Times Cryptic 27632

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 33 minutes. Fairly straightforward, and the few bits I didn’t know were solver-friendly.

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 4 cut by ring on sailor’s hand (8)
LABOURER : LURER (4 – 4dn ENTICER) containing [cut by] AB (sailor) + O (ring). Finding a cross-reference in the very first clue was annoying and raised my hackles. I consider ‘lurer’ a bit of a dodgy agent noun anyway; it’s in Collins but the Oxfords and Chambers have no truck with it.
5 Move smoothly as rowing teams in sound (6)
CRUISE : Sounds like [in sound] “crews” (rowing teams)
8 Inclined to punish vice with rector corrupt (10)
CORRECTIVE : Anagram [corrupt] of VICE RECTOR
9 Baker, having finished, runs out at noon (4)
OVEN : OVE{r} (finished) [runs out], N (noon)
10 Outline of duties for which patient may be employed? (3,11)
JOB DESCRIPTION : The cryptic hint here refers to Job, a biblical figure who was patient in suffering, “The patience of Job” is a well-known saying.
11 Earn an award, given by queen in royal residence (7)
WINDSOR : WIN (earn), DSO (award), R (queen). Windsor Castle, where Her Maj is currently in isolation, gawd bless her.
13 Perhaps mobile, with its case, producing little sound (7)
PHONEME : PHONE (perhaps mobile), M{obil}E [its case]. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound significant in a language (Collins).
15 Lawsuit involves rotter in dramatic fall (7)
CASCADE : CASE (lawsuit) contains [involves] CAD (rotter). A reference to one of our QC bloggers who seems a delightful chap and not at all like his sobriquet might suggest.
18 Sit awkwardly with a man, revealing bottom (7)
STAMINA : Anagram [awkwardly] of SIT A MAN. Not hard to come up with the right answer here, but I wasn’t familiar with the definition. I found it eventually in the Oxford on-line: bottom archaic – stamina or strength of character. ‘whatever his faults, he possesses that old-fashioned quality—bottom’.
21 As prosecutor be prepared for bribe (1,3,2,8)
A SOP TO CERBERUS : Anagram [prepared] of AS PROSECUTOR BE. I sweated blood to come up with this as an answer in a puzzle some years ago, but today it was a write-in.
22 In Herculaneum I’m inside sewer, doomed (4)
MIMI : Hidden [in] {Herculaneu}M I’M I{nside}. Mimi is the doomed heroine of Puccini’s La bohème who was a seamstress by trade.
23 Irish writer succeeded in London college (10)
GOLDSMITHS : GOLDSMITH (Irish writer), S (succeeded). Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774) is best known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield and his play – a masterpiece- She Stoops to Conquer. The college is now part of the University of London.
24 Facing archdeacon, counterpart appearing powerless (6)
VENEER : VEN (archdeacon), {p}EER (counterpart – someone of the same rank) [powerless]. It’s a layer of facing material.
25 Pomegranate syrup’s missing in pineapples (8)
GRENADES : GRENAD{in}E (pomegranate syrup) [missing in], S. Coming up with ‘pineapple’ as ‘grenade’ was another hard-fought battle in a puzzle long ago but never since forgotten.
Down
1 Disease got from hair on rabbit (7)
LOCKJAW : LOCK (hair), JAW (rabbit). From the CRS ‘rabbit-and-pork’ = ‘talk’. ‘Jaw’ = ‘talk’ as used by Harold MacMillan in the saying ‘jaw, jaw is better than war, war’, often wrongly attributed to Churchill.
2 Details not fleshed out? (4,5)
BARE BONES : A definition and a cryptic hint
3 Futile to economise? (7)
USELESS : And if spaced as USE LESS we have another definition in ‘economise’
4 Return key with one caught opening drawer (7)
ENTICER : I (one) + C (caught) contained by [opening] ENTER (return key). Hm. I was simmering about 1ac when I started out today, but the setter has redeemed himself with some rather good clues since then.
5 Cruel remark makes fox and rat swap tails (5,4)
CHEAP SHOT : CHEAT (fox) SHOP (rat – tell on) [swap tails]
6 Impractical if fine vessel capsizes, blocking cross-channel one (7)
UTOPIAN : A1 (fine) + POT (vessel) reversed [capsizes] contained by [blocking] UN (cross-channel one – yer actual French). It’s rather sad that an ideal is somehow by its very nature considered impractical.
7 Something in chest to check when entertaining wild run (7)
STERNUM : STEM (check) containing [entertaining] anagram [wild] of RUN. The breastbone.
12 One’s experienced men only in later years coming round (3,6)
OLD STAGER : OLDER (in later years) containing [coming round] STAG (men only)
14 Russian fighter in East, respected, went from country (9)
EMIGRATED : E (east), MIG (Russian fighter), RATED (respected)
16 Greed, for starters, and resulting in a wicked habit (7)
AVARICE : A, then A{nd} + R{esulting} [starters] contained by [in] VICE (wicked habit)
17 Summer treat best to keep cold (4-3)
CHOC-ICE : CHOICE (best) containing [to keep] C (cold). Available all year round of course but perhaps most welcome as a treat on a hot summer’s day.
18 Poet is writer held by revolutionary communists (7)
SPENDER : PEN (writer) contained [held] by REDS (communists) reversed [revolutionary]. Sir Stephen Spender (1909-1995) had sympathy with the communist cause in his youth but in later life became disillusioned and wrote against it.
19 Protein book now available at bookshop? (7)
ALBUMIN : ALBUM (book), IN (now available at bookshop?)
20 Blockhead is joining Eliot, perhaps, in seconds (7)
ASSISTS : ASS (blockhead), IS, TS (Eliot, perhaps)

54 comments on “Times Cryptic 27632”

  1. “Finding a cross-reference in the very first clue was annoying and raised my hackles.” Ditto.
    Also agree that otherwise it was the usual excellent puzzle. Though I’m less experienced – never seen/heard of the sop, – so I had to sweat blood do an alphabet trawl with the remaining anagrist. Then LOI albumin, where I needed the cryptic – would have spelt it albumen. Quite like the utopian clue, even if it is depressing.
    1. I dithered over the spelling, too, for a moment, before checking the wordplay. Both spellings are legitimate, although albumen is just egg white.
  2. I had the same feeling as Jack and Isla about 1ac, both because of the cross-referencing and because of the -er: you can add -er to any transitive verb to create an agentive noun (just as you can add -ness to any adjective to produce a noun), but that doesn’t mean you should (enjoyer? disobliger? relinquisher?). It didn’t help matters that 4d is another. Anyway, I went on to the next clue, and later biffed this. DNK ‘bottom’, of course. I biffed 21ac, from the enumeration and maybe the O and B, parsed post-submission; seeing how it works, I think I’d give it my COD. POI UTOPIAN, LOI OVEN; took me that long to think of a baker as a thing not a person (I immediately think PEN when I see ‘writer’, but).
  3. Pretty straightforward, though I’d never heard of the sop. COD to the doomed sewer.
  4. that this only lasted 34 minutes. It seemed rather longer, after an enjoyable morning cancelling ‘er indoor’s debit card which she left in the cash machine!
    A nice man with a very heavy Irish accent got it all sorted.

    FOI 25ac GRENADES

    LOI 21ac A SOP TO CERBERUS

    COD 17dn CHOC ICE tee-hee!

    WOD 23ac GOLDMITHS a very fine Art College as was.

    Come on Boris, ‘keep buggering-on!’

  5. Jack – is 5dn a malapropism, a ‘belated’ Spoonerism or as you note a ‘Tailswap’? Even a ‘Tapswail?
  6. In Jumbo 1429 a few weeks ago, there was a very similar clue for “grenades” at 41ac, also defined as “pineapples”. “Grenadines” was clued as an archipelago not a syrup, but since I didn’t know it either way that made no difference to me!
  7. LOI SOP TO CERBERUS, of which I don’t recall ever having heard, but it sounds like a good idea if you’re passing that way…

    Was glad to remember CHOC-ICE… finally!

  8. 1 hr 24 with lots of maths questions distractions.

    Submitted with 1 typo, cerbarus which is annoying as on my paper I had correctly written it, so I’ll count is as did finish..

    Dnk phoneme.

    COD Oven.

  9. When I saw Verlaine’s time I prepared for a long slog but he must have been distracted because this was a pleasant and moderate solve for me in just over 3V.

    After the obligatory tut at 1A my FOI was the rowing clue, always welcome as a former wet-bob through school and college. We get blades, fours and eights quite often but I have yet to encounter a rowlock, rigger, slide, puddle, stretcher, shell or clinker.

    Lots I enjoyed here, especially 10A for its clever definition. The drugged dog surfaced from some Stygian neural pathway. At the end I spent too long trying to work out why CHOC meant best – thanks Jack for explaining that in the excellent blog, and thanks setter for a lovely puzzle.

  10. 32 minutes. The SE solved first, and the NW at the end, with LOI LABOURER. I enjoyed this puzzle without ever feeling confident. I don’t like cross-reference clues much, but if you’re going to have them, I suppose they’re allowed at 1a too. I’d never heard of the SOP but they were the only three letters left after the hound of hell became clear. I wasted a couple of minutes wondering who MIMI was if she wasn’t John Lennon’s aunt, but did eventually remember there was one in an opera who could have been sewing when she wasn’t singing. COD to GRENADES and CHEAP SHOT jointly. Thank you Jack and setter.

    Edited at 2020-04-07 07:39 am (UTC)

  11. Respectable for me, also didn’t like the cross-reference in the first clue, kind of like getting out of bed on the wrong side. Indeed 1ac was my LOI, preceded by 4dn. Hadn’t heard of but deduced A SOP TO CERBERUS.

    COD 17dn CHOC ICE – a simple treat

    Very excited to feature in the SNITCH for the first time today!

    Yesterday’s answer: ancillary is the word that derives from ‘concerning maidservants’. Inspired by TRAUMA, which used to mean wound (still does a bit) but generally means a more mental ordeal.

    Today’s question: if information technologists are no. 100, who are no. 1? With thanks to stavrolex (=crossword in Greek, wouldn’t you rather be a stavrologist than a cruciverbalist?) for the idea rather than giving the answer how about giving a crossword clue to the answer?

    Edited at 2020-04-07 07:45 am (UTC)

    2. Well stavrolexo is Modern Greek for crossword (with the stress on the first o). I suppose the correct term using Ancient Greek roots for a devotee of crosswords would be staurolexist or maybe staurolexologist. Staurologists are apparently theologians of the Cross, so I guess they will be busy this week. If I knew how to change my handle on this site I would shorten to Stavros, which is what I use on the Times site.
  12. Well that was straightforward enough, but a surprisingly large number of DNKs, including the bribe (being a smug classicist is not always helpful), the occupation of the operatic heroine, and a new kind of bottom. COD, if only on grounds of novelty, was the inverted spoonerism, and LOI was 20dn, which didn’t come to mind until bribe was in place.
  13. Bah! Another day, another single letter wrong. I got 19d from the wordplay, so I should’ve been more careful, but I didn’t know that both ALBUMIN and albumen existed.

    43 minutes apart from that, with the unknown 21 A SOP TO CERBERUS last in.

    1. Same here, Matt. Parsed it, then sloppily threw in albumen anyway. Infuriating 🙂
  14. 18:08. NHO my LOI, the bribe, so that anagram took me ages even with all the checkers.I was also puzzled by “bottom” for stamina and was also held up by OVEN and UTOPIAN. COD to CHEAP SHOT.
  15. …Death, fate, and ruin, on a bleeding world.
    How cheery!
    20 mins (with yoghurt, etc.) to leave a handful. 5 more mins to leave the protein and the sop. 5 more to trawl them out.
    Clearly I showed a lot of Bottom to get there.
    Thanks setter and J.
  16. The cross-referenced pair were my last two in, and pushed my time to over 27 minutes. In neither case did I properly spot the definition readily, which obviously didn’t help.

    I only think I knew the SOP thing, working it out laboriously from the anagram. When the tricapitate one emerged barking from the Stygian gloom, the phrase looked familiar, as if I should have known it all along.

    I loved being doomed in the sewer, and the Snooperism made me smile, so I’ll forgive the 4+1 imposition.

  17. Another enjoyable romp. 17.55 slowed up in the NE but “hadaway” through. FOI in cruise, LOI utopian. Thought 21 ac was a smashing anagram, initially a struggle as I didn’t know the expression but got there eventually. Other faves 1 ac, 22 ac and 19 dn.

    Now what shall I do? Shopping, walk in Richmond Park or do the quick cryptic? Who would have known lockdown could be so enticing!

  18. Old-fashioned feel to this one – I felt as if a quotation clue must be just around the corner – but that variety is all part of the fun: an enjoyable solve, anyway. I had the same feeling as others, once I saw the answer for the SOP, I felt as if I’d known it all along, especially as the story is familiar to this smug classicist. I guess it must have been lurking in my memory since its last appearance, back in 2011, according to my search, even though I don’t seem to have commented that day…Jimbo described it as “that wretched dog” 🙂

    I knew ALBUMEN but not ALBUMIN, so followed the wordplay with fingers crossed.

  19. I thought this was going to be a very rare sub 10 minute score before being held up in the SE corner. It didn’t help that I’d never heard of the sop.
  21. 10:24, taken over the ten-minute mark by the dog, but it was all to no avail anyway because I also had ALBUMEN. I managed this in spite of putting IN for ‘available at bookshop’, so I was on the lookout for something like VITAMIN or THIAMIN but still managed to bung in ALBUMEN anyway.
  22. Head-weary today and held up by gimmes such as avarice but
    managed to check in at 38’42. All worth it for the bribe reminder. Spender has claimed a poet’s undying place it seems on a remarkably small lasting output. All that has ever left a mark on me is ‘the black statement of pistons’, about a train, and ‘I think continually of those who were truly great’ and its last line ‘And left the vivid air signed with their honour’. Of course he was part of a group, wonderfully entitled MacSpaunday by Roy Campbell, who to my mind is as worthy to be remembered as S.S. but never is.
    1. I remember being remarkably affected by his poem PYLONS which was featured in an anthology we studied at school. He was on the periphery of the interwar Berlin world of Isherwood and Auden and all that lot, which fascinates me, so I’ve read quite a lot about him without learning much.
      1. Me too – I was just remembering Pylons as I put in Spender. We studied the anthology for O level (at school in Windsor!) and it was my favourite poem. And I still rather like pylons too – not always eyesores.

        Edited at 2020-04-07 01:58 pm (UTC)

        1. Just had a look at ‘Pylons’. I wish the most memorable phrase wasn’t ‘bare like nude giant girls that have no secret’. Though I do quite like the clouds with their ‘swanlike neck’. And the quietness of it with the gentle searching into the past. But the crystallisation into sets of words that simply imprint themselves and their humanity onto the tablet of the time so to speak scarcely seems to happen in his poetry, for me at any rate.
          1. I just remembered that I liked the poem at the time but your comment made me go back and actually read the poem after many years. I still find it interesting and quite evocative. And while doing a search, I came across a website for Pylon of the Month!
  23. Never seemed to get going with this one. It dragged and needed an effort to see things through to the end. I agree with topicaltim – an old fashioned feel complete with ludicrous dog.
  24. 18:09. I’m another who struggled to get on wavelength – I couldn’t think of an author & college that sounded similar, even with the initial G, needed all the checkers for cruise, having dismissed homophones of eights, fours, pairs etc, and couldn’t remember whom the sop was to. And they weren’t my only problems.
  25. I got off to a flyer (or flier?) but then returned to my normal pace.

    COD: Grenades. I thought the syrup was a wig. But I somehow doubted pomegranates were also known as wiggrenades.

    Edited at 2020-04-07 11:50 am (UTC)

  26. As Tim and Jimbo say, rather an old-fashioned one. Cerberus features in the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, as does a pomegranate. The Duke of Wellington had a famous horse called Copenhagen (he rode him at Waterloo) who was ugly and had rather unpleasant habits such as kicking people. Wellington defended him saying there may be many faster and handsomer horses “but for BOTTOM and endurance i never saw his fellow”. First iguanadon/iguanodon, now albumen/albumin. What’s next? A wavelengthy 12.23 and it took several tries to get the “submit” button to function.

    Edited at 2020-04-07 11:39 am (UTC)

  27. I started off with LOCKJAW after grimacing at 1a, then entered Queenie’s residence. JOB DESCRIPTION was then a write in from the J. Having got BARE BONES and USELESS, I even managed to solve the cross referenced pair before moving out of the NW to pop a PHONEME under the OVEN. MIMI was easy, even though I was unaware of her profession. The bribe had to be painstakingly constructed from crossing letters and anagrist. Read the clue carefully to get the unknown ALBUMIN correct. LOI GOLDSMITHS. 22:21. Thanks setter and Jack.
  28. Oddly enough I did not find this much harder than yesterday’s. FOI was CORRECTIVE then Job Description and I was off and running. The big hold-ups were the Bribe clue and the SE. I wore them down eventually. Last three were Cerberus( I felt I knew it once it was there), Stamina and finally Albumin (DNK) where I nearly laid an egg but happily avoided an Iguanadon.
    About an hour. COD to either PHONEME or CHEAP SHOT. David
  29. ….so it will come as no surprise that 1A/4D were left at the end. I biffed LABOURER, and needed Jack’s blog to explain ENTICER.

    I parsed my COD post-solve – it was worth the effort.

    My progress was slowed by forgetting to whom the sop was offered (though I knew the phrase), and in trying to justify “builder” at 18A.

    Whilst my sketchy operatic knowledge made MIMI a biff, GOLDSMITHS came easily as “The Deserted Village” was one of the poems I studied for “O” Level.

    I narrowly avoided the albumen trap for a satisfying finish ahead of Verlaine.

    FOI CORRECTIVE
    LOI ENTICER
    COD CHEAP SHOT
    TIME 8:57

  30. … a good two minutes of which was spent extracting A SOP TO CERBERUS, which was new to me. Otherwise steady enough stuff apart from being a bit perplexed by the definition of STAMINA.
  31. Another errant “albumen” here spoiling an effort I was otherwise pleased with.

    Spent ages on the anagram for 21a before eventually seeing Cerberus and figuring out the second word must be “sop”. Hadn’t heard of Spender either, so hesitated over that despite the clear wordplay and despite having the D from 23a.

    FOI 17d
    LOI 18d
    COD 22a for the misdirection of “sewer”

  32. At home due to the virus and in bed due to a bad back – and the weather’s glorious outside! But cheered up by being on a wavelength with this puzzle, for once.
  33. I was doing really quite well on this until I came unstuck with the dog and the pineapple. So annoying – I got sop but couldn’t make the remaining letters work. I also couldn’t get wig out of my mind for syrup, after I’d discounted molasses (pomegranate molasses is a thing in trendy recipes I believe). Now everyone has pointed it out, I agree that we’ve had pineapple for grenade before but I still didn’t remember it. Maybe next time.

    I liked Phoneme, Cheap shot and Spender.

    FOI Cruise (ditto re 1a)
    COD Windsor – not just because it’s my home town but because I genuinely enjoyed the clue
    DNF in about 40 minutes

    Thansk setter and Jack

  34. I was on the wavelength today, though a few shots of tequila during a particularly dull online meeting may have helped. Dredged A SOP TO CERBERUS up from somewhere, and got in at 9:55 with everything figured out.
    1. “A few shots of tequila during a particularly dull online meeting”. Love it. A few years ago I used to have a monthly meeting at about 11pm (as that was most convenient for the US) and I discovered that my fellow Europeans, like me, did the call in our dressing gowns with a glass or two of wine while the Australians had some breakfast.
  35. On the basis that ‘bare bones’ isn’t a definition of ‘details’ (quite the opposite), isn’t 2d simply one of those all-in-one clues where the definition is actually ‘no details given’ clued by a cryptic expression as a whole? Apologies if that’s confusing-I’m not familiar with the correct terminology. Mr Grumpy
    1. An interesting thought. But I think ‘If you give me the bare bones’ refers to the necessary details which is perhaps more likely the way it’s meant.
    2. I didn’t really think about it when solving but I think this is just a (not very) cryptic definition.
  36. NHO SOP etc.

    NHO the Irish writer though have been very drunk near to the college.

    Otherwise, not too bad

  37. NHO that expression, which dragged me to 38 mins. Painstakingly inserting anagrist into available empty slots.

    Otherwise OK I thought.

  39. 21:30. I enjoyed this one. Didn’t have pen and paper to hand so working out the unfamiliar (yet somehow familiar) expression at 21ac from the anagrist held me up. Job description was a write-in but still raised a smile. I liked working out cheap shot and choc-ice. Dithered a bit over -en or -in but was pleased to follow the wp and jump the right way on albumin.
    1. Choc-ice isn’t exactly a treat now is it? It’s what you get if your parents can’t afford a Magnum.
      1. I think Nuii might be what you get if your parents can’t afford a Magnum. I picked some up at the supermarket last week (essential purchases only) thinking they were Magnums. They’re similar, just much smaller.

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