Times Cryptic No 26826, 09 September 2017. When in Rome (or New York)

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Verlaine thought the puzzle on the day before was easy for a Friday. The trend continued into Saturday. I flew through this (by my standards) even while watching Nadal play the semi-final in New York. The leaderboard suggests that others also found it easy. Only 21dn, 2dn, and 24ac slowed me down at the end. Despite the speed, there were many nice clues. I loved the elegance of 22ac, but my clue of the day has to be 24ac. Thanks to the setter.

Clues are reproduced in blue, with the definition underlined. Anagram indicators are bolded and italicised. Then there’s the answer IN BOLD CAPS, followed by the parsing of the wordplay. (ABC)* means ‘anagram of ABC’, {deletions are in curly brackets}.

Across
1            Brief dissembling is rare in a drama (7-6)
CURTAIN-RAISER: CURT=brief / (IS RARE IN A*).
8            Cut bread the wrong way (4)
SNUB: BUNS=bread, backwards.
9            Striking protest film’s cut choice bit of dialogue (6,4)
PICKET LINE: PICK=choice / LINE=bit of dialogue, all “cut” by ET=film.
10          Repartee deficient amongst the elderly? (8)
BADINAGE: BAD / IN / AGE.
11          A tiny bit dry wearing hat (6)
TITTLE: TT=dry, “wearing” TILE=hat. Only familiar to me in the phrase “a jot or a tittle”, but apparently a tittle is a small superscript, such as the dot on a lowercase i or j.
13          Concerned with building support walls about river (10)
STRUCTURAL: STRUT=support, “walling” C=about / URAL=the river rather than the mountains in this instance.
16          Youngster repelled by hotel food (4)
NOSH: NOS=son backwards / H=hotel.
17          Tried to abandon a group of animals (4)
HERD: HE{a}RD=tried, as in a court.
18          Projectile with function to retain oxygen when hot air’s emitted? (10)
DISCUSSION: DISCUS=projectile / SIN=function, “retaining” O=oxygen. The specific projectile involved didn’t occur to me until I had all the helpers. Nice clue.
20          Old city stores certainly a source of interest (6)
USURER: UR=the old city beloved of setters, “storing” SURE. I thought a usurer was the receiver of interest, not its source, but certainly he/she is the source of the loan.
22          Damned irritated and extremely exasperated? (8)
MADDENED:  (DAMNED*) / E{xasperate}D. A truly beautiful all-in-one clue!!
24          Maybe Hannah‘s daughter welcomed by Italian friend? (10)
PALINDROME: PAL IN ROME welcoming D=daughter. “Hannah” is a definition by example. I loved the “Italian friend”.
26          Switch egg supplier short of an egg (4)
VARY: {o}VARY.
27          Fetching piano that needs taking back (13)
PREPOSSESSING: P=piano / REPOSSESSING.

Down
1            Way to pay party member wanting social skills (11)
CONTACTLESS: CON=party member / TACTLESS.
2            Scholar to witter interminably (5)
RABBI: RABBI{t}. Seen it before.
3            One deadly in play stopped getting put on pitch (9)
ASPHALTED: ASP=deadly one, the play being Antony and Cleopatra / HALTED=stopped. “Put” in the definition is past tense.
4            New moves in confusing kind of war (7)
NUCLEAR: UNCLEAR=confusing. Move the N=new. Another nice clue.
5            Head off from state close to Connecticut (5)
AVERT: AVER=state / T=end of C…t.
6            Den broken into leaves damaged locks (5,4)
SPLIT ENDS: (DEN*) inside SPLITS=leaves.
7            Career politician must do this to get elected (3)
RUN: double definition.
12          Have kittens or seals gone swimming? (4,4,3)
LOSE ONE’S RAG: (OR SEALS GONE*).
14          Sap departs dressed in a continental fur (9)
UNDERMINE: D=departs / UN=“a” in French / ERMINE=fur. Very biffable.
15          She’ll clean hem of Lycra strip (9)
LAUNDRESS: LA=hem of l{ycr}a / UNDRESS=strip. This strip was more obvious than the one in 25dn, at least for me.
19          Legal order‘s problems fixing day (7)
SUMMONS: SUMS=problems, “fixing” MON=day.
21          Radius, not quite so long, is set? (5)
RADIO: R=radius / ADIO{s} = so long. This was one of my last ones in, because I wasn’t thinking of that sort of set!
23          Not all there, when voicing final words (5)
ENVOI: hidden. And nicely so, since “voicing” suggests this might be a “sounds like” clue.
25          Strip lights to give some electricity (3)
AMP: LAMPS=lights. Strip as instructed, to get a unit of electric current (hence the “some”). My LOI, for whatever reason. Even after I had the helpers, I had to run through the alphabet.
 

11 comments on “Times Cryptic No 26826, 09 September 2017. When in Rome (or New York)”

  1. If others found this easy I must have been having a very bad day when I tackled it as I needed 83 minutes and still had to use aids for my LOI. I shall not embarrass myself further by going into my problems and thought processes.

    Edited at 2017-09-16 05:26 am (UTC)

  2. Didn’t find this as easy as all that, B, and took 45 minutes. Looking back a week later, I can’t see any difficulties though. I liked CONTACTLESS but must agree with PALINDROME for COD. It reminded me of an old girl friend who had a cat called Hannah. She gave birth to three female kittens, a collective known by the subject above, in honour of the Woody Allen movie then just released. Thank you B and setter.
  3. 50 mins with fruit, yoghurt and granola – and I enjoyed it once I got going. I scrabbled around picking off the odd clue and producing a grid with only several words entered in random, unhelpful locations. Then stared and chewed and stared and chewed.
    Eventually I got 1ac – and then it all started to fall like dominoes.
    Much time was spent thinking of famous Hannahs. Hannah Gordon was the best I could do. But the penny-drop moment on this clue was worth the price of admission, as they say. Clear COD (IMHO).
    Thanks devious setter and B.

    Edited at 2017-09-16 08:34 am (UTC)

  4. 51 minutes for me, so apparently still quite stretching, though Saturdays have certainly been harder in recent memory. My only question mark was against the unknown TITTLE. Two exclamation marks were awarded to the excellent 24 PALINDROME and 3 ASPHALTED where I liked the way both the wordplay and the definition were nicely disguised.

    FOI 4d, last couple in 23 ENVOI (which is a crossword-only word for me), and 26 VARY, with the kind of wordplay that had me looking for one of the hundred and fifty obscure kinds of chicken that seem to exist before I realised what was going on…

    Thanks to setter & B.

  5. 22:44. I don’t seem to have found this so easy, although I can’t remember what caused me problems now. I do remember liking 24ac.
    I also thought that ‘source of interest’ was an odd description of a USURER.
  6. 54:53. Most apart from NW inside 30mins. Disappointed not to see rabbi sooner since it had appeared fairly recently, it was well disguised though. LOIs 3dn where I saw the asp and twigged the type of pitch early but couldn’t put them together for some reason, and 10ac where I was too fixated on “ye” for the elderly. At 12dn I would have defined lose ones rag as get angry and have kittens as be very anxious which don’t feel synonymous but as no one else has mentioned it, perhaps they are. Liked 27ac, 6, 14 &15dn. COD 24ac, a type of clue I love (when I manage to spot them).
    1. I feel a bit the same about “have kittens”, but Collins says it means “be in a state of great excitement, anxiety or anger”, so I guess that covers it.
        1. My thinking is that the meanings of the answer and the definition should overlap enough so that you can think of a sentence where you can validly replace one by the other. They don’t have to be closer than that.
  7. I also found this on the tricky side, but finished without errors in 37:56. Like Bruce and Keriothe I raised my eyebrows at “source of interest” for usurer, but shrugged my shoulders and bunged it in regardless. I was also much taken by our amico. An enjoyable puzzle with a lot of smiles as pennies dropped. Thanks setter and Bruce.

    Edited at 2017-09-16 10:20 am (UTC)

  8. At first glance I thought this was harder than the Agrimony puzzle the previous week. After quite a long first session I had Nosh (FOI), a nervous Tittle (is it a word?) and Lose Ones Rag and hardly anything else.
    A second look whilst being distracted by the football results led me to Contactless and about an hour later it was all done with 14d LOI.
    Funny how these things go. Sometimes I find it hard to break through the surfaces of the harder puzzles.
    Anyway I enjoyed this very much and am glad I didn’t give up. David

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