Times Cryptic No 27046 Thursday, 24 May 2018 Mixed blessings (mine’s a G&T)

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
With 1 across securely in place, I was of course strongly tempted to write up the entire blog in the style of a cocktail recipe book, which I think would be possible but might well get tedious before the end, probably a long way before the end. I got through this in 21 minutes, with some smiles and one unsuppressed giggle along the way. There are some  (mildly) obscure references, but the cluing is unambiguous where it needs to be and gives you the constructions.
I write this from my temporarily enforced semi-recumbent position with a keyboard that has an erratic spacebar, so I plead indulgence if there are more typos than I usually provide for your amusement and/or indignation. I have endeavoured to provide clues thus, definitions thus and solutions THUS.

Across

1 Powerful cocktail keeps sharpness hot (12)
SLEDGEHAMMER Is itself a cocktail, and depending on the recipe,  could well be pretty powerful. But our recipe is EDGE from sharpness plus one part of Hot poured into SLAMMER, usually prefaced by Tequila.  Straight, not stirred.
8 Composer crossing six bars … the extreme ones? (7)
ROSSINI Take cROSSINg sIx and bar/banish the extreme bits
9 Festive food cut by a penny — being this? (7)
CHEAPER Festive food the generic CHEER, surrounding A P(enny). Odd, we used to put silver threepenny bits in ours.
11 Leading advocate wanting beer around office (7)
APOSTLE The beer is good ALE (yay) and the office therein is POST. If you want justification for “leading” , this from the 1st 2d of Paul the this clue to the Corinthians:  “And God has placed in the church first of all apostles”,  but it also works in a more generic sense.
12 Racist I upset with mocking humour (7)
SATIRIC An apposite and fairly obvious anagram  (upset) of RACIST I
13 Story satisfied with two characters finally killed (5)
CONTE From the French. CONTENT with the last two characters dispatched
14 Sent out signal with call involving extra backing (9)
PHEROMONE In this case, a chemical signal that is sent out, deliberately or not, as Chambers coyly says “which influences the behaviour of others of its species”. Or as Chas and Dave put it: “Now you’re a wonderful girl, you got a wonderful smell”. Anyway, stick MORE for extra backwards into PHONE for call.
16 Nameless bird gaining height — a distant point in the sky? (9)
STARLIGHT Your bird is a STARLING, less N(ame) and with H(eigh)T on the end
19 Drunk at the end of today? Not on (5)
TIGHT The end of today is TONIGHT. Remove ON – nothing to do with cricket this time!
21 Freezing fine beheaded fish — line caught (3-4)
ICE-COLD Fine beheaded is n(ICE), the fish COD,  the L of Line caught.
23 Half rice, half soup, time to make this? (7)
RISOTTO A not wholly inaccurate recipe: half RIce, half SOup, T(ime) and TO. &lit.
24 Going to miss drive after golf cap’s flying (7)
GLIDING Take the GO “drive” from GOING, and preface with G(olf) (NATO) and LID for cap.
25 Mineral mass one’s found in a moon, classically (7)
ALUMINA M(ass) and I’S found in LUNA, Latin for moon
26 Long sweet film (8,4)
BRIGHTON ROCK Arguably a double definition. The second from the ubiquitous Graham Greene’s book

Down

1 A fool entering shortly — Siegfried, perhaps (7)
SASSOON So don’t worry, it’s not Wagner. Fool: ASS in shortly SOON
2 Letter of key big building across street (7)
EPISTLE The pick one from seven key is E, the big building is PILE, which “crosses” ST(reet)
3 Subject of experiment needing a piece of gold and a piece of iron (6,3)
GUINEA PIG Gold piece and iron piece, like it says
4 Cuts a number of bad journalists? (5)
HACKS Could work as just “Cuts journalists” but you have a generously extended version
5 Great leader, a Chinese one imprisons rest, unfortunately (7)
MAESTRO Your Chinese “great leader” (doing double duty and indicated by “one”) confines an “unfortunate” version of REST
6 Material used for ropes seaport’s replaced (7)
ESPARTO “a strong grass (Stipatenacissima and others) grown in Spain, N Africa, etc, and used for making paper, baskets, cordage, etc” in our case twisted (replaced) from SEAPORT.
7 Announcing process of selecting actor for woman in Chicago? (12)
BROADCASTING Even in 2003, Chambers was marking BROAD for woman as “N American offensive slang” so expect prosecution for getting this one right. But it’s funny, and my CoD. Two definitions, the second either referring to a James Cagney type prohibition era movie or the musical
10 Thinking about inner secret can be diverting (12)
RECREATIONAL Thinking: RATIONAL about sECREt
15 Running Internet without a host (9)
ENTERTAIN Without here means outside. An anagram (running) of INTERNET provides the container for A
17 Artist’s place lately stripped, odd pieces of fine art removed (7)
ATELIER lATELy “stripped” plus the even bits of fInE aRt.
18 Appearing very good in getting into record book (7)
LOOKING Very good translates to OK especially as in a casual version of Jeeves’ “very good, sir”. Add IN and place it in your LOG
19 Note boss on round shield for centurions (7)
TESTUDO Now I thought a Roman shield was a scutum, and a testudo was what they formed with their scuta when attacked from above but here we construct our defence from pick any note from 7 TE, STUD for boss and O for round, so that’s ok then.
20 Where some take off label turning up strip of material (7)
GATWICK London’s second airport. Label is TAG, which is “turned up”, WICK the strip of material.
22 What green-fingered person of course has something to do with flower bed (5)
DIGIT A clue almost as long winded as me!. A green fingered person obviously has DIGITs, and what you do with a flower bed is DIG IT

43 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27046 Thursday, 24 May 2018 Mixed blessings (mine’s a G&T)”

  1. Quite like Vinyl, although I figured out ‘Rossini’ post-submission. With TIGHT, I was fixated on Y as ‘end of today’, finally said the hell with it and biffed the obvious. Got the G LID, never twigged to ‘drive’. ‘Sent out signal’ was misleading, intentionally I assume, but rather a strain on English grammar. DNK SLAMMER; I stick to Scotch. One doesn’t often (ever?) see three clues where first and last letters are deleted.
  2. So about average for me, in line with the emerging trend. I spent a couple of extra minutes checking whether there was any alternative to BRIGHTON ROCK, not being sure of the film and not knowing the “long sweet” at all. I agree with Vinyl that spending some years in “crosswordland” helps with clues like TESTUDO and ATELIER, and I’m pretty sure I only know ESPARTO from crosswords. I liked PHEROMONE and GATWICK.

    Thanks to the setter. And to Z for the early blog filling in my few missing pieces 🙂

  3. Spent a fair bit of time at the end thinking through 24ac – had to be sure it wasn’t GAINING (G + {dr}AINING), even though GLIDING is clearly a better synonym for “flying”. Eventually the penny dropped that “golf cap” wasn’t just G and I was able to submit. Will the new impeccably cautious Verlaine be able to make it to the finals this November? Probably not.
  4. 33 minutes, and I might’ve been under the half-hour if I’d not written 7d in so badly that I thought 24a began with an “L” for a while at the end there. Really must work on my lettering…

    FOI 1d SASSOON, LOI 24a GLIDING for abovementioned reason, but if not it would have been 6d ESPARTO, soon after I confirmed my suspicions about that one by finally figuring out 14a PHEROMONE. Glad to find the centurions’ shield wasn’t a TISTUDO after all, but the correct spelling looked more likely and rang the vaguest of bells. Must’ve come up in the last couple of years (Ah! April 2017.)

    I think I must’ve been on the same wavelength as both setter and Z today, as I even thought of Jeeves at 18d! Thanks to both.

    Edited at 2018-05-24 06:36 am (UTC)

  5. 45 mins with toast and the sublime superlime marmalade.
    Like yesterday, I took ages to get going. Maybe I need to drink coffee – wait 20 mins – then begin.
    1ac reminds me of once, many years ago, getting tight in the Garrick wine bar (does that still exist?) on a variety of beverages culminating in tequila slammers. I remember using the ‘tequila mocking bird’ line which shows how drunk I was.
    Today mostly I liked: Casting the broad
    Thanks setter and Z.
  6. With early rain in North London, I did this before my morning constitutional. In the good old days when we had our collie, the walk would still have come first. Easyish in 16 minutes, with GLIDING unparsed. I’ll give COD to BRIGHTON ROCK, despite Dickie Attenborough being miscast as Pinkie. (I know, there’s been a more recent version, but I’ve not seen it.) I would have preferred George Formby to have been conducting the band with his little stick of Blackpool Rock. Thank you Z and setter.
    1. Lucky collie. Mine has to wait until I have read the paper and finished the crossword.
  7. Finished with minor cheating!:
    esparto v esporta
    and Re v Te + studo.

    Dnk conte
    FOI ice cold.
    COD apostle.

  8. A few guesses with ESPARTO and CONTE which I suppose I’d come across before but couldn’t remember and finished in 32 minutes.

    I thought TESTUDO was a collective noun, meaning protection made up of a number of interlocking shields, rather than a single shield but I see it can also mean one of those war engines with a protecting roof used in a siege.

    Enjoyed the ‘sent out signal’ for PHEROMONE.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

  9. COD BROADCASTING, which I didn’t fully parse, thinking only of a general Americanism rather than Catherine Zeta Jones. Not sure why BRIGHTON ROCK is clued as ‘film’ – the book brilliantly gives the atmosphere of criminality and seediness. Unfortunately when I read it I was too young to apppreciate the major plot device that a wife could not be forced to testify against her husband. I have sung Rossini’s Petite Messe Solenelle, which must have been his last joke on humanity, being neither small nor solemn. 18′, thanks z and setter.
    1. The Petite Messe has the added attraction for amateur choral societies that it can (should?) be performed with 2 pianos and harmonium, which makes it a) cheap to perform and b) easier to rehearse. It’s also, as I expect you discovered, rather fun to sing.
  10. A steady unspectacular solve with crossword chestnuts like ATELIER causing no problem. Didn’t bother to parse GLIDING and derived TESTUDO from wordplay after being puzzled by “scutum” not being the answer. Well blogged Z8
  11. I thought of Sassoon as I drove by Heytesbury House yesterday.

    Thanks Z8 for parsing ROSSINI and GLIDING.

  12. My title comes from the lyric of the Queen song BRIGHTON ROCK, which is one of the best tracks on the album “Sheer Heart Attack”, easily my favourite of theirs.

    I struggled to start this, FOI being ICE-COLD about two minutes in. An excellent blog from Z8 today, and I needed it after joining the “biff club” for ROSSINI and GLIDING – and also RECREATIONAL.

    DNK ALUMINA. TESTUDO remembered from 55 years ago when I somehow passed my Latin O Level.

    LOI ROSSINI immediately I saw the excellent BROADCASTING, but COD PHEROMONE.

    Finally cleared in 15:17

    Edited at 2018-05-24 09:56 am (UTC)

    1. Agree on Sheer Heart Attack being the best Queen album.

      Edited at 2018-05-24 12:28 pm (UTC)

  13. 21:41. Mostly straight forward enough but slowed down at the end by Broadcasting and Conte.

    COD Broadcasting. I also liked long sweet for rock.

  14. 10:19. Like verlaine I was cautious on this one, not wanting to biff what seemed like the obvious answers without working out the wordplay (or at least some of it), which in some cases was really tricky. I like this type of puzzle where you have to grapple properly with the clues.
    I particularly liked 23ac which is, as z8 points out, a rudimentary recipe for the answer.
  15. Clearly right up my street, and thus unsurprisingly enjoyed. PHEROMONE is a word which my brain persists in wanting to (mis)spell pheremone, despite experience telling me otherwise, so I was glad that the wordplay there was explicit.
    1. PHERAMONE is also an option. I was also grateful for the wordplay, once I’d got past the idea that ‘extra’ was going to be OVER.

      Edited at 2018-05-24 10:50 am (UTC)

    1. Prior to the twelve sided nickel brass 3d bit, there were silver (really silver, at least in part) round versions about the size of the current 5p. I still have some for ceremonial Yuletide use.

      Edited at 2018-05-24 09:58 am (UTC)

    2. Silver threepenny pieces were the norm until the mid thirties, when replaced by the 12-sided brass coin. They were also minted during the war. Most familes retained one or two for the Christmas Pudding. Most of them have probably been swallowed by now.
    3. My 93 year-old mother still has the 21 silver 3d bits that she was given on her 21st birthday.
  17. Having not had a clue where to start with the first few across clues, I switched to the downs and found them much more accessible – SASSOON & GUINEA PIG went in straight away, which cracked SLEDGEHAMER, as it were.

    I’ve not come across WICK in this context, I think, but I also don’t know many seven letter possibilities beginning GAT. STARLIGHT, BROADCASTING & CONTE (LOI) took a bit of getting, with a total of 7m 16s.

    There seemed to be more clues than usual today that involved taking the content of words: ROSSINI, RECREATIONAL & ATELIER. ‘Inner secret’ took a bit of convincing.

  18. A fairly straightforward puzzle but as I was not on blogging duty I gave up trying ot work out how GLIDING worked.

    I thought we were heading for a tongue twister with EPISTLE and APOSTLE in the same grid but we were missing St Paul.

    Edited at 2018-05-24 09:58 am (UTC)

    1. Indeed, “the First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Thessalonians” was the reading you didn’t want to draw when reading in school assembly, in my case in the Abbey. Even worse if you had a lisp.
  19. 37 mins perhaps a bit slow for this one, but was held up in the NW for a while – like many others ROSSINI went in with a question mark. Finally left with P-EROMO-E for which the PH bit never entered my mind, and I succumbed to helpers to complete the puzzle.

  20. A gentle 18m with clearly signposted definitions and minimal time spent on unravelling the cryptics – the sort of puzzle that could easily catch you out for being too cocky, but on this occasion didn’t.

  21. All but 24ac done in about 25min – then spent abou ten minutes trying to find anything at all that could parsed, Eventually bunged GUIDING in on basis that ‘going to miss’ might have something to do with Girl Guides – don’t know why I’d not seen ‘flying’ as definition.
  22. As Myrtilus and Jack have noted this one lent itself to mental pairings. In addition to the APOSTLE’s EPISTLE. You’d certainly be TIGHT if you’d downed a few ICE-COLD SLEDGEHAMMERs. And you wouldn’t want to go GLIDING by STARLIGHT into the flight-path for GATWICK. MAESTRO ROSSINI. Etc. Can’t say it helped get me on the setter’s wavelength though. 18.19
  23. 16:17. CONTE my last one in, unknown but derived from the wordplay. Otherwise not many hold ups, and I even managed to parse GLIDING. RISOTTO my favourite with its believable recipe.
  24. Not a great week for me (so far). One-letter failures on Monday and Tuesday, 20 minutes yesterday and 24 minutes today. I got absolutely nothing from the first run-through of the acrosses. I even thought I might never finish at one point when I still had 5 or 6 blanks on the RHS. Maybe I need to do a Sotira and take a sabbatical.
  25. Held up by 14a – can there really be such a word as Prevohone (over being aposite watching England’s top order struggle again)? I finally worked it out. All the same observations as above and done in about 40 mins. Hope Stokes punches above his weight. Thanks all
  26. 31 mins. Shaping up as a slow week… Nice puzzle; enjoyed it; great blog, thanks. Brighton Rock is good on Live Killers; they really push the tempo to keep the energy up, and the ending’s spot on. Saw them perform it at Wembley Empire Pool in 1980 🙂
  27. Just a whisky under the half-hour for this one, and most of it seemed fairly straightforward. Then again, if I’d found it that straightforward I’d have finished it faster.

    CONTE was known from previous puzzles, and the ESPARTO which held up a few of you was also familiar. Even my sparse knowledge of the humanities stretched to SASSOON (helped by the widespread advertising for his hair products) and TESTUDO. Very enjoyable.

  28. This was a very enjoyable puzzle. I didn’t manage to parse GLIDING or ROSSINI, so thanks to Z for those, but managed the rest of it in a good time for me. I remembered CONTE(my LOI), TESTUDO and ESPARTO from previous puzzles. EPISTLE was my FOI. Loved BROADCASTING, BRIGHTON ROCK and SLEDGEHAMMER. 25:32. Thanks setter and Z.

    Edited at 2018-05-24 03:12 pm (UTC)

  29. No great pithy comments on today’s puzzle here. I couldn’t parse GLIDING but I’m not complaining. I did parse everything else, except BRIGHTON ROCK, which I just biffed with the aid of the crossing letters. Around 25 minutes all told. Regards.
  30. I found this quite hard, started it on the train but couldn’t finish it before arriving at my destination so ended up completing it in two sessions of around 20 mins and 35 mins. The RHS went in mostly ok but the LHS caused lots of problems, the SW corner in particular held me up. Was tempted by gaining at 24ac but eventually worked out the correct parsing.
  31. OK today apart from “gliding” which was a bit tortuous. I thought it could be “gaining” or g + draining – dr. Draining meaning going as in draining away and gaining meaning flying as in my shares are gaining today.
    OK – so that’s also tortuous – but no more so than the real answer.
    Enjoyed all the other clues.

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