Times 25060 – Bury me at Wounded Knee

Author   kororarekaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving Time: 66 minutes

I remember a time when I sometimes could finish these in under half an hour. Seems a long time ago now. I limped around this one from start to finish. I hope you did too, for my sake. So, without further to do…

Across
1 ARES, Greek god of war, son of Zeus following W for with = WARES and not FLOTS.
4 DISCOMFIT = DISCO + M for minutes + FIT with throw in the verbal sense of unnerve.
9 INT for international + ROUBLE for currency = IN TROUBLE
10 PANIC = P for piano + A + NICk. Half-inch = pinch in Bow.
11 ELY for See around A + SI, an Italian nod, = EASILY
12 PRO + STYLE = PROSTYLE, an attached frontal pedimental thingy. I didn’t know it was called that.
14 EVENT inside SEEN = SEVENTEEN, which is indeed a figure, just not the triangle or composer I was expecting.
16 DIRAC = CAR ID reversed. I knew him for his delta function, but always assumed he was French.
17 PIECE sounds like PEACE
19 GASKELL containing IT = GAITSKELL. Mrs Gaskell was yet another Victorian novelist I’d not heard of, and Hugh Gaitskell, Labour leader before Harold Wilson, was only vaguely familiar to me, although I thought he was an Arthur, so I was probably vaguely remembering someone entirely different.
21 LITERATE = LITER, American for litre, + ATE for “put away”
22 CLOCk + HE = CLOCHE, a close fitting hat popular in the 20’s, usually made of felt. I say, I say, I say…
25 Deliberately omitted. Precursor to felt, perhaps.
26 EXUBERANT = (BUN EATER)* around X for ten
27 EXERCISED = guarD placed after EXERCISE for train. That would be worry in the sense of “seize by the throat with teeth and shake or mangle, as certain clues do to solvers” or exercise, as the ODE has it: “3 occupy the thoughts of; worry or perplex: Macdougall was greatly exercised about the exchange rate.“, as well he might be.
28 TENOR, a double definition, with purport in nounal guise.
Down
1 WHITED SEPULCHRE = (CHEERED UP WHILST)*. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.” Matthew 23:27. Fulsome was the torment of my soul over this one, for it passethed all my understanding.
2 RATS around E for English = RATES. Impress as in commandeer, rather than leave an imprint.
3 Leipzig impressed into STOLEN = STOLLEN, a kind of bready fruitcake or cakey fruitbread from Germany.
4 DABS, a double definition.
5 SIN impressing WEARING = SWEARING IN
6 OPPOS + fEuD = OPPOSED. Oppo is RAF slang for “opposite number”. You’d do well to remember that, at least once every year.
7 FANCY for “go for” + FREE = FANCY FREE as in foto*
8 TICKET COLLECTOR, a double definition, the first facetious.
13 (WITH GLEE)* + two S’s for saints = WEIGHTLESS
15 (NATIVE IN)* + E for European = VIENTIANE, capital of Laos. Nothing to do with the Viennese or Venetians, but a poor attempt by the French to pronounce the Lao, meaning either city of the moon or city of sandalwood, depending on which Lao you ask.
18 ERRATa + I + C for chapter = ERRATIC
20 SALIENT = ALIEN impressed by Star Trek or the reverse, as in salient feature.
23 Deliberately omitted. Facial feature pierced by a (sic) adornment.
24 SQUID = QUID. My second last in. Going through the alphabet didn’t help.

* footloose

57 comments on “Times 25060 – Bury me at Wounded Knee”

  1. Nice to be back in the land of the cruciverbal after almost a week in the wilderness. Must have refreshed the neurons because I didn’t find a lot of trouble here, exept perhaps for the obscure PROSTYLE.

    And possibly the ridiculous amount of time trying to get a parsing out of 8dn when there isn’t one. (My view: if there isn’t one, it’s not a cryptic clue and “cryptic defs” should be called “stupid puns” … and then banned.)

    Mrs G. (19ac) tended to be read more by the history than the lit. students when I were a lad. And I’m sure she’s been responsible for a couple of TV series or so.

    My COD is the fish at 4dn. Just liked the clue is all.

    1. Of course! That Cranford thingy featuring Judi Dench in a bonnet. The third paragraph in that press release is particularly telling for its obvious references to 4d and impressing:

      I remember I used to lick my finger and press it against that raised oval and have the outline of her on my thumb.

      Add that to

      … you will remember the country people’s use of the word “unked”. I can’t find any other word to express the exact feeling of strange unusual desolate discomfort…

      from the Wiki article on Gaskell and I think we have a theme.

  2. First DNF for a while. I have absolutely, definitely never heard of VIENTIANE. I’m sure it’s lovely.

    I eventually got the WHITED SEPULCHRE but spelt both it and, um, LITERATE wrongly, causing me to get in a mood and give up, quite thoroughly exercised.

    1. Vientiane is a bit of a dump, actually, or was when I was there. Its most interesting feature was a small version of the Arc de Triomphe nicknamed “the vertical runway” because it was built using cement donated by France to extend the airport.
  3. A very good puzzle, where I seem to remember putting in only one answer, PANIC, from the definition. I obviously learned Jesus’ words about the scribes and Pharisees in another version (RSV?) than the King James – being familiar with whitewashed sepulchres/tombs – as that one threw me and I needed to “revert to aids”. Same with DISCOMFIT and, to my chagrin, WARES.

    DABS was my last in, as the fingerprints meaning was unknown and the fish rang only the faintest bell. OPPO as friend also unknown – obviously didn’t watch enough Saturday matinees where they brought their kites safely home through Gerry’s flak.

    So many good clues – perhaps EASILY gets the gong for getting past my supposedly watchful (“SEEing”) dragon.

    1. I remembered “whited sepulchre” from Heart of Darkness” – Conrad obviously read the King James bible.
  4. One hour, give or take a minute.

    Well, I’m pleased to come here and discover that I was not entirely alone in finding this a very difficult puzzle. It seemed to start off easily enough in the NW quarter but it was not long before I realised I was 9ac.

    I used a solver to get 15dn, one of two actual unknowns, the other being PROSTYLE, and I needed checkers to bring DIRAC to mind.

    The RH was a nightmare trying to find a foothold especially as I had become fixated on TICKET INSPECTOR at 8dn and couldn’t think past it.

    After the trials of last week I am grateful for the relief of the Saturday and ST puzzles at the weekend otherwise, on meeting this one I might have felt like giving up the ghost.

    Edited at 2012-01-16 06:02 am (UTC)

  5. DNF thanks to DIRAC.

    I spent some time with (c)RUMB at 24dn which the OED tells me is a flatfish and also a shellfish, and thus well-credentialled as seafood.

    I only knew of Elizabeth Gaskell since my daughter studied “North and South” at school; I thought it was an odd choice given the number of better-known C19 novels.

    I’m not sure I understand mctext’s problem with 8dn – I took it as just a DD?

    Edited at 2012-01-16 07:40 am (UTC)

  6. 33 minutes here, with ages at the end struggling with VIENTIANE and LITERATE. I saw the latter quickly but for some reason it took me an age to see the wordplay. I hesitated because I was convinced 15dn had something to do with Vienna (VIENNIATE?), which would have made 21ac L_N_R_T_. The capital of Laos was new to me.
    DIRAC was the only other unknown today. PROSTYLE from some dusty recess of memory.
  7. 34 minutes today, so looking like a tricky one to me. I think if I had got the Pharisee at 1d earlier, and it’s more in my parish than DIRAC is in, say, Jim’s, I might have been quicker, but a lot of the western hemisquare was adamantine. “Figure” in 14 was just too simple, and I had the wrong anagram fodder for 13 which meant that it wasn’t the obvious (and right, in fact) answer. Last in VIENTIANE I assumed was something to do with Vienna – at least it was the most viable letter distribution. Didn’t manage to parse LITERATE, should have done.
    I’d agree with mctext on 8d if the clue had stopped before “railway employee” – we have had clues like that and I’m registered here as no fan of cutesy definitions.
    I’ll give CoD to the deceptive WARES, and if there is such a thing, Duffer of the Day to ERRATIC, partly on the grounds that it would have worked just as well without “one chapter”.
    Oh, and I do know DIRAC. He invented holes.
      1. Double definition, I think. If erratic can be defined as unreliable, I don’t see why it can’t also be defined has “having…mistakes”. The surface of the wordplay and the definition are very close in meaning.
        1. But it’s not ‘having…mistakes’ it’s ‘having endless mistakes’ so it still wouldn’t work.

          Edited at 2012-01-16 02:03 pm (UTC)

          1. I’m not arguing – it was the way the clue struck me during the solving phase. I still don’t think much of it as a clue.
  8. DNF due to too many unknowns today (DIRAC, PROSTYLE, GAITSKELL – shame on me!). And I annoyingly had a blank at SQUID. For a long time I too had ‘rumb’ at 24dn. (But I had heard of VIENTIANE).
  9. Tough going but a good challenge! I had most problems in NE but missed nuances in the wordplay in several places so particular thanks for the blog, koro. Obscurity is clearly very much a personal thing: my biggest problems were with ‘oppo’ as ‘friend’ and the spelling of DISCOMFIT.
  10. Flying start with the outside clues quickly in place and then despite believing I was 21 across getting 9 across with 19 across and I’ve even read the books. So a disappointing 42.37 in the end. Also took me far too long to get the right fodder for the anagram at 13 down so well done setter for the misdirection. My COD to 15 down which despite the precise cluing I still tried to make into something from Venice or Vienna when the logic of the clue wouldn’t wear it. Will I ever learn? At least I remembered 1 down from a previous puzzle. Thanks for comforting and clear blog as ever.
  11. I question the explanation given. To my mind, take China, promote (raise) the “a” and get chain.
    1. You’re right of course but the blogger didn’t offer the asnswer or how it was arrived at, just a whimsical hint for anyone who hadn’t cracked it.

      Edited at 2012-01-16 01:35 pm (UTC)

  12. Great blog Koro, far more enjoyable than the puzzle itself. There’s no need to feel bad about your struggle as this was a rotter.

    32:11 with a cheat to get the whited whatsit and then, presumably having food on the brain, I managed to type in DISCONFIT at 4a.

    Too much slog, not enough fun.

  13. Vientiane was my second clue in. Knowledge of most capitals (for pub quizzes) made it obvious.

    Darryl

  14. Pleased to finish today’s puzzle fairly swiftly (40 mins) after not having tackled it for over a week.

    Darryl

  16. Ground through this until coming to a complete and utter halt on 19 – haven’t heard of either part of the clue, so invented GAITSHELL, the leader of the Rhodesian Communist Party from 1937-1938, whose name can be derived from Edward GASHELL, pre-Victorian novelist best known for “A Handkerchief Wasted”

    Better luck tomorrow…

  17. Fortunately Mrs K went to Elizabeth Gaskell College in Manchester a long time ago (it’s now defunct) so I was up for the labour leader; but being a Dawkins follower I was ignorant of biblical goings on, whited or whitewashed.Without 1 Dn the LHS was hard, but I eventually got Vientiane and weightless, don’t much like ‘exercised’, CoD DABS.
    1. I’d classify myself a Dawkins follower too, but as the man himself said, “You can’t appreciate the Times crossword unless you are to some extent at least steeped in the King James Bible”.
      Or something like that.
    2. Quite right too. One of the reason Dawkins is so powerful a spokesperson for the anti-religious point of view is that his knowledge of the Bible, and particularly the AV, far surpasses that of many of his religionist critics.
  18. Glad to nick in under the half-hour. Enjoyed this; especially 8, though I still feel the t.c.’s is a job apart from the driver’s, as it was when the world was young. (I realise now it can still be here.)

    Edited at 2012-01-16 04:36 pm (UTC)

  19. I had nothing like as much trouble as others with this one, particularly once I got 1D which I must have seen elsewhere at some time. 25 minutes after golf.

    GAITSKELL came easily partly because I remember him and partly because a rather unfair Mephisto clue recently made reference to Rab Butler. Reading about him I discovered something called Butskellism which was an amalgam of ideas from Butler and Gaitskell!

    I’m saddened that so many have not heard of Paul Dirac, one of this countries finest theoretical physicists. A Nobel prizewinner he made a massive contribution to quantum mechanics and predicted the existence of anti-matter

    1. I’m very familiar with Hugh Gaitskell and the policies of Butskellism but unfortunately he didn’t come to mind until late in today’s proceedings. The only authors I could think of that fitted the G and S checkers in place were GROSSMITH and GOLDSMITH so I became fixated on the idea of the Labour leader being John Smith.

      Edited at 2012-01-16 05:59 pm (UTC)

    2. I have a (1970) fine but (in the event) useless degree in chemistry so could write you a Dirac equation, but until now didn’t know he was British. I look forward to mugging up on him, thanks.
  20. There’s an excellent biography of Dirac, ‘The Strangest Man’, by Paul Farmelo. Your title koro ends one of my favourite poems, ‘I have fallen in love with American names’, by Stephen Vincent Benet. ‘Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.’

    Edited at 2012-01-16 05:45 pm (UTC)

  21. I am really upset about the generally disparaging and dismissive comments here about Mrs Gaskell. She is a lot more well known than some of you seem to think! I’ve come to her fairly recently (although I have known of her since my schooldays) because I was put off her in school by having to study “Cranford”. A story about a bunch of elderly ladies is not a very suitable choice for teenage girls. But now that I am myself an elderly lady I have come to think that “Cranford” is one of the most delightful 19th century novels. And “North and South” is a “chalk & cheese” romance (rural vicar’s daughter v rough-hewn northern mill-owner) set against England’s Industrial revolution. I recommend the BBC serial (starring the delectable Richard Armitage!) I feel that the comments from solvers are very largely a reflection on this overwhelmingly male crossword community.
    I was pleased to remember DIRAC – though I must confess that I first heard of him via Star Trek. I really enjoyed this puzzle, though it took me rather a long time to get into it. 36 minutes
      1. Apart from her literary qualities, it is interesting to read about the industrialisation of Britain from the point of view of someone who was actually there and who realised the importance of the changes she was witnessing. I seem to remember that Mrs G’s husband was a well known social reformer – possibly a minister of some religion. I can’t remember the details. When they married he was a lot more famous than she was (Hence “Mrs Gaskell”). Now he’s the one who’s forgotten. I recommend “North and South”. Much the same social awareness as Dickens but a more well-rounded female character than almost anything in Dickens
        .
    2. I’m not sure if I saw the latest BBC adaptation of North and South, but I’ve a feeling I may have seen an earlier one.

      I wasn’t too taken with the recent adaptation of Cranford: I didn’t feel that Judi Dench was right as Miss Matty, and seem to remember an earlier version where she (Miss Matty, that is) was better cast. (I definitely preferred the earlier adaptation of Pride and Prejudice with David Rintoul and the delectable (thank you for reminding of the word) Elizabeth Garvie to the version with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle.)

      1. I’ve seen so many P&P adaptations but my favourite Darcy is the late, great Alan Badel. He must have been born sneering. The best hauteur in the business (Though probably too old for Darcy). I agree with you that Judy Dench was not right for Miss Mattie. She doesn’t do fluffy very well. But, on the other hand, we had the matchless Eileen Atkins at Miss Deborah. I wish they’d rewritten it so she didn’t have to die after the first episode! Elizabeth Gaskell had a sense of humour and an ironic streak that bears comparison with Jane Austen. Besides she has that immortal sentence in “Cranford” which is well worth the admission fee. One of the ladies is presenting her visitors with cakes, as a supposedly spontaneous gesture but “they knew and she knew, and she knew that they knew, and they knew that she knew that they knew” that they’s been specially baked the day before or something. I suppose she appeals more to a female sensibility. On the other hand I read Raymond Chandler, Isaac Azimov, John Buchan, Hemmingway, RL Stevenson etc. Am currently into the Spenser (Private Eye) novels of Robert B Parker. I think a lot of chaps might similarly find something to enjoy in women writers.
        1. Out of interest, Falooker, what’s your view on John Updike and Saul Bellow? Both writers I often hear accused of misogyny, or at least being of little interest to women.
          1. I haven’t read either, though I’ve been tempted to try Updike’s Rabbit novels. Anyway, I have no problem with misogyny in fiction – only in real life!
            1. I’d recommend Bellow over Updike personally. The Adventures of Augie March is one of my favourite books. My wife hated it!
    3. Don’t forget you are only hearing from the mouthy ones, Falooker.. I am quite familiar with Mrs Gaskell, a giant of the Victorian novel. And I get similar reactions when I mention Georgette Heyer, whose vocabulary I find invaluable when solving..
      1. People who don’t read her tend to think of Georgette Heyer as merely a writer of regency romances. Barbara Cartland wrote a lot of regency romances – but there the similarity ends. There’s such scintillating dialogue and exquisite humour in Heyer. And, of course, the vocab is so useful for this crossword! Btw, there’s a new biography out which is a bit of a hatchet job. The earlier one by Jane Aiken Hodge was much kinder.
  22. 21:34 for me, making a disappointing start to the week. I found it extraordinarily hard to find the setter’s wavelength, having started out under the assumption that this was going to be another of those easy Monday puzzles and then finding it was a lot harder than I’d expected. WHITED SEPULCHRE took ages to spot (the LCHRE ending isn’t exactly obvious), and I was slowed (but not all that much) by failing to spot that I’d typed in WIEGHTLESS.

    Am I really amazed that people haven’t heard of Mrs GASKELL and/or DIRAC? I suppose not really, but I do feel they’re missing out. I remember reading Ruth many years ago (even before I read Cranford) after she’d cropped up in a Times crossword clue which assumed you knew the novel (the answer was one of the characters). (If dorsetjimbo was solving then, he must have had a seizure 😉

    Edited at 2012-01-16 10:57 pm (UTC)

    1. Ah Tony for the days when I had the energy to have a seizure. I don’t recall the puzzle but will have had a go at it and probably failed to finish. When I was at school the Head of English was my mentor on such matters. I had heard of Mrs Gaskell and it can only be because of solving these puzzles.
  23. 47′ of plodding along. I’m surprised at the number of people not knowing ‘whited sepulchre’, which I had thought was one of those biblical phrases that had pretty much established itself. And even I knew Dirac, partly because of a recent review of a biography, and partly because he’s been here before, I’m almost positive. On the other hand, PROSTYLE was new to me.
  24. Elizabeth Gaskell is wonderful. “Wives and Daughters” is one of the best novels I’ve ever read and “Cranford” one of the most enjoyable. Charlotte Bronte’s biography of Gaskell is also tremendous.

    Steve Williams

  26. I don’t suppose anyone will read this, but my previous comment had a daft mistake. Elizabeth Gaskell wrote a (tremendous) biography of Charlotte Bronte, not the other way round. Anyway, highly recommended.
  27. Never heard of WHITED SEPULCHRE but found the anagram, guessing the clue was &littishly referring to a butterfly that disguises itself as something else. The technical DNF didn’t matter; got a real DNF, had to look up PROSTYLE to crack the NE corner.

    For 19 AC, Jack, is your Arthur Scargill? Left wing, and if not homophonic, Scargill is certainly suggestive of Gaitskell.

    Rob

Comments are closed.