Times Cryptic 27356

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 36 minutes with one wrong unchecked letter at 23ac.

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 Proceeds north into each circle, then south (8)
EARNINGS – EA (each), N (north) contained by [into] RING (circle), S (south)
5 Partition eastern gym, cracking problem (6)
SEPTUM – E (eastern) + PT (gym) contained by [cracking] SUM (problem). As found in the nose, for example.
8 Jazz   hit (3)
BOP – Two meanings. I didn’t know BOP as music, only as dance, but apparently it’s an alternative name for the ‘bebop’ music which I do know of.
9 Groom blow-dries mare’s tail to relieve of dirty bits (10)
BOWDLERISE – Anagram [groom] of BLOW-DRIES, {mar}E [tail]. Collins has: C19: after Thomas Bowdler (1754–1825), English editor who published an expurgated edition of Shakespeare.
10 Veto law to do with deliveries at Lord’s? (8)
OVERRULE – OVER (deliveries at Lord’s), RULE (law)
11 Heading west, disciples blunder (4,2)
SLIP UP – PUPILS (disciples) reversed [heading west]
12 Does perhaps put off removing centrepiece (4)
DEER – DE{f}ER (put off) [removing centrepiece]. A deer, a female deer…
14 Criticise the German in airport making a mess (10)
DISORDERLY – DIS (criticise), DER (the, German) contained by [in] ORLY (airport)
17 MC in circus starring me doing acrobatics (10)
RINGMASTER – Anagram [doing acrobatics] of STARRING ME. I doubt that many solvers got as far as the wordplay before arriving at this answer.
20 Web image maybe of impressive proportions? (4)
EPIC – A straight definition preceded by a cryptic reference leading to ‘e-pic’
23 Singer mentioned legendary rock (6)
SCYLLA – Sounds like [mentioned] “Cilla” (singer – Cilla Black). My GK didn’t stretch to this character of Greek legend but I did know ‘R Cilla’. Unfortunately I wrote ‘I’ instead of ‘Y’ as the third letter. Collins advises: Scylla was  “a sea nymph transformed into a sea monster believed to drown sailors navigating the Strait of Messina. She was identified with a rock off the Italian coast”.  On further investigation it turns out that SCYLLA has come up here many times before, including this clue blogged by me in 2017: Legendary rock singer from Liverpool on vocals (6).
24 Ambitious, like country engaged in part (8)
ASPIRANT – AS (like), IRAN (country) contained by [engaged in] PT (part)
25 The orator’s unfortunate complaint (4,6)
SORE THROAT – Anagram [unfortunate] of THE ORATOR’S
26 Short grave type pursuing queen (3)
TOM – TOM{b} (grave) [short]. A cryptic feline reference.
27 Collect sportsman swapping sides (6)
PRAYER – PLAYER (sportsman) becomes PRAYER when L (left) changes to R (right) [swapping sides]. The somewhat imprecise wordplay could also lead us to PLAYEL or PRAYEL. The  Book of Common Prayer has a designated Collect, Epistle and Gospel for every Sunday.
28 Theatre boss inspires first of three caviar suppliers (8)
STURGEON – SURGEON (theatre boss) contains [inspires] T{hree} [first]. There’s a song about this but its lyrics are very non-PC now so I won’t paste a link.
Down
1 Exaggerate European doctor touching designer up (9)
EMBROIDER – E (European), MB (doctor), then RE (touching) + DIOR (designer) reversed [up]
2 “Full English” after salesman gave permission? (7)
REPLETE – REP (salesman), LET (gave permission), E (English)
3 British troops enter pub, naturally! (6)
INBORN – B (British) + OR (troops) contained by [enter] INN (pub)
4 Leave with drunkards and disappear (2,7)
GO WALKIES – GO (leave), W (with), ALKIES (drunkards). All the usual sources associate ‘go walkies’ with something that’s lost or, more likely, stolen, so I’m not convinced by the definition.
5 Poet beginning to speak and think in French (7)
SPENSER – S(peak) [beginning], PENSER (think, in French). I lost time here with the poet as SPENDER which gave me problems solving 11ac.
6 Priest, say, cutting one abhorrent benefit (9)
PRIVILEGE – PR (priest), I (one), then EG (say) contained by [cutting] VILE (abhorrent)
7 Different one in Paris Match (7)
UNEQUAL – UN (one, in Paris), EQUAL (match)
13 A tobogganist turning up on track — as he must train? (9)
REGULARLY – A + LUGER (tobogganist) reversed, RLY (track – railway). The definition refers back to ‘tobogganist’. We are more used to RY as the abbreviation for ‘railway’, but we have had RLY before. I wasn’t sure that ‘luger’ actually exists as an agent noun – not that it would have to for the purposes of wordplay – but Collins has it.
15 Fly beyond remaining fire (9)
OVERSHOOT – OVER (remaining), SHOOT (fire)
16 The Caymans ordered to expel European sailor (9)
YACHTSMAN – Anagram [ordered] of TH{e} CAYMANS [expel European]
18 Chunk of zinc is originally for cutter (7)
INCISOR – Hidden in [chunk of] {z}INC IS OR{iginally}
19 Plug more suitable after another sort of plug (7)
ADAPTER – AD (another sort of plug), APTER (more suitable)
21 Syrian money: in older times one note (7)
PIASTRE – I (one) contained by [in] PAST (older times), RE (note)
22 German bloke obeying regime (6)
DIETER – I’ve indicated this as an all-in-one definition but there are also two meanings:  a German man’s name and a person wishing to lose weight by following a particular eating regime.

101 comments on “Times Cryptic 27356”

  1. SCYLLA was a half guess, but the rest weren’t too difficult and I finished in 23 minutes. I agree, WALKIES didn’t immediately spring to mind for ‘disappear’. I liked the surface for BOWDLERISE.

    Only problem was that I had ‘adaptor’, (which is given as an alternative spelling in Chambers) not ADAPTER, for 19d, with ‘after’ regarded as a homophone indicator. Allowed, or “The computer says no”?

    Thank you to setter and blogger.

    1. Even if ‘after’ could be said to be a homophone indicator (which I struggle to see), it’s also needed to indicate the order of the wordplay elements, so it would be doing double duty. So I think the computer does say no, unfortunately.
      1. Thanks. What you (and our blogger in a subsequent post) say makes sense. I admit defeat. Worth a try anyway.
  2. and after all that I had 23ac SCILLA and 19dn ADAPTOR!
    Surely the later is OK? Alternative fact!

    For 7dn I put in UNALIKE and thus IMHO the clue was somewhat lacking in finesse.

    FOI 2dn REPLETE
    LOI 26ac TOM
    COD 4dn GO WALKIES (as said to a dog!?)
    WOD 9ac BOWDLERISE

    Re 2dn does Mr. Myrtilus ever indulge in the ‘Full English’?

    1. I don’t see how ADAPTOR can be valid as an alternative here as one has to take the whole clue account, including wordplay, and there’s no way that the agent noun from APT mean ‘more suitable’ could be spelt APTOR. Actually as far as I can see the agent noun doesn’t exist in this case, but this is Crosswordland where we make them up for wordplay if it suits, but even so, they need to be spelt in accordance with custom.

      The WALKIES thing re dogs is very much associated with Dr Barbara Woodhouse who made a TV series in 1980 about training dogs and used the expression extensively. I’ve no idea if it was in general use before then. On looking her up I was surpised that she made only 10 of these programmes as she seemed to achieve a whole new career late in life and became a household name as a result. Perhaps they were repeated a lot.

      Edited at 2019-05-21 04:59 am (UTC)

      1. Ok on ADAPTOR – there’s a place for you in the White House!

        Back in fifties AND SIXTIES GO WALKIES! was a familiar expression in our household.I believe that Dr.BW had a lot of other airtime on TVAM etc., so she was a bit more ubiquitous than you suggest!

  3. I wondered about the L in RLY; certainly looks strange to me. I thought GO WALKIES is what one did with one’s dog; in any case, I biffed it, only spotting ALKIES later. Isn’t ‘collect’ a DBE?
    1. It looks as if nobody noticed your final question. Yes I’m sure ‘collect’ is a DBE and so a great sin in my opinion. Surprised nobody else seems to have mentioned it (at the time of writing).
      1. DBE a new acronym to me…! Dame of the British Empire?

        Edited at 2019-05-21 11:43 am (UTC)

          1. Check out Wikipedia and you will find that ‘initialisers’ are deemed to be acronyms.

            USA – SPQR – BBC – ATMs are included!

            TTFN

            1. I’m not so sure: a COLLECT is not just a kind of prayer, it is a prayer.
              Intercession, supplication, plea, petition, request and so forth are all direct equivalents to prayer.
              Benedictus, Ave Maria, Kaddish, Kyrie, and many others are all examples of prayers.
              On balance, I would put COLLECT in the former category.
              1. All collects are prayers, but not all prayers are collects, so it surely has to be a definition by example. However it’s a great example of why the rule against them is so silly. ‘A collect is a type of _______’ leads so directly to the answer PRAYER that I can’t see any real reason to object to it, other than adherence to rules for the sake of it.
            2. I think for definitions I’d prefer the OED to Wikipedia. The OED certainly requires acronyms to be pronounceable as words and specifically distinguishes them from initialisms. I do likewise.
    2. Gone walkies is quite familiar as in ‘the tv remote has gone walkies’ i.e. gone missing etc
  4. I was certain that clipper ships were sometimes called Cathaymen (but according to all my dictionaries there’s no such thing), so I didn’t pay careful attention to the anagram fodder until the crossers stopped crossing. I’m sure we’ve seen Pupils / Slip Up before, but I didn’t remember it, and I thought it was cute. Ditto for the Walkies, the Deer, and Tom. Nice puzzle, good blog. Thx
    1. There were Chinamen and Indiamen–I don’t know if they were necessarily clipper ships–but I’ve never come across Cathaymen.
  5. I struggled a little with GO WALKIES, but got there in the end. Not sure of my time since the website was playing up and I kept getting errors, and it refused to save anything. Or maybe it’s a problem on my end. I think I’m all correct but since I don’t get all green (it’s still all white no matter how many times I submit).

    I’m surprised how many of you don’t seem to have heard of Scylla and Charybdis, a sort of classical version of between a rock and a hard place (in this case, a rock and a whirlpool).

    1. I’m not at all surprised! And just three of us!

      Hast du schon von ‘Anja und Esther’ gehört?

      Edited at 2019-05-21 04:08 am (UTC)

    2. I do honestly wish I could go back in time and tell myself to get a classical education. While I was growing up, computers were too much of a fascination for me to spend much time on anything else…
      1. The way to get a classical education later in life is to keep doing crosswords!
        1. Well, that’s what I’m trying, but I feel it would probably have been better if I’d done it the other way around. I’m not sure being good with computers has significantly enhanced my life or understanding of the world, though it’s doubtless enhanced my salary…
          1. Well indeed, but we all have our weaknesses. Mine include the absence of a classical or religious education and a total lack of interest in gardening. You just have to try and fill the gaps over time. In the meantime I just hope that setters have some awareness that the things that were drilled into them when they were at school may not have been drilled into all of us!

            Edited at 2019-05-21 11:13 am (UTC)

      2. Scylla and Charybdis are mentioned in American Pie 3, though I’m not sure how much other useful crossword vocab can be found in the script.
    3. I have heard of Scylla and Charybdis, and I don’t have a calssical education. However I did learn tontry to avoid coming across as a dick.
  6. Even easier than yesterday’s. I just had to take a nap after dinner and then fairly flew thru the third or half I’d left unfinished. GO WALKIES is cute, and new to me, and I had no problem with the definition here. I didn’t think of Ms. Black, so SCYLLA was my LOI. DIETER can only be a double definition, in my book. Somehow didn’t notice the L in RLY, but it would have given me pause.

    Edited at 2019-05-21 05:28 am (UTC)

  7. 16 minutes or so and much enjoyed but with le boob du jour — SCILLA. I knew the correct spelling of Scylla, but as so often with these proper name homophones I ended up typing a blend of both elements. Strongly worded note to self needed.

    I loved the anagrams. RINGMASTER, YACHTSMAN, SORE THROAT and BOWDLERISE all excellent.

    GO WALKIES is terrific, as is DIETER.

    My cousin dines at a different restaurant every night and always runs out without paying. He’s a replete offender

    1. I ate at Usain Bolt’s themed restaurant in Jamaica last week (yes, really). Fast food outlet?
      1. 🙂 where presumably no one dares do a runner

        He should open a seafood restaurant and call it Bolt from the Blue

        1. Did I really say last week that you were too good for this place?
  8. 12’05”, with GO WALKIES unparsed until afterwards. Is a luge a skeleton bob?

    Thanks jack and setter.

  9. 14 minutes, so I found this pretty easy. REGULARLY was a bit tricky. LOI SLIP UP. COD to GO WALKIES. I liked DIETER too. Thank you Jack and setter.

    Edited at 2019-05-21 06:29 am (UTC)

  10. I’m in good company having also gone for SCILLA, having never heard of SCYLLA. The clue seemed a little unfair to me for an answer that seems fairly obscure given the number of others who got it wrong. The other obscurity (to me) was PIASTRE but at least there was no ambiguity there.
  11. 20 mins to fail (I will explain) with yoghurt, granola, blueberry compote.
    I liked it and did it quickly (for me) but was mildly miffed by the Syrian money (DNK) where I bunged in TE for the note, thinking what the hell.
    Thanks setter and Jack.
  12. No problems with this fairly easy offering

    SCYLLA clued as Cilla is a chestnut and a write-in the second and subsequent times you meet her

    Looked twice at GO WALKIES which meant stolen when I was a lad

  13. 12:43, but another SCILLA here. I’m not sure if this is because the influence of Cilla (see sotira above) or because I just don’t know how to spell it. In any event it (along with Charybdis) is firmly in the ‘you ought to bloody well know how to spell it’ category so I’m not complaining.

    Edited at 2019-05-21 06:41 am (UTC)

  14. Curses! I spent the last ten minutes of my 45 desperately managing to piece together the unknown PIASTRA, and did it correctly, only to come here and find that SCALDA isn’t actually a legendary rock. Well, it sounded plausible, and it sounds like “scalder”, which could definitely be a singer…

    Bah. To add insult to injury, I see I managed to get it right in 2017. But it was a bit more clearly clued back then…

  15. Found this relatively straightforward either because the definitions were not so cryptic today or because I was in the right mindset, on the same wavelength as the setter or all three.

    My blindspot for ‘sounds like’ clues seems to be diminishing a little as I picked up on that with 23a and ‘mentioned’, entering SCILLA then SCYLLA but couldn’t work out the homophone until I read the blog. Lovely image connecting Cilla Black and Scylla!

    FOI 1a
    LOI 21d
    CsOD 22d & 19d (I think I’ve seen 22d before)

    No time at the weekend to do crosswords. Bought a new car. Much woodworking.

    Three month challenge: 27/29.

    Thanks to all,
    Best wishes,
    WS

    1. You’ve drilled a wooden hut to the back of your new car? Good idea.
      1. Mobile workshop would be handy, but in this case car and woodworking separate activities 🙂
        1. I remember going to a motor show dominated by slick German design concept cars.. Morgan’s big announcement was that it was going to use Cuprinol on its ash frame.
          I was always a TVR man myself.
  16. Bowdlerise and Piastte. 17 mins.

    I knew how to spell Scylla.

    Didn’t Cilla write, “Anyone who had a heart ….could not read the death of little Nell without laughing.”? I think that’s right.

    1. That was Oscar:

      “One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing.”

  17. Nice ‘n’ easy 13+ minutes, with the last two GO WALKIES and DIETER. I didn’t have any issues with the former, a phrase I’ve used for something that’s gone missing (car keys, mobile, anything I’ve put down carefully and promptly forgotten about).
    I managed to avoid (while recognising the possibility of) both spelling mistakes today.
    Thanks to Jack for an entertaining blog and for expanding my knowledge of dodgy lyrics – an irresistible invitation to Google.
  19. SCYLLA was a smug classicist write-in, but my big hold-up came from struggling to see GO WALKIES from the checkers and definition, as I only associate it with taking the dog out, and (so far) not disappearing in the process. However, in retrospect, I am forced to agree that “I don’t use that expression in that way” is not the same as “That expression does not exist and this clue is unfair”.
  21. After carefully unravelling my LOI PIASTRE, from my original PASTTIE, I was mightily miffed to discover I’d also mis-spelled SCILLA. Drat! At least I’m in good company. I knew the Liverpudlian triller and the rock, but will now have to file away, for future forgetting, that the Scylla is rockY. DIETER and ASPIRANT also held me up for some time. Lots to like in this puzzle. 25:18 WOE. Thanks setter and Jack.
  22. I’ve just (since yesterday) started solving online again – new job where the only time I have for solving is at lunchtime, with nothing better to do as it’s in the middle of an industrial estate…

    So, 8:15 yesterday, 8:23 today, pretty consistent so far. For me GO WALKIES used to mean lost, but with a suspicion that it had been stolen. No problem with the spelling of SCYLLA.

    2. What a nice surprise to find the guy with the dog on his head back! I hope you’ll be a regular contributor again.
    4. At that pace, and without online practice, you’re a shoo-in for the finals in November.
    6. Thanks all, I’ll try to pop in regularly (although I have no plans to start blogging again).
  23. 22:13 a very pleasant solve. Did a bit of a double take at the less familiar RLY for track in 13dn but it seemed reasonable. Failed to look beyond IReland for the country in 24ac so did not see how that one worked properly. FOI 5ac. LOI 22dn. Cilla was known to me more as a TV presenter / personality than a singer when I was growing up but I did know that she first came to fame as a singer and I knew the legendary rock so didn’t need our Graham with a quick reminder.
  24. My first stab at 23 was CYLLA until I ran out of letters before the end of the light so it’s a bit annoying that I still ended up with the dreaded SCILLA. Mind you, in an effort to come in under 8 minutes and with just the German left I panicked and threw in MISTER with not much* in the way of justification.

    Piastre known thanks to Steely Dan’s Dr. Wu:
    “You walked in
    And my life began again
    Just when I’d spent the last piastre I could borrow” (they actually spelled it -er though)

    * sod all

    1. 22dn then should have read – German river? English bloke.

      I’ll get me coat!

  25. Thought that a lot of these clues were Quickie standard, so surprised that my time was over 30 mins – but there again I did doze off in the middle. COD SORE THROAT very nice fitting anagram. My keys are always ‘going walkies’ so no problem there.
  26. PIASTRE and therefore TOM took a while to pop up as did SCYLLA. Did not bother parsing the PRIVILEGE convolution
  27. Hello all, sorry to have been missing for a few days. Not a terribly hard puzzle, except for GO WALKIES, which was my LOI and only after I took a further hour or so to actually see the wordplay. The rest of it took 20 minutes or so. That phrase is not familiar over here in either a dog walking sense or the intended one. Learned something new thereby, although I doubt it will prove useful. Nevertheless, regards.
  28. About 26 min., a little held up with the singer though knew Scylla (and not I hope merely because of what’s known as a classical education). Many memories of la Cilla (“Am I going to have to buy another hat?”) but just didn’t think of the forename approach. All neatly unstraightforward.
  29. Very easy, no doubts and no problems at all, just under 25 minutes which may be my best time ever or certainly very close to it.
  30. Even I found this easy. Good to see a favourite get a mention at 8ac.
    Joe the Jazzer
  31. Completed this on the way home from The George. LOI was SCYLLA and prior to that ADAPTER. FOI was Replete. Enjoyed the puzzle. David
  32. Thomas Bowdler died here in Swansea I’m sure his efforts to clean up Shakespeare were much appreciated in this land of the chapel. If you seek his monument look in Mumbles churchyard. A bizarre claim to fame. 32 minutes for the crossword.
  33. I parsed 6 across as deter rather than defer, as in to put someone off doing something, not that it matters.
  34. Twenty-one minutes, including a couple spent on my LoI DIETER. I could kick myself (but won’t) because this German bloke has cropped up here before. Can there be such a thing as a German chestnut?

    PIASTRE was a bit of a guess. I think I knew the word, but would have said it was old Spanish coinage if asked, or maybe Italian. I enjoyed the SORE THROAT at 25ac and, as always, I have a childish enjoyment of hidden words such as that at 18d.

  36. 25 minutes – not classically educated, but had always liked those exciting legends, so knew of Scylla & Charybdis. No problem with PIASTRE as had been familiarised with foreign currencies by my former stamp-collecting days – never let it be said that philately gets you nowhere !
  37. Re-reading the clues again, I’m a bit confused about two things; firstly what function is ‘to do’ playing in 10a. Is it just a glue-two-words-together type indicator (if so why is doing like glueing?), or is it just a plain piece of non-Ximenean wordplay?

    Secondly 14a seems to be calling for a noun but the solution looks like an adverb or adjective. Checking my Chambers app i see disorderly *can* be a noun meaning ‘disorderly person’ (as in drunk and disorderly) but this sense does not seem to me to fit with the clue. A mess is not a disorderly person, or is it? I suppose you could say to a disorderly person ‘you’re a complete mess’. Is that the sense indicated here?

    Or am I just being picky?

    WS

    1. On 10a, I think ‘to do’ is just linking the two elements of wordplay.

      On 14a, SOED has disorderly as ‘marked by lack of order or regularity; confused, irregular, untidy’ so perhaps one might say that a person who is disorderly is untidy or ‘making a mess’ as the clue has it. I’d agree it’s not brilliant though.

      1. Thanks, but how, semantically speaking, is ‘doing’ connected with ‘joining together’?
        1. To be clear about my question we have ‘A to do B’ resulting in BA. Is that a usual crossword construction?

          1. Indeed it is, and in fact it’s nigh on a hard-and-fast rule when it comes to the linking word ‘on’ in Across clues in Times puzzles. ‘To do with’ here is just following the same pattern of construction.

            This has been the subject of much discussion in the past and you can read a selection of comments by following the link below, including some from the current Crossword Editors of the Times and Sunday Times…

            https://jackkt.livejournal.com/

            1. Thanks. I’m familiar with the ‘A on B’ rule, it came up in discussions about a week ago.

              Here we seem to have the same animal but with a verb instead of a preposition. ON seems perfectly parseable in the A on B rule but I just can’t get my grey cells around ‘A to do B’ or ‘A to do with B’. Why should something ‘to do with’ imply joining together? Perhaps I am missing something obvious here.

              1. I don’t think it’s that at all here
                I read the wordplay as: a law concerning (or “to do with”) deliveries etc, would be an “over rule”

                but most of all, I just wanted to make the 100th comment

                jb

  38. Thanks setter and jack
    At 39 min … under my average 45 min crossword solve, thought that it must’ve been at the easier end of the difficulty spectrum as clues seemed to flow steadily throughout the solve after kicking off with the DEER.
    Even the SPENSER clue where it stretched my limited French vocabulary, he was the first poet and with words like pensive coming to mind, the leap of faith was made.
    Had heard of the myth of SCYLLA and Charbydis but needed to check how she could be defined as the rock. Had gingerly parsed ASPIRANT as AS + an anagram of ‘in part’ which left the role of the ‘country’ out of play.
    Finished in the NE corner with the trickily assembled PRIVILEGE, SEPTUM after all of the crossers were there and SLIP UP (which in hindsight I had seen before) as the last few in.

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