24055

Author   foggywebPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 24 minutes

That was good fun – lots of good clues and nothing too tricky. A few words I didn’t know, but the wordplay was always very helpful.
I don’t expect many complaints about the clueing today – everything seems pretty solid to me. But what do I know?

I think I have Royal Houses sussed now – perhaps pornography should be the next topic I gen up on.

Across

9 ETA – Estimated Time of Arrival – I wondered if there was a reason Greek was writen ‘G reek’ in my printed copy. I don’t think so. I’ve seen similar clues for ETA many times now.
10 ATTACHE,CASE – I briefly thought of something BAND to hold the papers. Good clue, I thought.
11 AUTO,GIRO – I hadn’t heard of this but it looked quite sensible. Looked up on Wikipedia and was redirected to AUTOGYRO – I very briefly wondered if I’d misspelled GIRO.
12 ERR,AND – worth remembering that ‘with’ is a neat way to get AND in an answer.
16 CHEESECAKE – anagram of ‘cease cheek’ – glad this was an anagram as I’d never heard of cheesecake in this context. Chambers has ‘women with sex appeal, esp when pictured erotically or pornographically in magazines, etc’. Similar to BEEFCAKE, for men. I didn’t know that either.
18 CON,T(ROVER)T – TT=Tourist Trophy, most famously the Isle of Man TT
23 GAL,OSHES(=anagram of ‘shoes’) – last clue in for me , but it’s not very difficult and I think it’s a great clue.
25 SC(A,F,F)OLDING
28 [s]TUMBLED
29 NOT,ICED – thought of NOTICED straight away but it took me a while to decompound it to NOT ICED!

Down

1 DIE,HARD – presumable just DIE=pine and HARD=intensely. Hadn’t thought of DIE-HARD as an adjective, which I think is what’s needed here.
2 PLANT,A,GENET – written in straightaway – I think some eyebrows were raised last time I blogged PLANTAGENET and admitted I’d never heard the word!
4 AFTERS,HAVE – AFTERS=sweet; HAVE=experience.
6 CHEER,I.E.,R
7 LEA[f]
8 TREADLE – anagram of ‘altered’ – discovered after not being able to see an anagram of ‘ineptly’!
13 AN,AESTHETIC – this time a number is that which numbs.
14 RE,CREATION – RE=Royal Engineers. My grandfather was a draughtsman in the RE.
17 GRATE,FUL – ‘to GRATE’ can be ‘to jar’ and FUL sounds like full (topped up).
18 CRESSET – anagram of ‘secrets’ – a cresset is an iron basket in which oil is burned to give light. I didn’t know this.
21 N,OUGHT – N=Knight in chess
26 A,1,M – 1 M(ale) going after A.

20 comments on “24055”

  1. 9:52 for me. Nice easy start to the week, although AUTOGIRO might catch a few people out with the I unchecked. Favourite clue was GALOSHES.
  2. Good blog thanks Foggy. I hadn’t even bothered to look up CRESSET.

    About 35 mins. Started like a train, but for some reason got held up on 13D and the really quite easy ones in the SE corner! I seem to be more at home with soft porn than with aesthetics and the appreciation of fine wines – can’t think why.

  3. 31 minutes here. I’d heard of AUTOGIRO but not CRESSET, nor the required meaning of CHEESECAKE.

    No quibbles. COD:13

  4. Agreed, an easy start to the week – about 25 minutes to solve. Reading previous comments I’m concerned that until recently I didn’t know about the TV soap Neighbours but am completely familiar with cheesecake. Can I blame my parents?
  5. Slow with this one at 10:27 – 5 and 10 across were slow, the latter partly from thinking of BULLDOG CLIP early on.
  6. I took rather longer than I should have – 35 minutes. CRESSET and BACKLOT were new to me. I filled the bottom half far more quickly than the top, which only really took shape when I got CONTROVERT, which immediately led me to PLANTAGENET and AFTERSHAVE. The hold-up with 18a was that I was convinced ‘traveller’ was REP.
    No quibbles exactly, but I thought it was poor to have DIPLOMA as the answer to 1a, shortly followed by DIPLOMATIC to begin 10. I also thought the wordplay to 6 was lame, making CHEERIER out of CHEER + IE +R.
  7. Did this last night, didn’t get a time because of a few interruptions, but looked in this morning, and I had put AUTOGYRO (never seen the word the other way, Wikipedia claims that AUTOGIRO is a trademark, and AUTOGYRO is the name for a small craft that uses engines for thrust and a rotor for lift), thinking that gyro was some sort of payment system. Both in the US and in Australia we call it “direct deposit”.

    oops start to the week

  8. One of those days when I’m trying to work out if I’ve finally gone bonkers, or if everyone else has. I thought this sloppy, riddled with debatable clues, and difficult to solve for all the wrong reasons. Just of few of numerous quibbles:
    -Where is the definition in 11a? The clue points to a verb or adj., but not a noun.
    – What’s with the ‘offering’ in 4d?
    – 6d. The equation of “that’s” with ‘i.e.’ really grates on me. Clunky clue altogether.
    – 14d. Def. appears to be “in free time”, which might be ‘recreational’, but not ‘recreation’.
    – 28a. ‘stumble’ and ‘tumble’ are so close in meaning that the subtraction feels redundant.
    – Like Dyste I thought the ‘diploma(tic)’ recurrence was careless.

    It just felt to me like a puzzle that wasn’t ready for publication. But then, I don’t like Mondays and I’m probably just in a bad mood. And the odds are that it’s just me.

    Took around 30 minutes but much of that just getting irritated. Bah, humbug.

  9. 7.36. Raced through the left half in no time at all, but hit a few delays in the right, particularly 10a where even with every crossing letter in place I had trouble seeing anything other than ARTICLE fitting A_T_C_E.
  10. Liked this one..no idea on time as done in sevral differnt locations at several different times..perhaps 40 minutes…thought Aftershave was COD but also liked Galoshes…saw cheesecake was answer but had never come across it…but had to be correct answer!

  11. I made a mess of this and gave up after 40 minutes with five missing. My brain apparently ceased working. I kept thinking the 2nd word in 10A was going to be ‘tape’ which led nowhere, and that 5D was ‘hare’ instead of the obvious simple answer; both ‘pass the buck’ and ‘the buck stops here’ are more US-English, so I feel myself a bonehead. CHEESECAKE I think is more common over here also, but I didn’t see that either. Argh. Better luck tomorrow. Regards all.
  12. Surely not bonkers yet, Sotira, but perhaps a tad grumpy this morning? I can’t see anything particularly outrageous about any of the clues you mention:

    11ac. I take the definition to be “that’s whizzing up”, understanding it(more or less)as “something that whizzes on the way up”, which seems to me a reasonable definition of an autogiro/helicopter.

    4dn. “Offering” strikes me as doing little more than other similar words – e.g. “supplying”, “providing” – often used in this way in cryptics. Here it simply means that AFTERSHAVE supplies two components that could mean “sweet” and “experience”.

    6dn. Surely the equation of “that’s” with “i.e.” is bog standard cryptic code. Perhaps that’s your objection? That it’s too obvious?

    14ac. I see the definition as “free time” rather than “in free time”, with “built in” indicating that the answer is made up of the elements RE and CREATION.

    28ac. The distinction of meaning is clear enough, surely. Humpty Dumpty tumbled off his wall, he didn’t stumble.

    But then, I would say all that, wouldn’t I, as like most others above I enjoyed this puzzle, and found it a pleasant Monday morning canter at round 30 mins.

    Michael H

    1. Thanks for the ‘yet’! I didn’t suggest anything was ‘outrageous’ – I used the words ‘sloppy’ and ‘debatable’, which I think you’ll agree are not the same thing at all. And I stand by them, even this evening when in a far better mood.

      11 – so “that’s floating” would be an okay definition for a parachute? Hm.
      14 – I’ll give you that one.
      6 – my objection? Sure, it’s not uncommon in puzzles. That doesn’t make it good. I’ve never in my life heard anyone explain the abbreviation ‘i.e’ as “that’s”. Old bone of contention, but I’m in the camp that feels crosswords should bear some resemblance to language as she is spoke, not be an entirely abstract exercise.
      14 – quite a stretch and that sounds like a case of finding an explanation to suit your conclusion, as with 11.
      28 – a cleverly chosen example, though tumbling certainly doesn’t require prior elevation from the ground. Not a wrong’un, that clue – just very pedestrian.

      So I’m afraid you haven’t convinced me, except with 11. But thanks, anyway.

      1. Are you not being a little harsh?
        11ac: ‘that’s floating’ would be quite OK, so long as you see ‘that’ as a demonstrative not a relative pronoun (I think that’s right): ‘that thing is floating’, rather than ‘which is floating’. This is surely standard in wordplay, particularly in The Times.
        14dn: surely quite OK. ‘in’ is just a link word. The definition is simply ‘free time’. Surely.
        28dn: jolly good clue, I thought. Stumbling is not the same as tumbling.
        But perhaps I’m just overconfident because for once (a first?) I solved it in less time (19 minutes) than you did.
        1. Well, I nearly responded to Michael, Will, that either the ‘that’ is a regular pronoun OR a demonstrative, but you can’t have it both ways without the surface falling apart.

          But anyway… At least my rotten mood of this morning sparked some conversation. I’m a grumpy little ray of sunshine.

  13. Royal house 11 letters at this point i decided it was an easy monday offering and polished it off in 11 mins glossing over the Rufus moments. I must be still in chmpnshp mode. Finally after all these years i feel confident about the spelling of anaesthetic.
  14. Good riposte. I guess we must agree to disagree, Sotira. Actually, as a general rule, I’m entirely with you in your view that crosswords “should bear some resemblance to language as she is spoke”, and dislike, for example, answers that rely on words manufactured by the setter that are seldom if ever found in normal speech or writing. Perhaps I’m just being a bit slow today, but I can’t see how that line of objection applies to the equation of “i.e.” with “that’s” at 6dn (though I can see other possible reasons for not finding it a very satisfying clue). According to my Chambers, “i.e.” is short for the Latin “id est”, which means “that is”, for which “that’s” seems a perfectly acceptable abbreviation. But enough of this. Time for bed. Night,night.

    Michael H

    Michael H

  15. I don’t mind “that’s”, but there is a two-step process involved – that’s = that is = i.e. You can use a similar process for student = learner (driver) = L, but I detest student=L with a passion (and note that it’s not used in Times puzzles). I guess the difference is the change in the group of people between ‘student’ and ‘learner’.
  17. As in would you like to some afters have?

    Quite a gentle stroll from the bottom to the top with 4d AFTERS HAVE as my LOI.

    There are 10 “easies” missing:

    1a Official doesn’t quite finish qualification (7)
    DIPLOMA (T). So the FCO are employing university drop-outs now?

    5a Endorse item for sale outside studio (7)
    BACK LOT. Sounds rather American to me – that’s HOLLYWOOD for you.

    15a Enjoys rented accommodation (4)
    DIGS

    19a It’s a revolutionary wine (4)
    A S’TI

    22a Lands in eastern country (6)
    E STATE

    27a A match for Bond? (3)
    TIE

    3d Nothing on the stove but fruit (6)
    0 RANGE

    5d Animal that may stop here and be passed (4)
    BUCK. The clue should read “may stop here or be passed”. It is one or the other.

    20d Badly stained – use this as a replacement (7)
    INSTEAD. Anagram of (stained).

    24d Contented? Good boy (4)
    G LAD

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