Times 29319 – a fair effort.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Very pleasant puzzle today, nothing contentious or too tricky, and some nice anagrams. Once completed in about 14 minutes, it prompted me to look up the origins and etymology of “Aunt Sally”,
q.v. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aunt_Sally

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

Across
1 Plant’s beginning to flop down in secluded spot (10)
CORNFLOWER – CORNER (secluded spot) with F[lop], LOW (down) inserted.
6 About a thousand following live stream (4)
BECK – BE (live) C (about, circa) K (1000).
8 Chaps screening short film about tropical islands (8)
MALDIVES – MALES = chaps, insert VID[eo] reversed.
9 An agreeable sort, bellboy finally succeeded in turning handle (3-3)
YES-MAN – [bellbo]Y, NAME reversed with S (succeeded) inserted.
10 Nerd wastes no liquor (4)
ARAK – ANORAK loses its NO.
11 Simple versions of the ad, edited to a certain degree (4-6)
SOFT-HEADED – hidden words.
12 A comrade comes across military groups — heartless, or fair target? (4,5)
AUNT SALLY – A, ALLY (comrade), insert UN[i]TS. I saw it played it once in France and where they call it jeu de massacre (game of carnage).
14 Trade union engaged in head count (3,2)
TOT UP – TU inside TOP = head.
17 Part of staircase requires fresh coat of enamel (5)
NEWEL – NEW = fresh, E[name]L.
19 Mark? He’s excited about old English craftsman (9)
SHOEMAKER – (MARK HE’S)* with OE inserted.
22 One removes stains from front of coat that’s covered in red and nearly ruined (3,7)
DRY CLEANER – (RED NEARLY)* with C[oat] inserted.
23 Press retreating, some begrudgingly (4)
URGE – hidden reversed.
24 Rock band, half-cut, opening in strange key (6)
BASALT – BA[nd], S[trange], ALT = key on keyboard.
25 Unpolished, one small thing holds ring in place (8)
IMPOLITE – I (one) MITE (small thing) insert PL with O (ring) inside that.
26 Fringe drops penultimate comedy routine (4)
SKIT – SKIRT drops its penultimate letter.
27 Large gathering assembled in part of square (5,5)
RIGHT ANGLE – (L GATHERING)*.
Down
1 Raging egomaniac or what? (4,5)
COME AGAIN – (EGOMANIAC)*.
2 Master again back around the Spanish Main, at last (7)
RELEARN – EL (the Spanish) inside REAR (back), [mai]N.
3 Sweethearts have tête-à-tête? (4,4)
LOVE SEAT – LOVES (sweethearts) EAT (have). Maybe the definition is the whole clue, maybe not.
4 Whilst hiking, fun somehow turns into false optimism (7,8)
WISHFUL THINKING – (WHILST HIKING FUN)*.
5 Accent in Kent town almost grasped by soldiers (6)
RHYTHM – RM (Royal Marines) with HYTH[e] inserted. I find accent = rhythm a stretch.
6 Dance leader, first-class, picked up flower (5,4)
BOSSA NOVA – BOSS (leader) A (first-class), AVON reversed, flower as in river Avon.
7 Informal exchange with Middle Eastern state set up in country house (7)
CHATEAU – CHAT = informal exchange, UAE reversed.
13 Keen swimmer pulls in Resistance soldier (9)
TRENCHANT – TENCH (a fish so swimmer), insert R, add ANT = soldier.
15 As such, always interrupting — go on? (9)
PERSEVERE – PER SE = Latin for as such, insert EVER = always.
16 Shabby journalist turned up and moved quietly around island (8)
DECREPIT – ED reversed, CREPT = moved quietly, insert I[sland].
18 Reserve electronic weapon on ship (7)
EARMARK – E[lectronic], ARM (weapon), ARK (ship, of a sort).
20 Man possessing skill in motorsport? (7)
KARTING – KING (man in chess), insert ART = skill.
21 Safe to cuddle small hound (6)
PESTER – PETER (slang for a safe), insert S[mall].

 

67 comments on “Times 29319 – a fair effort.”

  1. I didn’t know AUNT SALLY, had to check that. After FOI PESTER, which leapt out at me, I got BECK, which I was pleased to remember, and proceeded to fill in the other four-letter words (I wanted to say “tetragrammatons,” with a lower-case T, but it seems Yahweh has monopolized the word—and divine intervention persisted in upper-casing the T). ARAK was obscure enough that it seemed I was on the wavelength, so I took my time while eating ice cream (I finally bought a new fridge!) and watching YouTube.

  2. 41 minutes. I was a bit slow getting the first 3 or 4 answers but then settled into a steady solve. Nice puzzle.

  3. Like Jack I took a while to make headway, but once I got going I solved this very enjoyable puzzle in 28.32. BASALT and KARTING were late arrivals and (speaking of skill in motorsports) Nelson deserves my thanks for parsing LOI IMPOLITE. Ditto RIGHT ANGLE, I couldn’t figure out what it was an anagram of. But at least I saw the SOFT-HEADED hidden – after I solved it.

    From Sugar Baby:
    Some of/ these bootleggers/ they make pretty good stuff
    Plenty of places/ to hide things here if/ you wanna hide ’em bad enough
    I’m staying with AUNT SALLY, but you know she’s not really my aunt
    Some of these memories/ you can learn to live with/ and some of them you can’t

  4. 21:28

    Fairly smooth with no major hold-ups and everything parsed, though not sure I have heard TRENCHANT defined as ‘keen’ before. Pleased to remember HYTH(E) as the Kent town, and cleverly used here as part of RHYTHM, so that gets my COD.

    Thanks P and setter

    1. “Keen” as in “sharp”, “cutting”, so no problem there.

      I had no trouble remembering Hythe as it is only three miles from where I live, but it was the opposite of my COD. “Accent” = “rhythm”? No.

  5. 13:27 for this Goldilocks puzzle, with LOI LOVE SEAT (temporarily forgot that meaning of tete-a-tete) and COD to WISHFUL THINKING, because I’m an over-optimistic hiker who loves a good anagram.

    I’d heard of AUNT SALLY but didn’t know which game it referred to so I’ve just had a look. Seems a bit barbaric until I recall that our small town’s annual fair (“show” in our vernacular) included Jimmy Sharman’s boxing tent.

    “A round or two for a pound or two” was the barker’s cry, and the local drunks would line up to go three minutes in the ring with a travelling troupe of (usually Indigenous) boxers. Gloves were optional. Each bout tended to go exactly as you’d expect, but it was rivetting stuff for a seven-year-old. Almost enough to distract my brothers and I from the “Incredible Naked Lady” tent next door.

    Enough with the nostalgia. Enjoyable puzzle. Thanks setter and Pip.

        1. I was there in that country, we were ripped off. The naked lady held a sign across her boobs saying ‘censored’…

          2. I was in a completely different country – Queensland. Jimmy Sharman and his boxers were there, but there was no naked lady.

    2. Every now and then I’m grateful to the 15×15 for teaching me something that I didn’t know. I got LOVE SEAT from the wordplay, and I could see how a tête-à-tête could be a love seat, but I’d never seen that usage in French; the usual French word for a love seat is “causeuse” (also used for any two-seater sofa). In French a tête-à-tête refers to a small table at which two people can sit, one on each side. But that’s now; go back far enough in time and “tête-à-tête” was interchangeable with “causeuse”, but less frequently used.

      Interesting that, despite the French reputation for romance, both tête-à-tête and causeuse refer to conversation rather than love.

  6. Quick again today, a steady solve with no unknowns.
    A mer at stress = rhythm, like our blogger, but I think it is a musical thing and therefore, beyond my ken.

  7. 27 mins. NHO the stair thingy and wasn’t sure of ARAK but the wordplay was all fair. Don’t know why I struggled with CORNFLOWER, my LOI, but it just would not come. Also mer for rhythm / stress.

  8. 26:16
    Slower than most–one of the very highest NITCH numbers. I managed to rrecall AUNT SALLY (I learned of it here some time ago). I had ‘def?’ in the margin at 5d; I think I’d change that to ‘wrong def!’. I assumed/inferred that there’s a town called Hythe. I liked COME AGAIN.

  9. Return to the fray after a small medical incident yesterday that seems to have left me an energy-free zone.. About 45 unfocused minutes with LOI LOVE SEAT, not a piece of furniture I feel in need of today. I do remember Adam Faith making reference to it in Someone Else’s Baby. COD to COME AGAIN, but we were always taught to say Pardon and not What.A pleasant puzzle. Thank you Pip and settler

    1. My master solicitor was slightly deaf, and said “say again”, which is succinct and polite but left the possibility open that the speaker could be at fault rather than himself.

  10. Another close one, one error in 49:19. BASSA NOVA, although I couldn’t quite see why Bass would be leader, but I sing Bass, and know that we are the most important part of the choir.

    @piquet, in the first clue it’s just LOW that needs to be inserted, the ER is already there from CORNER.

    Spend ages on LOI ARAK, getting confused with that milk drink the Mongols make, called Araig, I thought ARAG might be an alternative transcription.

    I had Rye for my Kent town, but couldn’t make that work. Also looked up RHYTHE, as maybe an obscure form of poetry, using the RE rather than the RM.

    Easier vocab today.

    COD LOVE SEAT, nice definition.

    1. Funnily enough “Kent town” takes me straight to Hythe, but that’s just a lucky coincidence. I spent some time there in 1988, 2023 and 2025 because of a quirky ongoing relationship between Hythe Cricket Club and my old club the University of NSW.

      A very pleasant place, particularly this year when the weather was perfect for a dip in the Channel.

  11. Knew Hythe as one of the original Cinque Ports (thank you Look and Learn). COD to RHYTHM. Also knew the phrase AUNT SALLY, but not its origins (Una Stubbs in that strange programme with Jon Pertwee?)

    Felt a bit slow today, realised I was solving right to left. Rather liked the RIGHT ANGLE anagram.

    17’16” thanks pip and setter.

  12. 43 minutes without error or aid. No excuse to miss PESTER star role after yesterday’s bit part. Entered AUNT SALLY early on but erased it unconvinced so time wasted there. Same with BASALT. Took some time to convince myself that 6dn involved a dance rather than a river too. Am I overthinking? Very pleased to down the ARAK in one shot.
    Enjoyable. Thanks to setter and piquet.

  13. 39:59 with a few holding out at the end. Felt I could have been quite a bit quicker in hindsight.

    Didn’t know ARAK or BOSSA NOVA (I should start watching Strictly).

    Biffed AUNT SALLY. It is one of those words I know from crosswords as a target at a fair but not entirely sure what one is. I shall Google it after this.

    COD SOFT-HEADED any hidden that holds out to towards the end should be admired. Fell into this one by trying to anagram words.

    Thanks setter and blogger

    1. Aunt Sally is a pub game in which players throw a wooden stick to knock head shaped blocks off posts. Played only in Oxfordshire but fiercely competitive I believe, like that primitive version of cricket they play in pubs round Rochester.

  14. DNF, back in OWL club with RHYTHE (as Merlin considered above) rather than RHYTHM.

    – Didn’t parse CORNFLOWER correctly as I thought ‘down’ was giving ‘lower’
    – Relied on the wordplay for the unknown ARAK
    – NEWEL was another unknown, but the cluing was kind
    – Spent ages trying to think of rock bands before I realised I needed to separate ‘rock’ and ‘band’ to get BASALT
    – Not really familiar with LOVE SEAT as a term, but again the cluing helped

    Thanks piquet and setter.

    COD Right angle

  15. What RobR said but much slower at 27:36. Including Worzel Gummidge, recently reworked by Mackenzie Crook a bit soppily but with some good music.
    LOI ARAK. Thanks both

  16. 40 mins which is great considering I was greeted on my iPad this morning with a message from my bank saying my credit card has been hacked and I have to cancel it immediately.
    What a palava. This left me completely discombobulated!

    Anyway, I managed to finish with LOI BASALT which took an age.

    I liked YES-MAN, SOFT-HEADED & DRY CLEANER.

    Thanks pip and setter

  17. 15:02

    Like others I took a while to get going and ended up completing the NW corner last. Plenty to like about this one once I’d tuned in to the setter’s style. ARAK from wordplay but it sounded like the right sort of word for something boozy.

  18. 16:45 today, quite straightforward. Also had to look up AUNT SALLY afterwards. I guessed Hythe quite quickly but then kept trying to make RHYME work, despite it obviously not fitting. As for ‘accent’ = ‘rhythm’, it doesn’t seem supported by Chambers as far as I can see, although I learnt there that ‘rhythm’ is apparently an archaic spelling of ‘rhyme’, too.

  19. 8:19. I liked this one. Not difficult but requiring engagement with wordplay.
    Another MER at ‘accent’=RHYTHM. A partial definition.

  20. 10:40 for one of those days when fragments of parsing kept leading swiftly to the solution.

  21. 18.23 WOE

    Oh dear. As I inserted WISTFUL THINKING I did wonder whether I’d heard of that phrase before. Clearly a case of WISHFU….

    Loved COME AGAIN and RIGHT ANGLE in what was an excellent puzzle.

    Thanks setter/Pip

  22. 14:04
    A good week for me thus far but I’m sure there’s a typo or two just around the corner.

    No real hold-ups and ARAK was the only unknown as AUNT SALLY rang a faint bell.

    A fun crossword so thanks to both.

  23. Lovely stuff. Favourites BECK with its beautiful surface “About a thousand following live stream”, and the COME AGAIN anagram which is a new one on me. Plenty of other excellent clues.

  24. Drew a blank in the NW, and finally got moving with NEWEL. I knew it as I used to fix a storage system at a NE company that made them. The SW filled up nicely and I proceeded in an anticlockwise fashion, leaving quite a few gaps in the SE. Some time later I arrived at LOI, ARAK, which took some serious cogitation, and quite a while, before anorak occured to me and the unknown liquor took its place. 23:01. Thanks setter and Pip.

  25. Thanks to piquet and setter.
    Oh dear, DNF, am not firing on all cylindes. At 10a anorak just didn’t occur to me and I biffed Anal. Which I thought at the time was obviously wrong, but. Never saw the anagram in 1d Come again either.

  26. No major problems, 44 minutes. Usually I become totally bogged down at some point but today it all went smoothly enough, if slowly. It’s odd in connection with AUNT SALLY that people are apparently interpreting it quite literally, as the fairground game, which makes sense of course considering the clue, but not so far as I can see in its metaphorical sense, which I should have thought was more widespread.

  28. 15:40 – RHYTHM was my sticking point too – not only for the unusual definition but for the fact that Royal Marines don’t instantly spring to my mind as soldiers – though of course they indisputably are.

      1. Probably. I suppose it’s setters licence to choose according to what works for the surface reading, but I’d definitely think of them as more sailor-y than anything else.

  29. Good fun puzzle today – nice to complete one without too much trouble for a change! Helped by FOI WISHFUL THINKING to get me started. Liked RHYTHM (might remind me how to spell it in future) and IMPOLITE and the clever anagrams.

    Thanks as ever to setter and blogger.

Comments are closed.