Times 29211 – plenty of admirers to admire.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Plenty to admire in this midweek offering, a far cry from last Friday’s, which had me stumped.  I don’t remember using my digital “red pen” so often as here below. I suppose 20d wins the clue of the day, for being topical, sort of. 20 minutes and no problems.

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

Across
1 Great admirer I finish with in due course (8)
IDOLATER – if I DO, LATER, I finish, in due course.
6 Spy conceals missile in oil-producing plant (6)
SESAME – SEE (spy) with SAM a surface-to-air missile inserted.
9 What father is to son stumbling into a bordello? (5,8)
BLOOD RELATION –  (INTO A BORDELLO).
10 Job to follow this husband entering compound (6)
ESTHER – well, I couldn’t have told you which book precedes Job in the Bible, I’ve never read it, but faced with an H to put into a compound – an ester being one – I plumped correctly.
11 Particular paranormal power periodically perceivable (8)
ESPECIAL – ESP (paranormal power), pErCeIvAbLe.
13 Oppressed girl lives in city near Sidon with duke (10)
TYRANNISED – TYRE being a city near Sidon, insert ANN an girl, IS = lives, add D for duke.
15 Poet dispensing with uniform in Arabian port (4)
ADEN – W H Auden loses his U.
16 Small disagreement — is it over a shoe? (4)
SPAT – a cover worn over a shoe as in the spats which the likes of Hercule Poirot wore, and US gangsters in the 1920s.
18 Below zero inside so like stormy weather (10)
THUNDEROUS – UNDER 0 inside THUS = so.
21 Imagination detective attached to objects (5,3)
MINDS EYE – MINDS = objects, EYE as in Private eye.
22 Divine being in form — demand regularly to be recalled (6)
DAEMON – reversed alternate letters as above. A minor deity of some kind.
23 Star system’s unstable nuclear path captured by artificial intelligence (5,8)
ALPHA CENTAURI – (NUCLEAR PATH)* inside A I. As you may know, or not wish to know, Alpha Centauri is called a “star system” because it consists of three stars- two in a binary orbiting each other and a third, a red dwarf closer to Earth but appearing to be part of the same system as it’s in line of sight.
25 Plant all borders in magically radiant landscape (6)
MYRTLE – outer letters as above.
26 NCO awfully strange when ingesting Ecstasy (8)
SERGEANT – (STRANGE)* with E inserted.
Down
2 Musician to alight, safely evacuated (7)
DEBUSSY – When I had D****SY, the SY from safety, I wrote in Claude’s name and then saw DE-BUS = alight.
3 Man dancing in leotard encapsulates daring (4-7)
LION-HEARTED – HE (man) inside (IN LEOTARD)*.
4 Thrash grasping daughter raised in royal house (5)
TUDOR – ROUT (thrash) reversed with D inside.
5 Hemp needed to make these jackets (7)
REEFERS – double definition, one a dodgy roll-up, one a jacket.
6 Authorised edition dashed off in panic (9)
STAMPEDED – STAMPED = authorised, ED[ition].
7 Long blade this killer hides (3)
SKI – hidden, slightly.
8 Romeo possibly rejecting United’s image (7)
MONTAGE – Romeo belonged to the Montague family, so drop the U.
12 2’s work, used originally in adaptation of Cinderella (5,2,4)
CLAIR DE LUNE – U inside (CINDERELLA)*.
14 Church wine consumed by wild Scots? (5,4)
NOTRE DAME – RED = wine, inside NO TAME. As a Scot may say, if ye’re wild, ye’re NO TAME. Or so I imagine.
17 Quick securing border for dominance (7)
PRIMACY –  PACY = quick, insert RIM = border.
19 Really poor mandate for saving the planet? (7)
USELESS – save the planet by using less. Too late, methinks.
20 With ego Trump nearly upset an idealist (7)
UTOPIAN – I (ego) POTU[s] = Trump nearly, all reversed = UTOPI, add AN.
22 Dorothy Parker leaving land for admirer (5)
DOTER – DOT (Dorothy) [park]ER. Where park = land.
24 Set down, winning over time (3)
PUT – UP = winning, reverse it, add T for time.

 

73 comments on “Times 29211 – plenty of admirers to admire.”

  1. Liked this plenty. My FOI was one of my favorite composers, DEBUSSY, and of course I got CLAIR DE LUNE right after, and was off to the races.

      1. The emailed version of your reply (first draft) read:
        “You’d have had a job fitting CLAIE DE LUNE into the grid!”

      2. I’m sure my mind (on the verge of sleep here) jumped the track as I couldn’t help but think of my longtime friend Claire, journaliste extraordinaire at Ouest-France.

  2. 28 minutes. Quite straightforward apart from not knowing DAEMON as a divine being which suggests a force for good rather than evil.

  3. Really enjoyed this, after taking about 15 minutes to complete barely half the rest came in a rush and I finished in 19.22. FOI TYRANNISED; LOI DAEMON; COD MYRTLE. When I was at one of the ancient universities over forty years ago, a young fogey acquaintance went into a traditional tailor’s shop in search of a specific item, and the elderly gentleman who served him said with delight “I haven’t been asked for a pair of SPATS since 1937!”
    Thanks P and setter.

  4. 18:42
    Nae bother but I did take a while to get NOTRE DAME and that slowed TYRANNISED. As with Mr Spooner, my heart generally sinks when I see ‘Scots’ included in a clue and my mind just goes blank.

    Thanks to both.

  5. 22 minutes with LOI NOTRE DAME. Will Bob be on Desolation Row today? COD to DEBUSSY. Good puzzle. Thank you Pip and setter.

    1. Having been knocked out by some seasonal virus I was in no position to do this yesterday and had a desultory look 24 hours later but didn’t post. Fair to say it would have been a toss-up between the hunchback in DR and the useless and pointless knowledge in another frequently recurring source, Tombstone Blues!

  6. 3dn – does not “encapsulates” tell you to put He inside “in leotard” rather than being part of the definition ? otherwise the “in” is serving one too many functions

    1. I parsed 3D the same way as you, with the definition being just “daring”.

  7. Fairily-delicate palaces shine
    Mixt with myrtle and clad with vine
    (The Islet, Tennyson)

    20 mins pre-brekker. I liked it. Took a while to parse Utopian and not sure about calling a ski a blade or park=land, but I liked it.
    Ta setter and Pip.

  8. 27:24
    10′ before shuffling off to the gym, the rest after dragging myself back. The exercise seems to have done me good, though, at least puzzle-wise. Didn’t see how MINDS EYE, LION-HEARTED, & UTOPIAN worked, only parsed NOTRE DAME after submitting. Two U-deletions, a bit surprisingly. I didn’t know A. CENTAURI is a system, and wondered what the word was doing there.

  9. Made heavy weather of that at 29 mins not helped by misreading the work at 12d as being by probably Leon somebody at 3d. When I woke up it all came together.

  10. Around 40 minutes of easy-going for a most enjoyable puzzle. FOI SERGEANT. LOI DOTER
    Thanks Pip

  11. 12’50, good today. Delayed by banging in ‘blood relative’, so MONTAGE LOI. I have sung in NOTRE DAME. Didn’t know about ALPHA CENTAURI, have now learned.

    Thanks pip and setter.

    1. I’ve sung in Notre Dame too, until a friendly verger persuaded me to stop. Apparently Mademoiselle from Armentières was not on the usual playlist.

    1. It might be, but only yesterday Suzie allowed its plural (9 letters!) on Countdown, and US spellings are usually anathema.

        1. Collins printed edition echoes Chambers with ‘idolater or idolator’ in that order and no mention of US spelling. Only Collins online makes the distinction with ‘idolator’ as the only British English spelling, and ‘idolater’ as American English and credited to Websters.

          As for the Oxfords, I checked the Concise, the Oxford Dictionary of English, the Premium Oxford Dictionary (that’s the one Suzie Dent uses on Countdown) and the two volume Shorter Oxford and none of them lists the ‘-or’ ending. To find that I had to go to the 20 volume Oxford English Dictionary which has it as an alternative to ‘-er’ but doesn’t say it’s American.

          I’ve only ever spelt it IDOLATER as I always think ‘I DO LATER’ whenever I see it written.

    2. To you, maybe. But in Merriam-Webster, that spelling is the “variant.”

  13. Quick today, and nothing to dislike.
    The red dwarf Pip mentions in the Alpha Centauri system is Proxima Centauri, the star nearest of all to our own, but sadly not even visible to the naked eye.

    1. Proxima Centauri is in a long period orbit around the other two members of the system (Rigel Kentaurus and Toliman). It will eventually orbit far enough around them to be further from the Sun, at which point it will need a new name!!

  14. I’m having a Good Day with a quick Quick, followed by 14:28 here, which is remarkably fast for me.
    Thoroughly enjoyed – thanks Pip and setter

  15. 15:03

    I was slowed down by the hastily entered BLOOD RELATIVE and CLARE DE LUNE. There’s a lesson there somewhere.

    Thanks for explaining UTOPIAN which I was nowhere near parsing.

    1. I had CLARE too. Sadly I didn’t notice when THUNDEROUS corrected it and finished up with CLARR.

  16. 8:44, which is very quick for me. I thought I was just solving steadily but found I had only 4 answers left after my first pass through the clues. MER at “blade” for “ski”, but the answer couldn’t have been anything else. Thanks Pip and setter.

  17. Delightful puzzle, though I got stuck trying to parse UTOPIAN after Trump yielded the rummy TOP bit. MONTAGE was my last in after the (in retrospect) obvious SESAME fell. There’s been a spate recently of Romeo cropping up and not yielding R.
    I liked TYRANNISED not least because it credited us with a bit of knowledge about Sidon.

  19. Another just under 20′ with lot of write-ins to get off and running, such as DEBUSSY (lovely) and his work plus the star sytem, BLOOD RELATION, etc. In hindsight probably should have been quicker. Like Rowlie earlier, my heart sinks when I hear Scots mentioned, my problem, being a Scot, is they always sound so naff. Maybe East Londoners think the same about Cockerny…? Thanks Piquet and setter.

    1. Having worked in Scotland, my feeling is there’s no such thing as “Scots”, but about 200 different dialects. I was in Aberdeen, with all the Fitlikes (nothing like “Scots” in The Times), but also with two colleagues from Montrose just down the way. When they spoke Montrosian the Aberdonians couldn’t understand them any better than I could.
      I’m sure Glasgow is different again, and probably the “Scots” The Times (i.e. Chambers) uses?

      1. You’re absolutely right, there are huge changes in accents and vocabulary both North to South and East to West. My earliest encounter with Aberdonian was with a bunch of Aberdeen girls when I was as a teenager on my first holiday with friends (rather than parents). In my attempts to “chat up” I remember not having a clue what they were saying, which was probably just as well for my still fragile self-confidence!

  20. I liked it. Not challenging I would say. COD 1a I DO LATER, even if it is a chestnut, LOI 6d Stamped Ed. Parsed as I solved for a change. DNK how to spell Clair in 12d, but only the right one fitted.
    Thanks piquet & setter.

  21. Never did parse NOTRE DAME, my LOI, so thanks for that. The rest of this was, for me, just the right mix of fun and challenging. CLAIR DE LUNE was a write-in after DEBUSSY, so a helpful leg-up from setter there. 25 mins.

  22. DNF, defeated by MONTAGE (I bunged in MANDATE in desperation even though there was no way it would work).

    – Had forgotten esp=paranormal power, so ESPECIAL went in with a shrug
    – Not familiar with REEFERS as jackets
    – Only parsed NOTRE DAME after I’d entered it based on the checkers

    Thanks piquet and setter.

    COD Stampeded

  23. Skated through slightly too quickly and was punished with 4 pink squares. A very careless ADULATOR which I couldn’t parse, (red flag!!) was accompanied by CLARR DE LUNE which I’d biffed as CLARE, and then didn’t notice that THUNDEROUS had tried to point me in the right direction of. 13,25 with a plethora of errors. Thanks setter and Pip.

  24. Slow but got through it. Really hindered by not being as well versed in the work of DEBUSSY as I should be and never remembering which way the a and u go round in CENTAURI. I had a struggle assembling anything resembling words from the anagram for the Debussy work. Thankfully, I was aware of his nationality which made it a bit easier.

    As an aside the use of debus outside of crossword land gets you an odd reaction. As I found out from calling my wife and telling her I had debussed and it was time to come and collect me.

    Wasn’t getting the crossing STAMPEDED and SESAME. NHO the SAM acronym and got fixated with inserting something into panic for a word meaning authorised.

    MINDS EYE I fell into backwards clueing imagination as MIND and EYE as detective before the penny dropped.

    LOI NOTRE DAME which I got from the crossers but then spotted the wordplay immediately.

    Didn’t know ADEN but could only think of one poet that made the wordplay work.

    Took me ages to be happy with TYRANNISED thinking that TYRA was clued by girl.

    I found this difficult but can see why more learned folk found it much simpler.

    Thanks blogger and setter.

  25. Another who couldn’t spell CLAIRE DE LUNE, and didn’t notice. I was sure there was an E on CLAIR. Also carelessly put in TYRRANISED – intentionally – wondering if RANI’S was “girl is”. So quick except for self-induced errors.
    Liked UTOPIAN, DEBUSSY, and COD to MONTAGE.

  26. 25:15
    Excellent puzzle. Couldn’t unravel UTOPIAN and was tempted for a long time by SCARPERED for 6 down. The D in TYRANNISED brought me to my senses. I particularly liked ESTHER, MINDS EYE and NOTRE DAME.

    Thanks to Pip and the setter

  27. 24 mins with a dither at the end between MANDATE (I suppose Romeo could be a MAN DATE) and MONTAGE. Never got the MONTAGUE part of the clue till I came here. Tx!

  28. 22:25

    Started quickly from DEBUSSY, but spent several minutes at the end looking for an oppressed girl and a pursuing vocation.

    Lovely puzzle, thanks setter and Pip.

  29. Most people seem to have found this quite easy, but I bumbled along and finished in 55 minutes. It struck me that MONTAGE = image was a bit of a stretch, but I suppose it isn’t really and it’s supported by the dictionaries. Anyway it defeated me for quite a while. I wanted 1ac to be adulater but of course couldn’t make it work.

  30. DNF. Ground to a halt after 40 minutes. I could not get past an unparsable SCARPERED, where it should have been STAMPEDED and couldn’t make anything of TYRANNISED. I spotted “red”as the wine in 14dn, which gave me __TRE/DA_E, but I still couldn’t see the church. Could do better

  31. 11:30 – fast for me so no great problems. Daemons more familiar from Phillip Pullman’s books than anywhere else, but generally no arcane knowledge required.

    1. And from your old pal, the Mailer Daemon, telling you your communications had gone up the creek.

  32. A quick DNF (by my standards). Biffed ADULATOR, saw that DO LATER had to be, paused to consider ER v. OR, then failed to change the A to I.

  33. 17.29

    MONTAGE LOI as Capulet got stuck in my head. Good standard fare – enjoyed it

    Thanks setter/Piquet

  34. 20:38

    Found a few baffling – didn’t see how SESAME was constructed, assuming a SAM must be some sort of missile. For a long time, I didn’t twig that the whole of DAEMON was an alternated reversal – only saw the DAE part. UTOPIAN was a total mystery, but the checkers made the answer obvious.

    Thanks P and setter

  35. A thoroughly unjustified 40 minutes.
    Had difficulty getting started but then galloped along until slowed in the final furlong by MINDS EYE and DOTER (which still doesn’t look right!)
    Thanks to setter and Piquet.

  36. Nearly scuppered myself with an unparsed ADULATOR, till I thought of LATER. Trying to make sense of ADU then bringing in the I made sudden sense of the whole clue! Astonishingly slow to get ESTHER – but I go into panic when I see ‘compound’. TYRANNISED also took a while as I couldn’t think of TYRE. LOI NOTRE DAME.

  37. 16.54, no probs.

    “Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
    Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!”

    (Kipling).

  38. 5:37. Easy one today. I might have ducked under the 5 minute mark without a careless BLOOD RELATIVE.

  40. I had a good friend and neighbour (now dead alas) called Hadassah which she told me was Hebrew for ESTHER and also a name for the MYRTLE tree. Just a coincidence here?

  41. All correct for second day in a row- must be settling in to the new house, although still surrounded by cardboard boxes. If I had trusted my instincts when first biffing LION-HEARTED, I’d have saved a lot of time, but I couldn’t parse it.
    Very enjoyable puzzle.
    Thanks Setter and Pip

  42. No dramas, or time as done in two sessions, the last one just now after lunch with my LOI ESTHER holding me up.

    I liked the DEBUSSY/CLAIR DE LUNE double.

    Thanks pip and setter.

  43. 19.18. LOI utopian. Notre Dame held me up but not too long. Liked myrtle and useless. This time managed to get the biblical reference to Esther.

    Good puzzle. Thx setter and blogger.

  44. ESPECIAL was FOI and MONTAGE was LOI, I didn’t parse it either as I thought about ‘mountage’ instead of ‘Montague’ and ‘image’ was a rather forced synonym. Quite easy and overall enjoyable though, many thanks to the setter and blogger.

  45. 28:09
    COD to ESTHER.
    Took a while to see NOTRE DAME.
    LOI was SESAME.

    Thanks piquet and setter

  46. A pleasant puzzle, not too testing and all done in 49 minutes, including a doze in the middle – I blame a heavy lunch. Some clever clues which for once did not defeat me.
    FOI – ESTHER
    LOI – MONTAGE
    COD – DEBUSSY
    Thanks to piquet and other contributors.

  47. No time to report as done in three sessions, but I got on quite well with it and would estimate about thirty minutes. I thought it was a well constructed puzzle, and I was pleased to wrap it up with SESAME which eluded me for a while.

  48. Tremendous puzzle, much to admire as piquet implies, which took all in all around 25 minutes. I’ll plump I think for the wild Scots as COD, but many up there.

    Thanks setter and P.

  49. 37 mins – not very impressive, but completed after a long working day and a certain amount of wine, and at least all clues parsed within that time! Some great ones – loved UTOPIAN. ‘Idolater’ always looks wrong to me, but setters tend to spell the word that way (thus avoiding the need for ‘we hear’, an indicator that I haven’t seen for some time, come to think of it!)

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