Times Number 26654

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
This one took me over an hour having got myself completely stuck on 20d and 29ac

As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]

Across
1 Criminal made rough arrangement for defence (4,5)
HOME GUARD – Anagram [criminal] of MADE ROUGH. I’m open to correction on the parsing here in a clue that would have worked perfectly without its first word and with “arrangement” as the anagrind . As it is we have “criminal” to account for so that has to be the anagrind leaving us with “arrangement for defence” as the definition, which seems a bit odd. Another possibility is that we have a two-part anagrind “criminal…arrangement” with the anagrist in the middle, but I’ve never seen that done before so I’m doubtful that’s what was intended.
6 Squeeze puts pressure on silent type (5)
CLAMP – CLAM (silent type), P (pressure). Having had the secretive oyster last week we now have the silent clam. And “clam” came up yesterday too in discussion of  “close up”.
9 Almost bound to accept platform for belief (7)
JUDAISM – JUM{p} (bound) [almost] contains [to accept] DAIS (platform)
10 Autumn work for army type (7)
OCTOPUS – OCT (Autumn – October), OPUS (work). I was completely baffled by the definition which set me thinking along military lines until the “doh!” moment arrived when I thought of tentacles as arms.
11 It has gears not fully engaged (3)
BUS – BUS{y} (engaged) [not fully]. A very loose definition.
12 Set of tasks all industry processed (7,4)
LAUNDRY LIST – Anagram [processed] of ALL INDUSTRY. A colloquial figurative expression for a list of anything, not necessarily tasks.
14 My cold-blooded pet said to be tiny (6)
MINUTE – Sounds like [said to be] “my” “newt” (cold-blooded pet). I know Red Ken keeps (or kept) them but are newts really pets?
15 Difficult to forget the last and worst point about nag (8)
HARRIDAN – HAR{d} (difficult) [forget the last], then NADIR (worst point) reversed [about]
17 Moving around in dry, unfinished opera (8)
TURANDOT – Anagram [moving] of AROUND inside TT (dry – teetotal). Puccini’s incomplete opera was finished after his death by one Franco Alfano.
19 Perhaps I look unwell and spit (6)
IMPALE – I’M PALE (I look unwell)
22 ‘Farewell’ — it’s how they speak in the valleys? (11)
VALEDICTION – VALE DICTION (how they speak in the valleys?)
23 Boat only goes backwards (3)
TUB – BUT (only) reversed [backwards]
25 American native at home on county boundary (7)
TAMARIN – TAMAR  (county boundary), IN (at home). This small monkey is native to Central and South America. The River Tamar forms much of the boundary between the counties of Devon and Cornwall.
27 Under pressure here, tries not to start to worry (3,4)
HOT SEAT – {s}HOTS (tries) [not to start], EAT (worry)
28 Remove plant from container, maybe, in store (5)
DEPOT – DE-POT (geddit?)
29 Rich clothing around Juliet’s intended, nothing new (9)
CAPARISON – CA (around), PARIS (Juliet’s intended), 0 (nothing), N (new). This was my downfall. I couldn’t think of the word and I was completely thrown by not remembering that Juliet had a suitor, so for wordplay I was left working around the R checker which I had taken as standing for Romeo in the NATO alphabet. Hopeless. I knew the word vaguely as an ornamental covering worn by horses but no more than that.
Down
1 Covering hospital, I give injections (5)
HIJAB – H (hospital), I, JAB (give injections). A not so ornamental covering.
2 President Danton, at first in his own house? (7)
MADISON – D{anton) [at first} in MAISON (his own house). Danton being French (a figure in the Revolution) may well have owned a “maison”. James Madison was the fourth POTUS.
3 One length in longitude out? Bill could be (11)
GUILLOTINED – 1 (one) + L (length) in anagram [out] of LONGITUDE. I think the definition here is decidedly Anglocentric. SOED defines GUILLOTINE as “A method used in a legislative assembly for preventing obstruction or delays by fixing the times at which different parts of a bill must be voted on”.
4 A lot to carry is commonly dangerous (6)
ARMFUL – Sounds like [commonly, with “spoken” implied] {h}ARMFUL (dangerous). Tony Hancock fans might care to complete the missing line: “A PINT! Have you gone raving mad? I mean, I came here in all good faith, to help my country. I don’t mind giving a reasonable amount, but a pint? Why, that’s _ _ _ _ (4,6,2,6)”
5 So gorgeous, come to sudden end (4,4)
DROP DEAD – Two meanings
6 Wound workers up (3)
CUT – T.U.C (workers – Trades Union Congress) reversed [up]
7 Put to practical use, program wasn’t accurate (7)
APPLIED – APP (program), LIED (wasn’t accurate – gave alternative facts)
8 Beyond nervous, maybe frightened or terrified (4,5)
PAST TENSE – PAST (beyond ), TENSE (nervous). “Frightened” and “terrified” are examples of verbs in the past tense. “Maybe” is included to prevent complaints about DBEs.
13 Dismiss clergyman, losing one church (4,7)
YORK MINSTER – YORK (dismiss – cricket), MIN{i}STER (clergyman) [losing one].
14 Given encouragement, doctor bound to include extra on bill (9)
MOTIVATED – MO (doctor), TIED (bound) containing [to include] VAT (extra on bill – Value Added Tax)
16 Very conical, explosive? (8)
VOLCANIC – V, anagram [explosive] CONICAL. I suppose we’re in semi &lit territory here to excuse the double usage, but don’t quote me!
18 With bread, soak up fish (7)
ROLLMOP – ROLL (bread), MOP (soak up). My stomach turns to acid at the very thought.
20 One playing with current switch (7)
ACTRESS – AC (current – cf DC), TRESS (switch). The second meaning was unknown to me but SOED has “switch” as “a long tress of hair; esp. one of false or detached hair tied at one end and used in hairdressing to supplement the natural growth of hair”.
21 In Russia, Michael has parking accident (6)
MISHAP – MISHA (in Russia, Michael), P(parking)
24 Stick no bill up (5)
BATON – NO + TAB (bill) reversed [up]
26 County missing land got in frenzy (3)
RUT – RUT{land} County [missing land]. Naughties in the deer park! On edit: In reponse to Penfold’s comment below I have amended the definition simply to “frenzy”.

52 comments on “Times Number 26654”

  1. my hypersensitive mouse deleted the grid toward the end of my solve, and in an irritated rush to type everything back in I put in ‘cramp’; my FOI yet. I’d forgotten about Paris, too–or rather, failed to note that Romeo was not J’s intended, by a long shot–but was able to biff from checkers. I had no idea about 10ac; the d’oh moment only came when I read Jack’s explanation. Also didn’t understand GUILLOTINED. Jack, do you mean DBEs at 8d?
    1. Thanks for the correction, Kevin, I’ve amended it now. My DOB taking its toll, I fear!

      Edited at 2017-02-21 05:56 am (UTC)

  2. Usually enjoy the harder puzzles with offbeat definitions, but not so much for this one. Needed a 10 minute work break in the middle to reset brain.
    Did like volcanic, which I saw as a full &lit, thinking of a very conical mountain like Taranaki or Fuji. The GK and some defs were unknown or obscure – Madison, bus, guillotine, Misha for Michael, VAT for non-UK person, frenzy, Turandot unfinished etc. Knew Tamar as a river in Tasmania, knew Paris but not recalled until after I BIFD the answer.
  3. 20 minutes, but paid for my hubris by sticking in ‘armour’ at 4d, though I knew in my heart there was no muster it threatened to pass.
  4. 11:18 … no particular hold-ups. The army definition for OCTOPUS remembered from a previous outing. ACTRESS thrown in on the what else? principle.

    I really like the VALEDICTION, VOLCANIC and JUDAISM clues. And of course ARMFUL. Nice.

    Thanks, jackkt and the setter.

  5. Followed by- ‘What are you? Some kind of legalised vampire!?’

    Agree on 1ac HOME GUARD Jack – criminal waste.

    Not easy, stuck for ages on 25ac TAMARIN and 26dn RUT LOsI – so 55 mins. Sad!

    COD 13dn YORK MINSTER WOD TURANDOT

  6. 45 hard minutes with so many good clues. Happened on LOI CAPARISON by accident, before I remembered PARIS. ACTRESS was in more by faith than reason too, though I thought TRESS was right. AC came at the speed of light to this former CEGB man, and at 400KV. I went through all presidents beginning with M before hitting MADISON, known to me more for his square garden than his avenue. Good job GUILLOTINED in the next clue followed the reference to DANTON or I’d have not seen it. I thought that the TAMAR was held by those west of it to be a national boundary. COD YORK MINSTER. They shouldn’t have repaired it after that Bishop Jenkins row and lightning strike. What God hath put asunder, let no man join together.
  7. 21.41, with no sense of time wasted, both in the sense that I don’t think I could have worked through this any quicker (without supernatural powers or a peek at the answers), and in the sense that it was thoroughly enjoyable.
    The fun started with the very nearly first in OCTOPUS and continued all the way to the end with TAMARIN’s penny dropping county boundary moment.
    VOLCANIC a very fine &lit, with the shape thing surely intentional.
    While I agree that the “criminal” in 1ac is technically unnecessary for the clue to work, it does push the clue in a misleading forensic direction, and the HG was, after all, a rather hasty arrangement for never surrendering.
    Value added tax is common across the planet, but often with different initials (GST in Oz, TVA in France) so I suppose Isla3 has a point. Of course, when Britain leaves the EU we’ll be free of the obligation to charge VAT. I look forward to that!
    I applaud the inclusion of the antediluvian joke for MINUTE, and would suggest to Jackkt that if it’s my newt, it’s definitely a pet. Great blog though, many thanks.

    Edited at 2017-02-21 09:05 am (UTC)

  8. Hmm, found this almost as easy as yesterday for some reason, successfully going right round the outside and then filling in the middle bit..
    But couldn’t parse actress, having failed to spot even the current, never mind the tress.. and needed all the checkers for 3dn, a tricky anagram and a tricky def. too

    Newt fancying possibly less common than it used to be .. one of Bertie Wooster’s friends was one I recall, but even then he was thought a bit odd

    Edited at 2017-02-21 09:12 am (UTC)

      1. I still have all the PGW paperbacks I acquired month by month at grammar school! They’re a bit tatty now though.
  9. 10m. No problems today, and nothing unknown. Even this meaning of TRESS was vaguely familiar.
    I agree that 16dn is &Lit. It’s also very neat.

    Edited at 2017-02-21 09:33 am (UTC)

  10. Back to using my Australian brain, so a bit slower than yesterday. 14 hour flight probably didn’t help much.

    Still an enjoyable puzzle. Was happy that CAPARISON was correct, although it pretty much had to be.

    The dictionaries probably disagree (too tired to look it up), but in cricket you can be yorked without being dismissed. If Mitch Starc rips a full one under Joe Root’s bat, then he’s yorked him whether or not the stumps go flying. Let’s hope they do though.

    VOLCANIC was simple but nice. COD for me. Thanks setter and Jack.

    Edited at 2017-02-21 10:23 am (UTC)

    1. Ok, I went as far as far as Wikipedia for confirmation, and it actually supports my argument. Troublingly though, it also includes the line “When a batsman assumes a normal stance (also referred to as a ‘bixing’)”.

      Bixing? What the? Anyone? Has someone been having a little joke at Wikipedia’s expense?

      1. Oh, and I meant to add that this is by no means a complaint about the clue. Near enough is good enough in a specialist area like this, and the clue wasn’t exactly difficult, especially with the checkers in place.
    2. I nearly queried YORK in my blog, thinking that it didn’t necessarily involve dismissal, but it’s not a particular area of knowledge for me and I found both sides of the argument in the usual sources so I decided in favour of leaving it to the TftT experts. Collins hedge their bets: to bowl or try to bowl (a batsman) by pitching the ball under or just beyond the bat.

      I assume in this context “bowl” means “bowl out”.

      Edited at 2017-02-21 10:48 am (UTC)

  11. No idea why it took me so long to see this. Perhaps it’s because actresses now always seem to call themselves “actors”. At first hearing this, back when, it sounded very affected but I must have got used to it – I mean people don’t talk about “authoresses” any more. And I should have got the switch part right away because back in the dark ages when I was about to be sent to boarding school for the first time my mother had my long hair cut off and made into one. Years later I finally threw it out – it was too reminiscent of a scalp…

    P.S. Re YORK I just thought I bet it’s cricket and left it at that. 17.36. Sotira’s on a tear this week.

    Edited at 2017-02-21 10:55 am (UTC)

  12. Very pleasant puzzle that I meandered through at a lazy pace enjoying the scenery as I progressed

    Raised eyebrow at “it has gears” for BUS. On that basis “it has roof” or “it has seats” would do. We share a distaste for ROLL MOP Jack. I liked VOLCANIC.

    1. But how would you engage a roof?

      (sorry to intrude anonymously, but I’ve just started doing Times xwd in my dotage (not enough time during my working day) and found this site to explain abstruse clues! Cannot yet complete Times xwd without hints and perhaps more practice.)

      1. Welcome anon, and it’s very pleasing that you find our site useful in improving your knowledge of how some of the clues work. It would be nice if you were to add a name or nickname to your postings so that we know it’s you. Or you could obtain a free Live Journal account and create a regular identity with user pic.

        To address your point, I think that Dorsetjimbo was only giving examples of alternative loose definitions and not suggesting the remainder of the clue would remain as written if the definition part were to change.

        Edited at 2017-02-22 10:36 am (UTC)

  13. Plenty of change from 10 minutes – taking a minute or two at the end to scratch my head over GUILLOTINED (which until just a moment ago I thought might be referring to a bird’s bill? By subsconscious association with GUILLEMOTS I expect), and to completely fail to see ARMFUL, I think because my brain had gotten fixated on words like ARMOUR and ARDUOUS. I also assumed that there were ARMY OCTOPUSES in a similar vein to ARMY ANTS. The old cerebellum not really on top form last night, it seems.

    29ac was a nice write-in for us TLS types at least, as how many other words have PARIS in the middle of it? Fun puzzle.

  14. For the second day in a row geography trips me up, although this time my lack of zoological awareness was also at play. 10m 40s but with TAMIRIN at 25a. Never heard of the river and forgot the spelling of the monkey.
  15. This wasn’t the best one to tackle in a drug-induced haze (I took an antihistamine last night and was still knocked out this morning.) Still, I very much enjoyed failing at this one of the course of an hour and a half. Much fun to be had.

    Despite only having the vaguest recollection of the river or the opera, TURANDOT and TAMARIN were not my biggest problems. Luckily I entirely-mistakenly assumed that “tamarind” must come from the same area as the TAMARIN…

    My issues ended up being the CAPARISON and the crossers of BUS and MADISON. I suppose if I’d managed to work out the BUS—loose def, indeed—I might have biffed MADISON, but as I didn’t know he was a President, nor know that Danton was French, it might still not have fallen.

    I may still have been left with CAPARISON anyway, as I’d forgotten Juliet’s intended (knowledge gained only from crosswords in the first place, in my case) and didn’t know CAPARISON either.

    Ah well. It was fun along the way. Enjoyed the “army type”, the valley diction, et al. Thanks to setter and blogger!

  16. I didn’t get the “army” reference to 10a until I read Jack’s blog, but then laughed heartily. Managed to finish this in 41 minutes just before the policeman came to look at my dash cam footage of the wagon that forced me off the road last Thusday. Didn’t spot anything obvious in the NW so moved to the NE where CUT was my FOI closely followed by CLAMP. I then worked my way round the grid in a clockwise direction. Didn’t know the meaning of CAPARISON but vaguely knew it existed and the worplay was kind even though I initially tried to build the clue around R for Romeo. Liked JUDAISM and GUILLOTINED. Was held up by biffing HOT SPOT for 27a until wiser councils prevailed and I spotted the ACTRESS. I also dithered over YORK for dismiss. ARMFUL took ages to see but then indeed brought back happy memories of HHH. TAMARIN and RUT were my last 2 in. A most enjoyable puzzle. Thanks setter and Jack.
  17. 12:41 with a lot of question marks denoting queries, some of which I shall promote to quibbbles:
    – Is “it has gears” really good enough as a def?
    – In what sense is Turandot “unfinished”? For me they all are, as I’ve never got to the end of one.
    – Juliet / Paris? I’ve never “done” R&J but Juliet certainly wasn’t in Troilus & Cressida, which I did “do”.
    – What has Bill got to do with guillotines? Was he a famous victim of the French R I hadn’t heard of?
    – Couldn’t parse actress but for me “with” just doesn’t work as a link word.
    – How does rut = got in frenzy? According to my iPod version of Chambers the past tense of rut is rutted.
    1. Assuming most of this is “tichy” as Uncle Yap used to say, I think your last two points are serious and may require a response. On the last, at 26dn, I think it’s safe to assume your blogger was in error and the intended definition is simply “frenzy”, but at 20dn I’d read it as “with (something meaning) current (AC) (we have another word meaning) switch (TRESS) that put together give us “one playing”.

      Edited at 2017-02-21 02:07 pm (UTC)

      1. Thanks Jack. I agree that “with” works if interpreted in the way you suggest.

        As regards rut, if the intended definition is just “frenzy”, which I would be happy with, that then leaves “got in” as some kind of link between wordplay and def which I’m also struggling with.

        1. The way I read it you have just ‘got’ an equivalent for ‘county missing land’ in the answer. It’s not the most elegant construction but not quite a guillotining offence IMO.
          1. Ah, OK. So “got” is a precursor to the link word “in”. Just about works then. Maybe just deserving of a couple of hours in the stocks.
    2. “It has gears” should be good enough for a three-letter word with the first and third letters unchecked. (Actually I think it’s good enough for any vehicle with gears, whatever the number of letters.)

      Turandot is “unfinished” in the sense that Puccini didn’t finish it before he died. (Someone else had to complete it later.)

      Parliamentary bills can be guillotined.

  18. Didn’t have a problem with any of this, all done in 20 minutes, with the PDM LOL for OCTOPUS and parsing of HARRIDAN done after biffing. Very amusing puzzle, agree BUS was a bit loose.
    Unlike Jimbo and Jack I am partial to a rollmop or a herring in a jar. The only thing that I am prepared to go to IKEA for.
  19. As an improver I had to work hard to complete. The top half went in easily enough. Clues such as 8d would have foxed me some months ago (improver hint, look for tthe two words that are really redundant). Nearly bifed armour before i thought about it. The opera and the actress were also unparsed. Loved Valediction. Shame about Sutton so now hope Lincoln can be motivated to win. Lovely blog. Alan
    1. Can I assume, Alan, that you’re the Wanderer from Norwich? Your pseudonym assumed after seeing Moxey and Trotter in harness? Much better than the one I suggested. What sort of tractor are you driving?
      1. Well spotted NotlobW. Yes finally got a sign in. Hopefully visiting ooop north early March to see the relatives. Must practice me accent.
  20. My first one on the club timer with an incorrect in about a month – I’ve been taking some time to check it before submitting, and I went to bed wondering what I had gotten wrong. Read the blog, scratch head, open grid, find out I’d put in COLCANIC. Well done, George. I did like this, it was a tricky one.
    1. COLCANIC = resembling Irish potato and cabbage based cuisine?

      Commiserations. This happens to me a lot, but then I’m too vain to double-check for errors!

  22. 23 mins. I was back at work today and a bit tired when I got home, so it didn’t surprise me that I started to drift earlier than mid-solve. When I snapped out of it I finished relatively quickly so I think I’d have posted a decentish time had I been fully alert for the whole solve. ACTRESS was my LOI after HOT SEAT. Despite my tiredness I enjoyed the puzzle, so a tip of the hat goes to the setter.
  23. This took a while, maybe 40 minutes, as I wasn’t on top of my game, and it’s pretty tricky, and there are a fair number of UK centric clues I didn’t understand. Like ‘york’, for instance, and the Tamar, and why GUILLOTINED has anything to do with ‘bill’. And in a non UK sense, wondered why the Russian Michael wasn’t Mikhail. But I solved everything, eventually, ending with TAMARIN/RUT. An easy toss to the Americans with MADISON, in the maison. He was the precipitant of the less well known Mr. Madison’s War, way back when, aka The War of 1812, between the young US and you UK folks, (or between our long ago ancestors). Not much came of it, really. Regards.
    1. Well, we did burn down the White House. All a bit spiteful since we’d effectively won by this stage – sorry about that.
      Thoroughly enjoyable puzzle.
      GeoffH
  24. DNK CAPARISON and I wasn’t keen on biffing that as my LOI although, with only the vowels missing, I felt it had to be that. So DNF at about the 50 minute mark. COD to LAUNDRY LIST where the anagrist was fairly obvious but the 2nd word in the pairing just didn’t come readily to mind. A much more enjoyable puzzle than yesterday’s fare.
  25. Yup, this was a pleasant one at 21:53 but a bit brit-centric, not necessarily a bad thing. COD VALEDICTION, given the Valley bit.
  26. 32 minutes for me. I spent a while at 10ac trying to convince myself that “antopus” was an archaic or poetic term for autumn. Then 5d made OCTOPUS inevitable, and I wasted yet more time satisfying myself that the collective noun for octopuses was “army”, which of course it isn’t.

    CAPARISON went in on the grounds that it fit the checkers and I had a vague idea it was some kind of cape (for a horse, as it turns out), but I failed to parse it, since my knowledge of Romeo and Juliet is limited to Romeo and Juliet.

    TAMARIN was a bit of a guess – I half-knew that they were from the tropics (or is that tamarinds? or perhaps tamarisks), and completely didn’t know if the Tamar was any kind of boundary.

    I also wasn’t convinced by the clue for RUT (and am still not).

  27. Damn! I’d have made a clean sweep if I hadn’t bunged in ROLLING at 18dn, hoping that I’d think of how to justify LOR = “soak” before submitting. If only I’d gone for 25ac immediately before it rather than immediately after it, I wouldn’t have wasted so much time on TAMARIN (which I thought of quickly enough once I’d started considering the possibility that the third letter might not be I after all), or on ROLLMOP.

    Still, that was the only hiccup in my 7:52, so not a completely disaster for this elegantly constructed and enjoyable puzzle.

    1. I too had ROLLING early on but realised it needed some extra vinegar for a ROLLMOP!

      Edited at 2017-02-22 01:32 am (UTC)

  28. 15:59. A day late, but I enjoyed this and was pleased to complete it without any holdups in 10 minutes below par. 20d my last in, but I knew of switch being something to do with long hair. I didn’t know TURANDOT was unfinished – I always learn somethign when I come here. COD to OCTOPUS.

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