Times Cryptic 28136

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 70 minutes with one cheat, and as my timing might suggest, I found this puzzle very hard indeed. But not to worry, as we were due a stinker after Monday’s easy ride which occupied me for only 16 minutes. I only hope I was not alone in finding this tough.

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 Cockney Bob, say, interrupting female’s call for equality (4,3)
FAIR DO’S
{h}AIR DO (Bob, say) [Cockney], contained by [interrupting] F (female) + ‘S
5 Scatter cream on wife (7)
BESTREW
BEST (cream), RE (on), W (wife). Other than in poetry perhaps a word possibly not spoken since the middle of the 19th century.
9 Convey what wrong answers may do (3,6)
GET ACROSS
A straight definition and a cryptic nudge in the direction of GET A CROSS
10 Canteen in one area in Stoke to the west (5)
NAAFI
I (one) then A (area) contained by [in] FAN (stoke), all reversed [to the west]. SOED: The Navy, Army, and Air Force Institutes; a canteen, store, etc., run for service personnel by this organization. I’m not sure that ‘stoke’ and ‘fan’ are synonymous by themselves but ‘stoking a fire’ and ‘fanning its flames’ are in the same area of meaning.
11 Star squeezed into little girdle, pirouetting (5)
RIGEL
Hidden [squeezed into] and reversed  [pirouetting] inside {litt}LE GIR{l}
12 Cart around jam that’s a good standard (9)
YARDSTICK
DRAY (cart) reversed [around], STICK (jam)
14 Shot frenetic Bourne film (5,9)
BRIEF ENCOUNTER
Anagram [shot] of FRENETIC BOURNE. One of my favourite films of all time, directed by David Lean who turned up here as an answer very recently. It was originally a short play in five scenes by Noël Coward, written as part of his Tonight at 8:30 collection and called Still Life. Coward wrote the screenplay and co-produced the film and somebody with a touch of genius decided to set it all to music by Rachmaninov. Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard starred and light relief was provided by Joyce Carey and Stanley Holloway. The result is an absolute classic of British cinema.
17 Joint operation all the rage on work posting (3,11)
HIP REPLACEMENT
HIP (all the rage), RE (on), PLACEMENT (work posting)
21 A time for cooking, swallowing fish bones (9)
METACARPI
Anagram [for cooking] of A TIME, containing [swallowing] CARP (fish). This was my one cheat as I could only think of METATARSI (also bones) and when I went to look up TARS wondering if it could be a fish, I accidentally stumbled upon METACARPI. I wouldn’t normally check anything in a dictionary whilst solving, but my progress had been so slow I decided to bend the rules a bit.
23 Right iPhone broken, and no case for phone charger (5)
RHINO
R (right), then anagram [broken] of I{p}HON{e} [no case for phone – delete p and e]. I’m not sure whether this devious clue is very good or too clever by half. The deletion indicator seems unnecessarily convoluted, and the definition relies on the catch-all ‘any person or thing that charges’ which without the wordplay to narrow it down could be any number of 5-letter answers. If ‘charger’ has a more specific meaning in the animal kingdom, it’s a horse.
24 Meal with Democrat going mental (5)
INNER
{d}INNER (meal) [with Democrat going]. Inner thoughts, I suppose.
25 Hit runs during a defeat in sub-par performance (9)
ALBATROSS
BAT (hit) + R (runs),  contained by [during] A LOSS (defeat). Three strokes under par in golf.
26 Snake oil, say, in no way unusual (7)
NOSTRUM
NO, ST (way), RUM (unusual). After working through the more complex wordplay in some of these clues I was fooled by this one’s simplicity and spent ages trying to construct the answer – one I did know, as it happens.
27 Something to depress Everton fans by English port? (3,4)
RED WINE
RED WIN (something to depress Everton fans), E (English). ‘The Reds’ are Liverpool Football Club, and Everton their local rivals also based in Liverpool.
Down
1 Quick-witted stage hero bags one grand in card game (6)
FIGARO
I (one) + G (grand) contained by [in] FARO (card game). Okay, Figaro is smart but so are a thousand other stage heroes so we have another very vague definition. I can’t see what ‘bags’ is doing other than serving as some sort of link word.
2 Full figure for one clad in Italian outfit (7)
INTEGER
EG (for one – example) contained by [clad in] INTER (Italian outfit – another football team)
3 Exhibiting bust key, holding pass (9)
DECOLLETE
DELETE (key) containing [holding] COL (mountain pass)
4 Merchant banks to try out an account provider (11)
STORYTELLER
SELLER (merchant) contains [banks] anagram [out] of TO TRY
5 Transport not fully occupied (3)
BUS
BUS{y} (occupied) [not fully]. An escapee from the QC, perhaps.
6 Passage south across the Atlantic (5)
SINUS
S (south), IN U.S. (across the Atlantic)
7 Heartless rogue stars in Dickens, say (7)
REALIST
R{ogu}E [heartless], A-LIST (stars). Another vague definition, this time by signalled example and one for Eng. Lit. aficionados who like to categorise writers and their output. I never managed to get through any Dickens novel so my knowledge of them comes only from TV and film adaptations. David Lean directed a couple of classics.
8 Maybe Bourbon queen’s bored with sideboards (8)
WHISKERY
R (queen) is contained by [has bored] WHISKEY (maybe Bourbon). I’ve parsed it this way rather than use ER as queen as bourbon is American and ‘whiskey’ with an ‘e’ is the preferred spelling there.
13 Conservative member punching chair person high on face? (4,7)
ROCK CLIMBER
C (Conservative) + LIMB (member) contained by [punching] ROCKER (chair)
15 Intrude roughly to seize this person without warrant (9)
UNMERITED
Anagram [roughly] of INTRUDE contains [to seize] ME (this person)
16 Defender about to overplay ball breaking leg (8)
CHAMPION
C (about), HAM (to overplay) then O (ball) contained by [breaking] PIN (leg)
18 Legal documents Lawrence initially put in drawers (7)
PATENTS
TE (Lawrence initially) contained by [put in] PANTS (drawers). Thomas Edward Lawrence’s life was celebrated in the epic movie Lawrence of Arabia, another classic directed by none other than David Lean!
19 Peer around state north of India’s capital (7)
NAIROBI
NOB (peer of the realm) contains [around] AIR (state one’s opinion), then I (NATO India). ‘North’ is just a positional indicator.
20 Sweet food in steamer with a sour look about it (6)
MOUSSE
MOUE (sour look) contains [about] SS (steamer – steam ship). We had MOUE very recently so it came easily to mind.
22 One tends to make a dash with only half the energy (5)
CARER
CARE{e}R (make a dash) [with only half the energy – e]
25 Goal that’s one in a million (3)
AIM
I (one) contained by [in] A + M (million)

87 comments on “Times Cryptic 28136”

  1. 1 hour and 58 seconds. Hard work. I am surprised so many people just romped through it. FOI HIP REPLACEMENT. LOIs 1dn FIGARO and 1ac FAIR DOS. Missed the parsing of a few, so thank you jackkt for a fine blog. COD STORYTELLER and WOD WHISKERY
  2. Liked this one, well-constructed.

    I cordially dislike Dickens, but have always seen him as a realist, famous for exposing the underbelly of Victorian society. “Dickens issued to the world more political and social truths than have been uttered by all the professional politicians, publicists and moralists put together.” – Karl Marx, who ought to know.

  3. I carved my way through this in 26:05, but having correctly parsed WHISKERY, wrote in WHISKERS regardless. Boo hiss! The only clue I didn’t manage to parse was PATENTS, where I wondered what happened to the L. Thanks setter and Jack.
  4. No time for me, but over an hour I think. I was another who thought Lawrence initially must be L, and entered PLAINTS confidently, which fit the definition without accounting for the I. I also fell for WHISKERS, so DNF anyway. Otherwise, some good clues here and enjoyable solve, with some parsing struggles to contend with. Thanks both.
  5. A chewy one today, made slightly chewier by having ALABTROSS for quite a while. FIGARO was my LOI, having struggled with that one and with FAIR DOS, where D?S was very unpromising as the second word.

    9m 27s.

  7. Managed to get all of the N in even tho’ couldn’t parse 2d & 4d. Nor 16d CHAMPION. But the metacarpi had me totally stumped; had to come here. But that one allowed me to struggle through the rest.
    COD def 1a FAIR DOS.
    Pencilled in HIP REPLACEMENT at 17a quite early and eventually managed to parse it.
    Andyf
  9. 23:30 with no stand-out problems, although generally tricky. The steamer in MOUSSE was a long time coming, post-solve.
  10. 59 minutes, having initially entered WHISKERS with a shrug, unable to parse it and saying to myself that surely The Times never uses ‘with’ as a link-word (something I dislike but which is unfortunately quite common in some places) and that this was therefore a bit odd. At first I was sure that it was RED MIST but of course couldn’t make it work.
  11. I think I was in the ‘found this fairly straightforward’ category. Had no idea about the iPhone clue, and only just spotted WHISKERY by rereading the clue, but otherwise a steady solve. LOI PATENTS, was looking to put an L in there.
    WOD BESTREW
  12. Maestro of the misbiffers. Along with many others I rashly took ‘sideboards’ to be the definition instead of ‘with sideboards’ in 8d, hence WHISKERS. Adding this mistake to the run of typos recently has further diminished my gruntlement. On a brighter note – Australia won the slogging match! 24:29 with one error.

    Edited at 2021-11-16 01:20 pm (UTC)

  13. The bottom went in more quickly than the top, and I liked it better and better the deeper I got in. Still, I share jack’s slight uneasiness that while on their own difficult wordplay, unusual words, and slightly iffy definitions are a nice challenge, when all rolled up together things might go past the boundary. nice blog, jack, and nice puzzle, I think, setter

  14. Certainly not easy, but my progress was pretty steady. Liked the football-based RED WINE. Fair dos indeed.
  15. Gave up with 7 clues unparsed. Wouldn’t have got PATENTS if I’d looked at it for 100 years, given that I was fixated on ‘L’ for Lawrence.
  16. 22.55. An engaging, fiddly sort of puzzle which I very much enjoyed unknotting. Like others my first thought for Lawrence initially was L rather than TE and I at first had metatarsi before swapping tars for carp which then allowed me to get LOI carer.
  17. 16 mins; I was also held up by the SE corner, partly because I didn’t think TEAM MATES could be correct, but before that because I wrote in DECELERATING.
  18. Glad I didn’t try this one late last night – did it this morning over coffee and clocked in at right on my average time, 11:06 with NAAFI last in.
  19. A nice steady solve. I couldn’t parse INTEGER or RHINO but they were obvious from the checkers. Very enjoyable. 35 minutes. Ann
  20. Preferred spelling – isn’t it more that Scotch makers are so very protective of the “Whisky” version?
  21. I am such a slow and amateurish solver that I don’t often comment. At first I thought I was never going to get started, but after 25d my confidence grew and everything fell into place. I don’t biff: I must see the parsing to write in an answer. So I didn’t put in “ambitions” for 25a. DNF, therefore. Not a golf fan
    1. Hi, gypaetus44. Please don’t put yourself down. All speeds and standards are welcome here. Confidence comes with practice and speed may follow, though for many of our contributors that’s not a priority. Enjoyment is the main thing.
      1. Thank you. I did enjoy this one, particularly as I was afraid I would find it completely beyond me at first. Some of the clues were quite entertaining, eg ‘whiskery’

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