Times Cryptic No 27378 – Saturday, 15 June 2019. Pass the dictionary again please.

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Again a relaxing Saturday offering. Strangely, I was slow to see 1ac, easy though it was. It was actually my LOI. Still it was a great launching pad … I pencilled in the D as its last letter, and proceeded to use that to finish the top right, then clockwise round the grid. I thought the clue of the day was 23ac, for its lovely surface.

Although the wordplay was accessible, the vocabulary was rather stretching. As your selfless blogger, I’ve checked in the dictionary as needed. Perhaps this setter is submitting his credentials for the Mephisto? Thanks to him/her 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].

Across
1 Embarrassed about lines being revoked (8)
REVERSED: RED “about” VERSE. I said it was easy!

9 Isn’t without sensitivity, initially, one partner being this? (8)
INTIMATE: I[s]NT (without sensitivity, initially), I (one), MATE (partner). Literal definition.

10 Boundary stone, yellow lump of rock (6)
METEOR: METE, OR (yellow, in heraldry and crosswords). The first dictionary call. Yes, “mete” can mean “boundary”. I can see it is a sensible extension of the “measure” meaning of “mete”.

11 Ring maybe to confirm this appointment (10)
ENGAGEMENT: cryptic definition.

12 Stuff written on back of book, mostly obscure (4)
BLUR: BLUR[b].

13 Something toxic in bottle given to spy (5,5)
NERVE AGENT: courage, spy.

16 Mention train (5,2)
BRING UP: double definition. Another dictionary call confirms “to rear or educate” as a definition of “bring up” that fits “train” well enough.

17 List former police force sent around seen in Guardian (7)
CURATOR: ROTA, R.U.C., all “sent round”.

20 Officers looking after sections of prison? Idiots! (10)
BLOCKHEADS: ho ho … heading prison blocks, geddit.

22 Heartless German philosopher viewed as despicable person (4)
HEEL: HE[g]EL. Do I detect irony here?

23 The police needing to travel by air ultimately? Here’s the answer (10)
HELICOPTER: anagram (“travelling”) of (THE POLICE*), then [ai]R. Another literal definition.

25 Spoil the atmosphere, backing one up to no good (6)
IMPAIR: AIR “backing” IMP.

26 Mute individual welcomed finally into community (4,4)
TONE DOWN: ONE [welcome]D “into” TOWN. “Mute” seems stronger than “TONE DOWN” to me.

27 Odds and ends in newspaper by hard-line Tories (8)
SUNDRIES: Sun, Dries.

Down
2 Former English politician having endless fun as model (8)
EXEMPLAR: EX, E, MP, LAR[k].

3 Note cleric getting troubled using a computer? (10)
ELECTRONIC: anagram (“getting troubled”) of (NOTE CLERIC*).

4 Having sufficient confidence, as you’d expect (4,6)
SURE ENOUGH: double definition.

5 Those down under enjoy American composer, not half! (7)
DIGGERS: DIG, GERS[hwin].

6 Caveman‘s hidden in forest, I guess (4)
STIG: hidden answer. I’d never heard of this chap – obviously after my time.

7 Cluster in athletics event with yours truly coming last (6)
RACEME: RACE, ME. Dictionary please? Not sure I’m much the wiser! It says:

raceme /ra-, rə- or rā-sēmˈ, or rasˈēm/ (botany)
noun
An inflorescence in which stalked flowers are borne in acropetal succession on a main stalk or lateral branches
A similar group of spore-cases
ORIGIN: L racēmus a bunch of grapes

8 One with will to try a climbing challenge on Dartmoor? (8)
TESTATOR: TEST, A, TOR.

14 Plea to have leader brought down, man on horseback (10)
EQUESTRIAN: REQUEST with the R moved to the end, then that good fellow IAN.

15 Axes may be put down on this (5,5)
GRAPH PAPER: cryptic definition. Not, the axes aren’t in the woodpile out the back! They are the X axis and Y axis of the graph.

16 Quail, seeing chess player opening with quick move (8)
BOBWHITE:  BOB (quick move), WHITE (chess player). The dictionary confirms it’s an American quail. Didn’t know it.

18 Get excessively weary, showing obvious anger (8)
OVERTIRE: OVERT, IRE.

19 Birds wanting spoils, eating loaf of bread (7)
MARTINS: TIN in MARS. I understand “tin” or “bread” is slang for “money”, but don’t know what the loaf is doing here, but perhaps a “tin loaf” is a way of cooking bread?

21 Where to sign to be connected to network (6)
ONLINE: double definition. Sign on the dotted line, traditionally. Or, get online. On edit: as jackkt points out, perhaps “where to sign” is a hint rather than a definition. For one thing, its enumeration would be (2,4), not (6).

24 Gong drowning old wind instrument (4)
OBOE: O in OBE.

20 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27378 – Saturday, 15 June 2019. Pass the dictionary again please.”

  1. ….are here again. We only had “dries” earlier in the week, and I trust it was a “write-in” this time !

    I found this relatively straightforward, helped by knowing everything except BOBWHITE.

    FOI ENGAGEMENT
    LOI BOBWHITE
    COD BRING UP (although, like Bruce, I liked HELICOPTER)
    TIME 7:40

  2. All but one answer completed within my target 30 minutes, which is quite rare on a Saturday, but I needed another 6 minutes to come up with BOB WHITE although I had heard of the bird as the title of a song by Johnny Mercer. Other items on the edge of my GK were METE as boundary, STIG and RACEME but all went in easily enough and turned out to be correct.

    Not that it matters particularly but I don’t think 21dn qualifies as a double definition. The first part is more of a cryptic hint leading to the answer and it would require different enumeration (2,4).

    Edited at 2019-06-21 11:25 pm (UTC)

  3. The last 3 minutes devoted to METEOR. I knew METE, as in ‘metes and bounds’, but it took a while to recall it. It also took time to recall the RUC. The B’s at 16d suggested BOBOLINK, which of course didn’t work but did bring BOBWHITE to mind. Is BRING UP an Americanism? It was no problem for me, but it isn’t in ODE, although ‘upbringing’ is–which evidently derives from ‘upbring’. I liked NERVE AGENT.
  4. One can bring up children in England or Australia just as much as in the US, I’m sure. My uncertainty was whether that equates to “train” rather than “raise” for example.
    1. Aha. I misunderstood your comment about checking in the dictionary. And now I see that it is in ODE, too.
  5. 36 minutes. The only unknown was BOBWHITE but the cryptic and crossers gave it. I’d like to have synthesised HEEL from thesis and antithesis, but it came from a single stream of thought. STIG of the dump was on the box when the children were of an age, although it took a few minutes to remember that while pondering whether Clarkson had ever called his racing driver a caveman. He probably has. I biffed METEOR, and then deconstructed it to remember about metes and bounds. COD to GRAPH PAPER by a whisker from NERVE AGENT. Thank you B and setter
  6. Enjoyed this one.

    A tin is the name of a loaf of bread .. a loaf made in a tin and thus retaining that shape.
    The ODO definition of raceme is a bit more accessible than that quoted: “A flower cluster with the separate flowers attached by short equal stalks at equal distances along a central stem. The flowers at the base of the central stem develop first.”
    A foxglove would be a classic example.

  7. I enjoyed this but in the end failed to get RACEME and BOBWHITE. FOI was STIG; METEOR not parsed; and INTIMATE took a very long time- so I appear to have followed a well-worn track. David
  8. I’ve got “very straightforward” in my notes but that doesn’t explain my struggles with METEOR, BOBWHITE and STIG. I only know STIG from ‘Top Gear’. Thank you, Bruce, for explaining all three.
  9. Thank you for the explanations re RACEME as it is a word I did not know. Also NHO BOBWHITE or METE, but gettable from the wordplay. FOI STIG,LOI INTIMATE, which took me an age to see. Enjoyable puzzle though. 45 mins. Thank you setter and brnchn.
  10. 17.17, though I think I checked BOBWHITE to make sure it was a thing before submitting, not that there were many alternatives. STIG of the Dump, indeed: I take it that’s the origin.
  11. 8:09. No problems with this one. I didn’t know METE but didn’t really need to.
    STIG of the Dump featured fairly prominently in my childhood both as a book and a TV series.
    Like Kevin I got BOBWHITE partly by thinking of BOBOLINK, which was one of Jeff Pearce’s favourite birds.
  12. I was aware of STIG through Top Gear. I knew the word RACEME, but not its definition. Hopefully that is now added to the memory banks. BOBWHITE was NHO and, like z8, I checked that it existed after assembling it. METEOR was biffed. Liked GRAPH PAPER. 44:58. Thanks setter and Bruce.
  13. 28:03. Either did not know or did not remember mete but the answer to 10ac was clear enough. Didn’t know bobwhite but with the two B checking letters 16dn wasn’t too hard either. Raceme known from previous crosswords. Knew of Stig of the dump from childhood. 23ac very smooth. A pleasant solve.
  14. DNK mete as a boundary.But OR was heralded- 10ac

    FOI 1dn EXEMPLAR

    LOI 23ac HELICOPTER – my son Jack for years referred to this flying machine as a HECILOPTER!

    COD and WOD 16dn BOBWHITE

    45 minutes

  15. For once I knew all of the vocabulary which makes it so much easier. Bobwhite took a while because I was fixated on a european answer. Good fun.
  16. …..and the blockheads. 20a sparking a rhythm stick ear worm. 30mins for this fun offering. Particularly liked 23a with its smooth surface. Wondered if ‘ electricon ‘ was a thing for 3d , perhaps an early IBM machine ,having seen the anagrist , until the penny dropped.
  17. Thanks setter and bruce
    Just under the hour to complete this having breakfast whilst car being serviced. Like the blogger, didn’t untangle the simples clue at 1a until quite late in the piece. Hadn’t seen STIG, METE or the BOBWHITE before, but all easy enough to work out and check.
    As it turns out STIG was the first one in and the other two were the last two.

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