Times Cryptic No 27534 – Saturday, 14 December 2019. Piano forte!

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I found this easy for a Saturday. FOI 6ac, LOI 26ac. Some answers I’ll need to check in the dictionary for this blog. The clever wordplay at 14ac made that my clue of the day. 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.

Across
1 Steal nothing in S African player’s wallet (10)
POCKETBOOK – POCKET (steal), then O in BOK. What will the setters do now the Rugby World Cup is over?
6 Spot detailed product information (4)
SPEC – the spot is a SPEC[k].
10 Criticise then serve a remedy (7)
PANACEA – PAN, ACE, A. All crossword staples, to be assembled in the order given.
11 Waste a lot of time in US prison (7)
DUNGEON – DUNG (waste), EON (age, or a lot of time, presumably a U.S. spelling of the word).
12 Kid turning, runs away from alien one’s spotted (9)
DALMATIAN – LAD turning, MA[r]TIAN. 101 Dalmatians, anyone?
13 King performing party piece (5)
RONDO – R, ON, DO. More crossword staples.
14 Leaf disease initially increasing in volume? (5)
FOLIO – now here was something original! The disease is POLIO. As the music gets louder, the initial P (piano) changes to an F (forte).
15 Person to copy European fashion in turn (4,5)
ROLE MODEL – E, MODE in ROLL.
17 Reason sailor’s back taking alcohol across isle (9)
RATIONALE – TAR ‘back’, ON (taking, a drug for example), ALE (alcohol), all ‘across’ I (island).
20 Wood dweller boring flyer, say (5)
DRYAD – a DRY and boring AD-vertisement, perhaps.
21 Muslim more cheerful suppressing hesitation (5)
SUNNI – sunnier would be more cheerful. Ignore the [ER].
23 Caught in corrupt place? It’s doubtful (9)
SCEPTICAL – (C PLACE ITS*), ‘corrupt’.
25 Fighter plane operator repeatedly an associate of thieves (3,4)
ALI BABA – Muhammed ALI (he floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee), BA BA (British Airways, twice).
26 Keen on new technology, storing right part for service (7)
INTROIT – INTO I.T., storing R. Part of a church service.
27 Was lacking in veracity, primarily? (4)
LIED – LI[v]ED. Lived=was, lacking V=very. An &lit. definition.
28 Cope abroad, maintaining car without air-conditioning fault (10)
PECCADILLO – (COPE*) ‘abroad’, ‘maintaining’ CADILL[ac].

Down
1 Made music using two tones around piano (5)
PIPED – PIED (two toned), around P. Colours, not musical tones, as I first thought.
2 Called in sick with temperature, being dimly romantic (9)
CANDLELIT – (CALLED IN*) ‘sick’, then T.
3 Suffering alcoholic stage of ultimate destruction (14)
ESCHATOLOGICAL – (ALCOHOLIC STAGE*), ‘suffering’. I gazed at the crosser letters and the anagram fodder for a long time here. Not a word I ever expect to use (again).
4 Builder’s outside, less inclined to work deprived of large heater (7)
BRAZIER – B[uilde]R, [l]AZIER.
5 It may be first spoken without much sound (7)
ORDINAL – ORAL without/outside DIN. Examples of ordinals would be ‘first’, ‘second’ or ‘ninety-ninth’!
7 Praise heathen having a change of heart (5)
PAEAN – PAgAN, with the G changed to an E.
8 Was amorous rotter eating Japanese food? (9)
CANOODLED – CAD ‘eating’ NOODLE.
9 Spontaneous bad pun — rubbish cracks made better (14)
UNPREMEDITATED – (PUN*) ‘bad’, then TAT ‘cracks’ REMEDIED.
14 Prevent break behind ring in sink (9)
FORESTALL – REST after O (ring), in FALL.
16 Where learning is based on natural illumination? (3,6)
DAY SCHOOL – cryptic definition.
18 Calm a mathematician’s mounting ecstasy (7)
ASSUAGE – hard if you haven’t heard of Carl Friedrich Gauss, no doubt.
19 Upset, this person enters bars lonesome, empty and sad (7)
ELEGIAC – I inside CAGE followed by the outside letters of LonesomE, all upside down. I always have trouble with the spelling of this word! How can the I go before the A?
22 Racket tip one breaks (5)
NOISE – I ‘breaks’ NOSE.
24 Dry bathroom walls in house for children (5)
LOTTO – LOO “walls in” TT (dry).

28 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27534 – Saturday, 14 December 2019. Piano forte!”

  1. I thought this was pretty easy. But for some reason I put in DALMATION and never noticed my typo. Some of the long words were hard to get until there were a lot of checkers.
    1. Snap! I know perfectly well how to spell it, and checked my answers but didn’t spot it. Harrumph.
      Otherwise 17:35: quite tricky.
  2. ….and was grateful to Bruce for parsing FOLIO and ELEGIAC, which I didn’t manage to do from Wednesday till now ! DNK ESCHATOLOGICAL and had to write out the anagrist in mid-solve.

    I don’t see the need for the words “for children” at 24D, and scratched my head over “in US” at 11A, though admittedly it helps the surface, as “eon” is in use in the UK.

    I think Ali Baba would consider suing for libel at being described as “an associate of thieves” !

    I saw the answer to my LOI halfway through, but didn’t trust myself, and only parsed it at the end.

    FOI POCKETBOOK
    LOI LIED
    COD DALMATIAN
    TIME 16:51

    1. The Collins definition of lotto calls it ‘a children’s game’ so perhaps the setter was following that. Other dictionaries don’t agree!
      1. Of course, Lotto is now usually a reference to the National Lottery – and children can’t play.
    2. Long time since I read the 1001 nights, but although in the story it was Ali Baba vs the 40 thieves, so far as I recall he was no saint himself .. but history belongs to the winners 🙂
    2. The final definition of “lotto” in Chambers is:

      lottˈo or (rare) lōˈto noun (pl lottˈos or lōˈtos)
      A game played by covering on a card each number drawn until a line of numbers is completed or all of the numbers are covered (also called housey-housey, now usu bingo)

      I’m not sure how housey becomes house!

      1. Further to Kevin’s comment above, ‘house’ can be an alternative to ‘ bingo’ both as the word shouted by participants on achieving the target and also, less commonly these days, as the name of the game itself. ‘Lotto’ is only the name of the game.

        Edited at 2019-12-21 05:13 am (UTC)

  4. ALI BABA is of course associated with thieves, but as Phil says. The definition for 3d is a bit misleading: eschatology is the branch of theology dealing with the ‘last things’: death, judgment, and the soul’s fate after death. Certainly not, for a Christian anyway, ‘ultimate destruction’. LOI FOLIO, thanks to 3d: I typed ESCHATALOGICAL, giving me F_L_A. And trying to fill in the two gaps took me at least 5 minutes, until I finally noticed the typo. As it was, I biffed, as I had no idea how the wordplay worked; now that Bruce has explained things, I’ll join him in making it COD. Major-General Stanley can quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus.
  5. Just as Kevin, but not quite so allegro!

    FOI 7dn PAEAN

    LOI 14ac FOLIO which completely parsed my understanding Mr. Browndog gets a Job-Well-Done sticker for explaining polio to folio.

    COD 28ac PECCADILLO from the Ikean Academy

    WOD 3dn ESCHATOLOGICAL but I promise never to use it. Scatological perhaps!

    I note that from hereon POTUS can be referred to as IMPOTUS, bless him. Thanks George!

    Edited at 2019-12-21 04:37 am (UTC)

  7. I was on a train to Preston last Saturday so I had the pleasure of this puzzle on the way up-and on some of the way back.
    My problems and hold-ups were parsing- at 14a could not see anything better than FOLIO;tried to justify DELVE early on -and carelessness -at 21a I biffed Happi somewhere near Warrington just to fill in a few squares and try and finish before Preston.
    That forestalled my completion and LOI was NOISE after SUNNI.
    An enjoyable puzzle with a couple of puzzling parsings. INTROIT unknown but gettable.
    Thanks for the explanations.
    David
  8. 25 minutes, without parsing FOLIO or LIED. COD to PECCADILLO. Like Kevin, I demurred at the definition of ESCHATOLOGICAL, pleased as I was to solve the anagram. It’s a word in common use in theological studies, with C H Dodd’s realised eschatology the subject of an essay I can recall writing. I’ve already forgotten what I wrote, but not yet understood it, which I think proves I got the gist. It’s somewhat like quantum mechanics! I learnt most of my Physics in cgs, before Tesla replaced Gauss. A decent puzzle. Thank you B and setter.

    Edited at 2019-12-21 07:46 am (UTC)

  9. An enjoyable puzzle at the easier end of the scale. I was pleased to spot the parsing of FOLIO, which had me scratching my head for quite a while. LOTTO was my last one in, as I juggled the wordplay trying to make sense of it. ESCHATOLOGICAL was constructed from checkers and wordplay, the nearest I’ve come to the word being scatological, which does not have quite the same meaning! I also raised an eyebrow at the description of Ali Baba. 31:05. Thanks setter and Bruce.
  11. My hour bell had just ten seconds left when I finally finished this one. A lot to baffle me here—no idea about “bok”, didn’t know what the US had to do with the prison, left blinking by “house for children”, so forth. Still, at least I managed to finish, even with a lot of question marks in the margin… COD 14a FOLIO WOD 8d CANOODLED.

    I did at least manage to work out the meaning of ESCHATOLOGICAL while solving from “Immanentize the eschaton!” being used frequently in Principia Discordia and The Illuminatus! Trilogy.

    Edited at 2019-12-21 11:06 am (UTC)

    1. ‘Eon’ is the American spelling of ‘aeon’, in theory, although I’m not sure many Brits use the longer version any more. I certainly don’t.
      1. Yes, easy again

        For me Eon is an electricity company .. but I don’t use the longer version either. More of an age person I suppose, as in “The wife is taking an age to get ready, as usual” ..

        How long have we had a “like” button for? I can see that coming in handy, from time to time..

        Edited at 2019-12-21 03:07 pm (UTC)

  12. 16:43. Crikey. Faster than both Phil and Keriothe? That must be a first for me. Nearly fell into the DALMATION trap, but was saved by the wordplay. Failed to parse FOLIO, thinking FOLO might be a leaf disease and “volume” the definition and never got why 27A was LIED. Thanks for explaining those two, Bruce. At least I remembered ESCHATOLOGICAL was a word, but learnt only from solving 3D what it meant. COD to ALI BABA at the time, but I think it ought to be FOLIO now.

    Edited at 2019-12-21 11:26 am (UTC)

  13. 23:55. Nice puzzle at the easier end of the spectrum for a pretty smooth solve. I also wondered about US in the dungeon clue and for children in the lotto clue but not enough to delay me for any length of time.
    1. I wonder how small the group is Anonymous? Certainly the group of regular contributors to the site is small, but I expect the number who gain great pleasure from attempting the crossword, even if not completing it , is very large, and spread widely around the world. And it doesn’t seem to do the majority any harm. Personally I find it the best part of the newspaper, unless the Gunners have won, in which case the match report provides as much pleasure.

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