Times 27,401: 16ac, Boris Johnson, Please

Author   verlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A fairly straightforward puzzle if you could get on its likeable and humorous wavelength. I mostly did, with a few caveats: a careless WATCHWORD as my FOI left me puzzling about how my LOI 1dn could possibly be WIPED, and likewise I’d bunged in OFF-THE-CUFF for 13dn after starting in on ODD-MAN-OUT which obviously was on a hiding to nothing. Third time lucky though!

My COD was 7dn once I realised that it really was talking about two *different* types of flight – I’d only needed the stairsy type to enter it on my first pass.

Many thanks to the setter: have a good weekend, everybody!

ACROSS
1 Crowd chat conjured up in slogan (9)
CATCHWORD – (CROWD CHAT*) [“conjured up”]

6 Odd bits of grub given to prisoner in his camp? (5)
GULAG – G{r}U{b} given to LAG [prisoner]

9 Something freely given? That is taken by force (7)
PRESSIE – I.E. [this is], taken by PRESS [force]

10 Line written by church composer is ghastly (7)
CHARNEL – L [line] written by CH ARNE [church | composer]

11 Franchise needing guidance when two characters have swapped positions (10)
DEALERSHIP – swap two characters in LEADERSHIP [guidance]

12 Illustration rendered by ace printing unit (4)
PICA – PIC [illustration] rendered by A [ace]

14 Daggers the Spanish brought into form of evil magic? (5)
OBELI – EL [the (Spanish)] brought into OBI [form of evil magic]

15 Dispute involving four dukes? (9)
FISTFIGHT – cryptic def, a “duke” being a fist

16 Advice to man with cat in performance, leading to a benefit (4,5)
TURN AGAIN – TURN [performance], leading to A GAIN [a | benefit].
“Turn again, Dick Whittington, thrice Mayor of London…”

18 Irritable computer whizz? (5)
TECHY – double def, though I’d normally spell one of these “tetchy” myself…

20 Aim of mountaineers? Not all of them came back (4)
ACME – hidden reversed in {th}EM CA{me}

21 The French male wearing false hair and dress shows a bit of freedom (6,4)
WIGGLE ROOM – LE [the (French, male)] wearing WIG + GROOM [false hair + dress]

25 Nothing in Italian city, little good for holiday activity? (7)
TOURING – O [nothing] in TURIN [Italian city] + G [“little” good]

26 What has cups next to stinking bottle? (7)
BRAVERY – BRA [what has cups] next to VERY [stinking, as in “stinking rich” I guess]

27 Dirty job involving spades (5)
DUSTY – DUTY [job] involving S [spades]

28 One club maybe for a bachelor? (9)
SINGLETON – double def. A singleton is the holding of one card of a suit in Bridge.

DOWN
1 Made the grade as a priest in ceremony? (5)
COPED – double def. A priest in a ceremony may be wearing a cope.

2 Adolescent as a born troublemaker originally, growing up (7)
TEENAGE – reverse all of E.G. A NEE [as | a | born] + T{roublemaker}

3 Very funny chair with style ill conceived (10)
HYSTERICAL – (CHAIR + STYLE*) [“ill conceived”]

4 Maidens perhaps seen as headless sweethearts (5)
OVERS – {l}OVERS [“headless” sweethearts]. Cricketing maidens, that would be.

5 Emily? Endlessly unsteady, having got thus in pub (9)
DICKINSON – DICK{y} [“endlessly” unsteady] + SO [thus] in INN [pub]

6 Learner in school dressed to attract? (4)
GLAM – L [learner] in GAM [school].
Well worth remembering both POD and GAM for school in these parts.

7 What comes at end of different flights (7)
LANDING – cryptic def. Flights as in stairs, or voyages by plane: both end in landings!

8 Courage of everyone imprisoned in tower (9)
GALLANTRY – ALL [everyone] imprisoned in GANTRY [tower]

13 Unconventional, like a newly escaped convict? (3-3-4)
OFF-THE-WALL – a (very!) newly escaped convict may have just jumped down from the prison wall.

14 Old statue, after renovation, survived (9)
OUTLASTED – (OLD STATUE*) [“after renovation”]

15 Ruddy huge birds (9)
FLAMINGOS – FLAMING OS [ruddy | huge (as in outsize)]

17 Gossip is associated with us after hard drink (7)
RUMOURS – OURS [associated with us] after RUM [hard drink]

19 Most stuffy little room in which son hides (7)
CLOSEST – CLOSET [little room] in which S [son] hides

22 Bigwig with silver set up in the country (5)
GABON – reverse all of NOB + AG [bigwig + silver]

23 A Yankee probing fellow of a bygone civilisation (5)
MAYAN – A Y probing MAN [fellow]

24 Ruth affected by pockmarks, we hear? (4)
PITY – homophone of PITTY [pockmarked]

58 comments on “Times 27,401: 16ac, Boris Johnson, Please”

  1. Faster than I expected, especially for a Friday, although the last couple had me worried. Took a while to remember PRESSIE (silly word); GLAM LOI. ‘Flight’ always means stairs here, so I didn’t even think of the airplane type. I raised an eyebrow at TECHY, but assumed that as always Chambers would authorize the spelling. Didn’t know about the cat, but I recognized the TURN AGAIN, so assumed he had one.
    1. Same here; I found TECHY a misspelling of both ‘tetchy’ and ‘techie’; but as I said, I bet Chambers will save the setter’s proverbial.
      1. Only checked Collins so far and both are in as alternatives to the proper (i.e. our preferred) spellings.
  3. PRESSIE (prezzie) at 9ac is not a silly word! It is oh so very Ozinglish like cozzie, lezzie and Yessie!

    Smithy ‘223 all out’!? Now for them Kiwis!

    This Crossie is English – with limited international appeal. The black cat was Whittington’s best mucker and often gets equal billing.

    FOI 7dn LANDING – agreed ‘Flight’ always means stairs.

    LOI 1dn COPED – I usually avoid priests vestments.

    COD 15ac FISTFIGHT

    WOD 3dn HYSTERICAL

    Time: just on 40 minnies

    Edited at 2019-07-12 02:05 am (UTC)

  4. Just at the hour mark, with the last ten minutes staring at 1d, 9a, and 11a.
    I had the same two spelling questions with Techy; I also paused at Acme – I think of it as the tip top of a category where there are other examples, so the English side may be the acme of ODI competitors, but since a mountain only has one top I’d call it an apex before I’d get to acme.
  5. I had WATCHWORD and WIPED too, for a while. TURN AGAIN had to be the answer, so I waited until after completion to figure that out… (“Oh, a real cat. Not a whip!” Such an imagination I have…)
  6. Very enjoyable, but this one came with a sting in its tail for me as I was stuck forever with DEALERSHIP and FLAMINGOS outstanding so that I put the puzzle aside as a DNF and resumed after a nap when both answers came to me.

    DNK CHARNEL as ‘ghastly’ but was aware of ‘charnel house’ as something to do with death (it’s a vault for dead bodies or bones) so having constructed the answer from wordplay I went for it with some confidence.

    No problem with Dick Whittington and his pussy cat, both subject to much saucy innuendo during the pantomime season.

  7. Ran out of time with COPED and DEALERSHIP left. Didn’t like TECHY. COD to the birds.
  8. Fairly straightforward for a Friday. Like others, if someone wrote techy for either meaning, I would correct their spelling for them. Whatever Collins might say. And I do a lot of walking and climbing, but I have never yet acme’d anywhere..

    Edited at 2019-07-12 07:26 am (UTC)

      1. I was being facetious. To put it another way, I have never yet heard anyone refer to the pointy bit of a hill or mountain as an acme..
        1. Oh right, sorry. I thought you were objecting to the verbing of a noun.
          Me neither. In fact I never realised it had a non-figurative meaning but it seemed logical.

          Edited at 2019-07-12 09:27 am (UTC)

          1. If you guys did the NYT puzzles, you’d have found that ACME shows up often enough, although not as often as APEX.
  9. 24 minutes. LOI PICA, having had an unsatisfactory dalliance with Aida. I was also unhappy with the TECHY spelling, but there were no alternatives. Back down Rue Morgue Avenue, I also only knew of the CHARNEL house but not the adjective. COD to WIGGLE ROOM with an honourable mention to Emily DICKINSON, who came third in my list of known Emilys, behind Bronte and the other one, whenever I may find her. Easyish for Friday. Thank you V and setter.

    Edited at 2019-07-12 07:29 am (UTC)

  10. I had most of this done in 25 minutes, but gave up a quarter of an hour later, having been stumped by the NW corner. I also had WATCHWORD before I had CATCHWORD, but I’d also managed to stuff up 2d with PRETEEN before I corrected it to TEENAGE, and then I got completely hooked on CONCESSION for “franchise” at 11a, wondering whether I still had the end of 2d wrong.

    It didn’t help that I couldn’t see why 1d would be COPED, having never heard of a cope.

    I still can’t think of a place where I would use “as” for “e. g.”, but I’m clearly being a bit dim today.

    Fiddlesticks!

    Edited at 2019-07-12 07:50 am (UTC)

    1. Collins gives the example ‘capital cities, as London’. That’s gobbledygook to me, but it’s in the dictionary so [shrug].
  11. This was a joyous experience, if very brief for me in just over 11 minutes. It took much longer to find the DICKINSON words (above) my choir sang a couple of years ago in a specially commissioned setting, quite possibly its only performance.
    I was thinking, as I solved, Verlaine will be miffed at having such an easy set to blog on a Friday, but it seems the humour rather softened the blow.
    Were the dodgy spellings in there just to tease, d’ye think? TECHY, W(R)IGGLE ROOM, PRESSIE all look as if they come from Wile E Coyote’s ACME dictionary.
    There’s a Shakespeare quote nagging at the back of my brain which might justify AS for eg, but it refuses to surface. Sorry.

    A bit more of that particular DICKINSON:

    I wished a way might be
    My Heart to subdivide —
    ‘Twould magnify — the Gratitude —
    And not reduce — the Gold —

    Which is a posher way of saying thanks to V and setter

    1. WIGGLE ROOM is in Merriam-Webster, whereas its near-doppelgänger with a R inserted ain’t. It’s not that it’s an Americanism: Collins only has the former, not the latter.
      Chambers gives WRIGGLE ROOM as a variant of WIGGLE ROOM.

      Edited at 2019-07-12 05:20 pm (UTC)

  12. 30 mins with yoghurt etc.
    20 mins for the easy stuff, then 10 more for Pressie and LOI Coped.
    Like Matt above – I have an MER about as=EG. I don’t think I’ve seen it before and I don’t get it.
    With regard to song lyric opportunities today, there were many: Rumours, Obeli Obelada, or maybe some Glam or Dusty or Elvis Pressie? But I went with Shania.
    Thanks setter and V.
      1. Nice one. This opens up some good setting options. No more the need for: ‘for one’, ‘say’, when ‘as’ is available.
      2. In that example ‘as’ means ‘like’, not ‘for example’.
        While I’m here, why can’t you hear a pterodactyl going to the loo?
        2. And I was proud of myself for using ‘pneumonia’ instead of ‘swimming’.
        3. …seem virtually identical to me.
          There are often discussions of fine points on our LiveJournal blog, like the one today about “as” for “for example.”
          There are often discussions of fine points on our LiveJournal blog—for example, the one today about “as” for “for example.”
  13. Having negotiated the bulk of the puzzle, I was left with C_PED, and was torn between COPED and CAPED. I plumped for CAPED as a priest might be wearing a CAPE for a ceremony, totally forgetting that they have COPES. Drat! I have no idea how I knew Emily DICKINSON, but she wasn’t a surprise when she appeared from the wordplay. RUMOURS and TURN AGAIN held me up. 34:55 WOE. Thanks setter and V.
  14. I thought this was going to be a quickie but in the end I had some tidying up to do after falling for the “watchword” trap and then someone typed in “acne” at 20a (almost didn’t catch that). 12.50

    Edited at 2019-07-12 09:05 am (UTC)

  15. 14:04 … like a nice stroll through a lovely flat minefield. Safely negotiated, but not without the odd fright. I couldn’t quite remember the odd word for ‘school’ and nearly put GLAD at 6d (thinking ‘glad rags), but I left it a while and gam emerged from somewhere.

    Another long delay at the end with DEALERSHIP, looking for a verb for a long while.

    I normally only deploy my Wily pic after a fail, but …. ACME 🙂

    1. Some of us will never forget GAM after the OPHOD/OGHAM championship debacle of whichever year it was.
  16. 12:26. This was an odd experience for me: I had almost all of it done in under five minutes and then spent over 60% of my ultimate solving time on two clues. Or rather three, since my main problem was another hastily-biffed WATCHWORD. I don’t think I’ve heard of a CATCHWORD before. Catchphrase yes.
    Once I finally revisited that one I struggled with COPED, being unconvinced by the primary definition and in possession of a memory that seems to reject ecclesiastical terms along with books of he bible.
    Anyway I got it all sorts out eventually. No complaints: I thought the TECHY spelling a bit odd and I always wonder about ‘as’ for EG but they’re both in one or other of the usual dictionaries.
  17. Catchword – hmm.
    Techy – hmm.
    W[r]iggle room – hmm.
    As = e.g. – hmm
    Coped = made the grade – hmm.
    28 mins. Thanks v.
      1. Fascinating; thank you, guy. Wiggle really took off in the 80s by the look of it. It seems the alliterative charm of wriggle room couldn’t win the day.
  18. I didn’t find too many bits of this hard, but the bits that were, well they really were. I had to trust that TECHY existed as an alternative for tetchy, as it was at least better than my original stab of HACKY. I was another who was tempted by GLAD for a long time but thought better of it. And it took me a long time to see the DEALERSHIP device.

    CATCHWORD was a write-in for those of us who had too much time on our hands in the early 90s and devotedly watched the BBC word-based game show of the same name. Interestingly, I’ve just Googled it, having not thought about it for many years, and I discover that the runner-up in the final series has a name with some resonance in these parts…

    1. Nice. So that’s Dean, yourself, Pete B and Magoo have all been on TV quiz shows. Any others?
      1. ‘Ps and Qs'(1992) was hosted by Tony Slattery. I appeared just the once with a pile of ‘C’ listers. Our team captain was Lesley Joseph the other Jonathan Meades. In one round we had to blind taste different teas – mine was Lapsong Suchong which I named correctly. That is all I remember except we lost!

        As Emily Dickinson wrote, ‘Fame is a fickle fool’.

        Edited at 2019-07-12 01:27 pm (UTC)

        1. That definitely counts, even if I’ve never heard of the show (sorry!). So we’re up to 5 … so far.
          1. No ones heard of it. There were only seven episodes on BBC2 and later Tony had an episode himself!
      2. I was on Eggheads, but disgraced myself a bit so let’s not add my name to any lists!
      3. Mastermind semi-finalist. Beaten by 1 point by the eventual champion.
  19. Would have been a PB by more than 4 mins at 19:48, except I’ve never heard of GAM so went for GLAD as in glad rags.

    Think COPED is more ‘just about managed’ than ‘made the grade’ (which would be more like ‘COPED well’)….

    Oh well

    Edited at 2019-07-12 12:55 pm (UTC)

    1. I had this problem with COPED. I can imagine someone saying ‘he coped but didn’t quite make the grade’, a sentence in which they are almost opposites!
  20. I had a look at this over lunch and nearly managed to finish it. It had a Sunday feel to me (not Dean obviously).
    FOI was TECHY and I thought that can’t be right but can’t be anything else. I plumped for CAPED at 1d and that clashed with CONCESSION at 11a. To my shame the only Emily I could think of was the Pink Floyd one, even after thinking of Dicky for the first bit; must improve my ninjaturtling. And 16a had to end in AWARD so I failed on that one.
    Now I must research the difference between Wriggle Room and the other one.
    David
  21. 10m 16s, finishing on COPED after taking a while to spot the double meaning. TE(t)CHY was an odd one, but I think I’ve come across WIGGLE ROOM more than WRIGGLE ROOM.
    1. I agree – wriggle room clearly makes sense but I would’ve said that wiggle room is now what people actually say.
  22. COPED went in LOI as a ‘has to be’ but I agree that made the grade is def not COPED, and of course I’ve no idea what a cope is. Having assumed the D at the end, DEALERSHIP slotted in and all done. However all that took me beyond the 50 min mark. My knowledge of printing units was also rather lacking, as I assumed it must be en or em until the A appeared. COD = Cat of the Day.
  23. Pretty straightforward today, and I entered COPED despite not remembering that priests wear them. So a bit of a biff, as was TURN AGAIN as I don’t know the story of that fellow and his cat. Happy weekend, all, and regards.
  24. Poor Kevin! Alas Cinders, America doesn’t have Pantomime. Shame! But put it BEHIND YOU! There’s The Big Bad Wolf on at the White House Theater for another couple of seasons Boooo! Hiss! etc etc
  26. 25:23. Commenting late because I went out for a few drinks last night. I found this tricky in parts and found myself scratching around the grid and revisiting some parts several times. 1ac and 12ac were unfamiliar. My eyebrow was also raised at the techy spelling. I thought priest was P and completely failed to parse coped. I also mis-parsed 28ac, wondering how a ton was a club.
  27. No problem with pressie for antipodeans. Though I think wriggle room may be commoner in these parts than wiggle room. The Wiggles are on children’s TV .
    Chuffed with 13 mins for this.

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