Times Cryptic No 26910 – Saturday, 16 December 2017. A Christmas present?

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Finished on paper in 45 minutes – a gallop by my standards. I think most of the clues in this puzzle are unusually straightforward in structure, with very few obscure references. The challenges are in elliptical use of vocabulary.

My clue of the day is 5dn, only because “pother” is such a lovely word. I also liked the well-disguised definitions in 28ac and 6dn. Thanks to the setter for a very enjoyable puzzle.

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

Across
1 Haul put back beside church in valley (5)
GULCH: LUG backwards, then CH.
4 Source of wine, mulled, perhaps — peppery stuff? (9)
GRAPESHOT: GRAPES of course, HOT from being mulled. Peppered with gunfire, in this case.
9 Meat company importing a lot of hoax wine (9)
LAMBRUSCO: LAMB / RUS{e} / CO.
10 Difficulty entertaining millions with a dance (5)
RUMBA: M in RUB, then add A.
11 Insect was initially found in each fiddle (6)
EARWIG: EA / RIG, with W{as} inserted.
12 Queen to marry in this decade? (8)
THIRTIES: insert R and TIE in THIS. Yes, it’s a decade. No, she didn’t marry until 1947.
14 Father crying sadly about English words of praise (9)
PANEGYRIC: PA (CRYING*), and insert E for English.
16 Transport system satisfied staff will need day off (5)
METRO: MET / RO{d}.
17 Would rather, having no power to pass on (5)
REFER: {p}REFER.
19 Some journey to catch good bit of game? (9)
PARTRIDGE: PART RIDE, and insert G for good.
21 Crime writer to emerge after penning note on chapter (8)
CHRISTIE: CH for chapter, then RISE around the note TI.
22 Seafood sensitivity initially affected one (6)
SCAMPI: S{ensitivity}, CAMP, I.
25 Closer in middle of fun run (1,4)
U BOLT: U in the middle of {f}U{n}, then BOLT. I nearly wrote in U BOOT without further thought, but saved by divine intervention! A rather elliptical definition … to me, a u-bolt seems more like it fixes things rather than closes them.
26 Clot spoiled catalogue (9)
COAGULATE: (CATALOGUE*).
27 Flower, say, brought in for one seasonal gift (6,3)
EASTER EGG: ASTER and EG=say, inside EG=for one! Refreshingly unusual that a flower is flora, not a river!
28 Be coming in at six even when kept back (5)
EXIST: reverse hidden answer. Delightfully unassuming definition!

Down
1 Pay-off presumably not going down like a lead balloon? (6,9)
GOLDEN PARACHUTE: cryptic definition.
2 Large misgiving after beheading mammal (5)
LEMUR: L{arge} {d}EMUR. I don’t think of DEMUR as a noun, but the dictionary allows it.
3 Hero of opera in girl’s series of operas (7)
HERRING: HER / RING, as in the Wagner operas.
4 Effusiveness upsets son in expression of affection (4)
GUSH: S in HUG, reversed.
5 About to be involved in a commotion over variable old pharmacist (10)
APOTHECARY: CA in A POTHER, then Y is the variable.
6 Oppose relinquishing initial spirit, one hears (7)
EARDRUM: {b}EARD, then RUM. I think of BEARD as confront more than oppose, but again it’s in the dictionary. Clever that “one hears” is the definition, rather than indicating a homophonic clue.
7 Inept writing possessed by the writer — had to restrict that (3-6)
HAM-FISTED: a “Russian doll” clue … FIST inside ME inside HAD.
8 Limit heatstroke with treatment, getting encouraging response (5,4,4,2)
THAT’S MORE LIKE IT: (LIMIT HEATSTOKE*).
13 Tip of rocket in police cordon possibly evidence of alien visitation? (4,6)
CROP CIRCLE: R in COP, then CIRCLE=cordon.
15 Developed for use in a base (9)
NEFARIOUS: (FOR USE IN A*).
18 Very much in character, shedding pounds, picking up award (7)
ROSETTE: SO=very much, LETTER=character. Put one inside the other, lose L for pound (sterling), and turn upside down. Did anyone actually solve this from the wordplay, rather than biff it from the helpers?
20 One’s not involved regarding items for detective, seeing twist at the end (7)
RECLUSE: RE=regarding, CLUES for detectives, twist the last two letters.
23 I damage upcoming resort (5)
MIAMI: I MAIM, upside down.
24 Criticise an end to grieving or strong emotion (4)
PANG: PAN=criticise, G from grieving.

 

20 comments on “Times Cryptic No 26910 – Saturday, 16 December 2017. A Christmas present?”

  1. 30′ online, with 25ac, 28ac, 18d, and 20d left. When I returned to the puzzle, at lunch I think, the recalcitrant four yielded almost simultaneously, which suggests some unconscious activity in the interim. Spoiled things with a typo at 3d; perhaps appropriately, since I’d never heard of HERRING. I realized why when I looked him up afterwards; the opera’s one of Britten’s. Never got EARDRUM. Rather like Bruce, I came close to putting in U BOAT, but cooler heads prevailed. COD to 8d; impressive anagram with a lovely surface.
  2. Sorry Kevin I think you commented before when I had a fat-fingers problem. Although the answers had already been posted on the Club site it seemed better to take the blog down until the normal time
  3. I also though of a U-BOAT closing on its victim, but wiser councils prevailed. I biffed GOLDEN HANDSHAKE at first, but that didn’t pass muster when I looked at the SW across clues and was soon corrected. PANEGYRIC and APOTHECARY just floated into view and after a romp around the grid I found myself submitting at 31:20. NHO the opera hero, but followed the cryptic. LEMUR and GULCH were my first entries, but I can’t remember where I finished. An enjoyable half hour or so. Thanks setter and Bruce.
  4. I’m another who received a GOLDEN HANDSHAKE first before the PARACHUTE opened with a PANEGYRIC. I could then let Agatha CHRISTIE in. I not only biffed ROSETTE, B, but I also didn’t succeed in parsing it after the event. 45 minutes on this with COD CROP CIRCLE. What other proof do you need? Calling MIAMI a resort reminded me of the scouser who described Manchester as the ultimate place to spend your holiday, or the last resort. In most resorts, the tide goes in and out but in Manky it comes straight down. I guess that’s why Liam Gallagher knew to wear a bicycle cape for the One Manchester concert at the real Old Trafford. From where I’m from, I can like both cities. Thank you B and setter.

    Edited at 2017-12-23 09:32 am (UTC)

  5. Can’t remember too much about it now but my notes say ‘ a relaxed 16.38, no real problems’, so I obviously had one of my better days. Haven’t seen GULCH written down for years. They always had dead men in them as I recall.
  6. 51 minutes, which is fine for me for a Saturday, especially as it was the work’s Christmas party the night before and I’d been drinking from 1pm onwards… I’m always amazed how little relation there seems to be between how my brain feels and my ability to do crosswords.

    FOI 1a GULCH, which was a nice start; LOsI the crossers of U-BOLT and ROSETTE, which I probably did have to painstakingly work out from the wordplay. Sometimes those biffs just don’t appear. Looks like I enjoyed the double-EGging of 27a.

    Thanks for the explanations; I didn’t know “pother”, the eponymous opera hero, nor that meaning of “demur”…

  7. All done in 32:57 but with my LOI U-boat unparsed – now I know why it proved impossible to parse. I thought something was wrong but sadly neither Kevin’s cooler heads nor John’s wiser council’s made any appearance. I had already entered a couple unparsed but that’s not my usual game and 25ac proved a biff too far. I did not know that gush could be a noun as well as a verb. I thought 26ac was excellent.
  8. My spreadsheet (yes – saddo, I know) tells me I finished this in 23:31. I remember liking 14a as a new word to add to my vocabulary, and thinking there was maybe an elliptical reference to the world’s fastest man at 25a. POTHER was new to me too and deduced from the biffed answer. Oh, and I liked 6d too. Nice puzzle and great blog as ever. Thanks.

    Edited at 2017-12-23 01:27 pm (UTC)

  9. A rare finish for me, well almost because I also had U-BOAT. Rats!
    Does anybody here ever win a £20 voucher? Just curious.
    Phil R
    1. Hi Phil. Yes I won the £20 a couple of months ago. I took my two £10 vouchers to my local W H Smug hoping to upgrade from my 1979 Collins Dictionary to a current Chambers reference tome only to find nothing more than ‘concise’ versions available… so I’ve still got them to spend! I’ve just checked online and I should be able to buy it, but the vouchers can’t be used online 🙁

      Edited at 2017-12-23 02:27 pm (UTC)

    2. Yes, I won two £10 WHS vouchers a couple of months ago, and a Cross pen a little while before that for the Sunday Times puzzle. Funnily enough, another Cross pen tripped over my doorstep yesterday as well. It’s all a matter of luck though. Even if you get the puzzle all correct, you’ve still got to be drawn out of the electronic hat. I got a new Road Map of Britain and a copy of the Highway Code, as well as some bits of stationery with my vouchers while I was in Wales last month, as I happened to have them in my pocket as I was walking past the shop in Abergavenny.
    3. Yup, I won the £20 voucher for puzzle 26,400 back in 2016.

      Have to say, I’d wager that WHSmith will be the next major UK high street retailer to go bankrupt, given what it feels like every time I go in there. Feels like the chain that time forgot: very much like Woolies did just before they went under.

  10. Yes, I couldn’t help thinking of the aptly named Usain. I think of GULCH as more of a canyon than a valley which is too gentle a word for it, as in “Last Chance”.

    In answer to Phil R, I have won the L20 voucher twice but now the powers-that-be have decided to exclude non-UK residents from the drawing (yah boo). A WHSmith voucher is in fact no use at all in NYC so I donated the second one to a nephew in London. The first one I attempted to use at Heathrow on my way home from a visit and chaos ensued. It was too much for the check-out clerk to deal with so she summoned the manager who looked at it as if it had been a Sanskrit cuneiform so she had to phone for instructions. Meanwhile a long and justifiably infuriated queue built behind me… Good luck!

    16.04 which was just good enough for 140th place out of 300 in the ludicrous weekend standings.

    Edited at 2017-12-23 02:30 pm (UTC)

  11. I enjoyed this puzzle. By nagging away at it over several sessions I got answers to everything although not all parsed. I failed on one -23d. I could not get past I HARM which when reversed gives the little known Polynesian resort of Mrahi.
    And I have never won a prize despite now having submitted many entries. I stopped sending in by post when I calculated I’d spent about £20 on postage! I wonder how they select winners when many enter online and others by post. David
    1. For a brief while, we must have been together on the lost island of Mrahi! Luckily I changed my mind and decided to take a second look 😀
  12. LOI CROP CIRCLE.Funny that Kevingregg has used a word in his comment up there which is in today’s Times crossword ( ok,not exactly).Filled most of the answers from definitions even if l didn’t get the parsing.
    Ong’ara,
    Kenya.

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