25931. In which Ahmet (God willing) and Pete are told to get married again

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Not, I have to say, my best ever solve: a 30 minute struggle against what I hope is subtle and difficult cluing. Either that or I’m losing my touch. My effort was more or less undone by the prodding typist’s basic error of starting with letter one in square two, this time at 4d, engendering 2 mistakes which I surely should have spotted. There are no obscure words, Dame Edna notwithstanding, and enough resources for anyone to eat, drink, be merry and have a jolly good evening out. I’m pretty sure the Nina in my title is unintentional, as there is no sign of strain in creating it, but it might still make an interesting short story.
My reasoning goes thus

Across

1 SNACKING  having a bite
My last in, which at 1 across never helps, and certainly my last to yield to understanding. It’s riflemaN’s back which SACKING, or firing, rounds. Wasted loads of time trying to work out what Richard Sharpe might otherwise have been called.
6 SHADOW Dog
As in follow. Inferior version as in a shadow of his former self. Or the shadow Chancellor.
9 INAPPROPRIATE  Out of order
More, I suppose, the Eastender’s “you’re bang out of order, Pat”, though I doubt any of them would be heard to say “I believe that’s inappropriate behaviour, Del”. Half INch and half-inch for APPROPRIATE, the two different versions sanctioned by repeatedly. Clever.
10 MOSTLY usually
The C at the beginning of COSTLY (expensive) becomes M if you times it by X
11 GAME PLAN  Way of playing
P, music’s quietly, included in GAMELAN, both music of Java and Bali, and the orchestra it’s played on, mostly things that you can hit which go bong, crash tinkle and pock.
13 PILOT WHALE swimmer
Terribly good gives PI, crowd LOT, with W and strong HALE. Pi turns up from time to time, though seldom in use now outside crosswords. Derives from “pious” and means a range of things from goody-goody to obsessively or obtrusively religious.
15 VIEW a scene
Battle with wife, apart from being the sort of thing that results from an unsanctioned night out with trollops and strumpets, or even just with Ada and Georgia, is VIE with W(ife)
16 STOP break in journey
The definition suggests a more specific word, but this’ll have to do. What chap does at wheel is pots – Chambers allows it as an intransitive verb “to make pottery”. That sort of wheel (cue music, “Unchained Melody”, Demi Moore, Patrick Swayze). Oh, and reverse it.
18 BALUSTRADE railing
Take the first letters of A(gainst) L(ine) and insert them into BUS TRADE, which would be a transport business.
21 GOURMAND big eater
Tuck MAN for chap into GOURD for fleshy fruit.
22 DRY ICE smoke on stage
…is often produced by using solid CO2, or dry ice. Because it isn’t wet, obviously. Gamble, or DICE, around RY, crossword traditional contraction of RailwaY
23 LIGHT-FINGERED  like a dip
Dip in this case is a pickpocket. Anagram FEED GIRL with THING. Possibly getting the evening off to a good start.
25 UPROAR Racket
revolting gives UP (as in “in arms”), R(epublican) just the R, and one having a row is an OAR. Identify parts and assemble.
26 SET APART separate
A redesign of RATES surrounding the androgynous PAT reversed.

Down

2 NAIROBi Capital
but not in part of UK. Part of UK is NI for the province, broadcast is AIR and “he died” OB, short for obit. Assemble as instructed
3 CHART TOPPER number one
P (miusical soft again) POT, this time as drug, “written about” or reversed and inserted into CHARTER for document
4 IMPLY hint
Plainly would be “simply”, but remove the S, genealogical for “succeeded”
5 GEORGIA country
Overthrow EG for “say”, place it alongside OR for soldiers (other ranks) add GI for “private” (another soldier) and garnish with A(rea). Voila!
6 STRUMPETS  17s (qv TROLLOP)
the word comes from behind, or RUMP in an anagram of TESTS. Not a clue to put into the mouth of (say) Julian Clary. Or Frankie Howard. Or insert your own suggestion according to vintage.
7 ADA woman
The original man is ADAM, Dump M(arried)
8 OVERATE was a pig.
Plainly seen is OVERT, which “consumes” A, but tacks the (mar)E’s tail on the end
12 POVERTY TRAP needy people facing this
Today’s attempt at political topicality. P(ressure), OVER (on), T(ories) leader and followers, PARTY, rising or going backwards.
14 WEBMASTER site developer
That sort of site. Good for nothing is WASTER, who accepts a reversed MBE, the lowest order of chivalry
17 TROLLOP tart (cf strumpet)
Duck pie that is left is a rather heavy handed way of providing just O and P. Place them under (inferior to) TROLL for (to) fish
19 LADDIES Young Scotsmen
Flowers, for once real ones, are here gladioli, or GLADDIES as Dame Edna would say. There is no G(ood)
20 DECIDER winning game
The extremes of “disagreeable” are  D and E. Place CIDER in their wake.
22 DIGIT one or two say
DIG translates in some circles as “love”. IT is Italian Vermouth, a drink.
24 GOO sickly sentiment
The odd letters from sOlOnG reversed.

43 comments on “25931. In which Ahmet (God willing) and Pete are told to get married again”

  1. Seems some kind of service from the Club has resumed. I keep hitting deadlines on my sub, but so far so good. Touch wood.

    This I found very difficult — even after completing yesterday’s very difficult Enigmatist while waiting for midnight to turn over in the UK. Things would have been better if I hadn’t punted for AUTO(S)TRADE at 18ac, with no justification what so ever — which banjaxed 14dn and 19dn. Good job I have a large drawing board.

    Edited at 2014-10-30 06:04 am (UTC)

    1. You finished yesterday’s Enigmatist! Wow. I still haven’t. About ready to throw in the towel and cheat but the Guardian puzzle site seems to be down today.
  2. It may have taken me 103 minutes but it was worth all the pain. Thanks to Zaheer Abbas (geddit?) for sorting out 1a – also my last in. The closest I got was ACKING for ‘firing’ (well, we had half-inch) following a reversal of NS (the honourable company of riflemen…?…somewhere?).

    Too many great clues to pick one out: the crossing double-fives at 3 and 13 were superb, and 10a and 16a were very cunning indeed.

    Bravo/a, setter!

  3. Brits of my generation will most likely think of this on mention of Potter’s Wheel:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ4-hDKorQE

    I agree with all the favourable comments about this puzzle. It took me 77 minutes and I came near to giving in to temptation and resorting to aids on several occasions, but I resisted and was rewarded with a very satisfying solve and sense of achievement.

    I’m not sure I have met PILOT WHALE before and had no checkers for the first word so I was pleased eventually to work out the answer from the wordplay.

    For some reason I spent the entire session under the misapprehension that the unsolved 6dn was linked to 19dn which I solved early on, so I was somewhat surprised when I spotted the wordplay and the answer turned out to be what it was. I went to sleep still puzzled and didn’t realise my mistake until coming here this morning.

    Edited at 2014-10-30 06:41 am (UTC)


  4. Finished this trickster correctly (in some time over the hour) without aids, but with a ? at MOSTLY where I hadn’t twigged the C x 10 = M bit. I too finished in the NW, with NAIROBI and SNACKING.

    Among lots of great clues, I’ll opt for POVERTY TRAP as my cod.

    Oh, and I guess I may be more of Z8’s generation than yours, Jack, as that scene from Ghost came straight to mind at 16ac.

  5. Started with a headache, finished with a worse one and 3 typos. I’m going to have to take it on trust that this was fun.

    Tomorrow will be a whole new day (tautology, right?).

    Edited at 2014-10-30 08:24 am (UTC)

    1. Much debate on these sorts of things. Some require a strictly literal/logical reading, in which case we have a case of tautology. Others say that common usage has given them perfectly good non-tautological meanings. E.g., we all know what “Boys will be boys” does in the natural language, whatever its logical construal.
  6. I would have got on more efficiently had I not invented a ‘ghost whale’, which seemed perfectly plausible!
    3. I had a ghost whale for a moment. Then i realised that the setter would never have put terribly in the clue so had to be something else
  7. Very difficult puzzle that I laboured over for 40 minutes – last Sunday’s Mephisto took less time than that!

    What to say – the whole thing is a tour de force with some really outstanding clues. Great work z8 and very well done setter

  8. 27 minutes after a worryingly slow start and excursions up various blind alleys. What a good puzzle, and thanks for the amusing blog z8.
  9. 51′ with two wrong, a weary ‘costly’ (brilliant clue)and an ignorant ‘webcaster’. Thought ‘laddies’ a bit, well, everage. Gotta admit 6 dn. very clever. Also 16 with the disingenuous double-stop suggestion. If it is. Brain’s tired. Classy puzzle.
  10. DNF as I had never come across PI as meaning terribly good, so despite guessing at PILOT WHALE and parsing the rest, I couldn’t bring myself to put it in, and that meant I didn’t get 2d.

    I had to laugh at the answer to 6d when, in my head, I missed one of the Ts in the anagrind, leaving me with TRUMP to parse against a clue that said “coming from behind”. I originally thought that the Setter may have overstepped a boundary somewhere, but saw the real parsing when I wrote it in.

    Darn good puzzle, as others have commented, and thanks to the blogger and the setter. We live and learn.

    Edited at 2014-10-30 10:56 am (UTC)

  11. Very good (and very tough, obviously). Glad to see I wasn’t the only one who finished up with 1ac, which was the perfect example of how this puzzle worked – very difficult to see the answers at the time, but when you look back afterwards, it’s all there.
  12. 24 mins. Yes, an absolutely cracking puzzle. I actually finished with STOP after I finally got the SNACKING/CHART-TOPPER crossers. Until I saw how 1ac worked I wasn’t sure if “rifleman’s back” referred to N or S. Count me as another who considered “ghost whale” from the wordplay until the penny dropped. At least I hadn’t written it in so my completed grid doesn’t look scruffy. Apart from STOP I found the bottom half easier to crack than the top half.

    Edited at 2014-10-30 03:49 pm (UTC)

  14. Just over the 30m mark according to the iPad timer, but it seemed longer. I enjoyed this one so thanks z8 and setter.
  15. The bottom half took 10 mins to fill in. The top took another 6:24 with MOSTLY my last one in. Tippex was applied because I didn’t initially reverse 16a.
  16. Coo that was hard. 35.53. Nearly came a cropper putting “webcaster” in for “webmaster” – i.e. wrong award. One advantage to printing and entering is that you get, in effect, a second chance. The letter flip in “costly/mostly” prompted another look. So far I seem to be the only one here or on the Forum who made that mistake. Good blog Z, bad luck on the typing. P.S. Why am I not getting the Ahmet Pete/Zaheer Abbas thing?

    Edited at 2014-10-30 01:16 pm (UTC)

    1. Ahmet and Pete’s story is in the 1st, 4th and 5th rows of unches.

      I can’t help with Zaheer.

    2. Misspent youth, Olivia. Cricket was my passion and Zaheer Abbas was a wonderfully stylish batsman who played for Gloucestershire for many years in the days when a county side had just one overseas player. His highest Test score was 274 and the Bristolians called him Zed, pronounced Zaid.
      1. We lived in Bristol from 73 to 77 I remember Zaheer playing alongside Sadiq Mohammed and Mike Proctor.

        I also remember a John Player 40 overs match on a Sunday afternoon – in 76, I think, played on the Wills county ground in S Bristol – Glos vs Somerset. Glos posted 240 which was v classy in those days. Somerset began their reply & I have vivid (sic) memories of a certain IVA Richards hitting a stream of sixes into the middle of an adjacent field. When I met him 3 years ago I told him I’d been a fan since then & he said ‘Thank you, Darling’. I can now die happy! 🙂

        2. Of course, Proctor – what a player! Along with the two Pollocks, Colin Bland (how many run-outs would he have effected if technology was used in his days) and the marvellous Barry Richards (a player you could see actually getting bored with county cricket after announcing himself on the Test stage against Australia only to play no more intenational cricket), the SA side of that era was astonsihingly talented. My first Test was England-South Africa at Lord’s in a Grandstand Box in 1965.

      2. Crikey, yes. Gloucestershire Somerset at the Imperial (Tobacco!) Athletic Ground 1975 in the JPL. Viv got 120 odd but was outscored by Zaheer’s oppo Saddiq Mohammed.  Balls lost flying out of the ground, massive scores for those days. Happy times. Thanks for the memory jog!

  17. I thoroughly enjoyed this and my time of 17:11 suggests I had a pretty good feel for where the setter was going.

    My LOI was the wheely good 16 which gets my COD.

    Thanks to the setter for some great entertainment and to Z for the customary entertaining blog.

    1. Congrats on what looks like a stellar time, since none of the usual suspects broke 10, and most were 14+!

  18. 26m. That was hard and very good. There were quite a few that went in unparsed from definition, which isn’t usually an indicator of enjoyment for me, but in most cases the definitions were well hidden so just spotting them was rewarding in itself.
  19. If ever there was a case of me being “on the setter’s wavelength” then this must be it. A fairly gentle 25 minutes I thought, only to come here and hear of other’s travails. To put it in perspective I’ve had DNFs for the past two days.

    I was held up slightly at the end by MOSTLY, which was my COD once I’d worked it out.

  20. Didn’t get very far with this last night but a morning and coffee works wonders, and I finally got the whole thing out. Some very fun things in here, though I didn’t completely get the wordplay for INAPPROPRIATE so thanks there.
  21. About an hour of plodding, interrupted a few times by domestic crises (Mrs K at high doh, rat appeared from nowhere, in the kitchen, and dog chased it out, up the wall into the creeper, from whence it has probably fled but the dog is not convinced).
    Eventually limped home, enjoyed the blog explaining a few of my unparsed ones; not very convinced by SHADOW but the rest of the puzzle was a superb example. Well done Z8 and Mr Setter.
  22. I thought I’d never get started, let alone actually finish. My FOI was GOO but then I spent at least 10 minutes staring at a blank grid. Finally I started at the bottom and worked very laboriously towards 1a. 63 minutes. Quite satisfying but the joy was very confined. Ann
  23. About 45 minutes. I was delayed considerably by convincing myself that 13a was RIGHT WHALE (terribly good=’right hale’, which together ‘crowd’ with=w.) It was so obvious that it took until the end, when I saw the possibility of CHART TOPPER, before I rethought the thing. So they were my L2I. Very well done setter and Z. My only other problem was that I didn’t get how half inch gets you to appropriate; still don’t. Regards.
    1. Oh. Now that makes some sense. Thanks to you, Z. The only place I encounter Cockney rhyming slang is in these puzzles, and candidly, I don’t recall that one ever showing up before. I will add it to the stuff I try to remember. Regards.
      1. I’m afraid the evidence is against you, Kevin. No. 25,253 (28 August 2012), which you commented on, contained the clue “Steal in (4-4)”.
  25. …or so it felt. Actual time 1hr43 minutes.

    FOI was INAPPROPRIATE, which I enjoyed, followed by ADA. After that it was all work and no play. I spent a long time with “Tripoli” as 1d – unable to parse it but I figured the RIP made sense. NAIROBI went in eventually, but incompletely parsed.

    I think this was a great puzzle, but I can’t say I enjoyed it that much. There were very few “aha” moments to reward the effort.

  26. 24:31 for me. Unfortunately the slow time is more a reflection on the absolute stinker from 1930 (No. 37) that I’d just tackled, and which I was amazed to find I’d solved correctly (unaided) at the end of an exhausting 45 minutes.

    This was one of those puzzles where I’d really like to have known who the setter was because: a) I might well have delayed solving it until I was feeling less tired, and b) because I’d like to raise my hat to him or her for an absolutely superb crossword.

Comments are closed.