Times 25,392 – Phew! What A Relief

Author   yfyapPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Yesterday, I read the clues twice and could not get started and when I finally managed to squeeze out the last answer, the sun was high in the sky … such was its degree of difficulty to me. It was thus with a great deal of trepidation and apprehension that I approached today’s puzzle which I have to blog. It was such a pleasant surprise to get all the answers rolling off easily in about 30 minutes. Phew!
ACROSS
1 CIVIL LAW Cha of CI (Channel Islands) VILLA (landed property) W (with)
9 ADAM’S ALE Ins of AMS (alternate letters of ALMOST) in A DALE (valley)
10 rha deliberately omitted
11 HITCHING POST A tichy clue which works on being hitched meaning a horse being tied to a post by a stable hand (groom) or a man (groom) about to be married to a woman by a registrar of marriages
13 UTOPIA *(OUT) + ins of I in PA (Pennsylvania, US state) for the book by Thomas More about the ideal place to be
14 UNPOETIC Rev of CITE (name) OP (opus, work) NU (Greek character)
15 TRACHEA Discretion dictates that I leave interpretation of homophone clues to natives
16 GRASS UP *(SUGAR’S Pallet) this term is new to me; meaning to inform on or shop
20 ADJUSTER AD (Rev of District Attorney, lawyer) JUSTER (more just, fairer)
22 PRELIM P (pressure) + rev of MILER (runner)
23 A PIECE OF CAKE Quite self-explanatory term for something easy, a cinch, a pushover, a picnic, a piece of piss, etc
25 ACRE Ins of R (last letter of dinner) in ACE (one)
26 TRANSACT Ins of RANSACK (loot) minus K in T & T (first letters of thieves & temporarily)
27 SCREENED Ins of East & North (or N & E, points on the compass) in SCREED (writing)
DOWN
2 Anagram of TAILORED deliberately omitted
3 IN THE PICTURE I am aware that I can see Tom Cruise in Top Gun
4 LAST NAME LAST (the last is after all others) NAME (call)
5 WASHOUT A washout is the opposite of success
6 CATNIP C (cold) + rev of PINTA (slang for a pint of milk) hairy aromatic perennial herb having whorls of small white purple-spotted flowers in a terminal spike; used in the past as a domestic remedy; strongly attractive to cats
7 DADO DAD (father, pop) O (round) the cubic block forming the body of a pedestal; a deep border of wood along the lower part of the walls of a room, often merely represented by wallpaper or painting, etc.
8 DEATH CAP *(HATED) + CAP (explosive)
12 PRESS RELEASE PRESS (squeeze) RE (on) L (pound) EASE (relief)
15 TEA PARTY Ins of APART (split) in TEY (rev of YET, still)
17 REPEATER RE (Royal Engineers, servicemen) + ins of A in PETER (safe)
18 UNIVERSE Ins of NI VER (rev of REV, minister) IN (during) in USE (service)
19 PROFITS PROF (professor, head of faculty) IT’S (of Information Technology)
21 THEBAN Ins of BA (Bachelore of Arts) in THEN (subsequently) for a citizen of Thebes in Boeotia, in ancient Greece
24 IVAN DIVAN (bed) minus first letter, D
++++++++++++++
Key to abbreviations
dd = double definition
dud = duplicate definition
tichy = tongue-in-cheek type
cd = cryptic definition
rev = reversed or reversal
ins = insertion
cha = charade
ha = hidden answer
*(FODDER) = anagram

27 comments on “Times 25,392 – Phew! What A Relief”

  1. I solved all but four clues in 30 minutes but needed another 13 to complete the grid. The literals were somewhat easier than the wordplay in several cases and I didn’t fathom how PRESS RELEASE worked having taken ‘relief’ to clue the whole second word leaving me with ‘on pound’ surplus to requirements.

    UNPOETIC was my LOI. I think REPEATER may have given more trouble had it not turned up only a couple of days ago.

  2. Undone, as so often, by my carelessness. 22:27 but with IDOLATOR – a rookie mistake (if only I were a rookie).

    Like vinyl1, I thought I had come to the wrong blog when I saw a time from Uncle Yap. Whatever next? Demands from Jimbo for more dead poets?

  3. After 22′, I had everything but 10ac, of all things, which I stared at for another 4 or so before deciding the hell with it. I’m a native, but of the wrong sort, so I hope someone of a British persuasion will explain the homophony involved in TRACHEA. 27ac takes a poor form of clue–“choose among E,N,S,W”–and goes one worse, with 3 E’s of which only one is a ‘point’.
    1. It’s simply TRACH (announcement of line – “track”) + (Aldgat)E + (are)A with ‘tube’ as the definition.

      Edited at 2013-02-07 07:05 am (UTC)

      1. Thanks, Jack. It’s as I suspected, then; but as the US pronunciation is TRAY-kia (and the SOED gives that in addition to truh-KEE-uh [the ‘uh’ being schwa]), I had my doubts.

        Edited at 2013-02-07 07:09 am (UTC)

        1. I often wonder if setters deliberately choose words that have more than one pronounciation when setting homophone clues. They certainly seem to have a penchant for it. I recall “shiek” causing much trouble a while back. Luckily TR-C-E- ending in EA from wordplay couldn’t be much else!
  4. 23 minutes. Back to a more normal level of difficulty. Nothing I didn’t know for a change.
    It took me ages to put in PROFITS: I was sure “head of faculty” was F and couldn’t figure out the wordplay, unsurprisingly.
    Is A PIECE OF CAKE “not much to eat”? Surely it depends on who’s cutting it.
    1. Ah, memories of Billy Bunter on receiving a cake in a parcel from home. “Best keep some for later” he says, cutting out only a tiny slice, and then proceeds to eat the larger portion.
  5. 19 minutes, so quicker than yesterday for what it’s worth, but I enjoyed this one more: more wit and mischief rather than wordy obfuscation.
    Hold ups: LOFT, because the only thing that’s above the (loft) room at the top of my house is the roof;
    TRACHEA, Because I was deceived into trying to work out what the Aldgate area was, and thinking how unfair that was to those who know not London – the homophone works for me;
    REPEATER, because I know “safe” is always “peter” but I was looking for service(clergy)men beginning with R;
    LAST NAME, because having just put in HITCHING POST, I thought it was the (bugle) call LAST POST and smith is a job like many others.
    CoD to HITCHING POST: a neat piece of credible prose with that touch of wit and mischief.

    Edited at 2013-02-07 09:14 am (UTC)

  6. Thank you, Uncle Yap. Your title and intro say it all! I’ve found a number of recent challenges far too tough and, having been notified that my club subscription isn’t being renewed because my credit card had expired, I was beginning to wonder whether to bother to update my details …. Maybe, after today, I will.
  7. I found this a bit of a 25 minute struggle, never seeming to quite gel with the setter. Looking back I can’t see anything too difficult so just an off day for me I suspect.

    I enjoyed UY’s description of meandering all over the place whilst solving and extracting maximum pleasure from the puzzle. Very much my own attitude although somewhat tempered these days.

  8. 14:14 for a really entertaining puzzle. Top quality surfaces, among which I thought 15dn was particularly clever.
  9. Not knowing much about theatrical history, I guessed that Loot came after Room at the Top. Accordingly I entered this, thinking that wordplay might give TOOL reversed somehow.
    Agree with HITCHING POST as CoD.

    Edited at 2013-02-07 11:19 am (UTC)

  10. Found this 23A compared to yesterday’s puzzle. My only major hold-ups were with Unpoetic (needed all the checkers), Universe (took a while to parse) and LOI Acre where I didn’t think of Ace = one for far too long.
    Trachea works fine for me and I thought that was a super clue – so too Transact.
    24D raised a smile because my Bulgarian colleague’s called Ivan.
  11. The homophone is a suicidal ploy, IMHO: too many subtle variations in pronunciation, and some VERY aggrieved regional speakers popping in from time to time on the various crosswording blogs to air what needs airing. But still, a pretty good puzzle, if easy. Especially when compared with yesterday’s verbose number.

    28 minutes with bacon sandwich. Thanks setter, and Uncle Yap.

    Chris.

  12. Another excellent puzzle, if slightly easier than some recent offerings. About an hour for me. It should have been faster, but I got bogged down in the SW corner for no very good reason. 11 ac – HITCHING POST – was a wonderful surface read. With all due respect to the homonymphobes, I also liked TRACHEA. This is, after all, a British puzzle and I don’t think the setter can reasonably be expected to make allowance for every variety of English pronunciation external to these islands. TEA PARTY also a top-notch clue. Thanks to blogger and setter.
  13. 59.40 so on the hard side for me – I was fairly steady until I hit the SW corner which took a good 15m to tease out; afterwards it is as always hard to see why. I liked 23a even if this wasn’t for me.
  14. Was determined to finish this one after yesterday’s, and I did, but it took quite a long time (I too don’t give timings… would be FAR too embarrassing…!), and I still managed to get one wrong: the unknown port of ACRE (which I should have got).

    Ended with TRANSACT. Managed to get REPEATER easily, having learnt of this firearm from the recent puzzle. Now the challenge is to use it out of Crosswordland…

  15. Nice puzzle, about 45 minutes for me, LOI TRACHEA, because I had been misreading the clue and trying to think of a UK place name. I liked UTOPIA. Regards.
  16. Came to this at 22.00 after a long busy day elsewhere, surprised to finish it in 17 minutes (I’m usually slower in the evenings), an enjoyable puzzle with no dodgy bits and some amusing clues, well done Mr Setter. Special double (triple?) congrats to the surface of 15 ac as Aldgate Tube station was closed some years ago.
  17. I finished this in one sitting, but didn’t grab a time. Didn’t help myself by putting in ON THE HORIZON for 3 (second read through of the acrosses found CIVIL LAW and I saw the mistake). TRACHEA and UNIVERSE from definition, DADO from wordplay.
  18. If people are even now complaining about the “trach” in “trachea” not sounding like “track” then perhaps the homophone clue really has had its day.
    But then again, I’ve never really understood why some folk get so hot under the choler about such things …

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