Times Cryptic No 26914 Thursday, 21 December 2017 Not (yet) the Christmas Turkey

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I rather enjoyed this one, though it took around 25 minutes, with 3d incompletely parsed but confidently entered. There was a decent helping of wit, and plenty of the kind of misdirection which didn’t make you feel you were being cheated. There’s quite a lot of food and drink (and some heavy duty drugs) dotted around the grid, though it would make a strange kind of breakfast so doesn’t really suggest a menu.

The surfaces throughout are pretty smooth and convincing, which again is a good mark in my book.

My reasoning and unravelling appear below, with clues, definitions and  SOLUTIONS

ACROSS

1 Cooked, this contains potatoes, certainly no turkey! (5,3)
SMASH HIT An anagram (cooked) of THIS containing MASH, one way to serve potatoes. I’ll start the ball rolling by suggesting Emoji the Movie and Love Actually as two possible ends of the turkey/smash hit spectrum
5 Sort of film entertainer going into space (6)
ROMCOM Love Actually again? Your entertainer is an MC, and is inserted into ROOM for space
9 Men pierced by a bladed implement (3)
OAR You should know by now that men are Other Ranks, in this case with an A intruding
10 It reduces friction in social event with standing (4,7)
BALL BEARING Social event: BALL, standing: BEARING (think demeanour)
12 Marine received alarming signal at sea (5,5)
JOLLY ROGER A Marine is a JOLLY, originally a nickname for the Trained Bands in London around 1660. ROGER, in radio chatter slang, means “message received”
13 Website where wife and kids get 50% off (4)
WIKI Just take the front halves of Wife and KIds
15 Such a clue gets a mark of affection? (6)
ACROSS or a cross, an X or kiss
16 Attack on fortified building as exercise (4,3)
KEEP FIT Fortified building is a KEEP, and FIT comes from attack as in some sort of seizure
18 Said no official had a drug problem (7)
REFUSED Breaking the clue at the right point is critical. REFeree is our official, and apparently he/she USED, or took drugs. Whether or not that constitutes a problem is a moot point.
20 Rocky ravine is greener (6)
NAIVER Looks like, is, an anagram (rocky) of RAVINE
23 Girl a man of God rebuffed (4)
VERA Our random girl is A REV backwards. Events (especially the appointment of Sarah Mullally as Bishop of London) make “man of God” perhaps a little presumptive.
24 Landlord approving of new porter, drinking one (10)
PROPRIETOR Approving gives you PRO, and “new” PORTER with a I (one) introduced provides the rest.
26 “Sweet” summarised daughter brought in indisposed (7,4)
SPOTTED DICK A staple of school dinners and schoolboy jokes. Summerised gives POTTED, add D for Daughter, enclose in SICK for indisposed
27 Choose to be heard still (3)
PIC Still as in photograph, sounding very much like PICK as in choose
28 In nomad’s dwelling, leave rolls for other food (6)
YOGURT One of four (at least) spellings of what, in my youth, tasted properly sour. The nomad’s dwelling is a YURT, and leave gives GO which is “rolled” and inserted
29 Farm animal to get on part of vessel (8)
STEERAGE STEER obviously your farm animal, AGE to get on (in years) 

DOWN

1 Small hill by first person in French capital (6)
SKOPJE I remember Skopje for the disastrous earthquake of 1963, but it’s now the capital of FYR Macedonia. S(mall) KOP (Afrikaans for a hill) plus JE as French for the first person singular.
2 Original lyric, a concert’s opening material (7)
ACRYLIC An anagram (original) of LYRIC, A and C(oncert’s) opening
3 Toy goblin: beastly, empty junk (10)
HOBBY HORSE A goblin is a HOB, B(eastl)Y is emptied. HORSE puzzled me , but both junk and horse are slang terms for heroin.
4 Person needing prison doctor, maybe left with inflamed rash (3-10)
ILL-CONSIDERED An ILL CON would need a prison doctor, left is one possible SIDE, inflamed is RED. And that sort of rash.
6 Just dropping marks in exam (4)
ORAL Just would be MORAL then, lose the M
7 Chicken, I note, provided in cheap eatery (7)
CAITIFF Well, a cheap eatery is a CAFF, and I TI is given by I note. My Chambers doesn’t give the cowardly definition, but other sources do. Anyway, that sort of chicken.
8 Artist shows courage in China (8)
MAGRITTE “10 famous Belgians”, this one gave us “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”. When you see CHINA, you know it’s either PAL or MATE, and courage gives the inserted GRIT, as in John Wayne’s true version.
11 Server’s problem about gin spilt in tense moment (8,5)
BREAKING POINT This is a tennis rather than technology reference. A server who has a break point against him/her must win the next or lose the game, set or match. Which would be a problem. GIN “spilt” provides the remaining letters.
14 Sort of blue colour around elevated cable, live on the outside (10)
PERIWINKLE When it’s a colour, it’s a light blue, though the flower can be almost any colour. No doubt the mollusc provides a few more. In the wordplay, the colour is PINK, around a reversal of WIRE (cable) and L(iv)E, the outside thereof, completes.
17 Seek to protect birds heading for tricky takeoff (8)
TRAVESTY Takeoff as in imitation, commonly in theatre an actor playing a different gender. Seek is TRY, birds are AVES, and the heading for Tricky is T. Assemble thoughtfully.
19 Perhaps squirrel atop pine in the distance (7)
FURLONG Like mink, the animal name can be applied just to the animal’s means of keeping warm. Pine gives rise to long, and distance here is a distance.
21 Medical abnormality nurse finally spies round head (7)
ECTOPIA “Out of place”. Nurse finally is E, spies are the CIA, and head is TOP.
22 Diviner gold left for one to gather (6)
ORACLE Gold is an heraldic OR, one is ACE, which “gathers” L(eft)
25 What agitator does, in time caught by teacher (4)
STIR T(ime) is caught by SIR, the teacher who isn’t Miss

55 comments on “Times Cryptic No 26914 Thursday, 21 December 2017 Not (yet) the Christmas Turkey”

  1. A bout of insomnia resulted in me doing this at an ungodly hour in the morning. However my grey cells seemed fairly unaffected, finishing it in 38 minutes. I tried to squeeze MATTISSE (sic) in 8d to begin with and toyed with CAIMIFF before plumping for the correct choice in 7d.
    Cleverly constructed, hugely enjoyable and a really good workout. Great fun. Let’s hope it helps me to sleep.
  2. Held up the longest by SKOPJE and PERIWINKLE. I actually knew ‘kopje’ but not ‘kop’ (it’s smaller than a kop), but couldn’t bring it to mind for ages, even with the J. And I tried to work out 14d taking ‘live on the outside’ to be BE as initial and final letters; that didn’t work too well. 20ac was clearly (ravine)*, but all I could think of was ‘vainer’, since it never occurred to me that the comparative of ‘naive’ was not ‘more naive’. DNK ROMCOM, which looks exactly like something ‘Variety’ would invent.
  3. 8:37, held up at the end by a couple of tricky ones. CAITIFF could easily have been CAIMIFF, but the former looked more likely in the end. I wasn’t entirely sure how to spell SKOPJE but plumped for the right answer eventually on the basis that the Kop at Anfield might be considered a kind of hill. Sort of. Wiki tells me my instinct was right in a way: it’s named after Spioen Kop, a Boer War battle site.
  4. 28 minutes of fun. Thanks, setter.

    Love Actually is down there with Tuesdays (or is it Thursdays?) with Morrie for worst film ever. The wife loves it, though…

  5. I’d never heard of CAITIFF and put in CAINIFF (one note provided giving I N IF) and wondering if you really could spell CAFF with just one “F”. I also fell into the VAINER trap for a moment, but realized the long down was going to end ING even before I fully solved it. But an enjoyable solve.
  6. 32 minutes but with CAINIFF instead of CAITIFF, so one wrong. I had the same parsing as Paul for my wrong answer except I failed to notice that it would have resulted in one F too many i.e. I + N (note) + IF (provided) inside CAFF (cheap eatery).

    Edited at 2017-12-21 06:57 am (UTC)

    1. Glad I’m in good company with CAINIFF – I figured the British informal term might just as well be CAF as CAFF. But I also attempted to create the capital STORJE, never having heard of KOP and not recalling SKOPJE.

      The other clues managed to reveal themselves with some effort – quite a few aha moments. Thanks to the setter and to Z for the blog.

      1. KOP unknown here too but I knew SKOPJE as the scene of a terrible earthquake in the early 1960s – not that it was a capital then.
      2. Me too with STORJE. It turns out to be a real place, but it’s a village in Slovenia:-(
        On edit: As I now see has already been pointed out by Myrtilus.

        Edited at 2017-12-21 02:13 pm (UTC)

  7. A pleasant 22 minutes on this, with CAITIFF last and guessed as the most likely word, as keriothe did. I remember going to Skopje not long after the earthquake, on a mad students attempt to get into Albania in a Morris Minor convertible. We were never sure if we actually crossed the border in the mountains but we weren’t shot.
  8. 30 mins with Yogurt, granola, spotted dick, etc – and pleased to have got Caitiff – but I also went with STORJE – which is in Slovenia and not a capital yet.

    I agree this was a good one. Good surfaces and nice misleading.
    Mostly I liked: Yogurt (obvs) and Server’s problem.

    Thanks clever setter and Z. Well done on resisting the schoolboy jokes.

    Edited at 2017-12-21 08:06 am (UTC)

  9. 35mins with a lucky punt at CAITIFF, which sounded only marginally more likely than ‘caimiff’.

    HORSE for ‘junk’ (for ‘heroin’) unknown (or forgotten). Opted for SKOPJE over ‘storje’ as I’d heard of the capital but not not the hill, rather than the hill but not the capital.

  10. Another one where I turned to aids, this time for CAITIFF (which I considered but decided didn’t sound at all chickeny). It seems to have come up just once before in the years TfTT has been running — in November 2012. I didn’t comment that day so I don’t have to kick myself for not knowing it twice: http://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/904414.html [edit: seems this was a Championship puzzle]

    For those dropping Turkey hints — yes, I’m working on it!

    Edited at 2017-12-21 08:34 am (UTC)

  11. Thanks, z8b8d8k for explaining 3d. I shoulda guessed the derivation of ‘horse’ as Len Deighton’s “Horse Under Water” is my very favourite spy novel. As you say, nice helping of wit. 52m 42s. Nice to be early-ish in the day with comments now that we have moved to EnZed.
  12. I am about the only one so far to have not to have enjoyed this puzzle.
    It took me around 75 mins. A very Fridayish feeling

    I began well with FOI 6dn ORAL followed by 7dn CAITIFF easy as at school in the lower sixth I played Ralph (Rafe) in
    Beaumont & Fletcher’s comedy, ‘The Knight of the Burning Pestle.’ What fun and it had ‘caitiff wretches’ abounding!

    LOI was8ac ROMCOM (nasty word) I prefer the ‘One Foot in the Grave’ Meldrewvian style (COMCOM) complaint comedy.

    But it was the SW that held me up horrydly.

    COD 28ac YOGHURT quam gigliano and WOD ECTOPIA chillin’

    Thank-you Sir Pip Kirby for the ‘Santa Owl’ avatar and you are admissable for the competition even if ‘her indoors’ is an ex-Gooner!
    Ask her to renounce Arsen Wenger (Old Vinegar Face) thrice.

    A word of warning however Kirby, the jury isn’t really big on cats or anything Trumpy.

    I also notice that Lady Sarah Sotira has upped the ante – with her Christmas fowl! Gobble-gobble!

    Any new avatars forthcoming? Don’t forget your avatar could win a splendid prize in the TftT ‘Avatar of the Year’ competition!

    Top Ten – results in early January.

    Edited at 2017-12-21 09:12 am (UTC)

        1. She is a bit of a softie, as long as you’re not a squirrel, or ringing the doorbell (up until the point the door opens and she actually sees you).
    3. Fair ’nuff, if time allows before compulsory shopping, will go for something different tomorrow (last day for entries folks)
      And no cats either.
      Sir Pip
        1. As an impoverished student, I needed the money for beer and had to make do with what I could get from the jumble sale!
    6. A while back, a friend of mine did a BTEC course in media make-up. As a result, I was sometimes the model for coursework, so here I am with a handmade moustache and sideboards, as inspired by Lemmy from Motörhead…
      1. Looks to me a little like the cover of a “Heads, Hands and Feet” album I had in the 70s!
  13. Second puzzle recently where an answer is so obscure that many different things could fit the wordplay, I went for CAICIFF, deeming that ‘provided’ must mean IF, but once again I nearly gave up halfway through figuring that 7d was always going to be a guess. Enjoyed SKOPJE. Thanks z and setter.
  14. A very enjoyable 26.28 tussle with this one. Slowed down dramatically at the end mopping up the last few, particularly the coward and, inexplicably, STEERAGE, my LOI. MAGRITTE is a painter I have heard of, though to my shame more from Paul Simon’s song than any scholarly appreciation of his work.
  15. I was pleased to finish this with all correct as I had several doubts. I’ve never heard of CAITIFF but the parsing seemed OK on that one. I’ve not heard of a kop but I have heard of a tor so was tempted by STORJE. SKOPJE rang a bell though so I went with it whilst thinking maybe the Kop at Liverpool football stadium had something to do with a hill. Finally finished with TRAVESTY where I didn’t know the definition or aves, though I hoped the latter related to aviary. Phew!
  16. … usually Wiki nowadays. Enjoyed this, taking 28 minutes. I took a time to rid myself of ‘opt’ to see the PIC, and fortunately I went for CAITIFF as it sounded more likely than ‘caimiff’. COD ILL-CONSIDERED. Perhaps I should think longer about what to pick next time. Thank you Z and setter.
  17. … but in 10a I think ‘bearing’ = ‘standing’ works as “I can’t bear it” = “I can’t stand it”: to bear as to endure.

    This was a lovely crossword, with a good mix of easy (STIR, OAR, ROMCOM) with some more tortuous (SMASH HIT, CAITIFF). 39 mins. Thank you, blogger for your neat elucidation and commentary.

    Edited at 2017-12-21 11:24 am (UTC)

    1. Yes, that’s what I took for “standing” too.

      And especially for Horryd, here is another avatar – myself in salad days. I’m rather more like Whistler’s mother (vide infra) nowadays.

      1. “The voice came from a man with a military bearing which he tossed in the air and caught.” Goon Show, Series 9 Episode 13, Dishonoured- again.
  18. so I was clearly “in the zone”, as sportspeople like to say these days. CAITIFF was indeed from a championship puzzle, one which I remember well – let’s face it, if there’s one occasion when you don’t want to encounter a new, and, at that point, unknown word, it’s when it’s the one clue you have left to solve in your heat, and you can sense hands flying up around the room. To my surprise, I got it right then; even more surprising, of course, is that I actually remembered it today. Good puzzle, anyway.
  19. Oh dear a mistyped WIFI caused a DNF. And I thought I’d done so well. CAITIFF LOI from checkers as I misunderstood the clue, thinking that cheap cafe was a CAF and provided gave the IF. Also liked the misdirection with the French capital, easy enough however when JOLLY ROGER went in. SPOTTED DICK I haven’t had since boarding school….
  20. I think it’s impossible to cite a worst film ever as any of the Star Wars shambles can win that prize. Personally i think Santa Claus Conquers the Martians could be the winner of both WFE and best title ever. Lucky to complete as Caitiff was a guess but took an hour and found it tricky. Thanks Z and setter
    1. Not liking Star Wars in general I can accept (takes all sorts) but surely no-one who has seen them can fail to acknowledge that The Phantom Menace is a worse film than The Empire Strikes Back. The former probably ranks as my WFE just because of the sullying of what for me are important and influential films, if only because of my age when they came out.
      I say ‘probably’ just because I have also seen Truly Madly Deeply.
      1. Seconded. The Phantom Menace was the only film I’ve ever seen at the cinema where I felt like walking out, and it’s still a regret that I didn’t follow my instincts.
  21. Well, a failure for me, but not on the one I expected. After a half-hour of solving, my friends joined me at the caff, and I put the paper to one side with 7d, 17d and 28a still to get.

    Picking things up later, I immediately popped in TRAVESTY and YOGURT, then ummed and ahhed for another five minutes between CAIMIFF, CAITIFF or possibly something else.

    Imagine my annoyance when I finally plumped correctly for the unknown CAITIFF, then came here to find that SKOPJE was the NHO capital, and not STORJE, which sounded just as plausible to me. I did know “kop” for hill—from the Goon Show episode The Battle of Spion Kop, if nothing else—but hadn’t considered it when TOR sprang so readily to mind.

  22. 12:45. Hobby horse was unparsed and the chicken, as it did for Keriothe, came down to a toss-up between CAITIFF and the equally unlikely-looking CAIMIFF.

    As for 1d it started life as STORJE, then I remembered that there was a city that sounded like SCOPJE, and then I remembered that it was SKOPJE and that a kop, but not a cop, was a hill.

  23. I was pleased to find I’d hit the right note at 7d, but miffed to find I’d picked the wrong hill at 1d. So 1 wrong in 30:39. An enjoyable puzzle, but a feeling of despondency at the outcome. A bad day all round as I managed a typo in the QC too. Like others, I biffed 3d from a partial parsing of the clue. Liked BREAKING POINT. Thanks setter and Z.
  24. KOP (shortened from Spion Kop) is a feature of many football stadia with Liverpool’s being the most notorious.
  25. Another who didn’t really parse HOBBYHORSE. “Horsefeathers” is a polite Americanism for rubbish so I went with that (“applesauce” is another). Speaking of which, I see Penfold got in ahead of me but I have a pretty good copy painted by #2 daughter when in high school of this by MAGRITTE hanging just to my right off the kitchen where I solve: https://uploads1.wikiart.org/images/rene-magritte/the-listening-room-1952(1).jpg

    I think I just about remembered CAITIFF from ?Othello.

    As for Horryd’s avatars, Whistler’s mother is rather descriptive of how I feel this morning. 18.40

  26. Well, since I’m enjoying being grumpy for Christmas, it’s just as well this puzzle didn’t lift me out of it. I opted for “cainiff” (I, note, and provided [if] in caff). Even if I’d parsed it correctly it would be been a toss-up between “caimiff” and “caitiff”, and even if I’d picked the right one of those I’d not have known whether it was a coward or a fowl. The combination of Afrikaans and Romani at 1d also stumped me – was there any English in that clue? I plumped for “Storje”. As it happens, Storje (decorated with various diacriticals in that over-fussy continental way) is a village in Slovenia. Hah, bumhug!

    Edited at 2017-12-21 03:49 pm (UTC)

  27. DNF, as I had guessed CAINIFF, looked it up, found it did not exist, and then searched around before discovering the unknown CAITIFF. Odd looking word, that. (Not to say that cainiff looks any less weird.) Small triumph: no problem with SKOPJE, as I knew both the SA hill and the capital. Regards.
  28. This was one where even one crosser was a big biffing help, so it went faster and faster as I went along. I opted for caitiff, thinking somewhere I remembered some doggerel about a dog a rat and a caitiff murdering either the Princes in the tower or else Becket. A very vague memory as you can see, but enough to go for iti instead of ini. Post solve I googled for the doggerel, without success. Nice blog, Z
  29. Another one done in leisurely fashion over three 20 minute sessions during the course of the day. Fun puzzle. Knew the Boer hill, the Anfield kop, the French first person and the capital so 1dn my second in after 9ac. I remember reading a learned discussion somewhere about the origin of kop. Since this is pretty much the only place I visit where I’m likely to come across learned discussions I thought it was probably here, perhaps not. I know signing off a letter with an x indicates a kiss but is a cross, absent such context, a mark of affection? Even with the ? at the end of the clue it feels a bit iffy to me. 4dn reverse engineered from solution to parsing. Took far too long to remember Magritte. Dnk periwinkle blue but winkled it out from wp.
  30. No accurate timing – too late to be bothered. Never had an avatar, and can’t find any picture of Whistler’s father. Hope that Dr Thud manages to find a way out of his gloom before Christmas, otherwise he won’t have time to develop proper grumpiness for the New Year. (I wish him a Merry Christmas, whether he likes it or not).
  31. Finished over two sittings in around an hour. Held up at the end with steerage as I did not have oracle and thought “yard” must form the second half of the clue. Had to correct vainer to naiver. If deliberate that was a very crafty trap by the setter! My only fully correct solve of the week. Thanks setter and blogger.
  33. 8* answers needed, so not bad for me.

    *Smash hit – couldn’t get spud out of my head, though guessed at the wordplay
    Romcom – was thinking silent (en in anagram of slit)
    Ball-bearing – couldn’t get _ice-breaker out of my head.
    Keep fit – initially was thinking kick box
    Vera – had the wordplay but name didn’t arrive
    Spotted dick – was nowhere near
    Steerage – couldn’t think of an animal _t…
    Caitiff – worked out the wordplay but guessed caimiff

    Still learning!
    Mighty

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