Times 27369 – French bread and anagrams

Author   pipkirbyPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Another faiirly easy puzzle for midweek, I thought, with some pleasant touches and no less than five straight anagrams to make life even easier. And the species of ungulate was one we’ve all heard of! It took me around 20 minutes but it could have been faster if I wasn’t watching the TV at the same time.

See EDIT at 14a.

Across
1 Nice bakery’s production troubles? (5)
PAINS – Well a bakery in France produces PAIN, but the plural pains = breads does exist even if it’s scarcely used.
4 Rod reversed in before animal (8)
ANTELOPE – This week’s antelope is, er – ANTELOPE, POLE reversed inside ANTE.
8 Perpetrate a CGI shambles, part of something that’s dragged on? (9,5)
CIGARETTE PAPER – (PERPETRATE A CGI)*. Nice definition.
10 Butcher turned out to be lacking education (9)
UNTUTORED – (TURNED OUT)*.
11 A day that is top-class, the last word? (5)
ADIEU – A, D(ay), I.E., U.
12 Standard kind, heading off to tour south (6)
ENSIGN – BENIGN = kind loses B and has S inserted.
14 Bloke’s accompanying country star (8)
HESPERUS – I wonder if there’s a typo in this clue, as I can’t see where the last S comes from. Bloke’s = HE’S, counntry = PERU. Shouldn’t it be “country’s” to lead to PERU’S? EDIT at noon: suggested below that “accompanying country” could be = PER US. I am not keen on this as PER doesn’t mean accompanying, more ‘by’ or ‘through’. I could however buy into the idea that ‘accompanying Peru’ could = PERU’S, at a stretch. But I think it’s an error.
17 Order diet books (8)
REGIMENT – REGIME = diet, NT = books.
18 Good songs lacking English craft without power (6)
GLIDER – G(ood), LI(E)DER. Lieder being German language songs.
20 Chairman wants at first to stifle one catty remark (5)
MIAOW – chairman MAO then W(ANTS) has I inserted.
22 He’s after majority, damaging morale etc (9)
LATECOMER – (MORALE ETC)*. A nice misleading, topical definition.
24 My band listened transported — their thoughts elsewhere? (14)
ABSENTMINDEDLY – (MY BAND LISTENED)*
25 Hard-core unit sent into company cutting leave (8)
EXPLICIT – I (unit) inside PLC (company) inside EXIT = leave.
26 Swimmer seen among icebergs heading west (5)
GREBE – Hidden reversed in IC(EBERG)S.

Down
1 Imagine stuff in iron mounting (7,5)
PICTURE FRAME – PICTURE = imagine, FE = Fe, iron, insert RAM = stuff.
2 Occupying fast car circling round block (5)
INGOT – IN = occupying, GT = fast car, insert O = round.
3 Learned motorway is masking restaurant plot (9)
STRATAGEM – SAGE = learned has TRAT (trattoria) inserted then add M for motorway.
4 Wear a sort of square flag (6)
ATTIRE – A, T (square), TIRE = flag.
5 Split in row, getting more in? (8)
TRENDIER – REND = split, inside TIER = row.
6 Wool supplier from a shopping complex turning up (5)
LLAMA – A MALL reversed. Chestnut time.
7 PM and press boss shown first (9)
PREMIERED – PM = PREMIER, ED = press boss.
9 Rum Henry’s stirred with rye for Doctor Foster, say? (7,5)
NURSERY RHYME – (RUM HENRY RYE)*. Doctor Foster went to Gloucester.
13 Notice a large strike where worker changes lines (6,3)
SIGNAL BOX – Notice = SIGN, A, L, BOX = strike.
15 Drug hunter cut up reserve trail (6,3)
POLICE DOG – Cut reversed = LOP reversed = POL, ICE = reserve, DOG = trail.
16 Obsessive with unknown jerk breaking down (8)
ANALYTIC – ANAL = obsessive (as cropped up recently with some discussion), Y = unknown, TIC = jerk.
19 Tough area with no policeman on top of it (6)
STRICT – DISTRICT = area, remove the DI or Detective Inspector.
21 Parade order with list (5)
WHEEL – W = with, HEEL = list, tip over. The order would need to be ‘right wheel’ or ‘left wheel’ else there could be chaos in the ranks.
23 Fly jet carrying duke east (5)
MIDGE – MIG the Russian jet we find in puzzles; insert D = duke, add E for east.

53 comments on “Times 27369 – French bread and anagrams”

  1. I’ve become rather good at missing typos before submitting; today’s was MUDGE. I have a note at 14ac: ‘S?’; I’m glad to see that Pip has the same query. I was definitely misled by the definition at 22ac.
  2. At 49 minutes I found this a little more difficult than blogger and commenters so far.

    Another ‘country’s?’ query at 14ac from me too, a clue I’d already had a problem with having written TRENDING at 5dn which gave me an incorrect checker. Further on that, “getting more in” works perfectly as a definition of TRENDING but TING for ‘row’ didn’t seem quite right despite being a noise of sorts.

  3. 10:04 here, spotted most of the long anagrams very quickly so that helped. LOI was HESPERUS, didn’t even notice the problem with the superfluous S until coming here. Definitely a mistake though.
  4. 8:41. No problems today, including with HESPERUS where I didn’t notice the missing S.
    The french need the plural PAINS because they don’t have a word for ‘loaf’.
    1. Mais pain, c’est exactement le mot pour loaf. Yes, saying “a bread of bread” would be redundant. But I don’t consider this a deficiency of the French language.

      1. I mean there is no discrete word for ‘loaf’, but my tongue was very much in my cheek. Of course it’s not a deficiency of the language: there’s no such thing, really. And the French have lots of words for different types of bread so they don’t need a word for loaf: a loaf of baguette? Ça va pas, non?!
        Having said that, they could do with a word for ‘shallow’.

        Edited at 2019-06-05 09:32 pm (UTC)

        1. I was fairly certain you were being facetious. Your remark reminded me of former US president Bush the Younger, who said, “The French don’t have a word for entrepreneur.”

          Mais “superficiel” où “peu profonde” ne vous suffit pas, hein ?

  5. 30 minutes. Shame about the error because there were some “nice” touches. I liked “He’s after majority”, “Getting more in” and “Tough area ….”. Smiled at ANTELOPE after my previous comments. Thanks all.
  6. 19:26 … not at all easy for me, but I was off the wavelength on the definitions and biffed almost nothing. Anyway, I enjoyed piecing it together the hard way.

    I wasted several minutes trying to understand and rethink HESPERUS. I’m very slow to consider the possibility of mistakes in Times clues, though I’m sure the best codebreakers are always alert to such possibilities. Talking of which, I heard a nice little tribute on the radio yesterday to one of the Bletchley Park analysts, Mavis Batey (née Lever), whose name certainly ought to be remembered tomorrow. She made a huge contribution. Her boss Dilly Knox once joked of her “Give me a Lever long enough …” As with so many others, her formidable talents were rather neglected after the war. “I didn’t really get back into any kind of intellectual activity until my three children were grown. After that, I could go to the Bodleian Library every day. so I eventually picked up.” Indeed she did, writing a good number of books, including a well-received biography of said Dilly Knox.

    Nice overview here: https://spartacus-educational.com/Mavis_Batey.htm

    No apologies for going off-topic. I suspect Mavis would have left all of us trailing on the crossword. No record of her solving times, but it is known that when the first revelations about Bletchley came out in the 70s, she wondered: “Could we now tell the family why we were so good at anagrams, Scrabble and crossword puzzles?”

    1. Sarah, in the ‘Bletchley Park’ film I believe that ‘Mavis’ finished the Telegraph puzzle, which was used for entry to the service, in about 8 mins 25 seconds. Hopefully this was based on fact.

      That puzzle, which has been published, is most obscure IMO.

      Edited at 2019-06-05 07:46 am (UTC)

      1. If that’s the 13 Jan 1942 puzzle, I’ve been working on it in odd moments for about three weeks now, and I think I’ve got about half the answers. Not easy!
    2. The cryptographer (amongst many other things) Leo Marks worked for Special Operations Executive during WWII, not so much breaking codes as creating them for use by British agents behind lines on mainland Europe, having them printed on silk etc. He was in the habit of impressing new recruits by his speed at solving the Times crossword, but what he didn’t tell them was that he’d set the puzzles himself.

      He’s possibly best remembered now for writing the poem ‘The Life That I Have’ which was used by the agent Violette Szabo as a code poem. It was later featured in the 1958 film ‘Carve Her Name With Pride’which celebrated her dedication and bravery.

      Edited at 2019-06-05 08:03 am (UTC)

      1. I’ve read his memoir, Between Silk and Cyanide, which I think you and I might have discussed before. Another of those ‘couldn’t make it up’ lives!
    3. Those vintage puzzles are im-poss-ible! I rather enjoyed them when we used to get them along with the qualifiers in the spring (although I know there are some of us who hate them). Did I miss something? I know the system is being re-jigged but I’m not aware of any follow-up info.

      I was another who was oblivious of the missing S in 14a. 16.48

  7. ABSENTMINDEDLY stared for some while at the long anagram…

    Was late with LATECOMER too, and ANALYTIC LOI. Did not notice typo.

    21’32” thanks pip and setter.

  8. How about this? Could “accompanying country” be interpreted as Peru’s? It’s how I read it, though I probably need some Bletchley level support decoding to justify it. But [something] accompanying thing would be “thing’s [something]” and if bloke’s is the [something], regardless of grammar (customary in crosswords) it does just work. Can we run that through the Colossus of this team’s hut 11?

    Otherwise a straight enough trundle for me in one minute less than yesterday, 16 and a bit.

    1. Count me in as one that read it as “He’s Peru’s”.

      Not convinced that really works either but it got me to the right answer so it’ll do.

        1. Yeah, I like the HE’S PERU’S explanation. I take back the assertion of a mistake by the setter/editor. However, HESPERUS isn’t a star, it’s the Greek name for the planet Venus (or the mythological personification of it anyway). Just sayin…
  9. I also spent some time mulling over HESPERUS, wondering where the extra S came from. Glad it wasn’t just me. My last 2 in, EXPLICIT and STRICT held me up briefly, but I made good progress on the whole. Liked CIGARETTE PAPER and ABSENTMINDEDLY. I was at PAINS to make sure I spelled STRATAGEM correctly this time, with a thoroughly ANALYTIC review of the wordplay. Nice puzzle. 27:06. Thanks setter and Pip.
  10. I rattled through most of this for a “NICE” change. Many were Bifd.

    COD: ATTIRE.

  11. 42 mins with yoghurt, granola, banana, etc.
    I liked it a lot. MER at the Peru’s.
    Mostly I liked: something that’s dragged on, he’s after majority, getting more in.

    Sometimes clues chime with daily lives. Today I will be working on a witness statement for a court case against a company called CGI. This is due to a shambles of CGI’s making and it has dragged on for years. 8ac sums this up perfectly.

    Thanks setter (you don’t work for CGI do you?) and Pip.

  12. One minute before the end of my hour, I finished off with 25a EXPLICIT, took one last worried look at my 14a “hesperis” and decided I’d definitely at least heard of the word, even if I didn’t know what was going on with the wordplay.

    Turns out, of course, I might very well have heard of Hesperis; it’s just a shame I hadn’t also heard of the right answer!

    Still, given that I took the very first sleeping pill of my life last night, I suppose I should be lucky I wasn’t so groggy I couldn’t get anywhere at all… FOI 9d NURSERY RHYME, COD 10a MIAOW.

  13. Yes, a mistake by the setter unless the ‘s’ of star was doing double duty? However, I think not.

    FOI 9dn NURSERY RHYME

    LOI 14ac HESPERUS

    COD 22ac LATECOMER

    WOD ANTELOPE never heard of it!

    Time hmmm!

  14. Nothing to add. Easy puzzle – shame about 14A HESPERUS
  15. Considering the editor rarely makes an error, could it not be that ‘accompanying country’ = PERU’S?
    1. See my entry below, which I was busy editing to look cute while you were being more sensible. I think it’s possible.
  16. …was LOI, taking my time from sub-20 towards 25 minutes. There were also a few too many long anagrams for my concentration levels, with ABSENT-MINDEDLY taking several minutes. So, not feeling any too hip this morning, I’m giving COD to PICTURE FRAME over TRENDIER. The lack of rhyme between ‘puddle’ and ‘middle’ does suggest that even nursery rhymes faced the censor’s pencil in later, more puritan days, with Wyre Piddle standing proudly in memory of the original. Enjoyable enough, but maybe one too many anagrams. Thank you Pip and setter.

    Edited at 2019-06-05 08:22 am (UTC)

  17. Found this very entertaining and went through it at some lick (for me). No major holdups. With 1a and 1d filled in I had plenty of first letters to work with and it all flowed from there. Aids used: OneLook, wordsmith anagram finder and of course the Check button. No DNKs apart from HESPERUS which was a semi-DNK and will look that up.

    FOI 1a
    LOI 14a (agree the clue is iffy)
    COD 5d (love the definition)

    That brings my three month challenge total to 37/39.

    Thanks to setter and blogger.
    WS

  18. Nice comments about somme of the Bletchley Park people.
    I was rather hoping that Rows 1 and 15 were actually things: PAIN’S ANTELOPE and EXPLICIT GREBE.
  19. I may be barking up completely the wrong tree, but I interpreted 14a as PER (accompanying) US (country).
  21. Took over half an hour. Stared at ATTIRE for ages. Z’s explanation of the Peru thing works for me. Thanks pip.
  22. ….HE’S PERU’S. Understood immediately, no subsequent head-scratching necessary.

    Apart from a minor hold-up late on while I redid the anagrind, then altered “cartridge paper” (not the best biff I’ve ever attempted !), I found this pretty straightforward and enjoyable.

    MER at POLICE DOG though. A sniffer dog hunts drugs, a police dog helps to arrest criminals generally.

    FOI UNTUTORED
    LOI ATTIRE (due to the bad biff)
    COD SIGNAL BOX
    TIME 11:17

  23. Nice and easy, also distracted by the cricket on telly. LOI WHEEL had to be but had no idea about the parade order. I’m also one for HE’S PERU’S, although that’s on reflection cos I just bunged it in. 8a while watching cricket not so easy, waiting for one of the SA batsmen to drag it on.
  24. Twenty-eight minutes, several of which were spent over PREMIERED and HESPERUS. The missing ‘S’ troubled me; whether [z]’s explanation is correct or not, I think it’s a bad clue if we’re still debating it. I also spent a long time trying to justify “previewed” for 7d, and wondering if a Mr. Preview (perhaps the grandfather of the great musician André) had at one time been PM.

    I did look twice at ABSENTMINDEDLY, to satisfy myself that it really was all one word. It seems a little unfair that spellcheckers (or is that spell-checkers?) invariably pick me up when I write “eachother”.

  25. 23’25. ‘Peru’s’ sounds OK as a guest-at-a-party identification kind of thing, until one thinks of the owner. Classy name though. Maybe at the U.N.? The Wreck of the H. a fairly grim twee little ballad – give me the Deutschland any day. Good to see Dr Foster alive and kicking. A crossword’s the utter antithesis of a poem but it doesn’t shut its doors to the viewless wings.
  26. A slow start, getting down to ADIEU (having looked at all the previous across clues and the first five down clues) before getting a word in. It sped up after that, but I was left chewing WHEEL & EXPLICIT for a while, and left HESPERUS because of that extraneous S. In the end I entered it reluctantly and stopped the timer at 10m 26s.
  27. Same doubts as others re 14a. I also wondered about S for ‘star’ being part of both def and wordplay as mentioned by horryd, but wasn’t convinced. This is The Times after all.

    I found this kind, with the heading on, and finished in 28 minutes. Good to see a bird as the answer to ‘Swimmer’. As a bonus, Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling always comes to mind whenever I hear GREBE, though unfortunately ‘raven’ didn’t fit. Maybe next time.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

  28. Same misgivings as others for Peru in Hesperus, with the added doubt over Venus being defined as a star. I’m familiar with its nickname, Evening Star, but isn’t that rather like defining a frog in the throat as an amphibian?

  29. 9:21 with a bit of biffing and a shrug over Peru’s. If a dude called Hesperus had been Dolly Parton’s muse or roadie, say, then it would have been a good &Lit (with S for star).

    Grebe probably top of mind thanks to having watched Springwatch recently with Chris Packham getting excited about the Slavonian Grebe.

  30. Nothing too difficult here. Took too long seeing LATECOMER which was the key to the last four or five.
  31. Another completion,but only after a long delay and a shrug of the shoulders over HESPERUS. Stars are possibly my weakest link so I was looking for another country. Trying to fit in Cyprus was not amusing.
    I took this half-finished to the dentist’s waiting room. He was late and the need to concentrate the mind on something else worked wonders.
    There was a lot to like in this. David
  32. I think we’re being a bit precious about Hesperus not being a star. Yes, it’s identified as the planet Venus, but quite specifically in mythology as Venus in its guise as the Evening Star. It’s a star. It is, it is!
    Just to remind everyone, if it’s dawn(ish) Venus is Lucifer, the Morning Star.
  33. Nothing to add from me. Not convinced by ‘Peru’s’ meaning ‘accompanying country’. If that’s what was intended, it’s not so great, as I see it. Anyway, regards.
  34. I was somewhat off the wavelength for this one’s style, with its many bland words blandly clued. But despite being slow enough already I was made slower by HESPERUS which looked like it *must be* but on the other hand, was it really convincing enough? In the end I put it in with a shrug and a Snitch of a very sad 130 :-/
  35. 26:20 found this more difficult than yesterday’s not sure why though. Like others I ummed and aahed a bit over per us or Peru with an unaccounted S but ended up shrugging and bunging it in. Didn’t consider he’s Peru’s but I think it parses muster. Attire my LOI not seeing the correct square for an age. Oh and I believe it was David Baddiel who called his cat Chairman Miaow.

    Edited at 2019-06-05 07:55 pm (UTC)

  36. That rings a faint bell… vaguely remember Venus being clued as “star” once, people justified it pointing out Venus is in the dictionaries as “the morning star”. Or am I making that up?
  37. Does no-one else care that Hesperus is NOT a star, but a planet ( Venus ) ?
  38. Thanks setter and pip
    Did this with a lot of Christmassy interruptions which accounts for the 75 minutes bit. Found it most enjoyable, apart from the 14a S query. Found that many more of the clues were pieced together from the word play than normal, including the anagrams, the last, LATECOMER, indeed coming very late in the solve – very clever. definition and became my equal clue of the day with TRENDIER for a similar reason. PICTURE FRAME was not all that far behind both of them.
    Finished down the bottom with STRICT, ANALYTIC and EXPLICIT the last few in.

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