Times Cryptic 26804

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I needed 48 minutes for this one. I thought it was going to be easy because I wrote in 7 adjoining answers in the NW straightaway but then slowed to a crawl, gradually picking off the answers one by one until eventually building up momentum again and finishing in another flurry of activity. There’s nothing particularly out of the ordinary in terms of words or wordplay today, but just a solid and well-constructed puzzle

As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]

Across
1 Is he working with sampan, requiring this? (10)
SEAMANSHIP – Anagram [working] of IS HE SAMPAN. I think this has to be semi&lit to account for double duty.
7 Yarn from Times employees joining paper (4)
WEFT – WE (Times employees), FT (paper – Financial Times). Threads of yarn stretched lengthwise on a loom are called the warp and those crossing them are the WEFT.
9 Slap isn’t commonly on hand, keeping right back (8)
WARPAINT – PAW (hand) containing [keeping] R (right) reversed [back], AIN’T (isn’t, commonly). Two slang terms for ‘make-up’ are required for the definition.
10 Old doctor content to leave Indian root (6)
ORIGIN – O (old), RIG (doctor – falsify), I{ndia}N [content to leave]
11 Figure‘s rather heavy, not wide (6)
EIGHTY – {w}EIGHTY (rather heavy) [not wide]
13 Pressure group pocketing cash and running off (8)
PRINTING – P (pressure), RING (group) containing [pocketing] TIN (cash)
14 Foreign money, yen, accepted by no French doctor (12)
NEUROSURGEON – EUROS (foreign money) + URGE (yen) contained [accepted] by NON (no, French). Solvers in the eurozone won’t view the currency as ‘foreign’, but this is the Times of London.
17 Helping car run in stopping place (12)
MINISTRATION – MINI (car), R (run) in STATION (stopping place)
20 Design is formerly held in vice for shaping (8)
CONCEIVE – ONCE (formerly) contained by [held in] anagram [for shaping] of VICE
21 Maybe duck attack by criminal (6)
CONFIT – CON (criminal), FIT (attack). Usually a duck or goose dish.
22 Architect welcoming return of artist’s colony (6)
WARREN – WREN (architect) containing [welcoming] RA (artist) reversed [return]. A breeding ground for rabbits or the creatures themselves, apparently.
23 Go and admire translated bit of kanji? (8)
IDEOGRAM – Anagram [translated] of GO ADMIRE. I’d no idea what ‘kanji’ was so I trusted to wordplay and checkers. I’ve now learned that it’s the Japanese equivalent of the Chinese ideogram.
25 Sailors on exercises in waves (4)
PERM – PE (exercises), RM (sailors – Royal Marines). Short for the ‘permanent wave’ hairstyle.
26 Novel twist of fate does entertain in extremis (4,2,4)
EAST OF EDEN – Anagram [twist] of FATE DOES, E{ntertai}N [in extremis]. The novel by John Steinbeck is also remembered as one of the few films to star James Dean before his untimely death.
Down
2 Person testing ditch, climbing on digger (8)
EXAMINER – AXE (ditch – sack, get rid of) reversed [climbing], MINER (digger)
3 Cleaner Englishman is bowled over (3)
MOP – POM (Englishman) reversed [bowled over]
4 Loud individual with curious clothing (5)
NOISY – I (individual) contained by NOSY [with ‘curious’ clothing]
5 Rebellious warrior in stirrups to hurry up (7)
HOTSPUR –  Reversed [up] and hidden in {stir}RUPS TO H{urry}. ‘Harry Hotspur’ was Sir Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland. His exploits as a ‘rebellious warrior’ are well-documented on the web for those who wish to know more.
6 Overcharge for help when driving in wood (9)
PROFITEER – PRO (for),  then TEE (help when driving) contained by [in] FIR (wood), I was caught out by FIR clued as ‘wood’ very recently so it came to mind easily today.
7 Old London bigwig opening for Warwickshire, scoring century (11)
WHITTINGTON – W{arwickshire} [opening], HITTING (scoring) TON (century). ‘Thrice Lord Mayor of London’ and cat owner whose name lives on in the traditional rhyme and Christmas pantomime.
8 Starter of nectarine slices cooked in China (6)
FRIEND – N{ectarine} [starter] is contained by [slices] FRIED (cooked). Today’s CRS clue.
12 Wasted cash consuming a drink? Another is reckless (5-6)
HARUM-SCARUM – Anagram [wasted] of CASH containing [consuming] A + RUM (drink), then RUM again (another – drink). I was pleased the wordplay was helpful here or I may have been tempted to write ‘harem-scarem’.
15 Awareness one is overwhelmed by life, say (9)
SENTIENCE – I (one) contained [overwhelmed] by SENTENCE (life, say  – prison sentence)
16 Partner’s accommodated at home after refusal to propose (8)
NOMINATE – NO (refusal), MATE (partner) with IN (at home) contained [accommodated]
18 Group that is breaking glasses (7)
SPECIES – IE (that is) contained by [breaking] SPECS (glasses)
19 A lot of extra alcohol or spirits (6)
MORALE – MOR{e} (extra) [a lot of], ALE (alcohol)
21 Military leader adopting Leninist principles (5)
CREDO – CO (military leader – Commanding Officer) containing [adopting] RED (Leninist)
24 Well I never shortened anorak (3)
GEE – GEE{k} (anorak) [shortened]

66 comments on “Times Cryptic 26804”

  1. Home early, which was good as this took a good while. I particularly liked Hotspur, but didn’t know slap so opted for the almost parseable pawprint. I’ll check back later for the friend/mate/China discussion. Thanks jkt
  2. … with the 29:13 outcome, given my continuing struggle with on-line solving on the Times site. Might do better without the continual reminder of the clock running in the corner. Suggestion: let’s have the option of turning it off in the Settings?

    Also held up by MORALE (so many possibilties here) and the two 21s. COD? Hard to say. MINISTRATION perhaps?

    1. Mct, there’s a Timer On/Off option via the cogwheel (RH above the clues) in the Club. In the on-line newspaper it’s on the hamburger menu in the same position.

      Just thought, is the cogwheel new since last week? I thought there was a hamburger menu on both sites.

      1. Jack,
        Thanks for updating me.
        I’ll be sure to use it in future.
        Now … I just need to find an optometrist on this site and all my woes will disappear!
        1. You and me both, although my workaround produces a very satisfactory result I very much resent having to do it.

          I knew about the timer option because it was added to the Quickie eventually after complaints that the clock ticking away was a distraction. I’d like to think I’d have been surprised if it hadn’t also been a feature of the new puzzle site, but that would have been naive on my part given some of the other unnecessary changes we’ve witnessed. Anyway they’ve got that one right and I think you will find that when you’ve turned it off once it stays turned off for all future solves.

          Edited at 2017-08-15 05:55 am (UTC)

          1. The comparison with the Groan continues to haunt me.

            What they did was to offer both the old and the new forms for quite a while, until the feedback on the latter showed it to work for the majority of solvers.
            So the change wasn’t abrupt and full of glitches.
            We seem to be going through a major change without feedback and without the alternative of the original until the revised version works properly.

            1. Hardly without feedback, I think. They have received a huge number of compaints and frankly insulting comments on line so they are well aware of general dissatisfaction. At the moment they are fire-fighting but presumably at some stage there will be a big discussion between Times management and the developers and decisions will be taken as to the future.
              1. I really hope it can be improved. I’m officially partially sighted (have a card to prove it!) and am finding it a strain to read the clues in the printed version. The numbers in the grid are minuscule. I can’t believe it’s not fixable. It was pointed out to me yesterday by someone here that my complaint about small font size had registered in the “Feedback” column of Saturday’s Times. I think we must keep the pressure on. Ann
  3. HI all. Like Jack I started fast, but sloes, and then picked up again and mopped up. Well constructed puzzle altogether, around 25 minutes here, ending with PERM. Didn’t know kanji either, but after a couple of crossing letters it had to be. Regards.
  4. DNF ‘cos I got hung up on 21ac being CANARD – ‘fake news’!
    CONFIT or COMFIT -a sweetmeat and not just duck but liquorice too, if my memory serves me well. Pontefract fare. I don’t know how the daffy duck got involved!

    So although I had 16dn NOMINATE I didn’t put it in – complete and utter brain fade.

    FOI 1ac SEAMANSHIP which illuminated itself at the print-out stage.

    COD 8dn FRIEND with 9ac WARPAINT close.

    WOD DOUBLE BUGGERATION!

    Mood Meldrew

    Edited at 2017-08-15 06:30 am (UTC)

  5. 26′ for all bar 19 & 20 and another 13′ for those two. Liked PROFITEER a lot, even if my skills in that department could do with some honing.
  6. 40 mins of enjoyment with overnight oats (and macadamia nuts). A friend recently visited Japan and had explained the peculiarities of the written language – but it still took me a while to fathom the ideo-anagram. Mostly I liked: Mini-Station, Hitting ton, help when driving. COD to 2dn for simple elegance and surface. Nice to see Steinbeck not in the TLS.
    Thanks ‘just the right degree of difficulty’ setter and Jack.
  7. A line from WARPAINT, an early sixties single from the Brook Brothers. Anyone else anal- retentive enough to remember it? I doubt if 9 across would have been spotted without that. I was 40 minutes overall, with the SE the problem. Not only did I not know what kanji is, I’m not too sure what LOI IDEOGRAM is either. But I am partial to CONFIT of duck and once Steinbeck and James Dean reminded me of EAST OF EDEN, I was there. Turn again COD WHITTINGTON. Thank you Jack and setter.
    1. “You’re not going to fight a war / You’re only going out with the boy next door”.
  8. Almost exactly an hour for me today. Looking back, doesn’t seem v. difficult but I was sucked in by a few including ‘China’ and ‘wood’ and the parsing of others such as NEUROSURGEON took some working out. I liked the ‘Cleaner Englishman’ and ‘shortened anorak’.

    No Darwin that I could see.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

  9. 13:49 … in hindsight easy, at the time not so much.

    I did ‘pencil’ in harem-scarem so it’s as well I had an attack of diligence and went back to consider the wordplay.

    Lots of nice things here. I really liked the surface for FRIEND, and had some fun misunderstanding 21a and wondering what a “duck attack” would look like.

    COD to PRINTING, though.

    1. Anyone who has witnessed some of their mating habits won’t need to wonder about this!
      1. Well, I was pretty unfamiliar. But I’ve just watched part of an episode called ‘No sex please, we’re Egyptian’ which has put that right. Thank you.
  11. COD to HOTSPUR.
    Reminded by 26a by EAST OF EALING – the third of nine novels in The Brentford Trilogy by Robert Rankin. You can probably see why I don’t do the TLS.
  12. …and unlike yesterday, a solid effort against a strong attack, with most deliveries met with the full face of the bat. A couple of half-parsed thick edges down to third man, including the biff’d MORALE. COD to WARPAINT.

    Edited at 2017-08-15 08:38 am (UTC)

  13. <19 minutes for this enjoyable puzzle. Like boltonwanderer, I remember Warpaint, an early introduction to popular music. Once saw some of Henry IV, was Hotspur in that? COD to MINISTRATION. Thanks jack and setter.
  14. No problem with this – very straightforward

    Hotspur (Harry Percy) is indeed in Henry IV. One of the good things my grammar school did was to encourage amateur dramatics and aged 13 I appeared in Henry IV (part one) as – wait for it – Mistress Quickly! A week before the public performances to a paying audience my voice started to break, leading to a unique portrayal of the lady in question.

  16. 19:57. Well off the wavelength today, it seems. It did feel like I was being a bit dim. For instance I considered a reversal of RA contained in WREN but dismissed the resulting WRAREN. Doh! On the plus side I checked the spelling of HARUM-SCARUM.
    2. I considered Wren straight away, rejected him immediately and then for some reason ran through a list of 4-letter artists rather than architects (Dali, Lely…)
            1. Leeds, Peterborough, Birmingham, QPR and City. Don’t think I’ve missed anyone.
  17. Almost 8 minutes for this puzzle, putting me depressingly behind Jason on all 3 leaderboards today. I am Salieri in a world of Mozarts! Fun puzzle today. I once spent a happy half-hour in the pub thinking of all the words like harum-scarum, higgledy-piggledy, Humpty Dumpty etc in the English language, happy days.

    Edited at 2017-08-15 10:50 am (UTC)

    1. In Steven Pinker’s book, The Language Instinct,he talks about languages having these combo words and why they typically have a ‘less obstruent’ consonant first (e.g. H, R) and a more obstruent consonant second (e.g. P, T, S, D). Hocus-Pocus, Hanky-Panky, Hoity-Toity, Harum-Scarum, Helter-Skelter, Roly-Poly,… even Hoi Polloi and Razzamatazz.
    2. But well ahead of Magoo on 10:38 so nothing to get too depressed about!

      By the way, your 6-month rolling average solving time dropped from 9:33 in June to 9:08 in July, when the overall solving time went up – so July was a good month and you should be encouraged. [I’m still trying to show this sort of info in a nice way – it’s a shame I need to earn a living…]

      1. Yes, I thought to check the SNITCH this morning and was shocked by Magoo’s posted time – presumably he’s taken to doing the puzzle on a rollercoaster? I do feel like I’ve been improving this year, just as I did last year – perhaps that elusive top 10 placing will be mine this November (though more likely pride will come before a careless error in one of the prelim round puzzles…)
    3. A few years ago my son and I started to text each other examples as they occurred to us. It’s almost bewildering how many there are.
  18. Managed to wrap this one up in 27:24, starting with SEAMANSHIP, which was a big help, and finishing with the tricky MORALE. I never spotted the hidden HOTSPUR, but knew Sir H. Percy, and SPUR for hurry was then enough for me to biff and run. Lots to like in this puzzle, MINISTRATION, WHITTINGTON and CONFIT to name but a few. I didn’t know what a kanji was, but the checkers were generous and memories of Katakana keyboards seemed to ring a bell. Thanks setter and Jack.
    1. Very relaxed viewing, thank you. I think what I most need are tips as to how to concentrate and not waste time trying to remember eg the words of a minor hit from nearly sixty years ago. But that adds massively to the enjoyment.
    2. Thanks for the link Mark. I look forward to seeing your real-time solve. I’ll try not to blink.
  20. For those interested, I managed to update the SNITCH page on the weekend to work with the new Club format and it seems to be back to normal. This puzzle has clocked in around average (99), which seems right from the comments.

    I was happy to finish in 36 minutes in a single sitting, not bad for me. Thanks to the setter and Jack.

    1. Noticed yesterday. Great work, thank you Starstruck. I see it’s a bog standard 100 today.
      1. Duly unspammed. Just as I was wondering where to play hunt the snitch my eye was drawn to the suspicious comment message.
  22. Found this a little tough (possibly because of playing poker all night beforehand). Something very satisfying about it though. A little over 40 min. ‘East of Eden’ I thought was poorly written, Steinbeck well past his best. No doubt made a good film though. – joekobi
  23. I found this tough going but finished in about 50 mins. Many self-slaps (happy slappy?) to the head once the penny dropped. 19d went in on a wing and a, well I’m a non-believer, so with fingers frossed (which no doubt has a religious meaning). Sooper Dooper and thanks all.
  24. A most enjoyable puzzle. I stormed away at the start in the NW corner but after 20 minutes ground to a halt in the SW. CONCEIVE and MORALE were my LOI. I can’t see why because they were relatively simple. It’s odd how sometimes really easy clues can trip you up. 31 minutes. Ann
    1. They were my LOIs too, quite often it *is* the unobtrusive ones. MORALE probably should have been quicker as I was thinking “6 letter word ending ALE meaning spirits? Better come back to that”, which seems a bit dim of me. I think I was looking for ghostly spirits…
      1. Glad to hear they caused the experienced some gyp, as it was MORALE that pushed me over the hour and CONCEIVE that stopped me from finishing! Curses.
  26. Still no access to puzzles on club website, so had to do them on main site, where there’s no ‘pause’ facility. (Elapsed time nearly 100 minutes, but didn’t note how much time out.) I did resort to aid for 14ac: I was sure there had to be a Y for yen and a pre-euro currency in there.
  27. I was sure that this puzzle wasn’t as hard as it seemed and that I just had too much else on my mind, which impression the comments here seem to back up. Got HARUM-SCARUM with just the H and the last M, immediately followed by EAST OF EDEN, with just the S and the numeration, then NEUROSURGEON and MINISTRATION——all parsed only as an afterthought. Was glad to remember what “kanji” is! I’m sure I know of Mr. WHITTINGTON only because he had a cat. But then I got distracted and seemingly developed mental blocks about some of the shorter ones. MORALE was my LOI, and I’m a bit surprised to see that I am not the only one. For some reason, I also had a hard time seeing SEAMANSHIP, I am ashamed to say. This would have been quite easy, I think, on another day.
  28. Thanks for PROFITEER, jackkt. In CONCEIVE, is was looking for an old word for ‘is’ (is formerly) Thinsk I might be coming to TftT more often as there don’t seem to be as many frequenting the Club forum since the change, for some reason.
    1. I wonder why that might be!

      Anyway, their loss is our gain, Martin, and it’s good to see you commenting here again.

  29. I spent 33 mins on the puzzle this morning and got all but my last three in (19dn, 20ac and 22ac) before work rather tiresomely intervened. It took me another 10 mins after work to get those three with 20ac my last one in. A good challenge overall, if a bit frustrating to spend so long staring at those last three. COD 19dn very neat. Honourable mentions to 6dn and 2dn, also very neat.

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