25679 Many paths in my garden – lead me down any number of them.

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I managed 23′ 31″ and had to check to confirm that the unlikely collection of letters that I had battered 9 down into was indeed a recognised piece of vocabulary. Not much in this one went in on definition alone, not least because it was often difficult to see what the definition was. Curiously, possibly the easiest definition to spot was in 20 across, which should have been the most misleading of all.
After diligently falling for most of the misdirections, the better to advise the assembled company, these are my conclusions.

Across

1   ABSTINENCE Almost my last in, because I got obsessed with pence as the money element. It’s not, it’s TIN, a rather
    outdated bit of slang, surrounded by ABSENCE, being off work.
6   SKID Not STOT, which was my first thought, which would have been fine if the definition had been jump. S(mall) KID. A
    happy little picture of a clue.
10 EXPAT First in, definition “living abroad”, without = EX, plus way, PATH, without its H(usband)
11 RAINMAKER “one causing fall” is the cutesy definition, anagram of REMARK around IN (-patient, sort of)
12 PICTURE WRITING Much easier than it looked, a pretty straight definition in “system of glyphs”, film=PICTURE,
    script=WRITING
14 ANTWERP Going out on a limb, I’d say drongo was very Australian slang and twerp British, and I lost time looking for another
    Aussie equivalent. A TWERP takes in the last letter of AustraliaN, giving the Belgian port.
15 GYMNAST Jim gives the soundalike signalled by “talking”, endlessly annoying gives NAST(y) for the possible Olympic
    competitor.
17 SKYJACK A very particular and easily overlooked definition here: “take flight”. I was tempted by both SKYWARD and
    SKYLARK which sort of satisfied alternative readings of the definition, but fauiled to take account of the sailor.
    Unless there was something clever going on with “ark”. JACK tar attaches himself to SKYE without its E(ast)
18 SLAMMER A double definition, one the tequila concoction meant to be downed in one (probably so you can’t taste it) and
    one of many slang terms for a prison.
20 WILD GOOSE CHASE “Pointless pursuit”, with author (Oscar) WILDE embracing a pair of Charlies, in this case a GOOSE (a
    right Charlie) and CHAS. Please keep ribald comments to a minimum.
23 ASSAILANT A mugger is a good enough example of the breed, but you need “for example” provide AS, then SLANT standing
    in for spin (think political) is arranged round capital, in this case just A1, first class.
24 RAISE,”Improve” the definition, bRAISE the cook with its starter awol.
25 TUTU What a ballerina might well get herself into (himself if Matthew Bourne’s choreographing), TUT of disapproval
    followed by the beginning of Understand. Degree, anyone?
26 BLANCMANGE An early reappearance for “cook”, this time signalling an anagram built from CAN GAMBLE and N(othing) for
    the wobbly pud.

Down

1   AVER My last in, waiting for light to dawn on which four letter state had an E in it, and thinking, in desperation, possibly
    Aden. You take the last letter, as per instructions, to the top. There are women called Dena. But the accepted answer
    derives from Vera to give that sort of state.
2   SOPHISTRY “plausibly deceptive or fallacious reasoning; the art of reasoning speciously” (Chambers) “made up arguments”
    (this clue). Both STORY and SHIP are separately indicated as anagrams, and one is nested inside the other.
3   INTO THE BARGAIN. Find the definition at the end of the clue, just “as well”. the construction is fascinated=INTO (I’m
    really into crosswords),article=THE, BAR GAIN as the profit made by a pub
4   EARDROP Not the stuff that fails to melt earwax, but a dangly piece of jewellery. the sweets here are (p)EARDROP(s) with
    their wrapping removed
5  CHINWAG I’m still certain that there’s a kind of yak called a something-weg, and spent much time scouring the lower slopes
    of the Himalayas for its true identity. It’s the yakety kind of yak. W(est) is shifted into CHINA finished off by the last of
    (Penan)G. Which is part of Malaysia. All very confusing.
7  KUKRI The Ghurka’s weapon of choice, rumoured to be the one most feared by the Argentines occupying the Falklands.
    Annoy=IRK, our country=UK, assembled and reversed.
8   DEROGATORY Definition is “being offensive”, reverse (over) of GO RED above A TORY
9   OMNIUM GATHERUM looked the most probable arrangement of the anagram fodder MUM AT HOME RUING. It’s cod Latin,
    taken to mean a miscellany or potpourri. I looked it up so you don’t have to.
13 WARSAW PACT I fell into the trap of looking for a battle rather than the political/military alliance, now defunct. If I was
    being really picky, I would say that a battle and a war are two distinct categories not to be confused even in a crossword.
    But here we have battle=WAR, with an anagram (involved) of CAT’S PAW.
16 ADMISSION Don’t know why this initially eluded me. A simple double definition, closely related.
18 KNOW-ALL Hill gives you KNOLL, boring tells you what to do with the state, WA (Washington or Western Australia to taste),
    the result is your clever clogs. Someone who knows omnium gatherum without looking.
19 SWEETEN It wouldn’t make my tea more acceptable, but the definition works well enough and is E(nglish) ET (The
    Extraterrestrial) filling the reversed NEWS,”latest uprising”.
21 LISZT Brilliant both as a composer and pianist, sounds like list. Goes with Chopin, of course. Or Brahms after too many
    slammers.
22 FETE and a nice easy one to finish.charge=FEE, which takes in T(eam).for the guaranteed English country rainmaker.

.
 

65 comments on “25679 Many paths in my garden – lead me down any number of them.”

  1. I assume you mean SKYJACK, right? I started with ‘skylark’, too, but couldn’t parse it.
    1. Quite correct. I said I was confused! I have taken the liberty of amending my entry.
  2. 66 minutes, but forgot to go back to ‘skylark’ (which incidentally, Zed, you have as the answer in BOLD). A very interesting and satisfying puzzle, this, with INTO THE BARGAIN the epitome of its cunningness, I thought. Last in was PICTURE WRITING, which just shows how much Greek I must have forgotten since my university days – or just an inability to extrapolate from ‘hieroglyph’ to ‘glyph’.

    We had OMNIUM GATHERUM in a ST puzzle almost exactly a yeas ago: http://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/929265.html.

    Re our Oscar, I learned recently from Gore Vidal – who ought to know – that the Green Carnation was straight until seduced by a 17-year-old when he was 31.

    Edited at 2014-01-09 02:54 am (UTC)

  3. .. around 25 minutes

    Never got near the wavelength of this and ended up with 2 unforced errors.

    I misspelled BLANCMANGE (with an ‘o’) and LISZT (with a ‘y’). The latter is more embarrassing as I have some sheet music by the same sitting on the piano at the moment.

    I initially typed ‘skylark’ but thought better of it, so at least avoided that trap.

  4. EXPAT was almost my LOI (that was AVER), since I’d never come across the word except as a noun referring to one who does live abroad. Like z8, I tried to work ‘pence’ into 1ac for a long time, then couldn’t think of any word besides ‘pestilence’ that seemed to fit. DNK KUKRI, although for years I actually owned one, a gift from a globe-trotting mother (mine). Also DNK SLAMMER the drink. In Trollope’s Palliser novels, the fabulously rich Duke of Omnium’s seat is Gatherum Castle. (Does that make me a clever clogs?) COD to DEROGATORY, I suppose.
  5. Strange that Z8 didn’t work so much from defs. I did.
    But the key today was to get the 4 x 14-letter answers and work from there. Remembered OMNIUM GATHERUM and the other 3 were reasonably obvious. Then there were quite a few anagram-based answers; leaving not a lot left.

    Slight Oz flavour today: all of 14ac and the WA possibility at 18dn. Let’s have more eh?

    8dn:
    > Definition is “being offensive”.
    Or: just “offensive”?

    Edited at 2014-01-09 04:02 am (UTC)

    1. Working from definitions: possibly just a wavelength thing, but there were few clues that went in straight away for me – EXPAT and KUKRI, SLAMMER of course, but there seemed to me to be a high proportion that went in through accessing the wordplay (helped by checkers). I also thought there were some well-disguised definitions along the way.
      On 8d, just “offensive” does well enough, but “being” was hanging around doing not much else and works just as well.

      Edited at 2014-01-09 12:25 pm (UTC)

  6. Took nearly an hour; so, by my books, quite a challenging puzzle with many new words for me. Never heard of glyph nor omnium gatherum and I found it was not about going to the off-licence to collect a bottle of Bacardi. CHINWAY my favourite for misleading me to go search in the Himalayas for some strange animal.
  9. 2 minutes under the hour, but with several unparsed and one wrong at 17ac where I wrote SKYLARK and forgot to go back and check the wordplay.

    I explained 4dn eventually but it caused me some confusion because I always thought the dangly piece of jewellery was called a “teardrop”.

    It has been quite a difficult week for me so far.

  10. Wasn’t surprised to find I had an error, I mean OMNIUM GATHERUM? Really?

    Turns out I just mis-spelled LISZT (LISTT). And another 10 minutes wasted today by people wanting to talk about work.

    Great blog Z. But I consider myself to be a comfortable user of what might be called the Australian vernacular, and I’m pretty sure I’ve never used “drongo” in a conversation.

  11. Greetings from Lake Dorset. The tom-toms have been reconnected and we have survived: rain that has lifted manhole covers out of the ground and played marbles with them; winds that have plucked trees from the ground as if they were weeds; tides that have removed whole sections of shore line. To see a gentle, meandering river turned into an uncontrollable deluge of unimaginable power and ferocity has been a chastening experience. We have been lucky and thank all of you that sent us messages of goodwill and encouragement.

    The crosswords have been of a good standard recently and this one is no exception with some very smooth surface readings and interesting wordplays. 25 minutes with a lot of penny dropping as I spotted the well hidden definitions.

    1. Glad you’ve survived and are well. Did you notice your almost-nina this time last week (25674)?
      1. Can’t say that I did McT but Friday was the day all hell let loose here and we had to dig out the candles. Seems like years ago now rather than just a week.
    2. Good to hear you’re ok Jim. Even the famously parochial NY newspapers have taken note of your weather.
      1. Thank you Olivia. The last time I was in extreme weather was in your part of the world. A blizzard hit Hartford, Conneticut and we were snowed in for a couple of days. The roof of the sports centre collapsed under the weight of snow!
        1. Good to have you back Jimbo. A relief to know that it was just your broadband connection and not your home that fell victim to the floods.
        2. Jimbo, glad you’re safe. My recollection is that the Hartford Civic Center roof collapsed during the famous (over here) Blizzard of ’78, which was indeed horrific. I hope the ‘polar vortex’ thing we just had slides well north of you, or all of Dorset will likely become a gigantic ice cube. Here’s hoping. Best regards.
    3. Welcome back, jimbo. You were missed. You must have written in today’s RAINMAKER with a wry smile.

      Extreme weather is indeed chastening. I hope you can soon navigate the golf course without sonar.

      1. Thank you Sotira. At the moment I couldn’t even get there as it is cut off (the river runs through the course) and local roads are still closed. As to a RAINMAKER anybody trying that on would likely be cast into the river!
  12. I found this tough, but satisfying, and had it all finished bar one in about an hour. Took a little longer to see PICTURE WRITING (I nearly threw in ‘history’ in desperation…). Coming here, I found I too had ‘skylark’, assuming incorrectly that ‘lark’ was a sailor of some sort. I failed to parse ABSTINENCE (yep, I was going along the ‘pence’ route too) and ASSAILANT, so thanks for those. I

    Good to see you back, Jim, and thanks for the vivid weather report. Glad you’ve not suffered too badly.

    Edited at 2014-01-09 09:54 am (UTC)

  13. Welcome back Jim. I agree we are on a run of particularly good crosswords this week. I was pleased to remember omnium gatherum from the last time (or from Trollope, somebody lived in Gatherum Castle)
    Had to look up the meaning of drongo; then spent some time wondering how insectivorous songbirds came into it..
    1. Seems it’s from the name of a racehorse, in turn named after the bird. A.N.D has:

      Transf. use of drongo the name of a bird. Perh. infl. by its earlier use as the name of a racehorse (running between 1923 and 1925): see quots. 1924 and 1946.] A fool or simpleton, a ‘no-hoper’ (orig. of a Royal Australian Air Force recruit).

      1946 Salt (Melbourne) 8 Apr. 22 Drongo was the name of a horse who failed to win a race. … The horse retired in 1925 and after that anybody or anything slow or clumsy became a Drongo.

      1. I’m sure learned papers have been written on how Aussie language has been popularised in the UK through the medium of Neighbours and Home and Away, at least to a younger generation. See also “dag”, which cropped up in a recent weekend puzzle, not to mention “galah”.
        1. Now they ARE stupid. I have great flocks of them around the place most days. I defy any ornithologist to explain their strange behaviours.
  14. 14 and a half minutes, and enjoyably tough, with not too many write-ins. We often discuss lapses of memory here (I say “we”, I’m mainly thinking of “me”), so like Z. I was glad that when I was left with S_Y_A_K, and was about to fill in SKYLARK with extreme and misplaced confidence, something at the back of mind stopped me, and I remembered that I’d done exactly the same thing when SKYJACKER was the answer. Can it be that I am actually learning from my mistakes, not least that important rule about finding something in the wordplay to justify what you’re writing in? This changes everything…
  15. 30 mins, but with “skylark”, and I made two other errors until I sorted them out during the solve so I’m definitely having a bad week. I wrote in “entrant” at 15ac as a shortening of “gent rant”, and although I hadn’t written it in I was thinking “Oman” for 1dn as “Mona” with the bottom moved to the top without twigging that this would have given me “Amon”. Very poor. 9dn went in after I finally made some sense out of the anagram fodder, and 12ac took me an age even with all the checkers because I thought the wordplay was far more complicated than it turned out to be.
  16. I found this reasonably straightforward.33 minutes, with the last 5 spent sorting out the anagram for 9, then 18,24,26. I also went from SKYWARD, to SKYLARK, then SKYJACK, though I couldn’t work out the function of ‘going’; ‘out’ has already indicated the removal of E from SKYE, so surely ‘out’ or ‘going’ is otiose. What am I missing?
    2. I had exactly the same reservations dyste and I’m still not convinced. It’s inelegant at best.
      1. My reservations too. Ulaca’s is a possible reading, but I guess you could also take the “e” as being an abbreviation for “out east” as that phrase might be used in such a sentence as “he lives out east”. In that case “going” simply becomes an instruction to omit the “e”. But, I agree, not particularly convincing either way.
  17. 19:30, but with SKYLARK, not parsed properly, getting ARK from sailor’s,but overlooking the L.
    Couldn’t parse 23ac, so thanks for that.
  18. And so it was that, on the ninth day, my resolution to parse everything before submitting was broken. I’m pleading extreme provocation – surely there’s only one word that’s S_Y_A_K? Oh …

    As a solver who generally backs into the wordplay from checkers and definition, this was a gift of a puzzle. Surprised to see that only one other person appears to have solved it in a similar way.

    1. Not in the dictionaries, but there’s also SKYHAWK, the ever popular American fighter aircraft which the Argentines used with considerable effect and bravery (22 were shot down) against the threat of the Gurkha KUKRI (and the Royal Navy, of course).
      Perhaps more to our cause, The Sea Hawk is the title of a 1940 Errol Flynn movie in which he plays a swashbuckling buccaneer (is there any other kind?) which just might justify hawk as “sailor”. The Sea Hawks were, at least according to the film, a group of Francis Drake wannabees who terrorised Spanish fleets on behalf of Elizabeth.
      1. Chambers online puzzle solver thingy also throws up SKYWALK but it’s tough to tie WALK to sailor also.
        1. Not seeing skyjack I had skywalk on the very shaky s for sailor, key for island minus e, walk for going (I know, the going was good but it really doesn’t work), and the whole a kind of…flight.
    2. Though it might not be to everyone’s taste, today’s Independent puzzle is a piece of setting brilliance (but without the solving misery that that often implies).
      1. Thanks mohn, I can’t get the puzzle online as my work laptop can’t cope with the java but I’ve tracked down the paper and taken a photocopy.

        I’ll try the puzzle later. He’s a good lad is young Donk and has produced some brilliant clues in the past.

  19. having started on the wrong foot by penciling in 1A as unsalaried from definition, I soon realised my error when 2d, 3d & 4d fell in, and got there eventually in one of my usual pedestrian times.
    LOI Aver – for same reasons given above

    DKN Omnium;
    Drongo – I had a distant image of Paul Hogan using it (film or TV?) in a derogatory way;
    Blancmange – for those of us who watch Pointless, it was an answer in yesterday’s “words ending ..ange” round.

  20. Agree with Topicaltim – enjoyably tough with the NW corner taking the longest to fall – 11:46 for me.
  21. 17:17 but I fell into the Aden trap at 1d, blithely ignoring the fact that Aden isn’t a state. Stupid boy.

    Like Janie I nearly went with history writing at 12 and I took far too long to get wild goose chase as I seemed to have got fixated on horses.

    My brush with blancmange was even more recent than yesterday’s Pointless as just this morning I was deciding whether or not to get tickets to see Heaven 17 supported by Blancmange in March.

    COD to 19 for “the latest uprising”.

    Enjoyable puzzle, enjoyable blog. Glad to hear you’re OK Jimbo. Up here in Yorkshire where we’re supposed to have less clement weather than the south-west we’ve been let off very lightly so far (touch wood, etc).

    Edited at 2014-01-09 01:09 pm (UTC)

    1. Thanks Penfold. I had a meeting this am with two business people down from Lincoln. Their general attitude was that it was about time we suffered whilst the North indulged in some schadenfreude. I shall be consulting the local coven this evening and looking to exact revenge!
  22. I was amused by Lake Dorset, though you probably weren’t, Jim! Glad you have survived. Thanks to the Zedperson too for a good blog of another good puzzle.

    My only moan is OMNIUM GATHERUM, which is well obscure, being anagrammed. Most unfair.

    32 minutes.

    1. Thanks Chris. Adversity brings out the best in many people and with the help of our community we have managed to keep a sense of humour – no point moaning since nobody listens anyway!
  23. This was on a par with yesterday’s excellent puzzle, I thought – a challenging but not outrageously tough work-out, with lots of smooth surface readings and clever clueing. Very enjoyable.
  25. No plain sailing this – nor plane stealing – 17 ac caused me all sorts of problems until I got Know-all. 9dn sounds like Hermione in Harry Potter bewitching cyclists to bunch up. Very happy with 53 minutes of pleasurable slog.
  26. 23.58 but with a contorted skywalk. Really should have looked at it longer. Another good offering.
  27. DNF. Too many unknowns but the ones that I did do were on the whole nice. I always understood that if a Gurkha unsheathed his kukri, it had to draw blood, even if if was its owner’s. I can understand the Argentinians being wary.
  29. Around 25 mins with one wrong with my rationale being that the sailor was in the Navy Lark.
    1. That’ll be “left hand down a bit”, then, followed by the BBC sound effects department going into overdrive. Happy days!
  30. Completed over so many journeys, with a wrap up session at home this evening, that timing difficult – say an hour. Tricky, though most enjoyable, worth it for those “lightbulb” moments. Fell into the SKYLARK trap – I’d left the clue circled to go back to, and never did. The only write-ins for me were FETE, TUTU and KUKRI, all the others needed a modicum of thought and/or teasing out. Fell headlong into 5d’s heffalump trap of looking for countries close to the Malay Straits. LOI CHINWAG/GYMNAST.
  31. I had difficulty with a couple unknows – both EARDROP and Peardrops, and of course OMNIUM GATHERUM. But otherwise very much enjoyed this. My paper is covered with the little tick marks I put next to possible CODs.

    Good to see DJ has surfaced, and that the North Americans are dug out and unfrozen.

  32. About 30 minutes, ending with a laugh at SKYJACK. Yes, I thought of skylark and skywalk, and a whole lot more besides before I figured out the KNOW-ALL, but it finally came. I had to correct my SUKRI to KUKRI when I saw SKID, because I read the clue too literally and was using the US instead of the UK. Oops, but that happens often enough. Regards.
  33. ignore. LJ is doing that thing again where page 1 says 61 comments but page 2 says 54 and the last 7 are invisible (and above where I’m typing now it says 38!)
  34. 8:40 for me, slowed by the usual mixture of senior moments (e.g. taking ages to think of EXPAT) and pieces of nonsense (e.g. imagining 12ac was an anagram of “system of glyphs”).

    I too wasted time trying to remember if the verb STOT could mean “slide”. (It can’t! Though TOT would have matched “toddler” better than KID does.)

  35. Late solving session tonight, but all correct, which is a minor miracle.
    I also knew Omnium Gatherum from the excellent BBC Pallisers series, and went for ‘skyjack’ straight away. I thought that the possibility of ‘skyhawk’ was very ingenious, and the mention of the Errol Flynn movie reminded me of the super Korngold score. I recently bought a DVD of the Flynn “Robin Hood” and thoroughly enjoyed the score for that too.

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