Times Cryptic 27842

71 comments on “Times Cryptic 27842”

1. I think you’re being a bit harsh on PAD, Jack. It’s in Collins as slang for residence and I still use it and hear it used. HIP too is pretty current in many people’s idiolects, I reckon.

   I managed to engage enough brain to avoid the ‘chump’ trap, but safely biffed a few others. RAPPROCHEMENT is one of those French words with too much of the whiff of appeasement to make me anything but uneasy. 23 minutes.

   1. I’d never heard this usage of “Joe”, and also DNK “Joe and the Juice”, whom I Googled. Near me we have the Trafford Centre (minimally preferable to having ones toenails pulled out with pliers), Manchester (inside Debenhams who have gone into administration, so probably about to vanish), or Liverpool (30 miles away), so I doubt I’ll be visiting any day soon.

      This post should be further down the blog – sorry folks.

      Edited at 2020-12-08 05:38 pm (UTC)

2. …and nearly fell asleep, which may explain my time of 60 minutes even. It is really not difficult for those who are wide-awake. I had “pin” as the second element 9, which made things difficult. I ended up struggling with bolshy and happier, not knowing the Hire Purchase abbreviation.

   Tribalism and enchant didn’t come easy either, even thought the enchant/penchant pair are quasi-chestnuts.

   1. I also had to “pull the pin”.
3. I had trouble at the end with PERCEIVE, my LOI. I could only see “describe”, “descrive”, and “reactive” for ages, but none fit the wordplay. Otherwise I found this pretty easy.
4. I liked the Culprit, and I’m indebted because I might finally have learnt to spell Rapprochement from this, but Latte is no more Joe than a tarted up country pile is a crash pad. If the high street ever opens again, jackkt, I’m sure you find a Joe and the Juice franchise near you. Nice blog, and the additional comments were good. Thanks, setter

   Edited at 2020-12-08 02:52 am (UTC)

   1. There’s no Joe and the Juice in Leighton Buzzard, but then we don’t have Starbucks either, although I have heard of the latter. A little research reveals the nearest J&J is in Aylesbury and there’s one at Luton airport, not that I ever go to either place.
   2. I went to one of the early Joe & the Juice stores in Copenhagen, and remember thinking it would never catch on. Fruit juice, but served to deafening house music by people with tattoos. Shows what I know.
   3. Funny that PLUS FOURS came up Sunday.
5. I blame the steroids.
6. Grumble, grumble. Yes, I was in the ‘chump’ camp for 2d (maybe appropriately), so has to be a DNF. I’d ‘umbly argue for it as a justifiable alternative (OK, second best) answer but ‘the computer says no’ I suppose. Otherwise I spent an unreasonable amount of time at the very end on LATTE, like our blogger never having heard of ‘Joe’ for ‘coffee’ and being put off by ‘rly’ instead of the usual ‘ry’ for ‘railway’.

   Plenty to make you think like BOLSHY and STYMIE, so I enjoyed this, not withstanding that one little pink square.

   Thanks to setter and Jack

   1. Yes, as Jack noted in the blog, I put in CHUMP and thought no more about it. I notice that Collins has definition 6 of “hump” is “To shoulder, to carry on the back (orig Aust)”, so maybe I was influenced by our local usage. In any event, it seems to me to be a reasonable alternative answer.

      I was pretty slow in any event. I had no idea about LATTE = Joe, so put it in from the cryptic alone.

      1. CHUMP never occurred to me, but I don’t see how it would work here: to hump is to carry, but not to put up with.
         Joe is a term I’ve never come across in real life, only in, say, hard-boiled detective fiction. As Paul suggests, the world of Joe is far away from the world of latte. I was surprised to hear of the Joe and the Juice chain, but I see that it was started in Denmark. I wonder how many customers think that Joe=coffee?
         1. Yes, you’re probably right on “hump”. I had a sense that both “put up with” and “hump” mean “bear”, but it’s not really close enough. CLUMP is definitely a better answer.
7. the last 5 minutes of which were devoted to HAPPIER & BOLSHY. I had the same problem as Vinyl, not knowing HP, so although HAPPIER came to mind soon enough, it took me ages to see how it might work. And I’d never seen BOLSHY before, only Bolshie, and that seldom enough. Liked EXULT. ‘Pad’ is a word I’ve never used and rarely heard; no doubt Ulaca hangs out in a hipper crowd.
8. I would have had the HUMP if I hadn’t latterly thought of LUMP. I didn’t think this was easy and nor does the snitch.
9. I’m not sure hump can mean put up with which leaves me feeling a CHUMP.
10. 11:51. I started very quickly on this but then slowed down to a more normal pace. All reasonably straightforward though.
    My sympathies to the CHUMP crowd: I can see it looks feasible if you’re in a hurry but ‘hump’ doesn’t mean ‘put up with’.
    ‘Pad’ for home is still reasonably common in my experience.
    1. I’d say it’s time to get a new experience, but.
11. 19:01 with 1 wrong – I was a CHUMP. I put a question-mark against it and forgot to revisit after my LOI, PERCEIVE. The SE corner was last as I failed to parse ARCHAIC so hesitated for a while over that.
12. Straightforward if a little dusty. By the time I got to 24a I expected neat to be OX. LATTE went in with a shrug. I kept thinking of the Brexit negotiations looking at the four long clues. Not sure BACKFIRE, BOLSHY, CULPRIT or STYMIE helped. I’ll concentrate on a HAPPIER outcome.
    1. Not to mention TRIBALISM and SABOTEURs. I had the same thought.

       Edited at 2020-12-08 08:36 am (UTC)

13. BOLSHY, HAPPIER and CLUMP were my last three in. “Hire purchase” must’ve come up before, but I didn’t remember. Had trouble trusting “rly” for “railway.”

    Edited at 2020-12-08 08:36 am (UTC)

14. 28.52. Not inspired again today but worked my way through eventually. Lulled into high expectations when backfire was my FOI but quickly put in my place after. One of those puzzles of two halves with right side filled in much quicker than left and the NW corner a slow plod.

    LOI bolshy. Still, an enjoyable puzzle with tribalism ,perceive and happier to the fore.

    Thanks setter and blogger, no need to apologise for extended explanations; we were all learners once .

15. As the countdown goes DOWN TO THE WIRE
    Will the old BOLSHY rocket BACKFIRE
    And PANIC STATIONS result?
    Or the LAUNCH PAD EXULT
    As they PERCEIVE a HAPPIER flier?
16. …Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float.

    25 mins. No dramas. I don’t like “doing” as an anagrind.
    The problem with the Clump clue is not that it could be Chump, it is the dangling “a”. Assuming the definition is ‘a clot’, the answer is ‘a clump’. I know, I know…most people don’t care.
    It could have been…..Clot, Charlie put up with (5).
    Thanks a setter and J.

    Edited at 2020-12-08 09:09 am (UTC)

    1. Totally agree regarding that dangling A. Slack !
17. 57 minutes on this toughie, at least for me, with LOI PERCEIVE. I’ve never heard of JOE for LATTE, but I thought it had to be that early on from the cryptic. Even so, it does seem too obscure to me. not having been in a coffee shop for nine months. Anyway, I drink mine black, a throwback to university days with no fridge available. I went for CLUMP without thinking of CHUMP, which I actually prefer as an answer I would always spell it as BOLSHIE, but then I had a Grannie not Granny, and live resolutely in the past. COD to MATCHBOOK. A difficult puzzle but just about soluble. Thank you Jack and setter.
    1. Did you try dissolving it in your black coffee then?

       🙂

       1. I did try Marvel and Coffeemate back then, but neither appeared to be soluble, a basic design flaw I would have thought.
18. Always have been… always will be…
19. After an awful start (just three clues in 12 mins), suddenly found my feet and wondered why it hadn’t clicked earlier.

    I did notice that there were a lot of clues where something was taken away from a word to produce another or part of another.

    1. I had the same thought about subtractions. Made things a little easier once I’d twigged
20. Those of us who do word games know JOE for coffee because it’s allowed when proper names aren’t. While the origins of the term are shrouded in mystery and dubious myth, the idea that it might be equivalent to LATTE is surely a non-starter: it’s US military weapons grade coffee, strong, black, scalding hot, and probably almost undrinkable.

    As for the rest, I’m glad I didn’t think of CHUMP, did an awful lot of working out the wordplay after an inspired guess (but I did stay to do it), and really only struggled with PERCEIVE, my last in.

    AS for alleged prolixity and “unnecessary” detail, Jack, if you’re under suspicion then I should already be in the slammer. Keep on doing what you do. It’s not as if we get paid!

    1. Do the setters get paid? I hope the editor does.
       1. They all do but not nearly enough considering how many people they keep sane every day.
          1. I think I remember £20 per puzzle being mentioned. Essentially it’s a labour of love.
             1. 20 quid sounds a bit cheap – I’d heard 250 quid, about 10 years ago. Maybe you’re averaging? There’s a stable of about 12 (?no idea?) setters, 6 crosswords a week, so they average about 0.5 crosswords a week or about 0.5 x 250 per 7 days or… 17 quid per crossword per day.
                The thing that stands out for me is that crosswords are done once, then ignored. No-one ever goes back in the archives and re-solves the thousands of puzzles that exist (I do). Some of them are brilliant – look up the memories link. But when I redo them, there’s no way for the setters to get royalties, as they should. Setters need a union? They need some improvement on the way the system works.
                1. I also try and improve by solving archived puzzles. It’s definitely helped to improve my times simply through more exposure to new words and those which frequently appear.
                2. I’m currently working my way through 2010 from the archives.
                3. I have a book of old puzzles on my bedside table that I’m working my way through steadily.

                   Edited at 2020-12-08 02:59 pm (UTC)

                   1. A book? How quaint 😉
                      1. Actually very deliberate: I always try to avoid screens for the last half-hour or so before I go to sleep.
                         1. I’m up to Puzzle 188 of 200 in the Big Book of Cryptic Crosswords Book 6 that we got as a hand-out at last year’s Championships, but I didn’t start until March.
21. I agree with Bolton’s finest that it’s bolshie and not BOLSHY at 1dn, but…

    FOI 1ac BACKFIRE

    LOI 26ac PERCEIVE

    COD 21ac ENCHANT

    WOD 11ac Joe is the drink of the common man – Joe – hence ‘Morning Joe (Scarborough)’.

    Time bang on the hour. Good puzzlement!

    1. So what time of day do you get that Horryd? We get it early a.m. of course.
22. Two years ago I was bumped up to the 15×15 when my wife from HK took over the Quickie. I am nowhere near the leaderboard yet, but I am improving on the “cheater board” with steadily reducing leg-ups from aids. After reading your intro, I wanted to reiterate just how useful these blogs have been in helping me make this transition. I am grateful to all of the bloggers who do this, but especially to Jack who explains things so clearly.
    1. You’re too kind, but your comments are much appreciated. Makes it all worthwhile!
23. Another CHUMP here. Also took a long time over LATTE (never heard of Joe in the coffee context, do not like RLY for railway). Otherwise enjoyed this puzzle.
24. Most of it went straight in, well under par, but the last few just about doubled my time: saboteur and russet (where I wanted costset, except it’s costard), archaic tribalism and perceive. Latte in with a shrug but otherwise quite a nice puzzle. Didn’t notice the Brexit connection: down to the wire/panic stations/rapprochement (needed the cryptic to spell it) and total amusement from the likes of me who isn’t British and won’t be affected if it’s a disaster.
    Lump it and hump it have different nuances for me – for once my feeling for the phrases matches the dictionaries.

    Edited at 2020-12-08 11:55 am (UTC)

25. Please don’t apologise for explaining the parsing clearly; surely that’s why most people will be looking?

    I found this very slow to get on the wavelength but steady once there were some crossers.

    Another “chump” I’m afraid.

26. I think perhaps “workmanlike” is the proper description, no great flights of fancy, but a bit of thought required to make sure everything was going in the right place. I must be well past it, as “pad” hasn’t left my lexicon, nor that of the cool dudes with whom I hang out (when allowed by the government, of course). Mind you, I’ve been listening to a lot of Round the Horne recently, so in future I intend to invite people back to my latty, possibly to have a vada at the crossword.

    I hope nobody has been suggesting to bloggers that they are stating the bleedin’ obvious by analysing clues in full and detailed manner. That would be rather missing the raison d’etre of this place…

    1. We accept cockney rhyming slang in clues but has a setter ever used polari?
       1. Not the Times, maybe, but I’ll wager it’s happened in one of the Guardian’s bijou crosswordettes
       2. Polari has leeched into the English lingo over many years, so it does get used as CRS by setters. Kenneth Williams and Hugh Paddick were the best known trading users.
          Chris Denning’s on-line site is worth a gander.
          Must scarper.

          Meldrew

       3. Almost certainly “Private Eye”.
    2. There’s been the occasional remark but nothing serious. I was thinking more that as seasoned solvers ourselves it’s easy to assume that everybody understands the things that we take for granted and so there’s no need to explain them. I try to see things through the eyes of newcomers to the main puzzles as there are many more of them since the arrival of the Quick Cryptic.

       TfTT has certainly come a long way since the earliest days when it was a forum written by champions for budding champions, when the explanations were minimal and almost written in code.

27. We don’t! I pick it up on YouTube.

    We get CNN live but half a day advanced. New Day in the evening. We used to get Fox News but about six months ago the Taiwanese satellite dropped it. I used to love watching Fox & Friends in the early evening – a live-action cartoon of ‘A Confederacy of Dunces’ particularly Dan Bongino and Pete Hesketh. BBC World is worthy but sooo dull ; Deutsche Weld is far better. Chinese news is totally unwatchable.

28. Another DNF. Stuck in the SW corner. COD RAPPROCHEMENT after a bit of work though. Will Brexit end in this?

    NHO joe for coffee but bunged in LATTE anyway.

    I agree with landloverchris that the blogs are an essential, and generally amusing, way of lmproving our skills (or lack of!) so please keep it up Ladies and Gentlemen.

29. Another disappointingly slow solve – 31’09”. But I see snitch rates it at 120. I am glad chump never occurred to me, or I might have put it in! Narrowly avoided putting off-line in, too.
30. Agree with Myrtilus. Clump and Chump leave the ‘a’ dangling. To ‘hump it’ and to ‘lump it’ are sufficiently close in meaning down here at the bottom of the world.
    35’24”
31. Happy to have dodged the CHUMP bullet and to have made steady progress throughout. No major headaches apart from (briefly) inventing a new apple called COSSET.
32. I’ve lurked around this blog for some years (and Big Dave’s and Fifteensquared too) being a “seasoned” but not particularly accomplished solver. I often complete perhaps 3/4 of a puzzle but get totally stuck on a few interlocking clues – as happened both yesterday and today (SW corner in both cases as it happens). And yes, today I was another chump. Trying to start with backlash didn’t help either.

    When all bloggers started to include the clues making it so much easier to follow, that was a welcome step forward. Having more detailed explanations for the one or two that one’s stumped by is much appreciated, so thank you. I set puzzles occasionally and know how long it takes to write out a full parse even when you’ve written the clues, so can understand that not all bloggers have time for that.

    If there’s one thing I wish for it’s to stop being told a clue I’ve not unraveled is a “write in” or a “chestnut” (not something that appears in Jack’s blogs, I know) as if I’m an even bigger chump for not putting it in instantly. Fair enough, if you’ve seen a word clued in a similar way several times (and remembered it!) it will be familiar. But not to all of us.

    1. Fair comment, and I’ll cough to it guv.
    2. I would say that describing something as a “chestnut” is no slight on the person who is seeing that clue for the first ever time, but a nod to those long-suffering others who will be seeing it for the half-dozenth.Which is not to say a “chestnut” is a bad clue… they get rolled out so often for the reason that they are more than sufficient for their job!
33. …but otherwise made heavy weather of things in a little under 55 mins. Third in a bad run which, to judge from comments here, doesn’t seem to be attributable to any unusual knottiness in the puzzles themselves.
34. I got fed up with the LOI 26a and chucked in DESCRIBE as it fitted. Not a typical Tuesday then, and I’ll stick with my cuppa tea thanks. Joe for coffee? Hmmm
35. I’m a chump. Ok so lump is a better synonym for put up with but chump is a better clot. Unrepentant
36. ….to complain about this one ? “Joe” has been beaten to death above (is tea known as “Fred” to Murcans ?) and Myrtilus’s complaint about the floating A in the clue for CLUMP also applies to AMUSEMENT PARK. “An inspiration = a muse” in my book, and thus I was left trying to justify “pt = likely”, my ark being at the end. I parsed RAPPROCHEMENT afterwards. Didn’t much enjoy it.

    FOI BACKFIRE
    LOI OFF-SITE
    COD DOWN TO THE WIRE
    TIME 14:46

37. 20.22. Enjoyable enough, nothing too difficult. Bolshy and archaic needed a bit of working out though. As others have said latte didn’t seem quite right for a strong cup of Joe.
38. I got through most of this without too much rending of garments and gnashing of teeth, but having thought of CHUMP and discarded it for CLUMP, was left with L_T_E and OFF-_I_E. I assumed JOE must be coffee and RLY the unlikely railway, but fully expected to see pink squares. I did, but not for LATTE. I had a total blind spot with OFF-LINE shoved in as a despairing last throw of the dice. 36:28 WOE. Thanks setter and Jack.

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