Times Cryptic No 26902, 7/12/2017 Thursday’s star child has far to go.

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A pleasant enough solve with a few clues needing revisiting just to find out how they work, in my case 24 and 19, both of which I decoded post solve. I don’t think there’s much vocabulary to frighten the seasoned solver: the geographical items are pretty well known, even if, like me, you might have issues with placing them on a map. There are quite a few random items to guess at:  an artist (not RA for a change), an androgynous name, a colour, a number and (unusually, perhaps) a sign of the Zodiac.
It occupied me for 15 and a bit minutes, though not with everything securely parsed, so a bit of a relief when everything came up green.
Workings, with clues, definitions and SOLUTIONS are shown below.  Enjoy

Across

1 Case of equerry covering up certain bet on horse — fraudulent practice (13)
MOUNTEBANKERY Case of equerry is EY. Which contains a BANKER, a  sure thing or (here) a certain bet. The construct is tacked on to MOUNT for horse. There’s a whiff of madeuppery about the word, so it pays to follow the cryptic closely.
8 Old oath, say: a “damn” originally? (4)
EGAD That’s E.G A D(amn). Number 1 son’s favourite swearword, so I’d like to think it’s not that old.
9 Light visibly green? Ponder heading off (10)
ILLUMINATE Light here is a verb. People who are ILL may look green, or so we may rUMINATE headlessly.
10 Fair — though one-sided? (3,5)
ALL RIGHT One-sided. No left then
11 Hearts captured by artist with a flower (6)
DAHLIA Salvador DALI is our artist, consuming H(earts) and accepting an A. Should be pronounced with a long a, but usually isn’t
13 Stuffed — like a koala perhaps? (2,1,3,4)
UP A GUM TREE About as much of a write in as it’s possible to be. A common location for the not-bear, as it eats the leaves.
16 Boy or girl with a word of support (4)
VIVA  Not often we get a random male/female, but we do here. With an added A. Viva Max (for example) is a rather endearing film with Peter Ustinov pretending to be a Mexican general, ultimately winning the support of his bemused army.
17 Fold in garment cut for suit (4)
PLEA Suit as in law. A fold in a garment is a PLEAT. Cut it.
18  Awfully swollen cuts certainly a symptom of jaundice (10)
YELLOWNESS An anagram (awfully) of SWOLLEN within YES for certainly. 40 year old memories of no 1 daughter’s first few days under a sun lamp.
20 Ultimately, mourners aren’t travelling to the wake? (6)
ASTERN The last letter of mourners plus AREN’T “travelling.” The wake, in this case, not the post funereal booze up but the trail of a ship. Nice surface.
22 Learner in pass, papers outstanding (8)
SPLENDID. The crossing letters screamed SOLENOID, but that’s not it. L(earner) in SPEND for pass (tame, a penny etc) plus ID for papers
24 Spirit knocked back slightly, figure appearing wretched (4-6)
FLEA-BITTEN  Excuse me while I work this one out…. Ah yes: Spirit ELF, reversed, plus A BIT for slightly, and TEN for a pretty random figure. Pick any one from an infinite (-1) choice)
26 Sounding natural, laugh heartily (4)
ROAR Your are invited to believe ROAR and RAW sound the same. Close enough, unless you’re good at pronouncing final R’s
27  Establishment by the way can’t fear moves to host game (9,4)
TRANSPORT CAFE An anagram (moves) of CAN’T FEAR containing SPORT for game about as generic as you can get
Down

1 A simple logo designed for urban complex (11)
MEGALOPOLIS A jolly big city spread, and an anagram (designed) of A SIMPLE LOGO.
2 Reporting to Cardinal Newman, umpteen leaders upset (5)
UNDER Cardinal is RED, Newman and Umpteen leaders provide the N and U, all reversed.
3 Doodah, fine and tacky (9)
THINGUMMY Something of a chestnut, a concatenation of THIN and GUMMY.
4 Guzzler eating seconds gets support (7)
BOLSTER Guzzler gives BOLTER, insert S(econds)
5 Permission to house parent, one of no fixed abode? (5)
NOMAD Permission is NOD, and the housed parent is MA. Precise definition
6 Bound to tour Italian capital, English seaside town and northern European city (9)
EINDHOVEN You need to make bound mean END (consider boundary, limit), insert an I(talian), add HOVE (part of the south coast megalopolis of Brighton and Hove) and finish off with N(orthern). The Dutch town suffered greatly from both sides bombing during WWII, partly because it had the Phillips factory, but more because it had a famous bridge
7 Still against the policy, all ends up (3)
YET The last letters (all ends) of againsT thE policy reversed (up)
12 Wearing underwear, one means to access study (11)
INVESTIGATE IN VEST plus GATE for means to access.
14 Country — almost entire nation tucking into fancy gateau (9)
GUATEMALA The random nation is MALI, though not all of it. Devise an anagram (fancy) of GATEAU and assemble.
15 Spinner a long way off, old, old, flat surface beginning to turn (9)
EXOPLANET EX old, O(ld) flat surface PLANE and the first letter of T(urn). The current known tally is 3,710.
19 Nation lush and hot, one in twelve assumes (7)
LESOTHO Right. Well. One set of 12 is the Zodiac, pick out LEO as the one, add in  SOT for lush (via drunkard) and H(ot). Not a particularly accurate description of Lesotho, mind.
21 Creatures with one foot but no head, tough things (5)
NAILS So how many single-footed creatures do you know? You need SNAILS, bite off the head. Yum
23 Opera in Carmen or Manon (5)
NORMA Today’s hidden, in CarmeN OR MAnon. As composed by Vicenzo Bellini
25 European army officer holds permit (3)
LET Read it this way: E(uropean) (that) (L(ieutenan)T holds.

50 comments on “Times Cryptic No 26902, 7/12/2017 Thursday’s star child has far to go.”

  1. Quite enjoyed that – getting the unlikely MOUNTEBANKERY early helped, as did easily constructing an unknown EXOPLANET.
    Stupid error of the day: REEL for laugh heartily, later “corrected” to REAL thinking I had the homophone backwards, without referring back to the clue.
    Also didn’t know a snail had one foot, even looked up gastro- to see if it was Greek for one. No. Stomach!
  2. Slowed by the south-easterly wind. 20ac ASTERN and 21dn but 15dn EXOPLANET was my LOI.

    Lord Z, do all 3,710 known EXOPLANETS spin or sart going all wobbly – or even stay still?

    FOI 23dn NORMA with the chestnut ‘air.

    COD would have to go to the aforementioned 20ac ASTERN

    WOD 1ac MOUNTEBANKERY sometimes found on Wall Street – I must get an account there!

    so 50 minutes on a very enjoyable puzzle.

    Fridays child………

    Edited at 2017-12-07 03:34 am (UTC)

  3. 32 minutes for this came as something of a relief after my adventures with today’s QC which I shall not recount here as I have already described them elsewhere.

    I was slightly held up by the ‘one foot’ reference at 21dn, the unknown EXOPLANET (worked out from wordplay) and, like isla3, being distracted by thoughts of ‘reel/real’ at 26. I had the R and A checkers so only ‘real’ would have fitted the grid but the wordplay pointed more towards ‘reel’ so I had a re-think and came up with ROAR.

    Edited at 2017-12-07 06:13 am (UTC)

  4. I like this one, often a bit puzzled but never completely stuck. FOI 1d MEGALOPOLIS (having some holiday Greek helped), LOI 1a the unknown MOUNTEBANKERY, where I’m very glad the setter clued the bet with “certain” and stopped me trying so hard to crowbar “cert” in there instead of the less well-known “banker”.

    42 minutes all told, though I feel this is one of those puzzles where on a non-wavelength day I could have struggled to cope in an hour.

    When I first moved to Hotwells, here on the outskirts of Bristol and near one of its major intersections, the Cumberland Basin, there was a famous TRANSPORT CAFE under one of the flyovers called Popeye’s Diner. All gentrified now, but at least the designer-interiored Lockside Cafe that replaced it does a SPLENDID eggs Benedict.

    Edited at 2017-12-07 07:39 am (UTC)

  5. So sure was I that DHALIA was how you spelt dahlia that even when I considered EINDHOVEN for 6d I rejected it. Must be some other German city, one I had never heard of. So a good time turned into a grumpy DNF.

    Nice puzzle, shame about the solver

  6. … but now reading Z’s blog, I realise I hadn’t parsed LESOTHO or FLEA BITTEN. Ended with the unknown MOUNTEBANKERY (cool word), and was too held up by thoughts of ‘real’ at 26ac. Oh, and trying to shoehorn ‘roadside cafe’ in at 27ac. I discovered how easy DAHLIAs are to grow earlier this year, so impressive for such relatively little horticultural skill… win-win!

    1. I’d wait until you’ve wintered them before being thinking they’re that easy, Janie. It could be win-lose yet. Or maybe your climate is warmer.

      1. Hmmm… yes. Have lifted some, and have mulched some, so we’ll see what happens next year… I guess Lincs is probably about as warm as Bolton. Fingers crossed.
        1. Sorry to be a disappointment but I now live just north of London! We don’t have that warm a winter here though. Lancashire, particularly in the west, greatly benefits from the North Atlantic Drift, unlike over the Pennines on the dry side in Yorkshire. We have a holiday place at Lytham St Annes which we come to in winter for the weather, or at least that’s what I like to tell people. Rain’s good for the complexion. And, as I point out regularly to my nephew, who lives in Camden-by-the-Sea (aka Brighton), the January isotherm connects Blackpool and Brighton. I guess Lincolnshire will be on the same isotherm as Reykjavik! Good luck with the ones you’ve left in.
          1. My daughter loves the rain. I think that’s the main reason she has Lancaster University as one of her options. Here in East Anglia we are in one of the driest parts of the UK.
  7. 20 mins (or a shade under) with toast and the unparalleled Gin&Lime marmalade from Lewis and Cooper.
    This all felt within my comfort zone: no tricky plants, bible books, scientific apparatus, Shakespeare.
    Like others, I had Reel, until it had to be Real, until it didn’t parse and so needed rethinking.
    Mostly I liked: ‘visibly green’, ‘reporting to Cardinal Newman’ and Astern (COD) for the surface and the ‘wake’.
    Thanks clever setter and Z.
    1. Forget everything else.

      Gin. And. Lime. Marmalade. Is really a thing? Why is this not in my life?????

  8. Quickest for a while for me so I wasn’t surprised that the Snitch grades this one on the easy side. I’ve never heard of MOUNTEBANKERY but I shall make every effort to use it from now on.
  9. 10:59. A steady solve, my only real problem being an inability to spell Central American countries, making 20ac difficult for a while.
  10. My Grandad’s favourite hymn, written while Newman was still moving in Oxford. I often say these words about 25 minutes into a crossword. But I was on wavelength today, finishing in 18 minutes with LOI EXOPLANET. WOD MOUNTEBANKERY. Pun of the day UP A GUM TREE. COD TRANSPORT CAFE. Thank you Z and setter.

    Edited at 2017-12-07 10:12 am (UTC)

  11. Not much to say about an easy puzzle that was a top to bottom solve. “Certain bet on a horse” gave “banker” and so 1A was a write-in and it went from there.
    1. Took a long time at the end to get away from solenoid. 34.51. Mountebankery the ideal term for what setters get up to.
  12. Nothing unique in my solving experience, it seems, up to and including going through REEL…REAL…ROAR.
  13. I thought I was going to struggle when my FOI was UP A GUM TREE, but things improved after that. MEGALOPOLIS went in next and THINGUMMY followed. Before I knew it, I was left with a few gaps in the SE and SW. I considered REAL/REEL at 26a but dismissed it immediately as I couldn’t parse it. Once I had 12d, ROAR went in. EINDHOVEN was a write in once I had the crossers as I once visited the Motor Museum there. I was intrigued to see a Porche sports car in Police livery as one of the exhibits. They use them to catch speeders on the motorways apparently. I failed to parse LESOTHO despite considering the Zodiac as a source of twelve items. Obvious once it was pointed out. EXOPLANET led to FLEA BITTEN and then my LOI NAILS fell into place and 25:54 had elapsed. An enjoyable puzzle. Thanks setter and Z.
  14. This was the one that held me up – in part because it rather resembles an answer in today’s Guardian (good one for those of us who like TLS puzzles) which I’d done first. I didn’t know Viva Max but had seen Viva Zapata with Brando in the gym at school eons ago. 16.01
  15. I felt like I was sluggish this morning due to lack of coffee but still completed this straightforward-enough puzzle in about 7 minutes. Like many others, agonised a lot over REAL/REEL before the much dodgier homophone occurred.
    1. I was going to respond to z’s comment in the blog earlier but thought better of it. But what on earth is remotely dodgy about ROAR/raw as a homophone? In standard English pronunciation they are absolutely identical.

      Edited at 2017-12-07 07:07 pm (UTC)

      1. Brits drop the “r” and both words do sound the same, according to Collins. But they are noticeably different in American English. (One of the American pronunciations for “roar” in Collins online effectively gives it two syllables.) So I balked at this, but am surprised now that V did.
        1. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if it were a requirement that homophones had to work in every variety of English, we would never see a homophone.
  17. Why is Mr Rashid not in the side? Happy to complete this in just over 40 mins. Same issues and solutions as others. Thanks Z for parsing the landlocked African country. My only beef is exoplanet=spinner. Does a planet have to spin? our satellite has the interesting property of spinning such that it appears not to to us of course. Thanks all
    1. Our planets spin because of inertia. They were formed by clumps of matter colliding and momentum causing spin. In the vacuum of space, spinning objects maintain their momentum and direction — their spin — because no external forces have been applied to stop them.
  20. A biffed AGED went in last unexplained – and wrong! – for what would otherwise have been (for me) a very quickly completed crossword. Other than the fact that it took me rather too long to put the first answer down. THINGUMMY or its variant spellings seems to be a setter’s favourite these days.
    1. Ooh yes, I meant to mention that EGAD was a nasty little trap waiting for the unwary biffer.
  21. Biffed AGED instead of EGAD so a DNF for me.

    MOUNTEBANKERY is a cracking word and I shall use it at the first

    available opportunity.

    I apologise for my anonymity today – some strange website

    gatekeepery is preventing me from logging in.

    Time: DNF in 25 minutes.

    Thank you to setter and blogger.

    davest100

  22. 34m but needed help on my LOI which was EXOPLANET which felt like a new word both to me – I expect I said that last time it came up too! I doubt I’d ever have got that from the definition so not too agitated by my failing. Otherwise a straightforward solve and apart from said planet might have been a rare sub -30. Que sera, sera. Thanks for the entertaining blog, Z.
  23. About 25 minutes, ending with SPLENDID. I just couldn’t for the life of me think of anything but SOLENOID for a while, after the checking letters were in, and the ‘spend’ as ‘pass’ part didn’t come to me at all. No real problems with the rest, and I agree the MOUNTEBANKERY term was a highlight. Regards.
  24. 26a stumped me as, being Scottish, roar sounds nothing like raw. Normally, if I’m stumped, I try to think of how those in more southern regions would pronounce a word, but I neglected to do so in this case. I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the crossword though!
  25. My hopes of a sub-fifteen-minute solve started to fade as I got past the 20 minute mark after a fast start. Got there in 26 minutes eventually, with TRANSPORT CAFE and LET my LOsI. LET was the obvious answer, but I could not parse it for the life of me. But, then again, LESOTHO also went in unparsed with a shrug. Many thanks to z8 for the blog.

    I am also puzzled by our anonymous Scottish visitor (up there ^) – how are “roar” and “raw” pronounced nairth of border?

    1. How about “rower”, as one in a boat with oars, with a resounding “r” on the end? Or the letter “rho” with a similar ending?
      I’m only anonymous because I wasn’t given an option to put a name/pseudonym. Hope I’ve helped your understanding of Scottish pronunciation!
        1. Nevertheless, I ran this past my Scots wife and she had no problem with roar = raw. Perhaps because she is from Aberdeenshire.

          Edited at 2017-12-08 08:44 am (UTC)

  27. I started this on the subway after my union’s holiday party and had fewer than a handful unworked when I got home and absolutely had to go to sleep. I instantly saw GUATEMALA when I looked at it again, and everything fell into place. I had guessed at TRANSPORT CAFE earlier, but had hesitated to put it in. By George, so it really is a phrase over there! Seems a bit fancy for a truck stop. Ha.
    1. Often pronounced as transport caff which may be considered just a shade less refined.
  28. After 29 mins on the morning commute I had 27 & 17ac, 14, 15 & 19dn still to get. I tidied those up in 10 mins at lunch. FOI 8ac. LOI and COD 15dn. I saw Leo in 19dn and thought immediately of the 12 Popes Leo rather than the 12 signs of the zodiac. Wiki tells me that this parsing works perfectly well up until about 1878 when a 13th Pope Leo rolled up to spoil the party. And of course solvers in 1878 might well wonder what Lesotho is as opposed to Basutoland. Ah well at least I saw the lush and hot bit ok. A very enjoyable puzzle.
  29. Just over an hour, the last few minutes of which were spent convincing myself 26ac couldn’t possibly be REAL (sounding like “reeling with laughter”) and no, the setter couldn’t possibly have confused the rôles of the answer and its homonym. But it took me awhile to understand what is natural about ROAR (I’m American, we pronounce the final R most insistently). Everything else not too difficult, but I still don’t understand how I managed to biff EINDHOVEN, of all places, before parsing it.
  30. 14:52 Having done Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s already today, I thought I’d try and catch up and solve one on the right day. No hold-ups although a few were biffed before being parsed. I liked seeing an artist rather than RA at 11a. A bit late for this year as they have finished now, but the Dahlia bed at Anglesey Abbey is a great sight in early autumn. 21d my favourite. Thanks setter and Z.
  31. Spinner a long way off. You have got to be joking! Appreciate that the wordplay is obvious (in retrospect 🙂 ) but Exoplanet, really? Generally, it s all getting a bit, er, bitty for me – take a bit of this, turn it around, add the first or last letter of that, to, around or about the middle of another word that is a synonym of the clue in Chinese (ok I’m joking here). Nah!

Comments are closed.