Times Cryptic 27662

94 comments on “Times Cryptic 27662”

1. Off to a slow start (FOI WHEAT), but picked up speed; biffing HERMENEUTIC & HARUM-SCARUM helped. (Hermeneutics is not limited to interpreting the bible.) I’ve never seen FLOOSIE spelled that way. DNK DEVA, but assumed it was something Roman. DETER and TEASINGLY were my last two in: I dithered between DETER and DEFER (the latter seeming more likely) until I finally remembered the detective writer; and that gave me TEASINGLY. I liked the misdirection in 1ac.
2. A tough monkey! Doh!

   FOI 26dn YET

   LOI 8dn HERMENEUTIC Clueless in Gaza!

   COD 14dn FORESIGHT I didn’t look this one in the mouth!

   WOD 12ac FLOOSIE- anyone for English spelling salts?

   Dr. Hawking gets a mention…it’s about time…..

   Edited at 2020-05-12 01:56 am (UTC)

   1. … and space.
3. Didn’t know DEVA, RUFF, or COSTARD (in that sense). I’m sure the GIFT HORSE to FORESIGHT anagram must have come up before, but I was surprised to realize that it existed. But I fell on HARUM SCARUM since I thought the second word was SCAREM (and the wordplay only helps for the first word).

   The only place I have come across the word HERMENEUTIC (and I didn’t know what it meant) was in the Sokal Affair where a physicist managed to get a nonsensical academic paper published in a social science journal with the title “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity”

   1. I was going to say that HERMENEUTICS was a favorite word of post-modernists. Nice to be reminded of the Sokal Affair; a brilliant prank, and an important one.

      Edited at 2020-05-12 03:20 am (UTC)

      1. I dnk Hermeneutics, and had not heard of the Sokal affair before today. An enjoyable read up on the latter. I will file both away for future reference.
   2. On 11dn, if left entirely to my own devices I’d probably have spelt it ‘harem-scarem’ but the wordplay for the first part is clearly U inside HARM = HARUM. Having got that far, logic suggested that the second part ought to be spelt SCARUM because it’s a rhyming combination and such words would be likely follow the same spelling pattern (helter-skelter, airy-fairy, willy-nilly etc). ‘Reportedly’ in the clue adds weight to the idea that the spelling of the second part may need thinking about.

      Edited at 2020-05-12 07:59 am (UTC)

4. ….has its uses, as I biffed hermeneutic without a second thought. It was the two Ds – devastate and deter – that gave me trouble. I finally thought of Dexter, and then ‘teasingly’ came easily, since I had already suspected the drink might be tea if I could manage to parse deter.

   Time, 37 minutes.

5. I loved seeing DOH and HOMERIC together.
   Couldn’t explain DEVA (thanks!) but the answer was clear.
   LOI RUFF, guessing there’s such a fish.
   1. Saw that, and I’m sure 11a made an appearance on the show.
      1. He did, four in all. In some parts he’s more famous as a Simpsons character than as a physicist (and everything else).
      2. There may also be a reference to Bart’s favourite TV show at 28ac.
         And now that I look again 20 is clearly a reference to Krusty.

         Edited at 2020-05-12 12:25 pm (UTC)

6. FLOOSIE and HARUM-SCARUM by themselves were reason enough to enjoy this. DEVA and COSTARD entered in ignorance via wordplay or definition and HERMENEUTICS was barely recalled from somewhere, maybe an article about the Sokal affair. I couldn’t think of anything else except {n}ARROW for 2d either. Yes, DOH and HOMERIC were a good pairing.

   Happy to have spent the 49 minutes getting this out.

7. 39 minutes that felt more like an hour and a half. Despairing at the top half I finally got started with 26d and worked my way back up.

   Plucking HERMENEUTIC from the back of my mind finally helped me make some inroads and I finished off with the unknown RUFFS at 13a, and came here with fingers crossed that I’d spelt HARUM-SCARUM correctly, so you have my sympathy, Paul!

   I was okay with the (N)ARROW at 2d, especially when I thought more about compass needles than sewing needles.

8. 22 minutes, with LOI RECTORS once that FLOOSIE named Flo revealed herself. I guess the Physics and Divinity degrees, plus the career in electricity and the primary school trip to walk the Roman walls at Chester helped a little with HAWKING, HERMENEUTIC, TRANSFORMER and DEVASTATE. Fingers were crossed for RUFFS. COD to HARUM-SCARUM. I enjoyed this, but then I would. Thank you Jack and setter.
9. …the flesh.
   30 mins pre-brekker.
   Mostly I like Tea, singly or with a Floosie.
   Thanks excellent setter and J.
10. A bit of a struggle this one. Delighted to see HAWKING get a mention. Raised eyebrow at FLOOSIE. The clue to ORANGEMEN is very good. Nice blog Jack.
11. I wondered if the definition for “Orangemen” was an &lit.?

    Do Orangemen still parade around the province of Northern Ireland on March days holding signs or banners?

    If it is &lit., it’s rather clever!

    Edited at 2020-05-12 07:01 am (UTC)

    1. Yes, they do culminating on 12th July. They don’t just walk (a term they prefer to march as I recall) in NI but across the old commonwealth including some towns in the UK
       1. There are more Orange Walks in Glasgow per annum than in Belfast and Derry combined. At least this year we won’t have them holding up the traffic, vomiting in the streets, and generally terrorising passers-by.
    2. In the reading of the clue, I’d seen ‘province’ and ‘range’ as meaning sphere or area of knowledge.

       But yes, a nice &lit.

    3. It’s not technically an &Lit because there is a separate definition (protestants) which plays no part in the wordplay.
       1. Yes. A semi &lit, as they’re termed?
          1. Yes I think so. I think of a real Semi-&Lit as a clue where the definition is just a short word like ‘it’ or ‘this’ that doesn’t really make sense as a definition without reference to the rest of the clue. So it’s an &Lit that just needs a bit of a tweak for the grammar to work. Here ‘protestants’ works fine on its own so this is arguably just a standard clue (definition + wordplay) even if the whole clue also works as a definition. I think most people would call it Semi-&Lit though: certainly Don Manley describes similar clues as such in his book.
    4. Not this year.
12. 20:27. Marooned for a while towards the end until MILKSHAKE gave me ORANGEMEN and I completed the NW corner. An initial FIE for 7A didn’t help. NHO DEVA the camp, or COSTARD the clown but did know HERMENEUTIC in the context of natural language processing in AI. I remember this simple example of the problem – you have to know how to interpret these 2 phrases differently… “Time flies like an arrow” and “Fruit flies like a banana”. I liked TEASINGLY best,

    Edited at 2020-05-12 07:08 am (UTC)

13. 34:00
    Steady solve; no dramas.
    Thanks jack.
14. Made good time but without thinking put in HARUM-SCAREM, which is obviously wrong, oh well.

    Some nice clues and a few obscure words or parts of words, such as RUFFS (sense 4 in Chambers), DEVA, COSTARD, and I would spell FLOOSIE with a Z normally. Nice to see Stephen HAWKING making an appearance. There should have been a link between DOH and HOMERIC!

    COD: FLOOSIE for the &litness

    Yesterday’s answer: a border collie is the most intelligent dog, apparently.

    Today’s question: the sale of what edible item did the police request be withdrawn from sale near rallies during the 2019 election campaign?

    1. So which race of humans is the most intelligent? If I thought there was a valid answer to that question, then maybe I’d be willing to try answering yours.
    2. 15ac-Milkshakes. The police in Edinburgh asked a McDonalds near to where “Farago ” was due to speak, not to sell milkshakes as protesters might throw them at him.
15. Maybe (h)arrow rather than (n)arrow?
    1. Maybe not?
       1. To harrow is to distress or vex. So perhaps it is.
          1. “what it is” firmly rules out harrow.
             1. Coming on very late to say the same thing. Word required cannot be a verb. Even as a verb, I don’t really see them as synonyms.
16. Thanks, Jack for the HAW in 11ac. I didn’t know the connection between MAY and Hawthorn. I also didn’t know that meaning of COSTARD and neither did I know of the Roman camp called DEVA. Final thank you’s for the SCARUM in HARUM SCARUM and for ROUGE.
    My favourite today was HERMENEUTICS. Unlike some people here I had never heard of the term but I managed to work it out from wordplay all on my own and without resorting to aids.
17. Standard Poodles being the second most intelligent dogs.
    1. Go on then, enlighten me!
       1. Not sure what you mean, Pip. I thought you would support the idea that Poodles, at least Standard ones, are very intelligent.
          1. I meant, if SPs are #2, what can possibly be #1? Smaller poodles? Then read the thread above where he claims collies are #1. Was going to debate, but decided not to. We know what we know!
18. I thought this was tricky but as jackkt reports fair. Delighted to get hermeneutic but have to confess to looking it up before putting it in. LOI doh which I didn’t think all that convincing as a clue.
    Finished in 24.04 .

    FOI tic. Lots of clues to admire- cover, milkshake, teasingly and harum scarum being my favourites. Devastate also appealed but probably due to many happy memories of visits to Chester- especially the zoo- when a nipper.

19. In essence it’s bananas, but Farage might wear it

    Edited at 2020-05-12 09:20 am (UTC)

20. 18’24”, back in the swing. HERMENEUTICS is a nice word, like heuristic or homiletic. Hesitated over RUFF as it’s a bird.

    Isn’t FLOOSIE now archaic?

    Thanks jack and setter.

21. 23dn. Rouge = ruddy? Surely Rouge is a noun or verb, ruddy is an adjective?

    Derek

    1. Not in Chambers, and can’t be bothered going next door for CED, but I’d assumed heraldic, and so adjectival.
    2. Moulin rouge?
       1. Baton? Vin? I was thinking of Rouge Dragon Pursuivant or some such archaic nonsense.
    3. Lexico has ‘ruddy’ as a verb. To ‘make ruddy in colour’, which is what you’d do if you ROUGEd your cheeks.
       1. As does Chambers. Good spot.
22. Clearly on the wavelength, and very much enjoyed. HERMENEUTICS is one of those words which I wouldn’t have had a hope of defining in a vacuum; fortunately, on this occasion, it was enough to know that it existed.
23. Bordering on tough for me at 19:12. I had fingers crossed on DEVASTATE which I couldn’t parse and HERMENEUTIC which I pieced together from wordplay and hoped was a word (LJ doesn’t think it is).

    I was worried about HARUM-SCARUM for a while too but as Jack points out above the wordplay leads you to U-U if you think about it hard enough.

    I think we must have had COSTARD in that context before as I typed it in quite happily once I had the wordplay sussed.

24. D’oh, a deer

    All but 24 minutes, once again tackling this after completing he Listener I missed ten days ago and struggling to un-esotericise my vocab. Mind you COSTARD the clown was the apple of my -um- knowledge, and that RUFF was a bird (or a Blackadder II accessory.
    Interesting how many people today have put the S on HERMENEUTIC when writing in: it might be an insight on how many of us did hermeneutics as part of their study. I know I did.
    I did wonder about the identity of NEEDLE and arrow, but I suppose in place on (say) a compass it’s the same thing.
    I’m glad I’m not the only one to try FIE at 7. One of these days we’ll have scope to put in the apostrophe.

    Edited at 2020-05-12 10:18 am (UTC)

25. Quite a few unknowns for me today, but I managed to extract them from the wordplay, helped of course by the checkers. TIC and DOH were my first 2 in, but it was slow progress from then on. WHEAT, YET and WIMPISH sat alone in the SE for a while, then FORESIGHT opened up the SW. ROGUE and TEASINGLY preceded my LOI RUFFS, which I took on trust. DEVA was one of my unknowns, along with the definition of HERMENEUTICS, although the word itself was somehow vaguely familiar. 38:26. Thanks setter and Jack.
26. Hermeneutics sprang briefly to mind before being dismissed, as did fie.
27. Of torture, nearly all of it in the NE. Quite a few DOH moments when it all went in eventually. DNK RUFF and on checking the fish appears to be a RUFFE with no alternative spelling. As above, I’ve always spelt it FLOOZIE. You lot all seem to be very erudite, no idea about HERMENEUTICS at all.
    HARUM SCARUM was an Elvis movie apparently.
    1. Most certainly we is erudite-like!

       Where else would you expect to find this quality?

       1. My edition of Chambers has no less than 7 separate entries for RUFF – clearly a setter’s paradise.
    2. From Chambers:
       ruff or ruffe: n the pope, a small freshwater fish of the perch family, with one dorsal fin.
28. HERMENEUTIC joins semiotic et al as a word I know without any idea of the meaning. The TRANSFORMERs was a tv cartoon, based on some sort of toy, that my children watched once upon a time. I hesitated over range=province but it was a clever clue. I had a pale orange denim jacket I liked (I know it sounds awful but it was nice) and I was wearing it to go out one day in mid-March and my husband said – are you absolutely crazy. It was St. Patrick’s day. 17.16
    1. My son not only watched Transformers but pretty well lived in their universe. The trouble we had getting the last Optimus Prime available come Christmas.
       1. Robots in disguise, if I remember correctly.
    2. Rickie Fowler had a similar problem at Royal Portrush, but was given a pass by the fans.
       1. Ah, golf. Had to look it up but thanks Vinyl.
    3. That may be because there is none. Dan Sperber and Dierdre Wilson on semiotics: ‘the recent history of semiotics has been one of simultaneous institutional success and intellectual bankruptcy’.
29. Leaving aside the question of the most intelligent breed of dog (see above) I am pretty sure that I have the craftiest – a rescue Jack Russell who will only move when bribed with food, always finds the comfiest place in the room to stretch out, and checks the weather before agreeing to a walk.

    Found this one tough – 53.12.

    Thank you to setter and blogger.

    Dave.

    1. We have a Jack Russell and he’s exactly like that! His name is Jumble. After Just William’s dog.
30. 39’15, fairly tough here and there, fairly easy elsewhere. We all take it for granted now but Roget’s ‘plan of classification’ is surely a thing of wonder.
31. Slow and steady wins the race.

    I once went to Chester races and insisted to my companions that we visit the railway station. For the sole purpose of telling them that we had now witnessed DEVASTATION. They weren’t as amused as I was!

    COD: DEVASTATE.

    1. As I live in Chester, I am aware of how far a walk it is from the race our to the station – 20 mins deviation?
       1. It was a long time ago but yes, that sounds about right. We probably took in a pub en route.

          🙂

          1. Only A pub ??!! There are at least five worth stopping at on that route 🍻
             1. I suspect we called in at more than one pub. With the day ending back in DEVASTATION.
32. 13 across….I thought the fish is a RUFFE not RUFF hence plural ruffes. That is why I dismissed it?
33. Was on form for this one, 23 minutes with HERMENEUTIC dredged up from somewhere and wordplay; didn’t parse DEVA STATE but it’s clever. My CoD is TEASINGLY among many good ones, also FLOOSIE was nice.

    The fountain in O’Connell Street in Dublin with a stone lady posing is known as “The floosie in the jacuzzi”.

34. Shouldn’t it be ( H )arrow, as in to needle, vex?
    1. Another Anon has made the same point above. You may care to refer to see the comments that followed.
       1. Would it not be better to disallow anons? They do make the place look rather untidy.
          1. Not really as it’s a way of taking in new blood. I imagine a very large number of regulars, and bloggers too (including myself), started out as ‘anons’ before being welcomed into the fold. Of course we prefer if posters using ‘anon’ identify themselves by putting a name or tag on their comments before eventually signing up for a free Live Journal account.
35. 12:12. Similar problems to others: didn’t know DEVA or COSTARD, wouldn’t spell FLOOSIE like that (or include it in the Times crossword of course, but let’s not go there again), relied on an assumption that both words in HARUM-SCARUM ought to end the same way. I did know HERMENEUTICS, although I certainly wouldn’t have been able to define it for you and it’s not exactly the first word that springs to mind.

    Edited at 2020-05-12 12:26 pm (UTC)

    1. But not with the F word esp. setter, editor, blogger (tin hat) et al! Let’s not go there again! Your Lordship, with greatest respect it’s only a word, however one spells it.

       Edited at 2020-05-12 02:00 pm (UTC)

       1. F*** is only a word. C*** is only a word. This argument doesn’t get you very far.
          1. Sticks and stones……….?
36. Thought ruff was a bird and ruffe a fish. ?? ?
    1. According to the Shorter Oxford, the bird can only be ‘ruff’ but the fish can be either ‘ruff’ or ‘ruffe’.
37. ….play at the Deva Stadium. Interestingly, the Welsh border runs through the ground, and the actual pitch is in Wales while the offices and bar are in England.

    Few problems today. NHO HERMENEUTIC, but the wordplay was clear. I knew COSTARD was a Shakespearean clown, but couldn’t have told you in which play he appears.

    FOI CORMORANT
    LOI ROGET
    COD RECTORS
    TIME 10:31

38. this is the fish in these parts. Thought it might be the same fish with an antipodean spelling for the ‘ruff’.
    Found the puzzle a tuffe. 39mins
39. A bit over the hour with a fair chunk spent on LOI hermeneutic, in fact all of the NE took some sorting. Thought I might lose the battle but eventually twigged the heretic bit of the clue. Enjoyed teasingly and mot, and was unsure that ruffs were fish as well as birds. Hawking took fat too long to come to mind. Good work out. Thanks blogger and setter.

    Edited at 2020-05-12 04:54 pm (UTC)

40. I don’t mind either spelling, but the definitive pronunciation is, without question, by Uma Thurman as Venus in Munchausen, following the close second in this category, Oliver Reeds’s Vulcan (THE god) Yorkshire bellow.
    I’d post the clip, but the only version I could find that includes it is on Pornhub. What I have to endure to bring such erudition to the community…
41. DEVESTATION! (Yes, I convinced myself that DEV*STATE is missing an E, after rejecting DEVISTATE. I must be getting old. I AM getting old.)

    Edited at 2020-05-12 06:27 pm (UTC)

42. Thanks for clearing a couple things up, jack. I fell into all the traps – I especially liked Gag for Mum, not mother, but then…
    I thought Morse did the Telegraph. Dexter, also.
    1. I’ve read only one of the books, but in the TV adaptations he’s usually shown doing the Times puzzle. On occasion, if the plot demands it, he might be doing the one in the local paper, The Oxford Times. Researching on-line I found several references to Morse and The Times, e.g. “In Colin Dexter’s “The Daughters of Cain”, Inspector Morse puzzles over the cryptic clue in the Times: Kick in the pants?, (3-5) letters; and has only worked out “-I- -L-S-” by the time Detective Sergeant Lewis comes in to work”.

       Dexter used to set puzzles himself so probably didn’t restrict his solving to one newspaper.

       Edited at 2020-05-12 10:11 pm (UTC)

43. 45:01. A late solve and a little bit frazzled after a long day at work. I made hard work of the NE corner particularly since hermeneutic was one of my first in (I’m another who has come across the word in some context or other without being able to define it). Seeing house in the sense of cover took some time. Couldn’t parse devastate. The rectors, the Orangemen and the floosie were an unholy mix that I also struggled to unravel. I have seen Costard in a puzzle recently enough that it went straight in.
44. Seems to be a lot of head-scratching at 2Dn. Apart from the London suburb, Harrow: Cause irritation to. (Needle) and what it is, (not the head)
    Although i agree, is a needle an arrow? Still a bit flimsy.
45. Other Roman camps – Kenneth Williams’ Caesar, for example – are available.

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