26050 A fourth ‘and piece of work

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

It occured to me that a crossword in which the same word appears four times might set some sort of record, which would at least offer some distinctive for this one. Fastest of the week for me so far at 12.48, which, however, is still not back in the magic single digit zone and weighs in at 2 and a bit Jasons. This was certainly not the granite sheathed toughie we might have been expecting after a gentle week thus far, and the answers fairly fell in. Where the GK was slightly more demanding, the clues were almost all generous enough, as they were for those of us who go into  a tailspin when a dodgy spelling looks plausible, but is wrong.

This is how I tacked the range of questions:-

Across

1 CHAFFINCH  singer
Chaffinches are apparently renowned singers. In this incarnation; the chaffinch is constructed from the “linked series” which is a CHAIN. Followed by CH for church and containing two “Fs”for “Folios”.
6 BESET  Attacked from all sides
Defeat gives BEST, then insert an E appropriately
9 RAIN CATS AND DOGS  Pelt
The first of our “AND” clues, the well known expression for heavy rain. I don’t think it’s any more complex than “we describe pelting rain as being like these two furry pets”. I took a sidelong glance at the very idea of furry dogs (hairy, surely?) before deciding it wasn’t worth making a fuss.
10 EVEN SO nonetheless
EVENTS lose their T when timeless. Add an O(ld) for to complete.
11 ST HELENA  where he (Napoleon) died.
Is it our fault that Boney liked tio lick the wallpaper? S(mall) THE (article) and N(apoleon) in LEA (field). Assemble in the order given.
13 CONVEYANCE  carriage
I half feared an attack of the Heyer compendium of wheeled vehicles, but it’s not that obscure. For the wordplay, start with CONVINCE for “bring round”  then swap the I(ndependance) for an AYE (as in och the noo) reversed.
14 ANTI  Opposing
Hidden (as are many interesting stories of the weird kind) in the ForteAN TImes. I tried to create a link to it, but its pages remained, um, hidden. Spooky.
16 TYKE  cur
The Y version of the Yorkshireman/dog (you decide). The “outward” bits of T(rustwort)Y K(nav)E
17 JOURNEYMAN reliable worker
The trip is a JOURNEY, the island MAN. I had journeyman as a run-of-the-mill worker, but it can also be “someone who is competent at his trade” (BRB)
19 ARCHAISM  primitive style
The first two in ARabian plus CHASM (gulf wthout the capital G) wrapped around 1, forsooth.
20 CHERUB  sweet little one.
Young animal is CUB, the female’s (possessive ‘) HER. Assemble. My apologies if your computer is seized and the link interpreted as child pornography.
23 SLINGS AND ARROWS adversities
And not, as expectation forces on you, adversaries, which doesn’t work. Think Hamlet and the outrageous fortune variety. SLING: Arm supporter (clever, that); SAND: smooth; A: a; R(esistance); ROWS: Fight’s. And our second clue with an and.
24 SUGAR carbohydrate
Tease gives RAG, and American US. Conflate and reverse
25 PASSERS BY random strangers
PASSERS succeed in exams, and BY is using technique (of): I did it by guesswork/Holmesian deduction)

Down

1 CURVE (shown in) graph
CURE for “remedy” picks up a V(irus)
2 ALIVE AND KICKING hardly subdued
A heavy defeat is interpreted as A KICKING, [or in fact A LICKING, which has the advantage of having enough Ls and not too many Ks – Thanks Jack!] into which you insert an anagram of NAIVE and a gutted D(ale)K. Stand by for the traditional complaint about the intrusion of popular culture. Oh, and our third “and” clue
3 FOCUSSED with attention concentrated
F(oreign) O(ffice) meets CUSSED. No arguments about one S or two, please.
4 NUTS  crazy
My oath, these are easy. T(ime) amid the N(ational) U(nion of) S(tudents)
5 HEALTH CARE  NHS business
As in “the business of the NHS is…” No silly political tiffs, please. Pounds are (is?) £, which is (are?) thrown into HEAT or excitement, and followed by an anagram (frantic) of REACH
6 BUDGET  at low cost
Oh, come on. Shift=BUDGE, plus T(ons)
7 SMOKE AND MIRRORS
The magician’s (and the average Chancellor’s) stock in trade. If you see “Somehow” at the beginning of the clue, somehow you just know it’s an anagram. Pick the inevitable AND out of MISS NOD OR REMARK and throw the rest up in the air. Sooner or later they’ll land in the right order. Fourth “and”.
8 TASMANIAN Like certain devils
Since gives AS, frenzy, MANIA. Insert into the standard abbreviation for TENNESSEE. Well, it’s not going to be TE, is it?
12 RAZOR SHARP  Very keen
OK, one you have to work at a bit. Swimmer’s back R, Atlantic islands AZORES. Cull the E(uropean). Add the HARP seal. Ahhh!
13 CATHARSIS  emotional purification.
At last, one that might be a bit obscure for some. Medieval Christians sects include the CATHARS. “Exists” gives you the IS for the nice Greek word which means pretty much what it says here. Read about the Cathars here, then put seeing Carcassonne on your bucket list. It’s worth it.
15 RECHARGE  put more juice in
An anagram or brew of endless GREE(n) that CHAR (tea) “stops” or plugs.
18 BADGER  Harass
Naughty, BAD GERman. Are Germans ever naughty?
21 BUSHY a shock (sc of hair) might be described thus
So might a bush. Wrap up is SH, which you insert into BUY, interpreting fall for.
22 ODDS  probability.
I haven’t seen a Doctor of Divinity here for a while (that’s the theologian) but OS for outsize turns up all the time. Stick one in t’other and place your bets

53 comments on “26050 A fourth ‘and piece of work”

  1. 28 minutes – ‘busby’ was tempting at 21d, my last in.

    I can now add not noticing ‘ands’ to the ever growing list of things I don’t notice: pangrams, ninas, themes. Oh yes, and quite a bit of wordplay.

  2. Can’t believe I’m left unsatisfied by a sub-20, but I was headed for my first ever weekday sub-10 until I ground to a halt with BUSHY(couldn’t see how “wrap up” clued SH. Still can’t.) and RAZOR-SHARP which I stared at in fear for nearly eight minutes, completely misconstruing the clue. Not helped by assuming the second half was STAMP, because of the “seal” in the clue.

    Up until then it was a series of write-ins, despite not knowing much about CATHARS or CHAFFINCHes.

    Great fun, pity I choked under pressure. Thanks setter and blogger.

      1. Yeah, I assumed that was the case, but I’m not buying it. Have you ever heard it used that way in a real conversation? Given the number of times I get asked to stop talking I’m sure I’d have encountered it by now!

        Wrap up, wrap it up, etc for “bring to a conclusion” is obviously quite common, but that’s not synonymous with “sh”.

        Funny you mention the Saffers, I felt a little like Alan Donald standing mid-pitch without his bat (ah, the memory) as I stared at that final clue. And FWIW I’m skeptical that a walk in the park against a dismal Sri Lanka will be enough to slay their demons when it really counts.

  3. … no stupid mistakes today. Probably my favourite grid, with the 4 x 15 going in right away. Liked 8dn best. Went with the grandsons not long ago to see the devils at Peel Zoo, just south of here in WA. One of the little blighters had got out just prior to the visit and ended up trapped in someone’s bathroom. Caused all sorts of damage for such a small creature.
      1. If you have little ‘uns, yes. Mention my name to David, the owner, and you’ll likely get a discount. Feel free to drop by on the way through eh?
        1. My littlest little ‘un is sixteen now, but she’s still obsessed with animals, so possibly a school holiday outing.

          And yes, we are well overdue for a catch-up.

  4. 33 minutes and just missed achieving my 30 minute target on two consecutive days because of assuming STAMP as the second word at 12dn and BOSSY at 21dn.

    Incidentally “wrap up” meaning “be quiet” was in common use in our family home, more often than not aimed in my direction.

    I think 2dn should be parsed as A, anagram of NAIVE D(ale)K inside LICKING (heavy defeat).

    Edited at 2015-03-19 06:00 am (UTC)

  5. sorry to prolong it but i’m with galspray on this. so far i seem to be the only one who thought 18d was an anagram of german – and manger was a word i didn’t know for harass. 15.21. and in 12 days i can throw away my sling – yay.
    2. I suppose it might just work in the French version of “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape”. Probably not enough grounds for an appeal, though.
      Glad to hear the arm supporter is serving its purpose.
  6. As I understand it, a Journeyman was someone who’d reached master craftsman status and thus could travel around offering his professional services where employment was needed. Think masons moving from cathedral to cathedral in the Middle Ages.
    Thanks z8 for parsing 21d. I guessed this as the answer having run through all the other options (busty, bossy, Bessy etc), but couldn’t for the life of me see why.
    Incidentally, re the comments about 22d, are Doctors of Divinity like buses? They appear in the Quickie today too. I haven’t checked the Telegraph or Guardian today, but I wouldn’t be surprised…
    1. Yes, I think that’s right, and my less appreciative impression of the word is a misunderstanding which I have had to ditch today. Crosswords (especially the Times) have their uses.
      For my next trick, I’ll go and find a journeyman and apologise to him as a representative of all of his kind.
      1. Oxford has as its first sense the meaning with which you (and I) are more familiar (‘journeyman pro’): ‘A worker or sports player who is reliable but not outstanding’.
        2. Is that OED? That would surprise me, since historically, at least, a journeyman was a craftsman who had completed his apprenticeship (but not, pace deezzaa, reached master status. To do that he’d have to (spend a few more years working and) present a masterwork to his guild. The ‘good but not great’ meaning is a later extension; I thought OED listed definitions in historical order.
          1. No, I was referring to the Oxford Dictionary of English (ODE) – more accurately, in fact, to its online version ODO – which displays not chronologically (like OED) but by most common meaning.
  7. Yep, very quick, but that hardly matters when I’ve two wrong ‘uns today: busby, and manger (a la Olivia). Oops.
  8. 10m, so nice and gentle with a lot of post-solve parsing of BIFD answers. I hesitated over or was puzzled by a few things:
    > TYKE: I’ve only ever heard this word applied to children.
    > JOURNEYMAN: in my experience this word is always used to damn with faint praise so it took me a while to see it.
    > SLINGS AND ARROWS: I read ‘adversaries’ and never saw it wasn’t even when it became obvious that this had to be the answer.
    > PASSERS BY: I failed to see why BY meant ‘using technique of’ but by then I was solving by BIFD so in it went.
    > Never heard of the HARP seal (or more likely forgotten it since the last time it appeared here)
    > I didn’t understand ‘wrap up’ for SH. I was very much in galspray’s camp on this one but from Jack’s comment it’s obviously just a usage I didn’t know.
  9. 14:43 … with a good five minutes on BUSHY. The penny half-dropped in the end, but I’m also not familiar with ‘wrap up’ for ‘be quiet’ and had to convince myself it was plausible.

    Bigtone’s logical proof notwithstanding, I’m 110% certain that tomorrow’s puzzle will be very difficult.

  10. 9 mins. I biffed three of the four long answers because they seemed obvious from definition, enumeration and checkers, and I didn’t bother going back to parse them. The only one I didn’t biff was the barely cryptic 9ac. JOURNEYMAN was my LOI because of the use of “reliable” in the clue. I’m genuinely surprised so many of you have never come across the required meaning of “wrap up”.
    1. Like galspray, I have come across ‘wrap up’ to mean ‘bring your conversation to a close’, but I don’t think this is the same as ‘be quiet’. I’ve never come across the usage mentioned by Jack.
  11. As, I think, the only person so far who’d heard of the required meaning, perhaps I should mention that it’s in all the usual sources described variously as “imperative”, “imperative slang” and “British informal”.
    1. It didn’t cross my mind that, in this context, it could be anything but when I put it in, and of course when I wrote the blog. I didn’t even check the sources. I think it might be a bit dated, as I seem to associate it in my mind with Jennings, Bunter and possibly Minder, but definitely a straight swap. So, yes, the dissent has taken me by surprise.
      1. I don’t think there’s much dissent, just lots of people who’ve never heard it!
        1. Yep, no dissent here, just genuine surprise. In Australia we get exposed to a lot of British (and American) popular culture, so most slang terms are familiar, but this one has passed me by.

          Z, it can’t have been used in Minder, there’s no way I would have missed that!

  12. Pretty easy, especially the top half. I did wonder if I was going to have to guess 21 out of four possibilities that I could think of, but after a couple of minutes I saw the wordplay. 22 minutes, rather quicker than my average time.
  13. About 35 min for me — so clearly on the easy side (by my standards). A stinker tomorrow?

    Thanks to Z8 for explaining CONVEYANCE, the full parsing of which eluded me. BUSHY, gave me pause, as it did quite a few others it would seem, and was my LOI. I don’t think I’ve personally encountered “wrap up” in the sense of “be quiet/sh”, as opposed to something one might rudely say to a speaker who had been droning on for too long — but I suppose it comes to much the same thing in the end.

  14. 17 min – with first half of acrosses being write-ins, thought I was heading for a record time, but the later downs were more recalcitrant. At 12, ‘seal’ gave me sHARP at once, though the required islands didn’t come to mind for a while. Finally it took some time to remember the Cathars, so 13ac was LOI after 13dn.
  15. . . . so harder than yesterday, at least for me. Am steering clear of the Wrap Up discussion as this was a no-brainer, again for me. I hope that the logical paradox of a week back is correct (and that sotira is not (sorry!)) and that tomorrow is not a complete stinker. That is the job of certain Sunday ones! I will however get up early in case.

    Edited at 2015-03-19 11:50 am (UTC)

    1. Please don’t get the Sunday setters revved up too much! As the new blogger for every other ST, I’m still contemplating changing my handle to something involving Icarus…

      Fairly easy fare today, but tackled in awkward circumstances so I made heavier weather of it than I should have done.

      Whilst wrap up has probably been done to death by now, I would add that I’m pretty sure I recall Auntie Beeb’s “Points of View” in the early ’60s being besieged by correspondents outraged by the proliferation of “coarse and vulgar phrases such as ‘wrap up’ and ‘shut up’ in popular programmes like Z Cars…” (or words to that effect)

      Those were the days, when the viewing public expected Brummie coppers to speak like Noel Coward

      Edited at 2015-03-19 01:07 pm (UTC)

      1. Nick, if you get stuck on an ST (a Dean special?) you can always send an LJ message to one of us regulars, especially those in a similar time zone. Saves panicking the whole day!
      2. Brummie coppers in Z-cars? I don’t remember that. They were in Lancashire cum Merseyside but I think some characters may have been from Yorkshire and there was Jock Weir from north of the border and Bert Lynch from Belfast, but I don’t recall a single Brummie type.
  16. I wrapped this up in 25m so the easiest one for me for a while. I had confidently BIFD several answers so was pleased that I checked through and realised that ET CETERA at 11a was just plain wrong and then realised that speed biffing is not a good idea since I had moved ‘nonetheless’ from the clue above to reach in a vague sort of way my incorrect answer. Earlier today I was standing on the banks of the Tees listening to two chaffinches in a singing duel no doubt to impress an unseen lady chaffinch. So I can confirm Z’s comment on their singing prowess and 1a gets my COD vote.
  17. 14:35 with a bit of a mess in places.

    At first I decided that 9 had to be something LIKE THE something, then LIKE cats and dogs.

    At 12 I didn’t know the seal so faced with S-A-P I decided that type of seal was the def and put in an unparsed STAMP for the second word.

    My brain also had trouble skipping checked As so that I wrote in AA instead of AL for alive and did a similar thing with conveyAAce.

  18. 16 mins which is pretty fast for me. Would have been quicker but for the assumption of “stamp” for seal for a few minutes. Currently reading a book on the Albigensian Crusade so Cathars came straight to mind.
  19. I did manage to consider ‘fall for’=BU Y at 21d, but could make nothing of the remaining letters, be they SH (which I finally went for) or ST or SB; indeed, I could make nothing of the clue as an English sentence. So although I got my 600 points, a DNF, really. Like Olivia, I took ‘naughty’ as anagrist at first, and tried to rearrange both ‘German’ AND ‘harass’. Not looking forward to tomorrow.
  20. About 25 minutes for me, with the same difficulties as expressed by keriothe. LOI was JOURNEYMAN, since clearly it took me a while to recall that meaning. Nevertheless, got through OK so thanks to blogger and setter. Regards.
  21. About 25 minutes today. Nice puzzle – steady solve with no long hold-ups. Thank you setter and blogger.
  22. I’m in the MANGER set, too (BAD GER? I’m not even too disappointed at not having seen that — I would have been surprised if I had). And I also couldn’t explain the SH in BUSHY, but it was really the only word that would fit. COD to RAZOR SHARP, which took ages to see — I too was sure the bottom half would turn out to be STAMP for the seal and the top would be FAROES or the like for the Atlantic Islands — it was only when STAMP faded to SHARP (or keen) that the rest fell into place.
  23. 7:32 for me, feeling a lot less tired than I did yesterday, thank goodness! I was momentarily tempted by MANGER and BUSBY, but managed to resist, perhaps because I’d already been tempted by EVER SO and ET CETERA simply because they fitted. No problem with “wrap up” = SH, which seems familiar enough. Nice puzzle.
  24. Not timed, but probably about 40min. And I’ve just noticed my mistaken MANGER. D**n!, as it used to be printed.

    I spent a long time trying to make sense of 21d, and had narrowed it down to BOSKY, BUSHY or possibly the unlikely BASHY (no, I know it’s not a word). Good job I didn’t even think of BUSBY. I couldn’t parse any of them, though, and fortunately plumped for the right one.

    On re-examining 21d, I still don’t like the clue, because the surface reads very badly.

  25. As ever I got a percentage done but your explanations for the others were much appreciated. I’m sure they’ll help me improve.
    1. You’re very welcome. We’d appreciate your input on the ones you found particularly tricky – it encourages the others!

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