24101 – Dosh, not hush money

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I completed nearly all of this in 35 minutes but was left with 7d unsolved for some time afterwards. Eventually I discovered an error at 13 which resolved the  problem. Another good puzzle but I expect some of the hares will have raced through it in no time.

Across
1 L(AME D)UCK – MADE* inside (Lady) LUCK
9 VAL(our)
10 TENNIS ELBOW – Cryptic definition
12 INS,URGENCY
13 DOSH – This was my downfall. Very early on I wrote HUSH for this one and paid for it later when I couldn’t solve 7d to finish off the puzzle. Eventually I used on-line help to rule out E_B_U_L and it was only then that spotted my error.
15 S(PO)ILT
16 NEBULAR – BUL(k) inside NEAR
18 CHIME,RA – Some rather detailed knowledge of London is required here. Regular solvers will be used to RA = Royal Academician = painter or artist but some probably won’t know that the Royal Academy, also RA, is located in Piccadilly.
20 E-QUIPS – E-quips as in e-mail
24 FIGUREHEAD – Double definition. My last one in the lower half for some reason. I just couldn’t see it.
26 HIGH,  FI(N)ANCE – I’m not sure whether “intended” meaning a fiance is widely used these days so this may cause some problems. It sounds a bit old fashioned to me now.
28 D(ALL)AS – ALL inside SAD (rev)
29 SEASONED – Hidden
 
Down
1 L(o)U(d),V,VIE – More usually spelt with a Y, I think. Apparently many actors use this term when addressing each other to save remembering names.
2 M(ILKS)OP – SILK* inside MOP
3 DETER,MINED – The material is DENIM (rev). The additional presence of ERMINE confused me for a moment.
4 CONCENTRATION – (INNOCENT ACTOR)*
6 RUED – Sounds like “rood” as in rood cross. “Here” serves no purpose that I can see.
7 EMBROIL – “Embroider” with L substituted for “der”
8 HAWTHORN – WHAT* + HORN. The definition being “May”, another name for the hawthorn.
17 SCORCHED – CROC (rev) inside SHED
19 (k)ILLE(r),GAL
21 PRESTO,N
22 EDWARD – DWAR(f) inside ED. I never much cared for clues where “boy” is used to define an abbreviated name but at least I understand the concept. The logic here is less clear though I suppose one cannot deny that some boys are called Edward.
25 OF,F.A. – Offa was King of Mercia and is mainly still remembered for his famous earthwork or dyke built to keep the Welsh out of his kingdom.

41 comments on “24101 – Dosh, not hush money”

  1. DOSH? LUVVIE? Other then these two, pretty easy. Got through most of this within 15 minutes, then spent a while on this last couple, plus EMBROIL, which was a well hidden clue. Another 30 minutes on the last three answers, tough for non-Brits. Otherwise, not so hard, so altogether, 45 minutes or so. See you next week, regards to all.
  2. Oddly enough, I came here wondering whether anyone else would have put HUSH instead of DOSH at 13A! Other than that, no real problems and would have been quite quick. 15A worked nicely, though it may not be original.

    Probably my last contribution in 2008, so best wishes to all for the festive season and thanks to all the bloggers.

    Tom B.

  3. Count me in for HUSH at 13ac, which held things up a bit.

    I also took a while on 24ac: I had a start of ?I?U and a definition of “nominal”, so something to do with “titular” sprang to mind, and with “bust” in the cryptic part…well, you can see why I went down the wrong track for a while.

    I don’t like “Actor(‘s)” as a definition for LUVVIE in 1dn.

  4. I also put in HUSH before realising it couldn’t be right. I’d be interested to see how many people initially put in the right answer for this one.

    Steve W

  5. I too did the hush-dosh. Maybe it will be the next dance craze. Overall about 15 min, and probably the easiest of the week.
  6. 7:15, so mostly straightforward. Got EMBROIL early enough not to think of HUSH, though I’d be disappointed by the def. if HUSH was right – I think it needs “type of money” or similar.

    Picky points:

    6D: “rood” is just an old word for “cross”, so “rood cross”, though you can find a couple of websites that mention it, doesn’t mean any more than ‘cross’.

    22D: if I’m right in thinking that the shortened names are usually “small boy” or similar, the logic here is the same.

    1. I take the first point but I agree it is a bit picky because rood cross seems to be fairly common parlance in church circles and the term has 1,800+ hits in Google, mostly bona fide sites relating to church architecture, the ones I have looked at, anyway.

      I was a little surprised by the second point because I must have met “boy” used to clue an abbreviated name hundreds of times. But on reflection I couldn’t swear that these were in the Times puzzle; I did the Telegraph daily for donkey’s years.

    1. Yes, a city since 2002. A similar slip was made not too long ago, in a Saturday puzzle I think, with Brighton, also now (with Hove) a city.

      Tom B.

      1. …but both excusable slips to my mind: administrative titles craved by aspirational town councillors suggest everywhere will be a city in 50 years’ time! My local village train station had a ‘to the town centre’ sign placed outside for all of four days before the outcry got it removed.

        Managed to get DOSH. despite not seeing EMBROIL until much later than Peter…

        Neil

  8. An easy finish to the week – about 20 minutes to solve.

    The puzzle is more newsworthy for its nitpick potential than for the interest level of the clues. To expect the wider audience to know that the RA is in Piccadilly whilst being unaware that Preston is a city shows a certain London-centric view of the world.

    I’m always wary of these 4 letter words where the clues can so often give rise to more than one potential answer and try not to go firm on them until I have checking letters. As it happens EMBROIL isn’t difficult if you don’t have the distraction of a U stuck in the middle of it!

  9. About 20mins. I too had a few nitpicks… the unnecessary “here” in 6dn, town for city in 21dn for example… but actually I enjoyed this crossword and thought it had some excellent clues. I particularly liked the hidden clue 29ac and the anagram in 4dn.

    On Tuesday morning, I submitted a (fairly innocuous) comment to the Bulletin Board about the continuing delays in posting the latest Mephisto crossword. Now here we are on Friday morning, and it has not been published, nor in fact have any other comments. Is this board now totally moribund? I do find this continuing incompetence on The Times website very frustrating

    1. I’ve just finished blogging 2520 and have made similar remarks in my opening commentary.

      If you Google “Times Mephisto 2520” you should find the puzzle.

      1. Yes, 2520 appeared on the scene late Tuesday. Clearly it existed before then, since glheard was able to publish a link to it on the monday… how, I wonder? It is not a predictable url like the other crosswords. I will try googling for 2521 on Sunday and see what happens. And also keep an eye on this invaluable blog! 🙂
        1. This so far has found me every unlinked crossword that has actually been loaded on to the site…

          Go to google and choose advanced search

          Enter the crossword you are looking for, say Mephisto 2520 as the search term

          Enter timesonline.co.uk in the “search within a site or domain” box at the bottom of the page.

          That is how I got Mephisto 2520 on Sunday evening my time (early Monday UK).

    2. The Mephisto has come in for some pretty rough treatment. I put the link for 2520 on my blog for 2519, but for anyone else who wants to try some Paul McKenna fiendishness, here it is.

      Mephisto 2520

  10. I found this one fairly straightforward, except for the NE corner where I got myself into a bit of a pickle, entering HUSH for 13ac and then struggling inexplicably (!) with 7d (I’ve just noticed that I wasn’t alone here!) Once I’d realised something was amiss, and looked for where obvious errors might be, all clicked into place. COD 8d, because of the brilliantly hidden definition. A nice, entertaining puzzle to finish with before the Christmas holiday!
  11. The easiest of the week for me, completed in 21 minutes. It would have been less but for HUSH for 13, in the company of so many others. I realised when I entered it that ‘money’ rather than ‘sort of money’ was strictly needed for the definition, but given the question mark and the looseness of some clues we’ve had in the past, I entered with some confidence, which increased when I got HAWTHORN crossing it. I also messed up my grid by starting to enter INSIGNIFICANCE for 13, then realised it wouldn’t fit (and it didn’t really fit the clue anyway).
  12. 19:50 but should have been quicker as it took too long to get 1ac and 4dn.

    No problems with dosh – for me it was one of the first in with no checkers. I guess I must have just instinctively known what the setter was thinking.

    A decent enough puzzle which would, I think, have drawn more praise another week but the crackers of the last two days are tough acts to follow.

    Q-0, E-7.5, D-5, COD 15

  13. 17 minutes, and like most of the rest of you, fell for the HUSH trap otherwise this would have been pretty slick.

    Got CHIMERA from the definition, and was thinking that maybe this was hinting that the Royal Academy is a circus. Preston, as everyone knows, is a northern suburb of Melbourne.

    My other initial mistake was worth noting, as soon as it came off the printer, I saw 25D and wrote in BEST.

    1. I did precisely the same thing, George. In fact if I could have writtrn it in before it finished coming off the printer, I would have done!

      Neil

  14. I was so glad to be able to do today’s puzzle within the hour. Such a change after yesterday when I got only one clue-golden oldies, of which I am one.
    Now I’m off to IT free zone (south London) for a week over the hols. Thanks to all the bloggers who have enhanced my enjoyment of the crosswords since I discovered you. Merry Christmas to you all and see you in 2009.
  15. as the north east cornere was my last i only had the final H for 13 accorsh and had thought of Dosh as a synonym for money and then it dawned on me that this was indeed the answer as it Do Sh…which enabled me to get Embroil sa my final clue
    On rood i think it may be rude/rued cross/regretted..didnt think of rood at all which may be a mistake
    Some cracking clues today…liked e-quips and insaurgency! and hawthorn although the latter took a long time. two sittings and around 35 minutes
    1. ‘Cross’ has to be rood rather than rued – it’s a bit obscure but an exact synonym. If you’re cross, you might be rude but not necessarily.
  16. 12:59 .. Solved at a steady rate with no real hold-ups, and no grumbles from me (must be the season of good will or some such nonsense).

    I thought this a witty puzzle with some nice images, especially with the namby-pamby tying ribbons in his hair, getting the German into trouble in 7d and the bribery in the courthouse in 10a. But I particularly enjoyed (though it’s probably almost illegal now) the use of ‘shortly’ for the dwarf in 22d.

    Q-0, E-7.5, D-6.5 .. COD – 2d MILKSOP

  17. 15 mins for me which I think is a personal best. My only delay was failing to see croc (rev) in 17d, having fixed my sights on orc and trying to justify the additional ‘c’.
  18. 6.26. Like Peter I had EMBROIL in before I got to 13ac so the HUSH issue never arose. Slight holdup with 18ac thinking “occupant of Piccadilly” was Eros, otherwise no real problems that I can recall.
  19. 12.00 -Disappointed I didn’t even think of HUSH as I am usually pretty sharp at getting semi-plausible wrong answers. Took a while to get 18 as I had Eros in mind too. Got DALLAS ok as I remember it being a stumbling block from a puzzle earlier this year when the cluing was probably something similar?? Does anybody remember?
    I thought there were some nice clues including 1a, 10,17. Re 25 – surely Dalglish (fitting two letters to a square Listener style)- who did Offa play for anyway?
    JohnPMarshall
    1. My first thought on seeing ‘King of footballers?’ was BEST, the late George now being eligible (and having, I think, already appeared in the Times Crossword). As a player, Offa was almost completely rubbish.

      Tom B.

      2. Come on, the Offa defensive line was legendary, giving rise to the cry of ‘1-0 to the Mercians’.
  20. OFFA would not be playing Rugby for England (or Wales); he would certainly be in charge of picking the team. `After all, he must be an old man now!
  21. Like others, I’d major problems in the NE corner, tho I never thought of ‘hush’ but wondered about ‘cash’ – I think this was because the ‘bullet-proof’ clue to EMBROIL was quite complex by normal standards. 26 mins – I too thought of BEST before I started, recalling that, sadly, he is dead so OK for Times.
  22. I’m certain that if I’d tried to do this quickly and timed myself I would have comfortably beaten my record time of around 11 mins. Judging by other solvers’ comment most found it reasonably easy but not exceptionally so; it must just have suited me, because I thought it the easiest one I’d done in months.
  23. I endorse nearly everything above – an enjoyable and mostly straightforward puzzle, but with some testing clues, and many witty and clever ones. I got EMBROIL at 7 dn before tackling 13 ac, so was never troubled by the HUSH option. I agree with jackkt that 13 ac was a neat clue spoilt by being prefaced by “here”, which seemed to me to be completely superfluous padding, unless it serves some cryptic function that eluded us both.

    Michael H

  24. I’m sure I’m being thick, but the only clue I can’t get is 5 Across – Back of barrel runs into tree. And it’s the only one that isn’t listed. Help!!
  25. I can’t see why so many people put HUSH at 13a?
    A real case of RTFC (where F = Flippin’ by the way)?

    Also put a ? at “Here” in the clue for 6d – it seems unnecessary.

    There are 5 “easies”:

    5a Back of barrel runs into tree (6)
    B R EECH. Where you insert the bullets I s’pose?

    23a Register one filled at lunchtime, perhaps (4)
    ROLL. From Subway or Greggs perhaps – other vendors are available.

    27a Group of players refuses minute drink (3)
    TEA (M)

    11d Lack of importance, as a result (13)
    IN CONSEQUENCE

    14d Bosses’ tune – dancing to it is stupidity (10)
    OBTUSENESS. Anagram of (bosses tune).

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