24517

Author   petebiddlecombePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 10:53

A puzzle with a bit of trickiness – 14A was my first answer in, and the SW corner was last to be completed – 24, 18, 26 and 23 in that order I think. Before that, getting 3 was a big help at the top.

As I’ve got a Mephisto still to convert from paper copy scrawl to a blog report, let’s crack on, just pausing to say that if this puzzle leaves you with some spare time, Anax’s debut FT puzzle yesterday is well worth a look – see the previous entry here for a link (blogged at fifteensquared).

Across
1 A,WAY=cross – I think. After looking up cross and way in both Collins and COED, I can’t see a precise synonym or think of any other reason for WAY=cross – convincing suggestions welcome! So I’m relying on AWAY being shorthand for “away win” in football as reported for the football pools, where results were homes or aways (wins by those tems), score draws or no-score draws. Crosses on the pools coupon indicated the matches that you hoped would be the only 8 score draws. Afterwards I checked A?A? words using the Chambers CD-rom and found nothing else except a vague football link and X=cross with Ajax, but that doesn’t fit with ‘result’. (If in doubt, rely on the definition.) An anon comment below tells me that WAY = “cross no cross” comes from an informal meaning of WA(x)Y
3 HAND=worker,SHAKES=is nervous
9 A,ERA,TOR = rev. of rot=compost (verb – “to make into compost” is to rot)
11 BOLSTER=support (vb.) – rev. of slob, then TER(m)
12 SEVEN-YEAR ITCH – (scene, variety, H=husband)* – a rather biting “social comment” &lit/all-in-one
14 PI=very good (old slang, short for ‘pious’),LAU(d)=praise
15 B=book,UTTER,NUT – the butternut is a N American variety of walnut and its edible nut. I’m now imagining a US ‘butternut squash’ version of the BBC’s famous spaghetti harvest
17 (f)LIGHTY=frivolous,EAR=attention
19 (r)AMBLE – both ramble and amble have noun and verb meanings, as does walk
21 UNITED NATIONS = (Aunt Enid is not)* – should be easy for anyone ready to ask “Why not Aunt Ethel?”
24 ROTATOR – one of the palindromes that setters love
25 OCEAN=canoe*,1,A
26 GENERA=types,LIST=”index, maybe”
27 PERK – hidden word
 
Down
1 A,DAM(SAP=”drinking juice”,P,L)E
2 ARRIVAL = “a rival”
4 AGREEABLE – e’er = always, reversed in “a gable”
5 DE(B)AR – close = in your immediate family, or “on very affectionate or intimate terms”
6 HALF THE BATTLE = “an important step”. The battle here is Culloden, the last pitched battle on British soil and the effective termination of the 1745 Jacobite rising.
7 K(IT,C.H.)EN – CH = central heating is the stuff of old estate agent house descriptions, so may be unfamiliar to new overseas solvers
8 SORB (the service tree or its fruit) = rev. of bros as in Moss Bros.
10 Deliberately omitted
13 STRESS=emotional strain,MARK = “the gospel” (a gospel really, but you only need to perm one from four (or three 4-letter ones). Stress marks are used to show the difference between controversy and controversy
16 TYRANNOUS = (s(i)n you rant)*
18 G,LUT(T)ON – time wasted looking for airport synonyms rather than examples. Here’s that rather rough video of Lorraine Chase again.
20 BROWNIE – 2 defs – a little cube of chocolatey cake and a the female version of ‘cub scout’.
22 ENROL – n. = name, in rev. of lore = traditions
23 BRIG = “Brigg”, site of a fair in Lincolnshire, commemorated in a folk-song collected by Percy Grainger and later used in music by Delius

60 comments on “24517”

  1. Couldn’t record a time today; did the puzzle at several stops while running around various university campuses and places that install car stereos. (Not that there’s much of a difference between them these days: both are totally mechanised and involve loud, pointless noise). But I’d guess about the half hour in all. Things were much helped by the long(ish) anagrams at 12ac, 21ac and 10dn. But, duly lulled, I fell for the non-anagram trap in 26ac. (Is there an anagram of “types index”?). COD to 6ac. About time the (albeit slight) Scots race memory came in handy.

    And of Brigg Fair … Anax enticed us with another Fair possibility yesterday in the FT (17dn). But it turned out to be further red herring. Talking of which … where is he these days? I always liked his comments.

    1. Anax is just busy – writing puzzles, and putting together a weekly report on the Telegraph toughie on Big Dave’s blog.
      1. So … the poacher hasn’t completely turned gamekeeper? (To quote the editor — on this blog — on Roy Dean’s swansong.)
        2. Anax has been on the gamekeeping side a long time – he wrote puzzles for a regional newspaper in the past. So he’s more a lapsed gamekeeper back in action.
          (Your quote is from the Church Times crossword editor rather than the Times one.)
  2. Stress free, unaided solve with enough gimmes to get you on your way and for me the only unknown being SORB but with simple wordplay anyway. So the perfect cryptic for beginners who are prepared to work at it. Nothing earth shattering here. COD to LIGHT YEAR simply because it was the only answer requiring post-solve justification.
    Stress full next few days at the Whitgift School to watch Surrey, in the season it is supposed to emerge from the cricket wilderness, trying to avoid a third humiliating defeat on the bounce. It’s a hard life.

  3. This was not a brownie but the wordplay generally was not particularly inspiring. I only put ticks next to seven-year itch and half the battle. That’s the second day in a row that we have been expected to know a date. Speaking as a 26, two trees today is at least one too many for me.
  4. With this date, there is at least support from the fact that “Forty-five” is a common name for this Jacobite rebellion, which helps to confirm 1746 as a very likely date for Culloden.
  5. finished in about 45 mins but in my hurry i put in sarb instead of sorb even though i knew the word, however i must confess i thought it referred to the rowan-tree. good straightforward puzzle but lacking the x factor. no cod.
  6. 20 Minutes. I read 1ac as A WA(x)Y (waxy being “cross”) and the result, an AWAY win. I think in football pools terms, a draw is, or used to be, marked by an X, so no X also marks one of the other results. My CoD for its density.

    Otherwise, I enjoyed this rather tougher solve, though HALF THE BATTLE went in without full understanding,and SORB only half remembered and put in as it couldn’t be anything else. I thought TONGUE TWISTER was one of the best disguised anagrams I’ve sen for a while: I needed a lot of crosses before I got it. Not helped by having GOURMET at 18, obviously unsupported by any reasoning except it looked like a frequent restaurant visitor.

  7. slow but steady solve for the most part. I hit the wall at 35 minutes today with four unsolved in the SW corner, 18 and 23dn and 24 and 26ac which between them occupied me for a further 12 minutes. 24ac was the real stumbling block and having eventually solved it I was going to say it was vague and unhelpful until noticed it is a palindrome which explains the second part of the clue. I don’t remember meeting the tree SORB before nor the helpful elf meaning of BROWNIE. I sort of assumed it referred to something the junior Girl Guides strive to be.

  8. A smooth 43 minutes for me. Held up a bit in the top left, where I originally got suckered into DRAW for the football result – before getting ADAMS APPLE. Best I can come up with for cross = way is the sense of ‘a place of crossing’, which is a bit of a stretch, but at least a geospatial one.
  9. I got to 1ac by taking “cross” from “a crossway” (as in junction). I’m not entirely convinced though because junction = cross is a bit clumsy.
    Otherwise I found this easy (finished in my 20 minute tube journey, which is not that common for me) although 8 and 23 were frustrating for someone who’s never heard of either sorb or Brigg even if quite obvious from the alternative definition.
  10. “Waxy” is clearly the right route to 1ac. And that makes three four-letter words I’ve never come across in one puzzle!
    1. The Urban Dictionary has, for “waxy”:
      Like foxes, to be really annoyed or pissed [off?] at another person.
      Hence “cross”?
      Still … a strange thing to include in the Times. At least for this old codger.

      1. And Chambers – I think its more of a Bertie Wooster sort of usage, though I can’t find a citation. It’s that kind of vintage.
        1. OED has “wax”= a fit of anger, and “waxy” both as mid-C19 usages (Dickens et al).
          1. The sort of word I associate with Billy Bunter or Bunter-esque literature; I’m sure Mr Quelch was described as “fearfully waxy” on occasion, probably shortly before administering six of the best.
  12. Baffled by Away though got it … till the waxy connection shown here. Waxy as cross is a natural for old schoolmaster-codgers such as myself – it’s in ‘Lord of the Flies’ for example, and no doubt ‘Stalky and Co.’ to go back further. But I don’t think much of ‘away’ being the result rather than the fixture, though technically it may be argued so. 24 minutes (my trademark). Liked 6.
    1. Collins has “Sport a game played or won at an opponent’s ground”. An away win as recorded on football pools is my best effort at a real life example – I have never filled in a pools coupon.
  13. An easy puzzle overall with a couple of chewy spots along the way. I didn’t understand AWAY but it couldn’t be anything else (although pleased I wasn’t blogging it and looking frantically for alternatives) and Brigg Fair was also new. Both needlessly obscure I think. In English history, 1746 must run 1066 close as a well known date. I thought 7 YEAR ITCH a very good clue.
  14. I also had AWAY and BRIG in as “what-else-could-it-be” guesses, so thanks for confirming I got them right! About 10 minutes thinking of every other word that might fit in the space for those two, so 22:18 in the end.
  15. Sounds like a repeat of many comments… I did this while being forced to watch the Madonna episode of “Glee” so it was about 20 minutes that felt like 5 years. Completely stuck at the end to find any alternatives to AWAY or BRIG, in they went very lightly in case inspiration stuck. Been beaten by CULLODEN and SORB before so was ready for those.
  16. 15 mins, relieved to find that 23D BRIG (my last in) was right, as I didn’t know of the fair. COD 12A, I enjoyed 18D more than I’ve ever enjoyed using Luton Airport (aka ‘London Luton’).

    Tom B.

  17. 13:02 .. I remain perplexed by 1 across. I got the wordplay and thus the answer, but, like joekobi, I can’t for the life of me see how ‘away’ can equal a football result. Anyone care to spell it out for me?

    (funny to see Anax getting name-checked – I did wonder for a while if he was the solution to 1a)

    1. … ‘away’ (and ‘home’ for that matter) as a noun is far more common in the plural. If you don’t believe me, listen to Widow Twankey:

      ‘I nearly won the pools last week.’

      (Wishee Washee): ‘Really, Mum?’

      ‘Yes. My homes were all right. My aways were all right. But my draws (sic) let me down.’

      1. In similar vein, connoisseurs of Coronation Street’s many-layered writing will have enjoyed Julie Carp the other night, reminiscing on furniture-related children’s stories (Bedknobs and Broomsticks; The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe) and the uncle who made up a special story just for her entitled “Julie’s Magic Drawers”. Huge credit to the actress for managing to look wistful as she delivered that one.
  18. An AWAY is an away win, as dictionaries will confirm. In the old days (perhaps not these days?)some of you may remember that in the football pools a cross (X) was used to denote a draw, a 1 a home win, and a 2 an away win. So this is an attempt (wasted in many here obviously!) at an & lit. The setter
    1. Thank you. I surmised as much – but I wasn’t aware that it could simply be “an away”, having never once heard it used without the ‘win’.
      1. I am far too lazy to search this blog but i’m pretty sure we have had this discussion at least once before!

        A disturbing number of my clue solves result in a word which I have defintiely seen somewhere recently

        1. I occasionally use this picture to reflect my powers of retention, so you could well be right!
    2. I liked it (and I said so). 1ac was actually my first in, with the reasoning given in my first post today. I think Peter’s right about the points system, but I’m also have a memory of the results coming up on Grandstand with X’s marking the draws before they distinguished between score draws and no-score draws. On the predictive side, X still usually marks a draw in continental systems (see Wikipedia on football pools), with 1 marking a home win and 2 an away. Now if only I could get the predictive results to match the actual ones…
    3. “as dictionaries will confirm”….

      …er…except that they don’t.

      COED. n. an away game.

      I have enough of a recollection – albeit fuzzy – of the footy pools to realise this might be the word play being hinted at, but ‘away’ in this sense is definitely not supported by common usage and that, coupled with the archaic waxy was the only clue that did for me today.

  19. I now understand that A,WAXY = “A cross”, and that the cross you need to delete is the one represented by X. The fact that crosses on pols coupons indicated something about the expected results of games is just a coincidental side-line.
  20. …and if I could get Peter to leave his epic comment up, my latest post would make more sense!
    1. Sorry – I claimed that Grandstand used to give results tables with the pools ‘value’ (1,1½,2 or 3 in those days) in one of the columns.
      1. Pete – I think you also made a comment about the dictionary defs, which was probably more germaine.
  22. Did this witha friend (another Everyman solver of the same vintage). Enjoyed GLUTTON, ROTATOR and SEVEN YEAR ITCH.

    BRIG and AWAY put in without understanding.

  23. 15 miles of country lanes as passenger – no exact time. All went in without pause for much deep thought till Brig – glad of explanation. Away was fine, Mum did the pools and “4 aways” was an option she always ignored. I liked the wide range of subject matter and types of clue in this, butternut my COD.
  24. I was a bit concerned about the “helpful girl” in this clue. The usual sources are clear that Brownie can mean a junior Girl Guide and also a helpful imp or spirit but there is no mention of helpfulness in the first definition and nothing in the second to specify that the benevolent creature is young and female. But looking elsewhere I found this, and I guess it justifies the reference to Brownie Guides:

    The Brownie Promise:

    I promise that I will do my best,
    To love my God,
    To serve the Queen and my country,
    To help other people,
    And to keep the Brownie Guide Law.

    This is the UK version. It varies around the world but most others include a specific promise to be helpful.

    1. Thanks – I just remembered Bob a Job week (wrongly, that was the Scouts – I’m making so many mistakes today that I wonder how I finished the puzzle at all). A quick survey suggests that all the UK-based Guides, Brownies, Scouts, Cubs (and what ever other groups there are these days) have “help other people” in their promises – so watch out for “helpful boy/girl” as a def for at least 3 other choices.
      1. I’ve been completely out of touch with such matters for decades so I was interested to read a report only yesterday on soaring membership of these organisations which mentioned that girls who wish to join have the choice of becoming Girl Guides or Girl Scouts, Scouts now being a mixed gender organisation whereas Guides are exclusively female.
  25. I thought this was rather difficult puzzle for some reason, perhaps just that my brain wasn’t working well. About 40 minutes, last in AWAY as a flat out guess. I don’t know cross=waxy, nor do I know anything about UK football pools, nor AWAY as a noun for a game result. But any other possibility for A?A? was even more unlikely. Everything alse OK, although a bit baffled by the CH in KITCHEN. Regards all.
  26. 9:46 for this, with quite a few wrong guesses down to haste that needed to be unravelled, e.g. STRESS BOOK, GOURMET, DRAW, AERATES. Clearly more haste less speed. Had forgotten Brigg Fair, so was pleased to see it was that rather than TRUG.
  27. Apologies to all you clever people, this probably sounds slightly pathetic….

    Today, for the first time, after two yaers of trying every day….. I sucessfully completed The Times Cryptic Crossword!

    Please don’t tell me that todays was particularly easy, this occurance may never happen again! I think I’m going to cut the thing out the paper and frame it!!

    Oh sweet happy day.

    1. Major congratulations, and no, this was most definitely not an easy one. May it be the first of many, and may each one bring you a sense of wow! Regards.
    2. More congratulations, and do keep a copy – I failed to do so for my first Times solution and now regret it – it would at least remind me of exactly when it happened. It will happen again – knowing you can do it makes it easier.
  28. have to disagree on 1 ac having anything to do with waxy. even the setter did not intend this. it would not require the first “a” for waxy to work, you have established that waxy equals cross, but it does not equal a cross, which a way does.
    1. You’re free to disagree, but in what form of wordplay does “a way” equal “a cross”? Why the extra “A” at the beginning of the clue? And how do you know what the setter intended – the setter’s own contribution does not give any lead on that. At the risk of being excluded from the board for repetition, I thought this was a great clue, even if, as the setter does say “this is an attempt (wasted in many here obviously!) at an & lit.” Best wishes anyway!
      1. Since one meaning of cross is ‘place of crossing’, if you stretch that to mean ‘way’ – you have to travel along it, after all – then I think the wordplay can be construed to work as a double definition:

        A cross = A way; No cross for showing the football result = Not a Draw > Away (‘though it could be Home, of course, which is a drawback!)

        Also, as a general principle, what the setter intended, though important, isn’t the end of the story, is it? One doesn’t have to be a deconstructionist to consider the notion that a reader’s activity, the meaning a reader brings to a text (even a short text like a crossword clue), plays some part in its meaning.

        1. I can’t trace the “place of crossing” meaning in the dictionaries (or think of a real-life example), so I’m sceptical about it as a useful explanation, regardless of the setter’s intentions.
    2. Let’s have the clue for clarity:

      A cross? No cross for showing this football result! (4)

      If we have established that waxy equals cross, we have also established that the clue’s “A cross” equals “A WAXY”. You can then apply “no cross” to remove the X. Alternatively, you can do this to WAXY to get WAY, and then add the initial A – the result(!) is the same.

      (and z8b8d8k’s point about meanings of “way” echoes my initial problem when I hadn’t seen cross=waxy – cross and way are NOT the same thing.)

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