Times Cryptic No 27684 – Saturday, 6 June 2020. A game of two halves.

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It took me a long time to get on the setter’s wavelength. Once I did, they had me chuckling, starting with 17dn and 17ac. My clue of the day was clearly the kettle lady at 1dn!

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 Boy once on ship might set about daughter and brother, you reflected (6,6)
POWDER MONKEY – D for daughter in POWER, MONK, YE reflected. His job was to bring gunpowder from the magazine to the guns.
9 What’s knocked back in delight: ie large port (5)
LEITH – backwards hidden answer.
10 Teddy bear’s friend, slender, tucking in tail (9)
ROOSEVELT – ROO was a friend of Winnie the Pooh. I doubt Roo (or Franklin or Teddy, for that matter!) was SVELTE, but move the E at the tail forward by four letters.
11 Battered glove has split in two (2,6)
GO HALVES – anagram (‘battered’) of (GLOVE HAS*).
12 Pressman from Times to put in jail (6)
CAXTON – X for Times and TO from the clue, all put in CAN. A pioneer of the printing press. The CAN was obvious; the rest took a while to see.
13 Presumably once off, burning to return? Hardly surprising! (2,6)
NO WONDER – it was once off, but it’s NOW ON. Then, RED (burning) appears backwards.
15 Menial’s years behind plough (6)
FLUNKY – apparently to FLUNK an exam can be to “plough” it. Not a usage I knew. Then Y for year.
17 Busy with facial hair — mostly getting stick (6)
ATTACH – AT (busy, in the sense of “hard at it”, I suppose. I haven’t come up with an example where one could directly replace the other.) then, TACH[e] as facial hair. On edit: I think dcrooks has a nice suggestion in the comments. AT could be ‘busy with’, as in ‘he’s been (busy with/at) it since breakfast’.
18 Forgiving tale-teller? (8)
PARDONER – I think this is just a cryptic definition, with a reference to The Pardoner’s Tale from Chaucer.
20 Desert ship and hide — after running away, heads here (6)
SAHARA – spelled out by first letters (‘heads here’).
21 Dukes, including peer: — in short, the blooming establishment! (8)
FLORIST’S – FISTS (dukes, or has a fist fight) including LOR[d].
24 Repeated appeal to escort kids around old Spanish city (9)
SARAGOSSA – S.A. (sex appeal) twice, bracketing RAGS (kids), which in turn is around O (‘old’).
25 Bags chance, finally, with months on the periphery (5)
JEANS – E from [chanc]E with JANS (months) in its periphery.
26 That is, alas, a very wretched farewell (5,2,5)
HASTA LA VISTA – anagram (‘wretched’) of (THAT IS ALAS A V*).

Down
1 Figure girl who’d prepare tea-making departed for audition (7)
POLYGON – sounds like POLLY GONE. That’s the Polly who’s told to put the kettle on, of course. Cute.
2 Health-conscious folk assess old PM’s consuming whiskey for hours (6,8)
WEIGHT WATCHERS – WEIGH THATCHER’S, after changing Maggie’s leading H to W.
3 Female alien with a hand but no foot (5)
ETHEL – ET (every setter’s canonical alien), HEL[p] (give a hand).
4 Waves to Frenchman, then turns over posh car (8)
MERCEDES – MER, followed by CEDES. Britannia may have ruled the waves, but perhaps the French Navy ruled La Mer?
5 Twelve words from protesters meeting at the base? (4)
NOON – NO is what a protestor might say. Two NOs, back to back, make our answer.
6 Watched closely as the writer shouted to be heard (9)
EYEBALLED – sounds like I BAWLED.
7 Nobody rises after notes to take it easy (4,2,4,4)
REST ON ONES OARS – RES (notes plural, as in DO RE MI), TO (directly from the clue), NONE SOARS (nobody rises).
8 Foul-smelling dark liquid flooding farm building (6)
STINKY – INK in STY.
14 Country estate, say, in Guiana mismanaged (9)
NICARAGUA – CAR (estate, say) in an anagram (‘mismanaged’) of (GUIANA*).
16 Old woman’s charged four pounds after parking on a London street (4,4)
PALL MALL – MA charging 4 x L = pound, after P for parking and the letter A.
17 Support for idiots? (6)
ASSIST – an ASS-IST might be a supporter of asses. Droll.
19 Egg that’s taken in three seconds with a very cold drink (4,3)
ROSS SEA – ROE (egg), letter A taking in 3 x S for second.
22 Gandhi’s party mainly about just India at first (5)
RAJIV – RAV[e] about J I (Just India, ‘at first’).
23 Here’s a secret I’d like to add, by the way (4)
PSST – P.S. (postscript), ST (street=way)

31 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27684 – Saturday, 6 June 2020. A game of two halves.”

  1. ….having taken a dislike to the strange spelling of Zaragoza, and gave up at 20 minutes to seek help with the last word of 7D. NHO but I can see it now.

    I found the clue for NOON puzzling, and the drollery of ASSIST still makes no appeal. Not for me I’m afraid.

    1. Strangely, when I typed SARAGOSSA into Google maps, it showed me ZARAGOZA. I didn’t know what to make of that!!
  2. Like Phil, I looked up 7d; ‘rest one’s oars’ I think I’ve seen, not ‘rest on’. Again like Phil, I did not care for ASSIST. On the other hand, I think I’ve seen SARAGOSSA often enough; I definitely didn’t think it was an odd spelling when I solved. I spent too much time thinking 19d would be some kind of TEA. LOI CAXTON, I think. Liked PALL MALL.
  3. ODE has it as Saragossa, with “Spanish name ZARAGOZA” at the end of the entry.
  4. LOI ‘rest on one’s hams’ was entered for want of anything better coming to mind. A pity because the oars expression was known. The spelling of Saragoza worried me too.
  5. I gave up on this one, being especially annoyed that I couldn’t remember the last word of 7d REST ON ONE’S OARS, in spite of the fact that I knew I’d come across the phrase before. I presume that crossword was set by the same setter (who may be the only person left on earth who still uses the phrase!)
  6. 27 minutes with one or two MERS. DROLL wasn’t the first word that came to mind about ASSIST. But it does follow logical rules. I’ve often heard FLUNK used to mean fail a test or an exam, but I’ve always spelt the menial as FLUNK(E)Y. There should probably have been a MER about SARAGOSSA too, but I always confuse it with the Sargasso Sea, so I wrote it in without any doubts. The OARS did ring a bell just loud enough to be heard when ‘laurels’ wouldn’t fit, but Kevin now has me doubting whether the ON was in the expression when I last heard it donkey’s years ago. COD to the clever PSST but I did like POLYGON. Was the ‘making’ necessary for the clue to work though? Thank you Bruce and setter.
  7. Two TOs taken directly from the clues almost proved to be one too many for me. I spotted the one that changed my LEAN ON ONES OARS (the expression I’m familiar with) to the correct answer but the one in the CAXTON clue almost eluded me.

    And now, Prunella Leith? No, Prudence says Google.

    1. Dear Prudence would have been very much at home in yesterday’s “White Album” QC.
  8. I spent a long time on this and managed to work everything out apart from 12a. I stared at it for ages and was confused by the italicised Times in the print edition ( I’m not confused any more). I ended up with PATTEN (Pen for jail, A from in Latin and TT =Times). Coincidentally PRESSMAN was an answer in yesterday’s White Album QC.
    REST ON ONES OARS very late in from parsing.
    David
  9. ..and double yuk. V poor cluing and iffy answers (Assist, Jeans, Caxton). The setter and editor should be lashed to their oars and made to row at double ramming speed.
  10. I found this hard work and was also confused by the spelling of SARAGOSSA. I battled on for 49:29 but was defeated by my alternative Pressman, the sports journalist, James CATTON at 12a. Drat! Vaguely knew REST ON ONES OARS. Thanks setter and Bruce.
  11. I think the wordplay is ‘busy with’, rather than just ‘busy’. ‘He’s busy with work’ for example could be ‘He’s at work.’ I suppose. At a stretch. With one eye closed. And fingers crossed behind the back, on alternate Thursdays.

    Similarly not impressed with several clues, as noted in comments above.

    Edited at 2020-06-13 09:21 am (UTC)

    2. All dictionaries give “engaged in/busy with” as a standard meaning of “at”

      A better example than “at work” which is not the same at all, would be the stage direction in the Tempest where Ferdinand and Miranda are discovered at chess

    1. No. This seems to quite widely believed for some reason but brand names appear pretty regularly.
      1. Mercedes here and HBO yesterday. Wonder how much you have to pay, with different rates for xwrds depending on day, publication and position (more for across than down?). Competitors (Fox maybe and Bentley) might also demand equal cluing. Setters no doubt have scruples but probably negotiable.
  13. 24:13 but I had to look up the REST ON ONES .A.S. A very odd expression to my mind. “A couple of odd ones”, it says on my copy. The old meaning of plough for one and the wordplay for NOON was a bit clunky, I thought. I liked POLYGON, ASSIST and WEIGHT WATCHERS, though.
  14. Got FLUNKY but did not know the obscure meaning. Looked up OARS. The clue for ASSIST was a bit weird.
  16. 28:04. I found this very hard, and irritating in places. FLUNK for plough, for instance, doesn’t belong in one of these puzzles.
    Like a few others I failed in the end, having to look up REST ON ONES OARS. And like Matt I kicked myself hard because as soon as I saw it I realised I had seen it before in that same puzzle.
    I did like ASSIST though.
    1. To ‘plough’ an exam was certainly in common usage at Oxford in the 60’s. Why does something you do not know not belong in the crossword? If I applied the same criterion, there would be numerous unsuitable meanings every week.
      1. I just thought it was very obscure: a Mephisto sort of word. Perhaps not: happy to be corrected.
        I don’t mind obscure words but I don’t like it when clues rely heavily on them to be solvable. I hesitated for ages over putting the answer in even though it seemed the only possibility because I couldn’t believe ‘plough’ meant that.

        Edited at 2020-06-13 12:39 pm (UTC)

        1. I do agree with you that not knowing the specific meaning of ‘plough’ in this case would be problematic. I have personal experience of forcing the examiner in my 1967 Law Moderations at Oxford to venture as far down as gamma in the Greek alphabet when assessing my mark!
          1. I had a similar experience in 1992! It resulted in a ‘buck your ideas up or we’ll chuck you out’ talking to. I bucked my ideas up.
        2. I don’t mind the obscurity as much as the parochial nature of slang terms. But, to be fair, I suppose Oxford is their local parish!
  17. was known but not entered as my alphabet trawl omitted any vowels. Making this a DNF Doh! But very surprised it was generally not known.

    FOI 11ac GO HALVES

    COD 23dn PSST!

    WOD 1ac POWDER MONKEY

    24 ac SARAGOSSA was the ‘old’ name – surely not a problem.

    I thought this was quite an entertaining puzzle.

  18. A technical DNF in 41:48. Let down once again by a stupid typo entering 5dn as nPon (honestly, if my stupid fat fingers don’t start to get with programme soon I’m gonna stick ’em in boot camp – or glove camp – preferably with the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket). I liked the Teddy bear clue, the Caxton clue, waves to Frenchman and Nicaragua. I dnk that meaning of plough and would’ve spelt flunky with an E though spelling it without the E seems a reasonable alternative. A mis-biffed paragon at 1dn delayed Leith. Took ages and an alpha-trawl to get the last word of the expression at 7dn. I have a qm and a WTF written next to 17dn’s assist on my paper copy. I think I understood what the setter intended but I didn’t really like that one.
  19. Can’t believe I couldn’t see a word for “rises” fitting s-a-s but c’est la vie. Nho the expression but seems I am in illustrious company

    Stared at -s-t for quite a long time but light finally dawned

    Punted FLUNKY

    Rather liked CAXTON and the puzzle as a whole despite the fail

    Just over 30 mins but with that one cheat

    Thanks all

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