Times Cryptic 27560

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Much of this went in smoothly but I had some problems  in the SW corner and became bogged down so that I finished way over my target half-hour. Also I discovered a careless error at 3dn whilst writing the blog.

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]. I usually omit all reference to positional indicators unless there is a specific point that requires clarification.

Across
1 Motor-racing company accepting a second disaster (6)
FIASCO : F1 (motor-racing) + CO (company) containing [accepting] A (a) + S (second)
5 GP, say, keeping various items around the house (8)
DOMESTIC : DOC (GP say) containing [keeping] anagram [various] of ITEMS
9 In time to keep river out of public view (2,6)
IN CAMERA : IN + ERA (time) containing [to keep] CAM (river). ‘In the chamber’.
10 European city that never sleeps? Not quite (6)
NAPLES : NAP-LES{s} (never sleeps?) [not quite]
11 City and Italian city-dweller about to appear in US city? Magic (10)
NECROMANCY : EC (city – of London) + ROMAN (Italian city-dweller) + C (about) contained by [to appear in] NY (US city – New York). Originally the art of prediction by supposed communication with the dead, but subsequently covering magic more generally.
13 Cultured person losing head (4)
ARTY : {m}ARTY (person) [losing head]. The random first names are becoming ever more random; last week I had Arnie on my watch. On edit: Thanks to Kevin for pointing out that the setter may have intended {p}ARTY (person) [losing head].
14 Recalled best mark (4)
SPOT : TOPS (best) reversed [recalled]
15 Opening for Surrey, vital to get on this? (10)
SCOREBOARD : S{urrey} [opening], CORE (vital), BOARD (get on). The statutory cricket clue.
18 High-minded headmaster dismissing a limited version of education? (10)
PRINCIPLED : PRINCIP{a}L (headmaster) [dismissing ‘a’], ED (education) with ‘limited version’ helpfully indicating the abbreviation
20 Horse covering miles in search (4)
COMB : COB (horse) containing [covering] M (miles)
21 Acclaim, losing no time (4)
HOUR : HO{no}UR (acclaim) [losing ‘no’]
23 Great to keep remaining Northern soldiers in control (10)
GOVERNMENT : GT (great) containing [to keep] OVER (remaining) + N (Northern) + MEN (soldiers)
25 Theater, the last word in comfort originally, heading west (6)
CINEMA : AMEN (the last word) then I {n} + C{omfort}  [originally] all reversed [heading west]. I am at a loss to explain the American spelling of ‘theatre’ here.
26 Uncontrollable oil gush — hot and revolting (8)
GHOULISH : Anagram [uncontrollable] of OIL GUSH H (hot)
28 Call back about fire in the sky (8)
EMPYREAN : NAME (call) reversed [back]  containing [about] PYRE [fire]. My LOI, unknown and arrived at from wordplay. SOED has: Of or pertaining to the sky or heavens.
29 Time with former lovers consuming Frenchman’s cuisine (3-3)
TEX-MEX : T (time), then EX + EX (former lovers) containing [consuming] M (Frenchman)
Down
2 Bar manager from sounding out popular goalie (9)
INNKEEPER : INN sounds like [from sounding out] “in” (popular) , KEEPER (goalie). I think strictly speaking the definition’s a bit wobbly here as a person styled ‘bar manager’ is unlikely to be an INNKEEPER, but in very general terms I suppose it works.
3 Radio announcement’s to recognise a worry: coastal fog (3,4)
SEA FRET : SEA sounds like [radio announcement’s] “see” [recognise], FRET (worry). I misremembered this expression from previous outings and wrote SEA FRIT without thinking it through properly.
4 Individual going East (3)
ONE : ON (going – running), E (East)
5 Contract excluding wife’s tax (5)
DRAIN : DRA{w} |IN (contract) [excluding wife]
6 One with particular interest in offering ready supply (11)
MONEYLENDER : Cryptic, with ‘ready’ indicating an association with money.
7 Singer, very good, keeping musical work organised (7)
SOPRANO : SO (very good – as in ‘just so’) containing [keeping] OP (musical work) + RAN (organised)
8 Useless writer is shown up in it (5)
INEPT : PEN (writer) reversed [shown up] contained by [in] IT
12 Decorator’s accessory: staff retaining piece to copy (7,4)
MASKING TAPE : MAST (staff) containing [retaining] KING (piece – chess], APE (copy). Also known as painter’s tape I believe.
16 Bird that hurts gerbil’s tail (3)
OWL : OW (that hurts), {gerbi}L [tail]
17 Think back regarding main road south into French city (9)
REMINISCE : RE (regarding), M1 (main road), then S (south) contained by [into] NICE (French city)
19 New expedition from east of London to secure Kentish garden centre? (7)
NURSERY : N (new), ‘URRY (expedition) [from east of London – yer actual Cockerney] containing [to secure] SE (Kentish – South East)
20 Difficult enough after losing answer in guide (7)
COMPLEX : {a}MPLE (enough) [after losing answer] contained by [in] COX (guide – a person who steers a rowing boat)
22 Disapprobation over simple-minded besieging University (5)
ODIUM : O (over), DIM (simple-minded) containing [besieging] U (University)
24 Promoter of diet, say, in the forefront (5)
VEGAN : EG (say) contained by [in] VAN (forefront). After the excesses of the festive season are there any ‘Veganuarians’ out there, |I wonder?
27 Unconscious in fight, getting head struck (3)
OUT : {b}OUT (fight) [getting head struck]

57 comments on “Times Cryptic 27560”

  1. 9:58 but with everything understood, so a good puzzle from that perspective. Some crafty wordplay I thought.
  2. Happy to finish this a precious 6 seconds ahead of our man in HK. As for George, I had everything pretty much understood, which involved decoding some devious wordplay (e.g. in COMPLEX, SOPRANO) and recalling SEA FRET as a fog (replacing the unparsed SEA MIST eventually).

    For 13a I took the front letter from “party”, as a legal term for a person, which made it a bit less random.

    Thanks, Jack, for the blog and to the setter.

  3. A slow start–29ac my FOI–but things improved with the downs. I came close to making Jack’s error, but ‘worry’ caught my eye in time. I probably had Thatcher’s famous comment in the back of my mind. Biffed NAPLES, my POI, only parsed after submission. LOI ARTY, where I thought it was PARTY with the P dropped; hadn’t thought of MARTY, and it seems to me that in that case the setter should have at least used, say, ‘chap’ instead of ‘person’.
    1. Thanks. I’ve added {p}ARTY to the blog as an alternative, and it may indeed be what the setter intended. ‘Arnie’ was ‘chap’ in my blog last week and I’d guess it’s normal practice to indicate the gender of random first names, but always?
      1. I have a memory of announcements in US airports inviting whoever to “meet their party…”
        1. There was also Lily Tomlin as Ernestine the telephone operator: “Is this the party to whom I am speaking?”
  4. I had SEA MIST for a time, until I realized that ROMAN had to go in the middle of the magic clue, and I remembered FRET. Also, “missed” didn’t seem to mean worry. In Scotland it is called a HAAR, which is a suitably weirdly spelled word to be a good candidate for a crossword one day. I didn’t even notice the American spelling of theater, maybe because cinemas are often called theaters in the US. I was pleased to see how MASKING TAPE worked since I’d assumed TAPE was the copy bit, MAN was staff, and I had no idea where the SKI or the G came from.
    2. FRET and haar should be familiar to anyone who’s been solving these things for long enough. As I put in SEA MIST I thought to myself ‘this might be one of those other funny words that mean fog’, so I was on the lookout for an alternative when I came back to 11ac. Of course the sensible thing would have been to check the wordplay immediately but why would I make things that easy for myself?
  5. Surely that’s what the setter had in mind!
    Was glad to remember FRET, which I learned here some time in the misty past.
    Just realized that I didn’t pause to parse NURSERY!

    Edited at 2020-01-14 06:09 am (UTC)

  6. This went in quickly, bar the Sarf-West. 26 minutes.

    FOI 3dn SEA FRET as per Chapel St. Leonards of my youth.

    LOI 21ac HOUR – dull affair

    COD 15ac SCOREBOARD (Known as crickit in Yorkshire)

    WOD Heavens Above! 28ac EMPYREAN

  7. A snappy 25 minutes here.

    28 EMPYREAN must’ve come up before as it’s on my Big List of Words. It’s no coincidence it’s got PYRE in the middle; Wikipedia notes that it’s the region of heaven supposedly occupied by the element of fire.

    FOI 1a FIASCO, which this could have been had I not looked twice at my LOI 17d, which was nearly remEnisce. Luckily an alarm bell went off and I made sure to parse it to check my spelling!

    1. I also started one of these some time ago and, having checked, I see EMPYREAN is on it. The only way I would have remembered it.
    1. Shall be known as the party of the first part. I immediately thought of the same scene Martin.
  9. I finished with FIASCO, having tentatively considered it but thinking I don’t know the motor racing company FICO. Doh!

    Amongst many nice bits of wordplay today my COD is SCOREBOARD for the excellent surface.

  10. 20:24. Held up, like Jack, mostly by the SW corner, trying to put ‘aste in 19D like Martin, and taking a while to dredge up EMPYREAN from a crossword in December 2018. COD to NECROMANCY.
  11. 31 minutes, finally held up in SW parsing what had to be NURSERY and wondering why we had the US spelling of theatre for CINEMA. I guess that’s what it’s called there. I thought from the NW I was on for a fast time, only to get stuck in the DRAIN in the NE. I’m giving COD to SCOREBOARD, for the comparative advantage the mandatory cricket clue gives me over the theater goers. I did like the idea of the Frenchman eating TEX-MEX. Haute cuisine indeed. A reasonable challenge. Thank you Jack and setter.
  12. 18:31 …. today’s DATE (Delay At The End? Any takers?) was PRINCIPLED, where I had the wrong-end of the stick for a long time, thinking the solution must be some version of education.

    Happy just to get through one of these — I’m sure there’s a particular setter who specialises in this kind of fiendish but very precise wordplay. It’s brilliant, but I find it hard.

    Thanks, jackkt, for the explanations, including of the non-existent motor racing company (like pootle I assumed the existence of Team FICO). COD to the perfectly formed SCOREBOARD

  13. 35 mins pre brekker.
    MER at so=very good.
    I think 10ac is brilliant, but even better without the ‘European’
    I also liked: S core board.
    Thanks setter and J
    1. Immediately created today’s earworm with John Rutter’s rather tricky setting for choir. I’m not sure whether to thank you or not!
  14. Rather more satisfying than yesterday’s road block failing to recognise anagrams. Still, I’m not bitter. 17.10. Last ones in were scoreboard and masking tape. I’d guessed the latter early doors but opted for tape for copy! Made for a difficult parsing. But alls well that ends well.
  15. 10:41. No dramas. I could have held myself up by bunging in SEA MIST but I sort of knew it wasn’t right (see above). I was also a bit puzzled by ‘uncontrollable’ for GHOULISH – duh!
    I thought of MONEY LENDER immediately but the almost-non-crypticity of the clue made me hesitate until I had some checkers. I’m not sure if that makes it a bad clue or a good one.

    Edited at 2020-01-14 09:56 am (UTC)

  16. Another enjoyable puzzle that was interesting without being taxing

    A trip down memory lane from the excellent SCOREBOARD with memories of John Edrich and Micky Stewart.

  17. Just under the half hour but I can’t see why ‘so’ and ‘very good’ are equivalents in 7d; and there is a redundant ‘a’ in the clue at 3d. Am I being too picky? Enjoyable solve though!
  19. 17+ minutes, completely failing to parse COMPLEX and forgetting to worry about it. SCORECARD, an excellent clue, my last to fall.
  20. 24’45”, with my DATE (thanks sotira) being EMPYREAN, having done a fruitless alphabet trawl before revisiting the wordplay.

    Much prefer PARTY to MARTY. COD to SCOREBOARD.

    Thanks jack and setter.

  21. had to check that I hadn’t opened the Quickie by mistake, but like others the SW took too long. Spent too long assuming that the garden centre was a D, and I’m not sure that an expedition is a hurry, in fact many of them are not… and it didn’t help that I didn’t know EMPYREAN.
  22. LOI was DRAIN. Or in my case DRAWN. I worked out that it was DRAIN but then, contrary to my best laid plans, the wife stayed and I left! FOI was 1across, FRACAS, confidently biffed to get me off to a flying start with RAC as the motoring company. But subsequently I saw that this was actually a FIASCO. I was very pleased with myself when I spotted that expedition from east of London was ‘ASTE – but then had doubts about NASSETE as a garden centre.

    MONEYLENDER had me fooled for far two long as I tried to find a hobbyist I could be tender about. But COD went to the very nice SCOREBOARD.

  23. I simply never got on the right wavelength with this, though as so often happens, the troublesome clues seemed relatively innocuous once I’d wrestled them into submission. Who can fathom the ways of cryptic crosswords?
  25. I went looking for a hobbyist briefly like AstonVilla. And I agree with Paulmcl that the US spelling of “theater” is in there because around here CINEMAs are movie theaters. On the wavelength with this pretty much although the MASKING TAPE reminded me of another US/UK dichotomy. Some years ago when I hadn’t lived here all that long we had to hold a meeting of residents in our apartment and afterwards one them gushed to me that she loved our place and who was our decorator. To which I said – oh you know, Tony from the basement, he helps us on weekends. Of course she was talking about an interior designer not a painter but I had yet to learn that. 14.09
  26. 14:15. Nice puzzle. I was slowest in the NE where the flakiness of the so/very good “equivalence” stopped me putting soprano in and “ready supply” in 6d had me trying to shoehorn an anagram of ready in there somewhere.

    I’m not sure if I knew empyrean but it sounds like a word Les Dawson would have used when talking about needing to put a new roof on the outside toilet.

  27. I started this around 10am, but multiple interruptions from various sources made for a disconnected sort of solve. Suprisingly I managed to get it all correct in 29:02, although I didn’t parse COMPLEX, or wholly parse MASKING TAPE. I constructed EMPYREAN from wordplay. No trouble with FRET although I needed IN CAMERA to put SEE right! I also saw 13 as (p)ARTY. NE and SW took longest to sort. Enjoyable puzzle. Thanks setter and Jack.
  28. 21’10. Straightforward with a pleasantly ditzy element. As every crossword should be at however bewildering a level. Ah … I see I left Tex Mes in meaning to go back to it. How inept. jk
  29. ….other than the 2.5 minute alpha trawl for my LOI, which I really shouldn’t have needed. I biffed DRAIN (thanks Jack), and it was the NE corner that caused most of my problems.

    FOI FIASCO
    LOI PRINCIPLED
    COD NURSERY
    TIME 11:30

  30. Another completion. I am definitely improving with practice and there’s nothing else to do in this terrible weather from Storm Brendan.
    I started in the SE; liked TEX-MEX very much so wanted to keep going. A session after lunch got me home after 4 outstanding in the SW. LOI after ODIUM was EMPYREAN. I’m sure this word has come up before and I managed to parse it to make certain. Just over an hour I guess.
    COD to SCOREBOARD; but lots of enjoyable clues. I struggled to parse NURSERY.
    David
  31. First time ever I’ve been faster than the blogger; and I got to use my crossword clue (see above)
  32. Not my finest hour. Biffed in SEA MIST without thinking so had to make up a magic word. Also had a complete blind spot with PRINCIPLED and SCOREBOARD.

    Edited at 2020-01-14 05:44 pm (UTC)

  33. NE and SW both puzzled me for some time though as soon as I saw DOMESTIC, the whole corner cleared within seconds.

    Took an age to spot PRINCIPLED followed by NURSERY (dreadfully clunky device – HURRY is way, way down the list of words defining expedition, let alone its ‘hackney’ed East London-ism). EMPYREAN last in. Still, pleased with sub-40 mins on checking the SNITCH.

  34. Well, it took me just one minute longer than Vinyl, the LOI of course being EMPYREAN (the wordplay helped), DRAIN, where I knew what the answer was likely to be but spent some time parsing the clue to make sure it fit, and SEA FRET, which I had never heard of.
  35. Started so quickly in the NW that I made a note of the time thinking that If this turns out to be less than an hours solve, I would want to know by how much. Sigh. Needn’t have bothered, because my speed in the NW and SE was matched by my slowness in the NE (Drain!) and especially the SW. At the end I was left with *m*y*e*n for 28ac. I even spotted that name backwards was involved, but couldn’t get the pyre part, so a very disappointing final clue DNF. Progress of sorts, as I would have been thrilled to get down to the last clue not so long ago. Invariant
  36. 19 minutes, no issues. But I see (I think) no one above has explained the US spelling THEATER?
    2. See paulmcl above. (I don’t know if that counts as an explanation, but he did refer to the spelling, anyway.)

      Edited at 2020-01-15 03:08 am (UTC)

  37. 24:31. I found this mostly straightforward but took a while to find principled, the so of soprano, masking tape and nursery. Also wasted time trying to make 6dn contain one and an anagram of ready somehow.
  38. Inconsistency in the difficulty of clues made this very frustrating. E.g. 2 dn – Daily Mirror degree 28 ac very difficult. Others just obscure.
    Disappointing
    – ordinary bloke
  39. Quite why 18a PRINCIPLED was last one in for us, and for so many others apparently, is a mystery . It seems so obvious in retrospect , yet held us up for two minutes at the end despite an alphabet trawl which was fruitless. 20 mins.

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