Times Cryptic 27932

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 32 minutes for all but one clue which I was unable to solve without using aids, so technically this was a DNF for me.

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 Painter‘s predicament entertaining bishop at home (7)
HOLBEIN : HOLE (predicament) containing [entertaining] B (bishop), then IN (at home). Perhaps most famous for his portraits of Henry VIII.
5 Coach finally accepted by team member, a fretful type (7)
WHINGER : {coac}H (finally) contained [accepted] by WINGER (team member). If only whinging were an Olympic sport!
9 Barrier built by day, in the morning (3)
DAM : D (day), AM (in the morning)
10 A club dream, surprisingly, securing new lampholder (11)
CANDELABRUM : Anagram [surprisingly] of A CLUB DREAM, containing [securing] N (new). There may have been a distinction to be drawn back in the day but in usage the singular (as here) is now interchangeable with the plural ‘candelabra’. The piano player who cried all the way to the bank (and later bought the bank) had a lavishly be-ringed hand in reviving interest in the word in the 1950s and beyond.
11 Heightened way deliveries come up to scratch (8)
OVERPASS : OVER (deliveries – 6 balls in cricket), PASS (come up to scratch – standard). More usually called a flyover, in the UK at least.
12 One moving slowly with large account book (6)
LEDGER : L (large), EDGER (one moving slowly)
15 Public placard‘s function, according to report (4)
SIGN : Sounds like (according to report) “sine” (function – trigonometry)
16 Fellow pupil taking tea on train (10)
SCHOOLMATE : SCHOOL (train), MATE (tea). A on B = BA. ‘Tea’ only loosely, as maté is an infusion of the leaves of a South American shrub.
18 Agree to adopt vessel unknown by European primate (10)
CHIMPANZEE : CHIME (agree) contains [to adopt] PAN (vessel) + Z (unknown), then E (European)
19 Girl detailed to go (4)
WEND : WEND{y} (girl) [de-tailed]. I thought the ploughman in Grey’s Elegy wends his weary way,  but on checking I am reminded that he plods.
22 Mistakes made by brats wasting time (6)
ERRORS : {t}ERRORS (brats) [wasting time – t]
23 Tub-thumping fellow carrying old 15 awkwardly (8)
JINGOISM : JIM (fellow) containing [carrying]  anagram [awkwardly] of O (old) SIGN (15 Across). Bellicose chauvinism. It comes from ‘By Jingo’ which has its origins in the words of a patriotic Music Hall song popularised by G H MacDermottt towards the end of the 19th century.  Gun the gunboats!
25 Rescue electronic organ used in social event? (11)
DELIVERANCE : E (electronic) + LIVER (organ) contained by [used in] DANCE (social event)
27 Trap bringing about mother’s ruin (3)
GIN : Two meanings
28 Part of defence of scorer facing bowler? (7)
RAVELIN : RAVEL (scorer – composer), IN (facing bowler?). More cricket. During play two batsmen are ‘in’  but only one of them at a time is facing the bowler, hence the question mark. Ravelin is an outlying section of fortifications.
29 Support staff kept back in quarters (7)
ENDORSE : ROD (staff) reversed [kept back] in E N S E (a random selection of quarters of the compass)
Down
1 Frightful-looking refuges with no end of want (7)
HIDEOUS : HIDEOU{t}S (refuges) [with no end of want – t]. When it came to parsing it didn’t help that I kept reading ‘refuges’ as ‘refugees’.
2 Awfully grim realm, ultimately quite suitable for a vulture (11)
LAMMERGEIER : Anagram [awfully] of GRIM REALM {quit}E {suitabl}E [ultimately]. SOED defines this as: a long-winged, long-tailed vulture, Gypaetus barbatus, inhabiting lofty mountains in southern Europe, Asia, and Africa. Also called bearded vulture. An utterly unfair invasion of the grid by an obscure foreign word clued as an anagram. It has appeared only once before, in a Club Monthly with an alternative spelling, and that’s exactly where it belongs – if indeed it has to appear at all. An awfuly grim clue that completely spoiled this puzzle for me.
3 Run away from mischievous prank, avoiding publicity (6)
ESCAPE : ESCAP{ad}E (mischievous prank) [avoiding publicity – ad]
4 Granny, initially out and back in practically no time! (10)
NANOSECOND : NAN (granny), O{ut} [initially], SECOND (back – support)
5 Little kid’s first few days (4)
WEEK : WEE (little – northern British), K{id} [‘s first]
6 Allies in a tizzy about sailor’s girl (8)
ISABELLA : Anagram [in a tizzy] of ALLIES containing [about] AB (sailor)
7 Fish swimming around? Only a little (3)
GAR : Hidden in [only a little] {swimmin}G AR{round}
8 Shame about son taken in to a greater extent (7)
REMORSE : RE (about), then S (son) contained by [taken in] MORE (to a greater extent)
13 Unsmiling Australian working in churchyard (11)
GRAVEDIGGER : GRAVE (unsmiling), DIGGER (Australian). &lit or semi.
14 Arrive and eat, squeezing in French entertainer (10)
COMEDIENNE : COME (arrive), then DINE (eat) containing [squeezing] EN (in, French). Presumably another word we’re not supposed to use any more.
17 Acclaim paper regularly imported into a cricket ground (8)
APPROVAL : P{a}P{e}R [regularly] contained by [imported into] A + OVAL (cricket ground)
18 Male theologian trapped in vehicle? Hard cheese! (7)
CHEDDAR : HE (male) +  DD (theologian) contained by [trapped in] CAR (vehicle). ‘Hard cheese’ is UK slang for ‘bad luck’ and the expression derives from cheese that is old, dried up and indigestible. Cheddar in good condition is firm rather than hard (like parmesan) but may be classified as hard to distinguish it from the soft continental cheeses.
20 Catholic dignitary in India meeting English schoolmaster (7)
DOMINIE : DOM (Catholic dignitary), IN, I (India – NATO alphabet), E (English). A nice misdirection here as the use of ‘dominie’ with reference to a schoolteacher is now almost exclusively Scottish.
21 A deadly sin? Absolutely (6)
AGREED : A, GREED (deadly sin)
24 Single man’s club (4)
IRON : I (single), RON (man)
26 Most of tax ready in Sofia (3)
LEV : LEV{y} (tax) [most of…]. The last three clues seem to be somewhat perfuctory as if the setter was running out of time. It’s not an uncommon trait, and worth remembering by solvers who find themselves stuck or making slow progress – take a look at the final Down clues as you may find some easy pickings to get you going again.

75 comments on “Times Cryptic 27932”

  1. I found this easy-going until the last three: dominie, wend and jingoist. At that point I had brain-freeze and had to walk away (putting the machine on pause so actually my time is a fair bit higher). Came back and they fell pretty quickly. I see dcrooks had exactly the same problem. But then I discovered I’d put ravelon for ravelin. So one mistake. I knew of the vulture luckily.
  2. Didn’t know RAVELIN or DOMINIE, but managed to work them out. Once I had DOMINIE, I was finally able to get WEND, but I didn’t know the bird and gave up trying to juggle the remaining letters and looked it up. Life is too short. 37:25. Thanks (I think) setter and Jack.
  3. Vague on my crickety terms so in went ON, instead of IN, on RAVEL. The multiple vowel pile-up in LAMMERGEIER did for me too. Oh well, back to mowing the lawn.
  4. Ground to a halt with WEND and LAMMERGEIER left and had to grab some paper to try to make sense of all the vowels and fiddly bits. Got there by guessing it had to be LAMMERsomethingorother
  5. This started out as an easy “quick crossword”, I was writing in most of the answers as I read the clues, but the last few I found tricky (although quite obvious once the lightbulb moment occurred). I had “lei” for “lev” for quite a time, which made “ravelin” (memories of Tristram Shandy) unnecessarily difficult, but it was the vulture which finally got me — even though I had all the anagram elements in place. Full marks for GK to all who knew what a lammergeier was!

    Edited at 2021-03-23 12:59 pm (UTC)

  6. knew the bird was a lammerthingy, so had to be as careful as Isabella with the anagrist.
    DOMINIE better known to an aeroplane tragic like me as a De Havilland biplane than as a schoolmaster, but gettable after WEND gave the D.
    All green in 26’56”

  7. Massive mer at the German vulture today but it was not this that caused me a technical DNF but the generously clued Dominie which is NHO and did not yield to me as I could not drag up don as our catholic dignitary so had to resort to aids.

    Definitely a mixed bag today with some QC escapees but some elegant clues as well. Enjoyed hideous and Holbein.

    28:00 otherwise

    Thanks J and setter

  8. I biffed the vulture, which is probably a sensible move if one of them comes too close.

    Deliverance, Gravedigger and Chimpanzee were the pick for me. Good fun.

    Thanks to blogger and setter.

  9. Two or three goes at this. Very pleased to get twenty answers on first pass. FOI dam. Some of these were write-ins, which was odd in terms of the mix. I was left with the grid filled in on the diagonal from top left to bottom right, and some brain-racking, which I enjoy. There were lots I only semi-parsed. I had Isabelle, a careless mistake, but not the kind that bother me overmuch, though no doubt the spelling of a person’s name matters to them. In a crossword – not so much. Nho Ravelin, dominie, so DNF as was not able to work them out, and they were LO’sI. COD’s for me were the chimp, the vulture because they are in my subject area, and the gravedigger for the aha moment and the smile. Thanks, Jack and setter. GW.
  10. I agree with the rest that LAMMERGEIER was on the unfair side, and that WEND[y] gave lots of options – particularly given that the D came from DOMINIE, a particularly tricky one. Those were my last 3, in 11m 17s.

    My main complaint, though, was GRAVEDIGGER, for the same reason that wilransome gave above. It just doesn’t work, and I’m not generous enough to regard it as a semi-&lit – it strikes me as the kind of thing the Guardian would be OK with but very surprised to see it make it into the Times.

    Apologies, all very grumpy. On the plus side, WEEK was a nice, tidy clue, and GAR was a well-disguised hidden.

  11. I don’t often spend time on the 15sq but, buoyed by a decent run at today’s fairly chewy QC, I thought I would have a go today. It all went rather well at first — no problem with LAMMERGEIER or most of the other less obvious clues until I hit DOMINIE and RAVELIN and failed on both (which meant that IRON didn’t click for me either). I spent 45 mins until I gave up and looked at the blog.
    I do normally manage to finish the 15sq if I attempt it even though it often takes me an hour or so. Some crumbs of comfort from getting as far as I did today but I’m back to the QC tomorrow. I know my place!

    Edited at 2021-03-23 04:38 pm (UTC)

  12. I am interested in birds and have been lucky enough to see lammergeiers in Crete and Lesotho. However, many UK residents were lucky enough to see one at home last year as one decided to spend a lot of its summer around central England. I think it was even mentioned on the BBC news, such was the level of excitement. I’ll concede that it is generally referred to as the bearded vulture nowadays, but it has been known as the lammergeier for most of my life, and still is by many. Ignoring the possibility of any objectivity from me, I still think this bird’s name is just general knowledge. It was also clued with what I thought was a pretty friendly anagram!
    1. You are undoubtedly right here, using the standard TfTT definition of general knowledge, which is ‘stuff I happen to know’ 😉
  13. I hope pedants are more tolerated here than elsewhere. Grey’s ploughman may well wend; it is certain that Gray’s plods.
  14. 29.45. It’s shaping up to be a tough week. Fortunately for me once checkers were in the other letters in lammergeier seemed to fall into place ok. I don’t recall but perhaps I’ve come across it before. DOM for Catholic dignitary took some dredging and dominie was unknown so a long time on that one and jingoism where I think having ‘O’ indicated by old as part of the anagrist rather than ‘O’ indicated by old followed separately by an anagram of sign threw me. Ravelin stirred a faint memory. Also thrown a little by the definition of whinger as a fretful type when my immediate thought was not so much fretful as moaning, Chambers has to cry fretfully under whinge though; and the definition of candelabrum as lampholder I thought it would be more specifically for candles but Chambers again has branched candlestick or lampstand.
  15. There was much to enjoy in this, especially after a dreary QC earlier today, but I am at a loss as to how a mind that could give us 13d, Gravedigger, would consider an anagram was a good way to clue an obscure bird. For the record, Wend and Domine were also beyond me, as was the parsing of Schoolmate. Invariant
  16. Abandoned ship after 15 minutes due to total inability to get three clues in the SE corner (WEND, DOMINIE, JINGOISM). Either this lockdown is killing off my brain cells at a frightening rate, or I’m losing interest due to attempting too many puzzles.
  18. My second clue in, didn’t even have to work out the anagram. But then it would be. Check Wikipedia
  19. Lammergeier has been used in Times articles at least 14 times in recent years. Completely fair clue, my second one in. Rivelin and Dominie I did not know.
    1. Since you apparently have the means, perhaps you might check and advise how often RAVELIN (please note the correct spelling) and DOMINIE have appeared in the Times in recent years? Both perfectly fair clues as they may be lesser-known words but they came with wordplay as an alternative route for solvers who didn’t happen to know them – the mark of a good cryptic crossword clue, unlike the buzzard.

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