Times 28,067: Who’s Been Cluing My Porridge?

Author   verlainePosted on Categories Livejournal
No real hard vocab this Friday – unless you want to count OVIFORM – and mostly uncomplicated cluing, but a fair challenge nonetheless. I mostly liked seeing GCHQ as wordplay fodder, “cryptically relaxed” for DIAL and the “outsider in tournament”. LOI was 22ac, because “abuse” made me confident it was going to start with DIS.

Thanks to the setter for a good puzzle to round out the week.

Definitions underlined, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, {} deletions and [] other indicators.

Across
1 What fiery folk have: energy during brief altercation (5,5)
SHORT FUSES – E during SHORT FUSS
6 Projectile to shoot wolf (4)
BOLT – triple def. We were always shooting off crossbow bolts in the D&D games on my youth
8 Mariner heard behind another person making descent (8)
ABSEILER – homophone of SAILOR behind A.B. [another (sailor)]
9 Problem settled in Communications centre, no question (6)
GLITCH – LIT in GCH{q}
10 Story ultimately relayed in song (4)
LIED – LIE + {relaye}D
11 Stiffly formal or cryptically relaxed from the start? (10)
PRIMORDIAL – PRIM OR “laid back” = DIAL
12 Doctor considered dropping over, and withdrew (9)
RESCINDED – (C{o}NSIDERED*)
14 Fighter backing king of Britain at outset (5)
BOXER – reverse all of REX O{f} B{ritain}
17 Dumpy crew eliminating last outsider in tournament (5)
SQUAT – SQUA{d} + T{ournamen}T (either T will do)
19 Inexpensive way to sell a lot? (9)
KNOCKDOWN – double def, knockdown prices or auction terminology
22 Abuse Frenchman caught slashing fixed discount (10)
MISCONDUCT – M + (DISCOUNT*) “slashed” by C
23 Closure of bank that is opposed to capital (4)
KIEV – {ban}K + I.E. + V(ersus)
24 Hostess‘s porridge is hardly dipped into (6)
GEISHA – a selection from {porrid}GE IS HA{rdly}
25 After trouble, firm invested in kitsch morning wear (8)
TAILCOAT – AIL + CO “invested” in TAT
26 Couple running round island in judge’s wake (4)
JOIN – ON “round” I, after J
27 One’s imagining Romeo with shoddy readymade clothing (10)
DAYDREAMER – R “clothed” by (READYMADE*)
Down
1 Weaponry General Thumb was never without? (5,4)
SMALL ARMS – General Tom Thumb the circus performer was a dwarf and so had literal, not metonymic, small arms.
2 Roaming seashore on vacation, so try seafood (7)
OYSTERS – (S{eashor}E SO TRY*)
3 Asian in love needs initial prod, you say? (8)
FILIPINO – IN O, after homophone of FILLIP
4 Believers heading off after ceremony to sample catering, maybe (7,8)
SERVICE INDUSTRY – {h}INDUS after SERVICE, plus TRY [to sample]
5 Continental gent to engage troops (6)
SIGNOR – SIGN O.R. [to engage | troops]
6 One-ended pen cover for pupils (9)
BLINDFOLD – BLIND [one-ended, as in an alley] + FOLD [pen, for livestock]
7 Most new mums do it, tardily pocketing bill (7)
LACTATE – LATE “pocketing” ACT
13 Hazard youngster comes across (7,2)
CHANCES ON – CHANCE [hazard] + SON [youngster]
15 Star in retro production to get makeover artist? (9)
RENOVATOR – NOVA in (RETRO*)
16 Increasingly hare-brained acts crippled bank (8)
SCATTIER – (ACTS*) + TIER [bank]
18 Leave rear of theatre this way, of course (5,2)
QUITE SO – QUIT [leave] + {theatr}E + SO [this way]
20 Like eggs, half-a-dozen coated in old mould (7)
OVIFORM – VI [six] “coated in” O FORM
21 Outstanding amateur (6)
UNPAID – double def; as in a bill, and a sportsperson

61 comments on “Times 28,067: Who’s Been Cluing My Porridge?”

  1. My last 2 in were QUITE SO and SQUAT. Somehow I never think of Q soon enough (sometimes even before a U checker, when there is no excuse). It took me less than an hour while making dinner in parallel, so probably 30 mins.
  2. I biffed SQUAT, failing to separate ‘last’ from ‘outsider’, and SERVICE INDUSTRY (from S, R, & def), only parsing it post-submission. It took me the last 3 minutes to see how POI BOXER worked, and to trawl the alphabet for the last letter of, as it turned out, BOLT (couldn’t get past BALL before that, which didn’t account for ‘wolf’). GEISHA was very well hidden, but COD to PRIMORDIAL.
  3. Not too taxing, but held up by the top right corner, not least because first guess pencilled in was hood for the cover part of blindfold. Blindfold eventual LOI after service industry and primordial. With the QXJ early I was waiting for the Z, though it never appeared.
    Other misstep was SHORT ARMS for 1dn – vaguely thinking pistols were short arms and rifles long arms, but thinking wrongly. Fortunately LIED was very obvious, to fix it.
    COD primordial.
  4. …took 36 minutes. I was thinking the puzzle was too hard, I’ll never finish, but in fact I figured everything out eventually. I liked the rex o’ B and the small arms.
  5. Similar goings on for me as with today’s QC in that the NW led me to expect a very easy puzzle, but having completed that quarter successfully I slowed down considerably.

    However I chipped away steadily at the remainder and finished on 45 minutes with BOLT as my LOI.

      1. Shoot is part of the first definition: “Projectile to shoot”. Bolt by itself is the second definition.
      2. I saw it as a triple definition BOLT =projectile, to shoot (off, as in run off quickly) and wolf (down your food).
        1. Interesting – I’m Australian, so bolt certainly would equate with “shoot through” as per bletchleyreject infra (Bletchley Park of Turing & Enigma fame was the precursor to GCHQ? Where they listen in and decode? In passing do we have another setter name-checking a blogger?), but bolt and shoot for move quickly doesn’t quite work for me. In the northern hemisphere it might be different.
          1. I hear you, but a common expression here would be “I’ve got to shoot” meaning I have to leave quickly as in bolt. Also, according to my online dictionary a bolt can be: “an arrow, especially a short one for a crossbow.” or “to shoot or discharge a missile” so my thinking (either way) was it’s noun, verb, verb. Maybe I’m just over complicating things!
            1. I’m going on my idiosyncratic usage. You’re using dictionaries. No competition, you’ve got it right!
            2. Yes, I definitely think you’re right and it’s a triple def. “The man bolted off” “The man shot off”. Which is good because the way I had it down was rather clunky!
  6. 59 minutes, not helped by some typos on the first run through. I never did go back to parse SERVICE INDUSTRY, but the others all came together OK. I wondered if BOLT might be a triple def, but for that to work, it would be better to have ‘shoot through’ rather than just ‘shoot’.

    LOI and favourite was PRIMORDIAL, a word I always associate with “soup”. Good to be reminded of where we’ve all come from.

    Thanks to Verlaine and setter

  7. My COD also to PRIMORDIAL.

    I did think of BOLT as a triple definition, my salad leaves are always bolting.

    ABSEILER was FOI, and amusing.

    16′ 27″, thanks verlaine and setter.

  8. For some reason SIGNOR just never came to mind, until finally it did. Also I have no idea what a TAILCOAT is.

    But all good fun nonetheless. Thanks V and setter.

    1. I thought of SENHOR immediately, having taken Portuguese, but dropped it, only coming to SIGNOR much later. A TAILCOAT, I assumed, is a coat with tails; a morning coat.
      1. A morning coat is one example, still seen at posh weddings in the UK. The evening coat worn with a white tie is the other example: think Fred Astaire.
  9. I neglected to parse GLITCH. GCH{Q} wouldn’t have occurred to me in a million years.
    1. GCHQ didn’t occur to me, either; I thought GH{Q} and overlooked the C.
  10. I really enjoyed this. First pass yielded nothing, despite deploying all my standard strategies — short words first, multi-word or hyphens next, scour the clues for anagrams third. Staring at a blank grid after a full pass tends to lead to a crisis of confidence: is this 170 on the SNITCH or have I had a stroke without noticing?

    At last KIEV emerged from the gloom, then the SE corner and, with increasing confidence that this was possible, the rest followed. COD PRIMORDIAL and LOI BOLT.

    Thanks setter for a hard but fair tussle, and V for the excellent blog as always.

  11. Just one pink square for a silly typo to spoil an enjoyable sub-50 minute solve. Quite hard work but with (almost) no obscure vocab or GK. I like that. Lots of candidates for COD but I’ll go for UNPAID
  12. 22:49 I made heavy weather of this before finally getting on the setters wavelength, but all done and enjoyed in the end. As our blogger did, I liked the communications centre, no question” and 24A made ne think of Mother bear. LOI BOXER. Thanks V and setter.
  13. 38 minutes with LOI BOXER. COD to SHORT FUSES. Tricky in places but fairly clued. Thank you V and setter.
  14. ….although SLOI BOLT was a long time coming despite me thinking of fast eating, and OYSTER was biffed, and easily parsed immediately I finished.

    FOI ABSEILER
    LOI BLINDFOLD
    COD PRIMORDIAL
    TIME 11:14

  15. 43:04
    I really liked this. Laid back was great. No outlandish vocab – just good setting and a tough but fair challenge.
    Thanks, v.
  16. First class crossword today. Thank you setter and V. Some very enjoyable clues but got held up at the end with 6ac and 6d; kept thinking 6d must be ‘childhood’ for absolutely no reason! Got there in the end in 37m.
  17. 19.50. Not particularly speedy but not as tough a challenge as many Fridays seem to offer. LOI boxer, took what seemed like an age to get but I did finally work it out rather than just bung it in.

    COD misconduct, such a nicely constructed clue. I can now depart for the golf course with a spring in my step. Will it still be there when I return?

    Thx setter and Verlaine. Have a great weekend.

  18. I nearly gave up with two to go. Misconduct and Unpaid. But with perseverance I limped across the line.

    COD: GLITCH. Unpaid also nice.

  19. I didn’t see how good PRIMORDIAL was until post-submit. Very neat. TAILCOAT for me conjures up Fred Astaire puttin’ on the Ritz. A most enjoyable 19.20
  20. LAID BACK was embarrassingly lost on me till I came here. A few other misreadings of the clues contrived to delay my completion, including including ‘sample’ in the literal. (How many includings can one have in a sentence?). LOI UNPAID took ages to see it.
  21. I feel like I made heavy work of this, but perhaps I was stopping to admire the clues (I wasn’t; but they were worthy of admiration). An imaginative set with some clever ideas, and a few misdirects – intentional or otherwise – including the possibility of -HOOD at 6d. 11m 28s, finishing on BOLT.
  22. Good workout, 25 minutes, LOI MISCONDUCT (was thinking DIS- like our blogger), best clue PRIM OR DIAL (laid back, indeed!).
  23. Stopped on the hour with four missing. Went out, did the shopping and resumed upon my return. Amazingly, they fell in in two minutes, they being BOLT BLINDFOLD, KNOCKDOWN and finally JOIN. I thought this a great challenge and feel very rewarded to have finished. The sign of a good crossie for me. Liked SHORT FUSES, BOLT (when I saw it) TAILCOAT and SERVICE INDUSTRY, in which I served for a long time.

    Thanks V as ever and setter.

  24. I found this a tough workout. My FOI was JOIN, then KIEV, and it was a while before I added any more answers. Eventually DAYDREAMER and TAILCOAT loomed from the mist and I built outwards from the SE. Later on SHORT FUSES marked a breakthrough and after some time the SQUAT/QUITE SO pair fell, leaving me with 6a where I finally saw the triple def. 50:19. Thanks setter and V.
  25. I had my second anti-Covid jab at 2.30 this afternoon and save this for the half hour rest and relaxation period requirement. Managed all but the SW corner so on arrival home attempted to finish-off with disastrous results.

    Thus 21dn UNPAID, 24ac GEISHA and 26ac JOIN all went in tickety-boo! But then……disaster

    1d 13dn CARRIES ON! (CSNY?)

    17ac SHORT!! Diddley-squat!

    18dn the old HEAVE-HO!

    My POI (SLOI) 21ac MALIGNMENT!

    4dn SERVICE IN***TRY overlooked.

    I think ‘the lurgi’ got to me first!

    FOI 1dn TOMMY GUNS – quickly corrected to SMALL ARMS once 8ac ABSEILER arrived.

    COD 21dn UNPAID

    WOD has to be 27ac DAYDREAMER (I’m clean out of exclamation marks#)

    Mood Meldrewvian#

    Edited at 2021-08-27 12:47 pm (UTC)

    1. White ghosts had to wait until August for a vaccination? Japan started late–I was done in mid-June–but I was in the same cohort as all the elderly Japanese.
      1. Kevin, not quite….

        Our original date was 17 July 2021, when the Pfizer and Astra Zeneca vaccines were due to be cleared by the Chinese Authorities. But it never happened – there was diplomatic bad blood emerging and no FDA approval. I was on the waiting list via my American doctor – the ex-Pat community (what’s left of it) had little alternative but to then sign on for the SinoVacs alternatives. My wife and her 84 year old mother were jabbed in early July, but could have had it in March/ April.
        With so few cases here – really! – there was no urgency until small clusters appeared at Nanjing and Shanghai Airports, a couple of months back.

        With my ‘Doctor Bob’ back in the US for two months vacation, an English friend of mine advised we ‘Lauwei’ vaccinated asap. China has no plans for boosters.

    2. Ooh, I really like TOMMY GUNS for things General Thumb was never without. He must’ve been working out!
      1. The absence of his forename, Tom, in the clue made it a write-in. Working out? Indeed, heavily armed!

        Was I the only one to go there?

        Filipino (Sp) from the Philippines (US 1898) – his wife &tc is a Filipina. In the later nineties,’Monica Lewinski’ Cigars were piled high in Duty Free, at Manila Airport.

        Quam gigliano!

        Edited at 2021-08-27 03:27 pm (UTC)

  26. Another who struggled here, taking just over the hour as well as resorting to aids to check a couple of guesses. On reflection and with V’s guidance none of it seems unfair or even particularly difficult. I was not on the wavelength at all and GK was sadly lacking as I would never have thought of FILIPINO as an Asian (One of my aid checks). A good challenge — thank you setter and V.
  27. Missed the ‘laid back’ part of PRIMORDIAL and the hidden GEISHA — steady solve with SQUAT and QUITE SO last in.

    With SNITCH at 116 when I looked, easily within my target time of 48 mins.

  28. 33.45. After FOI abseiler went in I managed to fill much of the NW corner pretty easily. Things got much harder after that and progress was then slow and attritional. Misconduct, blindfold and knockdown all held me up at the end. I liked the cryptically relaxed bit of primordial. A tough, clever puzzle, feels like an achievement to have got through it all correct.
  29. A good puzzle with ABSEILER and PRIMORDIAL the stand out clues for me.

    Took far to long because brain seems to have temporarily (I hope) and unaccountably turned to mush. I visited a chiropodist this morning, but can’t see how that would have had such a cataclysmic effect,

    Will spend the rest of the day watching the cricket and trying to remember who the prime minister is.

    Thanks to Verlaine and the setter.

  30. I didn’t find this easy! But maybe my head wasn’t in the best place.
  31. Tailcoats (hired from Lipman’s) are worn by gentlemen at ‘the better’ English weddings. In America people actually wear ‘Tuxedos’ for such occasions!
  32. This was a joy! From the Filipino maid via the discretely hidden Geisha to the idle daydreamer. All over too, too quickly, just inside twelve minutes. COD to Primordial.
  34. Just under 25 minutes with most of them spent on BOLT (which only worked when I saw the triple) and the SW corner.
    Might have been happy with that except I saw that SQAUD needed to lose the D and gain the T and still put down SQUAD. Dumb.
  35. colonialboy here, son of Ukrainian immigrants in Toronto just pointing out that the accepted spelling of the capital city is now Kyiv. Pronouncing it is a bit tricky.😎
    1. I too descend from Ukrainian immigrants, so that’s nice! If there’s one place to can be guaranteed to find old-fashioned spellings of things, it’s in the Times Crossword.
      1. I’m impressed by the speed with which you master these devils, Verlaine.Puzzles are a source of education in the bizarre and abstract…like your namesake and his nutsy BFF.I’ve been doing these cryptics since the early 70s with black ink in the fountain pen; yet to do one in under 20 minutes. Made a point of taking a pint and solving a puzzle in the Punch Pub in London just for fun when I was just beginning. Often wondered about cryptics in Ukrainian/Russian and even in Japanese. Be safe and healthyздоров’я
        colonialboy in Toronto
      2. Was posting from my phone as anonymous…now back in form.
        Do you speak, read,write Ukrainian?
  36. 9:26. I was late to solving this and then didn’t get a chance to comment as I watching The Matrix with my youngest. We are the last holdouts on our holiday in Cornwall, the rest of the family having gone home for various commitments (Reading Festival in one case, lord help me). We are very close to GCHQ in Bude, as it happens.
    My helpful comment for the day is that I don’t think SMALL ARMS vs small arms is metonymy. Quite separate etymologies.

    Edited at 2021-08-28 09:40 am (UTC)

    1. Pfff, they both go back to the Proto-Indo-European hermos meaning “joint, fitting”. Every false cognate becomes a true cognate if you take a long enough view.
  37. colonialboy here, son of Ukrainian immigrants in Toronto just pointing out that the accepted spelling of the capital city is now Kyiv. Pronouncing it is a bit tricky.😎

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