23,556 – Sturm und Drang

Author   dhoggPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 25 mins

I found this one really tough, struggling with the NE corner in particular, although other words seemed to take their time finding their way from my brain to my hand. A few of my entries were educated guesses, and I don’t have a lot of reference works to hand, so they may be wrong, but I think my logic is OK. I’m sure some kind person will tell me otherwise.

Across
5 DOC-US-O.A.P. – Not keen on “surgeon” for DOC, as I was always reminded when I worked in the NHS that surgeons are referred to as Mr, but I suppose that you can’t get away from the fact that a surgeon is a doctor. US for “useless” – not sure of the root of this (unsatisfactory, perhaps?).
9 INSUR(GEN-C)E – This one took longer than I’d want to admit, despite being very straightforward.
10 (k)LUTZ – A jump in skating in which the skater takes off from the back of one skate and makes one full rotation before landing on the back of the other skate, named after Alois Lutz, the Austrian skater credited with its invention.
12 EL(OH)I-M – one of my educated guesses, Elohim being an alternative name for God, I think! Sometimes, my atheism holds me back in Crosswordland.
15 FLIP SIDE – cleverly disguised, as I was looking for something where you had to change the order of a couple of words.
18 JERE-(<=aim)H – again, an educated guess. JERE is a homophone of JERRY, war-time slang for a German, bringing back memories of games I played as a child, but surely no longer allowable? Does this not rank with Paki or Chink as being xenophobic?
23 HEADLAMP – (help Adam)*
25 RISE – double definition – “hike” as in “hike in taxes on gas-guzzlers”.
26 COURSEWARE – homophone of COARSE WEAR
28 COD-GER – the compiler has something against our Teutonic friends?
 
Down
3 GLUT-A-MATE – as in monosodium glutamate.
4 NU(<=egg)T
5 DANCE OF THE HOURS – which, I seem to recall, is part of the soundtrack of Disney’s Fantasia, although I could be wrong.
6 CRE(PE(as),RI(ce)E – loose use of the word “restaurant”, but these days, some people even call MacDonalds restaurants…
7 SALVO – this is a blatant guess. Given the Australian habit of putting an O at the end of words to shorten them, I am guessing that Salvo is something to do with the Salvation Army.
8 ATTAINDER – (antitrade)* – loss of civic rights
14 EXECUT(IV)E – “intravenously” is always a dead giveaway for IV
16 S(WALL)O-WED
17 PINNACLE – (nice plan)*
22 CHECK – homophone of CZECH

9 comments on “23,556 – Sturm und Drang”

  1. Also struggled – 14:39, but a second look at the grid shows a silly slip of the pen with BARSEC instead of BARSAC. Just the sort of thing I was telling people in the pub last night you should never allow to happen. For what it’s worth, Collins doesn’t label ‘jerry’ as derogatory, like Paki or Chink. It also confirms your (and my) guess about the Aussie meaning of Salvo.

    Elohim: You’re right – more God-names from Judaism here. Just be thankful that Islam hasn’t yet made enough impression on British culture for Times setters to use the 99 names of God in the Qur’an! Dance of the hours: right again. The Wiki entry reveals how to remember what it sounds like.

    1. Don’t know about it being offensive but I would dispute JERRY as a homophone of JERE- as in JEREMIAH. Even allowing for regional pronunciation etc I have never heard anyone say JERRYMIAH in my life!

      Buzzword

    2. The one I forgot: US = useless can be justified via U/S = unserviceable
  2. 24′ – spent too long on 7D and 10A. Read 10A’s construction as a synonym for clumsy minus a Y before looking for US terms for a clumsy person.
  3. Same problems here – NE corner defeated me and, sadly, the lunch hour passed without resolution, leaving four clues unanswered.
  5. I finished in 10:28, which didn’t feel too bad, especially as I’d spent at least a minute dredging up BARSAC, until I realised that I’d fallen into the ‘coursework’ trap at 26ac.

    As for the first Championship qualifier, the least said the better. Suffice to say that I have not yet troubled the postman.

  6. I was quite pleased to keep under 20 minutes (19:10), but the last couple of those were spent agonising over RISE, which I thought rather weak – apart from that, I reckoned this was a very good puzzle. As you say, “intravenously” should have been a giveaway for IV in 14d, but with the words “top” and “manager” in the clue, I wanted the answer to be some derivative of MAINLINE. The other clue that gave me a hard time was 13a (MEGA) which I see you didn’t even think worthy of mention (I suppose it doesn’t really need much explanation once you’ve seen the answer).

    BTW, despite what the dictionaries say I’d always understood U/S to be short for Unfit for Service – slightly more plausible than just “UnServiceable”!?


  7. Multi-cultural offering here with a few “easies”:

    1a Commander almost injured by firearm (6)
    SHO (T) GUN. Our friend from Japan.

    11a Italian motorway that is taken to bypass country roads (8)
    M I LANES E. Our first Italian.

    13a Turned over a diamond, possibly ace (4)
    MEG A

    19a Cut dried flower (4)
    AIRE (D)

    21a European serving time at American prison (6)
    T US CAN. Italian #2.

    27a (Saw knees)* trembling – a sign of this? (8)
    WEAKNESS

    2d Language assimilated by eacH INDIvidual (5)
    HINDI

    20d Pub has appellation controlee wine (6)
    BAR’S AC

    24d Butter substitute is the limit (5)
    MARGE. Did not know this term for the margin.

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