Times Cryptic 27980

Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 36 minutes. I’ve nothing to say upfront so let’s get straight to the answers…

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 Verbally attack a burrowing rodent (6)
GOPHER
Sounds like [verbally] “go for” (attack). In conversation  many people would say “go fer”.
4 Wilfully desire no more than … (8)
WANTONLY
WANT (desire), ONLY (no more than)
10 … some information on a Gonzalez figure (7)
NONAGON
Hidden in [some] {informatio}N ON A GON{zalez}
11 Ring pub, finding obstruction on the way (7)
TOLLBAR
TOLL (ring), BAR (pub)
12 Mine entrance required: reportedly do this, then? (4)
ADIT
Sounds like [reportedly] “add it” (do this, then – add the required entrance). A write-in for me as soon as I saw ‘mine entrance’ as it was a word that caught me out in my early days of cryptic solving back in the 1960’s.
13 Supervisor taking a horse with hesitation into eating-place (10)
MANAGERESS
A + NAG (horse) + ER (hesitation) contained by [into] MESS (eating-place)
15 Girl crossing quiet City area for a particular purpose (9)
SPECIALLY
SALLY (girl) containing [crossing] P (quiet) + EC1 (City area – east central London postal district)
16 Retired American cooking his Japanese dish (5)
SUSHI
US (American) reversed [retired], anagram [cooking] of HIS
18 Fibre I recognised in girl from the East (5)
SISAL
I contained by [recognised in] LASS (girl) reversed [from the East]
19 M Hulot’s creator backed in serious move (9)
GRAVITATE
TATI (M Hulot’s creator) reversed [backed] contained by [in] GRAVE (serious). Jacques Tati, mime artist and film maker (1907-1982).
21 Priest and waggish faculty head keeping company (10)
ARCHDEACON
ARCH (waggish), DEAN (faculty head) containing [keeping] CO (company). SOED has: arch – clever, roguish, waggish; (now usu.) consciously or affectedly playful or teasing.
23 Stylish around here in ancient Rome? (4)
CHIC
C (around – circa), HIC (here in ancient Rome)
26 Partly coincide — and drink too much! (7)
OVERLAP
OVER (too much), LAP (drink)
27 You cook it and soak it ultimately in port (7)
RISOTTO
SOT (soak) + {i}T [ultimately] contained by [in] RIO (port)
28 Belfast doctor maybe is involved with my opposition to local development (8)
NIMBYISM
NI MB (Belfast – Northen Ireland – doctor maybe), anagram [involved] of IS MY. ‘Not In My Back Yard’ – ism.
29 More glutinous tonic regularly swallowed by dynamic person (6)
GOOIER
{t}O{n}I{c} [regularly] contained [swallowed] by GOER (dynamic person). SOED has ‘goer’ as a lively or persevering person. I thought that was ‘go-getter’ and ‘goer’ meant something else. It does, but it’s listed as a secondary meaning.
Down
1 Elevated article about, say, a European port (5)
GENOA
A (article) +  ON (about) + EG (say), all reversed [elevated]
2 Impecunious writer on river vessel (9)
PENNILESS
PEN [write], NILE (river), SS (vessel)
3 Brittle BBC boss in first of exacting years (4)
EDGY
DG (BBC boss – Director General) contained by [in] E{xciting} [first] + Y (years)
5 Risk assessor‘s deed unknown by Egypt once (7)
ACTUARY
ACT (deed), UAR (Egypt once – United Arab Republic), Y (unknown)
6 Some who spill the beans on joint position at bank (10)
TELLERSHIP
TELLERS (some who spill the beans), HIP (joint)
7 Worthy old law graduate in the Newcastle area (5)
NOBLE
O (old) + BL (law graduate) contained by [in] NE (the Newcastle area – North East)
8 County fellow looking up at king on heavy horse (9)
YORKSHIRE
ROY (fellow) reversed [looking up], K (king), SHIRE (heavy horse)
9 Involve Irish leader in hire charge right away (6)
ENTAIL
I{rish} [leader] contained by [in] {r}ENTAL (hire charge) [right away]
14 Loiter in half of London street with key accomplice (5-5)
DILLY-DALLY
{picca}DILLY (London street) [half], D (key), ALLY (accomplice). As featured in the Music Hall song made famous by Marie LLoyd.
15 Shortly request a time to enter Canadian city (9)
SASKATOON
ASK (request) + A + T (time) contained by [to enter] SOON (shortly)
17 Loose pig that’s beginning to eat human food (9)
SPAGHETTI
Anagram [loose] of PIG THAT’S E{at} [beginning]
19 Man framing Burlington House member’s “Sea creature” (7)
GRAMPUS
GUS (man) containing [framing] RA (Burlington House – Royal Academy) + MP ( member of parliament)
20 A male animal finally loaded on ship (6)
ABOARD
A, BOAR (male animal), {loade}D [finally]
22 Pick of elkhounds originally in pack (5)
CREAM
E{lkhounds} [originally] contained by [in] CRAM (pack)
24 Endless task overwhelming current group of singers (5)
CHOIR
CHOR{e} (task) [endless] containing [overwhelming] I (current)
25 Capital city‘s extremists fleeing industrial action (4)
OSLO
{g}O SLO{w} (industrial action) [extremists fleeing]

62 comments on “Times Cryptic 27980”

  1. 10:30 with a little head-scratching over ADIT which I thought might have been ADMIT minus M (first letter of mine). All the rest went in without too much trouble.
  2. Badger in confidently enough at 1ac, not knowing whether or not a badger burrows or is a rodent, thinking “tricky to have a fake homopnone indicator.” Adit and nonagon soon led to Genoa, so not held up too long.
    Liked wantonly best. The whole puzzle felt a bit old-fashioned, clues similar to when I started in about 2007, hard to say why it felt like that.
  3. No problems here, solved in a couple of sessions while also watching a conference presentation and cooking dinner (how’s that for multitasking). A bit bemused where DILLY came from since I didn’t think of PICCADILLY, but then I only though about it for a couple of seconds since it couldn’t be anything else. I’d never heard of TOLL BAR until it came up recently, and for once I remembered it.
    1. Where’s the club that i use? Piccadilly.
      I suspect that you’ll think that I’m silly
      But i can dilly and dally
      Or shlliy and shally
      Whenever i want, willy-nilly
  4. A mono-tasking 29 minutes to fill the grid correctly, with another 5 minutes or so to parse everything. To fit the def, I had to semi-guess UAR for ‘Egypt once’, which I hadn’t heard of. ADIT went straight in from the def, but I still don’t really get the wordplay; just me being thick I’m sure.

    Favourite was GRAMPUS. Our NZ contributors (and probably others) will know all about it, but it’s worth looking up “Pelorus Jack” if you have time. A fascinating story.

    Thanks to Jack and setter

  5. I had some trouble in the NE (POI WANTONLY, LOI ACTUARY), but otherwise straightforward. ADIT (a NYT chestnut) on sight, then getting the ‘add it’. Biffed GRAMPUS, having forgotten what Burlington House houses. DNK BL. Doesn’t Eric Idle ask–hint hint nudge nudge–if Terry Jones’s wife is a goer?
  6. No Kevin! He asked if she’d been to Goa, the once Portuguese colonial enclave in India.(The Mary Whitehouse Experience)

    FOI 11ac TOLLBAR not seen down-under?

    LOI 19dn GRAMPUS 8

    COD 19ac GRAVITATE

    WOD 14dn but don’t DILLY-DALLY on the way

    15dn SASKATOON is named after a berry, apparently, as is its twin-town Bury St. Edmonds in Suffolk.

    Time 35mins.

        1. No. I’ve only been in the area for 24 years. I was walking through the school grounds just on Monday, though (see here. What’s your connection to the place?
  7. 20 minutes. Pleased when I saw Burlington House, as I thought it might slow the colonials down a bit…
    1. Yes it did. Unknown building, random boy’s name and dimly remembered sea creature – not my favourite clue.
  8. Well, this was easy. And I was glad, because I had just gotten around to Monday’s this evening, and it was, as you will recall, a horse of a different color. Saw ADIT right away, but the wordplay gave me pause nonetheless. “Human” is odd, as the only reason, or excuse, to specify that here is in the wordplay; it’s not necessary for the definition. (“Human food” could also mean something else. Ick.)

    Edited at 2021-05-18 05:34 am (UTC)

  9. Like Isla I started off with BADGER, but I was at least tentative about it and managed to rule it out before too long. As others have said ADIT is straightforward from the definition for an experienced solver, but I’d be interested to know what an inexperienced solver made of it as I thought it was quite tough otherwise.

    Grampus puts me in mind of Grampus 8, the Japanese football team where Gary Lineker played some time after his time at Spurs. Maybe where Harry Kane is headed?

    1. Heard of Grampus 8 as where Arsene Wenger came from before Arsenal. Just looked it up… Lineker’s last year at Grampus was 1994, Wenger joined in 1995, so they weren’t there contemperaneously.
  10. Generous definitions made this at the easier end for me. I knew all of the vocabulary, too. Liked RISOTTO.
  11. Among the river sallows, borne aloft
    Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

    After 30 mins (not wholely enjoyable) I was left with the DNK Adit and no real way to get there from wordplay (reportedly do this then?).
    The dangling ‘a’ in 1ac really leads to Gophera and I’m not convinced Tellership is a word.
    Thanks setter and J.

    1. Neither was I, so I checked and it is.
      SOED: tellership noun the position or office of a teller M18.
  12. 23 minutes. LOI was GOPHER, but only because for some reason I got going at the bottom first. I thought of ADIT straightaway but didn’t enter it for a long time in case there was more to it. I know an ACTUARY is defined as someone who thought Accountancy too exciting, but they always brought the worst news in my career as the deficit in the pension scheme proved to be a far bigger risk than nuclear meltdown. COD to GRAVITATE. This puzzle had a strange mix of easy and tricky to keep you on your toes. Thank you Jack and setter.
  13. 9:59 DNK M Hulot’s creator, but derived it from the answer. Held up at the end with LOI GOOIER, finding it hard to imagine a word ending OIER. Felt like a Monday.
  14. 15′ 18″, LOI GOOIER. Off to find out what GRAMPUS is.

    Thanks jack and setter.

  15. 6:58. Easy one today, with lots of biffing.
    ADIT is a bit poor. It will be familiar to many of us from past puzzles but it’s a very obscure word and there’s no realistic way you’re going to get it from the wordplay if you don’t already know it.
  16. 17.06 with wantonly holding me up at the last. Thank goodness for mental alphabet trawls! Nothing too obscure; adit remembered from previous crosswords, saskatoon remembered because it’s such a wonderful name.

    As for the rest, all well clued and accessible. Thanks setter and blogger.

  17. 43mins. I had a couple of hold ups today. Did not know ADIT, my LOI, finally worked it out from the cryptic. Both GENOA and GOPHER took a while too. Even 29 ac held me up looking at what surely must be -OOIE-. Eh? Got it in the end. I did remember TOLLBAR from its recent outing as Paul mentioned. COD GRAVITATE. Tati was great. Thank you Jack and setter.
      1. Sorry Keriothe, I must have been typing as you entered. I just figured that If something was required, you could « add it », take note of the word « reportedly «  and end up with ADIT. I would rather have seen: Mine entrance knackered in the east end! 🙂
        1. I’m impressed that with such vague guidance you were able to deduce what I think is a rather unlikely-looking word!
  18. The 1’s eluded me until the end, and pushed my time to 17.14. I only just escaped spelling GENOA with a U, which apparently is Latin style. With “a European” in the mix of the clue, UN was at least possible.
    TELLERSHIP is just weird. It is in Chambers, without specifying which meaning of teller it derives from. Having not been inside a bank for ages, I don’t know whether anybody still occupies the high tellership position, or whether that’s been taken over by the ATMship.
    Oddly, I’ve had “my old man” as an earworm for the past few days, so DILLY DALLY was easy.
    I had the impression we had rather a lot of random people, though I think there’s only three (plus LASS). I’m not sure where it stands in the Ninja Turtling stakes after others have recalled Grampus 8, but my GRAMPUS is the frabjous one with Jonah.
    More geography than usual, and more food (lots more if you can eat a gopher).

    Edited at 2021-05-18 08:53 am (UTC)

  19. 30m today, but 6 or 7 of them on the rodent, the port and the mine. Once GENOA floated into my head, the others instantly fell. I too thought this had something of an old-fashioned feel about it and none the worse for that. Thank you, Jack and setter.
  20. I thought the adit was particularly feeble. The definition doesn’t really seem to lead you there and I delayed entering it until it could be nothing else. Perhaps I’m missing something.
  21. LOIs wantonly and adit. Perhaps someone can enlighten on what connection there is, if any, between Saskatoon and Saskatchewan? The UAR – I seem to recall – was originally a union of Egypt and Syria, but then Syria went its separate way under the Baathists and Egypt was left alone. There was never a hope of it working. Had to restrain myself from putting Rishi for sushi. I was briefly convinced the chancellor of the exchequer was a foodstuff. And Berkshire very nearly went in for 8 down. Funny that there are two none letter counties both ending **rkshire.
  22. No particular hold-ups on the way to a 20 min solve. I thought TELLERSHIP was a bit of a stretch, but the Shorter Oxford and Chambers don’t. Presumably it was once a “thing” but I can’t imagine it gets used much these days — certainly not in the modern retail banking world of plastic interiors staffed by customer experience liaison executives. Perhaps in the more aristocratic banks…
  23. Starting with EDGY, GENOA and PENNILESS allowed me to get the rodent fairly quickly, and I carried on apace until I hit the wall in the NE. I eventually got going again by postulating an adverb for 4a, which yielded YORKSHIRE, and ONLY, rapidly followed by WANT which supplied the T for the rather unlikely looking TELLERSHIP. I was then left with 19a and 20d. I was held up further at 19a by not noticing that I’d missed the I out of the money handler with carelessly light fingered typing, and was thus looking at G___P_A_E. I turned my attention to 20d and finally saw the BOAR. I then spotted the white space and corrected our bank employee and GRAVITATEd to my final answer. Those last 2 took me around 6 minutes, which was disappointing all things considered. 22:20. Thanks setter and Jack.
  24. Relatively straightforward and, as Jack says, not too much to comment on.
    “Grampus” is another word that I only ever come across in crossword puzzles!
    1. I know it only from the saying ‘snoring like a grampus’ – which is pretty meaningless, as very few people would know what a grampus sounds like.
  25. 34:24. It felt fast at first but there were several sticky ones along the way. Right until the final check, instead of OSLO, I had ISBO for 25dn (Lisbon without its extremists) thinking it must be some sort of industrial action. I liked EDGY
  26. Held up by the top row twice, having initially gone with BADGER (“Is that really a rodent…?”) and NEEDLESS (“Adverb shmadverb). Chump. Pleased to pick apart SASKATOON, though.
  27. Enjoyed being on the wavelength again today. Biffed ADIT without really thinking about it, but the blog reminded me that for me, too, it was a word I remember being baffled by when I was very young and attempting my first crosswords. My father explained to me that there was no correlation between how common a word was in crosswords and the chance of ever needing to use it in real life, and Yes, I was quite right to think that using the (even back then) long-dead Mr Tree as a synonym for “actor” every time was tiresome.
    1. I wondered yesterday if Sarah Siddons was punishment for all our complaints about Mr Tree.
      1. Siddons a NHO, ever. Tree a only-known-by a few occasional ancient Times crosswords. Wikipedia tells me Siddons was 18/19c, Tree was well dead by 1920.
        There’s two schools of thought down here:
        1. Crosswords should include normal words with tricky wordplay/and or definitions, to make solvers happy.
        2. Crosswords should include obscurities, preferably clued as impenetrable other obscurities, or anagrams, to make solvers feel shit and realise that the setters are Superior Intellectually.
        I prefer the first.
        1. I find deducing obscurities from wordplay very satisfying. It’s certainly frustrating when setters do this with other obscurities but on the whole I think it’s remarkable how rare this is. It’s bound to happen sometimes: the definition of ‘obscurity’ is of course ‘stuff I don’t know’ and the setters unfortunately don’t always show a perfect understanding of this concept.
          1. That’s one big point: what is obscure and what is widely known? I do the occasional old puzzle, and failed recently with a 2001 puzzle with a small Welsh town Ffestinog (sic: FF at the start) clued as an anagram. Maybe it’s well-known in UK? Maybe not? For me if you’re including possibly obscure answers you should make the wordplay easier, not totally impenetrable. Which seems to be what you are saying – you enjoy deducing obscurities from wordplay… but I’m saying the wordplay shouldn’t be equally obscure as the answer.

            Edited at 2021-05-18 05:15 pm (UTC)

            1. I completely agree, but I would also argue that setters and editor do make an effort to ensure this doesn’t happen. I suspect when it does it’s often because it won’t even occur to them that a particular term might be obscure to mere mortals.
  28. Steady plodding solve. Agree with ADIT, knew the word, couldn’t remember what it meant.
    Vaguely heard of SASKATOON but had to look it up to be sure. Held up earlier on trying to be PENURIOUS.

  29. After yesterday’s near non-starter, I didn’t do much better today: NHO ADIT, didn’t see the hidden NONAGON and didn’t parse SASKATOON, though I did bung it in as nothing else fitted and I dimly recall hearing the name somewhere once before. A DNF therefore after an hour at the end of which I feel grumpier than before. Thanks to our blogger.
  30. Oh, yes: so it’s general knowledge, is it, that the Royal Academy is housed there? Not to this country bumpkin, it isn’t. See I told you I was grumpy.
  31. ….oh damn ! And thus 1A became my LOI in due course.

    TELLERSHIP (which auto spell put a space into !) was a new one on me. I parsed SASKATOON and ARCHDEACON afterwards.

    FOI (correctly !) TOLLBAR
    LOI GOPHER
    COD GRAVITATE
    TIME 7:33

  32. My 28 minutes would have been a lot quicker if I’d known that a badger was not a rodent. I spent ages untangling that NW corner. Ann
  33. Thought this was very gentle with only GOPHER and GENOA giving me pause.

    Wasn’t the whole plot of Downton Abbey based on somebody having an entail. Or was it a tail? Or was that the Hapsburgs…

    Thanks to Jack and the setter.

  34. Forty minutes without understanding where it all came from. Saw some but couldn’t parse them at first, e.g. entail, edgy, sisal. FOI nonagon. Three acrosses and three downs on first pass. Then it gradually began to click all over the grid. I had an Americanism (specialty) for 15 across, which clearly I did not parse, and it was my LOI, so finished with one red square. A technical DNF for the sake of one letter. I liked all the clues except for adit, which I know is a mine entrance (on the horizontal, I think), but couldn’t see how it fit the other bit of the clue. A badger is a mustelid, not a rodent, if anyone is interested. Thanks, Jack, for explaining many of the clues I biffed, and setter for an entertaining puzzle. GW.
  35. 40 minutes, but for a change I had one mistake all to myself: EGGY instead of EDGY because I couldn’t remember (or never knew) whether the BBC had a Director General or a Governor General, and EDGY to me means “nervous” whereas EGGs really are brittle. Oh dear. Otherwise quite easy, despite the unknowns NIMBYISM and GRAMPUS (which I vaguely recall having seen before).
  36. 13:19 for today – some straightforward clues but also a few that were more tricky, so for me a well balanced puzzle.
    Back into old habits and failing to spot the hidden answer in 10 ac for a while. Finally unravelled 1 dn when I realised that “elevated” could apply to more than the first word that followed.
    I was another who got Berkshire into his head for 8 dn until I realised that I knew no one called “Reb” and an even more illuminating moment when I remembered that my brother-in-law’s name is Roy!
    Thanks as ever to Jack for the blog and setter.
  37. Good stuff apart from ADIT which like others was my LOI. Vaguely knew the word but the w/p baffled. Also didn’t know SASKATOON so quite pleased to eke that one out

    Thanks jackkt and setter

  38. 19.43. I felt slow and off the pace as I made my way round the grid. Delayed in particular by the unfamiliar Saskatoon and by the not so unfamiliar spaghetti.
  39. Haven’t finished yet but we’re enjoying ourselves: not too tortuous and we do like a setter with a sense of humour. Laugh-out-loud for 26 ac
    1. I’m finding a lot of difficulty logging in. I made the above comment thinking I had done so but it’s come out as Anonymous. Infuriating
      1. Unless you deliberately log out it’s quite rare to need to sign in when you revisit TfTT to activate your user-id, but it does happen. If you are already signed in and you go to write a comment the text box that opens will show your user-id just above the Subject field and all you need to do is check that it’s there, rather than Anonymous.

        Edited at 2021-05-18 09:10 pm (UTC)

  40. A mix of doable and tricky, meaning only three-quarters finished. Let down by not knowing Latin, for 23ac, nor anything about Burlington House. FOI, though, was ADIT which stumped some others. Fancy that.

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