Times Cryptic 27788 – Double speak

65 comments on “Times Cryptic 27788 – Double speak”

1. 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
2. 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.

3. ….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)

4. 20:12
   Nice puzzle; no dramas. Thanks jack.
5. 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

6. 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.
7. 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.

8. 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
9. ….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

10. 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.
11. 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)

12. 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

13. 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!
14. 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.
15. I was staring at the Derbyshire town for some time before getting it. This despite it being the place I grew up in!
16. Had to sleep overnight on “bomb”. Only with a fresh mind could I see the link bomb = mint.
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