Times 24,678

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Timed at 19:09, which seems about right for what I found a very two-paced puzzle – more than half the across clues went in on first look, but things slowed rapidly after that, particularly in the SW corner.

Across
1 FRICASSEE – [CAS(h) in 1’S] in FREE.
9 LA PLATA – LAP + (mea)L + A ‘TA’.
10 deliberately omitted
11 EASEL – EASE + L(ength).
12 GREEN BELT – (GENTREBEL)*. As the old joke goes, if you get a green belt in judo, you can defend yourself from people who want to build houses on you.
13 RELIGHT – (THEGIRL)*.
15 SET TO – backwards in MOT test.
17 CRUSH – double def.
18 CHIVY – C.H. + IVY. I’d always thought this had a double V, but it appears either is acceptable.
19 SCENE =”SEEN”, as in “Don’t make a scene”.
20 REDCOAT – RED + C.O. + AT. Once more, our North American contributors’ favourite soldier makes an appearance.
23 PARKINSON – PARK + [SO in INN]. I was picturing Michael Parkinson with a badge and a gun until I remembered Parkinson’s Law.
25 FACED – (DECAF)rev.
27 BRAVADO – B(oyfriend) + RAV(e) + A DO. “Bottle” here being courage, rather than the Jeroboam type vessel I was half looking for.
28 EMIRATE – EMIGRATE without (kin)G.
29 RIDGE TENT – RID + [(Os)TE(nd) in GENT].
 
Down
1 FORAGE – F.O. RAGE, though these days it would have to be FCORAGE, which doesn’t quite work.
2 ILL BE BOUND – cryptic def.
3 ASTONISH – AS + (N.I. in TOSH). “Tosh” as “mate” was last discussed in July.
4 SADIE – S.A. + DIE. As has been discussed at length here, I think S.A. in its “Sex Appeal” meaning (there are others, of course) is one of those expressions that lives on in crosswords and nowhere else in the world, and perhaps ought to be allowed to fade away itself.
5 ELECTRODE – ELECT (the adjectival sense as in President Elect) + (Mahle)R + ODE.
6 APPEAL =”A PEEL“.
7 PADS – double def. (I spent a long time weighing up BARS as a double def. with an added &lit. because of the third, musical, definition; however, I couldn’t quite make “flats” tally with this – I was thinking a sand bar might be a flat, but the dictionary was adamant that it’s a ridge, and thus definitely not a flat). Particularly with the unhelpful _A_S checkers, this is the sort of clue that you could easily see causing a slip under championship conditions.
8 HARLOTRY – LOT in HARRY.
14 GOING SPARE – double def.
16 TEST PAPER – (PETERSAPT)*.
17 CAREFREE – C. A REF(e)REE.
18 CELIBATE – (ELI + BAT) in C.E. In the modern vernacular, celibacy seems to be more about sex than marriage, but the OED, at least, does not follow (celibate=unmarried, rather than abstaining from intercourse).
21 OLDHAM – HOLD with the H pushed forward/down, + A M(otorway).
22 ON FOOT – the Foot in question being the former Labour leader.
24 RABID – (BIRDA)*, with two possible anagram indicators confusing the issue.
26 CHIT – C(harts) + HIT.

60 comments on “Times 24,678”

  1. 15 minutes; no mistakes. Held up by LA PLATA and APPEAL. COD LA PLATA for its wonderful surface.

    Oli

    1. PS Isn’t I’LL BE BOUND a double definition – “Certainly” and “how Houdini…”?
  2. I wonder if the compiler actaully meant the answer as ‘bars’; on balance, I think I like this better as I find it hard to reconcile blocks with pads, the ‘paper’ connection being a bit too tenuous for me.
    1. My musings on this led me to Oxford Dictionaries Online, where pad is defined as a ‘thick piece [of soft material]’, which seems close enough to a block. The terms’ apparent incommensurability lies in the fact that a block is typically hard (soap, ice), and a pad soft(er).
      1. The school I was at 1959-1964 used the term ‘block’ for a pad of lined paper to distinguish it from exercise books. Teachers would issue instructions whether work was to be presented in books or ‘on block’.
        1. I too spent much time pondering the rival merits of PADS v BARS at 7dn, plumping in the end for BARS. It seems to me that both solutions work equally well – PADS for the reasons given by Jack, and BARS if “bar” is taken to mean both “block” (as in a bar of chocolate) and “bar” as in a section of a musical score, and “flats” to be musical notes ((cf “sharps”).
          1. Also pondered BARS but thought PADS was much better. Musical bars may well contain flats but that doesn’t mean they are flats.
            1. Peter, I concede that PADS is the more straightforward answer – and has now been established as the intended one (see my response to Sotira below). But I don’t follow the logic of your second sentence. In music a flat is a note lowered a semitone below natural pitch and not any other thing. I do not quite see how a musical bar could contain flats that were also not flats. If you mean that a musical bar containing only flats would be improbable, I would agree, but this is a cryptic crossword and not the real world. It seems to me that a clue that permits of two perfectly defensible solutions is unsatisfactory, and that in fairness both would have to be allowed under competition conditions.
              1. We’re talking about a clue to BARS rather than BAR here, so the putative music would need two or more bars of flats. Perfectly possible if we’re in C flat major, but there’s a “double plural” here. “notes” => BAR seems much better to me than “notes” => BARS. Combining this with “flats” rather than “notes” puts BARS outside the line for me.

                I’m sure this kind of ambiguity is what they try to avoid in championship puzzles, but when it happens my experience is that ideas like “flats” => BARS are not accepted as valid alternatives.

            2. I don’t think they need to be.
              Bars = blocks
              Bars = blocks of flats (DBE indicated by the question mark).
              This makes the clue a double definition (one cryptic) where one word (“blocks”) is shared by both definitions.
              A bit of a stretch but I think it’s defensible and more amusing than the correct answer.
              1. I don’t think “overlapping double def” is a clue type used in current Times crosswords (or others following Ximenean rules).
                1. I thought that the ? was there to alert us that “blocks” was doing double duty, giving a double definition: “Blocks” and “Blocks of flats”, which makes me prefer BARS to PADS. This rather tickled me, and it would have been my COD!
  3. 31 minutes. Enjoyed this and was sorry I couldn’t finish in under the half-hour. No problem with PADS as blocks. I use the term “writing block” for a chunky memo-pad, though when I just Googled it I was persistently offered “writer’s block”; I eventually found what I was looking for by Googling “memo-block”. It is quite a clever clue, such pad being a “block of flats”.
    1. “The only writer’s block I’ve ever got was from the stationers.” ANTHONY BURGESS
      1. The point is that ‘blocks of flats’ equates to bars, ie in bars of music. Thus the need for the question mark.
        1. Speaking as former musician I can assure you that the concept of a bar containing only flats, whilst in theory possible, is far too remote and tenuous a concept for a daily crossword puzzle. It’s a straight double definition: PADS = blocks (of paper) and flats (apartments).

          As mentioned above I toyed with the idea (of BARS) myself but concluded if that was indeed the intention then the setter and crossword editor must be in need of immediate retirement. Happily the idea was wrong and they are not.

  4. Heavy weather today going down every cul-de-sac as it appeared. The technique for OLDHAM still causes me problems and REFEREE for judge still refuses to leap off the page. Dare not say what my last in was… OK, it was APPEAL despite having pencilled in PEAL early on, and only solved once I cheated to get LA PLATA. As to my COD I confess to finding HARLOTRY very appealing but in the end went for FORAGE. For me tough but never less than enjoyable, and apart from BARS (me too) scrupulously fair.
  5. Still unconvinced by ‘pads’. I am thinking of bar = block in the sense of prevention, not as a bar of soap or gold etc. This, coupled with the musical association for the cryptic defn., with the appropriate question mark, seems to me to be very reasonable, and a decent clue.
  6. A slightly disastrous 35 minutes here including going for Bars. A bit slow on the uptake – spent ages going the wrong way on Electrode and one or two others. Still, got there in the end.
  7. Game of two halves, with most going in quickly, but hold-ups in the top, two of which required recourse to aids after an hour, FRICASEE and HARLOTRY. Kicking myself for not getting ‘on the house’ and for being unable to get ‘harry’ when I had ‘lot’. Fell into ‘bars’ trap. Liked ELECTRODE best.
  8. Jogged along quite nicely with this working from the bottom upwards but then met my Waterloo with 1ac and three clues in the NE corner. I thought of FRICASSES in the mistaken belief that the word has only the one E and this prevented me solving 6dn. Never heard of LA PLATA but I guessed it and put BARS at 7dn making a mental note to complain about a stupid clue. Later I used a solver to look for alternatives and realised the clue was fine and me that was stupid.
  9. Struggled with this one, but finally finished in just under 47 min without aids. I went for PADS myself. Enjoyed HARLOTRY – after I got it out of my head that the answer was going to be VAGRANCY.
    Could someone explain the INN bit of 23 ac. to me, please? (scratches particularly dense head)
    1. BARS v PADS
      Would one of the BARS supporters give me a reasonable explanation of how the clue works?

      I can see BLOCKS=PADS or BARS, but I can’t see how FLATS is anything other than PADS. If someone can (preferably with a dictionary reference) justify FLATS=BARS then the clue is indeed faulty.

      I’m just not convinced.

      Oli

      1. Does Blocks of flats equate to bars? I thought that the bars equated to (and excuse my poor grasp of music terminology) tones, ie EGBDC or whatever they are, not semitones up or down. So it doesn’t work as a cryptic definition or as a semi-&lit.
      2. I submitted on the Times Crossword Club and do not have a 100% Correct solution. I put in BARS and every other answer is correct.
        Having seen PADS here I would say that this is the correct answer.
  11. 23 minutes, though a lot of that was on the BARS vs PADS vs BAYS. CHIVY was a new word for me, needed wordplay for it. Also wasn’t familiar with I’LL BE BOUND as an expression, had the I’LL BE part of it long before the rest
  12. A mostly straightforward solve, but I got horribly stuck at the end on 1ac, and 9ac / 8d, the latter needing a solver in the end to get right. I was, however, pleased to have got 1ac from the wordplay! COD 25ac.
  13. BARS for me. I thought it rather clever. A bar of music can consist of a block of flats. I did not think of PADS and overall don’t see it as any better or worse, but feel the question mark points towards the sneakier of the two. Musicians please?
  14. Definitely BARS as a cryptic def – A block (series) of notes (in this case all of ’em are flats). The ? at the end wouldn’t be needed for PADS.
  15. Just on 20 minutes, so a more protracted solve than yesterday, mostly down to a slow start. I thought this was an excellent and testing set of clues requiring more lateral thinking than usual: FRICASSEE, HARLOTRY, CELIBATE and RIDGE TENT being samples.
    I put in PADS without much thought, on the “flats/places to live” basis, but I can see where the BARS admirers are coming from. That rare thing, an either/or?
    CoD to any one of the above.
  16. 20:14 .. But I’m a BARS kind of gal (it’s been said before). I do think it works as a semi-&lit, the question mark indicating that bars of music may or may not be made up of flats (some are). I accept that PADS is the simpler explanation and that Occams razor might therefore shave away the musical one. But I do agree with Penguin that there doesn’t seem to be a need for the question mark in a double def. Deep breath… definitely BARS.
  17. I’ve phoned the Times Clues Solution Line and the correct answer is PADS – not the best clue I’ve ever come across

    The rest is reasonably straightforward and certainly livelier than yesterday

      1. Sotira, I’m with you on BARS, although I concede that PADS is the more straightforward solution — now confirmed by Jimbo to be the intended one. A musical bar consisting only of flat notes would be unlikely in practice, as Jack says, but theoretically perfectly possible, and the question mark at the end of the clue seems to me to cover that. It would be interesting to know whether the Times Crossword Editor would have allowed both answers if this had been a competition puzzle, and if not, why not.

  18. 24:22 but I went with BARS and I’m happy to accept that PADS must be correct.

    I found this far more enjoyable than yesterday’s rather dry offering, particularly the Houdini and Parky clues and my COD, Harlotry.

    I wonder if the setter was trying to convey his/her mood with anger/angry featuring in 3 clues.

  19. This one leaves me somewhat cranky, I must admit. A bit too UK-centric to be decipherable for me. I don’t have a time due to interruptions, but nearly an hour before resorting to aids for OLDHAM, since my UK geography knowledge isn’t the best. But I went with BARS; we don’t have blocks of paper over here. Also never heard of GOING SPARE. Given the checkers and the redundant anger in the clue, I tried ‘grief share’. I’LL BE BOUND. RIDGE TENT and CHIVY are also unknown to me, but got them from wordplay. PARKINSON as ‘lawman’ is tenuous, but also got it from wordplay only. FORAGE as a miltary raid seems incomplete, and I had to take it on faith that FOOT was a Labour leader at some point. Overall, something like trying to hit a baseball at night: you know it’s there somewhere, so you swing and hope for the best. Nevertheless, regards to everyone, and better luck to me tomorrow. Setter: I did like EMIRATE and HARLOTRY, and regards to you as well.
    2. I sympathise with you on the UK-centric stuff.

      Michael Foot is remembered over here for writing what was dubbed “the longest suicide note in history”. That was a reference to the Labour manifesto he concocted that contained nearly every extreme left wing shibboleth you can think of. As a result he crashed to electoral defeat against the Iron Lady. In his youth an outstanding orator he didn’t know when to quit and descended into something of a bumbling shambles and so became something of a figure of fun.

  20. 9:49 but spoiled by a silly stab at FARAGO for 1D, thinking of RAG for anger (weak but just possibly there), without properly testing the military part.
  21. 19 minutes here, with two or three minutes on 7dn alone. I put PADS in the end, thinking brake blocks/pads. Having considered carefully all the learned comments here I prefer BARS.
  22. To an engineer, a metal BAR that is wider than it is thick is a FLAT. Nevertheless, I went for PADS.
    Did anyone else put in LA PLAYA? It is definitely on the sea, and “YA” sounds like a word of appreciation.
  23. 15.45 done online – I put in BARS without a great deal of thought , the question mark seemed to make it a reasonable clue to me (please bear in mind my almost complete ignorance of musical terminology).In competition I am sure there would be a queue at the editor’s throne about this one and I would also be interested as to what the ruling might have been.
    Wasn’t held up too long by having BY FOOT and REPEAL and last in was 8 which raised a wry smile
  24. An enjoyable solve, until I got to PADS, for which I eventually opted, without really understanding the writing pad/block thing (ODE says it’s chiefly Brit.). I thought it could have been today’s cricketing reference. I liked FRICASEE; it takes some skill to pull off a double containment device. I second LA PLATA for COD, but really all the surfaces are very fine indeed.
  25. Very enjoyable puzzle, far better than yesterday’s slog, completed in 40 minutes, aidless. COD to HARLOTRY for a giggle and deviousness!

    I’m glad I am British: there is a lot of UK-centric stuff here and I think most non-Brits would have struggled. Sorry, chaps! OLDHAM, ON FOOT and APPEAL are cases in point.

    Good crossword, though: thank you setter.

  26. I agree with Kevin of NY about LAWMAN being tenuous. I’m a PADS man, but putting that in didn’t help met get LA PLATA. Nor did I get APPEAL or HARLOTRY. Cheers, Gradese
    1. Agree with last comment. I was happy with the concept of “he pads it away” as a blocking manoeuvre to a ball that would not generate an lbw appeal but what does an Irishman know about cricket?
      JFR
      1. The answer to that depends on whether or not your name is Eoin Morgan (*ticks off another day till the Ashes start*).
  28. Minor quibble, but I think it should be CA Ref(e)ree as opposed to C. A Ref(e)ree.

    There is not the required “a judge” in the clue, and circa, ca does for about on it’s own.

  29. 12:38 for me. I’d have under 10 minutes if I hadn’t baulked at LA PLATA which I hadn’t come across before. For some reason it took me ages to spot TA.

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