Times Saturday 26670 – March 11, 2017.

Posted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Much easier than last week. As usual, some people, plants and birds I didn’t know, but all gettable from the wordplay. Not really any dolly deliveries, but a pleasant workout this week. I think my clue of the day is 6 across; it took me an age to parse the wordplay. I also liked how remote the surface of 15ac was from the answer.

My initial feeling was that this week would produce some fast times. At the time of posting, I see that on the leaderboard the 100th best time was over 22 minutes compared with the usual 15 minutes or so on an easy Saturday – so it does look like it was still a little harder than usual.

Clues are reproduced in blue, with the definition underlined. Anagram indicators are bolded and italicised. Then there’s the answer IN BOLD, followed by [the parsing of the wordplay]. (ABC*) means ‘anagram of ABC’, {deletions are in curly brackets}.

Across
1. Cries, opening post: lucky win here? (10)
SWEEPSTAKE: WEEPS [cries] in STAKE [post].

6. Elegant fowl has no range (4)
CHIC: CHIC{ken} [chicken=fowl, minus ken=range]. Only got that while writing the blog! I was stuck trying to take a “K” off “CHICK” insted of taking off a whole word from the end.

9. Going into a Bible story, teacher is not to be condemned (10)
PARDONABLE: DON in PARABLE.

10. Hamburger perhaps almost a deception (4)
FRAU: FRAU{d} [deception, almost]. A German woman, from Hamburg or elsewhere.

12. Woman and others collect fuel for robbers’ sanctuary (8,6)
SHERWOOD FOREST: SHE [woman] and REST [others] collecting WOOD FOR. I’d have thought outlaws rather than robbers, but near enough.

14. Doctor breaks tool in tricky operation (6)
FIDDLE: DD in FILE.

15. Ham, for one, and egg — crazy about it (8)
PEGGOTTY: POTTY around EGG. Ham Peggotty, I may once have briefly known, was the nephew of Clara Peggotty. She was David Copperfield’s family housekeeper in the Dickens novel. Nicely deceptive definition!

17. In the long run, earl’s child follows revolutionary (8)
MARATHON: MARAT [revolutionary … not Che for once!] HON [earl’s child].

19. Conscious about daughter that’s liable to pop up (6)
ADWARE: D [daughter] in AWARE. That annoying stuff that pops up on your computer screen when you’re about to find what you were looking for.

22. Instinctive representation of feet as hot? (4-2-3-5)
SEAT-OF-THE-PANTS: One of those reverse thingies where the answer thinks it’s the clue. Looking that way round, “PANTS” is the anagram indicator, (SEAT OF THE*) is the fodder, giving a representation of “FEET AS HOT”.

24. Keen, suggesting a tanner? (4)
AVID: A VI [six] D [old penny]. I suppose tanner automatically means six old pence, not new pence, so the clue covers it all.

25. Donate books in attractive cover to intimate (4,6)
GIVE NOTICE: GIVE [donate] OT [books] in NICE [attractive].

26. Wetland plant has no small advantage (4)
EDGE: I didn’t know sedge was (often) a wetland plant, but obvious enough.

27. Man will wheel camera platform, getting hit on stage (5,5)
HELLO DOLLY: HE’LL [man will] O [wheel] DOLLY [camera platform]. 1964 Broadway musical, 1969 film.

            
Down
1. Bribes singers briefly (4)
SOPS: abbreviation for sopranos.

2. Hear the district nurses got to ground safely (7)
EARTHED: hidden word. The reference is to electrical wiring.

3. Dependant’s pathetic story? (4,8)
POOR RELATION: double definition.

4. Child hides each panic originally — it pours out (6)
TEAPOT: EA [each] P{anic} in TOT [child].

5. Shoot sweet-sounding plover (8)
KILLDEER: KILL [shoot] DEER [sounds like “dear”]. This one I’m pretty sure I never knew.

7. Crop top beneath fur? Not I! (7)
HARVEST: HA{i}R [fur] VEST [top].

8. Who comes after the Romans? Some rural types (10)
COUNTRYMEN: with the “C” at the top. I immediately thought CORINTHIANS, but of course that doesn’t fit.

Wikipedia: “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears” is the first line of that speech by Mark Antony in the play Julius Caesar. Act III, scene II.

11. Hoodlum, one in a suit, who may be better than he appears (5,7)
ROUGH DIAMOND: rough = hoodlum, one in a suit = diamond in this case.

13. Undisciplined, disliking untidiness? Grow up! (3-7)
OFF MESSAGE: OFF MESS [disliking untidiness] AGE [grow up].

16. One that kept leading Achilles by the ears was our master (8)
TORTOISE: Depending on the speaker, may or may not sound like [by the ears] TAUGHT US [“was our master”].

The reference is to Zeno’s paradox, in which Achilles, fleet of foot, supposedly never catches the lumbering tortoise because by the time Achilles has run to where the tortoise last was, the tortoise has run a bit further. In the expectation that some eyes are rolling and the mathematicians are nodding, ‘nuff said!

18. Very keen to assume English parents’ duties (7)
REARING: E [English] in RARING [ as in “raring to go”].

20. An excitement as queen leaves nest (7)
ANTHILL: AN THRILL [excitement] minus R [queen]. Always tricky when your subconscious automatically tries to change “an” in front of an E to “a” in front of a “T”.

21. Extremely coarse, proper grass (6)
CEREAL: C{oars}E [“extremely” coarse] REAL [proper].

23. Don’t accept fate: it’s about to be rejected (4)
DENY: DESTINY [fate] less STI [it’s, rejected].

31 comments on “Times Saturday 26670 – March 11, 2017.”

  1. I didn’t find this particularly easy. I generally think a word described as “obscure” is just a word the complainant doesn’t know or (more often) remember, but killdeer feels like a genuine obscurity to me. . I mean, an American plover? Really?
    Zenos Paradox could also be seen as obscure. . As it happens I had heard of it. It is rubbish in that it is trying to force a relationship between two entities that have none.
    JerryW, not signed in
  2. This took me 53:25, but I was defeated by not knowing the paradox and shoved DOCTRINE in as a desperate last resort. I managed to work out the KILLDEER despite never having heard of it. I’ve heard of the Hare and the Tortoise but not Achilles. I was led to thinking of heels and tendons. Was pleased to remember the East Anglian Dickens contingent. A tough workout. Thanks setter and Bruce.
  3. I actually knew KILLDEER, although I certainly didn’t know it was a plover, but I’d agree with Jerry on its obscurity. Zeno, on the other hand, strikes me as within GK territory; but then the complement of Jerry’s ‘obscure’=’I don’t know it’ is ‘GK’=’I do’. Actually, I didn’t think of Zeno, I thought of Lewis Carroll’s “What the Tortoise Said to Achilles”, which isn’t relevant to the clue, but it worked. I biffed 22ac; no way I would have worked out the wordplay. I wasted bags of time agonizing over PEGGOTTY, since the only example I could think of was in ‘David Copperfield’ and I couldn’t see its relevance, having totally forgotten his first name.
    1. He’s actually quite relevant to the pun in 16dn. From the Mock Turtle (in Chapter IX):
      “We called him Tortoise because he taught us”.
      There’s an equally egregious pun on “lesson” and “lessen” a further down from there.
      1. Yes, but that’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’, not ‘What the Tortoise Said’, which is about a problem with modus ponens. Of course it has its own pun, something about “A Kill-ease”.
  4. In desperation, as being preferable to neggutty. That is: an obscurity for those who dislike and avoid Dickens’ works (scarred for life being forced to read one at school 40 years ago). That was only after changing the equally obscure killdere to killdeer.
    Enjoyed the rest, actually used wordplay to get 22 ac, couldn’t bring the phrase to mind. 28 minutes with the one wrong, so quite hard on my scale.
      1. Deggotty sounds more likely than beggatty, but no, didn’t think of it. I knew I didn’t know the answer, but also didn’t know what the clue was referring to – a breed of pig? A famously bad actor (maybe Beerbohm Tree’s not-so-famous younger brother)? With a known unknown I don’t waste too much time agonising over possibilities, just have a guess.
        1. Yes, I had a similar experience. With the G in the middle of the clue I thought that ‘egg’ might just be EGG (although it seemed a bit odd), and used that assumption to tentatively choose KILLDEER over KILLDERE. But then I saw that BEGATTY and DEGOTTY would both fit, and having absolutely no idea what the definition was supposed to be I decided I was never going to figure out the answer and went to onelook.
  5. I’d like to know how a plover, even a very big one, gets to be known as a killdeer. Wiki says it’s from the sound it makes, but it still looks unlikely. It’s the one I checked in Chambers before submitting – so sue me!
    I thought this to be about as hard as it gets on a Saturday, and commented at the time that there were no single digit times, though that was before the competition entry crowd came in.
    AS noted above, the TORTOISE clue divides us spectacularly into those who know Dodgson the Alice creator and those who know Dodgson the logician. He’d have made a fantastic setter and, I’m sure, a joyous solver.
    1. We’ve adapted one of Mr Dodgson’s musings into a valediction at my local; “The time has come,” the Walrus said, “to sod off home and go to bed!”
  6. Found this tricky and took nearly an hour.Guessed it must be KILLDEER from the crossers but it’s not the name you’d expect to be given to a plover. Knew this Zeno paradox but still didn’t twig that was what the clue was about until all crossers were in and I’d gawped at it for 10 minutes. Absence of motion on my part was no illusion. It took me a couple of minutes to see that COUNTRYMEN followed Romans, and not 1 Corinthians. Good puzzle apart from the bird. And thank you BRNCHN for informative blog.
  7. Hard work but quite rewarding until I fell at the last hurdle with PEGOTTY. The surname from Dickens came up as I worked through the alphabet but I didn’t known the nephew, only Clara, so didn’t make a connection with Ham. Poor show on my part really but my brain was aching by then. I often find that when I’m left with only one answer to complete that’s when I run out of steam if it doesn’t come to mind immediately.
  8. I found this impossibly hard: my first hour yielded only 8 answers, and I went back a few times during the day, finally giving up with the crossers of the unknown Ham and the unknown plover still to get.

    Perhaps 15a isn’t ambiguous if you read it correctly, but there were so many possibilities in my mind—is “crazy” an anagram indicator? Is “egg” just an “O”? What kinds of ham are there? Could “for one” indicate “e.g.”, or “per”?—that I couldn’t conjure this odd-looking surname. 5d also being ambiguous didn’t help.

    As a relative beginner, I still don’t feel bad enough about my failure to put “read the entire works of Dickens, just in case” on my to-do list yet…

  9. You are having a larf! 16dn TORTOISE really!! No allusion to Dodgson, Zeno or reptiles and thus unfairly clued IMFO. DNF and DNEnj. this utter obscurity!

    LOI 22ac SEAT OF THE PANTS. FOI 21dn CEREAL

    15ac PEGGOTTY was a write-in and 5dn KILLDEER was fairly clued – my COD.

    WOD TORTOISE!! which I waited a week for! I shall be writing to my MP.

    Edited at 2017-03-18 01:26 pm (UTC)

  10. Either you’ve read David Copperfield or you haven’t, and this setter obviously decided that having done so is a necessary qualification for solving crossword puzzles. Let’s just say I don’t agree.
    I don’t have a problem with either KILLDEER or TORTOISE. Are they obscure? As always it’s a matter of opinion, but as far as I’m concerned it doesn’t matter as long as the setter gives us an alternative route to the answer.

    Edited at 2017-03-18 02:29 pm (UTC)

  11. Thanks for the lecturette – however the homophonic alternative (as I pronounce it in the RP style) is TORT-OISE or TORT-OYS and not TAUGHT-US! I’m surprised Webster didn’t alter it.

    I also say porp-oise not porp-us and perhaps like you I say gar-aage and not gar-ridge!

    Miss Mitford and Lucy Clayton would turn in their graves.

    1. The way I pronounce TORTOISE it’s a homophone for ‘taught us’. This is also the first or only pronunciation given in Chambers, Collins and ODO.
      1. There are regional and other variations.

        “It’s obvious that nobody here (USA) has heard all British pronunciations of the word. Toytoyce is not too uncommon. I say “tortus”. Mike Collins

        ‘Tortoiz is used in Derbyshire’.

        I am from Lincolnshire.

        I note the French is tort-oise

        Keroithe – don’t you folk use turtle anyway!?

        Edited at 2017-03-18 04:27 pm (UTC)

        1. I’m not denying that, but a lot of people say ‘taught us’, so I can’t see any problem with using that pronunciation for a homophone.
          1. I’m still fresh out of beginners’ class on these protocol issues, but maybe it’s fairer to ask “Have you heard it pronounced ‘taught-us'”, rather than ask “How do you personally pronounce it”?
            1. Exactly. As long as it’s a reasonably common pronunciation I can’t see the problem.

              Edited at 2017-03-18 09:52 pm (UTC)

            2. It was Vinyl (an American) who first stated he could make head nor tail of this.

              Homophones have before brought contention with which I have never been involved.

              Fowler’s Modern English Usage points out the problem. He notes the alternative -oiz or ois to be found in some modern dictionaries and states that are are a ‘less agreeable’ result of the ‘speak-as-you-spell’ movement. What self-opinionated rot!

              My mater’s side of the family all said tort-oise my pater’s tort-us.

              Thus it was far deeper rooted than Fowler suggests and comes from the French pronunciation tort-oise as I earlier indicated.

              Tort-us is non-U – and tortoise is U – thus all the dictionaries should recognise there is an alternative.

              Yes, I have heard it pronounced tort-us but I was taught that it was incorrect!

              Are you happy with garridge? I know Brian Sewell wasn’t

              1. Most of the dictionaries do recognise the alternatives. The only person not recognising alternatives in this discussion is you, my dear horryd!
                As for the ‘correct’ pronunciation, I’m afraid whoever taught you this sold you a pup. There is no such thing.
                I don’t say ‘garridge’ myself but am entirely happy with the fact that some people do, and I wouldn’t dream of telling them they’re wrong.
                Don’t get me started on Nancy Mitford.

                Edited at 2017-03-19 01:14 pm (UTC)

  12. I found this hard. I had one answer after a good first read through -26a Edge. This did not exactly open up the puzzle. After a long break to watch a football match I resumed the tussle. I managed to make some headway and enjoyed doing so. It was testing but rewarding.
    In the end I was left with several unsolved.
    15a could not see what was needed, jotted Peggitty and Heggitty
    16d -no idea, Contrite fitted.
    I see I got 18d wrong -I put Craving (Caring + V);seemed weak at the time. This conflicted with Marathon.
    I worked out Killdeer.
    I have complained about obscurities before and know the arguments. I don’t think either 15a or 16d were good clues, particularly when you do not have the first letter. David
  13. This is my first ever venture onto this site as a poster, having previously only read, and learned a huge amount from, all the other posts. I remain in genuine admiration of anyone who measures their finish time in minutes rather than, in my case, days or weeks, but this site is for me a marvellous education in all things crosswordian, not least in discovering that “Biff” can be a verb as well as a Batman-punch descriptor.

    However, this puzzle prompted me to query the absolute accuracy of the clues. 10ac, for example:— can FRAU really be a “Hamburger” (as opposed to a Hamburgerin?) And shouldn’t the clue to 8dn have asked “Who come…”, rather than “Who comes…”?

    Minor points, I know, amidst bigger Tortoise/Ham controversies, but I always thought clueing accuracy was part of the art of the setter. For my part, I’m sure it’s more sour grapes than anything else, but I wondered what more experienced crosswordsters might think.

    1. Welcome, Peter. To answer your questions, I’d say 1) English does have the word ‘Hamburger’ to mean citizen of Hamburg, but not, I daresay, ‘Hamburgerin’; 2) ‘Who come after …?’ isn’t grammatical. If the clue had been ‘Some rural types who come …’, on the other hand, …
    2. Hi Peter, I agree with Kevin that “Hamburger” is appropriate in English. And I agree with you about “come”!

      “Who” can be singular or plural, depending on whom it represents. (Let the ones who disagree argue among themselves!)

      If here the setter wants it to represent “countrymen”, well yes it’s plural so should be followed by the plural form of the verb. Even so, I don’t think that minor detail helped or hindered me in getting to the answer.

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