24559 – Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar

Author   petebiddlecombePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 10:52

I started this optimistically, after clocking a better time for the Times 2 Race the Clock than most recent attempts, but got bogged down in the NW corner. I also wasted a bit of time by converting 20A to CONVENT between solving and writing. Fortunately ?T?DCORN looked as impossible as it was. There are several clues here that do a good job of giving you something in a form so obvious that you may have trained your mind to ignore it.

With slight apologies for drifting off topic, if you fancy a good non-fiction book to read, try Guy Deutscher’s Through the Language Glass – fascinating stuff on the tricky ground of the relationship between language, culture and thought.

Across
1 CLASSICS – a double def that seems annoyingly simple after the event. The Classics are the best-known English flat races, and Classics is the university course for old-fashioned crossword solvers and setters. Ximenes had a double first in it.
5 UPSHOT – def and jokey def – a rocket launch is an “up shot”. Also easy but solved on sight this time.
10 IN=popular,DI(v)A=”Singer, not very” – with 5 letters and ‘country’, INDIA has to be considered as its letters are so helpful to the setter, but the wordplay was a nice change from IN+a reversal of AID.
11 SING=”twitter”,LET ON=admitted – twitter changes to Twitter for modern social networking surface reading
12 CAR(BON(A)D)E – a Russian doll (“double container”) clue. The stew has two N’s in COED, one in Collins. Watch out for “secret agent” = BOND, when SPY doesn’t help
13 C,ACHE=long – a cache is a bit of high-speed computer memory intended to save the effort of fetching things from slower forms of memory
14 A,L,GE=rev. of e.g.,BRA=support – if your classic crossword solver didn’t study classics, he was probably a Wrangler instead
16 T(h)E,CHIE(f) – and of course in the 21st century, the classic solver does something with computers
18 C=constant,RATE=speed,S=double bend – crate = jalopy = old banger
20 CONVENE = mass = assemble – (ON = taking place, VEN. = archdeacon) in CE = church (of England) – stock ingredients made quite convincing by ‘mass’
22 PANEL = plane*
23 DEPUTISED = (studied PE)*
25 NEIGH=”nay”=no,B(eer),OUR – “local” is the def here, rather than a signpost to INN, BAR or PUB as a wordplay element. And “our” is annoyingly simple, representing nothing but itself
26 BEANO – E=English, in “BAN 0” = “don’t censor anything” – (negation + anything) is the setter’s attempt to disguise ‘nothing’ as the indicator for O.
27 RE=on=concerning,SUM=problem,E=energy – “extra” in “extra energy” is an exampe of what I tried calling UBNI a couple of weeks ago (“unnecessary but not inaccurate”)
28 FRI.,EDMAN=named* – Milton Friedman inspired some of Margaret Thatcher’s policies by way of Keith Joseph.
 
Down
1 C.=about,HITCH=problem,A,(therapis(T)) – another annoying one – talk=chat seemed too obvious, so I was looking for some other ending to fit ??????AT
2 mAn DiD fEaR – annoying again as I expect to get this kind of stuff very quickly
3 STAR OF BETHLEHEM – any of several plants, as well as a “Christmas gift guide” for the Magi.
4 CASSATA – AS=say=for instance, reversed in CASTA(way) – “No way” for this deletion is another annoyingly simple indication if you looked for RD or ST as the thing to remove. In (British?) English, cassata is ice cream, but the original cassata is an Italian dessert
6 P.O. = (petty) officer, LI(CECONST = (cons etc.)*)ABLE – another annoying one – if “cons” is in the clue, it can’t possibly be in the answer, can it, so it must be POLICE {something else} mustn’t it. Sound the QI klaxon! – you’ve been had, Peter
7 HATE CRIME – I’M in (teacher)* – this time the “thrashing” of the teacher rather than the pupil was spotted on first look.
8 TINKER = reversal of (RE=about,KNIT=join, e.g. of healing bones)
9 INSECT = “in sect” – if an ant is not a worker, she may be a soldier
15 GIRONDINS – (RON=Reagan,DIN=racket) in GI’s
17 SEED=”cede”=yield,COR=my!,N=new – seedcorn = “assets set aside for the generation of futre profit” (COED)
19 SADDOS – it’s “wordplay in the answer” time here – “S, add OS” produces SOS=emergency call
20 CAPE=headland,R=right,ER=Queen Elizabeth – appearing in full here, pretending to be a ship.
21 OPENER – 2 defs, “key” and “player, first to bat” (in the usual sport)
24 Today’s omitted answer – ask if you can’t see and explain it from checking letters

36 comments on “24559 – Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”

  1. I found this a little harder than of late – 25 minutes to solve.

    An excellent puzzle in my view with a lot of simple but misleading devices and some interesting words as answers. I thought 6D POLICE… and 7D HATE… both very good clues.

  2. Timing on this one complicated by the vague running of the Central Line today – should check my watch before starting.
    I got vaguely irritated by this, I think because of the put-it-in- first, work-it-out-later nature of some of the clues (CARBONADE, P.C. INDIA) or the rather oblique definitions of others (CONVENE=mass, NEIGHBOUR=local) or just the mix of the blindingly obvious and the quite tricky that Peter commented on. I dallied with a police inspector for a while, as it had the recognisable anag letters in it somewhere, and it couldn’t be CONStable, could it? CONVENE and SEEDCORN last in, favourite clue BEANO.
  3. (44 minutes) Much time wasted when I put in CHASSEUR for 1 across (course = e.g. chicken chasseur, and chasseur = cavalryman). On reflection, you might have seen a loosely worded clue like that in the 1940s, but not today; I just thought there might have been be an underlying food theme, with carbonade, opener, beano and “fried”man!
  4. Oh dear, it’s much the same story yet again from me. 35 minutes for all but two and another 15 to polish these off.

    The problem was in the SE. At 29ac I had worked out CON???E from the wordplay and the checker from 7dn made it CON?E?E but I just couldn’t remember an abreviation that might account for “archdeacon”. On the definition side I’m afraid I was misled by the churchy theme of the clue into thinking I was looking for one of those obscure Latin names of Mass.

    I overcomplicated matters similarly at 17dn thinking “investment” might refer to a siege to which one may eventually yield. It was worrying over the presence of “my” and remembering how it was applied in a recent clue that eventually led me to the correct answer which is not a word I use daily and the only dictionary I have to hand at the moment lists it as two words.

    My other major delay was at 15dn where I realised I didn’t know the word in question. From the wordplay GIS and RON were obvious components and I knew the word GIRONDIST (though I couldn’t recall what it meant) so I was puzzled when it wouldn’t fit because of the checker in 27ac. Eventually I spotted the possibility of “noise” being DIN and bunged it in hoping for the best.

    Another lively but not too difficult puzzle that I enjoyed a lot.

  5. Slow start, then galumphing along, brought to a screaming halt by the stew which finally worked out. 34 minutes. Didn’t know a bachelor could be called a singleton.
  6. About half an hour. Some very nice clues, of which my favourite was 11A SINGLETON – very zeitgeisty. Last solved 8D TINKER, for no good reason.

    Tom B.

    1. Another tough 90 minutes for me. Lots of good stuff here, my CODs being the 1 pair. Didn’t know SEEDCORN, but ought to have got it a lot earlier, as I saw the SEED- straightaway, but failed to spot the ‘my’ for far too long. Today’s missed anagrind was ‘thrashed’ at 7dn.

      Had CASSAVA instead of CASSATA (at least it’s edible) and didn’t get the full wordplay for the PC until coming here.

  7. I struggled enormously with this one. It took me well over an hour and I ended up with one wrong: I put COALSACK in for 1ac, hoping that it was a bit like a nosebag and so a “course for horse”. Coal race and sack race would both have been valid so it wasn’t entirely stupid… at least that’s what I’m telling myself.
    I struggled more generally with the NW, CHITCHAT, CASSATA, CARBONADE, and even ADDER taking an age. SEEDCORN also took a long time and I never saw the wordplay for SADDOS, so thanks for that. GIRONDINS was a guess but the wordplay was pretty clear and it sounded feasibly French-revolutionary.
    A good workout for the grey cells.
  8. A goodly 50 minutes for me, mostly stymied in the top half, by CLASSICS, CASSATA (I got the CASTAWAY bit, I just couldn’t see where the GE went), CARBONADE, INSECT(!), SINGLETON & TINKER. COD to CAPERER.

    Speaking of going off topic, when the green parrot alighted on a box on my screen last week, I thought I’d try to access the crossword via the new Times site which, foolishly or not, I had signed up for. Imagine my surprise when I was taken straight to a page with the day’s crosswords on it, which I proceeded to print with no difficulty. All sudokus etc were also available. The crosword club was available as an extra link. I’m wondering if a paid subscription to The Times in future will automatically gain you access to all puzzles, with the Club (and hence access to the archives, etc) either included or available as an optional extra. I’m also wondering if the puzzles are currently available to anybody who signed up for the “sneak preview” or if it somehow recognises current Crossword Club members.

    1. If you buy a subscription to a newspaper, you should certainly have access to the puzzles in the copies of the paper that you can look at. My guess is that this would cover the newspaper for a few weeks or possibly months, but not an archive going back 10 years or so like the crossword one.

      I got a try-out subscription to the new version of the Times so just took a look at one of the other puzzles. It has the implementation of Codeword puzzles that I’ve always wanted to see – put your guess at letter 18 in the summary grid and it fills in all the 18s in the main grid. You can also see quite easily which letters you haven’t tried yet. It confirmed my suspicion that the 7 minutes or so that the easy ones take me on paper is mostly clerical work – sub-3 is now on the cards and 1:54 is the time to beat.

    2. I’m having some frustrations accessing the Crossword Club after my subscription renewal at the start of this week so completed a trial registration (for free) on the new Times website to see if the links to the Club via that route would work any better – no, is the answer.

      Anyway, I can see today’s crosswords via that route, so payment is not necessary at this stage.

    3. I may be wrong, but I was looking at the News International archives front page yesterday and there doesn’t seem to be any way in other than to pay a subscription purchasing so many downloads. The minimum charge is £10 covering 10 downloads and the maximum is several hundred pounds. It seems outrageous to me. I don’t think subscribing to the new site has any bearing on access to the archives.
  9. some good clues as blogged an commented uon above. i too thought that HATECRIME was rather brilliant as was classics,,,completed in 45 minutes…
  10. If the clue for ALGEBRA would make a good early example in a guide to solving cryptics then SEEDCORN would come somewhat later. New technique invented today is to underline the word “my” wherever it occurs in the clues.
    The clue for OPENER seems a tad clumsy to me. I did think that Key might refer to the imperious Kent batsman of that name, but of course he is alive, but try telling that to the England Test selectors with their penchant for South Africans.
    Tough but got there in the end after using a machine to point me to SEEDCORN. COD to CLASSICS (you won’t hear that from me too often).
  11. Approx. 17 mins here. Like Pete, I found quite a few clues were completely impenetrable first until I saw the light and they became obvious.
  12. 21 minutes with 2 wrong – I’d never heard of CASSATA or CARBONADE and ended up with CASTEGA and CARMOLENE, which kinda made sense wordplay-wise.

    I did get SADDOS, and could say the ‘SOS’ exterior, but couldn’t and still can’t see any rationale to the wordplay. As an instruction on how to make an emergency call, ‘S add OS’ is just silly. Is there more to it?

    Some good things, but I found this a bit irritating overall.

  13. a long struggle on this one, so delighted to finish without aids. cod and last in saddos where the wordplay was not understood til coming here.
  14. About 25 minutes here, ending up with the same problem as Sotira, the CASSATA/CARBONADE pair, but I fought through them from wordplay despite not knowing either. I was also trying for ‘mole’ as the secret agent until I saw ‘Bond’, and then saw the ‘as’ instead of ‘eg’ or ‘ge’ in CASSATA. It appears there is a transatlantic food-language disconnect. My take on 19D was the imperative ‘add in “SOS”!’, as the way to make an emergency call; I hadn’t thought of the PB version when solving. I liked SEEDCORN for COD. Regards.
    1. I made a carbonade once. If you’d made one like the one I made you wouldn’t have forgotten it. And, like me, you wouldn’t have made another.
  15. 21 minutes except that I went beyond what Tom did and forgot to put anything in 8d (tinker) and went beyond what Jack did and invented the RC mass candele at 20 (with = and, EL = archdeacon (Emeritus Layreader or something in Latin)). Disappointing after managing to get cassata, carbonade, seedcorn and Girondins without too much faff.

    COD to saddo

  16. A happy half hour or so enjoying this one, and enjoying it again reading PB’s blog – I do like all the little extra bits of knowledge you give us, and today felt as if you had enjoyed writing it up. First in 3d, last in tinker.
    1. I did – the path from classicist to geek via wrangler was fun to spot and record, whether the setter put it there deliberately or not. I hope I don’t sound grumpy too often!
  17. 19 minutes with a foggy head this morning, but sounds like it was on the difficultish side, so that’s not too bad. GIRONDINS from wordplay alone CARBONADE the last one in. Very much liked the clues for TINKER and INDIA.
  18. Just checking the smallprint on 11A. Why is it acceptable to capitalise a letter to add to the surface or mislead, but not okay to put a capital into lower case? Or do I have that wrong? I thought the reason setters shoehorned proper nouns into the first word of the clue was to disguise the capital letter. Surely this implies that they are not able to just remove it. Hence why are they allowed to just switch into a capital ??

    Am I confused or just plain ignorant?

    1. The reason normally given is that lower case nouns can be seen in print with capital letters, most obviously when at the beginning of a sentence. So ‘peter’ (the safe) might look like ‘Peter’ (the person). But Peter the person will never look like peter the safe, so misleading “downcasing” is counted as unfair. Or at least those are the rules in Times puzzles – some setters of the “libertarian” school elsewhere have been known to change the first letter in whatever way suits them.
  19. I wasn’t going to comment today, because I am very very ashamed. At 6d I knew that it was an anagram and that the second word was CRIME and I could NOT work out the first word!

    May I please borrow PB’s cap?

    1. It’s only really required if you set yourself up as an “expert” and then have to report your own failings. And even then only the major ones, or I’d be wearing it all the time.
  20. Found this strangely easy, finishing well within the first bottle time – we drink at pace.
    Unsure only of 6d, is officer both PO and the complete answer? Also re 20d is a caperer a skipper?
    Mike & Fay
    1. Hope this catches you before you get to bottle three …

      6D I think the idea is that Officer is both PO and the beginning of the definition of the answer. I failed to point out clearly that “Officer …. cons etc.” (the whole clue) defines POLICE CONSTABLE.

      20D I think it has to be, though I didn’t bother to check – in COED, ‘caper’ is “skip or dance about in a lively or playful way” (so I’ll buy “skip” as a one-word summary), and under this heading is ‘DERIVATIVES caperer n.’

      1. Many thanks Peter, your invaluable help much appreciated as always.
        Mike and Fay
  21. I blush to admit that I got India without twigging to the ‘di(v)a’; I actually wondered for a while whether there might have been a British singer, Di Avery!
    I’m not very happy with 9d: There are, after all, quite a few insect species, and the vast majority of them don’t have soldiers; so it seems a bit much to expect ‘soldier perhaps’ to lead to ‘insect’. (Granted, ‘ant perhaps’ would be too easy.)
    1. 9D: I suspect the answer from the xwd ed would be something about “solving by rote” – ignoring other uses of “perhaps” for the moment, if “x, perhaps” can only mean “the name of the group one step bigger than x”, it all gets a bit mechanical. I don’t mind the occasional use of a category higher up – “Setter, perhaps”=MAMMAL for instance.

      This doesn’t mean I’d be happy the other way – mammal=>SETTER or insect=>SOLDIER would be ridiulous.

      (We’re back to part of the argument about unindicated def by example here – the point that because each species is a member of one genus, going from species to genus is easier than the other way.)

  22. I got bogged down in this yesterday and then had to do other things. I returned to it after lunch today and polished it off quickly. I only got Star of Bethlehem because I had failed to get it in its previous appearances. Being a 15-letter flower it does turn up quite often. I would not have got seedcorn without the knee-jerk substitution of cor for my! Girondins came from the wordplay since I knew Girondists but not its rarer alternative.
  23. How does ‘my’ work here, I wonder.

    I noticed someone worried about it, but I’m still worried:-)

    John Wheater

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