The Times Cryptic Crossword Number: 24126

46 comments on “The Times Cryptic Crossword Number: 24126”

1. Like you, I started off with the 15’s and got 3 of the 4 in quick succession, then plodded without inspiration around the bottom half until coming to a grinding halt in the top half, not helped by putting SNITCH at 6 (snit = resentment, what’s wrong with that?). There followed a succession of Doh! rather than Ah! Ha! moments. Last in was 14, even though I knew it started with a K and ended with IND, I couldn’t make the stamp connection, in spite of 13D. (strain = song = lied. Hmm, doesn’t start with a K…). See what happens when you complain about definitions being too easy. Also struggled with definition at 21, without thinking of “a damn sight …”.

   All up about an hour. Liked 1A and 4D in the end.

   1. Sorry, I meant 5D. 4D troubled me.
2. At 4D a tree is something you put into a shoe to keep its shape and a box is a type of tree. At 21D Chambers gives sight=a great many.

   Foggy, you appear to have small elements of HTML code at the end of some lines (6A for example). That may be giving you the large spaces.

   An easy puzzle, about 25 minutes to solve. I think fire and water are “old” elements and should be signed as such. Not keen on “play” as the definition for CORIOLANUS. No really good clues for me.

   1. Not sure why ‘PLAY’ is a bad clue for Coriolanus. Would it also be for KING LEAR or HAMLET?
      1. Not so much bad as boring and unimaginative. The play is overworked in crosswords (see also Peter B below) but if it’s going to be used surely a setter can come up with something better than “play”
   2. Thanks for spotting the extra code – should be sorted now.
3. I’m on holiday so this was done between various household chores.

   I was also delayed for a while by having SNITCH at 6dn (which I also think is perfectly feasible).

   I’m not convinced by PALELY = indistinctly. I have always supposed that the loitering knight-at-arms was pale of face, not indistinct.

4. I started off very quickly and just wrote in answers for the first 5 minutes but then I hit some problems especially in the RH corner and ended up spending an hour on it. Very disappointing after a promising start.

   I also had SNITCH which I think is actually a better answer, but certainly as good. How exactly does “Show resentment” or “resentment” = SOUR?

   1. I think SOURCE is fine – a sour comment is one showing resentment. COED has “showing resentment”. In most cases where an alternative answer is suggested one is clearly preferable, but in this case I think either is equally good.
      1. “showing resentment” is definitely sour, but it would have to be snitty. Alternatively, the answer is showing “resentment”, in which case it would have to be snittiness. I think snit loses out on both counts, although I agree it is a better answer.
         1. You are correct. This shows the importance of maintaining strictly Ximenean standards. If sloppy clues are allowed, this could be either ‘snitch’ or ‘source’. If sloppy clues are not allowed, this could only be ‘source’.

            Fortunately, I got ‘cottage industry’ first – in fact, 6 down was the last to go in for me. I rechecked ‘cottage industry’ most carefully against the cryptic, and then came up with the correct answer for 6.

5. About 30 minutes: I didn’t find this as easy as others who have already commented, despite having got three of the four 15s (except COTTAGE INDUSTRY) very early.

   Disagree with you, Jimbo, about cluing FIRE and WATER as ‘old’ elements – that would be just too easy, but agree that ‘play’ is very lame as a clue for CORIOLANUS…

   Neil

   1. I think we could do better than just saying “old elements”. I’m no great shakes as a clue writer but say “Some of Plato’s essentials for making strong liquor….”. My point is that air, fire, etc went out as elements when Geber came along – and that’s a long time ago.
      1. It’s a fair point, but if we demanded precision then a lot of setters would be out of business.

         We all have our pet hates, if I encounter another jazz ‘cat’ or piece of minor public school slang then it will be too soon.

         Now, as for unimportant figures like Geber…

         Neil

6. I’d like to check that one of the across answers is FIRE-WALKER. It seems strange to have that and FIRE-WATER in the same puzzle, but I can’t think of anything else.
   1. Yes, FIRE-WALKER. And agreed odd to see both it and FIRE-WATER in the same puzzle.
      1. Thanks for that. No reason why we can’t have both of course. And indeed as soon as I saw it the NINA-hunter in me started looking in the grid for other examples of nearly similar phrases!
7. After 45 minutes I had 5 and 11 to do and could think of nothing for either. I thought 11 was something contained by BE and that the last word was EYE but that triggered nothing. I’m not sure that I’d have written BLACK EYE even if it had occurred to me, since I don’t recognise the definition. No problems with the clue for SOURCE (though I did have a tentative SNITCH at first). As for the definition in 12, I don’t see anything wrong with it, but wouldn’t the surface be better without the indefinite article?

   And re foggyweb’s comment on “a great many” for SIGHT, that is how it’s defined in Chambers. “A sight more showed up” is equivalent to “a great many more showed up”.

   Mondays are definitely trickier these days

   1. Er, the indefinite article in 12 is needed for the anagram, isn’t it?
      1. Oops. Wasn’t thinking straight.
8. 16:38 but should have been quicker. Rattled through a lot quite quickly including 3 of the 15s (for me it was the Simple Minds song at 23 that came later) but with a few question marks here and there where I’d put in answers without full understanding (didn’t know cotta or mouse = black eye, couldn’t see why ace = honour [now believe it’s an honour card] and wasn’t sure how sight = many).

   Last two in were kind (still don’t get it) and tree.

   I’m going to give a quibble point for “loose” definitions dotted all over such as prsentation/statement, care for shoes, to a fault (I get the intention but can’t apply the substitution rule),scrap = particle and the previously homed-in-on palely.

   Q-1, E-6, D-5

   1. stamp=kind (of his stamp, of his kind) and K=king’s head + IND=India
9. 24:07 .. Tricky, and a few clues hit the woodwork and came back while only one for me – RINGLEADER – really bulged the back of the old onion bag (guess who watched a lot of Setanta this weekend).

   Jimbo’s right, of course, about the elements, but it still led to a nice penny-drop moment, as did the fire-walker. I’d probably give a yellow card to TREE for a tortured definition, and maybe have a quiet word with PALELY (not least ‘cos it’s so hard to pronounce).

   Also not sure about KIND. Is it really K,IND(ia)? That seems almost too simple.

   I like paired clues when they’re compelling and grow out of the content. 1a and 6a are a nice, coherent move. But 13d and 14a are a speculative, thirty-yard shot that ends up in row Z (am I overdoing it yet?).

   Q-1 (cumulative niggles), E-7, D-7.5 .. COD 5d RINGLEADER

   1. It was thanks to 13 that I got 14, so I’m not going to boggle at it. The clue for 14 was tricky just because it was simple, but once you have what the definition is from 13 you can eliminate many possibilities.
   2. KIND: {Ind = India} is in both Collins and COED, though for different reasons – a poetic name for India in Collins, an abbrev. for it in Oxford.
10. An odd one here – about half an hour or less, which puts it one the easy side, but I finished without untangling the wordplay for lots of these, working just off the definitions. Luckily, as it happened, with 9ac, and a couple of others, where the wordplay looked much harder than the fairly straightforward definitions! Did anyone else question ‘supply’ as anagram ind. in 3d?
    1. Think supple
       1. Groans!

          (Thanks!)

11. About two hours, on and off, while watching the last half of the Sony Open.

    It took me a long time to get the long ones, not sure why. I thought it was going to be easy when I put in 1 across and 1 down immediately, then 3 and 10.

    I was puzzled for a long time by 4, but unlike others here I thought it was a good clue and very fair – taking ‘care’ as a noun.

    1. I took tree as a verb in this case. I guessed that it is what you do to a shoe on a shoetree and now I’m home, my dictionary tells me tree=to shape or stretch on a shoetree.
12. A lovely simple start to the week with several answers dropping straight in. I was a bit perplexed by Tree at the end but also agree with comments about Kind etc. Altogther a nice opuzzle but as with Dorset jimbo no fabulous clues…
13. I think you are all overlooking 17 across on account of the fact that it’s the second occurrence of FIRE – the idea of a fakir picking up hot coals as he walks is delicious
14. Solving time 8:58

    No trouble with SNITCH/SOURCE as too slow to see anything excepct church = CH or CE until some checkers helped. Don’t agree with Jimbo about the old elements, especially with “strong liquour (4-5)” to help. Coriolanus should be parked in the “overused Shak. plays” holding zone for a while with Titus A. Overlooked good clues: 6A, 16, 3, 15, 21 as well as 21.

    1. Isn’t 15 a bit of a chestnut?
       1. Not enough for me to notice. I’m sure P+ARTICLE is a well-used pair of charade elements but I hope there’s been some variation in the wordplay chunks that provide each part.

          One day, someone with time on their hands might set up at Times equivalent of xwordinfo.com, where you can find out how many times each answer word has appeared, and even see all the different clues used for it – here are the combined NYT constructors on that old favourite ERATO. Until then, we’ll have to rely on collective memory about chestnut clues and answers.

15. 11.20. I had a lot of trouble getting past SNITCH which seemed simply too good to be wrong.
    1. See discussion above. There is no way ‘snit’ can be equivalent to either ‘showing resentment’ or ‘resentment’. Since it is a noun, only the second is possible, and a ‘snit’ is the result of resentment, not resentment itself.
16. Hopefully this should come up as a ‘live journal’ account though given my record with these things I am not betting on it.
    7.09 today. Got a good start with 1a/1d and the big ones came immedately. Only delay was with BLACKEYE/RINGLEADER. The latter was my COD. I also misread county as country in 20 at first and wanted 6d to be squeal for no good reason.
    JohnPMarshall
    1. Now all we need is a picture!
       1. That’s my next challenge, Ross!
17. Spent about 90 minutes on this – but got a few wrong. Enjoyed 10 across the most. Being able to get 3 of the 4 15 letter clues early on helped.
    Fran L-P
18. 36 min. Seem to have had a similar ride to everyone else. Went the “snitch” route, which fouled up “cottage industry”. Was unimpressed and thus reluctant with “kind”, and gave up on 4 dn so went and made coffee before the light dawned. Should have been ca 20 min. Does anyone else dislike the rather common con = prisoner? Yes he can be a prisoner, but is still a con after release.
    1. I don’t have a problem with “prisoner”. COED has, for convict (which is all that con stands for): “someone convicted of a criminal offence and serving a term of imprisonment”. There’s also the difference between con and ex-con.
    2. He can be a ‘lag’ as well – or just something stuck inside another word.
19. I have never heard of it/them? Can anyone enlighten me?
    1. A famous setter called Ximenes laid down standards of fair clue-writing in an influential book called Ximenes on the Art of the Crossword, in 1966. The book reflected a change of attitude which had been gathering pace since about the early 1950s when another setter called Afrit included a statement of basic principles in a book of puzzles. This statement is called “Afrit’s injunction” and you can find a copy with Google. In short, the idea is that the setter may not “mean what he says” (he can fool you with the surface reading), but must “say what he means” (it must be possible to understand the clue in the way required for the cryptic reading). If this seems too obvious to mention, it needs to be read in the context of 1950s and earlier cryptic clues which were could be less disciplined than even the wildest of today’s non-Ximenean setters.

       My understanding is that what people now call “Ximenean rules” are the principles laid down in X’s book plus various extra bits added later by X and then Azed. So the Ximenean rules spoken about now and laid down in a guide like Don Manley’s “Chambers Crossword Manual” are a bit more specific.

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