Times Cryptic No 27696 – Saturday, 20 June 2020. Fast start.

Author   branchPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
This looked for a while like an opportunity for a personal best. I wrote in clue after clue … then, two-thirds of the way through, I hit the wall. How do you all go? My only gripe is the obscure 4dn, where I couldn’t tell from the wordplay whether the unchecked second letter was an A or an E. 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 Place name to mark round mount (7)
TOPONYM – TO (from the clue), M (mark), round PONY.
5 Restriction on movement of dog— nowhere near common (6)
CURFEW – CUR (dog), FEW (nowhere near common).
8 Get one who’s in debt taking in new man of property (9)
LANDOWNER – LAND (get), OWER (one in debt) ‘taking in’ N (new).
9 Chest covered by father’s jacket (5)
PARKA – ARK ‘covered by’ PA.
11 Composer’s right to abandon humorous work (5)
SATIE – SATI{r}E.
12 Having gone without can? (9)
ABSTINENT – ABSENT ‘without’ (i.e. outside) TIN. The whole clue is wordplay, the last word is not part of the definition. On edit: I think isla3 is right; “can”, as in “beer can”, is indeed part of the definition too.
13 Put in water and gently boiled after a delay of seconds (8)
IMMERSED – SIMMERED with the S delayed.
15 Did cure set lad in order? (6)
SALTED – anagram (‘in order’) of SET LAD. Wikipedia assures me you cure meat by salting it.
17 Torturer is beginning to tremble after feeling sorrow (6)
SADIST – SAD (feeling sorrow), IS (from the clue), T{remble}.
19 Note worn-out spirits or low spirits (8)
DOLDRUMS – D (musical note), OLD (worn-out), RUMS (spirits).
22 Uluru’s place: rock as a ritual (9)
AUSTRALIA – anagram (‘rock’) of AS A RITUAL.
23 Copy three notes (5)
MIMIC – MI (a musical note), MI again, and C.
24 Kindle returned some week overdue (5)
EVOKE – backwards hidden answer (‘returned’, ‘some’).
25 What’s about to be planted in pot with a tropical tree (9)
JACARANDA – CA (about) ‘planted in’ JAR (pot), AND (with), A (from the clue).
26 Stupid person in school is a pain (6)
STITCH – TIT in SCH.
27 Canal Street clubs won’t open to admit unknown investigator (7)
ANALYST – {c}ANAL, ST{reet}, with Y (unknown) ‘admitted’. The C on CANAL is the ‘clubs’ that ‘won’t open’ it.

Down
1 Splash article around some very elevated rival mastheads here? (4,5,4)
TALL SHIPS’ RACE – anagram (‘around’) of SPLASH ARTICLE.
2 Around north-east, rebuilding M1 put lots of cones here (7)
PINETUM – anagram (‘rebuilding’) NE MI PUT. I was unsure whether this was a real word or a furphy, but at least it looked a bit like ARBORETUM.
3 Somebody unimportant — or the chief? (2-3)
NO-ONE – Diary of a Nobody? Or, the No. One Boss Man? A double definition, in other words.
4 Crew ate gutted eastern fish (8)
MENHADEN – MEN (crew), HAD (ate), E{aster}N. I harrumphed at this unknown answer because ‘to crew’ as opposed to ‘the crew’ would make it MANHADEN instead. I had to look it up.
5 Worries over small pet (6)
CARESS – CARES ‘over’ S{mall}.
6 Reprove about stiffly formal, logical operation (9)
REPRIMAND – RE (about), PRIM, AND (AND is an operator in Boolean algebra, a form of mathematical/computer logic)
7 Very serious sign of what is to come (7)
EARNEST – double definition.
10 Bad accident with stain that won’t dry (13)
ANTIDESICCANT – anagram (‘bad’) of ACCIDENT STAIN.
14 Again appearing divided about good trick set up (9)
RESURGENT – RENT (divided) about G RUSE backwards.
16 Italian food free of charge on account, I note (8)
FOCACCIA – F.O.C (free of charge), ACC. (one of several abbreviations for account), I, A (musical note).
18 Misrepresent sordid gossip about thug’s head found in well (7)
DISTORT – double nesting: DIRT (sordid gossip) around SO (well) around T (thug’s head).
20 Armed criminal with no good lady, heartless like a female? (7)
UNMANLY – {g}UNMAN (armed criminal), L{ad}Y. The definition is tongue-in-cheek, hence the question mark.
21 High priest takes pilgrimage up for prophet (6)
ELIJAH – ELI, HAJ backwards.
23 Yacht haven keeping out November seas (5)
MARIA – MARI{n}A:  lunar ‘sea’ is a MARE, plural MARIA. I guessed it was something like that, and put it in on faith, then looked it up for your blog.

29 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27696 – Saturday, 20 June 2020. Fast start.”

  1. ….because I was placed in a foul mood by it for at least an hour after I saw it off. I was fooled into expecting a pangram when I had J, K, and W in place at an early stage. Thus, when I began to struggle over the last quarter, I vainly looked for the absent QXZ. To further frustrate me, I’d confidently entered “snitch” at 26A. My LOI would probably have been different if I’d spotted that.

    I though EARNEST was weak – so much so that I didn’t trust it until all the checkers were in. MENHADEN was distantly known, but both that and MARIA belonged to a Mephisto.

    I thought ANALYST was dreadful, and I never parsed TALL SHIPS RACE because I’d lost patience by then.

    My last 3 minutes were spent on an alpha-trawl that was useless because I still had the aforementioned “snitch”.

    All in all, an almost joyless experience.

    FOI LANDOWNER
    LOI DISTORT
    COD IMMERSED
    TIME 21:50 (but felt much longer)

  2. Not the most enjoyable Saturday puzzle I’ve seen, but I certainly didn’t rate it as low as Phil does. But then, I never looked for a Nina, and I knew MENHADEN (it’s a North American fish, according to ODE). I almost didn’t know PINETUM; I think it’s been here once. FOCACCIA has, too, recently; and both times I doubled the wrong C.
  3. Never heard of menhaden, so went for a local species of shark- MANEATER , which I was hoping the blogger would parse for me.
    38mins with this error
  4. I snagged the fish, must have seen it somewhere before, because I played with MAN…, even MANEATER too.
    Don’t know if I’ve heard of PINETUM, so glad to get it. LOI was the TALL SHIPS RACE.
  5. Wrote abstinent on seeing absent with tin in, and moved on, forgetting to parse it properly. Looking at it now I think it’s a full &lit: having gone without can (of beer) you’re abstinent.
    That fine clue aside, DNF with a couple of harrumphs.
  7. 48 minutes but with a MANHADEN as the fish. I guessed wrong, but it is a diabolical clue. My Chemistry master would end every experiment description with “wash and dry in a desiccator, one S, two Cs”,so at least I spelt ANTIDESICCANT correctly. I wasn’t sure that the declension of Mare led to LOI MARIA, but the other half of the clue did. COD to PINETUM, which raised a brief smile. Thank you Bruce and setter.

    Edited at 2020-06-27 06:56 am (UTC)

  8. I don’t have any moans, though I do think 4dn an unfortunate clue. Not sure if 27ac quite works either, but never mind.
    You can throw a stone at the National Pinetum at Bedgbury, from where I live so no problems there. Personally I can take evergreen trees or leave them alone.
    2. That’s where I got PINETUM from. I grew up in Wadhurst so, more than a stone’s throw away, but close enough.
  9. What a lot of moaning! I saw this as challenging in parts but although there were several words and references unknown to me I managed to answer all the clues correctly assisted by wordplay where necessary and finished in 40 minutes, only 10 over my target half-hour. Put JAH to very good use later in the week making a hefty score at Scrabble by placing J on a triple letter square.

    Edited at 2020-06-27 06:04 am (UTC)

  10. An hour and 5 to find out that the fish wasn’t a MANHADEN. I’d considered both MEN and MAN and just went with a guess in the end. Bah.
  11. Thank you Bruce for explaining TOPONYM, TALL SHIPS RACE and MARIA. I had no idea that was the plural of “mare”.
    AUSTRALIA was a gimme but I had never heard of MENHADEN. I worked it out but had to verify it was a word.
    I wonder if anyone else started with CONTINENT (as the opposite of incontinent for 12ac.
    I also started with “womanly” in 20d and wondered why I couldn’t make the clue work.
    Never worked out the AND in REPRIMAND but it had to be that. Boolean algebra? Sorry, can we talk about something else?!
  12. Am I missing something? Is it also a synonym for ‘portent’ or ‘omen’?
    1. Exactly. Chambers has:

      earnest2 /ûrˈnist/
      noun
      Payment given to confirm a contract (also earˈnest-money or earˈnest-penny)
      A pledge
      A sign or foretaste of what is to come
      First-fruits

  13. Count me as another who didn’t know the fish, and having postulated MANHADEN, looked it up to find it was MENHADEN. At least I didn’t fall for a mis-spelling of Manatee. I was also vaguely surprised by MARIA as a plural for MARE, despite my Latin O Level. TOPONYM has finally fixed itself into my vocabulary. My biffed PENTIUM(don’t ask!) was corrected by French Eric. ANTIDESICCANT was my LOI. 27:26. Thanks setter and Bruce.
  14. 19:52. NHO the fish and had to look it up to see it was MEN not MAN as I had at first. Also DNK the other meaning of EARNEST. LOI ABSTINENT, which I thought was rather good. I thought the plural of MARE was MARES but maybe that’s just the female horse. Thanks Bruce and setter.
  15. 16:09, with a dictionary check to correct MANHADEN. A dreadful clue that spoiled this one for me.
  16. I finished this in around 30 mins but had to look up menhaden / manhaden to finish which spoilt the solving experience for me. I think it was too obscure a word to leave any ambiguity in the wordplay. I did like abstinent, immersed and jacaranda. The Boolean algebra reference sailed way over the top of my head but the rest of the wp and the definition being a commonly known word meant I had no problem with reprimand.
  17. DNF, so I resorted to aids, but even my solver didn’t know antidesiccant or jacaranda. Also, the spell checker for this comment is flagging up antidesiccant as misspelt, and google says “Did you mean: ANTI DESICCANT”, so definitely, to difficult for me.
  18. Opposite experience to some solvers as rather struggled to get started but then got going after seeing TALL SHIPS RACE

    I think all the Setters do an amazing job but even as a comparative newbie I did rather suspect the MAN or MEN thing might cause a few moans. Like others I had to check it before entering, not helped by wondering whether MANATEEN could be the plural of MANATEE. Well MARIA is a slightly unusual plural. Might have helped if I’d remembered they’re not actually fish…

    ABSTINENT was my LOI as I was trying to find a word which meant not having been sent to prison. Doh. Nice clue though

    Thanks all

  19. I print the weekend puzzles and solve off and on during the week. This was a struggle but I got there, looking up toponym, menhaden and Satie post solve. I got the right answer to two which I couldn’t work out – 12ac which I now see as brilliant and 7dn – NHO that meaning of earnest. Thanks for clearing them up.

Comments are closed.