Times Cryptic 27500

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

My solving time was off the scale and I used aids for the unknown 21dn. Perhaps the setter decided to set a stinker to mark the 27500th puzzle, or maybe it was just me?

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 Excited to go and do the unfinished pattern on fabric (8)
DOGTOOTH : Anagram [excited) of TO GO DO, then TH{e} [unfinished]
5 Rat briefly cuts supply in plant (6)
CACTUS : CA{d}(rat) [briefly], then anagram [supply] of CUTS
10 Returning ingredients, a chef drops bananas, needing bread (8,3,4)
STRAPPED FOR CASH : PARTS (ingredients) reversed [returning], then anagram [bananas] of A CHEF DROPS. ‘Bread’ is slang for money.
11 One taking notice in my school (7)
ACADEMY : ACE (one) containing [taking…in] AD (notice), MY
12 Award state power over psychological drug (7)
PLACEBO : OBE (award) + CAL (state) + P (power) all reversed [over]
13 Nancy’s very cross and that’s wrong (8)
TRESPASS : TRES (Nancy’s ‘very’ – yer actual French), PASS (cross)
15 Shoot gangster, heading west in capital (2,3)
LA PAZ : ZAP (shoot) + AL (gangster – Capone) all reversed [heading west]. Wiki advises that this is the seat of government and therefore the de facto national capital of Bolivia but the constitutional capital is Sucre.
18 First one off to get a tan? Better take top off (5)
UNCAP :  (s)UN (get a tan) [first one off], CAP (better). ‘Sun’ is a verb here as in ‘to sun oneself’ …and presumably get a tan in the process.
20 Cooked: did prune in advance? (8)
PREPARED : PARE = prune / cut down in size, so PRE-PARED = ‘did prune in advance’
23 Rhubarb found in beet, upside-down, back-to-front (7)
DISPUTE : Hidden [found in] and reversed [back-to-front] inside {be}ET UPSID{de-down}. SOED has rhubarb as US slang for a heated dispute or row, which came as news to me. Aside from the fruit I knew it only as the burbling noise made by background characters on stage, and as an interjection meaning ‘rubbish’. I think the last was popular on The Goon Show and often accompanied by a raspberry.
25 Hoping to relieve pressure, cooked around 200 dumplings (7)
GNOCCHI : Anagram [cooked] of HO{p}ING [relieve pressure], containing [around] CC (200)
26 Once at my studio, I might produce such a programme (9,6)
SITUATION COMEDY : Anagram [might produce] ONCE AT MY STUDIO I
27 Feline admirer not at ease in this? (6)
CLOVER : C{at} LOVER (feline admirer) [not ‘at’]. To be ‘in clover’ is living a life of ease and luxury.
28 Son that is returning gym skirt (8)
SIDESTEP : S (son), ID EST (that is), PE (gym) reversed [returning]
Down
1 Sad face, taking in storm on vacation (6)
DISMAL : DIAL (face) containing [taking in] S{tor}M [on vacation]
2 Elderly fellow reported a swindle after a thousand is taken (9)
GERIATRIC : GERI sounds like [reported] “Gerry” (fellow), A,  TRIC{k} (swindle) [after a thousand – K – is taken]
3 Put down iron after crease initially comes out of collar (7)
OPPRESS : {c}OP (collar) [c{rease} initially comes out], PRESS (iron)
4 Place to drive from, with refusal to waste a minute (5)
TEENY : TEE (place to drive from), N{a}Y (refusal) [waste a]. Nay, nay and thrice nay! Memories of  dear old Frankie.
6 Letters dispatched in fliers (7)
AIRMAIL : Cryptic definition, and would you believe it was my LOI?
7 Locate neckwear taken from University Challenge? (5)
TRACE : {boa}T RACE (University challenge) [neckwear taken from…]. The parsing took me forever but my efforts were eventually rewarded by a penny-drop moment.  Overseas solvers may not know that University Challenge is a long-running TV quiz show in the UK. The Boat Race is the annual contest, Oxford vs Cambridge, from Putney to Mortlake on the River Thames.
8 Chat about hospital being involved in small leak (8)
SCHMOOZE : C (about) + H (hospital) contained by [being involved in] SM (small), OOZE (leak). I’ve never seen ‘sm’ as an abbreviation for ‘small’ before, but Collins has it as an Americanism.
9 Runners on less firm terrain here – fine, in spite of stumbling (3-5)
OFF-PISTE : Anagram [stumbling] of F (fine) IN SPITE OF. ‘Runners’ for ‘skis’ is crossword chestnut.
14 Sweet drink –  price, oddly, is around tuppence (5,3)
APPLE PIE : ALE (drink) + P{r}I{c}E [oddly] contains [is around] P P (tuppence). ‘Sweet’ in the sense of ‘pud’ (see 21dn).
16 Visionary caught one in here (9)
PRESCIENT :  C (caught) + I (one) contained by [in] PRESENT (here)
17 Arresting Liberal Democrat, copper picked up investigation – there’s only one way out of it (3,2,3)
CUL DE SAC : CU (copper) not reversed +  CASE (investigation) reversed [picked up] containing [arresting]  L (liberal) + D (democrat). L & D are parsed separately as the abbreviation of Liberal Democrat is ‘Libdem’.
19 Covering miles, a swallow comes up onto mate’s tail feathers (7)
PLUMAGE :  GULP (swallow) reversed [comes up] containing [covering] M (miles) + A , {mat}E [tail]
21 Parody about flower company’s final omission (7)
APOCOPE : APE (parody) contains [about] PO (flower) + CO (company). The loss of one or more letters or syllables at the end of a word. Never ‘eard of it, but an example would be ‘pud’ as an abbreviation of ‘pudding’. I used aids for this one despite spotting the possibility of PO and CO. APE for ‘parody’ never occurred to me.
22 Straighten back of jacket? I would, certainly (4,2)
TIDY UP : {jacke}T [back of…], I’D (I would), YUP (certainly)
24 Dagger’s not used ’til fight (3-2)
SET-TO : S{til}ETTO (dagger’s) [not used ’til]
25 Information needed by two guardian spirits (5)
GENII : GEN (information), II (two). I didn’t know this as a plural of ‘genie’ only as an optional plural of ‘genius’.

60 comments on “Times Cryptic 27500”

  1. I did this just before checking out of my hotel, and only realized now how much I’d biffed and never, ah, checked out: 2d (where I never got beyond CON for swindle), 7d, 8d, 17d, 21d, 27ac. All that biffing and it still took me a long time. I remember being surprised here to learn that ‘rhubarb’ mean nonsense not argument–the word, or rather the meaning, originated in baseball. Crowd noises on US radio were traditionally ‘avocado’. A PLACEBO is seldom a drug, but I suppose the definition works if we take ‘psychological’ to mean ‘only in your head’.
  2. I had to use aids just for that one too, LOI. I seemed to see the parsing of TRACE but it was still only a guess.
  3. APOCOPE no problem, but I bowed out after 50 minutes with ‘predated’ in place of PREPARED. A date is certainly like a prune, in terms of sharing a fruity provenance, and my answer is undoubtedly more creative, and near as damn it fits the clue, so I am very happy to claim the moral high ground on this one. Was I alone, I muse?
  4. I gave up on this one with PREPARED, CLOVER and APOCOPE missing. Not sure I’d have got the last of these in a month of Sundays.
  5. I stopped at 20 minutes with 4 unconnected clues unsolved, suspecting it was going to take at least as long again to round up those strays.

    CACTUS, DISPUTE, CLOVER and APOCOPE all got the better of me today.

    Well done, Jackkt, and anyone who persevered long enough to solve it.

  6. Well I never, a real piece of Americana! I only knew that the NATS won the misnoma-ed ‘World Series’ last week. They were rounded-up and forced to pay a visit to Dumptyland. Burgers and Rhubarb! I am informed that in a ‘road game’in GUADALAJARA it was Mexico 8 USA 2 in yesterday’s Olympic Baseball playoff. I presume that the one with the lowest score progresses. It just ain’t cricket in my book! Rhubarb!

    I really enjoyed this tough monkey! 50 minutes in all, but rather satisfying.

    FOI 15ac LA PAZ

    LOI 7dn TRACE – eeek! What a stretch! From Putney to Barnes!

    COD 13ac TRESPASS!

    WOD 4dn SCHMOOZE more delightful Americana.

    21dn could only be APOCOPE, which is also an Elysian field

    Having re-read Jack’s lovely blog I note his LOI was 6dn AIRMAIL. I was my SOI.
    Philately to the phor.

    Edited at 2019-11-05 07:43 am (UTC)

  7. In 27, doesn’t AT do double duty? I couldn’t get my mind beyond CLOSET. An unknown feline? The trouble is I’m so familiar with coming across words I’m not familiar with in these crosswords that I think anything is a possible word. Even APOCOPE.
    1. I don’t think so. One can live a life of ease which equates with being in clover. ‘At ease’ suggests to me something more akin to freedom from anxiety than anything to do with luxury.
  8. Like Jack, my time was off the scale and I used aids to find APOCOPE. But it was a DNF as TRACE and CACTUS beat me.
    and so to bed.
  9. I assume(d) it was indeed the plural of ‘genius’; a genie –and I now see that ODE gives ‘genii’ as a possible plural form–is a djinn from the Arabian Nights. One sense of genius is the personal spirit that attends us; Marc Antony’s was “buk’d” by Caesar’s, according to Macbeth.
    1. I didn’t think twice about this at the time, but in hindsight that’s only because a series of major characters in Ben Aaronovitch‘s Rivers of London urban fantasy novels are genii locorum, which set them very firmly in my mind as guardian spirits.
  10. 35:41. I was relieved to complete this without resorting to aids and with only TRACE unparsed. Well done for untangling that, jackkt. APOCOPE derived from the wordplay with finger crossed. LOI CLOVER needed the start of an alphabet trawl before the penny dropped. What a cracking puzzle! I liked the foodie theme in the across clues. Too many good ones to list all those with appreciative ticks on my paper copy, but I pick PLUMAGE for my COD.
  11. Very hard work. Like others never heard of APOCOPE nor the US meaning of rhubarb. Somehow solving it should have been more rewarding than it was. Great work Jack.
  12. It seems I did quite well to finish in 45 minutes without looking anything up. Mind you, I did check the dictionary for LOI 21d APOCOPE while the ink was still drying, and was fully prepared to find I’d made it up…

    Enjoyed this overall. I started off by getting the four eight-letter words that connect in the centre of the grid, which helped me make inroads into all four corners and never get completely stuck.

    FOI 9d OFF PISTE, COD 7d TRACE. I also enjoyed “psychological drug” for 12a PLACEBO and the other subtraction clue of 27a CLOVER.

  13. 30 mins and I enjoyed it with yoghurt, granola, etc.
    NHO Apocope, but done from wordplay.
    MER at Rhubarb=dispute; new one on me.
    Mostly I liked the chunky extractions: C[at] Lover, [Boa]t Race and COD to S[til]et To.
    Thanks setter and J.

    PS Hat tipped to the setter for 10ac and ignoring the Dominatrix possibilities in cluing this.

    Edited at 2019-11-05 08:54 am (UTC)

  14. I thought my error was going to be the unlikely looking APOCOPE but it turned out to be the more unlikely looking GNOCCGI. I’d spent an age deliberating over APOCOPE, which was the only parsing I could see, and thinking that I must be missing something. Having got that and everything else right then being undone by a typo is quite annoying. Damn fat fingers.
    1. Was going reasonably well but slowed to an M25 traffic jam pace over apocope! and didn’t find the clue to cactus very succulent either. Hey ho another new word to store in the crossword memory.
  15. guessed apocope OK but did NOT like rhubarb = dispute. ALL Americanisms and other foreign usages should be noted as such..
  16. I persevered and finished in 54 minutes. I ought to get a life. I was surprised to find that my biffed DISPUTE was correct, having missed the hidden. I did manage to parse both CACTUS and TRACE having biffed first the one and then the other. I didn’t fully parse SCHMOOZE though, not having seen that abbreviation for ‘small’ before, but it had to be with those crossers. APOCOPE was assembled using the instructions. COD to CLOVER, a nice PDM. Thank you Jack and setter.
  17. Unusual for me to say that. CACTUS, PREPARED, APOCOPE, TRACE all not done.

    Thanks for the blog jack, and thanks to setter.

  18. I had the NW corner all filled in lickety split and thought I might be in line for a fast one, but the setter had other ideas. No problem with RHUBARB except that I was surprised to see it there and it was exceptionally well hidden. If a pitcher zings a fast ball too close to the batter’s head and it looks deliberate both dugouts empty and they all mill about in a sort of scrum. It’s all somewhat choreographed because no one ever seems to actually get hurt. Then one of the managers goes chest to chest with the home plate umpire until the ump signals “yer out” and then play resumes.

    I did the same as Johninterred and BW with APOCOPE and assembled per instructions but it took some appreciable time. Completely missed the boat in TRACE – thanks Jack. 23.49

    1. I am mindful of the time Mickey Rivers sucker punched Bill Lee, putting him out for a good part of a season.
      1. Hmm. I’ forgotten about that Paul but I see it was the Yanks vs the Redsox where stuff happens. Still I’m sure you know what I mean in general.
        1. I googled “10 worst baseball brawls” – Two of the ten were Yanks-Sox. Considering that there are 30 MLB teams, That teams play 162 games a year, and that the list went back to the late 1960s, that’s a lot of teams and games which those two bad boys pushed aside in the ranking.
  19. Crumbs. Ground my way through it in 56 minutes. Pulling teeth all the way. LOI apocope, which I finally inferred from my Spanish-related knowledge of the word apocopation – some Spanish adjectives are apocopated when used attributively (e.g. primero and bueno in the phrase ‘el primer buen libro’ – ‘the first good book’). Thanks jack.
  20. I managed most of this in just over the half hour, but then had to struggle on for a similar time on my last few, CACTUS, CLOVER, TRACE, TEENY and APOCOPE. Like Jack I saw PO and CO but couldn’t come up with APE, and wouldn’t have recognised the word if I had, so word finder it was. I did manage to parse everything else, but 63:05 had elapsed when I submitted. A bruising encounter. Thanks setter and Jack.
  21. Surprisingly I’d thought this was relatively easy. Eg APOCOPE had to be that even though it was a DNK. That was until I hit the NE, and my final 2, TRACE & CACTUS, which took almost as long as the rest. I knew not that a BOA is neckwear – gave me visions of a snake around my neck – and I thought that ‘supply’ was a very poor anagrind. Aside from that, a very fine crossword.
    1. It was quite lucky that I just last night finished a book where a main character is never seen without one of her extensive collection of feather boas (surprisingly, it’s a contemporary novel written within the last year, rather than an Agatha Christie…)
    2. ‘Supply’ as anagrind is one of the oldest crossword chestnuts in the setters’ armoury.

      To mix a metaphor, or three!

  23. 39 minutes, with a few tough ones in here, and one not parsed (TRACE). Eyebrows in motion several times, with RHUBARB meaning dispute (DK American meaning), LA PAZ as not the capital really, PLACEBO definition, and GENII as a plural of GENIE. But tolerable stretches and a good puzzle requiring some thought. CoD CLOVER for me. Or possibly TRACE now I see how it works, although it’s easy to guess.
  24. ….would be a wonderful pick-me-up after this Championship standard puzzle. I was within the required 20 minutes, and delighted to be so.

    DNK the context of “rhubarb” but parsed the clue quickly, so it had to be right. Thanks to Jack for parsing UNCAP.

    I had to alpha-trawl all my last four answers : CLOVER, SIDESTEP, APOCOPE, and CACTUS. I think four is an unwanted record !

    FOI TRESPASS (an excellent Genesis album)
    LOI CACTUS (technically, as I’d made a note of it earlier but couldn’t see how it worked. The last one solved was CLOVER)
    COD TRACE (but OPPRESS was in the photo-finish)
    TIME 18:37 (32 days and counting….)

    Edited at 2019-11-05 12:33 pm (UTC)

  25. 42’55. Apocope finally swam up from somewhere. Wasn’t aware of sm for small, rhubarb for dispute, how trace worked. or c for cat (or that cats don’t like clover if that’s in it). Still and all, a good workout. Nice dominatrix suggestion from myrtilus but sadly agree best avoided. Oh, re-reading jackkt’s advice I see how ‘clover’ works.

    Edited at 2019-11-05 12:35 pm (UTC)

  26. I managed to cobble together the correct letters for APOCOPE (hardly expecting it to be correct) but failed to learn from past mistakes in settling for crossing answers in the NE corner that I couldn’t parse. Know I know why.
  27. Do you think the fact that pampas is fluffy and cacti are spiky is relevant to the way we were drawn towards our respective answers?
  28. Couldn’t think of a word to fit the crossers, so vaguely guessed AAAOOCOPPPeeepe. Clearly it wasn’t a real word, but life is too short for trying to decipher the likes of this.
    Got it right, but not happy.
    Liked airmail as needed all the crossers.
  29. Got everything apart from ‘apocope’ without aids, but had to look this one up despite sussing all the elements. I wouldn’t be surprised if Izetti was responsible for all three puzzles in today’s Times.
  30. 45 mins with four left. Realised REPRESS was wrong and DOGTOOTH which in turn gave me GERIATRIC was an anagram after all.

    Finally plumped for CACTUS not entirely understanding, then a good five mins spotting TRACE having previously thought that TIE might be the word to remove, or even Y (leaving ALE).

    Glad to be under the hour.

  31. What is going on here? I actually finished this one, correctly, in under an hour (58:25, to be exact, just barely under an hour, unlike yesterday’s hour and a half), goaded on by my discovery, after its mention here yesterday, of the Crossword SNITCH site. And then I discover reading the comments at the beginning that many of the really good solvers, far better than I am, took forever or couldn’t finish it. I even managed to parse everything. APOCOPE went in from wordplay, of course, CACTUS was my LOI because it took a while to see CA(D) for RAT and I didn’t like the anagrind for CTUS, and some like DOGTOOTH were just intelligent guesses. The clues I liked best were for CLOVER and TIDY UP. The crossword site’s revenge will surely come tomorrow.
  32. Aids needed for APOCOPE, and shamefully, SCHMOOZE. The latter is a word we use over here all the time, but I wouldn’t have thought it had made the crossing. Regards.
  33. Rather late to check in tonight, although I tackled the crossword this morning. An hour and a bit to solve and parse most of it, but like others, undone by Apocope. Annoyingly I also couldn’t see teeny / minute. Didn’t understand Rhubarb / dispute, but it had to be. Liked La Paz, Trespass and Tidy up a lot 😊

    FOI Dismal
    COD Trace – a classic PDM when I twigged that the neckwear was a boa! Brilliant clue
    DNF

  34. So it wasn’t just me. Apocope I worked out (and checked in a dictionary) but I was left standing in the southwest corner, before finally seeing dispute, then set-to and clover. cactus was my loi though I could have biffed it earlier. Many clues had an excluded word in the cryptic part, and I think I was not expecting to see the same device used so often. (That’s my excuse anyway!)
  35. I was expecting at least two little clusters of pink squares when I submitted, being not at all confident of APOCOPE (which was assembled from parts without the benefit of knowledge) or CLOVER (which was much easier to assemble, but which I couldn’t parse, the “not at” ruse eluding me). CACTUS was also, to my mind, a bit questionable. In the end, though, I had but one pink square in a sea of green – a typo in “PREPARED”.

    Thanks to Jack for providing the definition of APOCOPE. It reinforces my opinion that lexicographic ontologists have far too much time on their hands and know more Greek than is good for them. It also makes me wonder what APOCOPE is when written in full.

    Edited at 2019-11-05 09:00 pm (UTC)

    1. Apaculpo, Apiscopal, A right load of …..
      Commiserations on the typo!

      Edited at 2019-11-05 11:50 pm (UTC)

  36. 56:54. I found this very tough and was pleased to finish with everything parsed apart from 24dn and everything known apart from apocope where I first saw the company then the flower and finally guessed the parody must be ape to construct it from wp. Clover was a nice pdm and I liked the clue for gnocchi. NE was hardest for me, placebo was seen long before I could parse it, 5ac and 7dn also took ages.
  38. This went at better than my usual pace, except for A-O-O-E which stayed in exactly that form until I got the dictionary out. Nice puzzle
  39. Only managed about half of this, but did enjoy the ones I managed to get. Excellent, informative blog (as usual), though surely 19d is m, a inside gulp upwards, not m inside a gulp? Invariant
    1. Thanks. That’s what I had marked up on my printout but I didn’t transfer the thought accurately to the blog. Duly amended now.
  40. I seems my naive faith in anything ‘Oxford’ over the likes of Chambers and Collins is sadly misplaced. If we’re going to have Americanisms (and obscure Americanisms at that) as the answers, then we may as well just chuck ‘em all in the bin and stick to Merriam-Webster to make it simpler for everyone. True, that would rule out a lot of ‘Englishisms’ but never mind. Actually forget that. Why not go the whole hog and simply import the NYT crossword into the ToL? Mr Grumpy

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