Times Cryptic 27788 – Double speak

65 comments on “Times Cryptic 27788 – Double speak”

1. NHO LONG EATON, of course, but EATON seemed likely with the checkers, and I had to put the G somewhere, so … I’d forgotten the meaning of YELLOW FLAG, but the wordplay was helpful. DNK IDIOT SHEET. Biffed LEBANON, parsed post-submission; my COD. I parsed BOMB as Jeremy did.
2. Didn’t finish the Quickie today thanks to just one clue (25 Across), and didn’t finish this puzzle either, thanks to 21 Across. After searching word lists of desserts I came across ‘bombe’ and assumed that ‘finish off sweet’ meant BOMB{e} — even though, ironically, ‘finish off’ had suggested BOMB to me at the 25 minute mark, though I couldn’t convince myself of it with the rest of the clue. I didn’t know the mint/bomb meaning.

   15 minutes later, I gave up. Thanks for clarifying!

   1. Thanks for your suggestion re BOMB{e} which I have now noted with additional comments in my blog.
3. By the way, anyone on a Mac having trouble doing puzzles in Safari?
   1. I used to have a lot of trouble using Safari on my MacBook Pro so I switched to using Chrome for the Times crosswords. Famous last words but I’ve not had any issues in a long while now.
      PS…I agree with your parsing of BOMB(e)

      Edited at 2020-10-06 07:49 am (UTC)

      1. Try clearing your browser – this has solved issues on both iPad and MacBook in the past for me.
   2. I haven’t been able to access the puzzles on my iPad for some time.
      1. Chrome on my Galaxy Tab doesn’t work, but Opera does.
         1. Thanks. I hadn’t got round to trying alternative browsers (I’m not commuting in the way I used to so I don’t often use my iPad for solving) but having just downloaded Chrome it’s actually working… for now.
            1. A few weeks ago Chrome on the desktop stopped working too – but that’s OK again now.
               1. I get ‘403: forbidden’ from time to time but going back into the crossword club from the main Times site seems to fix it for the time being.
                  Generally the site does seem to be excessively beset by these bugs.
   3. Check your cookies /delete
4. Bomb guessed with fingers crossed, but the rest quite straightforward. Even NHO-in-the-colonies Long Eaton went in with just the L in place. Reading the blog where bomb is bombe in the dictionaries I’m inclined to think plusjeremy has got the correct parsing. I’d guessed the same triple-definition as Jack, except my sweet was a sherbet bomb remembered from childhood, a sugar ball full of powdered sherbet. Liked score, and Lebanon with its surface describing Britain’s dealings with the EU. Or is it a breach of law that Boris wants?

   Edited at 2020-10-06 02:55 am (UTC)

5. As for others, got LONG EATON from the cryptic and wasn’t sure of the parsing for BOMB. On Jeremy/Kevin’s parsing, I wonder why the question mark is required.

   DNK IDIOT SHEET, as we usually call them “cheat sheets”, like this one for the true data nerd.

   1. I unspammed your comment for you.

      If you would kindly click on the “Join this Community” link at the top of the page, I can give you permission to post links.

   2. Thanks for the link. I’ve sent it to my daughter who has a year out in industry from her maths degree course working for the UK ONS at the Ministry of Justice and has become an R developer.
      1. So, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree 🙂 I’m glad you found the link useful. My son has also just finished his maths degree and taken a job as a biostatistician for our Ministry of Health – he’s loving it.
6. ….but I really had to stretch to get bomb, which I parsed as BOMB[e]. It is the UK slang meaning that doesn’t come to mind easily, but I eventually got it.

   The rest of the puzzle was pretty straightforward, although tussock and smashing were a bit elusive. Long Eaton did not give any trouble once I had all the checkers.

7. I didn’t get Kampala, because I didn’t second guess my answer for 13: [-t]RUTH.
   Maybe I have RBG on my mind.
8. I started well in the top half, only leaving 7d KAMPALA for later—geography is definitely my weak point—until I hit 15a REPAIRABLE and started struggling, having to get a toehold at 27d SUB and work my way back up to meet in the middle. I finally thought of “parable” rather than “fable”, and finished off with REPAIRABLE, KAMPALA and BOMB.

   I was looking at a picture of Poe just yesterday, idly browsing while looking something up during my re-reading of Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness, which helped with 20d. It’s also full of crosswordy words—I spotted a wild “congeries” and a “jocosely”, among others—so maybe my reading will continue to help me this week.

   Edited at 2020-10-06 07:57 am (UTC)

9. Maybe this was the setter’s compensation for SCHENECTADY (27752).
10. …Until the town lie beaten flat.

    25 mins with yoghurt, granola, banana, blueberries.
    No MERs, no crosses, no ticks, no dramas.
    Thanks setter and J.

11. Seems almost as if the SETTER got depressed while compiling this, with three very positive words at the top TIPTOP, STRIKING and SMASHING and three very negative ones RESTRAINED, OBSOLETE, and BORING at the bottom.

    Loved SATNAV of course.

    I would like to make a possible case for ambiguity at 4 down. In chemistry, PH 1, PH 2, etc are measures on the acidity to alkaline scale. So if the “i” in the clue is read as 1, that could be a PH value, and if you “add one”, i.e. put an i at the end, you arrive at PHI, which is obviously a different Greek character.

    I’m sure Jack’s parsing is correct, and I’m probably just looking for sympathy for being one letter short of a correct solution. At least i had some sort of rationale.

12. I went for Phi instead of Psi. Otherwise 15:34.

    COD: Lebanon

13. Had REFILLABLE at 15 for a while, as I was struggling to see the real answer, due in no small part to have a typo in RIGHT WLNGER.
    Eventually spotted that, which then made me realise that YELLOW WING (well that must be a sign of a disease somewhere right?) was probably incorrect, and perhaps FLAG might be a better fit.
    10.38 so the rest can’t have been too tricky with all that going on. LONG EATON vaguely recalled from trips to Derbyshire back in student days, and BOMB parsed as the (e) variant.
14. YELLOW FLAG iris is a lovely plant to look at but I have just discovered that it is regarded as a pest plant here in NZ.
    SMASHING, BACK and BOMB were my LOI’s
    1. I had yellow flags in my pond until the incredibly bulky roots (?) took over the entire volume leaving no space for water. Got rid.
       1. That’s very interesting. Maybe that’s why they are regarded as a pest here. My brother-in-law is a retired bio security officer with Auckland City Council. I’ll ask him for his thoughts.
15. Time dragged out to infinity, saved from recording on the SNITCH by a single typo.
    Couldn’t get the African town, because I had RUTH for the book, like others, Truth is at least as good a synonym for info as facts, especially with both being in short supply in the info we’re being fed these days by Presidents and Prime Ministers. When I resorted to aids to to fill in the gaps, I got several Indian villages and one NZ one, but no African cities.
    IDIOT SHEET I made up from the wordplay, not in my Chambers.
    A bit miffed, but I liked SCREWDRIVER, for which I think “securing implement” is the proper definition, otherwise “securing” serves no purpose.
    1. surely not, I thought they were for opening paint cans
       or is that chisels?
16. Liked this one, fairly straightforward for me. Not familiar with yellow flags particularly but given the G it was obvious..
    I was in Edale only recently, but managed to avoid hearing any mention of Long Eaton. But the name did ring a bell
17. DNF. I had already slowed to a crawl, taking forever to see the FLAG bit of 18ac, PAL and REPAIRABLE, so when I got to the African city I was, um flagging. I couldn’t for the life of me work the city out even after resorting to the usual method of double-checking all the crossing letters. It turns out that, like GdS, my faith in RUTH as an answer for 13ac was misplaced.
    Pfft.
18. 24 minutes with hesitant LOI BOMB, which I could see all three definitions for but I was still nervous. It took me a while to twig why IDIOT SHEET as right too. I know LONG EATON from my many trips to Ratcliffe Power Station, the jewel in the CEGB’s crown. Even I only just about remembered it was in Derbyshire and not Notts, so I trust people are good at anagrams. I enjoyed the puzzle. COD to CHILLER. Thank you Jack and setter.
19. Same as jackkt with the REPAIRABLE, FLAG, PAL grouping. Good crossword and no complaints. Liked ‘prompting help’ and ‘breach of trust’.
20. Finally got my name to appear automatically; maybe an image icon thingy tmw. Not overly impressed today with SMASHING, STRIKING and BORING all in the same puzzle (and all double defs); BOMB was elusive for a while and question mark is probably not required once one twigs … IDIOT SHEET biffable but unencountered in real life.
21. All fairly routine, but unimaginative setting, as commented on by others. No difficulty with BOMB for me.
22. 11:57. LONG EATON and REPAIRABLE my last 2 in. I also needed the L from PAL to get the FLAG. Good puzzle.
23. Just over 50 mins for this and as with others, stuck on last ones in, FLAG, PAL and REPAIRABLE. Quite enjoyable though I thought. I knew Long Eaton as Mrs F used to live in Edale. Thanks J and setter.
24. Same as many others, FLAG, PAL, REPAIRABLE LOsI.

    Thanks jack and setter.

25. Yup, nice steady solve. No dramas, but a bit of dexterity required to find the right shortened dessert and a meaning of “mint” to match up with it. In my mental map, LONG EATON is in Notts, so I clearly need some recalibration after being at home for so long.
26. Very enjoyable solve so thanks to setter and Jack for parsing Lebanon which I couldn’t immediately see. MER at use of ‘figure’ for ‘cone’ as strictly speaking a figure is 2-dimensional and a cone is a ‘solid’. Well, that’s my view anyway!
27. TIPTOP was my FOI, followed by PSI. I then made steady progress, although I never did parse the SSO bit of TUSSOCK, so thanks for that Jack. I was fortunate to get KAMPALA before looking at 13a so tRUTH never crossed my mind. Didn’t know LONG EATON, but the wordplay was simple enough. I was eventually left with 19d and 21a. I’d put in LEBANON earlier but took it out again when I couldn’t parse it, but finally saw how it worked, then saw LOI BOMB as a triple definition, although I agree the alternate parsing works too. 33:31. Thanks setter and Jack.
28. Straightforward 20 minutes, LOI REPAIRABLE, no problems with the Derbyshire place (you could go through it without knowing you had, IMO) only MER at IDIOT SHEET.
29. I really didn’t like this crossword – it felt much more like a Telegraph crossword – with too many (IMHO) of what our blogger calls “double definitions” and I would call intuitive clues. Put another way, a lack of what I would call technical clues i.e. where an unknown answer may be deduced by putting the pieces of the clue together.
    1. How very IKEAN!
30. Steady solve but left with a few queries at the end to work on, including PHI which didn’t make any sense, and CINQ which also made no sense, but I was fixated with CI for 101.
    Agree that this isn’t normal Times standard. Nothing stands out as COD.
31. I felt sluggish and a bit distracted this morning – hardly the setter’s fault. The only one I wondered about was the definition of REPAIRABLE which seemed a bit odd. 17.59
32. Fun puzzle, even if I couldn’t while solving see the connection between repairable and not finished yet.

    Remembered the yellow flag from Love in the Time of Cholera, where the riverboat captain used to raise it to keep the pesky riverside dwellers from bugging the passengers with all manner of goods along the way.

33. ….one pink – biffed PHI instead of PSI.

    IDIOT SHEET is quite a common term in the IT circles that I have moved in – a one-pager for the help desk to do something noddy like change a password (maybe it’s me that is the idiot…)

    Edited at 2020-10-06 12:10 pm (UTC)

34. 20:12
    Nice puzzle; no dramas. Thanks jack.
35. NHO of GAMINE or TUSSOCK but the cluing was fair in both cases. PAL took far too long to come, and only then did I get REPAIRABLE as my LOI.

    FOI Boring
    LOI Repairable
    COD Immediate

36. Doh. Without TIP-TOP I was wondering whether it was phi, chi or psi, and when the penny dropped on 1 across, I already had pH in mind, so pH1 slipped straight in without thought. Should have been a little sharper, though no sharper than pH3, post hoc. I might have left it in anyway, thinking PH was short for post hoc just as PS is for post scriptum. How does one miss the obvious? Practice, I guess. Philos Tauroscryptologos.
37. Put SORB instead of BOMB, thinking it was some sort of plant (it’s the service tree). Fast times all very well but you need to get them all right! Lived near Long Eaton so knew that one, very close to Nottingham yet in Derbyshire.

    COD: WET NURSE for the amusing anagram

    Yesterday’s answer: the largest city in the Basque country is Bilbao.

    Today’s question: which letter does an all-yellow flag represent in the signal flag alphabet?

    1. I know that one because I found it when researching for my blog. Very appropriate for the strange times in which we live!
    2. Character’s signal to speak out loud (1)

       I tried to learn semaphore but after a week I was flagging.

38. Found this a hard slog today. Not helped by biffing MOMBASA
    for the 7d African city, as it fitted three checkers. It made 5a ungettable, but it was 15a when it dawned that there was another –M-A-A city in East Africa. LOI was BOMB, parsed as Jeremy did. 51mins
39. ….straddles the Nottinghamshire border, and has a Nottingham postcode and telephone numbers. It has been proposed to move it into Notts on more than one occasion, but it’s never quite happened.

    I tied myself in “Notts” when submitting online, and misread my scrawled GAMINE as “gaming”. Everybody above me in the SNITCH averages was quicker than me anyway (as were a couple below me).

    FOI TIPTOP
    LOI BOMB (or bum as Clouseau would have it)
    COD SCREWDRIVER
    TIME 9:14

40. Could have done with an idiot sheet here. Slowly negotiated a bit of a minefield, what with the ruth/truth trap and the slightly odd definitions of ‘nine’, ‘gamine’ and perhaps ‘repairable’. 38 minutes.
41. This very enjoyable as I do enjoy a good DD!

    I think the setters have given up on G&S and are now resorting to less well known English Towns to keep Kevin & Co. on their toes.

    FOI 5ac STRIKING

    LOI 14ac BACK

    COD 28ac WET NURSE

    WOD 18ac YELLOW FLAG – which was once known as Yellow Jack – Malaria- prevalent in the Caribbean Basin until at the turn of the last Century when Dr. Walter Reed came up with a cure. That’s the same Walter Reed that POTUS spent a few days with on the week-end up in Maryland, poor luv’.
    Those same yellow flags are waved at F1 events to warn of danger and Kevin Magnussen. And yellow cards in footie!

    Talking of which was there a footie NINA hereabouts? We had STRIKING,BACK,SMASHING,RIGHT WINGER,SUB,SCORE and for those of you who dislike Arsenal – BORING!

    My time was apparently 37 mins.

    Edited at 2020-10-06 03:44 pm (UTC)

42. A late post despite doing this several hours ago! Feeling rather pleased today having read all the above comments. All done and dusted in just over half an hour despite a slow start. I enjoyed it – ticks next to BOMB, IMMEDIATE and NONET.

    Long Eaton (just up the motorway from here) has been a centre for uphostery and furniture making for more than a century and lots of well known brands are based there. Otherwise not the most interesting place tbh!

    FOI Wet nurse
    LOI Score
    COD Long Eaton
    Time 35 mins

    Thanks setter and Jack

43. Easy enough although it took far to long to see BACK. BOMB is one of those strange words that is basically good in UK (“made a bomb”) but bad in the US. Like “table a motion” which means to save it for later in US and discuss it now in UK. Which can make for confusion in crosswords!
44. 15:04. Nothing difficult. Had heard of Shirley but not Long Eaton, so the letters took a little while to rearrange themselves there, otherwise no hold ups.
45. I was staring at the Derbyshire town for some time before getting it. This despite it being the place I grew up in!
46. Had to sleep overnight on “bomb”. Only with a fresh mind could I see the link bomb = mint.
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