Times 24856 – Is that all there is?

Author   kororarekaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving Time: 43 minutes

Was this difficult for a Monday or was it me? Time and the first few comments will tell. I struggled to find the wavelength (see 5ac), whose generator seemed to be attached to a variable resistor. Some clues I posited thinking there had to be something more lurking there and others, like 16 & 24 all but totally defeated me; and when light finally dawned, I thought of Peggy Lee. That’s the mark of a good clue, I suppose (with thanks to T.B.). Anyway, enough about me – take it away, Peggy.

Across
1 P(R)OSIT, “may it benefit” in Latin via German
5 WHIT + (PACE)rev = WHITECAP
9 MAC(bAROn)ON, Macon being a generic red, white or pink wine from southern Burgundy.
10 RIB + AND for “combined with” = RIBAND, often blue, though not to be confused with ribald.
11 FASTNESS, a double definition.
12 REASON, a double definition
13 (ARTIST IS)* = SATIRIST. Hogarth was the Doonesbury of his day, except he mostly worked in oils and eschewed the easy gag.
15 Deliberately omitted. I thought it was daft. No, really. It was early, I was aweigh but not awake, the sun was in my eyes…
17 AWAY, as in Home and Away games, sounds like “aweigh”, a nautical term pertaining to anchors and mangers.
19 FREE + HAND. Is that a cuff behind the ear or something at the end of your sleeve? On edit: It is suggested in the blog that “to loosen cuff” needs to be taken as an ensemble, with “cuff” possibly from “cuffs” as in handcuffs. So to loosen cuff is to free (a) hand. Should I create a poll?
20 THE “S” IS central to USA
21 WAR(RANT)Y
22 PHONIC =(CHOPIN)*
23 P for power + REACHER, the latter being an overstretched grasper
24 ARMCHAIR = (MARCH)* + homophone of “‘are”, in the sense of where the critic may be situated.
25 LESSEN sounds like “lesson”

Down
2 READ(A + B for book + L for large)E = READABLE. Charles Reade was “… unsurpassed in the second class of English novelists …” according to Wiki.
3 S for second + (RAM)rev + TEST = SMARTEST. Does intelligence equate to wisdom?
4 TWO-SEATER, a cryptic definition playing on the two’s company theme
5 (INSPRIRED NEW CREW)* = WINDSCREEN WIPER
6 TR(I’D)ENT as in pitched fork and missile
7 CHATS + HOW. How encompasses extent as well as manner, according to ODE.
8 P(ED)AN + TRY
14 ST for “way” + AIR WELL = STAIRWELL
15 DYSTOPIA = TOP in (IDSAY)*
16 FOREDOOM = (MORE FOOD)*, where the comma is included in the definition
17 ADVANCES, a double definition, in the first instance possibly unwanted
18 Deliberately omitted. Cue today’s theme song (well worth listening to the end to discover the answer to the posed question).
19 F.A. for sweet Fanny Adams + IRISH = FAIRISH

40 comments on “Times 24856 – Is that all there is?”

  1. 47 fun-filled, Scotch-flavored minutes. I did have some queries — 17ac is still unclear to me, as is 7d; I had (have) my doubts about ‘fearfully’ as an anagram marker; and I thought (think) that ‘flight’ as an indicator of stairs has passed its sell-by date –but I thought that this was a splendid puzzle. CODs to 20ac, 3d, 17d inter alia.
    1. 17: once the anchor has come clear of the sea bed, it is ‘aweigh’.

      7: ‘programme using speakers’ is the definition – CHAT SHOW; also arrived at via ‘singers’ (CHATS, as in the songbirds) + ‘to what extent’ (HOW).

      1. Thanks; I had the aweigh/away part, but I was bothered by ‘fixtures’. Didn’t know of chats the birds; fortunately I knew that chat show=US talk show. (And that windscreen=US windshield.)
        1. A fixture is a (football) match. Some matches are away, some are home.
  2. After an hour, I was still left with three (or four, as I found out later, having got 11ac wrong – putting ‘fortress’ for FASTNESS). Needed aids to get PROSIT, READABLE and PREACHER.

    I also managed to have ‘staircase’ for quite a while, making this a win by K.O. to the setter.

  3. Nice steady solve today at 18m 20s and thoroughly enjoyed it. Held up a bit by having ‘talk show’ for 7d thinking that ‘talks’ = ‘sings’ ie in a confession to the police etc. But of course this doesn’t parse properly anyway.
  4. All but CHAT SHOW eventually understood (had TALK SHOW until I got WHITECAP). COD to the sublime THESIS, the type of clue I still cannot resist gushing about to friends who then wonder amongst themselves if it really is time for me to be institutionalised.
    Help.
    Have been invited by email to renew membership but the email’s link simply takes me to the site. Can’t find anything on it for renewing subscription. I must be missing something. Any suggestions?
    2. I had the same thing, Barry, then I got the “Your membership expires tomorrow” email and the link worked fine.
  5. Lots of misdirection here proved to be my downfall. After a very quick start, TWO-SEATER, SATIRIST, DEFT, I ground to a halt and struggled all the way home with some assistance along the way.

    Wasted ages at 14dn trying to find a variation on ‘skywriting’ that would fit the grid, and at 11ac trying to justify ‘fortress’.

    Round One this week goes decidedly to the setter.

  6. 20 minutes, so either this is tougher than the average Monday puzzle, or I’m not properly awake. Either is possible.
    Much of the slowness is down to not seeing the long down clue until close to the end: as no doubt was intended, I was trying to see something nautical and had WHEEL and WATER at various times for the 5 letter component.
    Is a MACAROON a biscuit? I suppose it depends on whether you pay VAT on it or not.
    CoD today to the most excellent and witty THESIS, though I also liked the economical roadster at 4.
  7. 49 minutes for me, plus a few more minutes to appreciate THESIS and FAIRISH. The SW corner gave me the most problems, in an enjoyable sort of way. I rather liked fearfully as an anagram indicator.
  8. Another one in the 40s: 42 minutes and I was in a rush to get out by 7:45, so it had to be under 45! Loved the anagrams involving Hogarth and Chopin in particular. More please, even at the risk of the wrath of the science brigade!

    By the same token, 25ac (LESSEN) didn’t work for me. Who was it who said “We called him the turtle because he taught us; and we called them lessons because they got shorter”? This is something a number of students have said to me (wonder why?) but, typical of undergrads, they didn’t include an attribution.

    2. I agree LESSEN was very poor. It was the only one I wasn’t sure I had right before coming here.
  9. 17 minutes. Enjoyable puzzle, enjoyable blog.
    I found this pretty straightforward in spite of quite a lot of unknown stuff (PROSIT, “rib”, “aweigh”, Charles Reade) so I must have been on the setter’s wavelength.
    I was puzzled by HAND = “cuff” but after wasting time trying to find some justification for it, it occrus to me that the second half of this clue is perhaps just a cryptic definition: if you loosen your cuff you free your hand.
    I always thought “Sweet Fanny Adams” was a euphemism for its more robust cousin, but it appears (from Wikipediea, so it must be true) not. My COD for stumping me for several minutes after I’d finished.
    1. …and now it occurs to me that it makes even more sense as a CD if the “cuff” is a handcuff.
      1. Perhaps – but only unfastening or removing handcuffs would do the trick for me. I have a similar difficulty in seeing how loosening my cuff would free my hand. How constricting can cufflinks be?!
        1. Our comments are crossing!
          I agree about the cufflinks, and I can see the problem with loosening, but of course if you loosen cuffs enough you can get your hand out of them.
          Hmm.
  10. Thinking, while solving, this might be a charade with ‘hand’ = ‘cuff’ (verb), I checked C, which has the rather vague ‘lay hands on, set hand to’. If this is taken in the knock-about-a-bit sense, that would work. Nothing to this effect in Oxford Online under ‘hand’. Maybe Collins has something?
    1. That’s a bit loose though, isn’t it? Surely there needs to be a sense in which to “hand” means to strike, and I’m not aware of one.
  11. More of the clues than usual seemed to need an extra reach into the recesses of memory/half-understood vocabulary to solve. Orwell’s description of Reade from the same Wiki entry as kororareka cites makes him sound like the ideal crossword compiler (or solver): “Reade was a man of what one might call penny-encyclopaedic learning. He possessed vast stocks of disconnected information …. the sort of mind that takes a pleasure in dates, lists, catalogues, concrete details, descriptions of processes, junk-shop windows and back numbers of the Exchange and Mart, the sort of mind that likes knowing exactly how a medieval catapult worked or just what objects a prison cell of the eighteen-forties contained.” 40 minutes.
  12. One wrong: even after correctly assuming that that there was a novelist called READE, the best I could come up with for PROSIT was TRUS(E)T. I was taking it on trust (i.e. assuming) that including the ‘e’ produced a drinking toast from somewhere around the world. Apparently not!

    Otherwise an enjoyable challenge. Thanks kororareka for a good blog, in particular the explanation of the wordplay for ARMCHAIR: it couldn’t be anything else but I couldn’t understand ‘critical situation’. My COD, too, goes to THESIS.

  13. Yep, one wrong AGAIN!

    This time it was 1ac, where I had the unlikely PROSET = PROS(E)T, meaning to assume.

    Otherwise, a challenging puzzle. Like others, I, too, fell into the traps of ‘fortress’ and ‘talk show’. Thought FASTNESS a great clue, once I eventually got it (LOI).

    COD to THESIS. Janie (can’t seem to log in today!)

  14. 21:17 today – yes I had difficulty getting onto the right wavelength today. First one in was 22ac, then 8dn – very slow start.
  15. One of those puzles where I take ages to get started. After 10 minutes I only had a handful of answers but then I got PROSIT and it began to click. (Am hoping to get to Munich in the next couple of weeks so was thinking of the Hofbrauhaus!) There was a lot to admire here – THESIS was a laugh out loud moment. 35 fun minutes.
  16. 27:11 .. at least 7 minutes were spent on 1a. I seem to have got this far in life without ever seeing the word PROSIT written down and always assumed there was a ‘u’ in it somewhere (bit like ‘Proust’ – yeah, I know). In the end I had to start writing down plausible options and saying them out loud until it clicked (glad I wasn’t doing this on a train).

    THESIS is brilliant.

  17. ummm, wow… I breezed through this, so maybe I was on the setter’s wavelength. 8:10 on the club timer. PROSIT and MACAROON from definition.
  18. From my fuddled memory of times spent at the Hofbräuhaus, the toasts used in Germany are either “Prosit” (literally “may it benefit”) or “Gesundheit” (health), except among coalminers, who say “Glück auf” (roughly, “good luck”).
  20. After being battered by a strong westerly round 18 holes never quite got on terms with this. All a bit of a struggle for 25 minutes. Solved AWAY without reading the clue and then didn’t understand it when I did read it. Don’t for one moment equate intelligence with wisdom and have often found the exact reverse to be true.
    1. I just remembered Orwell’s comment on I forget what idea or opinion: ‘That’s so stupid only an intellectual could have thought of it.’
  21. A lot of trickery here today, and some required UK/US translation at the long 5D, and 7D as well. About 45 minutes, ending with RIBAND, due to my lack of knowledge of all things knitting related. There is really a lot of good stuff in here today, like the ARMCHAIR critic and the FREE HAND, and THE S IS. It certainly took longer than usual, and I didn’t get the Fanny Adams allusion at all, or AWAY. Thanks to koro for the blog. Regards to all, setter included.
  22. 9:26 here. I thought this was on the tough side for a Monday puzzle, so I wasn’t too unhappy about my time. A most enjoyable puzzle.
  23. Just over an hour (actually, I stopped after an hour with only 10ac and 7dn left to fill in, but with WHITETOP (?) and a tentative TALK SHOW for 7dn. Then I saw RIBAND, which ruined TALK SHOW, and since I couldn’t make sense of WHITETOP anyway (whatever it may be) I finally corrected it to WHITECAP with some measure of relief, and CHAT SHOW was the only logical choice to finish the puzzle.

    I rather liked ADVANCES and I rather didn’t like TWO-SEATER as being perhaps a bit vague (although I did understand the reference right away — nonetheless I hesitated before entering it into the grid). THESIS was rather nice but OASIS in a recent puzzle was much nicer.

    I’m glad Tony is not too unhappy about his 9 minutes — I would be delirious with joy if I got anywhere near a small multiple of that!

  24. Many thanks Koro and the setter. Very unusual for me to attempt the Times on the day it comes out, normally I print and save for later. It was hard but enjoyable work, pleased to get about 75% of it done in the end, top LH corner had me completely beaten

    DRAM

  25. I also found completing this rather tough. I filled most in 30 minutes, then came to a grinding halt with much of the NE corner and a few others unfilled. I went back to it later and managed to finish with aids, but rather slowly. No exact time, but probably nearly an hour altogether.
  26. 34 minutes here – good time for me so I would class this as easy. It must surely be unusual to have two fully checked answers.

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