Times Cryptic No 26986 Thursday, 15 March 2018 Careless Rapture. Bravo!

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
The leader board would suggest that this was not as tough as I made it in my 28 minutes of struggle, and I can’t really claim that I took it steady so as to parse everything. I didn’t. I did have a few misgivings over some of the definitions, though, which should be apparent from the remarks below.
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A curiosity of this one is the (probably record) number of clues which depend on the Nato alphabet.
I retain my practice of highlighting clues, definitions and SOLUTIONS


ACROSS

1 Very alcoholic party — something served in the can? (4,6)
HARD LABOUR So: very alcoholic is HARD (as in liquor) and party is LABOUR, and the definition is a cryptic reference to an enhancement of punishment in prison (slang: can) still practiced in surprisingly many nations.
6 Damage appeal when caryatid’s head is knocked off (4)
HARM Appeal is CHARM, remove the Caryatid’s head. You don’t need to know what a caryatid is.
9 Playmates upset about fine for something that was found in pit (6,4)
SAFETY LAMP Humphrey Davy’s life saving invention derived for us from the letters of PLAYMATES “upset” and F(ine)
10 Excellent American taking no exercise is feeling pain (4)
ACHY Ah yes, this is PEACHY (not only) American for excellent,  with its PE (exercise) removed
12 Meeting in brief before court case that’s not begun (12)
INTERSECTION In: IN, brief: TERSE, court case ACTION, remove the first letter
15 Pochard is flying high (9)
RHAPSODIC The appropriate definition from Chambers is (of) an ecstatic utterance of feeling so “high” clings to that. The wordplay looks like an anagram, and is (flying) of POCHARD IS
17 Axis spy? No? Yes — German, not English (5)
NINJA So… the wordplay allows us to resurrect German Language 101, with NEIN and JA for yes and no, with no E(nglish). And yes, a ninja is one of a body of trained assassins and spies in feudal Japan (Chambers) and countless Jackie Chan movies. Axis? The best I can come up with is that Japan was one of the Axis powers (Germany and Italy the others) but I’m not convinced their spies were conspicuously ninjas.
18 Backing young man working as part of a network (5)
NODAL young man: LAD and working: ON spliced and reversed
19 Unwell during function — bodyguard’s showing a distinct lack of sense (9)
SILLINESS Unwell: ILL, ((trigonometric) function SINE and (still with the Axis) bodyguard: SS, Hitler’s elite troops
20 Resolve finally to refer upwards in school? (5,2,1,4)
BRING TO A HEAD A double definition
24 Mad king beheaded son (4)
NUTS Our king is CNUT (still better known and typographically safer as Canute) with his head missing and a S(on) attached
25 Large number returned without money as a final blow (2,3,2,3)
TO CAP IT ALL Rather simpler than the impossible version I originally assayed with END instead of CAP: money CAPITAL and large number: LOT “returned” “without” (here outside)
26 Invading Asiatic king is a fine figure of a man (4)
HUNK Your HUN is your invading Asiatic, and K stands for King.
27 Making correct in pronunciation to protect a stack of future memos? (7,3)
WRITING PAD Sounds like RIGHTING, and is protected by a PAD.

DOWN

1 Give over house to headless haunter (4)
HOST A rather elaborate definition, but it works. Your haunter is GHOST with its head, in time honoured fashion, missing.
2 Time to follow up on service for flying boat (4)
RAFT Service for flying: the RAF, T(ime) following. What you do with the “up” is optional.
3 Cease to care and get rid of personal sprite (3,7,2)
LET ONESELF GO In crossword where such phrases have one’s rather than your, ONE’S ELF would be the personal sprite. LET GO on the outside is a common euphemism for sack, make redundant, etc.
4 Bitterness about golf balls? (5)
BILGE Bitterness: BILE, golf Nato for G to be inserted. I’ll leave you to decide whether the definition is a little too vulgar, this not being Sunday.
5 Hard to listen to peacekeepers on “Oh, What a Lovely War”? (9)
UNMUSICAL Peacemakers: UN, the query on “Oh What a Lovely War” allows definition by example of a MUSICAL
7 One dealing with lots of upset EU reaction (10)
AUCTIONEER Once you recognise where the definition ends, simply upset EUREACTION
8 Unfortunate amnesia about that dressing (10)
MAYONNAISE Create an “unfortunate” version of AMNESIA and smear it tastefully around YON for that.
11 Examine row of birds from northern Europe (12)
SCANDINAVIAN An easy charade. Examine SCAN, row: DIN, of birds: AVIAN
13 Senior politicians take lead for seat (5,5)
FRONT BENCH Take lead: FRONT, seat: BENCH. Pretend not to see the “for”
14 Had composer of Peter Grimes promoting mariner’s end as cynical (4-6)
HARD BITTEN Composer of Peter Grimes is BRITTEN (watch for about 90% of choral societies in the UK performing his War Requiem in November this year). Stick the en claire HAD on the front while promoting the R from the end of mariner. The clue has some correspondence with the plot of the opera
16 Wash out club that has a dirty look (9)
DISCOLOUR Chambers gives “take away colour from” as one meaning, so that will do. Club is DISCO, and dirty look is LOUR.
21 Try tango, love (5)
HEART Tango is Nato for T, attached to try: HEAR.
22 Papa very angry over result of condensation (4)
DAMP and Papa is Nato for P tacked on to MAD for very angry, reversed
23 Stupid person is left trapped by hoax (4)
CLOD L(eft) in COD, which is not just a fish but also a hoax.

48 comments on “Times Cryptic No 26986 Thursday, 15 March 2018 Careless Rapture. Bravo!”

  1. NINJA seemed a bit odd, given that there weren’t any when Japan was in the Axis, but it’s a clever clue otherwise. 4d surprised me, too. BIFD 7d without even finishing the clue, as I recall. 10ac gave me pause, as I hadn’t thought that ‘peachy’ was an Americanism, so I was looking for US.
  2. Sadly for my time I did know what a Caryatid is: remove her head and any appeal could only come from her Bust. In questionable taste, but we’d already had the iffy Bilge by the time I got there so I figured we were just going to be smutty today. Like everyone so far I liked Ninja, and consequently was more than happy to give Axis the benefit of the doubt.
    Nice blog; clever clues; looking forward to seeing whomever is in NY and free later this evening.

    Edited at 2018-03-15 03:46 am (UTC)

  3. Hooray! Finished again so a good week for me, although slow at 1hr 16.

    Last few took ages: intersection, writing pad, let oneself go, unmusical and LOI discolour.

    Also couldn’t work out why give over house = host, the bodyguard or bilge for balls.

    COD Scandinavian or let oneself go.

    1. HOST: I think the definition is “give over the house to”, not just “give over the house”.
      1. I think either works, and there are a lot of not-really-necessary words in this puzzle. I had in mind that indulgent parents might give over house to host a party for their fortunate teenager. Chambers has “a place acting as the venue for (an event)”.
  4. Happy to finish in under 35 minutes with no errors. Although I didn’t fully parse everything, I most clues locked in and just a few partially parsed (e.g. DISCOLOUR, INTERSECTION). I also paused over NINJA, as the spy and Axis clues didn’t seem to align to the times when Ninjas were active AFAIK. Thanks, Z, for filling in the gaps and to the setter.
  5. Yes, there was some odd stuff here but somehow I scraped home only 3 minutes over my target 30, which had seemed unlikely for most of the time I was working on this one. With hindsight I realise I would have made it easily if I hadn’t insisted on parsing everything before moving on to the next clue. For example ACHY was a write-in once I had the Y-checker but I took forever to think of {pe}ACHY, which I don’t accept is an Americanism anyway. Wimbledon fans of my generation will remember the great Dan Maskell often referring to “a peach of a shot”, and you couldn’t get more English than he was.

    I think the Times is slipping if it has to sink to definitions such as 4dn and we had something similar last week, unless I’m confusing it with an ST puzzle where unfortunately such things have been acceptable (apparently) for a long time now. I use far worse myself so I don’t think I could be described as what is now termed a ‘snowflake’, but there are times and places etc, mutter mutter mutter…

    On a point of pedantry, there is no such musical as “Oh, What a Lovely War”. It’s “Oh! What a Lovely War” or “Oh, What a Lovely War!” or even “Oh! What a Lovely War!” depending on which version one is referring to.

    Edited at 2018-03-15 06:37 am (UTC)

    2. Dan Maskell would never have heard the call at Wimbledon “new bilge please”.
  6. fyi Ninjaspy is a character from the Ninja Realm and Ninja Spy is a metal fusion band from Vancouver. I am sure Lord Verlaine has all their album.

    A walk in the park at 18 minutes.
    Would have been four minutes less had I not entered INTERSESSION at 12ac – INTERSECTION was my LOI.

    FOI 1dn HOST
    COD 15ac RHAPSODIC neat use of a duck!
    WOD 4dn BILGE

    Edited at 2018-03-15 07:08 am (UTC)

    1. Listening to Ninja Spy now. My initial bet based on the description was that they’d sound a lot like Japandroids. But we’ll see.
      1. Hmm, more like Alice In Chains meets The Cat Empire or something, in the event.
  7. 36 minutes here, nothing particularly slowing me down, apart peradventure from the crossers of 3d and 12a, the latter being last one in after I proved myself right about wanting to kick myself once I’d finally worked out the “ONESELF” bit of the down clue…

    FOI 1d HOST. Enjoyed 11a SCANDINAVIAN, the misdirecting juxtaposition of “flying boat” in 2d and the NINJA at 17, though I’d have been less happy if there wasn’t a question mark there…

    Thanks to setter and Z.

    Edited at 2018-03-15 07:24 am (UTC)

  8. Pleased to finish in time to go skiing again. 30 mins on iPhone is good going as it takes longer. Have we had the pochard recently or have I been doing too many old crosswords?
  9. Aha. Just found the identical clue from an Independent crossword last week
  10. Not STEAMY FLAP, then? I should have been much quicker but put in MASON at 18a. Seemed OK to me. COD to SCANDINAVIAN.
  11. 35 mins over croissant and blackcurrant jam.
    Quite fun. MER at axis, not sure why that was there.
    Mostly I liked: Scandinavians, safety lamp and the Disco lour.
    Still on hols. Yesterday was Inverewe gardens and Gairloch.
    Thanks setter and Z.
  12. 24 minutes with ACHY LOI after the MAYONNAISE finally spurted out of the bottle. NINJA had to be the answer but the reference to the Axis Powers seemed anachronistic. I guess it would be on the setter’s mind if the SS was acting as bodyguard. I’m giving TO CAP IT ALL as COD as it was one of my Dad’s favourite expressions when telling a story of misfortune. Otherwise it would have gone to the dreadful pun of LET ONESELF GO. An enjoyably quirky puzzle. Thank you Z and setter.
  13. 16:57. Perhaps attempting this at 3.30am after 4 hours’ sleep was a mistake, but I found it quite tricky. Enjoyable though, even in such inauspicious circumstances.
    Defining a NINJA as an ‘axis spy’ is a bit like defining a musketeer as an EU soldier, but whevs.
    Very much looking forward to seeing some of you in New York later. If I fall asleep at the table just buy me a drink.
  14. In ideal solving surroundings at last, whizzed through in 15 minutes only to stare at LET -n-s-l- GO for five minutes before the Doh moment. At which point, liked the joke. CoD SCANDINAVIAN for putting together 3 words to make an unrelated meaning.
  15. It looked a bit familiar to me too but has only once before appeared in a blog, when it was clued as DISCO + LO + good old UR
  16. Good effort this, I thought. I didn’t find it easy, and spent far too long trying vainly to think of a synonym for caryatid..
  17. This felt fairly tough to me so I was surprised to finish under 20 minutes. It took me a good few minutes to get my FOI which I find normally indicates a difficult puzzle.

    Anyhow, COD to NINJA for me. I had the same reservations as others over the definition but I very much liked the play on NEIN and JA.

  18. I matched our esteemed blogger for time, but it felt like longer. I dithered a lot over ACHY, partly because I didn’t see the parsing at first, and partly because I have been mis-spelling it as “achey” for the last 50+ years – how silley of me.
  19. The Americanism the setter had in mind may have been “peachy keen” which is a bit dated and I’ve no idea where it came from. I’d completely forgotten the musical although I did see the movie once upon a time, so that held me up briefly. I do the Guardian puzzle most days so my sensibilities must have been blunted when it came to 4d. Also spent time trying to make “dew” work in 22d. I enjoyed this one. 16.41 P.S. See you later Paul and Keriothe.
  20. Nothing new to add. I wasn’t entirely convinced by the definition of the NINJA, but, you know, this is Crosswordland, not Literallycorrectland. In contrast, I was tickled by the letting go of one’s elf; as the old joke has it, if you don’t have your elf, you don’t have anything.
  21. Straight through really, ACHY/MAYONNAISE LOsI. There is a joke in Yes Minister in which someone scrawls on a memo ‘Round objects’, to which the next functionary adds ‘Who is Round?’ Thanks z and setter.
  22. 12.32 for me, and was relieved to be error free. Quite a tricky little number all told.

    FOI 6A
    LOI 24A (took a while to spot Cnut….again !)
    COD 21D for its sheer economy.

    I actually liked 4D – but then Private Eye’s crossword was a favourite of mine at one time.

    Only biff was 10A – thanks to Z for enlightening me.

    Today’s “duh” moment was when light finally dawned on 13D.

    Liked NINJA, but wasn’t enamoured of HUNK. Why “Asiatic” ? The Huns and their various allies were from Central and Eastern Europe (the infamous Attila hailed from Hungary).

    1. I simply can’t be fagged to scroll up to retreive the seven words you numerically allude to – just too much utter 19ac and 1ac – 17ac 24ac – you 23dn
  23. I found most of the 1a in this puzzle in the SE sector. HOST got me off to a flying start and 9a guided me through most of the NW. The peacekeepers sat on top of their M until much later in the proceedings when USICAL finally rhapsodised its arrival. M(inor)ER at BILGE. Loved 3d and NINJA, Axis notwithstanding. 11d was neat too. DISCOLOUR(didn’t quite know LOUR), WRITING PAD and finally, TO CAP IT ALL, brought the proceedings to a close at 31:56. Thanks setter and Z.
  24. 20’05…except that I forgot to go back to a questionable maim at 6 so dnf. Old failing. Don’t mind the 4 clue (and liked paul-in-london’s, to whom greetings, headless stone maiden). And this from the Mrs Grundy of the blog. I guess one shouldn’t 3 to a 19 that’s 5, that’s all. Liked the textbook pedantry from jackkt.
    1. Thanks. I aim to please. Other titles of musicals that require pedantic punctuation are:

      Oliver!
      Twang!
      and
      Oklahoma!

  25. 9:41 so I must have been on wavelength. In fact, I’d probably have shaved another minute off that if I’d written DISCO instead of DICSO as the first part of 16 which meant, fittingly enough, that SILLINESS took a while to sort.

    I liked the BILGE clue too.

    Enjoy the get-together those of you assembling in NYC.

  26. I agree with other comments about NINJA, and was also surprised that PEACHY was deemed American. No real hold-ups here, with UNMUSICAL the last to go in for a 6m 44s finish. Not too much biffing, although I hadn’t entirely parsed either NINJA or WRITING PAD (having misread the clue as starting “Make correct…” I was a bit lost).
  27. .. my second completion this week (and 3rd ever). I did spend a fair amount of the morning on it but it feels like I’m making progress at last – most of which is due to ‘discovering’ Cracking the Cryptic on YouTube – so many thanks to Simon if he reads this blog.
    1. I’d like to second what you said about Cracking the Cryptic. That—and this blog—are invaluable resources to those of us looking to improve.

      Martin Hill

  28. Got through in normal time, though held up by blanking on the parsing of NINJA. I put it in without understanding in completely, – I saw JA, and figured that must be it. Now I see it, it’s a clever clue, more clever than I was while trying to solve. Regards.
  29. I overcomplicated much of this for some reason. I had all but 12ac, where I had the wrong end of the stick, done in 38 mins which felt slow. I returned to the puzzle after work, found the right end of the stick and 12ac fell shortly thereafter. Didn’t see peachy at 10ac just bunged in achy from Def and checkers. Bit of a QM at 4dn, not offended particularly just odd to see it in a daily Times puzzle. I remember struggling for ages with a straightforward anagram clue (I think) in an Independent puzzle a little while ago, the answer was “arse about” the main reason I struggled to see it was because my solving experience is mostly from The Times and it’s just not the sort of expression you would expect to find there – or look for.
  31. Did this a day late whilst having breakfast in the Yeo Valley canteen in the Mendip hills south of Bristol. I shall attribute my quickish solving time (31 mins) to the delicious food (kedgeree carrot juice coffee and toast with very bitter marmalade) and pleasant surroundings). I shall have to test my theory with a return visit …

    (For those non-UK residents Yeo Valley sells high quality organic yoghurt and has an on-site restaurant at its Mendip HQ)

  32. 18 min 01 secs with two wrong. Hunk omitted and Ninya for Ninja. No excuses for either.
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