Times 24,082

Author   richardvgPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 10:13

As often happens, I was mainly held up by trying to break down clues that turned out to be cryptic definitions. At 12A, I ended up putting in BABY BOOM without realising that the last four words were just filling out the definition. And 1D took me far too long. The last answer I filled in was 5D, where I spent some time convinced that only TARRAGON would fit, and that it would make sense if I could just analyse the clue properly.

Out of a number of clever clues, my favourite is the &lit at 24D.

(The analysis was obviously written in too much haste. After an hour and a half, I have already had to make two corrections after helfpul comments.)

Across

1 LABOUR-INTENSIVE, two meanings, the second punning
9 PRIVATEER – (PIRATE VER(y))*
11 (w)EIGHTY – “having score” are harmless extra words that improve the surface (No they aren’t. Thanks to the comment below that pointed out that “score” here means 20, so that “score less than a hundred” indicates EIGHTY precisely)
12 BABY BOOM – cryptic definition – increased birth rate after end of WW2
15 SOC. RATES
18 CO + MEDIAN
19 F(L)INCH
21 DIA + TRIBE, DIA being AID(rev)
23 A.M. ORAL
27 CHI(L)D + HOOD – along with maternity wards and baby booms, is there a theme here?
28 SHOOTING GALLERY – (ANGLES RIGHTLY TO)* (No it isn’t. Thanks to rosselliot for pointing out that it is OO (ie ducks) in (ANGLES RIGHTLY)* – which makes it an &lit)

Down

1 LIP-READ – cryptic def
2 B (=”bee”)+ RING –
3 UNALTERE + D, with (REAL TUNE)*
4 IDES, i.e. ID ES(t)
6 NA(V)VY
8 ERAS + MUS, MUS being SUM(rev)
14 SIMPATICO – (IS COMPATI(ble))*
16 ROL(E MODE)L – “[for] example” is a sneaky definition
17 BARB + I CAN
18 CO(DICE)S
22 REPOT – TOPER(rev) – both “lush” and “toper” are rather old-fashioned words for drinker
24 R + (frenc)H + ONE – &lit, the Rhône rises in the Swiss Alps, and then is “ultimately French”.

39 comments on “Times 24,082”

  1. Motored through this at (for me) breakneck speed, then fouled up on two. Misinterpreted 28 (in the same way that Richard has!) as (angles rightly to)*, whereas it is (angles rightly)* bagging two ducks “oo”. Then suffered total brain failure with 12 ac in spite of having the checking letters. I think I fixated on cricket, when I should have taken a thematic cue from 1 ac. 11 min, should have been much quicker.
  2. ‘having score’ are not harmless extra words, they are crucial to the precise fact that eighty is a score less than a hundred. A very good clue and an excellent crossword.
  4. 8:17, my quickest time for quite a while. By far the easiest of the week despite some excellent wordplay that some of the time went right over my head (e.g. the correct anagram fodder in 28, the significance of score in 11).
  5. 35 minutes here including 10 minutes making no progress at all when trying to get started in the lower half. Once 17 had gone in it all fell into place. My best time of the week so far.
  6. A very straightforward puzzle. 25 minutes to solve. I also spent time looking for clever wordplay in what were almost straight definitions (12A and then particulary 1D and 5D – my last two to go in). 23A is very easy so it didn’t matter but I’m not entirely happy with AM=early. 4am is early, 8am might be and 11am certainly isn’t.
  7. A bit slow with this one (40 minutes), ending up with 5 and 13 to do and wondering whether the answer to 5 was TORPEDOES. Fortunately I saw BABY BOOM just in time to rescue me from an unfinished puzzle.
    I agree with dorsetjimbo’s criticism of ‘early’ for AM, but I thought there were some good clues. “Lush” in 22 had me fooled for ages.
  8. A reversal of the normal week, with puzzles getting gradually easier (a stinker tomorrow to keep us on our toes?) Thought it was going to be a doddle at first as the top half fell quickly into place, but then got bogged down in lower half, an experience that seems to have been shared by others. 31 mins in the end. Like richardvg, I wasted precious minutes at the finish searching for an answer to 5 dn (don’t know why it took so long as I had all the checking letters and it wasn’t that hard), and I too initially misinterpreted 28 ac in the same way, before eventually twigging that the “ducks” referred to the OO in “shooting”. Some very clever cryptic definitions – 1 dn being an interesting example of a clue that verged on being a straight definition but retained enough wordplay (the pun on the two senses of “see”) to be at least momentarily deceptive.

    Michael H

  9. Sorry , have I missed something here? What is the answer to 5d? Is it tarragon and if so why?
    I did all the rest in 20 mins which is good for me. Another maths clue today with median in 18a.
  10. 9 minutes flat.
    Shame I missed out on yesterday’s puzzle, although I have printed it off now – will have a bash later. I was asked to set a cryptic in rapid time yesterday, with one word which HAD to appear in the grid. One hour to set the grid and write 23 of 24 clues. A day and a half over the required answer’s clue!
    Today’s puzzle felt like a breeze and the time suggests that, but there were some sticky moments. Thankfully they were balanced by some extremely easy stuff.
    I’m with Jim on AM=early – perhaps partly because I was pulled up on it (not by The Times I hasten to add) some time ago. But it didn’t stop me from solving the clue and it was casing of understanding where the setter was coming from. It probably deserves a quibbly-tick though.

    Q-1 E-7 D-6 COD 10 VILLA
    Yes, I know – it has a chestnutty texture but I think the setter has caught the surface reading spot on.

    1. In common parlance, to do something in ‘the morning’ means to do it ‘early’ in the day. 11a.m. is late in the morning, but it’s relatively early in a 9-5 working day, no?
      1. That was my argument too. But in the battle between “a.m. is early” and “a.m. might be early” the latter just about wins over.
        I can’t be harsh on the setter for using it though. The general concept is put across and over-emphasis on semantics can spoil the fun. I keep telling my students (imaginary friends, actually) that a clue is a clue – a pointer that’s supposed to give you an idea of the right answer. If you get the answer, great. If an error prevents you getting the answer then it’s time to kick those shins.
  11. 26:25 – should have been quicker but it took far too long to get 1ac. It’ll be 8 years ago next Tuesday since I was last anywhere near a maternity ward so words like delivery, infant and baby popped into the old noggin but not labour until I’d spotted the neat CD at 1d.

    Anyway, another enjoyable puzzle with a few ticks. As well as 1d I liked the &Lit at 28 but I’ll give COD to 5d for keeping me looking for complex wordplay for ages where there was none.

    I’ve never heard of Thomas Hood but I imagine he comes up from time to time.

    Q-0, E-7.5, D-7, COD 5

    1. Hood should be a favourite of any crossword solver, for his cheesy puns in (e.g.) Faithless Nelly Gray. Note the first line just in case {BEN = BATTLE} appears in any future puzzles, though it may have been officially out out to grass.
    2. And no one has mentioned ill-gotten, which (where I come from, at least) is a synonym for ill-begotten…
      1. Ill-gotten is “illicitly obtained”, as in ill-gotten gains – in the online Merriam-Webster as well as my British head. Ill-begotten seems to be “ill-conceived” or “of inferior parentage”, so not the same thing.
  12. I liked this, although clues that are just cryptic definitions are my least favorite. 14 minutes with no real hold ups, TOREADOR being the last in (see previous sentence).

    Thanksgiving today, so this nation feasts on turkey today and sleeps well tonight. Expect a late comment from me tomorrow!

  13. 9.17. Like several other people, the last clue I solved was TOREADOR, which eluded me for some time even with all the checking letters. It’s the kind of clue where you know that if you could only think of the right meaning for “charges”, you’d get it at once – but even knowing that, I had to do it the hard way – eventually got the word from the letters I had, and only then understood the charges.
  14. A fairly fast 45 minutes, though for a long time I thought I was in trouble, with only about 6 clues filled in for half of that, until 4d led to 1ac (where I’d stymied myself for far too long by going for WHIRR for 2d), and everything toppled after that. 14d was a new word, and took longer than it should have given the, in retrospect, easy wordplay. 1ac must be COD…
    1. Simpatico is the title of an album by the Charlatans. You should know it for that reason if no other. Naughty boy.
      1. I’m afraid I lost interest in The Charlatans after the first album… Ducks quickly!
  15. It felt like a slow 26 minutes for me. Like many, the top-half popped out quickly whilst the rest was a bit of a struggle. (Yes: I, too, looked for word-play when it was simply cryptic definition.) I took way too long over 25D; thinking there must be a word either meaning ‘slightly wound’ and equating to an attacker from the side, or an attacker with a couple of letters removed from the middle. Or even, meaning wound with a letter or two removed from a word meaning … no, I just gave up and plumped for double def with ‘attacker’ as padding.

    6D was a new word for me, but fortunately pretty easy to guess from the play. 17D – as usual for me – took a while.

    Have to nominate 24D as COD. R+H+ONE with a techinically accurate &lit description. Lovely.

  16. A poor show here at 11:05 – partly the same trouble as others with 5D, partly the effect of putting ‘UNALTERER’ at 3D, and partly general stupidity, esp. in the bottom half – e.g. looking for ARB = bra rev. = ‘rejected support’ at 21.

    Solved 28A the ‘wrong way’ via the fake anagram.

  17. 13:38 .. Should have been much quicker, perhaps, but like Penfold, I was really slow to see 1a. In fairness (to us) I’m not sure that “Having a large staff” is really a definition of LABOUR INTENSIVE at all. My business is labour intensive, and I’m the only employee (and I’m not that large!).

    Enjoyable puzzle, anyway, and a nice contrast to the last few days. Personally I’m okay with ‘early’ for ‘am’ in this context, since I’m pretty sure in college days I would have described a morning paper in just that way – an early exam. But I can understand the objection.

    Happy Thanksgiving, George. Hope you like stuffing (Oo, Matron).

    Q-1, E-6.5, D-5 .. 24d RHONE

  18. Quite a fast solve at 9.42 although I found that , once I got some letters in, I was entering some answers on faith without really going to far into the clue. TOREADOR was also last for me. CODICES would have been very difficult for me without the favourable checking letters
    JohnPMarshall
  19. I must have spent almost as long on TOREADOR as the rest of the puzzle. Like everyone else I immediately spotted TARRAGON and spent some time trying to justify it. Then I realized it must be something to do with taking letters out of TERMINATOR, or at the very least it must end ..ATOR before finally clicking. An excellent puzzle.
    Happy Thanksgiving to anyone else in the US.
  20. Enjoyable puzzle, which, like others I found on the very easy side of normal, 14 mins. Solved all the top half except TOREADOR almost straightaway but found the bottom half much harder, with CHILDHOOD my last entry. COD 14 down, which was a novel treatment (to me anyway).
  21. Can’t quote a time due to interruptions, but I enjoyed it and agree that 24D is superb. TOREADOR was last in for me as well.

    Tom B.

  23. Interestingly, “navvy” originated as a contraction of “navigator”, being the men who built the canals (presumably in the 18th century).

  24. I must read clues properly – repeat many times. There is no Y in the anagrist so I should have noticed that this was wrong at 14d. I did get the rest correct though – including our bullfighting friend – watch your step mate – I have my eye on you – at 14d.

    There are 7 “easies”:

    10a A place in the country’s football team (5)
    VILLA. Aston Villa that is.

    13a Wild abandon (6)
    DESERT

    26a Primate contributing to church importantly (5)
    CHIMP. Hidden in last 2 words.

    5d Killer skilled at evading charges (8)
    TOREADOR. Isn’t that the bloke that plays with the bull? I thought it was the MATADOR that dispatches it? Anyway – enough of Bull killing!

    7d Falsely acquired title, long abandoned (3-6)
    ILL GOTTEN. Anagram of (title long).

    20d Time off for jazz singer (7)
    HOLIDAY. DD of SUMMER and BILLIE?

    25d Slightly wound attacker on flank (4)
    WING. It’s only a flesh wound! What – I’ve cut your arm off? Images of the Black Knight in Monty Python’s Holy Grail.

Comments are closed.