Times 27,827: Pack Up Your Troubles

Author   verlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I detected a touch of the Cryptic Jumbos to the cluing of this medium-strength crossword, lots of “shove x into y to make z” with surfaces erring on just the right side of intelligibility: nothing wrong with any of that. FOI 11ac, LOI 29ac. I mostly liked the requirement to have a little bit of French and the multiple things that looked as though they were going to be anagrams and then turned out not to be, it’s always nice to be hoodwinked by professionals in this way.

I hope you are all girded up for a special championship triple bill tomorrow! I am not optimistic that my peak solving abilities will suddenly return to me at 2.30am on Saturday morning (Pacific time) but I’ll be there in solving solidarity (solvidarity?) either way!

ACROSS
1 Service pack‘s a bit awkward during Mass (6)
KITBAG – (A BIT*) during KG

4 Unwanted Parisian withdraws after this writer’s brought in (8)
IMPORTED – reversed DE TROP [French for “unwanted”], after I’M [this writer is]

10 Make red curtain to separate eastern doctors (9)
EMBARRASS – ARRAS [curtain], separating E MBS (as in Medicinae Baccalaureus)

11 Puffed up Dublin parliamentarian adopts superior note (5)
TUMID – TD (Teachta Dála) “adopts” U MI

12 African fetish contains its defence system (7)
JUJITSU – JUJU “contains” ITS

13 The Vatican’s one English hub accommodates 150 (7)
ENCLAVE – E NAVE “accommodates” CL

14 Rake around front of garden, unpleasant piece of work? (5)
ROGUE – ROUE around G{arden}

15 A firm universal glue reduced soundproofing? (8)
ACOUSTIC – A CO U STIC{k}

18 Leader of party’s lax about closure of remote office (8)
PREMISES – P{arty} + REMISS “about” {remot}E

20 Anodyne article appears in Queen (5)
ETHER – THE in E.R.

23 Gunners fiddle short course (7)
RAVIOLI – RA (as in Royal Artillery) + VIOLI{n}

25 Test player is beginning to enjoy acclaim (7)
LIONISE – (British & Irish) LION + IS + E{njoy}

26 Dump commander’s jacket in boat (5)
SCRUB – C{ommande}R in SUB

27 Thinker’s uncommon zest during recess (9)
NIETZSCHE – (ZEST*) during NICHE

28 Send first of trainees in to clean each plant (5,3)
SWEET PEA – T{rainees} sent into SWEEP, + EA(ch)

29 You are to leave with dispatch, taking it easy (6)
GENTLY – {u}{r}GENTLY

DOWN
1 Unthinking reaction to tap in surgery? (4-4)
KNEE-JERK – cryptic def. That’s a reflex-testing tap on the knee.

2 Mug Times sent into closed prison (4,3)
TOBY JUG – BY “sent into” TO JUG [closed | prison]

3 Current appearance by second side impressing manager finally (9)
AIRSTREAM – AIR by S TEAM “impressing” {manage}R

5 Nancy misses damselfly in pickle (14)
MESDEMOISELLES – DEMOISELLE in MESS. Nancy misses as in “young ladies from Nancy”.

6 Bar measure? Ring officer about it going up (5)
OPTIC – O [ring] + P(olice) C(onstable) “about” reversed IT

7 They’re hit in a mine on the way up, Mike admitted (7)
TIMPANI – reversed IN A PIT, “admitting” M

8 Bashed car, American one on motorway (6)
DODGEM – DODGE [American car] on M

9 Note arrangement of scenic base for some geology, say (7,7)
NATURAL SCIENCE – NATURAL [note] + (SCENIC*) + {som}E

16 Drunk nearly crosses border, creating rumpus (9)
SHEMOZZLE – SOZZLE{d} “crosses” HEM

17 Novelist on line leaves (8)
GREENERY – (Graham) GREENE on R(ailwa)Y

19 Back minister supported by Irish (7)
REVERSE – REV(erend) supported by ERSE

21 Sweeney Todd work, contentious musical, censored (7)
HAIRCUT – HAIR [musical] + CUT [censored]. “Contentious” per Wikipedia: “The musical’s profanity, its depiction of the use of illegal drugs, its treatment of sexuality, its irreverence for the American flag, and its nude scene caused much comment and controversy.”

22 Emergency credit is doubled (6)
CRISIS – CR(edit) + IS, twice

24 Pass round container for viewer (5)
ORBIT – double def. Second definition as in “eye socket”

56 comments on “Times 27,827: Pack Up Your Troubles”

  1. really a DNF, as I looked in my dictionary to see what might follow SHEM; NHO SHEMOZZLE. Also DNK LION (and I thought test matches were only in cricket). Biffed TUMID (DNK TD), parsed post-submission. DNK, but inferred, that DEMOISELLE=damselfly. (I understand that the Academy has decided to drop ‘mademoiselle’, so that all women are ‘madame’. We should have done the same thing in English rather than invent a third term.) I liked IMPORTED.
  2. 2:30am might just work as a late night, I have to decide if I’m going to get up at 5:30 (I’ll set an alarm, but it might take all the coffee in the world).

    12:16 – I found this one a pretty steady solve, relieved to find that MESDEMOISELLES was correct and that I managed to spell NIETZSCHE twice in two weeks even when clued as a partial anagram. I really liked the clue for SWEET PEA.

  3. I’ve now learnt to spell Nietzsche, thanks to the Times obsession with this philosopher. Didn’t manage to parse MESDEMOISELLES, so thanks to Verlaine for the explanation. Had no idea that a demoiselle was an insect of any description.
    It’ll be a civilised 6.30pm kick-off here for the championship. This one took 29’50”, so it’ll be tight to finish three in 90mins!
  4. I biffed MESDEMOISELLES pretty swiftly from the definition (both Nancy and Nice appear often enough to trigger that), but it isn’t really a great clue since DEMOISELLE is simply French for ‘damsel’ anyway.
  5. 45 minutes for a pleasant enough Friday offering.

    FOI 1dn KNEEJERK

    LOI 11ac TUMID

    COD 8dn DODGEM

    WOD 5dn MESDEMOISELLES – I immediately thought of Pelosi – it is amazing how America has fast become a Gerontochracy and will probably remain so even beyond 2024. Will ‘Sleepy’ Joe Biden fight for a second term against the ‘Do-nothing’ Don?

  6. Was doing so well! But 28 minutes in came to the upper-right corner. Understood the idea of _ _ _DEMOISELLES immediately, but confused as to why MADEMOISELLES wouldn’t fit. Only after all has been said and done do I realize how I could have inferred this from the etymology of the word. DODGEM took an eternity; the definition of OPTIC didn’t make sense (okay I just looked it up) but could get it from the wordplay.

    But of course I had parsed 4 Across incorrectly the whole time and was looking for ME, IM, or IVE inside a French name, all reversed. I rejected out of hand the idea that I would need to know a French word for ‘unwanted’, although once I looked up the plural of MADEMOISELLE, I ‘saw’ IMPORTED and then could reason through DE TROP having the intended meaning.

    So close, yet so far.

    Incidentally, I gathered the root TUM from, say, ‘tumescent’, but couldn’t decide whether TUMID or TUMED, adjective or verb, was right. I guessed correctly but I easily might not have, had I actually finished the puzzle.

  7. 52 minutes. A steady solve with a few unknowns slowing me down.

    I took the TD in TUMID on trust as I can never remember Irish parliamentary terms.

    Never heard of NAVE as anything other than part of a church.

    I knew ‘anodyne’ only as ‘bland’.

    I knew the ‘rumpus’ only as SHIMOZZLE as in Collins but fortunately I had a checker by then to prevent writing that in. Another alternative spelling is ‘schemozzle’.

    I never quite got to the bottom of how MESDEMOISELLE worked.

    I forgot how to spell NIETZSCHE already. I didn’t have a problem last week as the wordplay and checkers were more helpful than today.

  8. I was on the wavelength to end a good week’s solving. I hope that bodes well for tomorrow. Having said that, I presume like many people I was looking for an anagram of “misses damselfly” at 5D. I’d have done well to count the letters in the potential anagrist. I still remembered how to spell NIETZSCHE. It’s not too bad as long as you remember the S, C and H go together. I’ve never heard of SHEMOZZLE but I’ll endeavour to use it wherever possible.

    Good luck to everyone participating tomorrow. Now to decide where in the house I can recreate competition conditions…

  9. A lengthy 40 minutes for me, held up a bit by not remembering how French works, a few gaps in GK and some doziness.

    I may try the champs for a giggle tomorrow, but it depends somewhat on whether the flu jab I have booked for 9:50am actually happens in time for me to get home. Either way, I don’t predict a great success!

  10. My only bone of contention is that, as far as I’m aware, you can be a (rugby) Lion, a member of the squad on tour, but not play in a Test.
    Thanks or explaining 4ac IMPORTED, verlaine.
    I tried to make SCRAP work for 26ac but eventually ORBIT put paid to that.
    LOI and COD was MESDEMOISELLES. Didn’t know a DEMOISELLE was a Damselfly.
    As a toiler at the National League level, maybe League 2 on a good day, I won’t “trouble the scorers” in the online championship
    STOP PRESS: I’ve just checked the information page for the Championship. As it starts at 1030 GMT I will DEFINITELY not be there. That’s 2330 Local Time in NZ.

    Edited at 2020-11-20 08:27 am (UTC)

  11. Held up in the end by KITBAG and AIRSTREAM otherwise steady progress. Liked DODGEM.
    Good luck to everyone tomorrow. I could use my lack of online experience as an excuse for not competing but actually it’s my lack of ability.
  12. 47 minutes for me. LOI IMPORTED, learning in the process that if I ever have used de trop, which I don’t think I have, I’ve used it incorrectly, because I thought it meant ‘too much’ or more recently ‘over the top’. COD to SHEMOZZLE, although I think I would have put a C as a second letter if given the space. In Blackpool, they were called bumper cars, Southport DODGEMs. As ever, I prefer the Blackpudlian version. Tough puzzle that repaid the effort. Thank you V and setter.
  13. More softly round the open wold,
    And Gently comes the world to those
    That are cast in gentle mould.

    How true. 35 mins got me through this tumid shemozzle, but left me with three, Imported, Lionise and the long one between that was obviously a misspelt Mademoiselle. Another 5 mins and a guess were required.

    Thanks setter and V.

  14. There is a famous plane of 1909 called a Demoiselle, a replica of which was built and flown in the film, Those Magnificent men … I have seen it fly, very scary indeed.

    So anyway, 5dn no problem. But I always thought it was a schemozzle

  15. Yesterday’s treat PERIGEE
    And today we have ORBIT, i see
    So a happy space geek
    At the end of the week
    And no birds today! That suits me!
  16. 17:35. I don’t think I’ll get the hang of doing this on screen before tomorrow, but never mind. I spelt the philosopher wrong again until I found SHEMOZZLE (great word), took a while to realise that the plural of french miss starts with a MES and failed to parse 10A. Held up for a while in NE corner until I saw DE TROP. Also I didn’t remember ARRAS as curtain or TUMID, or knew anodyne could mean a painkiller, so it’s a wonder I finished at all. At least I knew the damselfly. Nice puzzle really. Thanks V and setter.

    Edited at 2020-11-20 08:57 am (UTC)

    1. “I whipped me behind the arras” from Much Ado is a line that has stuck with me, probably because it sounds rude.
  17. 21.16. Thought this was a nice appetiser before tomorrow’s main course. Started quickly with toby jug my FOI. After that more steady than spectacular. LOI orbit. . Nearly made a hash of it by assuming 26 ac was scrap but managed to realise my mistake so I saw orbit.

    Loved shemozzle, is that of Yiddish origin? Quicker to ask this audience than to look it up. DNK ether was anodyne . Other highlights for me dodgem, lionise, haircut.

  19. No time for this as I had 3 interruptions. Finally came back later and filled in the last two GREENERY and GENTLY. Slow though that’s for sure. I liked MESDEMOISELLES and SHEMOZZLE (COD). Good luck to anyone going for the championship tomorrow. Thanks V for the blog, and setter.
  20. A slow start, rapid finish 27 minutes, some of it spent trying to work out the obvious anagram for Nancy while thinking the Times would not allow such a homophobic term, surely.

    ACOUSTIC surprised me by only having two Cs in total, and NIETZSCHE by being spellable at all.

    As with the CMS, the prevalence of high-value Scrabble letters helped: there are only a limited number of words around with two Js.

    A welcome appearance by Svlad Cjelli, I thought.

    And some neat doubles today: I especially liked the commentary on Covid politics, the KNEE-JERK CRISIS, and on much modern art, the OPTIC SHEMOZZLE.

    Edited at 2020-11-20 10:23 am (UTC)

  21. A few MERs here: the spelling of shemozzle, the def. of acoustic and ether (though the latter may be correct medically I guess), the admission of a childish form of text-write (UR). I don’t know if it’s worth saying there are of course two ways to find knee-jerk, the first simply meaning unthinking. All very ungrateful of me given the gemlike excellence of the artform, day after day. Didn’t know the damselfly as such. Quite liked the bashed-car clue. 30’44.
    1. At some point the childish text-write will probably be mentioned without explanation, but this is the first time I’ve seen it without extra words in the SI to indicate what’s happening. Why has the natural process to be hurried, as happens so often nowadays when people want there to be a change in the language?

      Edited at 2020-11-20 10:56 am (UTC)

    2. My solution of 29 ac was FEATLY. You are to leave = FLY. with dispatch = EAT.
      Taking it easy = accomplishing it neatly. Couldn’t see the invisible U R.

      from jeepyjay.

  22. They often refer to rugby internationals as tests and cricketers do wear 3 lions when playing for England but I’m not sure why, though, as a child, I remember seeing some roaming wild near Windsor. Demoiselle was a revelation and tumid got me a bit engorged. Looking forward to challenge tomorrow; will i come 53rd or 153rd. The name of the game will be ‘spot the typo before submitting’ and how to spell Popocatépetl correctly. Maybe there should be 4 sessions every 6 hours to smear out the unfairness of the time differences. They have the technology and that would be a real challenge. My concern is it will all be over so quickly with no disconsolate train journey home and just the jumbo left to fill . . .
  23. Good to see extravagantly moustached NIETZSCHE popping by again with a cheery wave. I get the letters by remembering he is an anagram of zinc sheet, and hope for some spelling help from the clue.
  24. Someone was looking out for me today because I came in unscathed at 16’57”. Yesterday’s much easier crossword (according to Snitch) took me five minutes more.
  25. Chuffed to finish this in a reasonable 20 minutes when at first it looked like a difficult Friday. Knowing French helped! And the ‘thinker’ appeared recently so knew how to spell him. Would have had SCHE… for the start of 16d if you’d asked me to spell it before. The NW corner fell last, with 1a, 1d and 2d clues to savour.
    Good luck tomorrow V, good thing you are like Lord Howard…
    pip
  26. Nice puzzle with reminders of some very old songs. Pack Up Your Troubles and Mountain Greenery – where God paints the scenery just 2 crazy people together how we love sequestering where no pests are pestering etc.

    The only time I attended the champs I was very jet-lagged (at least that’s my story) but managed to come in at 50 in the first heat, but more fun was had meeting people such as Paul, Jerry and others. This time I’ll be so much more comfortable but alas no meetings. 19.51

  27. The error was TUMED for TUMID. The typo was KNEN JERK. The OK time was under 20 mins – which is my personal aim for my average time per puzzle tomorrow, as that’s what’s required in the usual format for the Championships. But accuracy trumps time ++ so a more sensible aim is three all correct puzzles in 90 minutes.

    Good luck to everyone having a go tomorrow.

  28. The NW dropped in nicely after my FOI, KNEE JERK. Then following a CRISIS in the SW, that filled up nicely too. Solving SHEMOZZLE allowed me to swap the S and Z in my postulated NIETSZCHE. In the meanwhile MESDEMOISELLES (damselfly unknown) gave a boost to the RHS, with IMPORTED biffed from IM and crossers, allowing me to get DODGEMS. TUMID was vaguely familiar so I discounted TUMED. This left me with 29a which took a few moments to emerge. Enjoyable puzzle. 29:13. Thanks setter and V.
  29. Didn’t know MESDEMOISELLES or DEMOISELLE – although, as pointed out, perhaps should have noticed the similarity to ‘damsel’ – so I ended up with MESSEMOISELLES there. Hopefully won’t need any French tomorrow! But lots of practice with spelling Nietzsche, so I won’t mind him cropping up again.
  30. 13:38. Trickyish. I still needed the wordplay to be sure of how to spell NIETZSCHE, despite his recent appearance, but thanks to Pootle above I’ll now remember that the SCH is a unit.
    How’s this for a coincidence: I have been working my way through one of the books of old puzzles they hand out at the championships, and last night solved this puzzle, in which I learned that ANODYNE is a word for a painkiller.
    NHO SHEMOZZLE.
    11ac reminds me of William Safire’s comment on pornography: “it’s not the teat, it’s the tumidity”.
  32. This looked like a properly difficult, and for me, impossible Friday puzzle but I kept plugging away and in the end had it all done by 2.30pm; and correct it seems, I wasn’t sure.
    The big breakthrough was Mesdemoiselles. I was pretty sure of the spelling and there is a famous painting, a good way to remember how to spell it-Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is a large oil painting created in 1907 by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. The work is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.
    FOI ETHER and happy to see NIETZSCHE again which opened the door to SHEMOZZLE. Last two were SCRUB and ORBIT.
    Good luck to all competitors tomorrow. I will be watching from the virtual George.
    David
  33. This looked like an impossible-for-me Friday puzzle at first but I plugged away and managed to finish by 2.30pm.
    FOI ETHER and good to see NIETZSCHE again which helped with Shemozzle.
    Mesdemoiselles was the big breakthrough. There is a famous painting which helps to remember the spelling :Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is a large oil painting created in 1907 by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. The work is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.
    LOI ORBIT.
    Good luck to all competitors tomorrow. I will be watching from the virtual George. David

    Edited at 2020-11-20 02:57 pm (UTC)

  34. Couldn’t remember that the plural French miss begins mesd rather than mad, until EMBARRASS popped up. No idea about DEMOISELLE.

    GENTLY had me mildly baffled for some minutes at the end.

  35. Hopefully I’ll now be able to spell NIETZSCHE when it comes up tomorrow. As usual spent the last 10 mins on the last 2, this time TUMID and GENTLY. Not too keen on you are = UR but I guess it’s handy for setters. Also was trying to put SCRAP until ORBIT came along.
    WOD and one for the spelling bee SHEMOZZLE, which interestingly also didn’t come up in the auto text.
  36. Does anyone know if tomorrow’s puzzles will be printable?

    I haven’t solved on line for quite a few years, having spent the first six months or so getting pink squares in every second puzzle. Tried today’s as a dry run – all correct in 21.21 minutes, but reckoned I wasted several minutes at the start, getting my head round the format, then several more correcting the typing, trying to scroll up and down, resizing the screen after I’d pressed the wrong button etc.

  37. ….would suit me just fine. Thanks to V for parsing NATURAL SCIENCE and ORBIT.

    FOI EMBARRASS
    LOI GENTLY
    COD SHEMOZZLE
    TIME 8:21

  38. Spent ages staring at the “Nancy Misses”!
    Fell into place in the end.
    Glad to see I have something in common with Verlaine – same LOI 29ac – although, in Verlaine’s case, that was probably just because it was at the bottom of the crossword – in my case, the penny-drop moment took more than a moment.

    Edited at 2020-11-20 06:00 pm (UTC)

  39. 1 hour 12 minutes, with SHEMOZZLE and GENTLE as LOI (and I would have expected a homophone indicator for the missing UR in the latter). Not very easy, but not impossible either. I especially liked the clue for CRISIS (“is doubled”). And I will do the competition crosswords when they appear on Wednesdays, since I stand no chance of completing three puzzles in an hour.
  40. Hi
    As a newish viewer of your members’ comments, may I ask for a translation of some of the acronyms and jargon? LOI? Biff?

    Thanks

    Des

    1. LOI means last one in, hence FOI etc. To biff an answer is to get it from the definition rather than the wordplay, or, indeed, simply to guess it from the existing crossed letters. No idea where the term comes from. Hope that helps,
      Gill D
      1. Also COD is Clue of the Day, MER Minor Eyebrow Raise. It took me a while to work those out…
    2. I believe “Biffed” comes from “Bung In From Definition” – although I may be corrected.

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