Times Cryptic 27830

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

On blogging this it all seems straightforward so I am a little surprised that it took me 48 minutes.

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]. I usually omit all reference to positional indicators unless there is a specific point that requires clarification.

Across
1 People putting on plays including grand shocks (8)
STAGGERS : STAGERS (people putting on plays) containing [including] G (grand)
9 Very fine inhaler I misused (8)
HAIRLINE : Anagram [misused] of INHALER I
10 Handle blow, retreating (4)
KNOB : BONK (blow) reversed [retreating]. In case anyone queries it, SOED has ‘knob’ as: a rounded lump or protuberance, esp. at the end or on the surface of a thing; specifically a handle of a door or drawer shaped like this, a similar attachment for pulling, turning, etc.
11 Look into organised group intending to be obstructive (6-6)
BLOODY-MINDED : LO (look) contained  by [into] BODY (organised group), MINDED (intending)
13 Following music, look at prominent organ (3-3)
POP-EYE : POP (music), EYE (look at). Only the Oxfords have this as a noun meaning: a protruding, bulging, or prominent eye. The other usual sources only recognise the adjective ‘pop-eyed’.  Anyway, I can’t let the occasion pass without posting this…
14 Cleopatra was girly in the extreme in brief fancy panties (8)
EGYPTIAN : G{irl}Y [in the extreme] contained by [in] anagram [fancy] of PANTIE{s} [brief]
15 Halves of beer to begin with one’s put round party (7)
BISECTS : B{eer} [to begin with], then I‘S (one’s) containing [put round] SECT (party)
16 Journalist’s announcement to create awe (7)
IMPRESS : I‘M PRESS (journalist’s announcement)
20 What can refresh one‘s day, coming in mostly sluggish (8)
LEMONADE : MON (day) contained by [coming in] LEADE{n} (sluggish) [mostly]
22 Respectful gesture as second warning may be heard (6)
SALAAM : S (second),  then ALAAM sounds like (may be heard) “alarm” (warning). The pun being in fine panto tradition from productions of Aladdin.
23 On call, not every girl: certainly no aristocrat (7-5)
WORKING-CLASS : WORKING (on), C{all} [not every – all], LASS (girl)
25 Name: Hilary, for example (4)
TERM : Two meanings. One of the three terms at Oxford and Dublin Universities; it runs from January to March.
26 Scheme by one engineer after attack artillery repulsed (8)
ARTIFICE : FIT (attack) + RA (artillery) reversed [repulsed], then I (one), CE (engineer – civil)
27 Only Charlie is beginning to make an embarrassing mistake (8)
SOLECISM : SOLE (only), C (Charlie), IS, M{ake} [beginning]
Down
2 Food baked brown, the first thing to open? (8)
TANDOORI : TAN (brown), then DOOR 1 (the first thing to open?)
3 Rubbish ravenously eaten — I approve (12)
GOBBLEDEGOOK : GOBBLED (ravenously eaten), EGO (I), OK (approve). Definitely the WOD.
4 Former adversary deprived of work, a symbol of power (8)
EXPONENT : EX (former), {op}PONENT (adversary) [deprived of work – op]
5 Show horror as southern half of Yorkshire town wiped out (7)
SHUDDER : S (southern), HUDDER{sfield} (Yorkshire town) [half…wiped out]
6 Distress as inspector for example crosses motorway (6)
DISMAY : DI (detective inspector), then SAY (for example) contains [crosses] M (motorway)
7 Young woman shorn of resistance finally consented: don’t do this to Lily! (4)
GILD : GI{r}L (young woman) [shorn of resistance – r], {consente}D [finally]. Does anyone remember this from Del Shannon? It was the flipside of his hit Hat’s Off To Larry (1961)
8 Awful about death — they hang (8)
PENDANTS : PANTS (awful) containing [about] END (death)
12 Given a turn newly on a rota in committee, at first like Pre-Raphaelite painting (12)
NATURALISTIC : Anagram [newly] of A TURN, then A, LIST (rota), I{n} + C{ommittee) [at first]
15 Albatross, for one, is out of sorts (5,3)
BELOW PAR : Two meanings. Three below par in the first case.
17 About to open grape juice and the Spanish wine (8)
MUSCATEL : CA (about) contained by [to open] MUST (grape juice), EL (the, Spanish). I think the grape juice came up quite recently.
18 After temperature’s dropped, arrange prizes for facing the waves (8)
SEAWARDS : SE{t} (arrange) [temperature’s dropped], AWARDS (prizes)
19 Pretty girls having twinges after exercising (7)
PEACHES : PE (exercising), ACHES (twinges)
21 It may need clipping again, left wild (6)
AGNAIL : Anagram [wild] of AGAIN L (left)
24 Book presenting facts: not the first time (4)
RUTH : {t}RUTH (facts) [not the first time]. Book of the Bible.

82 comments on “Times Cryptic 27830”

  1. 30 minutes an a nice chewy puzzle, but then could not make heads or tails of _ O _ – EYE. Sure, I considered POP-EYE, BOP-EYE, as well as every other combination of two letters. Who’s to say what’s more likely? DOG-EYE? COW-EYE? Maybe there are sorts of music I don’t know. How about F (following) + OP-EYE? After literally 25 minutes of alphabet trawling, I even started looking these up. POP-EYE wasn’t in Collins, incidentally. Then I thought, maybe DOE-EYE? After all, DO+E could be music. But nope.

    Anyway, I’m proud of my time for everything but, once again faster than usual time for me.

    Edited at 2020-11-24 02:41 am (UTC)

  2. Like Jeremy, I fiddled with the alphabet for X0X-EYE, but I was happy with POP, although I’ve never seen POP-EYE as opposed to -EYED. Never figured out how GILD worked, biffing it from the definition. (I don’t think I ever heard the song; I know I never will again.) I didn’t waste too much time on SHUDDER, since my knowledge of Yorkshire towns is limited to York; at least my knowledge of Y towns AS Y towns. I actually knew Huddersfield, but I still had to biff. I liked BISECTS & WORKING-CLASS.
    1. ‘Gild the lily’ is a misquotation from King John, apparently:

      Therefore, to be possess’d with double pomp,
      To guard a title that was rich before,
      To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
      To throw a perfume on the violet,
      To smooth the ice, or add another hue
      Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
      To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
      Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

      Edited at 2020-11-24 08:38 am (UTC)

          1. I’m not sure what if anything you misread, but thanks for the quotation; I don’t remember it from KJ, and I think I’ll take it to bed now for tonight’s reading.
            1. I somehow took it that you didn’t know the expression ‘gild the lily’, which would have made it hard for you to get GILD from the definition.

              Edited at 2020-11-24 12:52 pm (UTC)

    3. Incidentally, not sure if you’re aware, that puzzle was finally changed and scores updated!
  5. I found bits of this straightforward but was left with a few unanswered dotted around which always puts the fear into me as I know one answer is not going to unlock the rest. Anyhow I gradually got through them then submitted with two of which I wasn’t sure. I hoped that Hilary might be a name for a term at Oxford or Cambridge as naming their terms seemed the sort of thing they’d do there. And AGNAIL seemed the best arrangement of the anagrist – I did wonder if it might be another word for hangnail which I’ve since confirmed it is.
  6. Thanks for explaining ARTIFICE, Jack. I was working on RE for engineer.
    Nearly fell into the SALUTE trap in 22ac. It was not being able to then make sense of 18d that got me on the right track.
    I like clues such as 2d (Door 1) so that’s my COD.
    I was eventually able to work out in GOBBLEDEGOOK that I APPROVE equates to EGO OK.
    1. I posted in the Club comments thread itself about this – I did an old puzzle this week which had virtually the same clue with an unchecked second E; I put in GOBBLED + I GO OK resulting in a, somewhat unfair I think, pink square.
  7. I came unstuck at 24dn where I was convinced that 24dn was a book by Melvyn Bragg – CREDO – not the first = REDO – not the first time is a REDO.
    Thus 26ac was impossible – ARTIFICE – was beyond my ken – IKEAN gobbledegook!

    FOI 25ac TERM

    (LOI) 21dn AGNAIL and I

    COD 15dn BELOW PAR – Albatross is a golfer’s bird. And for the uninitiated four under par is a ‘Condor’. A very rare bird indeed!

    Talking of which I note the lamest of ducks TRUMP, is slightly below par with only the last to play.

    WOD 11ac BLOODY-MINDED – Meldrewvian

    Most enjoyable puzzlement.

    Edited at 2020-11-24 08:34 am (UTC)

  8. I had a justifiable UNDER PAR for far too long at 15 which left me that way on the Snitch. Incidently, I wonder why some Referenced Solvers (like me) lose that status through the day as neutrinos record silly times to pack out the leaderboard. Doesn’t that make it a bit less representative?
    Just wondering.
    1. Under par is more than justifiable – it’s the expression I would use. Made the SW unsolvable, as did having ACTS for 24d – believable at first glance, though a poor clue that way.
    2. Yes, it’s becasue of the neutrinos. From the snitch website, main page, hidden by a “Learn more” button:

      Why does the number of Reference solvers often decrease during the day?

      For the SNITCH calculation, only the Reference solvers in the top 100 of the leader board are used. The main reason for this is to make the SNITCH/NITCH calculation repeatable. Only the data for the top 100 solvers is available to all users. Members can see their own results (and the few surrounding) outside the top 100, but these are not available to everyone. So, if Reference solver results get pushed outside of the top 100, I remove them from the SNITCH calculation and show this reduction in the Reference solver count.

      1. Ok Thanks. Just to be clear I love the Snitch, I think we all do. I’m very grateful for it. My only thought was that by letting Neutrinos effectively dilute the number of referenced solvers in the calculation it might slightly weaken the overall result as it becomes increasingly based only on the fast solvers’ results. We can all check evryone’s results from the helpful listing of them in the Snitch detail. Other than Neutrino results which we don’t care about anyway. So if all Refernced Solvers remained included in the calculation whether they were in the top 100 or not the calculation might be more representative.
        1. Thanks for your interest!

          Yes, it’s arguable that keeping all the reference solvers would be a more accurate measure. You can actually see that the SNITCH does tend to drop slightly as the number of solvers drops. But it’s also arguable that the later measure is more accurate – we don’t include reference solvers who solve later in the day and fall outside the top-100; if we found some way to include them, the SNITCH value might also drop as a result.

          So I have opted for consistency – the original SNITCH calculations were all based on top-100 solvers in the leaderboard, so I’ve kept it that way. And I’m being a bit conservative – the values of the SNITCH seem to be well received as a reasonable measure, so I’m reluctant to change the method.

          But, again, thanks for the comments and the interest.

          1. Yes, understood. And many thanks again for producing it. BTW, why aren’t you a referenced solver?
  9. Some DISMAY when I read ALBATROSS
    But BELOW PAR did not make me cross
    No need for a hump
    The TERM describes Trump
    Like KNOB, BLOODY-MINDED, and loss
  10. 45 mins for this once I finally managed to print the crossie because the Times site kept crashing. Half an hour of patience, which I lost, before anything would happen. Is this a common problem? I am using a an Apple i-pad. I have just had fibre installed here. Could that make a difference? I know some of you are very technically minded so any help would be great. FOI HAIRLINE and last two togetherTANDOORI and BISECTS. Quite crafty clueing in places I thought. SHUDDER, TERM, ARTIFICE, POP-EYE all took a while to see. COD NATURALISTIC. I do like a nice Rossetti or Burne-Jones. Thanks Jack for the blog and especially for the Popeye link, great.
  11. 18:08. A few distractions this morning, and I slowed to a crawl with a few stubborn ones at the end. Part of the problem was having GOBBLEDIGOOK (I approve -> I GO OK).
    I worked out that the second word in 13ac was EYE but wasn’t sure if it was indicated by ‘look at’ or ‘organ’, which also slowed me down a bit.
    A narrow escape at 17dn where I initially biffed MUSCADEL but reconsidered, rather uncharacteristically.
    1. I did the same thing with this, hesitating because I’d usually stick a Y in there. Train of thought, are you having a turducken this year? I understand Trump is going to pardon a turkey this week after all. And he may also try to pardon himself.
      1. We have turducken when we’re in Canada, but we’ll be stuck in the UK this year for obvious reasons. I haven’t decided what we’re going to have but as it will probably be just us there’s no need to buy an enormous Turkey.
        Presidents can’t pardon themselves for state-level crimes. A thought to cheer the soul in these difficult times.
        1. Right Keriothe. It’s Thanksgiving this week but we’re all staying in our separate corners so it’s just roast chicken for the 2 of us. I am making pumpkin soup and cranberry-lemon squares though. Maybe we can see everyone at Christmas but I’m not holding my breath.
    2. I did exactly the same as you with GOBBLEDIGOOK, using the same reasoning. I then spent at least 5 minutes wrestling with the improbable crossing letters at 15a. The light only dawned when I realised that 15a had to be BISECTS.
      1. Snap. Even when I got BISECTS I thought for a while there must be an error in 3dn.
  12. I have to admit that the second line was always “and I live in a caravan” to me – perhaps this was a rude version?

    SALAAM LOI. Also came very close to biffing UNDER PAR.

    Saw the Stranglers in Brighton in 1977 where they did the superb PEACHES.

    Like others, somewhat hesitated over KNOB but concluded that KNOT didn’t fit (stud maybe, handle no).

    Nho the Del Shannon song, but familiar with the phrase.

    <14′, back in the swing.

    Thanks jack and setter.

    1. Ah yes, I think that’s what we all sang in the playground, followed by
      “there’s a hole in the middle
      Where I do my piddle…”
      How we laughed!
  13. Held up for a long time by NW corner. Especially KNOB as I couldn’t equate bonk with blow.
  14. 22:46. Becalmed about 2/3 way through until I eventually saw GOBBLEDEGOOK which unlocked the SW corner and BLOODY-MINDED. LOI SHUDDER. Nothing too hard in retrospect, but I struggled with the wordplay for several, only seeing it when I’d got the answer. Good puzzle. COD to PENDANTS.

    Edited at 2020-11-24 09:00 am (UTC)

  15. 35 mins pre-brekker, held up by putting Gobbledigook.
    NHO Agnail or pop-eye as a noun.
    Interesting to see the ‘brief fancy panties’ – which slightly pushes the wordplay. I wonder if we could start seeing…. “that is missing from non-soft, timeless, brief fancy panties” to mean an anagram of “an”.
    Thanks setter and J.
  16. Took longer than I should have with this, mostly the left-hand side. Was today’s crossword a bit sexist (Cleopatra in brief fancy panties, young woman finally consented, pretty girls = peaches)?

    COD: GOBBLEDEGOOK, great word

    Yesterday’s answer: San Marino is the world’s longest continuously-surviving republic. Small but perfectly formed.

    Today’s question: which bird is generally accepted for four under par?

    1. Horryd appears to have has answered your question before you asked it! Don’t know whether he is correct or it’s what you have in mind.

      Edited at 2020-11-24 09:32 am (UTC)

      1. It would appear that Angus doesn’t read previous submissions.
        The answer was already in my headline, posted an hour earlier!

        He was probably upset by the dreadfully sexist content of some of the clues.
        Is Ruth perhaps a sexist book in biblical terms? Meldrew

        Edited at 2020-11-24 12:11 pm (UTC)

  17. 38 minutes, with a dog walk in the middle which cleared the screens nicely. I finished it in a rush having started slowly. Maybe I would have been quicker if I were to eat my spinach. LOI LEMONADE. COD to SEAWARDS as I’m not feeling BLOODY-MINDED. Decent puzzle. Thank you Jack and setter.
  18. How I missed it, I don’t know, but I managed to spell TANDOORI with three O’s invalidating my (feeling) sluggish 22.29, made slow by GILD (I agree that if you don’t think of it immediately it’s a mystery) SEAWARDS and most of the lower left corner. Did anyone else try finding an anagram of FOR ONE IS (out of sorts) for the albatross clue? Or struggle to get away from LUCOZADE at 20?
  19. It didn’t come easy. Brain slow. Also I was a gobbledigooker. And toyed too long with salute. Re Peaches and Stranglers, I was surprised that the generally reliable Robert Christgau gives Rattus Norvegicus a disdainful C. He hates them.
  20. 15.01. Nice to see the setter’s recognition of bonk ! I seem to recall much discussion of knot or bonk in a puzzle a few weeks ago.

    FOI gobbledegook,LOI bisects having misspelled 3 dn to begin with.

    Very enjoyable so thanks to setter and, of course, blogger.

  21. Unfortunately this ended up being a painful arm-wrestle to sort out the NW corner, after I’d been another to come up with GOBBLED-I GO OK, which obviously didn’t help. Still, parts of it were excellent, your Grace.

    Edited at 2020-11-24 10:44 am (UTC)

    1. How we’d all have laughed together if GOBBLEDEGOOK had had an unchecked second E (as it did in old Times puzzle I did this week, in futile preparation for the competition)…
      1. That’s very unfortunate; that reminds me, it’s nearly December, I must compile my (quite short) list of Big Laughs of 2020.
  22. Del Shannon … two other facts … Was the first artist to have a Lennon-McCartney song in the US top 100, even before the Beatles … and committed suicide.
  23. MOSCATEL instead of MUSCATEL – biffed having only parsed the EL.

    Cheated also with Hilary = TERM. WTF? Surely Easter term is plain and simple enough?

    Grrr.

  24. I was also held up by UNDER PAR, but was eventually corrected by the WORKING CLASS. GOBBLEDIGOOK held up BISECTS for some time too. POP-EYE and GILD were my last 2 in. Enjoyed the puzzle. 33:27. Thanks setter and Jack.
  25. Another GOBBLEDIGOOK here. Interestingly the spell checker prefers it with a Y. Held up LOI by only thinking of wenches. Must have been the rude reversal in the NW.
  26. …that second line has always knocked me out. Only Keats. On a somewhat lower plane meandered down or up every garden path there was here, including the false I in the rubbish word which kept me looking far too long at BI-I-TS for ‘halves’…finally got there in about 45 minutes.
    1. “Alien Corn” was the name of a Doctor Who fanzine back in the 90s or thereabouts, which I always thought was rather neat.
  27. The only spelling I think I’ve ever seen is with a Y, so it was quite easy for me not to be sure what the alternative was.
  28. A long alphabet trawl in stubbornly defiant SW corner failed to point me to BISECTS, and I retired hurt at around 15 minutes.

    Thanks to Jack for parsing LEMONADE, while WORKING-CLASS I parsed myself afterwards.

    COD PENDANTS

  30. Fell into the “Under par” trap like a few others, and didn’t realise until I got the K in GOBBLEDEGOOK and then had R_RK at the start of 23a. At least it was an easy fix. Didn’t know AGNAIL but it was the best fit once the checkers were in place.

    FOI Knob
    LOI Bisects
    COD Bloody-minded

  31. Sadly, I went with “Solocism” – I suspect I’m getting “Solecism” and ” Solipsism” somehow morphed into a new word – I’ve heard of both but never remember their meanings (or their spellings)! Back to the dictionary for me.
    1. Been to the dictionary. Looks like I’m suffering from at least one of them.
  32. Very enjoyable. Everything went in quite smoothly except for a spelling mistake on the rubbish word at 3d which took a long time to correct. I thought “gild the lily” was a well-known saying and was surprised that it caused problems. 32 minutes. Ann
  33. I was another UNDER PAR until one of the crossers disabused me of that. I also biffed MUSCADET without looking at the wordplay too closely. Also had the I in GOBBLEDEGOOK (from “i go ok”) which made BISECT hard.
  34. I’ve never seen the nonsense spelled any way except with a “y”, so I GO OK never occurred to me, and I had the certain Bisect first. Like others took Agnail on spec, and started with Under Par. jack felt obliged to define Knob – a perfectly ordinary word in the US, and without the snicker-inducing UK connotation. But turn-about is fair play — in the US Bonk would get similar snickers.
    1. Just to clarify the reason I quoted the dictionary definition was to forestall arguments about whether (e.g. door) knobs and handles are the same thing. I suspect many think that a handle is a lever mechanism only whereas a knob is a twisty turny device.

      Edited at 2020-11-24 07:53 pm (UTC)

  35. 46 minutes (so approximately Jack’s time), with many answers slow in coming, but not really surprising. I only vaguely remembered AGNAIL from an article about the etymology of hangnail, but no other real problems. Like Paul, I never considered the I possibility for the second E in GOBBLEDEGOOK, but I would in real life usually spell it GOBBLEDYGOOK. I had WORKING-CLASS and a putative LEMONADE which I couldn’t parse correctly yet before I had any real ideas for 15dn, so BELOW (rather than UNDER) PAR was clear.

    Edited at 2020-11-24 10:23 pm (UTC)

  36. 21.22. I ran the full gamut of gobbledegooks from Y to I to E. A couple of other sticking points – trying to make an anagram of twinges, trying to justify salute, deriving working class but nothing held me up for too long.
  37. Failed to get POP-EYE, even with an alpha trawl , and ended up putting in a despairing DOE-EYE.
    Mostly liked Cleopatra’s panties.
    34:55 with the 13a error.

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