Times 27,653: Cabbages And Kings

Author   verlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Another puzzle a little too close to “moderate” rather than “eye-watering” difficulty for my Fridayfied tastes, though I’ll be the first to admit there was some clever and elegant stuff in here. The two definition parts in the top row are very good, plus there are some impressive anagrams and a satisfying amount of literary (litterateurish?) nods, to the likes of Shakespeare, Sheridan, O Henry, Livy and James Clavell. COD to 1ac for being a crossword clue about crossword setting, but I also liked 26ac: I wonder if the queen is too old to go for jaunts in the Hebrides these days, sad to think so. We must hope that she lasts for many decades yet just so that we don’t have to contend with “former monarch” and other such clumsiness in our crosswords!

Thanks to the setter for the entertainment. Can it really be May already? How time flies when you’re forbidden to leave the house and have fun…

ACROSS
1 Give some relief to setter rejected by editor? (6)
EMBOSS – ME [the setter] reversed by BOSS [the setter’s editor, by any other name!]

4 Put pins around seat covers tailor’s edging (8)
STRADDLE – SADDLE [seat] “covers” T{ailo}R. That’s “pins” as in your legs, here.

10 Rubbish a true novel writer (11)
LITTERATEUR – LITTER [rubbish] + (A TRUE*) [“novel”]

11 Dry period quickly over (3)
SEC – double def, where the second definition is the shortened form of “second”

12 Stuff in vacuous policy papers is a wonder (7)
PYRAMID – RAM [stuff] in P{olic}Y ID

14 Drive into Split, fencing off some land (4-3)
REAR-END – REND [split] “fencing off” ARE [some land]

15 Who and what, say, could produce tergiversation (14)
INTERROGATIVES – (TERGIVERSATION*)

17 People following old lady in bleak, poor state (6,8)
BANANA REPUBLIC – PUBLIC [people], following NANA [old lady] in BARE [bleak]

21 Big bird, head hidden in fear (7)
TITANIC – TIT + {p}ANIC

22 Dressed down in the past, Conservative kept out of sight (7)
CHIDDEN – C + HIDDEN

23 Outline of waist, flipping round figure (3)
TWO – reversed W{ais}T + O [round]

24 The French forward is wearing old lady’s slip (11)
MALAPROPISM – LA PROP IS, “wearing” MAM

26 Monarch visiting Skye, perhaps, back in castle (8)
ELSINORE – reverse all of E.R. ON ISLE, which scenario *could* take place on Skye.

27 Agreeing place for plug on the radio (2,4)
IN SYNC – homophone of IN SINK, which is where you might expect to find a plug

DOWN
1 Summon up gripping excerpt of heavenly event (8)
ECLIPTIC – reversed CITE [summon] “gripping” CLIP

2 Bee wings in August flutter (3)
BAT – B [bee] + A{ugus}T. Woe BETide the biffer who didn’t go to BAT on this one!

3 Ship‘s cook? (7)
STEAMER – double def, if “cook” can be “one who steams”.

5 Risk screening for one key film (3,5,6)
THE GREAT ESCAPE – THREAT [risk] “screening” E.G., plus ESCAPE [(keyboard) key]

6 Display burden on one vehicle (3,4)
AIR TAXI – AIR TAX on I

7 Untidy woman in low bar was first to drink litres (11)
DISHEVELLED – SHE in DIVE, plus LED “drinking” L

8 Make cryptic once out of French (6)
ENCODE – (ONCE*) [“out”] + DE [of, in French]

9 Roughly treated a cold — a virus right in a bodily system (14)
CARDIOVASCULAR – CA [roughly] + (A COLD A VIRUS*) [“treated…”] + R

13 Disavowals from radical or a centrist (11)
RETRACTIONS – (OR A CENTRIST*) [“radical…”]

16 Online magazine keeps running commercial (8)
ECONOMIC – E-COMIC “keeps” ON

18 An entertaining banker’s nickname (7)
AGNOMEN – AN “entertaining” GNOME [banker, as in “of Zurich”]

19 Place to learn mawkishness, a thing of legend (7)
UNICORN – UNI [place to learn] + CORN [mawkishness]

20 Figure‘s appeal, eating junk (6)
STATUE – SUE [appeal (legally)] “eating” TAT

25 Historian, no end of social climber (3)
IVY – LIVY [Roman historian (of the first century BC)] minus {socia}L

56 comments on “Times 27,653: Cabbages And Kings”

  1. I had BET at first, but was not betid by woe, as I finally returned to the clue and did a proper solve. I persisted too long with a couple of wrong ideas: that ‘rubbish’ at 10ac was TAT, that the PY of ‘policy’ were first and last letters of the solution (so I toyed with PRODIGY). Biffed THE GREAT ESCAPE and BANANA REPUBLIC, solved post-submission; biffed STRADDLE, and didn’t: I took ‘seat covers’ to be S__T, and could make nothing, naturally, of RADDLE. I assumed (assume) that a forward in rugby or soccer is called a PROP.
    1. A prop forward is one of those big beefy types who contest a scrum in rugby.
  2. I liked this one, with not many write-ins but no major hold-ups. Not hard by Friday standards, but I enjoyed the steady flow of PDMs. I finished in the NW corner with LITTERATEUR as LOI. I agree with V on 1ac and 26, but also liked STRADDLE and many others.

    Thanks, V, for the early blog and to the setter.

    1. How often do you update your list of SNITCH solvers please? I’ve passed the 20+ mark now I think so was wondering when I should start looking out for my own stats.
      1. Thanks for the question, I need to update the status manually, but I’ll add you in.
      2. Hi Penfold, welcome to the SNITCH reference list! I’ve included you in the list for the last week and you should come up routinely from now on.
  3. I thought of “eclipse” right away but there were too many blanks, and ECLIPTIC to me was a noun; but I don’t know what I imagined the adjectival form of “eclipse” might be, otherwise.

    I needed the wordplay for most of these, and in any case I always like to approach them from that end, so the only ones I biffed were THE GREAT ESCAPE (parsed before coming here, though!) and BANANA REPUBLIC (almost had it parsed, but forgot to look again).

    Does ECONOMIC have to mean “commercial,” or is that only under the iron reign of capitalism? (Rhetorical question.)

    Edited at 2020-05-01 03:43 am (UTC)

  4. I went out to BAT! Like Kevin I had earlier popped in BET – I returned to it but BAT being a popular dish hereabouts I thought I’d avoid it!

    FOI 8dn ENCODE

    COD 24ac MALAPROPISM from IKEA. 5dn CARDIOVASCULAR does entertain hints of old lady’s wear.

    WOD 17ac BANANA REPUBLIC – more clothing for the elderly.

    I initially had my head in the sand at 21ac with OSTRICH!
    And I thought 4ac was SELVEDGE with LEGS being ‘pins’. It wasn’t!

    After 70 mins I can get back to my life/wife! She’s just back from the flower market – with a bonsai magnolia. Whatever next!?

    1. I thought of SELVEDGE too; fortunately I couldn’t see how it would work, not to mention not knowing what selvedge is.
      1. is a country market stall where greens etc can be purchased. (Ambrose Bierce)
      2. Or, less humourously, a differently patterned edging on a garment.
    2. Got my head down in the sand too with “ostrich” – it looked so convincing, full marks to setter. I know selvages (edges) from dressmaking – they’re the side edge of the fabric that’s woven so as not to fray. Luckily it didn’t occur to me.
  5. Finally subscribing to the online version, rather than treeware weeks late in Oz. Very slow at 59 mins, but blaming the electronic interface rather than neuronal insufficiency. Still resorted to pen and paper for the TERGIVERSATION anagram. The requisite cricket related reference appears to be missing today. Or was it the catch as a Nina in the NW? (A rugby term made its customary appearance).
    Thanks to Verlaine and setter.
  6. Brilliant anagram at 15 ac. BAT FOI. BANANA REPUBLIC LOI. Did not parse THE GREAT ESCAPE. Liked AGNOMEN.

    24′, thanks verlaine and setter.

  7. I enjoyed this a lot, which is a good thing seeing that it took me 50 minutes. One of those crosswords where it turned out that I was closer to the right answer a lot more often than I’d thought along the way.

    A few biffs (luckily not 2d) along the way helped out, as it would’ve taken me quite some time to parse 17a BANANA REPUBLIC or 24a MALAPROPISM, especially as I’d assumed the definition was “old lady’s slip”… What really didn’t help was not just remembering the wrong nomen for 18d but also trying to put it in 16d, where COGNOMEN is the right length. D’oh.

    FOI 2d BAT LOI 20d STATUE once 26a ELSINORE had finally sprung to mind. COD 1a EMBOSS, WOD MALAPROPISM.

  8. Struggling after 30 minutes on this last night I retired hurt. Returning this morning with renewed energy I managed to complete it. There were a few unknowns where the wordplay got me to the solution: AGNOMEN, ECLIPTIC and LITTERATEUR which seemed vaguely familiar as a French word but I didn’t know it had made its way to English and if left to my own devices I’d have spelt ‘literateur’. MER at STEAMER for ‘cook’.
  9. 25 mins pre-run (don’t laugh), pre-brekker.
    Things I like: French forward in lady’s slip and 16dn, great surface.
    Things not so keen on: resorting to words like Chidden. Good grief.
    Thanks setter and V.
    1. Hardy’s poem Neutral Tones describes the sun being “white as though chidden of God.” Nice bit of pathetic fallacy about the ending of a relationship on a winter’s day.
  10. I was in the BET camp unlike everyone else so far, should have concentrated more. Flutter can of course mean either and the be are the bee’s wings, but the t doesn’t work.

    Impressive 14-letter single word anagram at 15ac, was the whole crossword constructed around it, I wonder.

    COD: IVY, simple but join between wordplay and definition very good.

    Yesterday’s answer: for nearly 250 years England had two universities and Scotland had 4.

    Today’s question: which Shakespeare character has the most lines (in a single play)?

    1. Shakespeare’s been in detention since 1616; St. Crispin has made him write out 1,000 lines* a day (except for Sundays, Christmas Day and 23 April). Will you do the math?

      *’Why did I make so many schoolboys/schoolgirls detest me? Truly sorry!’ The schoolgirls was added recently, by Gove!

    2. I suspect my answer would be that *that* is the question.
  11. An insult that’s been thrown at many countries in my time, including our own. 46 minutes. LOI STRADDLE. FOI THE GREAT ESCAPE. I saw the number of letters in each word and found I was already whistling the tune. COD to INTERROGATIVES, once the why and wherefore penny dropped.. I’ve always called it rear-wheel drive, if that was what 14a was about. I never felt on top of this one and was relieved when it finished in a rush. Thank you V and setter.
    1. If you drive into the car in front of you, you’re said to REAR-END it.
  12. 18:24. Held up by a horryd-like OSTRICH at 21A and a flaky REDEEM at 1A (RE = to, ME ED reversed). The BAT showed me the error of my ways for the latter and CARDIOVASCULAR the former…. one of a pair of great 14-letter anagrams. FOI PYRAMID, LOI AGNOMEN COD to IN SYNC. Thanks V and setter.
    1. You should have called the cops – as I do have pretty good alibi, unless this hold-up took place in Shanghai.
      I’m not sure there are any 21as in these parts.

      Well done on the ‘Special’. V. Impressive! – You are presently the ‘Special One’. I will appeal to everyone, including the ‘QC Squad’ to have a bash this month. If anything happens to you…..!

      I myself managed to finished last Month’s ‘Clubly’ Special before Noon on 1 April – with no pink squares, but a little help from Avril Poisson!

  13. Just over 20 minutes, submitting with a certain hesitation (and quite a bit of delay because SEC because I couldn’t work out what CES (…over) had to do with anything and there are other possible middle letters (sic).
    ELSINORE was my other delay – wondering how to fit some sort of monarch (butterfly?) into an anagram of Skye. Finally remembered the home of the morose and verbose (hint, I think) fantasist. I mean, a ghost told me, your honour. Really?
    I didn’t manage to parse TGE, but then I couldn’t parse The Great Gatsby either when I thought it was that.
    CoD probably to the improbable anagram at 15, but the cluing overall was of a very high standard.
  14. Excellent crossword. Just the right level of difficulty to test me on a Friday (or any other day now that they are all the same). Bat, catch and virus in one crossword?
    Bonsai magnolia? What does it look like in winter? Somewhere to hang mugs?
  15. Dear Mr. Sawbill – this one is of the evergreen variety and so in winter it looks much like in does in the summer.
    Here’s a nice picture of my mug! Have a good week-end wherever you may be. Meldrew
  16. 35:38
    Nice puzzle – had a lot of fun with this. Thanks v.
  17. Enjoyed this. Bottom half (which is where I usually start) went in very quickly. Top half delayed by an initial inability to spell litterateur (and wondering what a US measure had to do with anything) and a misguided attempt to fit the clue for 7d into the space for 5d. Whether this was down to eyesight or stupidity is open to debate.

    But some nice clues.

  18. 15:35 and I very much enjoyed this. Like our Shanghai correspondent I wanted 21a to be OSTRICH, as I had the T as letter 3 and I’m pretty sure the setter wanted to lead us down that particular garden path. After the third time of failing to parse it I left it until I had more letters.

    Like Z I was fooled by “over” in the clue for SEC and tried to justify SAC as CES? wasn’t making sense.

    COD to ELSINORE but there were plenty of candidates.

  19. Just over an hour and after all that I did what the setter wanted me to do and dutifully entered ‘bet’ at 2d. Enough said.
  20. A real biff-fest for me. The four central long ones, ECLIPTIC, DISHEVELLED, PYRAMID, and so on including ELSINORE (it is the Times after all)

    A pity because some of the cryptic wordplays are very good.

  21. As our esteemed blogger suggests, a very pleasing puzzle; not a Friday Beast, but enough for most of us to think about. Nice clueing of long words, especially the unexpected anagram of tergiversation. Delayed at the end by something that can only happen to long-time crossword solvers, assuming that the banker must be a river, and being surprised when it turns out to be a banker after all. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
  22. ….although I think Her Maj is probably a long time past “twice a (k)night”. So an ex-monarch isn’t really a thing V. Thank you for parsing BANANA REPUBLIC, THE GREAT ESCAPE, and CARDIOVASCULAR. The last of those three saw me spend 2 minutes or so playing with the incorrect anagrist !

    A very slow start, but then plugged steadily away to a satisfying finish.

    DNK LITTERATEUR, and was mildly thrown by the double T.

    My COD is awarded for the use of MAM, a term much used in the neighbouring Badlands of Wythenshawe.

    FOI CHIDDEN
    LOI BANANA REPUBLIC
    COD MALAPROPISM
    TIME 18:17

    Edited at 2020-05-01 10:20 am (UTC)

  23. Hats off to setter for a brilliant trap at 2 down into which I fell like a heffalump. The perils of overbiffing.
  24. 16:58. Chewy this, and very good although like our Dorset correspondent I biffed quite a lot, which I just can’t resist doing even though it detracts from the enjoyment. Fortunately I didn’t think of flutter=BET or I would no doubt have biffed that too.
  25. Phil, lay off the schoolboy stuff – offensive in a minor but genuine way to some. Regard thyself as chidden (lovely old word). 27.15 after wrestling with bet/bat. Surprised by the letter bee and the flutter meaning. Otherwise a delightfully ingenious set-up at times, esp. Elsinore and the long anag. Also liked 17 somehow.
  26. BET and ELLIPTIC. If there is a mantra(p) trust me to fall into it/them. 24:18.

    I enjoyed this.COD: IN SYNC.

    Edited at 2020-05-01 12:18 pm (UTC)

  27. Saw THE GREAT and immediately thought GATSBY. however never seen one of those as a key, and in any case it’s more of a book than a film. LOI LITTERATEUR NHO and as above the 2 T’s seemed wrong. However the cryptic was clear. Thought this was harder than most have made out, obviously not in tune today.
  28. Foiled by two clues today: AGNOMEN, which I’ve never heard of (and had forgotten that ‘banker’ can give you ‘gnome’) and REAR-END, for which I put ROAD-END, thinking it was a word meaning drive going into split, so ‘oad’ (‘goad’ with fencing off) into ‘rend’. Never mind.

    Otherwise this was fun. I hesitated over LITTERATEUR with the double t but worked out that, of the two possible anagram indicators, one of them was at least cluing an anagram to give part of the answer. AIR TAXI took me far too long to see, but MALAPROPISM was a lovely clue, as was THE GREAT ESCAPE.

  29. Managed not to fall into the BET trap, with BAT my FOI. I was however held up by an OSTRICH until my CARDIOVASCULAR system came to the rescue. ELSINORE kept me busy for quite a while. AGNOMEN took a while too. All in all a tricky puzzle which I was relieved to complete in 43:34. Thanks setter and V.
  30. Far too hard for me – also nearly fell into the Ostrich trap but recovered just in time. Got CARDIOVASCULAR, ELSINORE, THE GREAT ESCAPE, STRADDLE – well quite a few of them without having a clue how or why (more interrogatives!)

    18d put me in mind of Lombard for a banker’s nickname – one from the 80s there! Even though I did actually have all the checkers, it really didn’t help. All in all a shocking day – in fact it’s been a bit of a rubbish week. Hope it’s more fun next week.

    FOI Ivy (yes, I had to go to the bitter end)
    COD Titanic
    DNF

  31. A fair bit tougher than the other puzzles this week, or at least it was for me. Not sure about time as my first stopwatch failed courtesy of the battery on my iPad dying but I reckon combined time was around 40 minutes. Took an age to get going with pyramid my FOI, emboss was the ultimate.

    Some clever wordplay I thought with spectacular anagrams. COD agnomen but straddle chidden and malapropism came close.

  32. Most satisfying solve of the week! Is ARE = “some land” this unit of measurement I see in Collins? Or is it ARE(A)?
  33. 36:52. I dipped a toe and soon found I was happily immersed in this solve always somehow just managing to keep my head above water. I needed to correct my ostrich once it became clear that 9dn was cardiovascular. No real difficulties though just enjoyably slow and pondersome puzzling out.
  34. I think it is are the unit of measurement.. as in hectare
  35. What’s the event, the happening? The ecliptic, having existed unchanged since the creation of the earth and unchangeable until its end, is absolutely the reverse of an event. Have I missed something?
    1. I took the heavenly event to be an eclipse and the form “of heavenly event” to indicate that we were looking for the adjectival form: “ecliptic” or “of an eclipse”.
        1. Quite so. No criticism of the blog intended, the definition was clearly underlined in full!

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