24124 – Cats and Dog

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

I started this last night but soon found it too difficult for my tired brain and gave up with about a quarter completed. This morniing it didn’t seem so bad but I reckon I must have spent the best part of an hour on it in all, though I never felt really stuck and didn’t need to resort to aids except later to check 16 and to look up the cat reference in 4. I hope I will find that others agree it was the most testing puzzle so far this week.

Across
1 SPECTACLE – PEC=muscle inside CATS (rev) + LE
6 BO(S)OM
9 EX,CLA(1)M
10 TAN,TRUM(pet)
11 DARTS – STRAD(ivarius) (rev) “Read as if Arabic” is the reversal indicator here. A new one on me but no doubt others have met it before.
12 SAW DOCTOR – (TO COWARDS)*
15 OR(IE,NT)ATION
17 CAPITULATED – PIT inside (DEAL CUT)*
20 SU(R)P,ASSES – Cleopatra famously bathed in ass’s milk.
24 IMPI,(h)OUS(e)
26 IN,ROADS
27 (s)EVENT(h)
28 INGENUITY – (1 GUY IN TEN)*
 
Down
1 S(P)END – I wrote SURGE here early on and gave myself a lot of problems in this corner.
2 EXCE(R)PT – My last in for some reason.
3 TRANSPORT – Double meaning
4 COMES,TIB(b)LES – I wasn’t sure about this one. According to Wikipedia Tibbles was a NZ lighthouse-keeper’s cat famous for destoying an entire species of bird. I can’t say I’ve ever heard of this so perhaps there’s another reference that I’ve missed. When solving I first thought of Tiddles for the cat reference which didn’t fit the answer but helped me on the way to it. On edit: I now find that Mr Tibbles is a cat in the Harry Potter books, belonging to Mrs Figgs. Then I got to wondering why I had thought of “Tiddles” on first reading and I was reminded  that Tiddles was a cat who lived for more than a decade in the Ladies lavatories at Paddington station and won the  London Fat Cat competition in 1982. As a cat lover I was certainly aware of this at the time but I’m afraid to admit it’s more likely that earlier today I was thinking of Mrs Slocombe’s famous pussy who also shared that name.
5 (l)EFT – Not 100% on this one either. I assume “wiped brow” indicates the removal for the first letter but I don’t see why “hurried” comes into it.
7 STRETTI – Stretto can just mean faster but it’s also a term for overlapping entries in a fugue.
8 ME,MO(RAND)A – Before I got the checking letter from 15 I thought the old bird was ROC and this gave me some problems.
13 WI(NE T) (ASTI)NG
14 BACKS(L)IDE – L being the last letter of hospital
16 AL(DEBAR)AN – I do hate the boy = man’s name device. I didn’t know the star which apparently is the brightest in the Taurus constellation, but it was fairly easy to work out the answer..
18 PORK PIE – Cockney rhyming slang for “lie” and also a type of hat.
19 T(heatre),SUN,AM,I
23 DU(S)TY – S being the first letter of State.
25 SKI – First letters of Sprint Keeping Impetus.

32 comments on “24124 – Cats and Dog”

  1. 24 mins, which felt reasonable for a tricky crossword. Lots of very good clues, with 14D perhaps my favourite. The SE corner was the last bit to fill, I hadn’t heard of ALDEBARAN.

    Tom B.

  2. I messed up SW corner since I put “bald lie” in for “pork pie” and it took some until I got “capitulate” and realized my mistake. Struggled with “aldebaran” too until I had all the checking letters. I thought shut out was just plain “bar” and was trying to fit longer boys names like Andrew around without success. You are right, definitely harder than the rest of the week.
  3. Yes, well done jacckt. I think you drew the short straw this week. Some spectacular surfaces and ingeniously deceptive clues. Liked 14D best, for its subversion of the dominant paradigm. That’s the trouble with tricks & tips; the setters read them too. No time recorded although I’m sure the hour glass would have emptied.
    1. P.S. Thought Tibbles was an almost generic name for a Tabby cat, like Rover for a dog. Didn’t know there was an infamous one, joining the long list of infamy of introduced species in NZ. koro
      1. I’ve amended my blog to include new information, but you may well be right that it’s something of a generic name anyway.
  4. I was busy all day today and only got to this in short bursts – I guess about 40mins in all. I took a while to get the hang of it – the right half went in first, with the NW corner last to go. Definitely the hardest of the week – I hope Jimbo is satisfied!

    At 5dn I didn’t think too much about the wordplay – “Newt – 3” says it all, but I suppose “hurried off” is as good a synonym for “left” as any.

  5. This felt 4 times harder than some of the easier ones this week and took me about an hour all told. I think if you managed to see spectacle early on then it would have been faster for you. i too liked Backslide but there wer lots of good clues and surfaces. i feel good now it is finished!
    Liked impious for some reason too!
    Harry
  6. 20:24 for this so easily the toughest of the week. Anyone getting 1A quickly would have a big advantage, but I got stuck on {long word for muscle inside rev. of le/la/les/el/etc. = musical}. Also tempted by BALD LIE at 18 but decided it wasn’t quite strong enough. Couldn’t see the very clever wordplay for 11A but decided ‘game’ had to be the def., so put in darts & stopped the watch. NW corner was last to go in.

    Lots of clever stuff like “old shellfish” = ex-clam, and a well-hidden (for me at least) anag. at 12.

  7. 26 Minutes. Initially very little, then a flood, many of which just had to be what they were without any real analysis. Finally the NW yielded. Again a most beguiling puzzle.
  8. 15:53. Like others, I found the NW corner the main hold-up. And I made it more difficult by first putting SURGE in at 1D – I suppose I thought there were almost two meanings, but it makes no sense to me now.

    Although I must have known the phrase “saw doctor” existed, as I filled it in straight away, I would have guessed that it was a facetious term for surgeon rather than simply someone who sharpens saws. So I have learned something today.

    My favourite clue is 20A – SURPASSES. Not the smoothest of surfaces, but it made me laugh when I saw how it worked.

  9. That’s more like it! I really enjoyed this one with lots of clever devices. About 35 minutes to solve with the SW corner proving the most difficult.

    I don’t recall “read as Arabic” before. It’s really a very obvious reversal indicator and I bet we see it again. I too thought tibbles equated to rover, never heard of the lighthouse and haven’t read Harry Potter. I had to guess ALDEBARAN but not difficult. Like others I loved 14D

    1. What’s the answer here then? I foolishly stuck SURGE as 1d (USE + G?) so didn’t get first letter of 11a. Even with E I can’t see the answer . .

  10. Seemed quite difficult, particularly after reading 5 or 6 clues without solving any. Pleasantly surprised to find it had only taken 12 mins, which was the same time I took with the previous one which everyone found so easy.
    1. Found this tough and ended with three clues unsolved (darts/spend/exclaim) in the north west after 35 mins or so, more to do with loss of stamina than anything else I think. Still, reasonably happy with my performance on a puzzle generally regarded as difficult – still feel I’m improving. bc
  11. 16.36. Quite a tester. Never sure how to spell ALDEBARAN so had to work out. Got 1ac by guessing pec for muscle. Held up at end by the BOUND – DUSTY pair as I wanted PASTY to be the answer to 23.
    Good challenge
    JohnPMarshall
  13. Cleopatra bathed in asses’ milk I think – I doubt that you can get enough from one ass to bathe in.
  14. 23:50 .. Tricky, challenging and funny – a wee belter.

    Tibbles, SURPASSES and the ex-clam all made me laugh (even if an ex-clam is more likely dead than old… would an ex-clam be nailed to its rock?). No Tibbles quibbles for me. I’ve known cats called it, as well as Tiddles.

    Q-0, E-9, D-8 .. COD .. COMESTIBLES

    Talking of Cleopatra’s bust:
    Cleopatra (to Caesar): You don’t look like your bust.
    Hengis: He’s not. He’s just a bit cracked.

  15. At 45 mins this wasn’t a walk in the park, but not as bad as I feared on a first glance through when it looked suspiciously like another late night solve (impeded at that hour by the dulling effects of alcohol, no doubt…) Quite a few I got here from partially understood wordplay, which it took the blog to clear up. A nice fair puzzle I thought – enough easy clues to get you started on the tougher stuff. COD? I’m quite fond of 12ac.
  17. Couldn’t get lots of the clues – but the answers seem obvious when explained. Would have helped (a bit at least)if I hadn’t got twist (pontoon, Oliver Twist) for 6ac and throw for 6dn. Liked 3dn. 11ac was fun.
    Fran L-P
  18. Easily the most challenging this week, tough and fair and fun. Figuring for interruptions, about 45 minutes. Held up mostly in the SW, which fell when I realized ‘Zulus’ meant ‘impi, then the rest came together, though that included a flat out guess on the rhyming slang PORK PIE. My last though, like Jack, was EXCERPT, which (obviously) I didn’t see til the end. COD nominations for 2, 9 and 17. Regards for the weekend.
  19. Just like a lot of others, baffled by NW corner.20A -asses are not the most obvious animals to get milk from, so didn’t get this clue either. I suppose we must have a hard puzzle every now and then, and for me this was the hardest for some time.
  20. A real tester, and a very fair one. I endorse much of what’s been said above – particularly re the clever wordplay at 1ac and 9ac, the wonderfully disguised anagram at 12 ac, and the ingenious and funny wordplay at 14dn. If Tibbles did, indeed, exist as the name of a cat only knowable if one had read one of the Harry Potter books, I think we could have relied on Jimbo for a comment about “daffy” literary references, and I would have been right behind him. My only very slight quibble was the pale = dusty definition at 23 down, which caused me to hesitate a while before entering the obvious answer from the wordplay. Something that was dusty could be pale, of course, if the dust were pale-coloured, but could equally be dark if the reverse was the case. But, all in all, this puzzle was good’un. No accurate time kept, but over 1 hour, I would think.

    Michael H

    1. I must admit I had my doubts about this too but Collins lists it so I didn’t raise a query.
  21. I had no problems with tibbles = cat and, as I’ve never read any Harry Potter, I’m sure this predates this by many years (decades) 🙂

    Much the toughest crossword for two weeks. Generally very enjoyable!

    markl

  22. I couldn’t get in this morning and had to use the backdoor then didn’t get a chance to solve until after work. Most of what needed to be said was said, this was fairly tricky and had some great clues.
  23. Oof. After the pride of solving my first three cryptics this week, a almighty fall. Took three hours to limp to halfway, then finally gave up and headed here for illumination. Can see why 3D is TRANSPORT but wouldn’t have twigged it if you’d have given me a week to solve it.

    Liked the ‘read as if Arabic’ clue, although I groaned at STRAD. And I seem to remember someone telling me that darts was considered a sport, at least in the UK.

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