24631

Author   petebiddlecombePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 8:50

A fairly straightforward solve – not blindingly fast, but never seriously stuck. 14 and 17 both written without full wordplay understanding. Last in were 22 and 19.

Across
1 POLY=college,AN,THUS=”in this way” – they’re all universities these days, but for the Times crossword you need to remember the poly(technic) and the tech(nical college)
7 BATH – 2 defs, one from Chaucer, one from a French revolution incident recorded by a painting
9 S=son(TUB=rev. of but = objection),BORN=destined
10 L from Liberals,AWFUL=terrible
11 PIFFLE – (F,F = “folios”), in PILE=stately home – “regarding” presumably means that if you see the clue in the grid you’re “regarding” the wordplay, but it seems a bit weak
13 DETR(o)IT=Motown,U.S.=America – the unnecessary country in the style of “Paris, France” should give you the end of the word
14 SHOC(KINGPIN)K – when solving, I was happy enough with the def. and the false notion that the ‘shock’ at the beginning was the hair
17 FROM=supplied by,AGE FRAIS = (Riga, safe)* – solved from def. plus recognition of the anagram. “Supplied by {a town rather than a company}” is a minor weakness that might help you break this down
20 TENNYS=”tennis”,ON=available
21 MIDWAY = “in the centre” – {I=(electric) current} replaces {E=energy} in the River Medway
22 PERIOD – 2 defs – a (full) stop is a period in the US – hence “period” as an equivalent of our “end of”
23 SENORITA – IT.=Italian vermouth=”wine”, in reason* – should have got this immediately but garbled my Mediterranean ladies and decided SIGNORA didn’t fit or contribute to wordplay
25 PLUG – 2 defs, one as in to “stop” a tooth
26 SCA(VEN.=archdeacon,GE=rev. of e.g.)RY – I started to write in SCAVENGING, but then saw that it had no role for “e.g.”, so fixed this and then used the external SCARY to make a new but plausible-looking word
 
Down
2 OUT=unacceptable,RIGHT=fitting
3 YOB – O=love in rev. of by=past
4 N,(m)OOSE – wordplay seen easily, but needed to find the right deer, which just happens to be a “Northern deer”
5 HANG=depend,DOG=setter – doubtless some will think the setter should be shamefaced for using this unindicated def by example
6 SOLIT=toils*,AIRE=river – solitaire is US for patience
7 BE WHISKE(R.E.=Royal Engineers=soldiers)D – “mutton chop whiskers” are an old-fashioned style of facial hair, sported by the former old-fashioned style of Tory M.P. Rhodes Boyson
8 TAUR=”tore”=gored,US
12 F=female,ACT=deed,F(oreign),INDING=dining*
15 1,RON(SIDE)’S – ironsides were troopers in Cromwell’s army
16 DISASTER – SAS in tried*
18 AMNESIA – men* in ASIA – the other possibility for a container/anagram combo
19 BE = to be,FELL=deadly dangerous, as in “one fell swoop”
21 MAN(S(ecurity))E – manse is an alternative when rectory or vicarage are too long to fit. You need to “lift and separate” the Orwellian-sounding “security minister”
24 No hidden word today, so this will have to be the omitted clue

48 comments on “24631”

  1. Ah, I have something in common with PB. Not the time, unfortunately, but the last pair in – 19 and 22 in the SW, which held me up for an infuriatingly long time. At one point I had high hopes of cracking 20 minutes, but in the end those two held me up for nearly half an hour.

    I know that Marat was murdered in his BATH from a visit to the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud’s when I was about 8 or 9; for whatever reason the tableau of his murder stuck in my mind. Several decades went by without any further additions to this knowledge until I discovered from a recent crossword that he was a journalist. And thanks to PB for the information about IRONSIDES -I was thinking, wrongly, of a troop-carrying ship of some kind.

  2. Feeling very pleased at doing this in 8 minutes. My PB by a long chalk; and I don’t know why — it just fell into place somehow. Possibly because all of the signals were what I expected them to be: N for “northern”; L for “Liberals”, etc.
    Might have been my first real speed solve if not for having to ponder the 19/22 intersection (as per richnorth). Hairy? Yes, but also note the double STOP, the two GAMEs and the three soldiers.
  3. Only delayed by BEFELL which went in despite BE being in the clue and not knowing the obscure meaning of FELL (subsequently found in Chambers).
    One for the sprinters.
  4. 24 mins – so just outside my PB. Last in BEFELL; COD to BEWHISKERED for conjuring up images of Sherlock Holmes – or was it Wolverine? Rather a hairy puzzle all round, what with MANE and SHOCK.
  5. Came up three short today after 25 minutes – couldn’t get TENNYSON, BEFELL or PERIOD. Had no idea what the wife was doing in Marat’s bathtub until reading Peter’s explanation above.

    Some nice clues here I thought. I particularly liked TAURUS, DETRITUS and DISASTER. Iraq came to mind for the latter clue / word – entirely apposite given Blair’s memoirs were published today.

    Re “IT” in SENORITA. Last night I finished puzzle 69 in the Times 14 book and one of the clues was “It has been expanded (7,8)” – answer ITALIAN VERMOUTH !!

    1. We’ve just done puzzle 69 – can anyone explain how “It has been expanded” fits “Italian Vermouth?
      1. “It”, most often in “Gin and It”, is an abbreviation for “Italian Vermouth”.
  6. Annoying.. this would have been a really quick solve, had I not had to think and think to get period. 15m in the end.
  7. Almost a straightforward solve. Could not crack 21ac. ‘Median’ stubbornly persisted as my only option. Might have helped if I’d known ‘i’ (or ‘I’) = {electric} current. Still can’t find a reference for this.
    1. It’s among the meanings for I as a symbol here, and is also listed in the corresponding place in the current (so to speak) Concise Oxford.
      1. Many thanks. You’ve exposed another of my mental blocks! For some reason, I never think of checking OED for single letter ‘words’/symbols. So, ‘I’ will get added to AC/DC as possibilities when current appears. Thanks to mctext, too, for the iodine reminder.
        1. I don’t think you’re alone in this “block”, but the abbreviations in most cryptics are supported by dictionaries just as much as the words.
  8. Thought I was going to achieve 15 minutes today but got delayed on the last two answers which took me another 5. Still 20 minutes is a rare enough achievement for me so I mustn’t be downhearted.

    Unlike other contributors so far the ones that held me up were 21 and 26 in the SE corner. MANSE went in first of the two and I never heard of SCAVENGERY so I needed to rely on wordplay to find it. I think if I hadn’t already missed the 15 minute solve I might have been tempted to bung in SCAVENGERS and hope for the best only to be disappointed later that I got one wrong so I’m pleased that I took the extra time to make sure of it.

  9. 15 minutes, like everyone else held up by the PERIOD BEFELL intersection. SCAVENGERY looks made up, but I assume it isn’t. Top half was much easier than the bottom half. CoD to DETRITUS, Terry Pratchett’s spectacular troll.
  10. Came to an unaccountable stop halfway through and then the rest fell. 22 minutes. I like the kingpin in 14 somehow.
  11. Thank goodness this didn’t happen yesterday. I’m unable to get into the site.

    The log-in page misses out the “enter password” screen and puts me straight to the “print puzzle” screen (as if I’d never logged out). If I then try to print I’m told “your time has expired – please log in again”. If I do that I just end up in the same spot. If I hit “log out” I’m told “your cookies are not activated”. They are and I’m getting into other sites OK. I’ve deleted all the cookies on my machine and tried again in both IE and Firefox – all to no avail.

    Any ideas anybody?

    1. I’ve just tried and hit the same problem, whether I try to play or print. On the plus side, I seem to be able to enter the Times website without logging on, and can play or print from there.
    2. Scratch that: I’m using Chrome and it logs me in automatically direct from the Crossword club pages. I guess it’s just not working again.
    3. They’ve just contacted me. The site has been experiencing problems “beyond their control” (rays from cyberspace presumably) but is now back working. I’ve just been in and managed to print today’s puzzle.
    4. I had exactly the same problem Jimbo – straight through to the site with no login – funnily enough the RTC on the Concise opened up ok but not the Cryptic – anyway I went in on the general crossword site rather later and it was ok
  12. 12 mins for me today so pretty good. Can I please solicit views on The Times Crossword Championships? I used to enter a long time back when there was the entry puzzle followed by the fiendich ‘eliminator’ and I thought that worked pretty well. A couple of years ago under the new scheme of things I did one of the new style entry puzzles, appended my time (10 min 15 sec if I recall) and enclosed the required cheque. Not a word came back. I confess to feeling a bit miffed at the time. Are the new style entry puzzles available ‘on the day’ via this club or does one have to keep an eagle eye on the actual newspaper (which I no longer like since it went tabloid)?
    Any comments would be appreciated.
    1. This year’s qualifying puzzles were available at the Times Crossword Site on the same day as they appeared in the paper, but we’ve now had all 4 qualifiers for this year’s Championship. If next year’s event uses the same timetable, they should appear about a month apart, in April, May, June and July.
    2. A friend of mine entered this year’s championship, posting a quickish time and also heard nothing. It transpired that they never received his entry.
      1. I thought this problem had been resolved by getting a specific PO Box for the Championship, after a problem with entries seeming not to reach the organiser from the address at the Times used in 2006.

        I hope electronic entry isn’t too many years away – this cuts out postal non-delivery issues, and at least ensures that the times are genuine, though like the current system it can’t prevent people from consulting dictionaries.

  13. A strange solving (or rather non-solving) experience for me. I was on for a PB with all but four clues done in about 8 minutes. It then took me another 12 to get three more (TENNYSON, BEFELL, IRONSIDES), leaving only 22ac. I stared at this for about forty minutes in three sessions before eventually giving up.
    I’d also put in MEDIAN for 21ac. I was far from happy with it and after my SHEFFIELD/MANSFIELD experience last week I took care to remember to go back but once it became clear that I wasn’t going to finish anyway I couldn’t be bothered.

  14. 12 minutes, pretty steady chug through – put in SHOCKING PINK from the definition, needed the wordplay to get IRONSIDES
  16. An easy 20-minute solve, though I confess to being stumped by 22 for a couple of minutes. I don’t know why, because the clue must be an old chestnut.
    I thought 17 was faulty at first since, I saw ‘for’ as part of the anagram fodder and ‘supplied by’ as a linking phrase. Although M appeared to missing, FOR was enough to get me FROMAGE.
    I agree with Peter that ‘regarding’ in 11 is weak, though he’s done a fine job showing how it can be justified at a pinch. 23 displays a similar weakness with ‘for’.
  17. 44 minutes to fill the diagram (for me, anything under an hour is very good), but unfortunately two entries wrong: MEDIAL for 21A despite not being able to find a river Medeal anywhere, and FLAG rather than PLUG, imagining cars in a race being flagged into a pit stop and such. As to “I” for current: I knew that because I’ve used it myself, in a clue submitted to the Clue Competition a few years ago, which won second or third prize.
  18. Another 45 minutes, the same as yesterday, but with 21ac wrong – couldn’t think of an appropriate river, so went with median in the hope there might be such as thing as the river Medean. COD a toss up between 14ac and 20ac.
  19. Pretty well EP again today: 19 minutes. Only BEFELL presented me with a problem.

    Can’t really see a COD although BEWHISKERED was rather sweet. Expect something harder tomorrow!

  20. 20 minutes and the last two for me were also 19 and then 22. Incredibly I must have taken about 7 or 8 minutes staring at -E-I-D finally resorting to trawling through the alphabet – the IOD ending was a real blind spot.
  21. Another very easy puzzle. Stopped what I was doing a bit early to allow 30 minutes and rattled it off in 10. Obviously didn’t like setter=dog but irrelevant because solved from definition and checkers. Just snorted en passant so to speak.
  22. 23 mins for me, close to a personal best, so it must indeed have been pretty easy. At 26ac I tried SCAVENGING and SCAVENGERS before hitting on SCAVENGERY (not a noun previously known to me) as the only version that would fit the def, wordplay and checking letters. No stand-out clues, tho I quite liked BEWHISKERED and PIFFLE, notwithstanding Peter B’s doubts about the role of “regarding” in the clue to the latter. The wordplay seems to me to work OK if you take “regarding” as indicating that the folios are “seen” inside the stately home.
  24. No real time to post due to interruptions, but I didn’t find it as easy as most of the commenters. I screwed up the enumeration at the FROMAGE clue and was thinking (8,4) so that held me back due to carelessness, and I also struggled to finish with 19 and 22. I certainly hadn’t known that a PERIOD is a ‘stop’ overseas. Best regards.
    1. What you call a period(.) we (commonwealth) usually call a “full stop”. Only occasionally, and usually by crossword setters or hacks, is it called a “stop”
      (stop!)
  25. “Hooligan’s past, brought up without love”
    Isn’t “without” to mean “containing” rather contentious? It should mean the opposite.
    1. If the opposite of “containing” is “not having as internal content” rather than “being contained by”, then yes, “without” can mean the opposite. But it can also mean “outside” in the literary/archaic sense recorded here and encountered in names like St Sepulchre-without-Newgate. It is debatable whether this sense of “without” really includes the containment meaning of “outside” by which a shell is outside an egg, but most crossword setters and editors are happy that it’s close enough.
      1. Thanks. I take your point that the “opposite” of “A contains B” could be either “A does not contain B” (i.e. there is no B inside A) or “B contains A”. In practice I think it would nearly always be the first that comes to mind, e.g. “This box contains an egg” / “This box does not contain an egg” rather than “This box is contained by an egg.”

        Anyway, if most crossword editors and setters are happy with the interpretation of “without” you describe who am I to argue?

        1. If you want to tell the crossword editors and setters that you disagree with this interpretation of a particular meaning of “without”, that’s fine. You wouldn’t be the first to do so here. I don’t claim that the setters and editors are infallible, though I can think of things used in Times clues that trouble me much more than this one.

          On the point about the opposites, you’re probably right about normal conversation, but “A does not contain B” would be fairly pointless as a wordplay indication in a cryptic clue, so in that context, “B contains A” seems to me a much more relevant opposite of “A contains B”.

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