24669

Author   daveperryPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 1:13:12, after getting terribly bogged down in the SE corner.

I found this a bit of a hard slog. The only long one that came easily was 26. That said, the north & east sides came without too much trouble, but I then spent probably 40 minutes battling with the last 7 or 8, one of which was the anagram at 8 which took me forever to crack.

I wasn’t entirely sure about Rockall being described as a desert island. I thought a desert island had to be tropical. But having checked it in various dictionaries, a desert island is uninhabited, and usually in the tropics. So I guess it passes (but I still think it’s a little dubious).

cd = cryptic def., dd = double def., rev = reversal, homophones are written in quotes, anagrams as (–)*, and removals like this

Across
1 AIRS + AND + GRACES
9 TALKS = Known in SLAT rev – the blind is of the venetian type
10 ENC + HI(LA)D + A
11 OCCASIONAL = altipLANO IS ACCOmmodating rev – entered without understanding. Only spotted the hidden word when writing this blog.
12 D + HALf – A pulse commonly used in Indian cookery.
14 A + B + STAIN
16 Locked Up Now And Then If Crazed
17 T(ELECtric)OM
19 OP + IN + ION – well-disguised wordplay here, ‘covered by’ = IN, ‘non-neutral article’ = ION
20 S + COW – a flat-bottomed barge. I’m sure I’ve seen this quite recently.
21 BLITHE + RING
24 KNIFE-EDGE = FEED in EG + INK rev
25 S + PAWN
26 HYPOCHONDRIAC = (A PHONY DOC RICH)*
Down
1 ART FOR ARTS SAKE = O in (STAR TREK’S A FAR)* – I spent a long time trying to rearrange AESTHETIC IDEAL. Automatically makes me think of this.
2 RELIable + Cure – A hangover in the sense of something that has survived from the past. Well-disguised definition.
3 AS + SI + STANCE – Another one entered without full understanding
4 DI(E)D + OWN
5 ROCK + ALL
6 Cat + RIB
7 SPAGHETTI = IT + (THE)* + GAPS all rev
8 HALLUCINOGENIC = (ENOUGH CLINICAL)*
13 UNLICENSED – cd
15 S(ALLOW + IS)H
18 MELODIC = MIC (singer’s equipment) about DOLE rev
19 mONTH + EGO
22 IRAQI = I + “RAKI“
23 Deliberately omitted – a very old chestnut

34 comments on “24669”

  2. I found this tough and left off after an hour with two to go: UNLICENSED and SPAWN. Grateful for the early blog which saved me wondering about the missing answers for most of the day here in Australia. Some very deft clues and all quite fair I thought, but with this week’s times oscillating wildly between a PB and a DNF I don’t know whether to hope I am on the brink of a breakthrough or worry I’m on the brink of a breakdown.
  4. Back from the wilds and my first cryptic in a week. The break must have done me good because this one fell in 16 minutes. The four 13-letter answers went in right away which inspired a certain (though not fully justified) confidence that the myth of difficult Fridays was just that. The only real ponderable was 22dn: tempted by RANI but remembered that that’s a Queen. COD to LUNATIC for the &lit-ish quality.
  5. Made a complete dog’s breakfast of this. Got 1ac and 1dn straight away, but then faltered badly on the eastern side. Defeated by 22, where i had a stab in the dark with IMAMI, and realised when I read the blog that in amongst all the crossings-out I hadn’t finished off BLITHERING.

    ROCKALL seems to have captured the imagination of our setters – I’m sure this is the second time it’s appeared in a matter of days. I think the surface is fair enough, with its allusion to Desert Island Discs.

  6. Came through in about 20 minutes, and this felt on the easier side of things. More than half went in on the first read, including all the long peripheral answers. Held up on the UNLICENSED/SPAWN pair, my last entries, which took a while, and I think UNLICENSED is COD, and that LUNATIC is also cleverly constructed. No problem with ROCKALL as a desert isle, but I agree its been appearing very frequently of late, for no apparent reason. Thanks to Dave. Regards to all.
  7. I thought this was a little easier than most Friday puzzles. I solved all but UNLICENSED in 35 minutes which is good going for me but the elusive 13dn took me another 10 minutes. As with yesterday’s puzzle many of the answers went in without fully understanding the clues and I didn’t spot the hidden reversed OCCASIONAL or the initial letters making LUNATIC until after the grid was complete and the clock had been stopped.
  8. Rockall as a desert island seems odd – both COED and Chambers define a “desert island” as being tropical. However “desert” can mean “uninhabited” so I suppose it’ s OK if not considered as a set phrase.

    I’m not sure if this island would qualify:

    “Once upon a time, on an uninhabited island on the shores of the Red Sea, there lived a Parsee from whose hat the rays of the sun were reflected in more-than-oriental splendour.”

  9. And I put Imami – less excuse than for Iraqi or Irani(?) I guess. Knew it was wrong – the ‘probably’ showed that. Otherwise good in 23 minutes. Held up by throwing in High and Mighty early on but saw the error of my ways. I like these grids ringed by long clues.
  10. This is beginning to sound like the Shipping Forecast. Fond memories of my pure cockney Dad who was the only person I know to use the word BLITHERING. Only progressed with this after a lightning start by using a solver to sort out the horrendous HALLUCINOGENIC. Guessed SCOW. Likewise had IMAMI which should be a word but isn’t.
  11. 22 minutes. Might have been a tad faster had I not made a careless spelling mistake with UNLICENSED, which took a few minutes to sort out. No problem with IRAQI, however, as raki heads a list of drinks which, for the sake of my liver, I pour surreptitiously into a nearby potted plant when presented with a glass of the stuff by an insistent host.
  12. 6:43 online. I think that the TCC does now offer an improved ‘solving experience'(unlike the possible ‘solvent experience’ of HALLUCINOGENIC, a ‘buzz’ word to all old hippies.)
  13. A predominantly well crafted puzzle with some interesting clues that kept me busy for 20 minutes. If 1A and 1D were a little harder it would be quite a lot more difficult.

    I think the “desert” in 5D is included to make one think of the long running radio prog “Desert Island Disks”. It doesn’t quite work for me because to call ROCKALL a “desert island” is just too much of a stretch. The people of the Faroe Island would think you meant “deserted” if you tried it on them, I think. Remove the word “desert” and the clue still works, although with a weaker surface reading.

    2. Jimbo, you’ve missed a trick. The Turkish drink is spelt with an i without a dot (a peculiarity of the Turkish language). This is pronounced like the “a” in Burma, so it’s a dodgy homophone. Glad I could help 😉
  14. Got 1dn and 1ac straight off, which speeded up completion no end. Under 20mins having spent some time trying to decide between unlicenced and unlicensed, and then finding spawn, last in.. I still don’t understand the distinction between licenced & licensed, Chambers seems to allow either..
    1. I was always brought up to believe that “licence” (and other similar words such as “practice”) is the noun, and “license” is the verb. But it’s one of those distinctions that seem to be dying out in modern English.
  15. Made swift progress in half an hour through most of this, but ground to a half in the SE corner, with 13d / 21ac / 25ac all defying my attempts to crack them. In the end I resorted to a solver. 9ac and 10ac were the only ones where I couldn’t fully fathom the wordplay.

    COD – I’ve got a soft spot for 16ac.

  16. Under 25 minutes after the 4 long ones fell quickly into place. Another enjoyable well crafted puzzle. HYPOCHONDRIAC & LUNATIC were good but I fancied ON THE GO for COD
  17. 17 minutes, with the last five spent on BLITHERING… Not massively surprisingly, HYPOCHONDRIAC was first in, and my COD!
  18. Pretty quick at 5:36, but that was without going back to fully understand all the solutions.

    As with vinyl1 when some checking letters are in place I can often see the solution from only the definition. In this crossword I don’t think any of the definitions were very cryptic – apart from “desert island” perhaps, but even then the wordplay was very clear.

  19. 24:33 .. put me in the group that struggled badly in the SE corner. The UNLICENSED / SPAWN / IRAQI trio sat unfilled for a long time before all clicking at once.

    Another vote of thanks for the 10CC reminder, Dave. They and Supertramp seem to have been almost written out of pop music history. Undeservedly.

  20. 19m, so on the easyish side of average for me. Helped by the long edge clues which all came quickly.
    It would have been a lot quicker if I hadn’t spent at least 5 minutes staring blankly at 25ac, too focussed on finding a more literal synonym for “tool”.
  21. I forgot to write down when I started, but I believe I took slightly longer than Dave, perhaps 1 hour 20 minutes, like yesterday. But, like yesterday, I finished correctly without any problems (except for some of the wordplay, figured out later, for ENCHILADA, for example). I might have finished a minute or two quicker if I could have stopped laughing about 26 ac, once I saw the anagram.
  22. Oh, looks like I was slow today at 25:31. Mind you, with so many multi-word answers and me still leaving spaces between words when solving online I had a bit of mending to do at regular intervals so a paper solve would have been quicker.

    COD to blithering, not keen on black liquid for ink.

    Thanks for the 10cc link Dave – belting song.

  23. 28 min. Last in was 14ac, because for some reason I had put in two H’s at the beginning and end of 15d, instead of S + H. Looking HALLOWISH, anyone? – I think this must mean I’m anticipating the end of this month!
  24. Drat! …as most of it fell into place quite readily.Came here and ‘came the dawn’ so to speak.
  25. 24667 is slated as the first puzzle in the prelim round at Cheltenham. I was rather expecting the other two to appear as Times cryptics in ensuing editions and being blogged as such. I have downloaded the championship ones so that’s not a problem.
    1. The prelim puzzles will be appearing on Wednesdays for the next 5 weeks. See Peter’s entry re the championships.

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