Times Cryptic No 28092 – Saturday, 25 September 2021. Wizard prang, wot?

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My LOI was 3dn, and I had a vivid flashback to Biggles and crew when I saw what the definition referred to! In fact, the upper left of the puzzle was all troublesome. I finally saw 1ac, struggled to get 9ac, and got 1dn from the wordplay without knowing this meaning of the answer. And finally, 3dn – wizard, wot!

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 Perhaps who’s cured individuals’ breaks? (10)
BONESETTER – ONE’S=individual’s, breaking BETTER=cured.
6 One’s composed poetic address to Manx cat? (4)
OPUS – O, PUS(S)!
9 Way to make shape, perhaps, getting tips (10)
SCRAPHEAPS – ‘shape’ is an anagram of ‘heaps’.  So, the way to make shape is to SCRAP HEAPS.
10 One poet or another keeping quiet (4)
POPE – P in POE. I think of Poe’s short stories more than his poetry.
12 Bill’s introduction, stepping on more than one tree (5,7)
FIRST READING – TREADING on FIRS.
15 Rustic building‘s other half has right chopping block (5,4)
DUTCH BARN – DUTCH is CRS for wife, then R in BAN.
17 Lawyer’s right to welcome one extended rest (3-2)
LIE-IN – I in LIEN.
18 Sailor also called for port (5)
OSAKA – OS=ordinary seaman, A.K.A.=also called.
19 Shoo the cat away — no small trouble for canine? (9)
TOOTHACHE – anagram (away) of SHOO THE CAT, minus S for small.
20 With ire, guy is interrupting leader’s unionist idea (3-9)
PAN-GERMANISM – ANGER + MAN interrupting P.M. + IS. An ideology with consequences we know too well.
24 Outstanding verse in recital (4)
OWED – sounds like ODE.
25 Where to find train lines carrying eastern rulers, say (10)
STATIONERY – STATION + RY, carrying E.
26 Celebrate what will be announced (4)
FETE – sounds like FATE=what will be. Que sera, sera.
27 Colourful, free cutting that is with bouquet (10)
IRIDESCENT – RID cutting I.E., then SCENT.

Down
1 Stay in vehicle number eleven (4)
BUSK – BUS + K=the 11th letter of the alphabet. I didn’t know a busk was a stay in the front of a corset.
2 Anorak held by dinner date (4)
NERD – hidden.
3 What compels one, flying kite (7,5)
SOPWITH CAMEL – anagram (flying) of WHAT COMPELS I. I wrote down the letters, but couldn’t see the answer without all the helpers!
4 Tension initially dropping in part of Barnet (5)
TRESS – (S)TRESS. Barnet Fair is CRS for hair.
5 With special sense, muse about new language (9)
ESPERANTO – ESP + ERATO, about N.
7 Men backing film put in cash to make capital (10)
PROVIDENCE – RO=OR backing + VID, in PENCE. Capital of Rhode Island.
8 Sweet stuff from bee, say, covering rough gem (4,6)
STEM GINGER – STINGER covering anagram (rough) of GEM.
11 Give orders about every drink of spirits (4,3,5)
CALL THE SHOTS – A whimsical second definition, I’ll call it.
13 New iPod — it gets cover impossible to mess up (5-5)
IDIOT-PROOF – anagram (new) of IPOD IT, + ROOF.
14 Winning cheers up soldiers obstructing corruption (10)
ATTAINMENT – TA backward (up) + MEN in TAINT.
16 Item used when flying bird breaks switch (9)
ALTIMETER – TIME=bird (prison slang), in ALTER.
21 Famous books in revolutionary study (5)
NOTED – OT in revolutionary DEN.
22 This person, getting cloned, is an internet hit (4)
MEME – ME + ME. I’ve known children like that … me, me, me!
23 Case of cruelty — way medic may treat one (4)
CYST – C(ruelt)Y + ST.

22 comments on “Times Cryptic No 28092 – Saturday, 25 September 2021. Wizard prang, wot?”

  1. Also troubled by NW corner, didn’t know busk, guessed 9 would be a reverse-cryptic but it still took a long time. Needed the S and P to get the kite – unlikely looking anagram fodder. And I’ve just realised I biffed altimeter without parsing it properly – didn’t have TIME = bird in alter, but (ITEM)* flying in alter. As they say, when you improve something to make it idiot-proof, they build a better idiot. Also think of Poe as novelist first, but everyone(?) knows ‘Quoth the Raven “Nevermore”.’
    COD to Bonesetter.
  2. failed to get BUSK, putting BOSS instead, thinking it may have had something to do with 11d CALL THE SHOTS. I had considered BUSK by the mechanism given by our blogger, but rejected it as nonsense. Not enough familiarity with corsets perhaps. Need to read more Georgette Heyer?
    28:38 with the error.
    1. Everyone ought to read more Georgette Heyer! .. though I confess it did not help me with busk
  3. DNK BUSK, of course. I just noticed that we have ‘number eleven’ here, and ‘no. 15’ in Jumbo 1518. ‘bird’=TIME took me a while to get. At 18ac, I put in TARTU (TU=also called), but it’s not a port. I didn’t know ‘kite’=aircraft, which helped make SOPWITH CAMEL my LOI. COD BONESETTER.
  4. Most of the was fine but I came to grief in the NW corner where a number of factors combined to make things so difficult I eventually gave up and resorted to aids just so that I could move my day on.

    BUSK -unknown meaning and tricky wordplay.

    SCRAPHEAPS – a self-referencing anagram relying on an unseen anagrind that’s not among the several hundred in the Chambers list anyway.

    SOPWITH CAMEL – just about known to me as an aircraft but the only reference to that in the clue is KITE which is dated slang that nobody would use now, though of course it’s perfectly in keeping with the era of the plane in question.

    BONESETTER – a somewhat weak cryptic definition. I’d probably have got to the answer if I’d had the B checker missing because I hadn’t solved 1dn.

    Edited at 2021-10-02 04:24 am (UTC)

  5. … when you’re down on Rue Morgue Avenue. 37 minutes. I boarded BUS K quite early but got horribly stuck in the SW with PAN-GERMANISM , having first biffed PAN-HELLENISM. A little knowledge is sometimes a dangerous thing. I think I liked OSAKA best, although I was trying to make that OSTIA for a time. I too think of Poe first for his short stories, having read The Premature Burial at far too young an age. Very enjoyable.Thank you B and setter.
  6. All but four or five clues in the NW took only 27mins. Those 4/5 used up the other 24mins.
    Thanks, Bruce, especially for ALTIMETER.
    I liked 6ac OPUS a lot but my co-CODs were BUSK and SCRAPHEAPS.
    Bruce, I found out earlier this year when I visited an aviation museum at Blenheim on the South Island, that the Red Baron was shot down by the Aussies!
  7. A similar story to others it seems. I had just 5 left after 40 minutes and the last 4 were all in the NW.
    It came down to a long look at 1d. I seem to have written down all the options I could think of. BUSK was the one which fitted the cryptic best although the only meaning I knew applied to singing maybe Bob Dylan songs at Underground stations.
    And Eleven has many usages. I hope the eleven I am going to see this afternoon perform well against QPR. Our number eleven might even score.
    David
  8. ….before finding SCRAPHEAPS, and BUSK. I liked FIRST READING, but not much else. 22:40
  9. Lost my copy but I seem to remember enjoying this but finding it hard to finish.. including 3dn, which was embarrassing since I have actually seen one flying, and a Sopwith Pup too, courtesy of the wonderful Shuttleworth Trust. Not to mention a Bleriot, the world’s oldest plane that is still able to fly.
  10. It took me a while to unravel the Biggles era kite, as I’d been convinced the first word would end ISH, so struggled with the rest of the anagrist until the BONESETTER arrived, extremely late in the proceedings. In fact 1a was my antepenultimate answer. The CAMEL and SCRAPHEAP followed. NHO BUSK as a corset, but parsed as intended. NHO PAN GERMANISM either but the cryptic was kind. A slightly longer solve than usual at 37:28. Thanks setter and Bruce.
  11. FOI NERD. (Does anyone else always start with the down clues?) Very slow progress thereafter, and yet once the various pennies had dropped I could see the clues were fair, just a question of getting the brain in the right gear. Particularly liked SOPWITH CAMEL. All complete approx 90 minutes later with LOI PANGERMANISM, which NHO. Enjoyable all in all. Thanks to setter and blogger.
  12. My main problem was with PANGERMANISM. An unknown word though when all else failed it had to be. I read a lot of Georgette Heyer and she writes about underpinnings quite a lot. But I don’t remember any busks in her books – probably the wrong period. I knew the word from other sources but didn’t get the connection with “stays” until coming here. Fond memories of Biggles at 4d. (I was a child in Wales in the 1940s. My local library had been given to the town by the miners. Books were precious and well-cared for. They were all leather bound – including the works of W E Johns. (The miners gave us an imposing theatre as well – the “Workmen’s Hall”. I get quite choked up just thinking about that generation of coalminers and the hopes they had for their children) 35 minutes. Ann
  13. DNF as I stuck in BOSS at 1dn
    FOI 2dn NERD
    COD 25ac STATIONERY
    WOD SOPWITH CAMEL as per “Chaps” Marchant’ & Co (Biggles Flies Undone)
      1. That explanation leaves me cold. The leap from “bus 11” to “bus K” is one which I will not make.

        Here is a clue:

        Axe bowler number eleven (7)

        Answer: HATCHET
        Bowler => HAT
        The eleventh letter of the Hebrew alphabet is CHET.

        I know that is a silly clue. But it is silly because we need something in the clue which tells us that “number 11” refers to the letters in the Hebrew alphabet. In the published clue we need something to tell us that “number 11” refers to the letters of our alphabet.

        Happy New Year!!

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