Times Cryptic No 26958 – Saturday, 10 February 2018. Once begun, half done.

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For me this puzzle was hard to start, but once I had a foothold it flowed fairly smoothly. Once I saw 1dn, the NW corner gave up its secrets easily. Hardest was probably the long word at 4dn, where I needed all the helpers to see the answer. Solving online makes anagrams and the like much harder, I find! Overall, about 45 minutes.

Several of the clues had nicely disguised definitions, including 8ac, 17ac, and 3dn. My clue of the day was 11ac, for the musical sound of the answer! 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 Island commander sports angry wound (10)
MADAGASCAR: MAD (angry) SCAR (wound) around AGA (commander).
6 God shows an interest? Not at first! (4)
ARES: take C off CARES to get the Greek god of war.
8 One taking in study connected with old Babylonian region (8)
CONSUMER: CON (study) SUMER (old Babylonian region). Definition relates to taking in food, for example, rather than shopping.
9 Attack same point twice that’s on chin (6)
GOATEE: GO AT (attack), then E (east) twice. The chin in question is certainly not mine.
10 Kitchen heater tested in couple’s absence (4)
OVEN: take the leading couple of letters off PROVEN. On edit: several commenters point out that the couple of letters removed are PR, short for “pair”=“couple”.
11 Nothing stops rioting in US coastal city (10)
TUSCALOOSA: (US COASTAL*) with another O (nothing) inside. Tuscaloosa is in Alabama, and of course isn’t coastal.
12 Port road morning mist envelops (9)
AMSTERDAM: AM (morning) STEAM (mist) around RD (road).
14 Scotsman involved with extremely datable woman (5)
DIANE: IAN (our canonical Scotsman) inside D{atabl}E.
17 Remaining quietly hidden takes trouble and effort (5)
DOGGO: DOG (to trouble) GO (effort).
19 Shoot at stoat going round at rear of building (9)
GERMINATE: G (rear of “building”), then ERMINE (stoat) going round AT.
22 Stay with drinker for meal before suffering (4,6)
LAST SUPPER: LAST (stay) SUPPER (drinker).
23 Notice me preparing small silver tray for starters (4)
PSST: first letters (starters) of each word. I’ve seen this recently, and both times found it hard to imagine a vowelless answer!
24 Old Cretan at home tucking into grouse (6)
MINOAN: MOAN (grouse) around IN (at home). Minos was the first king of Crete.
25 Badge one gains in manoeuvres (8)
INSIGNIA: I (one) (GAINS IN*). A pedant might observe that “insignia” is plural!
26 Monk secures poor grade in spelling competition (4)
BEDE: D (poor grade) inside BEE (spelling competition).
27 Introducing hard line, write rubbish about athletic contest (10)
PENTATHLON: PEN (write) TAT (rubbish) H (hard) L (line) ON (about).

Down
1 Old farmer‘s waterproof put on sick lad (9)
MACDONALD: MAC (waterproof) DON (put on) (LAD*).
2 Sheridan version features sinister housekeeper (7)
DANVERS: hidden answer. From the Daphne du Maurier novel Rebecca.
3 Artist comes up with sensible framework (8)
ARMATURE: RA (RA=artist, written upwards) MATURE (sensible). If you’d given me ten shots at giving a one-word definition for “armature”, “framework” wouldn’t have been close to making the list!
4 Church and priest hail new sect member (15)
CHRISTADELPHIAN: CH (church) (AND PRIEST HAIL*).
5 Kid left an overcoat (6)
RAGLAN: RAG (kid) L (left) AN.
6 Stagger endlessly on in surrounding area of rainforest (9)
AMAZONIAN: AMAZ{e} (stagger), ON, IN surrounding A (area).
7 Writer‘s the writer powerless character inspires (7)
EMERSON: ME (the writer) inside {p}ERSON, dropping P for power.
13 Guy following drunk’s perilous route (9)
TIGHTROPE: TIGHT (drunk), ROPE (guy).
15 Irritation right inside retina needing treatment (9)
EYESTRAIN: YES (right) inside (RETINA*).
16 More than reasonable fare to Jupiter or Mars? (8)
AMBROSIA: cryptic definition, referring to the food/drink of the Greek gods.
18 Whitish individual tours China and India (7)
OPALINE: ONE (individual) around PAL (China plate=mate) and I (India, in the phonetic alphabet).
20 Stadium beside lake accommodates second team (7)
ARSENAL: ARENA (stadium) L (lake) around S (second).
21 Convert smallest amount for vegetable (6)
TURNIP: TURN (convert) 1P (smallest unit of currency).

42 comments on “Times Cryptic No 26958 – Saturday, 10 February 2018. Once begun, half done.”

      1. No doubt I’ve not heard of Capt. Spalding! I had heard of Tuskaloosa but turns out he was a person with a K and not a place with a C.
  3. Quick for a Saturday, and might have been quicker had I not read 8ac as ‘…old Babylonian religion’. DNK DANVERS (never read ‘Rebecca’), and of course DNK 4d.
  4. I struggled a bit with this, taking 61:41. I don’t think I solved a clue until I came to BEDE. Got there in the end, although I did confirm the existence of TUSCALOOSA before submitting. Took me ages to see PSST. Some tricky stuff! Thanks setter and Bruce.
  5. Very heavy-going, again with too many references to religion, ancient civilisations etc for my taste, the final straw being 4dn that eventually forced me to give up and resort to aids.

    I had the same parsiing as Kevin at 10 with ‘couple’ referring to ‘pair / pr’, otherwise one might have expected ‘leading couple’ to indicate which letters to remove. Having said that, last week we were expected to removed three letters from a target word, two off one end and one off the other without any indiaction as to which, so who knows what’ll be served up to us next!

    Edited at 2018-02-17 06:23 am (UTC)

    1. You remind me that last week Keriothe, rather to my surprise, said that 4d had caused him to lose patience with the whole puzzle and chuck it. I’d never heard of the sect–and the word seems fitter for a Mephisto–but the wordplay seemed easy enough, once I’d lined up some checkers, anyway.
      1. Maybe, but my problem was I had an incorrect answer at 10ac so I never stood a chance. It was only when I gave up and used a solver on 4dn with ‘no words found’ that I realised my error and it was too late by then. With hindsight it was partially down to my own stupidity but why blame myself when I can vent my wrath on the puzzle for having too much religion etc?

        Edited at 2018-02-17 07:24 am (UTC)

      2. Perhaps I was in a bad mood, but yes that’s what happened. The thing that really irritated me was that I assumed the setter must have done this quite deliberately: a decision to include a word like that must happen quite early in the setting process, and then he or she decided that a good way to clue such a hopelessly obscure word was with an anagram. A personal aversion to all things religious probably didn’t help either, but anyway at that point I decided that life was too short and did the Guardian instead.

        Edited at 2018-02-17 09:40 am (UTC)

        1. If I may ask you a slightly personal question irrelevant to this, or any, puzzle, keriothe… I have wondered more than once about the significance of your avatar, with that replica of an ancient means of dealing out a slow and excruciating (pun intended) death, since I have also gathered that you have the aforementioned aversion… (an aversion I share, BTW)…
          1. It’s a vineyard. The Romanée-Conti vineyard, to be precise: to a Burgundy lover like me perhaps the greatest vineyard in the world, and as close to a religion as I get. It is perhaps appropriate that the rarity and price of the wine is such that I have take its greatness on faith!

            Edited at 2018-02-20 10:44 am (UTC)

  6. I don’t have a time as I’m away on holiday but I think it was about 40 minutes. I had to use a checker for TUSCALOOSA, a place I have never heard of either in geography or even in any song I can remember. I’m surprised that CHRISTADELPHIAN was such a mystery though as Christadelphian Halls abound all over the UK, in North America and with a presence in over 100 countries. John Thomas (sic) is usually described as their founder. Stand firm in the faith! LOI was DANVERS I think, eventually twigging the Rebecca connection. I’d have loved it to have been clued with Bob Danvers- Walker, the memorable voice of Pathé News and later on Take Your Pick. I’d never heard ARMATURE as a framework either, but the cryptic was clear. COD to EMERSON. Decent puzzle apart from the Alabama connection. Thank you B and setter.
  7. 21.43, so an amiable sort of solve. I counted a mere four entries with religious overtones, unless of course you include the North London Heresy that is A***NAL, though BEDE is primarily known for his History rather than his religion.
    When I lived in Bourton-on-the-Water, there was an extant Christadelphian meeting hall, but no-one to meet there as far as I could ascertain, and it’s now a luxury residence with a price tag to match. Christadelphians would probably object to being thought of as a sect, and have honourable stances which led to living as conscientious objectors (accepting the consequences) and greatly assisting in the Kindertransport in the 1940s.
    2. I think the ploy is to make “more than reasonable fare” look like “cheap (bus) ticket”, when the intent is “high quality food or drink”.
  9. So, am I the only one to wonder at “Shoot” being a verb that means “germinate”? (Maybe I just need a bigger dictionary).
    Or why an alleged Scotsman is called Ian and not Iain?
    Or why eyestrain is an “irritation” (is it?)?
    I almost stopped doing this in a huff, and then, later, in an hour and a huff… (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dsw9jYU_rJI )
    (PSST was good, though.)
    Thanks again for the blog – my education continues…
    1. My Chambers and Collins both have “germinate” as the 14th meaning of the verb shoot. (Coincidence, I’m sure!)
  10. Just squeezed into my target hour at 59 minutes. My notes tell me that I found the bottom half much harder going than the top. FOI 1a MADAGASCAR, LOI 15d EYESTRAIN.
  11. 54:09. FOI 26ac. LOI and the one which took me ages despite being relatively easy was 6ac. My go to pantheon is almost always the ancient Greek one but for some reason here I started off in ancient Egypt before proceeding to Asgard for the Norse gods. It was some time before I arrived at Mount Olympus. No problems with 4dn or 11ac.
  12. Good puzzle, half an hour, nothing unknown, it flowed smoothly after FOI MADAGASCAR and then the long anagram one at 4d.

    I agree with our blogger, anagrams are harder if you can’t write the letters out in a ring, I always print off the puzzle and solve on paper unless I am somewhere printer-less.

    1. Couldn’t agree more. Not averse me to religious nutjobs, but definitely to random, minor, unheralded, unsung American towns.

      Edited at 2018-02-17 05:08 pm (UTC)

      1. In the interests of equal opportunities moaning I should probably point out that I disliked that clue quite a lot too. I’m all for learning new things but I prefer not to have to work them out from anagrams.
        1. I am reminded of the great song by Lowell George -Willin’.
          This has a series of American towns all beginning with T (excluding Tuscaloosa) which no doubt the clever setter has got in his sights:
          I’ve been from Tuscon to Tucumcari
          Tehachapi to Tonapah
          Be prepared. David
  14. I found this tough and ended Saturday with 16 clues solved.
    I was planning to join Keriothe in the life’s too short camp but I read others’ comments that it was not that hard. So I persevered.
    I needed to guess 2d and 6a. Somehow I knew Tuscaloosa but not the sect member so it all came down to the anagram fodder.
    I had CE instead of CH so ended up with Ceristadelphian. Annoyingly close. Mostly enjoyed the challenge. David
  15. It’s in the handy little Collins Gem Crossword Puzzle Solver under religion so my eye must have lighted on it quite a few times over the years when in search of something else. I do wish the publishers of that small vol would do a better job of binding though – the pages of mine are always out of order after being picked up off the floor for the nth time. AMBROSIA was a bit ho-hum I thought but otherwise this one went swiftly and pleasantly for me.

    I have a weakness for US place names of native origin such as Chattanooga, Okeefenokee and Poughkeepsie – spelling them is something else. The Venerable BEDE is always venomous per Sellar and Yeatman and as Z says the monk part is hard to remember. 12.15

    1. Are you familiar with the Monongahela Metal Foundry? (“We make our ingots with the housewife in mind.”) Can I hope that you’re up and about now, by the way?
      1. I only know Monongahela because there’s a baseball stadium on the river (?Pittsburgh Pirates). Thanks for asking Kevin – I’m doing quite well. Hospital was a bit of a shock though after I’d managed to stay out of it for over 30 years. I had the room-mate from hell…. Only 2 nights though and then back to civilization on East 68th st.
        1. Glad to hear it. Your mention of place names led me to wonder if you were familiar with Bob and Ray, on NPR for many years, ‘sponsored’ by the foundry.
  16. One error,AMEN for ARES.COD ARSENAL for its smooth surface.l’ve always hated this club,l am a Man U fan.
    Ong’ara,
    Kenya.
  17. I remember this being fun, although I’d never heard of CHRISTAwhatsit, and although it was obviously an anagram, I needed all the checkers to work out where to put the rest of the letters. From some of the comments here, I guess it is a well-known word…but not well-known to me. So I had my usual grouchiness about obscure words being clued as anagrams. The only thing worse is a charade, where part of the obscure word is clued with a short word that is even more unknown.

    I live in the US, so it is hard to judge which US cities are reasonably common here but would count as obscure in the UK TImes. TUSCALOOSA seems pretty much in that class, but the only problem people had seems to be putting a K in it.

    Several clues, like DOGGO, when from being impenetrable to obvious once the right checker (O is this case) was in.

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