Times Cryptic 27452

68 comments on “Times Cryptic 27452”

1. ….so had to get it from the cryptic, which took a little thought. Done and dusted in 29 minutes, as everything else was very straightforward.
2. Hi Jack, I thought “does perhaps” was because deer might also be bucks etc?
   1. Yep, gotta be. Another DBE. I can’t imagine how “deer” could be rabbits, ferrets, rats or kangaroos.
   2. Indeed. ‘Female rabbit perhaps’ would be a DBE for ‘doe’.
3. Biffed 6d and 24d, parsed post-submission. Like Vinyl, I’d never heard of MALIN (I learn from Wiki that it’s the northernmost point of Ireland), and waited until I thought of MALIGN. All in all a vanilla sort of puzzle, with the exception of the wonderful ‘boxing manager’.
4. Another to have never heard of MALIN, but once the def was identified it wasn’t difficult to get from the wordplay. I spent a while at the end on RETORT, my LOI and finished in 46 minutes. Favourite bits were the ‘Boxing manager’ and ‘One hates dragging’ defs.

   Thanks to setter and blogger

5. Never heard of MALIN, but figured it out. POI HUSSAR, LOI RETORT. “Boxing manager” was a hoot.
6. was a write-in as Jack notes from the Shipping Forecast at 1.55pm and 6.55pm on the Home Service?? German Bight, Ross & Cromarty, Dogger Bank et al – wonderful stuff.

   Time 28 minutes a rather Monday-Tuesday! (As Forecast by someone yesterday!)

   FOI 17dn OXBRIDGE

   LOI 27ac RETORT

   COD 9dn SKIMPY very neat

   WOD 10ac MALIN – IRISH SEA…. I could go on for a full five minutes!

7. A lot of this went in very quickly, but the crumbs took time (COALFACE, MALIN, RETORT, YOICKS, etc) — meaning that I had the crossers and a good guess of the answer but had never heard of the word or a piece of the word.

   I finished with 33 minutes which is close to my best. Thanks to jackkt for the blog, which helped me understand the crumbs!

8. Easy puzzle. Enjoyed some of the definitions.

   It appears that knowing of MALIN is age related. Listening to those weather forecasts and tracking the locations around the British Isles in ones mind was great fun. I remember being really chuffed when I eventually managed to visit Ross and Cromarty!

9. An exciting solve: two clues left with 9:40 on the clock. Do I solve them properly or half-read them in the hope of getting under 10 minutes? Obviously I went for the sub-10 solve, and equally predictably I both failed to achieve it and mistyped an answer. 10:18 with one error.

   I rather liked the Kim Philby clue, which feels PRESCIENT given CNN’s latest exclusive about the exfiltrated agent and the loose-lipped president.

   I didn’t realise NONSMOKER could manage without a hyphen (nor does my Chambers app). Thanks for the please/like example, jackkt, which does make sense of it.

   Edited at 2019-09-10 07:48 am (UTC)

   1. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Scrabble (other than the existence of AI, ZA etc.), it’s that you can put NON on the front of almost any word and make a legitimate new word, however wrong it looks.
10. Am I prescient or what? After my bad week at last a reasonable time and, more importantly, a completed crossword. Mostly I enjoyed the surfaces – Boxing manager, nonsmoker, anthrax and, even, the large sea bream. I have been doing these so long that I have forgotten what my PB is. 11 minutes, I think.
11. Held up for about 4 minutes by the NW corner with the unremembered MALIN last in. Otherwise all rather straightforward. Like Jack I had a MER at PLEASE for like at 8D – thanks for the example. I liked “One hates dragging” as a definition. 14:43
12. 30 mins with no brekker.
    Maybe that has made me crabby – but I wasn’t keen on this one. I had a couple of MERs:
    7dn middle of ‘fun run’.
    22ac first of accounts receivable.
    If you had MERs, you will know what I mean. If not, fine, ignore me.
    Thanks setter and J.
13. Back to my recent form of getting one wrong. Whilst I’d thought of RETORT I didn’t know the scientific meaning and I thought that if you RETARD something you still it so that’s what I went with. I should have heeded my doubt over “tard” being a word (I knew “tort” but was unsure of its meaning).
14. 13 minutes and all parsed, with LOIs RETORT/ HUSSAR. I mentioned the film Kes and the school register scene (Fisher? German Bight) recently so MALIN was straight in. I liked YOICKS too. But COD to SKIMPY, a lovely surface. My only delay was in solving the 6d anagram. If I’d waited for all crossers, I might have bust the ten minutes, but I probably would still have missed it. Thank you setter for giving me delusions of adequacy and Jack for the blog.
15. An enjoyable puzzle that didn’t give the brain cells too much hassle, without being a pushover. I liked “boxing manager” and “one hates dragging”. SKIMPY also made me smile. ATLAS was my FOI and MALIN my last. The sea area was vaguely familiar, but I hesitated whilst wondering where the G could go in MALEN, probably thinking of Catherine Cookson’s Mallen Streak:-) Sanity was restored when I twigged the correct meaning of “run down”. 29:22. Thanks setter and Jack
16. 10:40 but with a silly typo I somehow failed to spot when I checked my answers. Grr.
    ‘Rockall, Malin, Hebrides…’ is thoroughly ingrained so no problems there. Not a listening habit my children will inherit as I did from my parents.
17. A pleasant breeze in 14.29, with RETORT taking a while to emerge as I’d forgotten the use of one in Stinks. I gave up on chemistry when my eccentric teacher insisted that we could learn the Periodic Table as a single, pronounceable word, and I never could get beyond H’heli. Pity.
    Something of the macabre in the wonderful boxing manager. I quite liked the SKIMPY clue, too, though my first shot with KIM was AKIMBO, conceivably also revealing.
    Thanks Jack for taking the time to untangle the grammatical snags: I wondered about the plural beans and (of course) the please/like conundrum.
18. I solved the QC quickly this morning so I had time to look at this. FOI was TURN UP and I got SKIMPY (great clue) early. No significant hold-ups other than an exciting invitation to The Oval on Thursday. Including that delay and a pause to parse LOI DENIER (biffed early but unsure), I was home in 47:15. That’s fast for me. David
19. ….so I’m afraid I didn’t appreciate FUNERAL DIRECTOR.

    FOI MAKE SENSE
    LOI UNCLE
    COD SKIMPY
    TIME 10:30

    1. That must be as bad as it gets, Phil. Be there for your lad until the worst happens, and then grieve until the happy memories come back.
    2. I am very sorry to hear that.
    3. Really sorry to hear that Phil.
    4. Oh Phil – so dreadfully sorry, but perhaps you can take comfort knowing that there are many people who have you and your family in their thoughts.
    5. I am also very sorry to hear that Phil.
    6. How cruel. Very sorry to hear that Phil.
20. Viking, Forties, Cromarty…so soothing to listen to.

    10’17”, flying today and currently twelfth on the board!

    MALIN went in unparsed, and I really liked NONSMOKER. Spent some time trying to fit HORATIO into 16ac.

    Thanks jack and setter

    1. Where does the ‘s’ come from in ‘yoicks’? Mr Grumpy
       1. The wordplay reads “Old friend of Hamlet ignoring King’s”. Temporarily leave out the “ignoring king” and you have “Old friend of Hamlet’s”, or “old friend of Hamlet is…” . The apostrophe S, indicating is turns up often enough.
          So its Yorick’s with the R/king ignored.
          1. Thanks for clarifying this for our grumpy friend. I’d have hoped my explanation in the blog might have sufficed!
21. Am I alone in having a problem with the verb form in 4d? For the surface reading to work, it has to be plural, but for the cryptic it has to be singular, surely.
    1. As a part of the surface ‘contest’ has to make sense in that sentence which it does. As a synonym for the answer it has to be replaceable by the answer in an imagined sentence which it is (to the nearest decimal anyway).
    2. Yes, you are alone, and anonymous. In the surface it’s a noun, in the answer it’s a verb.
    3. I didn’t notice while solving, anon, but now that you point it out I think you’re right. In the wordplay ‘fifty’ means ‘the number fifty’ so it needs the singular.
       1. L=fifty, or L=the number fifty; it’s ambiguous. If, in Latin, I said that fifty cats fail to catch a mouse, the L would not refer to the number fifty but to the number of cats, i.e. 50. (Joe and Pip are apparently alluding to ‘contest’, where Anon is, I assume, talking about ‘fail’, as are you.)
          1. But in the clue there aren’t fifty of anything, cats or otherwise, failing to appear. It’s an instruction to insert one thing (the letter L, the number fifty) into another word.

             Edited at 2019-09-10 12:21 pm (UTC)

             1. (To delete one thing). When I send fifty-one cats to catch a mouse, fifty fail. Don’t we allow that sort of ambiguity in a clue? (I’m asking, not arguing; it seemed fine to me.)
22. Most of which was spent on HUSSAR and RETORT. Would have helped if I knew what a TORT was. SKIMPY was easy once I stopped trying to put SPY inside KIM. In my speed I missed several excellent cryptics.
    The word DENIER gets my hackles up. It seems to be used as a hate word these days for anyone who doesn’t happen to agree with one’s views.
23. First puzzle after two weeks wandering the wilderness without a laptop, so I am in the post-holiday limbo where I don’t know what day it is. If I’d had to guess purely from the puzzle, I’d have said Monday, so fairly easily cracked, but a superior one of its kind.
24. Going quite well but done in by ‘retort’ though now remembering it like jackkt from schooldays.
    Phil, there are tears in my eyes.
25. As our blogger notes, a relatively easy romp with 3d the stand out clue. the crossers using the X at 20a and 17d were good too. 25 minutes with coffee.
26. 27 mins, 5 of which went on retort, as I didn’t know that meaning of the word. Thanks jack.
27. POI Malin was my come-uppance today – I knew it was something to do with the shipping forecast, but couldn’t find malign for run down. Resorted to aids for that one which led me to 3d. Never mind – only one gap today, which is a great improvement on last week. No time – stopped to do some housework in the middle.

    FOI Make sense (it did mostly)
    LOI Funeral director (not counting Malin)
    COD Skimpy – lovely surface

    Off to Germany for a few days – or longer? I have warned our friends that we may hide out as asylum seekers in their basement!

28. 7m 47s, finishing on MALIN, which I didn’t know. One of these days I’ll learn the shipping forecast areas – they come up often enough in quizzes and I can only ever remember Dogger.

    A few slightly dodgy clues today, in my opinion. The anonymous contributor above is quite right that ‘fail’ doesn’t work in the cryptic for 4d; it takes quite a stretch to get the S in YOICKS to work; I can’t work out how ‘beans’ = pulse (as opposed to pulses) in 14a; a non-smoker and someone who hates smoking are not really the same thing at all.

    Sorry to grumble! to make up for it a little, I thought 18a was very nice.

    1. I read ‘beans’ as a category. If someone asked you to name a pulse, you wouldn’t say ‘a lentil’.
    2. Are you really saying that S in the clue clueing S in the answer is a stretch?
       1. I don’t think I’ve ever come across {charade}’s to clue {outcome of charade}+S. Seemed awkward to me.
          1. Sorry, that was me. Obviously! Since I’m probably the only one irked by this.
             1. But the charade leading to:

                YO{r}ICK (old friend of Hamlet ignoring King)

                is finished before the S in the clue that’s clueing S in the answer.

29. LOI retort. I got Malin straightaway from the three checkers, but thanks for the parsing of it, which I didn’t see. Favourite clue definitely Skimpy: two bits and a definition all espionage-related.
30. Sorry, delete, yes.
    In your example ‘fifty’ stands for – and can be replaced by – ‘some cats’. There is no such implied plurality of things in the clue. It refers to fifty/L as a lexical unit.

    Edited at 2019-09-10 12:45 pm (UTC)

    1. I’m with Anon on this one. Mr Grumpy
       1. In the surface ‘Fifty’ works as a plural. As the surface is construed it becomes a series of word-indicators in which a word can transmute in part of speech or in number, as here, to a kind of allotrope of the original, based on its being taken more individually as the surface dies away. Seems fair enough as an example of a clue’s working to me.
          1. It can only work as a plural with an accompanying noun. L is clearly singular. It’s one of my pet hates-badly written clues that needn’t be so with a little more thought. ‘Fifty debarred from entire contest’? Of ‘fifty not entered in entire contest’? Although I concede using ‘fails’ would totally give the game away, the setter has made life hard for him/herself by using the verb ‘fail [to]’ in the first place. Mr Grumpy
             1. What about the titles of some Enid Blyton books?
31. Does “ignoring King’s” really mean -R +S? Seems a stretch to switch operators like that.
    1. Effectively, yes: see my comment on Mr Grumpy above
32. They are never synonyms. In “If you like” “you” is the subject. In “If [it] you please” “you” is the object cf “S’il vous plait.” 8 down I simply wrong.
    1. If it you please? I give up!

       Edited at 2019-09-10 04:38 pm (UTC)

33. The clue hit a raw nerve this morning, clever though it was. I won’t harp on about the situation, since that’s not what this forum is designed for. It is truly comforting that people care.
34. A tad over the half hour, but annoyingly I’d left a blank (as a reminder to myself to go back and parse) in NONSMOKER. NHO YOICKS, and was unsure how to spell MALIN (which i was unable to parse), but I guessed right.

    Phil, you have my best wishes for strength the time ahead.

35. NHO YOICKS as a hunting cry, but then I don’t hunt.

    MALIN somehow ingrained from test match-ruining shipping forecast. Do other islands have a shipping forecast? New Zealand f’rinstance?

    Had trouble remembering PUMP(kin)S – never thought of it as a fruit before. NONSMOKER last in.

    Edited at 2019-09-10 05:44 pm (UTC)

36. Our esteemed compiler clearly enjoys creating words by chopping bits out of other words. No fewer than 11 “omission clues” by my reckoning.
    No complaints, just an observation.
    A most enjoyable solve, particularly after yesterday’s hard graft.
37. 25:30 an enjoyable canter with the Def in 7dn my highlight. I agree with Jackkt that the use of “present” twice in quick succession might better have been avoided. I also found 26ac a bit too easy for the regular daily puzzle if I’m being honest but then again the odd bit of light relief dotted around the grid is never a bad thing.
38. I got through well enough until left with M?L?N. Had to look it up which in itself wasn’t easy. Your shipping forecast never reached our shores, and I failed to spot the wordplay as well.
    Phil, best wishes to you and your family in these next few weeks, and thereafter.
39. Do people not listen to the shipping forecast any more? I still love it.

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