Times 27,623: With A Shrug

Author   verlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
This didn’t take an awfully long time, and what it did take was mostly taken up in MERs over just what the last 4 words of 11ac were doing, and whether TERN (when not a bird) or ARP are words anyone has actually used in the past half-century. I did like 18ac a fair bit, I’m a sucker for that kind of word thing, but too many things just “went straight in” for my Fridayfied tastes. FOI 1ac, LOI 12ac, WOD 27ac (pursued by a bear). My thanks to the setter! Our daily crosswords are more important than ever in the New World Order…

ACROSS
1 Where cars wait — a road is normal (8)
STANDARD – STAND A RD [where cars wait | a | road]

5 Location for play people without exception remember (6)
RECALL – REC ALL [location for play | people without exception]

10 Drink that’s good found in New England area? (5)
NEGUS – G found in NE US

11 Lions come running _;_ this is the end (9)
SEMICOLON – (LIONS COME*) [“running”]

12 American substitute porter, perhaps welcoming group of three visiting (9)
ALTERNATE – ALE [porter, perhaps] “welcoming” TERN AT [group of three | visiting]

13 Second time to give recurring phrase (5)
MOTTO – MO T TO [second | time | to]

14 Musician with history including activity during the Blitz (7)
HARPIST – HIST “including” ARP [Air Raid Precautions]

16 Cross at hosts for displaying charm (6)
AMULET – MULE [cross] (that) AT “hosts”

18 Getting on? That’s not about getting on (6)
AGEING – AG{re}EING. Take a word for “getting on” (as in, famously), subtract a word for “about”, leaving a word for “getting on” (as in, in years).

20 Writer of plays about a person like Vermeer (7)
PAINTER – (Harold) PINTER about A

22 Trip abroad, oddly to see what Pope wears (5)
TIARA – T{r}I{p} A{b}R{o}A{d}

23 Cutting rotten carcass with it (9)
SARCASTIC – (CARCASS + IT*) [“rotten”]

25 Concert one performs vocally is likely to turn out well (9)
PROMISING – PROM I SING

26 Picture latter half of a trip to Santiago? (5)
IMAGE – {pilgr}IMAGE

27 Go off former European Union? Nicest on the outside (6)
EXEUNT – EX E.U. N{ices}T

28 Write numbers in a chain (8)
PENNINES – PEN NINES [write | numbers]

DOWN
1 Star cricketer, that man Brown? (8)
SUNBATHE – SUN BAT HE [star | cricketer | that man]

2 Worry gangster has got in (5)
ANGST – hidden in {g}ANGST{er}

3 Tied in factories with change leading to a loss of living things (15)
DESERTIFICATION – (TIED IN FACTORIES*)

4 Turn on again and relax with creative activity (7)
RESTART – REST with ART

6 Banning of former contact (15)
EXCOMMUNICATION – EX COMMUNICATION

7 Where people grow things for sharing (9)
ALLOTMENT – double def

8 See new sign of agreement over City (6)
LONDON – LO N + reversed NOD

9 Animal in a cell — a second has been regularly raised (6)
AMOEBA – A MO + reversed {h}A{s} B{e}E{n}

15 Get angry about blasted Margo’s fuss (9)
RIGMAROLE – RILE [get angry] about (MARGO*) [“blasted”]

17 Biscuits or nuts (8)
CRACKERS – double def

19 Casual chat and drink after work with son (6)
GOSSIP – SIP [drink] after GO [work] with S

20 Clothing caught by épée awfully near point (7)
PERIGEE – RIG “caught” by (EPEE*)

21 Important one goes through papers? (6)
STAPLE – double def

24 Couple, the first on the wagon (5)
TWAIN – T{he} on WAIN

80 comments on “Times 27,623: With A Shrug”

  1. No doubt I should try to keep up, but shall we need a glossary soon? Could some kind soul please decrypt MER for me? And while we’re at it, what’s the SNITCH? Thanks in advance
    1. Slight MER (minor eyebrow raise) from me; we’ve had a glossary for a while. The link (on PC, maybe not on phone) is towards the top right of the page. Where there is also a link to the SNITCH: Same-day Numerical Index of Times Crossword Hardness.Very well described on its pages.
      Entertaining but not over-taxing crossword, 15 minutes so under my nitch. No NHOs, I even had a vague idea about ARP from ARP wardens… maybe from Lovelock’s autobiography? Or Deighton’s SS-GB? Couldn’t have decoded the acronym, though.
      1. Thank you to those who replied. As one of you suggested, the glossary isn’t obvious if you access the site on a phone. I normally take a quick sneak first thing in the morning to see comments but am not a regular contributor.
    2. We don’t need a glossary, since we have one, and have had for some time: go to the Links at the upper right of the page. Ditto for the SNITCH.
    3. Yes .. the glossary, which explains both MER and SNITCH, is accessible from the links upper right of every page. They are easy to see on a pc but on a phone you have to click on “categories,” and then if you scroll down the links appear
    4. “The Snitch” – could it be that thing that Harry Potter bangs around his celestial games court ? I can’t see why, but the only other snitch I know of refers to a “Tattletale” and that doesn’t appear to make sense either!!
      1. I have since been told about the glossary, which doesn’t show up on my phone (hence my query) but is visible on the laptop. Somewhere up in the top right corner. You should find the SNITCH defined there
  2. I was surprised to learn that ALTERNATE=(N) substitute is an American usage; I wasted some time trying to get it into the wordplay. No idea about AGEING; ta V. DNK ARP, but figured it was Air Raid Something. MO is clued twice as ‘second’: 13ac, 9d; once too often? Now that I understand it, COD to AGEING.
    1. In Dad’s Army, Mainwaring’s adversary was Mr Hodges, the air raid warden, whose white hat I well remember inscribed with the letters ARP. Never knew what it stood for so thanks V for that!
  3. I had no confidence in my LOI HARPIST, not thinking that arp could mean anything. I also wondered if a horn player could be a hornist, as to me orn made as much sense as arp. So thanks to Verlaine for clearing that up and my unparsed AGEING. And ongoing thanks to the setters for giving us some daily relief from the current wretched situation – as V says, more important to us now than ever.
  4. 45 minutes with a one letter error. I’ve apparently met PERIGREE before in 2012 but perhaps it had friendlier wordplay on that occasion as I didn’t report a problem with it. Today, faced with needing a word for clothing to fit R?G I plumped rather hastily for RAG.

    Elsewhere, I’ve never heard of a ‘car stand’ although ‘bus stand’ has recently come to my attention in the jargon of bus companies when I consult their timetables on-line.

    Not sure I get ‘in the end’ in 11ac as a semicolon is never an end, only a pause.

    NHO TERN as a group of three.

    I had no idea what was going on in wordplay at 18ac, though to be fair I hadn’t given it quite the same consideration as if I’d been on blogging duty.

    Never knew the Pope wears a TIARA but at least it made me smile to imagine him in what I understand by the word!

    Didn’t get the other religious reference in wordplay at 26ac either.

    Edited at 2020-03-27 07:33 am (UTC)

    1. I’ve never seen ‘stand’ alone, or ‘bus stand’, but I’ve often enough seen ‘taxi stand’.
      1. Yes, I’ve seen that too. In fact now that you’ve mentioned it I think I’ve been aware of ‘taxi stand’ for most of my adult life. I still maintain that few people if anybody in the UK uses the expression ‘car stand’.
        1. And I thought it was the reverse; but I really don’t know who says which. I think I say ‘stand’ if I say anything.
      1. Yes, that point has already been made and I’ve already responded to it.
      1. I simply accepted that it was a misprint for “cab” and moved on.
  5. 17:47. I failed to parse AGEING, which is a shame, as it’s probably the best clue today, now I’ve seen how it works – thanks, V, and ALTERNATE, wondering what a “trenat” was. NHO TERN and had no idea what ARP stood for. LOI AMOEBA which was slow to emerge from the primordial soup of my brain. As for EXEUNT, it was just Antigonus who exited pursued by a bear, so that would be an “exeat”. I played that part in my school production of A Winter’s Tale.
    2. “exeat” is Latin for “let him go out” or “he may go out”, not to be confused with “exit”, “he goes out”.
      “exeunt” is just the plural of “exit”… if you wanted to pluralise “exeat” that would have to be “exeant”.
      SIMPLE REALLY (not).
  6. 49 minutes. How on earth did so many of you find this straightforward? I had most trouble on my side of the PENNINES. When you can see the top of Pendle Hill, it’s going to rain. When you can’t, it’s started. LOI was the easy PROMISING when the STAPLE finally penetrated. ALTERNATE was a biff. I knew it could mean substitute but didn’t recognise that as an Americanism and didn’t know TERN for a threesome. I spent forever on the wretched DESERTIFICATION anagram, and only then did I see NEGUS going for a song. I didn’t remember it was a drink. COD to IMAGE. I got stuck too often to enjoy this puzzle, and hate long anagrams apart from when I get them, but thank you V and setter.
  7. Just inside my 6V target at 34 minutes. Clearly not typical Friday fare, but then we did have a tough start to the week. Now I understand 18A (thanks V) it’s definitely COD for me, though it went in with a shrug at the time. Thanks V and setter.

    As I oscillate between the stress of trying to save two businesses and the boredom of no sport, travel or going out, crosswords are the oases of calm distraction. I have the paperback Times Cryptic Crossword books vols 1-5 just in case the Internet goes west with everything else.

    On the upside, we have no reported cases of the virus here in Orkney, and nobody from outside is allowed on the ferries during the lockdown. With that and the likely disappearance of most, if not all, of our usual 150 cruise liners this year, my friends in the tourist industry are very scared; no help for them appears to be forthcoming from the SNP as yet, so many may not survive. Sad.

    1. Hope all works out for you and your friends. Tough times indeed.
  8. I’ve lost track of days. A careless DNF for me with Peragee wrong (and I’m a scientist!). Lots of people on the street last night whooping and a ‘ollering – had to go out and tell em to naff off. Thanks to crossword setters and bloggers for keeping us all safe!
  9. I took an age getting started on this one, eventually (after five minutes or more) kicking off with 23a SARCASTIC. I think I had one of those mornings where the first couple in the NW didn’t fall and then my random trawl around the rest of the grid lighted on all the ones I found hardest by sheer bad luck.

    Anyway, once I got started the hardest parts were marked by lack of GK, like having no idea that the Pope wore a tiara (I see, according to Wikipedia, that a Pope hasn’t worn the Papal tiara in my lifetime) or that Santiago was a pilgrimage destination. ARP did ring a vague bell when I finally thought of HARPIST, at least—possibly, as observed above, from Dad’s Army…

    FOI 23a SARCASTIC LOI 21d STAPLE, WOD RIGMAROLE, total time: 47 minutes.

      1. Fair point. Now enjoying the image of the Pope secretly putting on his tiara and giggling to himself in the mirror.
      1. Gosh. You’d have to have a lot of faith in the rope, let alone anything else…
    3. In wartime is the papal tiara inscribed with ARP? (The parpal tiara?)

      Edited at 2020-03-27 10:46 pm (UTC)

  10. Too slow, spent ages on AMOEBA. My mind kept thinking we’ve already had second being MO in 13ac and wouldn’t go there again.

    Didn’t know TERN was a group of three, it’s usually a seabird.

    Is 11ac “; <-this is the [solution].”?

    LOI: AMOEBA
    COD: 23ac SARCASTIC, I love a misleading surface.

    Yesterday’s answer: the number of countries with Z in reduced by one when Swaziland changed its name to Eswatini in April 2018. Inspired by TANZANIA

    Today’s question: which companies’ mottos are (a) Think, (b) Think different, (c) Don’t be evil and (d) Democracy dies in darkness?

  11. 25′ but without AGEING, thanks for the parsing.

    The Hodges character is a gross caricature of the very important job done by ARP Wardens, the best of whom had high standing in the community and would know who lived where and even in what rooms they slept. Still, that’s comedy for you.

    Thanks verlaine and setter.

  12. 11:47. No particular problems with this, although I didn’t understand (and still don’t) 11ac SEMICOLON or the ARP bit of HARPIST. Like pootle I worried a bit that it might be ORN.
    I narrowly avoided a silly mistake at 3dn, having put in DIS___IFICATION as the most likely pattern based on the definition. Of course I forgot to correct the I when I put in the missing ERT but fortunately I spotted the mistake when I checked my answers.
  13. 40 mins with yoghurt, etc.
    I was going to say I hadn’t heard of Negus and Perigee – but somewhere at the very edges of my mind they are tinkling muted bells.
    Thanks setter and V.
  14. No problems apart from not parsing the excellent AGEING. Even remembered MULE for cross which is not normally the case. I presumed that ‘this is the end’ referred to the ‘;’ being the end of the clue. Doesn’t quite work for me.
  15. Nice comfortable puzzle that one could solve by just chugging along at an easy pace.

    ARP Wardens were vital people. They sounded the air raid sirens (once heard never forgotten) and most importantly enforced the blackout. They worked hand in glove with the Home Guard. Dad’s Army is humorous fiction.

    1. Hi, Jim. Dad’s Army was humorous fiction of course but like all great humour,it, and I’d venture every character in it, was based on more than a grain of truth.
    2. I remember my parents had a book called ARP by JS Haldane. It was on the bookshelf in my bedroom. I was so desperate for books when I was 10 that I tried to read it. It was 1950 – a time of paper shortages and family poverty. I did find out what ARP stood for but that was about it. I had more luck with H.G. Wells’ “Short History of the World” which was next to ARP on the shelf. It’s strange the things that stick in your memory after such a long time…
  16. This felt easy, bit surprised at some finding it not so.
    Negus well known to the Heyer brigade, it is a foul-sounding alcoholic hot drink
    My father supplied the anti-aircraft defence of Salisbury in the Battle of Britain and he always had the very highest respect for ARP, fire watchers, and other civilian wardens as well as the Red Cross & Salvation Army. He used to say, at least I could fire back ..
  17. 26 minutes, quite a lot spent on the long anagram at 3d, wondering if desterification was a thing, the American porter and the animal at 9d. It didn’t help that I thought ATTENDANT was a possible alternate.
    Those of us of a certain vintage can remember Arthur Negus in “Going for a Song” cheerfully displaying impeccable knowledge on the antiques placed in front of him.
    I liked, once I saw its meaning, the animal in a cell definition. And the Prom I sing.
  18. I always thought ARP stood for “Air Raid Patrol” and didn’t know about the ‘American substitute’ so I’ve learnt something from today’s puzzle. I liked the ‘Animal in a cell’ def for AMOEBA and look forward to seeing ‘pseudopodia’ in a crossword some day.

    A few hold-ups with the wrong part of speech initially entered for 6d and being slow to get the long anagram for 3d. Finished in 47 minutes.

  19. … between me and Verlaine was well exemplified by this puzzle; I had the top half polished off in good time but struggled along with the lower part, even with EXEUNT in early and TIARA, it took an age to see the nice PROM I SING and the easy STAPLE. LOI was PERIGEE where I had to resort to a word finder. I did know what a perigee was, c.f. apogee, but was totally flummoxed for a definition, not seeing “near point” as one thing. No complaints, it’s a good crossword, I’m just dim this morning. 35 minutes. 14a get my CoD for the Blitz reference ARP which I remembered from Dad’s Army and my Grandfather having a helmet. Didn’t bother to parse IMAGE but now I see it, it’s brilliant.
  20. A Mer at Hist – sounds like a school abbreviation such as Lat. Failed to parse 18 and 26; and the open door of 2 took a time to go through. Easy for a Friday but maybe the days are no longer different, the desertification of the calendar is upon us and soon each day of the week will simply be DAY. My time, while time can still be seen as something less than infinite – 28’30.
    1. The Oxfords have no truck with ‘hist’ as an abbreviation. Collins on-line has it, but only in their American section lifted from Websters, it’s not in printed Collins. But Chambers has it without any reservations.

      I don’t recall seeing it myself as an abbreviation for ‘history’, but I’m sure I’ve come across it in italics in dictionaries (probably Chambers!) standing for ‘historical’ and used to explain the origins of some words.

      Edited at 2020-03-27 11:44 am (UTC)

      1. I think hist. together with lat. and div. featured in the text of Down with Skool. Unfortunately I can’t find my copy to check. But I did find that, according to Molesworth 1, “History started badly and hav been getting steadily worse.”
  21. Took a while to get started but once TWAIN went (thanks Wainwright) the SE went in very quickly, and I realised that the dreaded Friday puzzle was a wimp. A few MER’s and then finished with NEGUS which had to be something other than an antiques expert. Tx V for explaining my biffs.
  22. I thought it was going to be a “pianist” at 14a with past=history until 1d settled that. And I’d always thought it was Air Raid Post until now – you learn something from these puzzles. ARP duty comes up in Barbara Pym along with black-out curtains. I’ve been an ALTERNATE juror a couple of times and didn’t realize it was an Americanism. When I first came to NYC I was puzzled by the “no standing” signs at bus stops (I mean how could you wait for a bus without standing) until someone told me the sign told drivers they couldn’t park or stop their vehicles there. 18.21
  23. ….riled me. If I get angry I fume or rage. To rile is to make angry. I’m convinced that the second word of 1A should be “cabs”. I shall leave my views on 3D until later.

    After 12 minutes, I was left with the NW corner (I’d biffed “motif” at 13A, but LONDON soon fixed that). My time was then extended by 50%.

    Wot, no “rom” ? Perhaps that’s what caused the “duh” moment before my LOI (I briefly considered “argot”).

    To solve 3D I needed to write out the anagrist, eliminate those letters already in the grid, then eliminate the letters not yet present for it to end in “ification”, having used all the I’s at that point insert the ‘e’, and then juggle the four remaining letters. Frankly, it was more trouble than it was worth – as, I’m afraid, was the puzzle as a whole.

    FOI SEMICOLON (would have been COD if not for the needless four words after ; Verlaine, as usual, has it right)

    LOI ALTERNATE (didn’t know the usage)

    COD AGEING (belonged in a better puzzle)

    TIME 17:44

    1. To be fair to the setter, Phil, you can get someone angry as well as make them so,
      1. Yes, you can get SOMEONE angry, but the clue is simply “get angry”, so for me it’s dodgy.
    2. Re the last four words of 11ac. Are they needless? A semicolon is used to separate two clauses so something needs to follow it for the surface to work.
  24. AGEING is a wonderful thing for wine and crossworders.

    ARP was rather easy if one was familiar with WWII, or at least with Richmal Crompton’s ‘Just William’ books. I was about thirteen when I found out that Richmal was a woman!

    I thought this puzzle was OK and my 45 minutes I was in reasonably respectable company. I worked east to west.

    FOI 7dn ALLOTMENT

    LOI 12ac ALTERNATE

    COD 1dn SUNBATHE – eight letter star cricketers anyone?
    Subba Row? Statham’s only seven.

    WOD 20dn PERIGEE which at first I thought was PIROGUE!

    I note Brexit Boz hasn’t been isolating enough. Ironique!
    Best wishes from Shanghai, matey.

      1. Sorry, I meant to say eight letter cricketers beginning with S! Viv was well decent!
        1. And just a week ago one of the Times sportswriters – apparently a slow day – wrote up another “why Richards was better” column.
  25. STANDARD was my FOI, but I was a bit dubious about car stand. Cab would make more sense. ANGST was next and RESTART finished my progress in the NW until I returned after the rest of the puzzle was complete. I failed to see the parsing of AGEING, but RIGMAROLE convinced me it was correct. HARPIST caused no problems, familiar as I was with Mr Hodges in Dad’s Army. SUNBATHE was first to fall when I returned to the NW, followed by DESERTIFICATION, ALTERNATE and finally NEGUS. 34:05. Thanks setter and V.
    1. Taxi cabs are cars, so I didn’t raise an eyebrow. My FOI was also 1A, which sometimes is a sign of a puzzle on the easier side, as this was—even despite the unknown but guessable TERN and the utterly mystifying ARP… My LOI was also NEGUS, which I worked out from wordplay and then looked up.
  26. Not as quick as yesterday by a long chalk. 37.10. Mainly due to getting stuck in the SW quadrant for the best part of 10 minutes. Thankfully, realised 21 dn had to be staple and the rest followed in no time but too late to post a competitive result.

    The crosswords earlier this week caused me angst and over the course of the days, angst has featured pretty prominently as a solution. Maybe setters need to get out more, oh hang on they can’t! Just like the rest of us.

    Thought 26 ac was COTD but 27 was a nice combination as well. LOI gossip. FOI standard.

    1. I wonder if the enforced confinement of so many setters will lead to a new golden age of grid-filling productivity…
      1. Be nice to think so. Let’s see what next week brings. Stay healthy.
  27. 35 mins. Nice puzzle, as jim noted – like taking the little train round Wicksteed Park. A steady, pleasant trundle. Thanks setter and v.
  28. Doh! I spent twenty minutes with a big hammer trying to fit in any variant of Deforestation . . .plus a couple of spare letters . .
  29. A nice enough puzzle, I thought. I liked Amoeba, NHO any of the Negus possibilities, and thought that since cabs are cars, you could say that cars sit at a cab stand. thanks for Ageing, V, and thanks for the puzzle setter
  30. 37 minutes, with 1ac LOI – put off by that probable misprint.
    12ac really annoys me : I always want to shout “NO – you mean ALTERNATIVE!”
    As I grew up during the war, no problem with ARP in 14ac – BTW I don’t recall anyone ever saying ‘arp’
  31. 32:14. A bit of a ponderous solve for me today. RHS filled up almost entirely before I began to make inroads into the LHS. Perhaps not helped by the long anagram at 3dn being one of the last to fall. Same MER as others at car stand in 1ac. Negus at the outer limits of my recall. Either dnk or dnr tern for trio in 12ac. Failed to parse ageing at 18ac, very good. COD sarcastic.
  32. Unless i have missed it, what’s the small cross in front of ‘papers’ in the print edition doing ?
  33. Didn’t find this especially straightforward. Perhaps more distractions WFH.

    Only word I didn’t know the meaning of was PERIGEE.

  34. The only snitch I know is the ball thingy that Harry Potter bangs around his celestial games court. But I seem to remember that as a kid to snitch on somebody was to “Dob them in!!” Not very nice. Cheers, pezax.

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