Times Cryptic No 28020 – Saturday, 3 July 2021. Martial Arts, or Music?

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For me, this crossword had a very unusual feel. I stalled about 80% finished, and after I eventually found plausible answers for every clue, I had a long list of puzzling things to work through.

Happily, everything made sense in the end, but I would never have believed there was a Brazilian martial art featuring dance and music, or a Cambridge boat crew called Blondie! (Not to be confused with the pop group Blondie, whose lyrics I could never make out either. I just discovered she was singing: Soon found out, had a heart of glass. All these years, I thought it was about Superman!)

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

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.

[Read more …]Clues are blue, with definitions underlined. Deletions and commentary are (in brackets).

Across
1 Remove cream, curdled (4,3)
PICK OFF – PICK=cream (of the crop), OFF=curdled.
5 Lover, on leaving a country in fact, missing every second (7)
FANATIC – A + NATI(on)=country, in FC=the odd letters of FaCt.
9 My better worker filed beautifully? (9)
MANICURED – the man I cured = my worker, now better. Very tricky.
10 Father out of bed, as device making breakfast? (3-2)
POP-UP – self-explanatory; like a toaster.
11 Nothing in old money for European runner (5)
LOIRE – O in LIRE=old Italian currency.
12 Something sweet I pulled out of a sticky pie before cooking (5,4)
TIPSY CAKE – take out an I, then make an anagram of (cook) A ST-CKY PIE.
14 Worker on organ, cosmetic surgeon? (8,6)
FEATURES EDITOR – a worker on a newspaper, and whimsically a plastic surgeon.
17 As characters here (initials), positioned thus? (14)
ALPHABETICALLY – a definition by example really, since the words in the clue are so ordered.
21 Tackle issue about wagon for frontiersman (3,6)
KIT CARSON – KIT=tackle + SON=issue, around CAR=wagon. Here’s the wiki version of his story.
23 Cambridge crew losing first classic (5)
OLDIE – the crew is (G)OLDIE. The famous boat race features the men’s and women’s Blue Boats of Oxford and Cambridge. There is also a race between the reserve crews. The men’s reserve crews are Isis, for Oxford, and Goldie, for Cambridge. The women’s reserve crews are Osiris, for Oxford, and Blondie, for Cambridge. Learnt something new!
24 Ignoring every other part, turn exact handle (5)
TREAT – every second letter of TuRn ExAcT.
25 Host current monarch (9)
PRESENTER – PRESENT=current + ER.
26 Appear happy after sales talk (5,2)
PITCH UP – PITCH=sales talk, UP=happy.
27 Unconvincing South American setter drops in (7)
SUSPECT – S=south, US=American, PECT(in)=setter. As with past crosswords, I was slow to get from South American to S-US!

Down
1 Spot member occupying mansion (6)
PIMPLE – MP in PILE.
2 Racket in decent condition put away (7)
CONFINE – CON=racket, FINE=in decent condition.
3 Giant bullied Hearts players (9)
ORCHESTRA – ORC=giant, anagram (bullied) of HEARTS.
4 Creative works penned by English novelist succeeded, initially (3,8)
FOR STARTERS – ART penned by FORSTER, + S=succeeded.
5 Rage following another defeat, all kicking off (3)
FAD – first letters.
6 Arctic fleet? (5)
NIPPY – double definition.
7 Spar, a post most hollow at sea (7)
TOPMAST – anagram (at sea) of A POST M—T. (The mast is ‘hollow’).
8 Mafia boss, one in time for martial art (8)
CAPOEIRA – CAPO + I in ERA. Is this even a word? Yes!

Capoeira is a Brazilian martial art that combines elements of dance, acrobatics, and music. It was practiced by enslaved Africans in Brazil at the beginning of the 16th century.

13 Answer more questions around start of interrogation, showing no emotion (11)
PASSIONLESS – to answer more quiz questions, you might need to PASS ON LESS. Insert I=start of Interrogation.
15 Ignoring leader in reshuffle, shift around each Tory minister (9)
DEACONESS – drop the R=leader of reshuffle, from DRESS=shift, and put what’s left around EA(ch) + CON.
16 Baseball player put champions in first place (8)
BACKSTOP – BACKS=champions, TOP=in first place. Isn’t BACKSTOP a rounders position rather than baseball?
18 Item originally found in plain case (7)
PATIENT – I(tem) in PATENT.
19 Wayward lassie ultimately into drink? (7)
LADETTE – the last letters of (waywar)D (lassi)E, in LATTE.
20 Writer of nonsense needing books picked up (6)
LEARNT – Edward LEAR, NT books of the Bible.
22 Letter a problem, initially dropped? (5)
AITCH – Wot, no cockneys ’ere? Normally that’s how we drop aitches in the Crossword, but here A HITCH gets the treatment in a matter-of-fact way.
25 Spot Dickens character (3)
PIP – double definition: dice cubes, or Great Expectations.

31 comments on “Times Cryptic No 28020 – Saturday, 3 July 2021. Martial Arts, or Music?”

  1. I was pleased to discover that the unlikely CAPOEIRA was a word when I looked it up after submission. I took almost exactly 1 hour so I don’t remember if this was a single sitting, or whether I was doing other stuff in the middle as I often am on Friday evenings (when the Saturday crossword goes live her on the Pacific coast).

    I went to Cambridge so no problem with GOLDIE, but I would never have known BLONDIE if that was required for the solution.

    Edited at 2021-07-10 12:30 am (UTC)

  2. I’m not a sports person, as anyone will have figured out by now, and have read at most a couple books about baseball players in all my born days, but I raised an eyebrow all the way at seeing the attribution of the term BACKSTOP to a player (as if it were another name for the catcher, perhaps?) rather than to the physical structure behind home plate and the catcher. I suspect that in other sports a near-equivalent to the catcher (goalie?) may be called a BACKSTOP. But don’t quote me.

    Retrieved CAPOEIRA from some vague location in my memory files, but had to guess at [-g]OLDIE (though now Jackkt or someone will tell me that I didn’t know it the last time it came up here either).

    I liked the CD for FEATURES EDITOR quite a bit. The cryptic part plays a role in the literal as well as the other—nice play!

    Edited at 2021-07-10 12:48 am (UTC)

    1. A quick search didn’t turn up any past appearances of Goldie, so perhaps you’re safe on that side!
  3. This was a tough one, with MANICURED and OLDIE going in unparsed. Also biffed BACKSTOP & LADETTE, but parsed them post-submission. BACKSTOP appeared here once, to my surprise; it is evidently sometimes (never that I’ve heard) used to refer to the catcher in baseball. CAPOEIRA was actually something of a gimme, as I knew the word. (I have a record of Vinícius de Moraes, the Brazilian poet and songwriter, and the refrain from his ‘Berimbau’ was often an earworm: Capoeira me mandou/Dizer que ja chegou/Chegou para lutar.)

    Edited at 2021-07-10 12:44 am (UTC)

  4. I have no start or finish times for some reason, but the neatness of my answers in the grid and lack of jottings in the margins suggests I found this straightforward.

    I NHO the rowing team so I failed to parse OLDIE until I looked it up afterwards.

    Fortunately my complete ignorance of anything and everything to do with baseball meant I wrote in BACKSTOP from wordplay and checkers and didn’t give it a second thought.

  5. Finished with the wayward lassie, after a tortuous hour. I found this very hard indeed, and not for the baseball position (which I have heard used in cricket either as an alternative to Long Stop or for the wicket keeper) nor the frontiersman who I remembered from childhood comics. I only parsed MANICURED after the event, I needed all crossers to construct the martial art, and TIPSY CAKE must be the only cake Mrs BW hasn’t baked during our long time together. COD to the brilliant FOR STARTERS. Thank you B and setter for the challenge.

    Edited at 2021-07-10 07:08 am (UTC)

  6. Like Kevin and boltonwanderer I found this hard but I also thought it was very good.
    I’ve given double ticks to ALPHABETICALLY, ORCHESTRA, FOR STARTERS, NIPPY, PASSIONLESS and DEACONESS but COD definitely goes to FEATURES EDITOR. That made me laugh out loud.
    Thank you Bruce for explaining SUSPECT and MANICURED.
    An enjoyable 60 + minutes!
  7. This one took days. Literally. Started Saturday evening and finally completed it over Monday morning’s porridge. FOI 10ac POP-UP, LOI DEACONESS, which I can’t parse beyond the CON element. Actually there are several biffs here, which sums up this crossword for me: not difficult as such, but awkward. Made it, though.
  8. I know nothing about baseball beyond Field of Dreams and The Bad News Bears, so BACKSTOP went straight in. Ditto [G]OLDIE with a shrug. (Hopefully, we’ll get it balanced out by ISIS soon.)

    FOR STARTERS was rather cunning, I thought.

    Edited at 2021-07-10 07:59 am (UTC)

  9. ….CAPOEIRA at me, I couldn’t have told you what it was, but I parsed it quite quickly and it seemed familiar. I thought no more about it thereafter.

    I didn’t find this quite as hard as others here, but my time is some 40% higher than my SNITCH average, so maybe they have a point. My LOI was only parsed afterwards.

    FOI POP-UP
    LOI DEACONESS
    COD FEATURES EDITOR
    SILVER MEDAL PASSIONLESS
    TIME 14:13

  10. American viewers might not remember that baseball originated as an English game. The Baseball Ground is where Derby County (Pron. Darby) still play footie (soccer). And as brnchn points out, is still used in UK in rounders as the man/woman behind the batter. English wicket keepers such as Godfrey Evans, Knotty and the Messrs. Bairstow, were still be referred to on ‘Five Live’ as ‘backstops’, when I were a lad. The Yankies took the game, but not the name.
    COD FOR STARTERS – prawn cocktail – avocado vinaigrette – chicken liver paté – oysters Rockefeller. TIPSY CAKE is a ‘Zuppe Inglese’ variant and doesn’t need baking! Stale sponge-sherry-cream/custard – a mere trifle – fruitless! Time: 22:35 minutes

    Edited at 2021-07-10 09:31 am (UTC)

    1. Very interesting post for which thanks. Derby County have however left the Baseball Ground, moving to Pride Park in 1997. Enjoyable puzzle and fine blog.
  11. I also had to construct CAPOEIRA from wordplay, but I did check that it existed. I had no idea about (g)OLDIE either and had to check to see what was going on. LEARNT was my LOI. Liked FEATURES EDITOR. KIT CARSON rang a faint bell once I’d assembled him from wordplay. Didn’t know enough about Baseball to not plug BACKSTOP straight in. DEACONESS took a while! 41:32. Thanks setter and Bruce.
  12. I suspect some women who would refer to themselves as ladettes would object to the moral judgement implied by ‘wayward lassie’, and would prefer a less perjorative adjective like ‘boisterous’. But then, of course, the clue wouldn’t work.

    This was a DNF for me, with three gaps. I couldn’t see 14A, and I was so convinced that the second word must be ‘doctor’ (having got the T and R) that I never saw the answer – ironic, really, since I’ve been a journalist and worked with plenty of features editors.

    Without the first letter of 15D, I couldn’t get deaconess, which meant I didn’t have the first letter of 23A, which also went unsolved – annoyingly, as I went to Cambridge and should have known about Goldie.

  13. Not many of my times are brisk at present, and this on took 29.33, though reviewing it I couldn’t tell you where the holdups were. Even CAPOEIRA was easy enough: we’re trendy enough round here to have advertised classes available. I’m not sure whether it’s designed to attract hard boys who don’t like their passion for dance exposed, or for dance aficionados who like to get aggressive.
    Like others, I’m careless of the difference between baseball and rounders, so BACKSTOP troubled me not a whit, plus I usually needed one playing as wicketkeeper, with my ancient mariner prowess known to the rest of the team.
  14. 20:01. I enjoyed this one a lot. Like others a bit of ignorance about baseball helped, although as noted above it appears to be just an old usage rather than out-and-out wrong. I didn’t know the martial art but I had vaguely heard of the frontiersman.
  15. I had FEATURES WRITER instead of EDITOR.This accounted for the last 20 minutes solving time until it was untangled. As soon as I got 15d I remembered the name of the Cambridge boat. 56 minutes. Ann
  16. Have been out all day but just wanted to add that I too found this very difficult. About six blanks on my copy.
    I assumed the second word of 14a was CUTTER.
    The wayward lassie remained wayward. But I did construct CAPOEIRA -what else could it be!
    David
  17. It looks to me like “initially” is doing double duty in 4d. Is this normal?

    Edited at 2021-07-10 05:51 pm (UTC)

      1. I assumed s=succeeded in the sense that Elizabeth I s. Henry VIII, but that’s only a guess.
  18. Forgot all about it!

    FOI 5dn FAD

    LOI CAPOEIRA!

    COD 14ac FEATURES EDITOR

    WOD 21ac KIT CARSON – who let him in!?

  19. I was surprised to see the somewhat obscure Kit Carson (know to the US gang, probably), snickered at the mis-use of baseball slang, and had to take Oldie and Tipsy Cake on trust. Somewhere I’d heard Capoiera, at least enough to assemble it from the clue without much worry. thanks brnchn

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