24607

Author   petebiddlecombePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 7:03

A fairly easy puzzle (third in a row, so doubtless a cue for people telling us there’s been a management decision to water down the Times crossword), with some mild difficulties like words you might need to dream up at 23 and 14, and a few novelties like the hidden word &lit at 24 21 and the double anagram at 22. There’s a short burst of 4-letter answers and wordplay components in the middle of the acrosses, which is probably just coincidence.

Last in was the crossing set 17/26/24, as I’d failed to see the right version of alarming* before checking letters were there to help. There may be a similar sticky patch at 5A, 5D and 6 for those who don’t read too many books.

Across
1 PRO=in support of, FIT=sudden attack – “return” is the definition, not a reversal indicator. The fact that “return in support of” could indicate (ROF = for rev.) is a potential source of confusion
5 RABELAIS = (rev. of ALE BAR = “beer pub”),IS. Someone’s bound to tell us that Rabelais is too obscure, so let’s remember that he’s the reason for the word Rabelaisian as well as the author of Gargantua and Pantagruel, one of those books I tried to read but didn’t finish.
9 JURY-RIGGED – or “jury rigged” in the second of the two defs here
10 CODA = (a doc.) reversed
11 AD=something in newspaper,HE,RENT=tore to pieces – any one else look for a F??????T word meaning “he tore to pieces”?
12 HIDING – 2 defs
13 F(R)OG, with fog=confusion – for “amphibian” note that frog/toad/newt are the likely choices, with the occasional salamander
15 T(ASTI)EST – another 4-letter collection is Asti, hock, port, rosé, sack, tent
18 SUIT,CASE are the two legal actions – again, both 4-letter ones
19 C,HAT – rabbit is Brit colloquial for “chat” – noun or verb
21 KITSCH – hidden word, and an &lit/all-in-one
23 A,VERS(1,V)E – aversive was a new word for me, but the meaning is easy enough to guess
25 V=very(i.e.)W=wide
26 MARGINAL=alarming*,1,A
27 HE(B) RIDES
28 SATRAP = (part, as) reversed
 
Down
2 ROUND – 2 defs. I’m not quite sure which meanings of round and ring are intended here, but I’m going to plump for: {round = circular piece of something} and {ring = circular object}
3 FL((ver)Y,(ne)W,(plan)E)IGHT – a flight is apparently about six USAF or RAF aircraft. The fact that the “fighter” is the same kind as in the previous clue may be a double bluff on the setter’s part
4 (diploma)T,OILED – I suspect the weakish initial “having” will irritate some people
5 ROGET’S THESAURUS – cryptic definition, which must be the right clue type here as it relies on fooling you about word meanings. Roget was a doctor before retiring to work on the original book of lists
6 (Billy) BUDD,HIST=this* – I suspect I wasn’t alone in writing the HIST part first and waiting for the sailor, though I also suspect BUDDHIST is the only option for the def and ????HIST
7 LUC(k),I’D – “all there” is colloquial for “in full possession of one’s (mental) faculties”
8 IND(ONE’S)IA – file with AUSTR(AL)IA and SO(MALI)A as other “container and contents” wordplays involving two countries – I have a vague idea that there may be some more
14 ROU(TIN,IS)E – a roué is a rake as in “The Rake’s Progress”. ROUTINISE was another word I had to invent for myself
16 We keep on missing out the odd clue – this one today
17 F=fellow(AT HOME=party),D=Democrat
20 REMISS, or re-miss in the whimsical second definition
22 SOWER=broadcaster in the old sense of “broadcast”, = swore* = worse*
24 V(OIL = oil painting)A – Va.=Virginia. “announcement” is a bit vague, but V???A from checkers makes the wordplay structure pretty transparent. “oil” is a bit cheeky as (oils = oil paintings) is much more common. As keriothe points out below, “announcement when showing” is a much better def – I’d misread “when showing” as a flowery def/wordplay link

25 comments on “24607”

  1. I struggled a bit with this, looking for far too much in 1 & 2 and trying to fit my invented word bahahist into 6. Last one in, marginalia
  2. Odd solving experience today. Up at 5:00; Times came on line at 7:00 and I had to be out shortly after that. So I scribbled in some answers, not thinking too much at the time. When I finally got to lunch, I found I only had the 7/10 pair (LUCID/CODA) left. And could I get those? Not until the chicken sarnies were done and half of R.G. Collingwood’s Autobiography read.
    So, should-a-bin-easy; but the actual time was 30-odd minutes + two sandwiches and 106 pages of philosophy!
  3. 15 minutes, but needed all the crossing letters written horizontally before I got ROGET. Maybe it was all those indicators of something else in the clue (starting with Doctor’s and work) together with rights being the only word that fitted and an early punt on therapies. I even considered the numbering might be wrong before remembering this wasn’t Sunday.
    Otherwise enjoyable, and I liked KITSCH as a clue, but CoD to JURY RIGGED.
  4. Yes Peter, had HIST pending the unfortunate sailor and similar to Jack had TREATMENT pencilled in at 5d which slowed things up. Second time recently I think for a double anagram, or was that in the Telegraph? For once today’s Paul was a good bit easier to finish. And yes, I am spreading my wings.
  5. Agreed, very straightforward. 20 minutes with no real difficulties.

    At 2D I had round=piece of boxing as in “a 10 round contest” then round=ring for the second definition

    1. Ditto. Maybe I should have said “I’m not quite sure which meanings of round and ring are intended to be the same here” – that was my minor quibble. The meanings I suggest are the closest I can find, but I can’t quite see either replacing the other in real life.
  6. I thought I was on for a sub-30 time early doors, but was held up first by ROGETS THESAURUS/MARGINALIA and then, more seriously, in the NW, where my lack of knowledge of nautical rigging caused a lengthy delay with the otherwise eminently gettable JURY-RIGGED. Add in a fixation with ‘rondo’ at 2dn, the search for a word meaning ‘unit’ at 3dn and the idea that there was an anagram somewhere in 11ac, and this all added up to 47 minutes. Liked Roget but COD to VOILA.

    Peter, the hidden word &lit is 21, not 24.

  7. Though I found this straightforward (16 minutes, fastest for some time) it felt properly Timesian and not watered-down. I do find the ‘Having’ of 4 slightly irksome, though merely leaving it (and the comma) out would have over-simplified things. I suppose one can’t always expect the purest “precision tang” – to trump “routinise” as a ghastly coinage. Enjoyed the surface of 5 dn.
  8. 55 minutes of which at least 25 were spent trying to solve the last few clues. Eventually I cracked ROGET’S THESAURUS and this proved to be the key to the others which then immediately fell into place. These were JURY-RIGGED which I had thought of but as I never heard of it I need the G checker to give me the confidence to write it in and that led me to BUDDHIST at 6dn. At 26ac I had spotted the anagrist but couldn’t make sense of it until the R checker inspired me to come up with MARGINALIA. Last in was FATHOMED which popped into my head as soon as the M was in place.

    I was completely misled by ‘Doctor’s work’at 5dn and for ages I was convinced that the second word would be THERAPIES.

    Not an easy puzzle by any standards I would have thought though there were a number of simple clues along the way.

  9. Easyish, agreed, though by no means a complete doddle for me. Around 40 mins. Like Peter B, I had not previously encountered AVERSIVE or ROUTINISE, which I arrived at via wordplay and checking letters. I was briefly minded to grouse that “routinise”, as an invented word, should have been flagged by a “?” or a “perhaps” in the clue, but in fact the COED confirms that such a word exists, though only someone with a tin ear would actually use it (or so I would hope). I thought the cryptic def for ROGET’S THESAURUS was very good, and 3dn, FLYWEIGHT, took some working out. I also liked VOILA – perhaps my COD.
  10. A bit groggy after far too much vodka last night, but still managed to finish in 15:36 so it must have been easy! I also had HIST a while before BUDD, and briefly toyed with inventing a new religion called Salthism.
  11. I didn’t find this anywhere as easy as some others: it took me almost an hour to finish, although looking back, I don’t know why!

    There were some really good clues, which took a lot of working out. If I had got ROGET etc earlier, this may have been quicker.

    ROUTINISE: ugh!! COD to MARGINALIA (although should be TASTIEST!)

  12. 18:31 .. odd pockets of difficulty spread around the grid left me, after ten minutes, with a sort of moth-eaten blanket of ink. The light , ironically enough, took longest to dawn on LUCID / CODA.
  13. Another reasonably straightforward one; I’m quite enjoying these. Slow to start, but then relatively rapid progress to finish just under half an hour. ADHERENT was last in, with all aforementioned possibilities toyed with, until the D from ROUND put all theories to flight. COD to KITSCH, a triumph!
  14. … as I suspect it was probably a PB. Unfortunately, only had time to do it in dribs and drabs today. The THESAURUS was my last in today, having given me grief earlier on when I pencilled in …… TREATMENT along the way, which worked for a bit, until I got to the bottom of the grid.
  15. Failure today: I invented the word SATSAR for 28ac.
    Otherwise, unlike most others I found this really difficult. No time but it was long – well over an hour in a few sessions. I got most held up in the NW, having decided early on that the second word in 9ac would be “judged”. I’ve never heard the phrase JURY RIGGED but got there eventually.
    ROUTINISE is a horrible word. I doubt you’ll ever hear it used in a sentence that doesn’t also include the words “going forward”.
    I thought the definition for 24dn was “announcement when showing”, which is less vague.
  16. I don’t know why, but I breezed through this in 12 minutes, ending with ROGETS THESAURUS after all the checking letters were entered (obviously). So I, at least, found it on the easier side of the spectrum. I liked the THESAURUS clue (didn’t know he was a doctor), INCESSANT and FLYWEIGHT, and I agree that ROUTINISE and AVERSIVE are not words ever encountered in ordinary usage, even though they really exist. The only semi-obscurity for me was the ‘at home’=’party’ segment of FATHOMED, but, I thought, what else could it be? Regards to everyone.
    1. I’m pretty sure that “at homes” are parties held by genteel ladies for other genteel ladies and maybe a few gentlemen. Your best bet for hearing about them is probably BBC costume drama on PBS.
      1. I vaguely recall reading that Gilded Age ladies in the US would send announcements stating that they would be ‘at home’, or ‘receiving callers’ on a given time and date, thus inviting visitors of, as you say, the genteel persuasion. That sounds similar to what you describe, and was the connection I made when solving. I don’t know if that would commonly translate to a ‘party’, but in crosswordese it seems OK.
        1. Not just Gilded Age US ladies; Victorian English ladies would have an at-home day and hour printed on their calling cards, so other ladies would know when it would be appropriate to drop in for a visit.
          I had interpreted 2d as ‘piece of boxing’=round.
          ‘aversive’ was a favorite word among behaviorist psychologists; you couldn’t say that a rat ‘disliked’ or ‘tried to avoid’, you could only say that shock was ‘aversive’. Behaviorism is an interesting, and embarrassing, moment in Anglo-American intellectual history.
          For a while, until I remembered Billy Budd, I toyed with ‘Bahahist’ (maybe an arcane Brit spelling of Bahaist?), but cooler heads prevailed.
  17. Or is it jury-rigged / jerry-built? At lest there’s an explanation of the difference.
    http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/9245

    Well under 30 minutes even while watching the Blue Jays beat the Yankees Tuesday night.
    However, I did spell it ‘routiniZe’ for some strange reason.

  18. 2D: see my reply to dorsetjimbo for clarification about the part of this clue that troubled me.

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