Times Cryptic 28190

58 comments on “Times Cryptic 28190”

1. …which led to trouble, as I biffed abandon for 1 across with only one crosser. This certainly slowed me down in the NW, until I saw that 1 down was fireman. I also biffed distillery, Lancashire, filial, and inequitable. I vaguely remembered that Starveling was a character in MND, but not what he represented, but there’s a lot of moonshine in that play. Time: 30 minutes.
2. I always thought it was Microlite, unless that is a trade name. 41 minute dawdle with main culprit and LOI 17dn FACE LIFT. Also inability to parse 12ac FILIAL.

   FOI 2dn the ENTERTAINER — cue music

   COD 18ac LANCASHIRE and not Lincolnshire at a squeeze!

   WOD 3dn DAINTY. — ‘Have you tried my dainties, vicar?’ Overheard at the Little Britain garden fete

   15ac DISTILLERY A Northern Irish football team

   On edit: — Geology – microlite is a rock/mineral, so that doesn’t fly!

   Edited at 2022-01-18 04:09 am (UTC)

3. A sloppy “bee” for BYE at 27a, with lots of others, including GLISTEN and STARVELING, going in unparsed. All in all, a deserved DNF after 39 minutes.
4. I didn’t remember the Shakespeare character, just guessed at STARVELING. The misdirection in the clue to LANCASHIRE didn’t faze me, of course. Didn’t know the lore about King Alfred either. I’ll check out the link now…
5. Fine without being outstanding, I thought.
   Thanks for the blog, ulaca, especially for FILIAL, TORTILLA and STARVELING. I figured the last one had to be associated with MND.
   In MICROLIGHT, I pencilled in MAC for ‘computer’ until I could make nothing more of it.
   No real COD although I did quite like GLISTEN. Never knowingly attacked The Guardian crossword.
   1. I probably have attacked the odd Guardian crossword, but I have never knowingly written one of Jack’s blogs!
6. 31:08
   Good challenge.
   Thanks, jack.
7. … I oft have honour’d thee. Great shadow, hide
   Thy face; I sin against thy native skies.

   After 30 mins I needed a face-lift.
   Put in Starveling but didn’t know why. How TLS.
   If I ordered a pancake and got a tortilla I wouldn’t go back.
   Thanks setter and J.

8. 14:00. Quite tricky, after a fast start. Nothing that held me up for very long but lots of clues that took a bit of head-scratching.
   I’m with Myrtilus in that tortillas aren’t pancakes in my conception of the words but as you might expect the dictionaries support the setter. Collins’s idea of cake includes bread, which is very odd to me. What’s the world coming to, etc etc.
   I was a bit puzzled by the indication of a DBE in 15ac. What else is it going to be? I suppose the idea is that the living animal and its slaughtered carcass are two examples of the same thing. Still seems odd somehow.

   Edited at 2022-01-18 08:35 am (UTC)

   1. Let them eat brioche?
   2. 
      It’s listed in Chambers as a steer, especially one fattened for butchering. I knew it as the living animal, but thought it was Scots or dialect.
      1. I thought that too, but then thought of BEEF cattle as opposed to DAIRY cattle….
         Andyf
      2. I’m familiar with the word (from crosswords of course), but whatever particular variety of cow it is, in so far as it is meat it is always beef. [Edit: thinking about it I suppose it might be veal.]

         Edited at 2022-01-18 10:29 am (UTC)

         1. Not with Desperate Dan! Cow Pie every time!
9. Like martinp1 I started off with MAC for the computer. I was largely convinced by it so it took me some time to see my error and change it. It didn’t help that MICRO is a much less common term for a computer.
   I had no idea what was going on with GLISTEN so thanks to Jack for parsing that one. I’m not overly keen on it, but I do appreciate the originality.
10. Slow again, found it tricky. I’m in the torillas/pancakes are different camp, my last in. Also thought Mac for the microlight. Starveling forgotten if ever known, only entered with all the crossers.
    How does OINK work? IN has OK outside it, but IN is not overturned or anagrammed. What is upset indicating?
    COD marathon – “run a sheep over”.
    1. Rob, sorry if my explanation isn’t clear but I don’t know how else to put it but I’ll have another go. ‘Upset’ is an anagram indicator and the anagrist is INOK. IN comes from ‘in’ and OK comes from {p}OK{e}. ‘With no exercise’ indicates removal of PE (Physical Education).
       1. Sorry, just being thick. I parsed it perfectly with UPSET not in the clue:
          IN (POKE with no PE) outside. Outside is the position indicator for where OK goes with respect to IN.
          Though that probably doesn’t work – The Times’ unwritten rules don’t include indications to remove letters from random places in words, only consecutive letters?
          1. I was certainly trying to make it work along your lines of thinking when I started writing the blog – even considering ‘what comes from pig upset’ might be the definition – but I couldn’t make it all fit other than the way I eventually parsed it in the final blog. The letters PE aren’t removed from random places as the clue specifies they are on the ‘outside’ of ‘poke’.
             1. I think the definition really is ‘… from pig upset’ because it surely works perfectly well without reversing the ‘in’ and I suspect that was what the setter intended. No, that’s nonsense. You can’t have ‘in’ as a word in the answer and also as an indicator that it goes inside, Your parsing is quite right Jack. Although it does seem a bit strained.

                Edited at 2022-01-18 11:13 am (UTC)

                1. I wouldn’t say it’s strained (see 28ac for a clue that really is!) just that it contains legitimate misdirection re the parsing as some of its words are open to alternative crossword interpretation in other contexts. The wordplay is actually quite straightforward once spotted. And the answer is eminently biffable of course.
    2. Have you tried reading the blog? 😉
       1. K. Have you addressed the Cow Pie issue? 😉
       2. Some who come here, do have reading and writing difficulties -patience.
          1. It’s that sort of baseless condescension that turns occasional contributors like myself right off.

             If you’re aiming for a forum which is populated only by contributors who are untroubled by any notion that they might not always be right, then you’re going the right way about it.

11. Well I was a bit fazed by this. Just under the hour (with interruptions to be fair). LOI FACE-LIFT and FILIAL, TORTILLA and OPTIMUM all taking a while to see.

    Banged in STARVELING from the letters left from the anag, but didn’t know the Robin character.

    I did like OINK and DISTILLERY.

    Thanks Jack and setter.

    Edited at 2022-01-18 08:57 am (UTC)

12. 29 minutes with LOI FILIAL. My Mum was a baker/ confectioner by trade and 18a cake shops preferred more robust creations than DAINTIES, with delights such as cream horns and crisps, vanilla slices, savoys and eclairs available to fill a corner after the pork pies, sausage rolls and bacon barms. COD to FACE LIFT, which perhaps I need after a lifetime of stuff like that! Enjoyable puzzle. Thank you Jack and setter..

    Edited at 2022-01-18 09:15 am (UTC)

    1. Cream cake porn! Wowsers! Barm cakes, Stockport’s finest!

       There is a halcyon Moroccan cake shop on The Hoe at Walthamstow that sells the most divine fare.

       Edited at 2022-01-18 09:25 am (UTC)

    2. Ditto – my mum, b. 1928 in Oldham, had her first job in a bakery, aged 14. I remember her telling me how she would go to work Mondays excited at the prospect of reading yesterday’s News of the World, which her strait-laced parents would never have in their house.

       39:02 uneventful solve with a bit of a hold-up around STARVELING – I’m no Shakespeare scholar, but that was the only way to fit the remaining letters – and MICROLIGHT which I thought must start with MAC.

13. I really struggled with this, taking an interrupted 35 minutes.
    When I make a tortilla it’s with eggs and anything else I’ve got in the fridge, but it’s not a pancake. Nether is the TexMex version, where I’d be relying on Old El Paso for the bready bits. Didn’t help that I was thinking of the belly flop version once I’d decided that I couldn’t get thoroughly (from start to finish) to fit no matter what I did to it.

    I disliked INEQUITABLE, though might not have done if I’d managed to biff it. Too many bits and bobs to be sorted out, and I’m not thrilled about end cluing QUIT

    FACE-LIFT was a long time unfilled. Put off not least by the hyphen, which is not necessary (and not in Chambers.

    I thought GLISTEN was clever and possibly another new kind of clue, though I’m pushed to find another to take the construction.

    All in all mildly irritating, but then I was slow on the uptake throughout.

    Edited at 2022-01-18 09:25 am (UTC)

14. Didn’t fully parse OINK or INEQUITABLE and had to trust STARVELING is a word, having no idea about the Midsummer Night’s Dream reference, but everything else flowed reasonably steadily. GLISTEN is a very clever clue, though I’m not sure I’d like to have too many of them.

    FOI Rot
    LOI Tortilla
    COD Face-lift

15. 86% completed before bed last night. On waking, bunged in a few more before several minutes coming up with MORALLY, FILIAL and INEQUITABLE.

    Unparsed: STARVELING (though I have seen but never read AMND, it was more than twenty years ago); INEQUITABLE (the only word I could think of that fit the checkers).

    TORTILLA-wise, I’m on the fence — Mrs H makes a very good Spanish Tortilla but that has potatoes in it….

16. 16:47 I had no idea about STARVELING but it fit the anagram and checkers. I liked DISTILLERY and FILIAL. Thanks Jackkt and setter.
17. Middling difficulty and rather enjoyable, I thought. Another who started off with MAC, so that area was the last to fall; and I reverse-engineered the parsing STARVELING, once the anagram suggested that was the most likely answer, as I half-remembered him as a character, but not his character within the play (within the play). Less obvious in Crosswordland than Flute or the even more regularly seen Bottom, so to speak. I rather liked the GLISTEN clue, but these things are always a matter of taste, of course.
18. Another who started with Mac for the computer but didn’t correct it. So Macrolight did for me.

    COD: REDACTOR.

19. ….for this to be enjoyable, although I only needed Jack to explain the atrocity that led to GLISTEN, and to widen my Shakespearean knowledge — I knew STARVELING was one of the ‘rude mechanicals’, but not his role in ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’.

    FOI FREEDOM
    LOI FILIAL
    COD FACE-LIFT
    TIME 12:27

20. Phil, I agree 28ac was an atrocity. COD 14dn Starveling. WOD Oink-oink!
21. I seem to be moving like molasses this week. Spent quite some time dithering between microfiche and MICROLIGHT until I just about remembered the plane. In fact much dithering all around the grid until I gave up on trying to figure out GLISTEN (thanks Jack). I did like STARVELING with the misdirection suggested by moonshine and the DISTILLERY perched nearby. 24.16
22. I biffed until I could biff no more and then I stared at what was left for 20 minutes and gave up with FACE LIFT, SERIES and LASHED to go. Oh well.
23. 35.49. Another one where I struggled but at least I managed to finish. Held up by tortilla and inequitable at the end. Looking at the checkers I thought of ineluctable. Once seen, it was very difficult to un-see, despite not meeting the requirements of either definition or parsing. Fortunately the old – see a U try a Q – adage came to my rescue.
24. 48:50. I enjoyed the more-than-usual complexity of this one, but it all took time. FOI OPTIMUM (corporation doesn’t fool me any more) and LOI FACE-LIFT. I liked sorting out INEQUITABLE
25. A fair bit of biffing required today. I share Jack’s dislike of “dingbat” clues like 28. I still do the Guardian crossword from time to time but only for certain setters. There seems to be little or no editorial control over their puzzles these days.

    Thanks to Jack and the setter

    1. I access the Guardian every day, but will sometimes duck out early, especially with puzzles from Paul — he’s way too keen on cross-referenced clues.
       1. Agreed. I think he also relies far too much on people knowing his “style”. A good example of the lack of editorial control
26. 28.18 but decided ineluctable was the answer to 13 dn without having any real conviction. Now I’ve seen the blog- what a good clue. Hey ho…
27. I enjoyed this one, and it all progressed pretty smoothly. OINK and FILIAL held me up a bit with parsing. As did GLISTEN, although actually I quite liked it when the penny dropped. Both LOI and COD to STARVELING – LOI because I’m a bit rubbish with MND, COD for the surface reading which tickled me.

    I seem to be going through an odd phase with ‘wavelength’ – one day I’ll really struggle on what should be a relatively straightforward puzzle, the next I’ll breeze through something some other contributors here say they found tricky. I suppose my consistency might improve eventually.

    Thanks Setter, and Jack for the blog.

28. Solved in under an hour over lunch, LOI FACE LIFT. Had to correct GLITTER to GLISTEN without fully understanding why.
    Prior to that STARVELING emerged from the anagram as the only halfway decent assembly of the letters, so I am now adding some much-needed GK.
    COD to LANCASHIRE. FILIAL was unparsed.
    Enjoyable overall I thought.
    David
29. An hour’s entertainment which I completed with a reveal. I had quite a few in and was stuck. I revealed morally – not sure why I alighted on this one but it turned out to be a key to the penny dropping on the rest, checking all the way. So many biffed and unparsed. Especially enjoyed the distillery. Thank you v.m. Jack, for the blog and the enlightenment, and setter for the interesting solve.
30. Another delayed by MAC as the computer until LIGHT dawned. ROT, ENTERTAINER and FIREMAN were my starters. I was going reasonably well up to the 25 minute mark but was then slowed dramatically, by the GLITTER/GLISTEN conundrum until the penny dropped. STARVELING didn’t help and I entered it as the only arrangement of the anagram. LOI, FACE-LIFT took an age and a few alphabet trawls. TORTILLA, FILIAL and INEQUITABLE were also sticking points, the latter of which went in unparsed. 36:57. Thanks setter and Jack.
31. Was hoping for a better than average 35 minutes but was slowed by the NW corner with marathon last one in. Kept looking for a word meaning losing attention. Pleased to have all correct and parsed apart from not remembering the MND character. Haven’t seen ‘killed’ as an instruction to delete letters before so parsing inequitable took some time.

    Good to finish after a run of poor attempts.

    Thanks to the setter and blogger.

32. Thanks for the blog and the explanation of NEAT (my LOI). I couldn’t see how FILIAL worked either. Took about 40 mins on the train to London this morning.

    Which leaves me with a terrible dilemma, to play bridge or do another puzzle from the archive on the way home.

    With the crappy WiFi on the Midlands mainline the archive seems more probable.

33. 7d Thought of MAT as the thin cardboard thing that goes inside a picture frame, usually under glass. Works equally well doesn’t it?
    1. Drinks-Mat — Brinks-Mat?
34. But that saves me having to be original in trashing Tortilla, Neat, and (I’m with you, horryd) Microlite/light. I confess to recognizing Starveling immediately when I read the blog, but to not having a clue before that, and to puzzling over the construction of Oink, ditto. thanks, jack
35. Carefully checked everything but unbelievably VARMENT and STARVELINV appeared

    Shame as my time was good compared to my normal comparees

    Hated GLISTEN till I got it then loved it

    MND only play I’ve ever taken part in. 11 years’ old. Non speaking part, dressed as a page required only to move some stools. Unfortunately was required to dispense with NHS glasses so blindly stumbled around and failed to manage even that simple task. Got some laughs though — just as well it wasn’t Macbeth. Stuck to Chess Club after that

    Thanks Jackkt and Setter (the worthy Oink perhaps?)

36. 55 minutes, and fortunately I didn’t proofread today or STARVELING would have held me up forever (but it was the only anagram that fit the crossers). I didn’t understand, while solving, which MAT was meant, under glass, but what else could that be? And there were others that went in with a shrug, such as MICROLIGHT and BYE. Not much else to say.
37. In fact, I was ok with “Glistens” but didn’t like “Filial” — half am as a clue for a!!
    Starveling was very esoteric (for me) but I couldn’t see anything else that would fit.
    1. Exactly my thoughts with Filial LOI, with a shrug

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