24541

Author   petebiddlecombePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 19:15

Before we start, a quick note that the previous posting here contains details for the next “Sloggers and Betters” event, next Thursday.

I found this as tough puzzle as my time suggests. On my first look through the clues, I only solved three and a half – 9, 21 and 24, and GRAN????Y looking pretty likely at 8D. I missed clues that should have been easy at 5, 1D and 25. The rest was gradually completed from the middle right – 15 19 and 23 were among the next few solved, and my last two entries were 17 and 18. Even at this slow pace, I wrote in 3 and 18 without full wordplay understanding.

Across
1 AIRY(F)AIRY – if airy=casual, then “casuals” = airy,airy. Tricky as “missing substance” has to be read as “lacking substance” to see its true meaning
6 G=good,U=”acceptable to socially-superior”,LAG=convict
9 Today’s omitted clue – ask if you can’t see it from the checking letters
10 MARKOVA – reversal of A,V=very,OK,RAM=(random access) memory. Possibly a Times xwd debut for the ballerina, as she died in 2004.
11 YOU = “u” = “letter adjecent to Guardian leader” – i.e. the U in ‘Guardian’, not F or H which I thought of as adjacent to G
12 MILL=factory(I=one),SECOND=back=support (vb.)
14 HA(d),RARE=”not done well” – I was looking for an answer like FAILED, with the city having one more letter – a FAILED? idea, as it were
15 ASS=turkey (‘a stupid or inept person’ is one of the COED defs),AILED=was ill – to “go for” is to attack
17 POLK=US president,A(DO=party)T – aside from Polk as President being as difficult as Rosebery as Prime Minister, “drinks party” was a clever bit of disguise
19 GEN=dope=information,TRY=score (Rugby Union both times – “France now lead Scotland by two scores” is a stock bit of commentary.)
22 CAPTAIN AHAB – (at a pinch a)*,AB=sailor
23 NIP – 3 defs – drink (noun – a small Scotch or similar), pop=move quickly, and ‘have a bite’
25 T,RIGGER=scaffolder – “prompt” has to change from surface reading adjective to cryptic reading verb
27 SET FREE = “set-free” = without the box (box=TV=set)
28 HEGEL – (e.g., “eh?”) reversed, then L=Liberal
29 BOON(DOCK=cut)S – I had the right structure fairly quickly, jotting down ‘≈BOOT(LACE)S’ next to the clue. “out in the sticks” is a British match for “down in the boondocks”
 
Down
1 ALLOY – third letters of “slAlom wiLl heLp prOcure olYmpic” – I underlined the A in slalom, but disappointingly failed to carry the idea through to a straightforward conclusion
2 R(ESC=key)UER – “one rerieves” is the descriptive definition
3 FATA MORGANA – (A, NAG=horse, ROMA=gypsies) all reversed, after FAT=substantial
4 I,F(ON=leg)LY – “would that” is old-fashioned schoolmastery language for “if only”, as in “would that it were” – now used mockingly in QI – “Ah, Would that it were, Stephen, would that it were”, Phil Jupitus might say, pretending to hold a pipe.
5 YUMMIEST – (U=universal,my item’s)*
6 GAR – this seems a rather off-the-wall clue, using “Kew GARden” as a container, with “retreat from Kew” meaning “Kew Den”. Pedants may wish to point out that “Kew Gardens” is the commoner name. Or someone might point out a completely different wordplay which I’ve failed to spot. Sure enough, they have – the simpler subtraction of ‘den’ from Garden. “creature” rather than “fish” for the gar is a bit cheeky
7 L(O=old,O.R.=men)OLL – my favourite clue of the day, giving new life to the old chestnut OR=men by adding a bit of toilet humour and the Abbeyfield surface meaning. A question received by e-mail the other day prompts me to explain in full for newcomers: O.R. = other ranks (military) – so ‘men’ when you think of ‘Officers and men’. Worth remembering!
8 GRA(N(ursemai)D,ADD=’put on’)Y, with “clothes” as a containment indicator fitting nicely with “Dull American” and continuing the surface meaning from the previous clue
13 EX=old,ACE=master(B=book),RATED=criticised
14 HOP=”cause of bitterness”, hops being the reason why bitter is bitter,SCOTCH=put an end to
16 COR!=”My”,NC=North Carolina,RIB=chaff=mock. My new word for the day: corn crib as a type of granary, unknown to COED and one word in Collins
18 L=lake,AP((no)W)ING – aping = imitating being “taking off” – here’s the wader
20 TAN=what to do to hide,TRIC(k) = “deceit short” – and ‘tantric’ is “of meditating“
21 PHYSIO = “fizzy”, partnering O=love. Cue grumbles from despisers of partial homophones …
24 PRESS = weigh as in “weigh down” – reverse hidden in “lesser problems”
26 GAL = miss = young woman – GALE=big blow, without its (compass) point

40 comments on “24541”

  1. Back after a break to a brute – 3d and 16d required confirming look in dic, and thank you pb for all the explanations of things I put in “on instinct”. I was pleased to get 7, 8, 22 quite early which helped, last in SE corner 20/27, 23/24 which gave brain a kick to get 29.
  2. Never mind the time, I was pleased just to have finished and understood this without having recourse to the dictionary! An excellent puzzle.

    First in was LESOTHO but only on the second read-through, having drawn a blank first time round.

    I think I read 6dn slightly differently from Peter (although it comes to the same thing). I saw “Kew?”= garden, from which you remove “den” (=retreat). And yes I was going to be pedantic about Kew Gardens being plural!

    Thanks to the setter in any case.

  3. I too read GAR as just GARDEN minus DEN. Some great trick definitions in here, including ‘would that’ and ‘Missing substance’. As a long-time critic of the distinctly archaic ‘U’ being clued as ‘acceptable’, I appreciate the setter’s attempt at greater precision. And while ‘socially-superior’ sounds a bit loaded, I guess it’s just another way of saying ‘Upper class”.
    BOONDOCKS was my COD.
  4. I finished this in three sessions (or was it four?). The first yielded NIP/PRESS HEGEL/GAL/TRIGGER & HOPSCOTCH in quick succession and then it became increasingly apparent that I should put it down and get on with the rest of my day. An object lesson in clueing and an equally abject one in solving. Hats off to the setter. Superb misdirection. Every one a gem. Superlatives fail me.
  5. Somewhere around 35 minutes for this toughie, but what great clues. Something new every day (SNED?) clue for FATA MORGANA, one of those phrases that hangs around on the fringes of vocab without ever knowing what it is. Now I do. I also didn’t know a LAPWING was a wader, always assumed it was similar to a skylark. I only got two out of three for NIP, missing pop, which is odd, because in my childhood nip/pop down to the shops was a straight interchange. Last in was HARARE, because I had RESCUES rather than RESCUER due to inattention to clue structure.
    What also seems to be interesting on this one is that, with the quality of the cluing, it could be completed without reference to a dictionary, even if research was needed afterwards to cover blind spots in GK. Great crossword, 32 C0D’s
  6. Difficult to get going; then in they dropped. 37 minutes and a nod of appreciation to the setter. COD 27 for the superb simplicity of the thing.
  7. Pleased to have eventually finished this in 29:30. Had never heard of 16 and worked out COONCRUB from the wordplay but it didn’t look right – it helped that My = Coo seems to have come up a couple of times recently. Definitely a lot to admire in the cluing and good to see a lot of unusual entries – but for me the COD was 11. Last in was 10 where I had first toyed with those lesser known hoofers MARPOTA and MORPOTA.
    Thanks to the setter for a great challenge today
  8. one of the upsides to this kind of testing puzzle for us late arrivers, is that there are perhaps less comments by “sometime in the afternoon” and you dont feel there is nothing to add!

    This was a truly excellent struggle taking in excess of 90 minutes even though only FATA-M, MARKOVA and BOONDOCKS I could claim not to have heard of. The reason for the difficulty being the clever use of word play and slightly cryptic definitions/instructions aplenty.

    Duckworth-Lewis springs to mind here, as, like with the new T20 format, it is offerings like these that put pay to the generally flawless 2*PB, or 3*PB rules of thumb. I suspect it may need an exponential part such that when PB tends towards 20, you know your multiplier will increase. Indeed for me on things like Mephisto (where the finishing time still remains at infinite) this formula really needs looking at!

    1. Another upside for me is that these puzzles, where you have to work hard nearly all the time rather than just recall stock material quickly for many of the clues, give at least some impression that fast solving (if that’s the right term for 19+ minutes) comes from good technique rather than just memory.

      For Mephisto and the like I wouldn’t bother with any attempt at a formula – there seem to be some patches of Chambers I know well and some where I find it hard to believe that I’ve bought every edition since 1977, with the current M puzzle seeming to be in the second category. So the times of seemingly equally able solvers could easily differ by 50% of the slower time, and the solvers could swap places in the next Mephisto.

      1. Agree with your comments on Mephisto solving. For those still wrestling with last Sunday’s offering the blog is being prepared and will appear next Sunday!
  9. Did anyone else have extreme difficulty opening and navigating this site today? I’m talking about 5 minutes wait per screen. I’m on my work PC which is not as quick as my own, but there’s no problem on any other sites that I have tried.

    I enjoyed this one but 3dn and 14ac did for me on the LH side and apart from AHAB, SET FREE and EXACERBATED I was unable to get anything else in the SE corner until I used a solver to find CORNCRIB, BOONDOCKS, TANTRIC and PHYSIO. I didn’t know three of these so I’m not sure I would have done any better if I’d been at home with more time than was available today.

    I don’t think it’s being pedantic to mention that whereas Kew Gardens is the commoner name of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Kew Garden is not an alternative. It’s simply never called that. This is not the first time this has come up here.

    1. I haven’t seen delays that bad, though recently some of the “top strip” advertising material on LJ has taken a while to come up. This doesn’t usually prevent you from reading the blog page.
      1. Thanks. I’m at home now and it’s working at the speed of light so it must have been a bug at work though it’s odd that no other websites I looked at were affected. The way it appeared was the bar at the very top (User id etc) came up immediately but the rest of the screen was dark green like the border of this page. After 5 minutes or so the blog text appeared.
  10. … for intermediate solvers like me, with three difficult Times crosswords in 4 days. This, like yesterday’s, I failed to finish, with 6, 10, 15, 19 and 27 ac and 6, 7, 8, 20 and 24 dn all proving beyond me, although I should have got the reverse hidden and could have guessed GRANDADDY, which I was hovering around. Great stuff.
  11. A truly wonderful puzzle, this, 40 mins, after a v slow start, getting MILLISECOND, and EXACERBATED and seeing 22 ended in B helped and after that constant progress, finishing by unravelling the SE corner. Very many clues marked and would not like to choose between them, AIRY-FAIRY, YOU, MILLISECOND, HARARE, ASSAILED, POLKA-DOT, CAPTAIN AHAB, ALLOY, RESCUER.
  12. 28:17 for me, not helped by bunging in EXASPERATED at 13D early on without looking too closely at the wordplay, which left me three at the end I couldn’t get until I fixed the error.
  13. 48:09 .. with one mistake – I came up with ‘marpota’ for 10a (convincing myself this was probably a Cuban dancing girl of dubious repute).

    A three-pipe puzzle, for sure, and the sort that leads to mind-expanding and sometimes utterly bogus creative thinking, as in my justification for ALLOY, which went: A,’LL + OY! (=help! – see picture left).

    By rights this setter should be taken out and hung for this cold-blooded torture with the English tongue.

    Bravo.

  14. About 20 mins, one mistake. Never having heard of CORNCRIB, and forgetting the “rib” meaning of “chaff”, I went with CORNCRAB. But a terrific puzzle, and no complaints. I loved “at drinks party” for ADOT.
  15. About an hour for me, including, first, 30 minutes of general befuddlement, followed by 30 minutes of bemusement and appreciation as the mist cleared around the correct solutions. One of the best in a while, and a fine example of inventive clue writing. I was misled all over the place, but especially point out HARARE, SET FREE and the ‘Vengeful seaman’ as great clues. Thanks setter, and regards to all.
  16. I liked this more and more as I got nearer the finish line, recognising early on that it was a connoisseur’s puzzle. Thanks for doing it justice with your blog Peter. Usually I’d be disappointed to throw in the towel with five left (MARKOVA, GENTRY, POLKA DOT, LAPWING, CORNCRIB) but not today. It’s a mark of my solving progress that a year ago I’d have been beaten hands down by this one so thanks to all you bloggers and contributors to this site for helping me improve my solving.

    First in CAPTAIN AHAB, then PRESS, BOONDOCKS and NIP. For a long while they, TRIGGER and GAL were the only ones in but ALLOY, LESOTHO and YOU later opened up the NW corner. I smiled when I the penny dropped for AIRY-FAIRY. Had to go A, B, C… H to get HARARE. Cluing it as just “city” was a bit too devious I thought given there are hundreds of cities in the world.

    Of all the terrific clues I particularly liked PHYSIO.

  17. There, I go off on a special golf trip to a neighbouring course and up comes the best puzzle for a while. When I could have done with a gentle stroll I get Everest in a blizzard.

    My problems were like everybody else. My only real quibble is Kew where I entered GAR but on a bit of a wing and a prayer. I didn’t know CORNCRIB and struggled to convince myself there really was a President Polk. The rest was just hard but rewarding work and a number of “yes!” moments. Congratulations and thanks setter.

      1. President Polk’s claim to historical fame was his leading the US into a one-sided war with Mexico to seize Texas. Not surprisingly, the war was won in short order and Texas became a US state. Surprisingly, California and New Mexico were also included in the war-ending treaty deal as throw-ins in early 1848, gold was discovered in California essentially at the same time, and the rest, as they say, is history.
  18. It was good to get back to this elegant and original puzzle after a week abroad with only old Guardian crosswords to keep me company, apart from Mrs L that is. I was pleased to finish this at one sitting and I did not find it too fiendish, despite the originality.

    I think I have seen corncrib in the Times crossword before but I had to guess that there was a President Polk. I knew Fata Morgana from Arthurian legend but was not aware that she was also a mirage. I did think that Gar was OTT in both definition and cryptic but the lovely Airy-fairy, Loo Roll and many others made up for that slight misjudgement.

  19. oh well – was feeling good about all my guesses until it came to CORNCRUB.
  20. 21 relaxing minutes after a hard day’s gardening, with nothing to add, other than if the setter happens to look in, kudos to you, as this was one of the best challenges I’ve come across for ages.
  21. I put CORNCRUB too – I’ve never come across “chaff” meaning to mock. Otherwise pleased to have finished (over a long period and in a few goes) a very challenging puzzle. Getting FATA MORGANA (Fata Morwhatta?) from wordplay alone in particular.
    A question, if there is still anyone out there. What is the rule on use of dictionaries in competitions? CORNCRUB today and AMERCE yesterday are examples of words I might have got if I’d looked in a dictionary. If I do is that cheating?
    1. Except for a magnificent-sounding contest based on Azed puzzles back in 1984, dictionaries are not allowed in solving contests. But I doubt that any of the successful contestants in the Times championship never looked in a dictionary in their early days – you have to do so sometimes to learn the stuff that gets you the answers – whether this is knowing about corncribs or knowing that rib, chaff and mock all mean the same.
      1. Thanks Peter. I thought I’d read somewhere that dictionaries were allowed, but obviously not. I’d still have regarded it as “cheating lite” and in any event I don’t usually carry a dictionary with me on the central line!
  22. Away before the blog came up this morning and relieved to get home this evening not to see references to park strolling and so on. Some seriously tricky stuff here but I did finish with no errors and a good bit quicker than Saturday’s. FATA MORGANA from wordplay and incomplete understanding of LAPWING and GAR. Wouldn’t have bothered with comment this late but feel quite pleased with myself.
    1. You should do – if you got through this unscathed, not much more than a year after starting to do the Times puzzle regularly, you can claim to have understood things pretty well, or we can claim to have taught you well, or both.

      Beginners reading this should take heart – today’s puzzle may have been too hard, but stick at it and you’ll be getting through this kind of puzzle in a year or so.

  23. Come on now, be honest. How many of you flirted with arty farty for 1 ac. A marvelous puzzle, and was pleased to finish in 45 min and be the only one to get the little known dancer MARFOSA. Multiple CODs with perhaps PHYSIO my favourite.
    1. I don’t know why, but airy-fairy came into my head first. I hope that if I’d thought of arty-farty first, I’d have decided that {arty-farty = lacking substance} is possible but weak, but that {arty = “casual”} is even weaker.
      1. Fortunately, I say ‘artsy-fartsy’, so that wasn’t a distraction. I got airy-fairy early on, but wouldn’t accept it for a long time because I couldn’t get 5down; and I couldn’t get 5 down for a long time because I could only think of Pavlova and Isadora. Luckily I had some time after breakfast this morning before heading off for work. Another challenging puzzle.
        ‘the sticks’, by the way, is as much a part of US English as ‘the boondocks’. (And if we’re going to quibble about the foreign origins of ‘boondocks’, then we’ll have to quibble about half of our vocabulary.)
  24. I managed to solve about one third in about an hour. I then resorted to every aid I could lay my hands on. As I gradually unwrapped this excellent piece of work, I realised even more why I like The Times crossword so much: wit, misdirection and intelligence combined. I was very much a DNF but I enjoyed the chase all the same.
  25. …to say thanks for the generous comments and apologies for GAR, which was a bit iffy I agree. If it’s any consolation I would never clue the word as “creature” in wordplay (I hope) but as a three-letter answer on its own it seems less problematic. And I agree that Kew is more naturally thought of, as well as titled, as a collection of gardenS.
  26. Clueing for connoisseurs. I particularly liked ‘at drinks party’ for the letter string ADOT, and the misleading use of ‘partners’ in the PHYSIO clue – I was trying to shoehorn the usual bridge abbreviations in somewhere.

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