Times Cryptic 26960

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

I needed 27 minutes for this,  so for once on my blogging day I am within my target half-hour. I have perhaps a little more than usual to say about some of the clues, so I shall spare you a lengthy preamble and just cut to the chase.

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 Northerner initially moaning on beds in sick bay (8)
SCOTSMAN – COTS (beds) + M{oaning} [initially] contained by [in] SAN (sick bay). Rather interestingly we have an example here of a Times cryptic convention of which  I was unware until last week although I have been blogging puzzles for TftT for more than 10 years now. It concerns the use of  ‘on’ as a linking word  and states that ‘A on B’ in an Across clue translates to B + A, whereas in a Down clue it is interpreted as A + B. So in this Across clue we have M (from moaning) [A] on COTS (beds) [B] giving us COTS [B] + M [A]. If you want to read more about this with comments from the current Times Crossword Editor (Richard Rogan), look in the General Forum on the Crossword Club site under “Positional Indicator Protocol”. There’s also discussion in my blog for puzzle 26954 here – it begins about half way down the page with a comment by Nila Palin (posting as anon). Research I carried out before RR gave us his ruling suggests that setters do not always adhere to this as I found a number of examples in old puzzles that don’t comply with it. I understand that the convention does not apply to ST puzzles, although as far as I’m aware  we haven’t had this officially from Peter B.
6 Reportedly observe and intimidate marine mammal (3,3)
SEA COW – SEA sounds [reportedly] like “see” (observe), COW (intimidate). Aka ‘Sirenia’ in case anyone wants to remember it for future reference.
9 Old ruler head of school dropped in flipping grass (4)
TSAR – S{chool} [head] contained by [dropped in] RAT (grass) reversed [flipping]
10 Former language bores actor when translated (5-5)
SERBO-CROAT – Anagram [translated] of BORES ACTOR. I was puzzled by  ‘former language’ so I consulted Collins and found this: ‘a former name for the Serbian and Croatian languages considered together as branches of the same language, belonging to the South Slavonic branch of the Indo-European family. Serbian is usually written in the Cyrillic alphabet, Croatian in Roman’. I’ve never understood the need to include terms such as “former” with reference to things historical e.g. should we expect to be spoonfed “former” King or Queen when referring to a monarch other than the current Queen?, and see also 9ac.
11 Leningrad’s unusual variety of shore bird (10)
SANDERLING – Anagram [unusual variety] of LENINGRAD’S. Never ‘eard of it.
13 See about getting artist involved in examination (4)
ORAL – LO (see) reversed [about] containing [getting…involved] RA (artist)
14 Sheriff’s officer spat furiously during argument (8)
TIPSTAFF – Anagram [furiously] of SPAT contained by [during] TIFF (argument). Cf 9ac and 10ac, I wonder why this has not been clued as ‘former’ or ‘old’  sheriff’s officer?
16 Expenditure not in place (6)
OUTLAY – OUT (not in – a Baldrick-style definition), LAY (place)
18 Seasoned food served by girl with friend in Paris (6)
SALAMI – SAL (girl), AMI (friend in Paris)
20 Want son to entertain the French? That’s uncalled-for (8)
NEEDLESS – NEED (want) + S (son) contains [to entertain] LES ( the, French)
22 Assist in a B movie? (4)
ABET – A, B, ET (movie). Simple but  effective.
24 Month one catches girl from East dressing? (10)
MAYONNAISE – MAY (month), ONE contains [catches] SIAN (girl) reversed [from East]. Not defined as ‘salad cream’ this time, thank goodness!
26 Wind instrument delivered — advantage husband accepted (6,4)
BASSET HORN – ASSET (advantage) + H (husband) is contained [accepted] by BORN (delivered). Vaguely related to the clarinet apparently.
28 Setback for old archbishop’s double (4)
DUAL – LAUD (old archbishop) reversed [setback]. He fell victim to the politics of the Civil War and was beheaded at the Tower. ‘Old’ helpfully excludes the current archbishes, but as they’re not dead they wouldn’t qualify anyway.
29 Senior officer given bill covering case of gin and brandy (6)
COGNAC – CO (senior officer) + AC (bill) containing [covering] G{i}N [case]
30 Educated Liberal fuming about note (8)
LITERATE – L (Liberal) + IRATE (fuming) containing [about] TE (note)
Down
2 Fellow celeb originally idolised around mountainous state (5,4)
COSTA RICA – CO-STAR (fellow celeb), I{dolised} [originally], CA (around). I had to read a long way through a very long entry on Wiki to find mention of mountains. It certainly has them, but does their presence really define the country?
3 In Times, article following first of Reith lectures (7)
TIRADES – R{eith}[first] + A (article) contained by [in] TIDES (Times). ‘Article on first of Reith’ would have given us another example of the convention discussed at 1ac but ‘following’ makes it absoultely clear what’s expected here. Sir John Reith was Director General of the BBC 1927-1938, and radio lectures in his honour, inaugurated in 1948, are held annually to this day.
4 Meanie in firm is erratic … (5)
MISER – Hidden in {fir}M IS ER{ratic}
5 … and not half common! (3)
NOR – NOR{mal} (common) [not half]
6 Bird from south currently settled on tailor’s iron (4,5)
SNOW GOOSE – S (south), NOW (currently), GOOSE (tailor’s iron, so called from the resemblance of the handle to a goose’s neck). Snow bunting yesterday, snow goose today!
7 Article Irish left in travel complex (7)
AIRPORT – A (article), IR (Irish), PORT (left)
8 City given prestigious award — I’m surprised! (5)
OMAHA – OM (prestigious award – Order of Merit), AHA (I’m surprised!)
12 Early childhood, I suspect, includes introduction to neighbours (7)
INFANCY – I + FANCY (suspect) contains [includes] N{eighbours} [introduction]
15 Man after a vote and a nervous affliction — that’s self-evident (9)
AXIOMATIC – A, X (vote), IOM (Man – Isle Of…), A, TIC (nervous affliction)
17 Like second coffee? Send out new aide (9)
ASSISTANT – AS (like), S (second), I{n}STANT (coffee?) [send out new – N]
19 Craftsman lives with terrier at first in Atlantic islands (7)
ARTISAN – T{errier} [at first] + IS (lives) contained by [in] ARAN (Atlantic islands). I can’t find anything to suggest that ‘t’ or ‘T’ is recognised as an abbreviation for ‘terrier’ (at dog shows perhaps?) in which case ‘at first’ is needed here to tell us we need only use the first letter of the word. So unless ‘at first’ is doing double duty (frowned upon) that leaves us without indication that T is to be placed before, or in this case above, IS, only that it’s ‘with’ it. But perhaps there’s also a positional indicator protocol concerning ‘with’ that I haven’t heard about. The Aran Islands are off the west coast of Ireland btw.
21 Hero’s lover’s name revealed in editorial (7)
LEANDER – N (name) contained by [revealed in] LEADER (editorial). Hero was a priestess of Aphrodite in the Greek myth.
23 Runner possibly taking over party (5)
BEANO – BEAN (runner possibly), O (over)
25 Musical work: I must be inspired holy writ? (5)
NONET – ONE (I) contained [inspired] by NT (holy writ – New Testament)
27 Work laboriously, lacking time to get fuel (3)
OIL – {t}OIL (work laboriously) [lacking time]

75 comments on “Times Cryptic 26960”

  1. Thanks, Jack, for the blog. I’m delighted to be around your time with all correct on what seems to be a puzzle on the easy side.

    I was unfamiliar with the Aran Islands or with “goose” as a tailor’s iron, but these made sense. Similarly SANDERLING seemed the best fit of letters for the anagram.

    I was familiar with SERBO-CROAT as one of the official languages in our end-of-school exams. There was only a small contingent that took it (perhaps a handful in 35,000 total students in our state) so they pushed it to the final exam of the year, many days after most students were celebrating their new-found freedom.

    Thanks to the setter.

  2. I found this considerably easier than yesterday’s – though they are running neck and neck on tha SNITCHOMETER – finishing in 19 minutes with the two unknown birds.

    In the old days, Croato-Serb was what a Dalmatian spoke. They’re all barking in the Balkans…

  3. Didn’t see tides = times for a bit but that didn’t much slow up a good, for me, 35 min. Some cleverly hidden definitions I thought. At 24ac I had it as one around a reversed Sian, Jack. Nice discussion of the ins and outs, overs and unders, of “on” and former.

    Edited at 2018-02-13 03:39 am (UTC)

    1. Thanks for pointing out my slip of the fingers, now corrected. I considered ‘ANN reversed’ when parsing the clue, discounted it when I spotted SIAN but obviously still had it in mind when I came to write the blog.
      1. I probably wouldn’t have noticed, except that I generally try to spell mayonnaise with one ‘n’ and two ‘s’s so I stumbled around in that part of the word during my solve.
  4. I had the same reaction as Jack to 10ac, 2d, and 19d. ‘Former language’ to me means something like Etruscan. As with Hindi/Urdu, essentially the same language is named differently by two groups who don’t like each other. And the only reason I can think of for ‘mountainous’ is that the setter wanted to suggest a US state. The Aran Islands are the scene of Synge’s “Riders to the Sea” (Lenehan or someone makes fun of it [“It’s desthroyed we are”] in “Ulysses”, but I liked it). And it’s the scene of Robert J. Flaherty’s 1934 quasi-documentary film “Man of Aran”, which is definitely worth seeing.
    1. I don’t think Serbo-Croat is a ‘former’ language at all. My understanding is that Serbo-Croat is one language, mutually intelligible but written in different scripts by Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats (not to mention Bosnians and Montenegrins.) Since the break-up of Yugoslavia nationalists on all sides claim to speak either Serbian or Croatian (or Bosniac or Montenegrin) but they still understand each other. Serbo–Croat lives!
  5. My LOI was a four-letter word, because this religious official didn’t spring immediately to mind but did ring a faint bell when I had the checkers and nothing else to do but stare at them for a few seconds.

    I’m afraid Jack is right about ARTISAN, seems there’s a terrierable misstep.

    Edited at 2018-02-13 05:16 am (UTC)

    1. Craftsman lives with terrier at first in Atlantic islands

      This is IS with T- in ARAN. ‘With’ does not necessarily mean ‘followed by’ in The Times as far as I know, so the clue seems sound to me.

  6. I never thought of 8dn OMAHA as a city – more a beach!
    So for some careless reason I went early for OSAKA!

    So a DNF in 22mins.

    FOI6ac SEA COW

    LOI DUAL

    COD 14ac TIPSTAFF

    WOD MAYONNAISE

    1. On another day a biffed OSAKA could have done for me. Luckily I hesitated long enough today to come up with OMAHA.
    2. I spent time trying to figure out which letter in Oaxaca didn’t belong and how to get rid of it
  7. 16:11 so not quite as easy as yesterday’s but not by much. I missed the ARTISAN controversy as with three checkers in place I read ‘craftsman’ and wrote it in without a second glance. Not familiar with the tailor’s iron but again there was little room for doubt. An awful lot of containment clues today – 14 if I have counted correctly?
  9. 40m. Would’ve been a bit faster if I’d managed to recall the “goose” iron from previous puzzles—it was driving me mad for ages trying to remember it. FOI 6a SEA COW; happy to come here and find that my final two crossers of DUAL and ASSISTANT were right; I’d not spotted the coffee and I didn’t know the archbishop.

    Enjoyed 5d, 15d, can’t quite believe how long it took me to spot the hidden. Good fun with a few unknowns or near-unknowns (BASSET HORN and TIPSTAFF especially) slowing me down a bit. Thanks to Jack and setter.

  10. Re ARTISAN, “with” doesn’t imply any order. It’s what they’d call in mathematics a commutative operation, like addition—in fact, it practically is addition I.e A + B = B + A
  11. 9:35 … not hard, not easy-peasy (though Aphis with a time of 4:27 might disagree).

    I suppose the test used for when to include ‘former’ is Is anyone going to complain if we don’t?

    ‘Mountainous’ Costa Rica threw me off, as well, jackkt, but then I’ve only seen it on TV. Anyone been there?

    Progress (surely): we no behead senior clergymen, we just moan about them in the comments sections of The Times and the Telegraph

    1. I’m afraid the answer to that is inevitably ‘yes’ on almost any occasion so rather than erring on the side of caution (in my view, what today’s setter has done) I’d prefer setters to ignore the whole concept and just accept that historical references don’t have to be indicated as such. Bona fide archaisms are a different matter.
      1. I would agree. I would expect anything that has “(arch.)” next to it in the dictionary to have an “old” or “once” somewhere in the clue; likewise a country or city which has changed names, perhaps, but it would be odd to demand clarification that the setter didn’t actually think Pitt was still PM, say.
      1. Well I never. Assuming that’s not because it’s famed for cheese and excessive secrecy, I guess that seals it.
    3. My granddaughter is going there in July with Camps International. My daughter calls it Costa Packet! She’s also fitting in a visit to Nicaragua. It’s to hug trees and plant water or something similar:-)
      1. Sounds wonderful, cost aside. And there’s nothing nobler than hugging trees etc etc. We need more of it.
    5. I assumed my COSTA RICA fitted the def. purely because I know they grow lots of good coffee there, and I know coffee does well at altitude. It’s a shame I have to make inferences like this rather than knowing anything about world geography!
  12. About 22 mins with porridge. No banana.
    If anything, I thought a tad easier than yesterday, notwithstanding the Aran, Laud and Tailor’s Iron.
    What an eclectic bunch of answers today.
    Mostly I liked (COD) Beano.
    Thanks setter and Jack.
  13. Second easy one on the trot – never got out of second gear

    In Mephisto “old” (or synonyms) usually indicate a word that is no longer in current usage – of which there are a lot in bar puzzles – and that seems fair enough to me. I don’t think we need it as used at 10A

    I also didn’t understand or see the need for the Costa Rican mountains. ARTISAN a write in from definition but can see the point Jack is making in his excellent blog


  14. … so a very quick time for me, ending with a punt at LAUD. I too was confused about the order of T+IS in ARTISAN, and was further confused by not knowing that ARAN could refer to plural islands. SANDERLING unknown, but had to be, same for the tailor’s iron at 6dn. TIPSTAFF unknown too, but worked out, once I’d corrected ‘idiomatic’. Helped today by the definitions, which mostly seem to be fairly straightforward.
  16. Me again, forgetting to log in, with the above neologism, ganderlins. Ganderlins are of course the male version of snow goslin’s.
  17. 9:36. Obviously I found this harder than sotira did.
    The ‘on’ convention seems a bit arbitrary to me: I don’t see why it shouldn’t indicate either AB or BA. Similarly I can’t see anything wrong with 19dn: ‘with’ just means ‘with’, it can be before or after. You’re hardly going to put ARISTAN.
    2. I woudln’t have batted an eyelid at ARTISAN but for the ruling about ON which I was surprised to see RR defending. Peter B wrote here 10 years ago that he couldn’t see a problem with AB or BA but was argued against. We seem to live in strange times editorially with it now being okay to not to bother cluing certain letters in the target word if they happen to be inconvenient!
      1. These are long-standing conventions, are they not? In a down clue ‘on’ = on top, in across, = (immediately) after — and these are designed to help solvers.

        Of course, if we are to see occasional deviation from this in Times xwds within the tenure of a particular editor, then the boot will need to be brought into the editorial rib cage, but I suspect we will find it tough to get any rogue examples.

        Edited at 2018-02-13 02:17 pm (UTC)

        1. The whole thing came to light as a result of a ‘rogue example’ under current editorship in the puzzle I blogged last week. Until then, I had been solving Times puzzles for two decades and blogging them here for just over one decade without ever being aware of the so-called convention.
  18. 12 minutes – no problems, so near a PB. I’m not worried about niceties of sequencing instructions in wordplay – if I can find components of solution and assemble them to fit definition, I’m happy to do that and move on.
  19. so I beat yesterdays’s record. My only DNK was BASSET HORN which doesn’t seem to have been mentioned so far. Am I that ignorant?
  20. Ten minutes slower than yesterday at 19 minutes, gazing over the Lytham St Annes dunes in soft Lancashire drizzle. Isn’t SERBO-CROAT the language where not only does the order of words in the sentence not matter, but neither does the order of letters in the word? DNK about the tailor’s iron but SANDERLING had made SNOW GOOSE a write-in. I didn’t know COSTA RICA was mountainous either. The setter avoided the MAYONNAISE/ salad cream issue, thankfully. LOI OMAHA. I remember reading somewhere that an ARCHBISHOP is much more likely to be killed than a General. Nice puzzle with no stand-out clue. Thank you Jack and setter.

    Edited at 2018-02-13 11:25 am (UTC)

  21. A rare sub-fifteen for me – seemed easier than yesterday’s with a few sub-Timesian clues (e.g. 4, 27). I’d rather sweat blood and not finish.
  22. Today was one of the rare days when I get an opportunity to sit down and have a proper crack at a weekday puzzle. Found this fairly straightforward, but I did not know NONET as a musical term, just as a poetic one (bunged it in anyway…)

    Luckily I knew both the birds, being a bit of a twitcher: had they been unusual trees I wouldn’t have stood a hope in hell!

    Thanks for the learned discourse on the positional rules – something I’d often wondered about but never got round to researching. Must admit my approach has always a bit more cavalier (similar to phmfantom’s comment) – if all the components are there then just run with it. Hence I didn’t think twice about ARTISAN.

    Thanks to setter and to jackkt.

  23. Another mass sprint today, and one where I suppose I am technically disqualified, having apparently submitted ARTISNN, though I imagine it’s unlikely I’d do the same thing if solving on paper. The bird rang enough of a bell for me to write in SANDERLINE before going back and checking the anagram more carefully when that didn’t tally with the goose. BASSET HORN likewise chimed faintly, in that I am aware of its existence along with the sackbut and the crumhorn, though I suspect I thought it was a brass instrument. Interesting discussion of clue assembly; I am one of those who generally tries putting things together, or inserting words, in any way they will go until I spot one which obviously works, though I suppose there ought to be vague rules…
  24. The bananas available this week seem to be smaller than the usual variety, so I had 2 of them with my porridge, blueberries and red grapes today. Then I did this puzzle, taking 21:55 to reach a conclusion with the vaguely heard of SANDERLING. ORAL started me off and the NE filled up nicely, although the goose part of 6d waited for OUTLAY and NEEDLESS before honking its bell. DUAL went in on crossers and definition. TIRADES, TSAR and SANDERLING held me up most. Liked AXIOMATIC. Didn’t know BASSET HORN, but it was a simple construction. Nice puzzle. Thanks setter and Jack.
  25. I took mountainous state to give the CA at the end of Rica, and was going to moan about the parsing ! But if we’re (reluctantly) taking mountainous to describe Costa Rica then so be it.

    Didn’t like the inclusion of ‘in’ in the AIRPORT clue 🙂.

  26. 11:10. I’ve long been familiar with the distinction between the use of “on” in across and down clues but only really call upon that knowledge if trying to piece together a tricky clue from wordplay.

    For the record I thought ARTISAN worked just fine. As others have said WITH doesn’t imply any particular order.

    Right, I’m off to clean the sanderling feathers out of my basset horn.

  27. 18 minutes, speeding up after a slowish start. LOI was beano, since I was convinced the party was ‘do’, and that was only after twigging that the film in 22ac was ET (which it often is!). 5 minutes for those last two.
  28. 20’, did not parse ARTISAN having not heard of the ARAN islands. Late posting as catching up on the cricket…Thanks jack and setter.
  29. FYI Tipstaff is still a current role.
    I have met the Tipstaff in the Royal Courts of Justice and he still (accompanied by police officers) taps people on the shoulder with his staff to arrest them…
    1. Indeed (see vinyl’s earlier posting). Whether they still qualify as “sheriff’s officer” may be open to question but I’m afraid I’m past caring. I only used it as an example.

Comments are closed.