Times Cryptic No 28062 – Saturday, 21 August 2021. Sufferin’ succotash!

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I didn’t know the answer for 11ac, so I had to appeal to Sylvester the cat for guidance. Nor did I know the place at 4dn, but the duck at 6ac rang a faint bell … it turns up every few years, it appears. Everything was gettable, though, in mainstream time. 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 One guzzles gallons, given thin bottle (6,4)
GREEDY GUTS – G for gallons, REEDY=thin, GUTS=bottle.
6 Duck first of misfortunes, in fix (4)
SMEW – M(isfortunes), in SEW.
10 Hardliner returning stalwart lucidly defends (5)
ULTRA – backwards hidden answer (returning / defends)
11 Assistant in hospital nursing a gruff invalid (9)
SUFFRAGAN – SAN ‘nursing’ an anagram (invalid) of A GRUFF.
12 Bring up only child to eat edges of scorching toast (5,4,5)
RAISE ONE’S GLASS – RAISE ONE LASS ‘eating’ S(corchin)G.
14 Maybe half-hearted pariah is to survive (7)
OUTLAST – OUTCAST=pariah, with the C=100 reduced to L=50. An unusual device, that came up twice on one day!
15 Abroad, redcoat’s movement 100 years ago (3,4)
ART DECO – anagram (abroad) of REDCOAT.
17 Will extra police get sent back in a loop? (7)
CODICIL – CID=police, backwards, in COIL.
19 Print books about drama with copper (7)
LINOCUT – LIT about NO + CU.
20 Still periodically spying, study process in plant (14)
PHOTOSYNTHESIS – PHOTO=still, as opposed to video. SYN=spying, ‘periodically’. THESIS=study.
23 Add padding to pure works plugged by composer (9)
UPHOLSTER – HOLST in an anagram (works) of PURE.
24 What remains after smoking fish (5)
ROACH – double definition.
25 Tail of squirrel monkey hanging down (4)
LIMP – (squirre)L, IMP.
26 Yorkshire port stocks large fruit in time to eat it? (4-2,4)
SELL-BY DATE – SELBY is the port, I assume. Insert L for large, add DATE.

Down
1 Old European‘s bitterness voiced (4)
GAUL – sounds like GALL.
2 Performed after minor performer nearly pulled out (9)
EXTRACTED – ACTED after EXTR(a).
3 Sad, careless old fools around scripture (4,3,7)
DEAD SEA SCROLLS – anagram (fools around) of SAD CARELESS OLD.
4 Before exercise, leave naval base site (7)
GOSPORT – GO=leave, SPORT=exercise.
5 Brought back heavy cheese: crisp, smooth stuff (7)
TAFFETA – FAT backwards, FETA.
7 Kind of rock from a pair of organs, mostly (5)
MAGMA – MAG=publication=organ, twice (almost).
8 The value of staff generating a bit of capital (10)
WANDSWORTH – WAND’S WORTH, ho ho. Part of London, innit.
9 Just entering bar, very much in time for larks (6,3,5)
BRIGHT AND EARLY – RIGHT in BAN, DEARLY=very much. I love her dearly.
13 Theoretical point you uttered? Keep secret about it (10)
CONCEPTUAL – CONCEAL=keep secret, around PT=point + U=‘you’, uttered.
16 Terribly nice hotel and car fare in Acapulco (9)
ENCHILADA – anagram (terribly) of NICE + H, then LADA is the car.
18 Present for baby perhaps a little poem? (7)
LAYETTE – a small LAY?
19 Behind both sides, fencing area on one side (7)
LATERAL – LATE, then R + L fencing A.
21 Old characters try rolls with meat (5)
OGHAM – OG=GO ‘rolling’ over, HAM=meat.
22 Close to breathless till it may be produced at last (4)
SHOE – S from (breathles)S, HOE.

33 comments on “Times Cryptic No 28062 – Saturday, 21 August 2021. Sufferin’ succotash!”

  1. ….which I spoiled with a typo that generated two pinkos. It was nice to see Selby at 26A, where I automatically started trying to work with the more obvious Hull.

    FOI SMEW (a bird resident only in Crossword Land)
    LOI ART DECO (very slow to spot it)
    COD SELL-BY DATE (for the reason above)
    TIME 16:32 (but with a typo)

  2. I don’t know why I put in LINECUT, but it wasn’t a typo; and I’d definitely thought of NO. DNK SELBY, GOSPORT. I realized that although I ‘knew’ SUFFRAGAN (like the dead bishop on the landing), I didn’t know what it means.
  3. Worked out SUFFRAGAN from the wordplay, NHO. Didn’t completely parse SELL-BY-DATE, not knowing the port. Had to guess about GOSPORT too. So, as often, my experience parallels Kevin’s… but I knew it had to be LINO! (I am a former typographer, but that was before my time.)
    1. I knew it was different from diocesan, from the Monty Python sketch where there’s a dead bishop on the landing. Evidently it’s tattooed on the back of their neck.
  4. …about 33 minutes. Fortunately, we had a suffragan bishop here in Connecticut, or at least we did in 1963, I don’t know how things are now. Gosport rang a vague bell, and everything else was relatively straightforward. I was expecting something-by-mare for a Yorkshire port, and was quite surprised when I saw the answer.
  5. I didn’t get OGHAM, which I didn’t know. I put OSHAM (rolls with meat) which seemed plausible. Otherwise it seems I worked everything out, even the SUFRAGAN. I used to live in GOSPORT as a kid so that was a write-in.
  6. I found this quite hard, but I chipped away at it steadily and completed the grid after 50 minutes. There were no unknowns as I had heard of ‘SUFFRAGAN bishop’ but without knowing what it means, and TBH but for wordplay I would have spelt it ‘suffragen’.
  7. Another ‘linecut’ here so a DNF in 38 minutes. Watching too many Yorkshire based TV shows made it hard to think of anything but Whitby for the ‘Yorkshire port’ and initially putting in what looked like a correct ‘smee’ for the ‘Duck’ at 6a held me up for WANDSWORTH.

    I barely remembered OGHAM and learnt that a LAYETTE isn’t a bouncinette, as I’d thought, but a set of baby’s clothing.

  8. …before being crowned. 39 minutes. I saw the Roman numeral halving on OUTLAST after the event so that has to be COD. I liked GREEDY GUTS and SELL-BY DATE too. It took me a while to think of Selby as the port as it’s a long way inland. He was also the policeman in Postman Pat. LOI LINOCUT, which took some parsing afterwards, the books not being what I thought. I knew of SUFFRAGAN bishops and for the first time in my life have looked up its derivation. Up until now, I have wondered why they were suffering. Nice puzzle. Thank you B and setter.
  9. I found that hard but very enjoyable. It took me over 3 times as long to solve as the previous Saturday’s puzzle.
    Thanks, Bruce, for sorting out the anagram for me in DEAD SEA SCROLLS and thank you, also, for BRIGHT AND EARLY.
    Curiously SUFFRAGAN was my FOI as I knew the term.
    What held me up in the end were SMEW, MAGMA, WANDSWORTH, GREEDY GUTS AND GAUL.
    I had SMEE in mind for the duck but could, then, make nothing of 8D until the pfennig dropped with that clue.
    Definite CODs to both OUTLAST and WANDSWORTH, specially the latter. It took me ages to work out “half-hearted pariah”.
  10. I found this one tougher than average. I knew the term SUFFRAGAN though. I was held up for ages by the duck, especially as I’d put HANDSWORTH at 8d. MAGMA took a while too. Like Phil, I spent some time trying to shoehorn Hull into 26a. OGHAM has been discussed often enough for it to have lodged in my brain, and GOSPORT was familiar enough to drop in once I had a couple of checkers. 53:52. Thanks setter and Bruce.
  11. My paper copy is about half done so I clearly needed two long sessions on this tricky and enjoyable puzzle.
    The Yorkshire port had to be Whitby so SELL BY DATE was POI and parsed as I put it in; Selby, known but obscure for this UK based solver. SUFFRAGAN an unknown, but parsing clear. OGHAM known from discussions on this forum. LOI the unknown duck; I managed to derive SMEW (sew = fix) before a check prior to submission.
    COD to RAISE ONES GLASS for the surreal and intriguing surface.
    David
  12. 10:50. No real problems, even with the thoroughly unknown SUFFRAGAN. I was slightly surprised by the first definition of ROACH although it was perfectly familiar.
    OGHAM will forever remind me and a few others of this one.

    Edited at 2021-08-28 10:07 am (UTC)

  13. Tricky one this, but some good clues.
    I’ve been to Selby and still had no idea it was a port. It has to be nearer the middle of England, than the edge..
    1. At school we read 1984. Within the front few pages were a list of “other books by the same author” including “Road to Wigan Pier”. It wasn’t until 30-odd years later that I found out Wigan wasn’t on the coast – North Sea/Irish Sea – but somewhere in the middle of the country. By reading an American book: “Rose”, by Martin Cruz Smith. An American romantic thriller set in Wigan in Victorian times, centred on slavery in west Africa, suffragettes, and coal mining. Obviously.
      1. The *really* educational one is “Down and out in London and Paris,” which all of the privileged young folk in my family and out should be made to read and enact .. a week living as Orwell did would shift their expectations no end.
    2. I remember another very inland port that surprised everyone in a fairly recent puzzle. Was that Selby too?
  14. FOI 12ac RAISE ONE’S GLASS, and steady progress around the rest of the grid till LOI 18d LAYETTE – after trying for ages to shoehorn RATTLE in there somehow. An enjoyable puzzle, done in 60 minutes; no real problems, just a slow thinker. Thanks, setter and blogger.
  15. I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who found this tougher than usual. It wasn’t till my third session that I started making any serious progress.

    FOI was SHOE, LOI was MAGMA – I couldn’t see the organs, and though that was the word that seemed to fit, my dictionary told me that magma isn’t a kind of a rock; it’s the liquid that comes out of a volcano and solidifies to form rock.

      1. Thanks Jerry. Personally I don’t watch many Japanese drama’s, there a bit scarce on the BBC.
  17. I appeared in a NOH drama at the tender age of seventeen at Stoke Rochford Drama School. All the world’s a stage. Hard going. Selby was a canal port, linking Leeds to Goole, not a sea port – but there was quite a bit of shipbuilding. COD Sell by date. Time 21:20 mins.
  18. in the deep south west – failed on 21dn OGHAM, 13dn CONCEPTUAL – CONCOCTION thus 25ac LIMP never arrived! 23ac UPHOLTER – INSULATOR! 20ac PHOTOSYNTHESIS – CHEMOSYNTHESIS. Yer proverbial pigs ear!

    FOI 10ac ULTRA

    COD 24ac 8dn WANDSWORTH

    WOD 24ac ROACH – cigar stub

    The shame!

    1. I have never heard the stub of a cigar called a ROACH. It refers to the roll of cardboard inserted at the end of another smokable.
      1. In my extensive experience as a pothead, ROACH has always meant the butt of a joint, what’s left after it becomes too small to hold without burning your fingers. Sticking it onto a makeshift cardboard filter is one way to continue smoking it. Or you could save your ROACHes and make a superpotent spliff from them.

        Edited at 2021-08-28 09:04 pm (UTC)

        1. I think this is an interesting example of divergence between U.K. and North American usage.
          Chambers defines a roach as ‘(the butt of) a marijuana cigarette’. It also defines ‘roach clip’ as ‘a clip used to hold (the butt of) a marijuana cigarette when it has become too short to hold without burning the fingers’, which reminds me immediately of this scene.
          In the U.K. a roach is always a little roll of about a centimetre of cardboard, inserted into the end of a spliff before rolling in order to avoid the need for such a clip. My personal experience here is very much in the past but nonetheless extensive.
          1. Well, it doesn’t count unless it’s in a dictionary, right?
            Collins (online, at least) has (for British usage) “the butt of a cannabis cigarette”…
            and that’s all Lexico has too.
            But I don’t have Chambers, nor the OED.
            I haven’t owned a clip (Lexico calls that an Americanism) in years, if I ever did (there are many ways to improvise).

            1. Lexico has ‘a roll of card or paper that forms the butt of a cannabis cigarette’. This is the only way the word is used in the U.K. or at least it was 20 years ago. I would have to consult my children to establish the most recent vernacular usage but we’re still pretending to disapprove so I can’t.

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