Times 10300: retro puzzle, May 1963

Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: About 30 minutes

Don’t like the retro puzzles much; but it’s at least an indication of how times have changed in the cruciverbal world since I was about to come up to my 11th birthday when unsignalled anagrams, absent literals, quotation completions and general puns were fair game. Didn’t bother with the timer.

The Club site does not include today’s (actual) first qualifier; but says it’s “available online as a pdf”. If I can find it, then I’ll post a blog when the qual. period closes; which I assume will be next Thursday 23rd May. If not … not.

Across

1 BUBBLES. A famous painting by Millais from the 1860s. Used to see this on visits to the Lady Lever Gallery. Well worth the trip if you’re into the Pre-Raphs.
5 BAGGAGE. A rather dated and derogatory term for a cheeky gal.
9 YARDS. Two defs; one given by a customary adjective.
10 ELEVENSES. Rather assumes that one breakfasts at 9:00. Those were the days.
11 ON THE SPOT. I suppose a reference to the phrase ‘spot on’.
12 TENSE. Two defs again; the first slightly loose.
13 TUBBY. Two jokes — one about the shape of the boat, the other about the shape of the rower.
15 ORPINGTON. Two defs. This bit of history explains one of them.
18/19 BREAKNECK SPEED. Where ‘late’ = dead.
21 AS,SAM.
23 VIRGINALS. On the assumption that there were wise and foolish virgins in the parable (Matthew 25:1-13).
25 PUNCTILIO. An unsignalled anagram.
26 AM,ICE. Not sure how the civil engineer figures here. But someone will know.
On edit. Indeed, Jack does (see comments). So we have three ways of getting this: the hood (def), the abbreviation (Assoc. Member Inst. Civ. Eng.) and the frozen declaration.
27 EXPOSES. Two defs (one loose); or cryptic def?
28 KNOT,TED.

Down
1 BOY,COTT. And just about a year before Geoff’s test debut (31st May 1964). Little did they know!
2 BIRD-TABLE. Another pun.
3 LISLE. A kind of thread (twist). If ‘addicted’ is an anagram indicator, it’s an interesting one. Any of our regulars doing the Twist in 1963?
4 SHEEPCOTE. A kind of distraction clue assuming we might take ‘flock’ as a verb.
5 BREST. Cf ‘breast’?
6 GREETINGS. More humour.
7 ARSON. {p}ARSON.
8 EASTERN. Had to Google this to be sure. It’s all here.
14 YOKEMATES. A pun on ‘yolk’ and there’s no literal!
16 POKERWORK. Another pun.
17 THERAPIST. Ditto.
18 BRAN-PIE. Husky (substance) = BRAN + ‘bird’ = PIE. Dipper?
20 DI(STEN)D.
22 SUN-UP. In fact?
23 VALES. Another def by adjective. Vales are depressions.
24 IDAHO. Where ‘make’ is probably the indicator.

24 comments on “Times 10300: retro puzzle, May 1963”

  1. About 38 minutes but not without checking a few things along the way, including the bit of poetry (probably best if jimbo doesn’t go anywhere near this puzzle).

    I wasn’t sure about BAGGAGE until I remembered Rex Harrison’s memorably delivered line in My Fair Lady:

    “Give her kindness, or the treatment she deserves? Will I take her back, or throw the baggage out?”

    1. My alternative film memory was Britt Ekland’s slightly unconvincing impression of a feisty Scots lass in the otherwise wonderful The Wicker Man. Early on, she is serenaded by the inhabitants of the local pub, who “sing of a baggage that we all adore, the landlord’s daughter”….
    1. Thanks to Paul and to yourself for this info. Beats me why the preface to today’s puzzle should be so elliptical.
        1. Hmm hadn’t noticed that it reads “Today is the … and is available online”. In fact my day has been PDF (pretty damn flat). Apart from the Paul in the Guardian as mentioned several times here.
  2. The puzzle’s great fun but took me 89 minutes with some lookups on the RH side. I think AMICE is a qualification. My dad was an AMI Mech E so I assume it’s the civil engineering equivalent, AMI being
    Associate Member of the Institute of…
    1. For this relief, much thanks.
      On edit: for the record, Acronym Finder offers “Institution”.

      Edited at 2013-05-15 02:31 am (UTC)

  3. I started doing cryptic crosswords in 1964 but if they had been as dull as this one I don’t think I would have continued. Thanks to Paulmcl and jackkt for the link to 25475.
  4. I had a go at this over coffee but soon lost interest for the reasons cited by mctext (to whom thanks for the blog). I am old enough to remember the Orpington by-election, but I had SHEEPFOLD and CELLMATES for want of anything better, and assumed 18dn was some kind of PEN (dipper) – wrong bird. We always called them BRAN TUBS.

    At least these old puzzles make one thankful for the modern versions (much as we may criticise them at times!)

    Thanks to jackkt for the link to the “real” crossword.

  5. Like Vinyl, did the Guardian, which is top notch today. By a Times setter, in fact, wearing his other hat. Remember that living folk can crop up there, if you try it.

    Spent 20-odd minutes on this and guessed my way to a surprising amount. Is my mind really that frazzled, I wonder? 🙂

  6. Spent just under half an hour on this, but I didn’t regard it as a normal puzzle, and allowed myself liberal use of Google to check my intuition where the clue was clearly written to an entirely different set of rules to a modern puzzle (plus I suspect that if I’d decided to hold back on submitting till I’d convincingly parsed some of the more obviously dated clues, I’d still be going at sun-down).
  7. Got through and parsed the lot but it took something over an hour. But greatly enjoyed in a way. With my afore-mentioned ’75 years of The Times Crossword’ book I’m becoming a bit of a connoisseur of the olde-style conundrums (granny knots?). mctext, I can report vigorously doing the twist at my 21st in ’64. That was a damn good party.
  8. Yes I can remember Orpington. Yes I did the twist to Chubby Checker. Yes I will have done this puzzle before. No I don’t remember it and rather wish things had remained that way.
  9. As others have observed, if this was usual fare I would not renew my £24.99 a year. Struggled to get it 2/3 finished and not impressed with some of the answers even when I read the blog – well done mctext for making some sense of it. The French front = Brest? Sad.
    1. You say sad, but I rather enjoy getting out of the present-day warp into a lackadaisical one of 50 years ago.
  10. Started solving these things about 5 years after this one, but don’t remember such looseness. 17 minutes but one error with BEAN PIE, which I would be happy to dip into but probably isn’t very husky. I do remember bran tubs. Congrats to anyone who was error free – there’s so much guesswork involved, and so little wordplay to help.
  11. Bleeurgh. I spent about half an hour on this but didn’t get very far. Thank goodness they’re not still like this, or I’d have to find some other pointless occupation for my morning commute.
    Before that today’s qualifier made me very cross, so it hasn’t been a good day for crosswords. Perhaps I’ll do the recommended Guardian puzzle as an antidote.
  12. I stopped about halfway through. I’m quite proud of myself for guessing YOKEMATES, but beyond that, there’s no way I could have completed this puzzle. Thanks for the link to the qualifier, so I can take a flier at that. And also, I did the Guardian puzzle too, and agree with vinyl that it’s a hoot. Regards.
  13. Away walking in Scotland at present and feeling a bit guilty about letting mc in for this vintage puzzle. i like them myself but I know I’m in a minority. This took me an hour or so on and off, with one wrong because the virginals never came to mind. No aids (because none available).
    This puzzle is slightly before my time. Yes it’s loose, but that is part of the fun. If you got one wrong you wouldn’t worry too much.. much less angst in those days
  14. I thought this truly awful. Beats me why anyone would bother doing crosswords like this.
  15. The above was my mistake, I now see.
    I feel very much like Jerry with these puzzles. I find them a delightful diversion from the modern puzzles. For me tackling something like this is rather like rummaging around in an old attic: at first sight it’s dusty and unappealing, but gradually as I work my way in I find a strange pleasure in winkling out old obscurities. Some of these objects, it’s true, leave me baffled as to what on earth they can ever have been for, but by and large I feel I’ve spent an enjoyable time.
  16. 10:45 for me, like others held up by SHEEPFOLD and wanting the second part of 18dn to be PEN (and also making heavy weather of BAGGAGE and BREST for no particularly good reason). I almost certainly attempted this puzzle when it first appeared, but can safely say that I don’t remember it.

    I enjoy these old puzzles, and would actually be quite happy if they still appeared in The Times.

    Edited at 2013-05-17 10:04 pm (UTC)

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