Times 29061 – not music to my ears

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

The second puzzle in the Championship first round, but new to me today. I am glad I didn’t enter this year, as I was unable to finish this one with out using an aid (or hoping to guess correctly). I had 90% of it done inside the 20 minutes, but the SE corner stumped me for too long. I ought to say LEASHES was the best clue, for its cunning definition, but it has to be PREFLIGHT which made me smile.

Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, [deleted letters in square brackets].

Across
1 Dog training ahead of test? It requires careful manipulation (8)
PUPPETRY – PUP PE would be dog training, add TRY for test.
5 Summit where clubs vote to accept overseas capital (6)
CLIMAX -C for clubs, X for vote, insert LIMA the capital of Peru.
8 Significant time to worry about losing face (3)
ERA – worry, about = ERAC, lose the C. I nearly biffed ETA (estimated time of arrival) then realised I needed to “lose face”.
9 Protest ignited India towards destruction (10)
DEMOLITION – DEMO (protest), LIT (ignited) I[ndia], ON (towards).
10 Heading for shelter from conflict in city (8)
LEEWARDS – WAR in LEEDS.
11 It contains stuff from the east, infused with a soy-based sauce (6)
TAMARI – take IT, insert RAM, reverse it all, insert A. It’s like soy sauce but different.
12 Collection of people having no right to enter university (2,2)
GO UP – GROUP loses R for fight. I went up in 1966; do people still say “go up” to uni?
14 Huge fuss around finale of spectacular TV show (3,7)
BIG BROTHER – huge fuss = BIG BOTHER, insert R the last letter of spectacular. Glad to say, I have never watched it.
17 Pips possibly from fresh limes in a G&T (4,6)
TIME SIGNAL – (LIMES IN A GT)*.
20 Machine part broken by large blockage (4)
CLOG – L inside COG.
23 When power and fury combine, shoot for the stars! (6)
ASPIRE -AS (when) P, IRE.
24 Certain animals, primarily horses included in my analysis info (8)
CHORDATA – H (primarily horses), inserted into COR (my!), DATA = analysis info. Animals with a spinal cord, including all vertebrates.
25 I’ve nothing more to say about a fancy donut! (4,3,3)
OVER AND OUT – OVER (about), A, (DONUT)*.
26 Angry and tired, though not at first (3)
HOT – [S]HOT. Shot can mean tired. I couldn’t see it in Collins but it appears as No. 21 in synonyms for tiredness at https://fluentslang.com/slang-for-tiredness/
27 Finest head journalist outsmarted (6)
BESTED – the BEST ED would be the head journalist, or at least they’d be the boss journalist if not necessarily the best.
28 Young relative also thus taken in by good prank periodically (8)
GRANDSON – G[ood], [p]R[a]N[k], gives you GR…N, insert AND (also) SO (thus).
Down
1 Official caught in tricky situation on the runway? (9)
PREFLIGHT – REF, our official, inside PLIGHT a tricky situation.
2 Flatten out gold beneath thin sheet of silver? (7)
PLATEAU – AU for Au, gold, below silver PLATE. Plateau can be a verb as well as a noun.
3 Make charming final piece on organ (6)
ENDEAR – END + EAR.
4 Providing corrective action in respect of me fizzling out (9)
REMEDYING – RE, ME, DYING.
5 Lesser celeb’s monastic life devoid of love (1-6)
C-LISTER – monks can live in a CLOISTER, drop the O for love. How many lists are there? D-listers? Z-listers? When is a celeb not a celeb?
6 Fellow almost entirely overwhelmed by daft vernacular (9)
IDIOMATIC – IDIOTIC (daft) with MA[n] inserted.
7 A plane maybe circling popular race venue (7)
AINTREE – A (plane) TREE with IN = popular inserted.
13 In part, Republican denies freaking out leader (9)
PRESIDENT – PT (part) with R (DENIES)* inserted. Sort of topical, this one.
15 Holidaymaker perhaps heading for basically every Indian state, we’re told (9)
BEACHGOER – B[asically], EACH (every), GOER sounds like GOA.
16 Singing centrally features in one great new style of music (9)
REGGAETON – [sin]G[ing], inside (ONE GREAT)*. I’d never heard of this kind of music, but knew about REGGAE, so had to guess the TON part from the remaining letters; not being too convinced about the crossing HOT didn’t help.
18 This month, material of mine is available to buy (2,5)
IN STORE – INST = this month, ORE what comes from a mine. (I was taught INST.  was short for instante mense being Latin for ‘this month’, but less erudite websites seem to think it’s simply short for instant. I haven’t seen it on a formal letter for years.)
19 Horned mammal seen  to the south of one cold country (7)
ICELAND – I (one) C[old], ELAND a horned antelope.
21 The French tennis great ultimately squanders lead more than once (7)
LEASHES – LE (the French), ASHE (Arthur, tennis player of yesteryear), [squander]S. This took me an age as I was fixated on the tennis player being [L}AVER and couldn’t for the life of me see the clever definition, ‘lead more than once’ = more than one dog leash.
22 Dish that’s initially covered in a tiny amount of salt (6)
GRATIN –  A GRAIN of salt, with T[hat’s] inserted.

 

77 comments on “Times 29061 – not music to my ears”

  1. Half-an-hour is my target for the 15×15 so 32 minutes on the clock as I completed the grid today might suggest that I found this on the easy side. But whilst solving I thought the puzzle was tricky in places and quite unnerving as it contained a number of words or meanings that I either never knew or had forgotten. For example TAMARI, CHORDATA and REGGAETRON, but I guess it’s the sign of a well-constructed puzzle that reasonably experienced solvers can still come up with all correct answers despite such shortcomings.

    One problem that persisted for a while was at 18dn where to me IN STORE doesn’t seem right for ‘available to buy’ – that’s IN STOCK, which I had biffed with confidence but had to rethink and examine the wordplay carefully when it prevented me solving 26ac.

    Edit: To save others looking, my first two unknowns have appeared here multiple times, CHORDATA particularly recently. The music style has only appeared in a couple of Jumbos.

    1. I knew I knew REGGAETON, and assumed it was here, but of course not specifically. Didn’t notice IN STORE, but you’re right: it would be OK in a clue, but not as the solution with this meaning.

    2. “in store now” is a usual UK expression, in retail ads, this must be another transatlantic language thing.

  2. 45m 21s
    I was going swimmingly until I reached the SE corner, then CHORDATA, LEASHES and REGGAETON held me up. Only vaguely heard of the music style. TAMARI was a new one on me, as well.
    Like Pip I wanted Laver to fit into 21d. And like Jack, I was fixated on 18d being IN STOCK.
    Re 18d, I can’t remember when I last saw inst. and ult. used to mean the current or previous month.
    Thanks Pip!

    1. I can remember business letters with the formula “Yours of the 20th inst./ult. received and contents noted.” Not receiving such letters, mind you; probably in 8th grade typing class. Also Robert Benchley.

        1. Yes, Robert Benchley; for some reason I recall the phrase from one of his pieces from the 20s or 30s.

          1. Thanks, Kevin. I wasn’t sure what Robert Benchley had to do with the inst./ult. issue.

  3. 29:35
    NHO TAMARI; but then I only buy soy sauce at the supermarket and don’t cook Japanese. LOI PREFLIGHT; I actually spent some time wondering what kind of light that was. I liked LEASHES, and loved the surface for TIME SIGNAL.

  4. I enjoyed revisiting this – TAMARI familiar as my partner can’t eat gluten, and the rest an enjoyable bunch, especially LEASHES.

    I have only ever heard “go up” or indeed “up” for at university via crosswords, although perhaps it lives on in the more starchy institutions.

    No problem either at the time or on reflection with IN STORE. Chambers has a definition of “in hoard for future use, ready for supply”, and I can well imagine someone asking “Do you have that in store?” at Argos if they wanted to take something home with them there and then.

    Thanks both.

  5. Well, I managed to finish, but in a miserable 58 mins and the last four which held me up being the crossers PUPPETRY/PREFLIGHT & CHORDATA/LEASHES. Came here to check the unknown animally thing.

    Somehow knew the sauce from somewhere in the distant past.

    I don’t have a problem with IN STORE as a lot of ads say just that: « it’s in store now » meaning it’s available to buy now, no?

    Anyway, thanks pip and setter.

  6. Still well on target for all 3 champ puzzles inside an hour, though was quite unsure about my LOI LEASHES – it certainly fitted the wordplay, but I couldn’t get the definition hiding in plain sight! Now I see it, it gets COD. I had all the GK required today, which is unusual.

    15:09

  7. I hit the SE in no more than quarter of an hour, with a question mark only about TAMARI, and then did within a couple of minutes manage BEACHGOER and a tentative CHORDATA. But GRATIN then took far too long as for me it will always be a pinch of salt and a grain of sand. The unheard of REGGAETON slowly came from the anagram as assisted by Bob Marley. Finally, at a total elapsed time of 45 minutes, I reached Arthur Ashe and LEASHES. I never could have been a contender. Thank you Pip and setter(s).

  8. She packed my bags last night, pre-flight
    Zero hour: 9:00 AM
    And I’m gonna be high as a kite by then
    (Rocket Man, EJ and Bernie Taupin) …. all together now …

    26 mins under competition conditions, except using IPad and having leftover clementine cake and yoghurt for brekker.
    I liked it. Some neat clues and the obscurities (for me, Tamari, ReggaeTon) were easily gettable.
    Ta setter and Pip.

  9. 13’15”, with at least two minutes spent on HOT / LEASHES, LOsI. Considered Agassi but got nowhere. Loved PREFLIGHT. Nho the sauce. At school the least favourite meal was ‘cod au gratin’, fish with a slice of cheese melted on top, so knew that word.

    Maybe next year.

    Thanks pip and setter.

    1. I think ASHE is the go-to tennis player in crosswords because the letter sequence is in so many words. Also he’s been dead for many years, although that’s not a factor now.

  10. At the championship I spent ages at the end dithering about TAMARI. I thought it had to be, but the parsing felt slightly odd to me. I nearly did myself out of semi-final qualification as I got through in 57th out of 58 places. It can be a difficult balance between time and accuracy as last year I handed in much sooner but had one wrong which I know I would have got right had I thought for a little longer.

    As for GO UP, when I started university in 1992 no one said this.

  11. This for me was by far the easiest of the 3 in the Q round – moved on to it when I got stuck on the first (last Wednesday’s), and went straight through it in about 10 minutes (left the timer to run up to somewhere around the right time this morning to avoid neutrino-ing it).

    Also seem to remember going straight through the third one, although not as quickly, before finally feeling in the groove to finish the first.

    Shame the semi wasn’t quite the same level of success but heigh-ho.

    Didn’t know TAMARI, but thought it must be something to do with Tamarind so in it went. CHORDATA also dredged up from somewhere once I thought of DATA for the ending.

  12. 23.20

    Didn’t know this was one of the Championship puzzles for what that’s worth. Knew TAMARI but not REGGAETON which looked odd but had to be with all the checkers. Getting the DATA bit of CHORDATA unlocked the SE which just left a longish alpha trawl to fill in PREF.

  13. I thought I was getting good at this crossword malarky as I raced through this, but then the penny dropped about halfway that I’d seen it before.

    No problem with this one at the Championships. The first one published last week was the one that did for me. This took about 15 minutes on the day.

    Lots to enjoy about this one, with the unknown elements fairly clued.

    Thanks to both.

  14. Nice puzzle. Took 90 minutes in bursts. Went very slow then 4 or 5 answers in a few minutes. FOI TIME SIGNAL Through my early life always listening for the hourly pips. You regularly hear about A and B listers. B-listers are the lesser celebs. C-listers must be the lesser lesser celebs really the bottom of the barrel like third class rail.
    Thanks Piquet

  15. Quite quick today but still not fast enough, given that it was second time round.
    Nho reggaeton or Tamari but put them in happily enough.
    On the day they said I had one wrong but I still can’t see which it might have been. A typo I suppose.

  16. Just under 20 minutes.

    – TAMARI was unfamiliar but I got it from wordplay
    – Tried to justify ‘Crimea’ for 5a, thinking of Yalta, before AINTREE pointed me towards CLIMAX
    – Vaguely remembered CHORDATA from previous crosswords
    – Likewise just about remembered inst=this month for IN STORE

    Thanks piquet and setter.

    FOI Era
    LOI + COD Leashes

  17. I found this easier than the first puzzle, got through it in about 10 minutes I think.
    As others have pointed out you hear IN STORE quite often these days. Most retailers sell their goods online so when they say something is IN STORE, it makes it clear where you can buy it in a way that ‘in stock’ doesn’t.

  19. I finished in 20:32 so I feel not too bad! In fact I had 3 to go at 15 minutes, having pencilled in the NHO REGGAETON. I feel a bit ridiculous as two of these were easier clues and the hard one I pencilled in first. This was the NHO TAMARA. That left me taking 3 or so minutes to get IDIOMATIC and then finally CLIMAX (until I got IDIOMATIC, I was obsessing with vote for being AY)
    But still a respectable start to the day. I had no idea that was a championship puzzle till coming here and reading the blog, as I didn’t find it at all hard. (Last Saturday’s otoh…)
    Thanks setter and blogger

  20. The SW was very hard. 16d Reggaeton not in Cheating Machine. Biffed. Hot at 26a pencilled lightly. 21d Leashes was clever. My COD.
    11a NHO Tamari, but easy enough.
    5d C-Lister. I have A, B, C and Z lists and listers in C.M. I remember meeting the Z-List. But I have not yet encountered a D-List. AFAIK this is the first C-List. As an aside IBM m/f has CLIST pronounced see-list as command list, like a basic programming language.
    Surprised to find 15d Beachgoer already in C.M.
    12a Go Up. I “went up” in 1967 but wouldn’t use the words as even then it seemed show-offy as well as passe. I “read” Mech Eng but again would not say so.

  21. So I noticed it was a compy, which of course put me under pressure until the first few actually fell quite quickly. Which was fine until I reached the bottom right in around 15 minutes. CHORDATA was ok, but the dish, the tired/angry, the clever LEASHES (not Laver, then!) and (for me) the impossible REGGAETON slowed the coda. Please tell the setter that using [N]ew as an anagram indicator when you already have an N at the bottom square is pretty close to as mean as you can get.
    While I suspect GO UP is an elderly Oxbridge thing, it’s a significant part of one of the less savoury stories of the OT prophets. From the KJV: “And he (Elisha) went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.”
    An irritated Elisha summons a couple of bears which “tare two and forty children of them”. Nice.

    1. Speaking as someone not as hirsute as once he was, if I had the power to summon wild bears to tear apart the disrespectful I would gladly exercise it.

  22. NHO TAMARI, though guessed it correctly. Beaten by REGGAETON, though, partly because I had CLOT at 20ac. The rest of this pretty straightforward.

  23. Failed. I was sucked in by the ‘Significant time’ bit of 8a, but unlike our blogger I didn’t read the whole clue properly and dutifully entered ETA. I’ll have to make an effort to remember the two new words to compensate.

  24. It was only when I got to TAMARI that I realised I’d seen this puzzle before. I had most done on the day in about 11 or 12 minutes but left REGGAETON and a couple of others I can’t remember unfilled for later consideration.

    I was grateful to the setter for the Easter eggs LEEDS (my team) and GRANDSON (first one due imminently).

  25. An all correct, although NHO REGGAETON. Just over an hour of steady solving, with an interruption to get the bins in off the drive.
    I liked PREFLIGHT and LEASHES.
    I think GO UP is an Oxbridge thing. It was ‘going to university’ for me. ‘Uni’ seems more common over the last 25 years.

  26. 25’which is on the fast side for me. Didn’t know it was a comp quiz until I came here but found it mostly straightforward apart from the HOT/LEASHES nexus in the S/E corner; in fact I almost biffed “leaches” as a form of “squandering”. Thanks Piquet and setter

  27. Pleased to finish this championship crossword, though at 75 mins I don’t think I’ll be troubling the scorers.

    NHO REGGAETON or TAMARIND, but they went in after a sprinkling of checkers. COD LEASHES, I went through four letter tennis greats (Wade, Graf, Borg, King even Cash) before getting ASHE.

    LOI PREFLIGHT. We had a tough xxxxLIGHT yesterday in the QC which caused no end of trouble.

    COD TIME SIGNAL

  28. As usual I didn’t notice this was a competition puzzle, but drew a blank until CLOG got me started. GRANDSON, BESTED and ICELAND then arrived and I built upwards. The SE remained stubbornly blank apart from 20a and 28a right to the end. BEACHGOER was first to go as I concentrated on the last quarter, then after a hiatus, GRATIN appeared from the fog. CHORDATA shimmered through the mist from deep in the recesses and REGGAETRON was postulated leading to HOT, after which the cunning LEASHES arrived. 29:58. Thanks setter and Pip.

  29. 18:47

    NHO CHORDATA, but trusted the wordplay early on with only an H to check, which helped the tricky SE trio. First read and LOI was PUPPETRY. As far back as 1979 I worked on an advertising jingle for a department store, Whitley’s, using the pun, “What’s in store for you?” and, “There’s more in store for you”.

    Lovely puzzle for me as it’s a first sub 20’ for a competition solve.

    Thanks all.

  30. I enjoyed the challenge and finished in 36.24, finding some of it quite tough. FOI GO UP, LOsI LEASHES and HOT. A lot of clever clueing. Thank you Nelson, I think the spinal chord you mention at CHORDATA might be something that Spinal Tap mislaid.

    From Murder Most Foul:
    Twas a dark day in Dallas, November ’63
    A day that will live on in infamy
    PRESIDENT Kennedy was a-riding high
    Good day to be living and a good day to die

  31. Thank goodness I didn’t enter the competition, because I struggled with this, especially in the SE corner where I’d never heard of REGGAETON, which didn’t even look very likely. If Arthur Ashe is a tennis great then he’s in a large field. We seem to have consigned Beerbohm Tree to the rubbish bin. Is it not time to do so with inst and ult? Also perhaps ‘up’ in the sense used in 12ac? It’s clearly an elderly Oxbridge thing because I’m perfectly familiar with it and still use it, but perhaps the modern generation are better off without it.

    (For the programmers: this was my second attempt. The first one elicited a message telling me that I needed to fill in some things, and I lost it.)

  32. A very useful blog, but members of the phylum Chordata have a spinal cord rather than a chord.

    1. The “chord” in “Chordata” relates to the embryonic “notochord”. Only tangentially related to the spinal cord.

      Very many chordates don’t even have a spine.

  33. Ring-rusty after a month away so had to use aids for SE corner, but gradually getting back into trim. At the risk of sounding picky, when learning radio-discipline for a yachtsman’s qualification I was taught *never* to say ‘over-and-out’. ‘Over’ has a strict meaning (‘your turn to speak’), as does ‘out’ (‘nothing more to say at all’, ie end of transmission). To use both is contradictory and confusing. (Sorry!)

    2. ‘Over and out’: Apart from TV and Hollywood the phrase is simply incorrect and unacceptable.
      Surely no excuse for being included in Times Crosswords ….. Otherwise 65 mins to complete successfully.
      Retired RAF Officer and Flying Instructor.

  34. 19:41

    Faster than the first qualifying puzzle last Wednesday, but don’t think I’ll be making the semi-final – completing the third puzzle next Wednesday within 15 minutes would at least give the satisfaction of having completed all three puzzles within the 60 mins…

    NHO: TAMARI but the wordplay was clear enough
    I knew the word CHORDATA but didn’t know what it meant
    REGGAETON familiar to me as Mrs H is something of a Hispanophile – consequently the music features frequently in our house
    Not too keen on HOT = angry

    COD LEASHES – alighting on the right tennis player was the tricky bit here…

    Thanks P and setter

  35. 28:01, mostly fine, but with some tricky bits. I have seen CHORDATA and REGGAETON here before and they had stuck enough to click with the crossers or the wordplay when needed. LOI LEASHES, not helped by being unsure about HOT.
    Six lists, apparently, according to stardom-Hollywood. fandom.com, with the F-list being the lowest. A shame because the G-listers might have been a clue. However, like andyf above, I have certainly come across z-list as a term

  36. 27 ac. Isn’t finest for best and head journalist is ed?

    many thanks to setter and blogger

  37. 17:30 – NHO of REGGAETON and shared Jackkt’s slight misgivings about the definition of in store, which I’d think more described a mode of shopping (as opposed to on-line) than an indication of stock levels. I can see good arguments both ways though.

  38. 17 mins much easier than the first one. Surprised no one knows TAMARI as I use it in almost every meal…. Staple from my early days in the whole food business.

  39. Can “gratin” be used to describe a dish in itself? I’ve only seen it as “Gratin something” or “Something au gratin”.

  40. Done in two sessions so no time to report, but I found it relatively straightforward for a competition puzzle, and would estimate about 40 minutes. Like others I’ve heard of REGGAE of course, but had to hope that the extended version of the word was the answer. GRATIN was my LOI as I was slow thinking of a ‘tiny amount of salt’. I couldn’t get pinch out of my head before grain finally occurred to me.

  41. Well this one I would have completed in the 20 minutes. 19:32 to eventually get leashes which I did not understand until seeing the blog so thanks for that. The new living person thing got me for a while as I was automatically trying to fit Agassi in or nadal without the lead letter until I eventually remembered Arthur Ashe.

    Had a pink square on submission due to mistyping on in store. Grrr.

    Thx p and setter

  42. 38.53 I wasted ten minutes with BEACCGOER making CHORDATA impossible. TAMARI was new. REGGAETON was biffed early on and I finished with LEASHES and HOT, which I’d thought of earlier but wasn’t sure about. I found this easier than last Wednesday’s and the easiest of the week so far. Thanks piquet.

    1. I think the intention is that “lead more than once” is to be interpreted as an instruction to read “lead lead” as part of the clue and that in turn is a (second) cryptic definition of “leashes”. It’s a bit tongue-in-cheek, perhaps too much so.

  44. I’m glad I didn’t think of Laver; getting Lacoste out of my head was hard enough.
    I’m equally glad I’m not fast enough for the competitions. Learning new words is good fun sitting at home in a nice chair, but I’d not much like to do it under exam conditions.

  45. 27.21. NHO ‘tamari’ or ‘reggaeton’ but, as others have said, they could readily be deduced.

  46. Done in under 30 minutes, with REGGAETON the only NHO (I have a bottle of TAMARI in the pantry so that one didn’t cause me any trouble, unlike others). But nowhere close to being under the 20 minutes required to do 3 of these in an hour in the competition.

  47. 33:08. Happy with that time, didn’t think anything was unfair and rarer words were generously clued, and I think I parsed everything. Spent WAAAY too long trying to parse GRATIN! thanks both

  48. REGGAETON entered our family when son #2 returned from gap year travels with a playlist of the stuff.

    29 mins but gave up on CHORDATA. Good fun. Thanks PK.

  49. 30 minutes, so quite easy. TAMARI and REGGAETON were my only unknowns, and otherwise there seemed to be nothing that stuck out particularly. Not much more to say.

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