Times 23846 Roneo, Roneo, wherefore art thou Roneo

Author   dorsetjimboPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time : 30 minutes

Some references to times past and a Royalist flavour to this straightforward but enjoyable puzzle. If you’ve never had the pleasure of using a Roneo machine you’re unlikely to know what a Cyclostyle was and the Hackney Empire will I suspect by a mystery to many. I thought 16A, 11D and 14D were the best of the bunch. Jimbo.

Across
1 DOGSBODY – DOG’S BODY; setter is a dog
5 UNIQUE – UNI-QUE; que is french for that
9 DOMICILE – DOM-ICIL(y)-E; the “not all” refers to cold way, not the roof
10 IMPALA – hidden word (Blenhe)IM PALA(ce)
12 EMPIRE-BUILDER – The Hackney Empire theatre was famous when I was a lad
16 RADICALLY – Rascally with DI substituted for S
17 OVEREATEN – OVER-EATEN; EATEN sounds like ETON school
19 SCOWL – SCOW-L; scow is one of the many words one learns for a boat
20 THOROUGHBREDS – T(HO)ROUGH-B-REDS;
22 CLOCHE – two meanings, a 1920s hat and a bell jar to cover plants
23 ANTIMONY – AN-TIMON+Y(outh); Timon of Athens is Shakespeare play about this misanthrope
25 BASALT – B(and)+A-SALT
 
Down
1 DIDGERIDOO – DID-G(ERID)OO(d); an Aussie musical(?) instrument
3 BUCKRAM – BUCK-RAM; dandy=BUCK, stuff=RAM
4 DELIBERATION – DE-LIB(ER)ATION; a bit more schoolboy french and ER=Her Majesty
6 NOMADIC – NO(MA)D-IC;
7 QUARRELSOME – QUARRELS-‘OME; quarrels are crossbow arrows + (h)OME = domicile up The Angel supposedly
11 HIDDEN,AGENDA – (handing a deed)* one of very few anagrams today
13 PRETENTIOUS – P-RE-TENT-IOUS; TENT is a vino tinto
14 CYCLOSTYLE – CYC-LOST-(lorr)Y-LE;not one for the youngsters. A device used before photocopiers were invented
18 EPOCHAL – (chapel + O)*
19 SUBLIME – SUB-LIME; not sure of the function of “situated”
21 SCAB – BACS is short for Bankers’ Automated Clearing System
24 ORB – OR-B; the Queen carries the orb to symolise her power

18 comments on “Times 23846 Roneo, Roneo, wherefore art thou Roneo”

  1. An unusually quick solve for me, around 15 minutes. Not too many ticks but liked 5A (tricky word to clue) and COD goes to 13D for its gentle dig at all things religious.
    I agree “situated” at 19D may be superfluous, but also wonder if “below” on its own would be enough to indicate “sub-“.
  2. 6:51 – DOMICILE and DIDGERIDOO were the last to go in. The didgeridoo sounds odd to Western ears, but musical instrument it is. (There used to be a didgeridoo busker on the tube – any London dwellers heard him lately?)
  3. Yes, fairly straightforward, though I didn’t know both definitions for 22ac, and 14d was pretty obscure!

    Jon

  4. 14 and 16 put up some resistance even with all the checked letters in place, but otherwise I had no problems. I’ve no nomination for COD today.

    1. Was I the only one to raise an eyebrow at arrogant = pretentious? I’m not disputing it as it’s given in the Collins Thesaurus, but neither Chambers nor the Collins dictionary makes a direct connection between the two words. They didn’t exactly leap to my mind as synonyms though the answer was obvious from the wordplay.
      1. I agree entirely: as soon as it went on, I mused aloud whether pretentious and arrogant really mean the same thing. Seemed entirely unnecessary for the surface, too, to go for a pseudo-synonym (as it were).
  5. Another pleasing solve time at 13:25. At one point I was hoping for my first ever two in a row under 10 minutes, but it wasn’t to be. I enjoyed working out how 1d and 20a worked, but my COD goes to 16a – it took a while to realise that it was DI, not ALLY, who was replacing the son. CYCLOSTYLE was last to go in. It was one of those where I’d got LOST+Y and had to make ?y?le to make transport. Fortunately C is at the front end of the alphabet.
  6. Around 15 minutes, didn’t see what time it was when I started. Guessed at cloche, buckram and my answer for 16ac, and figured cyclostyle out from wordplay, so it was the entire NW corner that was last to go in.
  7. Oh crikey, didn’t get 9A, and so was musing with BEAURAM for 3D. BUCK didn’t occur to me at all. Hey ho.

    Can anyone enlighten me on 15A please ?

    Thank you.

    1. With pleasure. It’s ILEUM, which is part of the small intestine (hence “canal”). It sounds like Ilium which, I believe, was the site of the Trojan War
      1. Nearly there – Ilium was an old name for Troy – hence the name Iliad for Homer’s epic. (The last point only just dawned on me, which is a bit worrying.)
  8. Just over ten minutes; a couple of words (THOROUGHBREDS, DIDGERIDOO) which I saw the shape of before out of the corner of my eye before checking the clue to make sure. Had to leave the puzzle till the evening again, due to being busy at work; including an afternoon occupied with various BACS payments, which meant that one dropped in very nicely.
  9. No real problems, although I left CYCLOSTYLE until last, not knowing the word. I did briefly use a Banda machine when I started teaching (just ten years ago) – I think that’s similar to a Roneo – I guess they’re probably banned(a) in schools now.

    I wonder whether there is any significance in Jimbo twice writing French as french?!

    1. Honi soit qui mal y pense. Cock-up not conspiracy. Typing not my forte at the best of times. Jimbo.
  10. 40 minutes, not helped by having ILIUM in for a while (I can spell duodenum, mind) and not knowing any ancient copying devices other than carbon paper and banda machines.

    No really good clues but I’ll nominate 4d on the basis that I like the word “libation”.

  11. Hard for me, not quickly solved, and had to google around for ‘didgeridoo’, ‘buckram’, ‘cloche; and ‘cyclostyle’, all new to me. I certainly never heard of the Hackney Empire either, but with some crossing letters it came to me without much trouble. Regards.
  12. The little known Troy Canal at 15a. One of 4 “easies” left out of the blog but discussed above in comments. Here it is with its other 3 mates:

    15a Part of canal in ancient Troy, reportedly? (5)
    ILEUM. The final and longest section of the small intestine. I spelt it ILIUM until I needed an E in PRETENTIOUS at 13d my LOI.

    26a Fit for marketing, like seaworthy vessels, say (8)
    SALEABLE

    2d Sticky substance surrounding roots of teeth? (3)
    GUM

    8d Welshman giving Head of English leading position (4)
    E VAN

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