Times 25,091 A Geography Lesson

Author   dorsetjimboPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time 25 minutes

Good chewy puzzle that was always interesting with some complicated wordplays that some will not like but that I enjoy. There’s a geographical flavour with place names from Cornwall, London, NSW and Wales itself plus one country.

Across
1 LIMBLESS – LIM(p)-BLESS;
9 HOME,TOWN – HO-MET-OWN; paid=MET; possess=OWN; house=HO;
10 ACT,THREE – (teacher + t=start of term)*;
11 BARBECUE – BARBE(l)-CUE;
12 TERRIFIERS – TERR(IF)IERS; condition=IF; “out of”=”outside of”;
14 FUND – FUN-D;
15 CAPTURE – C(APT)URE; medicine perhaps=CURE; fit=APT; “take” is definition;
17 ENFIELD – (k)E(e)N (o)F(f)I(c)E(r) L(e)D; where the .303 Lee-Enfield was manufactured and my first wife and I used to go dancing;
21 IMAM – I(n) M(osque) A(uthorative) M(ale);
22 BRANDY,SNAP – B-RANDY-SNAP; “that takes the biscuit” is a bit loose as a definition;
23 CAMBODIA – C(AM-BOD)IA; the “out east” was confusing;
25 FITFULLY – FIT-FULLY;
26 INSTANCE – IN(ST-A=front of altar)N-CE; local=pub=INN; Church (of England)=CE;
27 SMOOTHIE – (I’m so hot + e=energy)*; a symptom of the strange world we live in;
 
Down
2 IN,CAMERA – INCA-M(ER)A; old ruler=INCA; the Queen=ER; mother=MA; privately is the definition;
3 BATHURST – BA(THURS)T; NSW city famous for the original Oz gold rush;
4 EARN – get=EARN; by=near then move “n” down to give EARN; good clue;
5 SHEBEEN – SHE-sounds like “bean”; where poteen was sold;
6 IMPRISONED – IM-PRI(SON)ED;
7 CONCLUDE – CON-sounds like “clued”;
8 INTENDED – I(N)T-ENDED; N=end of (honeymoo)N; (sex) appeal=IT;
13 FOREBODING – FO(RE-BOD(m)IN)G; about=RE; Bodmin of Moor fame is in the centre of Cornwall;
15 CHIN-CHIN – C(H)INCH-IN; walk in the park=CINCH; hot=H; 1930s upper class toast used with champers, don’t you know;
16 PEAT,MOSS – (p=soft + so teams)*;
18 INSTRUCT – INS(TRUC(k))T; current month=INST; traffic (trade, barter)=truck;
19 LLANELLI – L-LANE-(ILL reversed); coastal town in the west of Wales where they play rugby;
20 CARAFES – C-AR(e)-AFES; good clue;
24 OTTO – (L)otto;

29 comments on “Times 25,091 A Geography Lesson”

  1. Chewy’s the word – 25 minutes for me too. One of those where the answer is perfectly obvious once you get it, but getting it is encumbered by frequent diversions.
    I did wonder in passing whether randy and sexy were the same thing – in the eye of the beholder, randy can be anything but. ACT THREE surely doesn’t appear as such in dictionaries, but doesn’t really cause problems. I should have got it earlier, and it would have helped in the sticky NW, but I couldn’t really believe the first word was ACT.
    CoD to one or other of the (semi?)&lits, CARAFES or BARBECUE.
  2. Brief inspection of the clues revealed the geography; but most obviously “A walk in the park” at 15dn. I thought: someone somewhere knows it’s Jimbo’s blog today. What’s the happy version of paranoia?

    Wrote lots of working out on the page with about 50% crossed out as false starts. An indication of the complexity of the wordplay in some places perhaps.

    Liked “disarmed” for LIMBLESS at 1ac.
    Not too fond of “sexy” for RANDY at 22ac. They can’t be the same thing surely? Without going into specifics, we have surely all met those who are randy as … but not at all sexy? Nice when the combination comes off though?

    COD to 20dn (CARAFES) for not looking like a cryptic clue at all.

  3. 44 minutes with time wasted because I talked myself into putting GOLF at 24ac until I found no F in the grist at 27ac.

    COED defines both ‘randy’ and ‘sexy’ as ‘sexually aroused’ so I see no cause for complaint there.

    A very enjoyable puzzle. 15dn was excellent.

    1. Well found. But I shall be sure not to use this august publication as a sex manual! Doing so could lead, I’m convinced, to litigation.

      Edited at 2012-02-21 09:31 am (UTC)


  4. Much easier than yesterday’s for me, possibly helped by the INST that I picked up from yesterday’s puzzle! Also helped by mention of BARBEL in a puzzle a couple of days ago. Maybe I am learning something from this endeavour after all…

    Unknowns for me today: BATHURST, SHEBEEN. Lots went in on literal, and then I worked out the cryptic.

    Think the geographical elements helped today…much more accessible to me than all those old scientists we sometimes get!

    1. BATHURST caused a bit of consternation when it turned up in the ST on 8th Jan this year. It was then clued as “Stick around a day for race for digger drivers” – I think we got it slightly easier (but with slightly less fun) today.
  5. 17m. I really enjoyed this. Knotty without being too much so. I would urge the setters to produce more of these puzzles that exactly fill my commute.
    The knottiness today had nothing to do with vocab: I didn’t know an INCA was a ruler but otherwise everything was familiar. I wondered about “randy” and also “paid” for “met” but I think they’re close enough.
  6. ‘All those old scientists …’ love it. I made a meal of this, spending much of my 90 minutes in the Geordie corner, which finally opened when I got BARBECUE. Form the literal – unfortunately, unlike Janie, I hadn’t come across ‘barbel’.

    I think I’m coming to that age where if they’re randy, they’re sexy, but ‘er indoors would say I’ve always been like that.

    How appropriate that Jimbo should be defined by a toff’s toast after all those horrible things he’s said about us upper-crust folk!

  7. My first post of the year I think, so a long overdue “Happy New Year” everybody. I’ve dropped in most days since 1 January but haven’t found the time to add my tuppence worth.

    Pleased to finish this one without aids, my first such success for a couple of weeks. Some beautiful clues today, in particular EARN and CARAFES. Thank you setter.

    LOI Bathurst – from the cryptic. I doubt I could name more than ten Australian place names!

      1. Jimbo,

        I’ve been busy at work since the start of the year and either not had time to do the puzzles on the day of publication or, if I have, then it’s been in the evening by which time everybody’s already posted and the discussion has drawn to a close!

        Today was different. I had an early breakfast, got about half done before I left home and finished it in bites by mid-morning.

        Daniel

  8. Phew. 31:23 so definitely a chewy one. There were hardly any giveaways so pretty much every clue demanded careful analysis to isolate the definition and unscramble the wordplay. Although I never felt completely in touch with the setter I didn’t ever think I’d be beaten.

    I felt a bit like an FBI agent trying to follow a suspect across a busy town. Just when I thought I’d lost him I caught a glimpse of his hat some way ahead.

    1. Lovely image.

      I just hope you don’t take your lead from TV law enforcement people who are required to get within fifty yards of suspect then shout “Hey, you! Stop!”, thus allowing said suspect to get a nice head start in ensuing chase and frequently escape. Will they never learn?

      And will I ever learn? I put a tentative HOME LOAN at 9a and told myself “Whatever you do, don’t forget to go back and check the wordplay on that one”. Which I duly didn’t. Another villain slips through the net, darn it.

    1. 21 for me today – Only BATHURST causing any head scratching. I thought you would be 10 minutes my dear!
  10. I always thought I’d get to the end of this but it was a slow haul. (I think the word “chewy” that has been used is the perfect description of this puzzle) My first in was 2d from definition alone. I still can’t see the MERA bit at the end. For me the clue seemed to indicate that MA should be “received” by ER not the other way around. I think I’ve lost the plot here. Is “received” not the container? LLANELLI was the first 8 letter Welsh town I could think of. It doesn’t often crop up in cryptics. May cause a few problems for those unfamiliar with Welsh spellings. (When I was a kid it had been anglicised to LLANELLY. My home town,Blaenafon, was anglicised to Blaenavon. I think the authorities finally regularised the spelling because the language police kept defacing the road signs!) 46 minutes
  11. 43.47 here so not a stinker by my standards. Held up by trying to justify PETRIFIERS at 12ac seeing dogs? as pets so once again successfully misdirected by setter. COD to CARAFES though that held me up as I stupidly entered CAFARES!
  12. Done in patches and slow on the east side; no time recorded. Chewier than pancakes and as pleasant. But shouldn’t 1 be disarmed and legless?
  13. Nice chewy puzzle but no unknowns, half an hour, Cod 23ac, very smart word play. LOI terrifiers.
  14. 12:18 for me. I made the slowest of slow starts, with only one clue solved in the first four minutes or so, but then suddenly woke up, found the setter’s wavelength and plodded steadily through. Lots of clever stuff here.

    CONCLUDE was my LOI, after I’d wasted a ridiculous amount of time cursing my addled brain for failing to come up with an answer ending in CUSE.

  15. SHEBEEN was not the only unknown in this, but it was the only one that the wordplay didn’t quite do the trick for (I’ve never heard of BATHURST either, but the wordplay was quite clear). So just over an hour (but only 40 minutes to do all the rest) and in the end two letters missing! Lots of nice clues though: I especially liked FUND and LIMBLESS. I didn’t know about the H in CHIN-CHIN — the Italians of course don’t need it.
  16. 38 minutes. I didn’t even notice ‘randy’, just getting BRANDY SNAP from ‘biscuit’ and checkers (it helped that ‘brandy snap’ has appeared frequently enough recently to lodge in my memory). I had to look up LLANELLI, figuring that if it’s Welsh it will begin with 2 Ls. I couldn’t figure out either EARN or FOREBODING, so ta to Jimbo; but once I had ‘fo…g’ I wasn’t worried about parsing–although I thought it odd that there were two BODs.
  18. Found this as easy as yesterday’s, about 20 minutes, half the usual 40. Strange, when everyone else found it “chewy”, even Jimbo at 25 mins and Tony Sever at 12+.

    Helped as others said by recent barbel and inst, and knowing Bathurst (by virtue of being Australian). Llanelli vaguely known, Bodmin forgotten though brought back by mention of Bodmin Moor.

    Cheers,
    Isla

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