Times Cryptic 27476

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

I completed this in 39 minutes which is good going for me at the moment. There are some very good clues and I especially liked  20ac and 25ac although the latter will probably cause consternation amongst those not old enough to remember Tommy Steele and his teeth performing Hold it, Flash Bang Wallop! and other gems of  1960s British musical theatre.

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 Brave face on prisoner (8)
CONFRONT : CON (prisoner),  FRONT (face) in accordance with the convention that ‘A on B’ = ‘BA’, and with ‘brave’ here meaning endure or face (danger or unpleasant conditions) without showing fear (SOED).
5 Prominent critic of game strip (6)
RUSKIN : RU (game – Rugby Union), SKIN (strip). John Ruskin (1819-1900).
8 Train? There’s one in a minute (3)
AIM : I (one) contained by [in] A + M (minute)
9 Skill of a doctor of fitness turning out fine female? (10)
ADROITNESS : A, DR (doctor), O{f} [turning out fine], {f}ITNESS [turning out female]
10 This year’s upsetting panic (8)
HYSTERIA : Anagram [upsetting] of THIS YEAR
11 Set loose without testing, right away (6)
UNTIED : UNT{r}IED (without testing) [right away]
12 Polish round back for gemstone (4)
OPAL : LAP (polish) + O (round) reversed [back]. The first bit was news to me  but SOED has ‘lap’ as a verb meaning ‘to polish with a lap’ and defines ‘lap’ as a noun as ‘a polishing tool of a special shape, coated or impregnated with an abrasive substance’.
14 Spy criminal taking hack at hotel? Norman Bates, perhaps (10)
PSYCHOPATH : Anagram [criminal] of SPY, then CHOP (hack), H (hotel). In case anyone managed to miss it, Norman Bates, is the eponymous character in  Hitchcock’s 1960 film ‘PYSCHO’ and its countless sequels and spin-offs. It was based on a book by Robert Bloch.
17 Publication of record learning about United States in recession (10)
DISCLOSURE : DISC (record), LORE (learning) containing [about] US (United States) reversed [in recession]
20 People working together 10am – noon? (4)
TEAM : TE{n} AM (10am) [- (minus) noon]. Very clever !
23 Notwithstanding that used in medical practice (6)
METHOD : THO (notwithstanding that) contained by [used in] MED (medical)
24 Ship’s propeller with power supply trouble (8)
MAINSAIL : MAINS (power supply), AIL (trouble). My LOI having wasted time thinking ‘P’ for ‘power’ and ‘screw’ for ‘propeller’, neither of which worked once the checkers started to arrive.
25 Bit of a literal interpretation of a musical based on Kipps? (10)
THREEPENCE : A straight definition with a very cryptic hint. A ‘bit’ is a coin as in ‘threepenny bit’, ‘sixpenny bit’, ‘two-bob bit’ etc. Kipps is a novel by H G Wells that was adapted as a musical for both stage and screen called Half a Sixpence which if interpreted literally = 3d.
26 Unkind expelling European people in general (3)
MAN : M{e}AN (unkind) [expelling European]
27 Dog that’s a boon, following bachelor (6)
BASSET : B (bachelor), ASSET (boon)
28 Deep state formed phony MI6 (8)
HYPNOSIS : Anagram [formed] of PHONY, SIS (MI6 – Secret Intelligence Service)
Down
1 Instruct boy about old passengers on a bus? (9)
COACHLOAD : COACH (instruct), LAD (boy) containing [about] O (old)
2 First class seed raised attractive plant (7)
NEMESIA : A1 (first class) + SEMEN (seed) reversed [raised] . A plant unknown to me. I struggled to find an explanation of ‘attractive’ here, assuming the setter is not just expressing a fondness for this particular flower, and the only thing I can come up with is that according to SOED its name is derived from the Greek nemesion catchfly, suggesting perhaps that it may attract insects in the same way as buddleia is known to attract butterflies.
3 Stern about editor that’s set up proof-corrector (6)
READER : REAR (stern – of ship) containing [about] ED (editor) reversed [set up]
4 Suspicion so continued over self-regarding youth (9)
NARCISSUS : SUS (suspicion) + SIC (so) + RAN (continued) reversed [over]
5 Make later improvements to crumbling outer surfaces of church (7)
RETOUCH : Anagram [crumbling] of OUTER, C{hurc}H [surfaces]
6 Confectionery jar is where sportspersons like to get their hit (5,4)
SWEET SPOT : SWEETS (confectionery), POT (jar). The point at which a tennis racket, cricket bat etc makes the most effective contact with the ball.
7 Go over one detailed description penned by National Trust (7)
INSPECT : I (one), then SPEC (detailed description) contained [penned] by NT (National Trust)
13 Warning device in flight, say, is to get engaged in conflict (4,5)
LOCK HORNS : HORN (warning device) contained by [in] LOCKS [flight, say]. Another meaning of ‘flight’ to add to the ones discussed here last week, this time with reference to a series of locks on a waterway such as a canal, which serves the same purpose as a flight of stairs in facilitating progress to a higher or lower level.
15 Clarinet playing Debussy’s last piece naturally (9)
CERTAINLY : Anagram [playing] of CLARINET, {debuss}Y [last piece]
16 House 1000 antelopes in areas of South Africa, once (9)
HOMELANDS : HO (house), M (1000), ELANDS (antelopes). Collins advises that ‘Homelands’ were regions within South Africa in which black South Africans had a limited form of self-government.
18 Immobility of passenger ship when line fails upset island (7)
INERTIA : {l}INER (passenger ship) [when line fails], AIT (island) [upset]
19 Abnormal pieces, with tons for scrap (7)
ODDMENT : ODD (abnormal), MEN (pieces – chess), T (tons)
21 Problems exist over European student mobility system (7)
ERASMUS : SUMS (problems) + ARE (exist) reversed [over]. Wiki advises that the Erasmus Programme (EuRopean community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students) is a European Union student exchange programme established in 1987.
22 Where unwary beach holidaymaker’s food goes? Shut up (6)
INTERN : IN TERN – after being pinched by a seagull! Probably unfair to terns as I don’t think they are the scavengers that infest holiday resorts .

48 comments on “Times Cryptic 27476”

  1. I got the right answer for totally the wrong reason at 25a. I got the “bit” bit. But assumed the rest was something to do with the THREEPENNY OPERA. I had no idea what or who Kipps was. METHOD, my LOI, took forever mainly since I “knew” it ended “ED”. I liked 22d after I’d tried “onsand” and “ingull”.
  2. Surprised I made it, what with the various DNKs. FOI MAN, which suggests a certain slowness to catch on. DNK ‘flight’ but I had HORN, DNK the exchange program but I had the wordplay. I’d learned only recently that MI6 was now SIS, but had forgotten. And I really did not know who the hell Kipps was; but ‘bit’ and some checkers suggested ‘Threepenny Opera’, and I put in THREEPENNY. _N_Y_N at 22d looked unpromising, though, and I switched to THREEPENCE. That left me 22d, and INTERN came to mind from ‘Shut up’, but I couldn’t make any sense of the clue for a long time, until I finally remembered the problem of sandwich-snatching seagulls. COD to the terrific 20ac.
  3. No idea what “Kipps” was about, was following the same errant trail as the other two who’ve commented so far.
    Nor “LOCKS” = “flight,” nor LAP.
    My COI must be the diabolical TEAM.
    Bit of déjà vu when I did the QC after this.
  4. 15:18 … thinking required in many places, though luckily you could often get away with thinking the wrong thing (THREEPENCE, completely misunderstanding TEAM).

    Unlike Guy, I solved the QC first, meaning my deja vu happened in this one.

    Biggest delay for me was over OPAL. Is this meaning of ‘lap’ something I’ve seen before but just forgotten? It feels completely unfamiliar.

    As an inveterate surface junkie, I’ll give COD to AIM

  5. A fun puzzle. Knew all about Kipps and Half a Sixpence – clearly Jack is correct, you need to be old enough! Had to look up ERASMUS to find out about the student movement. TEAM is very good.
  6. Another bravo here for TEAM. Like sawbill, I biffed it so thanks Jack for the explanation. Very clever.
    There is currently a pair of Caspian Terns on my local beach and they don’t scavenge.
    46m 31s
  8. Enjoyed this, some inventive clues I thought especially around the SE quadrant.

    Shame, that a handful of badly behaved herring gulls have managed to give all seabirds a bad name.. 🙂

  9. 34 minutes. LOI MAINSAIL not being a sailor, LOCK HORNS was more a biff than a solution, not having a barge either. Fortunately, I read somewhere recently about Half a Sixpence being based on Kipps. Just think that Tommy Steele was once Britain’s answer to Elvis. Or at least Guy Mitchell. COD to HOMELANDS. Thank you Jack and setter
  10. I’ll forgive the ornithological discrepancy (and the antelopes which were cleverly used). Biffed TEAM so missed the even cleverer device (thanks jackkt). Very enjoyable.
  11. Three unsolved – though it should have been just one. I had Threepence and Intern without understanding and swapped to Threepenny. I didn’t get Mainsail up.

    COD: TEAM.

  12. I failed on METHOD today. I trawled the alphabet several times but all I could come up with was MESHED. The best I could come up with through parsing was YETHAD (notwithstanding that = yet, used = had). With hindsight it’s fairly straightforward but I just couldn’t see it. Probably one where I should have left and come back to it.

    COD to INTERN, which put me in mind of a holiday to Lyme Regis earlier this year. I’ve never seen such aggressive seagulls!

  13. 47 minutes, with the entire last seven trying to think of something better than THREEPENCE for 25a. Luckily I didn’t! NHO Kipps or the musical itself.

    Thought the rest of the puzzle much more fun & fair than that one, especially the antelope deployment in 16d HOMELANDS, the surface and definition at 28a HYPNOSIS and the device in 20a TEAM.

    Apart from 25a I found 13d LOCK HORNS hardest. I wasn’t convinced by my 12a OPAL and was thinking of odd things like PACE MAKERs and FIRE ALARMs for far too long before I had more crossers.

  15. ….by thanking all of you who expressed condolence and sympathy yesterday. It is good to have so many friends, many of whom I’ve never met.

    I did a fair bit of biffing today, but successfully completed in quite a quick time. NHO ERASMUS in that context, and DNK the MI6 part of HYPNOSIS, or that “lap = polish”.

    FOI AIM
    LOI METHOD
    COD LOCK HORNS (great use of “flight” !)
    TIME 8:24

  16. 50 min. Found this rather tough in a back-in-the-day-ish way, which being that way myself I can appreciate more with it done. Liked the odd men(t).
  17. Didn’t know that meaning of “lap” either, so toyed with RUBY first because, as Hamlet said, there’s the rub. Being familiar with Kipps, I enjoyed the coin halving process, tho I took a long time to work out how METHOD worked.
  18. Finished in a bit less than 50 minutes. No idea about THREEPENCE or the SIS bit of HYPNOSIS. I’d never heard of the ‘European student mobility system’ or the ‘attractive plant’ so this was quite a challenge. TEAM was an original clue and my pick for the day.

    I liked the reminder of Tommy Steele. I think I still have a 45 of “What A Mouth” somewhere – “… And he coughs up lumps of coke”. Classic.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

  19. Too much looking up to claim that I finished this one. LOI METHOD where I failed to separate the medical practice. NHO KIPPS, and despite being 67 Tommy Steele is well before my time! Thought I was up for a record time until the final few caused me to completely seize up.
  20. I knew who Kipps was, and suspected there must be a musical based on the book. Quarter Shilling would have been my guess. Thanks for the enlightenment. My last one in was one of the easier clues – method. God knows why. The brain freezes when there’s only one left. Or one assumes it must be harder than it actually is. Guessed Opal as well, so thanks for putting that one straight too.
  21. I gave up after 50 minutes on Mainsail, Threepence and Intern, having also got in a bit of a muddle in the disclosure / certainly crossers. I biffed Discussion then couldn’t work out the anagram! I got threepenny, like others thinking Threepenny Opera, and although I had heard of Kipps and Half a Sixpence, absolutely could not drag them out of the memory bank.

    I liked the Ruskin / Inspect section, largely because I volunteer at an NT arts and crafts cottage. Having said that, it took me a while to see Ruskin so it was a classic aha moment 😊

    FOI Psychopath – a bit of a gimme in what was, for me at least, a quirky and challenging puzzle
    PDM Ruskin
    Deja vu – yes

    Thanks Jack for unravelling some tricky clues

  22. Same DNKs as others, and although I just about remembered Half A Sixpence I’d forgotten about Tommy Steele and momentarily confused him with Cliff Richard… 15.32
  24. I completed all bar 19d, 23a and 25a in around 30 minutes and then spent another 15 on those 3 with ODDMENT first to cave, doh!. THREEPENCE was biffed with a nod to the Threepenny Opera until I looked it up. I knew Half A Sixpence and Tommy Steele, but the Kipps reference was beyond my ken. Didn’t know the plant. Liked INTERN, LOCK HORNS and COACHLOAD. 45:26. Thanks setter and Jack.
  25. 15:46. I started quite quickly on this but then slowed down a lot towards the end, especially the last four or five in. Same unknowns as others.
  27. So clever I didn’t get it, so it’s just as well three letters were supplied. Thanks Jack for generously supplied erudition.
    I rather liked the sandwiches IN TERN, todays cheersome smile.
  28. Normal time for me today, although I didn’t know of several things, such as Kipps, the lap/rub connection, or Mr. RUSKIN. Wordplay obviously helped on that, and like others I assumed The Threepenny Opera was at the root of that one. I biffed TEAM so I can’t express the proper appreciation. But got done in say 200 minutes. Regards.
  29. Bifftastic grid – ERASMUS, LOCK HORNS, TEAM and OPAL all entered without (fully) understanding. Also no idea about SIS.

    LOI METHOD

  30. Good golly Miss Molly – I’ve only gone and finished the Big Boy puzzle again!!! 41 mins. That’s two in a row. Absolute scenes. (Didn’t understand “flights” and thought it was the Thruppenny Opera.) Maybe all my visits to the QC gym are beefing me up after all. (I’m still the wimpy kid, you can all kick sand in my face.)

    Thanks for the blog Jack, very helpful.

    Templar

  31. Well, that settles it- I’ve definitely lost an important neuron. This is my Nth DNF in a row, where 3<N<5. I was undone by THREEPENCE, having not the foggiest idea what it was about. I toyed with something-dance, which was the closest I could get to anything musical.
  32. Well, I finished it (in just over an hour), but thought it was extremely subtle in parts and required great care. I had to apply my usual method in such cases, which is to leave the puzzle with a number of completely incomprehensible clues left undone, and return to it hours later to watch them all fall into place within a few minutes as if by magic (well, certainly not by understanding). All the usual DNKs, and tiny bits of information giving me the correct answer nonetheless (“game” = RU for RUSKIN, “bit” for the THREEPENCE after determining it was spelt THREE… and not THRUP…). Whew!
  33. About 40 mins for me but I ended up using aids to get oddment, I probably could’ve got there but lost patience. Thought team and method were interesting clues. Lock horns and threepence were entered from defs with that meaning of flight beyond me and the Kipps reference over my head.
    1. The Shorter Oxford has Seed as:
      4 Semen, sperm. ME.

      Also the word semen’s origin as:

      Late Middle English from Latin, literally ‘seed’, from serere ‘to sow’.

      Edited at 2019-10-09 08:48 am (UTC)

  35. Jackkt is right. Terns don’t infest holiday hot-spots, but on the wilder shores they can bop you on the head, and even draw blood, if they resent your presence. Noisy so-and-sos too.
    No idea about Erasmus. Surprised it passed with so little comment.
  36. Jackkt is right. Terns don’t infest holiday hot-spots, but on the wilder shores they can bop you on the head, and even draw blood, if they resent your presence. Noisy so-and-sos too.
    No idea about Erasmus. Surprised it passed with so little comment.
  37. Semen is the suspension in which sperm lives. The SOE is incorrect. Many men possess semen that has no sperm whatsoever. Mr Grumpy
  38. Found it slow going today. Could apportion blame to the heat and lack of food. Well over 2 Olivias at 48 mins. Never heard of NEMESIA, but luckily the wife did – ‘sort of little pea things’.

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