Times Cryptic No 27456 – Saturday, 14 September 2019. Shouldst thou use the second person singular?

Author   brnchnPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
I am posting this blog from Wuhan, China. No, I’d never heard of it either, but it’s one of the largest cities in China, and very modern. Apparently, it once felt less modernized than China’s coastal cities, but it is now one of China’s main high-tech, education, and financial centers. It has long been a transportation hub, because it is in the middle of the long navigable part of the Yangtze River between Shanghai and Chongqing.

Anyway, the crossword. This was a fairly easy number for a Saturday, but many clues, not least 1ac, delighted with their wordplay. I don’t think I can single out a clue of the day when the standard was so evenly high. Does anyone have a favourite? Thanks to the setter for a very enjoyable puzzle.

Clues are thus, with definitions so. Answers are in BOLD CAPS, then wordplay. (ABC*) means ‘anagram of ABC’. Deletions are in [square brackets]. The blog is in Times New Roman font, as part of a gentle campaign to urge the club site to use a font in which it is easier to tell one’s stem from one’s stern.

Across
1 Minister of Art interfering? (6)
PRIEST – I do not pry, but you pry, or rather thou PRIEST, interfering cleric that thou Art.

4 King backing court worker to provide navigational aid (8)
QUADRANT – QUAD (court), R (king), ANT. Presumably a quadrant is like a sextant, only less so?

10 Belted in clothes? (9)
CLOBBERED – double definition, the second relating to the putting on of clobber/clothes!

11 Food from sea or river that pop’s catching (5)
PRAWN – R in PAWN. (Relating to a pawn/pop shop, not the chess man).

12 Preparation one follows for racing at Monte Carlo, say (7)
FORMULA – the racing in Monte Carlo is F1, so ‘One’ follows ‘Formula’, geddit.

13 Favour habitual routine with standard input (7)
ROSETTE – ROTE with SET ‘input’. Definition 10 of ‘favour’ in Chambers is “a knot of ribbons worn, eg at an election, to show one’s allegiance”.

14 Graduate behind others returning to dance (5)
SAMBA – MAS ‘returning’, then BA. FOI. I thought of MAMBA which didn’t work, then RUMBA. Took me longer than I’d like to get to SAMBA.

15 Bungling agent turns in later on island (8)
INEXPERT – REP ‘turns’ in NEXT, following I (island).

18 Seaman posted elsewhere cleared out — he’s not here (8)
ABSENTEE – AB, SENT, E[lsewher]E ‘cleared out’.

20 Aunt may have had her fill of men in particular (5)
NIECE – [m]E[n] (‘fill of’ men), in NICE (particular). Nice!

23 Lines from distraught colleague leaving LA (7)
ECLOGUE – anagram (‘distraught’) of (COL-E-GUE*), ‘leaving’ out the LA. A form of poetry I know only from crosswords.

25 After thirty days or so without leader, I’ll become very busy (2,3,2)
ON THE GO – [m]ONTH is ‘leaderless’, and ‘I’ is ‘EGO’ in Latin.

26 Long drink popular primarily among volunteers, once (5)
PINTA – P[opular] ‘primarily’, IN (among), TA. I think of a long drink as something alcoholic in a tall glass with a mixer added, but I suppose a PINTA qualifies.

27 They raise tax, or else supply housing (9)
ELEVATORS – an anagram of (OR ELSE*) ‘supplies the housing’ for VAT. Thanks to Kevin for pointing out that “supply” or “in a supple way” is the anagram indicator, and “housing” indicates containment.

28 One place for seniors in France is hotel in capital (4,4)
REST HOME – EST (‘is’ in France) plus H (hotel), in ROME.

29 Humble dude made American disheartened (6)
DEMEAN – D–E, M–E, A——N, all ‘disheartened’.

Down
1 I set limit on raised hand for fighting? I might (8)
PACIFIST – PACI=I CAP ‘raised’, then FIST=raised hand for fighting.

2 Line on map, I note, spread upwards (7)
ISOGRAM – I, SO, MARG (spread) ‘upwards’.

The definition may be a bit obscure. Wikipedia tells me the word isogram was proposed by Francis Galton in 1889 as a convenient generic designation for lines indicating equality of some physical condition or quantity, but it commonly refers to a word without a repeated letter.

3 Keep down payment where porridge is served and consumed (9)
SUBJUGATE – SUB (payment), JUG (where porridge is served), ATE (consumed). I’ve never seen porridge in a jug, but the clue must be talking about serving prison time in the jug!

5 Puny Victor slipped away, having first endured suffering (14)
UNDERDEVELOPED – (ENDURED*) ‘suffering’, then V[ictor] ELOPED.

6 Pennies in membership fees for kids (5)
DUPES – P in DUES.

7 Plug more suitable for specialist joiner (7)
ADAPTER – AD, APTER.

8 Stuff that could start fire kept in derelict stores (6)
TINDER – hidden answer ‘stored’ in kepT IN DERelict.

9 Generally proportioned American girl spotlighted? (5,2,3,4)
BROAD IN THE BEAM – BROAD, IN THE BEAM.

16 Get into overall after exercise class (9)
PENETRATE – P.E., NET, RATE. To clarify: NET=overall, as in overall/net profit; RATE=class as a verb, as in “how would you class/rate it”.

17 Focuses bottom of picture, with no error at the edges (6,2)
ZEROES IN – ZERO SIN around [picture]E.

19 Is member‘s name inscribed in live records (7)
BELONGS – N[ame] in BE, LOGS.

21 Eeyore’s faulty sight? (7)
EYESORE – ‘faulty’ (EEYORES*).

22 Player one’s unlikely to release? (6)
KEEPER – double definition. ‘S/he’s a keeper’!

24 Upstanding husband tweeted champ (5)
GNASH – H, SANG all ‘upstanding’.

30 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27456 – Saturday, 14 September 2019. Shouldst thou use the second person singular?”

  2. I biffed PRAWN, not knowing ‘pop’ but fairly confident with P_A_N. As Bruce says, a high standard of cluing: I’ve got ‘COD’ in the margins of my copy next to 20ac, 23ac, 27ac, and 5d, but I think PRIEST is today’s winner. (Bruce, you forgot to include the S in the anagrist at 21d.)

    Edited at 2019-09-21 12:38 am (UTC)

  3. Not so easy back in Oz, the whole right hand side resisted.
    A question, perhaps not for Bruce but for others who still might have their paper copy handy: is the first word in the clue for 9 down “Generally” or “Generously”? I (perhaps dyslexicly) quickly read it as Generously without thinking, but I see the blog has Generally, which doesn’t seem to work.
    1. I’d forgotten about this, but the point was raised in the forum (in the General section); it was ‘generally’, but it certainly should have been ‘generously’.

      Edited at 2019-09-21 02:45 am (UTC)

    2. I cut and pasted the text from the club site, so for sure it said generally there. I didn’t see the actual paper. As Kevin says, it certainly should have been generously!
      1. I was a bit surprised, and disappointed, that David Parfitt of the forum hadn’t responded.
  4. Nobody has pointed out that this is a pangram.

    42 minutes suggests that I found this quite easy for a Saturday.

    I was happy to see ECLOGUE again having looked it up only a couple of weeks ago to confirm that it existed.

    Edited at 2019-09-21 05:38 am (UTC)

  5. 38 minutes, and that was before I worked out PRIEST. I was channel hopping between cricket and football while doing this though, an occupational hazard of August and September. Because I can’t GNASH my teeth at the moment, I’m not making that COD, so the honour goes to the nicely constructed NIECE. As with others, I just assumed that the American girl was also generously proportioned, or that maybe that our setter was too gallant to say so. LOI was ISOGRAM. more a biff than a known map line. I remember that in my youth Blueband tried and failed to persuade the British to pronounce margarine with a hard ‘g’, and it has always been ‘marge’. Decent puzzle. Thank you B and setter.
  6. 27:05. I found this a bit chewy in parts. DNK pop for pawn nor ISOGRAM and I still don’t get NET RATE for “overall” at 16D. I took Generally at 9D to be a misprint, as has already been discussed. Apart from those irks, I enjoyed the rest of the puzzle – particularly PRIEST, SUBJUGATE, NIECE and ON THE GO. Thanks Bruce and setter.

    Edited at 2019-09-21 07:56 am (UTC)

      1. Thanks. I remember now. I parsed on the day of solving, but had forgotten when I came to look at it again.
    2. The Weasel was your Sunday best suit that had gone to the Pawn Shop!

      Edited at 2019-09-21 05:03 pm (UTC)

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  8. Have just been to Itsu at Euston, a place where porridge is served and consumed by me en route to Preston.
    I managed to finish this puzzle but could not parse PRIEST PRAWN and NIECE so fingers were crossed. David
  10. Currently playing: Anthony Newley’s version of “Pop Goes the Weasel”, which includes an explanation of “pop” meaning “pawn” in the middle. Happily this was one of my mum’s 45’s that I enjoyed putting on my record player as a kid!

    My notes don’t say much about this one, but I definitely enjoyed 1a PRIEST once I got it. The mistaken “generally” for “generously” in 9d didn’t slow me down much; 48 minutes in total.

  11. My LOI, PRIEST, took me ages to parse but I made it my COD once the penny dropped. I also missed the generously/generally controversy, like isla3, seeing it in my mind’s eye as it was, presumably, supposed to be. I wouldn’t know an ECLOGUE if it bit me in the rear, but I know it’s a standard crossword bit of verse of some description, and is now my go to answer for poetry:-) Knew Pop for Pawn, so no trouble there. An enjoyable puzzle. 31:48. Thanks setter and Bruce.
  12. 43:25. Very entertaining stuff. Got a bit stuck on the nho isogram, raised an eyebrow at generally rather than generously in 9ac, dnk the meaning of favour in 13ac and took a while to twig what was going on at 1ac. Too many good ones to pick a COD.
  13. I enjoyed this last Saturday. Laughed at the error as I wondered if this was a comment on the ‘general’ description of American women (and men). COD to PRIEST. Yes, I know. I am the first to bleat about the disproportionate amount of religious clues but this was good.
  14. Personally, I’d forgo the treacle as I’m borderline diabetic, but who needs a Sunday best suit these days anyway?
  15. ….PRIEST or ZEROES IN, mainly because I’d lost patience by that stage. Thanks Bruce.

    FOI PRAWN
    LOI KEEPER
    COD SUBJUGATE
    TIME 15:48

  16. I’m not sure how much control you can have over how your blog appears in our browsers, Bruce. In Safari, your “stern” and “stem” above are just as near to indistinguishable as they are when I print the puzzle from the site.
    1. I use Firefox, and Bruce’s blog–but not our comments–comes out in lovely, avec-serif large type; no going from stem to stern.
    2. I’m using Safari on a Mac, and this entry is definitely appearing in Times New Roman for me, which is certainly an improvement on how things appear in my printouts from the Club site. It’s quite hard to predict how any given web page will appear on any given browser/computer/display combination, though.

      Times_Cryptic_No_27456_-_Saturday__14_September_2019__Shouldst_thou_use_the_second_person_singular__-_Times_for_the_Times_—_LiveJournal.jpg

      1. Yes, on Safari it’s the font desired too… and bigger than in most other people’s blogs, as always… I had to blow it up even bigger, but my eyes sometimes get foggy very late at night.
  17. Mostly enjoyed being reminded of ‘ pop goes the weasel’, and learning what it means. Thank you Horryd.
    This is the second time in the last few crosswords as reprinted in the Australian newspaper that a line of a clue has been omitted; the ‘disheartened’ from 29a this time.
    This didn’t prevent putting in DEMEAN, but made parsing a problem. We do the grauniad genius crossword each month, so clues missing words etc are not unknown, though they are usually known unknowns in the grauniad, not unknown unknowns as here.
    Perhaps the Oz is trying to make it a little more challenging for antipodean solvers!
    28mins with PRIEST last in. Clever clueing!

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