Times 26077 – A Shrub Too Far

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Some very nice stuff here, despite one bit of parsing that eludes me, not to mention one shrub that made me feel a right Albert. 46 minutes notwithstanding all that.

ACROSS

1. MANDRAGORA – DRAG (‘pest”) in MANOR +A. A mandragora is also called a mandrake, but they both sound like animals to me. My last in, having done several pesky alphabet runs.
6. SOME – sounds like ‘sum’; the cunning bit here is that ‘some’ is being referenced in its ‘Now that’s some fine manor you keep your mandragoras in, squire!’ sense.
8. SAW STARS – SAWS + TARS.
9. BROLLY – ‘rainproof shelter’; this is the one I couldn’t fully parse: we have ROLL (‘wind’) in BY (duh, it’s simply ‘through’ – how dumb can I get? I was looking for something meaning ‘rainproof’ – a weird resin derived from a mandragora forsooth?)
10. CHOW – woof, woof!
11. AMEN+D+A+TORY – my lips remain sealed about plebiscital matters UK-wise, but at least you’ve got real elections there, unlike the farces we must endure in HK.
12. LANDMARKS – I struggled mightily on this one, not least because I had the ‘obvious’ MUSICIANS at 1d. Obvious, yes, but obviously wrong. It’s LAND (‘light’) + MARKS (sounds like ‘Marx’). Woof, woof!
14. SUMAC – Camus reversed, and not ‘Eulac’, derived of course from A (as in V&A) in CLUE (‘this’ reversed), which works as long as you don’t look too closely and as long as Kew approves a new plant.
17. SCOPE – SNOW minus NOW + COPE.
19. IN GENERAL – anagram* of LEARNING + E[nglish].
22. FORECASTER – 9-less [Doctor] FOSTER around RECA (CARE*). My COD.
23. [a]GAIN
24. T(I)RADE
25. RECRUITS – RE + CRUI(T)S[e]
26. AGUE – U in AGE; this must be the slightly wearisome Nancy Mitfordesque use of U (the practice of distinguishing lavatories from toilets and ladies from women), but I’ve never heard it used to refer to top people per se. It must be said, though, that it is a long time since I mixed with the upper crust. Most of my friends in HK are Australians.
27. DISCLAIMER – IS LAD CRIME*.

DOWNS

1. MUSICALES – US + IC in MALES. More of an American usage than a Brit to refer to a concert.
2. NEW TOWN – NEWT + OWN. Very nice: ‘pissed as a newt’ has always had a certain ring to it.
3. A+LAB+A+MAN
4. ON SPEAKING TERMS – PERKINESS GOT MAN*.
5. AUBADE – the morning equivalent of a serenade; BAD in A + U (Mitford again) + [programm]E.
6. SHORT FUSE – REF + SHOUTS*.
7. MALARIA – LA in ‘How do you solve a problem like’ MARIA.
13. DEPREC[i]ATE
15. COLONISER – IS[land] in COLON (‘stop’) + ER.
16. METRICAL – RIC[h] in METAL.
18. CROWING – C + ROWING. Cunning.
20. REALISM – L + IS in [d]DREAM.
21. FAG END – GEN in FAD.

45 comments on “Times 26077 – A Shrub Too Far”

  1. 1ac was my LOI, too; it took all the checkers, and even then I thought of it before parsing the clue; I spent a lot of time thinking the pest would be ‘rat’. LANDMARKS was another post hoc solve; and here I persisted in thinking of facial features. I didn’t know MUSICALE was a US term; in fact I didn’t know what a musicale is. For me, the word for a concert is ‘concert’. Also didn’t know that newts were proverbially drunk; all I know about newts comes from Robert Benchley (‘The Sex Life of the Newt’). COD to 4d.
  2. 2dn: There’s an episode where Seagoon has had preservative alcohol poured down his throat. The cop (Milligan?), whose voice you have to imagine, pulls him up, saying “I’ve a good mind to arrest you for impersonating a newt”. But I didn’t get the “individual” = OWN bit at all.

    15dn: is a COLON a “stop”? I wonder: even though I like the darn thing, to the chagrin of countless editors and publishers.

    10ac was identically clued by Rufus in the G: 26,526.

  3. About 45mins, with the two 1s being last ones in. MANDRAGORA was a toss up with mangnatora, but I chose well (… this time). Never heard of MUSICALES, and thought ‘males’ was a bit loose for ‘chaps’.

    dnk AUBADE

  4. If you’d asked me if I knew MANDRAGORA or MUSICALE I’d have said not, but they must have been sleeping in some dusty corner of my memory. Overall I found this an enjoyable puzzle with some nice clues, although CHOW clued thus must be the hoariest of chestnuts.

    Dereklam

    1. As Ulaca indicated, Albert backing=(Albert) Camus reversed; sumac, of course, being the shrub at issue.

      Edited at 2015-04-20 06:06 am (UTC)

      1. Chambers Wordfinder gives only one match for ?U?AC which is SUMAC. If you then Google for CAMUS you come up with the aforementioned Albert. Very very tenuous. How many Alberts have there ever been?
        1. In the world? Probably a lot. In crosswordland? Not too many: the prince, Einstein perhaps, Camus (is Finney dead?), … How many girl’s names have there ever been? An heap. But ‘girl’ is likely to indicate one of a small number. The trick, as coincidentally I was just saying to a class, is to limit one’s hypothesis space. Of course, the setter was counting on the solver knowing Camus’s first name; part of the ‘general knowledge’ that is often at issue here.
          1. I have a feeling that ‘I was going so well until I forgot to limit my hypothesis space’ may yet catch on.
        2. How about ‘Stranger writer backing into this shrub (5)’? I might have got that – especially if I’d written it.
  6. 50 minutes, but technically a DNF for me on this one as as I needed aids to get MANDRAGORA and SUMAC which I knew and should have got except I was distracted at the thought that ‘Albert’ was AL and having discounted LILAC because CIL didn’t fit the remainder of the wordplay or the Down-checker when it eventually arrived, I was stuck for a first letter to go with ?ULAC.

    I’m not overjoyed about 1ac which combines an answer I never heard of with a meaning in wordplay (DRAG for ‘pest’) which would never have occurred to me in a million years unless I was reverse-engineering from an answer of which I was certain.

    MUSICALES was also unknown – the meaning, not the word itself of which I was vaguely aware.

    But the rest of it was a rather good puzzle and 22ac alone was worth the price of admission. Just in case somebody doesn’t know, the ‘Gloucester visitor’ is a reference to the nursery rhyme:

    Doctor Foster went to Gloucester
    All in a shower of rain.
    He fell in a puddle
    Right up to his middle
    And never went there again.

    Edited at 2015-04-20 06:25 am (UTC)

    1. As I said, I only parsed MANDRAGORA post hoc; but have we never had DRAG=pest? DRAG=bore, I’m semi-sure.
    2. According to the incomparable Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, in the original rhyme, the good doctor “..fell in a piddle,right up to his middle..” but somewhere along the line it’s been Bowdlerised, however its origins are unknown.
      1. I should have written “stepped in” not “fell in” but can’t correct now it’s been replied to. The thought is amusing but I’m not sure how an accumulation of piddle deep enough to engulf the good doctor to his middle would have occurred!
          1. From my long ago Dorset days I also remember Piddlehinton and the Tolpuddle Martyrs. Wonderful names.
            1. Hello Olivia – you may also recall Piddletrenthide which, apart from Tolpuddle, is probably the most well known. Anybody wanting a glimpse of deepest Dorset should Google that village.
    3. That’s the Bowdlerised version. The middle line should read (and rhyme)
      “He fell in some piddle”

      David Conquest (a lurker not good enough to join you lot!)

      1. David, you don’t have to be “good” to join us “lot” – all enthusiastic comers are welcome – but it is a useful idea to read other contributors’ comments to see if your point has already been covered.
  7. This would have been about 10mins if I had not had to struggle with the ghastly touchscreen iPad keyboard that is usually reserved for Sundays. I hope that this was a one-off glitch. DNK 1ac and 1dn but they had to be what they were and I am pretty sure that the CAMUS/SUMAC thing has come up a few times before.
    1. I don’t know why they do this. Fortunately I downloaded the paper on my iPad before leaving the house this morning, noticed the unusable keyboard and took the treeware copy. It was quite nice to solve on paper for a change.

      Edited at 2015-04-20 07:58 am (UTC)

  8. 13m. Nice puzzle. I particularly enjoyed the tussle at the end with the unknown MANDRAGORA and MUSICALES, both perfectly fair I thought.
    SUMAC as a reversal of CAMUS is a bit of a chestnut. Last appearance here 11 July 2014.
    6ac reminds me of the silly syllogism I think I’ve mentioned here before:
    Some cars are red
    My car is red
    Therefore my car is some car!

    Edited at 2015-04-20 08:01 am (UTC)

  9. The Albert meaning Camus type of clue is my least favourite, nevertheless this was a pretty good crossword. Didn’t know the plant at 1ac and ‘drag’ for ‘pest’ doesn’t seem really precise. 18dn is very smooth. Collins gives ‘individual’ as a synonym of ‘own’. A pleasant 25 minutes or so.
  10. 26.17, much of which spent pootling around the NW in search of entries that more or less worked. Seriously hampered by entering LAW LORD with no evidence from wordplay, but heavily influenced by the legendary exchange:
    Smith (to witness): So, you were as drunk as a judge?
    Judge (interjecting): You mean as drunk as a lord?
    Smith: Yes, My Lord.
    I don’t doubt (much) that there’s a link between MUSICALES and the US, but it’s French, isn’t it? And usually preceded by soirées. Rossini wrote some that Britten played around with. I’m pretty sure Schubert (and others) wrote some Moments Musicales. There’s a shop called Musicale in Harpenden, but that may be a tad parochial, and there’s only the one. Just as well the wordplay allowed for nothing (much) else.
    MANDRAGORA? Chambers says its either the genus or Shakespearean for mandrake. Quite. Involved a lot of alphabet shuffling and a final “really?” to equate drag and pest. Not your ideal 1 across.
    Don’t accept U is top people.
    On the other hand, FORECASTER had a fine and amusing clue. So long as you knew the nursery rhyme

  11. All except the dreadful 1ac in under twenty minutes, then several laps of the alphabet to finish it off. Finally settled on BRAT, which isn’t a very good match for “pest”, but then neither is DRAG. Bah humbug.

    Oh, and I think my post-solve look-up of MANBRATORA may have breached my workplace’s Business Conduct Guidelines. Don’t go there.

    Very enjoyable crossword other than that.

  12. 16 mins. This definitely felt trickier than some Monday puzzles. I had come across MANDRAGORA before so I didn’t have a problem with it once enough checkers were in place. I trusted the wordplay for MUSICALES and my Chambers confirms Z8’s comment about its French origin. I don’t agree that chaps=males is loose. I also think the cue for FORECASTER is excellent. I finished back in the NE with BROLLY after AUBADE.
  13. Add me to the list of people who had to drag 1a from the dark recesses of my mind while working through the alphabet. The rest of it was friendly, I thought, as I finished in 6:42.
  14. Interesting: there seems to be considerable divergence of opinion as to the plural of musical as an adjective, and I concur after research that musicaux seems to be more current. Since “moment” is masculine, there seems no justification for the -ale agreement of the adjective, so musicaux is also more proper. However my recollection is most definitely “musicales” and I’m content that there are examples out there in Internetland.
  15. 19:54 after finally deciding that drag had to be the required “pest” on the basis that mandragora sounded a bit like mandrake which I saw on telly the other day (up until which point I thought it was made up having only encountered in in Mandrake the Magician in a comic and Harry Potter). Trouble is, I’ve forgotten whether it’s the root, leaf or both that’s dangerous.

    Agree that wasn’t a great clue but there was plenty to admire otherwise.

  16. Not on the wavelength at all today and resorted to aids to get the 1s. The only big houses I could thing of beginning m_n were manse and mansion, and I wasted time at the start contemplating first MUSICHALL and then MUSICIANS. I also see that I have ALASAKAN at 3dn, not noticing that Alaskan didn’t fit. Must do better.
    1. Do you know where and when that was printed? I can’t tell from the picture.
      A Frenchman saying ‘moments musicales’ is like an Englishman saying ‘my grandmother loves his dog’.
      1. I picked out the first one I found: it was published in Berlin, and the transcription is the word of Jules de Swert, who is Belgian. So you may have a point, even if I remember it differently!
        1. Ah, that explains it: you wouldn’t catch a Frenchman saying ‘nonante’, either. I conclude from this that we’re both right.
  18. DNF, but I also did not cheat. The result is MANGNATORA, which I expect doesn’t exist. If you had asked me if the MANDRAGORA exists, I would surely not know, and probably guess not. Otherwise, pretty quick. Regards.
  21. 14:48 for me – desperately slow, but I’m too tired to care!

    I remember first coming across MANDRAGORA in a crossword (in my early teens, I suspect) as the missing word in a good, old-fashioned quotation clue:

    “Not poppy, nor -, Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world” (Othello) (10)

    so I’ve encountered it a few times since, most memorably at the Young Vic in a very fine performance with Willard White, Imogen Stubbs and Ian McKellen.

    A few old chestnuts today, but a pleasant puzzle all the same.

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