Times Cryptic 26900

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
This followed a familar pattern for me in that I solved all but a handful of clues within a gnat’s whisker of my target 30 minutes but then ground to a halt and needed nearly as long again to polish off the remainder. The recalcitrant ones were all in the upper NW corner. One by one those answers came to me, but it was like drawing teeth. There are a couple of bits of wordplay I’m not 100% sure of today so I may need to edit later when others have had their say.

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 Rather smelly student admitted making valiant effort (6)
GAMELY – GAMEY (rather smelly) with L (student) contained [admitted]. ‘Hummy’, ‘niffy’, ‘wiffy’ (sic), ‘pongy’ all went through my mind, but it wasn’t until I had the G-checker in place that the penny dropped..
4 Just has been half-heartedly about to cheer (8)
BRIGHTEN – RIGHT (just) contained by [has…about] BE{e}N [half-heartedly]
10 Match not easily rearranged? (7)
FIXTURE – Cryptic definition
11 Hero on edge, turning over seat behind (7)
PILLION – LIP (edge) reversed [turning over], LION (hero)
12 Frost‘s / verse using archaic language (4)
RIME – Two definitions
13 Bat in jeopardy, along with European mollusc (10)
PERIWINKLE – WINK (bat – eyelid, presumably)  in PERIL (jeopardy), E (European). The parsing presented a few problems here as I started by thinking WINKLE was the mollusc.
15 Posse that disperses at a gallop (9)
POSTHASTE – Anagram [disperses] of POSSE THAT
16 Old HQs initially lacking much-needed water sources (5)
OASES – O (old), {b}ASES (HQs) [initially lacking]
18 Wine the French sent back of superior vintage? (5)
ELDER – RED (wine) + LE (the, French) reversed [sent back]
19 Very low floor (5-4)
KNOCK-DOWN – I has this as a double defintion but on reflection I don’t think ‘floor’  works for  ‘knock-down’ with a hyphen so I’ve counted it as wordplay. Anyway it’s a very fine point and perhaps my first thought was correct.
21 Potential sailor, one with typical scruffy clothing (10)
CAPABILITY – Anagram [scruffy] of TYPICAL containing [clothing] AB (sailor) + I (one)
23 Borderline soft drug (4)
HEMP – HEM (borderline), P (soft)
26 Undoubted competition among papers? Quite the opposite (7)
EVIDENT – Competition (EVENT) among papers (ID) would give us IEVENTD, but what we have in EVIDENT is ‘quite the opposite’
27 Girl trouble faced by a grown-up? (7)
ABIGAIL – AIL (trouble) preceded [faced] by A + BIG (grown-up)
28 Much-followed wind-up by extremists on Twitter (8)
TRENDING – T{witte}R [extremists], ENDING (wind-up). The definition can probably extend to the whole clue.
29 Sound emanating from band causing irritability (6)
CHOLER – Sounds like [sound emanating from] “collar” (band)
Down
1 Third of balls dropped by sportsman’s runner (5)
GOFER – GO{l}FER (sportsman) [third of baLls dropped]
2 “Made the most of” expressed in pithy words, you could say (9)
MAXIMISED – MAXIM-ISED (expressed in pithy words, you could say)
3 Brash couple, initially livening up (4)
LOUD – DUO (couple) + L{ivening} [initially] reversed [up]
5 Theatre to mount play again (7)
REPRISE – REP (theatre), RISE (to mount)
6 Blonde‘s mad dog kills CO (10)
GOLDILOCKS – Anagram [mad] of DOG KILLS CO
7 Packed hotel in credit (5)
THICK – H (hotel – NATO alphabet) in TICK (credit)
8 Nouns split by Spooner confused nobody (3-6)
NON-PERSON – N+ N (nouns) contain [split by] anagram [confused] of SPOONER. What a delight to have a reference to the Reverend without a Spoonerism!
9 Holiday / depression (6)
RECESS – Two meanings. For the second one I was thinking in terms of economic recession but I’m not sure ‘recess’ can be used in that way, however it is a medical term for a cavity or depression in an organ.
14 Wanting cash for biscuit (10)
SHORTBREAD – SHORT (wanting), BREAD (cash)
15 Clairvoyant now touring Jersey with neighbours (9)
PRESCIENT – PRESENT (now) containing [touring] CI (Jersey with neighbours – Channel Islands)
17 Try to hinder / division in the countryside? (9)
STONEWALL – Two meanings, although once again the second requires a slight adjustment to the enumeration as it would be two words, so it’s probably wordplay.
19 Huge weight I left with faulty casing overturned (7)
KILOTON –  NOT OK (faulty) reversed [overturned] containing [casing] I + L (left)
20 Unqualified support for public spending (6)
OUTLAY – On edit, and with many thanks to ulaca for parsing it correctly:  LAY (unqualified) supporting OUT (public). It’s customary for duty bloggers not to delete their errors when corrected by a contributor, but it’s very early in the day and out of sheer embrrassment at having got it so totally wrong, I decided to make an exception in this case.
22 A lot of big cats prefer gutted fish (5)
PRIDE – P{refe}R [gutted], IDE (fish)
24 Remote northern city between two rivers (5)
POLAR – LA (city) contained by [between] PO + R (two rivers). I think ‘northern’ has to be part of the definition here.
25 Having sex between married couple? (4)
WITH – IT (sex) contained by [between] W + H (married couple – Wife / Husband)

46 comments on “Times Cryptic 26900”

    1. I’m glad the obfuscatory tactics in my introduction regarding my solving time seem to have worked, but after your help with the parsing at 20dn I feel rather obliged to state more clearly that I needed only a minute or two short of an hour to complete this puzzle.
  3. Sooth-east caused my hold-ups.

    FOI 6dn GOLDILOCKS

    LOI 27ac ABIGAIL

    COD 8dn NON-PERSON not a bloody Spoonerism for once!

    WOD 13ac PERIWINKLE – didn’t see the Bat!

    A very staccato performance!

    Edited at 2017-12-05 03:14 am (UTC)

  4. I wanted to quibble with the definition for GAMELY, but finally decided to go out of character, cut the setter some slack and accept “making valiant effort” as some sort of adverbial phrase in this context.

    I couldn’t see BRIGHTEN without the checkers (nice surface: to think there could be one word for that!).

    Last one in was PILLION, a word new to me; I had “seat” “turning over” as (PAL<–) and could only think of PALADIN for “hero,” which didn’t fit THICK.

    It’s cool that you have the requisite number of letters on both sides of “disperses,” so it is at first unclear whether the anagram fodder is “at a gallop” or “Posse that.”

    Seems we’ve had Jersey and CI with a regularity recently, and you didn’t have to be clairvoyant to get that one.

    What made this one chewy was the deft and elegant deployment of standard xword fare. Everything seemed easy *after* the penny dropped. PRIDE was also one to be proud of. I used the clues for CAPABILITY and ELDER to give an idea of how these things work to a woman I was talking to in the restaurant after dinner.

    1. “Making a valiant effort” for GAMELY seemed fine to me. We need all the words we can get for this sort of attitude as we’ve just lost “manfully” as being non-PC.

      Edited at 2017-12-05 06:11 am (UTC)

  5. I went offline and onlunch after 30′, with 1 & 10 ac and 1 & 2d unsolved, which is how the remained for most of the sandwich. I actually thought of ‘gamy’ early on, but not, alas, of ‘gamey’; I was actually reduced to dithering between ‘gamble’ and ‘gambly’ until I saw the light. Duh. Similar, if less embarrassing, amount of time with 1d. Happy to see the non-Spoonerism, and struck by Goldilocks.
  6. I also found this quite tough, needing 52 minutes. Like guy_du_sable I flirted with a paladin at 11a even though I have at least once ridden PILLION, but that was the least of my worries.

    I found the SE hardest, and still hadn’t actually parsed 25d WITH before I came here, despite having got the definition and half the wordplay! Sometimes that penny just refuses to drop, and hangs steadfastly in space with no visible means of support.

    FOI 22d PRIDE, as I dotted about the grid looking for an easier start having been stymied by the NW corner. LOI 9d RECESS, though it was obvious the third time I came back to it. It was WITH, ABIGAIL, POLAR and CHOLER that took the most solving, I think. COD 2d MAXIMISED.

    WOD REPRISE, DNWOD (definitely-not-word-of-the-day) KILOTON, which seems like an unwieldy mix of metric and imperial.

  7. 15:42 … last in CHOLER, just as I was starting to wonder if I had a crossing letter wrong.

    Some really ingenious surfaces, like the mind-scrambling grammar in the clue for BRIGHTEN.Many terrific clues but I’ll pick out PERIWINKLE (I love the bat in jeopardy).

  8. I was verrrrrry glad I didn’t just bung in GAMBLE. Surely a B.L. is some kind of student in the manner of a B.A. or B.Sc? Or perhaps just the kind of half-a**ed sandwich a student would make.

    A tough puzzle whose wavelength I was far from, and I sailed well over the 10 minute mark.

  9. 60 mins with yoghurt, granola, banana and home-made blueberry compote. Delicious. More on marmite later.
    The crossword – very trickily put together, I thought – with some chewy elements possible in all corners, depending on solver wavelength. My issue was the SE – with ‘With’, Abigail, Polar and Choler taking 20 of my minutes. Ten of those were probably spent trying to justify ‘ITem’ for the sexy couple.

    Mostly I liked: Brighten, Bat in jeopardy, Goldilocks and Outlay (COD).

    Thanks tricky setter and Jack.

    Having been reminded of crumpets by gothick-matt and taking up Horryd’s idea of marmite with eggs – on Sunday I had crumpets with marmite, topped with fried duck eggs. I commend this combo to the house.

    Edited at 2017-12-05 08:39 am (UTC)

    1. We ALWAYS put Marmite on the toast before topping with scrambled eggs. I’m always amazed that our Guests seem surprised at this most perfect of combos!

    2. I found this very hard and got nowhere near finishing. I was sunk by putting “Plucky” in for 1A. “Pucky” being an American slang word for fecal so certainly foul smelling and then an L for student. I also saw what i thought was a hidden word: “erse” in “Frost’s verse using archaic language.” So a litany of errors.
      1. At least you’re thinking in the right way to get into cryptic clues. All combinations are worth considering. I considered PLUCKY myself….
  10. 27.24, so quite a struggle, mostly across the entire puzzle. The SE was my last completed, with STONEWALL and CHOLER taking about equal aeons. I’m still wondering whether stone walls are a specifically rural thing: dry ones, maybe, but then there’s the stonewalls that do/don’t make a prison.
    PERIWINKLE I only sorted out post solve.
    I’ve been mulling over what the embarrassing version of OUTLAY is. Perhaps it’s better not to ask.
    1. Only embarrassing because I so completely misunderstood the parsing of a fairly simple clue after 10 years of blogging. And you wouldn’t believe how much time I had spent thinking about it. I should have realised instinctively that a complete rethink was required.

      Edited at 2017-12-05 09:24 am (UTC)

      1. You’re not alone, jackkt. I was also attempting to parse it with the elements the wrong way round. But not being required to explain it to anyone I gave it a second glance then put it in with a shrug.
      2. Don’t beat yourself up Jack. In a recent Mephisto I biffed an answer, entered it into the blog, forgot to parse it and thus didn’t realise I had it wrong!
  11. 39 minutes. I knew it would be a struggle when 15a was my first in. I worked steadily around from there back to the NW corner which made no more sense the second time around, not helped by bunging in OPTIMISED in desperation. Finally seeing FIXTURE put me right on that but that corner must have taken half my total time. Excellent puzzle.
  12. Tricky one this that needed a lot of concentration. Some excellent clues. 8D a write-in from definition “nobody” starting and finishing with “n” so never became confused by thoughts of the Doctor

    Thank you setter and well done Jack

  13. … gave up after an hour or so with gaps in the NW and SE… Also a couple went in unparsed (BRIGHTEN, PERIWINKLE, only knew the plant not the mollusc!). Not a good day at all…

  14. 39 minutes. I knew it would be a struggle when 15a was my first in. I worked steadily around from there back to the NW corner which made no more sense the second time around, not helped by bunging in OPTIMISED in desperation. Finally seeing FIXTURE put me right on that but that corner must have taken half my total time. Excellent puzzle.
  15. Actually remembered “it” and the NATO alphabet, and was pleased to see Spooner wasn’t a spoonerism, I hate those.
    Let myself down for a while though, trying to fit the Ashes with “bat in jeopardy” ..
    Generally an improvement and finish for a slow learner.
    Roin
    1. Welcome, Roin, if you are new to the board. I don’t recall seeing your name before. Please stick around and join in the fun!

      Edited at 2017-12-05 11:43 am (UTC)

  16. Solved while listening to the tense last hour of play from Adelaide, which didn’t make a tough puzzle any easier. Anyway, this was a Test match standard puzzle, with no 20/20 style biffing, which meant I went over the half-hour for the first time in a while. Still, like a vintage Geoffrey Boycott innings, I got there in the end, just not very quickly. As others found, the NW corner was a real tussle, in which I wasn’t helped by being unable to unsee my first stab at OPTIMISATION. Well done, setter, and, of course, blogger, for having to solve and also show your working.

    I couldn’t parse OUTLAY either, so I’m glad I was able to come here for the correct version 🙂

  17. Like most above, I got mightily bogged down in the SE. Still don’t like HEMP for drug – in fact I have this quote from a website: ‘Hemp is a non-drug variety of the Cannabis plant with many uses’. COD STONEWALL for the devilish misdirection. Also liked the WH description of a married couple which I had not come across before.
    1. As an inveterate pot head, I was also going to lodge the same objection.

      But it slipped my mind.

  18. 16:05. Quite tough, this, but I thought it was a really excellent puzzle. Nothing obscure or tenuous, just, as guy_du_sable says, deft and elegant deployment of standard xword fare. Lots of clues that seemed completely impenetrable until suddenly they seemed blindingly obvious.
    20dn, OUTLAY, which seems to have caused some problems, is a particularly excellent clue. A completely convincing surface coupled with wordplay that is doing something completely different.
  19. No real foothold for me in this one, and particular issues in the NW corner, led to a >20 minute time again.

    Tempted to throw in BRIGHTON at 4a (no, me neither) but the penny dropped in time.

    2d biffed and only understood after reading the blog.

    COD to the non-spoonerism, but I do have a feeling that’s happened before – so one to look out for in chestnut-land soon?

  21. I was late up still a bit jet -lagged and then had to watch the cricket while doing this, so no accurate time, which is perhaps as well for my ongoing credibility. It was certainly greater than that of both Jack and Ulaca. OUTLAY was parsed the wrong way round too. LOI CHOLER. COD PERIWINKLE which I know more as a flower than a mollusc, and which I certainly didn’t solve in the bat of an eye. Took ages to work out the MAXIM-ISED pun. Good cricket, good puzzle. It’s good to be back.Thank you Jack and setter.
    1. Welcome back. Cricket was so much fun I didn’t start the crossword until stumps. Loved the Barmy Army and the ‘no reviews left’ caper.

      Edited at 2017-12-05 12:53 pm (UTC)

  22. 21 minutes, of which, like sotira, CHOLER held me up for a few at the end; had to do an alphabet think of words with C, P,S,T or W before an H before the sound alike penny dropped. Kept thinking ‘band’ as in musicians making a sound.
    If I’d had to go back and parse the ones I’d correctly biffed, like MAXIMISED and CAPABILITY, I’d have taken a bit longer. Well blogged jackkt.
  24. I found this tough too, with the NW corner taking longest, also with a biffed OPTIMISED causing problems. OUTLAY went in with a shrug and not fully understood until coming here. Liked NON PERSON and GOLDILOCKS. RIME was my FOI, but the rest of the NW had to wait for FIXTURE before it fell. LOI was GAMELY which was almost GAMBLE. Luckily I avoided falling at the last fence. 42:17. Lovely puzzle. Thanks setter and John.

    Edited at 2017-12-05 04:21 pm (UTC)

  25. Nearly an hour – and with a carelessly biffed FOI of OASIS, not checked before last-minute submission (I must remember to use ‘pencil’ to remind me that AN answer is unparsed).
    The design of the grid meant that solution came in quarters – SW, NW, NE and SE taking most of the total time, CHOLER being LOI.
  26. Great puzzle. One of those where you keep kicking yourself after seeming to waste ages on something that seems obvious with hindsight. Judging by the other comments, though, I wasn’t being particularly 7dn after all.Thought 15ac was cleverly balanced: tried for an age to anagramise at-a-gallop. Took far too long to see why 25dn (LOI) was “with”, despite being convinced it had to have “it” in the middle. Desperately wanted 14dn to be Garibaldi with two b’s, but fortunately didn’t commit myself. COD perhaps Goldilocks – such an unlikely anagram. Overall a superb crossword: well done setter and blogger. 21.58.

    Edited at 2017-12-05 05:03 pm (UTC)

  27. I did about half of this in a 30 minute session at lunchtime and most of the rest in another 20 minute session after work. That left me with 1ac, 10ac, 1dn and 3dn to get. However those last few took me ages, probably more than double the time already spent on the puzzle. Eventually saw gofer and then they all fell within a couple of minutes. A real struggle requiring much perseverance though. FOI 16ac. LOI 3dn. COD 21ac where I thought “typical scruffy clothing” was superb. I had a ? at 23ac and the drug definition of hemp. I wondered in 24dn if LA was a northern city, I supposed it would be relatively speaking in the USA but I think that it works better to see it as part of the def, as the blogger has it. The non-spoonerism at 8dn took far to long to twig – I spent a long time down a blind alley with that one.
  28. 23:45… although I don’t suppose anyone is still reading here two days later. I liked this puzzle and was pleased not to get stuck, and actually finished in under my long term average time. 13a my COD. I must remember WINK for BAT in future. I liked GOLDILOCKS too. I never parsed 2d, so thanks for the explanation Jack. As for 19a, I had no problem with ‘floor’ for ‘knock down’… as in what a boxer does to his opponent, and I don’t mind that the hyphen belongs in the definition but not the wordplay.

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