Times Cryptic 27008

72 comments on “Times Cryptic 27008”

1. A couple of DNKs slowed me down a bit: BOTTOM DRAWERS (it is indeed a HOPE CHEST where I come from, although I don’t know if the practice is still maintained much), STEP-IN (where it took me a long time to think that ‘mug’ actually referred to a drinking vessel). Like Jack, I didn’t know what ESCHEAT means, but that hardly mattered. I’ve already forgotten, in fact. LOI QUAYSIDE, where I had SIDE but was forced to run through the alphabet for the first half; and I tend to skip letters like Q–even here, before a U. I assumed that since few men (thank goodness) wear mullets, especially older men, those who do could be taken to be non-conformists, at least tonsorially.
   1. There was a covention of mullet-sporting men in Australia recently. It didn’t make for pleasant viewing on the TV news.
2. I didn’t know the UK sense of BOTTOM DRAWERS! Thanks, Jack.

   The thing about the mullet (“business up front, party in the back”) must be that it would be an unusual senior citizen who opted for this (ridiculous) style. You might even think no one would, these days, but Wikipedia says it is making a comeback among K-pop artists and sports figures.

   My LOI was QUAYSIDE too. I’m not prone to pronounce the first part as “key.”

   Edited at 2018-04-10 01:18 am (UTC)

   1. I can imagine this style looking very well on some kind of dapper, fashion-forward senior citizen! You’re being too hard on it.
      1. You have a very creative imagination.
         1. It keeps one’s ageing neck warm, whilst allowing one’s failing eyes to look out for the traffic.
            1. I can appreciate the practical advantages, but that wasn’t really the point at issue…
      2. De gustibus non est disputandum, I guess. Though I wouldn’t call it particularly “fashion-forward” particularly. I do hope that I’ve offended no mullet-wearing puzzle freak out there. It takes all kinds.
3. A DNF in 46 minutes as I put in ‘clean cut’ for 22a, then ‘nopee’ as the fictitious Asian currency. It’s not hard to be thick.

   Didn’t know the subtleties of BOTTOM DRAWERS and I mis-parsed the French city, wondering what on earth a docudrama called ‘Amien’ could be about.

   I liked GREY MULLET. Yes, I suppose you’d have to be a non-conformist to be brave enough to wear one. Just in case you haven’t seen it (I assume guy_du_sable has from his wording), the Chambers definition of ‘mullet’ is very good.

   Thanks to setter and blogger

4. The weather is glorious, Anderson Cooper has said his piece and this puzzle detained me for just 22 minutes.

   FOI 7dn SHE
   LOI 4dn ESCHEAT
   COD 1ac HEAD OVER HEELS
   WOD 1dn HURCULANEUM

   I believe my comment on yesterday’s QC blog was removed!?

5. Seems like the first puzzle for a while without large amounts of obscurity. Or maybe it’s just me?
   MER at PEE. Didn’t know bottom drawers – downunder it’s a Glory Box, which sounds more interesting than either the UK or US version. Also missed the the first part of quayside, and wondered if putting in was something the stevedores might be doing with cargo. Prow needed an alphabet trawl, and elicited another forehead slap.
   Yes, I think it’s just me in the middle of a ‘thick’ phase.

   Edited at 2018-04-10 03:25 am (UTC)

   1. I’d love to see GLORY BOX clued one day.
      1. I only knew of GLORY BOX as a Portishead song!
      2. THUNDERBOX might be more amusing!
      3. Line in grisly crack, stored in preparation for marriage?
6. And wondered about tachometer – is the cab a cabin, rather than a taxi? Or is a taxi-meter in a London cab called a tachometer?
   1. I took the cab to refer to the front part of a truck, where the driver sits, which is typically fitted with a fancy sort of rev counter, AKA tachometer. But I think cab=taxi works too.
      1. It doesn’t work for a taxi. The display visible to the passenger is what leads to taximetercabriolet, the original full form of taxicab. The fare is calculated by signals received from a transducer. So it’s strictly the cab of a lorry or similar commercial vehicle.
         1. I just meant that a taxi might have a rev counter…so the clue would work for that too.
7. I liked RUPEE but I don’t like the modern penchant for verbalising nouns as in ENCORED. I don’t know about “overweight” but Mohammed Ali must be the most overused boxer in crosswordland, possibly the only boxer to be found there. Re BRIG as an on-board prison, it is also used as such in naval bases.
   1. Clay also gets the occasional run-out…
   2. I’ve seen ROCKY clued before using both MARCIANO and BALBOA, but not here.
8. ….so put the puzzle aside, and read a book. As expected, I quickly entered the four remaining ones when I returned to it. What you have to do is give your mind good shake, and all the answers pop out.

   I had the same question about tachometer – possible error by setter?

9. 41 minutes – still a bit tired after getting up at 3am to watch the last round of the Masters. Well done, Captain America!

   I thought 1 across was very good, suiting my base (mean?) sense of humour.

10. I did this in two parts. But I still think 9A is wrong. Yes, in the cab of a truck, but the recording device is a TACHOGRAPH not a TACHOMETER which doesn’t record anything, it just displays it. When I was at University, our minibuses had to have them (by law, I believe) so I was quite used to them. They have a disc inside that a stylus scratches with the speed over a 24 hour period. However, by the time I got to it, I had some checkers so put TACHOMETER and only noticed it was the wrong word later. Plus, even I can’t mess up an anagram that much (I did type COMPILED instead of COMPENDIA but luckily it was a letter short so I looked again).

    Edited at 2018-04-10 05:09 am (UTC)

    1. you beat me to it, and much more informatively
11. I really liked this. Some very nice penny-drop moments, especially with QUAYSIDE and AMIENS.

    Unfortunately I got completely the wrong end of the stick on 22a and put CLEAR-OUT, convinced it would parse if I could be bothered to give it more thought (it nearly does).

    Was the setter thinking of the old ‘spy in the cab’, the TACHOGRAPH? I certainly was so didn’t question it at the time

    Verlaine probably won’t need telling that ‘Spy in the Cab’ was a mournful recording by Gothic rock outfit Bauhaus, thirty-something years ago. I think it was a commentary on the enslavement of the proletariat. And they were not wrong, comrades: https://youtu.be/LN53bSlCqqI

    Edited at 2018-04-10 05:26 am (UTC)

    1. Big Brother meets Carpool Karaoke: someone pitch a “Spy in the Cab” programme to a major TV network, stat.
12. 1 left, couldn’t get Amiens.

    Also was unsure of how head over heels, beau and step in worked.

    COD unlettered or rupee.

13. I really am quite tired these days with my new early-start job (fell asleep while watching Alan Bennett’s The Lady in the Van last night, and I’m sure you can appreciate that’s not easy to do) and found myself doing this one at a gentle saunter rather than the usual mad clip. Still it was quite easy for all the fun aha! moments and I came over the line with a yawn and a stretch at 8 minutes. It’s when your being super tired coincides with the puzzle being some kind of nightmarish Richard Rogan pseudo-Mephisto concoction that you’ve got to watch out.

    LOI QUAYSIDE, as many others; I had the side bit and the correct reading of the clue immediately, so well played setter for choosing a word that’s hard to bring to mind even if you’re looking for it, by being interestingly spelt.

    1. The 2000th Telegraph Toughie is suitably chewy.
       1. Yes, I did it on my commute this morning and it was much harder than the standard Tuesday Toughie (no bad thing). There are multiple Ninas to give the flagging solver a second wind…
          1. Multiple ninas? I can only see one in row 3, although 15ac is relevant.

             Edited at 2018-04-10 03:03 pm (UTC)

             1. It has the number of the puzzle in all four corners, too… As well as in the “name” of the setter (perhaps).

                Edited at 2018-04-10 03:18 pm (UTC)

                1. So they do, V. Thank you for that.
       2. It certainly is. HALLESSI apparently, ho ho.
14. 57m, so right at the edge of my skills, it seems. NHO BOTTOM DRAWERS, hope chests or glory boxes! Luckily I had heard of AMIENS, ESCHEAT and even (vaguely) HERCULANEUM, though only from earlier crosswords. Still, at least it means some of this vocab is sticking.

    Mostly a bottom-to-top solve starting with FOI 7d SHE, ending with quite a few in the NW corner followed by the GREY of 18a, not really understanding what was going on with the “nonconformist” bit. Many “oh, of *course* it is…” moments along the way, which I take as the sign of a good puzzle.

    Thanks to Jack for enlightenment and to our devious setter. COD 5d HOOPS.

    Edited at 2018-04-10 06:36 am (UTC)

15. 35 mins with an M&S flapjack and an apple. Still on the road with iPad.
    Lots of fun in this with some schoolboy humour too.
    Mostly I liked: Grey Mullet, head of cads, Fat Ali, Oops and Bottom Drawers.
    Thanks jokey setter and Jack
16. Similar to others – steady solve but tricky in parts

    Not happy with definition at 9A but the anagram meant it couldn’t be anything else so no problem. I would struggle to sport a mullet. Liked 1A

17. I liked the misdirection in the clue for HOOPS. When I had the first letter and I saw ‘horse that went astray’ I thought it had to be an anagram of horse. Another one that had me set off down the wrong path was RUPEE where ‘For Asians, bread’ had me wondering if there was an alternative spelling of roti.

    My COD though to GREY MULLET for the amusement factor, even though it reminded me I once sported one (however not a grey one).

18. 21 min 05 secs. Took a while on the last two. Quayside and Beau.

    I notice that we are now peeing frequently.

    1. You have to remember the Times crossword is 88 years old .. it happens
       1. Lol:-)
19. 31′ online, which is always more difficult for me. 1ac took a long time. GREY MULLET was last in. I now know that Eileen Grey was a famous modernist architect, who also designed the ‘nonconformist’ chair (which to me looks very awkward). Could this be anything to do with it? AMIENS a write-in after yesterday. Thanks jack and setter.
20. I think TACHOMETER is fine, as one of the meanings of ‘record’ is ‘to register or indicate information on a scale’ (Collins).
21. Ran out of time with QUAYSIDE and ESCHEAT missing. Excellent crossword. In my rush, I took the nonconformist to be Lady Jane Grey and moved on. CODs to QUAYSIDE and AMIENS. Thanks setter and jackkt.
22. Answers seemed to come quite readily, for me, in this enjoyable puzzle: 25 mins. No real problems at all. I agree with commentators that the setter seems to have confused a TACHOMETER with a tachograph (the ‘spy in the cab’), despite Ulaca’s admirable justification of the solution. My COD vote is for 1a. I enjoyed BOTTOM DRAWERS: with only the O and the A in place I was searching determinedly for a Latinate anatomical term — you know, FLEXOR BRACHIA or somesuch! While on medical matters, I am also worried about the increased frequency of micturation.

    Thanks for a super blog.

    1. Have you tried Kegel exercises?
23. Started late this morning with youngest son needing moral and financial support in new tyre acquisition. Enjoyed this, taking only 21 minutes with pennies dropping quicker than normal. Even when uncertain, such as with HOOPS, I got lucky. I’m not sure AMIENS would have been a write-in without yesterday’s puzzle though. COD to BOTTOM DRAWERS despite the mixed image the answer evokes, somewhere between a silver-edged invitation to a Church wedding and a Donald McGill postcard. Liked QUAYSIDE, RUPEE and GREY MULLET too. I preferred HERCULANEUM to Pompeii when we did our Grand Tour, although Lurcio would perhaps have been more suited to this puzzle.Thank you Jack and setter.
24. 14:28. Quite tricky this. I was untroubled by knowledge of exactly what a TACHOMETER does, but had some difficulty with the unkown HERCULANEUM (which strikes me as something I really ought to have heard of) and the vague-bell-ringers ESCHEAT and BOTTOM DRAWER.
    We went to see Evgeny Kissin in recital at the Barbican the week before last, and he ENCORED four times. By the end of it my wife was urging me to stop clapping so we could go home.
25. Haven’t checked dictionaries, but I was working under the assumption that a step-in was specifically a shoe.
26. Going by all my usual benchmarks, I seem to have been a bit sluggish – one of those puzzles where it happens, but you can’t really see why in retrospect. No unknowns I can blame – I remembered ESCHEAT from previous encounters, and I was another whose knowledge of tachometers and tachographs was too slight for me to doubt the answer I came up with. I even avoided biffing SLIP-ON, as SLION didn’t look very convincing as any kind of mug. I enjoyed the struggle, anyway.
27. 11:48 for this excellent puzzle. My favourite clues are always the ones that make me smile, and there were plenty on offer here.

    FOI DRIP
    LOI QUAYSIDE (Kevin Gregg’s synopsis applied exactly !)

    STEP IN applies to my jeans these days, having succumbed to elasticated waistband examples, but a shoe without laces is a SLIP ON. Fortunately I didn’t persuade myself that there was an obscure mug called a SLION, and light dawned once I nailed ELEMENTAL.

    Since, on checking now, Chambers defines tachograph as “a tachometer…..”, I don’t see what the fuss is about, and it was a write in here.
    Google shows a tachometer as a car display, which I always called a rev counter.

    COD to BOTTOM DRAWERS (I always thought that a young lady began her linen collection before betrothal in the USA, hence it was a “live in hope” chest), and the less said about the Australian version, the better. Certainly the answer here is still in full usage in the North of England.

    Thanks Jack and setter for my most enjoyed puzzle this year.

28. Disaster… having got my anagram fodder in a twist, I ended up entering the highly improbably HERCULAHEUM (and this was a rare case of a historical & geographical allusion that I supposedly knew). Leaving that aside, I still took a while to get to grips with plenty of this, finishing on APPLY. For 10a I – eventually – applied my usual technique of “if you can’t see what fits, try a Q”.

    Anyway, the evidence that I’m not firing on all cylinders today was there from the start – my first entry was HER at 7d. Oh dear. 14m 41s with the error above.

29. Sometimes I have to type in the answer before the cryptic reveals itself – as was the case with ESCHEAT here. A steady enjoyable solve with RUPEE and PROW holding out till the end. As pootle above, I couldn’t get past naan bread. I think I am particularly resistant to the other meaning of bread, which as an ageing hippy is slightly odd.
30. Whom was he kissin’? He must be a good kisser if he got to do four encores.
31. 50m with one wrong-un, clear out, which puts me in good company with Sotira, though it was desperation rather than a ‘nearly parsed’. Struggled to get going but in retrospect not entirely clear why. Just dimness probably. Some enjoyable clues here – my picks are the fish and the bottom drawer. Thanks for the blog.
32. After WWI when women’s clothes changed drastically these were a kind of DRAWERS/chemise that you could just step into rather than lacing everything up, and when elastic came into being it was rather unreliable at first so it was safer to have an all-in-one garment so there wouldn’t be an untimely “oops”. 15.03
    1. I remember coming across this word when I was about 12 years old and was reading a slightly risque comic novel by Thorne Smith called “The Bishop’s Jaegers”. It was about a mismatched group of New Yorkers and their equally mismatched underwear. The sexy Josephine wore “step-ins” and the author spends at least 2 pages describing them! The book is very dated but still quite funny.
       1. Hmm. I’ll have to check out that book. Thanks Ann!
33. Despite labouring under the influence of the tropical sun and the necessary G&T’s (one needs ones quinine, you know), I got through this in about 40 minutes. ESCHEAT would have been a problem if I hadn’t encountered it here before, but otherwise everything was straightforward. My LOI was 17ac, where I spent some time wondering how zebu, Peru or menu might be squared with the clue.
34. 31 mins but another with clear out

    Having visited the site Herculaneum presented no difficulties and as a lawyer escheat was a write in.

    Nice puzzle. Thanks to setter and blogger

    1. Interesting place Herculaneum. While Pompeii got the ash, Herculaneum got the pyroclastic flow (at least 30 metres of it) , and at least half of it is still unknown because it is under the town above. Agree that what has been recovered is in much better shape than Pompeii.

       Edited at 2018-04-10 07:58 pm (UTC)

35. I enjoyed this puzzle which was full of humour and lacking in obscurities, while still having plenty of clues which required mental effort, which I found rewarding. HERCULANEUM needed a few crossers before the ash dropped. MULLET came long before the GREY, as I only knew the RED version. I also tried to use HORSE as anagrist for 5d for a while. Despite knowing that the technical term for the spy in the cab was tachograph, I didn’t let it worry me. 28:20. Thanks setter and Jack.
36. AMIENS was my last one in – for no obvious reason, and this took about my average time of 40 minutes over lunch. I wasn’t worried by TACHOMETER, QUAYSIDE, PROW or STEP IN, so I seem to have missed the common bullets. Since semi-retiring some years ago and allowing my hair to grow longer, particularly at the back, I suppose I could be said to be a bit of a GREY MULLET, and I’d be quite happy to be described as a non-conformist.

    Thanks Jackkt and setter.

    1. Longer hair at the back doesn’t quite fit your T-T image, Rotter! What would Major Hitchock have to say?
       1. I think a replacement of the T-T image with Peter Stringfellow is called for!
          1. 🙂
37. I got through this in normal for me time of about 20 minutes, ending with PROW. I am not familiar with BOTTOM DRAWERS, but I had all the checkers and it appeared the only plausible answer, matched the wordplay, so in it went. I didn’t catch its equivalence to the US ‘hope chest’, so thanks above for that. Nice puzzle. Regards.
38. DNF. Bah! In my haste to get across the finish line before work started I managed to misbiff clear-out at 22ac and not knowing the expression for a trousseau at 27ac threw in something irredeemably stupid which I’m not prepared to own up to. COD 1ac.
39. 36 1/2 minutes and a pretty straightforward puzzle (or as much so as they get), despite a few unknowns like BOTTOM DRAWERS and the indeed somewhat inappropriate TACHOMETER. ESCHEAT wasn’t an unknown, but only because I’ve been listening to a wonderful History of England podcast in which these revenues to the Crown were discussed at length in one of the episodes (somewhere in the thirteenth century, of course). No idea what the hairdo MULLET looks like, but the fish seemed reasonable enough.

    Edited at 2018-04-10 09:27 pm (UTC)

40. 25 mins. Steady solve. Great blog, cheers.

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