Times 25196

Author   daveperryPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 30:34

Several nice clues stand out today. I liked 7, 10, 13 & 26 in particular. Anyway, it’s late, I’m tired, and I think my laptop is dying, so I’d better get on with it while I still can!

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

Across
1 INCIDENTAL MUSIC = (ADULT IN CINEMa)* + SIC
9 OVERSIGHT – dd
10 NIX ON – ‘Nix’ can mean nothing, so ‘nix on’ is nothing on, hence the empty diary
11 DAPPER = REP + PAD all rev
12 A + D(HE’S)IVE
13 REMIND = D after RE + MINute – 30 seconds is a half MINUTE
15 ATLANTIS = TA rev + (STALIN)* – I’m not sure about ‘continent’ as a definition, but I guess the ? makes it OK.
18 SUNCREAM – cd – you wouldn’t put it on nightly. On edit: There is wordplay here also, it’s CREAM (best) after SUN (daily) – Thanks to both aloo2 & keriothe for pointing this out.
19 SIGN UP = PUNy + GIS all rev
21 GAS MAINS = GAINS about (AS + M)
23 MERCER – hidden
26 VOILA = VA (Virginia) is full of OIL – a very imaginative clue & my COD.
27 REPOTTING = Exotic Plants in ROTTING
28 AN + T(H)ONY + TROLLOP + E – Not entirely sure about the wordplay, but I think ‘pro’ is being used as a term for prostitute, hence TROLLOP
Down
1 IN ORDER – dd
2 CHEEP = “CHEAP”
3 DISCERNER = DIR about (SCENERy)*
4 NIGHt
5 ANTIDOTE = A + NOTE about TID – I worked briefly in a chemists so I had no problem with TID. Doctors use it as shorthand on prescriptions for ‘three times a day’, from the Latin ‘ter in die’
6 MAN(S)E
7 SEX KITTEN – dd – to check if a newborn kitten was a male (tom) you’d have to sex it.
8 CO(N)VEYS – a covey is a small flock of grouse or partridge
14 MINISKIRT = (I’S + KIR) in MINT
16 ALIMENTAL = (MEAT IN)* in ALL
17 MAN + NE + RLY
18 SEGOVIA = (GOES)* + VIA
20 PIROGUE – Tartuffe was a religious (PI) rogue in Molière’s play of the same name. A pirogue is a canoe made from a hollowed out log. My LOI and a bit of a guess.
22 A + LAMa + O – I’ve seen ‘mission’ = ALAMO several times before, so this went straight in.
24 CH + IN + O
25 SPARe

35 comments on “Times 25196”

    1. Yes, it’s “daily” for SUN and “best” – as in “beat” for CREAM.
        1. Doh! Either works but yours is much better and clearly the intended meaning.
  2. I thought this was going to be harder than turned out but I solved all except 14 and 20dn in 30 minutes. I then needed another 9 minutes to complete the grid.

    I know the play Tartuffe very well but as I hadn’t heard of the boat it took me a while to work out what was going on. I have met cassis = KIR before but failed to remember it until I had got to the answer by other means. TID was completely new to me.

    Your reading of 28 is the same as mine, Dave.

    Edited at 2012-06-22 01:15 am (UTC)

  3. Getting weaker as the week goes on. Like Jack, I had nix on TID and KIR and had to turn to Chambers in desperation. Top half was quite quick … then … fears of a DNF.

    Did Tartuffe for A-level French a thousand years ago but still couldn’t see PIROGUE. Thought that was Polish dumplings!

    Most of the bottom half, esp the SW on faith. But having squozen a finish, I can see how fine this puzzle is.

  4. 15:47 .. very much enjoyed, especially VOILA, NIXON and the TROLLOPE (there’s a book title in there somewhere). Thanks, setter. Thanks, Dave.
  5. You’re spot on re the parsing of TROLLOPE. 39 minutes but with two wrong at the end, ‘over’ and ‘rivetting’ – not even a word, embarrassingly – for SPAR and REPOTTING, where I saw the EP but was loath to put it early in the word rather than medially.

    The top half went in quickly but I needed MINISKIRT to kick-start the, um, bottom.

  6. 14:33, although with more than the usual number of solutions I put in without quite–or at all–seeing why they were solutions. I needed Dave to explain the ‘sic’ of 1ac, the ‘kir’ of 14d, and the ‘pro’ of 28ac, and how 18ac works; thanks, Dave, as always. I know I’d never have got the TROLLOP; for me the word refers to a slut not a prostitute. Loved PIROGUE (my LOI), VOILA (my COD), REMIND, SEX KITTEN, NIXON; quite a set of fine clues.
    1. I checked and Chambers gives both slut and prostitute for trollop. As its a word nobody uses now I thought the use of “pro” created a difficult parsing. I’ll bet most people solved it from writer 7,8 starting A…O
      1. I got my break on this one by spotting ‘award’ = TONY as I’d been reading about the recent ceremony in New York.
      2. I should have made it clear that I wasn’t questioning the clue, just noting that my own usage didn’t include the prostitute sense. Afterwards I checked both SOED and the Japanese-English/E-J electronic dictionary, which is what I normally use, and both give both meanings.
  7. 17 minutes, but PIROGUE needed help. As I wasn’t totally convinced by TROLLOPE, there were additional distractions.
    I would not have got PIROGUE under competition conditions: lacking anything other than basic knowledge of Tartuffe – Moliere, French farce – I couldn’t get to it that way, and the boat is, shall we say, obscure.
    1ac went in without breaking it down, as did CONVEYS.
    CoD to SEX KITTEN for general amusement.
    1. I thought when solving that PIROGUE was a bit unfair. A certain knowledge of English literature is expected of course but French? In the end I decided it was perfectly fair on the basis that I got it.
      1. On a similar basis, I decided it wasn’t. Once I’d found out, courtesy of Electric Chambers, that only pirogue and perigee fitted, I chose the former because it was a boat, at least. Curiously, I noted the pi rogue construction, but failed utterly to connect it with Tartuffe.
  8. If anyone’s got a spare hour at the weekend, they might like to try the 17 Feb 2007 Saturday crossword (23527). I did it last weekend (needed to cheat on the last five and still got one wrong – even PB was forced to aids on two clues) and it’s great fun without being especially hard. Or is it? Tony Sever nearly broke the 20-minute mark.
    1. Be warned: those who complain about “obscure poets” and are generally averse to “high culture” will probably not enjoy this one. There are a lot of straightforward clues, but some quite tough ones as well.
  9. Slow from the kneecaps down. 37 minutes. TID new to me, maybe not for much longer. I rather like the serendipitous canoe.
  10. 16 minutes. Nice puzzle. TID was completely new to me.
    I studied Molière for a term at university (and very enjoyable it was too) but it still took me a while to see PIROGUE. The boat has appeared before.
  11. Quite difficult with some clever devices. I liked VOILA and PIROGUE (helped by knowing the craft from Mephisto land). I don’t recall seeing DIT for three times a week in the daily before but again Mephisto solving came in hand. Why not give this coming Sunday’s puzzle a try?
  12. 36 minutes of fun, except for TID, which I’d never come across before (who reads prescriptions?). PIROGUE has certainly appeared before in my lifetime, as has Tartuffe, but possibly not together; it was my LOI, too. Well blogged Dave, and well set setter. My COD to VOILA also, over Mr Trollope.
  13. Add me to the club of those who would have been defeated under competition conditions. Nominally 17 minutes, but only after I decided I simply wasn’t going to get 20 down, however long I looked and tried to justify the unlikely PERIGEE, and turned to external aids. I was right, as well, as I knew neither the play nor the boat (or don’t remember them if I have come across either previously), so I could have looked all afternoon without getting it.

    Edited at 2012-06-22 11:12 am (UTC)

  14. About half an hour, not counting the time spent answering the doorbell and the telephone; but, thinking positively, the interruptions probably gave my brain cells time to recover between rounds.

    The clue for VOILA was original and very clever, wasn’t it? My last one in was MANNERLY; for some reason the abbreviation RLY always eludes me, and I invariably end up going through a mental list of pre-nationalisation railway companies. (LNER, LMS, etc.)

  15. DNF…

    As I had two blanks at the end. Or technically, I suppose one: it couldn’t be TROLLOPE and ‘paragon’, which was the only word I could fit into 20dn. Now I see PIROGUE, I do think it’s vaguely familiar.

    VOILA, CONVEYS and ALAMO without full understanding of wordplay.

    Many thanks to Dave for sorting it all out.

    Best wishes for the w/e, everyone!

  16. 17 minutes with application of Tippex. I did like 10a. Manse was in another of this mornings puzzles (I do all six) and so it just wrote itself in.
    1. Hi Keith. Actually, Jambalaya is a Hank Williams song, first released in the ’50’s, that was covered by The Carpenters in the ’70’s. It was also covered by dozens of other artists. Hank was a classic American country singer-songwriter, who also was responsible for Your Cheatin’ Heart, Hey Good-Lookin’, Cold, Cold Heart and a whole lot more. As an editorial comment, I find The Carpenters version far too ‘soft rock’ in tone, compared to all the other versions I’ve heard. Regards.
      1. Yes, Williams sang some fabulous songs. He also recorded as Luke the Drifter in his early days though I’m not so keen on that material.
  18. Entered Anthony Trollope, as another solver has suggested, from author definition. Pirogue can be spelt perogue and, as a result, was unable to see the connection with Tartuffe for a frustratingly long time. Agree Voila and Nixon were brilliant clues and still more rewarding when the pennies dropped. Best 40-minute’s entertainment of the week.

    Enigma

  19. PIROGUE was in yesterday’s Guardian (written by a member of the Times setting team – hi MC if you’re reading), which may give away the setter of this one. I was super on the wavelength today and done in under 10 minutes so it may have been that setter. CONVEYS without looking at the wordplay and add me to the list of people who liked VOILA.
  20. I also saw PIROGUE in the Guardian, so it went in after the checking letters made it the only possibility, and after I got the pi rogue joke, which took a while due to my only-very-fleeting knowledge of French Lit. I am not a fan of VOILA, which I saw and parsed and thought, ‘no, really?’. NIXON, though, was excellent, as was SEX KITTEN. TROLLOPE from the definition only, although upon reading here about the wordplay, it’s quite good. INCIDENTAL MUSIC was my unknown today, and my last two by far were REPOTTING/SPAR. About 35 minutes all told. Thanks Dave, and there’s a lot of cleverness packed into one puzzle here. Thanks setter. Regards to all.
  21. Remember the sixties song by the Carpenters? “Goodbye Joe, we gotta go, me-o my-o! We gotta go, pole the pirogue by the bayou…” etc. I knew it would come in handy one day!
  22. A sluggish 11:35 for a puzzle I really ought to have solved faster. Some very nice clues, with 7dn my COD.
  23. Personal best less than 15 minutes, must be a wavelength thing.

    Though with 3 guesses:
    didn’t see trollop;
    embarrassingly failed to parse sex kitten;
    and vaguely knew pirogue as a boat from previous crosswords but knew tartuffi only as Italian truffles, or a similar-looking Australian chocolate ice-cream. My knowledge of French literature in general, Moliere in particular is zero. Or perhaps less than zero.

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