Times Cryptic No 27840 – Saturday, 5 December 2020.

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I did this puzzle in snatches during a busy Saturday, so I don’t know how long it would have taken under normal conditions. The standout clue for me was 1dn. I had no idea what to make of it until I had enough helpers to guess the answer, and finally work out what was going on. Delightful!

My LOI was 22ac, where I guessed the answer but took ages to see the wordplay. I enjoyed the tricky definition at 12ac, and looked askance at 13dn. Thanks to the setter for a very enjoyable puzzle. How did everyone find it?

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.

Across
1 Neck requiring equal, unlimited, forces (5)
QUAFF – (E)QUA(L), 2 x F for force.
4 States monarch might be taken in by sweetener or bribe (4,5)
HUSH MONEY – US=the States, HM=Her Majesty, all taken in by HONEY=sweetener, in a sense unrelated to the answer.
9 Aviation industry maybe quickly getting around upset, making a comeback (9)
AEROSPACE – APACE getting around EROS=SORE making a comeback.
10 Mother grasps baking at last — it’s very hot under the crust (5)
MAGMA – (bakin)G in MAMA.
11 Being ahead of coppers, dashed off (6)
RANCID – RAN = dashed, ahead of CID = coppers.
12 Seafood‘s left in vessel, baked in the middle and not turned over (8)
PLANKTON – L=left in PAN, (ba)K(Ed), TON=NOT turned over. Not a food commonly seen in a fisherman’s basket, but a staple food of fish and whales!
14 Biased information for irreligious state prosecutor (10)
PROPAGANDA – the irreligious might, whimsically, be PRO PAGAN, the prosecutor is the DA.
16 Start to stroke animal’s cheek (4)
SASS – S(troke) ASS.
19 Refuse dump’s opening next to English city (4)
DENY – D(ump), E=English, NY=city.
20 Audition centres arranged before makeshift set (6,4)
SCREEN TEST – anagrams of CENTRES (arranged), and SET (makeshift).
22 Frequently clap MEP, making an effort to secure votes (8)
CAMPAIGN – odd letters of “clap mep making an” give C-A- M-P -A-I-G -N.
23 Fight French industrial relations body (6)
FRACAS – FR=French, the ACAS is an English industrial relations body (I believed the setter, though of course I’d never heard of it!)
26 Beast you can see in Pennsylvania, briefly? (5)
PANDA – the two-letter code for Pennsylvania is PA, or to spell it out more fully, P-AND-A.
27 Wine collector has mobile phone pinched by eg crude European (9)
OENOPHILE – anagram of (mobile) PHONE pinched by OIL=crude say, then E=European.
28 Uses bugging device, compromising Leninists (7,2)
LISTENS IN – anagram of (compromising) LENINISTS.
29 Took on water maybe — unpleasantly wet crossing river (5)
DRANK – DANK crossing R.

Down
1 For example, 26 x 4 – 50 (9)
QUADRUPED – what a delight! 26ac is PANDA, which gives the answer as a definition by example. “x 4” is a multiplication instruction, for something to be QUADRUPLED. In Roman numerals, 50 = L, which needs to be removed from QUADRUP(L)ED to give the answer.
2 Expert wearing an item of PPE (5)
APRON – PRO wearing AN.
3 Can its energy start to fire up a period of celebration? (8)
FESTIVAL – LAV=can, ITS, E=energy, F=start of fire. Turn it all “up”, and behold!
4 Stop scratching head and vote for fraud (4)
HOAX – (W)HOA, scratching its head, then X=vote.
5 Heading for peak, chap departs wearing guide’s climbing equipment (10)
STEPLADDER – P=heading of Peak, LAD=chap, and D=departs, all going in STEER=guide.
6 Motorway sign might ultimately flash (6)
MOMENT – M, OMEN, (migh)T ultimately.
7 A thing somehow associated with REM? (9)
NIGHTMARE – anagram (somehow) of A THING REM.
8 Long story rings true at the end (5)
YEARN – YARN ringing (tru)E. I saw “long” and quickly thought “yearn”, but I struggled to see the wordplay.
13 So, God might be 15, perhaps? (5,5)
FANCY GOODS – GOODS is an anagram (FANCY) of SO GOD. So, the answer might be a clue for 15dn.
15 Decorates ends of narrowboat with external gold handles (9)
ORNAMENTS – OR=gold, NAMES=handles. N(arrowboa)T is inside.
17 Drunkard consequently flipped over and fell, as it were (2,2,5)
SO TO SPEAK – SOT, OS=SO flipped over, PEAK=fell.
18 Brave international agent is provided with papers (8)
INTREPID – INT=international, REP=agent, ID=papers.
21 Front of academy partially gives protection (6)
FACADE – hidden in/protected by O(F ACADE)MY. I think “partially” and “protection” overlap; both say it’s a hidden answer.
22 Fossil fuel containing phosphorus and resin (5)
COPAL – P=phosporus in COAL.
24 State control has increased, not abated, primarily (5)
CHINA – spelled out by the first letters of each word (primarily).
25 Soon, news article is to be written up — there’s nothing in it (4)
ANON – N+N=new, twice. A is the article. Write them upwards, and insert O=nothing.

29 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27840 – Saturday, 5 December 2020.”

  1. Really liked it. Humorous, a few in-jokes e.g. the reverse cryptic fancy goods, a great &lit for nightmare, the unexpected but exceptional quadruped (which I might have spelled wrongly without the cryptic giving the U). Copal unknown, but had to be. Thanks setter and blogger.

    Edited at 2020-12-12 02:46 am (UTC)

  2. DNK ACAS, but assumed it was what in fact it is. I don’t think I ever parsed CAMPAIGN; ‘frequently’ didn’t strike me as an every-other-letter indicator. COD of course to the beautiful QUADRUPED; although its beauty is dimmed some (mmm! dimmed some!) by its depending on 26 being solved first.
  3. Thanks, Bruce for an entertaining blog.
    I found this straightforward enough and really enjoyed PROPAGANDA and FANCY GOODS but COD must go to the excellent QUADRUPED, as you indicated.
  4. 25 minutes, zipping through about half and then going slower. I liked HUSH MONEY but COD has to go to QUADRUPED, as others have said. FANCY GOODS took me a while to parse, but was also very clever. A really nice puzzle.Thank you Bruce and setter.
  5. I really wasn’t up for this and ran out of steam and inspiration. Somewhat reliant on cross-cluing so not enjoyed/enjoined hereabouts.

    3dn FESTIVAL got an ugh! in the margin. IKEAN toilet ware department.

    FOI 17dn SO TO SPEAK

    (LOI) 13dn FANCY GOODS

    COD 1dn QUADRUPED – but the P and A were required!

    WOD 27ac OENOPHILE

    1. I quite like an equation-based clue, Jack, but then I was on C P Snow’s side in his debate with Leavis.

      Edited at 2020-12-12 11:46 am (UTC)

    2. I rather liked it—although I’m not too fond of cross-referenced clues, and I saw the answer before I could see why, which can also be annoying.
      But it was damned creative.
  7. FOI SO TO SPEAK and I managed to solve 16 clues in my first 40 minutes session; a good start. LOI at 2.20 pm was an unparsed QUADRUPED. Now I see how it works I rather like it.
    QUADRATIC had been my first guess and this meant that DENY was 2LOI.
    I enjoyed this overall and now know how to spell Oenophile.
    Now back to Dubai.
    David
  8. Thanks brnchn for explaining 22a.
    Super clever Xword.
    Can sympathise with complaints about clues being interdependent but I think the setter (thank you) made sure that the clue needed wasn’t very hard.
    Andyf
  9. Another thumbs up for QUADRUPED, despite the cross reference. Very clever. I enjoyed the rest of the puzzle too. Quite a quick effort for a prize puzzle for me. 20:36. Thanks setter and Bruce.
  10. ….but for the interdependent clues. I can accept one such link in a puzzle, but two is overdoing it. To take Kevin’s early point, I find it exceptionally irritating when the second clue in logical sequence is the key to the earlier one, thus making a structured solve impossible. Spoiled this for me.

    FOI MAGMA
    LOI PROPAGANDA
    COD FESTIVAL
    TIME 14:32

    1. I’ve nothing against a few related clues and the order they come in doesn’t faze me. It’s a simple and very rare puzzle that I solve top to bottom. I think I once managed it in the pub with the kid’s puzzle in The War Cry.
    2. I don’t know what a “structured” solve would mean for me. I tend to start anywhere and first just acrosses or downs (harder that way, but gives me confidence). Or I might start with the shortest ones or (especially if they are anagrams) the longest ones. Or I might try to work two corners symmetrically at first. Eventually, of course, I drop all such strategy and simply attack the unfilled squares. It never occurred to me that the clue numbers would have anything to do with a “logical order” of solving.
      That said, I find cross-refs annoying when there are more than one or two.

      Edited at 2020-12-12 08:17 pm (UTC)

  11. 10:05 I whizzed through this, not minding the cross-references. I enjoyed QUADRUPED a lot and CAMPAIGN and FANCY GOODS too. Thanks Bruce and setter.
    2. I can understand you wanted to see the answers, but please appreciate the blogs are done by volunteers, some of them in different time zones and in fact on different continents!

      Leaving a message on my blog won’t affect when others post, and indeed in this case I didn’t even see it till the next day in my time zone! Sorry about that.

  13. Enjoyed very much. Was intrigued on seeing the clue to 1d and looked forward to solving it sequentially. Do I want to see more of this type of clue in the Times looking forward …. no.
  14. Thanks brnchn. A nice puzzle to get to blog – other than Fancy Goods. I’d not heard the term applied to an ornament or ornaments, so the cross reference was a hindrance rather than a nudge. I liked a lot of the others, especially Rancid.
  15. 7:39. No problems, obviously. I liked 1dn very much: the cross-reference is necessary to construct an apparently entirely numerical clue, which is very clever. I had to figure out exactly how it worked because I can never remember which vowel should go in the middle of QUADRUPED.
    DK COPAL, FANCY GOODS vaguely familiar but not a term I would ever use.
  16. 1d is brilliant. FANCY GOODS was surely one of my last in, as I didn’t know the term.
  17. Just under 30 minutes, so no real problems, although I had to believe the wordplay for FRACAS. And I thought 1dn was very clever, although it didn’t take me too long to solve it (after I already had the PANDA on which it depends).

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