Times 12761, BDSM?

There’s another Qualifer in the paper today. I’ll blog that on 12th May when the deadline’s up. (No spoilers until then please!) Meanwhile, here’s the substitute interactive puzzle from the Club site: No. 12761 from 4th May 1971. Typical of that era, there are a few diabolicals that wouldn’t quite cut the charlock these days. Still … a bit of fun to be had here once you’re in the right frame. Took me 46 minutes but would have been quicker if I’d known the two plants — always my weak suit.

 

Across
 1 FETISH. Anagram of ‘Thief’s’.
 4 CHAR,LOCK. Teddington’s the name of a famous lock (or three) on the Thames. Charlock is wild mustard.
10 L(ARDO)ON. Anagram of ‘road’ in the first (Western) half of ‘London’.
11 GODET,I,A. A ‘godet’ is “a triangular piece of material inserted in a dress, shirt, or glove to make it flared or for ornamentation”; as all sons of seamstresses will know.
12 SWITCH,BACK. Which is what they will still do to you if you’re naughty in Singapore. Also a fairground attraction. Is there a theme going on? Cf. fetish and bondage?
13 BASE. Presumably a reference to the noun (foundation) and the adjective (sordid).
15 INHUMAN. Maugham wrote Of Human Bondage.
17 A,BUTT,ED.
19 GENESIS. A statue by Jacob Epstein.
21 SNIP,PET. A snip is a sure thing, a certainty.
23 BAIL. Cricket.
24 BASS-RELIEF. More usually spelled ‘bas-’. Another type of sculpture.
27 FLEA-BAG. Slang for a sleeping-bag (Chambers); anything or anyone (suspected of being) infested with fleas.
28 STENCIL. Anagram of ‘clients’.
29 SKELETAL. Presumably a cryptic def.
30 FLASHY. Two defs, one cryptic-ish.
Down
 1 FULL SWING. If the swings are full, the roundabouts may be empty.
 2 TAR,NISH. Anagram of ‘shin’.
 3 SCOTCH MIST. Cryptic def.
 5 HIGH CLASS. ‘Top’ = HIGH; ‘form’ = CLASS. And if you show top form, you’re this.
 6 RUDE. Homophone of ‘rood’: “historical, a measure of land area equal to a quarter of an acre”.
 7 OUT,LAST. More cricket.
 8 KNAVE. Two defs.
 9 SNUB. As in ‘retroussé’.
14 LUTINE BELL. A bell salvaged from HMS Lutine which sank in 1799; rung at Lloyd’s to signal a returning or not-returning ship — once for the latter, twice for the former.
16 NOSTALGIA. Anagram of ‘No, it’s a gal’. “My heart lies there”, etc.
18 DUTIFULLY. I suppose this alludes to the idea of paying full duty on imported goods.
20 NA(IVE)TE. ‘Innate’ = in NATE.
22 PRINCES. “Put not your trust in princes …”, Psalm 146.
23 BUFFS. The Royal Kent Regiment, the Queen’s Own Buffs. Pun on ‘bare skins’.
25 SASH. Inclusive: pun on ‘middle (of) man’.
26 AB(L)E. L = £ = pound = money.

On edit: just found this in the archive:

 

12 comments on “Times 12761, BDSM?”

  1. 50 minutes here and I was very pleased to finish with all correct and no resort to aids considering how much guesswork was involved.

    I’m used to the spellings BAS-RELIEF and LARDONS, and didn’t know GODET, CHARLOCK or the BUFFS. I suppose I must have known that the clanger in a bell is called its tongue but if so I had forgotten it.

    I enjoyed the puzzle and would not be sorry if we had a few more like it occasionally.

  2. An enjoyable 40+ minutes but I needed cheats to confirm plants (CHARLOCK, GODETIA). Would the sexism of 18dn be permissible in 2011?

    Thanks for the blog, mctext: as almost always, there were allusions in the wordplay which I would not otherwise have seen.

  3. Didn’t remember any of this one and ploughed through it a little reluctantly – some of it really is awful. No, I don’t want to see a return to this style of cluing and didn’t get very much pleasure from this trip down memory lane
  4. Blimey. This is the first of these old-style puzzles I’ve attempted and I couldn’t do it at all. I gave up after about half an hour with about a third of the answers in. I’m very glad they’re not like this any more!
  5. 36:57 .. and quite surprised to have it come back with no mistakes. In particular, I spent a long time overthinking 13a before remembering the vintage of the puzzle and slinging in BASE.

    I’m with jackkt in enjoying these older puzzles every now and then. I find them an interesting challenge. Perhaps everyone could be kept happy by having a weekly trip down memory lane in addition to the regular puzzle.

    COD LUTINE BELL – I just liked the poetic “its tongue tells of others”. SCOTCH MIST was nicely done, too.

  6. Thanks to mctext for answering all the questions I was left with at the end of this. I surrendered after an hour with one missing – the LUTINE BELL – which I couldn’t pull up from the sea bed of my memory and was one of those you-know-it-or-you-don’t answers; and one mistake, a careless BAIT instead of BAIL. I’m not sure about once a week for these old testers, sotira. Three a year is more than enough for me.
  7. I am surprised that I managed to somplete this so quickly (6:54 online) as I don’t normally get on with the older ones, having only really started on the Times Crossword in the mid to late 70s.

    There were a number of clues, as Mctext blogs, where the answer was apparent, even if full justification eluded me.

    I agree with COD for LUTINE BELL. SCOTCH MIST reminds me of my parents.

  8. I printed this out and started it before I noticed that it was rather odd. I was pleased to finish in 20 minutes, though with one mistake – BAIT instead of BAIL. I was wrongly sure that the answer was an anagram of “a bit” although I couldn’t find a definition. Should have thought again! Liked LUTINE BELL and FULL SWING. An interesting change but I’ll be relieved to get back to normal tomorrow.
  9. Solved pretty quickly in 9:55, but I was another one to take the BAIT in 23ac (saw (a bit)* and moved on without reading the clue properly). I didn’t get the references for GODETIA, PRINCES or BUFFS but they went in from the definition anyway. Definitely on the easy side although nowhere near as polished as current puzzles.
  10. Hello all. I couldn’t get anywhere with this, which I picked up after doing the qualifier, and it was getting late last night so I put it aside. The style was just too different for me, not to mention the unknown plants and the HMS Lutine. Thanks mctext for the explanations. Regards.
  11. Glad to see I’m in good company in that I fell for the false anagram trap in 23ac and put in BAIT. Thanks for the information on the Lutine Bell.

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