pop producer’.

  6. 11:38 with a brief hold up in the SW before seeing that the 2 did not reference a clue as expected.

  7. 36:57, no cheats, checks or aids.

    I can’t believe my LOI was the chestnut PHEASANT, got stuck on Hand for “farm labourer”.

    My main problem is was “SQUASH BEE”, which is a real insect. Did not see bug=obsession. This made HIGH WATER MARK impossible. BTW, need to update the blog, it should be BUG(obsession), “insect” is the definition.

    COD “Pop producer”, but Mark 2 also very good.

      1. Apart from the egregious suggestion that something containing cream can be called ‘Carbonara’. 😉

  8. 14.34 which is quick for me. I enjoyed it though I share with others a lack of knowledge about Monica and SQUASH BUG. Thanks Ulaca.

    From Visions of Johanna:
    The HARMONICAs play the skeleton keys in the rain
    And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain

  9. A rare sub-20 for me in 18:22 but 4-5 minutes of them were on the ALAMO/TWAIN pair. Got off to a flying start with both the short anagrams in the 1 clues and the right hand side of the grid I only had to revisit when I had enough crossing letters to see BIOTECHNOLOGY.

    Bit gutted because it could have been a PB. I wrote in ALAMO mostly based on it being in my limited Texan geographical knowledge but couldn’t see the longer phrase so promptly deleted it. And yes, I was fooled by the false cross reference trick in TWAIN clue. I really need to stop doing that.

    Liked HARMONICA. My brain thinks of it as an ultramodern reference but the show must be three decades old now.

    Thanks blogger for clearing up a tiny amount of queries and the setter for a well pitched Monday offering.

  10. 22 minutes. LOI TANK TOP. COD HIGH WATER MARK. A generous start to the week. Thank you U and setter.

  11. Tough for a Monday. No real issues, eventually parsed ALAMO and didn’t understand MONICA.

    15’33”, thanks ulaca and setter.

  12. A new PB, 0.00! Must be the best of the day.

    I think I was about 10 mins but for some reason I had no time recorded. Bit annoying as I thought I might be on for a sub ten. Now I’ll never know🙁

  13. About 25 minutes

    – Didn’t parse ALAMO as I didn’t think of ‘a la mode’ and wasn’t 100% sure it was in Texas, but with A_A_O it had to be
    – NHO SQUASH BUG, and sympathise with anyone who put SQUASH BEE – after all, you can have a bee in your bonnet about something, which is kind of an obsession
    – Took much longer than I should have done to think of a lump of sugar to get SLUMP

    Thanks ulaca and setter.

    FOI Inshore
    LOI Tank top
    COD Twain

  14. 24m 32s
    The ‘friend’ in 14d had to be MONICA but never having seen any of the many episodes/series of ‘Friends’ I failed to make a connection there. Eventually I wondered if it was a variation on the coy reference to gay men, ‘friend of Dorothy’.
    Thanks ulaca.

  15. Really enjoyable, easy but non-trivial and lots of fun. I did LOL at the Friends reference in anticipation of the reaction here.
    A typo of IICHED spoiled a 2nd best time of 16:51 but not the entertaiment.
    Thanks both

  16. 12:21. I struggled to finish in the NW corner. For 9A I thought that “It’s on course” was going to give something-HORSE. And for the insect my mind kept going to SPLASH BUG, I think because you can dilute a drink with a splash of something.

    I particularly liked INSHORE for its nice surface which had me looking for a synonym for heron ending in T (close to coast).

  17. A new PB at 34.25.

    3 mins of that staring blankly at 16d until pheasant popped into my head. Also spent time trying to work out an alternative route to Monica without going via the all pervading American sitcom.

    Thanks Ulaca and setter.

  19. 13.48. I remember the days when the Times would have clued Monica with reference to the parentage of Augustine: just as well I also know (or can guess) the lowbrow version. Otherwise as our entertaining blogger suggests, this triggered many a trip down memory lane, while introducing such exotics as the SQUASH BUG, which sounds more like a violent insecticide, and ORKNEYMAN, who has always been an Orcadian in my (and Mr Chambers’) book.
    I liked the Arfur Panda reference to produce EASEL, even if it did take me a while to work out which letter was deleted.

    1. Speaking of highbrow/lowbrow, I’ve just had a go at the GK crossword, and surprised myself by knowing (or deducing) the Latin terms and the tennis player and the soap actress, all in 7.34.

      1. I still think the best definition of a highbrow is that old chestnut, someone who on hearing the overture to William Tell does not immediately think of the Lone Ranger.

        1. The definition of an uber-highbrow would have to be someone who has actually sat and watched the whole of William Tell.

    2. Orkneyman instead of Orcadian is not uncommon in north of Scotland – but probably said as two words, “Orkney man”.

  20. Probably my fasted ever solve and a very enjoyable crossword. Thanks for the blog. Is ER still “the” Queen. Perhaps our setter could have updated his old clue by deleting “the”?

  21. 11a Easel. Never thought of Pop goes the Weasel so foxed by this one.
    17a High Water Mark. Oh, so that’s how it works. Thanks ulaca.
    2d NHO Squash Bug.
    14d Harmonica. Never thought of the program Friends, so biffed.
    15d Orkneyman isn’t in my dictionary. Not sure whether to add it to Cheating Machine.
    23d Slump took forever, easy in retrospect but not at the time.
    Thanks to ulaca and setter.

  22. ITCHED then INSHORE were first 2 in. NHO SQUASH BUG, so waited for crossers before entering it. Liked EQUIPMENT and HIGH WATER MARK. Didn’t read the clue for 14d properly, and cobbled my HARMONICA together from an old HARMONIum CircA 1890. Now that the correct parsing has been provided by our esteemed blogger, I can admit that I knew who Monica was, and who played her! NOWADAYS brought proceedings to a close at a respectable 12:33. Thanks setter and U.

  23. Just over 20 minutes, relatively straightforward and marred only by a stupid spelling mistake (ORKNEYMEN). I’m surprised no-one else has risen to the bait and challenged your ‘naughty but nice’ argument for adding inauthentic but delicious cream to carbonara; the ‘real’ version, with guanciale and emulsified egg yolk, effectively a hollandaise, is much harder to pull off but wonderful when it does work.
    FOI INSHORE
    LOI PHEASANT
    COD TWAIN
    Thanks U and setter

    1. I make both but folk always prefer the creamy version. Same with cheesecake: the Philly version always trumps the ricotta/mascarpone one.

  24. 25:49
    No major hold-ups, other than being convinced that 22d required a cross reference to 2d, thus delaying getting TWAIN.
    LOI was TANK TOP.
    COD to ALAMO.

    Thanks Ulaca and setter

  26. A very slow 42 minutes held up by Monica (never seen Friends; thought it was CRS perhaps, but googling it didn’t help) and SQUASH BUG, also of which I’d never heard. Initially I thought that 22dn was a CD and was ‘again’. Only possible at a stretch, perhaps, but these CDs are often very loose.

  27. Enjoyed this straightforward crossword.. didn’t know Monica, nho the squash bug, but it didn’t matter. Relieved 1ac didn’t require any heron knowledge, as I have none.

  28. 13:43

    Pretty swift though missed a few elements of wordplay, mostly similar to others i.e. HIGH-WATER MARK, ALAMO, HARMONICA (though I am very much aware of Courtney Cox). NHO SQUASH BUG but easy enough to fill in the blanks when all checkers in place. LOI TWAIN.

    Thanks U and setter

  29. Just to say that I’m loving the gradual desnobbification of the Times Crossword. I can’t believe how many people haven’t seen Friends, but surely it’s far more part of popular culture than weird plants, 16th classical composers and obscure cricket references? It made for a good clue, too.

    1. Great comment! The cricket references are far too frequent so I am delighted to see the setters widening the popular culture net.

  30. Agree that “male” is unnecessary as comedian is only male. Comedienne is the female.

    1. Like actors, and equestrians, it is fashionable now to call both sexes comedians and dump the “sexist” comedienne. Do keep up!

  31. Flew through over half the puzzle in about 5 minutes.

    Then the trouble came. SW corner was a bit of a nightmare.

    18:23 DNF because embarrassingly PHEASANT, TWAIN, TANK TOP and CLUBHOUSE eluded me.

  32. Ditto: NHO squash bug, no idea who Monica was – though I have been in a room when Friends was on TV. Stuck for a minute or two on PHEASANT and TANK TOP, but overall easyish and all good fun.

  33. Trickier than it should’ve been. The traditional sense of ‘peasant’ isn’t the first one that springs to mind when I see or hear the word and I would never say or write the word ‘peasant’ to mean ‘farm labourer’ personally. I do find approximately traditional carbonaras to be better than the creamy varieties but then I do add parsley, which may be controversial to some.

  34. A pleasant way to spend part of the morning if you’re waiting to start your jury service. Didn’t know what was going on with WIPE OUT or HIGH-WATER MARK. No stand out clue.
    FOI INSHORE
    LOI PHEASANT

  35. 9:06. Slightly off the pace today, but no major problems. I actually have heard of the SQUASH BUG, I’ve no idea where.

  36. Never saw Friends but did know that Courtney Cox was the lucky girl pulled out of the audience to dance (rather badly) with Springsteen in the 80s video of Dancing in the Dark. Sorry to learn it was staged.

  37. I left 14dn until all the crossers were in place, as like many others I didn’t have a clue where Monica came from. I have at least heard of ‘Friends’, but never watched an episode. I went at a steady pace and finished in 27.11 for a decent day. My LOI TWAIN took me a minute or so to figure out, as I kept thinking there was some cross referencing to 2dn.

  38. Not quite at the races it would seem. A perfectly reasonable time *just* in the 17’s left me well outside the top 100, so I will not make a mark on the SNITCH today!

    All my struggles, such as they were, have already been mentioned. LOI was TANK TOP – track user indeed, bit of gear – phooey :). Pah, too much for my slightly heat addled brain.

    17:59

  39. appreciate the much needed explanations and all the comments. This peasant has seen every episode of Friends at least once. The puzzle took forever but happy to finish it without errors.

  40. 18:37

    Another who failed to parse either EASEL or ALAMO, but what else?

    Fun puzzle, thanks setter and Ulaca.

  41. 18.47

    Also a bit off the pace it seems but enjoyed it

    HIGHWA(Y) TERM ARK was rather good I thought.

    Thanks setter and Ulaca

  42. Mostly done in 20 minutes. Had to correct error at 22d where I had biffed STAIN.
    And I had WEED OUT at 18d assuming a Scottish element.
    I spent lots of time correcting these. I managed to derive ANTIPASTO and that opened things up.
    I remembered I’ve been to The Alamo – twice.
    David

  43. Same as many others, NHO SQUASHBUG though worked that out, and also not seen DREAR without a Y closing it out. Couldn’t parse EASEL at all – was thinking for a while about musicians before deciding the Times probably wouldn’t be referring to rappers – and ALAMO and TWAIN together gave me the most difficulties, so thanks for the blog!

    COD has to be BRIDGE for me, with both ‘union member’ and ‘spanner’ being bizarre definitions.

    1. All musical instruments played by blowing are wind instruments. Reed instruments, brass and those like the flute where air is blown across a sharp edge are subcategories.

  45. I feel this was easier than my 24’10” suggests. End of a long day. I persist in saying that WH- does not make the same sound as W-, but I know I’m in a small minority. I don’t suppose the fact that the writer named himself TWAIN meaning TWO (from the Mississippi boatman’s call) should detract from the quality of the clue, but I find it still does — a little.

  46. I again failed at the final hurdle by putting SQUASH BAG. Aargh! There’s something about reaching the final clue that makes me switch my critical faculties off! Other than that, 18 minutes so on the easy side but in my case not super-easy.

  47. Clearly I couldn’t makeup those alternate lyrics to Pop goes the weasel, but someone did. Biffed easel and then got the reference.
    NHO squash bug, from online images and descriptions they closely resemble stink bugs, the tropical enemy of new plant growth.
    I still think the term tank top was invented to circumvent dress codes at pubs etc.
    COD to Mark 2 for the misdirection.

    Thank you setter and blogger.

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