Times Cryptic 27722

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

A substantial defeat for me on this one. I managed all but four answers in 25 minutes and then after much agonising over the remainder I noticed I had a wrong answer which I corrected and immediately saw one of the missing words. But the other three had me stumped and eventually I ran out of steam and reached for assistance. I’ve noticed quite often that if a puzzle is tough throughout then I have very good staying power and can summon up reserves of energy to see me through to the end, but when I’ve been within the proverbial gnat’s crotchet of completing a grid after a  fairly easy run and I’ve spent nearly as long again on the remaining clues my heart goes out of the struggle.

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 On radio, prepare a town for a cackling bird (10)
KOOKABURRA : Sounds like [on radio] “cook” (prepare) – a – “borough” (town)
6 Second home in country landing tax once (4)
SCOT : S (second), COT (home in country). I don’t think this was specifically a tax on land so I imagine ‘landing’ is used in the sense that the wordplay ‘lands’ us with a word meaning ‘tax once’.
9 Grandee‘s pet crossing river with heartless Italian poet (10)
ARISTOCRAT : ARI{o}STO (Italian poet) [heartless], CAT (pet) containing [crossing] R (river). As I’ve never heard of the poet my only chance at this would have been to biff it and reverse-engineer the wordplay, but the alternative word for ‘grandee’ just wouldn’t come to mind and it didn’t help that I was also stuck trying to think of  ‘person of honour’ at 16dn, both in the same sort of area perhaps. In the end I simply lost interest in both clues.
10 Spots first of nuns entering a church (4)
ACNE : N{uns} [first] contained by [entering]  A + CE (church of England)
12 Position of junior officer‘s place secured by secondary lease (14)
SUBLIEUTENANCY : LIEU (place) contained [secured] by SUB (secondary) + TENANCY (lease)
14 Spice teachers initially misidentified, say (6)
NUTMEG : NUT (National Union of Teachers), M{isidentified} [initially], EG (say – exempli gratia)
15 Curiously it’s a teen’s postprandial drink (8)
ANISETTE : Anagram [curiously] of IT’S A TEEN. I wondered why ‘postprandial’ but assume it’s because it’s a liqueur which SOED defines as: Any of various strong sweet alcoholic spirits flavoured with aromatic substances and usually drunk after a meal.
17 Threatening apparition swinging moneybag (8)
BOGEYMAN : Anagram [swinging] of MONEYBAG
19 Way to introduce a knight, one who speaks Pashto (6)
PATHAN : PATH (way), A, N (knight – chess). I didn’t know this but the wordplay and checkers left no room for doubt.
22 S Pacific territory‘s stone memorial is to west of country (8,6)
PITCAIRN ISLAND : PIT (stone – fruit), CAIRN (memorial), IS, LAND (country). ‘West’ is just a positional indicator that’s not required other than to help the surface reading. Still a British ‘Territory’ and populated largely by descendants of the mutineers from The Bounty.
24 Terrible ruler, one with leading position (4)
IVAN : I (one), VAN (leading position). Ivan IV Vasilyevich commonly known as ‘Ivan the Terrible’, the first Tsar of Russia, 1547 to 1584.
25 Energetic-sounding insects primarily tormenting large antelope (10)
HARTEBEEST : HARTE sounding like “hearty” (energetic), BEES (insects), T{ormenting} [primarily]
26 Army team’s hired transport (4)
TAXI : TA (Territorial Army), XI (team)
27 One rushing to get hold of Charlie’s weepie film (4-6)
TEAR-JERKER : TEARER (one rushing) contains [to get hold] of JERK (Charlie – fool)
Down
1 Extremely knavish, authoritarian old Turkic ruler (4)
KHAN : K{navis}H, A{authoritaria}N [extremely]
2 It conveys eggs over bridge, leaving area (7)
OVIDUCT : O (over),  VI{a}DUCT (bridge) [leaving area]. Another failure as I couldn’t get past ‘eggs = ova’.
3 Soldier sick in bloody tube on island! (12)
ARTILLERYMAN :  ILL (sick) contained by [in] ARTERY (bloody tube), then MAN (isle)
4 Relatives taking a French class on art in Paris (6)
UNCLES : UN (a,  French), CL (class), ES (art, in Paris – tu es)
5 Cooking that brings severe reprimand (8)
ROASTING : Two meanings
7 Oil producer‘s beer cask knocked over by clown (7)
COCONUT : COCO (clown), TUN (beer cask) reversed [knocked over]
8 Very small eye went roving round key US city (5-5)
TEENY-WEENY : Anagram [roving] of EYE WENT, containing [round] E (key – music) + NY (US city)
11 Girl’s description of operational ship impervious to attack (12)
UNASSAILABLE : UNA’S (girl’s), SAILABLE (description of operational ship)
13 Abstain unhappily, accommodating clever old Protestant (10)
ANABAPTIST : Anagram [unhappily] of ABSTAIN, containing (accommodating) APT (clever)
16 Person of honour dined with Lee — not I (8)
LAUREATE : LAUR{i}E (Lee – author of ‘Cider with Rosie’), ATE (dined). Another failure.
18 Finally preparing a meal, start to unwrap ten cakes (7)
GATEAUX : {preparin}G (finally), A, TEA (meal), U{nwrap} [start], X (ten)
20 Persistently nag male Hollywood actor about end of western (7)
HENPECK : HE (male) + PECK (Hollywood actor – Gregory) containing [about] {wester}N [end]
21 Drink a wading bird left unfinished (6)
BITTER : BITTER{n} (wading bird) [left unfinished]
23 Eg Marilyn Monroe‘s   heavenly body? (4)
STAR : Two meanings

63 comments on “Times Cryptic 27722”

  1. No real problems, although I didn’t care for HARTEBEEST; the HARTE is not a homophone for ‘hearty’, anymore than ‘ship’ is for ‘sheep’. GATEAUX biffed, parsed post-submission. Fortunately Laurie Lee has come up here a couple of times, so I could make sense of my guessed LAUREATE. The ‘wily Pathan’ shows up in “How I Won the War”, which is how I knew it.
    1. I didn’t think twice about the homophone as I’ve always said ‘hearty-beest’. I first heard the word at a very young age as it features twice (once spoken and once sung) in ‘The G-nu Song’ by Flanders and Swann and unlike ‘g-nu’ which I later learned was a deliberate mispronunciation and is actually pronounced ‘new’, I assumed that hearty-beest’ was correct. Hearing it spoken on my digital SOED it doesn’t sound very much different, and certainly seems close enough for a crossword homophone given that we’ve had many more dubious examples.

      Edited at 2020-07-21 05:09 am (UTC)

      1. I’ve just listened to 5 different recordings, including Lexico, and none of them sounds like ‘hearty beast’. The difference between a lax [I] (some dictionaries give schwa instead of [I]) and a tense [i] is indeed small–speakers of Japanese or Spanish, say, have a good deal of difficulty with it–but in English it’s distinctive, as in ship/sheep, live/leave, hartebeest/hearty beast. I wouldn’t accept those pairs as homophonous.
        Incidentally, ODE gives the pronunciation of ‘gnu’ as (g)nu:, (g)nju: Influence of Flanders and Swann?

        Edited at 2020-07-21 05:31 am (UTC)

        1. But some folk won’t accept *any* pairs of words as homphonous, Kevin. harte/hearty works well enough for me and I say, give them a littl slack 😉
          1. As a confirmed rhoticist, I’ve had to accept lots of (for me) non-homophones, and have more or less come to live with them, but for some reason I/i irritates me. Remember POMEGRANATE, Jerry? But wotthehell wotthehell.
  2. A disappointing DNF for me, with a similar solving experience to our blogger. I had much of the puzzle done in around 25 minutes, but then ground to a halt. By 45 minutes I’d cracked ARISTOCRAT, TAXI, and SCOT, and was left with LAUREATE and BITTER. At the hour mark I gave up and checked the blog: I had WILDE instead of HARTE (I suspected this might be wrong), though even with the fix I was only able to get BITTER, and LAUREATE still evaded me. Disappointing, but it was definitely not my puzzle to finish!
  3. Count me as another who fell into the wildebeest trap. The fact that it begins with wild which could sort of mean energetic made it just too tempting to biff. It was only when I’d spent a while being unable to get LAUREATE or BITTER that I stopped to think that the start of wildebeest is in no way a homophone for energetic. I finished with a tentative SCOT not knowing the tax and being unsure of cot meaning a home in the country, though its likeness to cottage gave me enough confidence to go for it.
    1. ‘Wild’ and ‘energetic’ can absolutely mean the same thing! At least Collins says so and I say the same when my kids are running around the living room. I don’t mean ‘uncontrolled’, I mean ‘bursting with energy’.
  4. I think it’s quite lucky that I got 21d BITTER first with enough confidence that it put me off sticking WILDEBEEST in with a shrug at 25a.

    As it is, I finished in half an hour, having started off quite shakily, knowing that at 1a KOOKABURRA was the answer but not being sure how to spell it, and proceeding in fits and starts from there. I’m not entirely sure where I plucked LOI 16d LAUREATE from, but I read Cider with Rosie a year or two back so at least once I happened upon the right word I managed to work out why it was right…

  5. 15 minutes, and that was after a slow start. I’m not sure if I’ve seen a HARTEBEEST at a zoo or only with Flanders and Swann, so I didn’t know whether to pronounce it as they did or in Afrikaans. DNK OVIDUCT but the cryptic was generous. COD fo SUBLIEUTENANCY for the sheer surprise that it works as a clue. LAUREATE is a word I’ve seen used a lot more since Dylan became one. Is there any better taste than NUTMEG on a custard tart? Thank you Jack and setter.
  6. Ornithologists 3 (KOOKABURRA, HEN, BITTERN) – Astrophysicists 1 (STAR).
    1. Unless I’m much mistaken there isn’t a constellation, nebula or whatever called OVIDUCT so you might want to make that 4-1. Not that I’m complaining, I used to keep chickens so the eggy clue was a write-in.
        1. All ornithologists will be interested in oviducts but not all oviducts will interest ornithologists.

          It’s a DBE. Or something.

  7. Further to this (the original topic is further down the TfTT list if anyone wants to refer back to it), I found later that I could remove the offending links by editing my QC blog and the Intrusive LJ topic, and unchecking a box called ‘Related entries’. How it got checked in the first place remains a mystery – maybe I made an error or LJ have changed a default. The other mystery is that although I am now no longer seeing those links on my PC, they are still there on my tablet and phone, not only for my own blogs but everybody else’s too. Somebody suggested it’s to do with an ad-blocker, but I don’t think that’s so as these are not advertisements, they are something in the Live Journal structure.

    Today I checked carefully before posting this 15×15 blog to make sure the box wasn’t checked, so I’m free of the links on my PC, but they’ve been added when viewed on my tablet.

    Edited at 2020-07-21 07:09 am (UTC)

    1. I had the same issue jackkt when writing, and discovered by chance to untick that box. I now also have a long section above my comment box here, giving me all sorts of options for choice of accounts when I post, although I am already logged in. You / anyone else got this and managed to get rid?
      1. Thanks Pip,

        No I haven’t seen that. I’m interested you say you are unchecking the Related Entries box because since the problem I had yesterday with my QC blog and the Intrusive LJ topic I’ve been trying quite hard to repeat the problem and have failed to do so. I wondered if LJ had changed the default but in all my tests the box has been unchecked from the start.

  8. …By the light of the ev’ning Star…
    25 mins and DNF’d with two left.
    I knew we had had the Beest before but couldn’t remember it (Hearty, indeed!).
    So Laureate evaded me too after listing about fifteen unhelpful Lees.
    Thanks setter and J.
  9. Like others, held up by putting WILDE instead of HARTE until LAUREATE revealed itself. Didn’t know a COT was a home in the country, turns out to be an archaic cottage. But I knew scot from scot free.

    COD: PITCAIRN ISLAND for it trying to make you think of Easter Island.

    Yesterday’s answer: 1972 is the longest year on record because not only was it a leap year, but it had two leap seconds as well (the only year to have the latter feature).

    Today’s question: which individual has received the most direct votes in an election in the UK?

      1. Not sure I know who that is but I don’t think it’s who I was thinking of!
          1. Would also be very apposite as, according to Wikipedia: “During World War I, he joined the Royal Naval Division as a SUB-LIEUTENANT”
    2. Rulers and this local mayor disturbed to get squirrel dhansak! (5, 4)

      Edited at 2020-07-21 01:16 pm (UTC)

  10. Another wildebeest here which BITTER eventually sorted out. irritating mistake in an otherwise straightforward puzzle.

    Interested in your remarks Jack about losing interest in a couple of clues after an easy ride. I suffer the same syndrome and feel I just can’t be bothered. Something to do with our age perhaps?

    1. Me too Jim. I’m younger than you but not by much (mod rather than teddy boy !)
  11. 11:34. Held up at the end by LAUREAT. DNK PATHAN – my bit of education for the day. COD to GATEAUX, maybe becuase I’m hungry… time for breakfast now, but no cakes for me!
  12. Easy today, even with an initial wildebeeste ..

    Jackkt, a search on TfTT for Ariosto garners 20 results including last month, 11 June, and you hadn’t heard of him then either 🙂

    1. Doesn’t surprise me at all. It happens so often I’ve given up worrying, but alarms bells might start to ring if you were to dig up something I’d previously claimed extensive knowledge of but now I said I’d never heard of it. I’m sure the day will come though!
  14. …managed to type TEENY WEENT so finished with a pink square.

    Couldn’t make WILDEBEEST work so went with HARTEBEEST and lo and behold LAUREATE dropped into place.

  15. Defeated by having wildebeest (and all ready to argue about homophones). Also like jack and jimbo wasn’t prepared to spend a long time after doing all but two in 15′.

    Thanks jack and setter.

    1. Me too – Wildebeest – making 16d and 21d impossible. Even if I had dragged Hartebeest from the depths of my memory, I think “Wilder bees” sound more energetic than “Hearty bees”. Hearty bees would merely wish you well, surely?
      I’ll remember Hartebeest next time (maybe).

      Edited at 2020-07-21 04:43 pm (UTC)

  16. 10:16, taken over the ten minute mark by worrying about SCOT. I was reasonably sure it was the old word for tax but I had a nagging doubt I was getting it and the word for a rabbit’s tail mixed up. In the end I just went for it but never saw what ‘home in country’ had to do with it.
    I was staying with family near Melbourne a little over a year ago and the noise of the KOOKABURRAs in the morning was quite extraordinary.
    Fortunately I got BITTER before I had a clue about the beest so I wasn’t tempted by the wilde variety.
  17. Pretty straightforward for me (I even smiled at the antelope – I must be in a good mood). Without being specific, are the setters for the QC on any day often the same as for the 15×15? There is so often a common clue, answer or thread.
  18. Like others, I put wildebeest thus making 16d and 21d impossible. Had I thought of HARTEBEEST, I would have put it in as I have no problem with the homophone.
    What was going to be an under 30 minute job ended up at 45mins and 3 errors.

    Edited at 2020-07-21 09:06 am (UTC)

  19. Another in the club who went with WILDEBEEST, but at least did so half-heartedly enough that I wasn’t averse to having a second look and correcting. Also glad to hear I am not the only one whose lifelong pronunciation of a particular animal has been (mis)informed by Flanders and Swann.

    Otherwise delayed by trying to remember the difference between SCOT and SCUT, and trying to come up with a 3-letter word for clever which wasn’t FLY.

  20. 15.54 for a straightforward solve, though WILDEBEEST and obviously therefore LAUREATE delayed the ending.
    The early ANABAPTISTS managed the considerable feat of upsetting the first Reformers, Ulrich Zwingli in Zurich having them drowned in the local river for insisting on adult/believers baptism as opposed to baptising babies.
  21. No bother with this one, in 15 minutes, happy with the hearty homophone, filling in the gaps in 12a was the LOI although TENANCY was there for a while. Not sure what an ANABAPTIST is but it sounded Protestant. Thanks jackkt.
  22. 40 minutes to get to my last two. I never considered an alternative to Wildebeest so failed to get Laureate and Bitter.
    I too remember the song about the old gum tree. I was stuck up it today.
    David
    1. Exactly the same experience from this QC’er, except got there in 27 mins. ARISTOCRAT went in with a shrug for me, never having heard of Ariosto.
  23. Another to have been held up at the end, in my case by being unable to get ‘Marvin’ out of my head for ‘Lee’, perhaps influenced by STAR at 23d. At least I wasn’t tempted by ‘(be)wildebeest’ which I just couldn’t get to fit the wordplay.

    Favourites were first and last in; KOOKABURRA for putting me in a good mood at the start and LAUREATE for the reminder of the lovely Slad Valley.

    All present and correct after 47 minutes.

  24. This was clearly a biffer’s trap which most of us seem to have fallen into. Unfortunately after BITTER corrected me I was still left with LAUREATE to complete, and Laurie didn’t appear among all the Lees I could think of, resulting in a look up.
    Another interesting crossword where most of the longer answers were very easy, but some tricky clues elsewhere.
  25. KHAN was my FOI which immediately led to KOOKABURRA, so I was off to a good start. Down in the SE, I initially came up with WILDEBEEST, but then spotted BITTER(n) and remembered that I’d had HARTEBEEST for lunch at a lodge in Tsavo East National Park back in 1991. Looks like beef. That left me with 16d, which needed an alphabet trawl, and I eventually remembered Cider With Rosie, which I remembered my daughter having a role in some years ago at a local Am Dram production. 27:51. Thanks setter and Jack.
  26. ….in which I stepped on three of them with varying degrees of injury.

    First I confidently started by writing “date” at the end of 4A, for the poet was surely Dante.

    Then, seeing “soldier sick” at the start of 3D I put in “antill” and spent far too long trying to play around with “Antilles”.

    After 9 minutes I was left with 16/21D, until eventually changing to the correct antelope resolved them quickly.

    FOI ACNE
    LOI LAUREATE
    COD COCONUT
    TIME 11:42

  27. Pretty straightforward. I put in BEEST but waited until I had checkers for the first half and biffed a few (ARISTOCRAT AND ANABAPTIST among them) where the wordplay didn’t reveal itself fully at first glance.
  28. I was slow to see the bird in 1a because I thought you pronounced KOOK as in wacko. I did just remember that years ago someone told me why getting off SCOT free didn’t mean that the Scots usually got away with things. I also had a persistent “henbane” in the SE corner because I’d put the K in JERK in the wrong place. 17.09
  29. Gave up after an alphabet trawl or two trying to come up with a likely beest. The rest of it wasn’t too tricky, other than not knowing SCOT or COT – but it seemed most likely to be the right answer.
  30. What everyone else said! Very easy to start – almost Quickie standard for quite a few, I thought, and I romped through in less than 20 minutes with only 4 to go. And yes, it was the same 4!. Eventually I untangled HENPECK, PATHAN and LAUREATE (in that order) but the beast was too shy and so it was DNF with three letters to go 😕

    FOI Khan
    COD Bogeyman, closely followed by Kookaburra,
    DNF

    Thanks all!

  31. Fifteen minutes on the last three – oviduct, bitter and laureate — before I worked out my misspelling at one across (kukkaburra) and the wrong kind of beest. Hats off to the setter. Could have been an under-ten minute like yesterday, because the other clues tumbled like nine-pins.
  32. No idea what was going on with 19ac. Yet another Wilderbeest candidate and had never heard of ANABAPTIST. COD to KOOKABURRA.
    Here’s to tomorrow. Thank you Jackkt for the explanations.

  33. 13.30. FOI khan, LOI oviduct. The latter was a challenge till I remembered what a viaduct was. Laureate could have caught me out as well but I recalled it was the solution that stumped me a few weeks ago. Pays to have a reasonable memory for The Times.

    Pleased to see hartebeest but probably would have struggled if I hadn’t seen one in the wild. What’s the chances of getting on a plane to see one again? All in all, an enjoyable trip down the byways of crossword construction. Thanks to setter and blogger.

  34. with the WILDEBEEST in nice and early so it soon morphed into the HARTEBEEST. I really don’t understand Kevin’s attempts to get us to mangle the English language! American homophonics are simply foreign hereabouts. Great time though!

    But like Jack, Ted and Phil I got very bored with this after 30 mins, with just two to go….

    FOI 1dn KHAN

    COD 17ac BOGEYMAN sweet!

    WOD ex-27ac CHARLIE

    1. Kevin’s objection has nothing to do with American prononciation. The homophone is equally dodgy in the Queen’s English. Personally I have no objection to it (close enough for government work) but it’s not an exact match.

      Edited at 2020-07-21 10:19 pm (UTC)

  35. DNF in around 45 mins. I deleted the wilde part of my beest to eventually get laureate and bitter but couldn’t remember the beestly alternative even though I knew I’d seen it in a previous puzzle and after an alpha-trawl I went for a fastebeest.
  36. 1a was a write-in , as one of them provided a raucous after-breakfast commentary on cruciverbal progress. Cackling seemed to reach a crescendo as the Wildebeest trap claimed another victim, but subsided to an amused chuckling when the Hartebeest was rescued. 21.06
  37. BIFD wildebeest which threw 16D and 21D off considerably.

    Other than that a great learning exercise with many three and four letter subs to note going forward.

    COD for me was 24A.

    Thanks to setter and expositor.

    Woody

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