Times Cryptic No 26982 – Saturday, 10 March 2018. A tasty number.

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Much easier than last week. All done, checked and submitted in 33:16. LOI was 11ac, for no good reason – the concept came to mind quickly, but the answer hid itself in the recesses of my mind.

My clue of the day was 1ac, for the elegant literal definition. I also liked 7dn, for

Thanks to the setter for a very enjoyable puzzle.

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

Across
1 Seen to contain a pinch of cinnamon? (6)
SPICED: C (a pinch of cinnamon) in SPIED. The definition is the whole clue.
5 Like Spooner’s dad after haircut perhaps in uncle’s establishment (8)
PAWNSHOP: might sound somewhat like SHORN POP when uttered by the Rev. Spooner.
9 Daredevils mustn’t supply extremes of emotion (8)
STUNTMEN: (MUSTNT*), followed by EN (the extremes of EmotioN).
10 Toy gun held behind aunt’s back (6)
TRIFLE: RIFLE behind {aun}T.
11 Administrator in hard times running contrary schedule (10)
LIQUIDATOR: LIQUID is running, ROTA (backwards) is schedule.
13 Protective headgear — one with peak in front (4)
TOPI: TOP (peak), I (one).
14 Shame’s mine and yours, but not ours (4)
PITY: PIT (mine), Y{ours}.
15 Earth tremor maybe felt in state capital (6,4)
LITTLE ROCK: double definition, the first fanciful.
18 Steps in tennis veer off course (10)
INTERVENES: (TENNIS VEER*).
20 Youngster close to nine, possibly eight (4)
CUBE: CUB (youngster), {nin}E.
21 Costly ducks (4)
DEAR: double definition.
23 20 across has many a one, from Conservative point of view (5,5)
RIGHT ANGLE: the faces of cubes are squares, ergo … .
25 Untried troops accepting assistance (6)
MAIDEN: AID in MEN.
26 Lousy home made much of welcoming son (8)
INFESTED: IN (home), FETED (made much of), holding S (son).
28 Impressed by European flight (8)
STAMPEDE: STAMPED (impressed), E (European).
29 Serve time inside lighthouse, maybe? (6)
BEACON: to BE A CON might be to do time inside a prison.

Down
2 Lordly captain struggles to absorb church’s teaching (9)
PATRICIAN: (CAPTAIN*), “absorbing” RI (religious instruction, or church’s teaching).
3 This is the 21st horseman, you could say, dispatching a Yankee (7)
CENTURY: CENT-UR (half horse, half man, dropping the A), Y=Yankee. Cunning definition
4 A little alcohol not right for mum (3)
DAM: D{r}AM.
5 During depression, there’s no wine (5)
PINOT: NO in PIT.
6 Facilities in converted castle tower (5,6)
WATER CLOSET: (CASTLE TOWER*).
7 Winter sportsman wrapping up dry run speedily (7)
SKITTER SKIER holding TT (dry).
8 Planting kiss on cheek after love can be a bloomer (5)
OXLIP: O (love), X (kiss), LIP (cheek).
12 Release ball, receiving abuse in return (11)
DELIVERANCE: REVILE backwards in DANCE. The answer was more obvious than the parsing! I was trying to fit DELIVERY (ball) around the outside, without success!
16 Weight by no means going up (3)
TON: NOT backwards.
17 Rare-ish blood transfusion for visitor, old Spanish gent (9)
CABALLERO: AB (blood group) inside CALLER, then O for old.
19 Aristo’s position in cracking melodrama uncovered (7)
EARLDOM: (-ELODRAM-*), dropping the outside letters of melodrama.
20 Game helping to make American a star (7)
CANASTA: hidden answer.
22 Raise previous key? (5)
EXALT: EX (previous), ALT (key). What did setters do before computers?
24 Reporter’s sent up handbook (5)
GUIDE: sounds like GUYED (to a “reporter”).
27 Foreign Office? Black Watch may depend on it (3)
FOB: F{oreign} O{ffice}, B{lack}.

 

38 comments on “Times Cryptic No 26982 – Saturday, 10 March 2018. A tasty number.”

  1. Another voice agreeing that this wasn’t too difficult a puzzle. I had this one done in 21:24 which is fast for me. FOI DAM, LOI CENTURY which took me a while to spot the definition. CABALLERO rang a bell, SKITTER not so much, so constructed from wp. Liked LITTLE ROCK. Thanks setter and Bruce.
  2. 26:28 and a very similar experience to our blogger all told, with a moment spent trying to justify deliverance on the basis (somehow) of delivery for ball at 12dn and my LOI also being 11ac which gave me some pause for thought.
  3. Indeed, pretty gentle. I liked a number of the clues, perhaps especially the way the surfaces of 18ac, 3d, and 27d hid the correct parsing.
  4. 1ac SPICED was not my fave. Sorry Mr. Brown Dog I found it lunky (with a pinch of cinnamon.)

    FOI 4dn DAM

    LOI 20ac CUBE iffy to say the least!

    COD 15ac LITTLE ROCK

    WOD 5dn PINOT – of course

    5ac PAWNSWHOP was the easiest ‘Spooner’ ever – dreadful man!

    Edited at 2018-03-17 01:17 am (UTC)

      2. Because ‘eight’ is – in this instance – random and is therefore, in parkathian terms (Sedelmaier) not logical. Thus iffy!
        1. Didn’t cause either eyebrow to rise, even slightly. After all 9 is often used for square and 8 is right next to it 🙂
        2. Lol. You are such a tease. Nope. I’m still mystified. Parkathian? Google says “Did you mean: parthian, parathion, parkathna”. And what has Sedelmaier got to do with it? I think the hint “close to nine”, wittily doing double duty in the clue, suggests looking for the nearest cube, not a random one. Which makes it far from iffy and my my COD!
          1. Sorry horryd… On a computer I wasn’t logged in on… it was my comment. Looking forward to the explanation!
            1. JJ Sedelmaier(Chicago)proposed his parkathian theory c.1980. You are correct in that it is not on Google.
              But eight ‘being close’ to nine is a red-herring and does not do double-duty IMHO! It simply indicates the letter E.
              I was wary that E might be an abbreviation for something mathematical that I was not fully aware of*, hence ‘iffy’ which expresses that it is not the kinda clue I enjoy.

              As Kevin rightly pointed out it was my LOI

              COD LITTLE ROCK

              *E is 10 to the power of 18 not 8 as I conjectured

              Edited at 2018-03-18 12:10 am (UTC)

    3. In my language (English) 8 is a perfect example of a cube, and has the advantage of brevity. 1 would have been true but ambiguous.

  5. 23 minutes on this relatively easy puzzle. SKITTER vaguely known. FOI PAWN SHOP, COD LIQUIDATOR. GUIDE a nice, economic clue too. CABALLERO the closest thing I had to a hold-up. Thank you B and setter.

    Edited at 2018-03-17 09:25 am (UTC)

  6. 14.37 for this, a gentle stroll once DELIVERANCE went in with a d’oh. This week’s on the other hand…
  7. I was on the train to Preston last Saturday morning going to see North End play Fulham. At the start of the journey I was reading Far From the Madding Crowd (a cryptic definition of the quiet coach?) and only looked at the puzzle after about an hour.
    I thought the puzzle was excellent; plenty of challenge and nice clues for me, but doable. My last two were Liquidator (I forgot the U, look for a Q mantra)and finally Exalt where a very dodgy Exact had been pencilled in. All done in under an hour.
    And as we are talking about Preston (now featuring in all good puzzles everywhere),I’ll repeat this from The Guardian events:
    “But a few years ago, Preston struck out on its own ­– adopting a form of guerrilla localism. It keeps its money as close to home as possible so that, amid historic cuts, the amount spent locally has gone up. Where other authorities privatise, Preston grows its own businesses. It even creates worker-owned co-operatives.

    Should other cities be following its path? Is this how we fix the broken economies of Britain?”

    Who knew? David

  8. 17:26 so rather mild in flavour, indeed rather UN-1a. It was funny to see EARLDOM come up again twice this week. The linked 20a CUBE and RIGHT ANGLE raised a bit of a smile. Nice to see OXLIP, which is found in a few places around where I live and is pretty uncommon elsewhere.

    Edited at 2018-03-17 09:16 am (UTC)

  9. 45 minutes, with FOI 1a SPICED and LOI 5a PAWNSHOP, displaying yet again my inability to figure out Spoonerisms (even though, unlike some, I do quite like them…)

    Enjoyed 3d for its misdirecting definition.

    Not too much scribble around the margins, so it can’t have been that hard. I’ve been trying the Mephisto again this week, and the grid and clues are now completely surrounded by failed workings-out and unlikely anagram fodder, and I’ve only got halfway through!

  10. 30 minutes (or 7 seconds less). I never did get the wordplay for my LOI LIQUIDATOR, but it couldn’t really be anything else. I rather liked 3dn and 29ac.
  11. About 40 minutes, so it gets my vote for easy, also. I re-learnt Topi, (if it reappears as often as Earldom, Toscanini, or perhaps Lisa, maybe the learning will stick), and I familiarized myself once again with exactly how many Bs, Ls, and Rs there are in Caballero.

    I am often surprised at the arcane Americana which our setters are able to assume is common knowledge. State capitals in general, and Little Rock in particular.

    Thx setter and Brnchn

    Edited at 2018-03-17 05:47 pm (UTC)

    1. Little Rock was in the news a few years ago due to the Clintons’ shenannigans…
    2. I watch a lot of the Aircrash Investigations programs, and I remember a crash at Little Rock being the subject of one of those, so that helped reinforce it.
  12. LOI LIQUIDATOR after ‘backing’ ‘rota’ then waited for checkers to complete.
    Ong’ara,
    Nairobi.
  13. Maybe my thought is better re-thought as noting how inwardly looking Americans can be, and how global the British and RoW are. I’d hate to think that that was just down to the strong position of Hollywood and of US TV culture.
  15. “Ducks” and “dear” are both informal British terms of affection. “How are you today, ducks?” “I’m fine, dear.”
  16. Why the question mark?

    We are going from the general (KEY) to the particular (ALT) – so no question mark is required. We can clue “MOZART” by “COMPOSER”; but “COMPOSER” could be clued by “MOZART?”.

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