Times Cryptic 27224

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

I completed this in 30 minutes, only just running over my target half-hour. There were a few unknown words and meanings along the way but the wordplay was helpful, even generous at times.

As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]

Across
1 I avoid returning during deadly epidemic — it’s not good for me (9)
PESSIMIST – I + MISS (avoid) reversed [returning] contained by [during] PEST (deadly epidemic). ‘Pest’ in this sense is classified as ‘rare’ by Collins and the Oxfords; Chambers doesn’t have it at all.
6 Shut up about regularly full prison system (5)
GULAG – GAG (shut up) containing [about] {f}U{l}L  [regularly]. This can be an individual prison or a systematic network of prisons.
9 Colliery with tons for power — this carries a modest bill (4,3)
COAL TIT – COAL {p}IT (colliery)  becomes COAL TIT when T (tons) stands in for P (power).  It’s a small bird and therefore has a modest bill or beak.
10 Grass: some caught in middle section of besom (7)
ESPARTO – PART (some) contained by [caught in] {b}ESO{m} [middle section]
11 Genderless term the Irish must abandon to some extent (5)
THEIR – THE IR{ish} [must abandon to some extent]. The suffix ‘-ish’ means ‘to some extent’ when added to a word.
12 Always note extremely wide female (9)
EVERYWHEN – E (note), VERY (extremely), W (wide), HEN (female). Easily assembled from wordplay, but not a word I’ve ever used. It’s in Collins and the SOED.
13 Aim to capture river creature from Asia (5)
GORAL – GOAL (aim) contains [to capture] R (river). This creature was not amongst the large collection of antelopes already within my crossword vocabulary. It has come up only once before, in a Sunday Times Christmas special puzzle in 2015.
14 Amusing or silly fool (9)
IGNORAMUS – Anagram [silly] of AMUSING OR
17 From the beginning of the season offer game course (9)
NEWMARKET –  There are two solid definitions here with reference to the gambling game and the race course. As for the first part of the clue, all I can suggest  is: NEW (from the beginning of the season), MARKET (offer). When you market something you offer it for sale, so that’s okay, but the wordplay for NEW seems a bit long-winded and not entirely clear. I wonder if I’m missing something?
18 One very important obstacle for skiers (5)
MOGUL – Two meanings, the second (a hard mound of snow on a ski slope) was previously unknown to me
19 Suffering nurse left in high dudgeon (9)
RESENTFUL – Anagram [suffering] of NURSE LEFT
22 Figure out number leaving hell (5)
INFER – INFER{no} (hell) [number leaving]
24 Can I get round Exchange Rate Mechanism limits? (7)
TERMINI – TIN (can) contains [get round] ERM (Exchange Rate Mechanism), I. Technically the ‘European Exhange Rate Mechanism’ but dubbed by some who opposed it as the ‘Eternal Recession Mechanism’.
25 Not out and batting before wickets? (7)
INDOORS – IN (batting), DOORS (wickets). I’ve always known ‘wicket’ as ‘gate’ but although ‘wicket’ as ‘door’ was new to me, it’s in the dictionaries.
26 Irritable and childishly ill-behaved, destroying book (5)
RATTY – {b}RATTY  (childishly ill-behaved) [destroying book]. I’d have said ‘brattish’ rather than ‘bratty’ but the latter is also possible and indeed it’s the preferred version in some of the usual sources.
27 Decorate cricket team getting in key runs (9)
ENGARLAND – ENGLAND (cricket team) containing [getting in] A (key) + R (runs). Another odd word that I’m slightly suprised to find exists.
Down
1 Company invested in mine that’s a feature of Honiton? (5)
PICOT – CO (company) contained by [invested in] PIT (mine). Honiton is a type of lace named after the town in Devon where it was originally produced and PICOT is a pattern of small loops of lace. Solvers who also do the Quickie had an advantage here as Honiton as a type of lace came up in a QC only last Thursday.
2 Mind corn regularly vanishing during scatter? Here’s the answer (9)
SCARECROW – CARE (mind) + C{o}R{n} [regularly vanishing] contained by [during] SOW (scatter)
3 Trouble at airline among other things (5,4)
INTER ALIA – Anagram [trouble] of AT AIRLINE
4 Gaoled frequently, I am free finally at the last moment (2,3,4,2,4)
IN THE NICK OF TIME – IN THE NICK (gaoled), OFT (frequently), I’M (I am), {fre}E [finally]
5 One can’t know the reason votes aren’t being counted (6,2,7)
THERES NO TELLING – A straight definition and a cryptic hint
6 One who boxes up gutted porgy fish (5)
GUPPY – PUG (one who boxes – pugilist) reversed [up], P{org}Y [gutted]. Porgy is a type of fish too.
7 Big growth in naval architecture (5)
LARCH – Hidden in {nava}L AR CH{itecture}.
8 Herb jelly covering slices of bread (9)
GROUNDSEL – GEL (jelly) containing [covering] ROUNDS (slices of bread – rounds of sandwiches, toast etc}
13 Source of power of family groups, mostly Conservative (9)
GENERATOR – GENERA (family groups), TOR{y} (Conservative) [mostly]
15 Prompt to include a rest (9)
REMAINDER – REMINDER (prompt) containing [to include] A
16 Mutating algae form plants large enough to see (9)
MEGAFLORA – Anagram [mutating] ALGAE FORM. Another word I didn’t know but it was easily arrived at.
20 Sailor, I would add, has turned up fish (5)
SPRAT – TAR (sailor) + PS (I would add) reversed
21 Raucous number’s the finale of “Company” (5)
NOISY – NO IS (number’s), {compan}Y [the finale]. Company is a show by Stephen Sondheim that adds meaning to the surface reading.
23 Turned pink and then turned into something darker (5)
ROSED – SO (and then) reversed [turned] contained by [into] RED (something darker – than pink). ‘Her cheeks rosed with embarrassment’ perhaps?

59 comments on “Times Cryptic 27224”

  1. EVERYWHEN, GORAL, ENGARLAND, ROSED; that’s a lot for one puzzle. ROSED was my LOI; I just couldn’t believe it. Also only put in EVERYWHEN after a long think. I was one of those to benefit from the recent Heriton, which I’d never heard of.
  2. This was much more of a “Monday” puzzle than Monday’s actually was.

    In 17A I just thought of “new potatoes” and put it in. There are probably other products like that.

    I was a little doubtful whether ROSED was a word, and I was a little suspicious of the wordplay since ROSE is also pink

    PICOT was easy since I had indeed just come across it last week. I drive past Honiton whenever I visit my father, and yet only recently did I discover it is famous for something.

  3. Going along very well until I hit the SE corner, then stuck on and ultimately defeated by ROSED and ENGARLAND. Gave up after a bit more than an hour.

    Plenty to keep the mind ticking over with a few new words bunged in from wordplay. SCARECROW was my highlight.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

  4. Found this one a cakewalk after struggling for the last week or so. 11′ 20”.
  5. 40 minutes, so nothing like as hard as yesterday’s, but still a challenge for me, mostly because of all the unknown vocab. Still, got there in the end.

    FOI 11a THEIR, which I didn’t parse properly at the time, quickly assuming it was just a hidden, and was then confused by 7d. LOsI 23d ROSED and 13a GORAL. I am now starting to think of these generically as YABAs (Yet Another… Antelope).

    Speaking of INTER ALIA, I’ve been considering dusting off my schoolboy Latin (I passed the GCSE in the 1980s but haven’t used it since.) Has anyone got any book tips for adult (almost-)beginners?

    1. The textbook I used back in the 1950s is still available – Kennedy’s Revised Latin Primer but it’s a bit dry. For fun you might like to have a go at the Times’s O TEMPORA puzzles published each Saturday. They are all available in the Crossword Club archive. I’ve never done them myself but I believe the early ones were pretty basic.
      1. Thanks, Jack. I’ll probably pop into an academic bookshop and have a browse through the Latin books—I’ll keep an eye out for Kennedy’s. And O TEMPORA could be an interesting way of measuring my progress!
        1. If you can find a copy of Kennedy that hasn’t been altered to The Shortbread Eating Primer I’d snap it up: they’re incredibly rare.
          1. Thank you, Z, for giving me a sudden Proustian memory of a particular classroom about 40 years ago.
    3. Matt, late back from the office Christmas lunch so a very late addition to what’s already been said and sorry if I go on a bit but fwiw, a few years ago I was of exactly the same mind. I studied Latin for GCSE, enjoyed it and always thought I’d like to pick it up again, partly as an academic pleasure and partly I suppose for the cultural enrichment of immersion in the classical world. I decided to go for it. I did a bit of research and ended up getting the Cambridge University Press “Reading Latin” textbooks by Peter V Jones and Keith C Sidwell. There were three books, 1) Reading latin – Grammar, vocabulary and exercises; 2) Reading Latin – Text and 3) Reading Latin – An Independent Study Guide. You would need all three and I would recommend getting a couple of exercise books – one for vocab – and one for completing the different exercises.

      The way it works is that you use the vocab section from GVE to read corresponding passages from Text (passages from the plays of Plautus). Then you work through the grammar and exercises in that section of GVE. The ISG gives additional support, a translation of the Text and answers to the exercises in GVE so you can check your efforts.

      I don’t know if it’s what you are looking for or if all that is far more intensive than you really want but they’re certainly worth a browse. I have to say it ticked all the boxes for me, I found the text interesting, the exercises really engaging and the whole effort very rewarding. Plus it was straightforward to do alone with no class or teacher to support you and it was pitched at the right level for a mature student I would say.

      It did peter out of course as these things so easily can do with the busy lives we all lead now but while it lasted the academic rigour and the window onto the classical world gave me great pleasure.

      Whatever textbook or primer you end up choosing I hope the study gives you as much enjoyment as it did me.

      1. Thank you! That’s exactly the kind of insight I wanted—I was looking at the Cambridge “Reading Latin” series just yesterday, and it’s great to get some details from someone who was in the same position. Most grateful.
        1. You’re welcome! I’m glad to be able to pass on my experience of it.
    1. And there was I thinking they were chanting in praise of the Swedish actress Inge Lund !
  7. 30 mins pre brekker.
    Picot, Goral, Esparto, Rosed, Megaflora, Engarland.
    ‘Nuff said.
    Thanks wordy setter and Jack
  8. 21:07… of which SCARECROW and PESSIMIST, my last 2 in, must have taken at least 4 minutes. PEST for deadly epidemic was a bit obscure. GORAL, EVERYWHEN, ENGARLAND, MEGAFLORA and ROSED all also unknown. I failed to parse ROSED which made me hesitate over it for some time, so thanks for explaining that, Jack. At least I remembered Honiton lace from the QC and that PICOT was something to do with embroidery… probably also from a crossword (possibly this one). We do crosswords and learn!

    Edited at 2018-12-18 08:40 am (UTC)

  9. All straightforward despite not knowing the GORAL. Biffed INDOORS but did parse ROSED. Thanks all.
  10. The only hint of difficulty here was caused by obscurity rather than clever setting. I’m used to deriving words Mephisto style so no problems – in fact a stroll in the park.
  11. As with johninterred I hesitated for some time over ROSED as I couldn’t parse it so my thanks also to Jack for explaining that one. ENGARLAND is a strange looking word – it looks more like a football chant version of England. I see Mr(s) Anonymous above has noticed this also.
  12. 33 minutes with several major raised eyebrows, particularly in the SE. I eventually got ENGARLAND after I couldn’t make ‘englamour’ work (cricket team GLAMorgan), but why cricket for England and not, say, netball to commemorate their Sports Personality of the Year triumph? Congratulations to Sir Alastair, by the way, well deserved, but it must be Sir James Anderson when he retires or it really is a batsman’s game. I put ROSED in with my pen wanting to act as auto-correct. MEGAFLORA doesn’t sound big enough, Teraflora on terra firma might be better.I took a long time before the mackerel caught the SPRAT too, to reveal RATTY, which is how I felt about some of these. Two PITS were used too: the elder and the younger? COD to COAL TIT though. Thank you Jack and setter.
  13. 14.37 for this collection of improbable words. THEIR looked a lot like a (very badly) hidden taking the total in the grid to a mildly naughty 2. Thanks Jack for revealing that it’s not(-ish)
    Mogul makes me think of The Troubleshooters in glorious black and white. I shall have the theme tune running through my head all day.
  14. Oh, and is GROUNDSEL a herb? My guinea pigs loved it, but I don’t think I’d bung it in my casserole.
    1. Good point. I took it on trust when blogging, but now that I’ve checked I can’t find any support for it as a herb in any of the usual sources. Wikipedia, however, asserts that it is and its use seems to be medicinal (in poultices, for instance) rather than culinary.

      Edited at 2018-12-18 11:08 am (UTC)

      1. My parents chained me to the garden in my teenage summers, and groundsel is definitely a weed – I weeded out plenty of it. I still hate gardening.
        1. A weed is only a plant somewhere you don’t want it. Like herb, it is quite a vague term
  15. 10:40. I find myself agreeing with Jim again: what difficulty there was in this puzzle came from tricky vocab. However unlike yesterday the obscurities were in the definitions so it was a wordplay challenge, the kind of puzzle I enjoy the most. I really enjoyed it.
    I have been to Honiton many times but never knew it was known for lace. I associate it more with the smell of cows.
  16. As already observed, for a difficult puzzle, this was pretty easy i.e. I didn’t know the GORAL, and several other unknown words were of the sort which obviously exist, but only ever turn up in crosswords – if I suggested to my wife that it was time to ENGARLAND the tree, as we do EVERYWHEN at this time of year. I imagine she’d know exactly what I meant, but look at me even more askance than normal.

    Also glad to say I wasn’t alone in being put in mind of the last one-day international I went to, where there were frequent chants for ENGARLAND, ENGARLAND, ENGARLAND.

  17. 22 mins. Some wacky vocab in this – goral, rosed, engarland, megaflora. But easy wordplay. 17ac is a strange beast; doesn’t make sense. Why not just clue it as ‘Game course’? Good blog, Jack, thanks.
  18. PICOT was my FOI,due to it’s being imprinted on my brain by a couple of recent puzzles. Much the same experience as others with the obscure lump of snow and unknown antelope. ENGARLAND and ROSED were my last 2 in. I tried AS for WHEN, as in RESAD, but when that didn’t work, I tried ROSED and noticed the inverted SO. 33:22. Thanks setter and Jack.
  19. Flew through the start, then came to a crawl. For some reason I had magus in my head instead of mogul, and that didn’t help. Had to guess goral, and just assumed rosed and everywhen were words. COD must go to the modest-billed bird! Thanks to setter.
  20. ….as it made me RATTY and RESENTFUL.

    I’m with Dorset Jimbo and Keriothe regarding the cause of the comparative difficulty here, and I much preferred yesterday’s offering.

    FOI COAL TIT
    LOI ROSED (awful)
    COD THERE’S NO TELLING
    TIME 15:43

  21. As a former (?) member of the quickie SCC (slow coach club), my new target is 1) to finish and 2) to break the hour mark in the 15 x 15. I achieved 1) and was a minute outside 2), despite the obscurities above noted. Instructive, if not as satisfying as trickier puzzles where you know all the words, I think. O Tempora is fun.
  22. I found this a bit of a struggle. As a weed GROUNDSEL is a form of herbage sure but apparently it was once used for purgative purposes so you wouldn’t want to put it in your bouquet garni. Stared in disbelief for a long time at ROSED trying to make it “reseda” which didn’t seem to work either. A pest can certainly be a plaguey nuisance but isn’t really deadly unless you put an E on the end and read it in the original Al Camus. A sluggish 15.44
  23. 20’30”, delayed by ENGARLAND and ROSED. Also never heard of EVERYWHEN. 7d of course put me immediately in mind of Monty Python.

    Thanks jack and setter.

  24. At 21 minutes I felt like I had made heavy weather of this but in retrospect I think it was just the accumulation of all the ‘is that a word?’ pauses. Were all the oddities deliberately placed I wonder or electronically generated?
  25. Same remarks as many above, finished it in 23 mnutes but with GORAL, ROSED and ENGARLAND looking like made up words. Another antelope type thing for the memory bank. Not impressed by big growth as definition for the larch.
  26. Enjoyed this and thought our esteemed editor must have shuffled yesterday’s and today’s crosswords.
    From my 13th ed. Chambers, Jack, the entry begins: “Pest: any deadly epidemic disease…” so it is a bit harsh to say it doesn’t have it. Perhaps the enfeebled free online version doesn’t?
    As for picot, I don’t bother with the QC any more but it also came up last Sunday in a CTCBDY (crossword that cannot be discussed yet). But it has also come up several times before.

  27. The simple problem is that “pest” has lost its oomph over the years, (haven’t we all?) as compared for example to “pestilence,” which still has moderately dire connotations. But Pepys would see it as being equivalent to the plague itself, and in fact did ..
  28. Usual collection of unfamiliars on which I spent too much thought, however the clueing and the checkers were kind.
  29. A few new words, but all derivable. 32 minutes in two chunks, having thought I wouldn’t finish it. Did it more or less from east to west and south to north. LOI mogul, having struggled with Groundsel (I was convinced the jelly was ‘goo’).
  30. Once again I find myself near the bottom of the class, taking 39 minutes over this one. PICOT and GORAL were both NHOs; ENGARLAND was techically an NHO, but one of those words that always could have existed.
  31. 25 min. but effectively DNF, as having thoughtlessly entered NEEDED NO TELLING at 5dn, couldn’t think of anything but POSTILION at 1ac, and submitted even though that didn’t make sense.
  32. Quite a strange puzzle! However all, or certainly almost all the harder words were clued without recourse to anagramming, I am pleased to say. I got through at a real saunter, around 30 minutes.
  33. 30 minutes but with too much unknown vocabulary to be very enjoyable. PICOT was my FOI – I probably knew Honiton lace via Georgette Heyer or similar. I’m still slightly disbelieving of ROSED. I wasted 5 minutes refusing to write it in. My LOI. Ann
  34. About 50 mins but dozed off several times in the process – going down with a cold, hope it’s not infectious if I blog on here. I’m sure someone will let me know if it is. LOI ROSED unparsed (thanks blogger). Several words here were dredged up from the back of mind not quite DNK maybe KOBF, knew once but forgotten.
  35. Busy day at the office.

    50-ish min (two sessions)

    FOI 3dn INTER ALIA

    LOI 20dn SPRAT!

    COD 25ac INDOORS

    WOD 12ac EVERYWHEN (nice!)

    7dn LARCH was a rubbbish clue

    2dn I initially read as Mind com (corn) a bit of separation please!

  36. I definitely did not fly through this puzzle, as all that unusual vocab held me up. They’ve all been mentioned above, so I won’t run through them again. My LOI was SCARECROW, from it being the only thing that fit: I never made the leap from ‘mind’ to ‘care’, so the wordplay passed me by. So a guess, actually. Regards.
  37. Extremely clear on the parsing, and just the perfect amount of commentary.

    Lovely.

  38. 40:07 with some time spent at the end trying to convince myself that rosed was correct at 23dn and, not knowing the ski bump, that 18ac had to be mogul. Had a bit of a question mark at pest, Newmarket, everywhen and engarland but they all resolved themselves fairly satisfactorily. My favourites were probably the two long down clues in the middle.
  39. I was held up – terminated, let’s face it – by 26ac. I had ITCHY = irritable: ill-behaved)-B, and was convinced it was right.
    Richard Travers
  40. Thanks setter and jack
    Took an hour to do this over three sessions, so did not find this easy – mainly due to the higher number than usual of less well-known definitions. Missed the clever parsing the disposal of -ISH in THEIR and didn’t spot the second ‘game’ definition of NEWMARKET.
    Being a keen skier once, MOGUL presented much less of a challenge here than when negotiating them on a downhill run back when first learning – thought that it was one of the better clues.
    Finished in the SE corner with ENGARLAND and ROSED – both of which I hadn’t seen before in their verbal sense.

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