Times Cryptic No 27690 – Saturday, 13 June 2020. In the meantime …

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In the meantime, in between time, ain’t we got fun? This crossword took us from sunup with the swelling sound of birdsong (kookaburras, for example) to sundown (time for supper), but it was a quick journey. Lots of clues will be easy pickings for the experienced solvers, but a nice workout too. 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 {curly brackets}.

Across
1 Draw on such training for early performance? (4,6)
DAWN CHORUS – anagram (‘training’) of DRAW ON SUCH.
7 Hell: make sure not opening (4)
HECK – {c}HECK, not opening. The bowdlerised form of the exclamation.
9 One is in classroom erasing all content — embarrassing mistake (8)
SOLECISM – SOLE (one, as in ‘sole survivor’), then IS in C{lassroo}M, ‘erasing content’.
10 Twist, say, regularly in speech as picked up by some? (6)
ORPHAN – sounds like ‘often’, as pronounced by those who say ORF’N. Not me, for one!
11 Elite test beyond dope (6)
GENTRY – TRY (test) ‘beyond’ i.e. after GEN (dope).
13 Ringtone destroyed much of the atmosphere (8)
NITROGEN – anagram (‘destroyed’) of RINGTONE. 78% of the earth’s atmosphere is nitrogen.
14 Unusual sighting possible result of bull in china shop? (6,6)
FLYING SAUCER – double definition, the second fanciful.
17 Snake in river rank, a source of irritation (12)
EXASPERATING – ASP in the EXE, then RATING On edit: the comments highlight that some solvers expected the answer to be EXASPERATION, until of course it didn’t fit the crossing letters. Actually, the clue supports either answer depending on whether the definition is “a source of irritation”, or just “irritation” (with “source of” as filler).
20 Cattle fed with silage ultimately supporting source of beef (8)
HEREFORD – HERD (cattle) fed with {silage}E and FOR (supporting).
21 Lower school period for dictation? (6)
LESSEN – sounds like ‘lesson’.
22 Noise coming from trampolinist about unknown sport (6)
BOXING – BOING about X (unknown).
23 Acolyte to cheer after change announced (5,3)
ALTAR BOY – sounds like BUOY (cheer) after ALTER (change).
25 Contact criminal group (4)
RING – double definition.
26 Toad putting salt on rabbit (10)
NATTERJACK – NATTER (rabbit), JACK (salt). NHO this beast.

Down
2 Primarily muscle around meat, nothing left (5,3)
ABOVE ALL – AB (muscle), then O (nothing) + (left) ‘around’ VEAL (meat). I puzzled for a while before I saw how the assembly instructions work. A bit like reading the instructions for flat-pack furniture?
3 Born leaders in New England, evidently (3)
NEE – first letters of each word.
4 Scary — as a lycanthrope? (5)
HAIRY – another double definition. A lycanthrope is a werewolf, apparently – hence the hairiness.
5 Country very soon captured by a king after uprising (7)
ROMANIA – IN A MO (very soon) ‘captured by’ the letter A and R (king), and all reversed (‘uprising’).
6 Show mark for fast runner (9)
SPORTSCAR – or, SPORT SCAR.
7 Doctor prophetic — as his father? (11)
HIPPOCRATES – anagram (‘doctor’) of PROPHETIC AS. I found the definition a little hard to pin down, but Hippocrates is known as “the Father of Medicine”.
8 County town’s first blood (6)
CLARET – CLARE, T{own}.
12 Night I suspect closing in around supper time? Latish today (4,7)
THIS EVENING – anagram (‘suspect’) of NIGHT I, ‘around’ SEVEN. Not when I eat supper, but that’s why the question mark’s there, of course.
15 Stylish magazine for cricketing county (9)
GLAMORGAN – GLAM, ORGAN. I’m sure they do play cricket there, and no doubt someone can tell us why it’s specifically defined as a ‘cricketing county’. On edit: thanks to mrkgrnao for the enlightenment. Apparently Glamorgan is no longer a county for local government purposes, but still plays county cricket!
16 Yellow hue with corn, I gathered (8)
UNHEROIC – anagram (‘gathered’) of HUE CORN I.
18 School players downloaded audio file (7)
PODCAST – POD, CAST.
19 A little thinner, olive oil (6)
NEROLI – hidden answer. It’s an oil distilled from oranges, not olives.
21 Hard to block slow spinner (5)
LATHE – H in LATE.
24 Rule long gone, drink up (3)
RAJ – JAR ‘up’.

26 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27690 – Saturday, 13 June 2020. In the meantime …”

  1. ….at 10A was meant as a 99th birthday nod to Prince Philip. There are limits, and this overstepped them.

    It took me a while to get started, and also to finish, although I shouldn’t really have needed to alpha-trawl my LOI.

    FOI GENTRY
    LOI SPORTSCAR
    COD BOXING (pace Zebedee)
    TIME 13:29

  2. Some careless biffing wasted me a lot of time; specifically EXASPERATION & HIPPOCRATIC, the latter making a simple LESSEN my LOI. DNK NEROLI or NATTERJACK. For a rhotacist like me, of course, ‘orphan’ is not a homophone for ‘often’. But in ‘Pirates of Penzance’ they are, and when John Reed says them, they really are.
  3. Silly error: Unknown is Y, toing is an onomatopoeic bounce, TOYING is sporting. Liked Hippocrates. Don’t mind the appalling orphan, but it’s definitely one you need to find the solution then figure out how it could possibly be a homophone. COD flying saucer.

    Edited at 2020-06-20 01:52 am (UTC)

  4. Pleasant crossword marred by a pink square .. the website has the temerity to claim that I wrote LATTE, not LATHE .. though it is lathe on my written copy, m’Lud

    Edited at 2020-06-20 05:57 am (UTC)

  5. Enjoyed this and found no pink squares despite the unknown lycanthrope.

    The county cricket team still play as just ‘Glamorgan’ although the former county of Glamorgan was split, for some reason, into three counties – south, mid and west Glamorgan in about 1974.

    Edited at 2020-06-20 06:22 am (UTC)

  6. 19 minutes. COD to FLYING SAUCER. The other thing not commented on about the homophone is the non-sounding of the ‘t’, where I seem to use both but usually do sound the ‘t’. It would be, “Do you come here offen?” but “I often do the crossword in the morning.” The supper at seven of 12d also conveys regional and class variations. When I was growing up, we’d have have our tea by six at the latest but usually earlier, and supper would be a banana sandwich before bedtime. Dinner was at midday, and lunch a morning snack, which could also be called baggin. We didn’t use NEROLI either, so I’m glad it was a hidden. I found this quite easy for a Saturday. Thank you Bruce and setter.
  7. DK NEROLI and had to come here for explanation of the definition at 7dn – well worked out, Bruce.

    Perfectly happy with ORPHAN. We get Cockerney-speak all the time (dropped aitches and the like) so what’s wrong with a bit of posh for the sake of balance? Actually a lot of people used to say ‘orf’ for ‘off’ when I was growing up, including the Head Master at my school who used to regularly announce that on certain days (e.g. last day of term’) he expected all boys to be ‘orf the premises’ by a certain time. But they weren’t all posh. Many people from the ‘lower orders’ of society aspired to better themselves and picked up certain pronunciations accordingly. ‘Orf’ was one of them, and another was a flat E instead of A in some words e.g. ‘Elbert’ for ‘Albert’. Sometimes it amounted to putting on airs and graces, as portrayed by the wonderful Joyce Carey as the refreshment room lady in the film ‘Brief Encounter’, but mostly it was unconscious and perfectly innocent.

    Edited at 2020-06-20 05:49 am (UTC)

    1. It has always amused me that not only what you said but also, a lot of extremely upper class folk habitually drop their aitches, thus completing the reversal …
      1. Are they the same ones who go huntin’ and fishin’? I remember being surprised to learn as a child that ‘figure’ was pronounced ‘figger’ and ‘ate’ ‘et’, two stereotypical country-bumpkin pronunciations on my side of the pond.
  8. …but I had to seek help with ORPHAN. I’ll join those who don’t accept it as a homophone for often.
    Otherwise NTR. I’ve no notes about any candidates for COD.
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  10. I don’t see how ‘exasperating’, rather than ‘exasperation’, can serve as a noun, even as a gerund, if ‘a source of irritation’ is the definition.
    1. Doesn’t need to be a noun. Could be an adjective,.

      “He’s exasperating” ~= “he’s a source of irritation”.

        1. Don’t know about the niceties of grammar on this point but I certainly went for EXASPERATION until the checker at 16dn forced me to change it. EXASPERATING doesn’t sit easily with me despite Bruce’s valid example of a substitution.
  11. Anyone else have damn for 7a. make sure – dam (n)ot. It was my FOI so things didn’t progress well from there!
  12. I found this quite difficult. Most done in a long session pre and post lunch but finally finished at 3.45pm with LOI DAWN CHORUS. POI was UNHEROIC as I needed to correct Exasperation; I did wonder about Exasperating as the definition but it parsed very clearly.
    At least I finished correctly and remembered how to spell ALTAR; nearly slipped up there.
    COD to GENTRY only because it reminded me of Preston North End’s gentry day when our fans wear bowler hats,collars and ties to an away game. Please don’t ask me why.
    David
  13. Came in just under the hour which is par for my Saturday excursions. Stared for ages at S***T*C*R before the penny finally dropped, which then gave me ORPHAN. Only got the Oliver Twist bit though so thank you B for the explanation. LOI LESSEN which took an age too. DNK NEROLI either, as others have commented. COD to 1ac for the well hidden anagram. Thank you brnchn and setter.
  14. I had most trouble in the NE, with SPORTSCAR taking an age to see. I think HECK was my LOI. Didn’t know NEROLI, so also glad that it was a hidden. No problem with the Naff Orf pronunciation. Liked FLYING SAUCER. 30:22. Thanks setter and Bruce.
  15. 47:17 I found this a bit of a struggle. I thought the clue for dawn chorus was very nice. The orphan homophone was a stretch for me though I accept the points made by other contributors. NHO neroli so was a bit slow to put it in even though the hidden seemed clear. 4dn a reminder of pop chanteuse Shakira’s sterling efforts to find a rhyme for lycanthropy in her hit song She-Wolf.
  16. at 17ac was surely the answer! So 16dn UNHEROIC never arrived as the kerning in corn made it look like com – so I jacked it in. Most EXASPERATING!

    FOI 3dn NEE

    COD yet another 14ac FLYING SAUCER

    WOD 26ac NATTERJACK

  17. 51:24, no pink squares. I would also have preferred EXASPERATION, but RATION doesn’t equate to “rank” so I did put in EXASPERATING, half expecting the crosser not to fit. I also put in NATTERJACK as soon as I had the N and the T, while also having the impression that I had never heard of it. My next-to-LOI was SPORTSCAR, also after an alphabet trawl and wondering whether FLYING SAUCER might perhaps be FLYING MATTER and 6dn something like SPECTATOR. After SPORTSCAR gave me the O of 10 ac, I had to read ORPHAN out loud very slowly about ten times through before understanding what might be “picked up by some”.

    Edited at 2020-06-20 06:21 pm (UTC)

  18. 18:45. LOI RING. I’m another with EXASPERATION at first for 17A and had to check what NEROLI was, although, being hidden, there was no doubt it was the answer. Oddly, that same evening, I cam across the word in my bedtime reading of “The Drunken Botanist”. The homophone ORPHAN made me groan, so that’s good then. COD to BOXING.
    1. the only way to improve a good homophone is to make it a bad one

      imo, unless it’s a perfect match for all dialects (never going to happen), then the more toe-curling the better I like it
      (but, like hiddens, no more than once in the same x-word)

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