Times Cryptic No 27198 – Saturday, 17 November 2018. He did it his way.

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I found lots to like in this rather challenging puzzle. 26ac caused me most grief, but my clue of the day was 16ac. I’ve always been a fan of Frank! Thanks to the setter for a very enjoyable puzzle.

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 [square brackets].

Across
1 Pole currently selected to play for his country provided with white top (10)
SNOWCAPPED: S (South pole) / NOW (currently) / CAPPED (selected). An easy one to start.

6 Stagger round the bend in retreat (4)
STUN: NUTS backwards. And an escapee from the Quick Crossword.

9 River engulfing marshland in the region of the Backs (7)
DEFENCE: DEE is the river, around FEN and C (circa = in the region of). Getting trickier. Nicely disguised definition. On edit: I discovered reading the comments that this clue is much tricker than I realised in my ignorance. Have a look!

10 Break before going up in space endlessly long (3,4)
GAP YEAR: GAP (space) / YEAR[n] (long, endlessly). Another cunning definition – it looks as “up” goes with the wordplay, where in fact it relates to going to university.

12 Kind old man returned theatre member’s programme (5,5)
ORDER PAPER: ORDER (kind) / PA / REP backwards. More cunning – parliamentary members, not theatre members!

13 Nephew Esau accommodating Jacob? Not he! (3)
EWE: hidden answer, representing a female sheep (Jacob being a breed of sheep).

15 Thus far, it’s the lonely heart’s desire? (2,4)
TO DATE: double definition, the second jocular.

16 Happily, the reader is embraced by a girl, and not Frank (8)
JOYOUSLY: YOU (the reader) embraced by JO (the girl) and SLY (not frank, with a small F). By convention, setters are allowed to use capital letters for disguise.

18 Returning American’s fizzy drink, company goes for French fruit (8)
AVOCADOS: SODA (fizzy drink) / CO (company) / VA (“goes”, in French). All of that backwards (i.e. “returning”).

20 A source of pressure, as in exam? (1-5)
G-FORCE: FOR (as), in GCE (exam).

23 Leaves career unfulfilled (3)
TEA: TEA[r], “unfulfilled”. Well disguised definition, again.

24 Fake IOU’s my undoing, in my opinion (2,3,3,2)
IF YOU ASK ME: (FAKE IOUS MY*).

26 Caught on tape removing copy, reprimanded (7)
TWIGGED: T[ape], removing APE (“copy”), then WIGGED (reprimanded).

I had great trouble with this clue! On my first pass I confidently wrote in TRAPPED = T[ape] + RAPPED, meaning “caught”. Then 19dn had an “I”, not an “A”. Oh well … I suppose TRIPPED works pretty much equally well! Only when I decided 3dn couldn’t possibly end “I-P” did I realise the definition must be “caught on”! Well done, setter.

27 Foot extended about an inch for pattern (7)
PAISLEY: PAY (foot, the bill for example) around (about) ISLE (an inch).

28 When to follow Mass times, reflecting? (4)
XMAS: AS (when) following M (mass) and X (times), the last two letters reversed (reflecting).

29 Ancient flyer, a sort of ad, torn open (10)
PTERANODON: (AD TORN OPEN*).

Down
1 It’s potentially the right attitude (4)
SIDE: double definition.

2 Departs after start before getting volunteered (7)
OFFERED: OFF (start) / ERE (before), and after that, D (departs).

3 Strengthening argument against currency valuation (13)
CONCENTRATING: ON (argument against) / CENT (currency) / RATING (valuation).

4 US pupil, before very quiet, beginning to yell (6)
PREPPY: PRE (before) / PP (very quiet) / Y[ell].

5 Sailor coming in encourages one employed with soldiers? (3,5)
EGG SPOON: P.O. (petty officer) coming in EGGS ON. The soldiers are strips of toast to go with the boiled egg.

7 Not any old American hero (7)
THESEUS: not THOSE U.S., for heaven’s sake, THESE U.S.. He was, I discover, the legendary founder of Athens.

8 Concern is growing for these recklessly merry English nuns (10)
NURSEYMEN: (MERRY E NUNS*). Another cunning definition.

11 Thoughtlessly mean corruption, leading to rage? (6-7)
PARROT-FASHION: PAR (mean) / ROT (corruption) / FASHION (rage).

14 Bargain that’s spoiled by hidden tariff (7,3)
STEALTH TAX: STEAL (bargain) / (THAT’S*) / X (by).

17 Sub maybe busy, with rising sea level unknown (4-4)
COPY-EDIT: COP (busy, as in slang for policeman) / Y (unknown) / TIDE (sea level) reversed (rising).

19 Something that’s blown article inside damaged aircon (7)
OCARINA: A (article) inside (AIRCON*).

21 Was onto liquor, then did milk (7)
RUMBLED: RUM (liquor) / BLED (did milk, as in bled him dry).

22 One starting top (6)
JUMPER: double definition.

25 He has no right to get upset (4)
RYAN: NAY (no) / R (right) all reversed (upset).

18 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27198 – Saturday, 17 November 2018. He did it his way.”

  1. ….I TWIGGED straight away, but it was only a little victory in the scale of things.

    DNK PTERANODON but it seemed the most likely solution to the anagrind. Thanks, Bruce, for parsing JOYOUSLY, where “not Frank = sly” passed me by completely.

    FOI SNOWCAPPED
    COD STEALTH TAX – also enjoyed PAISLEY, NURSERYMEN, and PARROT FASHION.

    DIDN’T enjoy AVOCADOS, which would have bern LOI had I not given up and resorted to aids. I was too busy playing with cola rather than soda I’m afraid.

  2. Best for me to draw a veil over this one. A typo at 8d saw me enter NURSERYMET and a total failure to see what was going on at 12a resulted in an unparsed GREEN PAPER. Seeing as how it’s now after 1am, I think I’ll go and lie down in a darkened room! Thanks setter and Bruce. Oh, this disaster took 48:58.
  3. Another veil for me, please: GREEN PAPER here, too (DNK ORDER PAPER, which is no excuse); and DEFENSE–I’m constantly confusing the UK and US spellings, but of course careful parsing would have saved me. But only 47:18 to accomplish all this.
    1. I’ve no confusion over the UK/US spellings but I still managed to pick the wrong one here actually because of my attention to the parsing!

      All my instincts were to put DEFENCE but I parsed it as: DEE (river) containing [engulfing] FENS (marshland), with ‘region of the Backs’ as the definition. I was then all ready to complain that the answer was an unsignalled US alternative spelling. By way of further explanation I would mention The Fens (plural) is an area of Eastern England which begins on the outskirts of Cambridge, the city where The Backs are to be found so it seems I was sucked in by associations in the surface reading, which may well have been the setter’s intention when the put the capital B.

      More generally the puzzle was very enjoyable but I ran out steam on the ‘Ancient flyer’ anagram and looked it up. This appears to be the first appearance of PTERANODON in a Times puzzle, at least since TftT began.

      Edited at 2018-11-24 06:42 am (UTC)

      1. FENS inside DEE was my parsing, too; I just ignored ‘in the region of’. (I was vaguely aware of The Fens, but didn’t know where they were; The Backs I knew, from spending a Lent Term at Cambridge many years ago, and walking through them daily from college to office.) I once was very clear as to the S/C distinction, but that was before I started doing these puzzles. I was also clear that -IZE was US, and -ISE UK; which it evidently no longer is; or iz.
        COD to NURSERYMEN, by the way.
        1. I tended to think along the same lines as you with -ISE = UK and -IZE = US but I think it’s true to say the Oxford dictionaries always favour -IZE and in some cases do not even recognise -ISE as an alternative.
      2. Snap! Same 1 letter wrong in 9a for the same reason as you. I also, like our blogger had TRAPPED for 26a to start with and SO LONG instead of TO DATE for 15a until the downs came to my rescue. Like Kevin and John, I nearly had GREEN PAPER as an error too, but couldn’t see how GREEN could be kind. All in all rather tricky, but also rather enjoyable with several clever definitions. Fun to find a PTERANODON. I liked RUMBLED, TEA and JOYOUSLY but COD to PARROT FASHION. 32:12… with 1 wrong. Grr.
        1. Among my marginal notes on my hard copy, I have “12ac: kind=green?” So why did I put it in, you may ask; I’d rather you didn’t.
  4. 83m 49s and still one error. I never did catch on to 25d as being RYAN. Surprisingly, I twigged twigged quite quickly but, from my notes, I see I had queries on 9 clues in total so no wonder I took so long.
  5. I could have done with a ball of thread to find my way round this beast. I was well over the hour. COD to NURSERYMEN, but liked G-FORCE too. LOI RYAN. The perils of having your children privately educated – I thought it was spelt GAP YAH. Thank you B and setter.
  6. Following the Campari principle, I had Coca Cola ( American’s fizzy drink company) as the basis of my answer to 18a, my LOI. Guided by “Returning” I put on ALOCACOC which happens to fit perfectly and is a little known French fruit(?). Not an episcopal moment.
    Otherwise all correct with Ryan unparsed.
    I liked Gap Year and Stealth Tax.
    David
  7. OK, both DEFENSE and GREEN PAPER. I interpreted GREEN as kind to the environment, which didn’t hurt too much, and it’s undeniable that the Fens is/are marshland. Well laid traps, or rather careless, ambiguous cluing? Hm.
  8. My print-out has a full-stop rather than a comma after “ad” in 29a. I was expecting an anagram but this made me think it was something more subtle connected with the punctuation. A needless waste of time. I’m another who dithered about DEFENCE v DEFENSE. I couldn’t account for the C so went for the S spelling which I could at least parse. (FENS in DEE). 45 minutes Ann
  9. DNF. Defense, check. Green paper, check. Clever stuff which took forever to get as far as I did. Anyone else consider calvados at 18ac for longer than was realistic?
  10. I had DEFENSE at 9a – with the FENS (marshland) inside the river DEE and I took the “in the region of” to be part of the literal because the Backs (full and centre) play in (the region of) defense on the footer pitch – at least in the American Soccer League they do. Bah humbug. At least HFC had a win today at last – hurrah.
  11. Failed like so many others with Defense and Green Paper! But happy not to be held up by 5d ; the toasted variety of soldiers now springs to mind well before the uniformed green kind. 46 mins with these two errors.
  12. 25d He has no right to get upset (4)
    RYAN: NAY (no) / R (right) all reversed (upset).

    I already had the last letter: _ _ _ N when I solved this clue. Unfortunately my solution was not RYAN, but MOAN. This led to difficulty with 27a.

    So, how did I get MOAN? Easy…
    He: MAN
    has: “has inserted”
    no right: O, the right-hand letter of “no”
    to get upset: to MOAN

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