Times Cryptic 26734 – May 25, 2017 !

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Well, this was fun, with a device in one clue (26) that only works if used so sparingly that us poor suckers forget about it in between times and get flummoxed by it all over again. Takes me back to the time when we thought “ If B m t put : If B . putting : “ was brilliantly witty. I freely admit I cracked it only after submitting, but with pleasure not resentment. Likewise the long (fifteen letters!) conflict, entered because the numeration made it inevitable, but with a clue that requires more lateral thinking than usual. And that rare thing, a Quad which nevertheless makes perfect sense as a sentence.
We are being spoiled, you know. May I invite you not to complain?
I did it in 19.41, so shortly before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Let me unfold to you the delicacies set before you. Clues, definitions, SOLUTIONS.

Across

1 Expert attempt to decipher report  (5)
CRACK  We start with a spectacular quadruple definition
4 Aspire briefly to put an end to game  (9)
HOPSCOTCH HOPE is abbreviated to HOP, and SCOTCH means to put an end to, unless you’re Macbeth, when it means to fail to put an end to.
9 Not to be left out, bio lab got involved  (9)
OBBLIGATO  A musical instruction that indicates a particular musical instrument or such cannot go missing. And a fairly obvious anagram (involved) of BIO LAB GOT.
10 Association football match, perhaps, at home (3-2)
TIE IN A football match (or indeed any match) can equally be a TIE. At home nearly always indicates IN
11 On return after vacation, English Tory comes a cropper  (6)
SCYTHE  love the definition here. The three words English, Tory, and comes are to be vacated, all their internal parts removed, and the resulting 6 letters reversed (on return).
12 Stranger’s endless challenge about to annoy one  (8)
QUIRKIER  You need to see “stranger” as a comparative, not the cue to look for another word for a stranger. Challenge is QUERY, lose the last letter, throw in IRK and I for anger and one.
14 Had yachtsmen on, did Carol?  (9)
WASSAILED A much better word for carol singing than – um – carol singing, not least because it involves more drinking The yacht was sailed by the onboard sailors.
16 Infused with energy, firm picked up  (5)
HEARD  Firm: HARD, insert E(nergy)
17 One might steal your job, or steal your Job?  (5)
ROBOT Back in the sixties, we were shown visions of a world where friendly robots did all the work while we lived in sybaritic ease. Now we’ve got to that future, we they’re designing counsellor robots to help us through lack of self-esteem because we are being left with nothing useful to do because the robots have taken our jobs. Or they might just ROB us of our O(ld) T(estaments), of which the book of Job is a constituent part.
19 Oats we got free end in the bin?  (2,2,5)
GO TO WASTE An anagram (free) of OATS WE GOT
21 Skewered meat includes chopped tongue and a date  (8)
SATURDAY SATAY is your skewered meat, and URDU is the tongue/language from which you must chop the end and use as a filler.
22 No fool in class at any time?  (6)
CLEVER the CL comes from class, and the EVER from at any time.
25 Last stage of the moon coming round weekly or monthly? (5)
IMAGO  is as the butterfly to the caterpillar, though I would argue that the last stage is really the dead butterfly. IO is your moon (of Jupiter) and MAG your weekly or monthly.
26 Possible description of wife, with clothes on: large  (6-3)
COMMON LAW  The state of living together without benefit of ceremony and legal support. OK. That little mark after the word wife is? Yup, a COMMA. “With” sometimes, as here, contributes only its W, and ON and (L(arge) complete the infilling. The editor has asked me to point out that this is a crossword clue, and any implication that common law wives might universally be overweight is co-incidental.
27 Democrat, if after backing, to visit US press baron — rashly perhaps  (4,5)
HEADFIRST  the US press baron is either Citizen Kane or Randolph HEARST (or both, as it happens). Our beloved Rupert is not US. Take D(emocrat), reverse IF, and insert vigorously.
28 Key tenant’s lost right at the start  (5)
ENTER  These days indicated by a leftward bent arrow on the only non-quadrilateral key. A tenant is a RENTER, but for our purpose lose the first R(ight).

Down

1 Succeeded in puzzles containing challenge?  (5,6,4)
CROSS SWORDS WITH  We can agree, I think, that puzzles may be CROSSWORDS. We need the extra S derived from Succeeded. With is derived from “containing”.
2 Church agreed to hide bibles, oddly  (5)
ABBEY The odd letters of BiBlE are”hidden” in AY for agreed (Chambers allows the shorter spelling)
3 One believed in a shrink, originally  (7)
KRISHNA An “original” arrangement of A SHRINK.
4 Attempt to attract attention with a kiss that deceives  (4)
HOAX  HO is your attention-seeker, and A X (kiss)
5 Wisdom of teacher, one capturing student’s heart  (10)
PROFUNDITY  Teacher is PROF, the number one is UNITY, and the middle of student provides the captured D
6 Discharge of guy arranged by stealth, finally  (7)
CATARRH  A guy (especially a hip one), is a CAT. Nice. ARR a common abbreviation for arranged. H the last letter of stealth. Write it in, and thank the setter politely for spelling it for you.
7 Play husband in new TV serial  (3,6)
THE RIVALS Richard Sheridan’s most famous., and H(usband) included in a revised and all new version of TV SERIAL.
8 Country’s borders stand for the nominal length of this conflict (7,5,3)
HUNDRED YEARS WAR  The borders of Country are C and Y, respectively Hundred and Years. I bet that’s not what they called it at the beginning.
13 The sound of this noisy performer hindered reply?  (4,6)
CLOG DANCER  A rather cheery soundalike clue, this time of clogged answer, “hindered reply”. Just say it. It works just fine.
15 It holds in pants burst at seams  (9)
SUBSTRATA  It is S(ex) A(ppeal), clog it with the letters of BURST AT tastefully arranged, as indicated by the tasteless pants
18 Stop pain  (4-3)
TURN OFF  I think the second definition is as of a person you’d rather not have around.
20 British statesman getting stick after defence cut  (7)
WALPOLE.  Defence might be a WALL, cut the last letter (or if you’re The Donald, cut the whole thing. Please. Stick and POLE might be the same thing.
23 See you tidy, initially, then clean professionally! (5)
VALET Hugh Green was mine.  A Roman saying “see you” would say VALE, and an initial from Tidy gives you the silent T.
24 Tiny bit of black and blue material (4)
SMUT  A double definition, the second popularised by Mary Whitehouse et al in the aforementioned Sixties

39 comments on “Times Cryptic 26734 – May 25, 2017 !”

  1. I had set my mind to ‘Dense’ this morning, as indicated by SATURDAY being my LOI (I’d forgotten SATAY, and didn’t know it was skewered; but still). I thought of ROBOT immediately, but couldn’t see how Job fitted in until the very end. I got the ‘on vacation’ bit, but thought that meant RN. And so on. Never did parse 2d, 25ac, or (COD) 26ac, so I’m especially grateful that Z showed up so soon to clear things up for me.
  2. ..went to America, wandered down to buy a newspaper, but they wouldn’t sell him one. You have to be a US citizen to be a US newspaper proprietor. So he promptly renounced his Oz citizenship and got a US passport. Now a bona fide Murcan.
    Very quirky and interesting crossword, 26:15 makes it just on the hard side of average. Common-law parsed long after finishing, but parsed and enjoyed. Robot last in, embarrassingly.
  3. Particularly re 15dn. Then a few more from reading the blog.
    Liked 1dn, having once written an instrumental piece called “CrossSwords”. Wont be distributing it any time soon but.

    Just a bit sad that it wasn’t George’s Thursday, given 16ac.

    Edited at 2017-05-25 04:18 am (UTC)

  4. 21 today (I wish). Didn’t bother to parse ROBOT or COMMON-LAW at the time, which is a shame in the case of the latter. Always enjoy these quirky devices but as the blogger says, they have to be used sparingly.

    Nice work setter. And thanks Z, but as isla3 points out above, Rupert is most definitely American.

  5. Snuck in just under the 40 minute mark but with a pesky typo. Thanks to Zed for the parsing of common-law, which I didn’t bother to parse as I ‘sped’ along. Very nice stuff, setter and clogger.
  6. I was rather pleased with my 34 minutes for this rather tricksy puzzle. I managed to parse all but the second part of the ROBOT clue and must admit that having read the explanation in the blog I am somewhat disappointed as I don’t think it is as satisfactory as most of the rest, and smacks of trying a little too hard to be clever. I’m also not entirely convinced by “date” = SATURDAY as date refers to a specific day of the month or year as distinct from all the others which SATURDAY on its own is not.

    Edited at 2017-05-25 08:37 am (UTC)

  7. 8 today (I wish). Having just got the final W as a checker I was wondering what sort of Cow was going to prove to be a description of a wife acceptable for inclusion in a Times crossword.
  8. 13:49 … and greatly enjoyed. I loved the ROBOT clue with its upmarket Christmas cracker vibe. But COD to the ‘quad’ behind CRACK. Is this a perfect crossword clue?

    Nowt else to say but thanks setter and Z8 (your 1941 line sounds like something Spike Milligan would have come up with).

  9. About 55 mins over porridge and loved it all. The comma was great, the contrivance of Scythe, the Jobs, and LOI Substrata where I hadn’t a clue which bits were getting anagrammed until I got the B and twigged the S.A. (I always forget that). I see the guy was a cat again today – that seems to be becoming a standard.
    Thanks setter and Z.
  10. Superb crossword. Loved every minute of it (and there were about 50 today!) but enormously pleasurable ones. Thanks very much indeed to setter, and blogger for unclogging 26,8 and 5, all of which solved but without seeing the intricacy of the clueing.
  11. A continuous struggle, getting stuck three or four times on the way, but nevertheless I finally popped in SUBSTRATA (I will never not begrudge “it” = “SA”) and was done at 62 minutes. FOI the excellent CRACK, COD 14a, mostly because the smarter 26a sailed straight over my head.

    Took me ages to see the unknown OBBLIGATO, mostly because I wasn’t expecting a double “B”. SATURDAY was my next-to-last in, having been playing with a kebab for far too long up front. Glad there was wordplay for CATARRH as I’m not sure how to spell it at this very moment, just after having spelled it!

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

    Edited at 2017-05-25 08:36 am (UTC)

  12. This was indeed very good and I regret doing it post-pub because I might have missed some of the finer points last night. I certainly didn’t parse that comma, nor did I see that the quadruple definition was any more than a double! Still, got there in the end, just about…
  13. Pub quiz answer above. Tried to fit QUIDDITCH at 4ac. Knew OBBLIGATO from music, I think. SUBSTRATA LOI. 28′ today, thanks z and setter.
  14. I took a while to tune in to this setter but once I managed that this became a fun puzzle summed up at 12A

    Yes, some of it’s loose and I doubt many parsed 8D or 26A to arrive at the answers – like several others they were reverse engineered after the event

    Thank you setter and great job z8

  15. Struggled with and enjoyed this one. COD CLOG DANCER for Bill Tidy memories despite CRACK being close to perfect, and ROBOT brilliant. I can hear the Cloggies singing ‘Here we come a wassailing’ as they dance to their next fixture to perform their Flying Arkwrights. LOI SUBSTRATA. Took me nearly as long as the HUNDRED YEARS WAR but I’ll own up to an hour. Thank you Z and setter.
  16. 30m. You hear a lot about the 80:20 rule in business circles, and this was a bit like that for me. A huge proportion (about 75%) of the time on a tiny proportion (4) of the clues.
    > TURN OFF: I was actually a bit miffed by this one because I think ‘pain’ is too loose a definition. Still, it was the first of the problematic ones to fall, probably at about the 15 minute mark, and after thinking of probably every other possible expression ending ‘off’.
    > SATURDAY: I thought SATAY was the sauce, so it didn’t occur to me from ‘skewered meat’. I’m not sure what made me think that ‘date’ might give SATURDAY, because like jackkt I think it’s loose. Still, I offer no excuses for not knowing what SATAY is. Note to self: it’s not the sauce.
    > SUBSTRATA: again no excuses here: I just wasted far too long trying to make sense of the wrong anagrist. Like gothick_matt I will never like ‘it’ for SA but it certainly didn’t slow me down.
    > ROBOT: and again, no excuses. Very nice clue, totally baffling to me at least for a long time. I needed the B, and then it became obvious.
    So all in all a day of just being very dim, bringing back memories of last year’s championship.
    Clearly a fine puzzle, although for me it was a bit of a biff-fest for the first 26 clues so some of the finer points passed me by until after solving.

    Edited at 2017-05-25 08:40 am (UTC)

  17. 11m dead on today, but I must confess to ignoring the parsing of COMMON-LAW entirely until pointed out here. Lovely clue.
  18. No time today (but very long). Excellent puzzle that was so enjoyable I forgive any minor looseness. Thanks Z8 for parsing 26a.
  19. Gave up on this with SW almost blank (and 11ac & 26ac unparsed) after failing to think of anything plausible in ten minutes – keriothe’s comments are much the same as my thoughts about that area.
  20. Got there after 57:26 of struggling. FOI was ABBEY, then the NE filled up, with help from the CXVI years conflict. I struggled most in the SW but was also held up by 1d, despite having CROSS, until IMAGO and HEAD FIRST went in and gave me WITH after an alphabet trawl. Liked WASSAILED, COMMON LAW(spotted the comma device!) and ROBOT. Like others, wondered about Saturday as a date. Some 22a stuff. Thanks setter and Z.
  21. Country’s borders (c and y) do not refer to c- for one hundred and y- for years, but to the borders of ‘century ‘ – one hundred years. Tom.
  22. Well now, that was something. I was held up forever by SUBSTRATA, ROBOT and SATURDAY (the last due to miscounting the letters) for a while. Overall therefore somewhere in the 45 minute range, but really parsing all those post-solve. I never parsed the HUNDRED… clue, but I certainly think Z’s parsing is right, as C and Y being the ‘country’s borders’. Pretty challenging puzzle, and the comma clue was appreciated. Regards.
  23. 19 mins. I struggled to get on this setter’s wavelength, and like a few others I never did parse COMMON-LAW even though it’s blindingly obvious now that it has been explained. Also like a few others I had the most trouble in the SW, and the ROBOT/TURN-OFF crossers were my last ones in after SUBSTRATA.
  24. I found this a good challenge with some terrific clues. I took 50 mins on the train this morning, followed by 16 mins at lunchtime and a further 4 mins after work to complete all correct and all parsed ok. Most of the RHS went in steadily (FOI 10ac), the LHS took longer to crack, I was a bit hesitant about entering obbligato because of the double B even though the anagrist was pretty clear. Substrata, turn off and Saturday took a while but my last 3 which took me ages were back on the RHS at 26ac, 23dn and LOI 24dn. Enjoyed the comma device when I saw it. Agree that the quad at 1ac is top notch. Liked the burst pants, the large wife, the country’s borders, the lift and separate of comes a cropper and much else. Thank you setter and thank you blogger.
  25. Quite a fantastic puzzle, which required several breaks to refresh the circuits before being able to finish it. LOI was (yes, me too) SUBSTRATA, all the while looking for something that was holding in … COD to COMMON-LAW (and I did eventually parse the COMMA all by myself, rather proud of that), but there were other very good clues.
  26. 12:21 for me, enjoying this one very much despite being desperately tired. My compliments to the setter.

    I don’t think I was particularly helped by my days as a CLOG DANCER with The Reading Traditional Stepdance Group (aka The Reading Cloggies) and Camden Clog (definitely not aka The Camden Cloggies, though it proved extraordinarily difficult to stop announcers introducing us under the latter title).

  27. Z, I was hoping that someone would have asked for clarification of this line in your blog, but it looks like I’m the only one that doesn’t get it. Can you put me out of my misery?

    Oh, and the connection between a Rupert, a sled and a briar thorn? I know I’m missing the point, but I’m missing it by a very long way!

    1. I’m glad you asked too!! I partially parsed it as “If B empty, put coal on, if B, stop putting coal on” but what is B?? And I can only think of Brer Rabbit in connection with a Briar Patch! Of course this may be a million miles away from the actuality:-)

      1. You will notice that the B alone is a capital, so in the Victorian cleverness in which I think it originated, it would be the great B. So “if the great B m t, put colon if the great B full stop putting colon” Good, sound advice to the resident Skivvy

      2. The question about the sled was mine. Hearst/Kane famously called his Rosebud, so  I was speculating on what Rupert Murdoch would call his. I am not necessarily responsible for the follow up suggestions

        1. Thanks, I can sleep soundly now. Not a bad idea, having just arrived at work.
          1. Rosebud was also claimed by some to be what Kane called a very personal part of Susan his lover’s body. Far be it for me to speculate on any readover to Rupert or Jerry. Semiotics has a lot to answer for!

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