Times 26307 – Hung for too long

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Having finished it, I think this is another fine puzzle on a par with the last two days; perhaps They have indeed noted keriothe’s graph (v. 26302) and decided to shake us up a bit. Unfortunately it took me around 40 minutes, not being the sharpest knife in the box this morning after a fitful night of coughing and snuffling; this cold (or whatever alien virus it is) just refuses to leave me alone even after three weeks. I went astray with 12a for a while, which messed me up for 3d, and the brilliant 20a took me an age to see.

On Monday I was castigated in these circles (and others) for suggesting that the reaction to the passing of you-know-who was somewhat OTT – a full half hour as the only item on the BBC1 main news, the normally restrained Radio 4 talking about little else, etc. etc. Since then I have familiarised myself a little with the chap’s œuvre on YouTube. I see he performed live with several of my own musical icons – Jagger, Tina T, Annie Lennox and others – and made a good fist of it. Somehow I had passed four decades without realising the true width and depth of this immense popular talent; I have some catching up to do. Nevertheless, I still think it was OTT and reserve the right to say so. Nuff said!

Across
1 GO TO PIECES – GOT O PIES would be ‘was given no pastries’; insert CE for the civil engineer; D crumble.
6 SPEC – DD; SPEC short for specification, ‘on spec’ being a decision made with chance involved.
10 AMISS – A miss is as good as a mile, D out.
11 PIVOTALLY – (VITAL PLOY)*, D &lit. The first of several words today containing the letter V, my least favourite or most annoying in Scrabble.
12 RUMP PARLIAMENT – Chuckle if you will. I breezily entered HUNG P.. thinking steak is well hung (ideally). Only near the end when struggling to solve 3d with the second word starting with G did I twig I had been hung out to dry. The right answer is much better!
14 PRAIRIE – PR AIR = process of enhancing image, add IE = that is, D plain.
15 PIGTAIL – PIG Napoleon was the number one pig in Animal Farm, TAIL sounds like TALE; D twist.
17 TAYSIDE – (I STAYED)*, D Scottish region once.
19 FIR CONE – FIRE = sack, insert CON = rook, D fruit from tree.
20 LOLLIPOP LADIES – Definitely my CoD for the clever definition, which took me an age to twig; I was fixated on LADDER for the second word. LOLL = lounge, I, POP = music; LA = note, DIES = ends; D young conductors.
23 BOX CLEVER – BOX = container, C, LEVER = handle; D intelligently manoeuvre.
24 ALIEN – Young George Washington was alleged to have told his Dad he ‘could not tell a lie’, a trait which as a politician I feel sure he soon left behind. Add N for new; D unfamiliar.
25 GIRT – GRIT = determination, move the I forward; D surrounded.
26 ADAM AND EVE – D couple; CRS for believe = credit.

Down
1 GOAD – GO = attempt, AD = publicity; D drive.
2 TRIBUTARY – TUB I RT = pot one right; upturn that; add A RY (track); D flower. The old flower = river thing again.
3 PAST PARTICIPLE – Once I’d found out the second word began with P not G (see 12a), this was easy; four DBEs of this part of speech.
4 EXPIATE – EXPAT = migrant, like me, insert I = keeping one, E = close to home; D make up for.
5 ENVELOP – EN = French for in, V = vest’s heading, ELOP = Pole (European) got up; D cloak.
7 PULSE – DD; pulse speeds up in excitement, a runner bean is a sort of pulse.
8 CRYSTAL SET – Another DD; apparently the 15th is the crystal wedding anniversary, although it’s so long ago I can’t remember and certainly didn’t take any notice of it at the time.
9 AT DAGGERS DRAWN – (DREAD GANG WAS T)*; D in hostile state.
13 SPITTLEBUG – (PUT GIBLETS)*; D small insect. The nymph of the froghopper, the one which makes that frothy stuff known as cuckoo spit.
16 AT ONE TIME – Hidden reversed in VEG(EMITE NOT A)NCHOVIES; D previously. Nice surface with ‘sandwiches’ involved.
18 EVOLVED – DEVOLVE = delegate, move the D to the end (heading down); D progressed gradually.
19 FULCRUM – FUL(L) = almost replete, CRUM(B) = cut tiny piece of bread; D supporter.
21 LUXOR – City in Egypt next to the ruins of Thebes, so I suppose a historic site. LUR(E) = endless attraction, insert X for ‘by’ and O for nothing. (Thanks Alan C below). I was as dim as a Toc H lamp this morning.
22 KNEE – Alternate letters of o K e N t E r E d; D joint.

33 comments on “Times 26307 – Hung for too long”

  1. I found this unusually easy.. under 10 minutes, which is as fast as I get. Also enjoyed the lollipop ladies and rump. Not familiar with spittlebugs but got it from the anagrist OK.

    Liked pigtail too.

    Regarding recently dead people, the OTT reaction is always seen in spades whenever an old journalist dies..

  3. Another hung parliament here and for the same reason. So the participle took a while to drop in. Anything involving grammar and my brain shuts down for routine maintenance anyway. BOX CLEVER and LOLLIPOP LADIES didn’t exactly manifest themselves right away either. 19.11
  4. 17m. Another quite tricky one, but I agree that it was also very good, particularly the long acrosses. I bunged in HUNG PARLIAMENT on the same basis but fortunately I paused for thought and RUMP occurred to me almost immediately. I didn’t know the SPITTLEBUG either, but there was clearly no other way to arrange the anagram fodder. I had a virtual question mark (the iPad doesn’t have a function for real ones) next to 7dn: I don’t think a runner bean would normally be classified as a PULSE. But it was clear enough.
    I’m glad you corrected your comment on David Bowie, Pip. I have never been a fan either but there’s no doubting his immense cultural impact. Of course the reaction is overblown, but 1) it always is in these cases and 2) a large proportion of today’s most prominent journalists are of that generation.

    Edited at 2016-01-13 10:12 am (UTC)

    1. Ditto on Bowie Keriothe. As a New Yorker I came to like and respect him because he fitted in, minded his own business, did his own grocery shopping and behaved like a normal person. At the same time evidently he was always a gent if anyone recognised him on the street.
        1. I always wake at the crack-of no matter what time I go to bed Pip! Didn’t used to be this way.
        2. Picked this up very late in the day, but as an aside it’s nice to see a reference to Talbot House. Ex services ? Invariant
      2. One of the readers’ comments singled out in The Times was from someone who checked him in for First Class for a flight from Heathrow once. The reader said that Bowie was a real gentleman.
  5. 16:18 … yep, another winner. We’re being spoilt. Thanks, Pip, for the full parsing of SPEC (I couldn’t see the “on ..” bit). Last in TAYSIDE. Huge penny-drop moment with the lollipop ladies. Thanks, setter.

    I give myself about 15 minutes with the online papers every morning and that’s the full extent of my intentional news exposure these days. I haven’t watched TV news for about 10 years and rarely hear it on the radio (as a former news junkie, I was amazed at how little I missed it). There are great advantages to not being exposed to the hysterics of the modern media. Bowie is part of the soundtrack of my life, but I’ve been able to take the John O’Hara line (on learning of the death of Gershwin): “”George Gershwin died on July 11, 1937, but I don’t have to believe it if I don’t want to.”

  6. 35 minutes. Excellent and elegant clues. Too many to choose a COD. Thanks to Pip as I failed to parse LUXOR (I always forget by = X). I thought it was AGORA on first read through.
  7. Great crossie, was determined to finish it. Dnk SPITTLEBUG or the RUMP PARLIAMENT, and couldn’t parse LUXOR or AMISS, but all ok in the end. Almost put in ‘piggate’ until I got 8dn. On later googling, I quickly realised this was certainly not what was wanted…
  8. Yes another excellent puzzle that delayed me for 46 minutes. DK SPITTLEBUG although I note it appeared in July 2009 and I didn’t admit to not knowing it then (though I note I’d had a very bad solve on that occasion and I was still working so there probably wasn’t time to address all my failings). I gave up trying to parse LUXOR.

    With regard to the recent passing, at least I’d heard of this one. I remember when Freddie Mercury’s death received endless coverage in the press that was the first I’d ever heard of him or his group.

    Edited at 2016-01-13 11:26 am (UTC)

  9. Tough enough and very entertaining. Loved LOLLIPOP LADIES after the kids had crossed. RUMP took much longer than PARLIAMENT. Hard to pick a COD from so many good ones but PIGTAIL must come close. Well done to pipkirby for the personal note on the David Bowie thing.
  10. 13:11 for another high quality puzzle. Well done RR, keep ’em coming.

    Serendipity popped in to say hello today as this morning I overheard a colleague announcing that today was his 15th wedding anniversary and the conversation inevitably turned to what the thingamabob for the 15th was. Receiver of old was a neat def for that one too.

    Didn’t know the parliament and had somehow made the link from froghopper to spittlebug via cuckoo spit.

    Loved the definition for L Ladies.

  11. Would have been quicker than 23.49 if not dozing off, but yes, another goody. I’ve never thought of runner beans in the category of pulses before: other beans are obvious, but the beans in runner beans are notionally incidental to the foodstuff you eat. That and SPEC were my last entries – easy (for me) to get caught out on that on — ploy.
    Best of the day the LL definition, no chance of that until crossers were in, but of course totally fair.
  12. Another top-notch puzzle. Many nominations for COD, I’ll go for ADAM AND EVE.

    Thanks setter and Pip.

  13. Very fun puzzle – I raced through the top half and thought I was in for an early night, until I got to the bit of the grid where the LOLLIPOP LADIES were hiding with their BOX CLEVERs outside of LUXOR. That part of the grid took three times as long as the rest and I didn’t really get the wordplay for LUXOR.
  14. Good puzzle, stupidly made harder by spelling SPITTLEBUG spittelbug, which made 20 ungettable until the error was spotted – probably cost me 10 of my 50 minutes.

    Edited at 2016-01-13 02:26 pm (UTC)

  15. SPEC, according to Chambers, is both short for SPECIFICATION and SPECULATION, giving the two meanings. It took me a good 5 minutes to see it once I’d finished all the other clues.

    No problems, a steady solve but at the office for the first 10 minutes then finished at home so the timer says 2 hours or something, for a lovely puzzle

  16. Have to agree, another excellent puzzle that yet again was pleasing without being unduly difficult. 20A very good. Forgot Napoleon was the pig but answer couldn’t be anything else

    U-Gov have run a poll on TV media coverage of Bowie – 61% of the population think it was well OTT and I’m one of them!

  17. Lovely puzzle. Nothing to add at this late stage. Failed to parse LUXOR – though I’d biffed it correctly. Couldn’t think of any other 5-letter historical site ending in R. 32 minutes. Ann
  18. If crosswording was an Anerican sport, I’d say we are now 3 for 3 this week in terms of getting excellent entertainment. Slightly quicker than the last two, despite being another who finished up pondering what knd of LADDER I was looking for.

    I also dug myself into a massive hole by confidently inserting BEEF WELLINGTON at 12ac on very little evidence.

    Edited at 2016-01-13 09:48 pm (UTC)

  19. About 25 minutes ending with the crossing SPEC/PULSE. I was nowhere to be found as regards the definition for LOLLIPOP LADIES, and BOX CLEVER is new to me also. Vinyl has already pointed out that the non UK folks had a bit to sift through here to find their way, myself included. Throw in some CRS and some UK idiom (AT DAGGERS…) and you have an idea why the rest of us didn’t find this as much fun as the natives apparently did. Nevertheless, thanks and regards to all.
  20. 22 mins for this gem of a puzzle. I had the NE completed fairly quickly, but the rest of it took some teasing out, particularly the SW like George. I dread to think what my time would have been if I’d been as sleepy as I was yesterday. EVOLVED was my LOI after LOLLIPOP LADIES once I’d got the LUXOR/BOX CLEVER crossers. Count me as another who couldn’t think past “hung” at 12 ac for the same reason, although I never did put it in and I could have kicked myself when RUMP finally came to mind because I knew of the parliament in question and the steak isn’t exactly rare, pun intended.
  21. 39m for this fun puzzle. Held up by 2d – searching my mind for a flower instead of reading the clue – and 12a until the second word clicked on a second run through the alphabet. Lots of very enjoyable clues with 20a my COD. Thanks to setter and blogger with whom I agree about our recently deceased pop star.
  22. Another one who thought that 20ac was very clever as was 21d, while 12ac was amusing. I always think that 21ac should read BOX CLEVERLY…..39m 34s, which put me outside the Top 100.
    Re Bowie, I see that some here think that the media reaction and coverage of his passing has been OTT. My view is that he was a giant in his field and deserved the coverage. Lennon was almost deified but he couldn’t hold a candle to Bowie. You just wait till Dylan goes! Then you’ll see some overreaction!
  23. 16:16 for me, not on the ball at all.

    As a general rule I’m not very good at convoluted clues like 20ac (LOLLIPOP LADIES) and fare much better with the simpler wordplay but more esoteric knowledge required to solve Times crosswords of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Today’s puzzle was clearly clever stuff, but not really my cup of tea.

  24. Very late, but here I am. Liked the puzzle; the UKisms (other than fir cone) were just inside my vocabulary. I was impressed by the vegemite and anchovy sandwich – I always am impressed by long hiddens.

    Not to pour petrol on the fire, and this has nothing to do with whether BBC coverage was OTT, but Bowie does have 5 albums in Rolling Stone’s all time list of the 500 best albums. For the record, only the Beatles (10), Dylan(10), the Stones(10), Springsteen(8), Clapton(8), Lou Reed(6), Neil Young(8), and the Who(7) have more. We can argue about whether Neil Young belongs in that category later.

  25. Well, I was not cheered by my time of 57 minutes, but I see I’m in at under 4 Severs, with which I can live. I found all of this one tough going, with very little aha-ing. Still, it passed an hour of the working day, so mustn’t grumble.

    As for Martinp1’s comment of “just wait till Dylan goes” – am I the only one here who didn’t realize he was still alive? (And, out of idle curiosity, why the “1”, Martin? It seems a bit like calling the original Jaws “Jaws 1”.)

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