Times 24087 – 3rd Dec 08. Hellish route indeed – my worst nightmare

Author   7dpenguinPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Well thank you very much Mr (or Mrs) Setter! What an absolute stinker this was. After 20 minutes I was considering coming on here and apologising for lack of blog because I only had three answers in. Lots of clues turn out to be really devious and clever but I think there are far too many obscurities for a daily puzzle. My time in the end was 45 minutes but with considerable help from the good people at Onelook.com. If anybody dips below the 10 minute barrier today, I will be very impressed. I have to leave some explanations out – deciding which ones may prove difficult. Cleverly the puzle contains all the letters of the alphabet (it’s pan something – it’s half two in the morning and my brain has switched off!)

Across
9  ROAD RAGE – A DRAG in ROE. One of my original three
11 MISSION CREEP –  the expansion of a project beyond its original goals. I’ve never heard of it  
13  VER[-y] ON A – probably one of the easiest clues of the day but still hard!
14  ENTRACTE – “on track” +T[ens]E. 6 clues in and already two obscure answers.
15  JOCELYN – I smiled when I got this. Two soundalikes in a row, this time “jostlin'” 
16  TEMPEST – if you work as a temp, but are employed less than your fellow temps, are you really the TEMP-EST? I personally like clues like this – they make me smile. 
20  WOMANISE – MAN IS in WOE. Took far longer than it should 
22  PRO L,I,X – I was looking for a word consisting of six roman numerals for a long time.  
23  LIGHT BRIGADE – light being a window 
25  [-b]ROOK – my second answer. My fist was 10a but I’ve decided to leave that one out 
26  ELOQUENT – being an anagram of QUESTIONABLE minus BIAS. Superbly worded clue, using “elements of bias” to clarify that the the letters of BIAS be removed. Some may have complained if it just said “remove bias”  

Down
2
 		 ABED,N,EGO – Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were biblical chums of Daniel who were thrown into a fiery furnace by King Nebuchadnezzar. Say what you will about the bible, but it has some cracking names. Shadrach went on to become one of the Dingles in Emmerdale. Speaking of Dingles, well done to Burnley for pasting those prancing southern softies of Arsenal last night
3
 		 PRIMROSE PATH  – does this really equate to “yellow brick road”? I don’t think so. It doesn’t even make for an entertaining surface.  
4
 		 THESSALY – LASS rev in THEY. I dredged this one up from the inner recesses of my mind. I wasn’t keen on going there, it scared me. 
5
 		 D(RA)INER – for far too long I thought I was being really clever and “knew” that “kitchen” meant the percussion section of an orchestra and was looking for a drum or similar. Woods and trees! 
6  MAG,NET – very clever. The biggest a-ha of the lot 
7  FAZE – this setter really like soundalikes. Fays are fairies 
8
 		 HELP,MEET – I seem to remember helpmeet cropping up recently in a crossword. Unfortunately, I only remembered it after doing a Onelook search. 
12  RE,AL P,ROPE,RTY – RTY being (TRY)* I’ve heard of real estate but never real property 
15  JEW [-t]ELLER  
17
 		 EXPLAINS – (X SPANIEL)* beautiful clue using “mongrel” an the angram indicator, and a perfect example of “lift and separate” 
19
 		 GENI[-u]S,TA – I can see that the setter means GENIUS leaving (out) University, but I’m never really happy with this kind of treatment. “University leaving brilliant chap” would seem more accurate but makes less sense. 
21  INBRED – IN + DERB[-y] reversed. Clever wordplay but nonsense surface 
24  GO OF[-f] – Excellent end to an all too difficult puzzle. 

52 comments on “Times 24087 – 3rd Dec 08. Hellish route indeed – my worst nightmare”

  1. 13.20. Seemed to take an age to get started; I had looked at almost every clue before finding a couple I could decode more or less straightaway, ELOQUENT and EXPLAINS. When every one of the first 5 clues I solved contained a Q, an X or a J, I began to wonder if setter had set him/herself some kind of bizarre challenge. MISSION CREEP was a guess; never heard of REAL PROPERTY; just about heard of everything else.

    I agree with 7dpenguin, clues like the one for TEMPEST may not be entirely sound but I enjoy them.

  2. Oh boy – I went to Bradfords after 35 minutes and still needed another 20 to get it all finished. ABEDNEGO the last to fall.
  3. Done in 40 minutes save for DRAINER (yes, after everything else I was looking for something more devilish) and ABEDNEGO. That last took some doing with google, so I didn’t solve it all without aids. I will eat my hat if anybody says that Abednego is a common reference, or even that they’ve heard of Mr. Abednego prior to today. I don’t begrudge anyone a deep enjoyment of the Old Testament, but I’ll submit you have to dig real deep to find this gent. Nevertheless, regards all. And a nice outing from the setter, despite the biblical obscurity quibble. COD: WOMANISE.
    1. Funnily enough, I first encountered these three as a long answer in a Times Jumbo 30 odd years ago. At the time I was really into Blake (what student isn’t?) and so, having done some reading on the background to Nebuchadnezzar, was able to dredge up those names and help my father (it was he who got me into The Times crossword habit). Since then I have seen one of other of them crop up from time to time – not regularly but enough to know to be on the watch for them.
  4. 26:40 .. This was, er, quite hard. Almost lost the will to live around the 20 minute mark, but battled on and threw in a few (somehow correct) on a wing and a prayer at the end. I can see a lot of frustrated and slightly irritated commuters stepping off the 8.15 at Kings Cross in the morning with a half-finished puzzle in hand.

    Well done, 7dpenguin. You’re immune from the next public vote-off.

  5. A nice blog, penguin!

    First 2 in were JEDI and HELPMEET and I knew straight away this was going to be a good one!

    It took a while to get into, but once I got on the setter’s wavelength it all came reasonably easily – about 45mins – and without aids.

    I hadn’t heard of MISSION CREEP but in law we talk sometimes of “deal creep” which is when you are documenting what is supposed to be an agreed position and the position moves during the documentation process, so it wasn’t a big leap.

    Sorry to disappoint you Kevin, I did remember the fiery gentlemen from my children’s bible (although I am entirely unreligious now, those things stick with you).

    In common law systems, all property is either “real” or “personal” – real property is land and anything attached to it (such as a house), and personal property is everything else. (I think real estate or realty is the equivalent American term for real property.)

    1. I am less disappointed than stunned, but thanks for the sympathy. I myself had 12 full years as an impressionable youth in Catholic schools, and I sincerely believe I’ve never heard of the aforementioned Mr. A. Maybe too much time spent on the pesky New Testament.
      Also, I’m in the real estate business in the US, and ‘real property’ has the exact same meaning and usage you describe over here.
      1. Certainly “real property” is the legal term (our relevant legislation here is the NSW Real Property Act 1900) – perhaps “real estate” is more common parlance.

        Re Abednego – it’s amazing what you can find when you start rummaging around in your mental lumber room. May your hat be made of rice paper.

        I must say I am impressed with your interest in the Times crossword. If the tables were turned I would be quite lost trying to do an equivalent US puzzle!

  6. It would be helpful for readers/searchers to say what crossword this is: The Times cryptic crossword 24087, on 2008-12-03.

    And, no, it’s not one of mine, but I do remember singing about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in Sunday school.

  7. Pass 1: Zilch. Nothing. Not a sausage. Surely not a total blank?
    Pass 2: “Tempest” Come on now!
    Pass 3: “Goof” and “Assaying”. This is going to be extremely painful.
    Ever so slowly get into brain-synch with this sadist.
    Finally finished in about 50 min, but too many lax constructions for my liking.
  8. As usual on my commuting days I didn’t get a straight run at this and I had to solve it over several sessions. The first 10 minutes yielded only 5 answers but when I came back to it I found some sort of form and completed most of the rest in the next 20. However, I then hit a brick wall in the SE corner and I still had 8d outstanding in the NE. Nearly out of time, I resorted to on-line assistance to crack HELPMEET, PROLIX, TEMPEST, SPITTOON and REAL PROPERTY which I also have never heard of and I was hindered by thinking the second word might start with M from REAL-M = Land. Last in, I solved 25 unaided once the checking letters were in but prior to that I couldn’t get RILL out of my mind, even though it didn’t fit the wordplay.

    I didn’t have any problems with ENTRACTE as this is in common usage in the world of music/ballet etc, nor with ABEDNEGO who has apparently featured in a number of popular songs, one of which was very famous in the 50s though I can’t remember either the tune or who sang it, but there was a chorus or possibly a riff involving the three names being chanted over and again.

    A bit of a tricky one for sure, but very enjoyable for all that. I just wish it had come on a day when I could have given it my full attention.

  9. Came here early as it was taking a long time.Christmas on the way and all that. Also remember the fire people from Sunday school and then later from a Leonard Cohen song ‘Into this furnace now i ask you to en…ter’. Took several appearances in crosswords to finally get the right spelling for Abednego. Still feel it should have a vowel between the d and n. Wasn’t Shadrach also a monster spider in Lord of the Rings. Scary!
    1. I’ve just had one of those moments! I must have known that Cohen song for nearly forty years, and I’ve never thought of that story while listening to it. It does sort of fit, doesn’t it? I was at a Cohen concert on Sunday in Manchester; he’s 74, but has lost absolutely nothing.

      I think it was Louis Armstrong who sang the song about S,M and A way back when. Then there’s Britten’s Noh-style piece “The Burning Fiery Furnace.”

      Dafydd (another convert to atheism who heard the tale in sunday school).

  10. After 40 minutes I cheated and came here to get answers to pretty much all of the top half. Hats off to Ken for managing to blog this monster.

    In most cases I was defeated by fair trickery but I never felt that I was being offered a way in. For example, if 14A had been ENTRANCE with a reasonably straightforward double def clue I’d have been encouraged.

    Difficult to pick COD noms as some of the best ones defeated me but, of those I got unaided, WOMANISE, SPITTOON and REAL PROPERTY stood out.

    Q-0 E-7 D-10 COD 12

  11. I enjoyed the challenge of this but was very glad I wasn’t under the pressure of having to “same day” blog it. Very well done Ken.

    I tackled it quarter by quarter. I found the NW the easiest, which went in quite quickly. Then 15D was straightforward and 23A fairly obvious so the SW corner was next.

    I then reverse engineered a guessed ROAD RAGE, remembered MISSION CREEP from software creation days (not quite getting the Alamo bit) and guessed REAL PROPERTY and the rather obscure ENTRACTE. The final stage was the SE corner. Luckily I’m quite good at plants so got GENISTA (and agree with Ken about the wording). Suddenly remembered gnome=saying and I was home in about 40 minutes.

    We were due this one, I thought I might get it yesterday, and I’m glad the tension of waiting is over

  12. Struggled from the outset with this one; gave up after an hour when I realised that further progress was distinctly unlikely and decided to come here and consult the Crossword Samaritans.

    Had never heard of MISSION CREEP, ENTRACTE or ABEDNEGO and never came close to getting them!

  13. Call it half an hour of real solving time, though chopped into pieces after the first 20 minutes or so, at which point 11 (second word) and 8 were left.

    On first look acrosses, just got 10, 26 and 27. On the downs, some with a checking letter, 4, 15, 19, 24. Then gradually got through the rest, but was left with NE corner where ROADRAGE took absurdly long, having seen ROAD ???E from the off, FAZE was slow too, and DRAINER went in without understanding the relatively simple wordplay. Had heard of mission or similar ‘creep’, and ‘real property’ made sense from US talk of ‘real estate’.

  14. Well, I’m still going on this one, as lunchtime is over, and I’ll have to finish tonight. But thought I’d chip in and say that I thought the SW corner was reasonably easy… The rest, though, will be interesting! 10ac I was (pleasantly) surprised to see, is it actually in any dictionaries?
  15. Am I right in thinking that ‘mission creep’ was forged in that crucible of jargon and euphemism, the Pentagon? I seem to recall first hearing it with regard to US intervention in Somalia, and later expressed as an anxiety with regard to Iraq and Afghanistan. If so, it’s one of the Pentagon’s better ones.

    I forgot to rate this puzzle:

    Q-[I’m not competent to assess this one for quibbles; my brain’s not that big], E-8 [makes you feel good once it’s over, like cod liver oil], D-9

    COD – 15a JOCELYN [which made me think of William Brown, as voiced by Martin Jarvis]

    1. Mission creep is much older than that. Michael has suggested the Vietnam War and I recall using it when trying to stop computer projects slowing exceeding their original terms of reference and budget sometime in the 1970s
      1. I know that particular usage as “feature creep”, something I’ve had fairly recent experience of in a large government IT project! Still, the leap to MISSION CREEP for me was quite easy as a result.
        1. Ah, yes, minister…

          ‘The public,’ said Sir Humphrey, ‘do not know anything about wasting public money. We are the experts.’

  16. Agree with all who found this difficult, though some clues came surprisingly easy. Got there in the end, taking several bites at the apple. At least 1hr in toto, I should think. It was consoling to find even Peter B needing around 30 mins. Sabine’s time of just over 13 mins is positively brilliant.

    I’m surprised so many had not heard of MISSION CREEP. As sotira surmises, it is a piece of Pentagon jargon, not perhaps as famous as Donald Rumsfeld’s “known unknowns etc, etc”, but up there. I think it dates back as far as the Vietnam War, where the US started with a handful of “military advisers” attached to the ARVN (the South Vietnamese Army)and ended up with half a million men (or whatever the figure was) under arms -a classic example of the “creep” in question.

    In answer to penguin’s query about PRIMROSE PATH = “yellow brick road” at 3dn: it just about works, it seems to me, primrose being a light yellow colour. The equation of “path” with “brick road” is more dubious but I guess the setter gets away with it by virtue of the question mark.

    I’m a libertarian on homophone clues, and do not insist on exact sameness of sound provided it’s similar enough (and preferably amusing to boot). I loved JOCELYN = jostlin’ at 15ac. However, expecting solvers to extract “on track” from the ENTRAC of ENTRACTE was stretching things a bit, I thought. That said, no one else seems to have had problem with this, so perhaps it’s just me.

    Michael H

    1. I agree with you about the homophone (I would wouldn’t I). I think either you knew the word or you had to have the checking letters. Faced with E?T?A?T? you could guess (a) it ended in TE (b) that “on track” had to come into it somewhere, so the middle was “trac”. That really only left “n” as the second letter.
  17. I am so comforted to read this blog. I could only do the SW corner and Abednego ( Welsh religious upbringing).I agree with paulww that an indication of difficulty would help, especially a beginner like me. At least we would know that slightly different thougt processes are needed.
  18. About half an hour or so, broken in the middle by ‘er indoors demanding that I come down and help putting the Christmas tree up! It’s our first Christmas together so it’s got to be “special” apparently. Bah humbug!

    Anyway, I agree with most of the comments about toughness, but I filled in the left-hand side without too much trouble, with only a couple of RHS entries filled in before the enforced break. The only one that was new to me was REAL PROPERTY, but after putting in TEMPEST, I saw “on mountain” = RE, ALP and worked it out from wordplay.

    Too many good clues to pick a COD, I’ve been trying to decide from 5 or 6. Maybe I’ll give it to 10A, just cos it’s nice to see it in a crossword!

  19. Far too hard and loose for me.

    I see that lots of you liked Jocelyn: but I don’t get it. How does MAN = A WOMAN’S GIVEN NAME?

    TEMP-EST? Please? You’re either a member of staff or you’re a temporary fill-in for one. Least “regular member” of staff is simply wrong, and “least regular” member of staff is no better.

    Numbers of Romans for 1-6 roman numerals is one of my pet hates (with >100,000 combinations that fit, it’s not what I’d call a ‘clue’.)

    Hellish is far too definite (and strong) for any definition of Primrose Lane.

    ‘… leaving university …’ simply can’t mean ‘U leaving …’? And my biggest gripe: X,Y doesn’t generally (or even usually) mean the same thing as Y,X. That device is heavily overused in this puzzle. 23A being the worst case..

    But with the sour grapes spat: there were a number of cracking clues. 20A tickled my funny bone.

    1. Jocelyn: It’s one of those names like Hilary which can be used for either gender, though both are now usually female.

      Temp-est: It’s a joke!

      23A: it’s not (X,Y = Y,X) but “X on Y” = Y,X. As “on” can mean “added to” (Concise Oxford), it seems reasonable to use either order. For Down answers, there may be a house rule that the “on top of” meaning takes priority. I can’t see any other example of this “heavily overused device” in the puzzle, having just looked through the clues.

  20. I found this very tough too – 46 minutes, the top half in particular. Last entry ABEDNEGO which I’d never heard of and in which all the crossing letters were vowels. Like others JOCELYN was my COD and, like the blogger, I thought MAGNET was very good too.
    1. Gave up after half an hour or so with 6 clues outstanding, not necessarily the ones others found difficult (9,14 ac, 5,7,19,24 dn, so I didn’t get road rage, goof or drainer). I’m reasonably pleased with that given that far more skilful solvers than I struggled with this one. Completing around 80% of a puzzle this difficult would have been beyond me until recently. bc
  21. Very very hard. Last in was 2d (incorrectly as ‘Abendego’) after about 40 minutes. Might have been closer to 20 if I’d heard of ‘primrose path’ or ‘mission creep’, but Sabine’s 13-odd minutes is very impressive.
  22. Have nearly sprained brain on this. Spelt Abednego with i in place of 2nd e so didn’t get VERONA. Never heard of MISSION CREEP,but had MISSION – so no help for HELPMEET. I wouldn’t have thought of that anyway. Stuck ASSAYIST instead of ASSAYING – and why not? A gnome could be an assayist, couldn’t he? And didn’t get SPITTOON. All in all agony beyond words. Hope tomorrow’s is a bit easier. I did not enjoy the struggle…
  23. This was tough!…Some cracking clues…quite liked 1 across which took a long time…Not sure about Primrose Path and Tempest but there we go!

    congratulations to the setter

  24. I guess one has to be old to remember “Shadrack” sung by the Golden Gate Quartet, circa 1937. I don’t associate it with Louis Armstrong, but apparently Louis Prima did a version. Younger solvers might know the Beastie Boys, who seem to have done it too. John
    1. Some might remember Mr Shadrach, the undertaker for whom the title character worked in Billy Liar.
  25. Just for record as a correction to above Shagrat (not Shadrach) was an orc who argued over the tunic not the spider. Also the LC line should have read ‘Into this furnace now i ask you to venture’ from The Old Revolution. Apropos nothing.
  26. Had to resort to Bradfords for FAZE and one or two others. A good mental work-out that took me about 3 days on and off. I really liked HELPMEET. Only a pedant like me would argue that an Israeli is not necessarily a Jew (15d) or a genius a chap (19d).
  27. Auugh! Even with solving aids still got it wrong, CARNET for 6 down. So many homophones in the puzzle just assumed this was another for carney.

    Abednego was deep in the brain from 40-odd years ago, like more than half the above correspondents, got that one easily. Helpmeet appeared a few months ago, got that too. Faze I got, especially after seeing QXJK, but otherwise the bootm half was full, the top was empty.

  28. Perhaps a read of the moans and groans on puzzle 24087 should provide an illustration for the word “pedantry” – though most seem to be excusing their failure to solve the world’s best crossword in 10 minutes or so. Today, my wife and I solved it in The Australian newspaper in about two hours, an excellent puzzle. I certainly have no complaints about a single clue, only regret for the slowness of my seventy plus year old brain. Thank you all.
  29. A terrific puzzle, chosen more or less at random for a bit of practice three years on at the Times Crosswrod Club site. Many chuckles were had, notably as MAGNET and JOCELYN fell.

    Re 3dn, my take on this, even while solving, was that a path runs alongside a road, and that that was the force of ‘along’, which, according to Chambers, can mean ‘by the side of’.

    Thanks, setter!

  30. Full agreement with the last 2 comments – a real cracker! I have no truck whatsoever with the whingers.

    FOI JEDI at 10a it was. Great to see some modern classics creeping in. Loads of clues JOCELYN for position as COD. LOI GENISTA as this particular genius left University a long time ago and is not particularly good at plant names. I was delighted to know ABEDNEGO at 2d because of my studies at the Times Cryptic School of obscure stuff.

    There are 4 clues left out:

    1a Concerned about darling having dressed down (8)
    CAR PET ED. I hate it when me Geordie lass goes out all scruffy-like.

    10a Forceful knight judged extremely dangerous, if just initiated (4)
    J E D I. Initial letters of words 3-6. A long clue for 4 letters but totally worth it.

    27a Testing, for example, gnome (8)
    AS SAYING. What we do to bags of sand when exploring for gold.

    18d Receptacle quickly filled by William (8)
    S PITT OON. A clue that you can’t un-read – gagging all the way to the end once it had been.

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