24547

Author   petebiddlecombePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 9:07 (late at night but it felt better than some midnight efforts). Last part was the SW corner – 22A, 22D, 28, 21

Across
1 S=succeeded,WORD=slogan – the latter sounds a bit of a stretch, but Collins and COED include something like “watchword or slogan” under “word”. A brand is a (literary) sword
4 LIFE-SAVER = person offering vital help – “all I feel” is a “life-saver” if “save” is hold or keep, as in, er, “life savings”
9 C.(LO,IS,ON,(scree)N)E. – a form of enamel work that should be familiar to anyone who’s been on a tour of China. One of those “surprise extras” will almost certainly be a visit to a cloisonné factory something like this one. Not my favourite Chinese craft, partly because the tour group I finished up in on a bad day spent visiting the Great Wall and Ming Tombs from Beijing spent what felt like about 2 hours in one of these places after we’d omitted seeing this because we “didn’t have time”.
10 DEN=study(E from FrancE),B=book – here’s Deneb which just fits my pet theory that the 20 brightest stars in the sky are counted as fair game for the Times puzzle.
11 END=death,URE=river – “at riverside” was a nice little variation in the charade indication
12 A GIT = “an unpleasant person”,A TED = “a little fellow” – “little” is accepted in cryptics as a way of indicating a diminutive name – {little “Edward”} rather than {little Edward}
14 CAPABILITY – 2 defs, one about Capability Brown
16 Today’s deliberate omission – but don’t be afraid to ask if you can’t see how it works
19 WELD (noun) = bond = “welled” – a bullet-proof homophone, I think
20 WAG,GA(WAG)G,A – silenced = “in a gag”, which took a while to fathom
22 WHIT = festival, ELI = priest, E(scape) – “Whit” is an old word for Whitsuntide, the time around Pentecost. “Festival” for a period of a week or so seems rather a stretch. I’m slightly biased as I struggled with this, confusing “venal” and “venial” and tried to invent “venal sin” as opposed to “mortal sin”.
23 INSTIL = “in still” = “not yet fallen out”
26 (b)LEACH
27 ELEVATION – 2 defs
28 OVERDOSED = (ever so odd)* – zonked = ‘under the influence of drugs or alcohol’, not simply ‘exhausted’ as I thought
29 E=English,THOS(e)=’certain people’
 
Down
1 S(A/C=account=bill,RED=embarrassed,C.=about)OW – “not one to be criticised” is the def
2 O=duck,VOID – eggs self-evidently being ‘ovoid’ for those with a bit of the Latin
3 DE=rev. of ed., SCRIBE=writer – “report” is the def
4 LU((compositio)N)G – m-w.com informs me that ‘lug’ for ‘ear’ is chiefly British
5 FREIGHTAGE = “goods” – Ag = silver, in (gift here)*
6 SE(DAT=rev. of tad)E – “calm” (verb) is the def
7 VANITY BAG – cryptic def with a surface possibly hoping that we might confuse “beautified” and “beatified”.
8 RA(B)ID – “extremist” is an adjective here
13 S=son,L(E)AZINESS
15 PAL(PIT)ATE – pit = stone when the stone/pit is from a cherry or similar
17 TRAMLINES – defined as “guiding principles” in Collins, and also a Britishism for lines on a tennis court (“doubles alley” in the US) – knowledge from comment on a recent Jumbo, I think
18 SWAN LAKE = (ankle was)*
21 MET=complied with,HOD= a coal scuttle as well as a brick-carrying device
22 WAL = rev. of law,DO. = ditto = ‘the same’ – the American 19th century writer was Ralph Waldo Emerson
24 T=time,HIGH=spaced out
25 VELD – country=landscape in South Africa, hidden in “travel documents”.

37 comments on “24547”

  1. Slow to get up steam here. Also had to check 9 in dictionary. 38 minutes. Could be too early in morning to think laterally. See the old tramlines are back. Always makes me nostalgic for my youth. When I was a kid someone gave me the last tram ticket to be issued in London .. but I lost it.
  2. Did OK with this (didn’t know DENEB or that ELEVATION was a scale drawing until post-solve look-ups) but got stuck in NW corner and had to cheat for CLOISONNE before I could finish. Then put SWORD in more in hope than expectation. Wasn’t wholly convinced by wordplay for LIFE SAVER or TRAMLINES come to that. Didn’t see PB’s wordplay for WAGGA WAGGA. I just went with the idea that the city is commonly referred to as WAGGA (ie silent WAGGA).
  3. Took me a while longer (32m) but I thought this was a classic with something for everyone. A bit of general knowledge (Deneb, cloisonné, Wagga Wagga); a nice hidden instruction (silenced by); medium level anagram (freightage); unproblematic homophone (weld); a corner couple that were difficult, at first, to see (ovoid/endure); and one which, with all the crossing letters, I had to look at for a while (method). Should have seen the last of these given my anti-social tendency to tell the shaggy-dog story that ends in “A hod’s as good as a sink to a blind Norse”.
  4. A most enjoyable 72 minutes. Last in WELD. COD to FREIGHTAGE, for the smooth service and the well concealed anagram. Also liked THIGH.

    Had never heard of BRAND meaning sword, and like most others, I suspect, had to get CROISSONÉ from the wordplay alone. The clue that gave me the most trouble was 4ac, where I went through liver, lover and giver for the second word, before settling on the correct answer, though without understanding how ‘description of “all I feel”‘ fitted in. Must be thick, because I still can’t quite see this despite the maestro’s excellent blog.

    1. You need to polish your hidden-word specs! – “life” is lurking in “alL I FEel”.
      1. Now, if you’d put it in caps before … testing us, I know.

        Incidentally my first quadrant in was the south-west (Peter’s last), which just goes to show that great minds do think alike, and people like me, well, we think differently.

  5. 14 minutes. I thought this suffered from some very oblique definitions and wordplay: SWORD=brand, vanity BAG=case (box was surely more likely?), ZONKED=overdosed (even with “dangerously”, I’m not convinced), THIGH=one goes from joint to joint. It felt like I was being required to accept considerable licence over and above cryptic cluing. Perhaps it’s just my old GIT mode setting in. My daughter told me a git was a pregnant camel. Is there any truth in this rumour?
    I liked the clue for WAGGA WAGGA.
    1. I’d count {silenced = inside GAG} in WAGGA WAGGA as oblique wordplay. I think favourite clues are quite often those that push the boundaries just enough.

      I considered BOX first as a possible second word for 7, but “vanity bag” and “vanity box” seem pretty much equal – the bag wins if you count Google hits for searches with the double quotes, but not by much.

      I think git as Arabic for “pregnant camel” is just coincidence. The folk etymology I picked up in my youth linked it to “illeGITimate”, but seems equally dubious. OED connects git with ‘get’ (n.) – “What is begotten; an offspring, child.” and “In contemptuous use = brat. Also spec. a bastard; hence as a general term of abuse: a fool, idiot. (Cf. GIT.) Now dial. and slang.”

      1. Thanks for the response. On the vanity issue, I thought case=bag was a bit loose, but I see from the sales catalogues that a hard sided vanity case is more likely to be called a bag, and a soft sided one a case. Very few are called boxes, even when they look like nothing else. Perhaps in this field I should not have expected logic!
        1. The obvious thing that would put you off “box” is the possibility (with crossers, and probably without) of an Australian town including the letter X.
          1. It did put me off, but if you can have an Australian town with 2 Ws and 4 each of G and A, one that merely includes an X doesn’t seem that special on reflection.
            1. OK, is there an Australian town (5,5 — or otherwise) with an X in its name?
              1. A few – Boxwood Hill, Cadoux, Exmouth, Loxton, Bexhill, Lennox Head, for example,

                Roxby Downs (SA) is 5,5, but the X is in the wrong spot.

                1. Ah yes, Exmouth! My favourite place for a holiday at Christmas. 45˚C in the shade!
                  “Roxby Downs” is a great response. And I, accordingly, stand corrected.
                  “Anonymous” is obviously more on the ball than I am and should say who s/he is.
              2. Maybe not, but there’s a Mount Buggery, which probably should have an X somewhere. My initial entry picked up on the case bit of the clue, so box seemed an obvious answer, so much so that I didn’t think to check before I got to Wagga Wagga. Overall, it made me dislike case as an indicator for bag even more.

  7. Yes, SWAN LAKE was my first in as well. I need to adjust my hidden word radar, because I couldn’t see how LIFE SAVER worked; nor WAGGA WAGGA for that matter, despite seeing all the gags I couldn’t see the gag. DENEB was a guess; I couldn’t believe the Times would allow latest for last – I thought that was verboten. Maybe it’s allowed under the new s for small, l for large rejig.
  8. I think the reason the hidden word is so hard to spot in the clue is that capital I, especially because it follows two lower case L’s If it was all i feel, it would stand out more. Another piece of setter’s cunning, or just the way it turned out?
  9. Another steady solve for the most part which flowed nicely through the RH side and the SW corner but once again I ground to a halt with everything completed except the NW where I had problems getting a foothold and this extended my solving time to 50 minutes. In the end it was 9ac and 14ac that gave most trouble and also prevented me from focussing on 3dn would have been easy with an additional checker in place.

    However I was pleased to finish without aids and that my guesses at 9ac and 10ac turned out to be correct. LIFE-SAVER was easier to solve than to explain and it was only thinking about Peter’s tip yesterday about the absence of hidden words that eventually put me on the right track. Having worked out the explanation I think it’s a poor over-contrived clue and if “problem solver for lord with big estate” at 14ac is supposed to clue Capability (Brown) I don’t think much of that either. But there was lots of other very good stuff and I particularly liked OVOID at 2dn.

  10. Another 20 minute puzzle with a mix of the very easy, a little relatively difficult wordplay, and the somewhat obscure CLOISONNE that I worked from wordplay and checking letters.

    I thought CAPABILITY was a bit clunky but enjoyed WAGGA WAGGA. No hold ups, solved top left to bottom right.

  11. I found this nicely challenging and took about half an hour to get it finished apart from 1ac, where SWORD was the only thing I could make fit even vaguely but wasn’t sure enough to put in, not knowing brand = sword.
    I put WAGGA WAGGA in without seeing the wordplay, and CLOISONNE and DENEB from wordplay alone.
    18dn is the easiest clue I’ve seen for some time. Nice for a plodder to have the odd gimme!
  12. 15 mins, held up by 21D METHOD at the end. I didn’t see the GAG gag in 20A until afterwards. 18D was easy but works very nicely, so it’s my COD.

    Tom B.

  13. A reasonably straightforward 30-min solve for me. I was pleased to get CLOISONNE and DENEB from wordplay alone. Didn’t spot the “hidden word” wordplay of LIFE SAVER until coming here. Thanks, Peter. I too went initially for VANITY BOX at 7dn, only realising my mistake when WAGGA WAGGA hove irresistibly into view. Like others, I thought the latter a very neat “gag”. It gets my vote for COD.
  14. My grumpy mood continues today. After two easy but uninspired offerings we get this difficult but uninspired crossword. I was on a hiding to nothing by the time I reached the third clue since I do not know any synonyms for enamelwork. However, I plodded on and managed to infer the existence of vanity bag, deneb and brand meaning sword. Finally I returned to 9 and realised that the wordlplay handed Cloisonné to us on an enamel plate.

    I’ve just done a reverse search for enamel in Chambers CD-ROM so now I shall be on the lookout for champlevé, schwarzlot and smalto.

  15. Back to normal again – 24 m and enjoyed it. Solve rh half top down, then top left downwards, last in weld and method, did not know hod=scuttle till here but had deduced answer from clue. i have a ittle cloisonne box – no doubt made in China!
  16. 11.10 with a minute or so at the end to work out the wordplay to get CLOISONNE – once I got it I knew I had seen it in crossword somewhere before , but can’t remember when. Other delay was starting with SET , then BOX before getting the BAG to go with VANITY. If my picture was on my user ID you would instantly understand and forgive me my ignorance in these matters (must find out how to do this by the way)
  17. 36:45 .. made this spectacularly difficult for myself by intially entering

    20a WALLA WALLA – yeah, I know, wrong country
    8d SERENE – somehow I conceived some wordplay involving ‘near’ reversed inside
    10a RHOMB – diamond, star, same sort of thing.. ish
    9a CLOSIONNE – I just spelt it wrong
    22d – quite a doozy. I was looking at the clue for 21d and managed to fit OMMET (surely an old word for a coal scuttle) into the wrong light

    So, if you thought you were having a bad day….

  18. I’m with z8b8d8k in finding a lot of this a bit woolly. Didn’t much enjoy it at all. Can’t give a reliable time due to interruptions but around 25-30 minutes. I found the bottom half easy (bar method which was one of my last in) and the top half tougher to crack with each clue requiring some thought even with lots of checkers. Like others had to rely on wordplay to get the star and the enamel.
  19. About 30 minutes. Like vinyl, my start in the NW was very steady, with the enamel, LIFESAVER, the star, and even the SWORD going in right away. I admit, though, that the SWORD went in on the (S, word) wordplay alone, because I didn’t know the def. I got through the UK-isms at ‘lug’ and ‘hod’, but couldn’t remember the TRAMLINES meaning for a while, even though it appeared recently. WAGGA WAGGA was a guess altogether, from the two ‘wag’s. But the last entry was the clever THIGH, which was clever to me because it eluded me for so long, despite being pretty evident. I was looking for some kind of ligament. Regards.
  20. Struggled through in 35minutes..agree with peter about Wagga Wagga…but what else could it be. COD Thigh
  21. 18 minutes, held up by going for WORD = “whirred” instead of WELD = “welled”, which I should have caught myself doing earlier, really.
  22. Laboured for half an hour lunchtime with this, not helped by copious interruption. Then took my own advice and came back to it this evening. Tea and biscuits and finished the remaining 8 in 10 minutes. 21 wrong though – made a wild guess at MESHED. Cod – 4ac.
  23. A clunky 33 min, and (as seems to be the case lately) held up, then totally flummoxed by one. In this case METHOD = order??? A method can be an ordered process, but this is stretching things. But my main annoyance is with myself. I had twigged that “scuttle” = “hod”, but coundn’t dredge up “complied with” = “met”! It all proves what I have always known: I fall apart under pressure, even self-applied. This one was full of “easy when you know how” clues. COD: CLOISONNE. (Thanks to Antiques Road Show)

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