Times 26007 – licensed to kill me

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I had hoped for an easy ride, doing this in my bed still recovering from the scary op; it was not to be. Either this was difficult, or the anaesthetic has obliterated a few more little grey cells. I have amended the blog to explain / correct the two down clues which had foxed me – 2d and 20d – so thanks to the commenters below. [And added 12a which I had blogged but somehow deleted from the HTML].

Across
1 TORQUE – Def. force, sounds like ‘talk’ if you are one of those talkers. I think ‘talk’ has more of an ‘aw’ and ‘torque’ more of an ‘or’ to it, but at least it was an easy clue to get us going.
5 BOIL OVER – B (bachelor) O (old) I (one) LOVER (girlfriend maybe); def. get too passionate.
9 MAKE TRACKS – Make = model, tracks = railway; def. set out.
10 TOSH – TO SH! = noisy person told to be quiet; def. rubbish.
11 BILE DUCT – (LE CID BUT)*; def. vital passage.
12 LUNACY – UN (local, French ‘one’) inside LACY = decorative material; def. folly.
13 OAHU – Alternate letters of nOt A sHrUb; Pacific island, in Hawaii.
15 SUNCREAM – SUN = paper; CREAM = flower, the best of something, as Jimbo points out. I’ve been had by this ‘flower’ notion before, I should have remembered, as in ‘Flower of Scotland’. Nothing to do with cream as a liquid.
18 POMPIDOU – POMP = ceremony, DOU(R) = endlessly gloomy, insert I (one); def. President.
19 OGRE – An OGRE is a giant. OG is own goal = blunder by one defending, and RE is teaching religion.
21 TAI CHI – TA (volunteers); CH (check) in I I (a couple of Latin); def. exercises.
23 RED-BRICK – RE(A)D = studied, with ‘not A’; BRICK = reliable colleague; def. college type.
25 KILN – Def. baker. Hidden reversed in ‘workmaNLIKe.
26 IN ONES CUPS – (NON-PC ISSUE)*; def. more than happy.
27 ANNOUNCE – N (note), NOUN (what’s often proper), inside ACE (fine); def. give out.
28 TASMAN – TAS = thank yous, expressions of gratitude, MAN = crew; def. old navigator. Abel Tasman was the Dutch chap who was first to what is now Tasmania, and Fiji, my favourite place on the globe.

Down
2 OKAPI – Def. ‘African leaves fancier’; a relative of the giraffe (that I did know). Apparently IPA is a sort of beer – Indian Pale Ale – of which I’d never heard, being a long time exile; and KO is put out, all reversed.
3 QUEUE-JUMP – QUEUE sounds like CUE = prompt, JUMP = start; def. advance position unfairly.
4 EARFUL – TEARFUL = visibly upset, remove the head; def. reprimand.
5 BACK TO SQUARE ONE – (CAN REQUEST A BOOK)*; def. starting all over.
6 INSOLENT – IN SOLENT would be in the Channel by the Isle of Wight; def. fresh, as in cheeky.
7 OPT IN – OP = surgery; TIN = can; def. be involved voluntarily.
8 EASY CHAIR – EASY = piece of cake; CHA = tea; I R (start to relax); def. &lit.
14 ADORATION – A DO = a party, RATION = helping; def. enormous respect.
16 ROOF RACKS – ROO sounds like RUE = regret; FRACKS = attempts to extract fuel; def. car parts. Topical, if a little groan-worthy.
17 ADDITION – ADDICTION (habit) has C (cycles initially) removed; def. rider.
20 ODDEST – ODE = lines, insert D (duke), add ST = street; more than ‘stranger’ would be ‘strangest’, or oddest. Don’t know why I couldn’t see this first time round.
22 CONGO – CON (against) GO is a reason not to pass; def. African runner, the river.
24 CAPRA – CAP = limit; RA = artist; def. film director, Frank Capra and his offspring Jnr.

43 comments on “Times 26007 – licensed to kill me”

  1. 30:59 … pretty tough puzzle.

    Pip, OKAPI .. IPA is a type of beer, and to KO is to put out (someone’s lights, I guess). 20d is ODDEST … Duke inside ODE and Street.

    Last in TOSH.

  5. OKAPI – IPA (sort of beer) and KO (put -knocked -out) reversed (upset)

    20 is ODDEST (stranger) ODE (lines) and ST (street) “taking in” D for Duke.

    Oh and 20 mins to solve so quite tricky.

  6. Hi Pip at 15A CREAM=flower=the best in something

    A nice puzzle I thought with some excellent “lift and separate” needed to arrive at parsings and definitions. 20 minutes to solve

  7. Re 2d, the OKAPI is an “African leaves fancier”, “sort of” is “OK” and IPA is a beer which is upset. The only question is the words “put out” as I can’t see what they’re doing there.

    20d is ODDEST, not ADVERT: “D” (Duke) in “ODE” (lines) and then ST for street. ODDEST beats ODDER (i.e. Stranger).

    …at least that’s what I made them but other wiser heads may know otherwise.

    And good luck with the recuperation.

    Edited at 2015-01-28 09:30 am (UTC)

      1. Really? I would have thought that the Oddest of two would be disqualified, leaving the Stranger the clear winner of the race!
        1. Prescriptively, probably. But I’m pretty sure we break that rule all the time. “Try these two wines. Tell me which you think is best.”
  9. 51 minutes – loved the “leaves fancier”. The “oddest” clue wasn’t too shabby either.

    I seem to remember a Coleman balls collection where a commentator said that a player’s left foot was his best. Cue cartoon of bloke with three feet.

  10. 36 mins. I really struggled with this one, particularly in the NW, although in retrospect none of the clues should have been that difficult to solve. I have developed a tendency to try and overthink clues if I don’t see the definition and/or the wordplay quickly, and because of that I sometimes miss simple charades, particularly with certain setters. For the record TORQUE was my LOI after QUEUE-JUMP.
  11. Held up by quite a bit of unknown w/p (CAPRA, TASMAN, OAHU), and couldn’t manage to parse OGRE (didn’t think of OG for ‘own goal’) or OKAPI (not a clue about IPA beer), but got there in the end.

    LOI: RED BRICK, as I was convinced a ‘reliable colleague’ would be a ‘rock’.

  12. An excellent puzzle in which once again I thought I was on course for a sub-30 solve but then I hit a wall in the SW corner. At that point I also had 4dn outstanding (it’s always niggling when there’s one missing word with everything solved around it) and I had to return there several times before coming up with EARFUL. Particularly galling in the SW was that quite early in my struggle there I had considered ‘habit = ADDICTION’ at 17dn and when I realised it wouldn’t fit I abandoned the whole idea until much later. 49 minutes.
    2. Now let’s not be silly about this. You can’t have the stranger of one, either, so it’s perfectly ok to suggest that something that is stranger than the stranger something might well be the oddest, unless there is something stranger than that further on down the line. Grammar lesson concluded.
  14. 48 min – but really DNF as had to resort to aids after half an hour with only about half done (most of bottom half) 2dn LOI, finally put OMANI unparsed; thinking African, though too late remembered Oman is Asian side of Arabian Gulf. I did think of OKAPI, but couldn’t see how even though I used to drink IPA regularly.
  15. I think you drew a short straw here Pip – nice blogging and I didn’t know IPA either. Hope you’re getting some sleep. TORQUE and TALK would not be homophones in a good many parts of N. America. When you have the time or inclination 12a was omitted – LUNACY. French UN=one inside LACY=of decorative material.

    Speaking of homophones.I had to cool my heels in a doctor’s office yesterday and was catching up on some old NY Times puzzles and came across this:
    Clue: Trash/Victories/Get it?/Do some math/Runs. Answer: Junk/wins/see/add/hums. AKA John Quincy Adams (the theme being US presidents). And there were 4 others like it that I’ll spare you. 20.20

  16. 42:05 for another hard but enjoyable puzzle. I only finished yesterday’s at nearly midnight yesterday with a bit of help from my wife, and I needed two goes at this one, with CONGO and ANNOUNCE eluding me at the first pass.

    For any IPA drinkers I’d recommend the Meantime IPA, though at 7.4% best stick to just the one!

  17. 16.21, which today looks rather good. I enjoyed this one, though I missed some of the subtleties: my OKAPI was just an African. I didn’t spot that 5d was an anagram, and had no idea what the rest of the clue was doing, being distracted by the endearing story of how the phrase originated in BBC football commentating. TOSH from definition only – pity, as that was rather fun.
    I liked the chestnut flavoured refugee from a Christmas cracker in INSOLENT.
    I think homophones are more fun when they are groanworthy. I don’t really pronounce ROO and RUE the same, though I’d make little distinction between TORQUE and TALK
    But then I recently produced a pictorial version of “When I’m 64” including “…if it’s not too dear” rendered by images of an E-fit, an endearing snotty baby, and two stags. “We shall skrimp and save” was a weasel, a shrimp, a plus sign and somebody shaving.

    Edited at 2015-01-28 12:47 pm (UTC)

  18. Oops.

    At 2d I had Omani. Putting aside the fact that The Oman isn’t even in Africa (thanks phmfantom) I artfully constructed it from a reversed inamorata (fancier) without the world famous Rata beer, with “leaves” as, um, padding.

    Wait, there’s more.

    At 22 I plumped for the river Cango (it’s where they get the water from to make Rata beer) on the basis that if you “can go” in, say, dominoes, scrabble or myriad card games, you obviously don’t pass.

    Apart from that, Mrs Lincoln, my time wasn’t at all shabby and I thought the puzzle was absolutely top drawer.

    1. I too was flirting with the Italian, in my case the masculine inamorato, spurred no doubt by Orlando of that ilk.
  19. Glorious failure with too many undone to mention after 45m and a growing feeling of tedium. I’d bet this is the same setter who bests me every time – long convoluted clues and a smattering of obscurity – OAHU for example. But no doubt all scrupulously fair. Thanks for the blog, Pip.
  20. Really clever and challenging. Was hoping to continue a (short) run of sub-30’s, but OKAPI and EARFUL held me up at the end.

    COD to OGRE. Comment of the day to Penfold.

    Thanks setter and blogger.

  21. That was great but must have taken me close to an hour. Didn’t help that I put in SUNSCREEN not SUNCREAM and took forever to see EASY CHAIR and spot my error.

    I am surprised how many people have no heard of IPA. In the days of the British Raj, it was a beer that was brewed stronger than usual (like 5.5% I think) and with extra hops (they are a preservative as well as adding bitterness) so it would survive the sea-voyage to India.

    These days on this side of the US we have what is known as West Coast IPA which is typically insanely strong (9%) and insanely bitter.

    1. . . . whereas the IPA of my student days 40+ years ago, Greene King IPA, is still around and very popular and noticeably less strong than its big draught brother, Abbot Ale.
      1. A man of taste. My favorite beer from student days (also 40 years ago) although I remember we would call it Greene King Ordinary Bitter. Drinking Abbot for a whole evening was not recommended.
  22. My first DNF for a while. The only two words I could think of for 2dn were OKAPI and OMANI. Completely missing the “leaves fancier” part of the definition and despite knowing Oman is not in Africa I bunged in the latter. About 45 minutes to complete the grid (albeit incorrectly).
  23. Favouring ‘sunspray’ at 15A as it fit the ‘flower’ part of the def. better (best;-)), this led me to enjoy “Poo Fracks” as an acceptable degree of regret about fracking in 16D. And ‘Poof Racks’ as a far more enjoyable visual to finish off.

    Nice puzzle all round.

  24. 18m. My kind of puzzle, this: knotty, with some properly original wordplay, very little BIFD. Highly enjoyable: I liked yesterday’s but of the two I thought this the best.
    My last in was OKAPI, and it’s indicative of the general style: two well-hidden definitions for the price of one.
    No problem with IPA: the Sierra Nevada Brewing Company’s version is my current house beer. Now I want one. Mmmm… hops… Edit: having got home and taken one from the fridge it turns out it’s not an IPA at all, just a pale ale. Ah well, it still tastes good.

    Edited at 2015-01-28 11:01 pm (UTC)

  25. About 30 minutes here, ending with TOSH, which I didn’t parse, and which is quite good now that I see the explanation. Also quite good were OGRE, CONGO, and well, the whole puzzle. Good fun altogether. I didn’t know RED-BRICK as a college type and the homophone didn’t work for me, though not hard to figure out. Best for continued recovery to Pip. Regards.
  26. Finished the puzzle while listening to the Sheffield United/Tottenham match. As i type, Spurs have just scored a second goal after United had gone ahead. I think that I can breathe again now.
  27. “RE: Times Cryptic – 26007
    posted 28/01/15 22:16
    QUOTE >
    Thank you MartnP. I didn’t know about TftT. My first Google said it meant tweeting from the toilet!
    “

    :-))

  28. 16:26 here for an exceptionally fine puzzle, full of clever ideas.

    I’d have knocked a minute or three off if I’d been brave enough to bung in my first thoughts, but I made terribly heavy weather of parsing several clues, particularly 10ac (TOSH), 19ac (OGRE) and 2dn (OKAPI) – though, with hindsight, they all look pretty straightforward.

    Once again my compliments to the setter.

  29. Neither audibly nor physically, in my neck of the woods. A dnf, on the same two as our excellent blogger.

    Edited at 2015-01-29 07:38 am (UTC)

    1. I’m an engineer dealing with torques and forces all the time; TORQUE was my second last in for the same reason. 5 more minutes and I guessed ANNOUNCE totally unparsed, just to finish, in 32 min. All but those last 2 in and parsed in 19 min, so must have been close to the wavelength.
      Rob

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