Times Cryptic No 27660 – Saturday, 9 May 2020. Donner und Blitzen!

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Well, is 8dn a thundering good clue, or am I thunderstruck? I can make no sense of the definition, so I suspect there’s a British usage I’m not familiar with. If you know anything, please share!

Otherwise this was an enjoyable number, of familiar Saturday degree of difficulty. I struggled a little with 21ac and 9dn until the lights came on. Thanks to the setter for a very 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. Deletions are in [square brackets].

Across
1 Unhappy experience of duke who makes confessions? (6)
DOWNER – D, OWNER (as in “owning up”).
4 Song writer introduces taste (8)
PENCHANT – PEN ‘introduces’ CHANT.
10 After a change of side, laundry appliance becomes less sturdy (9)
SPINDLIER – on the right, a spin drier. On the left … well, you know the rest. There are two Rs in drier, but you only need to change sides once, of course – don’t get over-enthusiastic.
11 Answer in favour of new extension to stage (5)
APRON – A (answer), PRO (in favour of), N (new).
12 What’s jumping in puddle ever done? Showing immaturity (14)
UNDERDEVELOPED – anagram (‘jumping’) of PUDDLE EVER DONE.
14 Forward movement mostly not relying on gills? (5)
LUNGE – LUNGE[d]. Being “lunged” would be an alternative to being “gilled”.
16 Souls come to play here? (9)
COLOSSEUM – anagram (‘to play’) of SOULS COME. Do gladiatorial contests count as “playing”?
18 Fanatic bottling anger with Black Forest safety measure? (9)
FIREBREAK – FREAK (fanatic) ‘bottling’ IRE and B (black)
20 Improper way to have head deferred (5)
OUTRE – ROUTE with R (the head) ‘deferred’.
21 Film story which hopes to increase funds? (7,7)
DEPOSIT ACCOUNT – DEPOSIT (film), ACCOUNT (story). I sidetracked myself by expecting “film” to be a movie title.
25 Announcement of top-level takeover in three lines (5)
HAIKU – sounds like “high coup”.
26 Strained at, like vat full of gas? (9)
TALKATIVE – anagram (strained) of AT LIKE VAT.
27 11 turned in engineer of an iPad (8)
PINAFORE – backward hidden answer (“turned in …”). “Engineer” initially suggested an anagram, but on more careful reading, the answer pops out.
28 Slowly, an enlisted man gets into trouble (6)
ADAGIO – A GI in ADO.

Down
1 Invalidate detective’s rank, given fine instead of time (10)
DISQUALIFY – DI’S QUALITY, with (‘given’) F for fine instead of T for time.
2 Odd obstruction in current day (5)
WEIRD – WEIR (obstruction in current), D.
3 Behind Cockney Trotter’s back (7)
ENDORSE – END, [h]ORSE
5 Lofty home where Providence is in view (5)
EYRIE – R.I. (Providence is the capital of Rhode Island), in EYE.
6 Fakeish-sounding soft leather (7)
CHAMOIS – sounds like “shammy”. Is that a word? Actually, I looked it up, to discover it is a word, but only as an alternative spelling of “chamois”. Nothing to do with “sham” meaning “fake”. On edit: interestingly, Collins says chamois the animal is pronounced SHAMWHA, but the oiled leather is indeed pronounced SHAMMY.
7 Workers secured by a welcome deal (9)
AGREEMENT – MEN inside A GREET.
8 Thunder had a hum, initially ignored (4)
TANK – [s]TANK would be “had a hum”, as in “smelled unpleasant”. What has “tank” to do with “thunder”. I can find no trace of a thunder tank! Explanations welcome. On edit, philjordan and Gothick_Matt have pointed me to Chambers, which has: tank as To travel (esp to drive) at great speed or relentlessly.
9 Cable involving blue (Conservative) know-all (8)
WISEACRE – WIRE ‘involving’ SEA and C. An Americanism that took a while to come to mind.
13 Modern author to write finally among Brown and company (7,3)
UMBERTO ECO – TO and [writ]E inside UMBER + CO.
15 Owner upset footless oversized countryman (9)
NORWEGIAN – anagram (upset) of OWNER, then GIAN[t].
17 Pleasant area in one Oxford college supporting learner (8)
LIKEABLE – L (learner), then KEBLE around A[rea].
19 Anonymous old poem book lifted illness misery (7)
BEOWULF – B (book), then FLU WOE backwards (‘lifted’).
20 Monster demanding source of windfalls? (7)
ORCHARD – ORC, HARD. Literally, windfalls as from fruit trees.
22 Frame taken from Monmouthshire village to Bury (5)
INTER – well, my ignorance of Monmouth villages was total, but I was confident of the answer! I now know TINTERN, famous for its Abbey, is in Monmouthshire. Drop the outside letters to give INTER.
23 University do a number on drugs (5)
USING – U, SING (do a song/number).
24 Don’t talk work, which talking this is (4)
SHOP – SH, OP. Clever clue!

35 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27660 – Saturday, 9 May 2020. Donner und Blitzen!”

  1. ….TANK is a verb in colloquial English meaning to progress at a rate of knots – often recklessly. So to TANK along and to THUNDER along are synonyms, but it was a MER for me.

    I’m not sure at all about the “shammy leather”, even though I’ve used one in washing the car years ago. My mate had the “luxury” Hillman Imp variant, the Singer Chamois back in the early 70’s, and it was always pronounced “sham-wah”.

    Apart from those two, and LUNGE (stretching it a bit) I enjoyed this puzzle.

    FOI DOWNER
    LOI TANK
    COD FIREBREAK
    TIME 9:26

    1. Thanks. “Tanking along” totally unknown to me, and I couldn’t find it in any of the three dictionaries I checked.
      1. Chambers has “To travel (esp. to drive) at great speed or relentlessly”, and I’ve certainly heard it occasionally: “Just tank it down the M1 and you’ll be there in no time…” I normally associate thundering travel with the kind of noise my upstairs neighbours make when simply walking about, mind…
    2. Carl’s 2020 tour dates rescheduled for next year, Phil. Have held my tickets over 🙂 Outstanding trio, and Simon and Paul are lovely lads; always happy to have a chat after the show.

      These days he usually throws the big solo into Fanfare; still an astonishing force of nature at 70.

      1. I’ll have to watch out for those dates. I last saw Carl with Asia at Buxton Opera House about 2009.
    3. Could you explain MER? A new acronym for me and everyone else seems to know what it means.
      1. MER is Minor Eyebrow Raise.
        It is in the glossary somewhere near the top of this page.
  2. We always said shammy, so no trouble there. I had the same trouble with the definition at Tank And the solution at Deposit Account as Bruce. I also puzzled over Haiku, thinking the top level was A1.
  3. I had no idea about thunder/TANK, but it went in easily enough. PINAFORE & WISEACRE BIFD, solved post-submission. I’m not surprised to learn that WISEACRE is an Americanism; could have been flagged as such. LOI DEPOSIT ACCOUNT; I was thinking ‘film/mist’, but still DEPOSIT wouldn’t come. CHAMOIS (like Paul, I pronounce it ‘shammy’) reminds me of the time years ago when the Bolshoi Ballet was in San Francisco, and a Pacific Heights (sc. posh) lady called the box office to order tickets to the Bolshwah Ballet.
    1. Wiseacre is in our ancient Chambers so not necessarily an Americanism. The entry for Welsh rabbit has the acerbic comment “sometimes spelt ‘rarebit’ by wiseacres.”
      1. And indeed, I now see that ODE lists it without specifying region, and notes that it dates back to 16th century Middle Dutch.
      2. Harsh! The current Chambers however, has rarebit as the main entry, with rabbit as an alternative, and no insults

        Edited at 2020-05-16 08:18 am (UTC)

  4. 53 minutes. LOI was a hesitant TANK, but it was better than TUNK, and Phil’s explanation is the right one. It was a usage perhaps more common in my youth, when Roy Orbison was singing for the lonely. COD to DEPOSIT ACCOUNT ( not that one increases funds much with present interest rates), liking EYRIE and WISEACRE too. I hadn’t seen that as an Americanism. A decent Saturday puzzle. Thank you Bruce and setter.
  5. An enjoyable puzzle. Thank you to philjordan and gothick_matt for TANK. If I knew that meaning I had forgotten it.
    Also thank you to Bruce for the blog in general and LUNGE in particular. That was clever.
    I always thought Tintern was in Cornwall. Obviously not.
    I have double ticks against BEOWULF, ORCHARD and HAIKU but triple ticks, and therefore COD against UNDERDEVELOPED.
      1. That’s the one! Thanks! But what’s the difference between an -ern and an -agel?
        Only about 150 or so miles!
  7. FOI was SHOP and then APRON so I had to dodge around the grid to make progress. My notes say I had solved 18 clues by 4.05pm but I was down to my last two at 4.30pm; so a fast finish.
    Inevitably LOI was 8d; eventually I spotted Hum =Stink so it was a smallish jump to the wobbly TANK.
    I liked 1a, maybe because I am watching The Crown during lockdown. David
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  9. 11:09. Easy-peasy it says on my copy. I had a similar MER at TANK. I liked the immature jumping in puddles at 12A. Shammy for a the car-washing leather was what we called it too.
  10. I had slung in TANG with the MUS- missing – TANK was known but not used since the seventies when my dear mama had a Singer Chamois and I a CITROEN DS 21 (Maserati gear-box) which I got once to 139 mph on the A1. I used to wash it with a shammy-leather.

    FOI 1ac DOWNER (Aussie PM?)

    LOI 23dn USING and abusing

    COD 13dn UMBERTO ECO – the clue didn’t need the Modern intro – like 50 million others I read The Name of the Rose.

    WOD 8dn COLOSSEUM – the band I fondly remember Man-Uni 1971 – Jon Hiseman’s COLOSSEUM – with the superlative Dick Heckstall-Smith over-flowing on sax. They were introduced onto stage by an American DJ with – ‘Ladies and Gentlemen – Jon HYZA-man’s CoLLOSSS-EUM!’ To die for!

    Edited at 2020-05-16 09:34 am (UTC)

    1. Alexander Downer was a long serving foreign minister, but never PM. His meeting with George Papadopoulos in 2016 helped launch the FBI investigation into Russian interference and ‘collusion’ with Trump’s team in the last US presidential election.
      1. Cory mate, thanks for the info on AD – I believe he spoke fluent Mandarin – let me guess is that a Huntsman or the Poodle spider?
        1. It was the former PM Kevin Rudd who was fluent in Mandarin.
          And Poodles could NEVER be that creepy!
    2. I’d have been more impressed if you’d got the Chamois up to 139mph – although it might have led you to shout “moraturi te salutant”. The first album by Collosseum is a favourite of mine, particularly “The Road We Walked Before” (which Dick wrote but he wasn’t there at the time).
    3. Am I correct in thinking that Citroen once advertised the Deux Chevaux as going downhill with the wind behind as faster than a Ferrari…in 2nd gear?
  11. Like others I hesitated over TANK or maybe TUNK, but vaguely recalled the expression “Tanking Along.” I usually have trouble remembering how to spell eerie/eirie/eyrie, so the wordplay was helpful here. No trouble with shammy. Nice puzzle. 32:00. Thanks setter and Bruce.
  12. Agree with Matt, in that ‘tank’ is, in my experience, transitive, and followed by ‘it’. Thunder is intransitive. One needs to be charitable to support the doctrine that the two terms are interchangeable.
  13. Highly enjoyable. I particularly liked wiseacre and deposit account as they gave the most satisfaction when eventually I worked out what was going on, I also learned a new-to-me author who was my LOI. COD to chamois – shammy being our nickname for a chapati.
  14. 14:45. Good one.
    I wondered at TANK, and I’m always wary when Chambers is the only support for otherwise esoteric meanings, but Collins has:
    > Tank: to move like a tank, esp heavily and rapidly
    > Thunder: to move fast and heavily
    Hard to argue with that.
    I knew that shammy and chamois were the same thing, but I thought they and their pronunciations were separate. It seems not.
  15. We are more familiar with ‘tanking’ meaning to deliberately lose a game. Didn’t cause any major holdup.
    34mins
  16. 38:27. I had trouble getting wiseacre where the synonyms for cable and blue in the wordplay as well as the definition were far from the first things that came to me. With penchant I wanted to put the writer around a taste rather than in front of a song, especially because song is in front in the wording of the clue. I also struggled to understand the definition of tank. The ‘in’ in 12ac feels a bit extraneous. Took a surprisingly long time to come up with the deposit bit of deposit account. I remember Umberto turning up before his time in the daily puzzle. Took it on trust that Tintern was in Monmouthshire.
  17. Didn’t know TANK though it had to be. Monmouthshire was my childhood home so TINTERN was a given. Apart from that, a steady slowish solve. 24 minutes. Ann

    Edited at 2020-05-16 07:20 pm (UTC)

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