Times Cryptic No 27636 – Saturday, 11 April 2020. Worshippers of obscure gods.

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This puzzle felt somewhat harder than the average Saturday puzzle, with a special mention for obscure vocabulary and neologisms.

I didn’t know 1ac, although the meaning is clear, nor 9ac or 13ac, and I felt a sense of déjà vu about 1dn – I’m pretty sure it’s come up previously, and I didn’t know it then either. As for the godliness of 14ac, my response is: get thee to the Mephisto – go!

Otherwise, a good and fair workout for Easter Saturday. FOI 24dn, LOI 18ac with the necessary correction to 8dn as explained below. Favourite, 8dn for me. Thanks to the setter for an enjoyable puzzle.

Notes for newcomers: The Times offers prizes for Saturday Cryptic Crosswords. This blog is posted a week later, after the competition closes. So, please don’t comment here on the current Saturday Cryptic.

Clues are blue, with definitions underlined. (ABC*) means ‘anagram of ABC’. Deletions are in [square brackets].

Across
1 Second British auto company backed unknown form of government (9)
MOBOCRACY – MO | B | CAR CO, written backwards | Y. That comes from: second | British | auto company | unknown.
6 Obscure book — and what might sell it (5)
BLURB – BLUR | B.
9 Hebridean isle has little time for magistrate (5)
JURAT – JURA | T = isle | time. I didn’t know either Jura (an island in the Inner Hebrides), or jurats (who Wikipedia says are lay people in Guernsey and Jersey who act as judges of fact rather than law, though they preside over land conveyances and liquor licensing).
10 Royals are working the whole calendar (5,4)
SOLAR YEAR – anagram (‘working’: ROYALS ARE*).
11 Caribou bit him — son left writhing in part of Canada (7,8)
BRITISH COLUMBIA – anagram (‘writhing’: CARIBOU BIT HIM S L*).
13 What may protect legs in ballet leap without a catcher (8)
JEANETTE – JETÉ outside (‘without’) A NET. It’s a fabric.
14 Devotion to god and king — habit’s developed about that (6)
BHAKTI – anagram (‘developed’: HABIT*) about K. BHAKTI looked marginally more plausible than THAKBI, so I went with that. No doubt some enjoy these obscure words, but my overall reaction to cluing it as an anagram is Bah! Humbug!
16 Second cloth for baby, quick (6)
SNAPPY – S | NAPPY.
18 Fast uncovered members’ odd ways (5,3)
EMBER DAY – discard the first and last letters from mEMBERs oDd wAYs. I made this harder by guessing ‘barbarism’ at 8dn, but when I eventually saw how this clue worked, I was finally able to correct that. I didn’t know of ember days.
21 Severe corrective instruments keeping tots from wine (5,5,5)
SHORT SHARP SHOCK – HARPS keeping SHORTS from HOCK.
23 Naughty child, bad-mannered not heartlessly reckless (9)
IMPRUDENT – IMP | RUDE | N{o}T.
25 Antelope US university nearly introduced to North America (5)
NYALA – YAL{e} introduced to N.A.
26 Vessel taking girl a kilometre (5)
KAYAK – KAY | A | K.
27 Bird concealing fresh egg in wall? (9)
STONEWORK – NEW O (egg) in STORK.

Down
1 100 head of Jerseys in herd — giver of a modest income (5)
MCJOB – C (100) J{ersey} in MOB. Not a word in use in my parts.
2 Biafran souk constructed somewhere in West Africa (7,4)
BURKINA FASO – anagram (‘constructed’: BIAFRAN SOUK*). And a very clever anagram, too.
3 Oddly crafty Liberal US president similar to Garfield, perhaps (7)
CATLIKE – C-A-T are the odd letters of ‘crafty’, L for Liberal, IKE for US President Eisenhower. If the setter hoped we would think of James Garfield (also a US President), I suspect those days are gone. I for one immediately thought of Garfield the cat.
4 Scoffed about established male art lover? (8)
AESTHETE – EST. and HE in ATE.
5 Cowardly to express sudden pain? (6)
YELLOW – YELL … OW!
6 Branch opened up by men in part of London (7)
BOROUGH – OR in BOUGH.
7 Benefit of American English (3)
USE – U.S., E.
8 Savagery’s the thing in part of North Africa (9)
BARBARITY – IT (the thing) in BARBARY. I originally bashed in BARBARISM without thinking, or justification. 18ac eventually set me right.
12 Kept too bad a cooked snack (5,6)
BAKED POTATO – anagram (‘cooked’: KEPT TOO BAD A*).
13 What may fumigate small parasite after girl’s sulphur (4,5)
JOSS STICK – JO’S | S | S | TICK = girl’s | sulphur | small | parasite. I was aware that joss sticks exist, but had no idea what they are.
15 Drink to be declined for first two persons, not drinking round (8)
AMARETTO – AM | ARE | TT |  O. AM, ARE (the verb ‘to be’, in its first and second person forms), TT (teetotal, or ‘not drinking’), O (round). The Aussies amongst us can now burst into a rousing chorus of: I am, you are, we are Australian!
17 What comes of books breaking spine? (3,4)
POT LUCK – OT breaking PLUCK.
19 Character of German city church (7)
ESSENCE – ESSEN | C.E.
20 Wife leans over car (6)
WHEELS – W | HEELS.
22 Bent German sausage? Not half (5)
KNACK – KNACKwurst, ya? Our readers have a bent for crosswords.
24 Odd characters in party are very intrusive (3)
PRY – from PaRtY.

67 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27636 – Saturday, 11 April 2020. Worshippers of obscure gods.”

  1. A bunch of DNKs: JURAT, JEANETTE, BHAKTI, EMBER DAY, SHORT SHARP SHOCK (which I knew from ‘The Mikado’, but didn’t know had become a phrase on its own: To sit in sullen silence in a dull, dark dock/ In a pestilential prison with a life-long lock/ Awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp shock / From a cheap and chippy chopper on a big black block). I don’t think I gave THAKBI a thought; BH-words are common enough in Hindi and Sanskrit. Garfield is the least CATLIKE cat in cartoonland. I can’t say I’ve ever thought of having a BAKED POTATO for a snack.

    Edited at 2020-04-18 03:22 am (UTC)

    1. I will see your first four DNKs, Kevin , and raise you NYALA and MCJOB, all of which have exclamation marks after them in my notes.
      As for SHORT SHARP SHOCK, I think (but I’m not certain) that “a voice” says those words on the “Dark Side of the Moon” album.
      1. Gerry Rafferty’s song “Garden of England” ends with Willie Whitelaw’s “short sharp shock” speech. He was announcing the new detention centres that were going to subject young offenders to an army-style regime in a bid to make them better citizens. I don’t remember it being very successful.
        1. I did like Gerry Rafferty. The album “City to City” was the first cassette I ever bought. I thought “Whatever’s written in your heart” was the stand-out track but, of course it didn’t have Raphael Ravenscroft on saxophone.
          1. In 1972 I had a drink (what else!?) with Gerry Rafferty in the Barley Mow in Dorset Street – he wanted me to design an album cover for his second album – he’d liked the one I’d done for ‘Flash’ on the Sovereign label – Storm Thorgerson had put him in touch. But I wasn’t particularly interested. At closing time we strolled up Baker Street and descended into the Underground Station, and there busking sax in the subway was Raf Ravenscroft. Gerry knew him and they had a chat as I headed off for KingsX. Six years later ‘City to City’ was released – I was delighted the Baker Street drink worked out for them. I went on to work with Pink Floyd (Animals), Diana Ross, The Shadows (20 Golden Greats) Glen Campbell (Fluck & Law) and The Hollies all for EMI. Oh!and 10cc and Storm.
              1. That’s just a taste – but you should not recognise any of them as your interest in music stopped in 1970?! OK Hank B. Marvin was around a bit earlier – we once picked up an award together and I saw him in concert with Cliff, Blackpool c.1362.
    2. I’m no G&S aficionado so I only knew SHORT SHARP SHOCK from the Thatcher government’s notorious policy. I did though think of ‘CATLIKE tread’, because my daughter was in a production of The Pirates of Penzance at school. I wonder if there are any other references in here?
        1. Patience Act 1.18 ‘Heart broken at my Patience’s barbarity’

          In 1881 a greetings card by ‘Bab’ (W.S. Gilbert) featured an image entitled ‘The Aesthete’.

          Nelson Eddy moved with his mom to Philly in 1921 He first met Miss Jeanette MacDonald backstage in 1922 when he played the lead in ‘Iolanthe’ for the Savoy Company of Philadelphia. In 1930 he was their lead in ‘Patience’.
          Their friendship later blossomed in Hollywood and they had planned to be wed, but sadly Louis B Meyer intervened

          Phoebe, in ‘The Yeomen of the Guard mentions’ ‘yellow, bilious jaundiced jealousy.’ when green was all the rage!

          Edited at 2020-04-18 01:24 pm (UTC)

  2. Same unknowns, with the exception of Jura known from whisky, and SHORT SHARP SHOCK from I think Dark Side of the Moon by Floyd, P. Took all the crossers to remember it, though. Baked potatoes are a common enough snack in Oz, sold with choice of toppings from kiosks at football grounds for instance.
    Joss sticks the first of two clues this past week with 3 successive Ss in the grid.
    Found this a mix of the ridiculously easy and the ridiculously obscure.
    1. SHORT SHARP SHOCK….I didn’t see your comment about Pink Floyd until I had said exactly that to Kevin G.
  3. just over 30 mins for me. Don’t remember any trouble apart from the ridiculous BHAKTI where I made the same guess that turned out to be correct. Even in Mephisto it probably wouldn’t be an anagram (or at least would have a lot more crossers).
  4. Same bunch of unknowns here, apart from SHORT SHARP SHOCK which I think was a government policy at one time for first offenders. I worked JURAT out then looked it up to see if it existed. Same with BHAKTI. JEANETTE only known to me as the name of an Ex. MCJOB was my LOI, eventually remembered from a previous puzzle. 31:25. Thanks setter and Bruce.
  5. Unknowns JURAT, JEANETTE and BHAKTI all arrived at from wordplay. Pleased to remember MCJOB from a previous struggle with it.

    I missed the wordplay at 15ac overthinking it by imagining it involved the Latin amo amare etc. Then I confused the liqueur with the cherub and arrived at AMORETTO.

    I didn’t get round to counting them up but I noted on my copy that there seemed to be a lot of Bs and Ks and Ys in the grid.

    Edited at 2020-04-18 04:51 am (UTC)

  6. This setter seems to have swallowed a dictionary … nho jurat or of jeanette – Georgette Heyer seems to have let me down on that one, for once.
    Judith Durham, what a voice!
  7. Interesting your FOI was 24d, Bruce. I can’t remember if it was mine but I often find the SW corner a good place to start, especially the extreme LH side down clue.

    I will echo most of Kevin G’s DNKs: JURAT, JEANETTE, BHAKTI and EMBER DAY but will add NYALA and MCJOB.
    As I’ve already said to Kevin and to Isla3, “somebody” says SHORT SHARP SHOCK on “Dark Side of the Moon”.
    Thanks, Bruce, for explaining AMARETTO.

  8. ….or a setter’s trap ? All those J’s and K’s had me expecting QZX somewhere, especially with so many obscure words popping up. My only actual DNK’s were JEANETTE and BHAKTI, but I worked them out OK to complete the top half in 9 minutes. The bottom half was trickier, not helped by my pangram suspicion and a fruitless attempt to justify “cock” as the bird at 27A.

    I eventually reached the 18A/15D intersection after 14 minutes, and finally finished by biffing my LOI. Once I parsed it, it was also my COD, which up to that point had been CATLIKE.

    FOI BLURB
    LOI/COD AMARETTO
    TIME 15:15

    BOROUGH set me to thinking of the Championship, as I gravitate to the excellent watering holes of Borough Market after the George. I wonder if we shall have one this year ? Damn this virus !

  9. 47 minutes, held up by JEANETTE and BHAKTI, both needing all crossers to construct. COD to MCJOB, although I liked AMARETTO too. I wouldn’t personally see a BAKED POTATO as a snack as it takes too long to cook, and I was never likely to go into a Spudulike with sandwich and cake shops available. Somewhat London-centric to clue BOROUGH as part of the capital, I thought, even if The George is there. As others said, this was a mix of easy and difficult, which is fair enough. Thank you Bruce and setter.
      1. That’s a microwaved potato, a different thing altogether. The best thing about jacket potato was eating the skins afterwards with butter inside.
        1. I used to start them in the microwave and then blast them in the oven. Best of both worlds.
          These days with the volume required to feed the family batch-microwaving is too much of a faff so they just go in the oven.
      1. It’s just not the first thing I’d have thought of, and I think only a Londoner would think of it first. It’s a germanic word, brought with the Anglo-Saxons I imagine. The first definition in the Oxford dictionaries is: A town (as distinct from a city) with a corporation and privileges granted by a royal charter.
        1. A cryptic crossword setter using a meaning that may not be the first you think of. Whatever next? 😉
  10. 29 minutes, and given the vocab I’m quite happy with that. It helps that I’ve been close to Jura a few times, though never actually got the boat over from Islay. Maybe next time.

    First full one in was 3d CATLIKE, though I was helped by having the -OCRACY bit of 1a there already, LOI was the unlikely BHAKTI, just after I’d figured out 15d AMARETTO. I thought one conjugated verbs and declined nouns, but grammar’s never been my strong suit…

  11. We got BOROUGH, which is either OR in Bough or RO in BOUGH, but why OR (or RO)?
    1. OR is the military abbreviation for ‘other ranks’, meaning ‘men’ as opposed to ‘officers’. A staple usage in the setters’ glossary.
          1. “How do you repel boarders?”
            “Stop changing the bed-linen!”

            …a Goon Show exchange that always pops back into my mind whenever I hear the feed-line.

      2. Thanks. We’re visitors from the Guardian – not on all of your wavelengths!
  12. I was badly held up by my erroneous guesses: BARBARISM (like Bruce); BAD BACK at 17d-there’s a couple of Bs there for the books and the spine fitted; and KRAUT at 22d with a question mark but it was all I had at the time.
    27a STONEWORK was tricky I thought but once in I could start corrections and LOI was EMBER DAY (NHO) which forced me to Barbarity.
    Enjoyable puzzle with quite a few unknowns.
    Borough market is still open -but not The George. After football at Charlton, The Market Porter was the gathering place for the post match review. David
    1. The Market Porter is a favourite of mine when I come to London, not least because Harvey’s Sussex Bitter is a thing of beauty which doesn’t appear much further north.
  13. To admit unfamiliarity with Jura, Mcjob and Mobocracy is for a cryptic xword blogger almost on a par with Clarkson claiming on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire to not know Custer’s Last Stand took place at the Little Bighorn, particularly given the other options (OK Corral, Alamo and Gettysburg).O tempora…
    1. I suspected at the time that a voice in Clarkson’s earpiece said “Don’t tell ‘im Pike !” or something of similar import.
      1. I had a similar thought but why..? But then I watched Quiz and couldn’t understand quite why the defence was presented so as to leave the jury in no doubt they were innocent yet still found them guilty.Still it’s TV about TV and ITV at that.
        1. Chris Tarrant was interviewed on the radio this week (I think you can track it down on the Facebook page of Radio X) and he said the TV drama didn’t exactly portray the court proceedings as they actually happened and he remains utterly convinced that they were guilty.
  14. I wanted 6dn to be NORWOOD – I still do! Even though I don’t think I’ve knowingly ever been there, but it seemed so apposite. Imagine my disgust when BOROUGH emerged! A 21ac!

    FOI 3dn CATLIKE ‘yer know cat, like’ Norwoodspeak

    LOI 14ac BHAKTI – the bitcoin of Upper Norwood.

    COD McJOB – have also taken a McPiss – thanks Toby! There are three Maccy D’s in Norwood, Innit! And for the American pedantry- I am welaware there are Norwood Boros in Delaware, New Jersey and leafy Pennysylvania.

    WOD NORWOOD

    Edited at 2020-04-18 09:44 am (UTC)

    1. Norwood rarely gets a mention so here goes: we often walk our dog in the South Norwood Country Park. At the Visitor Centre I have learnt that DH Lawrence and Arthur Conan Doyle both lived in the area for a time. Another was the confusingly named Samuel Coleridge-Taylor -not the poet- who featured very recently in one of Portillo’s railway journeys.
  15. I dearly wanted 2dn to be BURKINA FASO – and it was! I don’t think I’ve ever k…….
  16. Lord Keriothe, a baked potato is hardly an odd snack, I can assure you, especially if one is of the female persuasion back in the UK.(Bartlett) In China hereabouts street vendors sell piping hot baked ‘sweet potatoes’ (yams) – and it’s the ladies who love ’em most. An irresistible female centric snack (Weibolu)

    fyfi ‘Spud U Like’, which hailed from Edinburgh back in 1974 was re-opened in October and is endorsed by Michel Roux.

    Edited at 2020-04-18 12:18 pm (UTC)

    1. It’s not the potato I find odd, it’s the description. To me it’s just more than a snack. I would call it a side serving or indeed a meal in itself.
      1. Unless it’s a very large potato, or has a copious filling of baked beans or something equally filling, it’s a snack to me. Plenty of butter first before throwing in the grated cheese (white Stilton is highly recommended).
  17. 15:17. I only found this slightly harder than average and I enjoyed all the obscurities. I thought the wordplay was all fair, including BHAKTI. I mean yes it’s an obscure word clued by an anagram but with the checkers it seemed pretty clear what was required. Did anyone actually get it wrong?
    I also like it when setters use new-fangled words like MCJOB.
    Add me to the group who thought ‘snack’ a bit odd, on the grounds of both how long it takes to make one (microwaves aside) and how substantial the result is.
    1. See moi above. I suppose, though, that one could object that it shouldn’t be necessary to have all the checkers before being able to solve. I suppose ideally one should be able to solve any clue on the basis of wordplay and GK independently of any other clue. Ideally.
      1. I don’t agree with this view at all, ideally or otherwise. The grid is part of the game, as is using checking letters to help deduce answers, particularly unknown words. Otherwise why not just have a list of clues?
        1. A list of clues is just what I’m faced with when I start to try to solve a puzzle. If every clue required that I’d already solved another, it would be hard to start. I stressed ‘ideally’ because of course you’re right about eg using checkers. In fact, in solving, anything goes; my knowledge of aspirated consonants in Hindi, your knowledge of your daughter’s performance in ‘Pirates’, whatever.
          1. The whole point of the grid is that the easy ones help you get the hard ones, which is necessary to give everyone a sporting chance of finishing, precisely because everyone’s knowledge base is different and we all need the help in different places.
            Again this is why I disagree so strongly with this view that clues should be solvable in isolation.

            Edited at 2020-04-18 12:43 pm (UTC)

        2. Indeed – it gives great satisfaction to use an assumption about one unsolved clue to give a helper that leads to solving another!
  18. 17:17 with similar unknowns to others (MOBOCRACY, JURAT, JEANETTE, BHAKTI) derived from the wordplay and checkers. I also noticed the strange distribution of letters and even counted them… 2Js, 7Ks, 8Bs, 9Cs and 11Ss. I wondered if there was something going on here. I’m with keriothe on not considering a baked potato a snack. Sadly my kids don’t like them so I can’t use them for a quick and easy meal. COD to WHEELS.
    1. Children are a worry- mine don’t like me that much!
      Anyway – it states in my dictionary that a snack is ‘a quick and easy meal.’

      I rest my case.

      Meldrew

      1. Dear David,
        We discussed this at the dinner table. The johninterred household are unanimous it is not a snack. Unless you use a microwave (which is not the same as baking)it is not quick. We also agreed that nachos, which we had as a starter before out chicken fajitas, is a snack. Hmm. I think the distinction is a little blurred. Maybe we need to agree to differ.
  19. DNF. Bah! I was home in a little over 21 mins on this one but had a typo – amOretto – at 15dn which I’d failed to parse anyway. I found the mounting (to me) obscurities annoying as I went along. I’m talking about jurat, Jeanette, bhakti and ember day, Not difficult to solve but left me with a mildly disconcerting degree of uncertainty hanging over everything. I’ll wade into the baked potato controversy and say that I’ve only ever had one as a meal, preferably with cheddar and a dollop of marmite.
    1. On a baked potato! I love the stuff but that’s new to me!

      Sadly, there is a critical shortage of Marmite here in Shanghai. So if you could post some off to horryd at 588 Splendid City, Rainbow Bridge, Shanghai 201103, I can dollop it onto my next yam sandwich!(Our translators at China Post will deal with the translation)

      Anyone? I will repeat this plea next week.

      1. I’ll keep my eyes peeled but there doesn’t seem to be too much of the stuff on the shelves over here either.
      2. Would Vegemite cut the mustard, as it were? Marmite is blackstuff non grata in this part of the world.
        1. I’ve only ever had Vegemite once or twice. From memory it’s a fair bit milder than marmite so I don’t know if it would work as well or if it might be a bit sickly. If you’d countenance putting it on grilled cheese on toast though then it might do the job on a baked potato.
  20. Phil Jordan v Lord Keriothe of Keriothe

    Marquess of Queensbury Snacking Rules

    Fist to Ten – toppings optional – bar white Stilton

    Referee Mr. P. Riddlecombe

    Odds: Jordan 1-5; Keriothe Evens

    Seconds: Messrs. horryd (Shanghai) and K. Greig (Osaka)

    Afters: MacDonald’s Apple Pie served piping hot!

    May the best man win.

  21. Respite being a Times crossword lover for 50 years or more I don’t seem to have got much better. I’m not a “timer”, which is just as well when I see the unbelievable times achieved by all of you who submit here. I merely regard finishing the perishing thing as a moment of triumph. I really enjoy coming onto this site after discovering it some years ago with correspondents from most corners of the globe, almost a “family”, and we could all do with a bit more of that. Sadly, some old faces seem to have dropped off the radar and I hope they’re all well. However,I wanted to say that, much to my surprise, I didn’t actually struggle with this one and I’m a tad surprised that some of you super solvers found it a bit arcane in places. That’s not bragging by the way, you’re all miles better than I could ever dream to be. Oddly, BARBARITY was the one that held me up-just seems like a wrong word somehow. Anyway , thanks to all and please all keep safe.
    Joe the Jazzer.

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