Times Cryptic No 27132 – Saturday, 01 September 2018. Don’t talk of clues – show me!

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I found this puzzle a workout! About a third of the clues were “regular weight” and went in in 10 minutes or so, then I spent another hour or more looking at clue after clue without enlightenment. Couldn’t find the definitions, couldn’t untangle the wordplay.

Even when answers seemed obvious – for example, 1ac, 12ac or especially 8dn – I couldn’t figure out the parsing. And yet once you work it out, every clue works perfectly. I finished it all eventually, and only had to check the old spelling at 15ac for the blog, but I think this is one of the most challenging and enjoyable puzzles I have had the pleasure of blogging. Thanks to the setter!

I’d also like to thank the Crossword Club technos for cleaning up the format so we can paste the clues straight into the blog with minimal tidying up.

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

Across
1 Nothing right about disgusting feeder (6)
TROUGH: O (nothing), RT (right), all reversed; then followed by UGH (disgusting).

4 Weapon criminal holds level (8)
BALANCED: LANCE in BAD.

10 Heartily sick after leave, rejecting doctor (4,1,4)
WITH A WILL: remove DR from WITH{dr}AW (leave), then ILL (sick). The definition is as in, “they set to with a will”

11 In depression, find a physician (5)
GALEN: a GLEN is a depression. Insert an A. We’ve met Galen here before – he was a Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher in the Roman Empire.

12 Gather work engrosses old politicians (5,2)
ROUND UP: O (old) “engrossed by” RUN (work), then DUP (the Democratic Unionist Party).

13 Remarkable why restaurant turns one away? (7)
NOTABLE: The restaurant couldn’t seat you if it had NO TABLE.

14 Assassin arrested by Lenin jailed (5)
NINJA: hidden answer.

15 Newly interpret old advice: great (8)
REDEFINE: REDE (archaic spelling of read, meaning advice), then FINE (great).

18 Slender cook with fat children (5,3)
SMALL FRY: SMALL (slender, as in “small chance” – odd that “fat chance” means much the same!), FRY (cook with fat).

20 Closely examining wingless bird (5)
ROBIN: {p}ROBIN{g} without its wings!

23 Bouncy castle I played with (7)
ELASTIC: (CASTLE I*). It’s a challenge to work out which end of the clue is the anagram indicator!

25 Argue with one interpretation of ninety degrees? (7)
WRANGLE: W (with), R (right), ANGLE.

26 Peg leg almost put back on Jones’s partner (5)
DOWEL: DOW (Dow Jones index), LE{g} put back.

27 Leading a chosen group, one senior member of it? (9)
ISRAELITE: I (one), SR (senior), all leading A, ELITE (chosen group).

28 Panicking disastrously as a grenade exploded (8)
GADARENE: (A GRENADE*). I didn’t know “Gadarene” as an adjective, but the meaning is obvious enough.

29 Vein runs through meat (6)
STREAK: R (runs) in STEAK.

Down
1 Very violent pull, needing energy to operate bell (8)
TOWERING: TOW (pull), E (energy), RING (operate bell). Definition as in “a towering rage”.

2 Result of a number of voters switching? (7)
OUTTURN: OUTTURN is not a word I’m familiar with, but apparently it can mean “outcome” – logically enough – and hence “result”. Make it by “switching” TURNOUT (number of voters).

3 Barrier, and two other elements of train journey (5,4)
GUARD RAIL: GUARDs and RAILs are features of a train journey.

5 Not unusual to be exhausted by a full shift (3,2,1,4,4)
ALL IN A DAY’S WORK: ALL IN (exhausted), A DAY’S WORK (a full shift).

6 Special terms in old ship announced (5)
ARGOT: sounds like Jason’s ship, the ARGO.

7 Brutish islander, defence finally failing, jailed? (7)
CALIBAN: ALIB{i} (defence, final letter failing), in the CAN (jailed!). Shakespeare.

8 One taking steps and collapsing on ground, getting up (6)
DANCER: an anagram of AND, then REC (ground) backwards (getting up). I really struggled with the parsing of this simple clue!

9 Light reading for one trip thrown in case? (7,7)
AIRPORT FICTION: anagram of FOR I TRIP, inside ACTION (case).

16 Intended to raise a tree metres higher in the sky (9)
FIRMAMENT: MEANT (intended), with the A moved to the top, all with FIR (tree), M (metres) in front (“higher”).

17 Predictable finale from Jack, born fool (8)
KNEEJERK: {Jac}K, NEE (born}, JERK (fool).

19 In revolutionary day, I sounded like a queen? (7)
MIAOWED: I inside MAO (revolutionary), then WED{nesday}. The queen is a cat.

21 Ask for poem, say, and muck it up (7)
BEGRIME: BEG for a RIME (sounds like “rhyme”).

22 Travels up to collect bill for salt (6)
SEADOG: GOES backwards (“up”) around AD (bill).

24 Worker going up the wall perhaps left during row (5)
TILER: L in TIER.
 

33 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27132 – Saturday, 01 September 2018. Don’t talk of clues – show me!”

  1. Biffed a few, parsing post submission. I knew GADARENE only from the swine in the Bible, but had forgotten what they did. Two niggles: REDE derives from the same source as ‘read’, but ‘read’ doesn’t mean ‘advice’; REDE did. And I think 21d needs to be parsed as ‘ask for a poem, say’=BEG RIME; i.e., the phrase is a homophone, not the word RIME. COD 7d.
    1. Chambers says: transitive verb. An old spelling of read retained as an archaism in the senses of ‘to counsel or advise, expound, relate’
      noun.
    2. As you say, it could be a homophone of the phrase. I think it’s equally good to separate the two words and just treat “rime” as the homophone.
    3. But BEGRIME isn’t pronounced the same as BEG RIME so it can’t be a homophone of the whole phrase.
  2. 42:07. This was a good stiff challenge and a bit of a struggle to finish off in the NE.
  3. As happens to me too often, after a major tussle and with the end in sight at last I ran out of steam over over the last remaining answer and used aids to find it. On this occasion it was BEGRIME which I doubt I would ever have thought of. My only unknown was the Roman physician at 11ac but I spotted the wordplay to guessed him correctly.

    Edited at 2018-09-08 05:06 am (UTC)

  4. 65 minutes, with LOI DANCER seen and parsed when GALEN presented himself. I vaguely remembered him from the past. COD to AIRPORT FICTION. The fallacy demonstrates that when someone has an oddball explanation for a clue answer, they may be right. I wouldn’t bet that way though. Tough, fair puzzle. Thank you B and setter.
    1. My ODE has “automatic and unthinking”. Given that it comes from the tap on the knee used to test reflexes, I think “predictable” seems fine. If a doctor did that and someone’s knee didn’t jerk, they’d be surprised…
    2. Collins has
      adjective
      made or occurring as a predictable and automatic response, without thought
  6. Glad to find Bruce and others found this one challenging, as it took me an hour and a half in a couple of sessions to get through it. Get through it I did, though. FOI 14a NINJA, LOI, with a bit of luck getting the vowels in the right order, the unknown 28a GADARENE.

    Despite my last-minute wobble, I thought this was a great puzzle, and I don’t think 90 minutes was a terrible time, all things considered!

  7. ….GADARENE swine ?

    I knew that my second attempt to complete a Saturday puzzle on a football coach would be tougher than the previous one, and so it proved. Luckily I got onto the setter’s wavelength relatively quickly, and finished just inside 20 minutes.

    DNK OUTTURN but it was obviously correct (of course, in this game nothing is truly obvious !)

    FOI TROUGH
    LOI and COD AIRPORT FICTION

    Thanks to the setter for a good and enjoyable puzzle, and to Bruce for his blog.

    Edited at 2018-09-08 08:42 am (UTC)

  8. Wondering what has happened to the TfTT “Theme?” .. The London cityscape and all that? It seems to have disappeared, on my computer anyway. I’ve been away, did I miss something?
      1. On further investigation, I find there is a tick box at the top right of each page, marked “readability.” If that box is somehow inadvertently ticked, strange things happen!
        Back to normal now, panic over..
        1. I’ve wondered about that box; but experience has taught me never to click on anything without first consulting the techie downstairs.
  9. 29 minutes, not paying any attention to the wordplay for CALIBAN, so spelling him with a third A. Curse these KNEEJERK responses!
    Embarrassingly, given who I’m married to, ISRAELITE to a long time to decipher. “How odd of God to choose the Jews”? “Not odd of God. Goyim annoy ‘im”.

    Edited at 2018-09-08 08:21 am (UTC)

    1. Haven’t heard that version. The one I know is…

      How odd
      Of God
      To Choose
      The Jews.

      Oh no
      It’s not;
      God knows
      What’s what.

      Happy new year!

  10. Knew Rede from pre-O level history and Ethelred. It wasn’t that he was in his bunk at the vital moment, it was that his advisors had failed to give him good “rede” – advice.
  11. I also found this on the toughish side, coming in at 41:08. I remember getting GARADENE wrong in a previous puzzle, so the correct spelling has now stuck in my mind. I only knew them as the swine in the bible too. Did The Tempest for O Level Eng Lit so CALIBAN went in easily. Had to construct GALEN from wordplay. LOI, BEGRIME. Thanks setter and Bruce.
  12. 23:43. What everyone else has said: quite hard, very enjoyable.
    I knew that GADARENE swine were a thing but wouldn’t have been able to tell you anything about them.
  13. Oddly I did not find this tougher than most Saturdays. They’re all tough to me. But I am getting better at solving them.
    I managed to deduce Begrime and Galen -words I did not know.
    Last in were Galen, Argot and finally Airport Fiction. It took me ages to think of Airport as the first word.
    Excellent puzzle. David

  15. 44:24 with one silly spelling mistake. Gaderene for Gadarene. Silly because all the letters were easily found from the anagram. I also had this word mixed up in my head with gabardine. “She said the man in the gadarene suit was a spy”!

    LOI. Israelite. COD Israelite.

  16. Too late to comment. I left this after a short struggle this morning and only got back to it within the last hour. I hit the buffers in the NW corner and spent about 10 minutes desperately trying to fit GREAT WALL into 3d, in want of any better idea. I got there in the end but lost track of the time. Not my finest hour (and a quarter!) Ann
  17. Another brilliant blog – many thanks, and to the many commentators. In the face of whose expertise I realise I’m in danger of asking the completely obvious but… (deep breath)… regarding 19d, why IS the queen a cat, or vice versa? I bifffed it anyhow, but I’d love to know for real! If I could squeeze another question in, it would be why AD is “bill” (22d). I’m still a bit green when it comes to some of these abbreviations. – Peter
    1. Hi Peter, Chambers has definition 5 for “queen”: adult female cat. Very convenient for setters because “queen” is so often used for ER etc.

      AD=advertisement=poster=bill etc.

      You may be too young to remember but they used to put signs on blank walls saying “Bill Posters will be prosecuted “, and the wags would add, “only if they can catch him!”.

      Edited at 2018-09-10 11:51 pm (UTC)

      1. Ah, thanks yet again. Yes, of course, the ad/bill thing. And yep, I remember that joke recurring in comics throughout my childhood! The cat thing, though, I didn’t know (I only knew that one was allowed to look at the other) so down it goes in the mental crossword dictionary. I really can’t say how grateful I am for your blogs. They’re the first thing I make for of a Saturday morning!

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