Times Cryptic No 27588 – Saturday, 15 February 2020. Done like a dinner.

Author   brnchnPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Another Saturday puzzle easy to finish over lunch, but full of delightful clues. FOI was 4dn, which jumped off the page, followed by 1ac as soon as I read the clue. As a clear sign that this was a relatively easy Saturday, my last few solutions were clear enough not to bother listing – it just took me a while to see them.

I loved the new take on the Cockney pronunciation meme at 1dn, and liked the misleading wordplay at 14ac and the swamp creature at 15ac, but my favourite was the dinner duck at 14dn. 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 Dabbler in potions maybe St Michael converted (9)
ALCHEMIST – (ST MICHAEL*), ‘converted’.
6 Animal fats regularly consumed in risky venture (5)
BEAST – -A-S (fats, ‘regularly’) in BET.
9 Caught deputy to some extent on the retreat (7)
TRAPPED – DEP[-uty], PART (to some extent), all ‘on the retreat’.
10 Painter harboured by diplomat is secure (7)
MATISSE – hidden answer. And well hidden, too.
11 She flirts outrageously with a relation (4-6)
HALF-SISTER – (SHE FLIRTS A*), ‘outrageously’.
12 Swear changing leader will bring this trouble (4)
FUSS – change the first letter of CUSS.
14 Expression of doubt in Cambridge University? Goodness! (5)
MERIT – MIT is a university, and is of course in Cambridge (Massachusetts). To ‘ER’ is to express doubt.
15 One armed boy and I feeding creature of the swamps (9)
GLADIATOR – LAD and I feed GATOR.
16 Open area where classes can absorb corporal? (9)
CONCOURSE – COURSE (classes) absorbs NCO.
18 Spring, time for Charlie to become thinner? (5)
TAPER – CAPER becomes TAPER when you change the first letter as directed.
20 Bloody good going back for a binge! (4)
ORGY – GORY becomes ORGY when G[-ood] goes back a couple of letters.
21 Airline gossip about what you might need in duty free? (7,3)
CARRIER BAG – CARRIER (airline), GAB (gossip), ‘about’.
25 A nurse holding article up (2,2,3)
AT AN END – A, TEND holding AN. ‘Up’, as in ‘your time is up’.
26 I nab RAF suspect, a foreigner (7)
BIAFRAN – (I NAB RAF*), ‘suspect’.
27 Big joiner losing weight (5)
ELDER – [-w]ELDER. ‘Elder’, as in ‘big brother’.
28 Wild lark in bed going down OK? (9)
DRINKABLE – (LARK IN BED*), ‘wild’.

Down
1 A desire that’s often unexpressed in Bow (5)
AITCH – A, ITCH. The aspirate that Cockneys stereotypically drop.
2 Sycophant needing queen to support slow progress (7)
CRAWLER – CRAWL supported by ER.
3 Old job description (10)
EXPOSITION – EX, POSITION.
4 Banker in south of France upset (5)
INDUS – IN, SUD ‘upset’.
5 Clement worried by tendency to blow top (9)
TEMPERATE – TEMPER (tendency to blow top), with ATE (worried) by (in this case, after) it.
6 City in which Archimedes made his discovery? (4)
BATH – no, Archimedes was never in Bath, but he was, reputedly, in his bath.
7 A sailor caught in storm (7)
ASSAULT – sounds (caught) like A SALT.
8 Official more confident after March, for the most part (9)
TREASURER – TREA[-d], SURER.
13 Drink lots of wine and go to bed (3,3,4)
HIT THE SACK – double definition. The first is a crossword whimsy.
14 Small stream from which duck might emerge? (9)
MICROWAVE – MICRO (small), WAVE (stream). The duck comes out of it after cooking, of course. I raised an eyebrow at WAVE for STREAM, but Chambers says it’s OK.
15 Fish brought to bank is crowned as winner (9)
GARLANDED – GAR, LANDED.
17 Daughter raging about a stingy customer (7)
NIGGARD – (D RAGING*), ‘about’.
19 Bishop at university recalled good Polish food (3,4)
PUB GRUB – B (bishop), UP (at university), all ‘recalled’, then G[-ood], RUB.
22 Teacher’s pet? Not quite (5)
RABBI – the pet is a RABBI[-t]. Even after all these crosswords, I still think of rabbis as priests rather than teachers.
23 Spirit a German, say, knocked back (5)
GENIE – EIN (‘a’, in German), E.G. (say), all ‘knocked back’.
24 Grow stern (4)
REAR – double definition.

34 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27588 – Saturday, 15 February 2020. Done like a dinner.”

  1. Fairly straightforward (certainly so when compared with today’s!). FOI ALCHEMIST, for which the definition is a bit condescending: alchemists were serious scientists. LOI ASSAULT; I didn’t twig to ‘caught’ until the end. Biffed 18ac and 20ac, parsing post-submission. You’re not alone in thinking of rabbis as priests, Bruce; some of our setters have, too. And ODE does give a looser definition for ‘priest’ as ‘a person who performs religious ceremonies and duties in a non-Christian religion’ in addition to their main def, ‘an ordained minister of the Catholic, Orthodox, or Anglican church, …’. Oddly enough, this looser definition would include rabbis but exclude Protestant ministers. Anyway, rabbis are not schoolmasters.

    Edited at 2020-02-22 05:25 am (UTC)

  2. As you indicate, Bruce, there are some lovely clues in this. I have double ticks against GLADIATOR, MERIT, ASSAULT and MICROWAVE.
    I think MERIT is my favourite but I will just say that Spartacus wasn’t necessarily a cannibal but he was hungry so he was GLADIATOR….
  3. 26 minutes with half an eyebrow raise at stream = WAVE but didn’t feel strongly enough about it to look it up. I would have done so if on blogging duty, however. Re Kevin’s comment above, I can’t say I noticed a marked difference in difficulty between this week and last week.
  4. I simply don’t use this word anymore as the Chinese ‘weibolu’ is simply nicer.

    FOI 1ac ALCHEMIST

    LOI 24dn REAR

    COD 19dn PUB GRUB

    WOD (14dn) Weibolu!

    Kevin, Rabbi means teacher in Hebrew! Shalom!

    Edited at 2020-02-22 07:27 am (UTC)

    1. ‘rabbi’ means ‘master’ [think ‘maître’]; ‘teacher’ is *morah/moreh* (masc/fem). As I said, a rabbi is not a teacher in the sense of schoolmaster, or classroom teacher (and not a priest, either).
      1. Rabbi, (Hebrew: “my teacher” or “my master”) in Judaism, a person qualified by academic studies of the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud to act as spiritual leader and religious teacher of a Jewish community or congregation. Britannica.
      1. The Honkie(HK) restaurant that supplies our duck is ace, but closed presently. Buy a roast duck on Saturday, delivered fresh and hot for dinner and stick away half in the fridge. Then reheat in weibolu for lunch on Sunday- so it’s not leftovers per se. So yes! Nut not from scratch.
  5. Just under 20 minutes. The only real pause for thought was MICROWAVE, and not because of the stream meaning wave controversy. (Both wave/particle duality and common English usage satisfied me there.) It was the thought of fitting the duck into the microwave, admittedly without me bothering to pluck it first. I guess there are bigger microwaves and smaller ducks. COD to CARRIER BAG. Nice puzzle. Thank you Bruce and setter.
  6. I did well on this until stuffing up by overcomplicating 14d. I think “lase” is a better fit for “stream” than “wave”, and assumed MICROLASE was some kind of egg protein or enzyme or what-have-you. In my defence, the definition is a tad oblique, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen duck emerge from a microwave…

    Oh, and I’d like to apologise in advance to the readers of next week’s leader board, as I just managed to push the wrong button in a fit of doziness and become a neutrino. Sorry!

    Edited at 2020-02-22 08:12 am (UTC)

  7. I had the same doubts as others over the emerging duck, but shoveled it in regardless. Enjoyed the rest of the puzzle and submitted at 29:59. Thanks setter and Bruce.
  8. 15:32 with 3 minutes over my last 2. LOI MICROWAVE wondering why anyone would cook that in the microwave. I liked GLADIATOR and PUB GRUB best. Thanks Bruce and setter.

    Edited at 2020-02-22 01:46 pm (UTC)

  9. Hello! Your entry got to top-25 of the most popular entries in LiveJournal!
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    1. You’re right. I lied. But I’ve gone honest now.

      Edited at 2020-02-22 08:13 pm (UTC)

  11. ….I was left with 14A/D, and after 20 minutes I “ducked out” and resorted to aids.

    I should have seen MERIT, and would then almost certainly have cracked MICROWAVE. I simply found the clue odd. I didn’t much care for ELDER either.

    COD GLADIATOR

  13. I made like a Porsche and solved this in 9:11. No real difficulties, although I hesitated over MICROWAVE both because I wasn’t sure about ‘stream’ and because I couldn’t believe anyone would ever consider cooking duck that way.
  14. 51 minutes, held up at the end by ASSAULT (until I understood it was a homonym), MICROWAVE (with the same arched eyebrow as everyone else) and MERIT, which I assumed was some sort of Latin formulation of a modest grade at (the British) Cambridge University. Shame on me! I actually am an alumnus of MIT and I get caught every time it comes up, which as you all know is frequently.

    Edited at 2020-02-22 06:48 pm (UTC)

  15. As vinyl suggested, you might reheat your leftover chinese takeaway duck dish in it. Not that I would.
    1. I felt guilty for missing something.. but I see vinyl’s comment came after mine.
      I don’t order takeaway Chinese, but I can readily imagine a situation involving some sort of leftover duck, a microwave and a hangover.
  16. If you shoot your duck your weibolu might spark in response to the steel shot pellets. Very unwise to cook duck in one. 14d was last in, after 14a MERIT, where ‘mer’ was taken as expression of doubt ( minor eyebrow raise) and then baffled as to what Cambridge University had to do with IT. Is there a lot of sex or information technology there? Perhaps one of our Cambridge alumni could enlighten us?
    24mins

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