Times 27679 – Can you name all eight?

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Time: 21 minutes
Music: McCoy Tyner, Focal Point

This is another easy Monday, in which there are only a few obscsure words, but those are very generously clued.  Since I have become so addicted to Mephisto, making up likely answers from cryptics no longer bothers me.   If it fits the clue and the crossing letters, in it goes.   This does lead to the occasional momble, but usually the likely answer turns out to be correct.  So it proved in this puzzle.

A few weeks back, I posted a link a cryptic puzzle created by one of our commenters, David Crooks.   For those of you who missed it hte first time around, here is the URL: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DDe_ZikINu-5po9riGrHyy027YA3wJq7/view?usp=sharing    I don’t know how many of our audience downloaded the puzzle and solved it, or whether we should go ahead and blog it, so let’s see a show of hands in the comments.   For the sake of those who have not yet tried this puzzle, please don’t give away any of the answers.

Across
1 Animal, mostly solitary, primarily inhabiting a region of Spain (9)
CATALONIA – CAT + ALON[e] + I[nhabiting] + A.   Phew!
6 Clear-headed Law Lord covering a group of islands (5)
LUCID – LU(CI)D, the Channel Islands, that is.
9 Court divided about Durer’s first artistic creation (7)
WOODCUT – WOO D[urer] CUT.   Since Durer is famous for woodcuts, misdirection is a bit lacking here.
10 Overnight accommodation with neat container for hats (7)
BANDBOX –  B AND B  + OX, very clever use of a common phrase that fits very few words.
11 Republican launching a club in African capital (5)
RABAT – R + A BAT, capital of Morocco.  
12 Sauce only served in pub by church (9)
INSOLENCE – IN(SOLE)N + C.E., stock cryptic elements.
13 Putting off creating space for books, perhaps (8)
SHELVING – Double definition.
14 Film for all to see, introducing current case (4)
ETUI – ET + U + I, a word commonly found in US crosswords because of all the luscious vowels.   It’s a needle case.
17 Long article about explosive (4)
ACHE – A + C + H.E., more stock cryptic elements.
18 Shambolic leaders bizarrely keeping one in trashy way (8)
SHODDILY – SH(ambolic) ODD(I)LY, where ‘leaders’ can evidently now be used for the first two letters.
21 Eroticism somehow of equal measure? (9)
ISOMETRIC – Anagram of EROTICISM.
22 Narcotic: retired army doctor secures more in Milan (5)
OPIUM – M.O. backwards around PIU. 
24 Eternal suffering! (7)
ABIDING – Double definition, my LOI, where I had to think a bit.
25 Small trading centre teens regularly tidy up (7)
SMARTEN – S MART + [t]E[e}N[s].
26 Figure of girl finally exuding sex appeal (5)
DIGIT – DI + [exudin]G + IT, love ‘it’ or leave ‘it’!
27 Turned out badly, lacking education (9)
UNTUTORED – Anagram of TURNED OUT.   “Lo, the poor Indian….”
Down
1 Someone who intimidates us, making us shrink back? (5)
COWER – double definition, one jocular.  
2 Problem-solving husband with foreign coins in London area (15)
TROUBLESHOOTING -T(ROUBLES, H)OOTING.  
3 Relish keeping twin-hulled vessel insured at first, in case (8)
LOCATIVE – LO(CAT, I[nsured])VE.  
4 It nourishes teachers ultimately content with nothing in Paris (8)
NUTRIENT – N.U.T. + RIEN + [conten]T.   You would have thought they’d pick a better acronym….
5 Waylay a doctor attached to American hospital (6)
AMBUSH – A M.B. + US + H, another compendium of stock cryptic elements.
6 See a girl disheartened and isolated (6)
LONELY – LO NE[l]LY.
7 Top politician press initially interviewed in church (7,8)
CABINET MINISTER – CABINET + MIN(I[nterviewed])STER, which most solvers will just biff.
8 Unusually tired, yet transfixed by unnamed person’s deftness (9)
DEXTERITY – Anagram of TIRED YET + X.   Mr X, presumably.
13 Extreme characters in Westminster touch down in African state, once (9)
SWAZILAND – SW(A,Z)I + LAND, easily biffable by those who collected stamps fifty years ago.
15 Heavily built group of little intelligence (8)
THICKSET – THICK SET, hardly cryptic.
16 Endlessly recommend imbibing a liqueur (8)
ADVOCAAT – ADVOCA(A)T[e], easily guessed even if you don’t know it.
19 Oppose son entering repeat exam (6)
RESIST –  RESI(S)T.
20 Tropical palm developed and developed, we hear (6)
GRUGRU – Sounds like GREW GREW.  Also the grub of a weevil.  
23 Vocally object to coal being obtained thus? (5)
MINED – Sounds like MIND.  

54 comments on “Times 27679 – Can you name all eight?”

  1. Twenty minutes for me. The only thing I didn’t understand was the U in LUCID since I didn’t think of “lud”. I’d never heard of GRUGRU but I just trusted the wordplay.
  2. Yeah, easy, but I did look up GRUGRU before inking it in.
  3. A biff-fest, including GRUGRU, of course. Like Guy, I checked it before submitting, but it’s not in ODE. I didn’t know until quite recently that SWAZILAND had changed its name, and I immediately forgot the new name.
  4. I tried the Crooked puzzle, wouldn’t mind seeing it blogged… not sure of wordplay of 1 AC.
    Today exceptionally easy, except for abiding which took a few minutes, and gru-gru.
  5. Raced through most of this but got stuck for a while in the SW with 20 and 24 outstanding. Eventually worked out the unknown GRUGRU from wordplay and ABIDING followed almost immediately. 27 minutes.

    I’ve been meaning to ask if others have noticed a recent change in the LJ/TFtT layout, at least as viewed on a PC. On the RH of the page there is a column in light green where I used to see a summary of the names of contributors to the page. I still get that but each entry now has about 10 short rows of text from posters’ actual messages. I find it really quite distracting as I only want to see messages in full on the main part of the screen. Has this been instigated by LJ or have I perhaps inadvertently changed a display control that I could switch off if I could find the right setting?

    Edited at 2020-06-01 07:08 am (UTC)

    1. I’m glad you mentioned this, because I find it annoying; all the more so since it includes ‘messages’ from God knows who that are usually duly deleted. I assume it’s a bad idea of LJ.
  6. Twenty minutes here, held up more by the known SWAZILAND (where I was nicely misdirected into looking for WR for “extreme characters in Westminster”) more than by the unknown GRUGRU. A nice way of easing into the week.
  7. I was held up by ETUI which I thought had to be the answer but I couldn’t remember what it meant and I couldn’t seem to parse it. I had U for “film for all to see” and I for current so where was the ET coming from? Finally I realised film and “for all to see” were separate. Nice misdirection on the part of the setter.
  8. 12:08. I stuttered a bit in getting going on this, in the end, quite easy Monday fare. I’m another who trusted to the wordplay for GRIGRU. LOI SHODDILY. Oh and I also did David’s puzzle, which I enjoyed and I think may have had a couple I failed to parse, so a blog would be welcome.
  9. 19 minutes with LOI the unknown GRUGRU, which never grew in these parts. I didn’t know the Italian for more either but the crossers gave the narcotic. COD to BANDBOX, though I liked WOODCUT too. I had digs in Tooting in 1968, but still needed most of the crossers for TROUBLESHOOTING. ‘Twas in another lifetime. I can remember the post code though. An easyish puzzle, but tricky in places. Thank you V and setter.
  10. 25 mins pre-brekker.
    I think last week I whinged about too many start/end indicators. Today we have: primarily, first, leaders (!), finally, at first, ultimately, initially.
    Etui, Grugru. I ask you!
    Thanks setter and Vinyl.
    1. I’m assuming you don’t play any Scrabble-based word games, where ETUI (or etwee as Brother Jonathan prefers it) is a regular clear-up word when you’re afflicted with a rack full of vowels !
        1. Brother Jonathan was a clue earlier this year which referred to Americans generally (Horryd made much of it as I recall). ETUI is the French original, thus it’s phonetically “etwee”, but the word has been Americanized to be alternatively spelled thus.
          1. Not Americans generally but New Englanders in particular; and so far as I know, not even to them in the last century or so. I don’t remember the particular clue, but I do remember Horryd picking up the term and using it, inappropriately, for some time. Never seen ‘etwee’, never hope to see it (it’s bad enough that ‘etui’ shows up in the NYT every 6 weeks or so).
  11. Pretty quick there, only hold-up was ABIDING/GRUGRU, the latter of which I shall add to my collection of matching-half words. Not sure why the clue for ABIDING has an exclamation mark at the end. SWAZILAND only changed to Eswatini in 2018; according to Wikipedia it was renamed partly to avoid confusion with Switzerland. Did that really happen?

    COD: OPIUM for the bit of Italian beyond the usual

    Friday’s answer: the brightest (OK, apparent magnitude) star in the night sky is Sirius

    Today’s question: what is the most recent country to adopt a new name?

      1. A tweet from POTUS states it is now Trumptonia Florida, please note or else the vicious attack dogs mi……
        Twitter feed cancelled.

  12. A pleasant restorative after my complete car crash with Friday’s puzzle, which totally defeated me. The DKs (GRUGRU, ETUI, BANDBOX) all went in from cryptics, with an apt tip of the hat to the last of those as COD. Thanks V and setter.

    After months of miserable news, I thoroughly enjoyed watching NASA TV this weekend. Congratulations to Musk, SpaceX, NASA and of course Bob and Doug. For anyone who likes space stuff, the NASA app is superb and full of wondrous pictures from Hubble and probes.

    Edited at 2020-06-01 07:41 am (UTC)

  13. Pleasant start to the week, despite a persistent dizziness keeping the screen moving. 13.41
    I like clues such as the one for WOODCUT which have a self-referential element. If the selected artist had been Dante or Dumas it might have been more of a misdirection but not as pretty.
    I’ll add my bravo to Pleasuredome’s encomium on NASA and Space-x. While on my feed I missed the moment of touchdown, the incredible achievement of landing the first stage upright on a tiny floating platform at sea never ceases to amaze. And congratulations to Bob and Doug for finding an excellent way to ride out Covid 19 isolation and for finding a more secure hideaway from America’s other sad troubles even than their President’s.
  14. Fun, if slightly quirky effort today. No problems with grugru or locative even though nho .. but I was a little startled to be expected to know not just the French for nothing, but also the Italian for more. What is this, a language lesson?!
    1. Piu turns up in musical directions, piu this and that. Also its opposite meno.

      Edited at 2020-06-01 08:05 am (UTC)

  15. Ablative, vocative….aha LOCATIVE. On paper this morning as online not working, a good thing as would never have submitted with the nho GRUGRU for fear of pink squares.

    <15′, thanks vinyl and setter.

  16. Nice easy stroll in the park. Knew GRU-GRU from Mephisto

    Tooting, part of my home territory, famous for the Granada Cinema and its fabulous Wurlitzer organ. It featured in the cinema until a flood silenced it and closed the Granada in the1970s. It has since been restored.

  17. 6:44. Easy, in spite of a couple of unknowns. I didn’t know that SWAZILAND had changed its name.
  18. 11:35
    Went about as fast as I could read the clues and type in the answers.
    Thanks v.
  19. A reasonably straightforward puzzle, although LOCATIVE and GRUGRU were unknown and constructed from wordplay. RABAT was my FOI and SHODDILY my last. 19:00. Thanks setter and Vinyl.
  20. 20dn GRU-GRU was a bit of a write from the University of life in Trini and Jamaica (flesh is macca-fat). I have always spelt it GROU-GROU. It is a very hard nut to crack!

    FOI 12ac INSOLENCE – a heinous crime at my old school.

    LOI 16dn ADVOCAAT Warninck’s I hope!

    COD 10 ac BANDBOX- Jack have you notes on ‘Variety Bandbox’??

    WOD 14ac ETUI ‘Et tui Brute?’ – detention!

    Lord Vinyl you have a somewhat obscsure word in your intro. Your slip is still showing.
    I notice our American friends are oblivious as to the goings on in 13dn SWAZILAND. Our Chinese friends are not.

    Time – just shy of 35minutes.

    Edited at 2020-06-01 09:21 am (UTC)

    1. I could look it up, but that would spoil the fun. I think it was the show that made Frankie Howerd a household name (like slop bucket).
  21. Like everyone else, I didn’t know GRUGRU but it was generously clued. Plenty of biffing today, including CABINET MINISTER (I’m not sure press = cabinet would have come easily to mind anyway), DEXTERITY and my LOI, LOCATIVE.

    An easy puzzle, and one of my top three fastest ever times, I think, in 4m 42s. One minor quibble… NUT should presumably be clued as ‘teachers once’ or similar, since the union ceased to exist in 2017, merging with ATL to become the NEU.

  22. 20’01, held up by abiding and grugru at the end, as others. A gentle work-out.
  23. ….GRU-GRU or GROO-GROO, but the hyphen seems to be mandatory in their opinion, and that chimes with me.

    I was delayed by the NW corner, and TROUBLESHOOTING in particular. Am I alone in mourning the ongoing demise of the hyphen ? Only when I finally cracked that one did DIGIT stand out like….well, a sore thumb I suppose.

    My nomination for COD accords totally with Z8b8d8k’s earlier post.

    FOI LUCID
    LOI DIGIT
    COD WOODCUT (BANDBOX also excellent)
    TIME 9:05

  24. pleasant solve- around 20-30 minutes sitting in the garden in the sunshine. Abiding LOI, after seeing the homophone at 20d. Liked etui. I have to say I don’t like clues that require knowledge of foreign words. I have never studied German, so always struggle with those sorts of clue (here I didn’t know pui- but could see it was opium).

    I also printed off the club monthly, having never tried one- are they of a similar standard to the usual crossword or are they much harder?

    Thanks setter and blogger

    1. The club monthlies are much, much harder. Most of the answers are obscure words so it’s all about the parsing (you could look at the solution to last month’s if you want confirmation of that). I’d say the Mephisto is in between the two, though also much harder than the daily.
      1. I think (without any real evidence to be fair) that the difference in difficulty between Mephisto and the club monthly comes from the grid: you get loads of checkers in barred-grid puzzles.
        1. I agree with that but I also think there are a few more non-obscurities in Mephisto which I tend to get started with.
    2. I’ve just posted a write up of May’s MCS if you want to see what kind of horrors lurk within. Don’t be put off though, they’re *meant* to keep you busy for a month! If you need any pointers to make progress on the monthly if you get stuck I would be happy to help out.
      1. thanks for the replies, I will have a look at last month’s as suggested
        notreve
  25. Relaxed solve – no real problems.

    All correct in 29.00 dead.

    Thank you to setter and blogger.

    Dave.

  26. you should have thrown caution to the wind, and biffed your way through, rather than parsing everything before writing it in.
  27. A good proportion of that time spent wondering how likely it was that the word GRUGRU actually existed, before concluding there was no possible alternative which was more likely. Otherwise very Mondayish…it is Monday, isn’t it? (I woke up convinced it was Sunday).
  28. 15.30 which I thought might be a bit slow today but I’ll check earlier entries to see. Enjoyable for me, good clueing even allowing for the obscure grugru- rather better than the beast in Saturday’s Jumbo which even after unveiling all the link clues proved impenetrable. Those of you who had a go will no doubt recognise the answer I refer to- no more of those please. Could have been Klingon for all I knew.
    Back to today. FOI Catalonia-ole! LOI Abiding. COD Swaziland but liked Shelving and Troubleshooting.
  29. I solved most of this apart from the NW before stopping the clock and doing the QC.
    Then came back and finished in total of 29:01. Very quick for me. LOI was 2d where I had assumed early on that Ealing was the part of London I needed. GRUGRU a guess guess.
    Good fun. David
  30. but then ABIDING, GRUGRU and BANDBOX stretched that out to 17:12. Still happy with that though!
  32. Another Good Day here. I was happy to get GRUGRU and LOCATIVE from wordplay, as I NHO either of them, and although ETUI was initially a stab in the dark, when I focused on parsing it, it all became clear. I was a little hesitant about ABIDING but turns out it was ok. Lots of fun on the way – WOODCUT, BANDBOX and TROUBLESHOOTING were all lovely clues.

    FOI Catalonia
    LOI Etui
    COD Opium
    Time 22m

    Thanks setter and Vinyl

  34. Only held up by checking grugru, maybe could have done with a couple more hurdles to make it a satisfying solve methinks!
  35. 20:28. I was a bit slow off the mark with this one. Nothing clicked until my FOI shelving. It slowly all came together after that. Woodcut and bandbox were nice. LOI abiding. Grugru the only unknown. I’ll put my hand up. I had a crack at the dcrooks puzzle but was too thick to finish it so would certainly find it interesting to see it blogged and to fill in the gaps.
  36. Late to this today. All dispatched successfully.

    Another vote to unlock the Crooks.

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