Times Cryptic 27050

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

My solving time for this was off the scale …and then some! I thought more than once that I may have to give up the fight and resort to aids at least to get me out of a ditch and back on the road, but I managed to resist tempation and came through in the end. For all that, there were only two words unknown to me and a couple of shades of meaning so I’m not entirely sure now where my problems lay. 

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 Run in live game’s first for scorer (4)
BERG – BE (live), R (run), G{ame’s} [first].  The ‘scorer’ is the Austrian composer Alban Berg (1885-1935)
4 Much ado about Republican as autocratic leader (3,7)
BIG BROTHER – BIG (much), BOTHER (ado) containing [about] R (Republican)
9 Man eating cake with prisoner restrained (10)
CONTROLLED – CON (prisoner), TED (man) containing [eating] ROLL (cake). ‘Roll’ is not the first synonym for ‘cake’ that comes to mind but it’s in the dictionaries if you search for it. Perhaps ‘Swiss roll’ is the most common example.
10 Short and flat sandwich needs new filling (4)
SNUB – SUB (sandwich) contains N [filling]. A second roll, this time a long thin bread roll resembling the shape of a submarine from which it takes its name. Once again I have a slight issue with the definition because if I ordered a sandwich and was served a roll (of any shape) I would not be best pleased. ‘Snub’ in this sense is perhaps most often used in the term ‘snub nose’.
11 Junk written about one desktop game (6)
TIPCAT – TAT (junk) containing [written about] 1 (one) + PC (desktop). A game unknown to me in which “a short sharp-ended piece of wood (the cat) is tipped in the air with a stick”.
12 One dreams about tucking into processed pasties (8)
ESCAPIST – C (about) contained by [tucking into] anagram [processed] of PASTIES. More snack food. Was the setter anticipating his lunch, I wonder?
14 Tongue all but swallowed by lion? (4)
INCA – IN CA{t} (swallowed by lion?) [all but]. Dear, oh dear! My LOI.
15 Painter to run to get climbing equipment (4,6)
ROPE LADDER – ROPE (painter), LADDER (run). I associate ‘ladder’ and ‘run’ with damage to nylon stockings, the UK and US words for it.
17 One from skilled elite Cochrane demolished in Times (10)
TECHNOCRAT – Anagram [demolished] of COCHRANE contained by [in] TT (times). I knew the  word but not its meaning. Collins defines this as “a scientist, engineer, or other expert who is one of a group of similar people who have political power as well as technical knowledge”. I’m not sure if that fits the defintion in the clue necessarily, but I was happy enough to bung in the answer and move on.
20 Effort to retain old weight system (4)
TROY – TRY (effort) contains [to retain] O (old). I think its pounds and ounces, measures that instinctively mean something to me.
21 Replacing fluids and salt is boost with nothing eaten (8)
ISOTONIC – IS + TONIC (boost) containing [with…eaten] 0 (nothing). Completely unknown to me, an isotonic drink is apparently one that is “designed to replace the fluid and salts lost from the body during strenuous exercise”.
23 Asian support hotel welcomes back (6)
INDIAN – INN (hotel) contains [welcomes] AID (support) reversed [back]
24 Dope accepts pound in depressed Scottish area (4)
GLEN – GEN (dope – information) contains [accepts] L (pound)
25 Poet, one mostly accepted by Orwell, G (10)
BAUDELAIRE – AUDE{n} (one, i.e. poet) [mostly] is contained [accepted] by BLAIR E (Orwell G – Eric Blair being his real name)
26 Vehicle in escape vacated with trail disappearing (10)
EVANESCENT – VAN (vehicle) contained by [in] E{scap}E [vacated], SCENT (trail). Another piece of vocabulary I was only vaguely aware of and had no idea what it meant.
27 Pack present for landlord (4)
HOST – Triple definition. Landlords of inns are (or used to be) often referred to jovially as ‘mine host’.
Down
2 English still cool, calm and collected (11)
EMOTIONLESS – E (Engliash), MOTIONLESS (still)
3 Upset at charges? Get in free! (9)
GATECRASH – Anagram [upset] of AT CHARGES
4 Fish in lake one in vessel catches (7)
BLOATER – BOATER (one in vessel) contains [catches] L (lake)
5 What’s received, following dismissal, from much-admired opener? (6,9)
GOLDEN PARACHUTE – GOLDEN  (much-admired – as in ‘golden boy’), PARACHUTE (opener – at least one hopes so!). This is “an agreement to pay a large amount of money to a senior executive of a company if they are forced to leave”.
6 Complete artist left bitter upset (7)
RADICAL – RA (artist), ACID (bitter) reversed [upset], L (left). E.g. A complete / radical change may be required.
7 Hotel on island raised capital out East (5)
HANOI – H (hotel), IONA (island) reversed [raised]
8 Base installing British machine (5)
ROBOT – ROOT (base) containing [installing] B (British)
13 Beast that was lively goes inside small house (11)
STEGOSAURUS – S (small), anagram [lively] of GOES contained by [goes inside] TAURUS (house). Any sign of the zodiac may be called a house.
16 Butcher and fox dine on hearts after shindig (2,2,5)
DO TO DEATH – DO (shindig), TOD (fox – an old word worth remembering), EAT (dine), H (hearts)
18 Sharp point seized in wrestling over transport (7)
OMNIBUS – NIB (sharp point) contained by [seized in] SUMO (wrestling) reversed [over]. An excuse to post a link to  A Transport of Delight a song in tribute to the red London bus written and performed by Michael Flanders and Donald Swann.
19 Don’t start raucous jabber! (7)
TRIDENT – {s}TRIDENT (raucous) [don’t start]
21 One’s put out second fire in room (5)
INGLE – {s}INGLE (one) [put out second]
22 Last symbol of resistance? (5)
OMEGA – Two meanings. The last letter of the Greeek alphabet also used figuratively for the last in a sequence, and the symbol Ω used in physics for ohm, the SI unit of resistance.

56 comments on “Times Cryptic 27050”

  1. Spent 10 minutes at the end vainly trying to get the unheard of TIPCAT so finished as a DNF in a bit over an hour.

    Orwellian undertones with BIG BROTHER, CONTROLLED, TECHNOCRAT, EMOTIONLESS, maybe ROBOT and the 25a wordplay.

    I think ‘roll’ for ‘sandwich’ would fit with the American idea of a sandwich including more than just 2 slices of bread (+filling). eg From the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance Tax Bulletin ST-835 (TB-ST-835):
    “Sandwiches include cold and hot sandwiches of every kind that are prepared and ready to be eaten, whether made on bread, on bagels, on rolls, in pitas, in wraps, or otherwise, and regardless of the filling or number of layers. A sandwich can be as simple as a buttered bagel or roll, or as elaborate as a six-foot, toasted submarine sandwich”.
    Where would we be without the internet?

    I loved INCA.

    Thanks to blogger (including for the F&S reminder) and setter.

  2. 41 minutes for this, held up by having ‘tory’ instead of TROY. I knew 27 across was going to be a triple, but it was still my last in. I also don’t quite see how a roll means a sandwich or vice versa. Every time we went to Lord’s, a mate and I would perform the following routine, which still makes me laugh:

    A) Fancy a roll?

    B) (looking around) Not enough room.

    Favourite Flanders quote: ‘If God had intended us to fly, he’d never have given us the railways.’

  3. But not too bad, 25 minutes without hurrying.
    It’s not the roll but the sub that is the sandwich; original US usage was a “submarine sandwich” I believe. Had my first “sub” in 1981 from American franchise 7-11.
    Were subs discussed here recently? Or was it the original US usage of “hamburger sandwich” for what is now known as a hamburger?
    Quite liked gatecrash, trident as jabber, stegosaurus and Baudelaire – knew his name but not that he was a poet.
    Transports of Delight was a surreal and very funny Spike Milligan book. Great memory, thank-you.
  4. Gave up after 7 minutes going back and forth from TIPCAT (NHO) and INCA, which I’d thought of but couldn’t make work, not to mention the name of the language is Quechua not Inca (no doubt it’s in Chambers, of course). Oddly enough, I spotted ‘beast that was’ (and was ready to biff STEGOSAURUS but needed time to parse it) and ‘depressed Scottish area’ immediately.

    Edited at 2018-05-29 03:32 am (UTC)

  5. I started this at dinner, took a break for the Quickie, came home and finally finished, with INCA, of all things, my LOI. It was all worth savoring. I didn’t know “painter” was a kind of ROPE, and am not sure I’d heard of the BLOATER or TIPCAT. I must award my (first ever!) Clue of the Day for the one to BAUDELAIRE.
  6. 48 minutes, but sadly with “RIPCOT” at 11a instead of TIPCAT. Even if I’d thought of “tat” as well as “rot” I’m not sure I’d have leaned in that direction. Ho hum.
    1. I thought about RIPCOT but thankfully didn’t take that plunge for my LOI!
      1. I really must try to learn ROT/TAT as a combination. Never seem to be able to think of the other when when the one has popped into my brain.
  7. 38:17. Really surprised to have finished this – and all correct – as I almost ground to a halt a couple of times and certainly didn’t expect Inca to be right.

    COD INCA. I also liked TRIDENT.

    Thanks to BoltonWanderer, philip jordan, z8b8d8k and ulaca for recent supportive comments re my team’s defeat at Wembley on Saturday.

    johninterred. I did see grestyman on these pages a week or so back but he does appear to be a less frequent visitor recently.

  8. 31′ 13”, with LOI INCA, parsed but unsteady, a weak clue I thought. Also TIPCAT unknown. Hats off to the Orwellian allusions however, particularly BAUDELAIRE. Thanks jack and setter.
  9. 33 minutes,the last eternity and a bit spent trying to make sense of ?I?C?T in the light of any desktop games I knew. Solitaire doesn’t fit, and neither does Microsoft flight simulator, Angry Birds or Lemmings or any of the others I’ve cheerfully wasted time on over the years. Light dawned, though I thought it was some kind of night club bouncer or official (that’ll be TIPSTAFF then).
    INCAt produced something between an arrgh and a snarl.
    Much to make this tough but enjoyable in a slightly masochistic way: the word order for CONTROLLED was ungenerous, and the beast that was was brilliantly deceptive. “Orwell, G” was cleverly done
    It didn’t help that GOLDEN HANDSHAKE fitted everything except the wordplay.
    Since “done to death” is familiar enough, I suppose DO TO DEATH, but it didn’t feel right
    Fine crossword, manfully and impressively unravelled.
  10. 55 mins with yoghurt, banana, granola, blueberry compote.
    Found it very tricky to get a foothold and some MERs (of the minor variety) at: cake=roll and ‘in cat’.
    Mostly I liked Rope Ladder.
    Thanks setter and Jack.

    Altogether now. Close friends get to call him T.C. Providing it’s with dig-nit-eey!

  11. This was a struggle. BERG and BAUDELAIRE don’t form part of my daily experience and I have no idea what TIPCAT is – looked up all three after deriving answers. Like Kevingregg was thrown by “Incan” being described as a language but couldn’t see anything other than “in cat”.

    Well blogged Jack – not an easy one by any means

  12. …but what a great puzzle. Some evil misdirection going on, with much of it in the literals, but the SI too had its moments, as in ‘much-admired opener’, ‘Blair E’. Around 48 minutes for me, though I did enjoy most of those minutes!

    Thanks jackkt for a great blog, and setter for a proper tough Times puzzle.

  13. A good challenge which almost defeated me at the end, when like gothick_matt I was tempted by RIPCOT. I had no idea of the parsing of BAUDELAIRE so I was glad to have at least heard of the chap. Thanks to jackkt for explaining that one.
  14. Long time lurker, who greatly appreciates the work done by the regular bloggers and the well-informed commentary of the long-time contributors.

    Threw in the towel on this one at 37 minutes, with ENYA for 14 ac (maybe thinking of Tolkien’s Quenya?), and a desperate HASH for 27 ac…

    There’s always tomorrow’s one.

  15. 36 minutes. Looking at other times, I must have been on wavelength. COD to BAUDELAIRE, involving as it did three writers or poets,but there were many Eureka moments, STEGOSAURUS, OMNIBUS, INCA and EVANESCENT being my favourites. I solved TIPCAT and quickly convinced myself there was a game called that. Joan Baez was terrific last night, even if Mrs BW, whose music tastes postdate mine somewhat (in other words, they’re c**p), was not fully appreciative. Diamonds and Rust brought it all back so clearly. Great puzzle. Thank you Jack and setter.
  16. 30:48, but having resorted to aids for TIPCAT and failing to understand INCA until long after the fact. nice to see both BIG BROTHER and his creator in the acrosses.
  18. Much to think about along the way, especially as I was another solver who wrongly thought he’d given himself a great start down the centre with GOLDEN HANDSHAKE. Even though the wordplay was occasionally fiendish, at least the required knowledge mostly fell within my definition of “general” – I remembered TIPCAT as a vague forerunner of cricket, in so far as they both involve hitting an object with a stick, presumably straight to another person if they were anything like the current England team. The biggest challenge was INCA, which required an alphabet trawl and a shrug of the shoulders; if you’d asked me to write down a list of languages, that probably wouldn’t have made the top 50, or, indeed, come up at all…
  19. [From the campervan, now in Killarney.] Technically a DNF ‘cos I refused to enter INCA since Inca is not a language (they speak Quechua — as noted by several commenters above). And even if INCA were a language, the “swallowed by lion” clueing is atrocious. I did a “reveal word” at 66 mins and then required another 5 mins to calm down from my apoplectic rage.

    The rest of the puzzle was rather tough but quite enjoyable, I thought. I liked the OMEGA clue – very neat, if not too challenging. I appreciated the chewy ones like STEGOSAURUS and EVANESCENT, too.

    Thanks for the blog, jackkt.

  20. ….for biffing “Hindi” at 7D and negating what I considered a damn fine finish in 12:17

    I biffed three others – CONTROLLED, STEGOSAURUS*, and DO TO DEATH – and DNK the scientific reference in OMEGA. Many thanks to Jack for interpreting all of those.

    * I saw the ” small Taurus” part immediately, but failed to parse “goes”. And if you don’t parse go you don’t collect £200 !

    FOI BERG
    LOI INCA

    Loved “jabber” for TRIDENT, but COD BAUDELAIRE.

    On the sandwich front, Subway’s foot-long meatball marinara was a delicious but unhealthy lunch that I sometimes indulged in between taxi hirings. No wonder I’m overweight…..

  21. 14:47. I don’t seem to have found this quite as tough as some. I thought it was a great puzzle though.
    The correct definition of ISOTONIC is ‘meaningless word used to persuade the unwary that a drink full of sugar is somehow healthy’.
  22. Fun puzzle, done in 35 minutes all but 11a and 14a; had to use an aid to find TIPCAT then put in INCA once the IN CAT idea dawned, although didn’t think it was the language of the INCA people, that was Incan or Quechua as noted above. For once, I knew about both poets.
  23. A very tough puzzle for a Tuesday, which took me bang on 18 minutes. I wasn’t helped by putting MINIBUS at 18d, therefore abandoning the idea that 17a was largely an anagram, until eventually realising my mistake.

    TIPCAT was as obscure to me as it seems to have been to everyone else, but seemed the most plausible option from wordplay. BAUDELAIRE was my LOI, after I finally realised that ‘one’ was a poet rather than a synonym for single, united etc.

    4a is COD for me.

  24. Just as well I got up in good time this morning because Picaroon in the Guardian was a wrestling bout too. Didn’t help myself by having “step” LADDER for far too long. I don’t know how I knew TIPCAT but it may have been from the NY Times puzzles. It may be that the street game stickball derived from it with manhole covers for bases. Yup, didn’t quite believe INCA but it had to be. 22.58 P.S. Is Sotira on vacation? Haven’t seen her lately.
    1. Sotira recently announced that she’s taking some time off, having been less than enthused about some of the recent puzzles or her handling of them. Someone who knows how to do that sort of thing could no doubt tell you where she made the statement. I already miss her.
      I’ve always wondered about stickball; not a West Coast sport.
      1. Thanks Kevin. I hope she doesn’t stay away too long – I like some female company around here! Falooker and Cryptic Sue are only occasional contributors.
            1. Do you really want someone who bought a Phil Collins record on our site?
        2. I miss Sotira as well. There’s not many women here and she always raises a smile. I don’t comment much because, although I do the puzzle in bed with my morning cuppa, I don’t get a chance to comment until late afternoon. By which time nearly everything has been said. But I always read all the comments. Have been in Italy with a choir for the last week (Padua, Venice, Vicenza and Verona) and am playing catch-up now. Doing the puzzles I missed – including this one. 32 minutes. Ann
  25. Per comments above, and the expectation that Chambers would be the setters crutch, unsurprisingly even their online freebie (Chambers 21st) has INCA defined as ‘the language of the Incas, Quechua’.

    Well, at least there’s the cryptic bit still to appal!

    Edited at 2018-05-29 11:29 am (UTC)

    1. Yes, INCA is in Collins too as “the language of the Incas”, so let’s lay that one to rest with complaints to the lexicographers for those who feel the need. As for the cryptic, any setter who comes up with such a superb puzzle deserves a bit lof leeway, so let’s just all laugh or cringe according to our tastes and move on.

      Edited at 2018-05-29 01:13 pm (UTC)

      1. Hi jackkt

        It seems to me that whatever is in the dictionaries is fair game to the setters, and I would imagine in any case that such things are always thoroughly checked before being presented to the skilled practitioners here.

        As for the IN CAT experience, I’m fully with you too: it was a drop of fun in a veritable sea of quality.

        1. Yes, that’s broadly the situation. In any contest there has to be an arbiter or referee of some sort to decide what’s allowable or not and in Times crosswords that’s taken to be any one or other of the source dictionaries. I don’t think we have a current definitive ruling as to which these are, but certainly they would include the Concise Oxford and Collins, with Chambers in reserve. Two of these three have INCA as a language.
  26. Damn. I did this one untimed and, for once, got through it in a reasonable (but unknown) time. It was fairly tough, but manageable, I thought.

    BAUDELAIRE went in unparsed (thanks, Jack, for explaining), but everything else was clear enough, I thought.

  27. Strewth! 71:12 with STEGOSAURUS biffed and TIPCAT looked up to see if it existed after preferring it to RIPCOT. I had the _IPC__ for ages before dithering between ROT and TAT. I stymied myself in 3 places with a careless step ladder and a typo at EVENESCENT, as well as BORDELAIRE (one almost accepted (orde(r))! by Eric, causing long delays. However, I eventually untangled it all. Thanks setter and Jack.

    Edited at 2018-05-29 02:45 pm (UTC)

  28. It’s tough when you’ve only vaguely heard of Baudelaire and never heard of E.Blair. Was it Orwell who coined “Big Brother” or was that the other one – I always get 1984 and Brave New World mixed up.
    1. Hi Mike, yes George Orwell wrote 1984 and his real name was Eric Blair. Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World.

      Edited at 2018-05-29 03:39 pm (UTC)

  29. Spent all day trying to do this one on my iphone in the middle of Llandudno pier – not the best solving situation, especially for one as hard as this. In the end EMOTIONLESS defeated me, which left the INCA ungettable, otherwise all went in fine with Much Biffing in the Marsh.

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