Times 25904 – No, not the one from Winsbury….

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 43 minutes

Music: Shostakovich, Symphony #6, Boult/LPO

It may be just me, but it seems like the puzzles
are getting harder under the new editor – no more Easy Monday! I was off golfing twice for a few days after retiring, and each time I returned I found it difficult to catch up as I struggled with each puzzle. Usually, there is one doddle every week, but the last two weeks have been tough, and the weekends scarcely better.

Today’s puzzle is what used to be considered a medium-grade affair, but lately that’s been as easy as it gets. The clues are eminently fair, but you’ll need both the literal and the cryptic to fill in most of the answers; at least I did. It’s a good thing I started right at 7 PM, which is midnight to those of you in the UK.

Across
1 APOTHEOSIS, anagram of ISOTOPE HAS. At least we have a scientific surface here, as the atoms ascend to Heaven.
7 OOPS, O (zero) OPS.
9 COMMERCE, CO(MM)ERCE, surprisingly easy once you get the right end of the stick. Alas, I assumed ‘force’ was the literal for quite a while.
10 CREOLE, anagram of CORLE[on]E. A specific language or a type of language, take your pick.
11 BLIMEY, B + LIMEY.
13 BACKWARD, BACK WARD…to make ‘draw’.
14 TWILIGHT ZONE, TWI(LIGHT)(OZ backwards)NE. My last in; I had to pay careful attention to the cryptic. No doubt there are some solvers who just wrote in the answer.
17 DEUTSCHE MARK, anagram of HUCKSTER MADE. Definitely not a chestnut!
20 MOCCASIN, sounds like MOCK A SIN. I believe we have heard this one before.
21 GIDEON, DIG backwards + EON. For once, ‘old judge’ is not O + J.
22 NAPIER, N + A PIER. It’s in New Zealand, so definitely in the south.
23 EARL GREY, jocular cryptic definition.
25 WREN, double definition, the bird and a member of the Women’s Royal Naval Service.
26 WYKEHAMIST, anagram of WHISKY + MEAT. I just wrote it in from the initial letter and the definition.
 
Down
2 POOR LAWS, double definition, one jocular. I did not help my cause by putting in ‘Poor Bill’, and then ‘Poor Acts’, even though I know enough English history to be familiar with both the Old Poor Law of Elizabeth I and the New Poor Law enacted shortly after the Reform Bill.
3 TUM, MUT[t] Upside down, my first in.
4 EARLY, [n]EARLY, where ‘executed’ indicates that a word is to be beheaded.
5 SHERBET, S(HERB)ET. A drink in the UK, a frozen dessert in the US, so you have to be bilingual to solve these puzzles.
6 SACKCLOTH, a cryptic definition alluding to ‘sackcloth and ashes’, I belive.
7 OVERWHELMED, OVERW(HELM)ED.
8 PALTRY, P(A LT)RY.
12 MALEDICTION, MALE DICTION. A bit of a chestnut; cleverer versions have appeared in the Guardian.
15 GRUB SCREW, GRUB’S CREW. I mistakenly believed the literal referred to a slang expression for a low salary, until I saw the obvious.
16 PRIORESS, P(RIO)RESS.
18 SUN DECK, SUN(DEC)K. Why December I have no idea, but the clue does get you there.
19 HOT AIR, double definition, a standard political joke.
21 GIRTH, anagram of RIGHT.
24 GUM, MUG up.

52 comments on “Times 25904 – No, not the one from Winsbury….”

  1. All pretty fair I thought, except for (as noted) “when” = DEC. Stuck at the end with the 21s and 16dn.

    I didn’t take 23ac as a CD; rather “no common” = noble = EARL and GREY as a shade (?) of “black”. Also assumed that, in 24dn, “revise hastily” = MUG up.

  2. A fairly standard offering, I felt. Not keen on the invented word ‘overwed’ at 7d, especially with no question mark, but not worth doing a Mickelson over.
  3. What with misspelling MOCCASIN and putting in ‘grubstake’–never heard of a GRUBSCREW–I had got myself in an excellent position to run overtime, when finally–like at 26′–I twigged to the schoolboy, and the recalcitrant half-dozen clues at the bottom all fell into place. I wondered, while panicking, where the hell SUNDECK came from; thanks for the enlightenment, but not much of a clue, what?
  4. Hmmm! December might be a reasonable time to put a sundeck out of action (but not here in upstate New York). It’s still quite a stretch.
    1. Hmmm indeed. Good idea! I’d certainly put such a thing out of action in December in Western Australia … if I had one. The risks of skin cancer from the high UV levels would be a deterrent. Maybe it’s not such a bad clue after all.
  5. Vinyl, I have been having the same thoughts on the relative difficulty of the puzzles and I had been wondering if it was incipient senility on my part. Frankly I have found the last few weeks frustrating – the puzzles may have been of high quality but one toughie a week is quite enough when your solving time is limited (less of a problem in retirement perhaps!)
  6. 43 minutes with time slipping away towards the end puzzling over 12dn only to find that like Kevin G I had misspelt MOCCASIN so one of the checkers was incorrect.

    7ac amused me. I agree with mct that “no” should be taken to apply both “common” and “black” in 23ac. “DEC” for when a ship’s sundeck might be put out of action doesn’t necessarily work but I suppose the question mark takes care of such niggles.

    As for harder puzzles, I thought this was most definitely the easiest weekday since last Monday, and Saturdays have been somewhat easier of late.

    Edited at 2014-09-29 05:24 am (UTC)

  7. Why not reproduce the clue while indicating parsing, so that both who had attempted the relative cryptic puzzle as also those who couldn’t can find it more comfortable to appreciate the clues?

    I don’t solve any of the puzzles covered here but, as regular visitor, enjoy and learn good wordplay ideas, clever cryptic definitions, while also adding to my collection, indicators (for anagrams, containment), connectors of cryptic bits etc., new to me,
    wherever clues accompany the parsing.

    The time and effort required in copy-pasting the clues (alongside the parsing) is, in my opinion, a small price considering the benefits.

    1. > I don’t solve any of the puzzles covered here …

      That rather explains it!

      Hope all is well in Mumbai.

      Edited at 2014-09-29 06:12 am (UTC)

    2. Funnily enough, copy/pasting the clues isn’t as easy as all that: highlighting the clues on the interactive version, at least, is possible but rather slippery. It’s done for the Monthly and prize puzzles because contributors may well have forgotten what they were.
  8. 23.54 for one which felt much trickier than an old style Easy Monday. I agree with comments above that the overall difficulty level has increased somewhat over the past six months, or at least I very much hope it has.
    My troubles here came with spelling the schoolboy: as an Albanian, I knew of course that the spelling was not straightforward, but I couldn’t work out where to put the E.
    TWILIGHT ZONE (doo di doo doo) didn’t mean derelict area for me, so was not an instant write in. I stand educated.
    I associate SHERBET with a drink from Arabian Nights territory: I couldn’t understand when young why Sultans would be sucking fizzy powder through a liquorice straw.
    An additional picky quibble to (dark?) grey and overwed: do wrens fly particularly high?

    Edited at 2014-09-29 07:14 am (UTC)

      1. Teehee!
        I was hoping to appear very erudite by responding with an amused sound a wren might make. Instead I came across this little gem: “Females sing mainly in answer to their mates shortly after pairing up; their songs can include high-pitched squeals unlike any sounds males make.” Well, quite.
    2. “The wren is also known as kuningilin “kinglet” in Old High German, a name associated with the fable of the election of the “king of birds”. The bird who could fly to the highest altitude would be made king. The eagle outflew all other birds, but he was beaten by a small bird who had hidden in his plumage. This fable is already known to Aristotle and Plinius and was taken up by medieval authors such as Johann Geiler von Kaisersberg…”

      I knew all this of course.

  9. I seemed to have had the right mindset today. Chambers seems to be happy with both MOCCASIN and MOCASSIN but of course, one of them will slow you down.
  10. 15:11 … no complaints here. I quite like to see a bit of lateral thinking in the clues.

    I’m certain the puzzles are generally harder under Richard R. but that’s good, even if occasionally depressing for those of us in the peloton.

  11. 29.50. Overwed seems in the convention as a literal mid-clue coinage. All more rather than less traceable, except the evil spelling of the schoolboy.
  12. 19 mins. My time would have been considerably quicker but I spent about 6 mins on the GIRTH/GIDEON crossers at the end because I just couldn’t make sense of either clue until I realised that 21dn was an anagram. Count me as another who thinks that the puzzles have generally been getting harder over the last several months, but some of them have been quality offerings and I enjoyed this one.
  13. I agree that the puzzles are getting rather harder. I wonder if it might be deliberate to create a little differentiation between it and the new quick cryptic offering. Whatever the reason, I greatly welcome it.

    Enjoyed this, despite 18dn which I still don’t quite understand

    Edited to add that 23 seems a very straightforward jocular cryptic def. to me, just as the blogger says: it is not a common black tea, because it is a (noble) grey one..

    Edited at 2014-09-29 09:26 am (UTC)

  14. As everyone else has noted, tough for an Easy Monday, middle of the road for other days of the week (except the occasional Black Friday). Perfectly nice offering, anyway. I only knew the currency as the one word Deutschmark, little realising until I looked it up just now that this was a purely English expression. For years the only sherbet I knew was the one which came from the sweetshop, but these days I know at least one person who suggests we “go out for a few sherbets”, no liquorice involved.
    1. My Canadian other half, now immersed in British ‘culture’, asked me just a few days ago why ‘sherbert’ was slang for an alcoholic drink. I had no idea. Wikipedia isn’t much help, apart from telling me that it’s been around since the late nineteenth century.

      Anyone know?

      1. Not I, nor anyone else that I could find, having wondered exactly the same thing this morning…it’s a bit of a mystery, it seems. I found someone wondering if it’s rhyming slang, “sherbert dip=sip” but nobody is convinced by that, and quite rightly I’d say. Apparently it’s a popular phrase in Australia as well, so one of our Southern solvers may have a better suggestion?
        1. From the Urban Dictionary:

          Sherbet = Australian slang, meaning a beer. Derived from the frothy head of a newly poured glass of beer.

          Or, elsewhere on t’internet:

          ‘Sherbet’ actually comes from the Arabic verb ‘shariba’ meaning ‘to drink’. It has related words in Turkish and Persian. Like most such Middle Eastern words, it was probably brought back to Britain by soldiers serving in the Indian Army during the Raj.

          For what it’s worth…

          Edited at 2014-09-29 06:42 pm (UTC)

          1. Thanks, janie. Not too convinced by the Aussie froth but the Arabic verb … good an explanation as any (I’ll try it out on my other half, see if she buys it — I’m guessing not).
  15. Clearly not on the wavelength for this one as all 3 long anagrams needed the pen/paper treatment, and I lazily put in malefaction for 12D which created problems with the DEUTSCHE MARK.

    My average solving time under RR’s editorship has decreased from RB’s tenure, which on the face of it suggests that (for me) the puzzles have become easier, however I think I’m still improving as a solver so that might be a more relevant factor. RR’s own puzzles usually cause me no end of trouble so it’s been something of a relief that as editor he hasn’t heavily imposed his setting style.

    1. My experience is the same: a lower average solving time overall since RR took over. However my shockingly geeky spreadsheet also confirms a tougher patch over the last couple of months.
      I’m not surprised this convinces people that life has got harder under the new editor: the availability heuristic in action.
  16. 21m. We’re certainly going through a tough patch at the moment, but I’d say it’s a bit soon to ascribe it to the new editor. These things seem to go in cycles, and we had an easy patch over the summer.
    I started quickly on this one, but then got stuck for quite a while in the bottom half.
    Like z8, I think of SHERBET as a powder with a liquorice stick in it.
    25ac took me a while: I know several WYKEHAMISTs: none of them are schoolboys.
      1. No, actually: the Wykehamists I know call themselves Wykehamists.

        Edited at 2014-09-29 09:37 am (UTC)

        1. Poking around the Winchester College site seems to suggest that they themselves call them OWs.
          1. Not the ones I know! And Chambers says ‘a pupil or former pupil’. It seems they use both… or perhaps my friends are an obscure sub-sect of their own…

            Edited at 2014-09-29 04:33 pm (UTC)

  17. We’ve had some excellent puzzles in the last few months but as I’ve been solving them on railway stations and in pubs and cafes, I haven’t been able to comment on them as often as I should have liked. This one took just under half an hour of steady, concentrated, enjoyable solving.

    My only criticism is that I now have a tune going round my head: Tommy Dorsey’s “Shoot the SHERBET to me Herbert”. As I like swing music, this is no great affliction.

  18. 41 minutes, but on review I saw I’d put PRIONESS in 16D so I suppose a technical DNF. I’m not too disappointed as I had parsed the answer, I’d just forgotten to amend the tentative -NESS which I’d put in earlier.

    Also agreed that the standard is generally harder recently which to my mind is a good thing. I much prefer a puzzle which has stretched me.

    My colleague sat just across from me likes to talk of “going for a few sherberts”, so I’m very familiar with it as a reference to drinks rather than Sherbert Dib Dabs or Sherbert Fountains. Thinking back to one of last week’s words I’m fairly sure he’d refer to his house as a “gaff” as well. I’ll keep an eye out for possible continuation of the Cockney slang vein.

  19. A gentle start to the week, taking 27 minutes. Unlike some, I found this easier than some recent Mondays, but it had enough to chew on to make it engaging, though I wasn’t keen on on the indication of DEC in 18 for reasons given above; since a boat travels it’s certainly not limited to the British seasons. Until I solved the clue, for a while I wondered whether ‘committed bigamy’ in 7d might indicate two M’s (married twice). I’ve always seen 17 as DEUTSCHMARK, so that was a surprise.
  20. A very nice point from Jerry regarding Cryptic vs Quiptic, and it may just be so. But to an idiot like me The Times has always been pretty difficult, so I don’t suppose the extra trickiness is making much difference. I wonder what the Ubersolvers make of it all – a difference of a couple of seconds or so?

    An okay puzzle, like others felt MOCCASIN should have been clued due to the variant spelling, but I seem to have survived in 38 minutes.

    Many thanks to all
    CG

  21. 21:19. I got a bit stuck with about 1/3rd left but once unstuck everything else went in very quickly.

    Only yesterday I did a puzzle from February 2010 that had the schoolboy in it but I stil had to think hard about the order of the letters. Like Mohn I also had to write out the letters to unravel apotheosis and Deutsche Mark.

  22. 30 minutes. Thought while solving this that there were some I was making unduly heavy weather of and so it proved. No problem with 23a being a straightforward cryptic. Earl Grey is (or should be) basically a black tea.
  23. “It is hot it is wet
    It is eau de toilette
    Is it Twinings? Is it Tetley? Let me see
    Go ahead make my day
    But please don’t make me drink Earl Grey
    All I want is a proper cup of tea”

    A small snippet from a song that I didn’t write but should have.

    Pretty sure these puzzles are getting harder, also pretty sure that I’m getting dimmer, so my times have been terrible lately. Good puzzle though.

    Thanks setter and blogger.

  24. I was on the wavelength today and thought I might be in for a 20 minute solve. But I got sunk on the spelling of WYKEHAMIST. I didn’t notice that it was a straightforward anagram and thought the “meat” referred to the HAM in the middle. I knew what the answer was but had a letter left over! In future I will always remember that it’s spelt with an E. Anyway, as a result, the SE corner took an extra 5 minutes to unravel. Ann
  25. Thank goodness that so may others have been finding things tough recently: I’m not necessarily slipping. I did not quite finish this as I could not see Prioress – looking for a Port as the definition and did not think to reconsider whether I was right. Never mind, at least I managed the rest slowly but surely.
  26. Yep, I agree, the puzzles are definitely getting harder… finished this one… eventually…
  27. About 30 minutes, ending with WYKEHAMIST. Good thing it was an anagram. Otherwise, I agree with everybody, it seems: The puzzles are feeling marginally harder, the ‘dec’ in SUNDECK is weird, and DEUTSCHE MARK is two words. Thanks to vinyl and regards to all.
  28. 8:53 here, for a pleasant start to the week.

    I find myself taking longer these days, but it’s clearly not entirely down to the puzzles being more difficult since in almost every one of them I find myself missing clues that I really ought to have solved straight off first time – 4dn (EARLY) in today’s being an annoying example.

  29. After a couple of easy-ins, I sat and stared at this one for a very long time without getting anywhere. I came to the conclusion that either this was a real stinker, or I was being an idiot. Fortunately, it turned out to be the latter, and the last 4/5ths of it went in quickly once my other neuron had kicked in. Total time was about 9 Severs.

    Never heard of NAPIER as a place, and spent a long time trying to convince myself that a “ples” was some kind of jetty. WHYKEHAMIST was somewhere in a dusty corner of my memory, but I was sure it was “Whykehamite”, which held me up – showing my Comprehensivite roots. SUN DECK was also one of my LOIs, because I was convinced that the “when” had to be an “as”. I agree, though, with the reasoning that “Dec[ember]” is the time when one would stop using a sun deck.

    GIDEON was obvious once I had the checkers, but I had no idea he was a judge. How he finds the time to leave all those bibles in hotel rooms, I have no idea.

    I was glad to see our blogger’s (to whom, thanks) comment that the overall level of difficulty has been higher of late. I feel I’ve been getting my money’s worth out of the Times recently, a feeling which is enhanced by my custom of stealing other people’s copies. Apparently, the paper also has a news section, which I must investigate.

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