Times Cryptic No 27822 – Saturday, 14 November 2020. San Fairy Ann.

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Things looked bright when both 1ac and 1dn went in at first glance! From there things went smoothly, until I was left with just 6dn … an obscure foreign phrase clued as an anagram. My chances of getting that were SFA. That’s Sweet Fanny Adams, if you’re wondering!

So, ça ne fait rien. (Oops, another foreign phrase! Sorry about that. At least it can also reduce to SFA – see the headline above, which is apparently how WW1 British troops rendered that French phrase.)

Enough of the griping. I particularly liked 7dn. Thanks to the setter for a generally very enjoyable puzzle. Let’s take a look.

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 After a job (4)
POST – double definition.
3 Was troubled that extremely scrawny pet’s eating chicken (7-3)
SCAREDY-CAT – CARED (was troubled, as in ‘was troubled about climate change’), ‘eaten by’ SY (extremely scrawny) and CAT.
10 A more pressing case for maiden’s suitor (7)
ADMIRER – A, DIRER ‘casing’ M for maiden.
11 One working on proposed legislation a great deal (7)
BILLION – BILL (proposed legislation), I (one), ON (working).
12 Unwelcome outcome of sharp practice among later batsmen? (1,5,2,3,4)
A STING IN THE TAIL – A STING (sharp practice), IN THE TAIL (among later batsmen).
13 Means of signalling back words across Channel (3-3)
TOM-TOM – MOT + MOT (words, in French), backward.
14 Impartial graduate stuck in conflict? (8)
BALANCED – BA (graduate), LANCED (stuck, in conflict).
17 It’ll help you appreciate the catering supply at debuts (5,3)
TASTE BUD – supply is a rather odd anagram word, but do that to AT DEBUTS. On edit: thanks to Kevin. Of course it’s not sup-ply as a verb, it’s supp-ly as an adjective, meaning in a supple way. Indeed, we have seen that trick before, but it never loses its charm.
18 An orderly part of province (6)
ANTRIM – AN, TRIM (orderly). Antrim is the country, Northern Ireland is the province.
21 Highwayman thanked for hog — it’s cooking (6,2,3,4)
KNIGHT OF THE ROAD – anagram (cooking) of THANKED FOR HOG IT.
23 E.g. third service book (7)
ORDINAL – double definition, the first as in listing things (first, second, third), the second as in a church service book.
24 Theatre worker about to turn lock (7)
ACTRESS – CA (about) turns, then TRESS (lock).
25 Tackle investment, maintaining one’s dignity (4-6)
FACE-SAVING – FACE (tackle), SAVING (investment).
26 Tear into fine ballad (4)
FLAY – F (fine), LAY (ballad).

Down
1 Simple countryman‘s game, not hard (7)
PEASANT – PHEASANT, minus an H.
2 Oral element of maths paper, on occasions (9)
SOMETIMES – SOME sounds like SUM, TIMES is the paper.
4 Rise of one penny once in charge for knitwear item (6)
CARDIE – CARE is charge, as in ‘I leave them in your care/charge’. Insert I (one) D (old penny), rising.
5 Target, outwardly authentic, proving false (8)
REBUTTAL – BUTT is the target (of jokes, for instance). REAL is outside.
6 Welcome unemployment could give Ron a decent life (5,3,6)
DOLCE FAR NIENTE – an anagram (could give) of RON A DECENT LIFE. It’s an Italian phrase. I saw that the first word might be DOLCE, but I hadn’t a clue about the rest of it. Bah, humbug.
7 Country area to south in mountain range (5)
CHINA – move the A in CHAIN to the “South”. Cute.
8 Complex hint came first (7)
TANGLED – TANG (a hint). LED (came first).
9 Broadcaster’s to contact the staff to express grief (5,4,5)
WRING ONES HANDS – sounds like RING one’s staff.
15 Junior officer grabs last of spare material (9)
CORPOREAL – CORPORAL grabs the E at the end of spareE.
16 Old Balkan bloke set up larger than usual facilities (8)
YUGOSLAV – turn GUY upside down, then OS LAV. The iPad app wanted the answer to start with a J, but that makes no sense.
17 Ape to begin journey (4,3)
TAKE OFF – double definition.
19 Reserve humble abode, following fashion (7)
MODESTY – STY, following MODE.
20 Muscle problem ultimately defeats coach (6)
STRAIN – S is ‘ultimately’defeatS. TRAIN is coach.
22 Trendy mounted police originating in subcontinent (5)
INDIC – IN (trendy), CID (police), ‘mounted’.

26 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27822 – Saturday, 14 November 2020. San Fairy Ann.”

  2. POI REBUTTAL, LOI CHINA; took me that long to see the wordplay. With N_E_T_ in 6d, I finally decided that it had to be a foreign phrase, which immediately gave me DOLCE FAR NIENTE (wouldn’t have thought that was obscure, but one man’s meat etc.); parsed post-submission. G&S fans might recognize it from “Iolanthe”:
    This gentleman is seen
    With a maid of seventeen,
    A-taking of his dolce far niente;
    And wonders he’ll achieve
    For he asks us to believe
    She’s his mother,
    And he’s over five-and-twenty!
    COD to CHINA.
  3. at 6dn reminds me of the time George Best escaped censure from the Football Association; ‘The Sun’ ran the back-page headline “Bestie: Sweet FA!”.

    FOI 1ac POST

    LOI 14ac BALANCED

    COD 6d DFN with 7d CHINA the most cunning

    WOD 21ac KNIGHT OF THE ROAD – which no longer meant Highwayman in my 20th Century memory, but ‘a tramp’.
    A beggar, no longer a robber.

    Time: About an hour.

    1. For me a knight of the road meant someone who helped you when you broke down, or was in some other way gave a good turn.
      Andyf
  4. 33 minutes, so quite easy apart from the unfair clue at 6dn which I failed to solve resulting in a technical DNF. It has come up only once before, 5 years ago in a Jumbo, a time when I did them very rarely, but at least on that occasion the anagrist was presented more amusingly as INDECENT LOAFER.

    Edited at 2020-11-21 05:46 am (UTC)

  5. Enjoyed this, some neat clues with excellent surfaces.
    Re 6dn, if you see DOLCE and have the crossers, the anagrist doesn’t actually leave you with many alternatives. I had “Dolce fan nierte” to start with, but managed to correct it before submission
    1. That was my best guess based on knowing ‘dolce’ for sure (from music) and assuming ‘fan’ to be an Italian word as in ‘Cosi fan tutti’. So I agree the anagrist doesn’t leave much choice, but sufficient to get it wrong even with a passing acquaintance with the Italian language.
      1. Same verb, different conjugation(? I’ve forgotten grammar terms).
        Fare: to do, infinitive, shortened here to far’
        Fanno: they do, 3rd person plural, shortened to fan’

        I speak a bit of Italian, lived and worked there, but never heard the saying. Could guess it from knowing niente, but not impressed by having obscure foreign phrases, especially as anagrams.

        1. There’s an old joke among mathematicians that “trivial” is synonymous with “proved”—that is, any theorem can be considered “trivial” once it is known to be true.

          In the same spirit, we can introduce the solver’s equivalent: any answer is general knowledge if I know it!

          Even if it appeared in Gilbert and Sullivan lyrics, I dispute that this phrase is GK.

      2. This was not just exactly what I came up with, but also exactly the same reasoning! At least I wasn’t alone, so thanks for that, Jack 🙂
  6. I zipped through this in 14 minutes, vaguely knowing the Italian term. I liked BALANCED particularly. Thank you Bruce and setter.
  7. POST-solve I am SOMETIMES unsure
    How much STRAIN my poor brain can endure,
    With the TANGLED vocab
    I made a FACE-SAVING stab
    But DOLCE FAR NIENTE Is really obscure
    1. As Joekobi might point out but I got here first, what you want to say is
      But DOLCE FAR NIENTE’s obscure (da DUM da da DUM da da DUM)

      (which, I still think, isn’t very)

  8. ….too (DOLCE) FAR (NIENTE). I succumbed to aids (Chambers, not the disease) once I was happy with the “dolce” part of it. We have enough English usages to describe “busy doing nothing” without borrowing other people’s.

    I briefly had “tic-tac” at 13A but removed it when I couldn’t parse it. SOMETIMES showed me the error of my ways.

    FOI POST
    LOI DOLCE FAR NIENTE
    COD FACE-SAVING
    TIME 12:32 (with one aid used)

    2. I too was worried with tom-tom. I can find no connection between the drum and communication. Yes we have jungle drums in both literal and allusive forms but TOMs and tom-toms are drums unconnected with communication drums.
      Andyf
  9. Unusually my FOI was 1a and I covered quite a lot of ground in my first session of about 30 minutes. Over lunch I got it down to my last few. I guessed INDIC was a word; assumed BALANCED had to be right although I wasn’t sure of the parsing; which just left me with 6d.
    I don’t know Italian but having got DOLCE I thought NIENTE looked possible which got me home at 2.10pm.
    An enjoyable test. David
    PS I might now go to the crossword club and see what’s in store for the super solvers.
    1. This page isn’t working at the momentwww.thetimes.co.uk can’t currently handle this request.
    1. The pink square wasn’t only on iPad: also on my PC in the morning. But before I could compose an elegantly phrased, indignant e-mail it had corrected itself. Jeffrey
    2. Silly me it wasn’t ‘TASTEBUD’ inscribed on Citizen Kane’s sled, after all!

      Now I hear from CNN that the Russians have hacked into the The Times Crossword Championships – Fox say it was the Democrats and the BBC that Verlaine has won anyway!

      Another day another dollar.

      Edited at 2020-11-21 05:27 pm (UTC)

  11. I found this tricky, especially the unknown Italian expression, where I had to write out the anagrist even once I had all the checkers, to work it out. I got through the puzzle in a little less than 45 mins but annoyingly managed to spoil it with a typo in strain.
  12. I guessed DOLCE FAN NIERTE and Googled it, which gave me the correct expression. Not impressed. 44:12. Thanks Bruce.
  13. I feel I must come to the support of, and thank, our maligned setter. A very enjoyable puzzle, not least because of 6dn. Both “dolce” and “niente” should be known to those who read music, so I think it’s eminently gettable, even to those who haven’t seen it before.

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