Times Cryptic 27014

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

I needed 67 minutes for this one and found it very hard.

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 Wearing precious stones and nothing else is wrong (9)
INJUSTICE – IN (wearing), JUST (and nothing else), ICE (precious stones – slang for diamonds)
6 What’s swallowed by staff about to provide treatment (5)
REHAB – EH (what?) contained (swallowed) by BAR (staff) reversed [about]
9 The work of a man of letters? (10,5)
EPISTOLARY NOVEL – Cryptic definition. NOVEL went in early and I realised the type of book I was looking for but it took me ages to bring the first word to mind.
10 Quartet‘s cover of tune with musical style (6)
TETRAD – T{un}E [cover], TRAD (musical style – jazz)
11 Lets rip violently, Yankee, like father (8)
PRIESTLY – Anagram [violently] of LETS RIP, Y (Yankee – NATO alphabet)
13 John, punched by cad, gets shiner: this hinders movement (5,5)
WHEEL CLAMP – WC (John – U.S. slang) contains [punched by] HEEL (cad), LAMP (shiner). Very hard work with much time lost trying to work ‘loo’ or perhaps ‘cur’ into the answer somewhere.
14 American’s not eating in country (4)
TOGO – TO GO (American’s not eating in – takeaway food). More correctly these days known as ‘Togolese Republic’  or ‘République Togolaise’.
16 I won’t and I will retreat (4)
NOOK – NO (I won’t), OK (I will). Clever stuff!
17 Nitwits excited, receiving marks for test (10)
ASSESSMENT – ASSES (nitwits), SENT (excited) containing [receiving] M (marks)
19 Provided drug, having made crack (8)
EQUIPPED – E (drug), QUIPPED (having made crack). One of the easiest clues in today’s bunch.
20 He’ll go on record initially, interrupting old man (6)
PRATER – R{ecord} [initially] contained by [interrupting] PATER (old man). Not in everyday use perhaps, but valid as an agent noun. The definition was by design rather misleading.
23 Communist Chinese dish, mostly poultry, takes shape (9,6)
FRIEDRICH ENGELS – FRIED RIC{e} (Chinese dish) [mostly], HEN (poultry), GELS (takes shape). His role as co-author (with Karl Marx) of ‘The Communist Manifesto’ probably justifies this somewhat loose definition.
24 He hates company failure, changing central direction (5)
LONER – LO{s)ER (failure) [changing central direction, S → N]
25 Names covering brown walls of the famous residence (6,3)
NUMBER TEN – NN (names) containing [covering] UMBER (brown) + T{h}E [walls of]. Outside the UK one probably needs to add ‘Downing Street’ for anyone to stand a chance of spotting the reference.
Down
1 Spin around, lacking velocity still (5)
INERT – IN{v}ERT (spin around) [lacking velocity]
2 Something articulated about remedy for politicians’ proposal (5,10)
JOINT RESOLUTION – JOINT  (something articulated), RE (about), SOLUTION (remedy). Defined by Collins as: a resolution passed by both houses of a bicameral legislature, signed by the chief executive and legally binding. So now we know.
3 Eat basil in a stew, potentially getting full (8)
SATIABLE – Anagram [in a stew] of EAT BASIL. Not as reference to Mr Brush, I trust.
4 Key passage without its opening note (4)
ISLE – {a}ISLE (passage) [without its opening note – A]. ‘Key’ is a low island, sandbank or reef.
5 English skill behind film’s sound engineering device (3,7)
EAR TRUMPET – E (English), ART (skill), RUMP (behind), ET (film)
6 Guide was in touch with royalty (6)
RANGER – RANG (was in touch with), ER (royalty – HMQ). Senior Guides are called ‘Rangers’ apparently.
7 Drink port, 24″ bottles, and move clumsily (4,3,4,4)
HAVE TWO LEFT FEET – HAVE (drink  – as in ‘what will you have… ?’) , TWO FEET (24″) contains [bottles] LEFT (port). This took some unravelling!
8 US money and yen received, clutching a buck (5,4)
BILLY GOAT – BILL (US money), Y (yen), GOT (received) containing [clutching] A. Lots of male animals are called buck. Apart from the goat, others include deer, antelope, ram, hare, rabbit, ferret, rat and kangaroo.
12 Scot waggles bum, meeting countryman? (10)
GLASWEGIAN – Anagram [bum] of WAGGLES, IAN (countryman).  What an image the surface reading conjures up!
13 Wicked bats flew round (9)
WONDERFUL – Anagram [bats] of FLEW ROUND. Loathsome usage.
15 Drive away from route through European mountains (8)
ESTRANGE – ST (route) contained by [through] E (European) + RANGE (mountains)
18 Military group swims, coming up for a rest (6)
SPIDER – RE (military group) + DIPS (swims) reversed [coming up]. It’s a type of rest used in e.g. snooker.
21 Grown son wearing nothing from Dior? (5)
RISEN – S (son) contained by [wearing] RIEN (nothing from Dior – yer actual French)
22 Seamstress may add one attention-seeking remark (4)
AHEM –  A seamstress may add A HEM

71 comments on “Times Cryptic 27014”

  1. …re 1 Across:
    “La très chère était nue, et, connaissant mon coeur,
    Elle n’avait gardé que ses bijoux sonores…”
    (“Les Bijoux”).

    In the clue for GLASWEGIAN, I was reading “burn” for “bum”… Although “waggles his bum” makes a lot more sense, of course.

    I enjoyed this muchly, no complaints!

    Edited at 2018-04-17 01:08 am (UTC)

  2. Enjoyed this, though a bit of a struggle and came in eventually at 61 minutes. I would tend to agree with Baudelaire, but I still liked 1a, as well as the ‘Communist Chinese dish…’ and the Scot bum waggling. NOOK though was best of the day for me.

    Agree about WONDERFUL for ‘wicked’. Not seemly for one of advancing years anyway.

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

  3. 27 minutes, with an errant ‘Frederick’ ENGELS holding things up a bit. The Blaydon Races corner proved toughest, with RANGER and BILLY GOAT proving particularly resistant. They do have fun with Her Majesty, don’t they?

    EPISTOLARY NOVEL as a write-in was just reward, I reckon, for ploughing through all 900,000-odd words of Richardson’s classic Lovelace tale. Actually, a very good read and a sight more cheerful than my current read, American Pastoral.

  4. Not too difficult, although 2d took a while, since I started with ‘revolution’. LOI 1d. Loved 12d; it conjured up the image of some ritual behavior unique to Scotsmen confronting an unknown male. But my COD is NOOK. ‘Wicked’, by the way, has been used for a long time in New England to mean ‘very’.
    1. Puts me in mind of ‘egregious’, which originally meant standing out from the flock in a positive way.
      1. Or ‘silly’, which originally meant ‘innocent’. Or ‘trump’, which used to mean (ODE) ‘a helpful or admirable person’.
  5. 23ac FRIEDRICH ENGELS – nit pick – fried rice a
    Guandong dish. It’s a bit like saying haggis is an English dish. But my COD with 13ac WHEEL CLAMP a close second, John!
    FOI 3dn SATIABLE
    LOI 21dn RISEN
    WOD 13dn WONDERFUL – Wickeeed!

    14ac Togo got the COD bronze. Thank-you America.

    Time immemorial.

    Edited at 2018-04-17 03:46 am (UTC)

    1. Hardly. Guangdong is an indivisible part of the Motherland, like Tibet, Macau and Taiwan, not forgetting the Mongol-mixed northern provinces.
      1. And quite apart from anything else, the Times is published in the UK principally for a UK readership and as far as we are concerned, fried rice is a staple constituent of Chinese meals as served when one goes for a Chinese in a Chinese restaurant or has a Chinese take-away so it’s a ‘Chinese dish’ whatever it’s true origins happen to be.
          1. Not @ London’s Elephant and Castle!

            My Xianese wife really dislikes the food in Gerrard Street – I love it.

            So do other ex-pats in SH.

            I really dislike Shanghainese ‘cuisine’. She and my British children love it!

            Sechuan, Tianjin, Beijing, Xian all great and HK. Not Guanzhou so much!

            Confusion reigns.

            Edited at 2018-04-17 09:29 am (UTC)

  6. fyi – rice is the staple of southern China – here in Shanghai rice is mainly consumed steamed – not fried – noodles are the staple from here northwards as rice doesn’t grow too well, thereabouts. In Beijing, Xian, and Northern China noodles prevail.

    An old Chinese adage states – ‘Fry south – steam north!’

    Edited at 2018-04-17 07:19 am (UTC)

  7. 19:32 … fantastic puzzle, I thought.

    Bravo to the setter for managing to clue FRIEDRICH ENGELS at all, let alone so wittily. That and the twerking Scot my favourites

  8. Well, I really made a mess of this one. I thought I only had the two left—TOGO and FRIEDERICH ENGELS—but I’d also mucked up the NE corner, coming up with, among other things, an EPISTOLARY DEVIL…

    It really didn’t help that I’d miscounted the enumeration of 23a, so although ENGELS was the second person I thought of, naturally enough, I couldn’t see anywhere to put him! D’oh.

    One of those days where I probably should have just stayed in bed for the extra hour!

  9. 45 mins with Virgin trains breakfast: Crunchy nut cornflakes followed by fresh fruit salad, yoghurt and honey. The best bit of this trip to Bootle, alongside this brilliant crossword.
    Several sparse attempts to get started, then eventually a foothold in the SW, then Engels and upward.
    Now I will always associate Engels with fried rice and injustice with a bejeweled nude.
    Mostly I liked: those two plus Nook and (COD) to Togo.
    Thanks setter and Jack.

    Edited at 2018-04-17 07:11 am (UTC)

  10. I’ll concede this was a brilliant crossword, though I struggled painfully throughout, with no write-ins coming to my aid. 38+ minutes which might have been quicker had I seen IN JUST ICE earlier, but I didn’t.
    There were some odd definitions: is an EAR TRUMPET really a sound engineering device? I don’t think I’ve ever thought of a goat as a buck. But hey, nothing actually unfair and loads of very clever stuff. I hope to lose the image of a twerking Scotsman by the end of the day.

    Edited at 2018-04-17 07:42 am (UTC)

  11. Well I finished this, but in my current state of health (Dottingham) I was never going to finish this without aids. Never even heard of the word epistolary – my education must be lacking. LOI and very misdirected by the setter was LONER.
  12. Excellent puzzle that took a good deal of unravelling. Never seen ENGELS clued like that before – very good work by the setter

    Loved the Glaswegian Waggle – not advised on a Saturday night in Merchant City!

    Well blogged Jack

  13. Great puzzle with lots to like, but my COD to FRIEDRICH ENGELS for the great fried rice device. I also thought ‘sound engineering job’ an excellent definition and ‘American’s not eating in country’ an excellent surface.

    I was surprised to finish with all correct as I didn’t know my LOI EPISTOLARY NOVEL and even when I’d decided epistolary was the only word that fitted I wasn’t sure if it might have been epistelary or epistilary.

    1. I confess that I worried about the spelling of EPISTOLARY despite having, like ulaca, read Clarissa. I agree with him that it’s a good read, but it’s bloody long.
      1. I’ve not heard of Clarissa or its author thus proving today I’m not only not down with the kids but I’m also a philistine. Although having looked to see what an epistolary novel is I did find one my favourite novels, Cloud Atlas, listed among the examples.
        1. Isn’t that what we do these things for? It’s where I get my knowledge. I know about Richardson because I did an English degree, but I remember almost nothing about the books.
      2. I also worried about EPISTOLARY… and, unfortunately, plumped for EPISTELARY in the end. Hopefully I can remember in future that it’s got a PISTOL in it.
  14. 18:09. Tough, but a great puzzle that I had a lot of fun unravelling.
    I thought 13dn was sick.
    1. There’s a graduate who’s joined my team at work who keeps calling things ‘sick’. Before I’d got used to it we were talking about football and he said that Neymar was sick and I asked what was wrong with him. I don’t think I’m down with the kids.
      1. A British colleague, whose son was going to junior high school in Vancouver at the time, was called in by his teacher for a talk. When asked in class what he enjoyed doing in his free time, the boy had said gang-banging with his friends. The teacher, and my colleague, were appalled, not realizing that for the boy and his peers, the word meant hanging around with the gang.
      3. I’m certainly not down with the kids, but I have quite a lot of them, so I hear this usage all the time fam.
          1. I feel quite confident that if Bertrand Welch were alive today (and a real person) he would not end sentences with the word ‘fam’, bruv.

            Edited at 2018-04-17 12:25 pm (UTC)

          2. ” ‘I’m not Sam, you fool,’ Dixon shrieked; this was the worst taunt of all.”

            Love this book 🙂

            1. Just finished it – a tad too scoffing for me, though the drunken lecture at the end was very good. Prefer The Loved One from that era/ethos, though Dance to the Music of Time (bar the last book) is peerless.
  15. 61 minutes with the penultimate INJUSTICE finally revealing a JOINT RESOLUTION. Not appreciating the technical definition in a bicameral system, I thought it was the document civil servants drafted when two leaders met and agreed about nothing, apart from the need to put out a statement, a political version of “It is forbidden to throw stones at this notice.” COD TO FRIEDRICH ENGELS. Struggled with BILLY GOAT, wanting to make it start with Dolly or Dandy. A WONDERFUL puzzle. wicked indeed. Thank you Jack and setter.
  16. Can someone help? I have created an account here before (with an avatar)but now I don’t know how to get into it, and I may well have forgotten my password anyway. Today I have resorted to commenting via Facebook – I left a few comments on yesterday’s 15×15. Should I just continue thus way?
    Thanks
    1. LiveJournal has regular problems with sign-ins, so I can’t offer any specific advice – but if you’re happy signing in with Facebook, the result looks the same from my POV…
  17. Or, to put it more technically, I’m dyspraxic.

    An excellent puzzle. My time of 23:40 would have been even better if I hadn’t entered SPRITELY as my FOI at 11A. Whilst my feeble defence revolved around Carroll’s “Old Father William”, my unusually inept spelling shut me out of the NE corner, although my true FOI was BILLY GOAT.

    LOI TOGO (very clever !), but COD GLASWEGIAN (I thought of kilts and laughed out loud !). Also loved NOOK, and ENGELS.

    Thanks to Jack for parsing 7D – I knew it was me, but didn’t know why – and for confirming EPISTOLARY which was my sole DNK.

    Good to see TRAD as “musical style”. My late father’s favourite genre. I still have “The Best of Kenny Ball” in my collection.

    Thanks again Jack, and to the setter for a top notch offering – although a WHEEL CLAMP would prevent movement, rather than merely hindering it.

    1. I suppose you could still move with a wheel clamp fitted – it woudn’t do the vehicle much good, but still theoretically possible.
  18. Very nice, very tricky. Finished in the NW corner because I spent a while having a mental block about what could be articulated apart from a lorry (and Frank Spencer), resulting in an alphabet trawl as far as J.
  20. 55 mins and very enjoyable. Some excellent clues. I’ll add my acclamation for TOGO, GLASWEGIAN, ENGELS, IN-JUST-ICE and the rather tricksy NOOK. The Clarissa clue was my FOI, a write-in, but almost all the remaining clues demanded considerable mental struggle from me. One that didn’t proclaimed a very obvious TWO…FEET to help with the solution.
    BTW I don’t get the ‘excited’ = SENT: can someone enlighten me?
    I appreciated your blog, jackkt: excellent summing up.

    1. If a song, say, “sends” you or you’re “sent” by it you er dig it. (Pretty out of date but the Times kind of likes that.)
      1. Ah, I see. Thank you joekobi and penfold. NHO Sam Cooke, but the wikipedia entry on him makes entertaining reading. Another time, another world, eh?
  21. Toughie which I was glad to complete (38’30). Delighted at the Engels composition. Managed not to look at the b.w. Scotsmen, pserve_p2, and may continue to live freely in my days. A wickedly deft puzzle with a slice of the finest wit.
  22. Loved EPISTOLARY NOVEL, took a while despite having studied the form, including the two greatest horror novels FRANKENSTEIN and DRACULA. COD like others to FRIEDRICH ENGELS. I believe TO GO has crept into UK speech, I’ve found myself using it instead of takeaway. 31′, thanks jack and setter.
  23. I have thoroughly enjoyed today’s and yesterday’s puzzles. However, I found yesterday’s almost a write-in and today’s a pleasant slog. As others, I enjoyed INJUSTICE, ENGELS and TOGO. Thanks all.
  24. And also a tip of the hat from me to the setter. I think we had EPISTOLARY NOVEL in a TLS in the last year or two so that slid right in. One of the better examples is Austen’s early work Lady Susan with a WICKED, in both senses, heroine. My copy of (another example) Les Liaisons Dangereuses was confiscated at boarding school. Having just had a knee replaced a couple of months ago I saw “articulated” quite quickly too. Good stuff and I did like the order of fried rice to go (and thanks for unpacking it Jack). The menu for our local Panda Palace used to advertise “customer cooking” – the mind waggles. 19.33

    Edited at 2018-04-17 11:23 am (UTC)

    1. There is a suburb of Birmingham called Shirley.
      Its only claim to fame was its Chinese restaurant aptly named – ‘The Shirley Temple’! It may still be there?
      1. CEGB Midlands Region was based in Shirley, H . I was there 1976 to 1981. I ate at the Shirley Temple just a few times. Across the road was a sandwich shop called The Crusty Batch. Whichever Spoonerism you went for seemed funny.
      2. I stopped in Shirley once to buy some groceries after I’d visited a friend in Kings Heath. It seems very appropriate that it has a Shirley Temple:-)
    2. [Off message. Sorry to hear that you have needed a knee replacement. My wife has had both done and that has given relief from long term pain in those areas at least. Hope yours is successful. By the way, I am enjoying the TLS puzzles which we discussed before.]
      1. Thank you. So far it’s excellent – quite a reprieve. Hope Mrs. Geoclements is doing well.
        1. Good to hear it’s going well Olivia. As I mentioned to George, it’s vital to keep up the physio. I’m still doing mine morning and night! I did 8.5 miles on the bike to deliver and fetch the car from its service today. Mind you I didn’t follow up by walking to the pub. I got a taxi:-)
      2. Glad to hear Jennifer has had her ops. It’s the exercises afterwards that make all the difference to the ultimate outcome. It’s well over 2 years since I had my right knee done and it has made such a difference to my life.
  25. 24 minutes so rather tricky for me. I didn’t think cluing the (to me at least) obscure type of novel as a CD was quite cricket.
    1. You might enjoy this, then (from Encyclopaedia Britannica):

      ‘The servant girl Pamela’s remarkable literary powers [in Richardson’s 1740 Pamela] and her propensity for writing on all occasions were cruelly burlesqued in Henry Fielding’s Shamela (1741), which pictures his heroine in bed scribbling, “I hear him coming in at the Door,” as her seducer enters the room.’

  27. Thanks for the blog Jack.

    I couldn’t get into this at all and gave up after an hour with only half the grid complete.

    Ignore my pre-edit post btw, the penny’s dropped on 1a (must be having a bad day).

    Edited at 2018-04-17 03:15 pm (UTC)

  28. Well, I’m glad that the general opinion is that this one was tricky – I found it so, taking 38 minutes or thereabouts. The last two of those were spent deciding how I’d like to spell EPISTOLARY today. On the other hand, I am just this morning back from the tropics, and quite spectacularly jat-legged, which may account for some of my difficulty.

    NOOK, GLASWEGIAN and FRIEDRICH ENGELS are tied for my CoD, though if pressed I’d go for the last one. As for whether fried rice is Chinese or not, I go with the consensus – if it appears next to a number on a menu, it’s Chinese.

    Edited at 2018-04-17 03:40 pm (UTC)

  29. About 30 minutes to finish this one. Loved Friedrich Engels. Brilliant. Regards.
  30. As I needed to go out shopping this morning, didn’t settle down with this puzzle, so don’t have a time – probably something less than an hour after allowing for breaks.
    I don’t have anything to add to above comments, other to concur with commendation of many excellent clues.
  31. Really enjoyed this, especially the Chinese Communist one, done in 30 minutes or so in 2 stabs early doors on the Stansted Express and in the waiting to board area once I had limped all the way through the ridiculous shopping zone.
    Was thinking something ANGELS was going to be a tasty Chinese dish for a while.

  32. I was distracted while doing this puzzle, as I’d taken my car for its annual service and MOT, and cycled home, and they’d just phoned me to say it needed new windscreen wipers before it would pass the MOT, and by the way it needs an alternator belt, timing belt kit and water pump. At least the valves shouldn’t have a clandestine assignation with the pistons any time soon! Anyway, on to the puzzle. I found it a bit tricky and took the same time as Jack give or take a few seconds, over the hour! At least I didn’t have any errors. I really struggled with the NW, but eventually INJUSTICE opened it up. TETRAD was my LOI. Laughed at Herr ENGLES and the twerking Scotsman. 7d was about the only gimme. 67:09. Great puzzle. Thanks setter and Jack.
    PS The car is back with all its new bits and a nice shiny MOT certificate. I don’t think I’ll bother with a session on the trainer bike tonight though!
  33. 42:30. Struggled with this one, but liked it a lot. I think I was just not quite in the zone when doing it. Mostly held up by thinking 6d was DANDY something. It’s only after spotting TOGO and realising that the animal was a goat that I twigged. Having sorted that I was left the 13d 12d and 16a to finish full of glee. 13d my favourite. Although I am, in fact a 12d, I’m pretty sure I don’t have a waggly bum.
  34. A bit of a humdinger this one lots of novel and inventive stuff, also very tricky in parts. I had all but the NW done in around 40 mins. I stuck at it for another 15 mins but nothing would yield so I put the puzzle away and returned to it after work. I then ground out 1dn, 10ac, 2dn and 1ac in that order and very very slowly. Hard to look past the bottom-waggling Scotsmen for COD.

    Edited at 2018-04-17 08:54 pm (UTC)

  35. A bit too difficult for me but I persevered and finally finished it. LOI tetrad. Time identical to Horryd.

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