Times 27387 – fun and games today. Who said that?

Author   pipkirbyPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
This wasn’t the hardest crossword I’ve blogged in the last five years, but it’s close to being the most fun to do; in 24 minutes I had it finished and was parsing a final couple while admiring the setter’s wit and ingenuity.
Not being an Old Harrovian, 12a was a guess from being something to do with gypsies, so I checked afterwards, while my being a French resident (soon to be no longer) helped with 13a and 22d as they’re everyday words here. There’s much to admire, but if I have to pick a favourite, it’s 23a for such a smooth, concise surface to give a relevant answer.

Across
1 Critic opinion of the unenlightened? (1,3,4)
A DIM VIEW – Cryptic definition
6 Tricky things to play in piano classes (6)
PRANKS – P(iano), RANKS = classes.
9 Fellow evidently about to drop off vital pump (7,6)
NODDING DONKEY – DON = fellow, KEY = vital; before that NODDING = evidently about to drop off (asleep).
10 New Zealand port, one bringing in logs (6)
NAPIER – Double definition; City in North Island, New Zealand, and John Napier, Scottish peer who ‘invented’ logarithms.
11 Misleading info put forward by a scoundrel (8)
AGITPROP – a PROP is a rugby forward, placed after A GIT = a scoundrel. I have two pedantic comments to add here; IMO a GIT is an annoying, silly, or unpleasant person, not necessarily as reprehensible as a scoundrel; and AGITPROP as it was in Russia was not intended to be ‘misleading’, it was a form of politically correct message conveyed in the media in the USSR and now means any form of political propaganda conveyed in art. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agitprop
13 Pants shed, liable to be in this state? (10)
DESHABILLE – (SHED LIABLE) French for undressed, or in a scanty garment.
15 Sandy area close to pool one loved previously? (4)
ALEX – A penny-drop moment clue. A(rea), (poo)L, EX = one loved previously. ALEX and SANDY are both short names for someone called ALEXANDER.
16 Led by boss, regularly put out flags (4)
EBBS – Alternate letters of l E d B y B o S s. Flags, as in ‘my energy ebbs towards the end of a slow round of golf.’ We hate slow play.
18 Run round in Ireland collecting fresh stock (10)
REPERTOIRE – R(un), EIRE poetic name for Ireland, insert PERT meaning fresh and O for round. R E (PERT O) IRE.
21 To an extent, satirizing aristocratic amateur cricket club (1,7)
I ZINGARI – Hidden word in SATIR (IZING ARI)STOCRATIC. Left with *Z*N*A*I I dimly remembered Zingari was Italian for gypsies and therefore guessed the first letter was I and then saw the hidden answer. If you’re not a posh Brit the cricket connection won’t mean a lot, you’d have to go here and read it up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Zingari
22 Macmillan’s preference George, with wonderment, heard (3,3)
JAW JAW –  … is better than war, war. J sounds here like a soft G for George, and AW sounds like AWE = wonderment. This quote by Harold MacMillan (made on a visit to Australia) is often wrongly attributed to Churchill, e.g. in Finest Hour. His actual remark in Washington in 1954 was “Meeting jaw to jaw is better than war.” https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/quotes/quotes-falsely-attributed/
23 One ITV acquire to play a typical local? (5,8)
QUEEN VICTORIA – (ONE TV ACQUIRE TO)*. The Queen Vic is the local pub in East Enders a long-running (and, these days, quite unpleasant to watch IMO) soap opera on British ITV.
25 Come round on time before Easter (6)
RELENT – RE = on, LENT = time before Easter.
26 Guy’s initial dread, meeting leading female criminal (8)
GANGSTER – G (Guy’s initial), ANGST (dread), ER = H.M., the leading female.

Down
2 Comic hero’s endless night in Hamlet? (3,4)
DAN DARE – DAR(K) inside DANE.
3 Fabulous sight, mind: a French star at twelve! (8,3)
MIDNIGHT SUN – (SIGHT MIND)* gives you MIDNIGHT S then UN = French for a.
4 Dearer pair relinquished? More reserved (5)
ICIER – PRICIER loses PR.
5 Other half of footballer’s story recounted in flyer (7)
WAGTAIL – WAG (one of wives and girlfriends e.g. of footballers) TAIL sounds like TALE.
6 Paid and trained: at any time killings his speciality? (9)
PROFITEER – PRO = paid, not amateur; FIT = trained, E’ER = ever, at any time.
7 Get a load of that missing heroin in old vessel (3)
ARK – HARK loses its H in an East End version, ‘get a load of that’ being common parlance for listen and/or look at something exceptional.
8 Central theme in books grasped by reformist, mostly (7)
KEYNOTE – KEYNE(S) grasps the OT.
12 Instruction from ref: angry speech that can be ambiguous (4,2,5)
PLAY ON WORDS – The ref may say “PLAY ON” and to ‘have words’ can mean to exchange angry speech.
14 Stop publication on the web, attracting stick? (3,6)
BAR MAGNET – BAR (stop), MAG (publication), NET (web).
17 One buzzing around organised quiz game (7)
BEZIQUE – BEE goes around (QUIZ)*. A card game for two people, which I did play in my youth (I played them all, on caravan holidays in the rain) and which was also popular with Winston Churchill, apparently.
19 Briefing is formal, stylish and grand (7)
PRIMING – PRIM (formal), IN (stylish), G(rand).
20 ME airline, a casualty of America, turning bitter? (4,3)
REAL ALE – EL AL a Middle East airline, A, ER = American equivalent of Accident & Emergency ward. Reverse it all.
22 Counter from judge upset me, for one (5)
JETON – J(UDGE), NOTE reversed; ME or MI is a note. En France, a (free) jeton is needed to unhook your supermarket chariot from the rack. In UK I think it’s a pound coin. I’ve never heard the word used in England.
24 Old prior to look for an audience (3)
ERE – ERE as in an old word for ‘before’. Sounds like AIR = broadcast. Or, as jackkt suggests below, ere sounds like air = look.

67 comments on “Times 27387 – fun and games today. Who said that?”

  1. Harder for me… I had to look up “New Zealand ports” to get my POI. (Logs! Brill!) LOI was DAN DARE and FOI DESHABILLE.
    But it was very enjoyable working thru this. And I was determined to finish, since the clues contained two of my own nicknames, as well as the name cops and bank tellers call me. Guy’s full name is a pun on the moniker most people know me by—I’ve appeared on the masthead of the mag where I’ve worked since 1986 as Sandy. However, my “Sandy” does not derive from ALEXander. It’s a long story, but my real, legal first name is George. Or JAWG. Ha ha. I wish I’d seen this earlier, at dinner, because tonight I had forgotten my waitress’s name—she’s a new one—and she reminded me that it’s Ola, and said that this is a Polish nickname for… Alexandra.

    .

    Edited at 2019-06-26 04:18 am (UTC)

  2. Too hard for me to crack before the need to sleep overtook me so I returned to it this morning with only about half of it completed and polished it off without too much difficulty apart from my LOI AGITPROP which got eventually by finding the only word that fitted the checkers and reverse engineering from there.

    I think the explanation at 24dn should be ERE sounds like [for an audience] “air” (look).

    I had to cheat on the DONKEY part of NODDING DONKEY, and NAPIER as I didn’t get either meaning although I think I have John as the inventor of logarithms somewhere at the back of my brain.

    I’ve never heard the JAW JAW quote attributed to Macmillan before and it sounds a bit too witty for him so I’d guess one of his writers thought it up. It’s not that different from Churchill’s original version anyway.

    Edited at 2019-06-26 06:14 am (UTC)

  3. 45 mins with yoghurt, granola, etc.
    Well with the Z,J,Q etc. it had to be a pangram and looking for the X might have helped with Alex.
    After getting the hidden I Zingari, I thought, ‘Oh no, it will be one with words I don’t know.’ But actually it was ok after dredging up Jaw Jaw and Agitprop.
    23ac made me think of the old chestnut clue: Bar of soap.
    Thanks setter and Pip.
  4. I accidentally submitted 26 minutes to the leaderboard when in fact it was 22 minutes plus several to realise I was never going to get the NZ port / log person. A tough clue if you didn’t know the port and your knowledge of John Napier stopped at “something to do with maths”, but plainly quite fair. Logarithms were what totally did for me at school. I still have no idea what they are, despite pouring over a little book filled with the wretched things for hours without number.

    But a hugely inventive and fun puzzle. Tip of the hat to the setter

        1. Then VAR comes along, rules horryd offside, and he does a Cameroon…
            1. Pay attention at the back there! I’ve been in Greece for 3 weeks.
              1. 3 weeks! I wouldn’t rush back – the brolly brigade are still clogging up the bus lanes something horrible. How’s the traffic in Milos?
                We have plum rain in Shanghai presently.
                1. We’ll be back in time for the pro-democracy march on 1 July. You chaps in Shanghai ought to get the people power movement going.
  5. Indeed this was entertaining, and did its thing for 25 minutes.
    Agitprop I eventually got but for the wrong (or maybe not) reason: I surmised that “put forward” was proposed, abbreviated in every meeting I have ever chaired, minuted or both as PROP. I’m OK with GIT as scoundrel.
    Probably just as well that the cricket team was hidden, and the naked French was/were a cross off the letters until you run out anagram.
    REPERTOIRE was a beast to unravel. Good fun all round, and well blogged Pip.
  6. Retired hurt with at least 5 wickets remaining. I started to solve this while still tired – never a good idea.

    Some very clever cluing. I liked PRANKS, NAPIER, ALEX and REPERTOIRE.

    COD: AGITPROP.

  7. It was all going so well until the 22s

    JETON!? JETTON perhaps? I have heard of The Jetsons.
    JAW-JAW (3-3) not (3,3)in my book!

    At the time Macmillan made his speech in Canberra (30 January 1958) he was in important talks with the Nigerians on the subject of their Independence.

    The Nigerian Pidgin for discussions is ‘jaw-jaw’

    He was later in Ibadan in January 1960 for more ‘jaw-jaw’ and subsequently Independence was gained in October of that year.

    FOI 4dn ICIER

    COD 9ac NODDING DONKEY

    WOD 21ac I ZINGARI but a write-in for bespoke cricketers! I remember from way-back they were so-called because they wore their ties as a belt and not as neckwear!

    Many thanks to Messrs. Reject and Interred for the tip on the Independent Crossword (Morph). It took me about an hour, in the dead of night, to unravel.

    It was obviously contrived by the late Mr.Benny Hill in service to IKEA’s branches in Shanghai, Kowloonside and Kowtow.

    ‘My dental appointment is at two-thirty!’ etc. etc.

    Edited at 2019-06-26 07:40 am (UTC)

  8. All downhill from my first in, I ZINGARI – entered from the enumeration, never spotting the hidden. The left went in pretty quickly, but the right proved intractable, with, like Jack, the ‘don’ part of the long across proving too much for me, and – among others – the double J pair completely bamboozling me.

    I never like to guess setters but I’m breaking the habit of a lifetime to guess John Henderson. Perhaps, a touch easy for one of his, though, unless he was just in a good mood.

    Kudos to Pip for a fabulous time.

      1. Gallers! It’s been fair dinkum sh*te from England so far. India/Oz final?
        1. Our boys aren’t that good, but seem to be peaking at the right time. England strong, but possibly not as strong as they thought, especially when there’s a bit in the track.

          India look to be the best team all-round. Not that I ever get any of these predictions right.

      2. Nice to hear from you!
        Spare a thought for those of us who actually went to Lords to watch that.

        Edited at 2019-06-26 10:36 pm (UTC)

  9. 19:46. Tricky.
    I managed to get 10ac from a vague sense that NAPIER sounded like a feasible name for a port, combined with a failure to come up with anything better after about 5 minutes of trying. I was still slightly surprised to find it was right, and I can’t say I care much for the clue.
    Good fun apart from that. I don’t think I’d have believed I ZINGARI could possibly be a thing without the clearest possible wordplay and a crossing Z.
    Surely 22 is just a homophone of ‘George awe’?

    Edited at 2019-06-26 07:58 am (UTC)

    1. Indeed, I see your point, explains how we get two JAWs. Thanks.
  10. I failed to achieve sleeping status after a couple of hours so returned to the armchair with a cup of hot chocolate and a chocolate biscuit and tackled this beast. After 51:46 I’d tired my brain out and went back to bed. REPERTOIRE was the last to fall. ERE caused ANGST, as did ALEX and REAL ALE until the pennies dropped. Lots to like in this puzzle, but I was fortunate that I ZINGARI was a hidden, and that I had a Z in the checkers. I’m off to the Old Gits quarterly lunch in an hour. (A get together for a bunch of retired Burroughs/Sperry/Unisys engineers).
  11. I managed to get all but NAPIER done on the commute then spent 5 minutes whilst walking trying to think what “one bringing in logs” could be – did it mean logs as in bits of tree or as in records? Then eventually I had the penny-drop moment.

    Great entertainment – good work setter.

  12. A bit of a struggle this one

    JETON from the French which gave me JAW-JAW that I also associate more with Churchill. Cricket team from the crossing Z. No problem with AGITPROP which I thought was propaganda of some sort. NAPIER a write-in

    Thanks setter and great blog Pip

  14. Finished in 37 minutes after taking my daughter’s car for MOT. Such activity amongst posters seems to be catching. And tomorrow, I have to take youngest son’s. I had a DAN DARE pocket watch as a child, where Dan shot a Mekon every second. There was an I ZINGARI football league in Liverpool whose teams we used to play against in cup competitions, so not being an Harrovian was no drawback. I have to confess to thinking the quotation was Churchill’s first, indeed I can hear him saying it, which shows the tricks memory plays. I had no idea about a JETON as counter but the cryptic worked. I biffed REAL ALE and forgot to go back to parse. So that’s why Her Majesty didn’t figure alongside George Clooneyin the medical drama. I can’t sit in the same room as EastEnders but, in the time it takes me to clear, I have learnt the name of the pub. COD to NAPIER and PLAY ON WORDS jointly, not that the little Hitlers reffing in my day ever waved ‘play on’. I enjoyed this quite toughie. Thank you Pip and setter.
    1. From what I can gather, I Zingari is not a club for Old Harrovians though it was founded by some. Membership is strictly by invitation. Criteria for getting an invitation are wilfully mysterious. Disqualifying factors would presumably include being seen to have even the slightest interest in getting an invitation.

      Country Life includes I Zingari in an article entitled Clubs You Cannot Join. It’s not clear whether the ‘you’ is meant impersonally or quite specifically, but it IS Country Life so let’s assume the latter. I certainly took it that way!

      Edited at 2019-06-26 09:54 am (UTC)

      1. Surely, having played football against Kirkby is sufficient qualification to turn out for the cricket team. With the tackles that came in, I deserved the VC.
        1. You’re welcome to join my club, which goes one up on I Zingari by not even having a name. We meet for a roly-poly pudding supper on the sixth Tuesday of every month
      2. Very well-spotted Sotira! I remembered that article all the way back to 2008 because it omitted the aptly named Pratts. I showed it to my husband because some years earlier he had gone there to dinner with my father and was properly shocked down to his Yale Bulldog socks at some of the conversation he heard. Apropos of George, the Pratts waiters were all called by that name no matter what.
        1. And closing the circle, I see Harold Macmillan was a member of Pratts. I was going to say it sounds like the sort of place Boris Johnson would hang out, but I gather from Politico that he prefers the equally men-only Beefsteak Club, where they wouldn’t do anything as gauche as calling all the stewards George. No, at the Beefsteak Club they call them Charles! Where’s the faceplant emoji?
      3. When I was at the Tom Quad place in the sixties, a friend and I founded a new college ‘club’ called the Grey Club. To be eligible to join, you had to be invited and to practice no sporting activity (except drinking) nor be a member of any sporting club in the college or university. No Bullingdon bullies either. After some debate and a few pints, I was allowed to join my Club, by exception, in spite of playing bridge cuppers for the college. After some serious eyebrow-raising by the SCR we got it accepted and listed as an Official Club, but they never quite understood the irony.
        1. Drat, that was me not logged on, again, don’t understand why LJ keeps dropping the link to FB when I’m already logged on to FB. Sorry.
          1. Now that’s a step in the right direction. Why can’t your lot be running the country?
  15. 33 mins. Quite tricky. I think the definition in 24dn is ‘Old prior to’, as ere = prior to (preposition) rather than prior (adjective): e.g. ere the arrival of the cavalry. The homophone is air = look. Thanks pip.

    Edited at 2019-06-26 10:21 am (UTC)

    1. Yes, I thought this for quite a while but then parsed the definition as “old prior to” and then you can interpret “air” as a noun with a synonym “look”. This convinced me on ERE as my LOI
      1. Hi star, I think we’re both in fact saying the same thing here, if you check out my comment – unless you’re referring to a previous comment I posted and then removed and edited about 5 seconds later when I spotted how the clue works – if so, apologies, I didn’t think anyone would have time to read it! 🙂

        Edited at 2019-06-26 01:21 pm (UTC)

        1. Indeed, I was referring to your previous comment! Glad we both ended in the same place. This sort of devious cluing is just marvelous.
  16. ….in fact I was Ice Cold on ALEX !

    I also suspect the excellent Mr.Henderson – his fingerprints are there in a number of places, not least REAL ALE. I shall raise a glass to him later anyway.

    Only knew I ZINGARI as a football league in Liverpool, and spent far too long trying to anagrind “angry speech” at 12D.

    FOI DESHABILLE
    LOI ALEX
    COD DAN DARE
    TIME 23:19 (yet another missed target !)

  17. Many thanks to setter for an enjoyable puzzle and to Pip for an equally enjoyable blog.

    One minor comment to your comment on 23A though. I agree with you as to the unpleasant nature of the programme (and to my mind all soaps) but even I (who never watch any of them if I can avoid it) know that this one is native to BBC and not ITV.

    Well I think I’m right on that but as I say I am no authority.

    1. Apologies, it seems you are right, which shows how I never watch it, and how low the BBC is sinking these days. At least we still have The Archers.
  18. Loved this crossword. It had just the right level of difficulty and ingenuity, so that with each clue solved I reached ever higher peaks of self-admiration. I especially liked the other half of footballer and the casualty of America, plus MacMillan’s maxim. Thanks for explaining Napier.
  19. I had no idea about the luggage cart thingy but I have been binge-reading Maigret this summer and he and his merry men are always stopping in to the nearest bistro for a pastis and to ask for a jeton for the pay phone so as to call HQ at the Quai. The J there unlocked the JAW JAW (and I too thought it was Churchill). My weak knowledge of UK sport and soap operas would have put the cricket club and the pub out of reach but the setter was generous with the Z and Q in BEZIQUE and the Z provided the anchor for the hidden clue. Same as Z in thinking the prop in AGITPROP had something to do with a proposal. Ingenious stuff here. Good blogging Pip. 25.59
  20. A DNF. ‘Ebos’ (I thought they must be some kind of flags (noun)) for EBBS. Really!

    Don’t know exactly how long, but around a couple of hours with REPERTOIRE and AGITPROP taking longest to crack. Funnily enough I ZINGARI was one of my first in.

    A few I didn’t know such as JETON and it was hard work overall. Even with one wrong, consolation in some fun clues such as DESHABILLE and seeing the pangram at the end.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

  21. This one came along at the wrong moment for me, unfortunately. Just switched to some new medication, and was feeling so dopey that I’d already spilled coffee all over the kitchen before I started. Plenty left when I gave up.

    My lack of knowledge of the NODDING DONKEY, JETON, I ZINGARI, Keynes and MIDNIGHT SUN didn’t help, but not knowing either NAPIER probably would’ve scuppered me in the end anyway. By the time I was at school, we all had calculators and the knowledge of log tables and particularly their origins wasn’t quite so emphasised, I suppose…

    1. I’ve been briefly to NZ but not to Napier, I knew of its existence from watching cricket ODIs where it is a regular international venue. Looks very picturesque.
  22. Tough one today, and in the end I chucked in some possible-looking words in the SE corner that were not correct (or, necessarily, words): RESERVOIRE & SUITING. NAPIER was the LOI after a little over 16 minutes: a name I knew, but I wouldn’t have been sure he was the log man.

    Try as I might I couldn’t parse REAL ALE, not helped by the fact that I didn’t know of EL AL. I’ve also never heard of JETON or I ZINGARI, but both were kindly clued.

  24. Solved with the distraction of an absorbing World Cup game between Pakistan and New Zealand, but obviously this was never going to be knocked off quickly. Lots of deft bits of misdirection and things hiding in plain sight (spent an age trying to come up with something involving the wrong sort of logs, for example). Tough but rewarding struggle.

    I also would have sworn the quote was Churchill, but in quizzing circles, it’s a given that if the question is “Which politician said…”, he’s never a bad answer.

  25. 64:05 but at least I managed to finish all correct for the first time this week. That said, I found this ridiculously hard in places and a bit of a slog to complete. Alex was entered on basis of wp, the penny never dropping for me on “Sandy”. Didn’t know the cricket club, so glad that was a hidden. Never fully parsed real ale. Jeton another unknown entered strictly from wp. COD to repertoire which had me completely confounded until finally I wasn’t. A real toughie.
  26. didn’t go to Eton. Or Fettes.
    People only go into politics if they can’t make money properly or they are power hungry egomaniacs. Don’t believe any of this ‘want to help make things better’ tosh.
  27. Mind you, I am going back, after 46 years away, so I can await the invitation.

    Being not on the radar in UK we are being treated by the paper pushers a bit like we’re off the Windrush.

  28. Very entertaining as all have said, but loses marks for not having been scheduled in its natural home in the Friday paper, obviously.

    LOI and the only clue that I would rank as “borderline unfair” is NAPIER – surely few non-natives have heard of the port of Napier, and if you haven’t, the other half of the clue seems pretty darn oblique too. One side of a double def shouldn’t be “some word that plainly matches that definition, but which I equally plainly won’t know” – that’s pretty much exactly analogous to cluing foreign words with anagrams.

  29. Good Grief. DNF in spades, and for the good reason that I had no idea of NODDING DONKEY, NAPIER, JETON, JAW JAW or DAN DARE. I think I certainly should have got the DARE clue, just didn’t see the night as dark – dumb. The others, though, were not in my knowledge base. Glad others liked it, but I was much bewildered. Anyway, regards to all.
    1. Surprised, I thought Texas was covered in nodding donkeys, I saw them on TV in Dallas. But I guess Texas is not NYC.
      1. Yes, Texas, Oklahoma and other US places are rife with those things, but I never knew what they were called anything except well pumps. Not a NYC site.
      2. In Texas and Oklahoma they are called Horse’s Head pumps, or Walking Beam Horse’s Head pumps. Having once worked for a company which designed down-hole tools, that was close enough for me to follow the wordplay.
  30. George might be pronounced with a soft G, but I don’t see how we get to J from that even though they sound the same? There’s no specific instruction in the clue to do that. The ‘heard’ must apply to the whole word. J doesn’t sound like George. Am I missing something? I would have angst as apprehension, or misplaced anxiety rather than outright fear.
    1. It’s a homophone (admittedly non-rhotic), of GEORGE AWE: awe=wonderment : homophone indicator= HEARD. Where does angst come into it?
      2. Ok yes, I can see the homophone. But can’t see why it is repeated? Not that I’m unfamiliar with the expression, but the clue itself doesn’t justify a repeat of ‘jaw’. And sorry, with angst yes I was referring to 26a. Mr Grumpy
  31. I liked it, partly because of the vocabulary and early for the clever cluing, but mostly because I finished, which I sometimes don’t when they are this tricky. I Zingari was a lucky reverse Ninja Turtle – I’m reading a biography of Caravaggio, and the bit I got to yesterday just before attacking the puzzle discussed the influence of a popular Comedie del Arte play – I Zingari – on one of the early paintings.
  32. Thanks setter (perhaps JH) and pip
    Did this one much later than publication … but it also hung around in the WIP pile for about 6 weeks with the JETON / JAW-JAW pair holding out and a determination that they wouldn’t beat me. Finally, the word play for NOTE + J all reversed emerged and was confirmed by a dictionary look u, followed by an alphabet trawl googled with Macmillan to find his reference to the Churchillian quote. A technical DNF, but no less satisfying for it !!
    There were many other difficult clues along the way that added up to about a 3 hour solve time across those elapsed days, with a number of new terms – NODDING DONKEY, I ZINGARI and those final two.
    Being a maths graduate living in the antipodes, meant that NAPIER was one that didn’t present any difficulties !
    A long time to get to, a long time to do … but an extremely enjoyable experience to do it.

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