Times Cryptic No 27468- Saturday, 28 September 2019.

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This was a bit of a tester, but I very much liked that the things I didn’t know, like the meaning of 10ac and the second bird at 21ac, were things to look up later rather than barriers to finding the answer.

My clue of the day was 5dn. Simple once you see it, but I’ve fallen for it before!

Thanks to the setter for a very enjoyable puzzle.

Clues are blue, with definitions underlined. (ABC*) means ‘anagram of ABC’.

The blog is in Times New Roman font, as part of a gentle campaign to urge the club site to use a font in which it is easier to tell one’s stem from one’s stern.

Across
1 Individual to reveal information in two ways (9)
SINGLETON – revealing information might be to SING, or to LET ON.

6 Fear losing face making this? (5)
ERROR – ‘fear’ could be [t]ERROR, ‘losing its face’.

9 Painter with lack of conveyance from the east (5)
BACON – NO CAB, written from east to west. Oddly, my first thought was ‘no sub’, and indeed BUSON was a Japanese painter!

10 Mess that is eaten by eels (9)
CONGERIES – I.E. in CONGERS. I may have seen this word before, but I had no idea what it meant!

11 Nonet perform, gathering tips from nouvelle vague (7)
INEXACT – IX might be a nonet in Roman numerals. Insert (‘gathering’) N[ouvell]E, then append ACT (perform). Very neatly constructed, I thought.

12 American newspaper almost right for English martyr (7)
LATIMER – add R to the L.A. TIME[s]. I didn’t know of Hugh Latimer.

13 Note signs of wrong and right sports kit (8,6)
LACROSSE STICKS – I wasn’t sure if lacrosse is played with sticks or rackets, but when all else fails, read the instructions! LA (note), CROSSES (signs of wrong), TICKS (… and of right).

17 Loaf goes with a fried, mixed meat dish (4,2,4,4)
PATE DE FOIE GRAS – PATE (head, or loaf), (GOES A FRIED*) ‘mixed’.

21 Big pair of birds caught (7)
TITANIC – TIT, ANI, C. An ani is a American cockatoo.

23 Mathematician needing a pause in a bar (7)
FERMATA – I couldn’t think of a mathematician shaped ****A*A, but the penny dropped when I got the F at the front: Fermat (and his last theorem) I knew, fermata I didn’t! It’s a musical instruction.

25 Army officer to place order (9)
COLLOCATE – the COL. will LOCATE it. It was a surprise to discover “collocated” could mean “ordered” rather then “together”.

26 Fiddle with drama, tinkering in part (5)
AMATI – hidden answer.

27 Give name to eyesore around Lithuania’s capital (5)
STYLE – STYE ‘around’ L[ithuania].

28 Figure following e.g. dog with the thing’s snack (5,4)
PETIT FOUR – PET (e.g. dog), IT (the thing), FOUR (figure).

Down
1 Using computers to fill in nuanced translation (8)
SUBTITLE – I.T. ‘filling in’ SUBTLE.

2 Seaside resort with hotel in bay (5)
NICHE – H (hotel) in NICE (French resort).

3 Canary maybe a great singer, with repeated practice (9)
LANZAROTE – Mario LANZA, ROTE. One of the Canary Islands.

4 Prominent Roman penning account? (7)
TACITUS – TITUS was a Roman emperor, so prominent enough. Let him ‘pen’ A/C to give the historian, also prominent, brilliantly defined by the &lit. clue.

5 Puzzle lacking positive value? (7)
NONPLUS – perhaps not negative in value, but at least NON-PLUS.

6 Turn out English and European ecologist (5)
EVERT – E (English), VERT (a French Green). One of my last in. I only stumbled on it running through the alphabet when I got to EVENT.

7 Spooner’s principal gardener is a key employee (9)
RAINMAKER – sounds like MAIN RAKER.

8 Parks maybe outside of Romney as a sign of devotion (6)
ROSARY – ROSA Parks, R[omne]Y.

14 Worker forbidding houses in French town (9)
CHANTILLY – CHILLY ‘houses’ ANT.

15 Is this a stimulant in tin, brain getting addled? (9)
INEBRIANT – E (the stimulant) in (TIN BRAIN*) ‘addled’. Another &lit. clue.

16 Playfully leap and rise where climbing’s intended (8)
ESPALIER – (LEAP RISE*) ‘playfully’. Another unknown/unremembered word.

18 Hold lens cap tight (7)
ENCLASP – (LENS CAP*) ‘tight’ i.e. drunk.

19 Funny like Bobby after work? (7)
OFFBEAT – double definition, the second humorous.

20 Provides instrument of ridicule (6)
STOCKS – and another double definition, the second archaic.

22 Killer quickly brought up before judge’s back (5)
NOOSE – SOON ‘brought up’ (since this is a down clue), then [judg]E.

24 Recalling doctor’s old mission (5)
ALAMO – À LA (Chambers offers this definition which fits nicely: in the manner of, eg à la James Joyce), then M.O. (medical officer).

21 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27468- Saturday, 28 September 2019.”

  1. This took a dogged hour and a half to bash into place. Anyone else remember the Cockburn’s advert? DNK FERMATA but did the Mathematician and his last theorem, which I seem to remember has been solved. My only concession to vegetarianism thus far has been that I won’t eat PATE DE FOIE GRAS. Joint COD to LATIMER and ROSARY. I could do with some of Latimer’s candles that will never put out in our hall light fitting. Tough puzzle. Thank you B and setter.
    2. I still eat foie gras from time to time but feel guilty about it. It can actually be produced quite humanely but it’s often hard to know exactly what you’re getting.
  2. Thank you Bruce especially for Chantilly (shades of Jerry Lee Lewis).
    I thought the level of knowledge required was pitched about right (Latimer/Fermat/Amati/Bacon) but my COD goes to INEXACT.
    17ac was also well constructed and I liked ROSARY.
      1. I didn’t realise it was written by the BB. I’ve only seen videos of Jerry Lee Lewis singing it.
  3. LANZAROTE escaped me. I suppose I’ve heard of it, probably here, but it was as near as dammit to a DNK. And the only singer I could think of was Jenny Lind. I wasted a lot of time on 19d taking ‘work’=OP. I thought of Buson, too, but I only know him as a haiku poet.
  4. …. it’s been cracked by the sun” (Traffic : RAINMAKER, from their superb album “The Low Spark of High-heeled Boys”)

    I stumbled through this puzzle like a drunk in a maze. From trying to start 9A with “RA”, to scratching my head over just how TACITUS worked, I was kept mentally alert by so many clues !

    I was able to parse everything to my satisfaction in the end, despite NHO CONGERIES, FERMATA and COLLOCATE (which needed an alpha-trawl). Nice to see Rosa Parks make an appearance.

    FOI SINGLETON
    LOI COLLOCATE
    COD LANZAROTE
    TIME 18:05

  6. Very hard work and in the end I gave up and used aids for 3 or 4 answers. Unknowns were CONGERIES and COLLOCATE which I got from wordplay.

    I still got one wrong by putting EJECT at 6dn which fitted the definition but not the wordplay.

  7. I had to catch up on a week of puzzles when I got back from the family wedding in Nerja, and what a week it was! Brain addling stuff. This one took me 66:29 and I needed aids for FERMATA. Remembered COLLOCATE with double L from a recent puzzle. Tough stuff! Thanks setter and Bruce.
  8. 27.34, with INEXACT and ALAMO entered fingers crossed rather than perfectly parsed. I couldn’t push A LA far enough to mean recalling, but thanks Bruce, that works more or less.
    RAINMAKER (come to think of it) was another where I lacked the blue sky thinking and running up the flagpole to fully understand: might be a key employee for the England squad on the wrong end of yet another Steve Smith run glut.

    Edited at 2019-10-05 09:17 am (UTC)

  9. An hour and eleven here, with “stretchy!” scrawled on my sheet. My margin also shows at least eight words/people that I didn’t know. Ninja Turtled 3d by knowing Mario Lanza from a 1980s Billy Connolly sketch, of all places…

    Loved LACROSSE STICKS (though I wasn’t helped by drawing the enumeration for 17a in the 13a lights on my grid!)

  10. I completed this in just under 30 mins – but two errors.

    Pate de fois gras and Insirbant!

    Tough but enjoyable.

    Back to the Rugby.

  11. Enjoyed all of this one, not far short of an hour. Biffed rosary with no idea who the Rosa parks was. LATIMER and FERMATA were especially good.
  13. DNF. Ho hum. With an hour nearly gone I rather hopefully threw in eject at 6dn. I was looking for an individual ecologist. Should’ve held out for an alphabet trawl but my heart wasn’t really in it by that stage. Earworm of the day for me Mario Lanza singing “Come prima”.
  14. 19:58. A tricky one but I remember really enjoying it. Working out funny words from wordplay is very satisfying.
  15. Have been to Cambridge today and visited Kettle’s Yard. I hope some of the intellectual prowess there will rub off on me as I failed miserably on this puzzle last week.
    Too many fails to mention individually, but CONGERIES was unknown and I could not see ALAMO despite having seen it.
    David

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