Times 27343 – Sounds good!

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Time: 49 minutes
Music: Richard Thompson, Live in Austin

However, since I’m trying to lose weight, I’m not sure the Wensleydale and the yard of ale are advisable.   Well, maybe if it’s Samuel Smith Nut Brown Ale, then I might be tempted….

Oh, the puzzle.  I got the cheese immediately, but my first thought was that we were likely to get some novel cluing and answers, and I was not wrong.   While I whipped through the top half in ten minutes or so, the bottom proved troublesome, as there were just a few clues that would not yield up their secret.  As is my wont, I was too slow to let go of wrong ideas, and I paid the price.   In the end, there was only one clue I could make nothing of, although my answer is clearly correct.   I’m sure the usual suspects will come through in record time – if they’re awake during the US evening.

Across
1 Preacher round north finally sated with beer and cheese (11)
WENSLEYDALE – WES(N)LEY + [sate]D + ALE.
7 Devil an individual among many at Westminster? (3)
IMP – I + M.P.   Which one he is may depend on your political views; most likely, he’s a backbencher.
9 Fellow’s admitted to bull in work (9)
THESAURUS – T(HE’S)AURUS, yes, that kind of bull.
10 An extra page a day for teachers (5)
INSET – The evident answer, but the cryptic completely eludes me – perhaps some UK-specific knowledge I haven’t got is required?
11 One enters wild land to produce chivalric code (7)
BUSHIDO – BUSH (I) DO, where ‘do’, I think, is indicated by ‘produce’.
12 Left religious painting unfinished that’s covered entrance (7)
PORTICO – PORT + ICO[n]
13 Tree-dweller in shade endlessly (5)
ORANG – ORANG[e], the Malay word for ‘man’, so ‘utan’ is not really optional if you mean the ape.
15 Main investor brings port — it’s often chilled! (9)
ARCHANGEL – ARCH + ANGEL, a clue we have seen before.
17 None sitting in dining-room: little point in celebration (9)
HALLOWEEN – HALL (O) WEE N.   In medieval dwellings, the company ate in the hall, and the lord and hs lady slept in the bower, and that exhausted the type of rooms available.   Nowadays a ‘hall’ is a rather different type of room.
19 Seconds for good child (5)
SPROG – S + PRO + G, a purely UK usage.
20 Runs one later scrambled in test, after failure in first (7)
RETRIAL – Anagram of R +  I + LATER.
22 Essence discovered in letter backing Lackland’s one (7)
EPITHET –  E(PITH)ET, where the enclosing letter’s are TEE backwards.   The explicit DBE refers to King John’s sobriquet, which is the root meaning of ‘epithet’, a word which has had a rather chequered career over the centuries.
24 Character from Titanic chasing duck (5)
OMEGA – O + MEGA
25 Wrong about daughter in game, but having no issue (9)
CHILDLESS – CH(IL(D)L)ESS, a Russian doll cryptic that most solvers will biff.
27 Small amount shortened performance returned (3)
DOT – Probably TOD[o] backwards, although that isn’t the first word meaning ‘performance’ that comes to mind.
28 Assistants leave after a day in Rome (5,2,4)
AIDES DE CAMP – A + IDES + DECAMP.
Down
1 Moderately Conservative name expelled by Left (3)
WET – WE[n]T – an opprobious epithet in British politics.
2 Can’t do without Tyneside newsmen? (5)
NEEDS – N.E. EDS, of course.
3 Ecstasy stashed in load in van (7)
LEADING – L(E)ADING, with a word now mostly seen in ‘bill of lading’.
4 Faroe lady brewed booze — in no short measure! (4,2,3)
YARD OF ALE – Anagram of FAROE LADY – quite a popular one, I would imagine.
5 Answer, having put question raised for writer (5)
AESOP – A + POST upside-down.
6 Technology about to appear in time for nation (7)
ERITREA -ER(I.T. + RE)A, anothe answer most solvers will biff.
7 Poles to stop one footballer moving ball (9)
INSWINGER – I (N,S) WINGER, probably from some other sport.
8 Chubby figure on stairs is routed (3,2,6)
PUT TO FLIGHT – PUTTO + FLIGHT
11 British poet remaining inside association (11)
BROTHERHOOD – BR (OTHER) HOOD.   Thomas Hood is little known today, except to TLS solvers.
14 An officer captures great many soldiers: share in growing concern? (9)
ALLOTMENT – A L(LOT MEN)T.  I wasted a lot of time on a word beginning with AGRI-, but I couldn’t actually get anything to fit.
16 Shouts that queen must visit food packing plants (9)
CANNERIES –  C(ANNE)RIES.   If you think the ‘queen’ is ER, you will never get anywhere with this one.
18 All family members at home in Scots island? (7)
OKINAWA – O KIN AWA, an entire phrase in Scots dialect  meaning ‘all family members at home’.  A brilliant and elusive clue.
19 Do as pigs needing to cross dale regularly (7)
SWINDLE – SWIN(D[a]L[e])E.   Another one where the literal is a seemingly insigficant word.
21 Shining helmet worn by copper travelling north (5)
LUCID – L(CU upside-down)ID.  Our setter seems fond of using the root meanings or words that have long gone on to other tasks.
23 Spotted scavenger bringing money into Hawaii (5)
HYENA – H(YEN)A,  Yes, HA is the official postal abbreviation for Hawaii Well, evidently not.   Since I do not have any correspondents in Hawaii, what do I know?    This abbreviation might have passed on pre-1964 addresses, but don’t try it today.
26 Note parking concession (3)
SOP – SO + P, one from the Quickie.

70 comments on “Times 27343 – Sounds good!”

  1. I was puzzled, too, although there seemed to be something vaguely familiar. I just now Googled ‘Inset Day’, and Wikipedia came through. In-service training days, so-called, where students don’t come to school but teachers have to.
  2. Vinyl read my mind: I stuck with ER for a long time, even after I came up with CANNERIES. Finally remembered that there have been other queens. DNK INSWINGER, evidently a cricket term. The official postal abbreviation for Hawai’i is HI, but HA is in my J-E dictionary as well (ON EDIT] but not in ODE). I liked OKINAWA (where I think it’s just AWA that’s Scots: i.e. ‘away’), and SWINDLE.

    Edited at 2019-05-06 03:22 am (UTC)

    1. Indeed HA is the (or certainly one) standard abbreviation for the 50th state. This is according to Collins, which I’m given to understand is the reference preferred by The Times crossword.

      Denisovan (on temp computer).

  3. Must have been in the zone, zipped through this just shy of PB time. Tantalisingly close to the mythical Severesque clean sweep – every single answer went in on first read of the clue except EPITHET where I had no idea who Lackland was, or why. INSET also unknown and biffed; I suspect HALLS are still dining rooms in Oxbridge Colleges? That’s how I got it. Liked OKINAWA, wanted it to be ORKNEY with only the O in place, but for once I’m not annoyed by “Scottish” words like awa’ och aye the noo.
  4. Easy, even for a Monday. I am pretty sure that the USPS for Hawaii is HI. Other parts of the Government might use HA. I liked Swindle. Thanks for the bold, V.
  5. I had no idea about INSET as a ‘day for teachers’ or ‘Lackland’s one’ (although have since looked them up) and put the answers in from the def and wordplay respectively. CANNERIES was also quite tricky. Yes, I thought TOD[o] was the ‘shortened performance’, as in “What a todo!”.

    I liked ‘moving ball’ for INSWINGER (in it’s extreme form, also known as the ‘sandshoe crusher’ – I wonder what non-cricket followers would make of that!), the misleading wordplay for OKINAWA (that well known Hebridean island) and the ‘Do’ def for SWINDLE.

    About the right standard for a Monday. Home in 47 minutes.

    Thank you to setter and blogger.

    1. The ball would also have to be a yorker to qualify as a sandshoe crusher. That should clarify matters for non-cricket lovers!
      This took me 30min and I was also clueless about INSET and Lackland.
  6. Unsatisfactory on 3 fronts:
    – HI is the code for Hawaii, not HA.
    – In BUSHIDO, DO might equal ‘produce’; in the setter’s mind but not in mine.
    Extremely DOdgY.
    – In 25ac, CHILDLESS, I really don’t think ILL is a synonym for ‘wrong’

    OKINAWA, though was excellent.

      1. I will grudgingly grant you that one but not the other two.
      1. As I’ve just said to Kevin, I’ll grudgingly grant you that but not the other two.
    3. I am scheduled to produce/do two TftT blogs next week.

      Edited at 2019-05-06 05:32 am (UTC)

      1. The trouble is, ‘do’ can substitute for just about any verb: do the dishes = wash, do the crossword =solve?, do the bedroom =paint? vacuum? fumigate? etc., depending on context. But its interpretation depends on the context: a painter doing the bedroom does something different than a burglar doing the bedroom. In your example, ‘do’ could mean ‘produce’, of course, but it also could mean ‘write’, or ‘post’.
        1. “My Am Dram society’s doing/producing Hamlet this year”?
          1. As I said: doing/performing, doing/staging, doing/discussing, … Context; whereas the clue just has ‘do’, and leaves it to us to figure out what it means, or could. I biffed and the hell with it.
            1. To be fair to the setter, once you’ve got BUSH for wild land, plus I for one, you’ve only got two letters left to indicate. If (as you say) produce can mean DO, and you’re looking for the chivalric code, the fact that do can be loosely clued by lots of other words is neither here nor there.
              1. I agree. I’ve always been of the opinion that if you can find one context in which subsitution works, that’s justification enough for the setter’s usage and even more so if, as here, the usage is not even remotely obscure.
        2. So it’s a word that can mean lots of different things. That just makes it very useful for crossword-setting purposes.
          Incidentally both Collins and ODO give ‘produce’ as a definition.

          Edited at 2019-05-06 09:24 am (UTC)

  7. A rather English Monday with 1ac WENSLYDALE; 1dn WET; 7dn INSWINGER (cricket’s knuckle-ball?); 19ac SPROG (verb and noun); 4dn YARD OF ALE; 10ac INSET and even 14dn ALLOTMENT (external garden). But please note this is The Times of London.
    And we once owned Hawaii – Ha Ha!

    FOI 7ac IMP (Lincoln)
    LOI 18dn OKINAWA (like 11ac BUSHIDO Japanese)
    COD 28ac AIDES DE CAMP (French)
    WOD 19ac SPROG (vulgar English)

    Time 29 minutes – horryd – temporarily banned for password error!

    1. The state flag of HI still has the Union Jack in the top left hand corner.
  8. Maybe Hawaii is still ours? HA (USCG) is still used as an abbreviation by the United States Coast Guard – and DO is to ‘do’ a play or other production. Begrudge on Dude!

    Edited at 2019-05-06 04:14 am (UTC)

    1. I used to object to being called “Marty”…or “Mardy” by my American former colleagues. I don’t see myself ever warming to being called “dude”.
  9. Good choice of music, Vinyl! I’m currently playing it on YouTube.
  10. After a promising start completing about half the puzzle but with gaps in every quarter, I got stuck and gave up on it for the night. On resumption this morning I was still stuck and had to use aids a couple of times to unblock my brain. Guessed INSET and DOT without understanding the wordplay. I was aware of a day on which teachers attend but pupils don’t and it crossed my mind it could be the reference in question, but I had no idea what it was called.
  11. 14:17 … excellent stuff, I thought. At the time of solving I would have said “except for DOT” but thank you @bletchleyreject for shoving the penny off the ledge. What a performance!, indeed.

    We’ve had this species of INSET at least once before, though I’ve a feeling it’s more. 2009 outing: https://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/481138.html

    OKINAWA is terrific. My compliments to the setter on that one in particular.

    1. I thought Okinawa was an atrocious clue. Who on earth knows what Scots dialect is? Mr Grumpy
  12. Right, now, INSET days. Teachers in my family still refer to them as Baker Days, introduced by Education Secretary Kenneth Baker (the one portrayed as a slug in Spitting Image) days the kids had off but teachers didn’t. Officially they are IN SErvice Training days, but most schools still don’t know what they’re for. The clue’s a DD
    HAwaii I didn’t know any better, so not a problem.
    (What a) performance seemed a perfectly OK TO-DO.
    INSWINGERS happen in football too, especially from corners and free kicks, if your winger’s any good.
    Like V, I found the top half more accessible than the bottom, my last in OKINAWA the pick of the bunch. 16.39.
  13. .. never heard of an inset day, and my family is heavily laden with teachers.
    Ha is in Collins as an abbreviation for Hawaii
    Was convinced copper = DI in 21dn, which made parsing tricky
    Did like Wensleydale, irresistible images of Wallace & Gromit brought to mind.. “You don’t like cheese?? What, not even Wensleydale?!”
    1. Not to mention the proprietor of The Natural Cheese Emporium.
  14. I found this in Chambers:

    INSET
    abbrev
    In-service education and training (for schoolteachers)

  15. 13:25. I find most of what I would have said about INSET has already been said. AKA PD (Personal Development days), my wife complains that hers are just endless meetings. I enjoyed the cheese and beer breakfast. COD to OKINAWA.
  16. 25mins with yoghurt, banana, granola, etc and coffee from Rwanda; excellent.
    All good except Inset and Dot.
    At 18dn I thought, great my extensive swotting up of Scottish islands has not been in vain. Oh well, great clue.
    Thanks setter and Vinyl.

    Edited at 2019-05-06 07:57 am (UTC)

  17. 22 minutes with DOT LOI unparsed. Bletchley’s seems a probable explanation.. Penultimate was COD OKINAWA, needing all crossers before the lyrics of ‘Will ye no’ come back again’ combined with o’ kin. Cold haggis as part of Sushi could work. It’s as well I’ve seen BUSHIDO somewhere recently. It still took me long enough to remember. I prefer my Wensleydale with red wine nowadays. INSET days are well known to me from three children through the state primary sector. Thank you V and setter.
    1. The best way to enjoy Wensleydale is with a nice rich fruit cake, and a glass of Port. Keep the gout tablets handy though !
        1. What? Surely a whisky! We don’t drink that (IMO) inferior Irish stuff in my house!
          1. OK You got me! While I like a nice Bushmills or a Jamiesons, I’m particularly partial to Scottish Single Malts, and I failed to check whether the extra e applied to Irish Gaelic or Scottish Gaelic. Mea culpa. Mind you, with cake and cheese I’m also quite happy with a Scottish blend such as Famous Grouse. I actually won a bottle of Grouse at the charity gig I played in last Saturday for the Cleveland Ironstone Mining Museum, so it was already in the back of my mind:-)

            Edited at 2019-05-06 07:03 pm (UTC)

  18. Requiring 48 minutes to solve, this didn’t feel like a Monday puzzle to me. The cheese went in straightaway, so a flying start, but later I dithered for ages over CANNERIES because I just couldn’t see cannies=shouts, and BUSHIDO was at the extreme periphery of my ken, and I needed at least 5 minutes to move my brain from the Hebrides to the Japanese archipelago. Biffed BROTHERHOOD, CHILDLESS and ERITREA to save a bit of time. My wife spent her whole career, and I spent 8 years, in school teaching so INSET was no trouble. Didn’t even consider that HA might not be the abbrev. for Hawaii. I think the canny wee clue at 18 doon gets ma COD nomination.
    Thanks for your blog, vinyl1.
  19. 32 minutes, which considering my handicap—having had a few sherbets while watching Peter Doherty at the Bristol Academy last night—I thought was a good performance (as was Mr. D’s)

    Glad to have INSET days explained in more detail. I did know they were some kind of special school day, but as Kenneth Baker introduced them just after my schooldays and I don’t have children, I’ve never investigated further.

    Really liked this puzzle, as well as being glad it wasn’t a stinker. Learned a few things, like John Lackland, and Thomas Hood, though I recognise “They went and told the sexton, and/The sexton tolled the bell” and my memory tells me I learned that snippet here…

    FOI 1a WENSLEYDALE, LOI 22a EPITHET, COD 18d OKINAWA; lovely misdirection.

    Thanks for the explanations, especially for 21d LUCID, where I had the “copper travelling north” as “DI” upwards and was trying to figure out where the LUC came from…

  20. Nope.

    Didn’t finish (two missing) and had a wrong’un as well.

    I had no idea what was going on with Epithet (I’m still not much wiser TBF) and was sure the definition for 19d was “do as pigs” and failed to find a word meaning “needing” to put round the DL to get a word like SNUFFLE.

    I also had a completely random BASTIDO at 11a.

  22. ….where I completed the top half in under three minutes, I was PUT TO FLIGHT further down. The SE corner took twice as long again, and then I was becalmed in the SW before creeping over the line.

    I really didn’t like 27A, though I accept “what a to-do” as meaning the same as “what a ****** performance !”

    I didn’t like the referee at our play-off semifinal yesterday either, but if you battle to a penalty shoot-out, it’s no good missing your first three attempts.

    FOI IMP
    LOI OKINAWA
    COD PUT TO FLIGHT
    TIME 13:30

    Edited at 2019-05-06 10:27 am (UTC)

      1. Only if you’re spelling “bloody” with three O’s….
  23. Didn’t know this either but it’s known as a “professional development” day or a “clerical” day in the NYC school system. What it really is is a “relief” day (phew no kids) 17.17 with a long stare at DOT.
  24. not too bad today, but left with D-T and it had to be DOT but why? OKINAWA very clever COD, not sure if an orang utan is ever just an ORANG, but had to be that.
  25. So much for the hopeless congeries; and bushito as an alternative spelling of the other. So a dnf in 23’10. Meant to return to both and forgot. However, all restored by many excellent memories of holidaying in Wensleydale in an off-the-track village called Stalling Busk next to a timeless mere called Semerwater. Seems a sin to engrave the names however lightly onto the virtual cloud. Liked Okinawa.
  26. 12m 18s: after a quick start, things slowed down a bit and I was not brave enough to go for EPITHET or LEADING without plenty of head-scratching.

    OKINAWA was my favourite of the day, too. Oddly, for INSET I was comfortable about the day for teachers, but couldn’t understand the extra page. Not sure why not.

  27. Apparently the same experience as everyone else, with the odd answer where I was pretty sure I’d cracked it, but matters weren’t so clear-cut that I was 100% certain, e.g, where exactly did DOT come from, was an ORANG actually the same as an ORANG-UTAN (happily, my knowledge of state abbrevs wasn’t good enough to cause me to raise an eyebrow)? No complaints, though. Also chiming with everyone else, OKINAWA felt like a clue which the setter had imported from a much tougher puzzle, just to give me something good and chewy as my LOI.
  28. DNF. Infuriating. Failed on inset. Had no idea what was going on there. I did ponder inset but couldn’t see how to justify it. Thought extra page might be 1 P and the day might be Sat. Threw in IPSAT hoping it was an acronym I’d never heard of. My failure aside this was a decent bank holiday Monday-ish puzzle.
  29. Apologies if someone has already pointed it out. I can’t see it in the comments above. Crossword number should be 27343. It will save confusion when someone like me looks for it in some weeks time.
    Thanks for the explanation of 27a.
  30. 16:42. I found half of this really easy, and the other half really hard. I thought the hard bit was really excellent. The rest was a bit too easily biffable.
    I’m very familiar with INSET days, but didn’t know ARCHANGEL or who on earth Lackland was.
    In Collins the example given for EPITHET is “‘Lackland’ is an epithet for King John.’

    Edited at 2019-05-06 01:10 pm (UTC)

  33. 36:36 with a despairing BASTIDO. So no coconut today. Disappointing, as I even managed to parse DOT (Todo) and came up with CANNERIES fairly quickly. I did like OKINAWA. Ah well, tomorrow is another day. Thanks setter and Vinyl.
  34. Well now, I got through this in reasonable time but I had no idea what was going on with INSET, DOT or EPITHET. I just shrugged and put them in as they had to be the correct ones. And I was late to see OKINAWA also, but when I figured it out I thought it very goods. Regards.
  35. Didn’t enjoy this at all, found it torturous, stumbled home just under the 90 minute mark, plenty of biffing and guessing. I did enjoy the surface of RETRIAL though.
  36. This one was good value at 50 minutes. Count me as one Englishman who’s never heard of INSET days. Then again, I’d always though an INSET was a smaller picture within a picture, so it’s a miracle I got the answer at all.

    I always knew that my complete ignorance of cricket would come in handy one day, and now it has, at 7d. Only my complete absence of knowledge allowed me to shrug and accept that there could very well be such a thing as an INSWINGER.

    LOI DOT, only after ruling out all the other vowels. I don’t think I’ve come across DOT as meaning a small amount. In fact, I only know one DOT and she’s quite large.

  38. I didn’t get on with this at all, muddling through in around 2h. Dropping a weight on my head and ending up in A&E on Sunday night for 6h had something to so with it. I did feel however that some clues were a bit weak and not quite up to usual high Times standards. For example with 9a, ‘work’ as a definition of THESAURUS s is too vague I think, although granted the wordplay is pretty clear.

    COD for me was 0 (zero) KIN AWA, which is a touch of genius, after explanations, biffed at the time, as was CHILDLESS. Away=AWA has been OneNoted – I’m sure that will come up again.

    On more positive notes I got Chambers Crossword Dictionary and Chambers Complete Crosswords Lists. The former makes the latter somewhat redundant but Lists seems to have potentially more coverage in some areas. This is a place to find enlightenment when the brain cells have been exhausted, or even before, on lazy days. The two works (pun intended!) compliment Ximenes and Don Manley’s books very nicely. What next, I wonder for my crossword library…

    WS

  39. Thanks setter and vinyl
    Was able to get this one done in just over the half hour across four short sessions. The only two that I couldn’t really parse were the INSET day and the what turned out to be a very clever Scottish phrase for OKINAWA. Had a different solving experience to most here by the look – starting off in the SE corner and working up the left side before making progress on the right.
    Funny, the seeming differences in solving strengths as ERITREA, OKINAWA and ARCHANGEL were all relatively straightforward from definition and only that phrase causing grief with the parsing of the second. Have seen ORANG often clued sans UTAN for the ape.
    Finished in the SW corner with OMEGA, ALLOTMENT and that tricky DOT as the last one in.

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