Times Cryptic 27188

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

My solving time was off the scale and it was well past an hour when I got to my final two missing answers at 16dn and 24dn. By that stage I had completely run out of ideas so I set the puzzle aside for a while and when I returned to it the answers miraculously came to mind. I was very pleased just to complete this without resorting to aids.

No change of blogging style from me, as I altered it 2-3 years ago to give more detail when it became apparent that we had an influx of new contributors joining us from the QC. Also, as I blog for both puzzles, it was handier for me not to have to switch gear when moving across from one to the other. As for revealing my thought processes when solving, I wouldn’t wish to inflict some of them on people who may be of a nervous disposition! One can apply straight logic only so far and there comes a point where lateral thinking is required and that’s seldom easy to explain in simple terms.

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 Shrew runs in through crack (6)
VIRAGO – R (runs) contained by [in] VIA (through), GO (crack – ‘have a go/crack at something’). I thought of the correct meaning of ‘shrew’ immediately so the answer should have been a write-in, but the word didn’t come to mind until I had sufficient checkers to jog my memory.
5 Brass band regularly entertains United and a rival team (8)
AUDACITY – {b}A{n}D [regularly] contains [entertains] U (united), A, CITY (rival team). A sneaky definition and quite complicated wordplay for which one  needs to know that City and United are rival football teams in Manchester (maybe elsewhere too, for all I know about soccerl). I think the full expression for ‘audacity’ or ‘cheek’ is ‘brass neck’ and there are a number of other related usages such as ‘bold as brass’ and ‘brazen’ meaning ‘made of brass’ as well as ‘shameless’.
9 I love being in south of France, returning with fine wine in particular (10)
FASTIDIOUS – F (fine), ASTI (wine),  then I + 0 (love) contained by [being in] SUD (south ‘of France’) reversed [returning]. ‘With’ has to be treated according to the ‘on-in-an-Across-clue’ convention so as to place the various components of the answer in the correct order.
10 Creative individual’s scratching head (4)
ARTY – {p}ARTY (individual) [scratching head].  ‘A certain party/individual…’
11 Not losing heart, at first the guy will be determined (4-4)
HELL-BENT – HE’LL (the guy will), BE, N{o}T [losing heart]. Through rain and wind and weather, hell bent for leather…
12 One goes on airship? (6)
GASBAG -Two definitions of sorts,  the first being a person who goes on and on about something or nothing at great length – I’ve known a few in my time!
13 Hospital unit is perfect (4)
HONE – H (hospital), ONE (unit). Pronounced as in ‘perfect one’s skills’.
15 Old king, set to move, hiding inside tree (8)
OLEASTER – O (old), anagram [move] of SET contained by [hiding inside] LEAR (king). An olive tree. The containement indicator is strategically placed to misdirect the solver
18 Extremely cold in Canadian province — Quebec’s the leader in snow vehicles (8)
BICYCLES – ICY (extremely cold) contained by [in] BC (Canadian province – British Columbia), LE (Quebec’s ‘the’), S{now} [leader]
19 Twopence piece is visible (4)
OPEN – Hidden [piece] in {tw}OPEN{ce}
21 Coach follows game in which there’s the potential for rain (6)
NIMBUS – NIM (game), BUS (coach). I learnt the name of this game in a puzzle I blogged two weeks ago today, so it was fresh in my mind. In meteorology this is specifically a rain cloud, apparently.
23 Bearing weapons, is imprisoned, making lucky escape (4,4)
NEAR MISS – NE (bearing – northeast), ARMS (weapons) with IS contained [imprisoned]
25 Strike bar before heading in goal (4)
BANG – BAN (bar), G{oal} [heading]. One for the QC.
26 Application of string theory, “relatively” speaking? (6,4)
GRANNY KNOT – According to Wiki: In topology, KNOT theory is the study of mathematical knots. ‘Relatively’ points us in the direction of a family member and GRANNY fits the bill nicely. More easily biffed than explained. Another misdirection here is that ‘speaking’ suggests a homophone might be involved, but it isn’t.
27 Note river without end (8)
TERMINUS – TE (note), R (river), MINUS (without)
28 A retired GP tucks into layer cake (6)
HARDEN – A then DR (GP) reversed [retired] both contained by [tucks into] HEN (layer – of eggs). ‘Cake’ as a verb meaning to form or set into a hardened mass.
Down
2 Vacant area in pub to the rear of lounge (5)
INANE – A (area) contained by [in] INN (pub), {loung}E [rear]
3 Vessel has poorly kept guns (9)
ARTILLERY – ARTERY (vessel) contains [has…kept] ILL (poorly)
4 Lots of sketches, but missing the first … (6)
OODLES – {d}OODLES (sketches) [missing the first]. Of uncertain origin, unfortunately.
5 …of many thousands lost for ages (1,5,2,7)
A MONTH OF SUNDAYS – Anagram [lost] of OF MANY THOUSANDS
6 Seeing changes within a couple of days, as planned (8)
DESIGNED – Anagram [changes] of SEEING contained by [within] D D (a couple of days)
7 Fellows taking over, not quietly, causing confusion (5)
CHAOS – CHA{p}S (fellows) [not quietly] becomes CHAOS when it takes O (over) instead of the deleted letter
8 Nice intimate conversation? (4-1-4)
TÊTE-À-TÊTE – Cryptic definition with ‘Nice’ indicating that it’s a French expression.
14 One soldier decorated houses in spring (9)
ORIGINATE – ORNATE (decorated) contains [houses]  I (one) + GI (soldier)
16 Craftsman: “Ring me up in a moment, right?” (9)
SHOEMAKER – O (ring) then ME reversed [up] both contained by [in] SHAKE (moment), R (right)
17 Has flung out photographic device (8)
FLASHGUN – Anagram [out] of HAS FLUNG
20 What’s initially awkward to hold in with belt? (6)
PAUNCH – A{wkward} [initially] contained by [to hold in] PUNCH (belt)
22 Using sticker? That’s surprising (2,3)
BY GUM – BY (using), GUM (sticker)
24 Times lifted after leaving hotel room (5)
SCOPE – EPOC{h}S (times) reversed [leaving hotel]

47 comments on “Times Cryptic 27188”

  1. Thanks for parsing 26a and 24d, Jack. How can one be certain, but I think the former may be better approached – synthetically rather than analytically – as a cryptic definition? But maybe I am missing something sciency.

    I took ages on my last 4 (16, 20, 24d and 26a), but scraped home in the end. I must say, I rather enjoyed the challenge.

    Did anyone else try ‘herdan’ at 28a? But my biggest source of wasted time was bunging in ‘oleander’ at 15a. Well, it is a small tree, even if its parsing depends on a misspelt indirect anagram.

    Edited at 2018-11-06 03:55 am (UTC)

    2. Sorry that I missed your reflection on 26a on first reading. As noted in my comment below, I think it only makes sense as a cryptic definition, as “knot” is not the same as “knot theory” (even for someone with a “sciency” bent).
        1. String theory is way beyond my comprehension, but the clue didn’t tie me in knots !
  2. A 35 minute DNF, with an annoying ‘store’ for SCOPE in 24d despite an alphabet trawl at the end. Another initial ‘oleander’ at 15a for me, though the parsing was clear on a second look.

    I’d just been tackling the Saturday Guardian Prize puzzle (Imogen), so this one came as a bit of a relief. Favourites for me were the misdirection of ‘snow vehicles’ in 18a and the short and sweet GASBAG.

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

  3. I was happy to scrape in under 43 mins, so must have been on the wavelength for this one. It was helpful that little UK-specific knowledge was required. I did like 12a and the “south of France” reference in 9a.

    I’m not sure 26a really works except as a cryptic definition. KNOT is not the same as “knot theory”, so it can’t really be clued as “theory”, can it? I didn’t, however, have any trouble believing it to be the right answer, so it was okay in my book.

    Thanks, Jack, for the excellent blog and to the setter for a good test without any obscurities for those of us in the colonies.

    Edited at 2018-11-06 05:02 am (UTC)

  5. …and nothing fishy about it!
    BICYCLES is great, and somewhat typical of this puzzle: I could often see the answer from the definition (though here I also had ICY), but working out the very clever but precise wordplay didn’t fail to amuse. Of course, LES is itself a French word for “the,” just plural, but it’s a slick surface, with “leader in snow.”
    27 is an exemplar of concision.
    Didja know OLEASTER is “kind of like an olive,” exactly the way “poetaster” (which we saw here recently) is “kind of like a poet”?

    Edited at 2018-11-06 07:16 am (UTC)

    1. Yes, I loved finding out about OLEASTER/poetaster. Hopefully that’ll help settle the word into my brain, too…
  6. I thought I had been slow but, seeing this blog, I feel a bit better. A very satisfying crossword.
  7. 25:24, with the last 4 minutes on my last two – SCOPE (which required an alphabet trawl before I found epoch as the times)and VIRAGO (I was thinking of the animal and had forgotten this word until I got it via the wordplay). I really enjoyed this – lots of clever wordplay and sneaky misdirection. COD to BICYCLES, but SHOEMAKER a close second.

    Edited at 2018-11-06 08:24 am (UTC)

  8. Easier than yesterday, but that’s not saying much. 54 minutes for me, with the wordplay and the definitions seeming to get more oblique further down the grid. Not too many unknowns, at least, so less of a trial-by-ignorance than yesterday’s!

    FOI 2d INANE LOI 14 ORIGINATE. Held up mostly by the unknown 15a OLEASTER, 26a HARDEN’s definition, the IKEA special of 16d’s SHOEMAKER, and 26a GRANNY KNOT, the reef knot’s less glamorous cousin…

  10. 55 mins with yoghurt, granola, etc.
    I got off to a bad start: Old King containing anagram of ‘set’ meaning tree? C.(est)nut obviously. But what about the H? Never mind, write it in!
    What a mess – but eventually unscrambled.
    Mostly I liked: Artillery and COD to BANG!
    Thanks setter and J.
  11. I thought this crossword stood out for having particularly good surfaces, with very little sounding forced to me. OPEN probably the pick of the bunch though – ‘Twopence piece’ hides the hidden word indicator so well.
  12. 17:44 and no typos!

    Some great clues here. I liked Terminus, Granny Knot and Bicycles but

    COD: AUDACITY.

  13. Top class crossword, this. Some lovely surfaces as already mentioned and some tricky but fair wordplay. All definitions acceptable .. fine effort, thank you setter & Jack
  14. 25.28, with the last one PAUNCH, which I took to be an &lit of sorts (as did Jack) but was confused by the “with” which is not really doing anything except making the overall sense -um- make sense.
    Next to last was the complex FASTIDIOUS, the required word for wine being messed up by the “fine” and the Frenchness of the clue.
    I can only say I was dubious about GRANNY KNOT, only leaving it in when the surrounding answers allowed it. I assume we’re being misdirected to be thinking in Einstein/quantum terms, but it doesn’t look more than a cryptic definition in the end.
    18 was another hold up, as I’m convinced there’s a boat of some sort which has a Q (without a U – useful for Scrabble) included in its spelling, but a) couldn’t, still can’t, bring it to mind and b) it wasn’t a NATO clue anyway.
    I enjoyed yesterday’s more, but this was a decent workout after last week’s pre-champ simples. Jack, I like your style just fine – no need to change!
  15. Very happy with my 22 minutes because at one point total failure seemed likely. Then, as is often the way, one answer became four and I finished in a rush.
  16. All correct in 49 minutes with LOI SCOPE, while watching the cricket. (Note to myself, no spoiler alert.) I found this pretty tricky but it started to be soluble once I followed instructions. String Theory is so bad it’s not even wrong according to Peter Woit. Ten dimensions are certainly beyond me. I could just about manage a three- dimensional GRANNY KNOT as a Wolf Cub. COD to convoluted BICYCLES, although I enjoyed the Manchester derby game too. Thank you Jack and setter.
    1. Those who wish to enjoy the Manchester “derby” can do so on Sunday afternoon. It’s my birthday, so I may go and watch it in a local pub with suitable accompanying libations.
      1. Enjoy it. It’s not a game I’ve any skin in, so I can. I was sorry not to meet you last Saturday, but I had to leave before the final was over. Happy birthday.
  17. Agree with JerryW, top class, 21 minutes with BICYCLES my LOI and parsed afterwards, and GRANNY KNOT put in without too much thought as to the exact workings. Had TOOLMAKER for 16d at first until the real tree came along.
  18. ….she was fast, and he was ‘ideous.

    16:35 for this top notch offering, and a great relief to get back on track after my recent travails.

    FOI AUDACITY
    LOI OLEASTER (I seriously wondered if there was an old king called Otessier, and he was hiding in an osier !)

    It took me a while to crack the excellent clue to ARTILLERY, and both SHOEMAKER and BICYCLES were first rate too. However, my COD is PAUNCH.

    1. Just seen this comment – I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who thought of OTESSIER, although perhaps I was the only one who fell for it.
  19. My 55 mins doesn’t seem so bad, now that I’ve read through the comments here. The wordy surfaces were apparent at first glance — and I usually find the terse clues more entertaining — but as it turned out I concluded that these were very cleverly formed. There was no clunkiness and the wordplay was all fair and justifiable, IMO. Even PAUNCH, which took me a long while, is OK, I suppose, and GRANNY KNOT worked fine for me as a cryptic. I love the way Times xwords dally with some sciency references (for which no real scientific knowledge is actually required) while demanding specific detailed knowledge of art and literature.

    Phew! jackkt — that was a blog max! Thanks.

  20. 34’45, a little tricky. Liked the application of string theory. 18 has a touch of the Heath Robinsons but I suppose the joined-up surface justifies a lengthy device. I prefer the clue that follows it. As with others I think, oleaster, shoemaker and scope last in.
  21. Yes, a really good one that flowed nicely. The only one that I got stuck on was 3d trying to make an anagram of “vessel has”. Don’t change anything Jack I like you just the way you are! (Although I don’t exactly appreciate the Rawhide refrain I’m now stuck with for today). It’s gettin’ light so I’m rollin’ off to vote. This could be a late night in front of the tv. 22.15
    1. Sorry about the earworm, Olivia, but I have my standards to maintain of lowering the intellectual level of proceedings around here!
  22. 57 mins 🙁
    Spent ages on PAUNCH and HARDEN, mainly because I forgot to consider ‘layer’ as an agent noun. As soon as I did, boom.
  23. A 25 minute dnf, had to go out, no SCOPE or PAUNCH. COD to BICYCLESS.

    Thanks jack and setter.

  24. OLEASTER certainly misdirected this solver. I went for OTESSIER – SET* in OSIER – with the hope that it was an old king I’d not come across. Oliver Tessier & Associates may enjoy the free publicity.

    11m 24s with that error, having taken a while to get going but helped out with 5d being a kind anagram. A nice puzzle, and I particularly enjoyed the wordplay for TERMINUS.

  25. A 38 min finish but with aids for my last three in PAUNCH, SCOPE and HARDEN. Really enjoyed 12a GASBAG. I seem to be improving on the 15×15 but am getting worse on the QC.
  26. Thought I’d done well to get this in 35 mins only to discover ARTS which didn’t make any sense at the time anyway. Nice mix of tough and easy without any DNK’s for me. COD BICYCLES which wasn’t obvious even with all the letters in place
  27. A knotty challenge indeed. Lots to be deciphered bit by bit here, and various pokes down dead ends before drawing the right conclusions…the cake isn’t a gateau, the twopence piece isn’t a coin, it’s a tree, not a king etc. etc.
  28. I did this on paper in the garage while awaiting the diagnosis of the error message on my dash which appeared conveniently 3 days before I’m due off on a round the country trip to various locations. Younger daughter’s birthdays in Cheddar, nephew’s new baby’s christening in Hounslow(via Northampton) and an old colleague’s retirement bash in Liverpool. Turns out that 2 glow plugs have failed, not the cheaper £15 quid apiece items, but the slightly dearer £95 each + fitting versions. Woe is me! WOE, Just like the crossword where I completely failed to get OLEASTER after solving the rest of it in around 35 minutes. The glow plugs have to be ordered in, so I’m touring without them. Let’s hope we don’t get a spell of Arctic weather while I’m away. Needs 2 tyres too, so it’s going to be an expensive pre Christmas month. Some very clever misdirection in the puzzle. Most enjoyable. Must remember that OLEASTER is a tree. I was trying to fit ELM, OAK, ASH, FIR, YEW and Uncle Tom Cobley in to come up with an old King. Drat! Thanks devious setter and Jack.
  29. At just over 33 mins, I found this laborious. Probably my post-lunch brain, but I lost ten minutes trying to think of different ‘crafts’ — sashmaker – sailmaker. Before it all clicked. Pencilling in Peep for 19 ac didn’t help, though the answer kind of worked. My COD goes to the skilful Canadian diversionary tactics in 18 ac.
  30. Excellent and challenging puzzle. I also thought GRANNY KNOT a cryptic definition rather than a reference to string theory. Great blog Jack
  31. I enjoyed this. I had OLEANDER for the tree and spent a while trying to parse it before I remembered that there was a plant of some sort called OLEASTER. After that everything flowed nicely. I didn’t know NIM as a game but ***BUS didn’t leave many options. 28 minutes. Ann
  32. I slogged through in around 40 minutes or so, my LOI’s being SHOEMAKER and SCOPE after teasing out OLEASTER mainly from wordplay. COD to BICYCLES, although I admit I enjoyed AUDACITY, FASTIDIOUS and ARTILLERY too. I didn’t know what was going on with the GRANNY KNOT, but as someone said earlier, it clearly was the right answer, so I plugged it in and moved on. Regards.
  33. 42:06 quite tricky but very satisfying to break it all down and put the relevant bits and pieces together to work out the solutions. FOI 13ac. LOI 24dn. Like others my difficulties lay in the SE with oleaster (Oedipus won’t fit, I don’t think Orestes was a king anyway, oh wait, it’s a tree), shoemaker (ring me up – great stuff) and scope. The last of which caused me to embark on a lengthy trawl of the alphabet until twigging the Times were epochs not T, TT, X, era, age, eon or any others.
  34. I enjoyed this puzzle and Jack’s blog even more, since it pretty much mirrors my own experience. The club timer says I finished in 48 minutes, but that’s not quite true since despite an alphabet trawl I got stuck on the last word, 24dn of course, and went off to watch TV for 2 hours. What amazes me about how the brain (or at least my brain) works is that when I came back to the puzzle after this longish break I looked at the two blank squares without even glancing at the clue and immediately thought “SCOPE”. Realizing that it fit “room” I figured out, within a short time, how the wordplay worked. No more musing or pondering, I just saw it right away, and it wasn’t really that easy.

    But this is much the way I finish most puzzles, the ones I can finish, that is.

    Edited at 2018-11-06 09:59 pm (UTC)

  35. We, (the lady wife and I), found this puzzle a challenge but left about five clues for this morning with a cup of English breakfast tea. Two of these the lady wife put in very quickly, FASTIDIOUS and OLEASTER but we reached an impasse with the other three. After getting up, as I was preparing to walk down the road for today’s paper, I had a sudden inspiration and got SCOPE. HARDER and PAUNCH then came swiftly. As for time, overall it must have been well over the hour. HELLBENT on improving on this!

    Edited at 2018-11-07 10:17 am (UTC)

  36. Despite repeatedly telling ourselves to always check for the hiddens, it took far too long to see the two penny piece piece! Not seeing it earlier delayed LOI ‘shoemaker’ and delivered the woeful time of 63mins

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