Times Cryptic No 27612 – Saturday, 14 March 2020. Everything you could ask for.

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This puzzle was much easier than the previous week, with ‘starter’ clues like 24dn and 26dn, followed by meatier things that covered a broad range of general knowledge, but were guessable if you didn’t know. The clue of the day was clearly 18dn, with its original format!  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].

Across
1 Copper — touch wood — to create stylish impression (3,1,4)
CUT A DASH – CU (the chemical symbol for copper), TAD (a touch), ASH (wood).
5 Steer carelessly at first in rail freight wagon (6)
BOXCAR – OX (steer), C (carelessly, at first), ‘in’ BAR (rail).
10 Race has large numbers touring African republic (8,7)
THOUSAND GUINEAS – THOUSANDS (large numbers) ‘touring’ GUINEA (the republic).
11 Stargazer in company wicked to deny moon (10)
COPERNICUS – CO[mpany], PERNIC[io]US (wicked, ‘denying’ IO).
13 Wake in Fenland? Here refused place in hospital (4)
WARD – Hereward was the Wake in question, and his Fenland base was in East Anglia. Remove HERE to leave WARD. I put this in from definition and helpers, and only remembered the historical reference while writing this.
15 Notice news boss consuming a pint’s altered (7)
ADAPTED – AD, ED (notice, news boss) is ‘consuming’ A, PT (pint).
17 Incarcerated in Swaleside, his cell burst open (7)
DEHISCE – hidden answer (‘incarcerated’). A botanical term I know only from crosswords.
18 Play has mother paroxysmal outside Globe (3,4)
THE ROOM – (MOTHER*) ‘paroxysmal’ outside O (globe). Harold Pinter’s first play.
19 Traveller of low degree witches followed regularly (3,4)
ICE FLOE – spelled out by alternate letters of ‘witches followed’. Delightful definition.
21 Iodine in decay gives dazzling display (4)
RIOT – I, the symbol for iodine, in ROT.
22 Moving entrance from child in care returning to connect (10)
DRAWBRIDGE – DRAW is ‘ward’ returning; BRIDGE is ‘connect’.
25 Hidden from public scrutiny with summer over? (5-3-7)
UNDER-THE-COUNTER – those who sum or count are summers or counters. If one is above you, you’re UNDER THE COUNTER. Ho ho.
27 Woody perhaps the one she loves? (6)
HERMAN – music, maestro, please:

Frankie and Johnny were sweethearts oh Lordy how they did love
Swore to be true to each other true as the stars above
He was HER MAN he was doing her wrong

None of that has anything to do with Woody Herman, although he was a jazzman.

28 Where mob’s run amok, alcohol found (4-4)
HOME-BREW – (WHERE MOB*), ‘run amok’.

Down
1 Monstrous order about snatching alien expert (7)
CETACEA – ET (alien), ACE (expert), ‘snatched’ by CA (about).
2 Company, they say, almost shut having imported tungsten (3)
TWO – TO (almost shut, as of a door or window), ‘importing’ W (the chemical symbol for tungsten or wolfram). Two’s company, three’s a crowd.
3 Freedom to act is restricted by tortuous doctrine (10)
DISCRETION – IS ‘restricted by’ (DOCTRINE*), ‘tortuous’.
4 Saint favoured sits on excellent holy mountain (5)
SINAI – S (saint), IN (favoured), AI (excellent).
6 Book collection about British India, passing comments (4)
OBIT – OT (book collection) ‘about’ B (British) I (India). Cunning definition.
7 Dish made with lettuce the emperor hasn’t grown? (6,5)
CAESAR SALAD – my parents used to indicate the archaic by saying, “when Adam was a boy”. Here, it’s while CAESAR’S A LAD.
8 Those left on team to hold United in second half (7)
RESIDUE – RE (on), SIDE (team) to hold U. I think ‘in second half’ is harmless filling to improve the surface of the clue.
9 Devilish ideas about horned beast in Christian emblem? (5,3)
AGNUS DEI – (IDEAS*), ‘devilishly’, holding GNU.
12 Put husband — no spring chicken — in temporary accommodation? (11)
PLACEHOLDER – PLACE (put), H (husband), OLDER (no spring chicken).
14 Her Majesty held by our Greek revolutionary communists (5,5)
KHMER ROUGE – HM (Her Majesty), ‘held by’ (OUR GREEK*), ‘revolutionary’.
16 Demo in Scots river establishes political initiative (8)
DEMARCHE – MARCH in DEE.
18 Having finished boring task? (7)
THROUGH – Wow, this is a mind bender. I think the first two words are definition (I’m through = I’m finished), and the whole clue is an alternative definition (I’ve finished boring this piece of wood = I’m through to the other side).

I debated how to categorise the clue. In an &lit, the whole clue is definition when read one way and wordplay when read another way. In a semi-&lit. clue, I believe the whole clue is wordplay and only part of it is definition. Here, half the clue is definition, and the whole clue is another more cryptic definition. Perhaps it’s a semi-demi-&lit.?

20 English bishop plugging the old argument — it may be raised (7)
EYEBROW – E (English), YE (old form of ‘the), ROW (argument), ‘plugged’ by B (bishop).
23 Somewhat mad to have scouse mate round (5)
WACKO – WACK (scouse term for mate, which I didn’t know but guessed easily enough), O (round).
24 Whale with teeth decapitated Spanish poet (4)
ORCA – the poet was [l]ORCA.
26 Sailor in mountain lake endlessly (3)
TAR – the lake is a TAR[n].

29 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27612 – Saturday, 14 March 2020. Everything you could ask for.”

  1. ….I haven’t a clue what it’s about even after reading Bruce’s parsing. It doesn’t really work for me.

    I also didn’t much care for UNDER THE COUNTER.

    I’d never heard of the Pinter play, so had a technical DNF after entering “The Worm”. If there were such a play, the clue might work if we accept that “Globe = world” and that “world” could be simply W as in various sporting abbreviations. I looked it up and altered it later.

    COD KHMER ROUGE.

  2. I agree with Phil about 18d, although I think 25ac is OK. You can bore a hole in a plank or block or whatever while not going all the way through. THOUSAND GUINEAS was a virtual DNK; I may have come across it here once. I think that if ‘second half’ were just filling, it wouldn’t be harmless, it would be otiose; but I think it can be justified since U is inside D_E, the 2d half of SIDE.
  3. Reasonably straightforward. I’d never heard of the Pinter play although I’d say I know of most of his work, nor ‘paroxysmal’, but once I’d assumed it was probably an anagrind the answer came easily enough.

    I’ve more or less given up worrying about trying to categorise clues like 18dn even when blogging. The answer was obvious once I had a checker or two in place so it didn’t seem worth the effort.

    Edited at 2020-03-21 06:02 am (UTC)

  4. 36 minutes. LOI DRAWBRIDGE. Am I the first to say MER to EYEBROW? I liked THROUGH as a clue, parsing it as you did B, but I’d already given my COD to CAESAR SALAD before coming here. I only know BOXCAR from folk music (Boxcar Willie?). It’s apparently a North American term and I don’t remember one in Thomas the Tank Engine, but there is a model available at Amazon. Sometimes an answer demands such lengthy research. It’s a while since I heard a scouser say WACK or WACKER too, but that may be because I’ve sold out. Enjoyable puzzle. Thank you B and setter.

    Edited at 2020-03-21 06:58 am (UTC)

  5. I thought this was straightforward and better than the previous week’s offering.
    1ac: How many tads in a smidge or, indeed, in a touch.
    Didn’t have any issue with THROUGH once the checkers were in but thanks for your explanation, Bruce. My favourites were COPERNICUS, UNDER-THE-COUNTER and “traveller of low degree” in 19ac. I also liked the Flanders & Swan connection in 9d…”I’m a G-nu!”
    Thank you, Bruce.

    Edited at 2020-03-21 07:33 am (UTC)

  6. I thought this was accessible and enjoyable. Solving time, a couple of hours around lunchtime. Last in were KHMER ROUGE, THROUGH and finally HERMAN when the penny finally dropped; Herbal was my best effort to that point.
    Like Phil I had considered The Worm before The Room seemed more likely.
    Was pleased to remember the question from a Liverpool geography lesson: Where’s Sarawak? Dunno Wack.
    Was supposed to be going to Preston today for the Derby game which of course is not a derby game.
    It’s a complicated world. David
  7. Boxcar, surely an Americanism which imho should be flagged as such
    Probably says something abut me that I thought of Mr Allen and also the puppet, the actor in Cheers, and Woody Guthrie before Woody Herman finally came to mind
  8. Um.. it is correctly referred to as ‘The 1,000 GUINEAS Stakes’ (for fillies) as there is also is ‘The 2,000 GUINEAS Stakes’ (for colts) ! ‘1,000 GUINEAS’ is always written. fyi both races are run over the ‘Rowley Mile’ at Newmarket. What a sight!

    18dn THROUGH was a MER too!

    But this was not up to the usual Saturday standard as I galloped over the line in 27 minutes.

    FOI 1ac CUT A DASH

    LOI 18dn THROUGH

    COD 7dn CAESAR SALAD (Mexican Chef’s invention – it should contain no chicken!!
    Bourdain v King (Hairy Biker)!

    WOD 17ac DEHISCE

    BOX CAR is American, as is the lovely CABOOSE – far better than ‘guardsvan’ eh?
    ‘Thomas and Henry’s wheels would curl!’, said the Fat Controller.

    Edited at 2020-03-21 10:00 am (UTC)

  9. I was also puzzled by 18d but shrugged and moved through it. Good job 18a was an anagram too. Worked steadily through the rest and finished at 20:22. Thanks setter and Bruce.
  10. A swift 29½ minutes on this one (when your target time is 30 minutes, that half really counts!) FOI 1a CUT A DASH LOI 23d WACKO; DNK “wack”.

    NHO Woody HERMAN; as with Jerry, several other unhelpful Woodys sprang to mind!

  11. Personally, I thought 18d was a rather charming cryptic (let’s call it) confection, with two meanings attached to it. If I have finished a boring task, I am through in two senses, am I not?
    Delighted to see ol’ Copperknickers in the grid. I clearly had no problems with this as I stopped the clock at 16.43.
    1. There’s probably a good example of zeugma to be constructed around it. I’d have a go, but I’ve come here to relax from other communal stresses and strains.
  12. 17:29. I obviously breezed through this without any difficulties, happily it was not a boring task. Took a while for the Hereward penny to drop in 13ac. Not sure I knew that particular Pinter play but got there from wp. Nho of that Woody, jazz definitely not my thing. Didn’t think too hard about quite how 18dn worked, just bunged it in. Didn’t think of wacko as particularly Scouse but I’ll trust the setter and editor. I’m just back from grocery shopping for my parents who are self-isolating. They were in dire need of some Sauvignon blanc, if only (according to my mother) to keep my father off the gin. Now for some coffee and today’s jumbo.
    1. I’m going foraging for Sauv Blanc later. Might see if there’s any food around as well.
          1. It seems to be a universal that people rush to buy tp even though there’s no shortage; Olivia reported the same in NYC, my brother reports the same in SF, and it happened here last week. Here, now that tp’s back on the shelves, at least at my local supermarkets, they’re limiting sales to one package per customer.
  13. 8:28. No problems with this one. Like z8 I think 18dn is just a cryptic definition and straight one at the same time. I wouldn’t call it an &Lit because there isn’t any wordplay.
    1. That’s how it works. It’s a prize puzzle and the solution doesn’t come out until a week later. It can’t be blogged earlier as people are still working on it and sending their solutions, so it’s under purdah.
      1. Doh! It’s the first time I’ve tried a Saturday cryptic, so never thought that I’ll have to wait a week to gain enlightenment. But did you say Prizes?? I didn’t know that either. I’m back to the dictionary trying to fill in the blanks! Thanks for your help.
  15. I liked this better this morning than I did working it last week. Maybe fighting a cold then took away my sense of humor or something.
    My error was thinking boxcar would flagged as American, so I assumed that Cowcar was the old world equivalent. And it parses, if you accept cow = steer (which it isn’t, really), then the firsts from both carelessly and at, with (mer0 r = rail.
    As above, like Z and keriothe, I read Through as a cryptic
    Thanks brunch, ed, setter

    Edited at 2020-03-21 05:01 pm (UTC)

  16. 13:13. LOI BOXCAR. I was a little puzzled at the time by THROUGH but in retrospect I’d call it a cryptic definition.
  17. 18d I read as a CD: if I have finished a boring (joke about drills, hence qm) task, I am ‘through’.

    Didn’t have any difficulty with Pinter either, and I agree with the blogger that this was an enjoyable, if not too terribly taxing, solve.

  18. Doing yesterday’s Times crossword reprint in the Oz newspaper, and therefore commenting weeks after the rest of you. We particularly liked the boring 18d clue. But we don’t like ‘ saint ‘ in 4d abbreviated to S , which isn’t standard . Surely it should be St ?
    1. S for “saint” is in Chambers at least. I can’t readily think of an English example, although French, Italian and Spanish ones abound.

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