24643 – still waiting for a weekday stinker

Author   petebiddlecombePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 9:48

The current sequence of relatively easy puzzles continues – I just looked back to see when a weekday puzzle last took me over 15 minutes. Apart from a DEMI/SEMI slip-up which would count under competition conditions, it was back on 28th July, and there were only two or three others over 12 minutes in the intervening period. This seems longer than previous spells of easy or hard puzzles, but I’m not concluding that there’s a deliberate change in policy quite yet.

This one started with a near-miss idea (crushing) for 1A, which I didn’t write in, got moving with the easy 6A and 6 & 7 down and 9A, but then went downhill with a silly punt on CARRAGHEEN – an edible seaweed which matched my 2 checking letters and is also known as “Irish {something}” (moss, not cheese). Wordplay? I saw “ghee” in the middle and somehow made a food connection without noticing the bread/butter problem, and in it went. It got rubbed out fairly soon but probably cost 30 seconds or so. Never mind – punts like this sometimes gain significant chunks of time.

Entered without full wordplay understanding: 10, 14, 26, 2.

Applause for a very good set of surface readings.

Across
1 SMASHING – 2 defs, one preceded by “such” to get some surface meaning.
6 SEARCH = chaser* arches*
9 CoLlUdEd
10 LAN(CASH=bread,IR.)E – lane = course seemed weak until the Concise Oxford reminded me of the shipping/aircraft version where the lane is a course rather than a physical entity. Here is the cheese.
11 PI=good,E(DATE=boyfriend)RR,(plac)E – there’s an approximate boyfriend/pied-a-terre connection in the middle of this clip
13 NUD(g)E
14 CL.=class,APT,RAP=reprimand
16 OVIEDO – O=love (tennis), then a reversal of ODE, I’V(e) – starting from the false premise that an ode was a love poem, I nearly told you that some editorial slip-up had converted “I have” into “I’ve”, making “briefly written” unnecessary
18 EXCE(r)PT – nice trick with “part of speech”, though I guess some will insist that it should have been “part of speech, for example”
20 OP.=work,TICIAN=”Titian“
22 C=caught,HAT
24 IN=home,FR.,ACTION
26 EL SALVADOR – AD=bill, in overalls* – nice use of an initial capital other context to suggest another Bill.
28 H(on)OUR – honours explained at the end of this page
29 B(irds),EATER=(a tree)* – with “One disturbs game birds” as an extended definition at the front, this is very easy to solve, so a “pretty” clue rather than a serious challenge. Alternative reading – possibly what the setter really meant: B=”initially by”,EATER = (a tree)* – this allows the birds to be part of the definition
30 BO(NINE=figure)SS – a good example of a smooth surface combined with a tricky wordplay indication (one managing = BOSS)
 
Down
2 MUL(TIP= rev. of pit = the back of the stalls (“Brit. dated”))L,EX- = old
3 SPEED=amphetamine,UP=”dearer than before”
4 IS LET as opposed to “TO LET”
5 GE= rev. of e.g., N(arks)
6 SPACED OUT – 2 defs, the second making a third drug reference in 4 clues
7 A, SHAN’T I = won’t I – the map on this page should confirm that until a setter feels brave enough to try Brong-Ahafo, there is only one region of Ghana for crossword purposes
8 CO-RED = “fellow socialist”
12 REP=traveller,ROOF=highest point, as in “roof of the world”. Another inspired bit of work is “rocket” for the definition
15 RE = on, TRI(p) = short run, EVER = always
17 DIAL = phone, O = round = round shape, GUES(t)
19 today’s omitted answer
21 CATCH ON – 2 defs
23 HALL = concert venue, E = close to KnightsbridgE. Of course the Hallé mostly play in a hall in Manchester, rather than a venue near Knightsbridge, which you might think of easily with the Proms having just ended. I think I preferred the Last Night when you really had to be there, but that probably makes me both a biased Londoner and an old fuddy-duddy. Or just a trombonist still mourning the loss of this – along with the rest of the Sea Songs, it now seems.
25 A(PRO)N
27 DAB – 2 meanings – though some may argue about whether the dabbing and stroking versions of “press against gently” are quite the same thing.

45 comments on “24643 – still waiting for a weekday stinker”

  1. Well, yesterday’s easy for some but not for me as I had to resort to aids for 2 or 3, so was pleased to finish unaided today in what was a reasonable time for me. Had to invoke my bridge default to figure out HOUR, ie if I don’t understand an answer it probably has something to do with bridge.
  2. Didn’t record a time, but about 25 min, which menas a consistent week of ca 20 min, but each with either a careless error, or one needing validation. Today’s was Oviedo which I was somwhat leery about because of the double contraction – I have – I’ve – Iv. I would have been happier with a play on IV = 4. Perhaps something like “Love fourth poem about Spanish city”. Mind you, that is nit picking in the broader scheme of things. A most workmanlike week so far.
  4. 10:48, with a careless INLET for ISLET at 4dn.  My hold-ups were in the top-right corner, mostly thanks to an annoying mind blank at 10ac (LANCASHIRE).  My only unknowns were OVIEDO (16ac) and the Balmoral hat (22ac CHAT), but the ASHANTI region (7dn) and the flatfish DAB (27dn) weren’t fully familiar, and I only knew the HALLÉ (23dn) because I’m from Stockport or thereabouts.

    Clue of the Day: 1ac (SMASHING).

  5. Just snuck in under the half hour today, with 2dn and 18 ac taking the last 5 min of that.

    I’m ashamed of the time it took me to understand the wordplay for 28 ac, given that I’m a bridge player!

  6. Going quite well but came to grief on Multiplex and Except. Got there eventually. Liked Smashing; and the tantalising wittiness in several places. I think a good crossword is a woman with the brain of a man. (That should get me into trouble.)
      1. Isn’t a brain transplant impossible? Philosophically I mean, not clinically. I mean, if A’s brain is put into B’s body, is the resultant person A or B? Isn’t it really a body transplant for A, rather than a brain transplant for B? I guess one day someone may need to answer that question…
  7. Excellent blog Peter. Thanks for explaining the wordplay for MULTIPLEX, RETRIEVER and HOUR. I’d entered those confidently on the basis of definitions and checking letters but hadn’t sussed the wordplay.

    I liked this puzzle, particularly ASHANTI, CORED and NUDE. All the drug references on the day after George Michael’s sentencing for DUI were very topical!

    About thirty minutes all told, but had to go online to solve my last two – BONINESS and DAB. I must read that fish list in Bradford’s…!

  8. 37 minutes. Should have gone anticlockwise today for a faster time; but LANCASHIRE and HALLE didn’t take too long! The use of wicked to mean excellent is a bit passé, isn’t it? (Though I notice it’s in Chambers) My niece, now in her mid thirties, used it when she was a student; but I don’t recall my son, now in his final year, ever saying it. His all-purpose term of approval seems to be “cool”.
  9. Rather surprised to find that this took me 65 minutes. Most of it went in quite readily until I got stuck on 28ac, 1ac, 18ac and 2dn, which occupied me for a good 20 minutes.

    At 28 I plumped for HOUR but just couldn’t see why until coming here.

    The problem in the NW was that I put in two wrong answers going for REJECT at 18 and CRASHING at 1ac.I was absolutely convinced the latter was correct as it’s listed as a synonym for ‘wicked’ in Collins Thesaurus. As I couldn’t come up with anything for 2dn I looked again at 18ac and eventually thought of EXCEPT and the X checker led me out of the wilderness.

  10. Not so easy for me either. I got well stuck in the NE corner and had to take a break. Coming back, I finally twigged to ISLET and the rest followed almost immediately. Very smooth surfaces. COD to LANCASHIRE, although I did like PIED-A-TERRE.
  11. Did this in the dentist’s waiting room so part of me was hoping for an easy one – and boy is it just that. 15 minutes top whack with barely a pause for thought. Looked impressive but thanks to Peter for calling attention to current run of artisan puzzles, which is getting a bit boring.

    Agree “wicked” is a bit passée (acknowledging the possibility of a lady compiler) but then dictionaries will always be behind the current idiom.

  12. 24:01 .. so a tricky blighter in my book, but looking at other comments I wonder if I helpfully supplied my own difficulty. I must have flirted with half a dozen wrong answers and went beyond flirting with several, the end result being a grid that looks like William Brown’s homework.

    SPACED OUT was the last penny to drop – Times setters like their drugs, don’t they?

  13. I found this a bit of a slog in that it took me over 30mins, for no reason at all that I can find.. just a wavelength thing maybe.
    Nice link peter to the Balmoral hat, the glory of which webpage is the list of things that those who bought one, also bought. Imagine what they must look like now, with their masonic calf sporran etc.. 🙂
  14. I am very pleased with this run of what you call easy puzzles, it means I can finish them! Mainly thanks to this excellent blog of course, otherwise I still wouldn’t have a clue where to start solving them. So big thank you to you all.
    Unfortunately put INLET for 4 dn so actually didn’t finish today’s.

    And this week is especially good, the two countries where I have my roots made an appearance, Dutch cheese and a Ghanaian region.

    Isabel

  15. A fairly swift 40 minutes or so, though quite a few entered without full understanding of the wordplay (16ac, 20ac, 28ac, 2d, 15d, 17d). A few I liked here – 8d, 17d, 12d, with the latter getting COD.
  16. 54 mins. Still feeling a bit out of practice so quite pleased to finish under an hour without aids and with full understanding. Although I made the same INLET error as several other people, so I guess I shouldn’t really count it.

    Hadn’t heard of Ashanti as a region of Ghana, only as an R&B singer, but went for it hoping that one was named after the other, and apparently she was (according to Wikipedia).

    I liked the neat simplicity of 25d, so that gets my COD.

  17. Looked set for a sub-30’ time before being held up by HOUR (could only think of ‘haul’ to fit H_U_ for a while and never did get the wordplay, despite knowing bridge – thanks for the tip, Barry) and 1, 2 and 18 in the NW(-ish), finishing in 34’. After EXCEPT fell (had already considered this, but without seeing the wordplay), the others went in quickly, ending with 1ac, where, maestro-like, I had been thinking about ‘crushing’ (which didn’t fit the inverted sense of wicked, which I had cottoned onto pretty quickly). Quite a few of the answers went in from the definition only. DAB guessed. SPACED OUT made me chuckle.
  18. 40 minutes. I found this really difficult but I was fully expecting others to find it easy because I knew as I solved that I was making ridiculously heavy weather of it. For instance I immediately saw the answers for BONINESS, HOUR, CORED, and RETRIEVER, but couldn’t for the life of me work out the wordplay so didn’t put them in. There were also a number of fairly straightforward clues that I took ages to get, including ASHANTI, where in the end I cheated and duly kicked myself. Oh and I put OVIEDA in for 16ac even after fully understanding the wordplay (which took a while).
    Very dull crossword brain today.
  19. 17:25, COD to boniness, my last in. Intentional or not there was some clever misdirection at 20 where I took “I’ll supply frames” to be an instrcution to insert something inside a jumble of ill which meant I was looking for a word meaning display of work.

    Only the hat was unfamiliar – while Daniel is looking up fish in Bradford’s I’ll be doing the same with hats.

  20. 8:52 All my hasty assumptions were right today first off which explains a quickish time. 1 and 2 took a bit of thought – I had in mind an ‘old cinema’ so was surprised when MULTIPLEX became apparent. Last in was HOUR – should have been quicker after being at the Bridge club last night. Ref BEATER is it ok that ‘birds’ serves dual purpose as part of definition and wordplay – or is the definition maybe just ‘one disturbs game’?
    1. I’d say that the def is just “one disturbs game”. As a rule it’s not ok for part of a clue to do “double duty”.
      1. although now I look again I see that it can be read as, B = initially by , rather than birds
  21. A nice puzzle indeed – interesting comment about the smoothness of the surface readings, and well-merited, but a minor brickbat from me for 1 down where the dreaded apostrophe S is used to smooth the surface. Maybe it is just me but give me a clunky surface and a tiptop cryptic reading any day.

    I really liked LANCASHIRE, EL SALVADOR and above all BONINESS

  22. 15 minutes, thought it was going to be a real blinder, but got stuck for a while in Oregon – SMASHING and MULTIPLEX the last in. Got HALLE from wordplay alone, but couldn’t see the wordplay for PIED A TERRE (given away by the enumeration) or LANCASHIRE.
  23. My elder two (7 and 5) say “wicked” so perhaps it is making a comeback, although somehow I doubt either crossword compilers or lexicographers are this up to date.
  24. Around 20-25 minutes, ending with HOUR. On that one, I was trying to remove ‘ER’ (queen) from some word meaning ‘example’ for the longest time. Finally figured it out when I remembered to spell ‘honour’ with the ‘u’. Beyond that everything else went in fairly easily in what I found a clever puzzle, especially appreciating CORED and EL SALVADOR. Hadn’t known of the hat or the orchestra before, or where ASHANTI is located. Regards to everyone.
  25. Well designed clues together with superlatively crafted surfaces. Reasonably challenging and highly enjoyable puzzle. Bravo setter! 23′.
  26. Also 23 minutes for me. Easier than yesterday and no serious hold-ups anywhere. Again, no COD but liked INFRACTION, EL SALVADOR and OVIEDO!

    I do hope that we are not going to get into another “dumbing down” debate: I have heard rumours about popularising the Crossword but ignored so far. Perhaps now is the time for something more seriously difficult!

  27. PBis a genius and we are all thick

    thought this was quite tricky as it happens and not at all obvious

    but i guess if you just guess the answers it may be easier

    i think i will give the site a miss for a bit as the arrogance of some of its contributors is somewhat breathtaking

    1. Well, yes, some of our contributors have a tendency towards hubris, but to me that’s one of the pleasures of coming here every day. It’s a bit like a soap opera with a revolving cast of characters – some are cocky, some are amusing, some are (to use an Australian word) battlers. I wouldn’t particularly want to share a house or even an evening at the pub with everyone here – but that’s the good thing, you don’t have to.

      And btw I spent 90 minutes on this one, so i hope that excuses me from any accusations of arrogance.

  28. Well over an hour and not easy at all for me, and there were some clues I could solve only from the wordplay (HALLÉ, for example) and CHAT not at all, since both the bird and the hat were new to me. OVIEDO is twinned with my German city of residence or I wouldn’t have known that either. On the whole an enjoyable puzzle, though.

Comments are closed.