Times Cryptic 27488

55 comments on “Times Cryptic 27488”

1. I parsed 22a as ‘Swiss mug’ = BERN (Capital of Switzerland) + STEIN (mug). I had the same comments about SWAY-BACK, BUSED, DAGGA and NOD for ‘Slip carelessly’. Where I come from to ‘drop a mark’ means to ‘spill a catch’ so I found 20d harder than it should have been.

   HANGDOG – such a great, descriptive word.

   Thanks to our setter (from a fellow Glen Campbell fan) and blogger

   1. Exactly right, br, and that’s exactly how I parsed it when I annotated my print-out. Why I then didn’t bother to refer to my notes when I came to write the blog is another matter! Thanks for the correction.
2. FOI 5ac, QC material. Slowed down at the end by POI 11ac and LOI 26ac–I thought of Sleepy early on, couldn’t remember the correct one. Similarly, thought of ‘salivates’ early on, which was useless of course, but only saw ‘expectorates’ once I’d biffed from checkers. No problem with SWAY-BACK, although I think I’d drop the hyphen. I parsed BERNSTEIN like Bletchley. I would have thought you guys had come across “Even Homer nods” (the Japanese say, Even a monkey may fall from a tree) somewhere. Various ethnic groups in Africa and elsewhere SCARIFY their faces or bodies for one reason or another, none of them convincing.
   1. The ‘Homer nods’ saying was what I had in mind when I wrote my comment in the blog although I couldn’t actually think of it, so thanks for the reminder. I’ve never come across it outside crosswords.
   2. I think I’ve heard of the phrase “even Homer nods” but would have assumed it meant even the best of us sometimes have trouble staying awake. I assume, now, it doesn’t.
3. …and it shouldn’t have taken that long, I really messed up on some of the easy ones.

   The use of ‘nods’ meaning ‘slip up’ is probably from Dryden’s reference to Ars Poetica in one of his prefaces: “Horace acknowledges that honest Homer nods sometimes”. This was later alluded to by Pope in his Essay on Criticism: “Those oft are Stratagems which Errors seem,
   Nor is it Homer Nods, but We that Dream.”

   I had never heard of ‘dagga’, but what else could it be?

4. I’d never heard of DAGGA either, and this is rather one of my fields! Ha. My LOI, though, was Medway, NHO it, that I can recall.
   In my book (and my employer’s house style), “bused” is preferred to “bussed,” which, after all, (also) means “kissed.”

   Edited at 2019-10-22 04:04 am (UTC)

   1. Yeah, but who ever says ‘buss’ when he means ‘kiss’? What does your house style say about e.g. the past tense or progressive of ‘travel’?
      1. Not sure what your point is, but standard American spelling of “traveled” and “traveling,” “labeled” and “labeling,” etc., does not double the final consonant of the root.
         1. No point, just a question that I should have separated from the buss sentence; I’ve reached a point where I don’t know anymore, just as I’m unsure about licence/license, etc.
            1. I get fairly regular practice Americanizing Brit-style prose.
               1. I would suggest that Kevin has a butcher’s at the Beeb’s ‘POINTLESS’ – most entertaining.

                  I get a lot of practice correcting American prose into English. Except for Paul Gallico!

                  Edited at 2019-10-22 07:19 am (UTC)

                  1. not “Anglicising” but “Correcting” – LOL
5. I never really got going and the descriptive 13ac SWAY-BACK was unknown, as was 24ac DAGGA

   FOI 1ac FORAGES and SOI 5ac rather simplistic but…

   LOI 21dn MEDWAY

   COD 10dn CHEQUERED FLAG

   WOD 16dn TOP-NOTCH (shades of Terry Thomas)

   At 4dn I bunged in SWASTIKA initially! Well back in the day as a national symbol it suggested the tone of the Rhineland.

   Edited at 2019-10-22 07:14 am (UTC)

6. I went to school in Tunbridge Wells but nowadays can’t remember which group of men belong to which bank of the Medway.
   Rhinestone Cowboy was one of Jimmy Webb’s greatest songs; so poignant.
   A FORCE is what they call waterfalls ‘oop north’ isn’t it?
   I’ve watched a few videos on YouTube recently with Bernstein conducting. I think De Niro would be a shoe-in lookalike to play him.
   COD to SHAMROCK but I’m sure we have seen it before, maybe several times.
   1. Rhinestone Cowboy was one of Glen Campbell’s hits that Webb didn’t write, it was written and recorded originally by Larry Weiss.
7. 25 mins.
   Neat and tidy.
   Thanks setter and J.
8. Apart from DAGGA I almost felt that I recognised this crossword from the past. Probably just the combination of chestnuts and ‘chestnutty’ bits.
   1. I had the same feeling when I twigged to SHAM ROCK and got the most intense feeling of déjà résolu. Maybe we’ve just been doing these things too long!
9. I wasn’t surprised to find myself near the bottom of the leaderboard having spent about half my time on BUSED and DISCARD, neither of which should have been that difficult. I had considered bus as the transport concerned in 23A but disregarded it as I was convinced two S’s were needed. I did at least avoid one of my common pitfalls of convincing myself a wrong answer was correct; at one point I thought that DEBRAND fitted a definition of ‘drop mark’ so well that it had to be.
10. …on the road to my horizon, but I reached it in 26 minutes. LOI the unknown SWAY-BACK.With the sheltered life I’ve lived, I didn’t know DAGGA either, but fortunately did see a dagger before me once sleep had been murdered. COD could have gone to SNEEZY or BORON on another day but it has to go to SHAMROCK, though that was only seen when the siren call from LORELEI wouldn’t fit in. I guess that’s why there are no offers coming over the phone. Thank you Jack and setter.
11. 23’32” but without DAGGA, nhoi. Seems very obscure. Nho SWAY BACK either. Luckily I’ve given up caring about pink squares and tables, because such clues make submission a matter of crossed fingers.

    COD to BERNSTEIN.

    Thanks jack and setter.

12. I thought I’d done quite well to come in at 40 minutes on this one, what with the unknown LOI 24a DAGGA (and I’ve actually smoked marijuana with a South African!) and the tough DISCARD/BUSED crosser.

    However, it turned out that my SNAG-BACK wasn’t the right horse to bet on. Seemed a shame, as a SNAG is a small problem and “BACK” could plausibly mean long ago. Oh well. Rather enjoyable nonetheless, especially 26a SNEEZY.

    1. Did you inhale? I think we should know!
13. I wasted time on my proof reading trying and failing to justify slip for nod, when I should have been revisiting my (St Lawrence) SEAWAY. MED had crossed my mind earlier but MEDWAY had failed to register. Drat! I found this puzzle tricky with the NE, SE and SW all causing me problems. Liked BORON and SNEEZY. SWAY BACK was familiar from my reading of James Herriot books. SHAMROCK had registered from previous puzzles. DAGGA was unknown but seemed likely. It wasn’t going to be DOGMA! Perhaps I was less than incisive today, but this took my 51:30 WOE. Thanks setter and Jack.
14. 8:28. I didn’t find this difficult but I was relieved to come through unscathed. DAGGA could easily have been DAGHA and SWAYBACK looked unlikely to me.
    ‘Nod’ from the Homer reference. Surprising he didn’t slip up more often considering he didn’t exist.

    Edited at 2019-10-22 02:05 pm (UTC)

    1. Having read both the Iliad and the Odyssey in their original language, I suspect he did!
       1. I believe that’s a minority view these days, but I claim no expertise on the subject: I just saw an opportunity for a facetious comment, which I never like to waste!
15. Feeling slightly pathetic today, solving this in piecemeal style and taking 26.34 over it. Can’t even complain about the interruption I endured, because, as usually happens, coming back produced a rush of solutions which (presumably) my crossword id had already sorted out but couldn’t otherwise poke through my surface rambling.

    SWAY-BACK and DAGGA with fingers crossed. I’m fully aware that BUSED is a proper spelling, but (especially with the second-hand cluing) it still looked and read like some aphetic form of abused.

16. Scarify. Keen gardeners might own a powered rake to scarify their lawns involving raking out the moss
17. Boron was easy enough to get, but I think nonetheless that the clue is too vague, and therefore not really up to scratch. Nho dagga, but it could only be that. 21 mins. Thanks jack.
18. ….the UPPER HAND and, despite thinking the dagger speech came from Hamlet, I soon dispatched the puzzle. NHO SWAY-BACK, but no other problems.

    FOI NUDIST
    LOI DISCARD
    COD CHEQUERED FLAG
    TIME 9:35

19. Never heard of it in horses, but sheep and goats can be born with it and unable to stand due to a copper deficiency in utero.
    1. Humans can have it too. I discovered the term during the last week when I was searching online for help with my back pain; it helped greatly today!

       Edited at 2019-10-22 11:45 am (UTC)

20. Does anyone happen to know if it is possible to display the title of each post in the iPhone Live Journal app or does that line (where people tend to write their solving times) show only in the browser version?

    1. I didn’t even know there was an app and didn’t notice that a good few commenters put their times in the subject field.

       Hope this helps 🙂

       1. Perhaps not in the conventional sense of the word, but thank you anyway. 😊

21. 11m 39s with the last two or so spent on SWAY-BACK and DAGGA, neither of which I’d come across before.
22. Nice puzzle, with the obvious unknowns which turned out to be exactly what the wordplay suggested they should be. BACKSPACE sprang to mind today, and a lot more quickly than it did when it appeared on Finals Day (last year? the year before? they all start to merge into one after a while) clued via cricket instead of football. It was my LOI on that day, meaning it’s stuck in my mind in a way that most clues don’t, unfortunately.
23. DNF in 40 something mins. Scuppered by the fairly easy 26ac. Saw the “one of seven” definition and some anagrist involving a Z and a Y and straightaway decided I needed one of the Pleiades, seven sisters of Greek mythology. I didn’t know their names so jumbled the letters and threw them in completely in the wrong order. Quite a feat of idiocy on my part but I wasn’t really getting on too well with this puzzle anyway. DNK sway-back so that was entered with fingers crossed. Had Bechstein in for a while at 22ac having heard of it in a musical context (seems to be a make of piano rather than a composer though). Was put off entering bused because it looks odd to me without the second S. Dagga unknown but remembered the line from the play just in time to avoid dogma. That sense of nod didn’t come to me when solving so 5dn was entered unparsed. MER at backs for footballers in 14dn, I would associate the term more with rugby. Overall not my finest hour.
    1. I had BECHSTEIN until PARAGON put me right!
       1. A little bit of knowledge can sometimes be a dangerous thing with these puzzles!
24. Zipped through in 15 mins, none of the problems others faced. Except DAGGA, which had to be DOGMA. My vivid memory of Macbeth from school in the 1970s is that he dreamed about a dog: “Out, damned Spot!” Luckily dogma didn’t parse, and I finally remembered the dagger. Homer’s nod seen here not so long ago, sway-back heard of, and as an (Australian) engineering student I once scored a holiday job on the Isle of Grain power station in the Medway estuary, the white elephant of all white elephants. Oil-fired, green-lit in the 1970s oil < $10/barrel, finished in the 1980s oil > $40/barrel.
    1. On my way up the greasy pole, I was Assistant Financial Controller at CEGB South East Region (1974- 1976) while Grain was being built. The productivity on site was horrendously bad. Those were the years of massive oil price escalation and of course the three-day week, on the back of yet another NUM strike. At least in those days, with Joe Gormley as President, the NUM would settle for more money. But after that, it was obvious that Grain would be a white elephant and so the CEGB, not caring if it ever finished, took on the construction trade unions. We negotiated a national site agreement with them which did at least mean that we finished some of Grain, but more importantly, the AGR nukes we were building. The outbreak of Armageddon with the NUM took another decade, while we girded ourselves for battle by building up coal stocks. By this time the intransigent Arthur Scargill was President of the NUM and I was the newly appointed Finance Director of the CEGB. It can be argued that winning that strike was the most green thing the CEGB ever accomplished, not that it was the first thing on our agenda, I admit! It was the moment when grammar school snots like me defeated the old working class. I’m still not sure what I feel about it.

       Edited at 2019-10-22 02:21 pm (UTC)

       1. They were bad times. The winter of discontent, mounted police charging miners, Maggie Thatcher, Arthur Scargill. Made me glad to be “not English”, and able to get out of there and go home. 79 was also… the start of the Iran-Iraq war? Or the start of Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan? Jimmy Carter’s abortive attempt to rescue the hostages in Iran? The only thing you can say is: now is much worse, with Trump, Putin, Erdogan, Johnson, and all the rest.

          Edited at 2019-10-22 03:39 pm (UTC)

    2. You’re thinking of Lady MacBeth. And it was all her fault.
       1. Indeed it was. Seems memories from 45 years ago are unreliable.
25. 12:53, same unknowns as others, including nod. I got scarify from the gardening connotation.

    I lived in Kent for the best part of 20 years and never bothered to remember which side of the Medway was which. Being born in Hampshire may have been a factor as technically I guess I didn’t fall into either camp.

    1. I remember it because in Eltham High Street there is a pub called The Man of Kent. Sadly, it’s in the wrong place for such a name, being west of the Medway, but that is how I remember the rule.
    2. I’ve been scarifying wallpaper prior to steaming it off all week!
26. Mostly harmless except DAGGA which no right-minded person will have heard of, and SWAY-BACK which was guessable. BUSED/DISCARD axis held me up the longest.
27. A strange day today: as soon as I saw the horse complaint, I knew I was in trouble, although the wordplay is totally obvious now it’s been explained. But isn’t that always the way! I’ll blame my equivalent to swayback for the poor showing today 😉

    So I was very slow to start, suddenly had some inspiration and galloped through about half very quickly and then ground to a halt in the SW corner. The only seven I could think of today were the deadly sins!

    Bused is weird. In my sub-editing days, words like bussed, focussed etc, always took S x 2. No point getting wound up about it – house style is house style! I suspect the Times is one of the few papers which still spells judgment like that – no middle E.

    FOI Scarify
    MER Bused
    COD Chequered flag
    DNF

28. As someone trying to graduate from the QC to the 15 x 15, today’s crossword was at least more accessible than those over recent days. I did struggle with dagga though. Having grown up in SA, I certainly knew the word, but I have never heard it pronounced as “dagger”. It’s an Afrikaans word, and retains the Afrikaans pronunciation, with the “gg” pronounced more like the “gh” in “ugh”.

    A LongTermLurker

29. Around 45 mins for this one. Got diverted on 23 down, thinking Boron must be an anaesthetic …
30. I just knew that DAGGA had to be wrong, which put me in a lose-lose-lose situation. Either I could put it in, submit, and have my fears confirmed; or I could put it in, submit, and discover that I was wrong about its being wrong; or I could put in something else altogether and almost certainly get it wrong as well as discovering that I was wrong about its being wrong in the first place. Fortunately, I decided that I might just be wrong about its being wrong, and therefore put it in and was proved right (but wrong about its being wrong; but then again right about my suspicion of being proved wrong about its being wrong).

    After all that I needed a drink. Everything else was straightforward, although I’m one of those who believes that BUSED needs another S. Of course, we could solve the problem by spelling “bus” “buss”, but no doubt that would create a fus.

Comments are closed.