Times Cryptic 27182

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

After yesterday’s really easy puzzle (solved by me in 17 minutes!) we have another one today which delayed me only 25 minutes, and 5 of those can probably be accounted for by my being on blogging duty. In one respect this might be considered even easier as there is nothing comparable here with the HERDWICK googly that was bowled at 1ac yesterday. I wonder if The Times have decided to give us all an easy week in order to lull competitors at Saturday’s championships into a false sense of security. If so, I expect they’ll drop a bombshell on Saturday and make the prize puzzle a stinker to try to unsettle them just before they go in.

As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]

Across
1 Seething cauldron, one that may spatter you (4,5)
RAIN CLOUD – Anagram [seething] of CAULDRON I (one)
6 Cardinal scoffed, did you say? (5)
EIGHT – Sounds like [did you say] “ate” (scoffed)
9 Firm City fan, one full of caffeine? (4,3)
COLA NUT – CO (firm), LA (city), NUT (fan). SOED:  any of the seeds of the cola tree, which contain caffeine and theobromine and are used medicinally and in the manufacture of soft drinks.
10 Intended to secure new funds (7)
FINANCE – FIANCÉ (intended) containing [to secure] N (new)
11 Oscar promoted to head of house: bravo! (3)
OLÉ – The O (oscar) in LEO (house – sign of the zodiac) is moved to the front [promoted] to give us the Spanish expression of approval that’s especially associated with bull-fighting and flamenco dancing
12 Transforming NHS centres: a bewitching woman (11)
ENCHANTRESS – Anagram [transforming] of  NHS CENTRES A
14 Gas is therefore being recalled, GP admits (6)
GOSSIP – GP contains IS + SO (therefore) reversed [recalled]. This clue belongs in a Quickie as GP has not been clued separately. This sort of thing seems to be increasingly common these days, with ‘duck’ = ‘duck’, ‘late’ = ‘late’ etc.
15 Back absorbing English programme to return (8)
REAPPEAR – REAR (back) containing [absorbing] E (English) + APP (programme)
17 Prevailing wisdom in anti-war circles (8)
DOMINANT – Hidden in {wis}DOM IN ANT{i-war}. The containment indiator is [circles].
19 Book of Baudelaire’s is at this point abridged (6)
ESTHER – EST (Baudelaire’s ‘is’), HER{e} (at this point) [abridged]. Book of the Bible and oratorio by Handel.
22 Mark has a nice way of speaking (5,6)
ACUTE ACCENT – A, CUTE (nice), ACCENT (way of speaking). We’ve had two of them in consecutive clues above.
23 Plumbing fixture fitting too exactly, on reflection (3)
TAP – PAT (fitting too exactly) reversed [on reflection]
25 Midsummer’s day, perhaps: a romantic prospect? (3,4)
HOT DATE – A straight definition preceded by a cryptic one.
27 Escape from Bali in this manner? (4,3)
BAIL OUT –  A hybrid clue with BALI as an anagram of the first word in the answer and the anagrind [OUT] as the second word
28 Her Majesty “repelled” by First Lady. That’s official (5)
REEVE – ER (Her Majesty) reversed [repelled], EVE (first lady). Any of various local or regional officials with varying levels of authority.
29 Starts to skip and prance, justifiably chipper (9)
SPRIGHTLY – S{kip} + P{rance} [starts], RIGHLY (justifiably). I wondered if our friends across the Atlantic would know this meaning of ‘chipper’ , but SOED advises that they invented it in the mid 19th century!
Down
1 Page priest: his second run out (5)
RECTO – RECTO{r} (priest) [second run out]
2 Saint renouncing silence? There’ll be a complaint! (7)
ILLNESS – {st}ILLNESS (silence) [saint renouncing]
3 Kind of store  / in which to spend a penny? (11)
CONVENIENCE – Two definitions
4 Scientific study, to which landlords raise their glasses (6)
OPTICS – Two definitions. The second meaning was unknown to some on a previous outing but since then it has cropped up a few times.
5 Demoralised? Fed up? Take weed every now and then! (8)
DEFEATED – FED (reversed) [up], EAT (take), {w}E{e}D [every now and then]. I lost time here thinking ‘deflated’ which to my mind fits the definition a little better than ‘defeated’.
6 Time for Beano editor to show up (3)
EON – Hidden in [to show] {bea}NO E{ditor} reversed [up]
7 I refuse to feed waterfowl of Italian port (7)
GENOESE – NO (I refuse) contained by [to feed] GEESE [waterfowl]
8 Money man rues Republican rate being revised (9)
TREASURER – Anagram [revised] of RUES R (Republican) RATE
13 Person declining printer’s job? (11)
TYPESETTING – TYPE (person), SETTING (declining). The industry has been transformed by technology so a question mark is necessary.
14 What Don might be to babe in arms, perhaps (9)
GODFATHER – Cryptic definition with reference to Mafia bosses and baby-naming ceremonies
16 Underwear thieves picked up (8)
KNICKERS – Sounds like [picked up] “nickers” (thieves)
18 Foreign policeman crashing into emu (7)
MOUNTIE – Anagram [crashing] of INTO EMU, always remembering the Times is a UK newspaper!
20 Quickly call, ringing up a lot (7)
HOTFOOT – HOOT (call) containing [ringing] OFT reversed [up]
21 Parliamentarian finding honour in French waters (6)
MEMBER – MBE (honour) contained by [in] MER (French waters)
24 This is where the young go / mad (5)
POTTY – Cryptic definition followed by a straight one
26 Unmarried man, and his companion in the boozer? (3)
ALE – {m}ALE (man) [unmarried] in a clue that conjures up a rather depressing image of the unmarried man. In my experience there’s never been a shortage of married men in boozers.

47 comments on “Times Cryptic 27182”

  1. Easier than yesterday I thought, which had a prickly NW corner

    Hardest thing here was avoiding DEFLATED

    5th easy crossword in a row after Friday (17m), Saturday (13m), Sunday (11m), and Yesterday (14m) – or maybe I’m finally improving?

  2. The Herdwick googly? No problem if you watch “Country File” often enough. Didn’t detain me at all yesterday.
    I DEFLATED so feel defeated.
    Vinyl1 associates OLE with the Ryder Cup. I still associate the word with a European Champions League winning goalscorer for Manchester United!
    I’m pleased to have had two easy puzzles in a row. Last Thursday’s, which still rates as ‘Very Hard’, made me think I ought to give up crosswords altogether.

    Edited at 2018-10-30 03:45 am (UTC)

    1. Thanks, Paul. What was actually missing was the answer. In the process of writing the explanation complete with the acute accent I had managed to delete the answer itself. Now corrected.
    1. a device attached to an inverted bottle for dispensing measured quantities of liquid, such as whisky, gin, etc.

      Until I looked it up just now to copy and paste this in from Collins I hadn’t realised that it is a trademark and should be spelt with a capital O. Now I’ve checked Chambers which confirms as above but says it can also be a common noun, so no capital is required. It’s been around in this sense since the 1920s.

      Edited at 2018-10-30 05:09 am (UTC)

      1. That’s interesting, I had no idea. ODO mentions that it’s a trademark but shows it just as a common noun with no capital letter.
  5. That’s funny, Jackkt. I would have said the word sounds quintessentially British!
    I didn’t get to this till quite late and am glad it didn’t take very long.

    Edited at 2018-10-30 06:54 am (UTC)

  6. 35 minutes, so a bit harder than yesterday for me. FOI 1d RECTO, then slowed down here and there by such as 20d HOTFOOT, and the hidden 17a DOMINANT, for goodness’ sake… Anyway. I’ll HOTFOOT it out of here, that being the only expression in which I’ve ever heard the word.

    Edited at 2018-10-30 07:34 am (UTC)

  7. 18 leisurely minutes, avoiding the DEFLATED better answer only because I couldn’t make anything out of LAT. DOMINANT took me a while too, under the impression that we’d already had a “hidden” so couldn’t have another: EON was a reversed hidden so I suppose it’s OK.
    Our setter seems to have an ST level appreciation of pee, poo and pantie clues.
  8. With a couple at the end staring at H-T-O-T. On the easier side of the line. COD to POTTY.
  9. 14:31. Held up only by the SW corner. HOTFOOT my LOI. Forgot to parse DOMINANT, which is a rther nice hidden word. POTTY my COD.
  10. 30 mins enjoying yoghurt, blueberry compote, etc.
    Definitely a bit trickier than yesterday and funnier. My only very Minor MERs were at some slightly vague synonyms, e.g. Take=Eat, Person=Type.
    Mostly I liked: Baudelaire’s is, Optics, the policeman/emu crash and COD to the Hot Date.
    24dn reminded me of this old chestnut:
    Potty train (4)
    Thanks setter and J.
  12. Another straightforward puzzle. I’m getting these delusions of adequacy again. 17 minutes with hesitation over DEFEATED/Deflated adding a couple of minutes before the former was parsed. Liked COD ACUTE ACCENT and ESTHER. It will be a stinker tomorrow. Thank you Jack and setter.
  13. 17:56 with no typos. Phew! I checked for once.

    Easy enough but some nice clues.

    COD: I liked two on the same theme. CONVENIENCE – where I wanted to put Nickel’n’dime – and POTTY.

    17:56 was the date of The Black hole of Calcutta.

  14. First sub-10 for some time, so definitely on the easy side. On another day I could easily have fallen to a biffed DEFLATED so I was glad to avoid that. COD to DOMINANT – top class hidden answer.
  15. 10:15, but unfortunately I didn’t lose any time on 5dn: I just bunged in the obviously right DEFLATED.
    14ac is weird. Why not use ‘doctor’?
  16. Quite surprised that this isn’t showing bright green on SNITCH along with yesterday’s. I was slower only because of the ‘why not DEFLATED’ internal debate. ESTHER was an answer on last night’s University Challenge so leapt straight out.
      1. Today’s is currently rating 30 points higher but it didn’t seem that much harder to me.
  17. After yesterday’s flying finish, I was DEFEATED by “deflated”, which I biffed and then failed to come back to. Very apt !

    If I needed any further warning of things that I need to control more tightly on Saturday, I also biffed DOMINANT and got away with it, having once more failed to spot the “hidden”. Thanks Jack !

    FOI EIGHT

    LOI HOTFOOT

    COD POTTY, but also enjoyed OPTICS, and CONVENIENCE.

    Spending a penny seems to be typically 1000% more expensive nowadays !

  18. Another one who took a long time to spot DOMINANT. I was also very slow with GOSSIP having convinced myself that “ergo (therefore)” was in there somewhere representing some sort of gas, and the GP/GP double exposure fooled me again. OPTICS is tediously popular with news reporters on tv here, as a way of describing visual juxtapositions (usually unfortunate), such as a president blithely playing golf while something very bad is happening. 17.18
  19. 27 mins to get a fail because I’d biffed DEFLATED.

    Nothing really to strain the brain here. My LOI (excepting DEFEATED, of course) was HOTFOOT: more tricky, I think, because the clue requires an adverb (=quickly) and for me hotfoot is only a verb.

    Well blogged, jackkt. Thanks, setter.

    Edited at 2018-10-30 10:29 am (UTC)

  20. 8.52 but fell into the DEFLATED trap, and with half an eye on Saturday speed was the primary objective. So no double-checking here. Bugger.

    One other error too which I’m not prepared to confess.

    Edited at 2018-10-30 10:55 am (UTC)

  21. 8 minutes, no hold-ups at all, more or less as fast as I could write with a dodgy pencil. Fun but easy. Had to come here to see how OLE worked.
  22. Straightforward, without being quite the write-in of yesterday. As is usually observed on these occasions, the fact that DOMINANT was my LOI makes it an outstanding example of a hidden-word clue. However, my main achievement today was that I wrote in DEFLATED, paused, reflected, and deleted the bit I couldn’t parse before finding something better. It’s never too late to learn, apparently…
  23. You obviously already learned the lesson that has me standing in the corner this morning. A road works team have just fixed a pothole outside the flat – I should really nip out and filch a cone…..
    1. If I did the right thing today, it’s only because I’ve been in the archive over the last week (mainly reminding myself what it’s like solving three puzzles back to back). Anyway, in the space of one day’s practice, I managed to write in SIESTA for FIESTA, FAG-END for DOG-END, and UNCOIL for UNROLL. So with any luck, I’ve used up all my stupidity quota for this year, but I’m not quite ruling out the need for my own cone on Saturday…
  24. I managed not to get deflated by this puzzle, so am in a better mood than I was yesterday. I wasted time wondering if there was such a thing as a COUR NUT before common sense returned. Liked GODFATHER, ESTHER and BAIL OUT. ILLNESS held me up until I had all the crossers. HOTFOOT was my LOI and accounted for several of my 26:35 minutes. Nice puzzle. Thanks setter and Jack.
  25. Newcomer, signing in from Paris having finally mastered how to get on to Live Journal. Not easy. Yesterday was a personal best. Today not so hard either.
  26. 32’30. Almost defeated (and certainly deflated) by SE which took for ever at the end, preoccupied with nutty and batty, but got there. Delighted to recall a childhood favourite, ‘Susannah of the Mounties’. Wonder what she’d have thought of a generically male treasurer?
  27. Finished in around 40 mins which I am happy with. I just don’t seem to be able to write the answers in as quickly as many of you! Was also held up by the fact that I had Eaton (Cardinal Eaton?) at 6ac for a good while which held me up in the NE corner. Also, another one who had DEFLATED rather than DEFEATED for some time before I saw the light, doh. COD 3D. Thanks setter and jackkt.
  28. 25 mins of which maybe 10 involved a nap. Awoke to find it much easier than it was beforehand. Was about to moan about the fact that I know nothing about Baudelaire when I twigged and finished HOTFOOTas the LOI.
  29. Another 15 minute outing, with the only real challenges being avoiding DEFLATED and figuring out the ‘oft’ amidst HOTFOOT. I can’t even recall my LOI, as it didn’t really stand out. I imagine we’ll face something more tricky as the week goes on. Regards.
  30. This one took me probably 35 minutes, but alas I was called away and left the clock running. In any event, I found this one a little trickier than yesterday’s. Fortunately, though, it doesn’t matter because I was lucky enough to have one typo (dominEnt!) and one error (deflated at 5d). I did wonder where the “lat” came from, but was so sure it had to be the answer that I shrugged and moved on.

  31. Held up for ages having written on FIANCEE rather than FINANCE. NW was a bit slow too as not sure what the NUT could be. LOI HOTFOOT which took several minutes having concluded it had to be HOT-something
  32. 50 mins solving time but with deflated, obviously not parsed. I was held up predominantly in the NW corner. DNK COLA NUT so relied on the wordplay. I also took an eon to get EON. 13d TYPESETTING, I also biffed so thank you Jack for your enlightenment although I still need to go off and investigate the two component definitions.

    OK got it; declining is as in the sun setting!

    Edited at 2018-10-30 06:09 pm (UTC)

  33. Have just managed to finish this after staring at 20d with all the checkers for ages; finally HOTFOOT emerged as my LOI.
    Prior to that was Potty which is my COD. Another one I stared at for a long time. A lot to like in this puzzle I thought -Bali etc.
    And I finished yesterday’s puzzle so I am on a roll,although with golf tomorrow,I’ll only have time for the QC. Three easy-ish puzzles in a row is unlikely. David
  34. 20:29 another easy one. 5dn was crying out for deflated but when that would not parse it had to be defeated. Minor hold up being unable to parse dominant – I’d already got the hidden (albeit reversed) eon and was not expecting there to be another hidden.
  36. Second time through three years on and three times faster, this time online. Raced through it, but managed to hook an irritating pink square by typing ACCEBT rather than ACCENT

Comments are closed.