24920 – A plate of your finest Nine Toe Somade!

Author   fathippy2Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Filling in for Mr Perry today, and was dreading a repeat of last Fridays offering, which was perhaps the hardest weekday daily I had seen in many a year. Thankfully this was much more in line with the average, taking about 28 mins, which for me was a little over, and in the end it didnt strike me as it should have done, but perhaps that is the bloggers curse to over-analyse each answer.

Across
1 CATTLE – two Ts for temperature inside C-ALE for cold beer. Misleading definition – LOWERS=things that LOW=COWS, however after repeated usage this actually becomes a flashing light and makes clues easier than they otherwise could be – see also 27A
4 TWELFTHS – Definitely the hardest of the lot and my last in. TT=teetotal “clothing” FLEW backwards then HS for hospital’s. I have to say that when the word play clicked I realised that TWELFTH(s) is a word that has repeatedly held me up with the same checkers in place. Seeing L-T-S never brings to mind five consonants, so it is perhaps one to tuck away in the memory bank. The usual clues with this answer that got me from memory were cryptic defs involving the play or the cricket term.
9 MYKONOS – MY=heavens! K(araoke) ON OS=oversize=unusually large for the greek holiday destination full of upmarket fashion boutiques and piano bars from my recollection.
11 SUNLESS – probably unfair to call this a weak clue, however something didnt work for me. I got the idea early on, didnt believe it, but had to be. SUN=daily paper, LESS=not so. I guess I am so used to “not so” cluing a contradiction, or the opposite to the surface that this use seems odd, and it is probably perfectly fair.
12 OUNCE – Didnt actually work out what the strike word was whilst doing it, but it is clearly POUNCE without the leader, for the very common crossword feline.
13 OTHERWISE – definition is different. OT, then HER(e) for present short, then WISE for description of SOLOMON.
14 FATHER TIME – FAT=overweight, HER=lady’s, and then ANTI- ME without the AN, nice definition for the surface of “an hourglass figure”
16 WAND – N inside WAD for bundle. I get too used to A-G for musical notes, that I often forget the simple N
19 TURF – halF RUTh’s – backwards hidden word. Definition= patch
20 AMANUENSIS – (UN NAMES AS I)* – put it in as it jumped out from the letters even though I wasnt quite sure what the role was. Turns out it is a slave/servant role, often to hand write dictations, hence the use of dictator in the secretarial rather than megalomaniac sense!
22 Go AGAINST – GAINS=advances, inside GO=leave AT, def disadvantage
23 IAMBI – A MB (medical pro) getting I, all on(after) I. The ‘S implies is=”gives the answer” for the poetic feet.
25 BENGALI – Tongue as in language, (BEGAN)* with wagging as the anagrind, then LI(e)
26 DONEGAL – I miss = ONE GAL, with D(eparture) to the far west/left
27 DODDERER – RED=trot (back) around ODDER=stranger. It is now hard coded in my brain to think of the russian sense whenever I see TROT in a crossword, and I think it works almost all the time – similar to LOWER, or WICKED to an extent!
28 TRIPOD – TRIP=one effect of drug, OD=overdose, def = stand. My second last in, requiring all checkers. Was held up by not “lifting and separating” drug overdose.

Down
1 COME OFF IT – COME OFF = succeed. IT=appeal
2 TAKEN – KEN=knowledge by TA=part time soldiers, TAKEN=spoken for. Slight attempt to mislead in the surface as you expect the “for” to be “for all we know”, when in reality it is “spoken for”
3 LYNX EYED – sounds like LINK SIDE. have seen this one a few times before always clued the same way. To be fair though, I cant think of any other way to clue it. Any suggestions ?
5 WEST HAM UNITED – (STEW)* HAM=meat UNITED=one. Took far too long on this thinking it was an anagram of MEAT ON ONE SIDE, for a stew. Anyone for some NINE TOE SOMADE?
6 LANARK – L(arge) A(rea) NARK=grass
7 THE RIVALS – (RELISH A TV)* for the play
8 SUSIE – S(ucceeded) USE=explot around I, for the girl
10 SPORTSMANLIKE – (PART SOME LINKS)* – definition Playing fairly. Again here the surface leads you to attach fairly to unusual.
15 TURBANNED – RUT=dull pattern, raised, then BANNED=forbidden.
17 DESKILLED – DESK=bureau, I, L(eft), LED=guided. This has always seemed an odd word to me, as it suggests the removal of a skill rather than the lack of it (ie UNSKILLED). How does one remove a skill, apart from over time through forgetting. Surely it is impossible!
18 BEGINNER – INNER=private, supporting BEG=request with humility, for the rookie. Lift and separate here is Rookie and Private.
21 PALATE – PA=per annum= a year, LATE=overdue. I was quite “impressed” by the way in which “a year” as in “per year” could be so neatly disguised as the noun, however I am not sure why.
22 GO BAD – GOB=mouth AD=advert=a bit of puff. Def = become putrid
24 MUG UP – MUG=receptacle in pub, UP=with excellent spirits. Definition = Cram, as in for exams. I personally do not associate MUGs with pubs, seeing them as the china things I drink tea from, but I am well aware that many people esp americans talk of pint glasses as beer mugs.

33 comments on “24920 – A plate of your finest Nine Toe Somade!”

  1. It has just dawned on me having posted that I did not omit any of the clues. Apologies to anyone who this may upset.
      1. I second your opinion jimbo. While it seems to be a tradition of some kind here, it’s a silly artifact which accomplishes nothing. My opinion.
  2. Super puzzle, with a welcome Anglocentricity, which benefited me far less than it ought to have done, as I was held up for a long time on the Hammers clue. Left-hand side in quickly, but the right, especially, the south-east corner, put up more resistance. So, a game of two halves, as they might say down Upton Park, or whatever it’s calling itself these days. 68 minutes: While TWELFTHS was rather fiendish, my COD goes to AMANUENSIS for the cunning surface.

    Thanks to fathippy for standing in and doing a fine job. He’s clearly not like the fat hippies I know, a combination of 27 and 28. Re the sunless clue, a context such as “I was less interested back then” would give the adverbial usage the setter’s referring to.

  3. I think the idea is that in these days of automation one removes the necessity of having particular skills in order to do certain jobs.
  4. A game of three quarters (and over an hour) for me: the NE corner took at least twice as long as the rest of the puzzle and, before coming here, I was unconvinced that SUNLESS was correct. Thanks for an excellent blog on a fine puzzle: this was an enjoyable challenge.
  5. Well I did solve this before breakfast with a splitting hangover in unfamiliar territory, but I bet a look back at my actual grid would raise a few laughs. The Times Crossword Club said I made four errors, but what I think I typed matched fathippy’s entries. What I think may have gone in was AMANSISUSESISETS and TVWFLSTH. Right, off to do some shgitseeing

  6. 28 minutes here as well. Challenging (in a good way) like several puzzles this week. Wasted a while trying to justify UNSK as a special sort of bureau, possibly part of the United Nations…
  7. Well, speaking as the blogger of last Friday’s difficult puzzle I’m not so sure I would have preferred this one. In fact they both took me around the same time to complete (about 80 minutes) but at least last week I managed to write in about half the answers fairly swiftly before grinding to a halt and then battling through the remainder. This week I struggled to get started (PALATE being my first in) and fought tooth and nail for almost every answer along the way. I think this was down to a lot of well-disguised definitions and tricky wordplay. On the other hand there were no words unknown to me today apart from, possibly, the Greek island.

    AMANUENSIS was my second in with no checkers in place. I learned this word about 50 years ago with reference to Eric Fenby’s work with the composer Delius a little later celebrated in the wonderful TV film in the Omnibus series “A Song of Summer” directed by Ken Russell before he went loopy.

    Last in were TWELFTHS (always catches me out), SUNLESS and LANARK. The blockage in that corner was a self-created problem at 5dn where I had pencilled in the wrong enumeration 5,3,5 and wasted time trying to think of 3-letter words to fit ?M?

    1. I’m another who first knew AMANUENSIS from watching the Horizon film about Delius. Didn’t realise it was Ken Russell. Thanks for the memory.
  8. 32 minutes, three TWELFTHS of that on ?W?L?T?S, which we’ve had (without the S) recently in 24901 with the same mind-paralysing effect.
    I found this a very chewy game of spot-the-definition, even when, as with 1ac, “lowers” is automatic crossword speak for cows. “Disadvantage”, “Tongue” “Different” and of course “parts” were all particularly well hidden in plain view.
    CoD to the cheeky SUNLESS, not least because I think I can remember when that was the price of our dear sister paper.
  9. Just to clarify my point on that clue. I am happy with LESS equating to NOT SO, it is the construction that threw me. I am so used to the “not so” part of the surface implying perhaps that the definition was the opposite of what was stated – ie very sunny, that I didnt like it when it did nothing of the sort. Clearly there is no rule that says it has to, so I am the one in the wrong.
  10. As for others a chewy puzzle that was pleasing to solve – about 25 minutes for me. It’s always interesting when definitions have to be excavated and interpreted.

    Don’t like the homophone (no surprise there) and don’t associate mugs with pubs. No other cribs and a great deal to really appreciate.

    Well done fathippy – not an easy one to blog by any stretch of the imagination

  11. 29 minutes here, the last ten on TWELFTHS, having gone down many blind alleys. The definition is rather vague but like others it was trying to fit vowels in where none were required that did for me.
    Thanks to fathippy2 for the blog and for explaining the definition of AMENUENSIS, which puzzled me. I also tried to solve an anagram for 5dn and was looking for something to do with onions.
    Jackkt is right about DESKILLED. The word applies to the job, rather than the person doing it. In the restaurant trade they talk about “dechefing”, which basically means producing everything centrally in boil-in-the-bag kits so that a school leaver on minimum wage can cook it and you can run a restaurant without paying for someone who can actually cook. I say this by way of explanation, not justification. These are horrible words… and I don’t frequent this kind of restaurant!
  12. The Scottish lawyer James Boswell must rate as the world’s best known amanuensis, acting with such efficiency in that capacity for the most famous Englishman of his day that his Life of Johnson is more widely read than anything the good doctor wrote.
  13. I wish (for my employer’s sake) you hadn’t asked but I came up with:
    “For sharp-sighted, some odd stuff in Sarkozy’s next Elysée date coming after beginning of Lent”
    No good for the Times of course.
  14. Would have been around 28 minutes, but another rash moment led me to throw in SUNBEDS, thinking the clue was a rather loose cryptic definition. The Club board says I made another mistake but I can’t see it, so clearly a computer malfunction.

    No problem with mugs in pubs, but it might be a bit regional. I’m sure it used to be pretty standard in Cotswolds pubs for a request for a pint to be answered with a question: “Mug or a sleever?”.

  15. I found this a bit of a struggle. After about 15 minutes I only had a scattering of isolated words on the grid. I made myself another cup of tea and went back to it. The restorative powers seemed to work and I finished in 45 minutes without any more hold-ups. (This is the 2nd time recently we’ve had TWELFTH. It always defeats me at first and produces a “doh” moment when it clicks.) Re pub receptacles: I seem to remember that years ago people used to call the pottery steins with lids that we used to bring back from Bavaria “Beer Mugs”. (Not to be confused with “jugs” which are any glasses with handles.)
  16. Fantastic puzzle, really enjoyed this one, despite finishing with two blanks… TURF (doh!) and TURBANNED (double doh!). No new words (had come across AMANUENSIS in recent-ish puzzle), and pleased to understand most of the word play – very satisfying.

    Enjoy the weekend, everyone, and see you all next week!

  17. Solving 1a and 1d immediately fooled me into thinking I was in for an easy time like yesterday. Not so! There were other easy clues but enough tricky ones to slow me down. Teasing out the wordplay or spotting the well-concealed or cryptic definitions made this an enjoyable puzzle. Too many interruptions to give a precise time but I think it was almost an hour, with most progress made in the last 20 minutes. Perhaps I’d got used to the setter’s style by then.

    I particularly liked the clue to AMENUENSIS. Last clue solved was SUNLESS, the definition for which puzzled me somewhat.

  18. Yes, I had the same reaction as others last night when solving, with very few going in on the first read, and a lot of mind-stretching. I agree with ulaca’s observation of Anglo-centricity, which held me up on the football club, the Scottish town and MUG UP, none of which are in my daily vocab. Nor, for that matter is DESKILLED, which I’d never run across, and I got from wordplay only. Took me 50 minutes, and I’ll credit the setter with very tricky clue-writing to explain why it took me so long to see things that should have popped out earlier, esp. CATTLE(!), TURF(!), IAMBI and DONEGAL. Thanks fathippy for parsing 11A, which I could not, but which is clearly as you describe. Regards to all.
  19. Hooray for Eric Fenby and James Boswell, but three cheers for Getrude Stein’s wonderfully named amanuensis: Alice B. Toklas.
    1. Three cheers indeed! Despite bearing an uncanny resemblance to Edna out of Emmerdale, she wrote a cookbook which included a recipe for cannabis brownies.
  21. Excellent puzzle with the exception of the horrible DESKILLED, and excellently blogged. Would appreciate further explanation of BEGINNER 18D. Rookie is beginner, private is inner, request is beg, so where does humility come in?
    Mike and Fay
  22. Struggled a bit with this one, eventually crossing the line in 20:46. I made a couple of goofs which slowed me down a bit, putting in SPORTSMANSHIP and GO OFF a tfirst, but the last few in were in the NE corner (TWELFTHS, SUSIE and SUNLESS).
  23. 16:14 for me, with the last few minutes taken up by TWELFTHS. (Doh!) An absolutely first-rate puzzle – a joy from beginning to end. I raise my hat to the setter.
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