24681 – Not the easy one I was hoping for!

Author   daveperryPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: Unrecorded – I still had 9 left after an hour, so in the interests of getting the blog done, I spent another 20 minutes with aids to complete it.

I’ve been off work this week to spend some quality time with the family during half-term week, so I’ve not had much time to look at the week’s crosswords. As a result I was feeling a bit out-of-practice today and was hoping for a nice easy one. No such luck. Maybe my brain has turned to mush in the space of a week, but I found this a real stinker. Lots of words previously unknown to me – HOFFMANN, PELLAGRA, PHILIPPIC & THRIPS. Also I’d not come across EAGLET, MISCALL or JOIN THE MAJORITY, but the meanings of these were easy enough to deduce.

There are still a couple that I have been unable to fully unravel, but no doubt somebody will come to my assistance soon enough.

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

Across
1 HIGH + JUMP – Offspring has to be ‘separated’ into Off/spring. Off = High (as in spoilt meat), Jump = Spring. To be ‘for the high jump’ is to be in trouble.
5 OB + LATE – Ob is an abbreviation of the Latin obiit, meaning literally he (or she) died. I came across the word oblate in a quiz just yesterday so it was fresh in my mind. It describes a sphere which is flattened at the poles, much like planet Earth.
10 FU(N)G + I
11 SL(OUCH)ING – ‘that hurt’ = OUCH. At least I found one thing that made me smile in this puzzle.
12 MARKeT + WAIN – A wain is a cart, as in Constable’s ‘The Haywain’.
13 G(R)ATE
14 NEW DEAL – dd. The New Deal was a program introduced by FDR to try and haul the US out of the Great Depression of the 1930s. I got this from the second definition alone, and had to look up the other meaning afterwards. Maybe this is more familiar to our US solvers?
16 TROPIC = PORT rev + I + C – the Tropics being lines of latitude around the Earth.
18 A homophone that should be straightforward.
20 PENANg + CE – Penang is a state in Malaysia. It’s quite small but fairly well-known. At least I’d heard of it, although I’m not sure where from.
22 LARGe + O – a slow musical movement.
23 ROLE MODEL = “ROLL MODEL”
25 PHILIP PIC – There have been several King Philips of Spain. King Philip II, after whom the Philippines were named, is probably the most familiar. I’d never heard of a philippic as a ‘speech or discourse of bitter denunciation’ before.
26 SWING – dd of the style of fast bowling in cricket, and the item found in children’s playgrounds.
27 DelectablE + LAYS – LAYS = songs is a bit of an old chestnut.
28 ANACONDA = (CANADA NO)*
Down
1 H + OFF + MANN – Not 100% sure of the breakdown here. I think it’s H (hard) + OFF (start), as in ‘ready for the off’ + (Thomas) MANN, a German novelist, essayist, Nobel Prize laureate. ETA Hoffmann was also a German author.
2 GONER = G + RENO rev. Nevada was the first US state to relax its laws on divorce, so Reno became a popular destination for americans seeking ‘quickie divorces’ in the 30s & 40s.
3 JOIN THE MAJORITY – dd. Pretty clear if you’re familiar with the phrase, which I wasn’t.
4 MISCALL = MISSAL with S (small) changed to C (chapter) + L
6 BACK (GROUND) MUSIC
7 ANIMATION = (MAINTAIN + O)*
8 EAGLET – I assume, being a Young (eagle). But I can’t break the wordplay down. Is it something to do with the term ‘legal eagles’?
9 COR + NET – My! = Cor! is another one that should be familiar to regular solvers.
15 W(A TERM)ILL – A watermill is worked by a current. My COD.
17 PELLAGRA – LAG in (PALER)* – It’s a disease. Not a word I knew.
19 T(H)RIPS – An insect. Didn’t know this either.
20 Anagram – deliberately omitted.
21 ELOPED – cd
24 DEIGN = GI rev in DEN. Again, I’m assuming this is the correct wordplay, but I don’t see why DEIGN = ‘Be pleased’.

55 comments on “24681 – Not the easy one I was hoping for!”

  1. 24dn I agree with your wordplay analysis. To DEIGN is to agree in a condescending manner, ie “to be pleased” to do something in the same condescending sense.

    I seem to recall that the Simon & Garfunkel album “Parsley Sage Rosemary and Thyme” which includes “Scarborough Fair” (see yesterday) also has a song described on the cover as a “Phillipic” (but I can’t remember the name of it). I think a Philippic was originally against Phillip of Macedon.

    1. A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert McNamara’d Into Submission) — originally “Lyndon Johnson’d”.
      1. That’s the one! It’s amazing how I can remember that but not what I had for breakfast this morning…
  2. Like Dave I’ve had a week off and feel similarly rusty. In fact I’ve still got two to complete from yesterday’s puzzle – I hope others found it equally brutish.

    This was pretty tough too, but worth the effort. Most of the problems came in the NE, where my last in, rather hesitantly, was EAGLET. Exclamation marks in the margin for ELOPED, ROLE MODEL and especially WATERMILL. 78 minutes in all.

    1. Called it a day after 75 minutes with two to go in the tricky NE corner – TROPIC and CORNET. End of a miserable week with three DNFs.
    1. There’s certainly an allusion to the opera (hence “tales” rather than, say, “short stories”), but Hoffmann was a famous author in his own right, who wrote, for example, the original story on which Tschaikovsky based his Nutcracker.
      1. Yes. Undoubtedly 1d is a reference to Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann, which is based on the short stories of ETA Hoffmann, who did indeed write the novelette The Nutcracker and the Mouse King on which Tchaikovsky based The Nutcracker.
  5. 88 minutes for this, but no mistakes or aids for once. Thanks to Dave for explaining ‘miscall’ – not being RC, I was not familiar enough with missal and was playing around with missa. Close enough to get the answer, though. Your parsing of 1 dn is spot on, except one is spoilt for choice with Manns – brother Heinrich and son Klaus were also novelists. Demosthenes delivered the original Philippics, presumably after he’d taken the pebbles out of his mouth.

    Quite a few of these from the wordplay only, last in the disease – not helped by not seeing that ‘lag’ stood for ‘keep warm’, as I was looking for a word meaning ‘warm’. COD to GONER.

  6. Knew the Philippic from the above song. (The young PS showing off with a bit of pretentious vocab: but an interesting spoof on Dylan for all that.) And let’s have more of cart = WAIN for good old germanic sources. There’s character in the first volume of Anthony Burgess’s autobiog who refuses to use the bits of latinate languages that have found their way into English. He calls the bus a “folkwain”.
    Bit of a disappointment after yesterday’s treat with a lot of clues being impossible sans crossers. As with the Two Ronnies sketch where the local police have their portaloo stolen: We have nothing to go on!
  7. Found this a slog at around 70 minutes
    last in eloped and eaglet
    Definitely -in my view- a reference to tales of Hoffmann
    nice crossword…a toughie as our blogger says
    COD to High Jump-liked it!
  8. I had great difficulty getting started (STRAIT was the first to go in) but after that it was a steady solve until after 45 minutes I ground to a halt with 17dn and 26ac outstanding. I couldn’t get past thinking SPIN for the bowling reference. I used aids to find PELLAGRA (I’d been trying to work a W into the proceedings) and then SWING immediately came to mind.

    I didn’t know PHILIPPIC or THRIPS but worked them out successfully.

    1. For the non-cricketers – not you Jack, but I know some overseas solvers appreciate the cricket lessons – ‘swing’, ‘seam’ and ‘cutter’ are types of fast bowling and ‘spin’ the main type of slow bowling.
  9. I thought this puzzle had some superb clues in it but it was quite stiff (32 mins). If I may make so bold as to suggest a ‘tweak’ to 27 ac I would really have been tickled by the use of a capital W for Waits, after the awesome singer/songwriter Tom Waits.
  10. I hope the last couple of puzzles don’t put-off Janie and any other newcomers as I need the company.
    Finished 10 minutes beyond my 9am absolute cut-off time. With just 2 to get I was too close to abandon. A few minutes post-solve to figure out HIGH JUMP (Doh). New to me were the actual meaning of OB (see what happens when you fail the 11 plus exam) and JOIN THE MAJORITY (one of my first in even though I have never heard the expression). In the minority again today (apologies to Anax if indeed he was yesterday’s setter) as I thought this a terrific puzzle with COD nominees all over the place including ELOPED, HIGH JUMP, NEW DEAL, SWING with I think GONER the marginal winner.
    1. Not quite put off yet, Barry! Takes more than a couple of tricky puzzles! Had the help of my brother today, so managed all but OBLATE and EAGLET (he got SWING, another sporting ref!). COD for me was ROLE MODEL.
  11. Much the same story as yesterday, about 30 minutes for a difficult but fair puzzle. Yesterday I was pushed for time but today was able to better appreciate the well crafted clues.

    I liked 1A “offspring separated”, the reference to “legal eagle” at 8D and 15D WATERMILL is very good. NEW DEAL should be familiar to the older generation but perhaps harder for the younger folk who don’t appear to learn any history these days. All the gardeners, particularly beans and rose growers, will know of THRIPS – wretched creatures better known as black fly.

  12. Was happy to wander through this in 30 min, with no need for assists. A gentle stroll after a day of pack drill and multiple cheats yesterday. COD to 1 ac partly for neatness, partly for blowing the puzzle wide open. Last in, and something of a time-waster 8 dn EAGLETS. Probably the least satisfying of an otherwise tidy offering.
  15. I enjoyed this very much, even though it took me just over an hour. It is churlish to nit-pick when there are so many well-crafted and witty clues, but a few minor details confused me. What was “such” doing in 26? Why “that was free” and not “that is free” in 20? And, for fellow pedants, can dying be described as “joining the majority” now that world population has reached nearly 7 billion?
    1. I took “such fast bowling” as “this type of fast bowling”.

      I’m not sure about your point on the majority. Is 7 billion really a greater figure than all those who have lived and died before? I’ve no idea but would be interested if anyone has any info on this.

  16. Pretty tough, on a day when I didn’t have
    time to do it justice. Two mistakes – NEW DECK and MISTALK… Pleased to have managed what I did though without aids. COD 1ac.
  17. 9:12 so considerably easier than yesterday, but lots to enjoy. 15D was a little masterpiece. Also new to “join the majority”. Most difficulty in the NW for me, where a fortunate guess at 3’s THE sat looking very lonely for a while.
  18. I struggled with this one but made a much better go of it than yesterday’s. 18 without aids, 24 with and this blog – thanks Dave – for the last six. Hadn’t heard of PHILIPPIC, HOFFMAN or JOIN THE MAJORITY. I’ve heard of NEW DEAL but kept thinking 14 was LOW something-or-other.

    A quick Google search finds a website claiming > 100 billion homo sapiens have been born, so to die is very much to JTM.

  19. I found it easier than last two days, which were DNF until aids were used. Never heard of ‘Join the majority’ and guessed eaglet, but done in 25 minutes. Some delightful clues such as HIGH JUMP and ROLE MODEL.
  20. 17 minutes.Foolishly expected something easy after yesterday. Hadn’t heard of JOIN THE MAJORITY and didn’t get wordplay for HIGH JUMP so this area was slow to get. Last in OBLATE and EAGLET.
    Is it just me or is there now an epidemic of ‘My’ being used to clue COR and the like?
    1. My = COR: seems to be popular at present but could be a bit of a set-up, intentional or not. I wasted some time at 11A by assuming that “that hurts” would be OW, which seems to have been the normal interpreation in the last few months.
  21. I found this took longer than yesterday at 8:34, but I needed to go back and correct my first attempts at a few solutions. Like others JOIN THE MAJORITY was new to me.
    1. I knew JOIN THE MAJORITY from somewhere but no idea why. It may be interesting that it’s not in the latest Brewer’s but IS in the 1993 edition of which I have a copy. Most of the entry is in Latin and means nothing to me but I gather the expression was used by Plautus and Polybius and sombody called Blair.
    2. Staggeringly impressed by 8:34. What time would you do a more routine puzzle in then?
      1. Mostly around 5 1/2 to 6 1/2 minutes, although I do make mistakes due to speed, as happened at Cheltenham this year. Fastest ever is somewhere around 4:45, but then I have been doing them for 30+ years.

        During the week I try to solve the puzzle at my desk during my lunch break so I don’t really have the time to investigate all the wordplay nuances and often solve (as PB says) without full understanding of the wordplay, normally based on the definition and any checking letters.

          1. I don’t think I have a secret, I have just spent so many years solving crosswords that analysis of a clue becomes almost second nature, anagrams are sometimes remembered rather than worked out, and words to fit into checking letters are also recalled, allowing a solution that fits to be worked back to the definition (and the wordplay if necessary to confirm)
      2. I was more impressed by Simon’s time yesterday – he beat me by about 10 minutes rather than about 1. My guess is that he must get through a lot of puzzles in under 7 minutes (and doesn’t always quote his times here). At present I think of him as someone who’s potentially fast enough to win a Times championship but doesn’t always manage to avoid wrong answers, so can finish behind “slow but sure” people when things don’t go well. I might have to revise that assessment as and when the club scoring system allows more informative views of performances, or as Simon learns the right mixture of ‘hare’ and ‘tortoise’ solving.
  22. Another first-class puzzle to complete a high-quality week, though slightly easier than yesterday’s. I was pleased to finish within 1 hour correctly and without resort to aids. sghanson’s 8:34 mins strike me as spectacularly fast for this puzzle. Like Jimbo and Peter B I thought WATERMILL at 15dn was an absolute cracker. But there was lots of other inventive stuff and multiple levels of deception. I particularly liked BACKGROUND MUSIC, SLOUCHING and MARK TWAIN. In the last I liked the way that “non-English” in the clue appeared to suggest that we should be looking for the name of a foreign writer – as indeed turned out to be the case – which cleverly disguised the fact that its primary purpose was to indicate the deletion of “e” from “market”. Great clueing.

  23. 43 minutes for me, so about the same as yesterday. Another toughie but somehow not quite as enjoyable as yesterday’s. I found some of the clues very hard to parse and there were a few unknowns.
    We had THRIPS quite recently I think, otherwise I’d never have got it.
  24. 38:32 … with one mistake. A tale of late-night dimwittedness for me.

    – 1a .. it seems I’m alone in having originally guessed at ‘HIGH JINX’. That left me a nightmare at 4d that took about 15 minutes to sort out.

    – 5a .. I first plumped for ‘O’Bearn’, who was surely part of Scott’s ill-fated journey. Which led me to…

    8d .. NUGGET, which I took to be a slang term for a bright young thing at the bar. But, to my credit, I felt uneasy about this and Mr O’Bearn, so I rethought and came up with OBLATE and then triumphantly changed 8d to …

    EAGRET (some sort of eagle/heron cross). Oh, well.

    1. I wrote HIGH JINX next to the clue for 1ac and nearly despaired of working the clue out and bunged it in – but not quite. I did actually put in EAGRET but then remembered that egret is spelled egret and thought again. A close shave!
    2. I had HIGH JINX pencilled in until quite late on, and only went back to it when I could find nothing that fit at 4.
  25. Unlike Peter I didn’t find this much easier than yesterday, but I did think that like yesterday’s, it is a top class effort. Have another look at the clue and solution for 15dn, or the effortless lines of 13ac or 21dn. Or 16ac or 9dn.. Each is worth the entry fee, surely?

    Anyone who didn’t enjoy this is missing something, somehow

  26. Tough, I found, about 45 minutes, ending with OBLATE/EAGLET. A mixed bag for me, with many very good ones such as the definition of BACKGROUND MUSIC, and NEW DEAL. But I am not convinced by the definitions for MISCALL and EAGLET. And, as usual, there were a smattering of things I didn’t know such as JOIN THE …, this meaning of HIGH JUMP (yes, Sotira, I thought first of High Jinx), lag, lays, HOFFMANN, fug, SWING as bowling. Nevertheless, thanks to the setter – the fact that I didn’t know these things is not your issue – and regards to everyone.
  27. Really slow start (and an afternoon solve, for a change) but finished in 24 feeling as if I had done quite well. Essayed NOISE rather than MUSIC at 6d until it didn’t fit. JOIN… new to me in this meaning – aren’t there supposed to be more people alive today than there have ever been, making the phrase untrue?
    Entries like FUNGI and MISCALL I thought needed more hard work solving is good for a pleasurable pastime, with a real temptation just to pass the reasoning by.
    CoD (though with much less enthusiasm than yesterday) to MARK TWAIN.
  28. Not quite yesterday’s quality, but, like yesterday, another mini-masterpiece. Only EAGLET is marginally dodgy! COD to WATERMILL.

    Again like yesterday, completed without aids in 60 minutes. We really have been spoilt for choice this week! Long may it continue.

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