Times Cryptic No 27504 – Saturday 9 November 2019. The deuce of a puzzle.

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I suspect this was a hard one. It’s hard for me to be sure because I had a very full weekend, but after looking at it several times in free intervals, I only had 9ac and 20dn.

My clue of the day was 18dn for the cunning reference to Boz! My LOI was 13ac, where I didn’t know the answer and constructed a plausible alternative. Thanks to the setter for a very enjoyable puzzle.

Clues are blue, with definitions underlined. (ABC*) means ‘anagram of ABC’. Deletions are in [square brackets]. 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 Pass to a defender, bringing some whistling? (8)
FEEDBACK – FEED to the [full]BACK. The whistling here is from the speaker system, getting feedback from the mikes.
5 City’s keeper initially not prepared to accept defeat (6)
KRAKOW – K[eeper] ‘initially’, RAW (not prepared) ‘to accept’ KO (knockout/defeat).
8 Cover painful swelling that’s got in conclusion to very rough game (5,5)
RUGBY UNION – RUG (cover), BUNION ‘that’s got’ [very]Y.
9 Chance that meeting with bachelor might be quick (4)
RISK – if you add B for bachelor, you get BRISK.
10 Am an hour in a van commuting to work (3,3,2,6)
OUR MAN IN HAVANA – ‘commution’ (AM AN HOUR IN A VAN*). The work was by Graham Greene.
11 Relative’s very modest salary (7)
GRANDPA – GRAND (very), PA[y] (‘modest’ salary). The wordplay here puzzled me a bit. GRAND doesn’t quite seem like VERY, and ‘modest’ seems a doubtful way to say ‘take the last letter off’? I await the wisdom of the comments! Thanks to vinyl1, I now get it. A grand ($1,000) p.a. is indeed a very modest salary these days.
13 Brother penning old verse one would see for a bit (7)
LORIMER – LOR (‘brother’!), ‘penning’ RIME (old verse). A lorimer made bridle parts apparently. Since I didn’t know that, I couldn’t decide between this answer and the made-up BORIMER, constructed via BR (brother) ‘penning’ O (old) and RIME (verse).
15 Journey for pleasure to take years: not practical? (7)
GADGETY – GAD (journey (v.) for pleasure). GET (take), Y (years).
18 Playmaker’s rating sustained (7)
OSBORNE – OS (rating, as in Ordinary Seaman), BORNE (sustained, as in ‘not to be borne’).
21 Benefactor, loudly derogatory, clashing with him (5,9)
FAIRY GODMOTHER – F (loudly, as a musical direction), then ‘clashing’ (DEROGATORY HIM*).
22 Composer affronted not to be fully backed (4)
ORFF – reverse (‘backed’) hidden answer (‘not to be fully’).
23 One deposited in a tall tree unfortunately put with a lot of bees? (10)
ALLITERATE – (‘unfortunately’) makes an anagram of (I A TALL TREE*). Very subtle definition! To add, ‘bee’ here is referring to the letter, not the insect, so a lot of bees could be alliteration: beaded bubbles winking at the brim.
24 Small catch: there’s no bouquet! (6)
STENCH – S (small), TENCH (a fish, so possibly a catch).
25 Most cleaned out for this medical procedure? (4,4)
SKIN TEST – SKINT would be cleaned out, so SKINTEST would be most so.

Down
1 A few chains in need of a clip? (7)
FURLONG – if your FUR is LONG, it may need a clip.
2 Hang around with prize pair regularly in the country! (9)
ENGARLAND – [p]A[i]R in ENGLAND.
3 Loudly cheer “bravo” along with pop stars (3,4)
BOY BAND – BOY said ‘loudly’ sounds like BUOY (in England at least, not in the USA, where I gather it’s pronounced BOO-EY; does anyone know why?), B for ‘bravo’, AND (with).
4 Where guests miraculously got wine, without money for wine shop (7)
CANTINA –CANA (where the wedding was),  outside (‘without’) TIN.
5 Fruit-eaters not finishing junk a kiosk flogged (9)
KINKAJOUS – (JUN- A KIOSK*) ‘flogged’.
6 Carriage? Are demanding one for transport (3,4)
AIR TAXI – AIR (carriage, as in he has a confident air/carriage), TAX (are demanding), I (one).
7 Leg in different ways visible to the audience? (7)
ONSTAGE – ON (leg side in cricket), STAGE (leg in cycling for example).
12 US stars of rock and country making ready (5,4)
PETTY CASH – Tom PETTY, Johnny CASH.
14 One in Tea Party to advance career (5,4)
MARCH HARE – MARCH (advance), HARE (career).
16 Originally a way to contain disagreement arising (2,5)
AT FIRST – A ST ‘containing’ RIFT ‘arising’.
17 Monster guitar solo maybe opening gig — not closing number (7)
GRIFFIN – RIFF, GI[g], N (number).
18 The Dickens version of Newgate or Marshalsea? (3,4)
OLD NICK – Newgate and Marshalsea were both OLD NICKS, closed over a century ago. The definition is a euphemism for the Devil. Not sure where the ‘The’ disappeared to.
19 I disapprove of that thin sort of logic (7)
BOOLEAN – BOO (I disapprove), LEAN (thin). Boolean algebra – see here.
20 Strangest film about Southern Ireland recalled (7)
EERIEST – ET ‘about’ S EIRE all ‘recalled’.

30 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27504 – Saturday 9 November 2019. The deuce of a puzzle.”

  1. ….I turned the timer ORFF as I’d hit a brick wall. I resorted to aids to get GADGETY, which led immediately to GRIFFIN – which didn’t fit in. Of course, the composer at 22A wasn’t Arne, and he wasn’t enraged. Not my finest 21 minutes.

    FOI FURLONG
    LOI ORFF
    COD BOY BAND

  2. Definitely tricky. Luckily my scant knowledge of composers includes Orff, a memorable name. Not as memorable as his long-lost homonym Hans Ohff, always pronounced on the Oz news as hands off. Petty Cash LOI – didn’t know Tom Petty was dead, and had an I for illiterate not being able to successfully count the number of Is in the fodder for alliterate: one.
    Probably biased by finishing it and no obscurities, but I enjoyed it.
  3. Somewhat too esoteric for my Australian brain. But thanks setter for the challenge. Cheers. Brian. [Brain?] Sydney.
  4. Interesting puzzle but I resorted to aids a couple of times when I got stuck..

    I missed the correct parsing of GRANDPA by assuming PA{y} and that ‘modest’ was a rather poor deletion indicator.

    Also missed the parsing of BOY sounding like [loudly] “buoy” (cheer – raise spirits). If an American said ‘BOO-EY’ I’d immediately assume a reference to Jim Bowie of knife and The Alamo fame.

    If you never heard of LORIMER, look out for ‘loriner’ which is an alternative spelling.

    NHO Tom PETTY but fortunately I knew of Norman PETTY who co-wrote most of Buddy Holly’s greatest hits, also producing and releasing many of them, which ought to qualify him as a ‘US star of rock’ even if that’s not what the setter intended.

    Edited at 2019-11-16 06:29 am (UTC)

    1. Having worked on boats in USA I can confirm they say boo-ey. Strange people (I was in Texas – they’re not like normal Americans). My parsing of grandpa had grand for very, which I totally missed as being not-quite-right, and modest as a shortening indicator. Neither of which really works; but I don’t think a grand p.a. works either. Who knows?
  5. Used aids a few times and I got RISK wrong; put RUSH. So, thanks for that one, Bruce. Thanks, also for AIR TAXI, GADGETY and ENGARLAND. That last one was my COD. We have had LORIMER before and BOOLEAN was seen only recently.
  6. …is a bad rock band with a fiddle.” 50 minutes on this with LORIMER LOI on the basis that that was what the ancestors of a former Leeds United player used to make. I did parse it later. COD has to be PETTY CASH, a concert I’d love to have seen. Watch this- it’s an absolute delight. https://youtu.be/KPIRXXqSVwU.
    I liked the surface OUR MAN IN HAVANA too, Enjoyable puzzle.Thank you B and setter.

    Edited at 2019-11-16 09:15 am (UTC)

  7. I left the timer ticking as I chewed my way through this slowly. I got all the way to 1D on my first pass through the clues before I found one I could answer. I got there in the end but without parsing BOY BAND, trying ONE DAY in VIENNA for 10A, before eventually seeing HAVANA and finishing with KRAKOW (which took forever to get to – maybe I should have taken a 6D) and LORIMER which I had to verify in the dictionary. A good work out! 59:14.
  8. I thought this was the toughest Saturday puzzle for a long time and gave up with about half done, mainly in the bottom half. Like Phil I had ARNE pencilled in at 22a which meant the GRIFFIN never appeared. And I was toying with LORIMER but was too unconfident to even write it in.
    In the top half I had OUR MAN IN HAVANA and was wondering whether KANGAROOS(it does fit) might be fruit eaters.
    As I am currently reading Pickwick Papers I was pleased to get Old Nick despite also being a bit puzzled by the THE.
    David
  9. This was a fine and meaty puzzle and took me back to ‘the good old days’.

    Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. He was also a Travelling Wibury (90s Supergroup) with Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison (who still lives on as a travelling hologram!), Jeff Lynne (ELO) and George Harrison (The Beatles) Keep up Jack!

    22ac Munich’s Carl Orff was a good old boy too! The Nazis were not too sure about his Carmina Burana (1937) mind. My WOD

    FOI 20dn EERIEST

    LOI 11ac GRANDPA

    COD 10ac OUR MAN IN HAVANA lovely story and filum

    There are some great Country Rock Bands with fiddles,
    Flying Burrito Brothers, Pure Prairie League, Byrds c’mmon John!

    Edited at 2019-11-16 09:14 am (UTC)

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  11. Be nice if I could spell GRIFFIN. At least I have the consolation that GRIFFON is a thing, and since I hold to the opinion that most small dogs are monsters, it’s only the parsing that let me down. 26 minutes and small change.
  12. I enjoyed this crossword which had a mixture of straightforward and fiendish clues. I managed to parse LORIMER but biffeded BOY BAND. Liked PETTY CASH and OUR MAN IN HAVANAH. KINKAJOUS was lurking at the periphery of my memory. BOOLEAN was a write in after its recent outing. 41:24. Thanks setter and Bruce.
    2. I took “Hang around with prize” to be the fuller definition of Engarland. Such as in “A garland of laurel was placed on the winner’s head”.

      SD

  15. Too tough for me. Ground to a halt in the NW after what had already been a painstaking solve and needed aids to kickstart my run to the finish. Time was off the scale.
  16. Thanks, Brnchn and setter. I didn’t know Kinkajous, so I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how Kangaroos fit the cryptic, or Kickapoos fit the definition and the crossing n/c.
    1. “being besieged by bees” is an example of alliteration. Could have been any other letter. This tin in the trolley is full of tees.
  18. This was a swell puzzle.
    CANA was a village (which one, exactly, is in dispute), not a “Mount.”
  20. As a child I learnt that ‘the buzzing of innumerable bees’ was an example of alliteration and perhaps that’s what the setter had in mind. I don’t know how widespread this example is.
  21. Ee that were right tough! 73 mins to finish, and that with GRIFFON instead of GRIFFIN. I went with the Rolls-Royce engine, got the guitar riff ( being a Tom Petty fan) but couldn’t parse the rest satisfactorily , so had to choose between the alternative spellings of the mythical creature. LOI feedback, for a personal nitch of 200 .

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