24089 – Nice end to a tricky week

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

This was mostly straightforward and took me 40 minutes with no major hold-ups. For a while I had answers dotted around all four quarters and it took a little time for them to start coming together. New words to me were PEONAGE and TALESMAN but these were easily gettable from the wordplay.

Across
1 TRIPARTITE – TRIP + attire*
6 AMAH – A+ham (rev), a nursemaid in India or the Far East.
9 PICTORIALS – Sounds like “Picked Oriel’s”. Oriel being an Oxford college.
10 ID(E)A – The G&S princess around the last of “prince”
12 HUMAN RESOURCES – (Numerous arches)*. Ghastly business jargon for what used to be called the Personnel department. I’ve an idea it’s sometimes called something even more awful these days.
14 SEE,THE – Last in today. I was expecting the components of the word the other way round.
15 RAN,SOME,R – Not a word that came easily to mind from the definition but the wordplay helped.
17 EX,PORTER
19 WILT,ON – I wonder if this brand of carpet named after the small town near Salisbury is known in the US.
24 ELAN – N,ale (rev)
25 OR,DI,NATION
27 NORTH KO,RE,A – Any possible North/South ambiguity here was quickly dispelled by the reference to Lord North, Prime Minister 1770-1782. Edit following kurihan’s comment: ….and the description of the country as “secretive”.
 
Down
1 TAPE(r)
2 IN,CLU(D)E
3 AROMATHERAPY – (Harare may opt)*
4 TRIER,’S – Trier is a city on the Mosel.
5 TA(LES,MA)N – New to me, “tales” is a writ summoning a substitute juror who is then called a talesman.
7 M(ODIC)UM
13 ASSES,S(MEN)T – ST=Saint here.
18 P(EON)AGE A peon is a person of menial status apparently. Another new word learnt.
20 T(ERR)IER
21 S(C,RIP)T – ST= Street here.
23 INCA – Hidden.

27 comments on “24089 – Nice end to a tricky week”

  1. A pleasant 25-min solve today. No arguments and I thought many of the clues had some nicely tricky surfaces, for example 1dn and 7dn.

    TALESMAN seems to be a bit out of place in a straightforward puzzle – what’s wrong with TALISMAN?

    21dn was last in as I spent some time trying to understand the significance of “H and around…”. The letters “GHI”? Heroin and something? I find that even though I know that gaps sometimes appear mysteriouly, (and numbers appear as words) it can still be very hard to actually recognise them.

    Jack, I don’t think the South Koreans would be amused at you suggesting any possibility of ambiguity at 27ac!

  2. Definitely a relief after the last two. About 25 min, but I don’t understand 21 Dn.
    1. 21dn should start “Hand around…”

      “Hand” (meaning “handwriting”) is the definition. around = C; final message = R.I.P; in ST(reet)

  3. Not happy with this. Why should the French be Plural? Could it not be LA or LE? If you don’t know the word TALESMAN, you’d never have shoved an S in there…
    1. I take the point but I think the clue is fair enough because if you don’t happen to know the word (as I didn’t) it’s gettable from the wordplay: Cane = TAN, Master (of Arts)= MA and a French word for “The” of which there are only three as far as I know. Why would one consider Le and La but not Les?
  4. TALESMAN was new to me and last to go in. Otherwise pretty straightforward – bit under 9 mins.
  5. Very straightforward 25 minutes with no problems or hold ups. I think the wordplay to TALESMAN is completely fair and facilitates solving. The word has featured before so also watch out both for “tales” as Jack mentions and also “pray a tales” which is to request that the jury be completed in this way.
  6. After a couple of toughies, one of which I had to resort to aids to finish, this was a breeze, which took me 20 minutes. I might have been a minute quicker if I hadn’t spent time wondering what was meant by “H and around…” PEONAGE and NORTH KOREA were the last to go in.
    If the wordplay to 1 down is TAPE(R)(above), I don’t see that ‘taper’ means exactly ‘finish off’. I took it as a double definition, but I was very unsure. Perhaps jackkt is right.
      1. You’re right, of course. Stupid of me. Solving the clues rather more quickly than average for me, I scanned them rapidly and didn’t focus on the wordplay if I saw enough to satisfy me that the answer was right.
  7. A bit of a slow start for me, with only AMAH seen on my first look at acrosses until SHOPPING CENTRE led to several downs and an easy bottom half. Gentle slap on wrist for not seeing HUMAN RESOURCES first time. 1A and 5 were the last two, the first fooling for a while by the old trick of using TRIP to clue part of a word where it sunds like TRIPE. No issue with “les”, as others have said – always consider all three options. Initially surprised by RANSOMER, but have since realised that as ransom (vb.) is to pay or receive the ransom, a ransomer could be either party.

    (On edit: time was 9:05)

    Edited at 2008-12-05 04:33 pm (UTC)

  8. 10 minutes, a brisk ending to a brisk week (well below freezing out there at the moment as I get ready to head to the SDJ).

    Thanks kurihan for pointing out the mess in the online version of 21D. I couldn’t figure in the H part so wrote in SCRIPT from the wordplay. Others from wordplay were TRIPARTITE, AMAH, WILTON, PEONAGE and TALESMAN. That to me is the sign of a good puzzle, that I could get six unknown(ish) words from wordplay. PICTORIALS came from the definition and part wordplay. I don’t usually go for anagrams, but 8 is a nice tight clue.

  9. At 9 minutes I had all but PEONAGE and checked for the answer here. No complaints – just happens to be a word I didn’t know. Surprised to see STRONG appearing in both def and answer at 8D but it was a welcome help in speeding up the NE corner.

    Nice gentle end to the week, a mix of chestnuts and fresh challenges, and ticks alongside 19 and 20. Hard to choose between them but, on the basis that TERRIER must have appeared before, I’ll go for WILTON.

    Q-0 E-6 D-6 COD 19

  10. I was going along quite briskly but fell foul of TALESMAN at the end. At least I’ve learnt something, could be a tricky word to work into conversation, however. Regardless of whether it’s original, I choose 20D (TERRIER) as COD; great surface, clean definition and not an ounce of spare fat on it.

    Tom B.

  11. A quick 35-40 minutes, and for probably the first time this week I didn’t get that sinking ‘I’m never going to finish this’ feeling! Most enjoyable, with a couple of new words (notably 6ac) that were easy enough to get from the nice clear wordplay. A bit of a relief after some of the monsters this week! COD 7d.
  12. 27:45 .. After a fast start, I just ground to a halt, especially up in the NE. AMAH and TAPE were my last two in, which made everything else much more tricky.

    Very fair puzzle, apart from the online glitch (thanks, kurihan – I’m another one who didn’t cotton on).

    Q-0, E-8, D-7 .. COD 22 SHOPPING CENTRE (very clever separation of ‘leaping about’)

  13. 8.33. Spent a dismaying amount of time trying to make “homoeopathy” fit into 3d, where it seemed like a perfect answer apart from being the wrong length, not having the right letters and not fitting with any across answers. “H and around” provided the other main holdup but it had to be SCRIPT from the wordplay.
    1. If it’s any consolation, I invented the bogus American HOMEOTHERAPY and took simply ages to figure out why the NW corner was so problematic, eventually finishing in 11:07 – disappointing, as the rest of the puzzle went pretty smoothly (as did the NW corner once light had dawned).
  14. Straightforward compared with some recent ones. 18 mins and pleasing to work out some new words from clear wordplay e.g. PEONAGE and TALESMAN (my last). COD – 2 down which was nicely done and novel to me at least.
  15. About 25 minutes, but then puzzled for another 10 over WILTON, which, as Jack suspected, might not be common in the US. It isn’t, at least to me, but ‘wilt’ was the only thing I could think of. I then resorted to on-line searching to confirm this got me a carpet of some kind. Other that that, no problems or complaints. I eventually realized that the ‘H and’ was a misprint, so yes, it also held me back a while, but not terribly long. Regards all, see you next week.
  16. TALESMAN at 5dn was new to me too, but getable from the cyptic parsing. Like most others, I find this clue perfectly fair. The proper response to anonymous’s “Why should the French be plural?” is “Why shouldn’t it be?” Rule of thumb: whenever you see “… the French …” in a clue, consider the possibility that LE, LA or LES may be part of the answer.

    This puzzle, which most others seem to have found straightforward, took me much longer than it should have done. Needed three bites at the cherry, so no reliable time. Sabine’s 8.33 mins is terrifyingly fast. I take a crumb of comfort from the fact that I too wasted time trying to fit HOMEOPATHY into 3dn.

    Michael H

  17. PICTORIALS I got but not WILTON because we’re not familiar with that brand in Canada.MICROCEPHALOUS the other day came easily as did AROMATHERAPY. Then why is it I’m still staring at 26a “Sport items featured in the news regularly” (4)?

    I must admit WILTON had me floored.

    Solving time I day, 14 hours, 3 seconds….to date

    1. It’s TEES (ThE nEwS). Sorry, I left it out as I thought we’d had enough golf recently!
      1. I suspected but couldn’t for the life of me see why…now I know. You know how it is.Ta.
  19. A good example of a well-clued crossword with unknowns being sussed from the wordplay. There are 5 “easies” including Renaissance Man Leonardo Da Vinci at 16d who is clued as “Painter” despite having only having around 20 surviving recognised works?

    22a Son leaping about holding a bit of money – to spend here? (8,6)
    S HOPPING CENT RE. Our nearest is the “Centre:MK”. I normally steer clear but was dragged to JL’s earlier this morning by Mrs NPB.

    26a Sports items featured in the news regularly (4)
    TEES. T h E n E w S.

    8d The dragon’s exceptionally strong-willed (10)
    HEADSTRONG. Agree with the comment about STRONG being in clue and answer. A bit disappointing.

    11d Stop and ask to get signature? (8,4)
    QUESTION MARK. The literal appears to be STOP. Ask = QUESTION and MARK = signature? For once the literal is not simply “?”.

    16d Painter’s redone door panel having missed bit in middle (8)
    LEONARDO. Anagram of (door panel) without the middle letter p.

Comments are closed.