Times 27451 – Rather meaty, actually

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Time: 65 minutes
Music: Ravel, Daphnis and Chloe, Cluytens/

I definitely picked the wrong puzzle for being way off the wavelength, struggling over even the chestnut clues like ‘dogma’, ‘epigram’, and ‘rapid’.     This one was certainly hard, but I should have had at least a few entries after ten or fifteen minutes.   Instead, everything came along near the end, as I got more and more checking letters and was able to see what was going on.

At least there weren’t any obscure words or esoteric knowledge required, although it would help to know the more recondite meanings of common words.  I suspect that the solvers who did well might find this puzzle very enjoyable.   I confined my enjoyment tonight to setting a personal best in the Quickie, where I was on the wavelength.

Across
1 Champion swallow in blowing wind? (11)
BACKDRAUGHT – BACK + DRAUGHT.
7 Potter character in audition? (3)
CUE – Sounds like ‘Q’.   A snooker cue is used to pot the balls, so it’s a….
9 Position of diamonds in one item of clothing and another (9)
SHORTSTOP –  SHORTS + TOP.   Raise your hand if you wasted time with D or ICE!
10 Northern feast to which south not invited (5)
UPPER – [s]UPPER, as in the Upper East Side.
11 Mounted on horse, fight (5-2)
PUNCH-UP – [Suffolk] PUNCH + UP.   Experienced solvers will be wise to this particular breed.
12 Language papers and course taken by day’s end (7)
YIDDISH – [da]Y + ID + DISH, another starter clue.
13 Swift drop, a run in the wrong direction (5)
RAPID – DIP + A + R, all backwards.
15 King possibly finished with throne at last: warning about that (9)
SOVEREIGN – S (OVER + [thron]E) IGN.   I’m not sure if ‘possibly’ goes with ‘King’ or ‘finished’, and it could have been omitted altogether.
17 Pop hit me (6,3)
NUMBER ONE – Double definition, seen before.
19 Teaching honour awarded to setter, quite possibly? (5)
DOGMA – DOG + M.A.   Honoris causa, presumably, although standads have gone down recently.
20 Legal process taking a toll on fellow (7)
HEARING – HE + A RING.
22 Carriage set up or dismantled (7)
POSTURE – anagram of SET UP OR.   The trick is finding the correct sense of ‘carriage’.
24 Trail bikes at the back broke (5)
SPOOR – [bike]S + POOR.   I wanted to put ‘skint’ for a long time, but wisely refrained from biffing.
25 Fire-starter in tree, but I resolved to protect queen (9)
BRIQUETTE – Anagram oF TREE BUT I around Q.
27 Title role in “Shrek” originally recalled (3)
SIR – first letters of ROLE IN “SHREK” reversed.
28 Slight cut: little pale, did you say? (6,5)
MINUTE STEAK – MINUTE + sounds like STAKE.   A stock restaurant joke, where the diner complains that the minute steak is small, and the waiter says the description on the menu is accurate.
Down
1 Carry vessel upside down (3)
BUS – SUB upside-down, referring to ‘bus’ as a verb.
2 Top money, once (5)
CROWN – double definition, although the half-crown was more commonly used.
3 Boyfriend ultimately was irritating — what was he then? (7)
DITCHED – [boyfrien]D ITCHED.
4 Starter not for pot, as in a stew (9)
ANTIPASTO – ANTI + anagram of POT AS.   I nearly blundered, thinking ‘not for pot’ indicated ‘ante’, but quickly corrected myself.
5 Twisted upward, canine has partially gutted fish (5)
GUPPY – PUG upside down + P[artiall]Y.
6 Rumblings below after those horrific starters (7)
THUNDER – T[hose] H[orrific] UNDER.
7 Upsetting process of fitting hat to head? (9)
CAPSIZING – CAP SIZING, of course, but on of my LOI.
8 Objects fired in fear, then war erupting (11)
EARTHENWARE – hidden in [f]EAR, THEN WAR E[rupting].   Most solvers will take ‘erupting’ as an anagram indicator, and try to do something with FEAR THEN WAR.
11 Take care of male relative as an afterthought, perhaps? (11)
PARENTHESIS – PARENT + HE + SIS.
14 Ritual with a morose style (9)
POMPADOUR – POMP + A DOUR.
16 Compete to win game maintaining initially professional attitude (9)
VIEWPOINT – VIE + anagram of TO WIN + P[rofessional], biffed by many, I’m would imagine.
18 Joke in the end on animals — that’s witty (7)
EPIGRAM – [jok]E + PIG + RAM, another chestnut I couldn’t make anything of.
19 Plate thrown, Greeks finally talk things over (7)
DISCUSS – DISCUS + [greek}S.
21 Nation unable to carry things over? (5)
GABON – NO BAG upside down.
23 Community and detention centres contest release (5)
UNTIE – [comm]U[nity] + [dete]N[tion] + TIE.
26 Look when topless? Aargh! (3)
EEK – [p]EEK!

46 comments on “Times 27451 – Rather meaty, actually”

  1. I had no idea what was going on in 7ac, knowing less about snooker than I do about rugby; I threw in CEE. This experienced solver had forgotten all about the Suffolk horse, and just followed the checkers. I did, on the other hand, assume (FEAR THEN WAR), and biffed from the first R, still without consciously spotting the hidden; as I’ve said before, not spotting hiddens is my strong suit. I think ‘possibly’ goes with ‘King’, and is necessary because of the DBE; there are other sovereigns.

    Edited at 2019-09-09 06:50 am (UTC)

  2. “Possibly” in 15 goes with “King,” as this is a DBE, and rather de rigueur, I should think.

    My LOI was CUE. Sports things are often the last I pick up on.

    Since I did this and the QC over a burger and was able to return to Proust (whom I’m rereading) with my digestif, I didn’t think it was very hard.

    Edited at 2019-09-09 03:38 am (UTC)

  3. I had the opposite experience to vinyl: started steady with 10 answers in 10 minutes, then slowed down dramatically and took another half hour to get me to the last cross.

    After pondering 1 Across and 2 Down for another ten minutes and getting nowhere, I gave up and came to the blog. Alas, what seemed like a puzzle on track for a personal best became a DNF.

    Thanks to vinyl for making everything clear!

  4. Ha! Just realized that I did think 8 Down was an anagram of FEAR THEN WAR. But after writing down the letters backwards I “saw” EARTHENWARE without bothering to realize that I had the wrong wordplay!

    Edited at 2019-09-09 04:21 am (UTC)

  5. I think you have the puzzle number wrong and the snitch cannot thus reference your helpful blog.
  6. 11:57. This was good enough to put me top of the leaderboard and ahead of Verlaine. It’s early so I don’t expect I’ll stay there, but still I must have been on the wavelength.
    Like others I was looking for an anagram at 8dn and bunged the answer in from checkers and definition without registering that it wasn’t.
  7. 17:29 … pretty speedy on most of this then a long delay before sorting out the SUB/SHORTSTOP pair, the latter going in quite uncertainly. Can someone clarify, is the “Position of diamonds” in 9a just a roundabout way of saying “baseball position”?

    Quite meaty, indeed, for a Monday, but leavened by chuckles over DOGMA and my COD CAPSIZING

    1. That was my interpretation, anyway, after giving up on D and ICE. Although maybe not so much roundabout as, well, odd.
      1. Thanks, Kevin. Wasn’t sure if I was missing something else. One of those I wouldn’t want to explain to a non-solver.
  8. No time to offer as I got stuck, abandoned it for the night and resumed this morning. It was a technical DNF anyway as I used aids for the unknown 8ac to kickstart myself in the NW quarter where I was firmly stuck in a ditch, missing 1ac and 1dn too at the time.

    SUPPER and ‘feast’ seem more like opposites to me.

  9. I was pleased to finish with all correct, particularly as I think I managed to get one wrong every day last week. I’ve never associated UPPER with Northern but I guess it explains any street names with Upper in them. I’ll be checking those I know on a map later to confirm this.

    Several contenders for COD today but I’ll plump for NUMBER ONE for its conciseness.

    1. Of course north is up and south is down! As in: “Chicago is a large city at the bottom of Lake Michigan.”

      Edited at 2019-09-09 10:33 am (UTC)

      1. I’ve long associated “up” with North as in “it’s grim up North” but never associated “upper” that I’ve seen in some road names. I’ve confirmed that Upper Thames Street is North of Lower Thames Street but not by much – it’s more West!
        1. Regardless of the compass, “Upper High Street” would be at the top of a hill and “Lower High Street” nearer the foot. That’s my logic anyway, from here in what seems to be the former “Upper Cheshire”, but is now “Lower Greater Manchester”.
          1. Now you mention it both the Upper/Lower street name pairs I can think of would follow your hill suggestion so quite possibly it is this rather than them being North and South.
            1. ‘Upper Canada’ is an old term for a section of southern Ontario that lies to the south-west of ‘Lower Canada’ (basically Quebec). Nothing to do with north/south in that case.
              Upper Canada College is a posh private boys’ school in Toronto, but I don’t think that’s a class reference.

              Edited at 2019-09-09 02:15 pm (UTC)

      2. Upper Thames Street being west and Lower Thames Street being east at least fits quite neatly the geographical arrangement of the upper and lower reaches of the river……………….
      3. Seems everyone has missed the joke? Atlantis might be a city at the bottom of the sea, but Chicago isn’t at the bottom of Lake Michigan.
  10. I made very heavy weather of this very pleasant Monday crossword. After last week’s struggles (continued with Dean’s Sunday offering) I was hoping for a brave new week.Tomorrow’s will be a PB – ever the optimist.
  11. Had a fine time in Singapore with Dr. Fu Manchu – but not on today’s rather gritty puzzle.

    Slow starter as I shoved in ANTIPASTA at 4dn! Careless or wot!? It would have helped me (17ac NUMBER ONE) rather a lot.

    FOI 2dn CROWN

    LOI 11dn PARENTHESIS (straight IKEAN)

    COD 7ac CUE

    WOD 25ac BRIQUETTE

    At 8dn I saw EARTHENWARE early but hesitated – and was lost. In my youth these ‘hiddens’ were known as ‘extractions’ – akin to going to the dentists?

  12. Held up at the end by BUS and SHORTSTOP. Ironically, given where I live, PUNCH-UP was the only one not parsed. I liked CUE, HEARING and DISCUSS but COD to DITCHED. 16:44
  13. 40 mins with yoghurt, granola, etc.
    I liked it a lot. Mostly I liked: Number One, Ditched, Earthenware, Dog MA (Ha!) and COD to the excellent Cap Sizing.
    Thanks setter and Vinyl.
  14. Seemed hard for a Monday, pleased to complete accurately in 27′. My iPad seems to have corrected itself, (or was it the site?), so I am back solving online.

    COD undoubtedly to SHORTSTOP, but I do hope I don’t have to learn all the terminology in the American form of rounders.

    Thanks vinyl and setter.

  15. 47 minutes, struggling in NW with BACKDRAUGHT LOI. I was trying to make sense of ‘downdraught’ for far too long, with ‘swallow’ giving ‘down’ Have we got an American setter? I had the dredge SHORTSTOP from deep recesses, and in a recent Jumbo we had to see money as green. A baseball clue after such a good Test Match is not on. Congratulations to the Aussies on their deserved victory. I did put in UPPER early, but I assumed it was a map the setter had in mind and not the naming of streets, where in my experience it either means ‘higher’ or ‘further from the centre’. COD to DOGMA for the nice picture of a smiling mutt wearing his gown and mortar board and with his certificate in his mouth. Tough for Monday. Thank you V and setter.

    Edited at 2019-09-09 08:38 am (UTC)

  16. I approached this with trepidation, having seen Vinyl1’s comment on the QC blog, and for a while it seemed as if I might be in for a long session, but my usual habit of skipping to the bottom of the grid gave me a good run in the SE corner and I doggedly worked my way back up the grid to finish with BUS and the SHORTSTOP. Just before that, I’d seen crown, which gave me the BACK to go with my already entered DRAUGHT. Liked DITCHED, GUPPY and, especially, DOGMA. In fact I really liked this puzzle. I briefly considered 8d as an anagram, but saw EARTHENWARE from the checkers and noticed there was an F in the posited anagrist, and then saw the hidden. 33:19. Thanks setter and Vinyl.
  17. Breezed through all of it in 15 mins apart from NW corner, then spent a further 17 mins on bus, crown and shortstop. Just couldn’t see them. Finally got crown, and the other two followed in seconds. 32 mins. Thanks v.
  18. Very slow start with this one and for a while I thought it was going to be a pair with Friday’s, then the lower hemisphere started to fill up. CUE was a complete guess after reviewing Harry, Beatrix, Guevara and James Bond’s gadget man and coming up empty. 20.41
  19. Very much enjoyed. Tricky, but no obscurities; and lots of cryptic, hard-to-spot definitions. Liked ditched and also dogma and capsizing, although I imagine they’re both chestnuts.
  20. Had to resort to aids after half an hour, as couldn’t get NW corner – was sure 1ac was DOWNDRAUGHT (from ‘swallow’ – which doesn’t seem to work without ‘down’). Also wondered whether 8ac might refer to some baseball field, famous there but not heard of here – so searched to find something to fit checkers, when the missing downs became clear.
  21. Robust enough to detain me for 25 minutes, which seems to be exactly what the SNITCH says I should get. I thought the 3 letter entries were amongst the toughest of the type that I have seen, mostly because there were so many possibilities for “vessel”, “look” and “(Potter) character”.
    Add me to those who wondered where today’s “hidden” hasd gone.
  22. For the first time in my life i solved this on my phone, as i will be far from a printer for the next few weeks. I took 19 mins which i was pleased with, considering what a handicap only seeing one clue at time is.
    Nice crossword but like others i am becoming concerned at how americanisms are checking in lately. I suppose it will be Cantonese next?

    Edited at 2019-09-09 10:46 am (UTC)

  23. A slow 39’30 but got there. Neat stuff, often simpler than one’s thought process (e.g. back-draught) in the excellent way a good crossword has of outwitting its opponent.
  24. There’s me trying to get anagram of TREEBUTI around an R. Having established that no such anagram exists it was relatively easy to finish off the SE, except that I had spelt it EARTHENWEAR which didn’t help. Another Q in the NE nearly held me up. LOI and COD CAPSIZING
  25. ….an EEK when I finally spotted CROWN hiding in plain sight !

    An excellent puzzle, although I’m grateful to Vinyl for parsing VIEWPOINT.

    I started really slowly, but knew this was a beast having read the QC blog (Dean’s Sunday offering will come later !) and eventually got going in the NE quadrant, moving clockwise one quadrant at a time before needing my last two minutes or so to dredge up SHORTSTOP and my LOI, which was the only clue in the puzzle to underwhelm me. Just missed my target yet again.

    FOI SIR
    LOI BUS
    COD PARENTHESIS
    TIME 20:19

  26. …though later filled in online and managed to get a pink square. Groan.

    CAPSIZING and SPOOR were the last two in.

  27. Pleasant puzzle, moderately hard, half an hour, got it done but several were biffed and assumed – e.g. 8d probably an anagram, didn’t see the hidden; GUPPY something to do with a puppy gutted; LOI was GABON took too long to see that until had the G. CoD for me was DOGMA for the amusement. CAPSIZING was good too if it’s original, I didn’t remember it as a chestnut.
    JerryW – completing this in a good time on a phone while tramping in the rain along the Pennine Way is an impressive feat, assuming you were not still lingering over a Full English.
    1. didn’t notice was logged out, yet again, although it used to keep me logged in.
  28. When I was a northern lad I used occasionally to go down to London. But having lived in it for over 50 years I now expect northerners to come up here on the up train 😊
  29. I was on the wavelength apparently. No real trouble here, although I waited for the checkers before entering SHORTSTOP. ‘Position of diamonds’ wasn’t convincing. LOI I think was BUS. Regards.
  30. Further to the above comments, SOED has:

    upper

    (a) (of part of a region) situated on high or higher ground, further inland or to the north;

  31. I felt like I was making very heavy weather of this, rather than it being a really active stinker… but still, let’s just say it was rather tough for a Monday!
  32. 22:47. Took ages to find a foothold but once I got going I seemed to find the wavelength as it all came together ok. Like others I assumed earthenware was an anagram and entered it without bothering to check. LOIs were sub and shortstop. Viewpoint was only fully parsed post solve with game a nicely hidden anagram indicator. Very enjoyable.
  33. Got there in the end, but failed to parse “Guppy” and “Punch Up” – that’s two tricky Monday puzzles in succession by my reckoning.
  34. Beaten by the upper-west corner: BACKDRAUGHT, BUS and SHORTSTOP. I’d always assumed a SHORTSTOP was one of the larval stages of a cricketer.

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