Times 24097

Author   foggywebPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I did this in 26 minutes, so would expect to see some really fast times from others. A few new words for me (Ennis, Etty, Ostrogoth) – all proper nouns but all quite gettable from the wordplay.
I immediately wrote in the first ten or so clues I looked at, which is unusual for me. So I had a good start on this.

Across

4 STA[b]LEMATE – briefly considered an anagram of TEAM, before I spotted the true workings.
9 D(E,TRIM)ENT – E=energy
10 L.A. DEN
11 AUR(OR)A
12 G,RAC,IOUS – always helpful to see ‘promises to pay’ – these are more often than not IOUS.
19 TOP,1 – a hat worn by Muslims. A useful filler word for crosswords considering how many times I’ve seen it. A topi is also an antelope.
22 UNI,VERSE
23 STAGER – an ‘old stager’ is an experienced person.
26 OGIVE – a curved Gothic window or other structure. The mendicant’s plea is ‘O, give’.
27 OSTROGOTH – anagram of ‘to go short’ – not a word I’ve seen before.
29 SWEAT – hidden word in ‘thiS WEATher’ – I briefly wondered how SLEET worked before I spotted it!

Down

1 REDCAR,PET – I thought of RED CAR straight away as I’ve been there quite a bit with work recently.
2 VOTER – initial letters.
3 PRIOR(IT)Y – IT=sex appeal.
4 SLEW – double meaning. This confused me a bit as I didn’t realise it was a N American term for ‘a great number’ – I’m sure I’ve seen it a slew of times without such a modifier.
7 AND,ROME,DA – AND=with, DA=District Attorney
8 [t]ENNIS – Ennis is the County Town of Clare, Ireland. I looked this up after solving.
13 AS,PERS(I)ONS
15 A,MPH,IBIAN – IBIAN is IBERIAN without ER – reverse of RE(Royal Engineers)
18 EDITIONS – SEDITION with the S moved to the end.
21 HER(ET)O
22 U(BOA)T – UT=Utah
24 G[e]NOME
25 [g]ETTY – I knew the J Paul Getty Museum, so did a Google image search for ETTY and got lots of nude women, then felt satisfied.

26 comments on “Times 24097”

  1. I went through the top half in no time, but ran out of steam and took longer over the bottom. Odd because on review the bottom is no harder than the top. 25 mins in all.

    I also toyed with “sleet” at 29ac. Like foggy, I had to check Etty afterwards but unlike foggy, apparently, I have to say his nudes did nothing for me at all.

  2. 9:30 – quick start but ran into the sand in the bottom half, with 22D and 15 taking a shocking amount of time. The Wiki disambiguation page shows that ‘topi’ can describe any number of hats. Enjoyed the improbable-looking anags at 14 and 27.
  3. There seem to be rather a lot of US references in this one some of which threw me a bit. I know the word “slew” well but had no idea that it is an American term so “in Chicago” delayed me in the solving. I thought “Getty” = “musuem’s creator ” and “Etty” = “painter of the nude” were a bit much in the same clue. Neither immediately leapt to my mind. I also thought the use of “star’s” in 10 was unnecessary and misleading.

    Is a topi a hat worn by Muslims? I think of it as a pith helmet as worn by white hunters etc.

    I completed most of this in 30 minutes but then spent ages filling in the gaps at 3,4,8,10,11 and 22 so I didn’t find it as easy as Foggy suggests.

  4. A rollicking start turned into a plod. So almost half an hour, but no quibbles whatsoever. I thought that slew (4 Dn) for a great number was universal, not just North American.
  5. Chambers’ definition of TOPI-WALLAH bears out jackkt’s point about TOPI – that was always my understanding too.
    Nice straightforward intro to the week – about 9 mins.
  6. Started by solving clues quickly enough to give me a reasonable chance of finishing in 20 minutes, but then hit problems with 4a/4d, 15, 22a/22d. 30 minutes in the end. Never heard of ENNIS, but the wordplay was a very fair indication.
  7. Like others above, I started at a fast clip and was looking for a very good time by my standards, but then unaccountably got bogged down in the top RH corner, at which point I abandoned the puzzle, returning later to finish. So no accurate timing. 4ac and 5dn held me up, even though they should have been (and were in truth) straightforward enough. Certainly, 5dn, on review, was a much more obvious and gettable anagram than the unlikely 14 and 27ac, both of which fell quickly.

    Michael H

  8. I agree with jackkt that “star’s” in 10ac seems completely superfluous and unfairly misleading, suggesting the ned to find some extra element in the answer which isn’t there.

    Like rosselliot, I did not think there was anything specially American about “slew” in the sense of “a large number”, but Chambers gives it as “U.S. colloquial”, and offers an alternative spelling -“slue”. New to me.

    Michael H

  9. 15 minutes on this one last night, but find this morning I’ve done a silly blunder and put TIPI in instead of TOPI.
  10. This should have been easy, but I got well stuck in the SW corner, for reasons that elude me now. So say 20 minutes for the rest, and 45 minutes in total. 1d I was convinced for too long had to be something to do with Red Rum. It got me where it needed to, anyway.
  11. 5.38. Wasn’t entirely certain of a few answers, but ENNIS couldn’t really have been anything else, and I was happy enough to go with ETTY because of Getty. In one of my more bizarre episodes of letter blindness I managed to read “Gothic window” as “Gothic widow” throughout, but I was vaguely aware of the word OGIVE and apparently quite confident that a Gothic widow was what it would turn out to be.
  12. Much the same as everybody else. I found the top easier than the bottom but on looking back can’t see why. About 30 minutes to solve. Nothing stood out as really good and I too can’t see the function of “star’s” at 10A. I was hoping somebody had seen something clever that I had missed but it appears to be padding.
  13. 11.20. Top half went in really quickly and sensed a fast time but the SW corner slowed it down. 15 especially , as once I saw i-i-n I pecilled in ition – big help!. Never heard of Etty so I’m just off to, er, expand my artistic knowledge. “promises to pay” is a handy tool for cluing “ious” – could it be the most (over)used one?
    JohnPMarshall
  14. I got gnome for 24D from the wordplay. Could someone explain why this fits “saw” which presumably is the definition.
    2. A saw is a saying, and so is a gnome. Not the garden variety though, but “a pithy and sententious saying, generally in verse, embodying some moral sentiment or precept”, according to Chambers.
    3. Two definitions you only see in crosswords in one clue. Both “saw” and “gnome” can be defined as a pithy saying.
  15. 15:20 for me, although like others, after the top half went in very quickly I was expecting sub-10 minutes. I also almost put in SLEET for 29A before spotting the simple hidden word.
  16. Quite pleased with myself at managing a time of 14:29 and knowing the word Ostrogoth (though not why I know it). Came a cropper, mind you, on 21D. From the wordplay I put in HETERO and assumed the definition ‘in this direction’ must have an oblique reference to ‘straight’. With a nod to last night’s BBC 2 tribute: “Stupid boy”!
  17. a gentle canter through. i too was perplexed by the inclusion of the word star’s in 10 across. didnt know Slew was an american word but then again what else fitted!
    A nice start to the week
  18. About 30 minutes, not too hard a puzzle to start the week. Like others, the top went in quickly, and the bottom half took longer. Thanks to the setter for the slew of US references today, although I didn’t know ‘slew’ was American, the ‘star’s’ in 10 confused me, didn’t know ‘etty’, and it took me a while to realize that I wasn’t to try to fit ‘Utah’ into 22, but just UT. Nevertheless, it all came together eventually, regards.
  19. A shocking end on AMPIHIBIAN – didn’t know the aircraft meaning and just couldn’t fathom the second half of the wordplay. On reflection, I’m not keen on ‘Spanish’ = IBERIAN on ‘definition-by-example’ grounds, although that’s no excuse.

    ENNIS as mentioned in Isobel by Dido – nice tune.

  20. Around 8 minutes for most of it, and then ground to a shuddering halt in the south west. I couldn’t even finish the puzzle at one sitting. Nothing unfair, just a few clues that I couldn’t tune into at all.
  21. 21D
    Now I can stop wondering why “hetero” = “In this direction”. Doh!

    24D
    Didn’t “gnome” = “saying” appear in one of last week’s Times’ puzzles as well?

  22. A few unknowns and hard literals here but gettable in the end.

    There are 8 “easies”:

    1a Gun the engine – and get the vicar out of bed? (3,2)
    REV UP. Her horse is waiting.

    14a A maths plan turned out to be illusory (10)
    PHANTASMAL. Anagram of (a maths plan). A really easy every-day word?

    16a People start to use restaurant guide (4)
    MEN U. Besides – Michelin is too many letters.

    20a Support workman being employed again (6-4)
    SECOND HAND

    28a Lousy tune played in a delicate manner (9)
    TENUOUSLY. Anagram of (lousy tune).

    5d Later, ran to switch electrical device (10)
    ALTERNATOR. Anagram of (later ran to).

    6d Involve English expert with new line put in (5)
    E NL ACE

    17d With thunder so appalling, landed short of runway (9)
    UNDERSHOT. Anagram of (thunder so).

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