Times Cryptic 26710 – April 27, 2017 Unaccented, but with a fair bit of stress

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Initial results (including mine, breaking the 30 minute mark) suggest that this innocuous little number might be bamboozling everyone except George, at least a bit. My holdups were mostly in the lower half of the puzzle, with a particular grimace towards the tiny 23 down, which resembles one of those games where you have to spot the two identical images in a veritable ocean of possibilities. I don’t think there’s anything staggeringly difficult and indeed there are a few gimmes to leaven the lump. The enigmatic phrase K.O. ARCH AT… runs from bottom left to top right. Google translate says that, as KOAR CHAT, it’s Indonesian and means something like chit chat.
I have (I think) sorted all the issues out, and present my findings with the usual clues, definitions, SOLUTIONS

Across
1. Islander very good on horse you say? Not so (8)
FILIPINO  So the horse is a FILLY, adjusted through audition to FILI. Very is PI, and “not so” provides the NO. All you have to do then is decide what order the bits go in.
5. Parisian who is admitted into play free? (6)
ACQUIT  Parisian “who” is QUI, to be inserted into ACT for play, working better as a verb than as a noun
9. City firm opening railway (8)
COVENTRY  A straight replacement sequence. Firm CO, opening VENT railway conventionally RY
10. Mother meeting grandmother later (6)
MAÑANA  “Tomorrow” in Spanish, but often used to indicate an indefinite time in the future. When will work on The Wall start? Two generations of women meet, MA and NANA. The wordplay and (and the technicalities of the online crossword) make the tilde not so much optional as impossible. Unless, of course, you know better
12. Felt tip pens less important in secondary schools (12)
HIGHLIGHTERS  After reckoning that a single F couldn’t pen anything, I gave up and put the definition at the front end of the clue. LIGHTER from less important, inside HIGHS the secondary schools
15. Group mostly admitted into A & E quickly (5)
APACE  PAC(k) (group) within an A and an E. Not a musical term, then
16. A feature film covers factory worker (9)
MACHINIST  Film is MIST, a feature A CHIN. Yodaish instruction puts one within the other
18. Plant containing source of this unusual medical treatment (9)
ANTISERUM  ANISE is your plant, T the source (beginning of) this, unusual give RUM (if only).
19. Foreign gallery’s public relations hoo-ha (5)
PRADO  Madrid’s “National Gallery”  P(ublic) R(elations) and ADO for hoo-ha
20. Power seized by one revolutionary in old Asian city (12)
INDIANAPOLIS  Parsed post solve, just a well disguised anagram, made up of P(ower), I (one) and IN OLD ASIAN “revolutionary”
24. Not stressed a great deal: largely very cool (6)
ATONIC  In the study of speech rhythms and such, it does indeed mean unstressed. The wordplay helps a bit: a lot is A TON, and most of ICY for very cool provides the rest.
25. A joint’s picked up by fellow from S America (8)
GUYANESE  The sound of A KNEE’S is tagged onto a GUY for “fellow”.
26. Strict diet really impresses female (6)
KOSHER  The Jewish form of a strict diet, not related to weight loss. Really impresses K(nocks) O(ut) S female HER.
27. Party goer finally dropping off? One’s received wake-up call (8)
REVEILLE  A party goer is a REVELLER, lose the end, and insert I (one) for the bit that comes after the two minutes silence.

Down

1. F1 celebrity (4)
FACE  As in the Face of…  F is just F, 1 gives ACE. Cute.
2. Officer in India, about to leave, as it happens (4)
LIVE I think this must be CLIVE as in “of India” losing C for about.
3. Poor writer taking river boat (9)
PENNILESS  Writer is PEN, the river you need is the NILE, and boat SS. Isn’t there a distinction between boats and ships?
4. Men hitch a lift into Scottish town, going north from Durham area? (12)
NORTHUMBRIAN  Lets go at this backwards. NAIRN is your Scottish town, which goes north, meaning (in a down clue) t it reverses. OR for men (other ranks) and THUMB for hitch a lift are inserted
6. Fall asleep in Lycra shorts (5)
CRASH  Today’s hidden in lyCRA Shorts, though Lycra shorts are not usually noted for hiding much.
7. Upper-class celebrity in car, breaking down like a Cadillac? Hardly (2-8)
UN-AMERICAN  U for Upper Class, NAME for celebrity, and an anagram (breaking down) of IN CAR
8. Rations tin for building bridge (10)
TRANSITION  Has to be an anagram, is, of RATIONS TIN (building)
11. Party politician certain to conceal old state of anxiety (12)
DISCOMPOSURE  DISCO for party, MP as ever for politician, SURE for certain, assembled to include an O(ld).
13. Reserve shown by bright fellow touring distant island (6,4)
SAFARI PARK  Bright fellow is SPARK, AFAR stands in for distant. The I comes form I(sland).
14. Particular Lenten activity sounding ‘orrendous (10)
FASTIDIOUS  FASTing in Lent is less common that it used to be IDIOUS is derived from listening to ‘ideous. Because it’s a soundalike, you can be safely distracted from doubt about whether our answer contains I or E.
17. Involve rogue and spiteful woman in deceit (9)
IMPLICATE  Rogue gives IMP, the spiteful woman is a CAT, and deceit a LIE. Assemble.
21. Stand bachelor up on unfortunate date, in brief (5)
ABIDE You have to assume Bachelor means “of Ars”, stand it upside down, and tack on a brief version of the unfortunate (for Gaius Julius Caesar) IDES.
22. Even sections of freezable material (4)
REAL As in not immaterial. Even letters of fReEzAbLe
23. Fly before end of late spring (4)
JETÉ  Not, perhaps, the most immediate synonym for fly, but JET works as in jet across the ocean. Add the end of latE. A jeté is a balletic leap, not, perhaps, the most immediate synonym for spring. Two words with way to many meanings each

51 comments on “Times Cryptic 26710 – April 27, 2017 Unaccented, but with a fair bit of stress”

  1. Innocuous-seeming, perhaps; it had some innocuous bits of clues, like ‘pens’ (not an inclusion indicator) in 12ac, ‘unusual’ (not anagrind) in 18ac, ‘revolutionary’ (not Che, not a reversal), that bamboozled me for a while, anyway. (I take some comfort from my time being just ever so slightly more than 2 Verlaines.) I had no idea about 2d, which I biffed; ta, Z, for enlightening me; a lovely clue, wasted on me. 23d, of course, was my LOI, and what took me over the half-hour mark; tried a couple of alphabet runs but, as always, skipped a couple of letters in my haste. And of course one doesn’t think of accent marks. I had the same doubt as Z on SS; but I suppose one can take ‘boat’ as the generic, and ‘ship’ as a kind of boat. COD to INDIANAPOLIS.
  2. Well, I’ve done it again, despite knowing full well how to spell REVEILLE. Think I need to take a break for a year or two.

    But I probably won’t. 30:27 otherwise, COD JETE, just because I got it.

    Thanks setter and Z.

  3. 20A had to be INDIANAPOLIS from the crossers. But once you decide INDIAN in the answer goes with Asian in the clue, the rest makes no sense. There is a P for power and the rest makes no sense.

    I got JETE early on with no problem, but for ages was convinced that 13D (with just K) had to end in BOOK to go with reserve.

    Also wondered if ALOTIC was a word I’d managed to avoid all my llife, before deciding it seemed just too unlikely.

  4. 25 mins but KEDE for the unknown spring, after (correctly!) remembering ked and trusting the cryptic. Bah!
    Even knew jeté: “Out in the wheat stubble, in perfect time to the swishing blades of Dad Dinkum’s harvester, little Bear Dinkum’s long, arching jetés took on an urgent grace.” Now that’s kulture.
    Another nonplussed by Indianapolis, but quite enjoyed the rest.
  5. Gosh I’m early today! I commend this setter for a multitude of misdirections. Far too much time spent hunting for the secondary schools when I should have been looking for felt tip pens, etc etc. LOI JETE which I should have got straight away but didn’t.
  6. 22:35 .. tricky endgame, but ultimately very satisfying in that once they were got, you knew they were got.

    COD to INDIANAPOLIS for sending me round the houses up the garden path

    much enjoyed

  7. About 40 mins over porridge and nothing much to write in about – until the last one and a half. I spent so long on Guyanese that I couldn’t face too many alphabet trawls for the -E-E. Hey ho.
    Is Guyanese really ‘from S America’? Other S American nations are available.
    Liked the bright Spark and the outing for Ides. Thanks setter and Z.
    1. Oh! Hadn’t occurred to me that I was mis-reading and taking “guy” as double-duty, thinking the definition was “fellow from S America”…
      1. Yes. Double duty. Without the ‘fellow’ it doesn’t feel right, does it? I’ve been trying to think of an analogy without using geography.
  8. Some nice gimmes at first, but then a lot of the longer answers held me up plenty. Convinced myself that 26a was really = COR ‘impressing’ (going outside?!) SHE, with COSHER being some strange variable spelling. Funny how the parsing in your head is so much more unlikely than the original. Also thought ‘largely very cool’ = ON IC(E). COD to INDIANAPOLIS, although I liked a lot of the surfaces (12a for example). FOI: ACQUIT. Thanks Z and setter.
  9. A bit of a world tour here with peoples, place names and foreign words ending with the hallmark JETE that I put in partly because its French and fits the global pattern. Not difficult but entertaining.
  10. The gardeners arrived mid-solve, although this week I can’t claim total surprise. I was 55 minutes on the wrist watch on this tricky puzzle but maybe 10 of those were spent making tea, discussing football and deciding what needed weeding most. Also I gazed at INDIANAPOLIS for at least 5 minutes having biffed it correctly but incorrectly from the Indian/Asian reference, before the penny dropped. No, that doesn’t work, I was already PENNILESS. NORTHUMBRIAN was pretty convoluted to construct too. LOI was ATONIC, on the parsing as given by Z8 without knowing it meant ‘not stressed’. I missed National Service by a couple of years, but I always read REVEILLE in the barber’s as a kid. I think that counts. My first act of teenage rebellion was wanting a Boston and not a DA. On that note, my COD is UN- AMERICAN. . Thank you Z8 and setter.

    Edited at 2017-04-27 09:11 am (UTC)

  11. Curses. All done within my hour bar the unknown JETE. Like isla3 I considered “kede”, but I couldn’t convince myself. I must have passed the right answer at least once during an alphabet run, but I think my mind must have been looking for the unknown definition rather than the partial “jet”. And I’m starting to see what Tony means by vocalophobia.

    So. DNF in about an hour and ten, which was where I lost the will to live.

    Edited at 2017-04-27 09:26 am (UTC)

    1. “The unknown JETE”, said I. Here’s a passage from one of my favourite authors, in a book I’ve read many times:

      “I watched her through the pearl-framed opera glasses, alone in the box on the second tier. Her glissades were enchanting, but she lacked the strength for the grands jetés, her balance wavering a little. In any case it was her face I was interested in.”

      Some unconscious processing module of my brain clearly carried on doing today’s crossword and made me go and fetch the book and find the bit whence I clearly should have known JETE!

      Edited at 2017-04-27 09:59 am (UTC)

        1. It’s from Adam Hall’s Quiller Balalaika (there’s a word that might pop up in a crossword at any moment!) There’s certainly an overlap in style with Alistair MacLean. Quiller is by far my favourite spy.
      2. Oh dear! I hope you haven’t caught vocalophobia from me. I’ve an uneasy feeling that it may be infectious.

        Strangely, despite the six answers today whose checked letters were all vowels, I came through pretty much unscathed. (Phew!)

  13. Very hard work for me but at least I managed to get through it eventually after looking up a couple of things along the way.

    All the crosswords I have attempted whilst away over the past week or so have been in the printed newspaper and I have decided that I can’t be doing with it. Too small, too cramped and a hole in the grid whenever one is not scrupulously careful about applying pressure evenly to the pencil. With this one it was a joy to have a decent print-out with room to work things out. Solving time off the scale I’m afraid but hoping for a return to normal soon.

  14. I felt like I was always clinging on by my fingertips, picking off clues one by one just before despair set in, before it finally did with LOI JETE. After an alphabet trawl I limped home in 36 minutes.
    I noticed while solving how stingy the grid was with useful checkers. Every answer I chiselled out seemed to yield just a couple more random vowels- or maybe I’m feeling a little paranoid this morning?
  15. I share Gallers’s pain quite literally, as my 45 minutes ended with multiple alphabet trawls, which dredged up ‘aware’, which I preferred to ‘awake’. Not with much confidence, mind.
  16. Very nice puzzle on the trickier side of things. I was especially delighted to spot the correct way to complete _E_E almost immediately, as my bugbear in puzzles like this is that innocuous four letter answer with two common letters. As for COD, it occurred to me that the old “lift and separate” is a sign of a really good setter; it took a massive effort of will to stop my brain running through Asian cities.
  17. In Guyana for work recently I passed the most awful power station which was located in a small village named Garden of Eden. I also drove alongside the Demerara river which I always thought was in the USA.

    Today, I lazily stuck in BIDES ignoring the tense of “stand” for a while. That made the city a tad difficult. Sadly JETE did not spring to mind.

  18. 10m 35s for me, with the last 90 seconds or so spent trying to come up with something more plausible than JETE.
  19. INDIANAPOLIS is just very misleading, I think, with the old Asian in the fodder. And it’s seized by ONE plus the fodder. Tough one, but good.
  20. Early balletomane training (until I realized I was NEVER going to be agile enough) gave me this right away. LIVE reminded me of the clerihew: What I like about Clive is that he is no longer alive. There’s a great deal said about being dead. We’ve been very “particular” this week. Forgot. 20.31

    Edited at 2017-04-27 11:25 am (UTC)

  21. I was beaten into submission by this setter! Couldn’t for the life of me come up with JETE, and finally slung in PEPE (PEP for spring) who turns out to be a frog not a fly. I also couldn’t come up with anything better than ALOTIC for 24a. Thus two wrong in a disheartening 75 minutes. MACHINIST took a while to get as I’d biffed NORTHEASTERN for 4d. I concur wholeheartedly with rinteff about having to extract answers like pulling teeth! A challenging offering Thanks setter(I think) and Z.
  22. JETE didn’t cause me any problems but I gave up with enough blank space in the SW corner to build a safari park.
  23. But people from Durham aren’t from Northumbria. They’re from County Durham! Gribb.
    1. Apparently people from my home town of Notlob are now Greater Manchesterians. NEVER – we are Lancastrians. Great puzzle spoiled by a stupid entry of Guyanean which messed up 23d (which I would never get anyway).
    2. They drink and bathe in Northumbrian water though.

      Edit to add that I think the QM in the clue serves a purpose. Northumbria is no longer an official region, but the ancient Kingdom of Northumbria certainly used to include Durham and its legacy lives on in the likes of the aforementioned water company, the local plod and one of the Newcastle universities.

      Edited at 2017-04-27 02:32 pm (UTC)

      1. I agree the QM saves the clue, and that although Northumberland now begins north of the Tyne, Northumbria is the ancient kingdom which had a much larger footprint. As it happens I was born in County Durham and used to go and fix the computers at Northumbrian Water Ltd at Pity ME just outside of Durham City, and at the Plod offices at Durham and Ponteland.
  24. 21 mins. ABIDE was my LOI but I’d have been a couple of minutes faster if I’d read the clue for 24ac properly and hadn’t initially entered a hasty “atonal”. It took me way too long to see KOSHER, but on the plus side I saw JETE quite quickly. Count me as another who biffed INDIANAPOLIS. Like some others I’d equated Asian to Indian and consequently couldn’t parse the rest of it even though it had to be the right answer.
  25. Same here on INDIANAPOLIS, which was my LOI. Had to biff it. I was laboring under the assumption I was looking for an Asian city all the way through, and trying to remember where Adrianople is or was, and whether it can be spelled differently, all of which held up the SAFARI PARK, so this dragged to around 35 minutes. Ugh. Regards.
  26. 11m for all but 23dn, but then a DNF after another 10 or so. I considered JETE, along with KEDE, HEPE and even DEFE, but couldn’t find anything that looked like a word. I even wasted an inordinate amount of time considering the possibility that ‘fly’ was the definition and the wordplay was an instruction to put a word meaning ‘spring’ before an E.
    There’s always tomorrow.
  27. JETE went in OK for me. LOI was GUYANESE which I biffed but never saw the “picked up” for “sounds like” until I read the blog, so thanks to Z for that.

    There’s a Christian Bale (if memory serves) film called The Machinist, so 13D could almost be read as a straight definition. For that extra cleverness it gets COD for me, although I suppose it could be entirely accidental.

  28. I found this a tough puzzle and was just pleased to complete all correct in the end. After 27 mins on the train, I needed another 42 mins at lunchtime to get all (including the alphabet-run inducing jete) but my last two, 3dn (far too long thinking there must be some word related to penurious which I just couldn’t see) and 18ac where “plant” filled me with foreboding. The last two fell in 5 mins waiting at the platform for a train on my way home. Thanks to the blogger for spotting the classic, reverse-diagonal, Indonesian nina, I’m ashamed to say this completely passed me by.
  29. Not so much interesting ‘about’ being dead – but (allegedly) a certain amount to be said ‘for’ it.
  30. 10:41 for me after another slow start.

    This should have been a real stinker for vocalophones like me, but MANANA, APACE, ATONIC and UN-AMERICAN went in at a first reading (I wasn’t familiar with ATONIC meaning “not stressed”, but it seemed plausible), and GUYANESE and JETE didn’t give me too much trouble (on the whole I can cope with dance terms).

    I got KOSHER for entirely the wrong reason, assuming that KOR was a variant of COR (meaning “really”). And like others I biffed INDIANAPOLIS (taking ages to twig the wordplay after I’d finished).

    Basically an interesting and enjoyable puzzle. However, I’m not convinced by FACE = “celebrity” (I’ve a feeling I’m missing something obvious but I don’t understand your explanation), or by AFAR (an adverb) being the same as “distant” (an adjective).

    1. I got there pretty much as I suggested, via some person being raised to stardom as the face of some product or organisation. So from today’s news in the Mail (gosh, really sorry) I see Rochelle Williams has just become “the face of Max Factor”, which I suppose is some kind of celebrity. I still think (as you apparently do) that’s a bit flimsy. Chambers kind of gets there via gain/lose face, which translates easily to gaining/losing fame or prestige and hence in that sense celebrity, the state of being celebrated or esteemed. It works for me.

      I’m more comfortable with AFAR, with the assistance of Chambers Thesaurus, which gives “a long distance, a long way, far off, far away, distantly”. True, for a more direct equivalence, AFAR really needs a off or from with it. “While we were afar off” and “while we were distant” can be interchanged with no creaking at the seams.

      Pragmatically, the first A in safari has to come from somewhere, and again, it worked for me, I don’t think is would have been too much of a strain for the setter to slip in the A: “touring a distant island” but that’s not what happened.

      1. Perhaps I’m just in a picky mood this week, but I’m afraid neither explanation really cuts it for me.

        Certainly substituting “celebrity” for “face” in “the face of Max Factor” doesn’t feel right, and I don’t equate “celebrity” with “prestige” either.

        I’m even less convinced about AFAR. The fact that Chambers Thesaurus includes the adverb “distantly” rather than the adjective “distant” surely has to be significant!

        It could be that we’re simply going to have to agree to differ.

        1. One last shot! I think we have got so used to celebrity being a person, a Kardassian, often famous for being famous, we’ve left behind its function as an abstract noun, equivalent to fame or status, and indeed prestige or reputation. That which is to be celebrated. For me, though I doubt I’d face death to defend it, I think that’s where the “save face” connection arrives. But hey, I didn’t set this thing! Author?!

          1. You almost had me convinced until you mentioned “save face”. This relates to the oriental concept of “face” (面子, miànzi, in Mandarin Chinese) for which a rough English translation is “reputation” and which a Chinese person can have (有面子, yǒu miànzi) or lose (丢面子, diū miànzi ) or save (挽回面子, wǎnhuí miànzi) regardless of how famous or celebrated they are.

            Another word for “face” is 脸 (liǎn), as in “to wash one’s face” (洗脸, xǐliǎn). The Chinese probably regard the Kardassians as 不要脸 (bùyàoliǎn), literally “not want face”, usually translated as “shameless” :-).

            Edited at 2017-04-28 11:39 am (UTC)

            1. I’m not certain that I’m not just being teased! Language is constantly developing, and regardless of the Chinese origins, to save face is surely now has accepted meanings in everyday English, avoiding humiliation, saving what’s left of your reputation.
              1. But of course, if it helps, I’ll withdraw the mention, and leave you at “almost convinced”!

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