Times Cryptic No 27432 – Saturday 17 August 2019. What’s for dinner?

35 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27432 – Saturday 17 August 2019. What’s for dinner?”

1. I had the same wrestle with A La Carre and since it was my FOI I was leery of pretty much all else. I translated bullet as round (of ammunition). I liked the anagram at 15d. Thank brnchn, and ditto setter.

   Edited at 2019-08-23 11:37 pm (UTC)

   1. Much better, thanks!! Duly changed.
2. This was a tough one (and today’s was tougher). I never did figure out A LA CARTE, and I wondered about 7d. LOI ROCHDALE of all things. COD perhaps to 11ac.
3. My LOI was PROFIT, and I still only understand the advantage part of it and don’t see where spin comes in. I spent a lot of time trying to figure it out. Only saw the literal bit of A LA CARTE. Enjoyed the puzzle and saw it off in 35:29. Thanks setter and Bruce.
   1. I had PR as spin and “of it” as the possessive “its”.
      1. Thanks S_B that makes sense:-)
4. My total time of 46:28 doesn’t take into account the fact that this was very much a puzzle of two halves spread over virtually the entire week. The first session was about half an hour but I got stuck and had a number of other things to attend to so I paused the puzzle and set it aside. Returned to it last night and polished it off over another quarter of an hour. I generally found it quite tricky and a good challenge. Never did parse the disheartened preen in 10ac.
5. Was pleased to parse PR, OF IT correctly eventually.

   14dn is an indirect anagram where we have to deduce part of the anagrist from wordplay (one = I). Naughty!

   Edited at 2019-08-24 05:15 am (UTC)

   1. That’s quite usual for The Times. Not really indirect, one = I.
      1. I beg to differ. It’s not unheard of in the Mon-Sat Times, but very rare, and that’s why I drew attention to it.

         ‘One / I’ crops up almost every day of course, so that’s no problem, but my (I think, the) definition of an indirect anagram is where the letters forming the anagrist are not all contained within the clue and some of them have to be deduced by other means.

         Edited at 2019-08-24 10:00 am (UTC)

         1. Still, we find the odd (usually single) letter indication mixed in with what jackkt might prefer to call ‘pure’ anagrist often enough in The Times. However I do not think, as I’m sure you’d agree, that we would see a synonym for another full word that is to be anagrammed. Heinous>

            So for me, the use of e.g. one = I in anags is not indirect in any real sense, and thus I don’t choke on my cornflakes.

            1. MER would cover my reaction (see glossary if needs be) so no cornflakes were choked upon.
6. ….in ROCHDALE. I’m also surprised that it was my LOI. At least Kevin has distance to point the blame at – it’s only 20 miles away from me !

   I never managed to parse A LA CARTE (thanks Bruce), and I only cracked PROFIT later.

   Football fans may share my view that the clue at 16D blames Crystal Palace for the travails of Christian Benteke.

   FOI BIAS
   LOI ROCHDALE
   COD LEONARDO (raised a chuckle !)
   TIME 11:18

7. Thank you Bruce, particularly for A LA CARTE, HONORARIUM and PROFIT. I doubt I would ever have been able to parse the former. It does remind me of a long ago joke told by a long ago work colleague. He said his coalman had called and asked him if he wanted his delivery a la carte or cul de sac!
   My COD was INFERNO.
   1. …which reminds me of the old Glaswegian sying… “In Edinburgh sex is what the coal comes in”.
      1. 😀😀😀
   2. Sounds like one of Proust’s characters, who was always mangling the French language.
8. In questions involving “thou” the “thou” is often omitted. Where we say “Are you wearing a tie?” our ancestors said “Art wearing a tie?”
9. I knocked this of in 22 minutes – my SNITCH time – but I’m pretty sure the nicety of PROFIT and the (possible) naughtiness of HONORARIUM passed me by in the process. PRE-NUP my last in, an unlikely-looking three crossing letters to fill. A self-inflicted problem for the setter, or just a desire to get that version of contract in?
   Thanks B for good and honest commentary.
10. Well, ‘art lecturer’ was TEA CHEST as I recall, in another place a long time ago.

    Anyone else prefer ‘disput-ING’ at 20 across?

    1. guess not
11. In questions involving “thou” the “thou” is often omitted. Where we say “Are you wearing a tie?” our ancestors said “Art wearing a tie?”
12. Many blanks in this one, very hard. I had A LA CARTE early, but no idea about the parsing.
    David
13. 27 mins or so to do all but Pre-Nup. I couldn’t see it at all – so I reverted to logic and applied my three stage filter.

    1. Vowel filter.
    The 2nd half could only be Nap, Nep, Nip, Nop, Nup or Nyp.

    2. Known words filter.
    Only Nap and Nip got through the 2nd stage.

    3. Enough of this filter.
    I biffed, (bunged in from desperation), Pro-Nip.

14. 23:48. Slightly on the tricky side I thought but no real problems, though I failed to parse PROFIT. My biggest difficulty was self-inflicted as I pencilled in “MATTER” at the end of 13A (so dull) and TAX at the start of 15D until HONORARIUM came to my rescue. The girl and man clues BRIDGET and TIMIDEST my last 2 in. OHMS my favourite. Thanks Bruce and setter.
15. 12:08, so no real problems with this one although I took me a while post-solve to parse A LA CARTE.
    I didn’t notice the indirect anagram at 14dn and now I’m wondering if this is unusual in the Times or not.
    1. I don’t think it is that uncommon – but we might not often notice it unless there is a hitch or a second think needed..
       P-i-L
       1. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it fairly recently, but I do sometimes do the graun so it could have been in there. I’ll be on the lookout for it now.
    2. I think your ‘unusual’ covers it and I had already said ‘very rare’ in one of my postings above so I stand by it being worthy of comment and a MER based on my experience of contributing here for nearly 12 years in which time I have written not far off 600 blogs.

       However I have established that it’s perfectly allowable as Tim Moorey gives an example in his ‘How to Master the Times Crossword’ in which ‘none’ becomes ‘O’ as part of the anagrist. So on reflection perhaps in my original comment I might have written ‘tricky’ or ‘cheeky’ rather than ‘naughty’, if the latter suggests the setter was breaking one of the Times rules or conventions.

       1. ‘Allowable’ is a matter of opinion, of course, and you certainly see it in other puzzles. I did think the Times has an editorial policy against indirect anagrams but I may have made that up!
          1. That’s been my understanding too, and Tim writes in his book: “Some crosswords require you to find an interim solution and then make an anagram of that. Called an indirect anagram, the practice is not used in The Times”.

             That seems pretty clear, but he then muddies the waters by mentioning exceptions such as the ‘none/O’ substitution (from which I take today’s ‘one/I’ as a direct corollary) and examples ‘where there is a unique interim solution’ and gives the example ‘pi’s predecessor’ clueing the anagrist OMICRON which becomes the answer MORONIC.

             The book was published in 2007 and presumably was in line with Times practices then, but things may have changed in the meantime.

          2. Oh, this is interesting, I just found this* blogged by you in 2015 in which you discuss the topic with reference to the very same OMICRON / MORONIC example. And in a puzzle set my Tim Moorey! The clue quoted in his book was: It’s crazy changing what comes before pi (7)

             *https://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/1297759.html

             1. Ha! My memory is so terrible. This was a Sunday puzzle though, where the rules are always slightly different.
16. About an hour and a quarter, with A LA CARTE and PROFIT unparsed – at least I wasn’t alone. I liked ALHAMBRA and LEONARDO.

    Does IMPRUDENCE = ‘daring’? Well, I suppose so.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

17. I managed to parse 9ac A LA CARTE but not with much conviction. I did not have a problem with 14dn HONORARIUM

    FOI 8dn LEONARDO

    LOI 10ac PRE-NUP (nasty things)

    COD & WOD RAGAMUFFIN

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