Times Cryptic No 27966 – Saturday, 1 May 2021. Done by dinner.

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Last Saturday was busy for me, and I did this in snatches. So it was an extended solve, but I don’t think it was harder than usual.

My ignorance of 1ac is all encompassing, so I was surprised to discover what the definition referred to!

Thanks to the setter for a very enjoyable puzzle. How did you all get on?

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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 struck through.

Across
1 Portrays tourist as caustic, perhaps (5,8)
PAINT STRIPPER – PAINTS, TRIPPER.
8 Fatality in plant — bug not involved (4)
LOSS – I’d never heard of a BUGLOSS, but you can see what to do with it!
9 A tap losing pressure — reach with difficulty (2,1,7)
AT A STRETCH – A, TAP without its P, STRETCH = reach.
10 First-class score against spinner (3-5)
TOP-NOTCH – TOP=spinner, NOTCH=score.
11 Two ducks crossing harbour in European city (6)
OPORTO – O’s or ducks, surrounding PORT.
13 Tree died following onset of blizzard — tree in which you’ll find rot (10)
BALDERDASH – B from Blizzard, ALDER is a tree, D for died, ASH is another tree.
16 Nobleman ahead of schedule? Not quite (4)
EARL – EARLy. A chestnut.
17 Victor getting in by way of examination (4)
VIVA – V for Victor, in VIA.
18 Initiation of a hand during social event (10)
ADMITTANCE – MITT in A DANCE.
20 Learn about vicious dog in stable (6)
SECURE – CUR in SEE.
22 Did turn briefly in subtle comedy (8)
DROLLERY – ROLLEd, in DRY.
24 Relax wearing mate’s fur (10)
CHINCHILLA – CHILL wearing CHINA.
26 Most of group returned in carriage (4)
TRAP – PART of a group, backwards/returned. It’s a bit of a stretch to get from “most” to “part”, but it will do. Edit: I like Kevin’s suggestion better. The group is a PARTy. Shorten, and reverse.
27 Actors in rep he reviewed like dancing (13)
TERPSICHOREAN – anagram (reviewed) of ACTORS IN REP HE. Terpsichore was the Greek muse of the dance.

Down
1 In favour of case that’s challenging (11)
PROVOCATIVE – PRO, VOCATIVE. I knew Latin had a vocative case. How many other languages do, I wonder?
2 Children’s author briefly raised dramatist (5)
IBSEN – NESBIt is the children’s author.
3 Schooled trio at art courses offered here (9)
TRATTORIA – anagram (schooled) of TRIO AT ART. The ART is nicely juxtaposed to the COURSES.
4 Pain in most of mouth and windpipe (7)
TRACHEA – put ACHE in TRAp.
5 Keen on grabbing right start (5)
INTRO – put R in INTO.
6 Amazing things — height seen during revolutionary flower power (9)
PHENOMENA – revolve ANEMONE+P by 180o, and insert H.
7 Fabulous bird to rise quickly? Not half (3)
ROC – ROCket.
12 Actor, in turn, reviewed spy thriller (4,7)
TORN CURTAIN – anagram (reviewed) of ACTOR IN TURN. A Hitchcock film, of course. I wouldn’t have guessed the lead actors.
14 Surprisingly order a nun to leave without paying (2,1,6)
DO A RUNNER – anagram (surprisingly) of ORDER A NUN.
15 Stew at last in bistro? A controversial matter (3,6)
HOT POTATO – HOT POT=stew, AT is itself, O from bistrO.
19 Lincoln has one, note (6,1)
MIDDLE C – ho ho!
21 Distinctive character in quiet hostelry (5)
ETHOS – hidden.
23 Coffee with dish, unlimited (5)
LATTE – drop the outside letters from PLATTER.
25 Buffet voucher doesn’t include starter (3)
HIT – drop the C from CHIT.

26 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27966 – Saturday, 1 May 2021. Done by dinner.”

  1. This was my LOI, and I think I just now got it: PART is most of PARTY.
  2. This was an easy one, all right, although I biffed BALDERDASH & HOT POTATO, parsing post-submission. And I had the same reading of TRAP as Bruce did, only just now seeing what I think is the light.
  3. 16:02, so a mere 13 minutes and 37 seconds behind Verlaine. Up my slower alley, anyway, with bits of classical, musical and geographical stuff, as well as a splendid word for rubbish and a reminder of an exam I underwent many moons ago.
  4. 26 minutes. No problems or queries.

    I note there’s still been no comment from crossword management about the queries raised re 28ac in prize puzzle #27690 so it seems that they’ve not been monitoring the crossword forum. Does anyone have the ear of Richard Rogan or David Parfitt to perhaps nudge one of them into explaining how the clue is supposed to work, or was there an error?

    28 In dire straits after reputation collapsed, a first for relatively wealthy area (11,4) STOCKBROKER BELT.

    I’ve a similar query about a clue in this week’s puzzle but we’ll leave that until next Saturday.

    1. I would like to know as well.

      As to this crossword, I cannot do them more quickly than this. Thanks all.

    3. … I expect we’ll have a satisfactory answer! But far be it from us to comment now …
  5. 12 minutes with LOI BUG. I was on wavelength and not frequency, 256 Hertz. Yep, COD to MIDDLE C. I’d have said cycles per second in my Physics days. Apparently, the unit was officially named after Heinrich in 1960 but the news must have been slow reaching Oxford. Pleasant if a bit unchallenging for a Saturday. Thank you B and setter.

    Edited at 2021-05-08 07:00 am (UTC)

  6. 7:12… which is not far off a PB and my 3rd fastest time I’ve recorded. I don’t remember much about it and my only annotations are underlining of a couple of anagrists. I see, though, I attempted to make an anagram of IN BISTRO A for 15D at first.
  7. ….and, once I kicked off with my fifth clue in, it yielded quickly, although I only parsed HOT POTATO afterwards.

    FOI OPORTO
    LOI DROLLERY
    COD LOSS
    TIME 6:56

  8. 14:12
    Can’t really type them in much faster.
    Agree with everyone else: would like to hear from setter/editor about stockbroker belt.
    Thanks, b.
  9. I started on paper with VIVA and got ten clues in 20 minutes. Quite a fast start for me.
    A second quick session online saw me home with last in 8a and 6d.
    LOSS was unparsed; I’d never heard of the plant. PHENOMENA was easy with all the checkers but hard to parse. Around 40 minutes in all.
    Favourite was TOP NOTCH.
    David
  10. 9:26. Somehow I knew the plant: I even know there is such a thing as Viper’s Bugloss, I’ve no idea how.
    The thing I definitely didn’t know, and which slowed me down a bit, was the film. It’s an odd title.
    I always associate TERPSICHOREAN with the Monty Python Cheese Shop sketch.
    1. Just one more on the Amis theme – will stop after this: I only knew bugloss because viper’s bugloss appears in a description of a weed-infested lawn towards the end of ‘Jake’s Thing’ 🙂
    2. Whereas more cultured moi associates the word with Michael Praetorius, 16th-century composer of, inter alia, “Terpsichore”, who said when he’d finished, “I like a good tune, you’re forced to.”
      1. That’s where I first came across the word. I have a treasured vinyl recording of a suite taken from ‘Terpsichore’ on the Archiv label. Brilliant stuff!
          1. No, I don’t even know this! I shall listen in full later. Thanks for the link.
    3. The film is about a Cold War defector, so I imagine the title is a whimsical reference to the Iron Curtain.
  11. My only real hold up was not knowing the plant and being reluctant to put in LOSS without understanding the parsing. However, I finally shrugged, submitted and hoped, thankfully not in vain. Took me a while to see TORN CURTAIN, but it did ring a bell when it arrived. Nice puzzle. 28:24. Thanks setter and Bruce.
  12. I liked this one. 42:32 which is a good time for me. Baffled by LOSS but put it in anyway. Struggled with TOP NOTCH and BALDERDASH and spent far too long trying to construct 1dn with the dative instead of the vocative. I really liked PHENOMENA. Brilliant to reverse a whole anemone, and a great sounding word to too. It makes me think of mehna mehna as sung by the muppets. There. Now it’s my earworm again today
  13. Probably my fastest time ever for a Saturday – 17 minutes.

    FOI 6ac LOSS

    LOI 17ac VIVA

    COD 12dn TORN CURTAIN – Paul Newman and Julie Andrews (not Rip Torn)

    WOD 27ac TERPSICHOREAN not TURPS – that’s 1ac!

  14. Couldnt be bothered with the anagrams for TERPSICHOREAN or TORN CURTAIN so DNF after 30 minutes. Might have worked out the former but the latter is an OCBA for me. Obvs too young to do these things aged 55 😀

    Lithuanian has a vocative case in response to brnchn’s query. One of the oldest European languages (as is pretty well known)

    Thanks blogger and setter

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