Times Cryptic 26996

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

I needed 44 minutes to crack this one although I don’t think there was anything particularly difficult about it.

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 Horse head on box (8)
CHESTNUT – CHEST (box), NUT (head). A horse of a reddish- or yellowish-brown colour.
5 In France, I try to knock back rich people getting about (3,3)
JET SET – JE (in France, I), TEST (try) reversed [knock back]
9 Tree resembling birch, ultimately (3)
ASH – AS (resembling), {birc}H [ultimately]
10 One is denoting upset — such as this? (11)
INDIGESTION – I (one), anagram [upset] of IS DENOTING. Semi-&lit to account for ‘upset’ doing double-duty.
12 Braid had unravelled, indeed — one of these? (3,4,3)
BAD HAIR DAY – Anagram [unravelled] of  BRAID HAD, AY (indeed). &lit.
13 School polished off broadcast (4)
ETON – Sounds like [broadcast] “eaten” (polished off). We know it’s called Eton College, but it’s still a school.
15 Illegal returns for composer (6)
WALTON – NOT LAW (illegal) reversed [returns]. Something being ‘not law’ doesn’t necessarily make it illegal, but I’m sure we get the idea. Sir William Walton (1902-1983). Wiki lists his greatest hits as Façade, the cantata Belshazzar’s Feast, the Viola Concerto and the First Symphony.
16 Farm food staff put in the shade (7)
PRODUCE – ROD (staff) contained by [put in] PUCE (shade). A bit of a DBE going on here perhaps, but ‘farm produce’ is common enough expression.
18 Account penned by Greek disciple for Roman historian (7)
TACITUS – AC (account) contained [penned] by TITUS (Greek disciple). This would be the Titus that St Paul wrote his epistle to. He later became a Saint himself.
20 Whole books I pretend to bind? (6)
INTACT – I + ACT (pretend) contains [to bind] NT (books – New Testament). I was astounded yestereday watching a TV quiz when Shaun Wallace, barrister and former Mastermind champion, was asked how many Testaments are there in the Christian Bible,  and after some thought he said “four”. The question was then passed to his two challengers, ordinary members of the public, who consulted and answered “five”!
23 Flag trimmed for queen (4)
ANNE – {b}ANNE{r} (flag) [trimmed]
24 Poet — companion at a stretch? (10)
LONGFELLOW – LONG (at a stretch – as in ‘all day long’), FELLOW (companion). By the shores of Gitche Gumee, By the shining Big-Sea-Water, etc for ever.
26 Company ruddy sensitive after issue backfiring — uninspiring result? (2-5,4)
NO-SCORE DRAW – SON (issue) reversed [backfiring], CO (company), RED (ruddy), RAW (sensitive). Simply assemble the components one after the other as directed.
27 Characters furthest from the front in Arnhem take on soldiers (3)
MEN – {arnhe}M, {tak}E, {o}N [characters furthest from the front]
28 Land also beset by unholy war (6)
RWANDA – AND (also) contained [beset] by anagram [unholy] of WAR
29 Noble king, regularly in the dark? (8)
KNIGHTLY – K (king), NIGHTLY (regularly in the dark?)
Down
1 Irritable — as one being shelled? (6)
CRABBY – A straight definition with a cryptic hint
2 European bird finally caught by Asian land mammal (7)
ECHIDNA – E (European) then {bir}D [finally] contained [caught] by CHINA (Asian land). A native of Crosswordland aka the spiny anteater.
3 Possibly Con/Lab/Lib-Dem role, one outwardly well-worn (10)
TRIPARTITE – PART (role) + I (one) contained by [outwardly] TRITE (well-worn)
4 Clear to see / location of moustache? (5,4,4)
UNDER ONES NOSE – Two meanings
6 A breeze passing through tree, a sycamore (4)
EASY – Hidden in [passing through] {tre}E A SY{camore}
7 Beginning to squeeze, manipulated us with Thai massage (7)
SHIATSU – S{queeze} [beginning], anagram [manipulated] of US THAI. Always confused in my mind with the Shih Tzu canine.
8 Bet nurse passing round is occupied (8)
TENANTED – TEND (nurse) containing [passing round] ANTE (bet)
11 Hooker and prop aligning oddly round middle of scrum (9,4)
GRAPPLING IRON – Anagram [oddly] of PROP ALIGNING containing [round] {sc}R{um} [middle]
14 Expect to get around croquet match finally, and peg out (3,3,4)
HOP THE TWIG – HOPE  (expect) + TWIG (get – understand) containing [around] {croque}T + {matc}H [finally]. Two colloquial expressions meaning to die. I’m not familiar with the one in the answer but I know ‘fall off one’s perch’ which is not dissimilar.
17 Small shoe, holes in it (8)
STRAINER – S (small), TRAINER (shoe). I seem to be seeing ‘trainer’ in nearly every puzzle I pick up these days.
19 Article concealed by players before a game (7)
CANASTA – AN (article) contained [concealed] by CAST (players), A. I used to love playing this game – the two-player 15 card version which can be absolutely cut-throat – but I don’t think I could take the stress of it these days so I stick to more relaxing games such as cribbage.
21 In time in Europe, a Scottish smoker finding peace pipe (7)
CALUMET – A +LUM (Scottish smoker) contained by [in] CET (time –  Central European Time). CET covers most of the EU but not the UK. I didn’t know this word (okay, it came up in January last year) but the wordplay was helpful with the LUM ‘Scottish smoker’ leaping off the page at me.
22 Stylish pale blue clothes (6)
SWANKY – SKY (blue) contains [clothes] WAN (pale)
25 Leading Republican once supporting Democrat (4)
FORD – FOR (supporting), D (Democrat). It was said of him that he couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time. Ah, for the good old days when we didn’t appreciate how lucky we were!

54 comments on “Times Cryptic 26996”

  1. I didn’t know CET, but ‘peace pipe’ was a gimme, or would have been if I’d been quicker to remember CALUMET; as it was, I needed a couple of checkers. More troublesome, I didn’t know either ‘peg out’ or HOP THE TWIG, but HOP THE seemed secure, and W G invited TWIG. Thought of ‘ephedra’ and ‘entire’ before finally remembering ECHIDNA and getting INTACT. RWANDA is an &lit, no?
    2. RWANDA is not &lit because “Land” contributes nothing to the wordplay. I would be inclined to call it a semi-&lit or an extended definition, though it does work as just a charade.

      Edited at 2018-03-27 10:30 pm (UTC)

  2. A definite change-up from Friday and Monday’s testers. I liked Bad Hair Day, and it was good for me that Echidna spelled itself. It is one of those words which I cannot pronounce, cannot spell (without help from a cryptic and some crossers), and which I probably wouldn’t care to learn to either say or spell.

    Unlike last month’s variations on Hookah I knew Calumet. I think the Calumet River, near Chicago, is one of the main ways that invasive species – zebra mussels, sea lampreys – get from the Great Lakes into the Mississippi River Basin, and vice versa. They get into the Great Lakes in the bilgewater of ships heading to that well-known port, Duluth. Who knows how they get up the Mississippi.

    Edited at 2018-03-27 02:17 am (UTC)

    1. You bring back happy memories of Miss Imbrie of Duluth in High Society. Now I actually know where the place is!
      1. I like the original Philadelphia Story better – but she’s still from Duluth.
        1. Most people do. I really like High Society – in part because of the Porter songs, especially ‘Well, did you evah’, in part because of Grace Kelly (and Celeste Holm) – but Philadelphia Story is a classic, with the incomparable Cary Grant and of course Miss Box-Office Poison herself. They were brilliant in Bringnig Up Baby too. The golden era of Hollywood – difficult to beat.
  3. by NOTLAW <—,
    and the clue for INDIGESTION is hard to swallow: semi-&lit? Please…
    My overall reaction to this one is, “Meh.” (That’s an Americanism, I guess.) 6 sure was EASY. The answer to 4 was UNDER ONE’S NOSE all right…
    But I did learn what CET means.

    Edited at 2018-03-27 02:52 am (UTC)

  4. Walton was an incorrigible writer of marches. He even manages to sneak one into Belshazzar’s Feast. That said, I wasn’t convinced by this clue.

    Same unknowns/forgottens as everyone else. 27 minutes, so back on the twig after yesterday’s debacle.

  5. Pleased to be not as far behind the pack as I expected. Perhaps helped by ECHIDNA, which is a well-known native animal in Oz, being one of only two species of egg-laying mammals (the other being the platypus).

    I finally now think of LUM every time I see Scottish and smoke, otherwise 21d would have been a struggle.

    Does 1ac live up to its name?

    Thanks to Jack and the setter.

    1. You should add REEK to your vocab also. It’s Scots for “smoke” and appears in the saying “Long may your lum reek” meaning “I hope you live a long life”
  6. Never heard of Hop the Twig. I had heard of Pop ones Clogs so I just transposed the Pop to 14d and was wrong! Canasta is also in today’s Concise.
    35m 13s with that one error, otherwise a straightforward puzzle.
  7. DNF .. and Did Not Really Try. I got a bad feeling about both the HOP THE TWIG and WALTON clues and just came here for the answers. Glad I did
  8. DNF in my hour, with about the last fifteen minutes of them staring at the completely unknown 14d HOP THE TWIG. I thought of both “hop” and “twig” plenty of times, but I also thought of quite a few other things, and never really saw the wordplay. Bah. Shame, as I pieced together everything else, including the difficult ECHIDNA/WALTON crossers well enough.

    CALUMET was fine, as it’s helpfully also the name of a chain of camera shops (still extant in the UK, though I think their parent US company went under) so I managed to remember it through that after it came up last time…

    Edited at 2018-03-27 06:42 am (UTC)

  9. 45 mins to DNF with yoghurt, granola, etc.
    I couldn’t for the life of me see Intact, which made the DNK peace pipe and CET too hard.
    As we say in Scotland, Echidna finish it.
    Thanks setter and Jack.
  10. Similar though fast-forwarded experience to Matt – I’d never heard of either HOP THE TWIG or PEG OUT, and “get” for TWIG is comprehensible once you have the answer you want confirmed, but near-invisible until then, so at least 1/3 of my total time was spend staring at 14dn and laboriously eliminating possibilities like COP THE SWAG. Bit of a sour note to end a crossword that otherwise had some interesting bits and pieces in it…
  11. Enjoyed this until I got to the unknown POP THE TWIG. I thought peg out meant to be really tired, and then I figured maybe it meant die. I ended up going for POP THE TWIG (I guess because of pop one’s clogs). So I ended up with a single pink square when I submitted.
  12. 14.34. Apart from HOP THE TWIG, I thought this was a bit of a doodle, and entertained an expectation of finishing somewhere close to 10. Mind you, there was a fair bit of not-really-parsing going on – NO SCORE DRAW a prime example.
    In a way, HTT was quite clever, with its convincing croquet theme (peg out’s how you finish, isn’t it?). But definitely a phrase that wasn’t in the dictionary last time I looked. I checked it in something called finedictionarydotcom, which claimed to give examples of use, but they’d plainly just googled the words and chucked in any old match, because most of the examples were about birds doing what birds do and not the actual phrase.
    Apparently, Hop the Twig was a well received short film in 2010, but I missed that too.
    So I now face a dilemma: do I attempt to remember the phrase in case it comes up again, or not bother because it won’t?
    By the way, thanks Jack for your patient unravelling of everything, which made me realise how much I hadn’t really seen.
    1. Having looked further into this it’s quite interesting.

      Chambers has: to escape one’s creditors; to die.

      Brewer’s has: to depart suddenly; to decamp just before being caught. The phrase is from hunting jargon, referring to birds that take to the air just before, or just after the hunter fires at them.

      So the original meaning is something quite different and one can see how it figuratively came to mean escape creditors. The meaning required for the clue (peg out / die) seems wrong to me, possibly because people over the years have confused it with “falling off the perch” and similar expressions, but as it’s in Chambers the setter is quite entitled to use it.

      Edited at 2018-03-27 08:31 am (UTC)

      1. World Wide Words gives an example from 1797, where it meant ‘to die’. Anyway, given that not one Brit so far recognized it, it does seem a bit much.
    2. I agree that HOP THE TWIG is another clever surface. You are right that pegging out is a croquet term.

      I also agree with jackkt that Canasta is a great game. We used to play the 108 card version but this was 40 years ago.

      1. Canasta was our game of choice for a while in my university days, circa 1994-5 I expect, all through the night until the break of dawn. Halcyon wasted days.
      2. Combining the two things with reference to my comment in the blog about card games, ‘pegging out’ is also a term used in cribbage.
  13. HOP THE TWIG was my LOI. Once I had HOPE I saw the rest of the answer. On the easy side but I enjoy a setter who tries to produce credible surfaces like 11a Hooker, Prop and Scrum, 6d Breeze passing through tree etc. and 12a Braid unravelling.
  14. 22’17” with LOI the completely guessed and not-fully-parsed HOP THE TWIG. Is this a regional thing? Put me in mind of jumping over a branch for handfasting, another of the BMDs. Rather liked WALTON, TACITUS and RWANDA. I’m old enough to remember when the rules of the pools were changed to downgrade a NO SCORE DRAW. Thanks jack and setter.
  15. Hmm, like others I found this easy to start, less easy to finish. 1ac, 5ac, 1dn all straight in so I assumed our esteemed editor had just mixed up yesterday and today’s grids. But the SE corner was tricky.
    I hadn’t heard of hopping the twig but I had heard of falling off it, or dropping off it, so a simple alphabet trawl soon picked up HOPE = expect, and Bob’s your uncle. Those who put pop, how on earth did you get the wordplay to work out?
    I think you are in a magnanimous mood today Jack, or the slightly weak, 60s style clue for WALTON would surely have got both barrels.
    Still, like Sawbill I much enjoyed the inventive surfaces so many thanks, both setter and blogger..
  16. I have a feeling that 14dn HOP THE TWIG is Wodehousean.
    But I could not say from which of his texts. My LOI.

    FOI 4dn UNDER ONES NOSE

    COD 22dn SWANKY

    WOD 18ac TACITUS

    re 13ac ETON is a College not a School – ask any attendee.

    No time as I filled in this puzzle on the hoof whilst visiting the lesser pandas at Shanghai Zoo.

    I also saw an impressive South American 2dn. Why the long face, I mused?

  17. 28 minutes with LOI HOP THE TWIG, unknown as an expression for shuffling off this mortal coil, readily constructed from cryptic. DNK CALUMET but ‘twigged’ CET as Central European Time to go round A LUM. I’d be happy with a COD NO-SCORE-DRAW at Leeds on Friday. Otherwise this was reasonably straightforward. Thank you Jack and setter.
  18. …..and I became bogged down twice before seeing this off in 15-29.

    FOI CHESTNUT which was fresh in my mind after it appeared in University Challenge last night. I progressed quite serenely, although I bypassed 14D when it didn’t readily strike me, and after about 7 minutes I got stuck briefly in the SW corner. Eventually nailed RWANDA having not quickly grasped that “land = country”, and had a “double duh moment” once I spotted ANNE and STRAINER (COD). Those three clues took me around 4 minutes…..

    ……then HOP THE TWIG took nearly 5 minutes in its own right. Had it appeared in Python’s “Dead Parrot” sketch I might have seen it quicker !

    I shoved WALTON in without really considering it, but now have slight issues. If something is NOT LAW it suggests that it may be freely engaged in, antisocial though it may be, so it isn’t per se ILLEGAL. It’s a similar argument to whether using a loophole in legislation to one’s advantage is LEGAL (letter of the law) or NOT ILLEGAL (spirit of the law). Anyone who has ever tried to understand taxi licencing regulations will know precisely where I’m coming from (see my recent rant about UBER).

    Thanks Jack and setter.

  19. 44m here with the same experiences recounted by others. Add me to the never-heard-of club so far as the twig is concerned. But at least this time the anteater came straight to mind, thanks to previous encounters in these parts. I also had Shwitsu for a while, until the right anagrist became obvious. A real ‘doh!’ moment. Thanks for the detailed guidance, Jack. I needed it for TRIPARTITE for example which went in because it fitted.
  21. I had most of this done in about 10 minutes but when it became obvious that 14dn was something I had never heard of, and a couple of minutes of puzzling over it didn’t reveal anything likely-looking, I gave up. I guess I might have got it if I had persevered, because the wordplay is perfectly fair. In fact it’s the kind of clue I usually like, but I just wasn’t in the mood this morning.

    Edited at 2018-03-27 08:19 am (UTC)

  22. 24 min 58 secs with one wrong, Shistau for Shiatsu, and one typo – Chestnuu.

    I know “Hop The Twig” well. As a precocious/irritating/amusing, (delete as applicable), 8 year old child, unsolicited, I would frequently assail innocent passers-by with my rendition of Farjeon and Farjeon’s rhyme about Henry VIII.

    Our phrase appears in the last line.

    Bluff King Hal was full of beans
    He married half a dozen queens
    For three called Kate they cried the banns
    And one called Jane, and a couple of Annes.

    The first he asked to share his reign
    Was Kate of Aragon, straight from Spain
    But when his love for her was spent
    He got a divorce, and out she went.

    Anne Boleyn was his second wife.
    He swore to cherish her all his life,
    But seeing a third, he wished instead
    He chopped off poor Anne Boleyn’s head.

    He married the next afternoon
    Jane Seymour, which was rather soon,
    But after one year as his bride
    She crept into her bed and died.

    Anne of Cleves was number four.
    Her portrait thrilled him to the core,
    But when he met her face to face
    Another royal divorce took place.

    Catherine Howard, number five,
    Billed and cooed to keep alive.
    But one day Henry felt depressed,
    The executioner did the rest.

    Sixth and last was Catherine Parr
    Sixth and last and luckiest far
    For this time it was Henry who
    Hopped the twig, and a good job too.

    Edited at 2018-03-27 09:35 am (UTC)

    2. Thanks, A, I’m glad I’m not the only one. This rhyme was how I knew HOP THE TWIG (and also how I remember all of Henry’s wives in order).
  23. Made steady progress with this one. Also not convinced by NOT LAW – a bit weak. I think HOP THE TWIG is one of those phrases that makes an occasional crossword appearance but nobody now uses in everyday speech.
  24. No problems with this one, 25 minutes, an easier day after Friday and yesterday. As others, had to guess / trust word play for HOP THE being HOP(TH)E. TWIG to understand is from Gaelic TUIG I believe. In one version of the MP Parrot Sketch (not the original television one), John Cleese says “he’s off the twig”, which is another variation.
  25. Not my day – 12m 45s but with an error at 8d. I convinced myself that it must be a kind of bet, and – not being a gambling man – I thought that TENUNDER might be something, even though it wasn’t justified cryptically. To be honest, the cryptic grammar of ‘Bet nurse passing round’ is a bit stretched, but I can’t really take that as an excuse.
    Like others, I didn’t know HOP THE TWIG but got there eventually, thinking it might be cricket slang (it isn’t). I also took far too long realising I wasn’t looking for a land mammal at 2d.
  26. 38 mins: but would have been quicker if I hadn’t been searching for some variant of a “good-time girl” for 11d and if I hadn’t been fixated by the notion that a hookah might be a peace pipe (er… wrong part of the world!?!).

    I hereby apply to join the HNO Hop-the-twig Club.

    Biffed PASTURE in 16a for a while, causing further delay with 14d: actually, I think PASTURE is a better solution for “farm food”.

    The easy-peasy ones went in pretty quickly (UNDER ONES NOSE, EASY, SHIATSU, ASH, TACTICS, ETON) so I soon had some checkers in to help out. (Couldn’t we give Eton a rest for while? It just keeps on appearing. “School?” – “Eton”.)

    My COD to 11d – nice rugby surface.
    I enjoyed this one.
    Thank you, blogger!

  27. a virtual 26 mins – well, I didn’t enter FORD because I wasn’t sure if he was still alive, and then forgot that it was still blank when I submitted. A nice easy stroll with only HOP THE TWIG and CALUMET unknowns.
    By the way, on the Iphone I find that if I submit with some blanks it get sent back saying ‘not complete’. Could we have the same here, please?
  28. 22 mins for my first Times puzzle in a couple of weeks. I found it mostly straightforward but it took me a while to see TENANTED, and then much longer to get HOP THE TWIG. I’d never heard the expression and the answer had to be teased out from the wordplay.
  30. CALUMET is a famous Kentucky racing stable, although I believe it’s seen better days. I did like BAD HAIR DAY (I don’t remember seeing it before) – in NY winters we all have them because of “hat hair static” and in summer because of the humidity. PRODUCE reminded me of Produce (pronounced pro-douce) Pete on NBC on Saturday mornings who tells you useful things like how to ripen bullet-hard avocados. Same problem as others with HOP THE TWIG but got it in the end. Otherwise no hold-ups at 15.27

    A lot of Americans rue the day that Gerry Ford lost the presidency. He was wounded by his pardon of Nixon and by Reagan in the Republican primary and lost to Carter (by a narrow margin) who only served one term himself. Ford had one of the best cabinets in modern history. And then there’s what we have now.

  31. I’ve never come across HTT before either, but teased it out from the wordplay and checkers. FOI, CHESTNUT, popped in as I read the clue, then I made steady progress around the grid until coming back to my LOI TRIPARTITE at 23:46. Remembered LUM, but as I was working on Common Era for the time, wondered where the T came from. Not enough to worry about it though once I twigged KNIGHTLY. Nice puzzle. Thanks setter and Jack.
  32. Half an hour to be left with HOP… which I don’t know, nor ‘peg out’. DNF. Looked it up, which wasn’t easy either, and I didn’t fully understand until coming here. Regards.
  33. Forty minutes, ending with “cop the twig”, and therefore leaving me in a grumpy mood for the rest of the day.
  34. 20:21 finishing with hop the twig which sounded likely enough and fitted the wordplay so in it went. If Tacitus and calumet are fair game I don’t see why H the T shouldn’t be.
  35. 58:51. I had all but the unknown 14dn done in 20 mins, there then followed a period of staring and hoping for inspiration followed by a lengthy alphabet trawl before eventually constructing hop the twig from wp and entering it with fingers crossed. An easy puzzle with a sting in the tail.
  36. Also a DNF, after 38 minutes, but what got me was not HOP THE TWIG (no more known to me than to most of you, but it fit the wordplay perfectly). What I didn’t see was FORD, so fixated was I on DODD (“the odd” as an adjective sort of meaning “one time” or “once”) or DOLD (with “old” as one-time or once). I also didn’t consider DOLE, although it would have been in line with my other musings. All of these were U.S. politicians, some of them even Republicans, although the DOLD I knew best was actually a German mathematician, a well-known topologist and a very pleasant man. But as I say, I never even came close to looking at FORD — he wasn’t in office very long anyway.

    CALUMET, strangely enough, I bunged in before even starting to look at the wordplay. But CET is my time zone, so the wordplay was easy to see afterwards.

    Edited at 2018-03-27 06:29 pm (UTC)

  37. After today’s easy QC this too seemed easy as the first few went in quickly.
    But “outwardly well worn” suggested Threadbare to me and it fitted the answers I had at the time. A delay to correct that; but finally,like others, I was staring at 14d with all the checkers. I ended up with For the Twig (using Foretwig to mean expect-clever I thought, but wrong as it turns out).
    David
    PS remembered: Fumer le calumet de la paix.
  38. Did surprisingly well today. I think I am countercyclic!! Did not know “Hop the Twig” but worked it out anyway – and I had to look up Lum to confirm that it was a Scottish chimney – not the first time that I have seen it but it does not stick in my grey cells. Otherwise ok.
  39. Delighted to see that Calumet and HTT were correct. Annoyed that I’d left Ford blank. So a DNF in 45. Didn’t like Walton.

    Mention of canasta brought back pleasant memories of my playing it as a young child with my grandmother who promised to teach us bridge when we were older but never did. A friend taught my brother and me the game at grammar school which subsequently provided years of entertainment. But into my sixth decade I now enjoy playing crib with my son when he comes home. And we play a version of whist when all the family is home. What a world of pleasure a pack of playing cards provides! (My grandmother insisted we always use the Waddingtons brand of cards but now I won’t use anything but Bicycle cards. She wouldn’t be happy …)

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