Times Crossword 25,224 – no bloomers

Author   JerryWPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving Time: About 22 minutes for this. Having spent the day at Camber Sands with my two grandchildren, aka the Tiny Tyrants, I might not be on top form – certainly some of these clues seem very easy, in retrospect. Maybe there will be some fast times. Having said that there is nothing at all wrong with the crossword, I enjoyed it. What’s more, there are still one or two clues I can’t parse, hopefully all will become clear in the course of the blog

cd = cryptic definition, dd = double definition, rev = reversed, anagrams are *(–).

ODO means the Oxford Dictionaries Online

Across
1 omitted.. ask if puzzled
6 champ – dd. Champ as in champ at the bit
9 germane – GERMAN + E
10 observe – dd
11 tag – (S)TAG
12 turtle doves – *(STUDE(N)T + LOVER). Only now do I spot the anagram.. this is a clever clue, referring to That Song, the only line of which that is worth singing being day 5.
14 dither – DIT(C)HER. As always, heartless means the exact centre of the word
15 splendid – pickpockets = DIPS rev., containing advance = LEND
17 camisole – (Old King) COLE containing AM + IS.
19 falcon – I think I need help with this one. A falcon is a winged hunter. *(CALF) can make FALC… must be more to it though. Can “no” = “that falls,” reversed to make ON? On edit: It is indeed *(CALF), with “that falls” as the anagrind, and then simply over = ON. Thanks to jackkt. With hindsight, I made too much out of a relatively simple clue.
22 omitted.. ask if puzzled
23 lie – LIE(D)
25 lunette – instrument = LUTE containing NET (curtains). I was chuffed to write this straight in, as lunettes are few and far between in these parts. It normally refers to a half-moon shaped window
27 sandpit – smooth = SAND + suggestion = TIP, rev.
28 sense – a dd I suppose. Divine = sense seems straightforward enough, but judgment = sense? Presumably as in good judgment = good sense
29 super bowl – another one that I now see.. it is SUBERB OWL, the owl being a hunter. Originally I assumed magnificent = super, which left me struggling rather to parse bowl!
Down
1 Roget – men = OR (yes, again!) rev., + understand = GET. Doubtless we are all familiar with Peter Mark Roget’s most famous work
2 upright – dd
3 heartlessly – HE + ARTLESSLY. Neat clue.
4 aweary – a year = A + Y containing sport = WEAR
5 Trollope – leading English = TOP + E, containing register = ROLL. Another regular in these parts, and a fine author indeed. Anthony Trollope is one of a small number of Victorian novelists still worth reading. imho.
6 Cos – a cd, referring to answers given to children such as Because I say,” or just “Because.” The island is the birthplace of one of the world’s first scientists, Hippocrates.
7 arrived – A + *(DRIVER)
8 pressed on – PRESS ED + O N. Not that the media have much to do with Fleet Street any more
13 does a runner – *(SUN READER ON). This is a very slick clue indeed, even if the surface is just a lttle strange, and brought a smile.
14 duckbills – avoid = DUCK + B + ILLS. I haven’t ever heard this word used, except in the case of that strange animal, the duck-billed platypus.
16 bloomers – dd. Are bloomers obsolete now? Sadly, I wouldn’t know
18 melanin – MELANIE Klein, with the final E changed to N. I had to go wikipedia, which conveniently has a page of famous Kleins, to find her. Not many of them rang a bell, apart from Calvin. To me Melanie sounds a little bit too obscure. And a pseudoscientist, to boot.
20 Calypso – dd. One referring to the nymph, one to the music genre. Anyone else remember Cy Grant on the Tonight programme?
21 omitted. seek, & ye shall find.
24 extol – former = EX + L(iberal) containing TO
26 tie – alternate letters of aT tImEs

Author: JerryW

I love The Times crosswords..

26 comments on “Times Crossword 25,224 – no bloomers”

  1. 19ac is CALF* (with ‘falls’ as the anagrind) + ON (over)

    Sadly it’s a familiar tale from me again today. I finished most of this in 20 minutes but then got stuck in the SW and took another 29 minutes to complete the grid. The 14s, 16, 17 and 25 did for me. I really enjoyed the TURTLE DOVES and the SUPERB OWL.

    Yes, Jerry, I remember Cy Grant on ‘Tonight’. Lance Percival did topical calypsos too, on TW3 and other shows.

    Edited at 2012-07-25 01:28 am (UTC)

  2. Like Jerry, had to think a bit about the “hunter winged” (19ac) and how the clue worked. Most trouble with the COS, CHAMP corner. Not terribly fond of the OBSERVE and SENSE double defs. But the SUPERB OWL was SPLENDID!

    For the record, DUCKBILL (noun) is in the US Oxford as: “an animal with jaws resembling a duck’s bill, e.g., a platypus or a duck-billed dinosaur”. Hope I don’t run into the latter on my excursion to the bush tomorrow.

  3. 57 minutes, but with a hopeful/hopeless ‘super pool’. My COD went – and still goes – to AWEARY, even though I managed a creative parsing – A YEAR W (where W stands for ‘without’ – yes, I know…) all anaground by ‘sport’.

    I tried in vain to invent a new window, essaying ‘lurette’ and a number of ‘lyre’ hybrids before striking the right chord.

  4. Average 20 minute meander not fully understanding COS, having no idea who Melanie Klein was (one person walking disaster area having now read Wiki) and only vaguely remembering the mythological reference. An OK if perhaps slightly underwhelming puzzle.

    Well remember Cy Grant and Lance Percival and I think Millicent Martin also sang some sort of topical song on TW3

  5. 28 minutes, several at the end on the camisole/bloomers cross. The second time I’ve met the former, the other in T.S.Eliot’s ‘Waste Land’.

    ‘Out of the window perilously spread
    Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last
    rays.
    On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
    Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.’

    Can’t say I go much for ‘cos, if that’s it. ‘Abbreviated’ for ‘unsatisfactory’ might have been better. ‘Because’ not ”cos’ is the norm for the single-word explanation. And Melanie Klein’s a bit of a stretch. Otherwise a pleasure as always.

    Jerry – good to hear of the trip to Camber Sands. Only the loveliest beach in the world.

    Edited at 2012-07-25 09:50 am (UTC)

  8. About 25 minutes today, with MELANIN and indeed quite a lot of the SW not well understood. I’ve always taken DUCK(-)BILL(ed) to be simply a component of the platypus’ name, rather than a creature in its own right. I was expecting the flora in 16d to be much more complicated, and probably unknown to me. In 14ac, I was for too long going the wrong way about it, trying to put “faff” round OE.
    I wondered if three two word DDs in one crossword (one of them, SENSE, not really making any) was some kind of record. Certainly economical.
    CoD between the Sun reader anagram and the excellent owl.
  9. This did not take very long, but I had to do it left-handed in three short bursts in a waiting room. I enjoyed the crossword, though I must thank jackkt for parsing FALCON: I just couldn’t see it. I did wonder as I was looking through the clues afterwards whether in the 1950s, 10 across might have been clued as “I say”, with “say” doing double duty.

    Don’t know why, but the SUPERB OWL made me chuckle; the people waiting with me gave me some very suspicious glances.

    CALYPSO memories: not only Cy Grant but also Lord Kitchener and Lord Beginner. This Pathe News shows the arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948, and 2 minutes in we see Aldwyn Roberts, (Lord Kitchener) singing London Is The Place For Me. He subsequently recorded a studio version.

    In 1950, the West Indies comprehensively beat England by 326 runs at Lord’s, and Egbert Moore (Lord Beginner) celebrated the occasion with his Victory Test Match

    “With those little pals of mine, Ramadhin and Valentine”

    In the permissive 1960s, Lord Kitchener recorded a song that was banned by the BBC and which was furtively passed round by sixth-form boys. I’ll leave you to research that one for yourselves, as it really is very smutty.

    Edited at 2012-07-25 11:37 am (UTC)

    1. The victory test match link above takes you to Lord Kitchener. This one should work, and is well worth listening to – an altogether delightful song. Calypso at its best. It has match photos, too!
      1. Thanks, Jerry. I realised as soon as I’d posted my comment that I’d linked to the same clip twice, so I edited it and it should now be OK. Your link, though, has the same recording with lots of information and photographs, so that’s the one to go for.
      2. Oh wow, entrancing and nostalgic. Thank you. I was barely around in 1950 but grew up on calypso because my father was then managing director of the West Indies Sugar Co. My parents were big fans of the Mighty Sparrow and trusted that I wouldn’t understand the lyrics (I didn’t).

        Nice to see Trollope without the loose woman reference. I re-read Barchester and the political novels quite regularly (skipping the sub-plots) The tv adaptations were superb.

        I call that game the “stupid bowl” and avoid it. 24 minutes with a feeling I should have been a bit faster – but never mind, I enjoyed it.

        2. Thank heavens for digital recorders with 15-second jump-ahead. It is now possible to watch the entire 3 1/2 hour super bowl in 1 hour, missing nothing.
  10. 19 minutes, the SW corner taking the longest to crack. Never heard of Melanie Klein. Had to look her up.
  11. 6:39, ending with BLOOMERS (16d).  Shot myself in the foot by writing GERMAIN instead of GERMANE (9a), which made it hard to get 4d (AWEARY); didn’t like the wordplay in 19a (FALCON); but otherwise only met resistance in the SW corner.  Unknown: ditcher (14a DITHER), Melanie Klein (18d MELANIN); unfamiliar: DUCKBILLS (14d).

    Clues of the Day: 1a (ROUGHCAST), 29a (SUPER BOWL).

  12. Enjoyable enough puzzle. TURTLE DOVES, SUPER BOWL, AWEARY and ROUGHCAST were very good. Glad to see that I was not alone in finding the COS and Klein clues distinctly underwhelming, if not downright absurd.
  13. All correct today but took an age to solve the SW corner. Guessed Dither from checkers and definition so thanks Jerry for explaining that one.
    Thought Super Bowl was an excellent clue, even if it’s not my sport.
    Off home now to mow the lawn…
  14. About 30 minutes, ending with LUNETTE. As silly as it may be, my COD to BLOOMERS for misleading me for quite a while, and I also liked CAMISOLE. Dr. Klein and ‘faff’ were unknown to me. Regards to all.
  15. Long day out and about, so very late solve and post. Perhaps that explains why I found this a bit of a struggle, although I finished it in not much over 20 minutes. So it felt a lot harder than it was.
    Never heard of Melanie Klein, wasn’t desperately keen on COS, but otherwise I enjoyed this.
  16. DNF today. Never got near CAMISOLE or MELANIN. Pants indeed as someone else already said.
  17. 8:53 for me after a horribly slow start – so not a disaster, but I can remember when I would have made short work of a puzzle like this.

    No problem with Melanie Klein, except that with the addled state my brain in is these days, I simply couldn’t stop it going off down the obvious track that connects “Klein” with “pigment” and thinking of IKB.

  18. Why have you omitted this one? Am I really too stupid for words? I have rough a t.
      1. Yes, roughcast: uncouth = ROUGH + actors = CAST. Roughcast is an exterior plaster, akin to pebbledash.

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