Times Cryptic No 26928 – Saturday, 06 January 2018. All right bar my plight.

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This might have been a “typical” Saturday puzzle, if I hadn’t foolishly biffed a wrong answer to 25ac, and so made 23dn impossible until I eventually gave up and went back to check the helpers. I should have remembered Pip’s wise words last week: “if you can’t explain it, it’s almost certainly wrong”.

My clue of the day is 5dn. I also delighted in 17ac, not least because the clue told me how to spell a word I always struggle with, and 9ac (once I worked out how to parse the clue). 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’.

Across
1 One predicting fantastic twists penned by novelist (10)
FORECASTER: ACE (fantastic) backwards, inside FORSTER (novelist).
6 Monkey endlessly makes a racket (4)
SCAM: drop the P from SCAMP.
9 Venue that’s a blessing for arranging meeting with Romeo? (7,3)
SINGLES BAR: (A BLESSING*), then R for Romeo in the phonetic alphabet. I put the answer in thinking I’d be disappointed if the clue was just a cryptic definition. Well, not disappointed!
10 Rotating matter from exploding star (4)
IDOL: reversed hidden answer.
12 Slowly dance a tango with a date (3,4,2,1,4)
ONE STEP AT A TIME: apparently there is a ONE STEP variant of the tango; then AT A TIME (with a date). Edit: an anonymous comment (thanks, whoever) points out “AT” in the middle comes from “A” plus “T” for Tango in the phonetic alphabet..
14 Challenged heavyweight, gaining round with stunning blow (4,2)
TOOK ON: O (round) and KO (stunning blow), in TON (heavy weight).
15 School bully from The Dandy, perhaps (8)
FLASHMAN: Flashman was the bully in Tom Brown’s Schooldays. And of course, a dandy is a flash man.
17 Festively singin’ with head of orchestra and I swapping bells (8)
CARILLON: CAROLLING, dropping the G and swapping the I and O. From now on I should remember how to spell the answer!
19 Unwelcome mark: it’s overturned by good student (6)
STIGMA: ITS backwards then G (good) MA (student).
22 Flourishes by writer: a gripping subject for literary collection (14)
SHAKESPEAREANA: SHAKES (flourishes), then PEN A (writer / a) around AREA (subject).
24 Indeed, lazy on vacation — behaving like this? (4)
IDLY: ID from emptying (“vacating”) INDEED, LY from doing the same to LAZY.
25 Crazy reason for moving without assistance (10)
LOCOMOTIVE: LOCO (crazy) MOTIVE (reason). Absolutely not LOCOMOTION (see intro)!
26 What’s carpentry tool cut? (4)
LATH: use a LATHE to cut LATHs.
27 Zulu chief ran around trapping bishop bird (5,5)
ZEBRA FINCH: (Z CHIEF RAN B*). Z is for Zulu in the phonetic alphabet, B is for bishop.

Down
1 Female exploitation displayed by Bond (4)
FUSE: F (female) USE (exploit).
2 Unexpectedly meet Barney just before closing? (3,4)
RUN INTO: RUN-IN (barney), TO (almost closed, referring to say a door or window).
3 Turn one’s back on polar bear? (4-8)
COLD SHOULDER: COLD (polar), SHOULDER (bear).
4 Tsetse flies around some feet (6)
SESTET: (TSETSE*). The feet are of the poetic kind. Sestets are a feature of Italian sonnets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sestet
5 Temporary jetty appearing after an age (8)
ERASABLE: ERA (an age), SABLE (black, or if you like, “jetty”). Ho ho. If not for my misfire on 25ac, this would have been my LOI.
7 Metal heel: one secured by old lady (7)
CADMIUM: CAD (heel), I in (secured by) MUM.
8 Blokes carrying mild disease rested up for a very long time (10)
MILLENNIAL: ILL in MEN, then LAIN (rested) backwards (up).
11 Wildly cheer protagonist in satire of novel (5,3,4)
RAISE THE ROOF: HERO in (SATIRE OF*).
13 Frozen goods placed on cash register (10)
STOCKSTILL: STOCKS on TILL. The definition is “frozen”, as in “motionless”.
16 John and Henry admitted to Bar, providing legal oversight (8)
LOOPHOLE: LOO (John), then H (Henry) inside POLE. Oversight is in the sense of error, not of supervision.
18 The genuine article for sale? Get hand out again (7)
REALLOT: or REAL / LOT.
20 Extract mother from wild man-eating plant (7)
GENTIAN: (MAN EATING*), after dropping the MA. I vaguely remember Gentian Violet as something you might have in your first-aid cabinet. On edit: sorry I originally underlined Extract by mistake. The definition is of course plant. Extract is part of the wordplay.
21 A very piercing acidic taste (6)
SAVOUR: A and V for very inside SOUR.
23 Forage around, conserving energy for sure (4)
YEAH: E for energy inside HAY (forage) backwards.

 

25 comments on “Times Cryptic No 26928 – Saturday, 06 January 2018. All right bar my plight.”

  1. I seem to have forgotten to print out a copy of this after submitting, and can’t really remember much, other than that I, too, biffed ‘locomotion’, only giving it up when I couldn’t make any sense of ‘inch’ as the solution to 23d. As it was, YEAH was slow in coming even then. Flashman is also the hero–protagonist, anyway–of some wonderful novels by I forget who.
  2. I made the same locomotion / inch mistake as Kevin, and gave also gave up scratching my head over inch. Plus I didn’t see the parsing for 24ac so I left it as IDLE. I have no idea how long this took me, and I cannot now decipher which marks in the margin mean ‘nice’, COD, mer, MER, or What the heck?? I do remember finding it a pleasant solve, though, so thank you setter. Ditto to brnchn for the explanations I didn’t see. I did also think GENTIAN was a plant, and the extract just part of setting up the anagram fodder.

    Edited at 2018-01-13 01:31 am (UTC)

  3. I got YEAH early on so didn’t dally with LOCOMOTION. Still took me a while to see it though. FUSE was my FOI, and SHAKESPEAREANA my last which I didn’t see until after writing it all out on paper. Liked ERASABLE. Thanks setter and Bruce. 37:32.
  4. For reasons not worth going into I solved this puzzle twice 6 days apart and needed aids for the LOI 5dn on BOTH occasions! Sign of a really tricky clue or a failing brain or both perhaps.

    Edited at 2018-01-13 06:15 am (UTC)

  5. 20:48 for an enjoyable puzzle. It’s amusing to see SESTET when we’ve had SIXAIN twice recently. I also enjoyed the image of the man-eating GENTIAN and the clever RAISE THE ROOF.
  6. I found this pretty hard and took 53 minutes. ‘Jetty’ for ‘Sable’ was cruel, given that ERASABLE is a very specific meaning of ‘temporary’. It was my LOI. Penultimate was STOCKSTILL, which I may have made COD if it hadn’t exasperated me so much first. I’ll give that to LOCOMOTIVE, despite the implication of the clue that conservation of energy does not apply. Still, as Newton’s Laws of Motion tell us: “A body continues in its state of rest or uniform motion unless it doesn’t.” If I were a carpenter (an honourable profession, good enough for the Son of God and a great Tim Hardin song brilliantly covered by Bobby Darin), I’d know if a lathe or a saw was used to make a lath. I liked that clue though and saw it straight away. Overall, the puzzle was a good challenge. Thank you B and setter.
  7. An hour and three minutes according to my notes, and apparently I found this one fun and learned a few new words, though I’d already forgotten CARILLON by this morning, it seems. SE corner trickiest. FOI 1d, LOI 21d.

    Certainly better than I did with today’s. Think I’ll be waiting until next Saturday to get a couple of those answers…

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

  8. nice to see the gentian.. the mountain gentian is my favourite flower, a splash of the most glorious deep blue, usually above 2000m up, where not much else is growing
  9. DNF. Not even good enough to put in an incorrect locomotion over locomotive, by that time well over an hour had passed and I bunged in a desperate monopolise which fitted the checkers but not much else, unable to produce anything better. Couldn’t get into a rhythm with this one and found it tough. Liked “jetty” in 5dn. COD 3dn.
  10. Bunged in LOCOMOTION but thought of LOCOMOTIVE at the time. Stupidly failed to see the obvious connection between MOTIVE and “reason”. So couldn’t get 23d. 31 minutes up to then. Brain fail this am. I probably over-indulged last night. Ann
  11. 17.16, and given that Jason dawdled to 7.33 looks pretty good to me. SHAKES… was virtually last in. I thought SINGLES BAR rather fine, genuinely cryptic but with a perfect literal as well. LATH on the other hand I didn’t fully parse failing to see the obvious use of What in the clue, but I guess that was also a pretty enough &lit. And “Female exploitation displayed by Bond” was nicely witty too.
    Thanks to B for an elegant blog to match an entertaining crossword.
  12. Gentian is the main flavouring ingredient in Angostura bitters, used to make a pink gin.
  13. Just back from Cold Blow Lane -and on South Bermondsey station a cold wind was blowing after the game. Preston North End drew 1-1 with Millwall, by the way.
    This puzzle was challenging but I got most of it. Struggled to see the end of the Shakes … answer. Also I was doing the locomotion -like Little Eva.
    And I could not say Yeah.
    And I struggled with Carillon like the government who may have to bail them out; the bell is tolling for them perhaps. David
  15. 17:19. I seem to have found this quite tricky, but I can’t now remember why. The unknown (to me) LATH was my last in, but I did know the plant for a change.
      1. If you say so!
        My knowledge of this sort of thing is even more limited than my knowledge of plants. My DIY skills are such that my wife won’t let me put pictures up.
        1. I could spot you 10 points and still beat you in a DIY ineptitude contest, which is why I mentioned the phrase; I figured that if even such as I knew the term, etc. (I think this is an example of what cognitive scientists call the curse of knowledge.)
  16. I think the parsing for 12A is as follows:
    ONE-STEP (dance) + A + T{ango} (phonetic alphabet} + A TIME

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