Times Cryptic 26312

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I completed all but four answers in 30 minutes but needed another 15 to crack 4dn, 6dn, 12ac & 13ac. Most of clues are straightforward though the parsing at 9ac took a bit of thinking about and I’m not sure it’s completely satisfactory.

As usual deletions are in curly brackets and indicators, where given, are in square ones.

Across
1 FRANGLAIS – Anagram [invalidating] of IRAN’S FLAG. A portmanteau word referring to spoken French using a high proportion of English words, hence the definition ‘United Nations communication’ . I’m not sure of the suitability of ‘invalidating’ as an anagram indicator.
6 SINEW – IS reversed [twisting], NEW (unused)
9 INTENSE – TENS (figures) enclosed by {n}INE (figure – slightly smaller one) [scratching head]
10 CROUTON – C (Conservative), ROUT (drubbing), ON (happening – as in ‘it’s on now’)
11 ROGER – Two definitions. OK – as in ‘Roger and out’ and the  man’s name.
12 STRAPPING – Two definitions
13 FRACTION – R{owdy} [at first] inside FACTION (party). Definition: a bit
14 WHOA – WHO (question), A (answer)
17 ECHO – Two definitions. The acoustic phenomenon (bouncer) and the mythological nymph.
18 MACHETES – MATES (allies) encloses CHE (revolutionary). What would setters do without him?
21 MOUSETRAP – Anagram [unfortunately] of PRO TEAM enclosing US (America). A colloquial name for indifferent quality Cheddar cheese or similar. I assume ‘hard’ as opposed to soft continental cheese.
22 RANGE – N (new) inside RAGE (fashion). ‘Aga’ is the leading brand of range cooker that often crops up here.
24 SET DOWN – Two definitions, the second vaguely cryptic and hopefully not intended as a topical reference to rumours of corruption in the sport.
25 CHOC ICE – C (cold) inside CHOICE (best)
26 NERVE – Two definitions
27 SPOTLIGHT – SLIGHT (minor) encloses [squeezing] POT (belly)

Down
1 FRIAR – Sounds like “fryer” (one boiling in oil). ‘Boiling’ for ‘frying’ may be valid in some circumstances but in culinary circles they are not the same thing at all.
2 AUTOGRAPH HUNTER – Anagram [nasty] of THE GROUP A-HA TURN
3 GENERATE – GENT (man) encloses ERA (time), E{verest) [summit of…]
4 AVERSION – A, VERSION (portrayal)
5 SECURE – SEC (dry), URE (river)
6 SLOPPY – SOPPY (wet #1) encloses [blankets] L (left). The definition is the second ‘wet’.
7 NOTWITHSTANDING – NO TWIT (a wise man), H (hospital), STANDING (rising). Definition: yet
8 WINE GLASS – WING (arm) encloses E (English), LASS (girl)
13 FREEMASON – Anagram [arcane] of FEARSOME, {cla}N [‘s ultimate]
15 GAZPACHO – GAZ{e} (look) [briefly], anagram [stirring] of CHAP, 0 (duck)
16 CHARCOAL – CHAR (cleaner), C (carbon), LAO{s} (nation) [not entirely] reversed
19 REMOTE – Last letters [feet] of {wate}R {mad}E {war}M {t}O {hea}T {th}E
20 URANUS – U{nion}, RAN (controlled), US (powerful nation)
23 EXERT – EXE (river), last letters [final bits] of {underwate}R {equipmen}T

43 comments on “Times Cryptic 26312”

  1. … finish in a while. Under a single coffee. Liked the “united nations” device right from the start. Followed by the old “chip-monk” joke at 1dn. Held up a bit by the FRACTION / AVERSION pair. (Should have got the former right off as I used to mistake “class fraction” in Political Economy 100 as “class faction”.)
  2. 37 minutes for this, with the clever REMOTE – with its unhelpful vocalic checkers – last in. I didn’t know MOUSETRAP as a cheese.

    I think ‘invalidating’ is okay in its ‘making erroneous’ sense. Nice clue that, 1 across. Also liked STRAPPING and AVERSION.

  3. Slow going, although I was able to biff NOTWITHSTANDING from SINEW, CROUTON, & RANGE, and never did parse it. DNK MOUSETRAP, and just thought it was metaphorical. Which I gather it is, so that’s all right. REMOTE was my LOI; I put in from checkers and d, took it out because I couldn’t justify it, wasted a couple of minutes playing with the alphabet, and finally twigged. I’ll give it my COD, although I also liked WHOA.
  4. 30mins for all but 19dn, then an extra 15 or so minutes for this one. Aargh. NOTWITHSTANDING and FREEMASON were biffed, all others ok. Don’t have a problem with ‘invalidating’ as anagrind, or with ECHO for ‘bouncer’.
  5. Took ages to get REMOTE, nice deception there. And more ages to dig out GAZPACHO. Must keep that one in mind for next time it’s on the menu, in case I make the mistake of ordering it.

    Liked INTENSE.

    Thanks setter and Jack.

  6. 25 minutes and I enjoyed 1a, 17a and 25a. Probably COD to WHOA. Miles Kington – Gone mais pas oublie! Apologies but I have no french accent.
  7. A lot very terse clues here that require careful lift and separate – very enjoyable overall

    I think MOUSETRAP has a connotation of “stale” as well as poor quality cheese and hence the “hard” element

    1. Yes,I considered that too and nearly mentioned it but found no support for it in the usual sources. Growing up post-WWII when there was still food rationing there was little cheese on offer around our way other than mousetrap which included a thick rind that was not very palatable and so got thrown away (or put in mousetraps).
  8. 16:26. I really struggled to find the setter’s wavelength with this one.
    Both Collins and Chambers define SINEW as ‘muscle’, in a figurative/literary sense so no problem there.
    Deep frying isn’t really boiling (you really don’t want to boil your cooking oil) but it seems close enough to me.
  10. 26.54, with a lot of time spent on 19d. If you can’t make sense of a clue, it’s probably doing something else.
    I’m no food technician, (which is about to be proved) but if you drop chips into hot oil, doesn’t the surface water boil off, hence the spitting and bubbling? The oil itself doesn’t have to be boiling, any more than a kettle does.
    1. Whatever the technical reasons (and I’m not sure but I think you’re right) the bubbling that you see when food is deep-frying meets a non-technical definition of ‘boiling’ (Collins: ‘to bubble and be agitated like something boiling; seethe’), which is good enough for me.
      19dn was my last in too, and added a good couple of minutes to my solve.
  11. 30 min, with at least quarter of time on 19dn, (First idea was C for cold, then something cryptic to get some obscure kind of metric feet)
  12. LOI REMOTE from definition only and never got to parse it. Must be COD. Also liked MOUSETRAP and WHOA among others. The boiling FRIAR and SINEW objections have been explained away to my satisfaction at least. A very neat crossword.
  13. As someone who is still getting to grips with cryptics I was amazed to complete and parse (most) in around 40 minutes. Especially as a quick look yielded few answers. Entered 7d, 14a and 17a with fingers crossed otherwise really enjoyed the misdirections and seeing through them.
    Alan
  14. A very pleasant 18 minutes with some unparsed, so thanks jackkt. COD REMOTE.
    I don’t often see WHOA written down. It looks like how Belgian dogs (specifically Tintin’s Snowy) apparently bark (WOAH WOAH)
  15. 40 minutes, over double yesterday’s time but failed on 19d.I might have got it in the Guardian, being alert to Guardianesque clueing, but I expect sounder cryptic construction in the Times. The rest of the clues were fine and nicely varied. A deep-fat fryer might be said to use boiling oil, so I don’t share the objection to 1dn.
  16. Very pleasantly surprised when this came in at 12 minutes – as I have to solve on good old fashioned treeware due to browser compatibility issues at the office, it’s self timed with nothing on the leaderboard. Which is a shame as that’s by far my fastest in ages, if not ever.

    Had REMOTE in my mind for ages – and kept going back to it – but the penny didn’t drop until the very end so that was LOI for me. And COD just for keeping me guessing all the way through.

    Edited at 2016-01-19 12:26 pm (UTC)

  17. 19:25. You know you’re not on wavelength when you keep thinking of the wrong sort of things, in my case the wrong sort of cold, the wrong sort of communication, the wrong sort of party and the wrong sort of album. I did, however, spot the “feet” in 19d and the answer rather pleasingly emerged from the words in the clue.

    I had most trouble in the NW with fraction, aversion, generate and enfin franglais mes derniers ones in.

    Some good clues in there, as well as more for the menu. I love gazpacho, me.

  18. 26:15. Very much a puzzle of two halves for me, the right hand side whizzing in and the left side taking considerably longer.

    Several good clues today, but with my penchant for a hidden definition my COD to FRANGLAIS.

  19. Like many others, my LOI was REMOTE (unparsed), which was the only one that I hadn’t completed in the West before I even got a start in the East. Then NOTWITHSTANDING yielded itself to me, after which things fell in fairly quickly for a total time of about 45 minutes (medium hard on therotterometer).

    A very nice puzzle I thought, and another satisfying solve. 1a went straight in and I thought it must still be Monday, but then struggled with all the other across clues on first pass. 1d then happened, although I was slightly reluctant to enter it for the reasons stated above. However, I wondered if the ‘say?’ was doing double duty, indicating both the homophone and the slightly dodgy clueing.

  20. Took ages to get going but when I returned to it later in the day, seemed to have tuned to the right wavelength. Odd that. How the use of English words in French gets you to “United Nations”, heaven knows. My favourite was 13 down, enjoyed the clue and it gave me SO many starts
  21. No time today as I solved at the Lit. & Phil. library in Newcastle, but a pleasant puzzle that unfolded nicely.
    1. Long time since I grew up in Newcastle but I seem to remember being encouraged by my Classics teachers at the RGS to visit the Lit and Phil. Or maybe they visited and we went to the Crown Posada!
      1. Thanks for the messsge, you must have looked up a very old posting.
        I’m missing the Lit. & Phil. badly during this Covid period, and I would also have to admit to having the occasional libation at the Crown Posada.
        Some of my friends at the Lit. & Phil. are also RGS Old Boys, but, though I have now lived in Northumberland for forty years, I was born and brought up in London.
  22. Very enjoyable puzzle. As Jimbo says, lots of “lift and separate” required. REMOTE was very clever, but my favourite was FRANGLAIS, a first-rate cryptic def.

    I believe the term was first coined, or given wide currency, in the 1960s by a Professor Etiemble in his book “Parlez-vous franglais?”, a 370-page protest against the invasion of French by English words and phrases which he claimed was turning the language of Voltaire and Molière into a pidgin tongue. He offered the following as an example of what he meant:

    “Je vais d’abord vous conter une manière de short story. Elle advint à l’un de mes pals, un de mes potes, quoi, tantôt chargé d’enquêtes full-time, tantôt chargé de recherches part-time dans une institution mondialement connue, le C.N.R.S. Comme ce n’est ni un businessman, ni le fils naturel d’un boss de la City et de la plus glamorous ballet-dancer in the world, il n’a point pȃti du krach qui naguère inquiétait Wall Street; mains il n’a plus aucune chance de bénéficier du boom dont le Stock Exchange espère qu’il fera bientôt monter en flèche la cote des valeurs.”

      1. I’ve only played golf in France a couple of times and that was a good many years ago. A friend did once give me an English-French Dictionary of Golfing Terms – a somewhat superfluous volume since, as you point out, nearly all the words in both languages were English!
  23. …so definitely on the wavelength, which is nice. LOI and COD 19dn for me, though stiff competition from 1ac and 14ac. Really enjoyed this one.
  24. I got through in 20 minutes or so, like others ending with REMOTE. Very clever, that. Not much to hold things up otherwise, although I didn’t get FRANGLAIS right away. As an aside, I always screw up ‘sec’, which I often assume means sweet, as opposed to ‘brut’. But the answer and parsing were clear enough. Didn’t know the MOUSETRAP meaning but the anagram made that clear too. Regards.
  25. 16 mins. Count me as another for whom REMOTE was the LOI, and I agree that it was a cracking clue. I struggled a bit to see the STRAPPING/SLOPPY crossers. Whenever I see GAZPACHO it always reminds me of Red Dwarf.
  27. 17:13 for me, having great difficulty finding the setter’s wavelength. A horribly slow start, an even slower finish (with 19dn producing serious vocalophobia), and not much faster in between.
  28. Beaten by 19d. To make it even more annoying, I ended up trawling the alphabet and dredged up REMOTE before throwing it back, having completely failed to see the definition.
  29. I completed most of this… pleased to have got and parsed REMOTE given the comments here. It struck me as a clever clue at the time. NOTWITHSTANDING and SPOTLIGHT eluded me, as did CROUTON which was desperation-biffed as CHICKEN, while SLOPPY became SLIPPY. Still, nearly there.

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