Times 26419 – What the Pry Mincer waves?

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 12 minutes

Music: Beethoven, Symphony #3, Jochum/LSO

Now here’s a Monday offering. My time was a personal best, as I madly biffed without hesitation, resulting in a completed grid before the end of the first movement. I admit, I had been feeling dull after having a go at Anax’s little Sunday offering, but this one got me back into a little more positive view of my solving abilities.

It would be interesting to see how the Quickie graduates do with this one. Part of my solving speed came from experience, as I plugged in the known equivalents of known cluing elements, and rapidly got enough crossers to start biffing away. But it really wasn’t that hard, so the Quickie crew is encouraged to make the attempt.

Across
1 TRIMESTER, TRIM + EST[h]ER, or maybe [h]ESTER, either one will work.
6 SUPER, double definition, where ‘wicked’ has its slang sense of ‘excellent’.
9 UNAWARE, UN(A WAR)E.
10 ANAGRAM, definition by example, with EAST GRINSTEAD and ITS GREAT DANES as the sample anagram.
11 AMPLE, A(M.P.)LE
13 TRICKSTER, T[-e,+RICK)STER, a rather complicated substitution clue with an eminently biffable answer.
14 IMPECCANT, I MP (E.C) CAN’T. One of the few where you might need the cryptic, particularly if the answer is not on the tip of your brain.
16 ENVY, ENV[o]Y, one we’ve seen before.
18 DIRK, KI(R)D backwards, ditto.
19 TECHNICAL, anagram of CLAN ETHIC.
22 CHEQUERED, CHE(QU)ERED.
24 OFLAG, O + FLAG, not a very specific definition. Something like ‘old stone where there are no men’ would have made it harder.
25 BEGONIA, BEG ON + backwards A1.
26 TANGELO, T(A N GEL)O, where the container is our old friend OT backwards.
28 LATTE, hidden in [mea]L AT TE[aroom]. This made me think “we haven’t had ‘lathi’ for a while, I wonder when that’s going to show up.”
29 HERBARIUM, HER BARIUM.
 
Down
1 TSUNAMI, T.S. + UN AMI.
2 IDA, sounds like EIDER if you happen not to be rhotic.
3 EVANESCE, EVAN(E)S + C.E. At first I though the Welshman was Evan alone, which made the cryptic impossible to parse.
4 TRENT, T(R)ENT.
5 REALISTIC, RE ALI’S TIC.
6 SPARKS, [fixe]S (PARK) [light]S.
7 PURITANICAL, anagram of PAIR IN A CULT.
8 REMARRY, R.E. + MAR RY, a compendium of cryptic cliches.
12 PAPERWEIGHT, PAPER (W[ood]) EIGHT.
15 AFTERMATH, A F TERM AT H.
17 INSOMNIA, anagram of A MINION’S.
18 DECIBEL, L (BE) ICED upside-down.
20 LEG ROOM, LE GROOM. The English word ‘groom’, meaning a bridesman, is an assimilation of O.E. ‘guma’, a cognate of Latin ‘homo’, into another, unrelated word.
21 QUINCE, [e]QUIN(C[ultivated])E. My LOI, I had to think quickly to finish.
23 DETER, RE(T[own’s])ED upside-down.
27 ELI, [r]ELI[c], where R.C. is what is removed.

55 comments on “Times 26419 – What the Pry Mincer waves?”

  1. … something of a biff fest. Though on return, some of the cryptics are pretty good too.
    15dn reminded me to get a copy of the album, perhaps the best from the Stones pre-Exile. Also reminded me that it led R. Starkey to suggest that (what would become) Revolver should be titled After Geography.

    Oh and a slight pedantic quibble re 16ac. “The Lord thy God” is by no means “envious”.

    Edited at 2016-05-23 01:27 am (UTC)

      1. Comma after “ever” perhaps?
        (I wouldn’t like you to be envious of my capacity for punctuation.)
        We learned that at our various Wirral grammar schools.
        No?
        1. My writing style is economical with commas Alec.. 🙂
          Now you mention it, I don’t think that in all my 20ish years of education any teacher ever talked to me about English grammar. Not a single mention of a gerund or an adverb ever passed their lips. Thinking abut it further, it is doubtful how many would have recognised one anyway.
  2. Was heading for a massive PB, with just 3dn remaining after eight minutes. Then stared at E_A_E_A_ for ages before bunging in some rubbish. Probably should have used some of that staring time to take another look at 14ac where I had IMPLACANT.

    And now I see I had OSLAG as well, so actually this was a bit of a trainwreck. But yes, very Mondayish, even for a Monday.

    Thanks setter and Vinyl.

  3. A biff fest indeed; but I should have learned long ago that my biffs require reconsideration (thought, in fact) most of the time. I flung in ‘dart’ at 18ac, ignoring the little voice querying the equation of dart and dagger, and paid the price. I had the same qualm as Mctext, but the equation of jealousy and envy is too well-established to raise my eyebrows very far.

    Edited at 2016-05-23 02:28 am (UTC)

  4. 13 minutes and change, so up with my quickest outside Championship qualifiers (not this year’s, which are markedly harder) and pre-Biddlecombe Sunday Timeses. I finished with EVANESCE, which gave me pause because my Welshman was also originally Evan.
  5. No bifffest (about time we had an English word with three consecutive Fs) for me, partly because if it was I’d have had DAIRYMAID at 1ac (“Neat girl” – I thought it was clever) and, unable to get the right answer because of that I carefully negotiated the wordplay throughout and dawdled to 15.23. At least it made IMPECCANT possible, as it’s clearly a made up word that Chambers only references out of charity. Who’s going to tell the story of General Napier’s one-word telegram reporting the acquisition of Sind? Oh, it’s me!
    2. Also thought instantly of the bovine connection, but fortunately I start at the bottom and work up so had checkers by then.

      Not often I beat a Times competitor, though, so I’d probably milk a dairymaid if you put one in front of me right now.

  6. 19 minutes with only DECIBEL biffed. Never mind “not on the tip of your brain” at 14ac, IMPECCANT has not even made it to the COED, though it has “impeccable” in the sense of “not liable to sin”.
    1. It is in Collins and Chambers, Jack .. even the Urban dictionary, yet.. perhaps it’s time to retire your COED? Never been much of a fan myself
      1. Yes, I’d found it in those so I wasn’t doubting its validity. The last I heard COED was one of the two official sources for Times puzzles, but admittedly that was years ago and there’s been a change of editor since then. But it’s still very rare for an answer not to be in one of them in which case I’d always try Chambers next. My surprise in this case was that it’s obviously an old word, not something that’s come recently into use, so I would have expected COED to have it.
  7. A puzzle of clues that could have been computer generated they’re so full of cliches and obvious definitions. Just as well as I’m full of cold and sadly unable to stroll the fairways.
  8. All done and parsed in 15 (with OFLAG, and IMPECCANT from wp), then another 3 mins for ANAGRAM. Yep, like Keriothe, that one gets me every time, too!

  9. True, but not enough can be a bit dodgy too, as any dairymaid who’s tried to milk a bull can testify.

  10. 15 minutes-ish. Easily my best time for a year. If I could repeat this regularly I would begin to time myself accurately. Dean yesterday, however, beat me (The Employer of Barmaids clue was worth the pain).
  11. Not my time, which was 13’20”, but the derivation of trimester, more familiar from pregnancy. Howver, also learned what the word ‘semester’, which my previous employer substituted for university term, means. Confusingly, it means a period of six months, whereas the two terms were actually about eleven weeks each. 10ac LOI, must file away. 18ac led to hesitation, as noted DART doesn’t work, but dragged up the answer because midshipmen in the wind-powered navy carried them – thanks Forester, Kent, O’Brien etc. Also, I do not believe stones should be cast over IMPECCANT, a lovely word.
  12. 13m. Lots of biffing, but IMPECCANT was new to me so I needed the wordplay there. I was going as quickly as is possible on an iPad on the train but then got totally stuck on 10ac. I kicked myself when the penny finally dropped: this one gets me every time!
  13. Comfortably within my allotted hour, and as with Vinyl, something of a reassurance after yesterday’s, which remains half-finished for me.

    I enjoyed this one mostly as a confidence-booster in the area of trusting both my working and my feeling of “that’s got to be it” with DNKs, in this case HERBARIUM, OFLAG, TANGELO and IMPECCANT. I think it’s lucky I’m still making sure I’ve thought everything through, otherwise 29 would very likely have been written in as HERBALISM before I got ELI, and 6d would have been SPARKY.

    I remember being dejected when I first started doing cryptics, looking at the solutions to the previous day’s puzzle and thinking, “but I’ve never even heard of half these words! I just don’t have the vocabulary for this cryptic lark!”

  14. And a bit different from yesterday’s cracker from Dean. 16 minutes, with hangover, no issues except IMPECCANT was a new word to me but obvious enough. ANAGRAM LOI when the coin dropped.
  15. Standard Monday stuff and I reached the CHEQUERED OFLAG in just over 16 minutes. IMPECCANT I knew from the Latin (cf General Napier above) . Not helped by biffing PRANKSTER but all sorted in the end. Always a pleasure to see the Cardinal Archbishop of Crosswordland, ELI

    Edited at 2016-05-23 11:10 am (UTC)

  16. Sadly I cannot be happy with my 5-and-a-half minutes on this one, when comfortably under 4 minutes is what is apparently required to be in the big leagues! Nice to have a relaxing one after Sunday’s Dean Mayer at least.
    1. … you had trouble. We bassists (= Dean and I, in this case) got on the wavelength (as they say). Loved it.
      2. Oh, it was really good, I just made heavy weather of it… I’ve been having a bad crossword week 😀
  17. Ditto Robrolfe on this. I’ve only heard the word around here in relation to pregnancy. This unfortunately being a big election year in these parts we’re going to have to hear a lot more of it. 9.54 and I don’t often break 10.
  18. As a young man, I came back from the MD’s office proudly carrying the company paperweight he’d given me for a piece of work. Colleagues, more jealous than envious I think, claimed he’d thrown it at me as he’d kicked me out. Under a quarter of an hour today, including putting up the unfathomable garden chair.
  19. One of my best times at a shade under 20 minutes, parsing as I went, so I thought this must be on the easier part of the spectrum. Enjoyable nonetheless. FOsI AMPLE and PAPERWEIGHT. LOI, INSOMNIA. DNK IMPECCANT but is was obvious from the WP. Wondered briefly where the S came from in EVANESCE, but soon spotted it.
  20. After a couple of weeks (mostly) absent for an operation, this was a nice gentle re-introduction, particularly after yesterday’s confidence-killer, as others have commented. Today about 5% of the time spent on yesterday’s, with one questionable answer and one still not completed in the ST. The fact that they cross is also worrying.

    Nice to be back…

    1. All now resolved in the ST. I was looking for an error in the wrong answer, and failed to see the obvious in the right one.
  21. I couldn’t believe how easy this was. I’ve never got below 15 minutes before, but this needed only twelve over a snack. The wordplay to 14 was straightforward, but a residual knowledge of Latin also helps for my sins (PECAVI).
  22. Still recovering from a horrendous drive in torrential rain to the Midi-Pyrénées yesterday, I forgot to time this but it must have been close to a PB. LOI was QUINCE.
  24. I was thinking recently that it must be several months since a sub-10 then snuck in today with 9:55.

    I enjoy a fast time occasionally but prefer a toughie so thanks to those who have mentioned Sunday above. I tend not to do Sunday’s just because the ipad interface is so bad (why on earth have a different interface to the rest of the week thus more IT maintenance?) but I’ll make a point of going back to yesterday’s.

  25. 9 mins. I probably wasted a minute or two parsing some of the answers post-entry rather than being happy with the biff and moving on. Having said that, I didn’t think it was a bad puzzle and I thought the “computer generated” comment was a tad uncharitable. PURITANICAL was my LOI after ANAGRAM. I’m glad IMPECCANT was clued so helpfully because I don’t recall ever having see or heard it before.
  26. 11:31 with an unparsed GULAG slowing me a bit and then a delay at the end with the crossing TRICKSTER and SPARKS where I was approaching both clues from the wrong direction.

    For the former I took “European con man” to be the def so was trying to create a Brexit campaigner by putting a word for wrench in trier. For sparks I wanted to put N (electrician finally) in a reversal of a word for lights to get a recreational area.

  27. Thinking about our blogger’s suggestion, I wondered about either:

    Old iris in brass container.

    Overtire, perhaps, as German can.

  28. 14 minutes of biffing and then I hit 10a where what I now see is obvious ( thank you, blogger) eluded me. So I went for a DISCO (doubtfully interpreting suspicious cryptic offering) and came up with AKAGRIM – clearly a collective noun for legendary Vikings based on the fact that East Grinstead is also know as grim to the locals! Sadly it was wrong on every level! But I enjoyed the puzzle nonetheless. Thanks, setter!
  29. First completion for a few days,LOI 10a, the sound of the penny dropping and my cry of anguish brought the neighbour round to see if I was OK. Thanks to the blogger for unraveling 13a I thought it was TRIER with that well known German spanner the CK-ST embedded. Other tool manufacturers are available.
  30. Coming back here to read the comments, my curiosity was again piqued by our esteemed blogger’s header / title line. A few minutes google research has opened up a complete new world to me, and I shall be reading into this fascinating world some more over the next few weeks. I still don’t quite understand the relevance of ‘what the Pry Mincer waves’ to today’s 15 x 15, but I’m sure it is erudite, pithy and pertinent.

    Thank you blogger for opening my eyes.

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