24172

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

This took me 40 minutes, but having finished it I don’t quite understand what detained me for so long. The 5s were the last in, and I think I wasted too much time trying to work them out in order to polish off the top half of the puzzle instead of getting on with the lower half and coming back to them. When I eventually did this the 5s fell into place immediately. I suspect the consensus will be that this was a straightforward puzzle with no frills and little to get excited about.

Across
1 WILD(L,IF)E
5 COBBLE – Two meanings. For ages I couldn’t see past “Last part of road” being “D” and I missed “Work on last” being one of the definitions.
8 SOB – And S.O.B. stands for “Son of a bitch”. Or “Son of a bitches” if you are Jackie Mason.
9 MICRONESIA – (Romance is)* around I.
12 REAL – It’s King Lear today!  I wasted ages yesterday thinking about him instead of Edward. Switch L/R to get REAL.
14 REVEL,A,TORY
17 STA(B)LEMATE
20 LAIR(d)
23 TIRANA – The capital of Albania. I spent precious time here trying to make an anagram of I + Train before realising the I in Train just moves backwards and the sixth letter comes from the indefinite article.
24 ARRANGES – Two meanings
25 POINT, B(L)ANK – I will avoid making any topical reference
26 S(ome) R(espected) I(ndian) – I’ve heard of Sri Lanka of course but somehow I have not met Sri as a form of address before
27 F,RISKY
28 ONE TRACK – Two meanings again
 
Down
1 WESTWARDS – A not very well-hidden hidden word
2 L,IBERIA
3 LA(M)MAS
4 F,ACE, CREAM
5 CON,TROL(l) – Trolling is fishing by trailing a baited line behind a boat
6 BASE (META)L – META from Team* enclosed by BASEL, the Swiss city that keeps turning up when it’s my day to blog. (Well okay, it’s only happened twice but the previous occasion was exactly a month ago today.)
15 ENTER,TAIN – TAIN from Ain’t*
16 YARD’S,TICK
18 TRIPPER – Two meanings
19 EXACT,L(ev)Y – I once had an English teacher with an aversion to the use of the word “nice” to mean “pleasant” and was always quoting its alternative meaning “exact”, so I didn’t have to think long about this one.
21 AUGUST,A(ugust) – Not sure whether “its start” refers to the month or the scene of the event, but no matter. On edit: Thanks to Anax, below,  for clarifying it’s the month not the scene. I suppose this clue makes sense to followers of golf, but it meant nothing to me until I looked it up and found that Augusta is the home of the annual Masters tournament.
22 JACKET – King Edward is a type of potato which may be baked “in its jacket”/unpeeled.

40 comments on “24172”

  1. Not a very hard end to the week thank goodness
    you are right that this was a straightforward puxxle but with some “good” if not outsatnding clues. really liked Cobble!
  2. 6:39 – so just edges out Wednesdays for “easiest of the week”. Some stock ideas (9?, 2, 18) or even complete clues (24), but also some nice=pleasant surfaces, with 4 and 7 not yielding first time despite having breakdowns which I must have seen before. Ditto 5A despite a recent Jumbo appearance for ‘last’ in much the same role.
  4. Just over 11 minutes for me, so not the easiest of the week, but not too hard anyway. I liked “work on last” as the definition to 5A. Last in was JACKET, as I had KE = King Edward and couldn’t see how JACT could mean “very hot” – then the penny dropped.
  5. All pretty straightforward, finished in 8 minutes or so, this would be an ideal introductory puzzle for those in the early stages of tackling the Times.

    21d AUGUSTA looks impenetrable at first – I certainly needed a double-take. “One month before its start” refers to AUGUST in front of the first letter of AUGUST. The question now is how others feel about this kind of refers-to-itself wordplay.

    Q-0 E-5 D-4

    One Across Rock:

    Tirana War Dance nearly became New Romantic legends (some regarded them as even better than Duran Duran). Unfortunately their assault on the New Romantic crown came rather late, in the latter half of 2006.
    Tripper Cobble had better luck and is now established as the West Country’s answer to Jethro, but with an electric harp.

    1. The last I heard of the Dancers, they had done a Nora Jones and released a country feel second album, One-track, to nullify the unprecedented success of their first. It consisted of the band members mumbling incoherently over the top of a continuous loop of sampled Hank Williams riffs and met with mixed success.
    2. I see nothing wrong in principle with self-referential elements in the wordplay, though in some circumstances it can make for a tough clue. In this case the answer came fairly quickly because of the pattern established by 20, 24 and 26 (20 and 26 being particularly easy solves).
      1. I agree, and especially because the cross-checking A-G-S-A left little room for doubt.

        It’s one of those instances where, with only one possible answer, the solver can go back to it and unravel the wordplay. Although similar in format to a charade, in a list of cryptic clue devices this would probably get diverted to the “miscellaneous” section.

  6. Under the 30 mins (just) for the second time this week (and ever). Nothing to scare the horses here. I think the consensus is COBBLE was as difficult as it got, although I spent some time trying to get WOOLOOLF to fit at 1ac. Can’t even think of a controversial topic to start a discussion on. What about potatoes? For me the Royal Blue knocks the eyes out of the King Edward, whatever Delia Smith says.
  7. An easy 20 minute canter through a lot of fairly old hat stuff that never really got the pulse racing. For new solvers perhaps we should explain that a “last” is (was?) a tool used by a cobbler to make and repair shoes. Assuming the clue to TRIPPER is a reference to getting high on drugs, a trip may be very frightening and even dangerous so the construction is a bit socially irresponsible.
    1. I’m imagining a court case where a junkie or dealer is acquitted after his counsel pleads extenuating circumstances based on a series of crossword clues implying that drugs lead simply to pleasure.

      Something in the style of A P Herbert, Private Eye’s Mr Justice Cocklecarrot, or a Monty Python courtroom sketch. “I put it to you, Mr. Browne ….”

      1. You must forgive me if I seem a little po-faced. My wife and I spent 18 years trying to rehabilitate teenagers who had fallen for all the nonsense that they are fed about drugs so I tend to lose my sense of humour on this topic. I see that others have now supported my comment and I thank them for that.
        1. Hmm, I think I’m with you on this Jimbo. My dictionaries don’t offer what you might call a positive angle on the word, and the clue’s apparent suggestion that a drug trip is enjoyable is a little unsavoury.

          In defence of the setter I’d guess extremely few – if any – of the substance abuse crowd would be exposed to the clue; and those in the clean living category are unlikely to be adversely influenced by it.

          Even so, a better form of wording might have been advisable.

        2. Jimbo,

          Apologies for being sarcastic – I’d forgotten your work with teenagers. And I probably also forget too easily how lucky I was to only pick up music and crosswords as really serious habits.

  8. Forgot to record a start time, but felt like a relaxed 20 min. Much easier than yesterdays sandbagging. COD 1Ac. A fraction of a smidgeon of a quibble about arranges = settles in 24 Ac.
    1. Chambers has “Settle or work out”. COED has “Settle (a dispute or claim)” but says it is archaic.
  9. 14:57 .. Enjoyable romp with lots to entertain those of the goldfish tendency (me). I’m guessing FRISKY might not be an original treatment, but it’s a really nice surface. I’ll nominate it as COD.

    One Across Rock .. Cockney rockabilly bad boys The Yardsticks, known for their provocative anti-eco album Cobblers to the Wildlife – Let’s Put up a Parking Lot.

    I notice there’s also a Len Deighton novel in there – Point Blank in Tirana.

    1. Have you and Anax decided that 1 across rock no longer has to have 1 across in it then? Tsk, standards are slipping.
      1. You’re right, of course (though I think the 2009 OAR Rules allow for some light slippage during Lent). But I shall endeavour to walk a more orthodox road from now on. Thank you for pointing this out.
  10. Same time and same comments as Jimbo.

    TIRANA is one of the long list of world capitals fitting the ***A*A pattern, which I think (?)Jackkt updated a while ago. It’s odd how often they crop up.

  11. After yesterday’s puzzle, I was very suspicious today as I sped through the clues. I kept wondering when I would grind to a halt again, but it never happened, and the last entry, COBBLE (appropriately the ‘last’ clue) went in after 20 minutes. An easy puzzle, but at no point did I feel that the clues were cliched or dull. The only one that seemed familiar was 4 dn; I’m pretty sure something very like it appeared in recent Jumbo.
  12. 11 minutes of fun – I did find this on the easy side, but liked a lot of the wordplay, particularly 13, 21 and 22. The definition at 1 down made me smile. If you’ve still got time after doing this, Phi’s crossword in the Independent today has some fun clues as well.
  13. 18:46 so not too taxing. Revelatory/control/cobble were last in.

    Interesting that jack thought 1d was not well hidden. Even after deciding the answer had to be westwards it still took me a few moments to see why.

    I was going to post the same comment as Jimbo about trips not necessarily being enjoyable.

    My english teacher also had a bee in his bonnet about using “nice” but it wasn’t until today that I encountered the other meaning.

    I liked the wordplay for libraries (must have been done before, surely?) but cobble was the stand-out clue for me. It’s a pity the Masters doesn’t take place in September.

    1. As a slight aside, I find it easy to think of nice=picky by back-forming it from “nicety”, a far more frequently used word in the “particular” sense.
  14. A fast (for me) 27 minutes. On the subject of one track minds, the setter seems to have introduced some repetitive riffs with two pounds, two lefts and two feminine/females.
    I also liked libraries but it had a familiar ring to it.
    Talking of riffs, not the one across rock must include Tirana Jacket the East European tribute band dedicated to the work of saxophonist Illinois Jacquet.
  15. A PB of 25 minutes, which left me feeling like I needed a good lie down! But after starting well, I thought I might be onto a good time, so went for it. It came as something of a relief, though, after a fortnight of struggling to get under an hour almost every day (except Saturday, bizarrely). 8ac I thought was quite rude for The Times… COD 24ac.
    1. Well done on the PB. There will be easier puzzles than this to come I’m sure so be ready to shave a good chunk off 25′.

  16. Cheers! Perhaps, in time, I won’t feel quite so washed out by the end, either?
  17. I attempted this in desultory fashion and would have been quite slow but I agree it was fairly straightforward. Fourth in a row I’ve finished without aids (I haven’t attempted yesterday’s yet). Unfortunately this no doubt indicates an easy sequence of puzzles, not that I’m becoming a bit of a whizz. Making due allowance for the unlikelihood of anyone embarking on a life of hard drug use as a consequence of solving a clue in The Times crossword, I agree with Jimbo that the definition of “tripper” was a bit surprising. bc
  19. I’ve been away most of this week, so this was the first Times I have done for a few days. Completed in just under 20 minutes which puts it well and truly to the easy end of the spectrum, for me. Last to go in were WESTWARDS and FRISKY. I liked the clue for 5a, COBBLE and, like others, didn’t like the definition at 18d, TRIPPER.
  20. By far the easiest of the week for me, as evidenced by my actually being able to do it at all. Normally I’m lucky if I get three-quarters of the way through, and yesterday I barely started.

    I dare say it will be too easy for many on here, but it’s nice for us less able solvers to have a bit of encouragement from time to time!

    1. Nothing wrong with easy puzzles – I try to remind some of our commenters from time to time that we all had to start somewhere.

      I was wondering why Wednesday caused you any trouble if today was OK, but then remembered the various bits of knowledge in it.

  21. I flew through without stopping, in less than 15 minutes, until I got to 22, where I stared for some minutes with the entire puzzle completed, and all the crossing letters in place. Hmm. The only garment I could see was ‘jacket’ so I put it in, although I didn’t understand it. No familiarity with UK potatoes in my past, but now I see. Regards to all for the weekend.
  22. First, many thanks to everyone who posts here. I’ve started doing the Times Crossword again after many years off and I’ve been checking here regularly while getting myself back into the swing – it’s been a great resource.

    Managed to finish this one off after a few hours.

    Must say the general style of the crossword has changed, it seems to have become more obscure. But maybe I’m old now and the memory has faded….

    While feeling pleased with myself, I have to say this one seemed quite easy and probably explains why I managed to finish it off 🙂

    1. I think you’re more likely to see the difference clearly if coming back after a long gap – the changes happen so slowly that daily solvers may not see them.

      Looking back at sample puzzles from the 70s or 80s, the wordplay side seems noticeably simpler then – both in structure and material – not much Waller = FATS or Grant = CARY then. And 10-15 years ago, I’d probably expect to finish all but one or two puzzles a month inside 12 minutes. Now there are usually one or two a week that take me more than 15, and my average time is 10 minutes or maybe just over, rather than about 8.

      The knowledge is easier than it used to be on the “arts and books” side, but I think there’s a wider range of other material.

  23. The “easies” in one easy sentence:

    10a Steps taken in preparation for engagement (3,5)
    WAR DANCE. Engagement as in battle.

    11a Old chap carried by railway, one of those travelling (6)
    R O MAN Y

    7d Apprentice is more efficient, master finally admitted (7)
    LEA R NER

    13d Overlapping signs showing facilities for readers (9)
    LIBR A RIES

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