26278, in which much is owed to Billy Joe, Gollum, J. R. Hartley, and Shakespeare

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
….not to mention Herman Melville, Jill Mansell, Michael Crichton and Harriet Beecher Stowe. And the man who wrote “any time not spent on love is wasted.” Which rather puts us logophiles firmly in our place, as I’m sure our significant others would confirm. So book-infested is this puzzle that, with a bit of clue treatment and a couple of misprints, this could easily turn up again as a TLS puzzle, and might well. There are a few scraps thrown to the more scientifically-minded, I suppose, with some meteorology, geometry and pre-LED lighting technology, but you can tell the setter’s heart’s not in it. I took 17.36, trying, but not quite succeeding, to parse everyrhing on the way though and checking carefully to ensure nul points in the error column. Here’s what I thunk:

Across

1 ARC-LAMP   light
A CLAMP (that sort of brace) cuddles the front of Reading
5 FATIGUE  exhaustion
Decide destiny is FATE, initially in is I, and 50% of men is GUys, and assemble.
9 PROFUSELY  in great abundance
Most crossword sees are ELY. Academics, or PROFS, surround U(niversity) and are placed ahead of the Ship of the Fens
10 SHEAF  bundle
Take bosS ultimately, and HE man, with A F(ollowing)
11 CATER Provide
Hidden in musiC AT ERfurt. This time you don’t need to know anything about Erfurt to get the entry, but as it happens, music at Erfurt was almost certainly Pachelbel’s greatest hit.
12 INAMORATO  lover
Very shortly provides IN A MO, and an O(ld) TAR rebuffed or reversed provides the rest, and makes sure you put an O on the end, not an A
14 A WALK IN THE PARK  A piece of cake
…or something a Setter might enjoy if he were a dog rather than a crossword compiler, though what do I know?
17 UNCLE TOM’S CABIN  novel
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s pioneering anti-slavery tract/loathsome racist stereotyping (take your pick). Here’s how our version is created: Cat is TOM, pawnbroker’s car is UNCLE’S CAB, and “in” is – um – IN. Insert part 1 into part 2, and attach part 3 to the rear.
21 APPETISER  hors-d’ouvre
The letters of PRAISE are redistributed around your favourite PET
23 ALIEN Extraterrestrial
Brings together two of the greatest space pioneers of all time (so far). If not Yuri G(agarin) then NEIL A(rmstrong) the latter being “brought back”. My favourite of the day. Gagarin’s incredibly courageous flight was 54 years ago. Arrrgh!
24 SCANT Inadequate
Two standards: container is CAN, street, ST. Assemble
25 KITTIWAKE  Seabird
A “said” KITTY or pool (think poker) and a ship’s track to provide the WAKE. A migratory visitor from a very recent ST grid.
26 CONCERN  business
Or indeed, “have something to do with”
27 SEGMENT  Part of circle
Ecstatic gives SENT, English E, and variety of crop is the genetically modified version, GM. Assemble.

Down

1 ASPECT Outlook
Poisonous type is ASP, City (the postcode) is EC plus T(rader) “originally”
2 CHOCTAW native of SE USA
H(ot) OCT(ober) in CA(lifornia) plus W(ith). And yes, you have heard the word (earworm alert). Choctaw Ridge is the location of the Talahatchie Bridge, from which Billy Joe leapt to his doom in Bobby Gentry’s song.
3 AQUARELLE  [watercolour] painting
A row is A QUARREL, in which you are invited to ignore one R(ight) before placing the mutilated collection over the French for “the”. That’ll be LE, then.
4 PRECIPITOUS  very steep
Treasured indicates PRECIOUS, Gollum’s epithet for “his” One Ring. A mine is a PIT. Surround one with the other.
5 FLY  Canny
Or a fisherman’s fly. I’ll risk saying that a doctor is a type of fly as used by J R Hartley. The only time I went fishing, I caught my own top lip, and vowed never to do that to a fish.
6 TASSO  Poet
Two S(ons) are taken by TAO, Chinese philosophy. Torquato Tasso is, it turns out, not Latin but 15th century Italian. Thought highly of love, as his quote above indicates
7 GRENADA  Caribbean Island
Our politician is a GREEN, with the central E taken out. Add AD for publicity and the remaining A.
8 ELFLOCKS  Tangled hair
Turns up in the Queen Mab verses in Romeo and Juliet. Probably easier to get from the wordplay. The Spanish congregations are (slightly ungrammatically) el flocks.
13 ALTOSTRATUS  cloud
Working girls are TARTS (not necessarily my opinion), here inverted in a confusion of LOUTS and tagged onto the remaining A in the clue.
15 EMANATING  proceeding
Put the letters of GENT and MANIA together and stir (“misguided”).
16 JURASSIC  of a certain age
Scottish island JURA and SIC (thus) accomodate the S(outh) pole
18 CAPTAIN  Ahab was one
Liable provides APT, and Adam’s loins produce CAIN with a bit of help from Eve. Insert one into the other.
19 IMITATE  copy
Fellow, for no particular reason, gives TIM. Add I and invert, and add A note TE.
20 INGEST  Do this to food…
… and think “goodness, that sounds a lot like in jest”
22 TITHE  tax
Article is THE, and wine is IT, short for Italial Vermouth, as in gin and it
25 KIN  family
Peel is sKIN, lose the S, the last letter of Whigs, as instructed

56 comments on “26278, in which much is owed to Billy Joe, Gollum, J. R. Hartley, and Shakespeare”

  1. Home and dry in 26 minutes

    FOI UNCLE TOM’S CABIN LOI ELFLOCKS

    Easiest Thursday for a few weeks.

    Nothing stood out.

    horryd Shanghai

  2. 31 minutes but with fat fingers on a crossing letter.

    Torquato Tasso was actually a 16th century Italian poet, most famous for his Gerusalemme Liberata – a worthy successor to Boiardo and Ariosto, and a major influence on Spenser’s Faerie Queene.

    1. Yes indeed. I distinctly remember looking up Tasso’s dates, both beginning with 15, and telling myself that I’d only look stupid if I recorded that as 15th century. Which turns out to be true.

      1. Another literary connection: Boiardo wrote Orlando Innamorato (referenced at 12a with a slightly different spelling).

        Edited at 2015-12-10 06:20 am (UTC)

  3. Biff City, I’m afraid, but the puzzle invited biffing. I mean, ‘pawnbroker’=uncle, think of titles with ‘Uncle’ in them, eliminate Vanya after due consideration, and Bob’s your pawnbroker. (And one can easily consider the novel as both, Z.) And so on. We’ve had two KITTIWAKEs recently; I spelled it correctly the second time. Five clues specifying an initial or final letter: 5ac, 9ac, 10ac, 1d, 25d. COD to ALIEN.
    1. I wouldn’t really call that biffing: you’re using the wordplay, just not all of it. This applies to most of my solving: more often than not there is some aspect of the clue I don’t fully understand when I put in the answer.
  4. 35 minutes to get to the KITTIWAKE/INGEST crossing, and another 4 to get the latter. I was so delighted to have all but two letters under 40 minutes (albeit on a not very difficult puzzle) that I stopped there to look up the seabird.

    I suspected many of the answers straight away but then got held up trying to check them against the wordplay. A lot of bits and pieces in this puzzle were new to me.

    Surely working girls may be PROS, but TARTS? That’s a bit harsh.

    I also thought we might have ‘see’ = V and was looking for something like PROVIDENT at 9A.

    Very much enjoyed learning the term ELFLOCKS, which I wake up with every morning.

    Thanks to z8b8d8k for the blog. I am still trying in vain to figure out the pronunciation of your name.

    Edited at 2015-12-10 05:00 am (UTC)

    1. Just as ‘walk in the park’ may be the result of setter attentiveness to one of Dorset Jimbo’s favourite expressions, so may the use of tart have something to do with the fact that there are some on this board who regularly cavil at its use. Probably not, but we all love our conspiracy theories, like Monday puzzles are easier than those on any other day of the working week.
      1. In my case it’s not a conspiracy theory, but an objective observation of data. The conspiracy theory is the suggestion that this is done deliberately and then covered up by successive editors for dark and mysterious reasons. I’d struggle with that idea even if I could think of a reason to do it!

    2. The 8s are As, the only configuration LJ would allow, every other variation apparently already taken. See Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Titch. Thanks for asking!

    3. Meant to ask you on Saturday but got distracted. What is the significance of your nom de blog Jeremy?
      1. No significance. It’s a creature from The Legend of Zelda, which I used to play almost 30 years ago. Well before I started creating internet names, so I have no idea why I started using it. Maybe I’ll change it to ‘plusjeremy’ if I can, which has more of the mathematical flavo(u)r which fits me (and which matches my email address).

        +j

  5. A very enjoyable 37 minute solve with plenty of give-aways but also odd clues in every quarter but the SW that resisted my efforts until the last couple of minutes: EMANATING, CHOCTAW, AQUARELLE, PROFUSELY GRENADA and ELFLOCKS.

    The last of these was new to me and a quick Google suggests it has only come up once previously, in July 2007, shortly before I discovered TftT on which occasion it took a hyphen.

    Edited at 2015-12-10 05:16 am (UTC)

  6. 22mins + another 5 for ELFLOCKS. Only unknown today was CHOCTAW (and ELFLOCKS, lovely word), and only bit of unparsing was the GU for 50% men. On the easy side.
  7. Flew through all but the unfamiliar ELFLOCKS and AQUARELLE in 10 minutes. I must have met elflocks before but it never registered. It is indeed a lovely word (and much safer than suggesting to one’s other half that they appear to have been dragged through a hedge backwards, so thank you for that, setter).

    Turns out I flew a bit too quickly, ending up with an AUTOSTRATUS (a very fast Italian cloud).

  8. I must have been on the right wavelength today as all done and dusted before the train reached Waterloo. I’m not very literary though, so didn’t spot the high percentage of such references until I came here to read the blog. The fact that even I was able to get all the answers must mean that the clues were all fair, rather than relying on a lot of arcane bookish (rather than general) knowledge, so well done setter. Nice blog too Zab.

    I didn’t know AQUARELLE or the poet, but they were easily gettable from the clues.

  9. I enjoyed this, possibly because I have a subconscious bias in favour of puzzles with a literary flavour, and even though I had to learn (or possibly re-learn, as usually turns out to be the case with “new” words) AQUARELLE and ELFLOCKS.

    Elves’ hair in Tolkien seems to be long and straight and so lustrous it could be used in a shampoo commercial. This might have confused the matter if I hadn’t come to the correct conclusion that it’s what elves do to your hair, not their own (though the Tolkien elves obviously had better things to do than go messing with people’s barnets).

  10. In case you haven’t seen it (overseas solvers, especially) GCHQ has produced a puzzle for Christmas, probably more for those of a Sudoku persuasion.

    Article here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/12041894/GCHQ-Christmas-card-question-Do-you-know-the-puzzle-answer.html

    Link here: http://www.gchq.gov.uk/SiteCollectionImages/grid-shading-puzzle.jpg

    Apparently it’s the first in a series. Once you’ve completed the series you send the solution to a revealed email address, though frankly this seems like window dressing — they already know who you are.

    Edited at 2015-12-10 09:18 am (UTC)

    1. I wish you hadn’t. There went my Thursday! lol. I slaved away a couple of hours on the nonogram, enjoyed the level 2 puzzles and liked the crossword clues at level 3, but it got too hard for me and the kids needed to be fed. Definitely not a 14a and 5a has set in. Anyone get all the way through?

      Edited at 2015-12-10 09:12 pm (UTC)

      1. I didn’t realise the other ‘levels’ were accessible yet, John. How do you access the live puzzle? Do you need to be on the “Director’s Christmas card list”? The link I gave seems to lead only to a static download of the nonogram.

        p.s. or is that the point of the nonogram? I haven’t attempted it yet.

        edit: sorry for ruining your plans for Thursday!

        Edited at 2015-12-11 08:54 am (UTC)

        1. I was only kidding. Thank-you to directing us to the entertainment. Yes. Once you’ve solved the nonogram you will be able to find the rest of the puzzle.
          1. Thanks, John. I’m not a lover of nonograms but I’ll have to do that one now. There goes my weekend, I imagine.
              1. Just overrun yesterday, I guess.

                I’m now at the same point John reached and … hm … might be as far as I go.

  11. I can’t resist it – this was a 14A! It also contains the Dorset coastline at 16D.

    Although very bookish the literary clues were mainly common references so I had no problem with them. I think I’ve seen ELFLOCKS more recently than 2007 – probably barred crossword – but cryptic was easy enough

    Nice blog again z8 (did I say that right?)

  12. 17:22. Nothing too difficult, although ELFLOCKS was new to me. I also enjoyed 14a… and z8b’s entertaining elucidation of it all. Thanks.
  13. 9m. Straightforward but with some nice touches. I am glad to make the acquaintance of ELFLOCKS, and I liked the astronaut clue. A fair bit of biffing today but a degree of attention was required in places: making sure it’s not spelled CHOKTAW, for instance.
  14. Another 40-minute solve, so similar to yesterday’s. It wasn’t hard, but some held me up for longer than they should, especially the cloud lover with the tangled hair.
  15. Tim’s remark about Orlando Bloom’s hair and shampoo commercials made me giggle. I knew the word from Jane Eyre (where it’s hyphenated in my edition). It comes in the scene where Rochester dresses up as a gypsy fortune-teller to try to trick Jane into revealing her thoughts. Also had a good laugh at Z’s introductory comment about the TLS puzzles. We aficionados know all too well what he means although it’s much better since PB has been minding the store. Oh, I forgot 14.22.

    Edited at 2015-12-10 12:11 pm (UTC)

  16. Pleasant literary stuff. I did not make the immediate connection between 14ac and jimbo, but did with 16dn. Anyway, in my head it is a STROLL in the park. Thanks for the blog z8

    Edited at 2015-12-10 01:01 pm (UTC)

  18. Enjoyable and on the whole straightforward puzzle. I like the literary stuff, so no complaints on that score. I also liked 14A’s nod of homage to the Sage of Dorset who I am not surprised to learn found this, as he often finds other puzzles, no more than a stroll in the proverbial.
  19. Feel like I might have been vying with the mighty Magoo on the leaderboard today if it hadn’t been for my fat fingers – 5:30, but that was including hitting “print” instead of “play” and fumbling around with that for a while, and generally not typing very well elsewhere. A lot of the answers were very biffable, as others have already pointed out, which helped a lot.
  20. KITTIWAKE and INAMORATO are just crossword words to me. And AQUARELLE I think. DNK TASSO or ELFLOCKS, but the wordplay got us there in the end.

    COD to CHOCTAW simply because it gave Z an excuse to link to Bobby Gentry, although I went to the longer version. Yours is missing a verse Z. And that bridge in your clip doesn’t look like it would have served Billy Joe’s purpose, lick o’ sense or not.

    Anyway, thanks setter and Z. And top hats off to Verlaine.

  21. 19:01. When I read the blog and it mentioned the plethora of literary clues I realised I hadn’t particularly noticed. Which I think goes to show that everything was very gettable from cryptics today (or I have more literary knowledge than I might think).

    Jimbo’s nod to the Jurassic Coast has reminded me of probably my favourite part of the UK. Up until then the Jura part of the clue had me thinking about whisky. Hopefully Santa’s going to bring me plenty!

  22. 15:08. I can’t really say what sent me past 15 minutes, probably the lurgy I’ve been unable to shift for three weeks and a late night after driving across the Pennines following a gig in Manchester.

    Perfectly sound standard Times fare, with in a mo and Neil A giving it a bit of a lift.

  23. Breezy puzzle, took less than half the tea-break in the Australia vs West Indies drubbing part 1 – though I didn’t work out the rest of the wordplay to UNCLE TOM’S CABIN
  24. … after bracing game of golf and indulgent Christmas lads’ lunch, managed to finish this off in 25 minutes with the eyes sometimes closed; didn’t know ELFLOCKS but wordplay clear enough.
    Having trouble downloading the GCHQ picture, either their site is being hacked or they’re too busy hacking me.
    1. If you go to that Telegraph article, Pip, and right-click and save their image of the puzzle, it prints just fine.
  26. 17 mins. I would have been quicker but stupidly entered “inamorata” at 12ac without reading the clue properly, and I only fixed when I couldn’t make 8dn work. Even after entering the correct INAMORATO it still took me longer than it should to get my LOI, ELFLOCKS. CHOCTAW took a while to see and it was only after I got it that I saw A WALK IN THE PARK because, for once, setter/dog didn’t occur to me. Muppet.
  27. Took me 25 minutes, but that was after dinner with a bottle of wine. I don’t know if that counts an excuse.. Didn’t know of ELFLOCKS or why ‘GM’ has anything to do with a type of crop, but got there in the end without great trouble. Regards.
  28. Well, I always had a suspicion that my brain was only a dead weight holding me back from greater things, and now I know it. I was up at 5am for a flight, have spent most of the day talking to people and to lawyers, and didn’t get a chance to tackle the puzzle until after a second much-needed G&T, by which time my brain was almost completely dormant. As a result, I just had to let my hand fill in the answers as best it could, and I finished in half an hour – significantly better than my average of the last few weeks.

    Everything went in smoothly (the answers, that is, not the G&Ts, although they did), with ELFLOCKS my only NHO. I’m now trying to imagine a Rasta version of Legless (or whatever the elf was called in Tolkien’s interminable ring cycle).

    AQUARELLE was half-known, as was TASSO. I spent a while not writing in KITTIWAKE because it had cropped up very recently and I wasn’t going to fall for it until I’d figured out the parsing.

    I am now off to celebrate with a third G&T.

    1. Hello there, Andrew. LiveJournal has just reminded me that it’s your birthday today (11 Dec), so here’s wishing you Many Happy Returns.

      (I quite agree with you about Z8’s blog entries: very enjoyable – apart perhaps from his spelling of “accommodate” 🙂

      PS: You are Poat, aren’t you? If so, I’ll write you a separate note about Five One-Time Pads. (I don’t want to incur the wrath of the Listener Crossword Police by discussing it openly before the solution is published. Neither they nor anyone else should take this comment as an indication of whether or not I’ve completed the puzzle or indeed got any further than reading the preamble.)

      2. Why thank you both! I’ll try to accommi… accoma.. acomed… take on board your spelling concern.

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