Times Cryptic No 27552 – Saturday, 04 January 2020. Through a smoke haze darkly.

Author   brnchnPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Again, I found this puzzle hard to start and then relatively easy to finish.

In other news, Australia is still here. We were planning a family trip to Canberra next week, but had to cancel because the air pollution there is 15 times the hazardous level. I’ve learnt more than I ever expected about P2 face masks and HEPA filters! But the dreadful smoke and the heat of the fires is a terrifying taste of what we will all face if the world doesn’t act on climate change.

The clue of the day was clearly 5dn, for its relevance to my previous paragraph! Thanks to the setter for a very enjoyable puzzle.

Clues are blue, with definitions underlined. (ABC*) means ‘anagram of ABC’. Deletions are in [square brackets].

Across
1 Some show anger around champ (4)
GNAW – reverse (‘around’) hidden answer (‘some’) in [sho]W ANG[er].
4 The easiest way out of jumper, perhaps, is not to wriggle about (4,6)
SOFT OPTION – OF TOP (jumper, perhaps) with (IS NOT*), ‘wriggling’ ‘about’ (i.e. outside) it. Complex wordplay, but it works.
9 Deter a tour abroad that caravans might have taken (5,5)
TRADE ROUTE – (DETER A TOUR*), ‘abroad’.
10 Go out to lunch to reflect (4)
STAB – BATS (out to lunch, i.e. crazy), ‘reflected’.
11 Servile types deported son — one from a Middle Eastern country (6)
YEMENI – here are the YES MEN again! Take out S for son, tack on I for one.
12 Free time can start to subside, in general (3,5)
LET LOOSE – T for time, then LOO for can and S as the start of Subside, all in General LEE.
14 Pure water (4)
MERE – double definition.
15 Basic flat is next to alleyway (5-5)
ENTRY-LEVEL – ENTRY (alleyway), LEVEL (flat). At first I thought ‘flat’ might be EVEN, but that led nowhere.
17 Cover in rocks, initially showing disinterest (10)
STOLIDNESS – LID in STONES, then S[howing] ‘initially’.
20 Tax record taken from subordinate (4)
DUTY – take EP from DEPUTY.
21 Departs for hotel in airport’s final waiting area? (5,3)
DEATH ROW – change an H to a D, and HEATHROW will never seem the same!
23 At first, life is good in French capital (6)
LISBON – L[ife], IS, BON (‘good’, in French).
24 Just open a beer (4)
AJAR – with spacing, A JAR. Also, a chestnut, but it makes me smile every time.
25 Crazy Irish sailor turned fifty, touring Scottish island (10)
IRRATIONAL – IR[ish], TAR ‘turned’, L (fifty), all around (‘touring’) IONA.
26 Soldier by river cases the opposition (10)
ANTITHESIS – ANT, then ISIS ‘casing’ THE. I love it when they talk dialectically.
27 Black book kept by one that’s devious (4)
EBON – B (book) ‘kept by’ (ONE*) ‘that’s devious’.

Down
2 Administrative hub is under review, regularly lacking focus (5,6)
NERVE CENTRE – every second letter (regularly lacking) of uNdEr ReViEw, then CENTRE (focus).
3 Scoundrel joins club — a means of achieving higher standing? (5,4)
WEDGE HEEL – WEDGE (golf club), HEEL (scoundrel).
4 Weather‘s certain to close in around six, see? (7)
SURVIVE – SURE ‘closing in’ VI (six, in Roman numerals), V (vide=see).
5 Used when tack goes into foot, for example? (4-6,5)
FOUR-LETTER WORDS – An &lit. clue (see glossary), packed with examples of four-letter words, literally but not metaphorically, and defining when the metaphorical type might be used.
6 Holding bottom of hat, too obviously (7)
OVERTLY – OVERLY (too, as in ‘too familiar’), holding T (bottom of ‘hat’).
7 Start popular movement that’s lively, mostly (5)
INTRO – IN (popular), TRO[t] (lively movement, mostly).
8 August 27 — heading north to take in loch (5)
NOBLE – 27 across is EBON. Write it backwards (‘north’, since this is a down clue), and insert L for loch,
13 We stop to eat cooked food (5,6)
SWEET POTATO – (WE STOP TO EAT*), ‘cooked’.
16 Manage to support extremity with large medical device (9)
ENDOSCOPE – COPE supporting END (extremity) and OS.
18 Having reformatted hard drives, one spinning wildly (7)
DERVISH – (H DRIVES*). ‘reformatted’. H is for hard.
19 Commends regiment that has captured large truck (7)
SALUTES – S.A.S. captures L UTE.
21 Play diamonds and stick with ace (5)
DRAMA – D (diamonds), RAM (stick), A.
22 Figure on a small island drinks whisky (5)
AWAIT – A, AIT (small island) drinks W (whisky). As in ‘I figure on/await an outburst soon’.

21 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27552 – Saturday, 04 January 2020. Through a smoke haze darkly.”

  1. DNK SOFT OPTION, and put in SAFE at first, only changing when I finally looked at the wordplay. DNK WEDGE HEEL, but no problem. I’ve got ‘COD’ written in the margins at 12ac, 26ac, and 5d; I think I’ll pick 5d.
  2. I’ve got to agree with Kevin that 5d is my COD too. Nothing unknown, some convoluted wordplay, but a most enjoyable puzzle.Can’t for the life of me remember where I started or finished, but it took 29:48. Struggling to sleep, and have just got up to check that my laptop has upgraded correctly to the latest version of Windows 10, which is why I’m here at this ungodly hour(3:40am here in Middlesbrough). Thanks setter and Bruce. Good to hear you’re coping with the climate emergency.
  3. Couldn’t parse 4ac: is there a term for a clue whose answer requires the insertion of an ill-defined synonym (jumper = top) into an anagram? Also thought 22dn (figure on = await) a very loose definition. Stephen
    1. I don’t know about inserting in an anagram as that’s surely just standard wordplay, but the ill-defined synonym as you call it is a definition by example or DBE in crossword jargon. It’s signalled here by ‘perhaps’ which lets the setter off the hook to a degree. ‘Top / jumper’, one way or the other, has come up a number of times in the past so that I hardly gave it any thought.

      I can’t say I was keen on ‘figure on / await’ but the wordplay was simple enough so I bunged it in and moved on, excited at the prospect of finishing within half-an-hour, a rare experience for me on a Saturday. I made it with a few seconds to spare.

      Edited at 2020-01-11 06:24 am (UTC)

  4. 23:30. Lots of nice clues, evidenced by ticks on my paper copy. I liked DUTY, AUGUST and DEATH ROW in particular, but also FOUR LETTER WORDS. I failed to spot “trot” in 7D and I remain unconvinced by await=figure in 22D, but otherwise all was clear. LOI SALUTES. Thanks Bruce and setter.
  5. 38 minutes, held up by trying to parse ‘safe option’ too long before thinking of a jumper as a top. I had to biff AWAIT without spotting the ‘FIGURE ON’ meaning, which I think is American and not a construction I use. I’d say ‘reckon on.’ I did know it though. COD to DEATH ROW, although it is probably both hoary and old to others, and I probably should have gone for FOUR-LETTER WORDS, of which ‘love’ is another example. https://youtu.be/g1fpDWXwfso Thank you setter, and Bruce. Keep as safe as you can.
  6. …picked the SAFE OPTION not the SOFT one. Couldn’t work out the wordplay.
    I see I’ve listed DEATH ROW as my COD.
    1. I was another SAFE OPTION, and I thought it was a safe option. SOFT never crossed my mind.
  7. According to my notes I finished this at just after 2pm and had solved about 12 clues by lunchtime; so that represents a fairly quick solve for me.
    LOI was YEMENI which I can now store in the chestnut cupboard; and I met OMANI only yesterday (or the day before). MERE and STOLIDNESS were the other hold-ups.It took me a long time to get NERVE CENTRE, a clever clue I thought.Lots of good clues;COD to DRAMA for the surface.
    DNK EBON but clue was clear. A fun Saturday puzzle.
    David
  8. I found this fairly tough and didn’t except to complete it correctly within 30 mins. Got there in the end.

    COD: SWEET POTATO.

  9. ….a MERE ENTRY LEVEL puzzle, and no little head scratching went on while I was solving. Note to self : try a different shampoo.

    I solved AWAIT simply by cracking the surface, but looking at it again now, I have to say “figure on” isn’t the best synonym I’ve ever seen. The one that had my eyebrow in motion, however, was DRAMA. I didn’t quite get “stick = ram”, but maybe it was just me.

    Elsewhere, I spent some time wondering whether August 27 was an obscure festival (my dislike of cross-referenced clues is well known !), and was convinced that the large truck at 19D would be an artic.

    FOI GNAW
    LOI STAB
    COD DEATH ROW or FOUR-LETTER WORDS
    TIME 15:06

    I play against a lady on Grabbyword who has a small sheep farm in NSW (130 sheep and 3 alpacas). Her husband is a volunteer firefighter. When we spoke online last week the fires were 5km away, and the intense smoke was everywhere. She was frightened of the wind dropping embers on to them. It’s truly horrendous and my thoughts are with all of you in Australia.

  10. I fell for SAFE OPTION at 4a and made a note that I couldn’t parse it. I couldn’t see anything else it could be at the time, unfortunately.
  11. 34:39. There was nothing unknown here but I did seem to have trouble unravelling quite a few clues: soft option, entry level, four letter words and await where figure on seemed a bit oblique. A decent workout.
  13. at 4ac was my SOI with 1ac GNAW was my FOI

    LOI was 14ac MERE because I had gone Dutch and incorrectly bunged in MEER originally!

    COD 21ac DEATH ROW very neat surface.

    WOD 5dn FOUR LETTER WORD – no one has mentioned the F word or the other one. The L word being the SOFT OPTION.

    Time 35 minutes

  14. Thanks, Bruce, and best luck with the fires.
    Like others I took a long time to discard flea, roo, hare, frog, and other jumpers (including even Fosbury) in favour of top, and I stared at Mere for ages before the penny dropped.
  15. After about 3 hours I was left with 14a. I thought about a dictionary trawl, but there were too many possibilities, so I resorted to aids.

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