Times Cryptic 28112

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

I completed all but one answer within 30 minutes but after 36  minutes I gave up and used aids for the last one in.

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 Source of steel block fool contaminated with copper (8)
DAMASCUS
DAM (block), then ASS (fool) containing [contaminated with] CU (copper). Just as well the wordplay was straightforward as I never ‘eard of this. ‘Contaminated with’ is a little unusual as a containment indicator but I think it works.
5 My people book most of holiday site, something much used in lockdown (6)
WEBCAM
WE (my people), B (book), CAM{p} (holiday site) [most of…]. Not used by me, and I’ve never holidayed in a camp, but I take the point.
9 Republican? I would rave, perhaps, for removal (8)
RIDDANCE
R (Republican), I’D (I would), DANCE (rave, perhaps)
10 Spirit — a small measure fellow’s consumed (6)
DAEMON
DON (fellow) contains [has consumed] A + EM (small measure – printing). This was the one I gave up on as I couldn’t think of a word for ‘spirit’ to fit the checkers and the route via wordplay was closed off to me as I had convinced myself that ‘small measure’  would be MM. I also considered S+M for a while but discounted that as I don’t recall ever seeing m = measure. As for the fellow, I considered DON but also the possibility that it could be any man’s name ??N and there were too many of those to work through.  Of course I’m aware of the old-fashioned alternative spelling of the answer but I wasn’t expecting it.
12 Crooked western madam in early American settlement (3,9)
NEW AMSTERDAM
Anagram [crooked] of WESTERN MADAM. The Big Apple when it was little more than a pip.
15 Middle of April or earlier (5)
PRIOR
{a}PRI{l} [middle of…], OR
16 Western town is small beginning for this key US state (2,7)
ST AUSTELL
S (small), T{his} [beginning], A (key – music), US, TELL (state). The Cornish town has a rather good brewery. For those who like hoppy and strong, I recommend their Proper Job.
18 European force repeatedly once inspiring dread around Britain’s heart but repelled? (9)
LUFTWAFFE
E (European) + F F (force repeatedly) + AWFUL (once inspiring dread) containing [around] {Bri}T{ain} [‘s heart], all reversed [repelled]. A stunning &lit clue! I think ‘once’ indicates that ‘inspiring dread’  may have been the original meaning of ‘awful’ but it’s used more casually now for things far less severe.
19 What’s new in clothes? Item with arms joined together (5)
TONGS
N (new) contained by [in] TOGS (clothes)
20 Girl’s after a regular visitor to the dairy plant (8,4)
GUERNSEY LILY
GUERNSEY (regular visitor to the dairy – a breed of cow), LILY (girl). Never ‘eard of it.
24 Flower is good in territory’s first flag (6)
TIGRIS
G (good) contained by [in] T{erritory} [‘s first] + IRIS (flag – plant).  The river flows into the Persian Gulf.
25 A run time reset is deliberate (8)
RUMINATE
Anagram [reset] of A RUN TIME
26 Caught express to get fast boat (6)
CUTTER
C (caught – cricket), UTTER (express)
27 Farm animal is present intended to be given to daughter (8)
HEREFORD
HERE (present), FOR (intended to be given to}, D (daughter). All this farmyard stuff! ‘Guernsey’ and ‘Hereford’, both creatures that ‘ruminate’, and ‘scarecrow’ still to come in the Down answers. Is our setter a farmer from St Austell, I wonder?
Down
1 Fish out of water without oxygen (4)
DORY
DRY (out of water) containing [without – outside] O (oxygen)
2 Style of metre poem follows (4)
MODE
M (metre), ODE (poem)
3 Concern in Worcestershire rising unsettling rural figure (9)
SCARECROW
CARE (concern) contained by [in] WORCS (Worcestershire – official abbreviation) reversed [rising].
4 One holding lecture in public (12)
UNCLASSIFIED
UNIFIED (one) containing [holding] CLASS (lecture)
6 Get thrilled when English story turns up (5)
ELATE
E (English) + TALE (story) reversed [turns up]
7 Amusing woman‘s invitation to stop over November ends in union and marriage (10)
COMEDIENNE
COME (invitation), DIE (stop), N (November – NATO alphabet), {unio}N + {marriag}E [ends]
8 Note celebrities distinguished by few features (10)
MINIMALIST
MINIM (note – music), A-LIST (celebrities)
11 Provision to leave space, as clue confused editor initially (6,6)
ESCAPE CLAUSE
Anagram [confused] of SPACE AS CLUE, then E{ditor} [initially]
13 Sorry self-importance is elevated in rigged Capitol (10)
APOLOGETIC
EGO (self-importance) reversed [elevated] and contained by [in] anagram [rigged] of CAPITOL
14 Voice alarm about European aviation business (3,7)
AIR FREIGHT
AIR (voice e.g. an opinion), FRIGHT (alarm) containing [about] E (European)
17 Gorge on pounds with few calories for heavenly body (9)
SATELLITE
SATE (gorge), L (pounds), LITE (with few calories)
21 Showing an innocence one found in large part of church (5)
NAIVE
I (one) contained by [found in] NAVE (large part of church)
22 Craze over Portuguese song (4)
FADO
FAD (craze), O (over – cricket). Here’s a taste of it.
23 Ward‘s fine goal (4)
FEND
F (fine), END (goal). You might ward / fend something off.

69 comments on “Times Cryptic 28112”

  1. A full three minutes at the end trying to construct the town, probably a write-in for local solvers. In the process I’d forgotten how uncertain I was about my other NHO, FADO.

    Happy to avoid the pink squares after all that.

    Thanks Jack and setter.

  2. DNF — I didn’t know St Austell and couldn’t manage to assemble it. The only town I could think of was St Andrews, which got dinged letter by letter, not to mention that it is distinctly Eastern rather than Western. I liked Tigris, and who couldn’t like Luftwaffe. Thanks, jackkt
  3. I got LUFTWAFFE fairly early on, but I took the definition to be ‘European force’, which left the FFE unaccounted for. Evidently I knew ST AUSTELL, as it came to me once I’d determined it was ST X. Biffed SCARECROW, parsed after; DNK WORCS.It took me forever to get POI UNCLASSIFIED, including time to reject DE-. Which forced DAMASCUS on me. Having now looked it up, it’s not clear that Damascus was the source of the steel. I’d certainly never heard of it, anyway.
    Thanks for the FADO link, Jack; here’s one by the great Amàlia Rodrigues:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6ZJXKzLpRM

    Edited at 2021-10-19 01:54 am (UTC)

  4. Two wrong. I also went for mm (I don’t think of an em as small, an em-dash is as big as they get, for example). So I had DAMMON (a plausible spirit). I didn’t know the Portuguese song either, and went for MADO. No problem with St Austell since my Dad lives in Cornwall and I have regularly partaken of the St Austell beers.

    Edited at 2021-10-19 01:51 am (UTC)

    1. I agree about the EM dash being the larger of the two printing measures that turn up regularly and I was going to say something similar in my blog, but by the time I came to write it I had forgotten about it.
  5. 29 minutes. FADO was new but otherwise everything parsed except for UNCLASSIFIED which went in from the def. Lucky to get DAEMON, as I thought a ‘small measure’ was more likely to be an ‘en’ rather than an ’em’. I agree about LUFTWAFFE which was my COD too. Good to see the agricultural / rural mini-theme.

    Thanks to Jack and setter

  6. the scales did quickly fall from my eyes, after a slow start. 35 minutes and no passes. 16ac ST. AUSTELL was a gimme as I remembered the slogan postmarks I collected, as a lad. (The word-checker thingy corrected this to ‘a salad’!)

    FOI 15ac PRIOR — remember Jim!?

    LOI 1dn DORY! What ever happened to John? And what of Matt DAEMON at 10ac?

    COD 18ac LUFTWAFFE — they did bomb Boston after all! (That’s Boston Lincs., and not over the pond!)

    WOD 3dn SCARECROW — memories of an unrepeatable Les Dawson mother-in-law joke! Those were the days! These are not!

    I find 8dn, when present, one of the most important clues to get early on in the piece. Today arrived at MINIMALIST with only three letters present, and filled in the spaces, without reading the clue first, which worked for a change! I venture this is a ‘blindman’s biff’, which gets us nicely back to ‘square one’!

    Edited at 2021-10-19 01:49 pm (UTC)

  7. 16 minutes or so, but completely failed to read the clue for 10 Across and put MAMMON, thus substituting one indignity for another, as I surely would have gone for DAIMON rather than DAEMON anyway. (1M is hardly a ‘small measure’ so it would have served me right.)
    1. I was another MAMMON. I actually thought I had parsed it — a small measure = AMM in fellow = MAN. Except that doesn’t work. Fiddlesticks.
      1. Me too, but I parsed mon as the Scottish word for man, and when I checked MAMMON, I discovered that mediaeval folks considered it an evil spirit, so I feel a bit cheated, but there was a compensation….

        To ELATE me and bring much delight
        Our setter did something just right
        It’s my birthday today
        And I’m shouting hooray
        As I have just found SATELLITE!! 😀

        1. It would indeed work in Scotland — I shoved it in on that basis, backing it out soon afterwards since there was no Scottish indicator.
      3. I misspoke: I *did* read the clue, and “parsed” it as you did. What I didn’t read closely was my own work!
  8. Like Jack, one short, but for me it was GUERNSEY. I even had Wikipedia up looking at types of lilies, but didn’t see this one.

    Thanks for help on parsing APOLOGETIC, that remained in pencil for a long time.

    I’ll never get used to “without” when it means “with” : for DORY I was looking for a 5 letter word with the O struck out. Please don’t quote the names of City churches or Easter hymns to justify a sneaky bit of misdirection.

    LUFTWAFFE clue was a great &lit, when I finally saw it. Also DAMASCUS which I carefully assembled, but it kept the NW blank for a long time. FOI was HEREFORD, right at the bottom.

    NHO FADO

    Also I don’t see Iris=Flag in TIGRIS clue. What’s that about?

    Edited at 2021-10-19 04:32 am (UTC)

    1. I urge one and all to listen to The Master’s chosen FADO, to be found in his blog. It is quite delightfull; sung by a Portuguese Linda Ronstadt, if you will. Now we’ll ever remember the word FADO. Jack thank-you for that lovely moment.

      Edited at 2021-10-19 04:43 am (UTC)

    2. Iris and flag are interchangeable for a type of flower, usually blue on land but yellow in my pond.
  9. Just DAEMON left after my 30 minutes. Just too many possibilties for measure and fellow. Thought of MADO first but it didn’t sound right. I first worked on the china clay pits in St Austell in 1982 and was still working for the client almost 40 years later. COD to DORY … very elegant.
  10. All done in 30:33 including NHO FADO with fingers crossed. FOI 1dn DORY with 1ac DAMASCUS visible in the wordplay for a while before it went in still without seeing any connection to steel. Held up most in the north east. COD to MINIMALIST
  11. … With anguish moist and fever-dew,
    And on thy cheeks a fading rose
    Fast withereth too.

    After 20 mins I only had to alpha-trawl to get to Guernsey. NHO the plant.
    Daemon reminded me of Harry Hill’s story about when he went to the ‘funeral florist’ to buy a big NAN in flowers for his Nan’s hearse. But they had sold out of NANs. So he had to buy a DEAN and a DAMIAN and combine them to get a NAN. Luckily, with what was left over, he could form ‘I AM DEAD’ for the other side of the hearse.

    Thanks setter and J.

  13. Thanks for another fine link, Jack. For what it’s worth I had DAMON around E(n) which kind of works.
  14. 27minutes with LOI GUERNSEY LILY, a plant I’ve never heard of. She sounds like a wartime member of the resistance. COD to MINIMALIST for its smooth surface. WEBCAM was neat too. I suppose the scales did fall off my eyes on the road to solving Damascus, even though I’ve never heard of the steel. Setter, why persecutest thou me? But there were lots of excellent clues and I really liked this. Thank you Jack and setter.
  16. 12:38, with several minutes at the end scratching my head over _A_M_N. Like others I became fixated on MM, and even when — after rejecting DAMMON and MAMMAN — I told myself not to fixate on it I found it hard to dislodge mentally. I got there eventually.
    Relieved not to see a pink square for FADO: it seemed likely there might be another interpretation of the wordplay.
    I knew about DAMASCUS steel: almost as famous as Valyrian.
    LUFTWAFFE superb.
    Nice to see one of my kids appear.
    And I fully endorse jackkt’s views on beer: I drank lots of Proper Job over the summer, it’s one of my favourites.

    Edited at 2021-10-19 07:11 am (UTC)

    1. I’ve been a little surprised by the general reaction to FADO as I’d have sworn on my life that not only did it appear quite recently but that it was on one of my blogging days and I posted a link to a video clip, just as I did today. However if TfTT Google search is to be believed it has appeared only once before, in 2016 in a puzzle blogged by former showrunner Andy. I could be thinking of a puzzle from elsewhere but then why would I think I had posted a clip? It’s very odd.

      Edited at 2021-10-19 08:38 am (UTC)

      1. I too could have sworn that FADO was recent, otherwise I would not have known it, even though the clueing was spot on.

        Edited at 2021-10-19 06:15 pm (UTC)

  17. Defeated by DAEMON – I thought of demon as a spirit, but not with the A, and ’em’ as a small measure never occurred to me – and GUERNSEY LILY. Also didn’t parse LUFTWAFFE, thinking that it was just a slightly tortured cryptic definition. COD was UNCLASSIFIED for its concision.
  18. 15:15 finishing with UNCLASSIFIED. I failed to parse DAEMON, but I should know my ems and ens as measures by now. Another fan of Proper Job. My local convenience store had it in a “3 for £5” for a while. COD to the brilliant LUFTWAFFE.

    Edited at 2021-10-19 07:38 am (UTC)

  19. Nice crossword, probably no need to say what the LOI was.
    Never been to St Austell, barely been to Cornwall in fact. My grandparents lived in Paignton, loathed the Cornish, and would never let me go there. Fun fact: the Devon & Cornwall police force is the only one in England where you can insist on serving only in the one county, or the other ..

    Edited at 2021-10-19 08:41 am (UTC)

  20. …like others I needed aids with DAEMON. And, yes, I thought the ‘small measure’ was A MM.
    Is DAMASCUS, supposedly the source of steel, somewhere in Ohio?
    FOI: NEW AMSTERDAM
    LOI….Need I say.
    COD: ST AUSTELL and UNCLASSIFIED.
  21. In under 15 minutes, with the LILY last in once I started thinking of specific rather than generic milk producers.
    FADO is another of those words I’ve used quite often in word games without bothering with what it is: another revelation.
    I nearly convinced myself of GAMMON, worried that I couldn’t find the fellow and going on a wild chase to make it mean spirit. Also concerned because it’s deemed in some quarters a racist term. Sanity prevailed.
    LUFTWAFFE was brilliant. Pity I didn’t fully appreciate it.
  22. This is my last day of a week’s holiday on Jersey, but that didn’t prevent “Guernsey Lily” being my last one in!
    Good puzzle with a brilliant clue 18a “Luftwaffe”.
  23. Never heard of Damascus steel, but have now. Evidently ancient so not Ohio. Couldn’t parse St Austell or unclassified. In the St A clue there was an anagram of US state + ll, which was a red herring that I never coped with, and I thought that ‘unclassified’ was a fanciful CD. 35.45.
  24. DNF as another who had MAMMON. Bah. I liked WEBCAM. As BW says, lots of great clues. Last word in ESCAPE for some odd reason.

    Thanks Jack and setter.

  27. 50 mins but DNF 3 clues. Never heard of fado or guernsey lily and couldn’t work them out. Hereford should have got. Not helped by intermission of 45 mins. Always enjoy the comments. Thanks
  28. All present and correct. LOI Daemon. I toyed with Mammon, Dammon, Rammon but stuck to my resolve NOT TO PUT IN WORDS THAT ONLY MIGHT EXIST. Daemon popularised by the Philip Pullman books, no? I’m afraid I didn’t parse Luftwaffe so failed to see its brilliance until I read the blog. Now I do!
  29. I can’t help you there but it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that I’ve seen this before and forgotten it!
  30. but with a MAMMON. DAEMON appears regularly on Countdown etc, but I just didn’t see it. I do think that a random man’s name isn’t quite cricket.
    Liked it otherwise. LOI GUERNSEY NHO
    1. I don’t think DON is a random man. He’s a bloke with a job at a university. Unless of course, like Major Major, his name is DON…
      1. Thanks, I’d seen eniamretrauq’s comment and was about to make the same point. The problem for me here was that I had considered DON as the obvious ‘fellow’ (at university) but hadn’t got anywhere with that and then I realised there was a possibility that ‘fellow’ might be any man’s name to fit **N and that was when I gave up. I’m sorry to say that random names pop up several times a week, if not daily.

        Edited at 2021-10-19 10:25 am (UTC)

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