The Times Cryptic Crossword Number: 24132

Author   foggywebPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Time: 26 minutes.
I found this easier than others over the past week. I got annoyed by 9A, not wanting to believe that expresso was a word!
There are some really good ideas throughout the puzzle, but also a few that I have seen before.

Across

1 AB OV[o],E,PAR – well, I thought of the phrase straightaway but couldn’t see how it worked. I had to use a dictionary in the end, as I didn’t know the Latin phrase ‘ab ovo’ (from the egg), possibly alluding to the Roman custom of beginning a meal with eggs and ending it with apples. Probably others are familiar with the phrase, but a bit offputting to get some Latin in the first clue. Rest of the clue: E=English, PAR=paragraph, above par is a bad score in golf, although I’m sure it can be considered good for some golfers.
9 EXPRESS,0 – wow, I really didn’t know this was a word. It is apparently an alternative spelling of espresso. When I’ve heard people say expresso, I just thought they were stupid. I am surprised to see that expresso has more Google hits than espresso – although most of the front page are not references to coffee. The OED has a quotation from the Spectator in 1958, so it’s been around a while. Not really anything to do with the clue, but I only recently discovered that ‘chaise lounge’ was ok – the OED has a reference from 1807 in the Times!
11 S(NAIL)SPACE
12 PLEA[sure]
13 COD’S WALLOP – wallop is a British slang word for beer.
16 IN DEPT,H – France is divided into administrative departments.
20 FRI,ENDLESS – seen similar before. Slightly annoying to have ‘end’ in clue and answer.
22 RAID = DIAR[y] reversed. Reference to Diary of a Nobody.
26 RAINBOWS – rose-tinted means refers to one colour, whereas rainbows have loads of colours.
27 HIT,HE,R,TO

Down

2 BROOK,L,YN – YN=New York reversed. Nice surface reading, I think – concise way to use NY to get to Brooklyn.
3 VIE,TN(AM)ESE – American (AM) invading TNESE (anagram of tense). Another good clue – clever way of linking Vietnamese and American.
4 PER SE,CUT,ED
7 ASSAI,L
8 HO(N)EYPOT – anagram of YET POOH containing N (new).
15 LITER,ATURE – if I were being picky I might say that a liter (or litre) is not really a unit of volume, rather of cubic capacity, but my dictionary suggests that they are interchangeable.
16 IN,FAN,TRY
19 PECK,IS,H
21 IN(T)UIT

24 comments on “The Times Cryptic Crossword Number: 24132”

  1. I think the 1958 show title Expresso Bongo (later a film starring Cliff Richard)is a reference to coffee.

    This took me 40 minutes with one left outstanding at 22. I had thought of Pooter and of RAID but didn’t spot the answer until I had used a solver to rule out all other possibilities. I didn’t like 26 as rose is not an official colour of the rainbow. My favourite was HONEYPOT at 8.

    1. I’m really rather surprised by all the astonishment at EXPRESSO as it is listed as an alternative spelling in COED, Collins and Chambers.

      And from Wikipedia: Expresso is the form used in France, Spain, Portugal, and parts of the United States and Canada. It is a valid English word, a variant of espresso.

  2. About 40 mins for me too, in front of the tennis, which means quite easy. I share your surprise at expresso. Next thing you’ll be telling me that souvenier has been in correct usage since 1732. Wanted RUIN to be the answer at 22 but couldn’t make it work. I think it is a more appropriate answer. COD for me was PERSECUTED.
  3. Unlike Foggyweb I found this one more difficult than usual. Also not happy about rose-tinted rainbows, though red is an official rainbow colour so I suppose it isn’t too far out.

    although I wrote them in happily enough, I didn’t really understand 1ac til now and still don’t follow 7dn. Assai?

  4. … with one short – IN-DEPTH, where I had a complete mental block and couldn’t see P as a possible middle letter. I’d also hastily put in ERRANT at 25 and AVER at 24, though both got corrected, and shared the EXPRESSO astonishment. Not my day I guess.
  5. I found this easier overall than the previous two Mondays, but I don’t think I entered an answer until I started on the down clues, when I got seven straight off. 30 minutes in all, with ASSAIL the last to go in when I finally realised what was indicated by “very musical”. I was also surprised by EXPRESSO.
    The breakdown of FRIENDLESS into FRI ENDLESS is becoming so common in The Times that it’s rather easy to spot. I suggest they give it a break for a while.
  6. 28 minutes but with 22 wrong (for the avoidance of doubt that’s the answer to 22 across, not 22 of the 28 lights) – I just couldn’t make sense of it and plumped for rein on the flimsy basis that it’s what you do to a horse which in turn has something to do with (blood)stock. Meh.

    Didn’t care much for this puzzle although a couple of clever clues (Vietnamese & literature) gave it a brief lift. I drew a wiggly line under 16d as I couldn’t fathom what “subject to” was doing in there. Assai and ab ovo meant nothing to me either.

    Q-0, E-3, D-7

  7. Easy it should have been, but I made a right hash of the LHS by going for DEFENDER in 16d, which royally snookered 16ac (where I vainly searched for a French phrase), 26ac, and 2d (where I guessed stupidly for BROCHURE, following on from my imaginary French DE something). My excuse is that it’s Monday. Doh! I’ve yet, either, in the past 40 years to come across ‘wallop’ as slang for beer. At least here in Wales…
  8. 17 minutes, steady plod. I remember being surprised to see EXPRESSO at a lot of cafe’s in Sydney in the early 90s, maybe that’s where the word is being kept alive?

    I liked 1ac, though it stumped me for a while (maybe because it stumped me for a while on what should have been an obvious answer given definition alone).

  9. An easy 25 minutes after a net 1A round of missed puts. Ab ovo has appeared in Mephisto so sort of remembered it. Wrote in EXPRESSO and never gave it a second thought (perhaps I’m a philistine) but did work out Diary of a Nobody so all is not lost. A pint of wallop was a frequent expression when I was a teenager. No real problems and I liked 2D, 3D and the topicality of 14D.

    Anybody who was stumped yesterday when the clue for 30D was left out of the e-version of Mephisto the missing clue can be found in the blog of Mephisto 2525

  10. 10.42 , add me to the list of those who at first put ERRANT and AVER in although quickly saw my mistake in the former when LITERATURE had to be right.Also had written in HER as beginning to 27 which made the easy anagram at 14 more difficult! Last to go in was 22 which I thought was a good clue. Luckily a lot of the other answers came promptly and the “Friday endless” clue has become familiar in a few different guises in the last couple of years.
  11. All except 26A went in within 30 minutes, which is very fast for me. Then spent ages trying to invent an illness which might cause red eyes. Got to rhinitis, a red nose and one letter short anyway.
    Tomorrow is the big day then. I wait in trepidation.
  12. 15:44 .. I had quite a total of six question marks against clues, mostly resolved.

    I thought there were a few dud clues in here. RAINBOWS, CODSWALLOP and OPAL were all just awkward formulations.

    I was once ‘corrected’ by an American girl when I asked for an expresso. If only I’d known then what I know now…

    Strong clues for BROOKLYN and VIETNAMESE. Otherwise, hmm..

  13. Managed this in c.90 minutes – although I got ru(i)n for 22ac. I immediately thought of Diary of Nobody, but got no further than Pooter. I then decided run was a good definition Of Stock Market activity (!).
    I also tried errant in 25ac, and for a while tried to fit in offender for 16down. 16ac was last one to go in. Spent ages trying to find the name for a wind affecting part of France (other than mistral). It finally clicked.
    Expresso was first in, opal was second.
    Fran L-P
  14. 22 min. Seem to have had a similar experience to most, with “aver” – oops – “avow”, getting 1 Ac without understanding the construction, and having difficulty unraising an eyebrow over “expresso”. Also thought that I was something of a smarty pants for spotting Diary of a Nobody. COD? Nothing truly outstanding, but “persecuted” and “hitherto” are candidates.
  15. Well, everybody wants to get into the act. I entered ‘aver’ at first also. That held me up at the end trying to solve RAINBOWS with an ‘e’ where the ‘o’ should be, but corrected it, and was about 25 minutes all told. I liked 2, 3 and 15. I couldn’t explain 1A’s wordplay when solving either; I’m familiar with ‘ab ovo’, and I still didn’t see it. Very well parsed, Foggy. Regards everyone.
  16. Supervising the logistics of a meeting in which I wasn’t taking part allowed me more time than usual to contemplate today’s puzzle. As a result, I managed to complete the grid without reference, which is a rare feat for me… though unfortunately it wasn’t all correct! My error was at 22ac: without any real idea of the wordplay, I’d tentatively entered RUIN, which in today’s climate seemed entirely plausible as a “Stock Exchange activity”!

    As my meeting dragged on into the afternoon, I’m not entirely sure whether ‘Espresso’ came to mind because of the clue for 9ac or because of the machine tempting me from the corner of the room; the thought was a welcome relief in both respects! (I was another who was reluctant to spell it with an X, though that is ultimately what I did.)

    I am one of those disgruntled golfers who takes exception to the idea that ABOVE PAR is necessarily a bad score. Also, as a phrase I don’t find it wholly convincing: isn’t ‘over par’ the usual phrase? In spite of these quibbles and not having a clue about the wordplay there was little doubt in my mind that it was the correct answer!

  17. 10:45 so it seems it must be my turn to be on the setter’s wavelength. If I spent the rest of my life trying, I wouldn’t ever have been able to explain 1a so thanks and well done to Foggy. Like others I thought VIETNAMESE and LITERATURE were very good (I also liked BROOKLYN). RAINBOWS was pretty awful and ASSAIL had a minute of my time all to itself.
    Pretty enjoyable overall
    1. I liked the rose-tinted spectacles idea, I must say. Surely a rainbow is nothing if it is not rose-tinted in at least one place??

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