New blog – Times Literary Supplement – TLS 817

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Announcement
The TLS puzzle is the only one on the Times Crossword Club site that we’ve never blogged (except for the Listener, which is blogged elsewhere). Well, I’m happy to announce that that’s about to change, as myself and Tony Sever have decided to take up the challenge, blogging in alternate weeks.

If you’ve never tried it, I should tell you that it’s a mixture of fairly easy cryptic clues and arts/literature general knowledge, some of which can be quite obscure. Still, there’s plenty of time for research as entries are opened three weeks after publication, with the solution published a week after that. So, the first one I’m covering is from Jan 22nd. Luckily for me as the pioneer blogger, this was probably the easiest TLS puzzle I’ve ever solved, and I’ve been doing them regularly for about 3 years. I only needed solving aids for a couple of clues (which I’d have guessed right anyway), and the whole thing took maybe 20 minutes. By comparison, the previous week took a couple of hours, needed aids when it was less than half full, and I had one unsolved and one right but unexplained.

Across
1 HERCULE POIROT – from the Agatha Christie novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Captain Hastings first appeared in this book.
9 REDACTION – RED + ACTION
10 PIETA – first letters of Painter Into Early Trecento Art.
11 AGREE – hidden in “hAG RE-Entering”. The Scottish play has nothing to do with it other than to keep a literary surface reading. That sort of thing happens a lot.
12 IRAS – R.A. inside IS. Cleopatra’s faithful attendant. Easy to get from the wordplay, but I had a job tracking him down on Google for confirmation.
13 EERY – E’ER + (da)Y
15 DICTION – adding AD gives ADDICTION.
17 ASHANTI – ASH (Action on Smoking and Health, the anti-smoking organization) + ANTI.
18 EDUCATE – in the play Educating Rita by Willy Russell, Rita is educated by Frank Bryant.
20 JERROLD – at first I thought the answer would be MAUGHAM, as he wrote Cakes and Ale in 1930, but I already had the O from 7D. Then I found out that it was supposed to be about Thomas Hardy and Hugh WALPOLE, so I stuck him in, but then got the R from 14D. It’s actually an essay collection from 1846 by Douglas William Jerrold (never heard of him), so it’s a straight definition that’s still misleading. One of those I had to look up.
21 NICE – Nice Work, a 1988 novel by David Lodge.
22 SCAM – hidden in AnnaleS CAMbriae, which is actually a Welsh and Latin manuscript from the 10th century.
23 ELMER – Elmer Rice, American playwright, wrote the play On Trial in 1914. Guessed this one, but had to look him up as I’d never heard of him.
26 EDICT – (cited)*. *gasp* An indirect anagram, the most heinous of anti-Ximenean crimes. Also one of the easiest clues in the puzzle, so it’s hard to get too upset over it!
27 ROSINANTE – “A mount”, but it was the name of Don Quixote’s horse rather than his squire’s donkey, whose name was Rucio.
28 LE MISANTHROPE – A play by Molière, whose real name was Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, a fact that’s stuck with me since my French A-level nearly 30 years ago!

Down
1 HERO AND LEANDER – 1819 poem about the Greek myth by Leigh Hunt. Leander swam across the Hellespont (now the Dardanelles) to be with his lover Hero.
2 RYDER – Charles Ryder, one of the main protagonists of Brideshead Revisited.
3 UNCLE SILAS – (uses call in)*. 1865 novel by J. Sheridan Le Fanu, also been known to make the odd appearance in the daily Times Crossword.
4 ELISION – (lionise)*
5 OMNIANA – OMNI + AN + A
6 ROPE – double def, including the name of a 1929 play by Patrick Hamilton.
7 THEREUNTO – old (hence Biblical) word for “to that place”
8 LADY WINDERMERE – Ellen Douglas is the eponymous Lady of the Lake in the poem by Sir Walter Scott.
14 THIRTEENTH – The Thirteenth Emperor, poetry collection by Sacheverell Sitwell.
16 CHURCHILL – double definition. Winston had a tank named after him, but I’m guessing the war correspondent may have been his son Randolph.
19 ENCORES – hidden in PoulENC (ORESteia). Unfortunately it was an opera by Sergei Taneyev, not Francis Poulenc. Could’ve been a great &lit otherwise.
20 JAMESON – Storm Jameson, English novelist. I’ve never read any of her books, but for some reason I’d always assumed it was a man.
24 MUNRO – double def. H. H. Munro, aka Saki, and a term for a Scottish mountain over 3000 feet high.
25 ATOM – The Mighty Atom, 1896 novel by Marie Corelli

8 comments on “New blog – Times Literary Supplement – TLS 817”

  1. Great blog, Andy. I only hope I can do somewhere near as well next week.

    12:17 for me, with 1 mistake. I had a feeling that there was an author whose name was something like JARROLD or JERROLD who would fit 20A, but I plumped for the former (perhaps subliminally influenced by the relationship between “ale” and JAR). Annoyingly when I looked him up after I’d finished, I found that I had heard of him as the author of Mrs Caudle’s Curtain Lectures. I’d put in MAUGHAM first time through, but felt it was perhaps a bit obvious.

    I seem to remember that Elmer Rice used to come up occasionally in the daily cryptic as the author of The Adding Machine.

    I wasn’t sure which MUNRO was the novelist referred to at 24D. I thought Alice was perhaps the most likely, but I think there are other possibilities besides her and Saki.

    One minor quibble: in 12A, I think IRAS is a her rather than a him.

    I agree with you about the previous week’s puzzle, which I found extremely tough, and in fact at the end of the 30 minutes I’d allowed myself (following the old Championship time limit) I’d solved only 12 of the 29 clues correctly. But I did finish it correctly once I had recourse to reference books, and I think I can explain all the answers.

    1. I had another look at 816 – the one I didn’t get was AGNAME (should have really, I’ve come across the word before), and the one I couldn’t explain was DAVENANT. I put him in as the only poet laureate who fit, but what’s the rest of the clue about?
      1. The rest of the clue refers to the Cockpit Theatre where Davenant put on operas and plays. The word “opened” seems questionable, but (with Thomas Killigrew) he reopened the theatre for plays after the Restoration, so I suppose that’s what the setter is getting at.
  2. I forgot to say that Winston Churchill was a war correspondent for the Morning Post in the (Second) Boer War.
  3. I’d never even looked at the TLS puzzle before, but found it very enjoyable – so thanks to both of prompting me to give it a try.

    I couldn’t finish, being undone by my not knowing JERROLD and not being able to bring Jameson to mind. I’d also pencilled in ‘Maugham’.

    Good to try a puzzle that comes from a different direction, and I think I’ll stick with it. I was looking for something to solve at weekends now that I’ve given up on the ST. Thanks again, for the steer and the blog.

  4. You may have two converts.. I too dislike the ST cryptic (today’s seems to have the wrong grid 🙁 ) so I will poodle off and have a go at the TLS crossword 818, instead. Don’t think I can wait three weeks for enlightenment!

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