Times 24659 – “The song that Crosby sings….

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 39 minutes

Music: Prokofiev, Romeo and Juliet Excerpts, Maazel/Cleveland Orchestra.

This one should have been easy, but I got stuck for the last 11 minutes on three answers in the NE. If I could have remembered how to spell ‘amanuensis’, it would have been a lot simpler. Instead, I started erasing previous correct answers, and then putting them in again.

This is the style of puzzle where I get into difficulty because the clues are simpler than I am expecting, and the answers less obscure. For example, I was expecting the name of a suburb in 9 down, rather than a vague area that only loosely fits the definition.

Beginners are reminded that obvious clues are not blogged. If you are stuck on one, please try to solve it on your own using the crossing letters supplied by these answers first.

Across
1 ACHE, AC(H)E, my first in.
3 AMANUENSIS, A + MAN + anagram of USES IN. A word I, and probably others, have difficulty spelling, although the answer is quite obvious from the beginning part.
10 TIN OPENER, T + IN + O(PE)NE + R, where ‘drill’ is loosely Physical Education, although drill is not what one does in PE class in US schools.
11 CAIRN, CAIRN[s]. An Australian port I did not know, but the answer is evident enough.
12 CRY WOLF, CRY + FLOW backwards, with ‘keen’ in the sense of ululate.
13 HORACE, H[omer} + OR + ACE.
15 PUT ONE’S FOOT DOWN, double cryptic definition. Not very accurate, because although when the driver puts his foot down, the car gains momentum, putting the foot down is not in itself gaining momentum.
18 TOOK IT ON THE CHIN, TOO + anagram of HOT IN KITCHEN. No percussion players here, although they were looked for.
21 Omitted, an oft-repeated chestnut.
23 FRAGILE, F(RAG)ILE. If you object that rag is high-quality paper, you are thinking of physical paper. The sense here is a contemptible newspaper.
26 Omitted, chestnut number two.
27 GUINEVERE, GU(I)N + EVE + RE. The queen with the green eyes and the golden hair.
28 PAGE TURNER, P + AGE + TURNER, the 19th-century British artist.
29 Omitted, chestnut number three.
 
Down
1 ANTICIPATE, anagram of A NICE TIP AT, where the literal relies on a rather obscure meaning, and the anagram indicator puts the letters into an athletic competition where the ‘a’ comes in first.
2 HANDY, H AND Y. A clue that looks like it requires esoteric knowledge, but does not.
4 MANIFESTO, MAN + IF + ES + TO. Most solvers will see ‘man’ and write in ‘manifesto’, especially if you have the trailing ‘o’.
5 NORTH, hidden in [u]NORTH[odox], Well-hidden, because it is not on the syllable breaks.
6 EXCERPT, EX + CER(P)T, where ‘cert’ = ‘winner, it’s believed’. I wasted a lot of time trying to remove ‘all’ from something.
7 SAILCLOTH, anagram of THIS LOCAL. The surface is so natural, I didn’t see it for a bit, but once you take out ‘cloth’, there isn’t much left.
8 Obvious, especially with these crossing letters.
9 UPTOWN, anagram of PUT + O + W + N. It is not often they string together the one-letter indicators, which is my excuse for not seeing this at once.
14 IN ANY EVENT, INAN(Y)E + VENT, which most solvers will put in from the literal.
16 TWO-TIMING, anagram of OMITTING around W[ife].
17 OUT OF LINE, OUT(O[pposition]F)LINE Another one that will probably go in without bothering with the cryptic.
19 INSPECT, INS(P)ECT. There is only a feeble hope you will take this for a cricket clue.
20 ENAMEL, [st h]E(NAME)L[ier]. You have to get the centre of both pieces.
22 EAGER, EA(G[programm]E)R.
24 Omitted, chestnut number four.
25 Omitted, chestnut number five.

43 comments on “Times 24659 – “The song that Crosby sings….”

  1. 40 mins for me with one wrong, ‘coign’ for CAIRN – particularly galling as I knew the town and knew I was wrong. PUT ONES FOOT DOWN seems okay to me if the second definition is also taken loosely as an &lit. COD to UPTOWN for the clever use of ‘off’ as the anagram indicator.
  2. 26 minutes, much assisted by the wealth of anagrams, even when nicely concealed (as in 1dn).
  3. Seemed very easy – felt I should have beaten 10 minutes but 15. Several clues fell way before the their rationale. Regarding which, inane is not the same as unimaginative. The latter applies here in general – a bit surprised by ‘The Times’. No COD.
  4. Sometimes there’s nothing like a bag of chestnuts. 22 minutes, a PB, and about one eighth of the time taken on Friday. Funny old game…
  5. Jack – Maybe White Christmas with chestnuts roasting on an open fire? I often have more trouble with the banners than the actual crossword, as was the case here as this was a confidence restorer after failing to finish on Friday. Mind you, even Sunday’s gave me trouble, which seems to be harder of late?). As per vinyl1’s comment about over-complicating, that I had no idea that Hooghly was a river (thus with banks) made the solve rather easier. (Sometimes being thick is an advantage).
    1. Ooops! The Christmas Song – a vastly superior song.
      Prefer my guess to the actual answer.
    2. Saturday’s had the clue of the century. Thank goodness we weren’t asked to find a homophone of Hooghly (which I reckoned must be Irish until checking with my online friend).
      1. Interested in your comment about Saturday. Which was the clue? 14 mins today but didn’t really like races as indicator of anagram.
        1. I’d better not say, in case in the fruitful discussion that is likely to follow the answer be revealed. Cracking puzzle, though.
  6. 32 minutes, which is my best for a while. Would have beaten the half-hour but for a shaky start and time wasted trying to justify ‘By any means’ at 14dn.

    I thought it was quite lively, certainly not unimaginative and I don’t agree that all the clues referred to as such are ‘chestnuts’ as I understand the meaning of the term. Also we have to have easier puzzles on occasion to redress the balance and Friday’s was something of a brute so we were due one.

    What’s your Crosby reference, Vinyl1? Have I missed something obvious?

  8. Easy one today, to my relief after solving all the weekend’s offerings. However a lot of very nice, slick surface readings, eg 13ac, 29ac, 7dn, 24dn.. NO way such clues should be described as “unimaginative.”
  9. I could almost hear the experienced solvers sighing over such a boring old puzzle; for me it was fun to be able to finish it under 40 minutes, never ever done that before.
    I saw 1a when it was still printing and nothing baffled me as I steadily went along, although, yes, I did think it was a cricket clue, and smiled because it was a totally different sort.
    1. Ironic, isn’t it? I refer you to the cricket clue cribsheet, you do all your homwork and are now fully equipped to solve cricket clues, one comes along and all your study is pointless!! Don’t worry, it won’t be wasted!

      25 enjoyable minutes for this, some relief from recent offerings, although my attention has been concentrated on the golf. I have yet to finish Saturday’s. COD to the cleverly-hidden and misleading NORTH.

  10. Solved on line rather than on the non-existent Tube, as driving in made for an earlier start, no paper and, even on a very slow North Circular, no time anyway to make a start – I have completed on the M11 before now.
    The only one I got stuck on was CAIRN – can’t really see why. 25 down may be deciduous fruit, but I liked it.
  11. 5:39 so a pretty easy one, helped by the fairly high number of multi-word answers, of which 15, 18, 14 and 17 seem like answers I’ve seen several times before. Apart from a mild yawn at those and a minor mutter about “races” in 1D, no complaints.

    Didn’t know enamel was specifically nail varnish.

  12. 17 minutes. I too was mystified by Vinyl’s Crosby reference and chuckled at Barry’s suggestion. Like him, I had Bing in mind, and wondered if we were being directed to a method for speedy solving:

    You`ve got to accentuate the positive
    Eliminate the negative
    Latch on to the affirmative
    Don`t mess with Mister In-Between

    I managed to latch on to the definitions today and didn’t much mess with the wordplay.

  13. Nice easy introduction to the week, a relief after Friday’s and Saturday’s. 16m, which would have been quicker if it hadn’t been for strike-induced travel disruption. It’s not easy to do the crossword when someone’s poking their elbow into the small of your back and you have to hold the paper two inches from your nose.
  14. A straightforward 25 minutes. Surprised to hear Cairns referred to as a port; holiday destination, yes, marina, perhaps, but then I read just over 1 million tonnes of cargo pass through it a year, which isn’t a footling amount, not to mention the cruise ships. COD to EXCERPT
  15. There seems to be some negativity about this puzzle, but I’ll risk saying that although it was an easy 22 minute solve, I quite enjoyed the clues and had no complaints.
    11 was a guess at the end.
    1. I agree. I don’t think there was anything to be negative about in this puzzle. What’s so surprising about Times crossword addicts finding a puzzle easy? The publishers are catering for varying degrees of ability. If they made every puzzle hard enough to baffle the experts they would lose any chance of picking up new followers.
  16. Probably my fastest time for the Times at 27 minutes, with only three I didn’t fully understand (11ac, 14d, 22d). Quite relieved to find that 27ac wasn’t an obscure (to me) Greek character, raised an eyebrow at picking EL from the middle of St Helier, but got what I was supposed to do so suppose I shouldn’t complain.

    COD 10ac.

  17. 11:40 .. perfectly enjoyable fare. Clues like the neat “Dummy left in baby’s bed (4)” may seem obvious enough once you’re steeped in the thought processes of this peculiar pastime, but would once have left me baffled.

    And there was me thinking Vinyl’s blog title was a Ryder Cup reference… Straight Down the Middle.

    Last in UPTOWN.

  18. 34 minutes (including an interruption for one brief phone call), my best time ever, and I found this a very relaxing, pleasant, and for a change exceptionally easy puzzle. CAIRN was the only landmark I could think of for 11ac, but though it was correct I misunderstood the wordplay (and somehow managed to convince myself that for this clue “port” meant right, i.e., the R, rather than left, and CAIN was a new synonym for STRINE), but otherwise everything went in without problems except for a brief hesitation about H AND Y in 2d. COD for the wordplay construction perhaps to GUINEVERE.
  19. 5:28 Very quick today. Every answer seemed to lead to another.Pleased to get the convoluted TIN OPENER via the wordplay as I more often than not bung things in on definition. Helped by the few chestnuts and by immediately thinking AMANUENSIS on seeing PA.
  20. Same story here. 15 minutes. No problems and a fair number of very familiar constructions, whatever one wants to dub them. Don’t begin to understand all that stuff about Crosby.
  22. 8 mins, last in 9D UPTOWN. 29A CLOT works very nicely and is my COD. I’m not very keen on ‘describe’ as an indicator of containment, as in 22D, but it didn’t cause me any problems in solving.

    Tom B.

  23. Didn’t time it, but it felt like a flyer. I think this is about the third time I’ve come across AMANUENSIS so it went in right the first time (and the first time!).

    Nothing that went in without full understanding, which is the first in a while.

    1. The word amanuensis actually took me back to my long gone schooldays, in my school that was the person who was in charge of the science lab and set everything up for us to do the experiments. I can still picture him. So an easy word for me.
      1. I know this word only from seeing Ken Russell’s TV film A Song Of Summer (1968) about the last years of the composer Frederick Delius based on the writings of his amanuensis, Eric Fenby.
        1. In solving these English cryptics there is one advantage for me as a Dutch person – the huge variety of foreign words I know from speaking different languages and foreign words incorporated in the Dutch language. It doesn’t really make up for the disadvantage of English being my second language, but it makes the challenge all the more interesting.
          Bit like the people from overseas, but different again, because I do live in the UK.
            1. They are different, mainly cryptic clues, but it might have all changed, haven’t done a Dutch one for years.
              It’s what I found baffling in the beginning, all the codes you have to know here, the secret language of cricket, the abbrevations, the lower and the flower.

              Once I got that cracked thanks to you people, I start to make some headway.
              I enjoy doing the puzzles from the archive and read the blog, great entertainment.

  24. 25 minutes, which for me is lightning fast (did two last week under that time, but any thoughts that I was getting better vanished on Friday). Never did figure out why 4d was ‘manifesto’; once again I’m grateful to the blogger for the explanation. The pennies dropped for 3 and 6 long after I’d written them in; never occurred to me to think of ‘resort’ as an anagram indicator.
  25. 5:21, which would have been sub-5 if I hadn’t been so slow with the last one, CAIRN (11ac).

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