Times Cryptic 27380

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

I spent 38 minutes on this but failed to finish without reference to aids. The level of difficulty varied from clues that would not be out of place in the QC to a couple that would have been better suited to the Mephisto, so it was a bit of a mixed bag. I’m not averse to spending a lot longer on a puzzle than my target half-hour in order to get it absolutley right but when all but a two or three answers have gone in quite easily and I’m left to come up with words I’m pretty sure I don’t know and would only be guessing at, I reckon it’s time to give up and reach for the dictionary.

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 Container originally carrying wine from the east (8)
CANISTER –  C{arrying} [originally], RETSINA (wine) reversed [from the east]
6 Explosion traveller recorded at first in a number of books (6)
REPORT – REP (traveller), then R{ecorded} [at first] contained by [in] OT (a number of books – Old Testament)
9 Time to tuck into finest burger concoction — oops, dropped it! (13)
BUTTERFINGERS – T (time) contained by [tuck into] anagram [concoction] of FINEST BURGER
10 An anthropoid ape abandoning sick goat (6)
ANGORA – AN, GOR{ill}A (anthropoid ape) [abandoning sick]
11 Sent out principally for eating lolly in art period? (8)
SEICENTO – SENT + O{ut} [principally] containing [eating] ICE (lolly). My LOI and I used aids to nail it. I knew it was to be a word that had caught me out recently (6th April, as it happens) but I still couldn’t remember it or work it out from wordplay. As Bruce wrote in his blog at the time: “Seicento is Italian for 600 but, oddly, in this context refers to the 1600s. Presumably the millennium is taken for granted”.
13 Count disturbed by a tirade before a dance (10)
TARANTELLA – TELL (count) contains [disturbed by] A RANT (tirade), A
15 Exclamation of relief not many voiced (4)
PHEW – Sounds like [voiced] “few” (not many)
16 Projectiles initially manufactured in a very short time (4)
AMMO – M{anufactured} [initially] contained by [in] A + MO (very short time)
18 Figure one changed at random (10)
HENDECAGON – Anagram [at random] of ONE CHANGED. 11 sides and angles.
21 A French cookery writer reportedly never surpassed (8)
UNBEATEN – UN (a, French), BEATEN sounds like [reportedly] “Beeton” (cookery writer). I’m pleased that just for once Mrs B is not clued as “cook” as she wasn’t one in any professional sense, but a writer and editor who compiled other people’s recipes.
22 Smart and trendy? It’s what fast movers make it (6)
SNAPPY – A two-for-one definition followed by a cryptic hint perhaps referring to the expression ‘Make it snappy!’.
23 Direct popular chap primarily employed in army intelligence (13)
INSTANTANEOUS – IN (popular), STAN (chap), TA (army),  then E{mployed} [primarily] contained by [in] NOUS (intelligence)
25 Sort of fruit a granny eats when husband is out? (6)
ANANAS – A, NAN (granny), {h}AS (eats) [when husband is out]. Another name for pineapple.
26 Sci-fi captain reversing cart in Scottish burial ground (8)
KIRKYARD – KIRK (sci-fi captain), DRAY (cart) [reversing]
Down
2 State, inter alia, what can stop us? (7)
ALBANIA – BAN (what can stop us) contained by [inter] ALIA
3 Lover involved with riot at opera (2,9)
IL TROVATORE – Anagam [involved] of LOVER RIOT AT. By Giuseppe Verdi.
4 Woman digesting opening of tough letter from abroad (5)
THETA – THEA (woman) containing [digesting] T{ough} [opening]
5 Judge stamping down on American gangster’s noncompliance (7)
REFUSAL – REF (judge), US (American), AL (gangster – Capone). A ‘charade’ clue padded with ‘stamping down on’ as a rather lengthy positional indicator which is not really required other than to enhance the surface reading.
6 Function held up by old archbishop with jagged teeth? (9)
RUNCINATE – TAN (function – tangent) reversed [up] and contained [held] by RUNCIE (old archbishop). Robert Runcie was Archbishop of Canterbury 1980-1991. I overlooked the reversal indicator when trying to decipher this from wordplay and came up with ‘runcitane’ which seems just as likely an answer if one has never heard of the actual word. This appears to be its first outing in any puzzle in the TftT era.
7 Bird runs away from mole (3)
PIE – PIE{r} (mole) [runs away]. I was helped here by our recent discussion about groynes and jetties and the like, so I thought of the right type of ‘mole’ almost immediately.
8 What one may learn by accepting established award (7)
ROSETTE – ROTE (what one may learn by) containing [accepting] SET (established)
12 Clarifying old project a politician put together (11)
EXPLANATORY – EX (old), PLAN (project), A, TORY (politician). Another charade with ‘put together’ as more padding in aid of a good surface.
14 Islanders’ expression of pleasure in some Venetian paintings (9)
TAHITIANS – AH (expression of pleasure) contained by [in] TITIANS (some Venetian paintings)
17 Suitor regularly found in German novelist’s imposing house (7)
MANSION – S{u}I{t}O{r} [regularly] contained by [found in] MANN (German novelist)
19 Isolated peak nobody attempts to scale, do we hear? (7)
NUNATAK – Sounds like [do we hear?] “none attack” (nobody attempts to scale). SOED has it as: ‘an isolated peak of rock projecting above a surface of the inland ice or snow in Greenland, Norway, etc’. This is really Mephisto territory I feel and as such perhaps might have been clued with slightly more helpful wordplay. It has appeared before, once in a Mephisto, once in a Club Monthly and once in a Jumbo (as hidden alternate letters). I’m sure there was more fun to be had in a surface reading based around a homophone of “nun attack” than was on display in this clue.
20 One who takes on work with model (7)
OPPOSER – OP (work), POSER (model)
22 Spanish chap, person once nursing certain soldiers (5)
SENOR – SEN (person once nursing), OR (soldiers) with ‘certain’ as padding
24 In Hogwarts, a new sickbay (3)
SAN – Hidden in {Hogwart}S A N{ew}

71 comments on “Times Cryptic 27380”

  1. NHO NUNATAK, but with the checkers in, it seemed a possibility, although I checked my dictionary afterwards. ROSETTE took me forever, as, while I thought of ROTE, I couldn’t tear myself away from EST (‘established’); only parsed it after I’d thought of ROSETTE. I got ANANAS, but never figured out where the H came from. After 10 minutes–having got everything else in in about 20–I threw in the towel at 6d. NHO the word, and couldn’t remember the archbishop, although I did know the name. NUNATAK, RUNCINATE, definitely Mephisto material.
  2. 3 crossing unknowns: hendecagon sounded likely, though I would have guessed undecagon. I came up with Rennisate (Renate the 16C Italian archbishop?) and nunstuk. Otherwise easy, as Jack says. And ultimately unfulfilling, obscurity clued obscurely. Though I have heard of Runcie, but not being Christian or English the name never stuck.

    Edited at 2019-06-18 02:33 am (UTC)

    1. I wondered if there might be a connection with the runcible spoon invented by Edward Lear for his most famous nonsense poem.
  3. NUNATAK was my first guess, so it didn’t feel like cheating when I checked! Ha.
    Don’t think I’ve ever seen the word HENDECAGON before. Thank goodness it was an anagram.
    I didn’t know, or remember, the bishop, so thanks for the parsing.

    Edited at 2019-06-18 03:07 am (UTC)

  4. Sorry Jerry, but a touch of the Club Monthly today.

    Denticulate was all I knew of jagged-teeth NHO 6dn RUNCINATE! 19dn NUNATAK ’nuff said, 11ac SEICENTO sort of knew but….

    FOI 6dn easy as PIE

    COD 15ac PHEW!

    WOD 18ac HENDECAGON

    DNF North East a Wasteland.

    Re- 17dn MANSION so apposite! (&lit?) Thomas Mann had a most ‘imposing house’ built in Herzog Park, in Munich. In 1933 he was forced to flee the Mann Mansion (as it is known) and it was handed to ‘Putzi’ Hanfstaengl. He too fled the mob in 1936. In the late forties Mann returned to Munich and had his lovely mansion bulldozed! In 2007 the Munich authorities had it rebuilt. One would never know except for a small, discreet sign on the outer wall.

    Edited at 2019-06-18 05:57 am (UTC)

    1. I was in Munich last week and will probably go again next year. Do you have an address for the Mann mansion? Worth a look maybe. I remember once wandering the streets and coming across the house where Mozart composed Idomeneo – that one also celebrated by a wall plaque.
  5. My LFI (last five in as I assume the new glossary will tell you) were IL TROVATORE, RUNCINATE, SEICENTO, HENDECAGON and NUNATAK, of which I only had a vague recall of SEICENTO. So when all turned out to be correct I was pleasantly surprised.

    I thought ANANAS was just Spanish for pineapple so was surprised to see it turn up here, but I guess someone has checked that it appears in the accepted English dictionaries.

    1. Not one of the ‘official’ dictionaries, I think but Chambers has:

      1. (also anˈana) the pineapple (Ananas sativus)
      2. The pinguin (Bromelia pinguin), or its fruit

      You’re welcome 🙂

      Edited at 2019-06-18 06:45 am (UTC)

      1. Thanks Sotira. Now you mention it, I do remember them from the old advertising slogan “P-P-Pick up a pinguin” 😉
        1. Now you mention it, PINGO is another glacial geological term (like NUNATAK). Certain to be in a crossword near you soon.
          1. exactly like nunatak, in that nobody who is not an eskimo, and stuck in an igloo with no telly, ever uses the word .. 🙂
    2. Piña (fem.) in Spanish, but certainly ananas in French, which I think is what you meant there. Also Ananas in German. Strangely, it’s masc. in French, and fem. in German. Sorry to jump in; I’m a languages geek 🙂
      1. No need to apologise, I’m happy to learn 🙂 I’d assumed it was Spanish as I remember being on a beach in Spain as a child and sellers walking along shouting “Coco, Ananas”.
          1. When one thinks about it, ‘pineapple’ is a pretty dumb name; so is ‘grapefruit’ for that matter.
  6. 23:04 … would have been a reasonable time had I got REPORT promptly but I just couldn’t see it. After that, the tricky northeast fell into place.

    Last in SEICENTO, which I had forgotten (now added to my crosswordy words list), and where as ever I was stalled by the use of an en clair element in the clue (sent).

    No real problem with NUNATAK once the checkers were there but I do agree it feels like an opportunity wasted!

    Edited at 2019-06-18 06:36 am (UTC)

  7. All finished but with (butter)fingers crossed. NUNATAK well known to me but RUNCINATE, SEICENTO and HENDECAGON all worked out on trust. I finished on time so I had better concede that the setter was successful.
  8. Pretty hard in parts but all done and dusted in 31m. Like others, took a while to sort out nunatak and runcinate, and had never come across hendecagon even though I taught maths for 20 yrs! Very enjoyable though, so thanks setter and jackkt for the comprehensive blog.
  9. 21:57. I reckon I spent about two thirds of that time on four clues in the NE corner. So yes, a strange mix of QC and Mephisto, and several fingers crossed on submission.
    I didn’t help myself by seeing that 8dn was obviously ROTE containing EST and confidently writing in RESTORE. It took me an embarrassingly long time to reconsider that one.
      1. Well at least you considered something that matched the wordplay. I don’t think either of us will have this down as one of our finest solving moments though.
  10. 35 mins with croissant and blueberry jam, on hols in Ilkley, hoorah.
    I too considered Restote.
    Nunatak rang a far off bell.
    Thanks setter and J.
  11. As Jack says, a mixed bag with the obscurities swamping the simple. I managed to derive the unknowns but checked them before entering them in the grid (standard Mephisto solving)

    I haven’t come across HENDECAGON for years but it jogged some memories. Along with 7,9 and 13 sided polygons it can’t be constructed by conventional ruler and compass. The old Greek mathematicians derived a process using a special ruler that pivots about an axis – clever stuff

  12. All present and correct, but I’ve been hacking away for nearly an hour to get here. LOI was SNAPPY. It’s a long, long time since I’ve been a snappy dresser. I didn’t know HENDECAGON but there was nothing else to do with the remaining letters. I had vaguely heard of NUNATAK, so I put it in with my usual northern curse that if ‘nun’ rhymes with ‘non’, why do we have two separate vowels? I’ve seen SEICENTO somewhere recently, but it may have been the Sunday General Knowledge. My old English master Peg-Leg Wakefield would have struggled to have danced a TARANTELLA with his wooden leg, but he did leave me with an eclectic memory of lines of poetry. I was proud of constructing RUNCINATE and just hoped it wasn’t Runcieballs. A hard puzzle. Thank you Jack and setter.

    Edited at 2019-06-18 08:02 am (UTC)

    1. Yes I do.

      Of the girl gone chancing,
      Glancing,
      Dancing,
      Backing and advancing

      It’s good isn’t it.

      Never more. Sadly.

      1. Yep. “And the fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees,” is something I can’t stop myself saying whenever the Pyrenees are mentioned.
    2. The homophone is “none” rather than “non” which are pronounced differently in the south. I appreciate that, up north, you pronounce them the same.
  13. Motoring along very happily until I met four of the five mentioned by pootle73 and I failed on SEICENTO and NUNATAK.

    Too hard for me, though I was pleased to have worked out RUNCINATE and liked HENDECAGON. Just the thing for when the conversation starts to lag at the sophisticated dinner party – “Do you know what an eleven sided polygon is called?”.

    DNF and gave up after 60 minutes.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

  14. Many thanks for the new glossary – very useful for beginners like me. One suggested addition –
    i remember reading a blog discussion in which a crossword with all the letters in the alphabet was mentioned but cant remember what the special name was, if indeed it had one.
    1. Pangram! Quite right, I will add it. On edit – now done.

      Edited at 2019-06-18 08:53 am (UTC)

  15. Enjoyed this one .. that slight frisson you get when entering several unknown words, one after the other, with fingers crossed .. but all turned out well. Ananas is French for pineapple I think so seemed plausible; hendecagon rang the faintest of bells. Knew nunatak, though not a word in common use, except possibly in Greenland.. kirkyard, il trovatore and seicento also infrequently used at best, here in Kent. More common over in Sussex maybe, what with them having that there Glyndy-borne etc.
  16. 30 mins but one error. (40 mins but a 10 min phone call I needed to take.) I had Nonstik for Nunatak.

    1. Like it! .. a nonstik nunatak would be a formidable obstacle indeed
    2. I’m glad to know I wasn’t the only one who dallied with a NONSTIK peak!
  17. We had SEICENTO only recently, I believe, but more recently than April I thought. In any event the Fiat 500 was known as the Cinquecento so, like the Seicento, the thousand went missing.

    Nearly went for La Traviata but realised in time that I didn’t have the right number or type of letters.

    Those ANANAS get around…it’s also pineapple in Italian.

    COD to 8D ROSETTE. I initially failed to spot how ‘by’ fitted in.

    1. The Cinquecento had a 500 cc engine, surely? No missing 1000 anywhere.
      1. There seems to be a dual meaning. We recently had SEICENTO meaning the art period, the 1600s. As Jack says in his blog today:
        “As Bruce wrote in his blog at the time: “Seicento is Italian for 600 but, oddly, in this context refers to the 1600s. Presumably the millennium is taken for granted”.
        It seems to me the same applies to Cinquecento: The 1500s in art but also, say, the Fiat Cinquecento, the Fiat 500.
  18. 22 mins. Nunatak was a bit naughty, really. Runcinate, pfft… all right then, but only just.
    Thanks jack.
  19. Surprised to find I had done this correctly in 28 minutes, watching the cricket begin. NUNATAK rang a bell somehow, ANANAS is French and HENDECAGON seemed likely as I knew the Greek for eleven (which sounds like endeka). SEICENTO my LOI as was slow to parse although we have had it before. As others observe, a mix of easy and obscure-ish, but enjoyable.

    Edited at 2019-06-18 09:49 am (UTC)

  20. I used aids for NUNATAK and RUNCINATE, for which I’d derived NONSTAK and RUNCIEATE and then looked them up. Failed in the end on SEICENTE which I thought I remembered, but didn’t quite. Managed to work out ANANAS and HENDECAGON correctly. A bit of a curate’s egg. 22:24 WOE and a bit of help. Thanks setter and Jack.
  21. Got most of this done in half an hour before a doctor’s appointment this morning, but it turned out I was saving the worst for last. In fifteen minutes more in a cafe I managed to piece together HENDECAGON from knowing the Greek for 11 (and how variably we’ve transliterated Greek over the years!) and even came up with NUNATAK.

    Sadly, however, I’d had so many tries on my bit of paper at 3d that I came up with IL TROVALORE for the unknown opera, having got confused with which letters were left over at some point, and also couldn’t get away from “run” for “function” at the R_N… start of 6d, so shoved in RUNPILATE in desperation, even though I was fairly sure that Pilate wasn’t an archbishop. Ah well. I’d never heard of Runcie anyway, so it wasn’t like I had much of a chance.

    Edited at 2019-06-18 09:56 am (UTC)

    1. .. I think Pilate wasn’t even a christian, never mind an archbishop 😉
  22. With all the checking letters it sounded plausible as an Eskimo word, and I had a faint sense of deja vu so I may have seen it in the NY Times crosswords. I agree it’s a shame we didn’t get a belligerent sister. OLevel Greek produced HENDECAGON but I certainly struggled with RUNCINATE. Like Matt I thought for a while that run=function and my mental checklist of archbishops is very short so it had to be left to marinate for a bit. Finally arrived at it via Edward Lear as Jack suggests. 19.22
  23. I was almost surprised when this turned out to be all correct, since, like lots of us, there were several words that were extremely obscure (aka I’ve never heard of). I tried NONSTIK and RESTOTE and some of the others before going for the correct answers in the end. Despite two maths A-levels, I’d never heard of HENDECAGON but it was the only plausible anagram.

    It’s odd when a crossword has a mixture of really easy clues and really hard ones. You end up with most of the grid filled and then some really unlikely looking checkers. I’ve learned to make sure the checkers are correct when that happens, since often when it happens I’ve not looked at the wordplay carefully enough and ended up with -ENT instead of -ING or something. But today they really were odd checkers for odd words.

  24. Was flying, knew NUNATAK (A level Geography, failed) and HENDECAGON (Maths teaching), but beaten by SIECENTO – otherwise would have been sub 15′. Frustrating for me, like many others.

    Thanks jack and setter. Oh, and I’ve found the glossary.

  25. I mombled RESTOTE at 8d (even though it didn’t look like a word but then neither did hendecagon, nunatak and runcinate) and failed to make anything fit 11, where I’d become fixated on SENT OUT indicating an anagram of sent.

    Wholeheartedly agree that the whole was unhelpfully uneven.

    1. Your mention of momble reminded me to check out the new glossary and I was reminded of the term being coined by janie_l_b and mctext. That got me thinking to how some entertaining posters just disappear at some point. Such is the way of the Internet forum I guess…
  26. ….Stardate 18062019. If Virginrail had got the Wi-Fi activated on the Glasgow – London train I’d have posted this two hours ago !

    Didn’t parse PERSON, and NHO NUNATAK (which reminded me more of The Sisters of No Mercy).

    FOI BUTTERFINGERS
    LOI NUNATAK
    COD TARANTELLA
    TIME 10:39

  27. I don’t know how you’re meant to decide between nunatak and nonatak if you don’t know the word. You have to guess or look it up
    1. For me, at least, NONATAK wouldn’t sound like NONE ATTACK, but NUNATAK does.
      1. As an earlier blogger said, it depends where you’re from. I live “down” in London now but originally Newcastle. Nuns are nuns up there and nones are nones 😊
    2. They might have NUNATAKs in NUNAVUT? Okay that doesn’t help much.
  28. I don’t know how you’re meant to decide between nunatak and nonatak if you don’t know the word. You have to guess or look it up
      2. I’m in the non = none group up here in the Boro Jerry. As Phil said, the Nuns used to wield big sticks and were to be avoided as much as possible. Difficult when they’re showing you no Mercy in the classroom!
  29. SEICENTO was familiar from some previous puzzle, and good thing do, as I didn’t know RUNCINATE but it looked good from the wordplay. NUNATAK seemed familiar when I thought of it, so in it went. Apart from vocabulary-related panic nothing much to slow the hardened solver down here. Enjoyable, I must say I do prefer Mephistoid words to bland quotidian ones. As maybe you could tell.
  30. …stumped by PIE (so does that mean there other other types of PIE birds other than a magPIE), SEICENTO (incorrectly saw the CENT as lolly and NHO the art period – failed to parse), and NUNATAK (really? To scale = to attack?)

    Ho hum.

    1. Collins and Chambers have PIE just as an alternative to ‘magpie’ but qualifying it as archaic and/or dialect. The Oxfords mention other ‘pie’ birds such as ‘tree pie’ and ‘sea-pie’.

      I wasn’t convinced by ‘scale / attack’ either but I suppose in mountaineering circles they might just pass the substitution test. I still think it was a poor clue though.

      1. I’ve always associated the avian noun pie with pied birds, wagtail etc., but this is just instinctive and based on absolutely nothing — incidentally, we are suffering a very large plague of magpies this year; fifteen in our tree this a.m.
  31. I haven’t been able to post in several days, sorry. Now reappearing to admit my experience was like Jack’s : Did everything except the last unfathomable few. So DNF, as I gave up and resorted to assistance for SECIENTO, NUNATACK, and RUNCIATE. Yikes. AT least I got through the rest in good time. Regards.
  32. As a long time lurker here and very occasional contributor, this is the sort of puzzle I will miss most when my Times sub lapses in a couple of weeks. Challenging but doable. Words I don’t know but fairly clued. I will miss the crossword and will add a thank you to all the setters and the solvers, commenters and helpers here. It’s an excellent little community for the very largest of parts.
  33. NONATAK for me as well. Can’t add much to the general discussion except that yes, I cheated too
  34. Having struggled to get SEICENTO (my ntntLOI), I was left with 18ac and 6d. Having (correctly) deduced that only HENDECAGON would fit at 18ac, and knowing full well that HENDECAGON could only be a madey-uppy word, I decided that the world had gone mad and threw in the towel.
  35. 28:12. I was pleased to finish this all correct inside half an hour given some of the vocab on show. Same NE corner difficulties as others but got there in the end. I think I have seen nunatak before, must’ve been in the jumbo mentioned in the blog. Hendecagon and Runcinate were NHOs. I also considered restote at 8dn before the penny dropped. Seicento took a while to crack.
  37. Thanks setter and jack
    Four solid sessions to finish, but only with help in the end with those same few obscure words. Went down the same LA TRAVA something path at 3d as one of the other posters (who I can’t find now).
    Always thought of ANANAS as the genus of the pineapple, without thinking that it might be a foreign language name for the same fruit.
    Struggled through that NE corner, vaguely remembering the polygon, the archbishop and the Italian art period after writing in the answers but the words RUNCINATE and NUNATAK will go down as new learning. Returned to the NW corner to figure out CANISTER at 1a and make repairs to IL TROVATORE to finally finish it off after close to hours of aggregated time.

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