Times Cryptic No 27360 – Saturday, 25 May 2019. Oh to be in England now that spring has sprung.

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This was a relaxing solve for a Bank Holiday Saturday. I hope it left everyone ready to face the short week refreshed!

The top half went in very smoothly, then the SW corner slowed me down a little. There were no obscure classical references and no obscure flora or fauna, but what seemed an unusual number of clues using only the outside, or only the inside, of words. My only MER (minor eyebrow raise) was at the answer to 6dn. As ugly a word as you’re likely to see!

My clue of the day was 10ac, for the artistic way the answer was hidden! 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’. Deletions are in [square brackets].

In support of what I hope will become a campaign to urge the club site to use a font with serifs, so we poor solvers can tell the difference between yam and yarn for example, this blog is in Times New Roman font. What could be more appropriate?

Across
1 Overweight Florida infant burying its head (6)
FLABBY: FL (Florida), BABY (infant), with the leading B moved inside (“buried”). An inventive piece of wordplay.

4 Idiot bowled over extremely naive leader (8)
BONEHEAD: B (bowled), O (over), N[aiv]E, HEAD (leader).

10 Duck swimmer sees, partially (7)
IMMERSE: hidden answer.

11 Cutting maple branch is complicated to start with (7)
ACERBIC: ACER (maple), then B-I-C: the letters that the next three words start with.

12 Surge? This does, regularly (4)
TIDE: odd letters of ThIs DoEs.

13 Surprised Oscar, about to get into bed (10)
BEWILDERED: WILDE (Oscar, that is) and RE (about), both getting into BED.

15 Student corrected Galileo and Newton on speed of light (9)
COLLEGIAN: “corrected” (anagram) of (GALILEO N*), after C (the speed of light). N is the symbol for newton (without a capital N), the unit of force in the SI system (which includes kilograms, metres etc).

16 Hard punches ruptured spine (5)
THORN: H (hard) in TORN (ruptured).

18 Followed three females leaving far-off area of Home Counties (5)
AROSE: take the F’s out of FAR-OFF, then SE (South East, aka Home Counties).

19 Green bottle’s contents swirling in glasses (9)
LORGNETTE: “swirling” (anagram) of (GREEN OTTL*), where “bottle’s contents” says to lose the first and last letters of [b]OTTL[e].

21 Heartsick depression about cut foot (10)
DESPONDENT: DENT around SPONDE[e].

23 Skinned shins and arm? (4)
LIMB: [c]LIMB[s] meaning “shins”, as in “shins up the drainpipe”, “skinned” of outside letters.

26 Recluse just recalled sex with ecstasy (7)
EREMITE: EREM=MERE (just), “recalled”; IT (sex); E (ecstasy).

27 Chair is deep but not wide, long but not hard (7)
LOUNGER: LO[w] (deep, minus W); [h]UNGER (long, minus H).

28 Rustic couple at first laboured in silence (8)
YOKELISH: YOKE (couple), L (laboured, at first), I (in, also at first), SH (silence!).

29 Cross new wife briefly chasing gutless hubby (6)
HYBRID: H[ubb]Y (“gutless”), b[RIDE].

Down
1 Force isn’t commonly weak (5)
FAINT: F (force), AIN’T (isn’t, “commonly”).

2 I am a droll, peculiar creature (9)
ARMADILLO: “peculiar” (anagram) of (I AM A DROLL*).

3 Expose stomach, reportedly (4)
BARE: sounds like BEAR (stomach, “reportedly”).

5 Love helping in lecture (7)
ORATION: O (love), RATION (helping).

6 English blokes becoming obsolete — or improving? (10)
EMENDATING: E (English), MEN (blokes), DATING (becoming obsolete). Not a word I would ever use!

7 Kind of sleep-deprived, think back and glower (5)
EMBER: REMEMBER (think back), deprived of its REM sleep.

8 Moral decline of 1960s for example initially narked church (9)
DECADENCE: DECADE (1960s, say), N (initially Narked), CE (church).

9 Arab sheikhs finally shunning sycophants on island (6)
YEMENI: YE[s]MEN (sycophants, shunning the S at the end of sheikS); I (island).

14 Ritual involving one miracle (10)
CEREMONIAL: involving” (anagram) of (ONE MIRACLE*).

15 Whine about stock in candle shop (9)
CHANDLERY: CRY (whine) around HANDLE (stock). I didn’t realise a chandler sold candles! I only knew of ship’s chandlers.

17 Heading away, the solver set off in boat (9)
OUTRIGGER: [y]OU (the solver, “heading away”); TRIGGER (set off).

19 Lancashire’s opener is lazy, small and uncapped (7)
LIDLESS: L for Lancashire, IDLES, S for small.

20 Out-and-out lies oddly cause resentment (6)
RANKLE: RANK (out-and-out), then odd letters of LiEs.

22 Elegant ships poetically capsizing (5)
SLEEK: KEELS “capsizing”.

24 Short of things to do, maybe, old dons procreated (5)
BORED: O for old “dons” BRED (procreated).

25 Gloomily disheartened, as expected (4)
DULY: DU[l]LY, “disheartened”.

18 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27360 – Saturday, 25 May 2019. Oh to be in England now that spring has sprung.”

  1. Nice blog, and I’m with Brnchn both in thinking it was a nice stroll and in thinking that Emendating had an emetical effect. I hesitated over Chandlery thinking that it was mighty close to the same word as Candle (under the philosophy that a setter wouldn’t clue ‘pastry’ as ‘obtainable at a pastry shop’) but when I looked it up later the OED said that they’re related, but different by a couple steps of etymological evolution. Good enough for me.
  2. 15:30 except for LIMB and LOI BORED. It took me a while to get started, my FOI being ACERBIC and my 2d DESPONDENT. I have a note by 6c: ‘a word?’ Not in my lexicon, anyway. Biffed LORGNETTE, parsed post-submission. I biffed BORED, too, realizing how it worked just as I pressed ‘submit’. Liked LIMB, LOUNGER, and especially BORED.
  3. I found this enjoyable with EMBER as my COD. Thank you, Bruce, particularly for LOUNGER. In 26ac I was trying to make a word with VI (sex) reversed.
    19d struck a chord: “Lancashire’s opener is lazy, small and uncapped.”
    The Lancashire batsman, Harry Pilling, died recently and The Times carried an obituary of him. He wasn’t an opener and he wasn’t lazy but he was uncapped and he was small. At 5ft 3in he was one of the shortest, if not the shortest first-class cricketers around. There is a photo you can find of him conferring ,mid-pitch, with the giant (6ft 4in) West indian batsman, Clive Lloyd, who also played for Lancashire. Talk about Little & Large!
  5. 27 minute on this pleasant offering. LOUNGER took a bit of parsing. There were some strange words here: COLLEGIAN, YOKELISH and CHANDLERY particularly, but all were either known or biffable. In modern cricket, a batsman not wearing his helmet is described as LIDLESS. But nobody wore one in my cricketing days. At school, I got a four through fine leg off the back of my head, attempting a hook, the only time I’ve seen stars. Lancashire opener of yore, David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd, was of course lidless when, batting for England at the WACA in 1974,, he faced Jeff Thomson. The little pink plastic box he did wear a little lower down didn’t afford much protection either. An enjoyable puzzle. Thank you B and setter.

    Edited at 2019-06-01 06:19 am (UTC)

    1. You’ve made the point I forgot to make that there is a further connection with Harry Pilling in 19d in the solution, LIDLESS. Pilling would have played most, if not all, of his career without a helmet.
      And thank you for reminding me of the reason I don’t like Geoff Boycott. He stayed at home and sulked in Yorkshire while David Lloyd, Dennis Amiss et. al. faced the fury of Thomson & Lillee on that ’74/75 tour
      1. Yes, Geoffrey did tend to miss those series when the bowling was at its most hostile. I got to know Mike Denness a little when National Grid sponsored the umpires. He’s gone now, but his views of Boycott would not have got past the controls for this site.
  6. ….in their impending play-off final at Wembley, I was struck with a sense of foreboding early in this puzzle by BONEHEAD. This was the nickname afforded by the Villa fans to their tall, bald Scottish striker Andy Lochhead. In the 1971 League Cup Final, many of us blamed him for not following up his speculative 86th minute shot at 0-0, and watching Steve Perryman hook it out from under the bar. Four minutes later, Spurs had scored twice and the dream was over. Fortunately, it wasn’t an omen, and Villa will be back in the Premier League next season.

    Back to the puzzle – a straightforward but enjoyable offering, and completed without any biffing.

    FOI BONEHEAD
    LOI ACERBIC
    COD BORED
    TIME 8:26

  7. I was slowed down by not being able to add up. One miracle had 9 letters each time I counted them -until the final count. I also made ‘ard work of 24 down. I couldn’t see how “sort of things to do” = “bored”, until I stopped dropping my aitches.

    COD: THORN.

  8. 10:36. No problems with this, and a similar reaction to the funny word at 6dn.
  9. 37:09 with a few raised eyebrows and shrugs along the way. Got there and enjoyed it though. I had CHANDLERS until YOKELISH came along. Like others I thought EMENDATING a strange word. Thanks setter and Bruce.
  11. I managed this in 36 mins – not too bad for a Saturday but should have been under 30.

    FOI 1dn FAINT

    LOI 9dn YEMENI

    COD 15dn CHANDLERY

    WOD 19ac LORGNETTE

  12. Back from a trip to Cambridge today. I remember enjoying this puzzle but cannot find any notes. I got everything apart from YEMENI – just couldn’t work out the sycophants bit.
    Was pleased to get Lorgnette and was also slightly bemused by Emendating.
    Liked LIDLESS.
    Now for the football.
    David
    PS used to go the Wax Chandlers’ Hall in the City.

    Edited at 2019-06-01 06:29 pm (UTC)

  13. 20:54. I had Terrific! at the top of my paper copy. I liked DEECADENCE, LOUNGER and BORED, but COD to TIDE.
  14. Thanks setter and bruce
    Was able to get through this in just over the half hour which is about 2/3 of average time. Some really constructions along the way – was particularly fond of LOUNGER after finally working out the clever wordplay. Thought that AROSE, LORGNETTE, EMBER, LIMB and OUTRIGGER were also very good.
    Got tangled up with 28a and entered an erroneous YOKELESS in the end.
    Finished in the SE corner with LIMB, DULY and that LOUNGER the last few in.

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