Times Cryptic 27986

62 comments on “Times Cryptic 27986”

1. No major holdups although I wasn’t sure about VITREOUS humour but I couldn’t fit the letters any other way. Also, I misread “nosily investigated” as “noisily” and so I was looking for a homophone. I was also bemused by ICT since I didn’t know that it stood for anything other than the old name of ICL (eventually part of Fujitsu) but that seemed too far in the past even for a Times crossword.

   If you ever get the opportunity then I recommend watching ‘allo ‘allo in French (if you can understand any). It is in French, of course, but the English characters speak French with an outrageous English accent, and the German characters with an outrageous German accent, and the French characters speak normally.

2. Translation for our Colonial Quarter – said to reluctant children:- ‘Get to bed!’ Ironic as there are no hills in Befordshire – except Dunstable Downs! MY WOD. I have set foot in Bedford and wheels – passed my driving test there! My daughter taught at the school. And it was once the centre for Japanese studies in Britain.

   (Jack – I do hope you are not name dropping!)

   FOI 4dn ANNOUNCE

   LOI 6dn COHERE – unparsed

   COD 10ac WAND

   Time 53mins

   1. I think we generally leave that to you, h…
      1. Indeed! I’ll raise you a Kenneth Woolstenholme who I met when I was 11!
         1. I’ll see your Kenneth Wolstenholme, and raise you a simultaneous John Motson and Tony Gubba. Cab driving has its perks (just not enough of ’em).
            1. A Prile – Penelope Keith, David Bailey, Robbie Coltrane
               1. Chapeau !
3. 39 minutes. I was half-way through an alphabet trawl for ‘African’ for 10a before realising I had the wrong def and one of the easiest clues of the day, PATRON took longer than it should have as my LOI. Thank goodness for the wordplay for IDOLATER was so clear, otherwise I would have been faced with the old “Is it E or is it O?” problem. I suppose I’ve come across it before, but I didn’t recognise ICT for ‘computing’.

   Missed the parsing for TEETOTAL; no excuse, but I always forget whether ‘on the wagon’ or “off the wagon” means “not drinking” despite having seen the Seinfeld episode several times.

   Thanks to setter and Jack

4. Started off slow, 26ac my FOI, but things picked up. 1ac threw me off, as I thought of M_N for ‘case’, then grammatical case, and only finally case. Fortunately INTER the club came up recently, or 20ac would have taken me a lot longer. ‘Kind of humor’ immediately suggested VITREOUS (Cornwall’s “vile jelly”). I thought of COHERE early on, couldn’t parse it, so dropped it. DNK ICT. Is TAHITI still exotic? Liked WAND, OVATION, DISINTER.

   Edited at 2021-05-25 03:20 am (UTC)

5. 15:47 – I found this tricky, and DICTATE was my last one in, but once everything was in place, all was understood. Good challenging puzzle.
6. I had little trouble with wand and idolater, but I had to think long and hard over the clue likely to be most difficult for a US solver: disinter. I finally remembered the team, and added dis-, but it still didn’t look like a word – then I saw it.

   On the other hand, I was a big Mets fan back in the 60s, and listened to the games on my little black transistor radio.

   1. I was going to remark that it seemed odd to have the name of a baseball team here.
   2. You reminded me that I was stuck at home with a newborn the fall of 1986 and I carried a radio from room to room with me during that amazing World Series.
7. …Like a winged seed loosened from its parent Stem

   20 mins pre-brekker. I loved it. There are so many fun turns of phrase. Mostly I liked: Tee total, Dis Inter, Disc re ET, An n’Ounce and, best of all, Ticker!
   Brilliant. Thanks setter and J.

   PS I didn’t know the monkey.

   Edited at 2021-05-25 05:54 am (UTC)

8. When IDOLATER was my FOI it felt like I could be on the wavelength today and so it proved. I was off it though for my LOI, DICTATE, where I needed all the crossers to realise I didn’t need to get IT in there somewhere. I did recognise ICT well enough though, having had two children at school in relatively recent years. I believe the school subject is no longer called ICT though I couldn’t tell you what it’s called now.
9. I have fond memories of BEDFORDSHIRE from the early eighties, when I was part of a team demonstrating against nuclear Cruise missiles by running from Molesworth to Grosvenor Square. The Bedfordshire police gave us an escort through the county.

   The clue for CHAPLAIN raised more than an eyebrow — large numbers of chaplains (hospital, workplace, prison, army) are female.

   20′ 34″, thanks jack and setter.

   1. I don’t think the setter is guilty of anything more than using a definition by example, and even that is mitigated by the question mark at the end of the clue. There’s no reason for it to be there other than to demonstrate that he is aware that chaplainship not a ‘men only’ position.

      Oh dear, and now I’ve transgressed too by assuming the setter is a man!

      Edited at 2021-05-25 07:27 am (UTC)

      1. Just make sure you refer to the setter as “zhe” in future 😉
         1. ‘Ze’ is enough. Recently entered the Scrabble lexicon.
      2. …and so it turns into the “Don’t say Jehovah!” blasphemy sketch from Life of Brian.
10. 36 minutes, slow in the SE with LOI PRIMPED after DISCREET finally dawned on me. I didn’t know the monkey either but the crossers were kind. COD to DISINTER. I get some terrible ear worms from these puzzles and I do hope that I can stop trying to remember a daft ditty we sang in the primary school playground to the tune of Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier, about a much travelled footballer. As above. Can anyone help? Thank you to Jack and setter.
    1. Can’t help sadly, but I know how many ears he had!
       1. Three.
11. Excellent funny crossword with a setter who cares about the surfaces.
12. It helped when I solved BEDFORDSHIRE
    As the grid then began to COHERE
    Very moderate strain
    Will OVERTIRE my brain
    So DISINTER, at last, prompted a cheer
13. I thought we were in for a really tough one having arrived at ANISEED as FOI. Slowly the SW filled up, then the SE and finished in the NW with CHAPLAIN and WAND. An unusual anti-clockwise morning. I had Chad for a while until the Man of God appeared. DNK TITI either but easy once the checkers were in. COD TEETOTAL. As a golfer I loved this clue. TICKER was clever too.

    Thank you Jack and setter.

14. Another IDOLATER of this sort of puzzle, brilliant, clever clues with proper misdirections all over the place, but kind where it needed to be and not needlessly obscure. Virtuous humour abounding, so plenty of smiles: DIS INTER (great!) and TEE TOTAL the best of them.
    Those of us who spend much time trying to dispose of the always-surplus Is in word games recognise the TITI, some of us even know what it is.
    Last in THIN, trying to imagine a word that had T at the start (object ultimately) and a word for going. A final misleading flourish from a fine setter.
    1. Oh, sorry, 15.50.
15. 10:18. I started very slowly on this but gathered pace when the downs proved gentler than the acrosses. A reminder that if you want to solve quickly (not that there is any reason you should, of course) it’s a good idea to make sure you’ve tried all the clues ASAP so you benefit from as many checkers as possible.
16. 15:32. Very slow to start with IS being my FOI, but the down’s got me going. Held up at the end by WAND having to think of the African country. DNK the monkey, but the island fit the checkers.I liked the misleading VITREOUS best.
17. Interesting puzzle, which required a lot of holding the clues up to the light and working out which way to look at them. As per keriothe, I was two-thirds of the way through the across clues before I got my first entry in the grid, so I thought we were in for a real stinker, but the downs gave me more of a way in. Nearly invented the GAND before moving further through the continent of Africa. Nice stuff.
    1. I tried that on too.
    2. Wand required a thorough mental traverse of Africa. Especially since the clue is ambiguous as to which end is the definition, but Mali and Chad were the only 4-letter countries that came to mind, so the definition seemed to be Rod. Took a while, and an alphabet trawl… but got there. Never considered gand.
18. 20 mins
    Fun puzzle; good surfaces.
    Thanks, jack.
19. This looked terrifying from a distance but the closer I got to it the more straightforward it became. Wasted too long trying to parse ADDITION, thinking that “habit” referred to tradition. Some excellent clues throughout, I thought. WAND DISINTER and PRIMPED amongst them.

    Thanks to Jack and the setter.

    1. Bit confused on the addition one. Can someone explain why addition = summers activity?

       Cheers

       1. People who add up!
20. Nicest puzzle for a while, with lots of lovely clues. The first I solved was the old chestnut IDOLATER, so my hopes weren’t high, but after that it was very imaginative and original.

    Hard to pick a favourite, but I’d say FRONTIERSMAN, TEETOTAL, ANISEED, DISINTER, TICKER, CHAPLAIN, BEDFORDSHIRE & ADDITION were all special. DISINTER caused the biggest smile so I’ll go for that one.

    For some reason I thought vitreous humour was always spelled as ‘humor’, even in countries that would otherwise have a U, but turns out I was wrong. Learned something today! Two things, in fact: FRANKLIN was an unknown.

    8m 22s.

21. Contrast with yesterday couldn’t have been starker. All done in 34. NHO TITI but it couldn’t have been anything else and we had ICT for computing quite recently. Unusually, I remembered it.
22. Sorted it all out eventually, but sadly, having parsed my antipenultimate as I Do Later, I typed it in as IDOLATOR. Bu**er! PATRON was my LOI after I corrected CHAPLIAN. 38:32 WOE. Thanks setter and Jack.
23. Good stuff, half an hour, had to check Franklin was right. DK the monkey either.
24. The FRANKLIN’s tale was another one of my A Level set books and I remember absolutely nothing about it except the name. I seem to connect VITREOUS with the kind of porcelain used in bathroom fixtures- good clue that. In fact top notch puzzle. 18.55
    1. I was actually starting to re-read the Tales after several decades, can’t remember a single damn one, and had done the Prologue and started the Knight’s tale, when thankfully Amazon sent me a couple of Margery Allinghams. Did it ever occur to you, by the way, to wonder how 30 people on horseback could tell each other stories?
       1. Well Kevin I assume that the religious types fell back when the Miller and the Wife of Bath got going but as for the rest it is hard to picture.
    2. Dorigen’s offhand promise to the Squire Aurelius about the rocks that threaten her husband’s return, which goes badly wrong, but all turns out happily. Interesting moral dilemmas — who was the most ‘fre’ of them all.
25. Didn’t know it meant word is contained inside? Is this common usage?
    1. Yes, I’m sure I’ve seen similar before. It is quite straightforward in that the CO-RE (heart) is broken by man HE.
       Andyf
26. Nothing too tricky here though I had to think twice whether IDOLATER should have had another O rather than an E.

    LOI was PATRON which took a while to see the crafty anag.

27. Loved it, many great clues, as others have noted. Really good to be often confused about which end was the definition – LOI patron, where I was kinda expecting the definition to be “on tap”.
    COD disinter. Having attended a few Milan/Inter derbies in the San Siro.
28. A very interesting and fun puzzle, which I enjoyed immensely. Only five in on first pass – borderline as to whether to carry on. Then it all slowly started to fall into place. I reckon it took me the best part of an hour to complete. Lots occurred to me but I couldn’t see why so I didn’t put them in until I could see how they would be what they seemed to be, e.g. aniseed, frontiersman etc. Audition? addition? Why? Adhere? cohere? Thanks, Jack, for clarifying those, and for the reference to golf which I didn’t get, and which now amuses as it should. FOI thin, LOI omelette with a groan. Better with a green sauce. Matron? – ah, patron! COD? they all were for me. I think I enjoyed Franklin the best, I got the nil backwards bit and then Hey Presto the Franklin came to mind. Vitreous a close second. Liked ” (Say) when” also. GW
29. Most enjoyable 45m, full of wit and ‘aha’ moments for me. Thank you, setter and Jack today. And a mention of one of the Canterbury pilgrims too.
30. Another fan, of both this puzzle and the Mets. Today I liked the range of kinds of definitions, too some cryptic, some straight, at least Stop Pouring as an example. Thx jack
31. 24.35. FOI chaplain, LOI patron. Took a while to realise tap was part of the clue not the definition. Really enjoyed this despite a couple of blockages. Two candidates for COD idolater and my eventual pick, disinter. A brilliant clue I thought and very droll.
    Thanks setter and blogger but particularly setter.
32. ….to French Polynesia, and with never a dull moment. A fabulous puzzle as others have already said. It all fell together at what was, by my standards, a leisurely pace, although I only parsed SPORTSCASTER afterwards.

    FOI SCABBARD (I immediately sensed a treat in store)
    LOI WAND (good job Uganda didn’t leap out at me !)
    COD DISINTER (love a clever footy clue)
    TIME 12:05

33. 16:24 with a fair proportion spent resolving the NE corner. 14 Ac TEETOTAL held me up even though I reckoned the answer meant “on the wagon” I couldn’t stop thinking of driving in the motoring sense. Well I’ve only been playing golf for over 60 years!
    8 d FRANKLIN – I solved it from the cryptic elements but tried to work out what Benjamin had to do with it all until the PDM appeared in the guise of Chaucer.
    Plenty of potential CODs e.g. Disinter, Ticker, Frontiersman to name but a few.
    Thanks to Jack for the blog and setter for a very well designed challenge.
34. 55 minutes, and then my LOI was PARRON (a kind of tap, didn’t you know?), so DNF. I just couldn’t see PATRON (until I saw the pink square), but then I wasn’t looking in the right place. I found the rest not too easy, either, but I did eventually piece together or more accurately, pull apart, the other clues. Nice puzzle.
35. 28.20. I found the RHS a bit of a struggle, suffering from an inability to see which way round I should be looking at the clue and also hanging on too long to incorrect and unworkable assumptions. Teetotal, Franklin, vitreous, ovation and ticker were all very good and all had me stumped for quite some time at the end. Disinter my favourite though, I think.
36. Not a lot of success with this, but thoroughly enjoyed both those I saw — especially DISINTER — and those I didn’t — especially VITREOUS.
    I parsed 27a as
    DISC (DVD, say), RE (touching — concerning), ET (film)
    1. Thanks re 27ac
37. Greatly enjoyed this puzzle. As a regular of the QC who very rarely ventures into this arena, I did need aids to help me disentangle the last dozen or so clues, but the resulting PDMs were still lots of fun. For the parsing of 27A, I take “touching” to be RE, and “on” to explain how RE and ET are attached to DISC. (I gave this careful attention because it was one of two clues that I couldn’t parse before seeing the blog).
    1. Thanks for this, dante21c, and welcome if this is your first venture into our 15×15 discussions. I have corrected my parsing of 27ac. I’m usually very hot on interpreting ‘on’ clues so I’m ashamed to have had a lapse of concentration on that one!

       Edited at 2021-05-26 05:07 am (UTC)

38. Too clever for me. Each clue too intricate fir me to pick apart, which I know is the point but it would have taken me all day. Managed a lowly four in 30 mins, but pleased with those I got, particularly TOWER HAMLETS. Such an aspirational name when it was created…. Plus PRIMPED, WHEN and BEDFORDSHIRE. I know, a very poor show!

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