Times 29245 – Fun with Dick and Jane

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Time: 22:19

Music: Shostakovich, Symphony #5, Bernstein/NYPO.

This puzzle should not have been that hard, but I was slowed down by clues that should have been write-ins.    Sure, there were some things I didn’t know, but I might have been a bit quicker to guess.   I did not know tip and run, and line-out, and was slow to realize that Dick Whittington must be a pantomime, even though I had pan-.     I nearly put olive instead of opine, too.   I did enjoy the Highland Fling, but the best clue was probably Lille/Lillehammer.

This concludes my run of four consecutive Monday puzzles.   Ulaca will be returning from his tour of Asia next week, and he will be taking over for the rest of June.    The normal rotation will resume on July 7.

 

Across
1 Particular sort of female American dog, perhaps (7)
FUSSPOT – F + U.S. + SPOT.
5 Cover of gossip magazine carried by that lady (7)
SHEATHE – S(HEAT)HE.
9 Covert mission excavated alluvial mineral (5,4)
BLACK OPAL -BLACK OP + A[lluvia]L.
10 Offer view of duck by tree (5)
OPINE – O + PINE.
11 Tool missing from Norwegian town and French city (5)
LILLE – LILLE[hammer].
12 Trip often generated earnings after tax (3,6)
NET PROFIT – Anagram of TRIP OFTEN.
13 Weakens binding in book (9,4)
WATERSHIP DOWN -WATERS (HIP) DOWN.
17 Scottish dance or caber toss? (8,5)
HIGHLAND FLING – Cryptic hint.
21 Writer briefly cut off in Iberia, say (9)
PENINSULA – PEN + INSULA[r].   Not a good clue, since insular and peninsula are closely related.
24 Move camera in direction of Dick Whittington, say (5)
PANTO – PAN TO.
25 Animal’s joint seen by river in Italy (5)
HIPPO – HIP + PO, a beginner clue.
26 Conquistador outside university with a new mistress (9)
COURTESAN – CO(U)RTES + A + N.
27 Range of colours permitted in crown (7)
PALETTE – PA(LET)TE.
28 Letters backing phoney researcher (7)
POSTDOC – POST + COD backwards.
Down
1 Upset if male cut top of another bone (6)
FIBULA – IF upside-down + BUL[l] + A[nother].   I was thinking a fibula isn’t a bone, it’s a brooch, but of course it’s both.
2 Rascal caught partner dividing loot (9)
SCALLYWAG – S(C,ALLY)WAG.
3 I spoke about top of tower that’s most cramped (7)
POKIEST – Anagram of I SPOKE around T[ower].
4 Type of cricket Dan plays with turnip (3,3,3)
TIP AND RUN – Anagram of DAN + TURNIP.
5 Leave ice-cream dish (5)
SPLIT – Double definition, not the first word you would think of for either one.
6 Four awards to rent for act of self-promotion (3,4)
EGO TRIP – EGOT + RIP, where EGOT = Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony.  You could look it up….or you could just biff the obvious answer and move on.
7 Robber one featured in article on forgery primarily (5)
THIEF – TH(I)E + F[orgery].
8 YouTube finally airing equestrian sport (8)
EVENTING – [youtub]E + VENTING.   Actually, there are hundreds of eventing videos on YouTube, but we can’t let that get in the way of a good  cryptic clue.
14 Man with a bit of sugar follows very loud imaginary creature (9)
HEFFALUMP – HE + FF + A LUMP.
15 Arranged grandiose dancing (9)
ORGANISED – Anagram of GRANDIOSE.
16 Composer loses home twice, very quickly (4,4)
CHOP CHOP – CHOP[in], CHOP[in].   A chestnut.
18 Yob secures unlimited wines for activity with hookers (4-3)
LINE-OUT – L([w]INE[s])OUT.    Probably something to do with rugby.
19 Time’s up to develop motivation (7)
IMPETUS – Anagram of TIME’S UP.
20 Drink container to become cold when turned over (6)
COGNAC – CAN + GO C, all upside-down.
22 State of some Byzantine palaces (5)
NEPAL – Hidden in [Byzanti]NE PAL[aces].
23 Relative in doubt after losing a rook (5)
UNCLE – UNCLE[a,r], another chestnut.

74 comments on “Times 29245 – Fun with Dick and Jane”

  1. Around 30 minutes (equal to my fastest) for a most enjoyable puzzle. FOI TIP AND RUN then HIGHLAND FLING so I started with plenty of crossers. COD HEFFALUMP. Parsed most at the time but I needed several from the blog for clarification.
    Thanks V
    Line outs in Rugby Union occur when the ball goes out over the sideline. The forwards from both sides including both hookers line up to contest for the ball at the restart. The hookers make up only 2 in 16 of the players involved..

        1. There was a team in France- Beziers I think- that went through a phase of musing the scrum half to throw in.

    2. Can you please explain 1Down.
      I know what Fibula is, but I can’t parse it!

      1. It’s explained in the blog above, but it’s Upset IF = FI, Male short = BUL(L) and the top of Another = A.

      2. if upset=reverse if=FI
        male=BULL so male cut (remove last letter)=BUL.
        top of another= first letter of another=A

    3. Ah, that makes more sense. I thought maybe hookers and line out had something to do with fishing………….

  2. 16 minutes for this, held up by the mineral and the ice cream.

    Not quite Asia – just Shikoku.

      1. Heavens, no! Seen one temple, seen them all…

        Actually, some of the other temples and shrines are more interesting to me. Especially those in hard to access places. They speak of how important these things were to the local people.

  3. Considering I needed vinyl’s help post-solve to parse BLACK OPAL, FUSSPOT, WATERSHIP DOWN and EGO TRIP, I was rather flattered by my time of 13.35. Very enjoyable puzzle.

    From Tears of Rage:
    Tears of rage, tears of grief
    Why am I always the one who must
    Be the THIEF?
    Come to me now you know we’re so alone
    And life is brief

  4. 24 minutes fully parsed apart from LILLE{hammer} (NHO the Norwegian town), and ERGOT in EGO TRIP (also NHO). Oh, and having read the blog I realise I forgot to return to EVENTING and check how that worked. A nice easy start to the week.

    Of my NHOs, neither has appeared before as such. ERGOT has come up a couple of times as a fungal disease of cereals, and ‘Lillehammer’ was needed to understand the wordplay in a clue to LILLE in a Jumbo in 2007 when the Norwegian town was referred to as ‘former Olympic hosts’ because it had been the venue for the Winter Olympics in 1994.

  5. Second fastest ever for me. Only the SE quadrant slowing me down with the invention of the rather lovely sounding dance of ORGANSIDE and trying to lift and seperate Dick Whittington when it wasn’t needed . I also managed to combine an imaginary creature with a Harry Potter house for a HEFFAPUFF. Thankfully that one was quickly spotted. The LOI COGNAC which I should have just tried to biff rather than be smart and work out. Usual Monday brain stuff.

    NHO EGOT but guessing I won’t be the only one today. It isn’t as rare an achievement as I had imagined.

    COD: WATERSHIP DOWN

    Thanks blogger and setter

  6. 7:16. I don’t remember seeing BLACK OPAL before but I might well have done. I did know EGOT and I remember the Winter Olympics being in Lillehammer. I’m a bit surprised it was as recently as 1994.

    1. A site-specific Google search suggests this is the first time BLACK OPAL has appeared here, and I’m not sure I’ve met it elsewhere. Before the checker P provided by TIP-AND-RUN ruled it out, I was trying to make sense of BLACK COAL at 9ac.

      1. It’s quite a generic name for a stone (I could readily believe there are any number of different colours of opal) so if I had come across it before I don’t think I’d remember it.

  7. 14:46. I got off to a fast start but had to work at a number of clues to successfully complete this puzzle. SPLIT /SHEATHE and COGNAC/POSTDOC proved to be tricky pairs to solve.

    COD: WATERSHIP DOWN. Something to do with mixing my toeses?

    Now I’ve got:
    “Moses supposes his toeses are roses. Moses supposes erroneously”

    as an earworm for the rest of the day!

  8. 7:16. This would have made it into my top ten times had I not spent around a minute at the end on POSTDOC and COGNAC. I can console myself that I did the rare double of cryptic and concise in under 10 minutes!

  9. 13:51* (with a typo)

    I thought I was on for a rarer than black opal sub 10 minute solve but it wasn’t to be as I got bogged down in the NW. No excuses really and none for the typo.

    A gentle start to the week so thanks to both.

  10. 29 mins so pretty easy. Several unparsed however. SHEATHE (I had shelter for a while), EGO TRIP & WATERSHIP DOWN.

    I too liked LILLE (HAMMER), I remember the games, and the HIGHLAND FLING.

    Thanks V for all the recent blogging. Enjoy the break!

  11. 8.05
    I remembered LILLEhammer as the setting for the confusingly-titled ‘Lillyhammer’, a Sopranos sort-of-spinoff starring Steve Van Zandt.
    LOI IMPETUS
    COD EGO TRIP

    1. They called it that because English speakers tend to pronounce Lillehammer as Lillyhammer much to Norwegians’ annoyance. It was a very funny series.

  12. Can you please explain 1Down.
    I know what Fibula is, but I can’t parse it!

    1. IF is ‘upset’ (reversed), then BULL (male) is ‘cut’ to get BUL, then add the ‘top’ (first letter) of ‘another’, A.

  13. 18 mins which was a lot longer than I thought it would be. Strugggled with cognac, black opal, sheathe, postdoc and panto. Panto my COD but postdoc was very good too.

    Great puzzle to start the week with.

  14. 8’47″in Geneva airport, first solve for some time, as have been on holiday.

    Flew through this, no holdups at all. I read WATERSHIP DOWN 50 years ago, what a classic.

    Thanks vinyl and setter.

    1. Last year I re-‘read’ (audiobook) Watership Down for the first time since I was a kid and loved it.

  15. 27 minutes with LOI BLACK OPAL, never heard of before. COD to WATERSHIP DOWN. I found this a bit trickier than it first looked. It’s a long time since I had a banana split. Like Rum Babas they came and went. But it’s not a bad life we’ve lived, is it? Are there any other sorts of splits though? Decent Monday puzzle. Thank you V and setter.

    1. First encountered in the dining car of the Trans Australian Railway c1965. A sliced banana with strawberry jam, vanilla ice cream and drizzled with chocolate sauce and chopped walnuts, absolute heaven. Not a bad life at all.

  16. 8 or 9 minutes, so one of my fastest ever solves.

    – Hadn’t specifically heard of a BLACK OPAL, but it sounded entirely reasonable
    – Took me a while to see how WATERSHIP DOWN worked, even after entering it
    – Parsed FIBULA without knowing which part of the body that bone is in

    Thanks vinyl and setter.

    FOI Pokiest
    LOI Courtesan
    COD Watership Down

  17. 12.11, one of my faster times, with a pleasingly high parse-to-biff ratio. Off to a quick start with FUSSPOT, SCALLYWAG, HIGHLAND FLING and HEFFALUMP, which gave helpful coverage to much of the grid.
    LOI COGNAC
    COD HEFFALUMP

  18. 19 mins. Like others, was hoping for a PB but there was just enough trickery to make it non-trivial and so more fun. GK right in my sweetspot, loved WATERSHIP DOWN.
    Thanks both

  19. Fun Monday puzzle. LILLE(HAMMER), BLACK OPAL, WATERSHIP DOWN, all good fun. SHEATHE, knew the answer but NHO the magazine. Thought the Conquistador was spelt with a ‘Z’ as in ‘Cortez the Killer’ so COURTESAN was slow coming. Missed the four awards in EGO TRIP so thanks for that. COGNAC was my LOI.
    Thanks V and setter.

  20. 19:59 my LOI was COGNAC, the NHO BLACK OPAL was also one of the last ones in and I needed that to get SPLIT and then SHEATHE.
    I was going quite well until those last few.
    Thanks setter and blogger

  21. Probably second fastest solve ever, I thought it was my fastest but realised last minute after I’d stopped the clock that I hadn’t done 18D. After a few more seconds looking at the clue and not starting the timer again I solved it, so a time of around 12 mins (I originally thought of ‘lock out’ as ‘lout’ going around (h)ock(s) but thought better of it and put LINE OUT) in the end).

  22. I got 3 pinks today, generously discounted to two errors. One was an unspotted typo, the other was an innocent OLIVE (someone had to!) which I can parse if you’re interested.
    My start was very slow, and my finish in 16.56, while irrelevant, was a surprise. I had no idea about EGOT, so I’m grateful for vinyl’s enlightenment.
    I shall try not to be grumpy for the rest of the day.

  23. On the easier end at 20′ or so though I did gaze at the SE corner of POSTDOC and COGNAC for a while. Enjoyed HEFFALUMP but didn’t parse the EGOT test, though I have heard of it. Thanks Vinyl and setter.

  24. 15:31
    A fast time, in my top 3.
    BLACK OPAL my LOI, took a while to parse; I had never heard of the mineral.
    EVENTING biffed, never parsed.
    LILLE is my COD.

    thanks Vinyl and setter

  25. 11.22 WOE

    I was another OLIVE, in good company it seems. Otherwise good gentle stuff. Thanks Vinyl and Setter

  26. Spotted FUSSPOT without ado and kept going. Biffed EGO TRIP, so thanks to Vinyl for the explanation. Had a couple of crossing letters in 17a so didn’t even notice the second half of the clue before biffing! HEFFALUMP courtesy of AA Milne. LOI was COGNAC which held me up briefly. 11:50. Thanks setter and Vinyl.

  27. One of my quickest ever, although I hadn’t the faintest why FIBULA was correct. When I first played rugby, as a winger, I threw the ball in at a line out, but that was 60 years ago! For the past 50 years or so, this function has been performed by the hooker (there being no direct contest between the hookers).

  28. 17:00 – biffing galore until I hit a mental traffic jam at COGNAC, LOI and should have been a write-in.

  29. 18:46. one of my faster times, held up in the SE corner by COGNAC and POSTDOC. Was nearly fooled by OPINE to biff in OLIVE but luckily I avoided that heffalump trap. Fun puzzle + thanks!

  30. 23:28
    Good puzzle. I had hear of EGOT but needed vinyl to make the connection. Was tempted by OLIVE but then OPINE suddenly emerged from somewhere. SPLIT took far longer than it should have.
    I got hammered in LILLE once. Can’t remember if COGNAC was involved.

    Thanks to vinyl and the setter.

  31. Enjoyable start to the week. I couldn’t parse EGO TRIP, so thanks for the explanation V. Enjoyed LiNE OUT clue, and the POSt DOC and COGNAC intersection.
    Thanks V and Setter

  32. 17:48 for me, a new PB. And this included a few minutes lost around the SE after having put in HIGHLAND GAMES. I knew it was ropey when I put it in, but still was distracted by the wrong crossers. Maybe I should start using the pencil function on the web version to avoid this confusion…

    I had no issue with the sports references having played rugby as a kid and cricket until recently (although TIP AND RUN isn’t really a type of cricket, more a game based on cricket that you might play in a playground or in a training drill). Also remember LILLEHAMMER from hosting the winter olympics some time (I think) in the 1990s, so that was no problem either. I think I agree with that one as COD.

  33. 12:11

    Very enjoyable start to the week, though a few bits missed:

    BLACK OPAL – NHO but built from wordplay
    FIBULA – got the IF part, but failed on the rest
    EGO TRIP – no idea what was going on here – didn’t know that the four awards were abbreviated thus

    LOI SPLIT once 9a went in
    COD to LILLE – took some time for the pdm here, needing all three checkers…

    Thanks V and setter

  35. 11.16

    I don’t recall posting anything quicker than that, but solving in the paper I’m not certain.

    Clockwise from FUSSPOT/TIP AND RUN, so finished in the NW with LOI POKIEST.

    COD LINE-OUT.

    Thanks all.

  36. I whizzed through this after a pleasant game of golf, then found I couldn’t complete 8d, I had SHELTER (cover) in for 5a so had to re-think. Didn’t see SHEATHE. I liked LILLE(hammer) best.

  37. Off to a good start with FOI FUSSPOT and a steady solve after that until I got to my last two, like many others, POSTDOC and COGNAC. Very enjoyable.

  38. Under 13 mins, which is twincharged for me, albeit with a couple (ok, a few) biffs.
    Thanks vinyl for covering for ulaca, and thanks setter for a gentle Monday.

  39. Fairly quick by my standards at 21.15 but would have been under the twenty minute mark if I’d been able to sort out SPLIT and finally the unheard of BLACK OPAL.

  40. All straightforward. Only MER was whether a heffalump is an imaginary animal. It is Pooh/Piglet’s name for an elephant, which is not imaginary, though perhaps unlikely in the 100 Acre Wood. But since a tiger and a kangaroo live there, perhaps not…..

  41. Another who knew it was easy as he took twenty mins to solve. I need a drink now after taking five mins over 20d for goodness sake.

  42. 13.40 DNF. HIT AND RUN held me up until I remembered I’d made the same mistake before. Thinking it might be a PB I chucked in OLIVE at the end, saw the pink squares and immediately spotted OPINE. And it would have only been my second quickest anyway. Thanks vinyl1.

  43. 18 minutes. Didn’t fully parse Fibula and NHO Egot but otherwise no issues.
    My COD to Courtesan.

  44. I like the tradition of an easier Monday puzzle- sets you up for the week
    NHO egot -thanks for explaining- suppose it‘s a bit like GOAT in sport
    Black opal – was that part of a Tintin title?
    Used to love playing tip and run as we used a tennis ball instead of the nasty hard cricket ball – ideal for a non- athlete like me

  45. One of my top 5 fastest at 4:41. Had to put together BLACK OPAL, but everything else went in at a first or second glance.

  46. My 16’35” seems very slow after all those best-evers. Bottom half went in much quicker than top. The HIPPO clue (or something very close to it) was in the Spectator a couple of weeks ago, as was IBERIA as peninsula. Mere chance I am sure. Serendipitously I was just today reading something by A.A. Milne – introduction to an early US edition of The Wind in the Willows. I didn’t know Milne wrote the first TWITW spin-off, the play Toad of Toad Hall. Also singing the book’s praises in a separate introduction: Teddy Roosevelt.
    On another note, I too think of CORTEZ with a Z thanks to Neil Young. “He came dancing across the water/ With his galleons and guns.” Such a great opening line.

  47. By a striking coincidence EGOT has just been mentioned on Radio 3 in connection with a very successful composer of film scores.

  48. 21:26 for us, one of our fastest times. We had come across EGOT. LOI SHEATHE took a lot of seeing, not familiar with the magazine though did recognise it once we saw the very likely answer. Rather liked the caber toss but COD to WATERSHIP DOWN. Thanks, all.

  49. 32 minutes, and fortunately not 30 because I spent the two extra minutes proofreading and, not being able to parse IMPUTES for 19dn, corrected it to IMPETUS at the last minute. An enjoyable puzzle, not too hard. I didn’t know EGOT but the answer had to be EGO TRIP, and I misinterpreted LINE-OUT as a reference to fishing, but the wordplay worked so it was OK. I liked POSTDOC (which didn’t turn out to be PASTEUR, as I first was expecting it to be). As for vinyl’s title (and SPOT in 1ac) — my first school reader was the delightful tale of Dick and Jane and their dog Spot, but that was almost 80 years ago! Surely today’s children are being given something less insipid.

    1. True Dick and Jane were pretty square but I think little sister Sally had potential to break out of that milieu.

    2. I thought Spot was a reference to the more recent series by Eric Hill. And I’m another who thought line out was an angling reference.

      My first thought of white opal was swiftly discarded for the more valuable black, where the multi-hued ‘colour’ appears much more vibrant. Having NHO white ops reinforced this semi biff from the last two letters ‘al’.

      I knew scallywag was coming up, having read the comments on the Saturday puzzle in numerical sequence. It was pretty obvious anyway, from the w and g crossers.

      Postdoc and cognac LOsI.
      Thanks to setter and blogger.

  50. My favourite personally was Watership down. I got it surprisingly quickly and got a good chuckle out of it

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