Times Crossword 25,607

Author   JerryWPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving Time: 18 minutes, so roughly average; nothing here to detain the speed merchants, but not too easy either. Enjoyable…

cd = cryptic definition, dd = double definition, rev = reversed, anagrams are *(–), homophones indicated in “”

ODO means the Oxford Dictionaries Online

Across

1 swansong – a cd, trumpeter swans being one of the more graceful bird species, as well as one of the largest
5 robust – SUB rev., in ROT. A sub is what all press employees apparently are in crosswordland, if they are not eds, or (occasionally) hacks
9 puppetry – unless I’m missing something, just a cd. A reference to (eg) Sooty, as opposed to Lady Penelope
10 shrill – S + HuRt + ILL
12 old as the hills – another cd? Fells and downs being hills
15 Timor – TIMOR(O US). Timor is one of the Sunda Islands, north of Australia
16 microbial – mug = ROB in *(I CLAIM)
17 vineyards – *(Y + INVADERS). I always think of tea or coffee ‘plantations’ but there are other types of course
19 Chile – = “CHILLI.” I thought “This country” must mean England, but no..
20 tantalisingly – TA + *(LATIN) + SINGLY. One of my early wins and helpful in getting a good start on the bottom half of the grid
22 craven – C(HICKEN) + RAVEN
23 anisette – A + NI + SETTE(R). Anisette is a loathsome drink (to me), not to be confused with the similar drink pastis, equally loathsome
25 breast – A(RMADA) in BREST
26 odontoid – lecturer = DON in books = OT + O + ID (papers)

Down

1 supportive – ahead = UP in SPORT + this writer’s = I’VE
2 amp – A + MP, a member (of parliament)
3 Spenser – (DI)SPENSER. Not a hard clue for anyone who does (eg) the Mephisto, since they are peppered with words only ever used by Edmund Spenser. The man appeared to write in a private language, as I suppose everyone did in the 16thC. He is regarded as one of England’s greatest poets, but when I tried reading the Faerie Queen I didn’t get far 🙂
4 Northumbrian – Old PM = (Lord) NORTH, + UMBRIAN. Morpeth is the county town of Northumberland
6 Othello – OT + HELLO. I wondered about the “in” but I suppose an OT hello would be “in” the OT..
7 uninspiring – character upset = NU, rev., + one = I in IN SPRING. The full parsing passed me by when solving!
8 tell – a reference to William Tell, a romanticised 15thC Swiss assassin
11 thick-skinned – THICK (as thieves) + K(ING) in SINNED. What Internet surfers should be but seldom are
13 demonstrate – skilful performer = DEMON + “STRAIGHT.” Not a word I would ever use in that sort of context but some do, it seems
14 sleepyhead – *(HES A DEEPLY). What I am, it being 1.15am now
18 Yonkers – extended period = YONKS with our own dear queen ER inside. I always thought Yonkers was a suburb of New York, as indeed it is but it turns out it is also a city in its own right. Where Ella Fitzgerald came from..
19 crimson – “A lot of wrongdoing” = CRIM(E), + SON
21 scab – method of payment = BACS, rev. Bacs is a surprisingly frequent visitor to crosswordland, for a relatively obscure automated payments system.
24 too – sounds like TWO, which company is..

Author: JerryW

I love The Times crosswords..

54 comments on “Times Crossword 25,607”

  1. So almost as easy as yesterday’s. (Anything under 20 is a good time for me.) Quite a lot of giveaways here; e.g., the insta-gram at 14dn which was still a good clue for all that. Not impressed with the PUPPETRY cd*; and have scratched to find any wordplay at all in 12ac and so must confine it, along with Jerry, to the pun-type cd wastebin too.

    * Keep your little and ring fingers down. Wiggle the remaining two + thumb. What have you got?

    COD must go to the NI SETTE(r) at 23ac. I’d forgotten about the Bangor in County Down. But the Wik gives us this interesting set of facts:

    “In September 2012 the World Pogo Championships were hosted at the Bangor marina. Competitors from 17 countries participated in this lighthearted event which was taken seriously by the various international teams. The course involved several ‘jump’ features taking into use parts of the marina and harbour. Several competitors did have to be rescued by divers who were on hand for unlucky participants who missed their landings and ended up in the harbour. The event was won by the team from Poland and they graciously presented the winning ‘stick’ to the Ulster Folk museum at Cultra to add to their collection from Comber inventor of the pogo stick Archibald Springer”.

    Edited at 2013-10-16 12:47 am (UTC)

  2. A gentle 25 minutes. My Ancient History teacher came from Morpeth. One of his fellow beaks used to tell the story of his father, who was a local councillor. When the idea of installing cat’s-eyes on the raod from Morpeth to Ashington was mooted in the 70s, the man is said to have said, “All very well, but who will pay for the electricity?”
  3. Around 35 minutes. A couple of unknowns, ODONTOID and MICROBIAL but the wordplay in each case was clear and steered me to the correct answers. William Tell’s second appearance within a few days.
  4. You tell ’em, Vinyl! Spenser rocks! I speculated here the last time he showed up here that I was the only person I knew outside of literature departments that has actually re-read the FQ. That didn’t help me parse the clue, though; I needed Jerry’s help for that. SWANSONG took me a while because, as often happens with these puzzles, I was misled by the enumeration; for me it’s two words.
    1. Only reason I got it/him was because we had “dispenser” as CH{e}MIST in the SCOTCH MIST clue this time last week!
  5. 18.38, so roughly average, apparently. I thought this was going to be tricky when the early clues didn’t do much (what do elephants do when they die? How can I get SET UP in id?) but it settled down after a while and solved pretty smoothly.
    The only word that I knew that fitted the checkers at 26 was EDENTOID, which I didn’t put in because it means roughly the opposite of the definition, and doesn’t have an L for Lecturer in it. It also suffers from non-existence. ODONTOID was my last in.
    I nearly had CHIVE at 21a, reasoning that it was pungent and the rest of the clue could go hang, including the bit about the UK. If CHIVE can be counted as leaves, why not pod? Light dawned.
    Same query over YONKERS as above, but reasoned that practically any collection of shacks in the US can describe itself as a city just so it can have a City Hall that you can’t fight. Yonkers has quite a nice one.
    I’ll allow the HILLS clue as a semi cryptic, I think, partly because while solving I didn’t get that fell (and) down bit.
    Bangor for me is in N Wales. My daughter lived there for a while, being studiously ignored by the Welsh for not speaking their version of Welsh.

    Edited at 2013-10-16 06:49 am (UTC)


  6. All in 30mins except ROBUST… then I got it, and realised that ‘pull’ at 8dn had to be wrong. Was also a little unsure as to how the first four letters of UNINSPIRING worked, so that added to my hesitation.

    Didn’t know about the BANGOR in County Down, nor that YONKERS can be referred to as a city.

  7. No hold-ups, just a gentle progression ending up in the NE corner .

    When I wrote in 22A, my mind saw ‘chicken-hearted’ as C followed by RAVEN but of course, jerry’s version is correct.

    I agree that BACS is a good word for a solver to have up his/her sleeve as it gets more than its fair share of exposure.

  8. 20 minutes for an essentially easy puzzle that I solved steadily top to bottom

    I don’t understand the second half of 12A. How does “fell down for example” relate to the answer other than “fell” and “down” each meaning “hill”? I thought the Bangor at 23A was a bit naughty because the Welsh one is much better known and there are plenty of other NI locations to pick from

    I didn’t know about YONKERS but SPENSER was a gift. Having studied his strange vocab extensively I shall not be trying to read his works

    1. I don’t quite understand your difficulty with 12A, Jimbo. Surely, it is as you say – that “fell” and “down” are examples of “hills”, with the added idea that “one standing for a very long time” might in the end get tired and fall down.
    2. When I did the blog I thought of describing it as a triple def., which in a way it is – a thing standing a very long time, or a fell, or a down.. it certainly seems a fair clue to me, the comma after fell presumably being deliberately left out to mislead.
    3. Wales has two Bangors, of course. I had always assumed that the seaside resort was also the same place as the racecourse, until I ran past the latter one day!
  9. Some of this puzzle was on the easy side, but some tricky stuff too. Thanks to Jerry for explaining SUPPORTIVE and UNINSPIRING, which I entered without being able to parse fully. I always associate Bangor with Wales, which complicated matters at 23A
    1. Surely you recall the 70s song ‘Didn’t we have a lovely time, the day we crossed the Irish Sea and went to Bangor’

      Edited at 2013-10-16 12:06 pm (UTC)

      1. I remember it well. However, I think your dog may have given you a little nip, as you’ve dreamt up the bit about the Irish Sea, and the group themselves, Fiddler’s Dram, say the ditty is about Bangor in Wales…but only because Rhyl wouldn’t scan.

        And since everyone will be gagging for it now, here it is: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T8WiPy1xSkw

        Vintage.

        Incidentally, if memory serves, the B in NI is pronounced without the ‘g’, like banger as in bangers ‘n’ mash.

        Edited at 2013-10-16 02:23 pm (UTC)

        1. ulaca, perhaps I should have put a smily at the end of my comment :-)) By the way, as in the classic Clouseau sketch, my dog does not bite.
            1. No dog licences needed in UK! Because he does not bite he part-times as a ‘pat dog’ at the retirement home which houses my mothe-in-law where he roams at large and is stroked by everyone, in the sure and certain knowledge that he will not snap back. As a breed, Border Collies are the near Einsteins of dogs.
              1. Sounds as if he should be doing the crossword. Now, of course, if you had a monkey, you would need a lee-sens, non?
        2. No I;ve never heard Bangor Co Down pronounced “Banger” unless carelessly.
          The “Fiddlers’ Dram record is definitely about the Welse seadide resort as opposed to the Irish one. There’s a third Bangor as well of course, where the racecourse is
      2. I’m afraid I didn’t know this song, Bigtone, but I should have done, and I do now, thanks to Ulaca.
  10. 7m. Can we have three like this on Saturday please?
    Add me to the Spenser fan club. I didn’t exactly make the most of my time at university from an academic perspective, but unlike some I did at least make sure I read all the books. This included the whole of The Faerie Queene and I enjoyed it enormously. I also read Clarissa cover to cover. That was a bit more of a chore.
    I didn’t know Yonkers was a city. It always reminds me of Death of a Salesman. It was our school play when I was about 17. We tried to put on American accents: it must have been hilarious.
    1. Thinking back to school plays, I’m incredibly grateful that camera phones and YouTube hadn’t been invented.
      1. Indeed. It’s not just plays: when I think back on the most stupid things I’ve done I take great comfort from the fact that I did most of them before the age of social media.
  11. 28/28 today with FOI Amp and LOI Chile.
    Needed the wordplay to get Odontoid.
    Thought Demonstrate and particularly Crimson were very good.
  12. 22 mins for a puzzle that I didn’t find as easy as some of you seem to have done, so I’ll put it down to a wavelength problem.

    I struggled most in the NW and PUPPETRY was my LOI. That is a clue which should have been a write-in but I thought there was more going on than there actually was.

  13. I think I’d always assumed that the Fiddler’s Dram Bangor was the (Northern) Irish one, but it seems that too was the Welsh one. Unless of course someone here knows different.
    1. The writer of the song, Debbie Cook, is quoted as

      “Cook, when interviewed for the BBC Radio 4 documentary, broadcast on 29 September 2011, said the song was “absolutely yes” about the Bangor in Wales. She said, “I was so ignorant at the time that I didn’t know that any other Bangor existed, so it was categorically this Bangor, and it was Bangor because it scanned and for no other reason than that. And it was the only place I knew along the north Wales coast.” “

      Edited at 2013-10-16 11:55 am (UTC)

  14. 14:04 .. a lot of write-ins. Last in SUPPORTIVE and SWANSONG (which is very nice).

    I don’t entirely get the clue for OLD AS THE HILLS, either. Is the surface even a sentence? I feel like I’m missing something.

    1. Hi Sotira. I don’t think you’re missing anything. I think it’s just a rubbish clue. The explanations given above by Mike and Jerry don’t really help. The answer is OLD AS the hills. What have “fell” and “down” got to do with the whole phrase?

      Edited at 2013-10-16 11:30 am (UTC)

  15. An enjoyable solve this morning with nothing too outrageous and 4dn, my FOI, bringing back memories of an Italian holiday 15 years ago. 25ac had me thinking of the Siege of Toulon and Abel Gance’s superb Napoleon. Apart from the forays into nostalgia, wasted time looking for an anagram of “Latin one by one” until suddenly realised I’d ignored the volunteers. Also nicely misdirected by 1dn, wanting it to start with I’m. Ended up in the NW corner, with Swansong my LOI.

    Edited at 2013-10-16 11:34 am (UTC)

      1. First one – working on the theory of ‘less time to be terrified’ ‘more time in the pub’ 🙂 Which one are you in?
        1. First as well, solely on the ‘more time in pub’ basis. The danger for you, of course, is that you’ll qualify for the final and have to spend all that time in the pub not drinking.
          1. Next time you see Pete B, ask him to tell you the story of the chap who had an arch rival he could never quite beat in the Champs and whom he decided to shadow and copy one year, including drinking what his nemesis did in the bar between rounds …
  17. 14:09 which now looks slow looking at Keriothe’s blistering time.

    Jerry, I’d hardly call BACS relatively obscure. Most compnaies use it for payroll and supplier payments.

    I’m firmly in the camp that says that 12 just doesn’t work. I also rather like aniseed-flavoured drinks and have heard of both Bangors.

  18. Around 40m here but didn’t get ANISETTE so a DNF. Enjoyable if a mixture of the very obvious such as 14d and the less obvious. I like this mixture as it means I don’t stare at a blank grid for 15m feeling useless!
  20. 21 min. This would have been an outstanding personal best of 14 min if I hadn’t got stuck for the last 7 convinced that 19d had to end in SIN.
    I heard somewhere that “Didn’t we have a lovely time” was inspired by Rill (also in N. Wales), but this was changed to Bangor because it didn’t scan.
  21. My first thought was the NI town as I used to visit there as a child with my father and watch the fishermen landing their dogfish at the harbour.
    Roger Miller introduced most of us to Bangor ME and as far as I can see the US is positively awash with them e.g Michigan, Cal, Alabama and Alaska to name a few…cant’ get any of them to parse though!
  22. 21.55. Don’t see the problem with 12. Fell and down are examples of one standing for etc. Rather neat. The clue isn’t a true sentence but neither is say 3; not required. Back from work and a bit of a 14 so OK with the time.
  23. A nice gentle Friday puzzle for me, with any uncommon words, such as ‘odontoid’ being readily inferred from the wordplay.
    Very best wishes to everyone taking part in the Championship: I have not entered since the demise of the regional events which I used to enjoy greatly. The atmosphere was always friendly, as was the rivalry.
    George Clements
  24. About 15 minutes, ending with SWANSONG, and made easier by the fact that I grew up in Yonkers. My parents still live in the house. While I appreciate the exchanges about the Bangor song, please remember that the song “I’ll Take Manhattan” includes the memorable (to some) lyric: “We’ll go to Yonkers, where true love conquers, in the wilds”. I could regale you all with additional Yonkers trivia, but I’ll refrain if you’ll all temper the ‘collection of shacks’ comments. Just one last one: the Yonkers City Hall, as featured in Z8’s post, was used as the New York City Hall in a dance scene from the film Hello Dolly!, starring Barbra Streisand, so some of you might have actually seen it before. Regards to all.
  25. 6:23 for me – a great relief after the last few days. I wouldn’t mind three of those on Saturday either, but I’m generally slower solving on paper (and suffer badly from nerves!) so would probably be overtaken by keriothe and crypticsue in the first preliminary. (See you there, guys.)

    I’m among those not entirely convinced by 12ac, but perhaps we’re all missing something subtle.

  26. Well, that was nice, wasn’t it? 15 minutes in and just getting into my stride when advised of the imminent arrival of a concussed cyclist with suspected spinal issues. Patients really do ruin the smooth running of A&E. Still, picked up the threads and took a stab in the dark with “anisette” on the grounds that French are exactly the type of people who would stoop to combining alcohol and aniseed. Note to self: buy a cycle helmet, or wear a Volvo during journey to work.
  27. Sorry if I confused anyone else by getting my days muddled. I hope this is not an ominous sign of worse to come.
    George Clements

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