Times Cryptic 27212

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

I found this very hard and after nearly an hour had completed only about a third of it so I took a short break. On returning I fared much better and knocked off most of what remained in about 8 minutes. It was still a DNF though, as detailed in my blog below, because I put a wrong answer at 10ac and this prevented me solving 7dn.

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 Restrict flow in stretch of pipe (4)
STEM – Two meanings. For those who like lists for reference, a standard tobacco pipe is likely to have around 10 parts as follows:  (1) bowl, (2) chamber, (3) draught hole, (4) shank, (5) mortise, (6) tenon, (7) STEM, (8) bit (or mouthpiece), (9) lip, and (10) bore.
4 Given to naive thoughts, remain in seedy resort (6-4)
STARRY-EYED – TARRY (stay) in anagram [resort] of SEEDY
9 Poor / little Bobby? (3,4,3)
NOT MUCH COP – Two meanings, the second being cryptic. “Ingerland swings like a pendulum do, Bobbies on bicycles two-by-two, Westminster Abbey, the tower of Big Ben, the rosy-red cheeks of the little chil-DREN” (Roger Miller, 1965).
10 A device that stops one backing horse (4)
ARAB – A, BAR (device that stops one) reversed [backing].  With only the final B-checker in place I came up with the answer BARB parsed as a double definition. I took the first as “a device that stops one backing” which with a little stretch of imagination might describe the function of a barb on a hook. As for the second definition, my original thought was that BARB might be short for barbiturate (turns out it is!) and ‘horse’, as all Times solvers know, is slang for ‘heroin’. My knowledge of drugs is not sufficient to be sure whether heroin is a barbiturate, but I reasoned that street slang such as this may not always be strictly accurate. Anyway I then looked up BARB and found this in Collins: a breed of horse of North African origin, similar to the Arab but less spirited. That sealed the deal as far as I was concerned so I gave up thinking about drugs and wrote it in with conviction.
11 Dad and bad-tempered giant endlessly go the rounds (6)
PATROL – PA (dad), TROL{l)  (bad-tempered giant) [endlessly]
12 Mine is found in unlocked shed (4-4)
OPEN-CAST – OPEN (unlocked), CAST (shed)
14 Young lover, one relieved to find Leda’s assailant (4)
SWAN – SWA{i}N (young lover) [one relieved]. In Greek mythology Zeus in the guise of a swan seduces Leda.  I wondered if  ‘assail’  might be a bit strong for this scenario but on checking the dictionaries I found that ‘assail’ can be defined as: attack with temptation, try; woo, court. On the other hand there’s a cartoon on Page 31 of the current edition of Private Eye that takes a more extreme and modern view of the mythological shenanigans, # MeToo!
15 Humble frump, relinquishing booze, lectures drunk (10)
RESPECTFUL – Anagram [drunk] of LECTURES  F{rum}P [relinquishing booze]
17 Fish taken to harbour provides work (5,5)
BLEAK HOUSE – BLEAK (fish – a type of carp ), HOUSE (harbour – provide accommodation). An unbiffable clue.
20 Second rescue boat finds island (4)
SARK – S (second), ARK (rescue boat). No cars allowed there; only tractors and horse-drawn vehicles. Also unbiffable.
21 Complain unnecessarily after fairy creates wall of fruit (8)
PERICARP – PERI (fairy), CARP (complain unnecessarily). Not a word I knew but SOED defines it as the wall of a ripened ovary or fruit.
23 They waken us when Liberal member enters (6)
ALARMS – L (liberal) + ARM (member) is contained by [enters] AS (when)
24 Fine fabric that one may cut in strips? (4)
LAWN – A straight definition and a cryptic hint with reference to turf
25 This strange exam covers one century of yore (10)
HISTORICAL – Anagram [strange] of THIS, then ORAL (exam) contains [covers] I (one) + C (century)
26 Perhaps marinade is on offer at commercial centre (10)
TENDERISER – TENDER (offer), IS, {comm}ER{cial} [centre]
27 Ham producer has son in for a feed (4)
NOSH – NO{a}H (Ham producer) has S (son) in for ‘a’ to produce NOSH. Ham was Noah’s second son.
Down
2 Author‘s novel somehow flat (6,5)
THOMAS WOLFE – Anagram [novel] of SOMEHOW FLAT. This American author is unknown to me but his surname was gettable from anagrist once I’d spotted THOMAS. On edit: Commenters have since referred to him as Tom Wolfe and I can place the author exactly having seen various books of his adapted to film. Did he ever publish as Thomas Wolfe?
3 Notes the writer meeting doctor at golf club (9)
MEMORANDA – ME (the writer), MO (doctor), R AND A (golf club – Royal and Ancient, St Andrews), considered by many to be “the home of golf”.
4 Layman almost established around Los Angeles (7)
SECULAR – SECUR{e} (established) [almost], containing [around] LA (Los Angeles). I knew the answer only as an adjective but Collins lists it as a noun that can be used as an  alternative to ‘layman’.
5 Passports source crippled in dispute (2,5,8)
AT CROSS PURPOSES – Anagram [crippled] of PASSPORTS SOURCE. More a misunderstanding than a dispute, I’d have thought, but I suppose things could get heated.
6 Soldiers permitted to enter gym that’s full (7)
REPLETE – RE (soldiers), then LET (permitted) contained by [to enter] PE (gym)
7 Yankee graduate covering her topless mate (5)
YERBA – Y (Yankee) + BA (graduate) containing [covering] {h}ER [topless]. Yerba maté is the full name of this tree or shrub hitherto completely unknown to me. I wondered whether it was fair to omit the acute accent in the clue but Collins allows it without. I think I may have considered this answer when experimenting with wordplay, along with YERMA, but as I didn’t recognise either as word nothing went in. After I had decided on BARB at 10ac I never stood chance at this one.
8 Start university getting into arrears (5)
DEBUT – U (university) contained by [getting into] DEBT (arrears)
13 Nothing like these served in traditional pizzeria? (6,5)
SQUARE MEALS – Cryptic definition. We needed traditional because square, or at least rectangular, pizzas are not unknown.
16 Aussie Brown entertains primarily sexual obsession (9)
TASMANIAN – TAN (brown) contains S{exual} [primarily] + MANIA (obsession)
18 Girl in crouch finally loading pistol (7)
HEATHER – {crouc}H [finally] conatined by [loading] HEATER (pistol)
19 Locks up quartet missing feminine charm (7)
ENAMOUR – MANE (locks) reversed [up], {f}OUR (quartet) [missing feminine]
21 Test sanctimonious man God spared (5)
PILOT – PI (sanctimonious), LOT (man God spared – from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah)
22 Horse must pass round wide tree (5)
ROWAN – ROAN (horse] contains [must pass round] W (wide)

49 comments on “Times Cryptic 27212”

  1. 9:57, but I think I had a leg up here, since I live in the town where THOMAS WOLFE grew up (though I find him kind of dull to read), I used to be a TASMANIAN, and YERBA is a pretty common tea amongst friends. My fingers crossed moments were NOT MUCH COP, which I thought was NOT MUCH CHOP and SWAN
  2. I didn’t find this too bad, although a few references passed me by including LAWN as a ‘fine fabric’ and Noah’s son. Leda and the SWAN was also a guess.

    THOMAS WOLFE was the author of ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’ wasn’t he? Apparently not. ‘North Carolina’s most famous writer’ no less and might be worth a look.

    Finished in 44 minutes.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

  3. I did check YERBA in the dictionary, to discover that ‘mate’ is ‘maté’; Colllins or no Collins, I didn’t care for this trick. 9ac barely remembered from a previous cryptic. As I recall the myth–and I’m not going to look it up–Zeus raped Leda, which sounds like assailing to me. Slowed myself down some by a) thinking of GLAMOUR at 19d and trying to deal with ‘locks up’, b) reading ‘marinade’ as ‘marmalade’. And Jack to the contrary notwithstanding, I biffed 17ac; once I’d put in ENAMOUR, the checkers suggested the title, and then I sort of remembered the fish.
    1. I’m not overly familiar with the story of Zeus and Leda, but the version I consulted on-line didn’t mention ‘rape’, it said ‘seduction’ which is perhaps not quite so cut and dried. I’ve now looked at a more reliable printed source which states that ‘the rape of Leda is the subject of Yeats’s fine poem, Leda and the Swan’.

      I suppose checkers have to be included in the biffing process otherwise we might need more than one acronym, BIFDO (only) and BIFDAC (and checkers) for example.

      Edited at 2018-12-04 05:55 am (UTC)

      1. I find that I’ve been tending to use ‘biff’ in a wider sense than originally intended, i.e. to mean ‘enter without figuring out the wordplay’; I hope I’m not the only one.
        I was going to add that like Jack, I came up with BARB (probably thinking of Richard II’s Roan Barbary); I overlooked the A that begins the clue. Myrtilus has lamented its superfluity in some recent clues, but the principle he staunchly defends remains.
        1. For me biffing invariably involves the use of checkers. Answers that you can genuinely bung in from definition without them are quite rare, and usually require a distinctive enumeration. Like you I bunged in BLEAK HOUSE like this, partly because I didn’t know the fish. SARK is also biffable from ‘island’ and S_R_ but I got it from the wordplay without any checkers.
    2. I got ‘mate’ correct quite by accident and without realising it should have an acute. But then ‘t’ followed by ‘e’ can sometimes be pronounced as two syllables anyway. Eg ‘pate’ (the food), seems to have lost its original acute over time. But a couple of weeks ago we had ‘apercu’, which in normal usage of course requires a cedilla under the ‘c’. I was mildly outraged by this, even though grumpily acknowledging that the word (with cedilla) has passed into English. I like to think that I disregarded it as a possible answer though, basically because it just isn’t a word without that cedilla. Not that I suppose it makes much difference when written down in Crossword Land, but is there a convention of ignoring accents-even though they are necessary in rendering the word meaningful? Except for homophones-where it could get VERY controversial- I think there is a significant difference between the cedilla example, and the use of acutes and graves over ‘e’s. Mr Grumpy
      1. Sorry, my last sentence reads incorrectly. Just to correct-I think there should be a difference in acceptance of cedillas and acutes/graves (etc). But being more relaxed about the latter could lead to even more controversy regarding possible homophones in solutions. Thanks. Mr Grumpy
  4. This felt like longer than the 37 minutes it took, possibly down to lots of unknown vocab, but also the occasional kick-self moment, like 14a where I was desperately trying to remember which god it was who’d turned himself into a SWAN before realising I already had the answer!

    Happily I drank a lot of YERBA during one of my rare virtuous periods where I tried to avoid coffee, otherwise I’d probably have chosen YERMA and then complained bitterly.

    Now to go an add a few more things to my personal crossword dictionary, including yet another sporting reference, and yet another fish…

    Edited at 2018-12-04 07:53 am (UTC)

  5. 40 mins with yoghurt, banana and blueberry compote.
    I enjoyed this. The GK suited me and I liked the jokes: square meals, not much cop.
    Whenever we have a word like ‘heater’ or ‘rod’ for a handgun, I feel compelled to recommend the short story: ‘Somewhere a Roscoe…’ by SJ Perelman. IMO it is hilarious (and google-able online).
    Thanks setter and J.
  6. 19:08. I held myself up by initially having TO CROSS PURPOSES at 5d. One or two clues had me dredging my memory… LAWN as a fabric, LEDA and the swan, YERBA the tea, BLEAK the fish and THOMAS WOLFE the author. NOT MUCH COP my LOI. COD to NOSH.
  7. Like gothick_matt I thought this felt like it took longer than it actually did. Not sure why. LOI RESPECTFUL – I’m often thrown by the clues which tell you to take a bit of one word and mix it with another to get the anagram, and I was instead looking for it to finish with an anagram of ‘lectures’. This came close to me making up a nonsense word, but I managed to pull it out the bag this time.
  8. I had never heard of the tea, but had seen (on live broadcast to my local cinema) the play “Yerma” starring a brilliant Billie Piper. That is the sad tale of a young woman unable to have children, and I thought that perhaps the title meant “mate”, but now see that it is Spanish for “barren”.

    Edited at 2018-12-04 08:58 am (UTC)

    1. Never having heard of yerba, or mate as a drink, or yerba mate (but knowing maté as a drink), I chose yerba over yerma as I vaguely recognised it as a Spansih word – the island in the middle of the Oakland Bay Bridge is Yerba Buena, I’ve driven through it.
  9. I found this even easier than yesterday’s so I was a bit surprised by the current SNITCH score. A couple of half-knowns but with clear word play. No definitive time as the 18 minutes shown by the app included an interruption of about 5 minutes.
  10. Nothing to frighten the horses here – top to bottom solve with few holdups. Didn’t like “mate” as definition for YERBA. Did like “Ham producer” for Noah.
  11. 36 minutes with fingers crossed in places. PERICARP not known but looked right, HEAT(H)ER for pistol a hope more than expectation, and I’ve never heard of LAWN fabric unless it’s used for grass skirts. Two great clues though with NOT MUCH COP and COD NOSH, although I guess (S)ARK had put the thought about.. I vaguely knew YERBA maté although I tried to make sense of Yerma first, a play I haven’t seen. I enjoyed this. Thank you Jack and setter.
  12. Another gentle breeze here, at 17 minutes, so presumably a wavelength thing.
    Pizzas at La Pratolina in Rome, the pizza restaurant allegedly most preferred by locals, came mostly in a sort of rounded-off oblong, tending to square: does that make them non-traditional?
    No less than two Genesis references, No’ a(h) Lot or two too many according to fancy.
    Bletchley was not alone in seeing THOMAS WOLFE and thinking Bonfire of the Vanities: it seems he became eligible for inclusion in May this year, so maybe not the wrong one after all.
    YERBA I’d kind of heard of but didn’t associate it with tea, so didn’t care so much about the absence of the accent on mate. Vaguely thought “friend” along the lines of Yentl (which obviously doesn’t really work), but fortunately, being not-Oxford, didn’t think of converting my BA to a Masters.
    Commiseration son the BARB, Jack: a fair enough entry, especially since “device that stops one” is a bit hefty for BAR. Thanks for the entertaining blog.
  13. 24 min – no particular holdups as I knew 7dn, probably from a puzzle elsewhere, as the omitted accent didn’t worry me. When I found 2dn, my reaction was that I must have missed seeing his obituary – though I find there was another one that the setter could have had in mind.
  14. 44 mins with YERMA/YERBA holding me up somewhat. NHO the plant or tea, but reckoned that ‘mate’ didn’t fit at all with the vaguely-recollected Lorca play. Now I’ve read the explanation here, I think mate for maté in the clue is not entirely fair.
    I biffed BLEAK HOUSE from nothing more than (5,5) and the U; no idea that bleak=a fish. NHO PERICARP, but the wordplay worked.
    My COD nomination to ARAB: a clue that puzzled me for a good while, and yet it’s really quite straightforward — I like that the clue can be parsed in so many different ways.
    Tremendous blog: thanks, jackkt!

    Edited at 2018-12-04 10:32 am (UTC)

  15. ….from STEM to stern.

    I spotted YERBA pretty early, but THOMAS WOLFE had to be taken on trust. I almost biffed “Oscar Wilde” before realizing it didn’t quite fit.

    FOI SARK
    LOI/COD NOT MUCH COP
    TIME 19:22

    Phil Jordan

  16. I enjoyed this one, which had a good few great clues. The ones that held me back a bit were ARAB (congrats for not having any artists entertaining sailors) and YERBA, whose definition ‘mate’ had me foxed.

    I see that in Collins it doesn’t require the accented é, which the editor must have checked, with people like us hanging around.

    Nice blog jackkt, great, and nice puzzle setter.

  17. While trudging through I did wonder why Japanese musical drama had been singled out as producers of ham actors particularly. Thanks to jackkt for enlightening me. Probably my COD therefore.
  18. 29’42 and quite glad to get in under the half-hour as found this a little okkard. Chose yerba over yerma on the grounds it sounded more like a china-style chum. Also managed to get away from a low mock cap, otherwise known as a bobby, worn by parlour-maids perhaps. Liked the gormless 13.
  19. Loved this, a steady but slow solve in 33 minutes. No problems with yerba for mate tea, or the swan thing, the author or the pericarp. LAWN and PILOT were last in. Liked the pizza clue and the little bobby.
  20. I had a very slow start, but sped up after a while and stopped the clock on 9m 35s with YERMA as the LOI. It sounded more plausible than YERBA, but I guess you live and learn.

    There were quite a few I biffed or semi-biffed today – the RANDA bit of MEMORANDA, the BLEAK bit of BLEAK HOUSE, NOSH – and some that went in from wordplay, such as SWAN and PERICARP.

    A decent puzzle today, and hopefully I’ll remember YERBA the next time it crops up.

  21. 10:55 with fingers crossed for YERBA, where I figured BA was a better fit for ‘graduate’ than MA. If it had been YERMA I’d have been annoyed.
    Like sawbill I thought 27 was a bit harsh on Japanese drama, so thanks for clearing that one up.
    I assumed THOMAS WOLFE was the Bonfire guy. I knew that he had died: I was quite aware of him towards the end of his life because of the ghastly opinionated drivel he wrote on the subject of language.
      1. Oh yes I had forgotten the ghastly drivel about Darwin. A towering monument of arrogance and ignorance.

        Edited at 2018-12-04 03:29 pm (UTC)

  22. I must have been doing a different puzzle from everyone else: I thought this was a so-and-so, and it took me almost an hour to unpick it. Never heard of pericarp, so had to trust the wordplay, and also had never heard of yerba, so had to spin a coin and choose between yerma and yerba. Lorca went through my mind, but couldn’t reconcile fruit with the meaning of the Spanish word, so went for yerba, which was correct in the event, but I felt that the wordplay was too loose for an obscurity of this sort. Ironically, in view of my Spanish credentials, I’d either forgotten mate or quite possibly never heard of it. Great blog, cheers.
  23. The site will forever record me as having made 2 errors, but I think it’s unlikely I’d have entered RESEPCTFUL and REPLETP if solving on paper (or, indeed, if I’d checked my entry properly before submitting). That aside, nice puzzle which left me thinking “Surely he’s always known as Tom Wolfe?”, so I’ve learned a new author today; and I was glad I had a vague memory of YERBA which led me to swerve that way rather than towards YERMA.
  24. In my previous life as a health shop owner, we sold a lot of YERBA MATE, and never bothered with the accent then so it looks kinda normal to me. Did the RHS in 7 mins flat so was expecting the same on the left but held up mightily by several, including TENDERISER which, again as yesterday, I wasn’t aware of because of being a veggie. Also temporarily forgotten that sanctimonious = pi in crosswords, and THOMAS WOLFE was unknown, but I picked WOLFE out of the anagram, which left THOMAS… also never heard of a BLEAK, so I biffed it!
  25. I don’t think he’s much read these days but the title of his book You Can’t Go Home Again is often quoted. I quite enjoyed the movie of Tom W’s The Right Stuff though it was too long, but the Bonfire movie was a dud. He must have lived quite near us on the UES because we saw him often in his trademark white 3-piece suits and white Homburg. We also saw him at our local Beach Cafe which Keriothe et al know from out get-together in October.

    Apparently an explicit fresco of Leda & the Swan has just been discovered at Pompeii but I’d certainly go with “assault”. 18.14 with a complete blank for quite some time right at the end with ARAB.

  26. I did OK time wise (sub-15) and backed the right YERBA / YERMA horse but fluffed 21a where I thought PERIVAMP would make a nice word, not knowing the actual answer and being unable to think of a word meaning to “complain unnecessarily”. Blast those double unches.

    The only one I biffed (which term I use without restriction on the number of checkers that were there to help) was Tasmanian, so I take that as a sign of a good challenge.


  27. Having decided that 27 across must be MASH – anagram of HAM & S – I spent far too long trying to scare up some term designating sexual obsession for 16 down that ended in -ISM.

    Once that had been sorted out, I biffed GRAB for 10 across on the entirely reasonable basis that if I ignored “horse” it was probably correct…….

    The best description I ever read of compounding one’s errors came from, I think, an American politician who, having been caught either in flagrante or with his fingers in the till, memorably said: ” Yeah, I shot myself in the foot and then reloaded and blew the sucker clean off!”

    Time: DNF in 37 minutes.

    Thank you to setter and blogger.

    Dave.

  28. I though I was in for a humdinger when I didn’t get my first entry until PILOT, but after a very slow start, things finally started to come together. AT CROSS PURPOSES eventually gave me a good lead in and I was left with the tricky NE corner after 35 or so minutes. STARRY EYED then gave me the key to my Last 3, DEBUT, ARAB and YERBA. I chose YERBA, but then cracked before submitting and checked it to make sure. I particularly like Noah as a Ham producer. NOT MUCH COP raised a smile too. 41:44. Thanks setter and Jack.
  29. I blanked out completely on this until I reached Leda and her swan, my FOI. After that it was a laborious solve with only a few clues completed after 35 minutes. Then suddenly it all clicked and the rest went in at a rush. I just wasn’t on the wavelength this morning, though in retrospect I can’t see why I found it so difficult. 53 minutes. Ann
  30. I was another yerma, alas. I do think it was rather mean clueing an obscure word in that ambiguous way.
  31. I got done with this in around 35 minutes, using the wrong Tom Wolfe and also – like others – wondering why we were singling out Japanese theater for training bad actors. Also unfamiliar with the LAWN fabric, the BLEAK fish, the PERICARP and mate as a drink, although I remembered that San Francisco’s original name was Yerba Buena; don’t know if it’s the same thing. So no wonder it took some extended time. Anyway, regards.
  32. Submitted with trembling fingers after 50 minutes and … everything was OK! But there were many guesses and vague hints of memories of possible word meanings (BLEAK as a fish, LAWN as a fabric). No problem with YERBA, but then I’ve taken a fancy to reading books in Spanish, which helps. I was also wondering about bad actors in Japanese drama, but fortunately that didn’t ruin a correct answer.
  33. 44 mins for the first two-thirds and far too long for the last third, mainly SW but did not get PATROL, SECULAR or LOI NOT MUCH COP until the end.

    NHO HEATER = Pistol or LAWN = Fine Fabric. PERICARP was tenuously vaguely known,

  34. …and I didn’t like ‘go the rounds’ – surely should-a-bin ‘do the rounds’ ?
  35. 29:58. I knew the mate from travels in South America years ago. Was a bit hesitant about the fish in 17ac but thought what else was “work” going to be with those checkers and the second word clearly house? Dnk or had forgotten the fine fabric at 24ac but checkers pointed me to the solution. Came here to find out what sort of club a randa was, presumed it was a five iron or something. Doh! The heater in 18dn is the sort of thing I imagine Jimmy Cagney and Edward G Robinson packing. A pleasant solve.
  36. Tricky today – I did eventually finish after taking a break (like our blogger) and I didn’t really understand “Yerba” until I came to this blog and read about the missing accent (naughty, I thought). Also didn’t understand “Lawn” so some learnings today. Not Much Cop was clever and took me ages, even when I had the “Cop”.
  37. Not to be confused! The former is tiresome for quite other reasons than the latter (who was very fortunate to have Maxwell Perkins as an editor).
  38. Thanks setter and jack
    Just under the hour to finish this in one longer and two short sittings. Had a standard start with STEM and MEMORANDA (quickly seeing the golf club) but slowing up and heading down to the opposite corner.
    Have seen PERICARP pop up a couple of times in recent puzzles, so was up for it when it appeared. BLEAK HOUSE went in as the novel and like others had to discover the fish with help. Have seen the LAWN fabric numerous times – but only in crosswords.
    Finished with ENAMOUR (tricky with the ‘locks up’), HISTORICAL and the Charles Dickens book in last.

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