Times Cryptic 27896

Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 30 minutes. Mostly straightforward, I believe, so let’s get on with it…

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 Record struggle for club player? (4,6)
DISC JOCKEY : DISC (record), JOCKEY (struggle – for position). We often have ‘disco’ for ‘club’.
6 Change hands over (4)
SWAP : PAWS (hands – slang) reversed [over]. There’s something recently familiar about this clue.
9 Draw a secretive cuckoo (10)
EVISCERATE : Anagram [cuckoo] of A SECRETIVE. Being hanged, drawn and quartered involved evisceration.
10 Obscure promotion, dismissing second book (4)
BLUR : BLUR{b} (promotion) [dismissing second book – b]
12 Criterion was reformulated in a different way (12)
CONTRARIWISE : Anagram [reformulated] of CRITERION WAS
15 Plant collector finding her way around island (9)
HERBALIST : HER + ST (way) contains [round] BALI (island)
17 Gun control is reversed, not gradually eroded (5)
LUGER : REGUL{ate} ([control) reversed [not, gradually eroded – ate away at]
18 Bachelor leaves dog something valuable (5)
ASSET : {b}ASSET (dog) [bachelor – b – leaves]. More usually ‘basset hound’ but in doggie circles ‘hound’ is taken as read.
19 Start January by visiting and opening base (5-4)
FIRST-FOOT : FIRST (opening), FOOT (base). The New Year custom is usually associated with Scotland, but other places do it too.
20 Second trial dropped in place of overall cuts? (8,4)
SHEARING SHED : S (second), HEARING (trial), SHED (dropped). Lucky sheep! It’s now 14 weeks since my last haircut.
24 Prophet of a second coming before end of Christmas (4)
AMOS : A, MO (second), {christma}S [end]. He has his own book of the Bible.
25 Circulate, but it’s dire going around (10)
DISTRIBUTE : Anagram [going round] of BUT IT’S DIRE
26 A piece of cake is lardy, lacking in grain (4)
EASY : {gr}EASY (lardy) [lacking in grain – gr]
27 Mice emptied place for grain left over in London, say (10)
METROPOLIS : M{ic}E [emptied} then SILO (place for grain) + PORT (left) reversed [over]
Down
1 One using colours of very poor quality, reportedly (4)
DYER : Sounds like [reportedly] “dire” (of very poor quality)
2 Son needs head covering in strong draught (4)
SWIG : S (son), WIG (head covering)
3 Light lifting device round channel navy used to hold tons (4-1-7)
JACK-O-LANTERN : JACK (lifting device), O (round), then LANE (channel) + RN (navy) containing [used to hold] T (tons). This has several meanings, one being simply a man with a lantern e.g. a night watchman. Another is a lantern made of the rind of a large turnip or a pumpkin, in which holes are cut to represent eyes, nose, and mouth – these days ubiquitous at Halloween. And finally, it’s another name for ignus fatuus, a phosphorescent light seen hovering or floating over marshy ground, perhaps due to the combustion of methane. See also 11dn.
4 Vehicle made to carry a weight (5)
CARAT : CART (vehicle) contains [to carry] A. A measure of gold and precious stones.
5 Fan, perhaps, of decommissioned vehicle? (9)
EXTRACTOR : EX (decommissioned), TRACTOR (vehicle)
7 Foot could be protected by this   prime minister (10)
WELLINGTON : Two meanings
8 Commit to preserve right for upper class (10)
PERPETRATE : PERPET-U-ATE (preserve) becomes PERPET-R-ATE when R (right) stands in [for] U (upper class)
11 Article in wood is parking light seen at night (4-1-3-4)
WILL-O-THE-WISP : THE (definite article) contained by [in] WILLOW (wood), IS, P (parking). Figuratively this is used to describe an elusive person but it’s also another name for ignus fatuus – see 3dn.
13 Scrooge, perhaps keeping large amount in rough casket (10)
CHEAPSKATE : HEAP (large amount) contained by [in] anagram [rough] of CASKET
14 Rich oppress our organising (10)
PROSPEROUS : Anagram [organising] of OPPRESS OUR
16 Like children lined up around worker? (9)
INFANTILE : IN FILE (lined up) containing [around] ANT (worker)
21 Butterfly perched on the first down, regularly (5)
SATYR : SAT (perched), {d}Y{e}R (the first down – the answer at 1dn) [regularly]. There’s a convention that direct cross-references to numbered clues have to be written in numerals rather than words but if it still applies it’s circumvented here by use of the ordinal number, ‘first’.  I didn’t know the butterfly.
22 Earthmovers removing sleepers and rubbish (4)
BULL : BULL{dozers} [earthmovers} [removing sleepers]
23 Girl arrested at Stonehenge starts to excavate some stones (4)
TESS : T{o} E{xcavate} S{ome} S{tones} [starts]. This is a reference to Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbevilles. Wiki has a summary for those wishing to know more about her.

76 comments on “Times Cryptic 27896”

  1. Slowest time for awhile, and yet I agree it was straightforward. My main problems were a complete inability to see the anagrams (and there were many) for a very long time. Next was FIRST-FOOT, which I didn’t know, and was stumped on for probably 6-7 minutes. It was only reconsidering the meaning of ‘base’ that allowed me to finally finish.

    That still would have put my time closer to 30 than to 20, and the reason for this was that I was truly stumped on the LUGER / PERPETRATE crossing. I suspected the former was ‘gun’ = LUGER but had no idea how to prove it. And I also had the right idea for PERPETUATE -> PERPETRATE (which is lovely, by the way), but couldn’t think of either word no matter how hard I tried.

    So for me this was a mostly straightforward puzzle, but with a hard corner, and one really tricky word.

  2. After a slow start (FOI AMOS), I was all done at 15′, except for FIRST-FOOT & PERPETRATE, and I spent 5′ or so trying to remember FIRST-_O__, which I’d come across once, here. Finally looked it up, and that gave me PERPETRATE. I didn’t understand where the YR of SATYR came from until after submitting.
    1. My time for this grid wasn’t great
      Took a long time to see PERPETRATE
      I thought there was a risk
      That DISC might be disk
      But no birds today. I elate.
  3. As you say, Jack, “mostly straightforward”. Thanks for explaining 8d and for the nature notes on WILL-O-THE-WISP and JACK-O-LANTERN.
    I’ve never heard of the butterfly, either.
    Solving early today as I want to concentrate on the Test in Chennai the last day of which starts in just under 2 hrs.
    1. Clearing the decks for the Test was clearly a good idea, unless you’re Indian, of course.

      Edited at 2021-02-09 09:10 am (UTC)

  4. Wrote DISK Jockey without a second thought – would that pass muster in the champs, or be marked as a mistake? Otherwise same as others, trying to remember if first-foot was a thing from past puzzles, saw the parsing for SATYR, and needed an alphabet trawl for SWIG. Thanks setter and Jack.
    1. Well that’s a possibility that never occurred to me as I didn’t know it existed with that spelling, but I note Collins allows it. My understanding was that ‘disk’ is only used in computer terminology.
      1. I’d always thought the k/c thing was a US/UK thing, and I see that SOED (sv disc) says that ‘disk’ is the usual spelling in the US and in computing. This being the Times, I don’t think I’ve ever been tempted to write K; I’m not sure how I’d spell it anymore, rather like licence/license.
        1. I’m an Australian engineer, so when I grew up in the 60s ‘disc’ was the correct spelling, but since about 1970 under the influence of US technical literature it has always been disk. But that’s technical people; no idea how ravers spell disc/k jockey.
    2. I also had disk jockey
      I’d like to think that would be ok as it’s in the dictionary but ..,
  5. I found this reasonably straightforward except for my last three — PERPETRATE, SATYR and SHEARING SHED. I think the clue for PERPETRATE is excellent — such a smooth surface. Elsewhere I thought EXTRACTOR felt like the very definition of chestnut, reminding me as it did of the joke about an ex tractor fan.
    Having had the recent Flanders and Swann theme I thought it interesting to see JACK-O-LANTERN and WILL-O-THE-WISP today. Is this the start of a move towards themed puzzles?
  6. I always thought it was JACK-A-LANTERN which is what it started out as in my grid. Finally I was reminded of how long it took me to forgive Hardy for Tess’s ending.
    1. Got so depressed with Tess that I never reached Stonehenge!
      Thanks to blogger for the parsing of 8d PERPETRATE that defeated me.
      Andyf
  7. This took me 35 minutes and I thought it was a tad tougher than Lord Snitch indicated (85 not out).

    FOI 9ac EVISCERATE

    LOI 22dn BULL

    COD 8dn PERPETRATE

    WOD 3dn JACK O LANTERN and his twin brother 14dn WILL O THE WISP

  8. …Drove Nymph and Satyr from the prosperous woods.

    25 mins pre-brekker left the First Foot. Good one.
    At 1ac my thinking went… a club player might be a DJ. What do DJs struggle with on records? DUST JACKET, obviously — so started to write that in. Then thought, actually DJ might be better. What a mess.
    Thanks setter and J.

    Edited at 2021-02-09 08:05 am (UTC)

  9. FOI 6A: SWAP

    Everything fell into place until I ground to halt at around 20m on 20A: with SHEARING _H_ _ and 21D: with _ _T_R. I had never heard of SATYR and the shed evaded me.

    Thank you, jackkt and the setter.

  10. 12:55 finishing with SHED and TESS (never having read the book). Neat stuff. COD to SWIG.
  11. Done while watching cricket, so no time to offer. I was too excited. LOI was BULL where I took a while over the damned obvious. COD to SHEARING SHED. I could do with a barber right now too. Enjoyable accompaniment to the main event. Thank you Jack and setter.
  12. DYER went in first, then the rest of the NW fell easily, apart from SWIG, which needed an alphabet trawl, later in the proceedings, once EVISCERATE had arrived. I hopped around the grid, following crossing letters as they appeared. JACK-O-LANTERN only yielded ASSET, but AMOS and EASY yielded PROSPEROUS, which opened things up a bit. The SE gradually arrived after WILL-O-THE-WISP, and I finished in the NW after a tussle with LUGER and finally PERPETRATE, which took a while. Didn’t know SATYR as a butterfly, but got it from wordplay. SAT was easy enough, but dYeR took longer to spot. Liked SHEARING SHED. 29:54. Thanks setter and Jack.
  13. Well, I thought I’d finished in 45 mins but I had FIRST-POST, not really understanding the clue. And that’s after considering FIRST-DOWN, first, if you see what I mean. I put in SATYR, not knowing the butterfly and, after checking, my dictionary doesn’t know it either. Never heard of the Ignus whotsit, so thanks, Jack, for that. Enjoyed the rest so thank you setter too. 9 ac was a good clue.
    1. Let me guess – you watched the superbowl yesterday. And, perhaps, like me, suffered some Thomas Love.
      1. You have found me out! What with the cricket, the rugby and the SB it’s been a busy weekend, in an armchair and with a decent glass of rosé of course.
          1. Come on down to sunny Provence, bring a large satellite dish, a forgiving wife and a few shekels for the rosé.
  14. 13.30, so technically easier than yesterday, but satisfying.
    My first thought for the head covering at 2d was HAT, so I was relieved when the A became impossible, but still left it to the last.
    I also delayed while working out why LUGER was right, but both the long ones were only vaguely parsed given the spacing. Rare to have two single letters neither of which was A.
    I liked PERPETRATE once I saw how it worked.

    If Jimmy Anderson keeps on getting better at 38 as he appears to be doing, does it mean it I could still go for a career in test cricket at my age?

    1. Hate to harp on it, but yesterday 43-y-o Tom Brady led his previously underachieving (but excellent) team to a “world” Championship. His second “world” Championship since he turned 40, in a game that is much more brutal and strenuous than cricket.
      1. Granted on the age thing, and clearly in his field a fine player, but more brutal and strenuous than cricket? Hm. 15 minutes actual action punctuating 3 hours of adverts, replays and whatnot. When fielding, cricketers are on the go for 5 hours or more. Bowlers run hundreds of high intensity metres. Fielding close to the wicket can get clobbered with a solid ball moving at 90 miles an hour- no wonder they sometimes wear helmets and body protection, though way less than the NFL snowflakes. Batsman like the incredible Joe Root concentrate for hours at a stretch, can run a mile or more compiling a decent score, and (like Root in the current tests) can push themselves to the edge of exhaustion only to do it again the next day, and for days after that. Could Tom Daly manage 2 or 3 matches a day over 5 days without flagging? I wonder!

  15. 12:27. I started very slowly on this (only a couple in from my first pass through the acrosses), then sped up, then slowed down again. Trickiness from some hard-to-spot anagrams, unknown words, somewhat intractable short answers and fiddly wordplay. But all good fun.
    FIRST FOOTing is a practice I have only ever encountered in crosswords, and it took a while to remember.
  16. “Eisl” for “Easy”. I can’t recall seeing “gr” for “grain” before. Otherwise 15:40.

    COD: Shearing Shed.

  17. Steady but with several pauses for thought (and correction of JACK-A-LANTERN initially entered). A few biffs, excellently explained later by blogger, thx. Rather admired the wordplay of the METROPOLIS clue. More thanks to setter.
    1. Yes and he is the real deal, not a neutrino. He used to polish off the TLS in under 20.
      1. Literally can’t type that fast. I solve on paper then transcribe. Noticed my ‘time’ this morning was 3.35!
    2. I feel like I wouldn’t enjoy the crossword so much if I polished it off in three minutes. I imagine it being like downing a fine wine. Fortunately for me it’s never going to happen.
  18. Thanks Jack. Quick start then slowed down and ground to a halt before I finally saw PERPETRATE – I was sidetracked by thinking it would end ITY for no good reason.
  19. Very neat puzzle. I’m glad others found the anagrams tough, I thought I was just slow. First rate surface readings all over the place – AMOS caught my fancy. 15.56
  20. Mostly done in 12 mins but the 4 or 5 holes held me up at the end. Could have reverse engineered DYER had I known SATYR. No idea about LUGER except that it had something to do with REGULATE. LOI SWIG took too long thinking of kinds of hat.
    And yes COD AMOS. Very neat
  21. Lots of hyphens today, which helped with getting some long entries in quickly – some of which I biffed or semi-biffed, although putting JACK-A-LANTERN at first. Happily 12a was clearly an anagram that didn’t have two As in it, so I was set right before too long.

    All done in 5m 07s with PERPETRATE taking the longest to fall, and my LOI. METROPOLIS is a very nice breakdown.

  22. I was way off wavelength for this, for example only considering a raft of hats for SWIG and struggling to unravel obvious anagrams like PROSPEROUS.
  23. A third of my 31 minutes was spent looking at an empty grid, but once the dam burst it was easy going.
  24. Snitch says this was harder than yesterday. However, I laboured mightily for 25 minutes yesterday, yet waltzed through this in 17:20. That was inflated by 3 or 4 minutes on 2 inoffensive 4 letter clues – BULL and then an alpha-trawl for SWIG (misdirected towards a wind, no doubt as intended). BULL and PERPETRATE were favourites.

    Wavelength is a very important factor in these puzzles.

  25. Around 20m today with too much of it on my LOI, PERPETRATE. An enjoyable solve, though the ignis fatuus references unhappily brought ‘Jane Eyre’ to mind, as Jane says: ‘That is an ignis fatuus,” was my first thought; and I expected it would soon vanish,’ which always struck me as odd thought for a young girl wandering on her own in the wilds. Not my favourite novel. Thanks to both Jack and setter today.
  26. Slow to get going — only about a third done after twenty mins.

    Plenty I didn’t parse e.g. LUGER which I wrote in from first two checkers, PERPETRATE needed all of the checkers to confirm my suspicion.

    CONTRARIWISE could see the CONTRA part but couldn’t make sense of the rest of the letters for a while.

    Wondered if DYER was DOER (sounds like DOUR) though wasn’t convinced.

    LOI SATYR following SHEARING SHED — didn’t know there was specifically a place to do SHEARING — just thought it was done any old place where a sheep could be secured….

  27. After 6 minutes I only had 2D left, but despite 3 alpha-trawls I totally failed to see SWIG, and gave up after 11 minutes. I didn’t know the Stonehenge connection, having not read any Hardy, but it was easy enough to solve the clue.

    COD LUGER

  28. 25.18 but held up by a brain fade over swig. Had to go through the alphabet a couple of times before it clicked. Luger and perpetrate also took a while but having worked out the latter, luger had to be right.

    FOI eviscerate, LOI swig.

  29. With 8 minutes alpha trawling for SWIG. In illustrious company with Mr Jordan on that one ( but not on the 6 minutes he took to rattle off the rest!)

    JACK O LANTERN and WILL O THE WISP straight in which helped. Anagrams were tricky. PERPETRATE too neat for me and shamelessly biffed. Liked SHEARING SHED

    Thanks all

  30. I’ll join Phil in the failed to find SWIG club; I could not improve on SLID. I also failed to find the butterfly and the Shed after SHEARING.
    Otherwise I thought this was a bit easier than yesterday.
    Could not parse PERPETRATE- thanks for that.
    David
  31. Very slow out of the blocks but then gradually got a toe-hold until finally I spent a good 5 minutes on 2 down where I wisely decided to continue my alphabet trawl past “SLID”.
  32. I really thought I was set for another (ie a second ever) sub hour finish with just 6 and 10ac, and 8d, extant with a good 10mins to spare. Swap and Blur didn’t take too long, but I was left hopping all over the place in search of the definition in 8d: commit to, right, upper-class, right for upper class all had their day in court, but I needed Jackkt’s blog to understand what was intended. So, a rather disappointing end to what was otherwise a very enjoyable solve. Invariant
  33. 47-ish minutes. I found this mostly straightforward but struggled to get perpetrate and was then completely baffled by LOI first-foot. I had no idea what was going on there and after ages trying to break down the clue and then another age alpha-trawling, ended up throwing it in in desperation, a bit surprised to find no pink squares after submitting.
  34. Me too on couldn’t think of the obvious Swig, and put First Foot in on faith. Luger didnt really work for me, ate is a stretch for gradually erode in this part of town. Thx jack
  35. You have all finished and gone hours ago, but I wandered in from QC Land late this evening, picked at a few clues, then a few more, and eventually finished. Encouraging.
    1. At least the blogger sees late posts as we are notified by email when something new is added. If you usually do the QC and this is a rare attempt at the main puzzle you did very well to finish this one as it was by no means straightforward even for some experienced solvers.

      Edited at 2021-02-09 11:38 pm (UTC)

  36. Wasn’t in the groove today and this took me ages — then LOI I entered “Gems” for “Tess”.
    Inexcusable — it’s not a hard clue and I’ve even read the book — although I don’t remember that she was arrested at Stonehenge. I do remember (spoiler alert!!) that she was hanged at Winchester prison (I live in Winchester).
    Had my jab today — that’s my excuse.
  37. I had 23 Down as ‘gems’. Meg arrested (back) with first letter of Stonehenge = stones

    Valid?

    1. Afraid not. ‘Stones’ could serve as a definition of ‘gems’ but your wordplay fails on several counts starting with ‘arrested’ as a reversal indicator which doesn’t work.
      1. I got Gem from Gemma (i.e. arrested = shortened) plus an S from “Stonehenge starts”. But I acknowledge that the wordplay does not really work. I simply failed to see Tess.

        Edited at 2021-02-10 12:06 pm (UTC)

        1. Mike, it may be helpful to remember that if a word is to be shortened (and I agree ‘arrested’ might indicate that) only one letter would be removed unless there was something else in the clue to indicate more than one letter.
  38. LOI was FIRST-FOOT, which took ages despite having all the checkers. Luckily, I didn’t put my foot in it by putting FIRST-POST thinking the definition might have been ‘base’.
    31’28”
    1. Actually there were two lots of drawing involved, firstly as you have correctly pointed out, the drawing by horse to the place of execution, and secondly (after the hanging) the disembowelling, evisceration or drawing of the innards. Quartering was the final stage, the division of the remaining carcase into four parts. My comment in the blog only said that evisceration was involved, but to fit with the setter’s definition ‘draw’ has to refer to disembowelling rather than the horsey bit.

      Edited at 2021-02-10 01:17 pm (UTC)

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