Times Cryptic No 27846 – Saturday, 12 December 2020. Lost for words.

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In the quiz category “crosswords as a foreign language”, I did quite poorly on vocabulary this week! The answers at 2dn and 6dn have both come up occasionally before, as has the word for “seaweed” in the wordplay of 2dn. I remembered none of them. Must try harder!

Still, there was lots to enjoy! Thanks to the setter for a 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}. Add your introduction here

Across
1 Plan for putting on weight (9)
PROGRAMME – PRO=for, GRAMME is the weight. So, gram is still spelt -MME in England?
9 Elderly relative mentioned Christmas a little bit (7)
GRANULE – Ho Ho Ho. Gran is the relative, of course, and Yule sounds like (when mentioned) ULE.
10 College head redistributed poor TVs (7)
PROVOST – anagram of (redistributed) POOR TVS.
11 Critically examine subject of Hardy novel about Diggory’s heart (5)
JUDGE – Jude the Obscure is the novel. Insert G from the heart of (dig)G(ory).
12 Quilt we’d ironed badly (9)
EIDERDOWN – anagram of WED IRONED (badly).
13 One clothed in a nudist camp has words with vile men stripped down (7)
TEXTILE – TEXT is the words, then vILe mEn stripped down (i.e. without the outside letters). I didn’t know nudists described other people thus.
15 Caesar Augustus’s private Roman island originally (5)
CAPRI – take the first letter of each word. A nice historical reference, since apparently Augustus did indeed go there, as did his successor Tiberius.
17 Small rag garment (5)
SMOCK – S=small, MOCK=rag. It took me an alphabet trawl to work out what sort of ragging this was.
18 Good old army spirit (5)
GHOST – G=good, HOST=archaic word for army.
19 Note diamonds worn by European relative (5)
NIECE – N=note, ICE=diamonds. Insert E=European.
20 Mean area, old enough to forget its beginning (7)
AVERAGE – A=area, (o)VERAGE=old enough.
23 Endless auto rage about badger when reversing over a very big one (9)
GARGANTUA – AUT(o) + RAG(e) around NAG=badger, all reversed.
25 Acknowledge galleon’s first broadside (5)
GRANT – G=G(alleon), RANT=broadside.
27 Green approach is just course of action (7)
FAIRWAY – FAIR=just, WAY=course of action.
28 Unknown resin mostly found by Zulu half in river (7)
ZAMBEZI – Z=a mathematical unknown, AMBE(r) is the resin, Z=Zulu in the NATO alphabet, I=half of I(n).
29 Yacht clubs located in American islands (9)
CATAMARAN – C=clubs, AT=located in, AM=American, ARAN=a group of three islands at the mouth of Galway Bay. Not to be confused with the Isle of Arran!

Down
1 Stroke beneath young dog or cat’s paw (6)
PUPPET – PUP=young dog, PET=stroke. Kudos setter, juxtaposing cat and dog this way.
2 Old unpleasant smell with cheese and seaweed in the wind? (4,6)
OBOE D’AMORE – O=old, B.O.=unpleasant smell, EDAM=a cheese, ORE= (an unfamiliar word for) seaweed. I didn’t remember the instrument either, and found it hard to see until I realised there might be an apostrophe involved!
3 Attachment OK for car when moving (4,4)
ROOF RACK – anagram of (moving) OK FOR CAR.
4 German possibly supporting Mark and Maxim (5)
MOTTO – M=mark, OTTO=a German, possibly. Otto von Bismarck springs to mind.
5 Say piece of poetry about creepy-crawly in rose (9)
EGLANTINE – E.G.=say, LINE=piece of poetry about ANT=creepy-crawly.
6 Ruin bar playing cards vocally (6)
BANJAX – BAN=BAR, JAX=vocally, sounds like JACKS. Another piece of crossword vocabulary I’d forgotten.
7 Money flowing out of London indexes at first (4)
QUID – (LI)QUID=flowing. Take out first letters of L(ondon) I(ndexes).
8 Forceful, keeping macho types in check (8)
VEHEMENT – VET=check, keeping HE-MEN.
14 Isolated situation I’ve to worry about (5,5)
IVORY TOWER – anagram (about) of IVE TO WORRY. I debated whether an ivory tower is isolated, and decided I was confusing isolated with solitary. A group in an ivory tower would still be isolated from the outside world!
16 Public praise gay prince coming out (9)
PANEGYRIC – anagram (coming out) of GAY PRINCE.
17 Look up celebrity homosexuals being mentioned (8)
STARGAZE – STAR=celebrity, GAZE=when mentioned, sounds like GAYS. We’re looking up at the skies, not the celebrities.
18 Plant eucalyptus maybe around key managed island (8)
GERANIUM – GUM=eucalyptus maybe, around E=a musical key, RAN=managed and I=island.
21 Horn covering obscuring male rhino’s head (6)
ANTLER – ANTLE=(M)ANTLE, with the M(ale) obscured, R=R(hino)’s head.
22 Like bamboo over northern gorge (6)
CANYON – is bamboo CAN-Y? Decide for yourself! Anyway, O=over, N=northern.
24 Right impression of suspect equipment upgrade (5)
REFIT – R=right, E-FIT=impression of suspect.
26 Host’s crazy banning British (4)
ARMY – (B)ARMY without the B(ritish). Ah, what is an Australian summer without the cricket crowd singing, We are the army, the barmy barmy army?

27 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27846 – Saturday, 12 December 2020. Lost for words.”

  1. I wondered about TEXTILE, albeit in vain. A couple of words that took a while to come to mind: BANJAX and E-FIT, which I only remembered post-submission. It took me a while, and a couple of checkers, to conclude that 2d was a foreign term, and then it hit me (NHO ORE). I thought it was odd that 18ac has HOST from ‘army’ and 26d has ARMY from ‘host’.

    Edited at 2020-12-19 02:16 am (UTC)

  2. A pangram, but it didn’t help , as only noticed post solve. Took a while to see how QUID worked, but did so eventually.
    WOD BANJAX.
  3. Failed to complete, as I needed aids for the instrument at 2dn although I knew it well. I also had a wrong answer at 7dn where I opted for FUND for no other reason than it fitted and the clue contained ‘money’. Rather annoying that, as I had considered QUID but couldn’t see wordplay to justify it. I only parsed it long after the event.

    NHO TEXT with that meaning, but it simply had to be.

    Edited at 2020-12-19 07:54 am (UTC)

  4. …like Jack I had to use aids for 2d a clue to which I have to say, how do I despise thee, let me count the ways: 1/It’s an instrument I’ve never heard of. 2/It uses an apostrophe. 3/ I have never ever heard of ore as seaweed and can’t find it in any works of reference.
    Thanks for your blog, Bruce, especially for TEXTILE (another word in a context I didn’t know), CAPRI, QUID and ANTLER.
    Bruce, You may also know that there is also the Bharat Army which follows India around the world. I came across them at an ODI here in NZ a year or two ago. They won’t be singing too loudly today after their team was dismissed for 36 in Adelaide!

    Edited at 2020-12-19 06:54 am (UTC)

    1. A good point. I found ORE in only one, namely Chambers (the printed edition, not the free online) which lists it as a dialect word for ‘oreweed’ more usually spelt ‘oarweed’. The 7-letter versions are in Collins and the Oxfords, but again not in the free online Chambers.
  5. 35 minutes on this strange puzzle Apart from the instrument and three clues in the NE , I was on for a sub ten. BANJAX eventually was seen and TEXTILE fell into place without quite knowing why we were in a nudist camp. I then biffed QUID as the best money I could find. OBOE DAMO?E was left so I assumed ORE was a seaweed. COD to FAIRWAY from CANYON, which was a bit of a stretch. Thank you Bruce and setter.
  6. ….thus rendering my 11:36 effort useless (“roog rack”)

    NHO OBOE D’AMORE, but it reminded me of Private Eye’s euphemism “playing the oboe”, of which I shall say no more.

    DNK the usage of TEXTILE. I couldn’t parse LOI QUID, but was pointed in the right direction by friends.

    COD BANJAX. Didn’t spot the pangram (again !)

  7. 13 ac TEXTILE is I believe to be Brighton Polari (c.1979). This should be nudist beach and not nudist camp. My WOD

    FOI 3dn ROOF RACK

    COD 2dn OBOE D’AMOUR is pitched a minor third below an oboe (fyi)

    I wanted 19ac to be DADDY! My LOI

    28ac ZAMBEZI – is there an IKEA nearby? Has a double pangram ever surfaced in a 15×15 me-wonder? If not there’s a challenge.

    Edited at 2020-12-19 09:54 am (UTC)

    2. There have been a few over the years but perhaps the most impressive was Noel’s QC #357 in 2015 which could easily have been a double if he’d so wished but he restrained himself so that he could tease us by omitting the letter L (No L – geddit?). That’s really going some for a 13 x 13!

      Edited at 2020-12-19 11:21 am (UTC)

  8. I can confirm that naturists use TEXTILE in a humorous/dismissive way to refer to people who insist on wrapping their bits in cloth, but I was a bit surprised to find it used here, a bit like finding one of the words football supporters use to describe other teams.
    This one was straightforward fare, done in around 16 minutes. I was actually helped (a bit) by the pangramity.
    1. I can further confirm that Brighton beach started this with ‘TACTILES’ and the odd ‘CROCODILE’.
  9. I didn’t have too much trouble with this one, apart from taking ages to see 2d. I needed all the checkers, but then found that I knew the instrument, although not the seaweed. My other difficulty was 7d where I had FUND until my proof read where I decided to spend more time on it and spotted (li)QUID. Phew! 28:50. Thanks setter and Bruce.
  10. Nho the instrument but had heard of a viola d’amore, which helped.
    Banjax was one of the late, great Terry Wogan’s favourite words
  11. Please can someone explain how this works. Is it simply that the setter says ‘reversing over’, ie uses two reversal indicators (which strictly speaking cancel one another out so that there is no reversal) because of the surface, and really means just reversing, or just over?
    2. I thing the reversing bit applies to GAN (badger) and the over bit to AUT RAG needing reversing too.
      1. I didn’t notice this either, but isn’t it AUT NAG RAG, reversed, as Bruce says? Which is fine, but then there’s ‘over’ doing no work.
  12. A similar but slower story from me. I had three left at 1.40pm so good progress up to that point. I guessed TEXTILE; dnk the specialist meaning. I had FUND? ready for 7d but was too unhappy with the parsing to go with it. Then I thought of LIQUID and it was clear.
    LOI OBOE DAMORE where my deficiencies in musical instruments and seaweed were laid bare. I noted one,ore,ose and oze. Happily I guessed right; perhaps Dean Martin saved the day? He said that’s amore.
    Finished at 2.10pm.
    David
  13. DNF in about 20 mins with fund instead of quid. wasn’t entirely happy with it but justified it to myself on the basis of fecund with EC for the square mile removed.
  14. Quite familiar with “textile” in this sense, but still a bit surprised to see it here.
    I see now that I marked ANTLER as my LOI and that I didn’t finish 7! Blimey
  15. 11:15. Strange puzzle. Clueing an obscurity like OBOE D’AMORE with another obscurity is just bad practice, TEXTILE is bizarre and GARGANTUA doesn’t work.
  16. I was another FUND, although pretty sure it wasn’t right but couldn’t come up with anything better. So a couple of pink squares when I looked just now.

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