24642

Author   daveperryPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: About 75 minutes, but in my defence it was very late and I was very tired. I solved probably half the clues on my first pass through, which is a lot for me, so I thought I might be in for a quick solve, and indeed three-quarters of it went in in about 20 minutes. But then I got stuck on a handful of words that I didn’t know, and I think I might have dozed off!

Several words were new to me – MARTELLO, PEKOE, PROROGUE & PARTITA. Two of these crossed in the SW corner, so that section went in last of all.

cd = cryptic def., dd = double def., rev = reversal, homophones are written in quotes, anagrams as (–)*, and removals like this

Across
1 HEIRESS = HoSt about EIRE’S
5 deliberately omitted, but this clip should help.
9 A(DM)IT – DM for Deutschmark, the German pre-Euro currency, and an ait is a small island and a crossword standard.
10 SYNAGOGUE = “AGOG” (keen) following “SIN” (wrongdoing).
11 T(END)RILl
12 YASHMAK = MA in (SHAKY)*
13 LUMBERJACK – I still don’t quite see this one. N American feller (of trees) is clearly the definition, but the rest is a little hazy to me. Jack = sailor, lumber = move clumsily, am I on the right lines? Oh yes, and here’s the obligatory clip. No, apparently I’m not. See McText’s explanation below.
15 KNIT = ThINK rev
18 O + USE
20 HYSTERICAL = (RILEY CHATS)*
23 P + A + R(TIT)A
24 DAR(cordiaL)ING
25 KING + MAKER – A reference to Richard Neville, the 16th Earl of Warwick, known as Warwick the Kingmaker for his role in the War of the Roses.
26 GOUDA = A DOG rev about U
27 ETHYL = (THE)* + Youth Leader – It took me a while to spot that radical was here being used in its chemical sense.
28 ROCK(ER)Y – An obvious reference to the legendary Rocky Marciano.
 
Down
1 HOMONYM = HOMe about MONeY – The word ‘pole’ has multiple distinct meanings, and is thus a homonym.
2 INTERNEE = IN + “TURN” + EuropE
3 wEASEL
4 SAND-YACHT = (SHY CAT)* about AND
5 DIGEST = DIG + (SET)*
6 RE(GI)MEN – male sappers are R.E. MEN
7 deliberately omitted – straightforward homophone
8 MARk + TELL + O – The TELLO ending was pretty obvious, but not knowing the word, I found the MAR tough to get.
14 JAYWALKER = JAY + (WE LARK)* – An American term for someone who crosses the street without looking.
16 MARGE + LET all rev – Put in without full understanding. It may bring word is the definition, LET = obstruction (in sports), MARGE = border (apparently)
17 PROROGUE = R for L in PROLOGUE.
19 SC(RUN + C)H
21 CLIQUEY = C + “LEAKY” – This could spark some homophone debate. I know a lot of people pronounce this as “CLICKY”
22 DISMAL = LAD rev about ISM
23 PEK(O)E – A tea from the Indian subcontinent
24 Hidden word

55 comments on “24642”

  1. About 18 minutes, ending with PROROGUE, a word I didn’t know, so I checked it’s existence with aids. I’ve seen MARTELLO in this puzzle before, but it’s not a word I’ve ever heard in conversation. The definition and checkers made TELEGRAM clearly the right answer, but both parts of the wordplay seem obscure to me. ‘Let’ as esp. a tennis term, yes, but as an ‘obstruction’, not really, and ‘marge’, well, maybe there’s another explanation I don’t see. Not familiar with PARTITA or YASHMAK either, but they were more clear. The surfaces weem very smooth today, and I’ll nominate DISMAL and HYSTERICAL as well composed. Regards to all
    1. In the front of a British passport Her Majesty “requests and requires” the holder to be allowed to pass “without let or hindrance”, or at least she used to!
      1. My 2-year old passport still says: Her Britannic Majesty’s Secretary of State Requests and requires in the Name of Her Majesty all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance, and to afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary.
    2. I believe it’s called a let in tennis because the ball’s been obstructed by the net. Old usage, I fancy, going back to real tennis, perhaps??
      1. A let is certainly called for an obstruction in squash, and (i’m guessing) probably racketball as well.
  2. The “jack” is from “I’m alright Jack”, so he’s the one who isn’t. “Lumber” is from “land”; as in to lumber someone with something = to land them with it (e.g., a problem).
  3. Very fair, very enjoyable. A perfect lunchtime puzzle – for me at least – taking 53 minutes. For others, it’ll be done and dusted over the first cup of coffee.

    The history degree finally paid dividends, with Warwick the KINGMAKER going in pretty quickly. Unfortunately PROROGUE took much longer to yield; I should have paid more attention during those classes on 17th century politics. Last in was KNIT, another example of one of those tricky 4-letter words.

    1. Same in Concise Oxford except that they call it “literary”, which is nearly as close to “archaic” as “obsolete”.
  5. Took 52′ on this one, with most time spent in the bottom left: only had KINGMAKER and couldn’t see the rest (PEKOE, SCRUNCH, DISMAL, PARTITA, ETHYL). But a good workout I thought and can’t imagine any real complaints. Talking of which: where’s Jimbo today?
      1. Do definitions by example offend when they are part of the wordplay rather than the answer itself? I can’t remember the argument but it would seem to be very limiting for setters if this is the case.
        1. I think they offend some in both cases. I can’t really see any merit in having different rules for wordplay elements and definitions.
  6. Disappointed not to finish this intact, with ‘castello’ entered at 8 instead of MARTELLO, which I probably would have got if I had parsed archer as TELL. Also made a pig’s ear of my last in, after 70-odd minutes, PROROGUE, where I finally plumped for ‘prerogue’, never having got to grips with the clue. Put ‘hares’ in at 5ac instead of DARTS at first, since it satisfies both clue components and I had it on the brain after writing ‘racewell’ for ‘harewell’ last week. A harebrained effort all round, in fact.
  7. In 16 it’s ‘obstruction over’ = ‘tel’ and ‘border rising’ = ‘egram’ with a nice double use of ‘bring word’. A lovely not too taxing limber-up. 23 minutes and as if a partita gently playing. Hey, that’s an amazing doowop clip. Roll on Roy Orbison.
      2. True, but in the most logical uses of the words, “homonym” includes both “homophone” and “homograph”. So the sounds-like explanation would work. In this case I think the homograph half of homonym is probably what the setter intended, because there’s no mention of sound in the clue.
  9. 38 min. this morning, with 9 answers still missing at the 30-min. mark. INTERNEE was last in, because I was misparsing the clue and trying to “imprison” EE.

    Could someone please explain to me how KNIT = contract? TIA!

      1. Phooey! I see Chambers has this def. so I suppose it has to be OK, but I always envisaged this usage of KNIT as a reference to the fact that when you frown, your eyebrows appear to join together – not that they get shorter.

        Oh well, thanks for the enlightenment!

        1. It’s all related, isn’t it? When you frown, the relevant muscles are drawn together into a smaller scope(‘contract’), resulting in a wrinkling (‘knitting’) effect.
  10. Another lively one which I completed in 35 minutes. There’s some quite obscure stuff here and bits of GK but fortunately I had met them all before and was able to bring them to mind quite readily. I agree the SW corner was a little trickier than the rest of the puzzle.

    I think the idea at 1d is that POLE sounds like another word with a different spelling rather than that it can have different meanings itself.

  11. About 20mins here, an average time but I really liked this crossword, which has some super smooth surfaces and inventive cluing. cod yashmack but I also liked dismal.
    We are well supplied with Martello towers here in Kent, and yes, we talk about little else..
  12. 20 minutes, with at least the first five staring at an empty grid: first in was LUMBERJACK. After that, the rest of the long ones followed, and I seemed to tune in to this setter’s wavelength. No unknowns for me, and the aforementioned woodsman was my CoD.
  13. Another reasonable, average puzzle but with a smattering of obscurities and boxer=dog to rile me. If the clue had been “Perhaps a boxer is about to consume high-class cheese” I think it would have had a better surface reading and the definition by example would have been eliminated. 20 minutes to solve with no really outstanding clues in my opinion – all very workman like.
  14. 12 minutes, so quietly pleased with myself until coming here and finding that CASTELLO was wrong. “Case” (as in “casing the joint”) was always dodgy but the answer looked credible and I’ve never heard of a MARTELLO.
    Not too much else that was unfamiliar: AIT, although I’ve no doubt I’ve come across it before and just forgotten it. PARTITA from wordplay but it rang a bell.
    LUMBERJACK and TELEGRAM from definition: I liked the “I’m all right Jack” wordplay once I’d worked it out.
    Another good puzzle.
  15. 6:45 here – not much more to say except to admit LUMBERJACK wordplay bafflement and to agree with mmagus that there were some old favourite wordplay elements. These probably helped to make it easy, along with the arbitrary name (20A’s Riley) in anagram fodder – something the Times setters mostly manage to avoid.

    World’s most culturally significant Martello Tower: this one. Possibly the best-known one in the UK: this one on Eastbourne’s seafront.

  16. 34 minutes. It took me quite a while to understand the word play in LUMBERJACK: I tried Monty Python and sailors in trouble before the expression “I’m all right Jack” came to mind. Should have seen it sooner as the 1959 film of that name is a memorable satire on British industrial relations of the time; and I’ve met so many real-life Fred Kites since then.
  17. I found this pretty hard going at 50 minutes, probably because of the many unfamiliar words. Unfortunately, got 1d horribly wrong (HOMINEM), mostly because I got hung up on looking for a specific currency to use, and in the end guessed in despair!

    Didn’t get the wordplay for 1ac, 9ac, 13ac, 16d, 17d.

    COD 14d.

  19. 18:55 but with a helluva lot of QMs against unknown words and incomplete understandings of wordplay.

    I’m still not keen on knit/contract and the boxer/dog D by E rankled too.

    I must have been in a different mindset from normal today as I didn’t really notice the surface readings as much as normal when solving, but at the end I concluded they were probably pretty good as a lot of the definitions (of both full answers and wordplay elements) were a little quirky (e.g. pet, bottle, radical, singer, break up…)

  20. 12:30 .I had all but one done after about 8 minutes but I have never heard of PARTITA and kept looking for a better answer. Couldn’t find one so stuck in the right answer fully expecting to come here and find I was wrong. A few went in on definition only with friendly checking letters. I was pleased to get CLIQUEY quickly.
    1. I’m not entirely convinced that a tease is a treacherous person, but I can see where you’re coming from.
    2. Regardless of whether a tease is a treacherous person there isn’t enough in the clue to indicate both taking the t off ease and adding l.
  22. 28 minutes, so easier than yesterday’s upon which I was unanble to comment as tied up all day. Didn’t really get held up although the SCRUNCH/PARTITA crossing took an extra couple of minutes at the end.

    I have never been troubled by D by E: hardly notice it, notwithstanding the extensive debates here that it has generated! Dubious about CLIQUEY: nice clue, as jpm has said, but I have doubts about “leaky”. No COD today: just a nice set of clues and an enjoyable puzzle.

  23. It took me 5 minutes to get my first clue but then finished in 30. I liked the inventive definitions. COD to KINGMAKER.

    We have jaywalkers in Australia, too, although usually it refers to pedestrians ignoring the little red man at traffic light controlled crossings. Police regularly have “crackdowns” on them. I’ve always taken that as a sure sign that the local constabulary are corrupt at or about the level of commissioner. We have a lot of that in Australia, too. And a Martello Tower as well, even though it was “largely obsolete by the time it was completed”. Come to think of it, that’s Australia all over.

  24. 19 minutes, I think most of what I found has been said here, though my last was PARTITA, which I needed the wordplay to get – similarly MARTELLO. TELEGRAM, LUMBERJACK and KINGMAKER went in without full understanding.

    In the US, CLIQUE is pronounced “click” but I use the one that is here (and get raised eyebrows, either for the pronunciation or for using a twelve-dollar word).

  25. Definition by example surely is just a thing setters might do. To me it seems no more sensible to call it “wrong” than it would be to call anagrams or hidden words wrong. So long as we are aware it can happen, we must just cope.. it is hard enough being a setter anyway imho, without arbitrary rules preventing such usage.
  26. 12:45, with two mistakes: an unaccountable YOSHMAK for the known YASHMAK (12ac), and a wild stab in the dark at CAR(d)TELLO for the unknown MARTELLO (8dn).  Other unknowns were PARTITA (23ac), Rocky Marciano (28ac ROCKERY), and PEKOE (23dn).

    Others have picked up on “boxer” for DOG (26ac GOUDA), but “entrecote” for STEAK (7dn) was also an unindicated definition by example, and the same might be said of “Warwick” for KINGMAKER (25ac).  (Two of these end with question marks that might just about be said to indicate the D by E, though their locations aren’t ideal for the purpose; 7dn ends with an exclamation mark.)

    I’ve never heard anyone pronounce “clique” as “click” rather than “cleek” (21dn CLIQUEY), and nor apparently have Chambers or Oxford, but Collins is with Dave Perry on this.  The question mark should silence any complaints (though I think the clue would have been fine without it).

    Interestingly, MARTELLOs are so-called after Cape Mortella.  Thanks to Peter for the Ulysses reference.

    Clue of the Day: 13ac (LUMBERJACK).

  27. Finally, my attention to Canadian politics has paid off! Prime Minister Harper prorogued parliament recently. I had to look it up in the dictionary at the time (apparently I wasn’t alone). Prorouge? What’s that mean? In favour of knaves? Anyhow, I thought this was going to be very tough at first glance but it wasn’t. Enjoyed it.
  28. all done in 45 today but very early so probably 35 if i had been fully awake.
    liked cliquey!
    good clue
    also felt the same about sand yaccht-should have been vehicle rather than vessel!
  29. I’ve been waiting to see if anyone else threw in LAND YACHT for 4D, but it looks like it was just me. It certainly made HEIRESS a tough solve. That aside, very enjoyable. Apart from the above howler, PARTITA held me up for longest, not a word I know (and tits seem to me to chirp or pipe rather than sing like blackbirds, robins or thrushes)

    Tom B.

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