Times Cryptic No 27024 – Saturday, 28 April 2018. Definitions, definitions everywhere!

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Well there were some tours de force in this puzzle, capped by the quadruple definition at 25ac – yes, four of them in a surface that reads naturally! And supported by a triple definition elsewhere to prove it wasn’t a once-off.

I had a very heavy schedule last weekend so I did the puzzle on paper in bits and pieces, so I can’t quote a time, but I would rate it as medium difficulty.

The clue of the day was clearly 25ac, but I enjoyed the faintly tabloid hint of smut at 5ac, and the beautiful reference to Coward at 20dn!

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 Around start of week, comes to call (7)
SUMMONS: SUMS around MON. “Sums” is “comes to”, in the sense that “the total is …”. A SUMMONS (singular) is a call to appear.

5 What’s removed by girl approaching Bond? (7)
NIGHTIE: NIGH (approaching), TIE (bond, with the capital letter being mere misdirection).

9 Group of sailors in bay, turning, awkwardly clutch packs (5,4)
YACHT CLUB: BAY backwards, “packed” by (CLUTCH*).

10 A test for internet connection is taking off (5)
APING: A PING is a short transmission to see if the internet responds.

11 Bright star showing some perspicacity (5)
SPICA: hidden in “per SPICA city”.

12 Unfavourably cast? (2,3,4)
IN BAD PART: cryptic definition. “Unfavourably” could also be a definition by itself, as in “he took it in bad part”, so perhaps it’s a new kind of &lit double definition?!

13 Like continental estate, perhaps, bequeathed to present doctor I have (4-4,5)
LEFT-HAND DRIVE: an “estate” being some type of car – actually to me it sounds like a very British term for a car, but never mind. The answer comes from LEFT (bequeathed), HAND (present), DR (doctor) I’VE (I have).

17 Cryptic clue maybe not about verse in pop song (4,3,2,4)
CAN’T BUY ME LOVE: (CLUE MAYBE NOT V*). “Cryptic” is a rather self-conscious anagram indicator, perhaps, but we’re all crossword people here!

21 Advanced as far as old man with unknown mineral (4,5)
ROSE TOPAZ: ROSE (advanced), TO (as far as), PA (old man), Z (unknown of the algebraic kind).

24 Harsh introduction to Olympics for European runner (5)
DOURO: DOUR, O. River on the Iberian peninsula. I misled myself for quite a while by trying to find a river (the MEUSE, perhaps) where I could change the E to an O, to get a word that alas didn’t mean anything like HARSH!

25 Look ashamed, maybe even promising hand with money (5)
FLUSH: as mentioned above, a quadruple definition: going pink, fitting tightly, good poker hand, rich.

26 Countries joined together to vet journalist for free (9)
UNCHECKED: UN, CHECK (vet), ED.

27 Before short drive with Yankee, books service (7)
LITURGY: LIT{erature}, URG{e}, Y{ankee}.

28 Slip back, saying nothing about arrival (7)
ERRATUM: MUTE around ARR{ival}, all backwards.

Down
1 Reserved a little turkey, ultimately for stuffing sort of kebab (6)
SHYISH: Y (turkey, ultimately) inside SHISH {kebab}.

2 Old PM’s official staff shortened press article (9)
MACMILLAN: MAC{e}, MILL (press), AN (article).

3 Foul that almost incapacitated rugby player (3-4)
OUT-HALF: (FOUL THA-*). I follow rugby and have never heard this term, but it’s in the dictionary

4 Singer at first mischievously being interested only in number one (9)
SELFISHLY: #S{inger}, ELFISHLY.

5 Nick? He died a rich man (5)
NABOB: NAB (nick), OB (“obituary”).

6 Amount of money used on publicity is relative (7)
GRANDAD: GRAND (money), AD (publicity).

7 Northern region where dynamic economy picked up (5)
TAIGA: sounds like “Tiger”.  I hadn’t seen references to the tiger economies since the 1990s, but then it turned up again later in the week!

8 In which mercury’s rising — I see it’s fantastic outside? (8)
EIGHTIES: GH (HG, the symbol for mercury, rising), inside (I SEE IT*). A very neat all-in-one clue. The definition refers to a Fahrenheit temperature at the hot end by British standards.

14 Philosopher’s last letter: hence it’s treated specially (9)
NIETZSCHE: (Z HENCE ITS*). The “z” is the last letter of the alphabet, of course.

15 What waiter brings from distance to pour? (3,6)
ICE BUCKET: ICE (distance), BUCKET (pour with rain).

16 Contemptuous of banality in science fiction, endlessly dull (8)
SCORNFUL: SF (sci fi) around CORN, then {d}UL{l}.

18 More like a man to mess up? (7)
BUTCHER: again, (only) a double definition.

19 Cockney judge at hearing does perhaps for female pensioner? (3,4)
OLD DEAR: {h}OLD (dropping the “h” from “hold”, as in “I hold  that to be true”), then DEAR sounds like DEER (does, perhaps, or stags). Are all old dears pensioners, then?

20 Coward’s fan of the Sun, on reflection blessed! (6)
GODDAM: MAD DOG, backwards.

In the Philippines they have lovely screens to protect you from the glare.
In the Malay States, there are hats like plates which the Britishers won’t wear.
At twelve noon the natives swoon and no further work is done,
But mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.

22 Short exercise to occupy room? (5)
SQUAT: triple definition.

23 Regularly presented product by trying to look sexy? (5)
POUTY: alternate letters: P r O d U c T b Y.

 

21 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27024 – Saturday, 28 April 2018. Definitions, definitions everywhere!”

  1. 40:17

    My body woke up early and decided to attempt this – but it really ought to have waited for my brain to wake up too. To misquote a different philosopher to the one who appears at 14 down,

    I thought therefore I was awake.
    My mistake.

    COD 20d Goddam. Great clue.

    I think therefore I will go back to sleep now.

    Edited at 2018-05-05 05:06 am (UTC)

  2. The ‘last letter’ is Z; plus (HENCE ITS)*. (No R in Nietzsche, after all.)
  3. An excellent puzzle with tricky bits and pieces of wordplay, some of which were lost on me but I didn’t persevere with them as I would have done on a blogging day.

    I wasn’t sure about SUMS for ‘comes to’ but SOED has ‘amounts to’ which comes to the same thing. However I’ve not been able to think of a sentence in which using SUMS in this way sounds plausible to my ear. Perhaps someone else could post an example that works?

    If I knew of ROSE TOPAZ I had forgotten it.

    My father and brother were mad on rugby and I even played it for a while at prep school, but I never heard of OUT-HALF.

    I agree with the praise for GODDAM and the reference to Noël Coward. I’m sure he used the word in at least one of his song lyrics but I can’t think of it at the moment.

    Edited at 2018-05-05 05:39 am (UTC)

  4. Yes, excellent crossword. Mr Anon above is right about NietZsche.
    Sums.. if seven is the sum of four and three, then the equation (four plus three) sums to seven. It is a slightly awkward phrasing but technically correct I think. It sounds more natural with more complex formulae, a trinomial say

    Edited at 2018-05-05 06:42 am (UTC)

    1. …in which case ‘sums’ is a synonym for ‘comes’, not ‘comes to’.
      1. Yes .. but the clue still works, if the def. is “to call” = summons.
        1. Absolutely. If a shopkeeper says ‘that comes to ten pounds altogether’ it is exactly synonymous with ‘that sums to ten pounds altogether’. The latter isn’t a form of words your likely to hear but it makes perfect sense to me.

          Edited at 2018-05-05 08:46 am (UTC)

          1. It’s verified by SOED as mentioned above, but it still sounds wrong to my ear – like babytalk. I’m sure if I’d said it at home I’d have been corrected by my parents and at prep school it would have warranted a belt around the head from the headmaster (who taught maths).

            But perhaps I said it once at prep school and was belted around the head and that’s the deep-seated root of my problem with the usage! Like saying ‘two-times’ instead of ‘twice’.

            Edited at 2018-05-05 01:39 pm (UTC)

          2. I’m with jerrywh on this one: the def is ‘to call’ = SUMMONS. Not a problem here.
      2. Exactly. And anyway it’s in the same category as saying ‘times by’ instead of ‘multiply by’ or simply ‘by’, a particular bugbear of mine when watching ‘Countdown’.
  5. …and what I’ve got I’m keeping to myself. 52 minutes. NIGHTIE went from the risqué word in common parlance to ineffably naff some time in the early seventies, I guess. Well after The Beatles, in any case, but before the EIGHTIES. It’s always wiser to assume that OLD DEARs are as sharp as Miss Marple in my experience. Pre central heating, they were never daft enough to wear a NIGHTIE. The real Übermensch, they’d have taken off their long Winceyette nightdresses and slipped between the flannelette sheets with James, not Mr Bond but the gardener. COD to GODDAM, a word I first encountered in The Catcher in the Rye, I think. It certainly wasn’t in the 1662 LITURGY. Enjoyed this puzzle. Thank you B and setter.
  6. Nietzsche doesn’t have an ‘r’ . It does have a ‘z’ however which is the ‘last letter’ of the alphabet.
  7. 28:29. I remember finding this very enjoyable.
    TAIGA, clued almost exactly like this, has caught me out in the past, which is the only reason I managed to get it this time.
  8. ….the raising of the wrist. He never taught me how to spell his GODDAM name properly though ! Always holds me up while I shuffle the options.

    DNF due to a frustrated and colossal biff at numero uno, where I thought “coish” might be an exotic kebab, and thus entered “commons”, which really can’t be justified on any level.

    I spent ages trying to justify LENT TOPAZ (same fictional family as ROSE LILY ?)

    Am I alone in finding the POUTY look employed by selfie fans is anything BUT sexy ?

    FOI NIGHTIE
    COD FLUSH – very clever !
    WOD GODDAM

    Thanks brnchn, and setter for a puzzle which has my total admiration – SHOULD have finished it though !

  9. 57:34 so I found this quite tricky. 8dn was a particular headscratcher. Also held up by failing to reverse 20dn for a while. Fortunately knew my shish from my doner at 1dn. I wonder if the post pub kebab shop visit is still as popular as once it was.

    By the way, if any of the TLS brigade drop by, can anyone tell me the clues for 22dn & 25dn in Talos 1124 they do not appear in the print edition.

  10. 31:41. A fine puzzle indeed. The SW corner held me up the most, with FLUSH and SQUAT my last 2 in. Nice to see the master wrist-raiser at 14d. Never heard of OUT-HALF or IN BAD PART, but the wordplay was clear for each. Count me as another fan of GODDAM for COD. Thanks B and setter.
  11. I found this very hard and after a good trawl through the clues could only solve three so I gave up (the same person who finished yesterday’s puzzle).
    Having looked at the answers there’s nothing untoward,just not my wavelength.
    David
  12. This enjoyable puzzle kept me busy for 53:04 with some tricky stuff. Took a while to see what the definition was at 1d but, like special_bitter, I knew my shish from my doner. These days I have them delivered rather than calling in on the way back from the pub. I’d never heard of an OUT HALF but the wordplay was clear. I also had to juggle with our philosopher’s characters. Liked GODDAM too. Thanks setter and Bruce.
  13. Over an hour (63 mins) indicates a real toughie for me.
    Everyone here seems to like GODDAM (and, yes, the Coward song reference is super) but how on earth does GODDAM = ‘blessed’? I can’t see it.
    I thought the vocabulary in this one was pretty obscure (SPICA, TAIGA, OUT-HALF, DOURO) or iffy (SHYISH, POUTY). And the clue for EIGHTIES seems naff to me: the wordplay components are OK, they work, but the attempt to force an &lit results in a really clunky and loose definition.
    Its redeeming features were the brilliant quadrudef for FLUSH and excellent tridef for SQUAT.
    Not a great puzzle, really. Thanks for the blog, which I enjoyed more.

    Edited at 2018-05-07 10:23 am (UTC)

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