Times Cryptic 27854

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 38 minutes with the unknown 3dn as my last one in entirely responsible for me missing my half-hour target. Other than that this seemed quite  easy.

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. I apologise if experienced solvers find some of my explanations are too detailed or obvious, but I am increasingly aware that our readership is expanding by the day to include solvers making the journey from the Quick Cryptic to the 15×15 and my intention is to ease their path.

Across
1 Entrance with pipes passing back (5)
DEBUT : TUBED (with pipes) reversed [passing back]
4 House party I left, vermin hosts (8)
DOMICILE : DO (party), then MICE (vermin) contains [hosts] I + L (left)
8 Question on insurance claim form: how much should we pay? (5,3,6)
WHATS THE DAMAGE : A cryptic hint precedes the main definition. ‘Damage’ is ‘expense’ or ‘cost’ in 18th century slang.
10 Important figure in the Met once in action, wandering round capital of Spain (9)
TOSCANINI : Anagram [wandering] of  IN ACTION containing [round] S{pain} [capital]. Maestro Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957) managed the Metropolitan Opera in New York 1908-1915. ‘The Met’ in the UK usually refers to the London police service, Scotland Yard and all that.
11 Time repeatedly invested in game — it’s a gamble (5)
LOTTO : T T (time repeatedly) contained by [invested in] LOO (game). Not a game I know but  it seems ot be a variation on whist in which there are financial penalties for playing a wrong card.
12 Such as British beef in kitchen container (6)
EGGBOX : EG (such as – for example), GB (British), OX (beef)
14 Cut doubled, quickly (4-4)
CHOP-CHOP : CHOP (cut) CHOP [doubled].  Usually an instruction to get a move on.
17 In the morning, bus dropping back behind schedule — walk! (8)
AMBULATE : AM (in the morning), BU{s} [dropping back], LATE (behind schedule). Even more old-fashioned than the old-fashioned but more familiar ‘perambulate’.
18 Fruit hangs loosely, it’s said? (6)
DRUPES : Sounds like [it’s said] “droops” (hangs loosely). A type of fruit rather than a specific one, including peach, plum and cherry.
20 Confident, furthermore, entering business (3-2)
CAN-DO : AND (furthermore) contained by [entering] CO (business)
22 Restore checks meeting sugar daddy? (9)
REINSTATE : REINS (checks), TATE (sugar daddy?). Sir Henry Tate (1819 – 1899) was an English sugar merchant and philanthropist noted for establishing the Tate Gallery in London. No doubt shortly to be declared persona non grata if he hasn’t been already. His name also survives in the brand name, Tate & Lyle.
24 Freshener spraying patterns in air to mask pong, primarily (14)
ANTIPERSPIRANT : Anagram [spraying] of PATTERNS IN AIR containing [to mask] P{ong} [primarily], with more than a cryptic hint in the wordplay.
25 Needing no introduction, top series set apart (8)
ESTRANGE : {b}EST (top) [needing no introduction], RANGE (series)
26 Part of the family‘s great talent avoiding one (5)
GENUS : GEN{i}US (great talent) [avoiding one – i]
Down
1 Call from drinker as he put in blue straws (4,3,5)
DOWN THE HATCH : DOWN (blue), then HE contained by [put in] THATCH (straws – used as roofing). Yet another of the delightful drinking toasts that ornament our language.
2 The necessary   part of the orchestra (5)
BRASS : Two meanings. ‘Brass’ as in money – ‘the necessary’ being the money required for a particular purpose.
3 Introducing sliding scale to work, what makes sparks fly? (5,4)
TESLA COIL : TOIL (work) containing [introducing] anagram [sliding] of SCALE. I worked this out eventually but didn’t know it. Here’s how SOED defines it: a type of induction coil invented by Nicola Tesla, employing a spark gap in place of an interrupter and capable of producing an intense high-frequency discharge.
4 Hibiscus originally captured by artist, a flowering plant (6)
DAHLIA : H{ibiscus} [originally] contained [captured] by DALI (artist), A. Knowing that ‘hibiscus’ is a bush – GK acquired when writing my 15×15 blog last week – was of no assistance as it’s not relevant here.
5 Suggestion of G 12 (8)
MIDNIGHT : MID-NIGHT. One of those clues that relies on a reverse wordplay. ‘Midnight’ appears  frequently in clues to suggest the letter G in an answer.
6 Artist escaping sweet animal (5)
CAMEL : CA{ra}MEL (sweet) [artist – RA –  escaping]
7 Vessel arrives on land with it (9)
LIGHTSHIP : LIGHTS (arrives on land), HIP (with it – cool, Man!)
9 Rotter is gathering people together (6,6)
COMPOS MENTIS : COMPOST (rotter) + IS, containing [gathering] MEN (people). ‘Together’ – in one’s right mind.
13 See red, green and yellow items (2,7)
GO BANANAS : GO (green – traffic lights),  BANANAS (yellow items). Monkeys and apes like bananas and go frantic to try to seize them. ‘Go ape’ comes from the same source.
15 Arctic   wasting away (9)
PERISHING : Two meanings – very cold, and dying
16 Mallet finally breaking bones in fish (8)
STURGEON : {malle}T [finally] contained by [breaking] SURGEON (bones – slang)
19 Wipe face on tablecloth, kids! (6)
TISSUE : T{ablecloth} [face on …], ISSUE (kids). ‘Wipe’ needs to be a noun, as in ‘hand wipe’.
21 Wood in fire is offered up (5)
OSIER : Hidden [in] and reversed [up] in {fi}RE IS O{ffered}. Osier shoots are used in basket weaving etc so it seems strange to describe osier as ‘wood’, but I suppose that’s what it is.
23 Military official elected — for a second term? (5)
AGAIN : AGA (military official), IN (elected)

82 comments on “Times Cryptic 27854”

  1. For some reason by last one was 2dn (I was wrestling with ideas like “MEANS”), even after starting to enumerate the sections of the orchestra (“string… percussion…”). Poor old brass. No-one remembers brass.
    1. Also… you wouldn’t forget Tesla Coils if you’d seen one. Impressive beasts!
  2. I spent too much time thinking of Scotland Yard, and too much time not thinking of that family. DNK Tate’s background. Biffed COMPOS MENTIS (I’d decided it was a foreign phrase, but couldn’t get past CORPUS). I actually thought of EGGBOX (EGGNOG seemed pretty unlikely), but had never heard of it and failed to parse it. COD to either TISSUE or COMPOS MENTIS.
  3. A good time and no mistakes for me today. Perhaps one for the scientists, with TESLA COIL being more readily known by us. I alwas stuggle with Latin endings, so relied on the cryptic for COMPOS MENTIS.

    When teaching me to do cryptic crosswords, my mother used to tell me “I distinctly remember …” for some word she’d basically guessed. So, I distinctly remember EGGBOX.

    The whole crossword had an old-fashioned feel to me, with LIGHTSHIP, BRASS, bones for surgeon, etc. Is an eggbox still a thing in the UK?

    1. Is a ‘stuggle’ much like a struggle? Or a new thing?
      It was a bit old fashioned like mint humbugs and egg boxes.
    2. Is it still a thing? Not according to Collins, nor to Lexico, although SOED has EGG BOX (two words) with the alternative ‘egg carton’. Only Chambers of the usual sources has EGGBOX (one word), defined as ‘a protective partitioned container for holding eggs, usually in multiples of six’.

      Rather odd, as the egg box is the standard container for eggs sold in shops, usually made of what I’ll call cardboard for want of a better word – the material that disintegrates if it gets wet enough – but some are of polystyrene and some are of clear semi-flexible plastic.

      Edited at 2020-12-22 09:06 am (UTC)

    3. Just discovered your fantastic stats blog, and posted a comment on it (which has been marked as spam). Didn’t realise someone had stepped into Tony Sever’s shoes! Thanks.
      1. I’ve unspammed it now and it’s further down the thread. It was the link that did for it.
  4. ‘Out of strength came forth sweetness’. Judges 14:14
    Sir Ronnie Kirkwood did his best, but it all went badly wrong at Frome in May 1938, when the cane business went bad and hastened the end of Empire, exactly one hundred years since slavery was abolished in Jamaica. ‘Sugar daddy’ is a sad misnoma at 22ac. Governor Denham topped himself.

    FOI 14 ac CHOP-CHOP!

    LOI 23dn AGAIN

    COD 2dn BRASS

    WOD 3dn TESLA COIL – amazing to behold! Impressive beasts indeed Lord V.

    Scotland Yard, Kevin!?

    My time 23.00

    Edited at 2020-12-22 02:59 am (UTC)

    1. I’m impressed with your sugar knowledge Horryd. That quotation is on the cans of Lyle’s golden syrup along with a pic of a lion and some bees. My father ran the WI Sugar Company in the late 50s and early 60s and I once stayed at Frome and also at the Kirkwood place.
    2. Fascinated to learn about those events in Jamaica, never knew that Denham committed suicide.
        1. So did I. That’s why I was surprised to read horryd’s comment that he “topped himself”.
            1. I did also wonder that he was mixing up Sir Robert Kirkwood the then Chairman of Jamaica Sugar with Sir Ronnie Kirkwood the advertising man (who was only eight years old in 1938)….
    3. As a retired grocer I have always wondered why Tate never got a mention on the Golden Syrup can, just Lyle.
      1. Lyle’s Golden Syrup was made and sold by Lyle from 1885, long before they merged with Tate (1921) so I suppose they just kept the original name.
        1. Olivia, if you note in ‘The Gleaner’ Edward Brandis Denham was buried at sea, ‘before dawn’ on 3 June 1938, the day after his death which was noted as ‘diviculitis’ as he was not allowed to buried on consecrated ground. In May 2015 I did the research with Professor Rebecca Tortello in Kingston on a Julian Chapman Scholarship for The Royal. Dung Hill (Smith Village) was re-named Denham Town after him c. 1940.There was naturally a Government cover-up and Bustamante was blamed. Was your father Anthony Hugill by any chance?

          Sadly Jerry your comment is rather superfluous as I have written several books and many articles on security matters in Jamaica and Trinidad for over the last 25 years, for which I received my Fellowship in 2014.
          My first job in 1969 was at 64 Baker Street in the employ of Jamaica High Commissioner John Pringle OJ for three years.

          daktarib – you are correct it was Robbie not Ronnie.

  5. Might I kindly suggest to ulaca that starstruck_au is the one on steroids these days? He’s crushing it. (As we say?)

    Quite a few unknowns / semi-knows for me today so I’m looking forward to reading the blog. Thanks, J!

    1. Gosh, the unknowns: LOO the game; DRUPES; TATE; ‘the necessary’; and PERISHING for cold. But all the clues were gettable in other ways.
  6. One across is a simple DEBUT
    For a grid that AGAIN I CAN DO
    Although not all that fast
    COMPOS MENTIS my last
    ANTIPERSPIRANT a jolly fine clue

    Eggs are better when they’re in a box
    Cos then they can’t turn into flocks
    Ain’t had birds in a while
    Of course that makes me smile
    But you still get my rhyming bollocks

  7. jackkt: I think you mean high voltage not high frequency in your TESLA COIL explanation. It’s basically indoor lightning. LOI was TOSCANINI since I was thinking of the wrong Met and I had no idea he was anything to do with the one in New York, rather than La Scala, say.
    1. Thanks, Paul, but as mentioned in the blog I knew nothing about this and what I wrote was copied and pasted in from SOED, so any inaccuracy was entirely not my own 🙂
  8. I put GRAPES i.s.o. DRUPES because I thought the setter was trying to persuade us that GRAPES sounds like DRAPES.
    I particularly enjoyed TESLA COIL, COMPOS MENTIS and TISSUE but COD to REINSTATE.
    FOI: TOSCANINI
    LOI: GRAPES…which was wrong, of course.
  9. 23 minutes, with LOI COMPOS MENTIS, one of the candidates for COD. I liked AGAIN too but REINSTATE wins the honour by a short head. The early entries of WHAT’S THE DAMAGE and DOWN THE HATCH also brought that smile of recognition. I learnt more about TESLA and his COIL on our trip to Niagara than I did on my Physics degree, the first two thirds of which was taught in CGS and not MKS and so Gauss figured more. Good puzzle. Thank you Jack and setter.
  10. …To the Tender ship, you see”;
    “The Tender-ship,” cried Sally Brown
    “What a hard-ship that must be!”.

    25 mins pre-brekker, held up by LOI Compos Mentis.
    I liked it, mostly the use of: ‘rotter’, ‘bones’ and ‘sugar daddy’.
    Thanks setter and J.

    1. That sounds like Thomas Hood, quite one of my favourite poets…
      “His death, which happen’d in his berth,
      At forty-odd befell.
      They went and told the sexton, and
      The sexton toll’d the bell.”
      1. Well spotted. I like his ‘faithless’ ballads too. He is better remembered for:
        I remember, I remember,
        The house where I was born,…

        Or the ‘November’ one that Joekobi reminded me of.

        But I like faithless Nelly Gray which begins:
        Ben Battle was a soldier bold,
        And used to war’s alarms;
        But a cannon-ball took off his legs,
        So he laid down his arms.

        Edited at 2020-12-22 02:12 pm (UTC)

        1. There was once a time, long gone now, when I could actually have recited Nellie Gray. “here I leave my second leg,
          And the Forty-second Foot” … if they had cryptic crosswords then, he would have been a fine setter 🙂
  11. 28 mins so a good time for me. DNK TESLA COIL but worked it out from the cryptic. DRUPES an odd word, which I dredged up from somewhere. I liked WHATS THE DAMAGE, but COD to DOWN THE HATCH. Cheers! Thank you Jack and setter.
  12. A snooze took me out to 70 minutes. Glad I did as told by the wordplay despite a touch of post-snooze torpor and was COMPOS MENTIS enough to resist the temptation to put in ‘compus mentis’ at 9d.

    I liked the TESLA COIL and my last in, the ‘bones’ bit of the wordplay for STURGEON at 16d.

    Thanks to setter and Jack

  14. 8:28. No problems this morning, and no unknowns. I didn’t know that TOSCANINI managed the Met but I didn’t know that he didn’t.
    ‘Freshener’ seems odd for ANTIPERSPIRANT, purely a preventive measure.
    1. It doesn’t though. If the air needs freshening it’s too late for antiperspirant.
  16. What Keriothe said .. I was also just about to point out that it is deodorant which is the freshener, antiperspirants having more of a prophylactic nature, as the name implies
    1. Ah, I hadn’t appreciated the science behind it. Neither product would be on Prince Andrew’s shopping list of course!
  17. Delightful crossword solved in 12.36 with much chuckling on the way.

    Back in the day (must be more than 25 years ago) my son played a game called Red Alert, a war strategy game in which the TESLA COIL was a highly desirable defensive weapon, obliterating anything in range with spectacular lightning. His present cat is called Tesla, much the same if without lightning.

    I see the Tate galleries have a piece online exonerating the “Sugar Daddy” from slavery connections: he was too young. Of course, they note that the Caribbean sugar trade was nonetheless built on slavery, so it may only be a matter of time, as Jack comments in his excellent opus, before the Tate Gallery has to change its name. Suggestions?

    4. The Con Trick. With a stuffed shark, a dirty tent and a pile of bricks to the forefront. Not forgetting the prizewinning elephant dung
  18. Pretty quick – just stuck at the end eventually alighting on compost as a rotter. PERISHING came to mind moments later, finally the vaguely heard of (VHO) DRUPES.
  19. but sad mortality o’ersways their power…

    Resisting the enemy with a rare under-twenty. Someone gave me an eggbox recently, to hang on the wall in the kitchen, saying they were better kept out of the fridge. All straightforward except tesla coil which wrote itself in at the end. !6 dn. nicely nails the effect of a certain politician’s jabbering monotone.

  20. EGGBOX was absolutely wonderful, as was the clue for COMPOS MENTIS, a great definition.

    Just over 7 mins, but unfortunately I’d never heard of DRUPES (other than vaguely remembering being stymied before by a _R_P_S fruit that wasn’t GRAPES), so hoped that DRÉPES might be a kind of fruit. Drapes just about means hangs loosely, I’d have said, but I really should have thought of DRUPES.

  21. Enjoyed this and/because I was right on the wavelength once more. Lots of nice misdirection, e.g. trying to think of a notable figure in London police history with a particularly long name until the penny dropped. LOI EGGBOX, as I was also unsure if that was a thing and was tempted by EGGNOG, appropriately for this time of year; I have an egg tray in my fridge (sorry, I appreciate it’s a divisive issue on a par with Brexit as to whether that’s the right place for it). Good fun.
  22. As others have noted COMPOS MENTIS was very nice. In fact a neat puzzle altogether. I’m another one who dithered over just exactly what Met was intended. The juxtaposition of the coil and the conductor was nice too. Arturo was the conductor in Disney’s Fantasia. 14.18
      1. Oh that’s right Kevin – it was Toscanini and his version of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice that they were working from early on and then Stokowski came on board – or something like that.
  23. After the relative successes of last week, with four sub-25 min finishes, I have struggled this week with a couple that were meant to be easy.

    Struggled with yesterday’s but at least I finished albeit slowly. Today, it took me ages to get going and gave up about 3/4 through.

    Hmmm, frustrating but on to tomorrow!

  24. NHO of the stoned fruit, not even VHO. However, word of the day has to be “drupelet”, which I have just discovered is one of the little balls that make up raspberries and the like. Of course it is.
    1. Go down this rabbithole and you realise that (if you’re a pedantic botanist) most berries aren’t berries, lots of nuts aren’t nuts, and many fruits aren’t technically a fruit…
  25. I don’t follow this in that much detail, so apologies if this has been raised before, but I never knew http://xwdsnitch.herokuapp.com/ existed! Tony Sever used to compare results (in the days when I struggled to make the leaderboard at all), and I miss his statistics. I now see another hero (Starstruck?) has stepped forward and has been applying high-quality statistical analysis for ages. From this I see that MOHN is a real solver (I’d always wondered) and Sudokulover isn’t (I hadn’t). Many thanks to you SS!
    1. Indeed, that website is very fine, one of the Wonders of the Modern Age. There is a link, on every page of TfTT under “links”
    2. Thanks, sheapey, I’m glad you’re enjoying the SNITCH. I was quite happy when I found a way to distinguish neutrinos from other solvers. (And so were my wife and son, who are also stats nerds.)

      mohn is certainly a real solver. On his Cracking the Cryptic YouTube channel, magoo recently gave him a nod as the best Times Cryptic solver at the moment. I think magoo might have been relieved (in a friendly way) that the Championship didn’t happen as planned this year.

      1. When is the equivalent blog for the concise crossword coming out (jokes)? The results would be pretty much the same, although I think people who can’t touch-type would lose out.
  26. Face on tablecloth = the letter T. ??? Don’t see that!
    Otherwise, all in ok.
  27. Liked the clever surface of 24a. Bravo setter!
    Sub-twenty minutes (just) two days in a row. I hope it’s not an aberration. 19’24”
  28. I thought this looked very difficult at first glance.
    I did make some good progress- FOI was BRASS- but after quite a long session I gave up and came here with my coffee. Failed to get COMPOS MENTIS; excellent clue I now see. DRAPES and GRAPES I have heard of but not DRUPES. TESLA COIL also missing; I had ….TOOL.
    One for the very experienced solver I think.
    David
  29. Foiled by DRUPES, never having heard of them and not being able to see past grapes.

    Didn’t fully parse GO BANANAS (didn’t get green = go, which in hindsight is obvious), didn’t know bones as slang for surgeon or loo as a game, and only know OSIER from doing these crosswords. Was stuck on 5d for a while (even with all the checkers), then I went away, came back to it, and instantly saw MIDNIGHT. Funny how the mind works (or doesn’t).

    1. A variation on ‘bones’ as ‘surgeon’ is ‘sawbones’ from the days when a slug of whiskey was the only anaesthetic available and his victims were given a bullet to bite on. Useful info picked up from Saturday morning cinema Westerns in my childhood!

      Edited at 2020-12-22 02:55 pm (UTC)

  30. Although technically a DNF as a third successive day’s mistyping produced the dreaded pink square. And me a porof raeder as well – for shame!

    COD EGGBOX, for what it’s worth.

  31. A lovely puzzle. BRASS was my FOI, then I AMBULATEd around the grid a bit trying to get a toehold. Go for 13d was my next postulation. BANANAS came later, and also featured in my breakfast porridge. CAN-DO and REINSTATE helped a lot and I was off. PERISHING and MIDNIGHT took a while. Liked DOWN THE HATCH, WHAT’S THE DAMAGE and COMPOS MENTIS. TESLA COIL was excellent too. TOSCANINI was my LOI. 31:27. Thanks setter and Jack.
  32. 16.22 but DNK drupes so put in drapes- drat. A bit disappointing as I was making really good progress up to then. Needless to say it was my LOI.

  33. 16.54. A very enjoyable solve. Eggbox last one in, despite having boiled eggs and soldiers for breakfast and first taking the eggs out of their eggbox, not that I would necessarily have thought to call it that. Loved the ‘sugar daddy’.
  34. ….a CAN-DO was the prison’s annual party (as in “Jailhouse Rock”).

    I was 7 clues in before kicking off, but after that it all fell into place without any real difficulty. A similar time to yesterday’s, but I felt this was definitely a trickier puzzle. Very enjoyable.

    FOI CHOP-CHOP
    LOI TISSUE
    COD MIDNIGHT
    TIME 7:17

  35. L2I were the DNRemember TESLA COIL and the EGGBOX which I had great difficulty finding as one word – not even allowed in Scrabble it appears! Apparently Americans eggs are washed and then they have to refrigerate them. Now why would you do that?
    1. I was very interested in your comment about Scrabble. I play this a lot online (vs a computer) and often need to check words for their eligibility using the Chambers Word Wizard which confirms whether any word looked up is allowable in Scrabble. I don’t know which source you used, but CWW confirms EGGBOX (6) is not allowable and exists only with a hyphen (3-3).

      This goes against Chambers Dictionary online which lists EGGBOX (6), and as mentioned in my blog, was the only one of the ‘usual sources’ to support the appearance of EGGBOX (6) in today’s puzzle.

      This anomaly sent me to my printed edition of Chambers, always more comprehensive than their free online version, only to find that they don’t list EGGBOX (6), only EGG BOX (3,3) and EGG-BOX (3-3), the latter not being the being an item for food storage but architectural jargon for a style of building.

      This is very odd as it leaves us without any justification for EGGBOX (6) – not that The Times daily puzzle is supposed to be relying on Chambers anyway. It’s also the only occasion I can recall when a word in Chambers online is not in the printed edition, although the opposite is often true.

      Edited at 2020-12-22 06:24 pm (UTC)

      1. Hi Jack The best reference I know is ULU which you can download as an app. I agree, not sure where the setter got this from.
        1. Thanks. What is ULU? The Times uses Collins and the single volume Oxford Dictionary of English so I would expect all words to be in one, other or both. Occasionally something only in Chambers creeps in possibly because setters use it for other puzzles such as the Mephisto.
          1. ULU is the digital version of the standard Scrabble dictionary which combines Chambers and a combination of various American dictionaries, as far as I know. This is the reference for all UK scrabble comps. Americans use a different dictionary.
  36. Well, I did GO BANANAS on this, especially when I discovered I had finished correctly after 52 minutes. I was able to believe PERISHING, though with some trepidation, but the DRUPES–COMPOS MENTIS crossing held me up for ages, since I had never heard of either. Very proud of myself when I finally saw the COMPOS..T in it and then dared put in DRUPES (since GRAPES didn’t seem to fit). COD to sugar daddy TATE.
  37. Pretty slow today but got there in the end – barely compos mentis. Anything I could comment has already been said!

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