Times Cryptic 27800

73 comments on “Times Cryptic 27800”

1. Felt harder than yesterday, but by my time (and others’) it seems to have been much easier.

   Is MISS IONA a thing or was I right to get a laugh out of it?

   1. No, not a chestnut to my mind, but then I hardly remember anything that happens these days 🙂
2. Sub-12 for me, which is as rare as a civil presidential debate.

   I wonder how many will be helped by my entry Monday last for BIRD’S NES5 SOUP, which read, ‘this Chinese soup is made from the solidified saliva nest of a swiftlet?’

   Still my last one in….

   1. You mean HARE’S LEGS SOUP?

      I do remember your comment but I didn’t remember the term. I was trying to get QUICKLET to work for awhile.

   2. Congratulations on the time! Your fifth fastest in the SNITCH records, if that’s any encouragement. [On edit: actually, I’ve just seen that my sub-20-minute time is also my fifth fastest. A strange coincidence.]

      And, like Jeremy, I didn’t recall your comment in solving the SWIFTLET clue. Perhaps it was lurking somewhere in my subconscious…

      Edited at 2020-10-20 01:49 am (UTC)

3. I knew the Pashtuns spoke Pashto, but Pushtu seemed a stretch. It parsed, so in it went with a shrug.
   Nice to see the welsh girl Sian making a comeback, after being replaced by her cousin Bronwen a few days ago.
   16:24
   1. Pushtu is a variant of Pashto, and I think was the common spelling back in the day; similarly, e.g. Punjabi varies with Panjabi.
4. ….swiftlet, a total brain-freeze for five minutes after struggling with the should-be-obvious sketcher. Not my finest hour, but I’m a 12-handicap solver, not a tour pro.

   I did like the circular letter clue. and Miss Iona was pretty good too.

5. I biffed 1d but saw how it worked once I’d typed it in; ‘Hebridean beauty’ is nice. Same with 26ac. COLOUR SERGEANT I biffed and only parsed post-submission. I wasn’t aware that lichen were fungi; and in fact I’m still not.
   1. I never knew this:

      “Lichens are a complex life form that is a symbiotic partnership of two separate organisms, a fungus and an alga. The dominant partner is the fungus, which gives the lichen the majority of its characteristics, from its thallus shape to its fruiting bodies. … Many lichens will have both types of algae.”

      1. Thanks, Guy, for the explanation. I had the same surprise as Kevin, but didn’t pursue it further.

         Biology is, indeed, freaky. Mrs S and I went to the Age of Fishes Museum on the weekend, where I was surprised to learn that only *most* fish are cold blooded. As documented here, one is warm-blooded and some (such as tuna) are partly warm-blooded.

         1. Whoever came up with the seahorse must have had a sense of humour.
         2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhwcEvMJz1Y
            1. So the haddock I had in Whitby last Friday, what was that?
               1. Lunch.
                  1. Actually, there’s no such thing as lunch.
                     1. “Time is an illusion. Lunchtime, doubly so” (Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy)
                     2. …unless you are a wimp
6. LOI was OUTLAW because the parsing is fiendish. I loved it! MISS IONA cracked me up, had to figure out the answer before I saw her. My FOI was actually RAITA, which has no doubt been my last (or never) before, and I was glad to get that out of the way (seems it’s often served up by Rita).
7. I was expecting a serious challenge today, but this was a bit on the tame side. Time 31 mins.

   FOI 3dn U-BOAT

   LOI 21dn FISCAL

   COD None

   WOD 14dn CHARABANC – redolent of Wake’s Week in Stockport, when t’ ‘charas’ drove in procession to Blackpool; balm cakes, beer and draught champagne at Yates’s.

   These are not the days.

   Edited at 2020-10-20 07:28 am (UTC)

8. I was fully prepared for pink squares to appear after coming up with nothing better than PUSHTU and PURGE as my last two answers. The former just looked unlikely and not knowing the Pride referred to I couldn’t make much sense of the latter. I did wonder if there was a typo and it was meant to say “this historical act”.

   I liked “Cloth worker” for SERGEANT but my COD to COMMISSIONAIRE and the Scottish beauty therein. Very nice clue.

9. At least I wasn’t alone in not knowing Colonel Pride… Still, a snappy 26 minutes with that being the only one I really couldn’t parse, as it turned out I’d guessed correctly that it might be the Pashtuns who spoke Pushtu.

   I thought this was going to be tougher going once I’d looked at all four of the long edge answers and failed to get any of them to start with, but once I’d got 3d U-BOAT everything flowed quite freely.

10. It is a Chinese black tea but the ‘down’ is white which turns black after fermentation/drying.

    In the 1930s, Brooke Bond launche a new tea market in the United Kingdom under the name Pre-Gestee – a variant of the original name ‘Digestive Tea’. The name implied that it could be drunk prior to eating food, as a digestive aid. Grocers and salesmen abbreviated it to PG.

    After the Second World War, labelling regulations ruled out describing tea as aiding digestion and by 1950/1 the PG name was adopted. The company added “Tips” referring to the fact that only the tips (the top two leaves and bud) of the tea plants are used in the blend.皮科

    1. Thanks for the tea trivia horryd 🙂
    2. Thanks, horryd. Something to store away for future use.
       1. In about 1994 I appeared an a Channel Four panel quiz show called ‘P & Qs'(Host Tony Slattery) which covered elements of etiquette etc. We all had to ‘blind taste’ a specific teas – mine was Lapsang Suchong which I knew well. One day I will bore you silly with the story of this remarkable brew.
          1. I go more for the Darjeelings, which are not cheap. I don’t care for the really expensive ones – who would spend $15 to drink a cup of flowers? There are some good Darjeeling tea estates that produce moderate-price teas that are a bit more robust.
             1. Lapsang is a black not a green tea and is more akin to Darjeeling but has a far stronger, smokier taste and for good reason. It is no way flowery like jasmine, but the Chinese drink rose-bud tea and the white Pu-ers which are very expensive.
                1. The top Darjeelings are even more expensive than the Chinese whites. You can get a good downy white Pekoe from China for under $20 for 40 grams here in the US, but the top Darjeelings are nearly $50 for 40 grams.

                   Fortunately, I don’t like the expensive teas. A nice first flush organic Darjeeling from one of the moderately-priced estates is $15-20 for 125 grams. The blends are even cheaper, and they’re really quite drinkable.

11. …Bats go zigzag by.
    Ambushed in shadow beyond sight
    The outlaws lie.

    Less than 15 mins pre-brekker. Too easy, but I liked Miss Iona.
    I once did a Clue Writing entry for ‘September’ which was: Miss nine out of twelve? (9)
    It didn’t win.
    Thanks setter and J.

    1. I once submitted ten entries to a wordplay competition hoping that one of them might win but no pun in ten did.
       1. And you were surprised?
12. 16 minutes, the last two or three on PUSHTU, hoping to find it was the language of the Pashtuns when I came here. This was a very nicely constructed crossword with LOL moments such as CIRCULAR LETTER, COLOUR SERGEANT and Miss Iona in COD COMMISSIONAIRE. Mind you, only just over 100 people live on the island, so sheep are allowed to enter too, and usually win. Thank you Jack and setter.
13. 12 1/2 minutes, so very much on the easy side. I think you had to get the (not difficult) answer to 1d before spotting the Hebridean beauty, but that was fun. I also liked the O.
    PUSHTU with its unlikely crossing letters I left until last, and got it when I stopped trying to make U(rge) the first letter.
14. 17:50
    No dramas. Thanks jack.
15. But a typo with ABREAAT
16. Thanks for PURGE, Jack. Good to learn something new.
    I thought the only really obvious QC candidate was CHECKMATE.
    COD to COMMISSIONAIRE for MISS IONA.
17. The weather is rainy and wet
    The annoyance today is SWIFTLET,
    So I thus unfetter
    My wrath at the setter
    What part of “Too many birds” don’t you get?
    1. If your ears were burning around half an hour ago, it was because I harboured evil thoughts over a NHO science answer in a bird-free QC.
       1. It sounds as though the QC might be the place for me!
       2. Ethene or Vega?

          Both were “hidden” answers, so the setter was being quite kind.

18. 14:09. Held up by the unknown PUSHTU and Colonel Pride, uncomfortable that URGE was in the clue above. Took a while to see SWIFTLET too, despite having read U’s comment last Monday about Bird’s Nest Soup.
19. 14:26. I got badly stuck at the end with AERIALIST, CHARABANK, FISCAL (hidden, doh!), and KNITWEAR in the bottom half and SWIFTLET at the top. Straightforward until then. A couple of unknowns but I did know PUSHTU and have come across Pride’s PURGE in a past puzzle.
20. COD to COMMISSIONAIRE, made me laugh when the penny dropped. First six across answers went straight in.

    11′ 26″, with two minutes on SWIFTLET. Thanks jack and setter.

21. Would have been a lot faster if I hadn’t got stuck on ABREAST/PURGE. NHO Pride’s Purge.

    COD: COMMISSIONAIRE for Miss Iona.

    Yesterday’s answer: the largest city in Vietnam is Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon (the airport code is still SGN).

    Today’s question: what river runs through Norwich?

    1. Same here. Was heading for well under 1o minutes till I hit the same wall with ABREAST and PURGE.
    2. River Wylye entering Nadder system at the start, I’m not sure? (6)
    3. Both bridge partnerships meet with hesitation. This is bridged in Norwich.
22. Thanks for the tea tips, I had always the P was Pekoe so the G was Golden. Shattered illusions, better replaced by facts.
    1. Dài-fū is the Chinese for doctor, which was the derivation of the brand Typhoo Tea, and now’t to do with typhoons!
       But then there’s one’s GP’s tips.

       (P&G – Papua & New Guinea and Proctor & Gamble will shatter no illusions.)

23. Last two in were EMBRASURE and the unknown PUSHTO. Re the former, it’s so long since we’ve had BRA for support that I actually considered BACK and BEAR before BRA.
24. 12.15. A good bit easier than yesterday but still some nicely constructed clues. My favourite was aerialist. FOI colour sergeant, LOI interact.

    Thanks setter and blogger for getting the day underway with a spring in my step.

25. Pleasing puzzle. Mostly not difficult, but some enjoyable moments where a little lateral thought was required, like MISS IONA and the SWIFT LET. Pride’s Purge, like most English history, is something I think I know best from 1066 And All That, which makes me wonder if I actually know what it’s about…
26. Still, the grimly average checkmate and submarine clues are more than made up for by the Scots lass. Stuck as one or two others at the end by the bird with the darting name. 21’58.
27. Same source as Tim for this. According to S&Y the Cromwellian SERGEANT-majors would confront small boys dressed like Little Lord Fauntleroy with questions like “How’s your father?” and when they couldn’t answer correctly would give them Pride’s nasty medicine. 14.14
    1. That’s the one. A bit like Morton’s Fork.
28. Game of 2 halves with all but 5 clues done in record time. However the EMBRASURE held up the completion for ages, as I was looking at the clue all wrong. Once that was in, it all went swimmingly. LOI PURGE NHO MR PRIDE and his purge, so I had no idea what was going on. Didn’t help that purge was in another clue and I wondered if the setter was happy with repeating him/herself.
29. Didn’t parse COMMISSIONAIRE – now that it’s been explained I really like it. Wasn’t sure about COLOUR SERGEANT either, not knowing the rank or “serge” as a cloth, but with the checkers it had to be. NHO of PEKOE either, but the cluing was fair. I don’t help myself by repeatedly interpreting “heartless” as “remove everything bar the first and last letter”, which held up NORWICH as I was looking for a city ending in CE.

    FOI U-boat
    LOI Pushtu
    COD Commissionaire

30. Held up at the end by EMBRASURE and PUSHTU. An enjoyable puzzle. 25:24, which I was surprised to find put me at 118 on the Leaderboard, so I obviously found it trickier than most. Thanks setter and Jack.
31. 8:42 – biffed COLOUR SERGEANT but got most of the rest, I thought it was a nice puzzle for wordplay.
32. About 45 minutes with LOI ABREAST. Prior to that held up by PURGE,NORWICH and SWIFTLET. Had no idea about the Pride story -thanks for that-and also failed to parse OUTLAW but it seemed OK. PUSHTU unknown.
    I had one wrong in the QC so this was a morale booster.
    David
33. Well, it seems I am well behind the rest of you. Not only was it 40 plus mins but as my crummy writing at 10 ac looked like porer, I could never get EMBRASURE. Bunged in ESPLANADE for no good reason other than it is an open space. Also therefore had PASHTU. which again I couldn’t explain. NHO PEKOE or AERIALIST, so altogether a dreadful morning. I am currently standing in the naughty corner! Thanks J for the blog.
34. ….although NHO PUSHTU, and parsed both COMMISSIONAIRE and BRING UP THE REAR afterwards.

    FOI MICROFILM
    LOI ABREAST
    COD SWIFTLET
    TIME 7:22

35. Only our second attempt at the 15×15 and, even though the general consensus is that it’s on the easier side, we were pleased to solve all but 3 clues. No idea of our time but it was definitely less than an hour and we enjoyed it!

    FOI: u boat
    LOI: swiftlet
    COD: commissionaire

    Thanks for the blog Jackkt

36. Pleasant medium crossword, a few too-easy clues, some good ones, 30 minutes. SWIFT LET gets my CoD vote.
37. Not too bad at 37 minutes and there were only a couple of unknowns – PUSHTU and EMBRASURE. I struggled with NORWICH as I, too, thought the ‘c’ & ‘e’ of crone would be in there somewhere. I also took ages to spot the hidden FISCAL.
    I enjoyed working out MICROFILM, KNITWEAR and ABREAST and my COD is COMMISSIONAIRE which I guessed before I parsed – very amusing!
    Thanks to the setter for the logical clues and to Jackkt for the comprehensive blog.
    1. I wasted time trying to fit CE in too:-)
38. Got stuck a bit towards the end. Thought of SWIFT and thought of the birds nest soup, before the parsing kicked in.

    EMBRASURE took a while to come through but helped to finish off the far right where BORER and PUSHTU were parsed into place.

39. 12 minutes for me. Just seemed to be write-ins most of the way. Took a while to parse outlaw. FOI U Boat. LOI outlaw (knew it was right, but). COD Charabanc.
40. I know it’s late, but I thought I’d enter my PB , 53:12 and first ever sub one hour.
    1. Congratulations, a significant milestone. Next stop 45 mins?
    2. Well done!
41. 13:06. Well, I wondered where Monday’s puzzle had got to. Though in fairness as much as I breezed through this there were some nice touches, the impatient landlord and the Hebridean beauty for example.

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