Times Cryptic No 26998 Thursday, 29 March 2018 Forget Oxfam, feed Twiggy

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
My experience this week is that the crosswords have been getting steadily easier, with this one requiring 15’ 15”. However, I am very aware that there are entries here that may not be in everyone’s Commonplace Book, so I’ll endeavour to shed light into the darker corners. Almost inexplicably, 24ac was the one that tickled my funny spot, but 1ac was my first in and 23d my last, so pretty much a steady top to bottom solve.
I provide you with clues, definitions, SOLUTIONS and occasional snippets of real or imagined knowledge.

Across

1 Woman in physical game losing heart (4)
RUBY Most games are physical, but perhaps few more physical than our target RUGBY. Remove the G at its heart.
3 One taking stock of fine tune (5,5)
GOODS TRAIN Arguably a double definition, but with different spacing. A fine tune is a good strain.
9 Men coming in wept, losing energy before a beastly fight (7)
CORRIDA The common men around here are O(ther) R(anks). Place them in CRIED (wept) without E(nergy), tack on an A, and you have the Spanish for bullfight. Nothing do with Ai no Corrida, which is a Quincy Jones song lamenting the lack of toilet facilities on Spanish trains, and takes its title from a very naughty Japanese movie.
11 Criticism about goddess, mostly seen as an upstart (7)
PARVENU I think this is RAP for criticism, via reproof, reversed and followed by (mostly) the goddess VENUs
12 Mostly old T-shirts not right for candidates being interviewed? (9)
SHORTLIST This is a melange (not right) of OLd (mostly, again) and T-SHIRTS
13 Bit of seed or stone found in meal (5)
TESTA Might be a new word to non-botanists, but it’s ST(one) in the meal TEA. Not derived as you might expect, but from the Latin (indeed it is the Latin) testa, a shell.
14 One has money, foolishly beginning to squander great riches (4,8)
CASH REGISTER An anagram of S(quander) GREAT RICHES
18 Instinctive behaviour something that Dr Jekyll acquired? (6,6)
SECOND NATURE Jekyll’s alter ego was Mr Hyde, as if you didn’t know.
21 Stars in decay, about to be got rid of (5)
ARIES The constellation, dental decay CARIES, without its C for circa, about
22 Legendary weapon no longer having quality, we hear (9)
EXCALIBUR Squint a little and you’ll think EX CALIBRE might mean no longer having quality. Aurally squint a bit more and its Arthur’s magic sword.
24 Earthy substance is better than greasy one (7)
TOPSOIL Split, it tops oil, as in the second part of the clue.
25 Almost completely flat-chested? These can puff out clothes (7)
BUSTLES Our drollery suggests flat-chested might be BUSTLESS, but only almost, so without its last S 
26 In St Martin, going about, see one helping another (10)
MINISTRANT Don’t be fooled by the (almost) appearance of the good Samaritan, just treat IN ST MARTIN as the “going about” anagram fodder
27 Foreign characters overthrowing country, wasting little time (4)
ETAS That’s Greek foreign. And its STATE backwards without one of its T(ime)s

Down

1 Vehicle heading off with wine — one carrying holiday supplies? (8)
RUCKSACK The vehicle is a TRUCK losing its 2heading) and the wine is SACK, a superannuated word for Spanish dry whites.
2 Unrobe us, after adjusting cloak (8)
BURNOUSE An anagram (after adjusting) of UNROBE US. It’s an Arab hooded cloak.
4 Arab female, wife discarded on island (5)
OMANI A female WOMAN, minus the W(ife) stuck onto an I(sland)
5 What delegate did in place is recorded in legal document (9)
DEPUTISED PUT (place) IS (is) within DEED (legal document).
6 Rearrange restaurant furniture maybe to secure competitive advantage (4,3,6)
TURN THE TABLES Two definitions, one whimsical
7 Reluctant to declare — side lacking guts (6)
AVERSE AVER is to declare, and if you take the guts out of SIDE you are left with SE.
8 Like an identifying word and number given to female learner (6)
NOUNAL Ah, more grammar: it’s the adjective derived from NOUN. And it’s NO (number) given to random female UNA and L(earner)
10 Petitions between meetings being read out (13)
INTERCESSIONS Sounds a lot like INTER SESSIONS, which might mean between meetings.
15 Good dog snatching length of cloth — one anxious to please (9)
GROVELLER  That’s G(ood) plus ROVER, our generic dog, with ELL our measure of cloth interpolated. An ell can be anywhere between 18 inches and 54 inches.
16 Shelter protecting maiden, courageous explorer (8)
HUMBOLDT Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von was al that and more, and Wiki claims: “more places and species are named after Humboldt than after any other human being.” The shelter is a HUT, with M(aiden) and BOLD for courageous contained.
17 Flowers making Easter so special (3,5)
TEA ROSE A neat and timely anagram (special) of EASTER SO.
19 Gong unexciting, inadequate with echo (3-3)
TAM-TAM Unexciting is TAME, “inadequate” encourages you to delete the E, “echo” commends repetition.
20 Apple seed, something sharp at one end (6)
PIPPIN PIP (seed) plus PIN
23 Rising opera company has deserted Latin (5)
CUBAN As in Latin American. The Opera is Verdi’s NABUCCO, home of the reserve Italian National Anthem “Va Pensiero”. Rip away the CO(mpany) and invert it (rising)

61 comments on “Times Cryptic No 26998 Thursday, 29 March 2018 Forget Oxfam, feed Twiggy”

  1. More or less fully parsed in this time, so not so hard overall. The unknowns for me (CORRIDA, TAM-TAM) we’re fairly clued, as we’re the dimly recalled BURNOUSE and HUMBOLDT. I liked 23a CUBAN when the penny dropped. I constructed NOUNAL by inserting O into NUN which, in hindsight, doesn’t account for the A.

    Thanks, Z, for the early posted blog and to the setter for nice middle-of-the-road puzzle.

  2. I really wanted the stock taker to be a horse thief, but the cryptic wouldn’t oblige. Ack. Hands up if you wasted as much time as I did trying out Tom-Tom. Regarding Humboldt, species perhaps, but I’m betting that if you count towns, mountains, universities, gorges and rivers, and especially streets, as places Columbus and Washington at a minimum would put brave FWHAvH in the shade. Wiki probably got the idea from a Facebook pop-up quiz. Thx Z, nice blog

    Edited at 2018-03-29 03:58 am (UTC)

    1. I wonder how we’re intended to read “more places and species”: adding the numbers of both (apples and oranges) to get one sum, or that Humboldt allegedly has more of each named after him? Someone should edit that to clarify.
      1. Wiki cites Paul Hawken’s “Drawdown: the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming” as its source for the assertion. Unimpeachable. But as far as places are concerned, I imagine Karl Friedrich von Springfield might offer a personal objection.
    2. I think a lot of the places are in South America (including the Humboldt current in the Pacific Ocean). There is a fabulous biography by Andrea Wulf called “The Invention of Nature” which is one of the very, very best biogs I’ve ever read.

      And I’m not really that bothered by naturalism, hence my problems with botany clues.

      For me this was harder than yesterday, and had to cheat a little on tam-tam.

  3. 59 minutes, but reasonably content given I had five unknowns, with two crossing. For the record: CORRIDA, TESTA, BURNOUSE, HUMBOLDT and TAM-TAM.

    CUBAN had me barking up the wrong tree, trying to reverse MET and NOC (which doesn’t even exist).

    1. I am always happy on the odd occasions when I come in ahead of HKM. In Galspray’s absence, I feel we don’t provide you with enough Antipodean competition.

      In truth I thought I knew more about TESTA than was warranted. As our esteemed blogger notes, it’s not related to the other “seed” device we think of (one being from the Latin for “shell” and the other from the Latin for a “witness”).

      1. It’s a funny thing, but I sometimes feel the unseen presence of Gallers. Like he’s looking over my shoulder…
  4. Came to this after struggling a little with the QC and struggled a lot here so I think I was having an off-day before I retired for the night. Towards the end I had words missing in every quarter and finally gave up and used aids for CUBAN and BUSTLES (where I had thought ‘muscles’ and couldn’t see past it).

    Worked out the unknown BURNOUSE eventually. Only one of the usual sources on-line sanctions the E ending but all of them have it as an alternative in their printed editions.

    Edited at 2018-03-29 04:58 am (UTC)

  5. I was one who totally typed SAMARITAN and then found it was a letter short. Had never heard of TAMTAM or BURNOUSE (although managed to get both). I had CUBAN for ages as being plausible but didn’t see how it fitted the word play since I was trying to put up the ENO, the MET, CAV, or PAG with no success. I had one of those weird crossword moments with INTERCESSIONS since I knew what word I needed, that it started INTER… but I just couldn’t bring it to mind for ages. It would have helped a lot since I had evertyhing filled in but the bottom left almost entirely blank.
  6. Managed to get through this in 56 minutes, only to realise on coming here that I’d managed to spell 22a as “Exacaliber”. D’oh.

    Still, at least I teased out all the unknowns, even after falling into the Samaritan trap at 26 and writing half the letters in before I realised. 9a CORRIDA remembered from Death in the Afternoon, otherwise 2d BURNOUSE might’ve been harder to come up with…

    Also didn’t know my LOI 16d HUMBOLDT. FOI 1a RUBY COD 24a TOPSOIL.

    Now to go and write out EXCALIBUR a hundred times as punishment for my sins. Thanks to setter and Z.

    Edited at 2018-03-29 06:38 am (UTC)

      1. I posted that by mistake, and was editing it to make it a real post, but you intervened.

        Edited at 2018-03-29 07:12 am (UTC)

  8. 18:13 … and very pleased to get under 20 minutes after one of the slowest starts I can remember.

    BURNOUSE went in on trust as the likeliest arrangement of letters, though it was a complete unknown to me. A TfTT search suggests it’s only previously come up in the Mephisto, at least since this blog began.

    I loved the ‘good dog’ for G-ROVER

    Nice challenge yet again

  9. I’ve been having some trouble concentrating on these, other things on my mind, and haven’t quite finished yesterday’s yet. But I got thru this one, with all correct, GOODS TRAIN seemed made up just to fit the space, and I’ve never known a gal named UNA. How many ways can BURNOUSE be spelled? The orthograph here seems rather rare. Rather British puzzle, with two for TEA. Some were really fun to decipher, like CORRIDA and PARVENVU. Had no idea what was going on with CUBAN, just went with the definition. Last ones in were MINISTRANT, PIPPIN, TAM-TAM and ARIES.

    Edited at 2018-03-29 07:32 am (UTC)

    1. I can vouch for GOODS TRAIN as us kids were always more excited by one of those headed by a grimy steam engine (sometimes with an exotic number of wheels) than by the smarter passenger trains. The more (and more varied) trucks the better. In the US they would be freight trains, of course. In modern era Britain, we call them “far too many lorries on the M1”.
      As for BURNOUSE, strictly it’s spelt”بُرْنُس‎” but it’s hard to fit in the grid. The evidence suggests almost any transliteration of Arabic will do, as those of us who do Scrabble and such with a surplus of high scoring letters on our racks can testify.
  10. 40 mins with yoghurt, granola, etc. Our guest today had fig bread with Gin&Lime marmalade, but I have resisted – so far.
    Humboldt always makes me think of the squid.
    Is that how you spell Burnouse?? Not sure.
    Mostly I liked: Excalibur, Deputised, Cuban and COD to Bustles.
    Thanks setter and brilliant Z.

    PS having looked it up, it seems most possible spellings will do.

    Edited at 2018-03-29 07:25 am (UTC)

  11. I thought perhaps 2dn was an USBOURNE (Victoriana) but my FOI 1ac RUBY put an end to such nonsense.

    My LOI was 8dn NOUNAL

    COD 3ac GOODS TRAIN

    WOD 16dn HUMBOLDT as well known to y.t.

    1. I also liked GOODS TRAIN, especially since I was pretty sure it would end ‘track’.
  12. Enjoyed this .. a couple of unknowns, but good clues so confidently wrote in (eg) testa. Humboldt known from the current. Saw “subsoil” immediately.. but for some reason topsoil took a while to arrive
  13. 37 minutes with LOI HUMBOLDT, which should have been a gift from one of my favourite authors. DNK BURNOUSE or TAM-TAM and only half-parsed CUBAN. . PARVENU came from nowhere and then NOUNAL could be constructed and TESTA entered on the incorrect basis. My puzzle looks a mess as I confidently put SAMARITAN in 26 across only to find that it wasn’t long enough. I then spent the next five minutes desperately trying to come up with MINISTRANT, in case an invisible crossword companion was looking over my shoulder and laughing at me. Decent puzzle. COD to GROVELLER. Thank you Z and setter.
  14. 15;54. Another nice puzzle. We’re having a good week.
    Unlike GM I managed to put in all the letters of SAMARITAN before realising I didn’t have enough of them. I also bunged in TOM-TOM but fortunately reconsidered. I was a bit worried about BURNOUSE but couldn’t see any other way of arranging the letters.
    I know the name HUMBOLDT from the Bellow novel Humboldt’s Gift, which has nothing to do with this chap it seems. Whatever gets you there.
    The setter missed a chance to use a more specialist restaurant term at 6dn. In the trade if you serve 20 meals at 10 tables in an evening you have ‘turned the tables’ twice. In a fixed-cost business this is obviously a good thing.
    1. It sounds to me like you’ve only turned the tables once in that case, but I won’t repeat myself again.
      1. It’s a slightly odd expression in a number of ways but this is the way it’s used: don’t shoot the messenger!
  15. Easiest of the week so far especially as experience meant I knew the oddball words like TAM-TAM and BURNOUSE from Mephisto. Can never remember how to spell EXCALIBUR so checked it before entry. Loved 14A. Well blogged Z8
  16. No problems but had to trust the setter a few times. Smiled at BUSTLES but COD to CASH REGISTER. Humboldt was a fascinating man having read a biography.
  17. I meant to say earlier that ‘foolishly beginning to squander great riches’ is marvellous.
    1. It was my COD. It is actually very deceptive because ‘one has money’ and the beginning ‘S’ of squander could be a 12 letter anagram meaning ‘great riches’.
  18. Another very slow time for me – not sure exactly how slow (I left the timer running), but something like 40 minutes. No problem with TESTA, but NOUNAL and MINISTRANT were new to me, and TAM-TAM was only very vaguely known. I got the CUBAN despite having no idea about NABUCCO – aren’t they a biscuit manufacturer?

    Edited at 2018-03-29 09:43 am (UTC)

  19. Thank you, Z, for the wonderful “aurally squinting” technique. I love it. (Though this practice inevitably provokes commentators to carp that whotsit and somesuch are nowhere near homophonous.)

    This was another difficult one for me (51 mins) with a bunch of obscure words (TESTA, NOUNAL, MINISTRANT, BURNOUSE, CORRIDA). I managed to work them all out from the component parts, but some of these left a sour taste in the mouth. NOUNAL?? Is that a word?? BURNOUSE is the weirdest Roman transliteration of the Arabic, surely? (My dictionaries record burnoos and burnoose.) Meh!

    Some enjoyable clues + solutions, though. 24a and 25a I liked. But COD to CASH REGISTER — neatly misleading.

  20. Only recently realised that Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves is another setting of Psalm 137 – CUBAN came to me with quiet satisfaction. Dnk TAM TAM, BURNOUSE still doesn’t look right. 32′, thanks z and setter.
  21. Several unknowns today – BURNOUSE (although it range a bell), CORRIDA, HUMBOLDT, TAM-TAM – but the one that tripped me up was 23d. I was convinced I had to remove an L from an opera company to get a hill, I plumped for CYBAN. Which is neither. 9m 20s with that error, having spent nearly a minute on that clue.
  22. Think I found this tougher than most of you, with TAM TAM not known and several others I had to check on Google to be sure they were right. COD EXCALIBUR for its misdirection – thought it was an ex weapon!
  23. I’d never managed to register Nabucco in whatever part of my brain opera lore lodges, so thanks to Z for that. TAM-TAM and TESTA used to make regular appearances in NY Times puzzles. Had to pause over NOUNAL and rather agree with Pserve. GROVELLER and HUMBOLDT were very nice. 18.57
    1. I found this tough so I was pleased with my time of 25 mins. Lots I hadn’t heard of and Infell into the same traps as others – Samaritan, Tom-Tom. I’m Humboldt but unbowdt.

      Edited at 2018-03-29 11:02 am (UTC)

  24. It probably goes without saying that I hadn’t knowingly come across the BURNOUSE before, but the combo of anagram and checkers clearly pointed to it, so no worries there. Whether wiki is right or not about Humboldt, I came to him from the penguin, which I don’t think has been mentioned yet, so yes, there seem to be plenty of ways to get to him.
  25. I found this one tricky, mainly because of a few unfamiliar words. I knew burnous, but not BURNOUSE, but it wasn’t much of a stretch. CORRIDA, NOUNAL and MINISTRANT rang very faint bells, but TESTA was constructed from wordplay and justified on its similarity to bilge. I didn’t consider SAMARITAN as I already had the S and R from 10d and 15d. Like Jerry I had to be coaxed away from SUBSOIL. Liked HUMBOLDT and SECOND NATURE. I was trying to shoehorn longhorns into 3a, but couldn’t justify WAGON TRAIN as I already had DEPUTISED. I spotted Nabucco after BUSTLES appeared. TAM TAM was my LOI and selected instead of TOM TOM as I already had ARIES. Nice puzzle. 46:58 continuing my run of rather longer solving times. Thanks setter and Z.
  26. 35:28. Found myself darting around the grid a fair bit so not the smoothest solve but got there in the end. Stumbled for a minute or two at the end over the correct arrangement of the unchecked anagrist in the unknown 2dn but burnouse seemed most convincing. COD 3ac which came as a surprise and raised a smile especially since I was sure the second word was going to be thief.
  27. Not my demitasse of bohea this one.

    In the end I was derailed by a totally unjustified CABAN but I struggled all over the place, mostly in the NE corner where a careless TASTE meant that NOUNAL and thereafter PARVENU took an age.

    I got off on the wrong foot from the off, thinking 1a was probably KA(ra)TE.

  28. ….and other pieces of sheer stupidity led to 16:07 DNF, and one totally wrong answer (though I’m not convinced that the correct solution would have led to me filling in the clue I abandoned as DNK and could not parse).

    FOI PARVENU, but I rather limped on after that. Biffing SAMARITAN might have been forgiveable, but slapping an S on the end when it didn’t fit certainly wasn’t. PIPPIN led me to the error of my ways (note to self : use a pencil !).

    Also biffed TESTA. My other biff, EXCELSIOR, which I’d marked but failed to re-address, meant that HUMBOLDT was never going in. And as I said earlier, I don’t think he was ever going to come to me, especially as I thought “courageous” was part of the definition. Not a DNK, but not at the forefront of my knowledge.

    COD might have been CORRIDA but for those tired men yet again, and so goes to CASH REGISTER, with an honourable mention to TOPSOIL.

    Thanks through gritted teeth to the compiler, and through ungritted ones to Z for an excellent blog.

    Now where did I put that pencil sharpener….

  29. Didn’t know TESTA but easily gettable from the cryptic. Otherwise no unknowns – although I’ve never seen BURNOUSE spelt with the final E. I was held up in the NE corner thinking it had to be HORSE THIEF. Had a nice eureka moment with CUBAN – Nabucco was one of the first operas I ever saw and still one of my favourites. Slowish solve. 41 minutes. Ann
  31. Glad to finish with all correct in 70 mins. Another to fall for the Samaritan trap and also cash register remained pencilled in unparsed for too long. Pleased to see Cuban to emerge from the letters of Nabucco written backwards. Thanks to the setter for a tough but fair puzzle and to the blogger for explaining that which I didn’t understand.
  32. Forgot to time myself on this one, but certainly not quick. Enjoyed the clues though, and was pleased to sort out the unknowns (to me) from the helpful wordplay.
  33. In these case don’t people always say that it’s bad if an obscure word is clued by an anagram? I can’t find the expected remark, although I may have missed it. The word was unknown to me and I couldn’t get it even knowing the eight letters. Or perhaps the word isn’t all that obscure and it’s just me.
    1. I think it makes a difference what options are available once you have all the crossers. BURNOUSE would be the most likely way to fit ENUU into B_R_O_S_. It’s a different matter if reversing two of the inserted letters make equally likely options and the only way you can choose the right one is to know the word.
    2. Totally obscure to me but as starstruck has pointed out there weren’t many options available once the checkers were in, and I guessed correctly, so I wasn’t put out enough to make the usual remark, but I did comment that BURNOUSE with an E is an alternative spelling that’s not in most of the usual on-line sources, which I felt added to the obscurity factor.

      Edited at 2018-03-29 10:56 pm (UTC)

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