Times Cryptic 27404

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

I needed 59 minutes to complete this one but on refelection I’m not sure why. I shall be interested to read how others fared.

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 Siamese location on main line (4-5)
SEAL-POINT – SEA (main), L (line), POINT (location). It’s a variety of Siamese cat. It has come up before in a couple of long-forgotten 15x15s, on both occasions as a 9-letter word. More recently (well, in 2016) it was in a Jumbo as (4-5)
6 Day needed to bottle Irish rum (5)
WEIRD – WED (day) containing [to bottle] IR (Irish)
9 Repeatedly thanks plumber, finally turning taps (3-1-3)
RAT-A-TAT – Reverse [turning] of TA TA TA (repeatedly thanks), {plumbe}R [finally]. Taps on the door.
10 Brutal Scotsman masking new and unpleasant whiff (7)
INHUMAN – IAN (Scotsman) containing [masking] N (new) + HUM (unpleasant whiff). A surface reading best not thought about if solving over breakfast!
11 Cloth Asians wrap around copper piping inside (5)
DHOTI – HOT (piping) contained by [inside] DI (copper – Detective Inspector)
12 Green specialist in City loves squeezing large marrow (9)
ECOLOGIST – EC (City), 00 (loves) containing [squeezing] L (large), GIST (marrow – the vital or essential part of e.g. an idea or argument)
13 Faculty has objective bringing in Liberal (5)
FLAIR – FAIR (objective) containing [bringing in] L (Liberal)
14 Clear to me, suffering, one gets there eventually? (9)
LATECOMER – Anagram [suffering] of CLEAR TO ME
17 Wasted the bacon sandwiches one cut (9)
AITCHBONE – Anagram [wasted] of THE BACON contains [sandwiches] I (one). SOED has: A cut of beef lying over the buttock or rump bone.
18 Some drivel in edition with ruling (5)
LINED – Hidden in [some] {drive}L IN ED{ition}. As in ‘lined notepaper’.
19 Pet having to tolerate an arboreal creature (5,4)
HONEY BEAR – HONEY (pet – terms of affection), BEAR (tolerate), aka kinkajou, sun bear and sloth bear, or so Collins informs me.
22 Minimal information about English female in suit (5)
BEFIT – BIT (minimal information) containing [about] E (English) + F (female)
24 Improve gag about old uniform (7)
RETOUCH – RETCH (gag) containing [about] O (old) + U (uniform)
25 University student is clear to return gadget (7)
UTENSIL – U (universtity), then L (student) + IS + NET (clear) reversed [to return]
26 500 on ship wear formal clothes (5)
DRESS – D (500), RE (on), SS (ship). As in ‘dress for dinner’.
27 Strip staff member giving support in tent (9)
RIDGEPOLE – RIDGE (strip), POLE (staff). I’m assuming this from Collins accounts for ‘member’ in the clue: a component part of a building or construction.
Down
1 Actor finally in cast gets smallest part (5)
SHRED – {acto}R [finally] contained by [in] SHED (cast)
2 One to depart this world like man strapped in tight? (9)
ASTRONAUT – AST (like), RON (man) contained by [strapped in] TAUT (tight)
3 Pawn courts one escaping wealthy tribal leader (9)
PATRIARCH – P (pawn), ATRIA (courts), R{i}CH (wealthy) [one escaping]
4 Wearing but a smile as fitness keeps love secure in Bury (2,3,10)
IN THE ALTOGETHER – HEALTH (fitness) contains [keeps] 0 (love) + GET (secure), all contained by [in] INTER (bury). Two rather coy ways of referring to nakedness, the one in the answer reminding me of this as sung by Danny Kaye in the first film I ever saw.
5 Meagre dinner though not badly cooked (4,2,3,6)
THIN ON THE GROUND – Anagram [badly cooked] of DINNER THOUGH NOT
6 Sorted how to contain area round burning bush (5)
WAHOO – Anagram [sorted] of HOW contains A (area), O (round). A word unknown to me, but it’s a shrub and apparently one variety of WAHOO has the nickname ‘burning bush’.
7 Metrical patterns in book one French friend carries (5)
IAMBI – I (one), AMI (French friend) contains [carrries] B (book)
8 Made inedible with teeth, all at first tucking in (9)
DENATURED – A{ll} [at first] contained by [tucking in] DENTURED (with teeth).Another word unknown to me. I thought ‘false’ was missing from the reference to teeth but apparently ‘denture’ can mean a set of natural teeth.
13 Exploit ambassadors, visibly embarrassed having got down (9)
FEATHERED – FEAT (exploit), HE (ambassadors), RED (visibly embarrassed). I think we may have a stray S on ‘ambassadors’ here as H.E. stands for ‘His/Her Excellency’ which in the plural would be ‘Their Excellencies’ so presumably the abbreviation would not apply.
15 Broccoli in clear base that’s reconstituted (9)
CALABRESE – Anagram [reconstituted] of CLEAR BASE
16 Policy statement complicated by means of it? (9)
MANIFESTO – Anagram [complicated] of MEANS OF IT
20 Fool around, producing explosive component (5)
NITRE – NIT (fool), RE (around). Can RE really mean ‘around’? I don’t think so.
21 Heard tropical disease is for the solver to deal with? (5)
YOURS – Sounds like [heard] “yaws” [tropical disease]. I didn’t know the tropical disease but took on trust that ‘yaws’ or ‘yawes’ would exist as such.
23 Duke in hat to see señorita’s wiggle (5)
TILDE – D (duke) contained by [in] TILE (hat). Delightful definition!

52 comments on “Times Cryptic 27404”

  1. I took 65 minutes, spending most of that in the NW. Never heard of 1a, which I guessed might be something to do with where Siamese twins are joined and was stuck on ‘objective’ as a noun so took a while to see FLAIR. WAHOO was also new and AITCHBONE only barely remembered.

    The ‘One to depart this world’ and especially ‘señorita’s wiggle’ defs brought a smile.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

  2. I knew the cat was a something-POINT; for some reason I thought it was BLUE, which was clearly wrong. It took me a long time to recall. It also took me a long time to justify DHOTI (I was stuck on CU) & BEFIT after I’d tentatively biffed them. DNK WAHOO, AITCHBONE. I never figured out UTENSIL, or ‘member’. Fortunately, CALABRESE recently appeared here; I didn’t know it then. Also fortunately, for rhotic moi, I did know of yaws, which of course doesn’t sound like ‘yours’ in my dialect.
  3. Another 59 minutes and no good reason.

    DNK WAHOO DK YAHOO!

    FOI 4dn IN THE ALTOGETHER – Danny Kaye indeed!

    LOI 7dn IAMBI

    COD 23dn TILDE

    WOD 11ac DHOTI

    Re-21dn YOURS (YAWS) this crossword, by definition, does not take into consideration ‘Brother Jonathan’s’ dialectic perambulations.

    Edited at 2019-07-16 03:17 am (UTC)

  4. I thought 23 was brilliant… My guess about SEAL-POINT had to do with one of those two-headed external plumbing fixtures I’ve seen in NYC, labeled “Siamese,” which seems a bit insensitive. Also wondered if WAHOO wasn’t a transliteration of a Biblical place name… I didn’t know the disease, either—nor would I have guessed that it was spelled like that…

    Edited at 2019-07-16 05:25 am (UTC)

  5. Definitely one for those of a Mephistoish inclination, as reflected on the SNITCH. A whopping six unknowns for me, so, like England, just happy to get across the line.

    Incidentally, I wrote to the ICC before the tournament began telling them it was a mistake to appoint Lee Harvey Oswald as the third umpire. Will they never learn?

  7. Misread definition of this one – turns out it has nothing to do with a radical depilatory method . . .
  8. Found this easy today, despite not knowing wahoo. No problems with 1ac as I used to own a blue point Siamese, or vice-versa, rather. MER at amabassador(s).
    Thanks for the blog Jack, interesting list of honey bear synonyms; kinkajou has appeared here a couple of times in the past I think
  9. 30 mins with yoghurt, granola, etc. Plus Mrs M is making brownies and I got to lick the bowl. Wahoo!
    I had a tiny MER at ambassador(s), but a bigger one at around=RE? We typically have: about, regarding, concerning, touching, apropos. But around?
    Thanks setter and J.
    1. Glad I’m not alone. As none of the other regulars had mentioned it I was beginning to think it was just me. If accepted, it opens up a whole range of possiblities that I don’t think we have seen before.

      In trying to justify it I got as far as ‘centred / based around’ as being ‘on the subject of’, so ‘re’ in that sense, but ‘around’ on its own seems a step too far. Also ‘around’ can be ‘about’ when meaning ‘surrounding’ or ‘in the vicinity of’, but ‘about’ in that context can’t be substituted by ‘re’.

      Edited at 2019-07-16 08:07 am (UTC)

      1. I have a similar Major General Raisedeyebrow when I hear ‘Brother Jonathan’s’ expression, ‘Do the math!’. As one is talking about mathematics, should it not be, ‘Do the maths!’?

        It’s a worry in Meldrovia.

        1. Between 66 degrees west longitude and 172 degrees east longitude, that word does not have an “s” on the end. Hence BJ’s expression.
          1. Paul, to a degree you are correct; so, do you enjoy watching sport or prefer watching sports?

            Edited at 2019-07-16 05:51 pm (UTC)

            1. If it’s only one I watch the sport (of, eg, baseball). If it is any and all, you are right and I do watch sports.

              But I think that is slightly different to studying “math” as shorthand for mathematics rather than taking “maths” as the short form. The “math” usage is certainly local convention, so I am not fussed about the US-generated expression not having the “s”. And the convention does make some sense if you think of math (singular) as the entire body of knowledge in that area rather than as a plural comprising all the different fields of study.

              This does raise a question as whether or not to use the “s” in the “do the math” expression when you are in the non-American part of the English-speaking world. You could always sidestep the issue by taking a hard-line position regarding creeping Americanisms and not use the expression at all.

      2. For what it’s worth, I had MERs at both, and simply forgot to mention them. I think (I hope) both can be attributed to carelessness: the plural -s certainly, but couldn’t one say ‘fool about’? And might not the setter have intended that but slipped into the more usual phrase?
      3. Must confess that I didn’t spot this use of “re” when solving. Can’t say I’ve seen it before and it does seem something of a stretch
  10. No problem with this – straight top to bottom solve

    Good to see at least a tip of the hat to the events of 50 years ago – let’s hope it is deliberate!

  11. Quite quick for me. Glad to see ASTRONAUT on this day but cannot see any other references. COD to the TILDE.
    1. I knew the word WAHOO but now realise on reflection that I knew it as a fish that I have eaten in foreign climes not as a bush.
      1. Bell rung here too! WAHOO is a Caribbean fish! Found from Antigua to Barbuda to Grenada and right over to Ascension and noted on their stamps.
  12. I romped through this in 18 minutes. Unusually, the anagrams solved quickly, apart from the tricky AITCHBONE, as did the two long down clues. I’ve never asked for an aitchbone steak though. I’d heard of the cat and the Indian apparel was what Gandhi wore, was’t it? COD to IN THE ALTOGETHER. As you say, Jack, you can’t hear that without singing along witth Danny Kaye, particularly if you’re of an age that listened to Uncle Mac on Children’s Favourites. I naturally enjoyed this. Thank you Jack and setter.
  13. 20.04, though I thought at one point I was in for a marathon. Only a scattered few in the grid when FEATHERED (not worrying about the plural) suddenly dawned and then everything else rather fell in.
    I was mystified by the burning bush reference but assumed whatever a WAHOO was that was it. Nothing to do with immolating American presidents, then.
    Today I also learned what CALABRESE was, other than a rather euphonious word. Not being a POTUS, I eat mine.
    Thanks Jack – for another informative blog, and for including the Danny Kaye song, which was my immediate thought too.
  14. Maybe we’ll have one reference a day for the duration of the mission. SEAL-POINT took a lot of dredging up, as I was convinced that ‘main line’ was POINT, and had also thought of and rejected BLUE POINT. Still not sure about ‘strip’ for RIDGE. Dnk WAHOO, needed all the checkers. Liked TILDE, AITCHBONE and FEATHERED, despite the rogue s.

    23′, thanks jack and setter.

    1. I wondered about the definition of ‘ridge’ but ODO has ‘a raised strip of arable land’ and Collins and Chambers have similar definitions that include the word ‘strip’.
      1. But the solver shouldn’t have to double check an obscure meaning in a dictionary just to be sure that an answer is correct. Especially for such common words as ‘strip’ or ‘ridge’. As for the justification being a definition given as ‘raised strip’, surely the key word there is ‘raised’? Without that adjective, which gives the entire meaning, there is no equivalence between the two whatsoever. I thought ‘gist’ for ‘marrow’ was a bit of a stretch too. Mr Grumpy
        1. I couldn’t agree with you more! But the definition of ‘obscure’ is subjective and I think the setter is allowed (in fact obliged) to use funny meanings to bamboozle us from time to time.
          Once I had R_D_EPOLE I didn’t feel I had to worry about obscure dictionary definitions.
          This is all part of the game, no?
  15. 18:10 … quite satisfying, putting together things I’d forgotten (SEAL POINT, CALABRESE, HONEY BEAR) and things I didn’t know (WAHOO, AITCHBONE).

    Best of all, I got a LOL from the ecologist with a fetish for large vegetables, and another from the wiggling señorita. Thanks for a smiley start to the day, o setter. Cheers, jackkt

  16. 9:52. I found this quite easy, in spite of the funny words. WAHOO, for instance: it doesn’t look remotely likely but if you follow the assembly instructions it’s what you end up with.
    Same MERs as others on the ambassadors and ‘around’.
  17. I needed 56 minutes for this one, mostly due to lack of knowledge. That was rather foreshadowed by 1a, where I knew Siamese related to a particular country, but didn’t know which one. As it turned out, one just had to have faith in the wordplay to get to the unknown SEAL-POINT…

    FOI 2d ASTRONAUT (if you’re into podcasts, 13 Minutes to the Moon is good.) From there I navigated my way through several more unknowns—AITCHBONE, HONEY BEAR, WAHOO, CALABRESE, “yaws”—to get to my final unknown of 27a RIDGEPOLE. The only tent I’ve ever put up doesn’t use a pole at the ridge, but I took it on faith that some do. I was less sure that a “ridge” really was a “strip”, though…

    So, quite the challenge, but a testament to the wordplay that I got there in the end! Thanks to setter and to Jack for the decoding.

  18. 30’10, tough but cheered by the final clue down. Didn’t know the bone, the bush, the vegetable, the disease. I saw the moon landing on a giant screen in Trafalgar Square, later celebrating it in iambi.
    1. I was at a cocktail party in the Berkeley hills–Anthro faculty and grads, mainly–and the host had set a portable TV on a chair. I recall being the only person in the room watching the TV.
  19. ….WEIRD as to be almost INHUMAN. There were so many MERs that I may need surgery to remove my eyebrows from my hairline.

    I knew SEAL-POINT, but only parsed it post-solve. Thanks for your thoughts on my other biff Jack (RIDGEPOLE), but I still can’t quite see it. I also biffed WAHOO which was DNK and could have stayed that way for my money.

    All in all, a dissatisfying experience, apart from my two COD nominees, which belonged in a better puzzle.

    FOI WEIRD
    LOI WAHOO
    COD ASTRONAUT or TILDE
    TIME 12:39

  20. WAHOO, AITCHBONE and YAWS were my unknowns today, but were gettable with the checkers and wordplay. I got nowhere in the NW at my preliminary glance, although I suspected DHOTI but couldn’t parse it. Moving to the NE, I had better luck, with WEIRD, IAMBI, ECOLOGIST and DENATURED going in fairly quickly. 5d then gave me an opening into the SE and the grid began to look respectable. Then I saw HOT in DI and made more progress. The cat took longer, but was helped by ASTRONAUT and a suspicion that the main would in fact be watery. FEATHERED with a MER over the multiple ambassadors, gave me my LOI, AITCHBONE, as I assembled the remaining letters into the only plausible arrangement. A pleasant challenge. 39:34. Thanks setter and Jack.

    Edited at 2019-07-16 11:27 am (UTC)

  21. Notwithstanding some slightly oddball vocab and the multiple ambassadors this got off the launch pad quite smoothly for me. Post-solve I saw that the WAHOO was just the ubiquitous (in the NE US) euonymous and remembered that more than one well-known American was named after a vegetable – Cubby Broccoli of James Bond movie fame and Guido Calabrese, federal judge and former dean of Yale Law School. The two long centre struts at 4 and 5D certainly helped things along. 17.38

    Edited at 2019-07-16 11:02 am (UTC)

  22. 13m 53s, with AITCHBONE, RIDGEPOLE & CALABRESE (LOI) taking ages. Fortunately for me the final letter of CALABRESE came out as an E, as I’d been expecting to have to guess between CALEBRESA and CELABRESA.

    COD was ASTRONAUT, not just for topicality but also because it was a lovely clue, and MANIFESTO was a very nice anagram.

  24. Scraped in under the half-hour mark, after a good five minutes on the last clue: ridgepole. I was all set to put it in, but just couldn’t see why. I had rid = strip, and then gepole???? The taps I was initially thinking of were the American last-post, but then it would have been Ta-Ra-Raa or something. The cat I got because we used to have one when I was a boy. There are various other points, which I forget now.
  25. …. even when I had nearly all the letters. ‘Ridge’ and ‘pole’ are very poor hints for ‘strip’ and ‘staff’.
  26. I did some raising of a minor eyebrow at things already mentioned, but still found this very satisfying overall. I’ve only ever heard WAHOO used as a descriptive word employed in cricket, as in “having a massive wahoo at a short ball”, where it obviously sounds right, even though no reputable dictionary actually mentions this usage.

    What’s YAWS? Well, I’ll have another pint since you’re offering.

  27. 41 minutes, with whole right half done first, having heard of WAHOO from somewhere, and correcting a hasti;y-biffed ECONOMIST. Stuck in NW for about 10 minutes, trying to make PIT-A-PAT work at 9ac, and trying to fit Cu into 11ac.
  28. Around 40 mins. Plenty of unknowns in this: wahoo, seal-point, denatured, aitchbone.
    Re = around: I don’t think so either, jack.
    Yep, the clue for 13dn is wrong to the tune of a superfluous s.
    Yaws isn’t a homophone of yours if you’re Scottish, Irish, American, Canadian, etc. It’s even a bit dodgy if you’re English, tbh.
    An agreeable and challenging puzzle marred by these two flawed clues.
    Nice blog, jack, thanks.
  29. Around 16 mins (but typo ASTRONAAU) … my fingers must be getting fatter

    Too much not to like to make this overall satisfactory. Homophones (whom am I to speak? Recent criticism of one of mine own, SWEET for SUITE) … “around” surely donna e

  30. Pleased to be done in 30 mins, albeit with a check on AITCHBONE which didn’t seem likely. I thought THIN ON THE GROUND was an anagram of THIN ON THE until I worked it out, perhaps would have made a better clue
  31. About 40 minutes, barring only the cat, which I didn’t know and couldn’t for the life of me make out. I learnt Brassica for the cabbage and broccoli group years ago, and have now twice had a hard time not being able to squeeze it out of letters meant to be Calabrese. Nice blog, jackkt
  32. CODs to ASTRONAUT (superb cryptic def and &lit clue) and TILDE (again a lovely cryptic definition of a diacritical mark).

    I got around 40% done at the 30 min mark on brain-power alone with nothing very easy there, then 11 mins or so with aids to discover the odd words like the cat, bush, meat cut, bear, (although guessed him) and half-remembered/forgotten DHOTI.

    Agree that re=around a bit of a stretch even for slang. Wonder if the dictionaries offer any support for unusual usage?

    This is the end of my personal 3-month challenge. Thanks for your support and encouragement, everyone. I have definitely sped up and gained confidence and although I am still reliant on solving aids to ‘get the job done’ in a reasonable timeframe, I have seen a lot of improvement in this area.

    I’m going to write up my challenge experience in a bit more detail on a blog post and will send a link.

    The next challenge for me will be to simply get as much done without aids within a certain time frame. I’m thinking 20 mins no aids at all. 20 mins check button only. 20 mins all other aids which should see me solve most if not all puzzles within the hour.

    Fastest time:21mins
    Average: About 40 mins

    66/68 puzzles solved. I solved all the Mon-Fri puzzles except the first two which took me too long so I abandoned them. After those I got into a high enough gear that blanks were guessable, biffable or findable in the dictionary/thesaurus.

    Thanks again
    WS

    1. Congrats on your progress, woodspiral. It’s good to have a plan to cut down use of aids if that’s important to you but be careful not to make a straightjacket for yourself. Enjoyment is the main thing.

      On RE / around I couldn’t find any support for it in the usual dictionaries that didn’t involve use of another word in combination with ‘around’ e.g. as mentioned above, ‘centred around’, ‘based around’.

      1. Heavens! Wouldn’t want to straightjacket myself! Seriously, yes, we perhaps should not be so serious. My strategy for improvement is consistency and a certain measured time within which I refrain from looking anything up – I believe getting a balance between this and a solving-aid free-for-all to finish the puzzle each day is a quick way to improve. It seems to be working for me anyway.

        Thanks for your encouragement.

        WS

  33. I did this in 38 mins but due to technical difficulties / being thick I inadvertently submitted before entering my LOI, ridgepole. It took me another five minutes to figure that one out. Quite a few unknowns where I relied on wordplay: seal-point (sounds like something you’d pick up at B&Q not Battersea Cats Home), aitchbone, wahoo, denatured, calabrese (I would’ve guessed that was either a type of pizza or one of the five families) and yaws. I was slow to get the two long down clues which might’ve sped things up a tad. Thanks for the earworm, somewhat before my time but I do have faint, pleasant memories of it being sung by parents or grandparents when I was a nipper.
  34. Thanks setter and jack
    Completed this one in just under the hour and was able to fill the grid with only check up references to a number of the words already mentioned. Like special_bitter, I only knew CALABRESE as a type of pizza and only learnt it as BROCCOLI with this puzzle.
    Three that I couldn’t’t fully parse – IN THE ALTOGETHER and RIDGEPOLE along with the DI = ‘copper’ reference in DHOTI.
    Finished with MANIFESTO (great anagram), that RIDGEPOLE and the previously unknown SEAL POINT (but was able to derive it from the word play).

Comments are closed.