Times Saturday 26760 – June 24, 2017. Too many unknowns?

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After breezing through last week, this week saw me thud back to earth! I started well, finishing the NW corner, but then gradually slowed to a standstill. My last ones in were 15ac, 6dn, 20dn and 5ac. Overall time off the charts. My choice for the clue of the day was a tossup between 14dn and 16dn. Congratulations to the setter.

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

Across
1. Endlessly rich tycoon and politician — here’s where the pounds go (3,4)
FAT CAMP: FAT CA{t} MP.
5. Henry takes brief trip outside with unknown, enigmatic figure (6)
SPHINX: SPIN=brief trip “outside” H=Henry, plus X=unknown. I misled myself by assuming the unknown at the end of the word would be a “Y”. Does an “X” make this one of Donald Rumsfeld’s unknown unknowns?
8. Right to give out wine both coming and going (9)
REMITTENT: R EMIT TENT.
9. Cheeky boy keeps burning cheesecake (3-2)
PIN-UP: PUP, as in “you cheeky pup”, keeping “IN”=burning, as in hot fashion I suppose.
11. Brown garment, perhaps not new (5)
UMBER: NUMBER might = garment, minus the N=new.
12. Thus a poet and artist come together for TV series (4,5)
SOAP OPERA: SO A POPE RA. Alexander Pope 1688-1744:
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
as those move easiest who have learn’d to dance.
Likewise crossword solving!
13. Always cut radio code, omitting both sierras (8)
EVERMORE: {s}EVER MOR{s}E.
15. Ukulele player switching parts for alternative arrangement (2-4)
BY-FORM: George Formby, switching first and last syllables. Fortunately, an elder of the house remembered that the ukulele player, whoever it was, used to sing “Leaning on a Lamp-post”. Having ruled out Herman’s Hermits as too recent, I eventually remembered his name.
17. Offer a better future complete with Charlie for king (6)
ENTICE: ENTIRE, replacing R by C.
19. Played a part in charge of teaching (8)
DIDACTIC: DID ACT I/C.
22. Get rid of acid, perhaps, that has corroded (9)
LIQUIDATE: LIQUID=acid, perhaps; ATE=corroded.
23. Aid for climber getting rid of leg pain (5)
CRAMP: CRAMP{on}. Spikes clipped to a climber’s boots, apparently.
24. Arch-fiend not oddly associated with East European banker (5)
RHINE: RHIN=every second letter of arch-fiend; E=east.
25. Closest man-like mammal outside of old times (9)
PROXIMATE: PRIMATE outside O=old X=times.
26. Endless fruit around unknown tree (6)
BANYAN: BANAN{a} around Y=another unknown. With the “X” at 6ac, does anyone want a “Z” for the triple unknown?
27. Small scene in play about Coeur de Lion? (7)
DIORAMA: DRAMA around IO=”heart of lion”. Very neat.

Down
1. Visionary bank clerk has wealth ahead (7-6)
FORTUNE TELLER: FORTUNE ahead of TELLER.
2. Bloke in volunteer force holding British not inevitably fierce? (7)
TAMABLE: TA=volunteer, MALE=bloke, holding B=British.
3. Entertainer’s duty list put up around clubs (5)
ACTOR: ROTA backwards around C=clubs.
4. Suit certain to delight (8)
PLEASURE: PLEA=suit (at law), SURE=certain.
5. What’s positioned vehicle turning up? (6)
SATNAV: SAT=positioned, VAN (reversed)=vehicle. &lit definition.
6. Queen volunteers to support popular old college (9)
HIPPOLYTA: TA=volunteers (again), supporting HIP POLY. DNK this particular queen, and was stuck thinking the answer was just as likely to be an old (Greek or Roman) college of some kind.
7. One craven emperor injecting on heroin (3-4)
NON-HERO: NERO “injecting” ON H. Is this really a word?
10. Injure a policeman in post office that is turning up a cache of drugs (13)
PHARMACOPOEIA: HARM A COP inside P{ost} O{ffice}, followed by IE backwards, then A. This word I in fact knew, and I can’t even blame it on a mis-spent youth.
14. System ECHR delivered cryptically in thirty-one days (9)
MACHINERY: (ECHR*) and IN inside MAY=31 days. On edit, thanks to Galspray and Jackkt: “E(CH)R” delivered cryptically is “CH IN ER”! Then all of that is “in” (containment indicator) MAY. Very clever indeed.
16. Get Proms conductor worked up for feature at end of Joan of Arc? (8)
FIREWOOD: FIRE=work up, WOOD=conductor.

Sir Henry Joseph Wood CH (3 March 1869 – 19 August 1944) was an English conductor best known for his association with London’s annual series of promenade concerts, known as the Proms. He conducted them for nearly half a century, introducing hundreds of new works to British audiences. After his death, the concerts were officially renamed in his honour as the “Henry Wood Promenade Concerts”, although they continued to be generally referred to as “the Proms”.

Does anyone else find the definition a touch macabre?
18. Quite unusual to find the French drink (7)
TEQUILA: (QUITE*) plus LA.
20. Saurian regularly tense when mounting one of its kind (7)
TUATARA: ARA (even letters of saurian), followed by TAUT – then all reversed (“mounting”).
21. Boat takes a minute to break bridge (6)
SAMPAN: A M inside SPAN.
23. Capital state openly invested in company (5)
CAIRO: AIR=state openly, inside CO=company.

35 comments on “Times Saturday 26760 – June 24, 2017. Too many unknowns?”

  1. This has come up a couple of times, I think: If a fire is not burning, it’s out; if it is, it’s in; if I recall correctly.
  2. A couple of DNKs slowed me down, as well as a couple of CNRs (could not remember). DNK TUATARA, and actually toyed with ‘tsapara’ before seeing the light. And definitely did not know Formby, making 15ac my LOI. Wood finally came to mind (and yes, the clue is a bit macabre), as did HIPPOLYTA, which I should have got much sooner. I wasted time at 5ac thinking ‘brief trip’ might be TRI. COD to DIORAMA. NON-HERO seems pretty cromulent to me.
  3. made seven films with Columbia Pictures in the thirties and toured Canada during WWII doing his gormless, smiling, winking, ukulele routines. Even so he was almost unknown in America but later such British ‘talent’ such as Norman Wisdom and Benny Hill did far better out-west.
    Herman’s Hermits! What’s that got to do with the case!?

    DNK 20dn TUATARA

    WOD CROMULENT COD 15ac BY-FORM

    1. Herman’s Hermits did a cover of George Formby’s “Leaning on a Lamppost” in about 1966. Made it to No. 9 in the US says Wikipedia. As I noted, not relevant when trying to remember the ukelele player.
      1. Can you please explain why, in 8ac, TENT represents ‘wine’? Thank you
  4. Hard work but worth persevering with. Unfortunately it was a DNF for me because of SATNAV which I failed to work out and it hasn’t yet found its way into the datbases of any of the various word-search solvers that I occasionally resort to in desperation.

    “Cheesecake” as the female equivalent of “beefcake” was news to me, but of course I have led a pure, innocent and sheltered life. I’m sure it’s all very non-PC these days anyway.

    I may be missing something (nothing new there if I am ) but 14ac seems to be missing something too. If “delivered cryptically” is the anagrind and ECHR is part of the anagrist, where does the IN come from, and what is there to indicate that it’s to be placed inside the ground letters? The “in” in the clue clearly just indicates containment of everything else within MAY (31 days).

    Although it’s true that George Formby played ukulele on occasions, and of course he sang of it in one of his most famous numbers, for the most part later in his career he played banjolele, a hybrid instrument that looks and sounds more like a banjo than a uke, and that’s the instrument he’s most usually pictured playing.

    Edited at 2017-07-01 05:04 am (UTC)

    1. Jack, think of it not as an anagram of ECHR, but as “CH” in “ER”.
    2. My thoughts exactly.
      Even when George sang ‘uke’ songs, he didn’t play one as such:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZYFXUg4aLc
      The difference is important.
      (I happen to play a left-handed baritone banjo-uke — yet another distinct instrument.)
      If these were “classical” instruments, I suppose setters would get them right.
      1. I seem to recall Bertie Wooster moving out of his digs rather than yield to his neighbors’ urgent requests that he leave off playing his banjolele; first time I’d ever heard of the thing.
        1. That was Thank You, Jeeves. It was filmed as Chuffy, but sadly the banjolele was replaced by a trombone. Possibly because Hugh Laurie can actually play stringed instruments, but I’m only speculating 😀
          1. He can probably play the trombone. He seems to play every instrument known to man, certainly the saxophone.

            Edited at 2017-07-01 09:26 am (UTC)

            1. That man really is disturbingly talented. Watching a bit of his Wooster after seeing a couple of episodes of _House_ last night only underlines his range.
              1. And possibly how wasted he is. Having stepped off the treadmill of “House” (complaining about it, missing England etc for the final year or two) he’s back in another US drama playing another quirky American medic “Chance” (yawn!) and Series Two has been commissioned, I’m told. I suppose he has an accustomed lifestyle to support now, but to me it seems a great shame.

                Edited at 2017-07-01 01:32 pm (UTC)

                1. Many moons ago we cast HL in his first TV part – a commercial for Whitbread where his wife gave him a pub for his birthday. Whitbread closed one of their boozers in West London for the day and the crew tied an enormous red ribbon round it and surrounded it in pink, dry ice. It looked wonderful.
                  It was all a dream and his wife enters at the end with a brand new garden mower. (It is no longer on You Tube)

                  Hugh was so nervous and was totally without confidence but it cut together well. At the casting we had seen his potential and sure enough he went on to far greater things.

                  Edited at 2017-07-01 03:45 pm (UTC)

                2. Well, you say wasted, but House was, in its time, the most-watched television programme on the planet Earth, so I’m hard-pressed to think of it as a waste. Certainly as many people as humanly possible have been able to see him at work.

                  It is, for me, the greatest Sherlock Holmes tribute ever made, if nothing else.

                  Edited at 2017-07-01 05:18 pm (UTC)

  5. Actually, ‘beefcake’ is derived from the older ‘cheesecake’; back in our day, Jack, pictures of pin-up boys would have been a lot thinner on the ground than pin-up girls.
  6. One of the benefits of being old is that you know the megastars of yesteryear, which George Formby most certainly was. He did alao live in Poulton-le-Fylde for a while, at the same time as I lived my early years there. The President of the George Formby Appreciation Society later was George Harrison, who like me caught the films on a television rerun. This George was a true renaissance man, being a keen gardener and taking religion seriously. I think he was in a band too. I got on well with this crossword, finishing in the half-hour. COD PHARMACOPOEIA, a reference to my contemporary at Oxford Howard Marks’ guitar case? Sorry for the name dropping. I’ll be telling you about the conversation I had with Imran Khan, John Paul Getty Junior and Mick Jagger next, while former England captain Peter May was getting me a drink. Thank you B and setter.

    Edited at 2017-07-01 06:48 am (UTC)

  7. Well, I stuffed this one up good and proper, and needed to look a couple of things up to get myself on the right track. Biffing PRIMITIVE (of old times) for 25a didn’t help, leading me to wonder why FIREBIRD had anything to do with Joan of Arc, and whether it was some reference I wasn’t getting. It certainly wouldn’t have surprised me if there were a Proms conductor called Bird, anyway.

    But even after I’d sorted that out I still managed to guess TSAPARA instead of TUATARA. Perhaps I’ve spent too much time in Greece, but words beginning TS don’t seem too implausible to me, especially if I’ve never heard of the word we’re actually looking for. Curses.

  8. I remember UMBER from childhood days with watercolour paints. Some tricky stuff here. I eventually derived the Queen, but after 43:05 I submitted to find I had one wrong, which was that well known beast the TSAPARA. I was pleased to have dug up GF from the depths, luckily not knowing he actually played a non-uke. Thanks setter and Bruce.

    Edited at 2017-07-01 10:19 am (UTC)

  9. 15:54. I only know that IN can mean ‘burning’ from doing these things, and UMBER for brown is another crossword commonplace seldom encountered elsewhere. I did not know this meaning of ‘cheesecake’, and TUATARA was a wordplay-based crossed-fingers job.
    1. When I was at Berkeley, evidently the common Italian 1 text featured a Fulvia Bruni; I remember coming across a men’s-room graffito, “Fulvia Bruni eats burnt umber”, which is how I remembered the word. (I believe “Thanks for sharing” is the appropriate response here.)
      1. Thanks for sharing!
        I have been aware of burnt umber for a lot longer than I have known what colour umber is. I’m not sure what colour I thought burnt umber was.
  10. Glad to see others found this tough, as I did.
    I failed to get 2d, 8a, 16d, 20d and 27a.
    There were a number of unknowns and this time I could not derive them; for example I had all the ingredients of Tuatara but without Diorama I was unable to guess it.
    The parsing of 16d remains a bit vague to me. “Get .. worked up .. ” do not lead to Fire in my opinion.
    Otherwise enjoyed the challenge. David

  11. No problem with the vocab in the puzzle, but struggled a bit with thar in the comments, having to look up Kevin’s ‘cromulent’. About 30 minutes for the puzzle and ten minutes reading around my new word.

    In respect of Hugh Laurie, I share with my namesake a certain diffidence about my talents. Sadly, I don’t share the talents.

  12. Brnchn, your blog still shows 14dn as being a (partial) anagram. As mentioned earlier, there’s no anagram involved.

    “ECHR delivered cryptically” gives us CHINER, ie one way to cryptically describe ECHR would be “CH in ER”.

  13. I did not like this crossword at all, and not just because of the whole banjolele inaccuracy thing. I got 23 across (CRAMP) simply because I knew about Crampons, and, well, it fitted (Is this Biffing?) But I still don’t understand how that clue worked – why did the “leg” that was “got rid of” turned out to be the “on” of Crampon?

    Thanks to everyone for the continually magnificent blog and all the comments. They’re doing wonders for my ongoing education.

    1. It’s one of those annoying cricket terms: ‘leg’=’on’. I don’t know what they mean, but I have learned that they’re used here. Verb. sap.
      1. Thanks very much, Kevin – another word to put on my growing list! The initiation continues…
  14. I’d kept the puzzle to remind myself to post a comment when the blog came out but I’d put it in a drawer and I’ve only just found it, so this comment may not be read by anyone.

    I don’t time my Saturday puzzles any more but I’m sure I managed this one in appx 15 mins. The topic of my comment has already been touched on above, namely the wordplay alternative “tsapara” to the correct TUATARA for 20dn. I guessed the correct one but it is certainly a variant on the solver’s beef of “an obscure answer clued by an anagram”.

    Edited at 2017-07-05 09:16 pm (UTC)

    1. I think we can classify that as crossword jargon! Wikipedia says, “tent wine(archaic) A kind of wine of a deep red color, chiefly from Galicia or Malaga in Spain”. I’ll make it clearer in future.

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