Times Cryptic 27908

Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic

My solving time of 55 minutes is evidence that I didn’t find this at all easy despite there being a handful of clues that would not be out of place in a Quick Cryptic. There’s some tricky stuff to balance this however and one or two clues that were easier to solve than to explain in the blog.

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 Tours regularly around Naples, originally coming from Florence? (6)
TUSCANT{o}U{r}S [regularly], CA (around – circa),  N{aples} [originally]
4 One on a dash, nothing to prevent covering over a mile (8)
ODOMETER : 0 (nothing), DETER (prevent) containing [covering] O (over – cricket) + M (mile). It’s usually part of the speedometer on the dashboard of a car.
10 Publicise, year upon year, entertainment of a delicate nature (4-5)
AIRY-FAIRY : AIR (publicise), Y (year B) + FAIR (entertainment), Y (year A).  The ‘A on B = BA’ rule for Across clues is applied here using ‘upon’ instead.
11 Ring America after the peak (5)
TORUS : TOR (peak), US (America). Known from crosswords only.
12 Bird made of silver unwanted at first in auction (7)
SEAGULL : AG (silver) + U{nwanted} [at first] contained by [in] SELL (auction)
13 Part of body shape swollen by organ (7)
FOREARM : FORM (shape) containing [swollen by] EAR (organ)
14 Risk a car crash, when two metals collide? (3,2)
CUT IN : CU + TIN (two metals). A dangerous practice indeed but sometimes necessary in order to avoid something worse.
15 Against coins not using English metal? Sort of (8)
ANTIMONY : ANTI (against), MON{e}Y (coins) [not using English]. I’m sure one of our resident scientists will explain the definition if required, but I’m not going there.
18 Mercenary ruing he’d fired (5,3)
HIRED GUN : Anagram [fired] of RUING HE’D
20 Cold store for wine with a hidden compartment (5)
CABIN : C (cold) + BIN (store for wine) containing [with… hidden] A. Wine sellers often advertise ‘end of bin’ bargains.
23 Complain pathetically about idiot revelry (7)
WASSAIL : WAIL (complain pathetically) containing [about] ASS (idiot)
25 Stomach feeble returning musical phrase (7)
MIDRIFF : DIM (feeble) reversed [returning], RIFF (musical phrase). Not the internal workings.
26 In American city, possesses capital (5)
LHASA : HAS (possesses) contained by [in] LA (American city). Tibet.
27 Hotels cover the earth profusely (2,7)
IN NUMBERS : INNS (hotels) contain [cover] UMBER (the earth). SOED has ‘umber’ as a red-brown earth containing iron and manganese oxides.
28 Say, a call in court is rejected by union instruction (8)
TUTELAGE : TU (Trades union), then EG (say) + A + LET (call in court – tennis) reversed [rejected]
29 Team of lawyers in literary county (6)
BARSET : BAR SET (team of lawyers). Anthony Trollope country. It’s more usually referred to as Barsetshire, but the final book in the series is called The Last Chronicle of Barset.
Down
1 Carry out a couple of poles to plant in piece of land (8)
TRANSACT : A + N S (couple of poles) contained by [to plant in] TRACT (piece of land)
2 Maid watchful when old bachelor goes missing (7)
SERVANT : {ob}SERVANT (watchful) [old bachelor goes missing]
3 Prosperity supplies a barrier to restrict disease (9)
AFFLUENCE : A, FENCE (barrier) contains [to restrict] FLU (disease)
5 People following rich individual coming in today, moving fast (3,2,9)
DAY OF ATONEMENT : FAT (rich) + ONE (individual) + MEN (people) contained by [coming in] anagram [moving] of TODAY
6 Engine‘s temperature fell all round (5)
MOTOR : MOOR (fell) containing [all round] T (temperature)
7 Ground where reptile doesn’t keep quiet (7)
TERRAIN : TERRA{p}IN (reptile) [doesn’t keep quiet – p]
8 Employer turned up yours truly’s CV (6)
RESUMÉ : USER (employer) reversed [turned up], ME (yours truly)
9 Author prepared to admit claim to be of high standard? (7,7)
WILLIAM GOLDING : WILLING (prepared) containing [to admit] I AM GOLD (claim to be of high standard). The Lord of the Flies man.
16 Solid surface, one on a nut (9)
MACADAMIA : MACADAM (solid surface), I (one), A
17 Sport’s over: fits horribly and dies (6,2)
SNUFFS IT : FUN’S (sport’s) reversed [over], anagram [horribly] of FITS
19 Isn’t an awfully short time? It is (7)
INSTANT : Anagram [awfully] of ISN’T AN, then T (short time). Thanks to Z.
21 One line crossed by old farmers, tough old birds (7)
BOILERS : I ((one) + L (line) contained [crossed] by BOERS (old farmers)
22 Fabric cut: it is seen in a soft glow (6)
TWILIT : TWIL{l} (fabric) [cut], IT
24 A niqab is said to be useful (5)
AVAIL : Sounds like [said] “a veil” (a niquab)

72 comments on “Times Cryptic 27908”

  1. A strange puzzle, wherein most of it got biffed, but I paid for it in the end with about 10 minutes wrestling with the lower-right corner: BARSET (makes total sense in retrospect), BOERS/BOILERS, FUN/SNUFFS IT, and CABIN.

    Looking forward to going over the clues and figuring out what was going on here!

  2. A meaty puzzle, where I had to work out every clue, no biffing. (Jack, I believe you mean there are clues that would NOT be out of place etc.) My last several worked around the periphery: SNUFFS IT (an unwelcome clue, as I had just received word of the death of a friend), BARSET, TUTELAGE, and LOI TWILIT.
    1. My sympathies Kevin — having had a similar experience with a clue in 2019 I know how upsetting it can be.
  3. 1A and 1D went straight in and I thought it was going to be another easy one like yesterday. But in the end it took me 49 minutes. Some really tricky clues once I got out of the northwest corner. I got TWILIT from the wordplay and almost moved on since it didn’t look like a real word, before I realized it was. I biffed WILLIAM GOLDING from the checkers and couldn’t see how the wordplay worked for a time, but I thought it was neat when I saw it. Same for DAY OF ATONEMENT.
  4. Another on the wavelength, very speedy, but unfortunately one wrong: the DAs’ set, not bar set. It came up as a NHO in the past few months, but I couldn’t recall what it was.
    Found quite a few answers I had to guess, then reverse engineer the cryptic: Golding, day of atonement, odometer, servant, tutelage amongst others.
    Always thought antimony was a metal, but it’s right on the borderline of non-metals, so the setter might have been hedging his/her bets against indignant chemists who know better. Or the setter might be a chemist?
  5. Also struggled a bit on this one, being slow to get the long down ones.

    Jack, at 24d, I think ‘[to] be useful’ should be underlined.

    1. Yes, it’s a better fit with ‘be’, but not ‘to’ I think as that would be cluing ‘to AVAIL’.

      Edited at 2021-02-23 08:43 am (UTC)

  6. After a slow start I got through this fairly quickly. Admittedly this was helped by my wife joining me part way through and being on the wavelength today. As a teacher thankfully she’ll be back to her usual routine in just under two weeks so I won’t have the occasional assistance.
    I delayed myself a little by my bad habit of thinking I might know an answer, putting only the crossing letters in then forgetting they were meant to be tentative. Thus a misremembered “topus”slowed the entry of TERRAPIN, which once in enabled me to remember TORUS. I finished up with BARSET having toyed with “Dasset” thinking the lawyers may be DAs. It didn’t sound right though and when I came back to it I remembered BARSET from somewhere. I’ve never read Trollope so I have just stuck him on my reading list.
  7. A DAY OF ATONEMENT, I mull,
    For a grid with two birds is so dull
    Some very nice clues
    But I cannot excuse
    The BOILERS and the bloody SEAGULL
  8. …And the knock of sailing boats on the webbed wall

    20 mins pre-brekker. I liked it, mostly Airy-Fairy.
    My weird fact about Antimony (which may be untrue) is that they used to make ‘reusable’ pills out of it. The pill encouraged a laxative effect. Subsequently you retrieved it (possibly washed it) and put it aside for future reuse.
    Now for brekker!
    Thanks setter and J.

    Edited at 2021-02-23 07:45 am (UTC)

    1. Elemental antimony as an antimony pill was once used as a medicine. It could be reused by others after ingestion and elimination. (Wikipedia, s.v. Antimony)
    2. Thanks for that obscure nugget. No doubt I will ruminate upon it and, most likely, pass it on to like-minded anally retentive friends.
  9. …I wasn’t dancing in the dark today and zipped through this in 21 minutes in what was mainly a top to bottom solve. The only real pause was in parsing DAY OF ATONEMENT. COD to ANTIMONY. Thank you Jack and setter.
  10. 11:50. LOI ODOMETER after I finally parsed DAY OF ATONEMENT. I liked the metallic (and semi-metallic) flavour, with silver, copper, tin, antimony and gold. COD to WASSAIL for the fun surface.
  11. All present and correct in 39mins. Most clues went in straight away, once the cryptic was worked out. No probs with UMBER as Great Western Railway carriages used to be painted in “cream and umber”. I don’t remember TORUS but it had to be. I liked DAY OF ATONEMENT too once I had finally worked it out. Thank you Jack and setter.
  12. Not a lot of biffing went on there.
    I’m afraid I still don’t understand what you mean about 10ac, Jack, when you write about BA and AB. What I’m saying is I don’t understand how the clue means you to put FAIR inside Y and Y.
    FOI: RESUME. LOI SNUFFS IT/BARSET.
    I liked DAY OF ATONEMENT once I understood how it worked but COD to WILLIAM GOLDING.
    1. Sorry it’s not clear, Martin. This is a very fine point and it’s a devil to explain. I did my best in the blog so perhaps someone else might have a go at it?

      The main thing is there is no containment / insertion indicator so something else is needed to make the answer fit the grammar of the clue and that’s the ‘A on/upon B = BA’ rule for Across clues.

      Sometimes it’s easier to biff than to worry too much about parsing but bloggers have a duty etc etc…

      If you want to follow it up you might like to take a look at the item under ‘Positional indicator protocol’ on my LJ Home page. It’s the fourth topic down: https://jackkt.livejournal.com/

      Edited at 2021-02-23 09:08 am (UTC)

    2. I was confused about this initially because I thought it was:
      [year], [upon year, entertainment]
      Which would give:
      [Y], [YFAIR]
      But actually it’s
      [year] upon [year, entertainment]
      Which gives
      [YFAIR], [Y]
      I think!

      Edited at 2021-02-23 09:09 am (UTC)

      1. Yes, and perhaps more succinctly explained than my efforts. The point I was attempting to stress is that it’s the first ‘year’ in the clue that gives us the second ‘Y’ in the answer. I imagine that most solvers as opposed to bloggers would just assume it’s a containment clue, bung in the answer and move on.
        1. Your explanation was perfectly succinct and clear, I was just trying something different as you suggested! Personally I always find it helpful to think in brackets when trying to work these things out, although as you say most people most of the time probably won’t bother.
          1. No criticism intended here either and I appreciated your assistance. Sometimes when asked to explain something further I tend to add detail and make things more complicated so it was useful to see another succinct explanation and I hope between us we have clarified the parsing for Martin.
          2. Yes I agree — brackets make it much clearer. I always wonder if the “I can’t understand anything at all mathematical so don’t go there” brigade will complain, but I insist that it’s easier.

            [Didn’t intend to follow you, Jack, as my post was really a reply to keriothe — nothing personal! But that’s what the software has done.]

            Edited at 2021-02-23 10:58 am (UTC)

        1. The point is that ‘upon year [lies] entertainment’ gives YFAIR. As jackkt says in the blog, there is a pretty well-observed rule in Times crosswords that A on B always gives BA (and never AB) in an across clue.
          1. Only to remember that Peter B has quite recently reserved the right not to follow this ‘convention’ in the Sunday Times puzzle. It’s on my link above towards the end of the topic.
            1. I’ve never really understood this rule, to be honest. It makes little sense to me. But it does seem to be quite consistently applied in the daily puzzles!
              1. It’s something to be aware of. I think my topic (link above) with extracts of stuff posted over the years covers most of the debate that’s to be had. And the clue we’re discussing today wouldn’t have worked without it.
  13. Fast start but slow finish. held up by ODOMETER, DAY OF ATONEMENT, IN NUMBERS and particularly my LOI, MACADAMIA
  14. 10:32. Lots of biffing today: even where the definition wasn’t easy to spot it was nonetheless my route to the answer most of the time.
  15. Slowed to a crawl in the top right, staring at blanks where ODOMETER, TERRAIN and FOREARM would eventually go. I eventually resorted to fiddling on paper for the mile counter, and the other two fell quickly. 23.21, after initially thinking I was going to manage around half that.
    I took INSTANT to be a semi-&lit, because I needed the “short T(ime)” for the anagrist, and the definition is then “It is”.
    I missed part of the wordplay for DAY OF ATONEMENT, relieved after completely missing the definition for too long just to throw it in.
    Likewise, I smudged the wordplay for AIRY FAIRY, content to let the two Ys fall where they may, and happy I didn’t have to work out how two YRs reversed.
    Well played Jack: perhaps we need an epithet for a grid that’s easier to solve than to blog. Perhaps AIRY FAIRY TORUS would do.
  16. 30m after trying and failing to justify arty-farty for a couple of minutes. Thank you for the explanation of the right answer for that one. Held up a little bit in the SW corner as again I pre-biffed SWATCH for a while but eventually sorted it out. As others have said, it was an odd mix of fairly straightforward clues like MOTOR and some more challenging ones like TORUS which was an unknown word. But all good entertainment. Thank you, Jack and setter.
  17. After yesterday’s speed biffing which came a cropper, today was fully parsed before entering. The terrapin and the hare.
    22:04
  18. Mostly smooth and serene once I’d un-biffed ARTY FARTY*, which was inviting but didnt survive any proper analysis. Only other hold-up came from being another who wondered which author might have invented Dasset before reaching a better solution.

    *as a result of which, today’s crossword ear-worm is the extremely catchy Where’s Me Jumper? by Sultans of Ping FC.

  19. …and with glorious cricket to come. One hopes. This seemed straightforward enough: a bit slow to get moving but then a steady solve. I only ever liked the first of Golding’s novels, ‘Lord of the Flies’. 26’02.

    Edited at 2021-02-23 10:23 am (UTC)

  20. 14.10 and no mistakes for a change. FOI Tuscan, LOI Twilit which took a while. COD probably Day of Atonement , mainly because I didn’t previously know when that holy day occurred.

    Lots to like and nothing to dislike or feel petted about.

    Thanks setter and blogger.

  21. I had odameter even though I had not heard of the word and wanted to have odometer. The “a” before mile tripped me up. Otherwise 20:58.

    COD:FOREARM

  22. Never really held up even if some (longer) answers biffed. BARSET came out of nowhere (certainly never read); quid credit back on the parentals’ expenditure at my education. Slight quibbles about “the earth” for UMBER and “a mile” for M(ile). My view is that if the article isn’t part of the wordplay, then just leave it out. Always makes clue more succinct and rarely less readable. Nonetheless, a solid puzzle with DAY OF ATONEMENT my favourite clue, expertly put together. Thx all round.
    1. This slowed me down: I was tempted by ODAMETER (with ‘covering over’ as the containment indicator) and would certainly have opted for that if I hadn’t known the word ODOMETER. I think it’s OK though: I’d be happy with ‘two miles’ indicating MM so why not ‘one/a mile’ for M? I think the surface needs it in this case.
  23. I started off with SERVANT and then TUSCAN fell into place. I had DAY OF confirmed by ODOMETER and FOREARM well before ATONEMENT suggested itself, but I never did spot the FAT ONE, although (TODAY)* and MEN were enough to keep me happy. Liked ANTIMONY. I was pleased that the wordplay was unambiguous and allowed me to spell MACADAMIA properly, having come to grief previously with it. Once I had enough crossers, WILLIAM GOLDING popped up and was promptly parsed. Liked WASSAIL. POI was TUTELAGE and LOI was TWILIT. 23:55. Thanks setter and Jack.
  24. A finish for me- always great and I get more pleasure from grinding out the solution to a harder 15×15 than skipping through ( not that that happens often…).
    On first pass I only got a couple of clues so I thought a DNF was definitely on. Thought ODOMETER clever, as was FOREARM ( eardrum wouldn’t leave me for a while) . Once I’d worked out 5dn it made things easier.
    Definitely helps to walks away for a few minutes and let the brain regroup.
    Thanks to blogger and setter as always.
  25. Much-Biffing-In-The-Marsh. My parents used to quote endlessly from that show when I was a kid. The 2 long struts down the middle were helpful but I took a very long time to get the old farmers and CABIN (until I remembered Oddbins). I found this a lot harder than it looked at first. 18.58
  26. Slow in the SE corner. Couldn’t see SNUFFS IT for longer than the clue warranted and have only just worked out what the “hidden” is doing in the CABIN clue. 29mins, with one very belated “Duh” moment.
  27. 44:09, but with one pink square for putting an E into MACADAMIA. Nuts. Liked FOREARM and MIDRIFF.

    I was going to point out that INSTANT isn’t an anagram of “isn’t an”, and got quite excited as I read through the comments and no-one else seemed to have noticed, but Z8 beat me to it. So I don’t need to now

    Edited at 2021-02-23 01:14 pm (UTC)

  28. Enjoyed this. A nice bookish feel with Barset and Golding.

    Wouldn’t half go a good wassail right now.

  29. Found this easy-ish, 16 minutes in more than a hurry than usual as jobs to be done. Thanks for ODOMETER explanation, which I had biffed. Liked BARSET as I’m sure did Olivia.
    Antimony is classed as a ‘metalloid’ coming between arsenic and bismuth in Group 15 of the periodic table. You could call that a metal of a sort, sort of.
  30. Finishing as I did in 23:18.

    AIRY FAIRY, DAY OF ATONEMENT – fully biffed, so a sincere thanks to Jack for unpicking those!

    Everything else more or less fully parsed, I don’t think I quite spotted BOERS as old farmers though, so that can join the biff list.

    Nearly entered DASSET as the fictional county, with DA’S being the team of lawyers. Luckily dredged BARSET from somewhere, despite remembering as BARSETSHIRE.

    1. Dasset is indeed how the locals in Blandford FOREARM pronounce their county. The setter was pulling the Wool over your eyes.
  31. Yesterday was a good day for my first comment as it lined up today for a personal best of 31 minutes. One piece of help from my wife for cabin when I had the c and n so perhaps it doesn’t count.
    FOI Tuscan
    NHO Torus but it had to be
    LOI Tutelage which took some working out to parse but got there
    COD Day of atonement
    Didn’t know Boers could be referred to as farmers either.
  32. At 19d, ‘short time’ (T) is part of the anagrist as well as being the definition. Thanks to our blogger.
  33. FOI TUSCAN; then needed a couple of longish sessions.
    I have been reading Trollope, very rewarding, and he helped with BARSET.
    Finished in the NE with ODOMETER and TORUS (NHO) after finally seeing the terrapin.
    Glad I persevered. A good puzzle. Favourite was WASSAIL.
    David
  34. Yes, very strange, a cross between Quickie and a tough Friday. In the end I had all but the SE in 20 mins, but until I realised it was BARSET and not DORSET, it seemed intractable.
    Liked the DASH clue, took a wee while to cotton on.
    Meg’s picture today. It’s her 18th birthday today and she’s just done a Lazarus, thought she wouldn’t make it 2 days ago.
  35. ….my **** from my elbow, but not knowing my FOREARM from my eardrum delayed me until TERRAIN cured that particular problem. DAY OF ATONEMENT took a while, and was only parsed afterwards, as was WILLIAM GOLDING.

    FOI TUSCAN
    LOI MIDRIFF
    COD SNUFFS IT
    TIME 10:39

  36. A red letter day here, since I managed to finish all correct and fully parsed as well. The first is (still) rare enough to have given me very few opportunities for the latter. The LHS actually went in without too much trouble, but I struggled further across, until Odometer and Day of Atonement opened things up. Once I started to think about a nut, rather than a solid, Macadamia provided enough crossers to help sort out the SE corner, with loi Barset. All very satisfying. Invariant
  37. Thought I was going to struggle with this one but the two long downs revealed themselves leaving me with the SE like many others. BOERS was a PDM with SNUFFS IT and BARSET the last two in. Too much Archers had me thinking “There’s a Borset(shire) and a Barset?” Indeed there is.

    Liked the dash — my other PDM and COD for me

    Thanks all

  38. 21.58. A case of quick-quick-slow for me today. Some answers, the author and the nut for example, flew in with hardly any checkers. Others like the odometer and the day of atonement really dragged their feet. It also took a while to come up with Boers for old farmers.
  39. Very slow to get going, picked up speed considerably after 30 mins, then a thoughtful last 15 mins to work through the stragglers

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