Times Cryptic 27716

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Apart from my solving time of 32 minutes I can’t think of anything to add here ahead of the blog so I shall just let it speak for itself.

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 Harry Potter’s chair, where theatre’s inferior players sit (9,3)
ORCHESTRA PIT : Anagram [harry] of POTTER’S CHAIR. ‘Inferior’ because it’s below stage level where the ‘superior’ players – the actors – are.
8 Hoyden departs for Yemeni capital in original outfit (7)
LADETTE : LAyETTE (original outfit – for a newly born child) becomes LADETTE when D (departs) substitutes for Y{emeni} [capital]. SOED defines hoyden as:  a noisy, rude, or (esp.) boisterous girl or woman.
9 Theoretically working daily? (2,5)
ON PAPER : ON (working), PAPER (daily – newspaper)
11 90’s music report, brother introducing it first (7)
BRITPOP : BR (brother), IT, POP (report – noise of guns etc). I’ve heard the word but  I don’t know what this is or was, as mercifully it passed me by.
12 On odd occasions their car services end here (7)
TERMINI : T{h}E{i}R [on odd occasions], MINI (car)
13 Oblique directions appended to petition (5)
ASKEW : ASK (petition), E W (directions)
14 Indiscreet, interminably rude and sick at heart (9)
IMPOLITIC : IMPOLIT{e} (rude) [interminably – endless], {s}IC{k} [at heart]
16 Person responsible for sinking   ship (9)
DESTROYER : Two meanings not very far removed from each other
19 Card game wherein jack trumps first card (5)
JOKER : pOKER (card game) becomes JOKER (card) when J (Jack) supersedes [trumps] P (first letter of poker)
21 Madden home lover (7)
INFLAME : IN (home), FLAME (lover) – shades of Elvis
23 Cosmetic, perhaps a brand mum gets hold of (7)
MASCARA : MA (mother) contains [gets hold of]  A + SCAR (perhaps…brand)
24 Vile dwelling shortly to have a German as tenant (7)
HEINOUS : EIN (a, German) is inside HOUS{e} (dwelling) [shortly] so could be a tenant
25 Once docked, tried to get some sleep aboard ancient vessel (7)
TRIREME : REM (some sleep – Rapid Eye Movement) is contained by [aboard] TRIE{d} [docked]
26 Theft from ruined crypt, neatly muffling echo (5,7)
PETTY LARCENY : Anagram [ruined] of CRYPT NEATLY containing [muffling] E (echo – NATO alphabet)
Down
1 Scratch traditional groove (3,4)
OLD NICK : OLD (traditional), NICK (groove). Two of many names for the Devil, although Scratch is more usually ‘Old Scratch’. Brewer’s advises this is from a Scandinavian word skratta meaning goblin or monster.
2 Pawn that queen needs to move? (4-3)
CATS-PAW : A definition and a cryptic hint with reference to queen as a female cat. A CATS-PAW, with or without a hyphen, is a person manipulated by another.
3 Be typical of male if in trade south of river (9)
EXEMPLIFY : EXE (river), M (male), then IF contained by [in] PLY (trade). ‘South of’ is just a positional indicator.
4 Fish from river seized by hawk (5)
TROUT : R (river) contained [seized] by TOUT (hawk – goods or services)
5 Clothing it’s normal to take off clothes line (7)
APPAREL : APE (take off) contains [clothes] PAR (normal), then L (line). The parsing took some working out!
6 Stamp showing this person’s image (7)
IMPRINT : I’M (this person’s), PRINT (image)
7 Refreshment essential for golfer on links course (4,8)
CLUB SANDWICH : CLUB (essential for golfer), SANDWICH (links course). There have been so many references to this recently I begin to wonder if someone at The Times is a member. Here’s what I wrote in June:  Sandwich, a town in Kent, came up in the Jumbo blogged last Saturday as a cryptic definition of the word ‘export’ based on the fact that it was once on the coast – a member of the medieval Confederation of Cinque Ports no less – but with the subsequent retreat of the sea it has ended up 2 miles inland and no longer a port. This change in its landscape made it a suitable place for development of golf links and it has become an international centre for the sport, boasting two world-class courses, the Royal St George’s and Prince’s.
10 Rare cat, nine lives ultimately wasted, gets another life (12)
REINCARNATES : Anagram [wasted] of RARE CAT NINE {live}S [ultimately]
15 Soldier coming down to record boundary (9)
PARAMETER : PARA (soldier coming down – a soldier belonging to a parachute regiment), METER (record). A potential bear-trap for speed-merchants as lack of attention to wordplay might tempt them to biff  ‘perimeter’ which is also a boundary.
17 Upset the City when American hosts fine “do” (7)
SUFFICE : As in ‘that will do’. EC (city) + IF (as) + US (American) contains [hosts] F (fine) all reversed [upset]
18 Announce info extracted from computer? (4-3)
READ-OUT : Two meanings of sorts although the first one wouldn’t have the hyphen
19 Shrub from sierra filling hole in East (7)
JASMINE : S (sierra) contained by [filling] JAM (hole – difficult situation), IN, E (East)
20 Duplicity as king and queen held by force at sea (7)
KNAVERY : K (king), then ER (queen) contained [held] by NAVY (force at sea)
22 Lighten large frame in studio (5)
EASEL : EASE (lighten – the load), L (large)

64 comments on “Times Cryptic 27716”

  1. I biffed PERIMETER so fell right into that trap, so two pink squares for me. No idea what hoyden was but I got LADETTE. I thought it might be something to do with “Catcher in the Rye” but he is Holden not Hoyden I realized.
  2. This was easily as easy as yesterday’s.
    Thanks for the etymology on “Scratch,” Jackkt. Shocked to realize that I’d never looked that up.
  3. There are a lot of solvers with errors on the leaderboard this morning, me included. My error was a careless KNAVETY. I wonder if it was the same for others.
    1. My guess is that it’s ‘perimeter’ for PARAMETER but we shall see from later comments perhaps.
  4. Found this easier than yesterday’s, romping home in 17 minutes. Straight top to bottom with FOI 1a ORCHESTRA PIT, LOI 26a PETTY LARCENY. Liked 2d CAT’S PAW. Glad the golf course has come up often enough for it to spring to mind now…
  5. Raced through most of this until I got to the NW corner where scratch and hoydon were both unknowns, causing long delay especially after biffing LAYETTE assuming that the definition was ‘original outfit’. Along the way I had entered PERIMETER, so 21:45 with pink squares. How does METER mean record? Cannot see that at all, which caused the biff and shrug at the time.

    Edited at 2020-07-14 06:42 am (UTC)

    1. SOED meter – verb – measure by means of a meter.

      And meters such as gas and electric also record the measurement.

      1. Thanks Jack. Many years in music and studios have clearly skewed my understanding of the verb record. I note that its second definition in Collins is register, which can mean measure.
  6. …ramrodding the current.
    25 mins with a pre-tennis banana.
    I guess you either know several names for Old Nick or, like me, you don’t.
    Thanks setter and J.
  7. Luckily PERIMETER didn’t occur to me as I’d put in PARA at the beginning once I had a P. IMPOLITIC looked as though ILL or AIL might be in the middle but that was misdirection, was it intentional?

    COD: CAT’S PAW nothing to do with chess, followed by the other cat clue REINCARNATES.

    Yesterday’s answer: Captain Hook wasn’t wholly evil because he had a thesaurus – followers of this blog also included, no doubt. Who knew? myrtilus000, apparently.

    Today’s question: what is this a ‘dingbat’ for? XMASCARA

  8. Three times longer than yesterday’s at 25 minutes. Mind you, I spent at least 5 minutes trying to remember when the nineties were before constructing BRITPOP. It was all a bit of a Blur. LOI IMPOLITIC. COD to JOKER. DESTROYER wasn’t a strong clue but I found some others quite tricky. I nearly fell into the perimeter trap but had second thoughts about a soldier being a fairy and got the right answer. Thank you Jack and setter.
  9. 28:21 but with one error. And it wasn’t Perimeter. I just couldn’t see OLD NICK. I didn’t know Scratch for devil and I didn’t spot the obvious synonym, NICK, for groove. So I invented a term meaning a scratch – or the scar resulting from a scratch. OLD PINK. When you scratch yourself the skin goes pink and if it leaves a mark or visible scratch, that is of course known as “OLD PINK”. No, I wasn’t convinced either! Appropriately I got the much to be expected OLD PINK squares.

    My wife’s favourite colour for decorating our house at the moment is Farrow and Ball, OLD WHITE. Which looks great – but it isn’t WHITE at all. It’s grey green. And costs a fortune. So we are in the OLD RED again.

    Edited at 2020-07-14 08:04 am (UTC)

    1. Our kitchen is painted in French Grey, which is also green. Maybe all their colours are green.
      1. Oui. Farrow and Ball. Le Henry Ford de nos jours. You can have any colour as long as its vert.
  10. I certainly found this more difficult than yesterday without ever being taxing. Had all the GK which helped, especially “(old) scratch” for Mephisto. No problems, no stand out clues.
  11. At one stage I thought I was on for another sub-20 minute time but it was not to be.
    As soon as I saw “Soldier coming down” I knew it had to be PARA and not PERI.
    As far as OLD NICK is concerned, Lexico does not record that meaning of SCRATCH meaning the Devil. Collins Online does but says it is American. Is there a British source to justify its presence here?
    In 19d, I spent ages trying to find a shrub called POSTINE because I was obsessed with HOLE = POT.
    My COD was CATS-PAW because I like cats. In my sailing days a CAT’S PAW was a tiny ripple on the sea caused by the slightest of breezes on an otherwise calm day.

    Edited at 2020-07-14 08:08 am (UTC)

    1. Yup, Chambers has an entry for Scratch (with capital) precisely as “(n) the Devil (also Old Scratch)”
    2. It’s also in the Shorter Oxford:

      Scratch noun². colloq. & dial. Also s-. M18.
      [ORIGIN Alt. of scrat noun¹.]

      In full Old Scratch. The Devil.

      And in Brewer’s.

  12. Within a gnat’s crochet of yesterday’s time, despite not twigging early on what was happening with Harry Potter. Unfair of the setter to have ORCHESTRA not clued by CARTHORSE*. Is nothing sacred?
    Avoided the PERI trap, and my elevated position in the top 100 reveals that loads didn’t.

    Edited at 2020-07-14 08:28 am (UTC)

  13. Well, I made a complete cat’s-paw of this. Another PERIMETER, biffed POKER, and entered the delightful new shrub PISTINE (pit for hole) at 19d!. Also had OLD DISK at 1 d as I could not see how that worked at all. Had to look up hoyden for LADETTE. Thank you Jackkt as ever for the explanations sadly putting me right. Oh well it’s the quatorze juillet today so off to celebrate. I need a drink!
        1. It doesn’t really work as a crossword clue of course but it’s quite hard to define a dingbat: what’s XMASCARA?! Just squint a bit.
          Oops I meant to delete this comment and do it again but then deleted my original one by accident. It was:
          Slap neck, then end quarrel.
          ‘Slap on neck to end quarrel’ would have worked better as a clue to the actual answer.
          I’ve made a right mess of this haven’t I? Maybe I should do some work.

          Edited at 2020-07-14 09:02 am (UTC)

  14. 11:14. Would have been a rare sub-10, but I had biffed HIDEOUS for 24A so got stuck on 17D until I saw the error of my ways. NHO “Scratch” for the devil. I live (and do crosswords) and learn.
  16. I saw the bear trap, and thought “Naw, that’s too obvious – it won’t catch anyone.” Clearly there are a lot of careless bears out there.

    Slow for me in comparison to my yardsticks.

  17. Didn’t know what a hoyden was – not a word anyone uses today I expect. Not really familiar either with scratch for the devil, so the NW corner was slowest to fall.
  19. Yup, fell straight into the trap. And this after I’d stopped and worked out why JUSTINE wasn’t supported by any of the wordplay.
  20. I would put this right in the middle of the difficulty range. No problems and done in 25 minutes.
  21. Wandering over warily from QC-Land, encouraged by yesterday, crawled through successfully although I am much indebted to Jackkt for explaining fully how many of the clues worked. A bit more biffing than parsing, but a step in the right direction.
    Plymouthian
    1. Well done, welcome to the 15×15 and thanks for your appreciation of my blog. Because I blog both formats I tend to do them the same way as I’m conscious that new recruits are coming across all the time from the QC and they may need a little more help than the old stagers.

      Edited at 2020-07-14 10:04 am (UTC)

  22. Fairly easy till the last two, delayed for ages on inflame and suffice. Finally there in about half an hour. If ‘if’ is supposed to stand for ‘when’ in the latter I’m not too impressed. Initially inflamed by yet another Harry Potter reference as I feel Rowling has lowered the standard for what makes a great children’s book by miles; but enjoyed the parsing when arrived at the site. Surprised at unfamiliarity of ‘hoyden’ to some; but on reflection I guess that shows my age.
  23. I started with ASKEW, CATS PAW and CLUB SANDWICH, but then struggled to get much further for quite a while. Then all of a sudden things started making sense and IMPOLITIC cleared the blockage. Soldier coming down had to be PARA, although I did consider PERIMETER for boundary, but PARAMETER won out. Eventually finished by rejecting POKER/PISTINE for JOKER/JASMINE. 29:53. Thanks setter and Jack.
  24. ….as I had all the required knowledge, helped by spotting “para” quickly. I parsed SUFFICE and my LOI afterwards.

    FOI ORCHESTRA PIT
    LOI TRIREME
    COD LADETTE
    TIME 6:31

    1. Right at the end of its definition in Chambers (yes, I know) :

      “a boundary or limit to the scope of something”.

      It’s the definition I’ve always leaned towards, as it was thus in my early days in IT (paper tape, punched cards, leave a job running for a couple of hours and nip down to the pub).

      1. Me too. I’ve written algorithmic computer music that is generated endlessly without exact repetition within certain PARAMETERs.
  26. I was so pleased with myself for changing an initial unparsed ‘perimeter’ to PARAMETER that I made the basic error of mis-reading the anagram fodder for 10d and putting in ‘reincarnated’. The little pink square showed me the error of my ways, so a frustrating 46 minute DNF. I took a bit of solace in a themed crossword at St. Elsewhere today which was much more my era than BRITPOP.
    1. Same here! I claim that I took “lives ultimately wasteD” as a D, tho’ in fact I biffed it. Actually to be fair the grammar of the clue does indicate an S.
      Andyf
    2. Yes, the same for me. Another note to self to check the anagrist and the grammar…

  27. I knew HOYDEN – it’s one of those words like TERMAGANT, FISHWIFE and, I suppose, LADETTE which are rarely used these days.

    PERIMETER/PARAMETER – very cheeky!

    34.04.

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

    Dave.

  28. I have just watched an episode of Car Share (Peter Kay) in which the debate is about what the U stands for in CLUB. BLT =bacon,lettuce and tomato. Club = Chicken, lettuce, bacon and what? Hilarious.
    And it’s yet another reminder that I was supposed to be in Sandwich this week.
    As to the puzzle: harder than yesterday. A couple of errors – I had Perimeter; and also Old Disk at 1d.
    David
  29. Like Jimbo I happened to have the GK/vocab and would have come near to my under-10 of yesterday but had to pause before seeing how SUFFICE worked. I like the look of a CLUB SANDWICH but they’re frustrating because they’re so big I always have to take them apart before I can get my jaw around one. 11.44
  30. Two sub-tens in a row is probably uncharted territory for me. I confess to being a little nervous about the defs in top-left corner. Felt OK about “Scratch” but less so about “Hoyden” and “Pawn”. The wordplay seemed sound though so I went for it. I enjoyed KNAVERY and PARAMETER.
  31. I’m not a biff merchant but I did put PERIMETER in instead of PARAMETER, wondering what was going on and anticipating clarification when I got here. Well, I certainly got it! I alway forget about para for soldier. Similarly, I also didn’t quite get 10d, having not fully taken in the details and popped a D on the end, so another one bit the dust.

    It was a bit of a plod for me, nearly twice as long as yesterday to not really finish 😉 We’ve seen Harry Potter as part of anagrams in the past, so I immediately thought of that today, and I quite liked BRITPOP (the clue). Some of the music wasn’t all that bad either – Blur did a lot of great songs, IMO. But I can’t stand the abbreviation to BRIT for everything British these days, to the extent that even in the Times and on the BBC, we are referred to as Brits. What on earth is wrong with Britons or the British? I’ve always taken Brit to be a slightly disparaging Americanism. I suppose you could say that by using it ourselves, we have changed the definition. I’m not convinced …

    FOI Askew
    LOI Old Nick
    COD Impolitic
    DNF in 46 mins

    Thanks all!

  32. Exactly the same time as yesterday to the second. I’ll be happy if I continue to get the same time tomorrow. Unfortunately overstepped the boundary with PERIMETER.
  33. 14.01 which I was quite encouraged by. Orchestra pit FOI, old nick LOI. That was one I’d never encountered before. Apparel was COD mainly for the beautiful tailoring, though I actually just guessed and worked it out after.
    Ditto for suffice, another well crafted clue.Pleased to get ladette and britpop, must be my age.
  34. Another PERIMETER here. Fitted the letters and the definition part of the clue. What could go wrong?
  35. Finished in a reasonable time – just over 20 mins, but had biffed PERIMETER and POKER, so invented a plant called a PISTINE, which fitted the wordplay nicely, but is obviously not a word. D’oh…, back to the drawing board.
  36. DNF. What a mess. Couldn’t get CAT’S PAW / LADETTE crossing, and had PERIMETER, POKER, and PISTINE without thinking it through. Tomorrow’s another day!
  37. I, too, fell into the PERIMETER trap (it did seem strange, but I took so long over other things that I forgot to come back for a second look as intended). Anyway, I also don’t see PARAMETER as a boundary (for a mathematician, parameters are variable inputs that influence outcomes and I suppose in that sense they limit them, and yes, I know the dictionaries give “boundary” as a meaning as well). I also don’t know why it took me perhaps ten minutes to see the CLUB in CLUB SANDWICH. And the entire NW corner held me up for a while.
  38. DNF. I was home in about 18 minutes on this puzzle with only the parsing of apparel causing me any difficulty, or so I thought, but unfortunately I blundered head first into the potential bear-trap identified by the blogger at 15dn.

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