Times Cryptic No 26892 – Saturday, 25 November 2017. Give it to me straight, doctor!

Author   branchPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Harder than last week for me, but very enjoyable. Every clue was solvable, even the beast at 18ac, and every answer went in with that satisfying feeling, “yes, clearly that’s it”. I didn’t know a couple of answers, but the wordplay gave them both. My clue of the day was 11dn, for the beautifully deceptive definition. Thanks to the setter for a very enjoyable puzzle, and thanks to jackkt for being first to observe it’s a pangram!

Clues are in blue, definitions underlined, anagram indicators in bold italics, answers in BOLD CAPS, followed by the wordplay. (ABC*) means ‘anagram of ABC’, deletions are in {curly brackets}.

Across
1 Most modest odour worthy of respect picked up (8)
HUMBLEST: HUM=odour / BLEST sounds (“picked up”) like “blessed”.
5 Long-distance traveller goes through again on return trip (6)
SPACER: RECAPS backwards. I wasn’t familiar with “spacer” as a synonym for “space(wo)man”, but it’s in the dictionary.
9 One can’t recall Americans ditching Republican reforms (8)
AMNESIAC: (AME-ICANS*), ditching “R” for Republican.
10 Journey breaks too short, inevitably (6)
ALWAYS: WAY “breaks” ALS{o}.
12 Add penny to last of cash in pot to reach pound (5)
THUMP: H from {cas}H inside TUM=pot, then P.
13 Plenty in support of merger (9)
PROFUSION: PRO=for / FUSION=merger.
14 Women’s group work out, keeping slim — moderately (6,6)
WITHIN REASON: W.I.=Women’s Institute / REASON=work out. Insert THIN=slim.
18 Give up detaining judge over one plaintiff’s response (12)
SURREJOINDER: J / O / I, all inside SURRENDER. This surreal looking word describes one of many steps in the legal to-and-fro, apparently. The plaintiff files a “declaration”, the respondent makes a “plea”, then like ping-pong come a “replication”, a “rejoinder”, a “surrejoinder”, and a “rebutter”. Enough already! I had never heard the word (not surprisingly!), but once I had the helpers I managed to find something that fitted. Second last answer.
21 Laid back vicar maybe dropping in on his class? (9)
RECUMBENT: an INCUMBENT might apparently be a cleric. Drop the “IN”, and put him/her after the R.E. (religious education) class.
23 Fabric salesman in city going west (5)
CREPE: REP in EC reversed.
24 Straight line put in defectively (6)
BALDLY: L in BADLY. See the headline to this blog.
25 Sibilant movement of air in singular type of well (8)
SWISHING: S for singular, then a WISHING well.
26 Neglect exploit by detectives (6)
DISUSE: DIS=Detective Inspectors / USE=exploit.
27 Study chapter probing native Canadian belief (8)
CREDENCE: this would have been easier if I’d known the CREE are Canadian natives. I was probably confused further by half knowing that the CREEK Indians are from the South-Eastern US. It’s DEN + C inside CREE.

Down
1 Warm zone close to fifth planet (6)
HEARTH: H from {fifth}H, EARTH from planet.
2 Would-be footman queen makes use of (6)
MANQUE: hidden answer.
3 But not necessarily what one’s inclined to pay? (4,5)
LIST PRICE: cryptic definition, riffing on the idea that LIST=INCLINATION.
4 First of smut at end of pointed nose one picks off easily? (12)
SHARPSHOOTER: SHARP = pointed / S from S{mut} / HOOTER = nose. I misled myself for a while by assuming that the S at the beginning was the S from smut.
6 Raised edge on gold dish (5)
PILAU: PIL=lip backwards, AU=gold.
7 Motor transporting unknown wine from south for empress (8)
CZARITSA: I knew CZAR and CZARINA, but CZARITSA is new! Fortunately ASTI as probably the leading white wine in Crosswordland and Z as one of the usual unknowns made it a cert.
8 Evocative debate with a redundant worker (8)
RESONANT: RE-SON drops the A from RE{A}SON, followed by ANT.
11 Part-time bridge partners in mounting corruption, cheating initially (7,5)
CONNING TOWER: Beautiful definition, especially since one half expects “bridge” to qualify “partners”! CONNING=cheating / TOR = rot backwards. Insert the usual partners, E{ast} and W{est}.
15 First lady beset by duty, Democrat vexed (9)
EXERCISED: ER inside EXCISE, then D{emocrat}. I thought the first lady should be EVE, but nothing fitted.
16 Credited as two berths for sleepers sharing an end (8)
ASCRIBED: AS / CRIB / BED, with the “crib” and “bed” sharing a single B.
17 River breaching almost all weak spots (8)
FRECKLES: R inside FECKLES{s}.
19 Many soldiers from locality changing sides (6)
LEGION: Change “right” to “left” in REGION.
20 Exclusive diner‘s struggle to secure source of chicken (6)
VEGGIE: VIE around EGG. I wasn’t familiar with “veggie” as short for “vegetarian”, but it makes sense.
22 Exploits of masculine type, singular (5)
MILKS: Neat misdirect, with the answer being a verb not a noun. M / ILK / S.
 

20 comments on “Times Cryptic No 26892 – Saturday, 25 November 2017. Give it to me straight, doctor!”

  1. I’m not sure how long this took me; I probably went offline at 30′ and finished piecemeal. I’d never come across SPACER either, and certainly not SURREJOINDER. Recently I mentioned here that some time earlier I’d objected to RABBI being clued as ‘priest’, and had a discussion with Peter about that. After that, RABBI has been clued two or three times as ‘teacher’. I went on to say that now it only remains for setters to recognize that the Cree are not native Americans but Canadian Indians–CREE shows up all the time, and I’ve been irritatingly persistent in noting the inaccuracy. I’d very much like to think that today’s clue is the result.
    1. Well Kevin, you are the one who calls it irritating, not me. But Collins defines “Native American” as “Native Americans are people from any of the many groups who were already living in North America before Europeans arrived.”
      wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans includes “Indigenous peoples in Canada, the indigenous peoples of Canada2 and “First Nations, indigenous Canadians who are neither Inuit or Métis” under its heading of Native Americans.
      This Canadian Cree site, http://www.native-languages.org/cree_culture.htm is also happy to use the term “Native American”
      Your problem seems to be a wish to restrict use of the term “Native American” purely to the United States, which is obviously incorrect.
      You are welcome to your view but should surely concede that other legitimate views exist. A google search for “Native American” + Cree gets comfortably over a million hits.

      Edited at 2017-12-02 10:45 am (UTC)

      1. I assumed that not just Collins but any English dictionary would have some such definition, and rightly so. I assume that every dictionary has ‘childish’ as one meaning for ‘jejune’. And I don’t by any means want to restrict the use of the term ‘Native American’ to the US; I want (totally quixotically, I know) the term not to be used.
  3. Nice puzzle – not too difficult, and a pangram to boot, as John says.

    When I had my day in court around the turn of the century, the process was far more prosaically named. After the writ and statement of claim was filed by the plaintiff, the defendant filed a defence. From there, as I recall, it was a response to the defence and then a response to the response. I don’t think we got further than that before the discovery stage. Just as well – it was a lengthy enough business, as it was.

  4. This was a touch on the beastly side.

    Carelessly did not parse 10ac ALWAYS or see the pangram (which I never do!)

    FOI 19dn LEGION

    LOI 17dn FRECKLES and COD but not
    CONNING TOWER as I am presently writing on U-boats and it was top of mind.

    WOD MANQUE

  5. My notes tell me that I took an hour and a half in two sessions and that I thought the puzzle was brilliant. Loved 11d; great definition, as with 20d, I thought. DNK MANQUE or CZARITSA, but SPACER quite familiar from science fiction, if not science fact. WOD SWISHING.

  6. 21m. Good puzzle, from what little I remember. I didn’t know TZARITSA or SURREJOINDER but the wordplay was kind.
  7. Due to my Club site tribulations earlier in the week I have lost my cookies for the site and cannot see what my entries were. This is really annoying as I solved all the clues exactly as blogged, and as a review of the solution shows, but am told that I got 1 wrong. It must be a typo, but I have no idea where. It was an enjoyable puzzle, and took me 52:04, so no pushover. I also had to work out SURREJOINDER and CZARITSA from wordplay. I also thought CONNING TOWER was a great clue. Thanks setter and Bruce.
  8. Just over the hour at 1:04 but not too displeased with that because I thought some of this was tough. A few unknowns where I was totally reliant on the word play. A good challenge which I was pleased to complete.
  9. This was a reality check for me. Recently I have either finished the puzzle or got within 2 or 3 clues. Despite spending plenty of time on it, I only managed to solve 13 clues almost all in the top half. Had the first letter of 7d and the Asti but still could not get the unknown Czarista.
    Surrejoinder I have never seen before -and so on. On to today’s. David
    1. Don’t despair! The bottom half was much harder than the top! The bottom left was hardest of all. Try again this week
  10. Liked ‘source of chicken’ which was not ‘c’ as expected.A hard one for me,finished after two days.
    Ong’ara,
    Nairobi.
  12. This is not connected with this crossword, but please PLEASE, where are the blogs for Cryptics 26,880 and 26,898, and Jumbos 1292 and 1295??? All I can find is random discussion on the Answerbank and such, where the problems aren’t usually the same as mine!

    I do appreciate how hard it must be to keep up. I couldn’t do it, but as far as I know you wonderful people always have until recently. Is this a temporary hitch?

  13. Sorry for the slow reply. I’ve been in another world as it were. Vinyl1 is the man to ask – I’ll pass the question on.
  14. Nice puzzle – not too difficult, and a pangram to boot, as John says.

    When I had my day in court around the turn of the century, the process was far more prosaically named. After the writ and statement of claim was filed by the plaintiff, the defendant filed a defence. From there, as I recall, it was a response to the defence and then a response to the response. I don’t think we got further than that before the discovery stage. Just as well – it was a lengthy enough business, as it was.

Comments are closed.