Times Cryptic 28541 — None of the above

Author   plusjeremyPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

45:15. Got stuck at around 25 minutes in with the last four clues. Contemplated giving up many times but ground out each letter and finally made it home. Not quite sure whether I should feel satisfied or frustrated!

Across
1 Standard form filled with rubbish automatically? (6-7)
PARROT-FASHION – PAR + FASHION (form) around ROT

Never heard of this word but it took me at least 10 minutes at the end to find FASHION.
8 One does associate with poachers at last catching game (4)
STAG – {poacher}S + TAG (catching game)

Brilliant word play, and brilliant definition.  ‘Does’ as in female deer.
9 Printer malfunctioning with bug — that’s troubling (10)
PERTURBING – anagram of PRINTER BUG

One “easy” anagram.
10 Beastly group with info on unfinished work (8)
CHORDATA – DATA next to CHOR{e}

According to Chambers, “a phylum of the animal kingdom, including the vertebrates and protochordates, animals possessing a notochord at some stage of their development”.
11 Helmsman in endless river redirected missile (6)
EXOCET – COX in TEE{s} reversed

I can’t believe I managed to get this one. Only vaguely had heard of EXOCET, but finally thought of COX(swain) after many long minutes of head-scratching.
13 Gorilla sat uneasily, seeing swamp predators (10)
ALLIGATORS – anagram of GORILLA SAT

Another “easy” anagram.
16 John: name for Scots lad (4)
LOON – LOO + N

I am informed by the internet that in Scotland there are ‘loons’ and ‘quines’ for ‘boys’ and ‘girls’. The wordplay was obvious here but I hesitated over the definition.
17 Clubs held by United — but not now? (4)
ONCE – C in ONE (united)
18 Ground where one welcomes island leader (10)
EISENHOWER – anagram of WHERE ONE around IS

Also struggled with this one for ages. I thought ‘ground’ could indicate an anagram but I wasn’t sure how to get to ten letters. Finally I decided to try IS for island and was mightily surprised when EISENHOWER appeared.
20 Ambassador in sight finding guillotine (6)
BEHEAD – H.E. (ambassador) in BEAD
22 West Indian hostile to assassin casing area (8)
ANTIGUAN – ANTI + GUN around A

I guess ‘gun’ as in ‘hired gun’?
24 More sneaky one hidden by small duck, almost there (10)
STEALTHIER – I in S + TEAL + THER{e}
26 Most important having rook in such dark films? (4)
NOIR – NO. 1 + R
27 Despotic writer appears before Italian heretic (13)
AUTHORITARIAN – AUTHOR + IT + ARIAN
Down
1 Mineral mixture in ewer falling short (11)
PITCHBLENDE – BLEND in PITCHE{r}
2 Got it right about work coming up (5)
ROGER – R + reversal of RE (about) GO (work)
3 Hotel specialist tipped to administer leaderless institution (9)
ORPHANAGE – H + PRO reversed + {m}ANAGE
4 Guy coming into Algarve resort brings hash (7)
FARRAGO – RAG (guy, tease) in FARO

I had vaguely heard of this word but knew it was in my brain somewhere. Finally I thought of RAG for ‘guy’ (I assumed this was the intended meaning), but was only able to get the rest of the clue when I finally saw the crossing FASHION.
5 Flavoursome addition to food — and booze! (5)
SAUCE – double definition

This one took me longer than it should have, as I only had the U and was sure I needed a specific alcohol.
6 Groom to struggle with libido leaving party in confusion (9)
IMBROGLIO – anagram of GROOM + LIBIDO – DO

Yet another “easy” anagram.
7 Fancy pigeon Greek character needed on top (3)
NUN – NU (Greek character) + first letter of NEEDED

My last one in. I couldn’t fathom what that middle vowel could be. Of course I had the wordplay all wrong, thinking that “needed on top” was some sort of addition or deletion of a Greek letter, or even G for Greek. A ‘nun’ is a pigeon with feathers on its head that look like a nun, apparently.

Also I did not know that ‘fancy pigeon’ has nothing to do with being ornate or elegant, but rather refers to pigeons which were bred to suit one’s fancy.
12 I should follow lover, once helping to find forgiveness (11)
EXONERATION – ONE (I) after E (lover, once) + RATION (helping)
14 Lacking refinement in lament that ignores Unknown Soldier? (9)
INELEGANT – IN + ELEG{y} + ANT
15 Atmosphere’s raised about bodily form, losing my patients here? (9)
SANATORIA – AIR’S reversed around ANATO{my}
19 His law affected India’s lingua franca (7)
SWAHILI – anagram of HIS LAW + I

A final “easy” anagram.
21 Copy made where nothing replaces end of simple song? (5)
DITTO – DITT{y} + O
23 Bottled spirits and dope given to Latin couple (5)
GENII – GEN + II (two, in Roman numerals)

Quite a scene painted here.
25 Leaves to create drink regularly offered in the bar (3)
TEA – every other letter of THE BAR

61 comments on “Times Cryptic 28541 — None of the above”

  1. 1 hour and 4 minutes and two wrong. I had DEHEAD instead of BEHEAD and I thought it looked odd but I thought it parsed (sight = dead if you squint). But then I couldn’t spell SANATORIA. Is the Guy in 4dn our very own Guy? COD STAG now it’s been explained to me. Many thanks for the blog

  2. Absolutely outstanding puzzle. 35:34 but really a DNF as I could not get the NHO pitchblende. Was confident of pitch to start which enabled stag and Chordata but needed the rest to tease out once and behead. So many superb devices today but COD to stag.

    Thanks Jeremy and setter

  4. Beaten by a couple of NHOs that I would never arrive at through wordplay/clueing: PITCHBLENDE and CHORDATA.

    I also feel that ‘leader’ is a it vague for EISENHOWER and ‘automatic’ a bit too tenuous (but I admit not entirely misleading) for PARROT FASHION.

    Anyway the faults are clearly all mine because others whizz through. I doff my cap to them all.

    Thanks setter and PlusJ too.

  5. A tough but enjoyable puzzle, taking me 42 post-prandial minutes. The bottom half, especially the down clues, went in surprisingly quickly, but the NW corner held me up for a long time. I saw the BLEND part of 1dn but could not think of anything except HORNBLENDE which of course does not fit. And in 1ac I twigged it was something-FASHION but could not escape from BRISTOL-FASHION, another non-starter. NHO NUN, BEAD or LOON in the senses required here, but the clueing and knowledge of Greek alphabet were helpful.
    FOI – PERTURBING
    LOI – NUN
    COD – STAG.
    Thanks to jeremy and other contributors.

  6. 10:34. I liked this one a lot.
    I needed wordplay to spell SANATORIA right.
    NHO LOON in this sense. Macbeth’s ‘cream-faced loon’ is a variant meaning (rogue) of the same word, according to OED.
    As others have noted I suspect EXOCET will be extremely familiar to anyone who lived through the Falklands war and pretty obscure to anyone who didn’t.

  7. Seeing how many seasoned solvers failed to finish this one, I am doubly pleased to have finished this one just a little over target at 46.15 with all correct. LOON and NUN went in with fingers crossed although I had a vague notion the pigeon has cropped up before. The only one I didn’t parse was EISENHOWER, as I failed to think of IS for island. COD definitely goes to 8ac which I think was excellent.

  8. 11:14, and despite not being au fait with all the required knowledge (the NUN and the LOON, obvs) I got there pretty promptly, which suggests that the wordplay is beyond reproach. So not quite as testing as Fridays can be, but with a satisfying amount of chewiness.

  9. Well I finished, but landed three pink squares – two for not correcting AUTHORITATION (habit of entering ATION into A_I_N ending) and one for a surprising Q in SQNATORIA.

    Not as enthused as others when there are too many unknown words as answers, especially when they cross: CHORDATA (I hated biology at school – soooooo booooooring), PITCHBLENDE (still no idea what that is), BEAD for (gun)sight though the answer was straightforward, NUN (bl**dy birds!), LOON (gettable at least).

    Failed to parse: EXOCET, the aforementioned BEHEAD, and ROGER.

    However, as Jack mentioned earlier, I too was surprised at how many struggled with EXOCET and PARROT-FASHION.

  10. Convinced myself that the pigeon in question was a PIN, which held me up for ages. NHO PITCHBLEND, CHORDATA, LOON. This one took me a few minutes over the hour but I got there in the end. Now for a well-deserved pint of Pride.

      1. London. Don’t think I’ve ever tried the Golden, but I’ll look out for it.

        1. It’s only in bottles and quite hard to find even in Fullers own pubs. My local one orders it in specially for me.

          1. I’ve just seen that it’s 8.5%! One for special occasions.

            I did try a bottle of Fuller’s Vintage Ale recently — also 8.5% — and was delicious.

            1. Thanks for the prompt to get my Christmas Ale for 2023 brewing. The more months in the bottle it gets, the better. I had the last of my 2018 vintage at Christmas and it was still good. It generally comes out at about 7.5%. One 330ml bottle is enough! Sadly my local brewery in Rougham went bust some time ago so you can no longer get Comrade Bill Bartram’s Egalitarian Anti-Imperialist Soviet Stout (famous for having the longest named bottled beer) although it does somehow appear at the odd local Winter Beer Festival.

  11. Some fiendishly cunning clueing, and great fun. Biffed my way to a surprisingly correct solution!
    FOI ONCE
    LOI STAG
    COD STAG

    Multas gratias to blogger and setter.

  12. DNF having biffed in NORMAL FASHION. I did get the NUN and all of the bottom half though. Too tough for me.

  13. Would not have finished without the aid of Mr Ego, who provided the elusive PITCHBLENDE, NHO, never guessable and EISENHOWER (there is no way that can be an anagram, I said). However, in my favour, I dredged up CHORDATA and LOON from somewhere (Shakespeare) and finished all correct. I never really mind how long it takes me, but a finish is a satisfying end to the day.

  14. A really late contribution even by my standards! Took about 20 mins or so to get to the last 4 clues in the NW corner before before being summoned to dinner by Mrs P. Steak pie and a bottle of Rioja Riserva.
    Didn’t reset the timer thereafter, but suddenly recognised the “does” in 8 ac “stag” – not a chestnut but I have seen it before – and then staggered over the line.
    Great puzzle. Thanks to setter, Jeremy and above all the Muga winery!

  15. 26:40. Solving a day late after a third consecutive day of long walks. Maybe my brain is as tired as my legs as I struggled to get through this a bit at a time without ever really getting stuck, finishing with PARROT-FASHION and PITCHBLENDE. COD to AUTHORITARIAN. Thanks Jeremy and setter.

  16. A late entry 55 minute slog. Guessed LOI Eisenhower , nun and chordata. Pitchblende took ages but eventually yielded.

    A good Friday puzzle. Thanks setter and blogger.

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