Times Cryptic No 28026 – Saturday, 10 July 2021. Ain’t Misbehavin!

Author   branchPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Here in our locked-down city, it was nice to have a Saturday crossword to tackle. All went smoothly. I liked the appearance of Fats Waller, and welcomed meeting the three words I didn’t know. 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.
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Clues are blue, with definitions underlined. Deletions and commentary are (in brackets).

Across
1 Mediterranean islander in prison with army officer (8)
MAJORCAN – MAJOR, CAN.
5 Burn most of music at church (6)
SCORCH – SCOR(e), CH(urch).
10 Reject third of yarn twisted on the outside (5)
SPURN – R from yaRn in SPUN.
11 Clumsily misused walkway crossing road (9)
AWKWARDLY – anagram of (misused) WALKWAY + RD.
12 Dull time touring university in Alabama in the morning (9)
MATUTINAL – MATT ‘touring’ U, IN, AL(abama).
13 Lizard finally feeling all right about crossing City area (5)
GECKO – (feelin)G + EC=city of London + KO=OK ‘about’.
14 Person travelling to ancient city is German (7)
TOURIST – TO + UR + IST=‘is’ in German.
16 Little bird soldier kept in Cornish resort (6)
BUDGIE – GI in BUDE.
18 Appearance of commercial opening (6)
ADVENT – AD + VENT.
20 Holding key, somehow define old Turkish title (7)
EFFENDI – F is the key, in an anagram (somehow) of DEFINE.
22 Worry about electoral system for thirty days (5)
APRIL – AIL ‘about’ P.R. I feel I’ve seen this clue recently!
23 National firm once caught importing large antelope (9)
ICELANDIC – ICI was the firm, followed by C for caught. Insert ELAND.
25 Wonderful person unexpectedly met abroad (9)
DREAMBOAT – anagram (unexpectedly) of MET ABROAD.
26 Dance composed by business graduate after game (5)
RUMBA – RU is the game, MBA is the degree.
27 Father seen around at send-up (6)
SATIRE – SIRE around AT.
28 Waller starts to take on cattle, keeping animals for slaughter (8)
FATSTOCK – FATS Waller, then first letters of Take On Cattle Keeping. First ‘vocabulary expansion’ clue! 

Down
1 Fellow diner putting hot water on tea (8)
MESSMATE – MESS = hot water, MATÉ=the (Paraguayan) tea.
2 Judge takes female relative for pleasure trip (5)
JAUNT – J + AUNT.
3 Strange upset after gang followed the French primate (4-6,5)
RING-TAILED LEMUR – RING=gang, TAILED=followed, LE=‘the’ in French, MUR=RUM upset.
4 Son dividing silver isn’t commonly in opposition (7)
AGAINST – put S in AG + AINT.
6 Diplomat’s accusation over plants choking river (6,9)
CHARGÉ D’AFFAIRES – CHARGE=accusation, DAFFS=plants ‘choking’ AIRE.
7 Process of tailoring brightly coloured suit (9)
REDACTION – RED + (court) ACTION.
8 Way in which poor Amy enters farm store (6)
HAYMOW – anagram of (poor) AMY in HOW. Second ‘vocabulary expansion’ clue!
9 Blue dog in US space station (6)
SKYLAB – SKY + LAB
15 Experienced people keeping peace on river (9)
UNDERWENT – UN peacekeepers + DERWENT.
17 Tacky bloke reportedly on addictive drug (8)
GIMCRACK – GIM sounds like Jim + CRACK=the drug. I’ve obviously never heard GIMCRACK spoken – I assumed it had a hard G!
19 Neptune’s satellite’s interval discharging energy (6)
TRITON – TRI-TON(e)=(musical) interval, minus E=energy.
20 Old German prince dropping round with a complex woman? (7)
ELECTRA – the German is an ELECTOR. Remove the (round) O, add an A. From Greek mythology via Jungian psychology.
21 Golfing assistants ignoring European’s coarse yarn (6)
CADDIS – CADDI(e)S. Third ‘vocabulary expansion’ clue! I vaguely remembered the caddis fly, but didn’t know it as a yarn.
24 Thickhead finally sacked by boss (5)
DUMBO – (sacke)D + UMBO.

36 comments on “Times Cryptic No 28026 – Saturday, 10 July 2021. Ain’t Misbehavin!”

  1. Pretty straightforward, although I didn’t know CADDIS or FATSTOCK, or BUDE. (I also didn’t know that EFFENDI was no longer used, not that it mattered.) Biffed the two long downs, parsed post-submission. We seem to get ADVENT rather too often.
  2. Thanks, brnchn. the opposite of you who hadn’t heard Gimcrack, I’m not sure I’d ever seen it in print — so would have spelled it Jimcrack.
    1. I think it can alternatively be spelled with an initial J (I blame those on your side of The Pond !), but when I eventually nailed it — my LOI — I knew it as the name of one of horseracing’s oldest races, the Gimcrack Stakes run annually at York.
      1. I’d looked it up in OED, and only found the “G” — but you’re right, when I looked it up properly the “J” spelling was there, just on the second or third line of alternate spellings. And Chambers has both, though under the “G” heading.
  3. See your BUDE,CADDIS as a material, and FATSTOCK unknowns….and raise you a HAYMOW. Nevertheless all gettable without too much difficulty. 19:17
  4. Forgot to note my time but it was around my target half-hour. CADDIS other than the fly was new to me, and I have managed somehow to avoid MATUTINAL until now.

    I always enjoy being reminded of the ‘Cheerful Earful’ who was responsible decades ago for getting me into the whole world of stride piano playing and discovering a raft of other such pianists. One of the best still performing is the American Judy Carmichael.

    In the days of the Home Service I used to listen to ‘Farming Today’ whilst waiting for the news and Today programme (presented by Jack de Manio) and every morning the announcer would read out the latest list of FATSTOCK prices.

    1. I lived in France in my teens and I used to listen to Farming Today every morning waiting for the Today Programme to come on (I had to be at school at 8). I remember them reading out the prices of potatoes and whatnot but don’t remember the word FATSTOCK.
      1. Different recollections of the same thing. There’s no accounting for what sticks and what is instantly forgotten. I’m encouraged that our Shanghai correspondent (below) has similar memories to mine, at least on this subject!
        1. Yes I didn’t mean to suggest it wasn’t mentioned! My memory is absolutely terrible so it’s a wonder I remember it at all.
  5. Very straightforward.
    Saw some ring-tailed lemurs at Howletts Zoo on Thursday; they are very striking and attractive animals.
  6. Tricky in places with MATUTINAL more constructed than known. GIMCRACK took a while to come in too. 27 minutes. I’m another who knew of FATSTOCK from the prices on Farming Today when by the late sixties I preferred to be woken by that than Radio One. COD to CHARGE D’AFFAIRES. Thank you B and setter.
  7. 38 minutes; it would’ve been slower for me if I hadn’t done this one in the same week I was both researching the Bristol branch of the Stella Matutina and listening to Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit as an audiobook, where I think MATUTINAL refreshments are mentioned in passing.

    I didn’t know CADDIS, and wasn’t that familiar with HAYMOW or FATSTOCK, but they didn’t slow me down much. Good fun, from what I remember.

  8. Same unknowns as our blogger and I can’t say I’ve ever dropped MATUTINAL or GIMCRACK into casual conversation. A few good crossword words in EFFENDI and UMBO to up the degree of difficulty a bit, but overall not too hard.

    Q. Instant word association for SKYLAB? A. Stan. Remember him?

    All finished in 34 minutes.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

  9. I thought this was straightforward but I handicapped myself by starting with ICELANDER iso -IC.
    My NHOs were MATUTINAL and HAYMOW but they were both gettable.
    Joint COD to GIMCRACK and FATSTOCK.
    Thanks, Bruce!
    1. Along with FATSTOCK, I knew GIMCRACK, another word associated with childhood. One of the two daily papers I had access to was the Daily Sketch. I had no interest in reading newspapers in those days (still into Beano and Dandy etc) but on the back page of the Sketch was the cartoon strip Peanuts which I sought out very day. Just above that was a horse-racing column written under the byline, GIMCRACK. I never read it of course, nor knew at the time what the word meant, but it was drummed relentlessly into my head and has stayed ever since. The racing connection btw is after a famous horse of that name painted in 1765 by George Stubbs.
      1. I enjoyed your earlier reference to Jack de Manio. That took me back!
        I’m not sure I can remember where I first heard GIMCRACK. Maybe it was when I became interested in art and saw the Stubbs painting.
        My parents took the Daily and Sunday Express while the comic I read was The Eagle.
        Stop Press: I’ve just remembered where I first heard FATSTOCK. It was in the lyrics to the Elton John song, “Burn Down The Mission”
        “Look to the east to see where the fatstock hide”
        But thinking about it, I think it was written as two words.
        1. My bro, 2 years older took The Eagle — paid for by parents — and I was bought its junior version called Robin. All very worthy, but I preferred Beano and Dandy which were tolerated only as long as I bought them out of my meagre pocket money allowance.
          1. Thanks, Jack. Ah! I remember the Robin! I now feel I had a deprived childhood in not reading the Beano or Dandy! My world was one of “Dan Dare”, “The Mekon” and “Luck of the Legion”.
  10. SKYLAB was a write in for me,
    And TRITON was so nice to see
    Then our setter went mad
    And made me very sad
    By including that stupid BUDGIE
  11. I needed FATSTOCK for the K to nail my LOI (see earlier, and a satisfying PDM when it arrived).

    FOI SCORCH
    LOI GIMCRACK
    COD AWKWARDLY
    TIME 8:48

  12. MATUTINAL and HAYMOW were unknown, as was this definition of CADDIS, but they weren’t too difficult to construct. JAUNT was FOI and FATSTOCK was LOI with a rather bright lightbulb suddenly floodlighting the grid. 31:04. Thanks setter and Bruce.
  13. To be honest, there was a lot about this one that I didn’t like. Between words I’d never heard of – MATUTINAL, HAYMOW; GK I didn’t have – Neptune’s satellites, Greek mythology; and answers I biffed and couldn’t parse…. It’s a miracle it was completed and apparently correct. I’d have enjoyed it more if I’d known better how and why….However, completed in just over an hour all the same. Somehow.
  14. 10:51. Not too hard, in spite of a few unknowns. I’d have spelled it GYMCRACK I think, and didn’t know what it meant. HAYMOW seemed feasible based on barleymow, another word I knew without knowing its meaning. I wanted 12ac to be MATUDINAL and couldn’t quite believe it wasn’t. DK FATSTOCK or that CADDIS was anything other than a fly.

    Edited at 2021-07-17 09:18 am (UTC)

      1. It does, although this is news to me. I have never heard the word in either language. In French I would just say ‘matinal’.
    1. Apologies – my fault. The Q. and the A. are meant to stand for “Question” and “Answer”. If you put “Skylab Stan” into Google, I think you’ll see what I was trying to get at.
  16. At 28ac I saw ‘waller’ and slung in DRYSTONE. I never gave it another moment’s thought. That gave me 20dn ELECTOR ad 23ac ICELANDER….24dn DUMBO and 26ac RUMBA went in nicely! But 17dn was completely beyond me. GIMCRACK!

    So 28ac was FATSTOCK – I remember it well from Farming Today – but that wasn’t a patch on the Shipping Forecast – a thing of great beauty. Gales of Poetry.

    Sad news for BBC Radio Four listeners of yore, Peter de Vries the Dutch correspondent was murdered in Amsterdam lastweek.

  17. Reviewing this one I find it hard to see why it only took 12.28. I was puzzled by CADDIS, as I’ve only met it in its insect/larval form. I don’t do enough knitting.
  18. 40 minutes to get to my last two: MATUTINAL (unknown and unnatural) and MESSMATE.
    Also unknown were CADDIS and HAYMOW.
    I knew the word GIMCRACK from somewhere(horse racing?) but not the meaning here.
    Anyway all done in about 45 minutes and enjoyable, partly because the unknowns could be derived from the cryptics.
    Not sure when I’ll find time to look at today’s. Mesmerised by the golf.
    David
  19. Well, I tried that but can find no results for “Skylab Stan”.. more curious now as to what or who he was..
    FredinHK
    1. Hello,

      Resumption of an old correspondence! If you go to YouTube instead and put in “Skylab crashes into Western Australia & Skylab Stan” you’ll see what I’m talking about. There are also several other videos related to the same event, including a 48 minute Australian Broadcasting Corporation programme.

      Hope this helps.

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