Times 24110 – 31st Dec 08 – The End Of The Year Show

Author   7dpenguinPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
This was a bit of a disappointing end to the year to be honest. There weren’t many clues worthy of note – a few nice definitions but nothing really to write home about. It took me 13:25 but I felt it could have been quicker. Sorry to be so negative at such a festive time.

It only remains to wish all setters, bloggers, commenters and readers a very happy new year. See you all in 2009.

Across
4 RESTAFFED – (FASTER)* + FED
9 RATION ALE – something that should never be allowed to happen
11 AC(CEP)T – a cep is an edible mushroom with a smooth brown cap and the crossword setter’s favourite
12 PLANK,TON
14 NUMERO UNO – (ON OUR MENU)*
17 WIN(C)E
19 SUNSCREEN – (RUN SCENES)* – “film put on in summer” is an excellent definition
21 THE,MA,TIC
22 CO(S)MIC – I like “issue for children” for COMIC
25 HOO[-c]H,A
26 PUNCH,BOW,L
28 THYME – porridge being a slang term for prison (“time”)

Down
1 CURTAIN TWITCHER – this took me ages to work out. “Preserving butcher” is CURER around TAINT WITCH. It’s an excellent build up but I can’t make any sense of the surface.
3 STOPPER – being POTS reversed plus the even letters in APPEARS. “Sink” and “Pot” both mean getting a ball in a pocket in snooker etc
5 SPELL,BOUND
6 ARSENIC – reversed hidden in RACINE’S RARELY. “As” is the chemical symbol for arsenic. Tip for beginners: also look out for I = Iodine and HE = Helium. There may be others but I don’t have my periodic table to hand.
7 FRUITCAKE – I was once described as being “as nutty as a fruitcake” which I quite enjoyed
8 DAPHNIS AND CHLOE – (HANDEL CHOPIN SAD)* – At almost 1 hour long, this is Ravel’s longest ballet. I reckon he probably overdid it by about 59 and a half minutes, although I think I’d rather sit through the whole hour of this than a minute of watching those prancing idiots on Strictly Come Dancing
13 MU(D)S,KIPPER – MUDs being SUM rev around D. Mudskippers spend most of their time out of water which to me disqualifies them from being fish. I thought the whole point of being a fish was you spent your day swimming about in water. Impostor!
15 MAN,GET OUT – this veg always reminds me of Monsieur Mangetout who once ate a Cessna light aircraft
20 CRO[-t]CHET – the usual treatment for CROCHET
23 MOO,NY – I wasn’t sure that this was right as I couldn’t equate MOONY with LISTLESS. It turns out that moony means “dreamy in mood or nature”, so that’s OK
24 G,NAW – NAW being WAN rev.

22 comments on “Times 24110 – 31st Dec 08 – The End Of The Year Show”

  2. 40 minutes here. Actually I thought it was rather a good one and for the first time for ages I actually marked some clues as possible CODs. I liked 3, 6, 9 and 28. 6 probably takes the prize.

    I lost quite a lot time over 1d but it was well spent as once it was solved the remaining clues in the NW fell into place quickly.

    I raised an eyebrow at Sweet = Fruitcake and haven’t been able to justify it. Unless one eats fruitcake as a sweet course, that is. Can’t say I ever have or seen it offered as such.

  3. Thanks for explaining 6D – I put ARSENIC but didn’t understand the clue. I didn’t find it a particularly easy one – 15mins – but it sounds as if others are likely to be a good bit quicker.
  4. Another very easy puzzle, more suited to tomorrow than today. About 20 minutes to solve with no holdups or major queries. A tough one tomorrow will rank as sadism. I also queried fruitcake=sweet.

    1D is interesting because as Ken says the surface reading is a nonsense. Does that matter? Do we think that the clue should always have some semblance of a statement that makes sense? My own opinion is that the best clues do have a smooth surface reading but that it’s not essential.

    Have a good party day, everybody.

  5. I found it fairly straightforward. Some of the clues were very easy indeed (1ac,4, 10, 18,19, 23, 24,27) but a few others pushed my time to 35 minutes.
    I agree that some of the surfaces were less than polished. I am more tolerant of a weak surface if the wordplay is very witty or clever, but I wouldn’t say that is the case here.
    Happy New Year to all.
  6. Like some others above, I thought this a better and more enjoyable puzzle than indicated by 7dpenguin’s rather damning verdict, with some admittedly very easy but also some excellent clues. About 35 mins for me. 28ac made me smile, but perhaps it’s an old chestnut to cryptic veterans.

    Re 1dn, I’m with Jimbo in thinking that the best clues have a smooth surface reading, preferably one that lures the solver entertainingly away from the answer. But it would perhaps be asking a bit much of setters to expect them to achieve this all the time. In this case, the surface reading was complete nonsense, but redeemed, I thought, by the ingenious wordplay.

    Michael H

    1. I think “damning verdict” is putting it a bit strongly – I only said I was a bit disappointed. I was hoping for a bit of a theme running through it with it being the last one of the year, although we did have ration ale, hooch and punch bowl (and sink for later!). Or perhaps 1:30 in the morning isn’t the best time to give an unjaded critique.
      With the surface readings I think that clues should give some kind of readable surface. Perhaps I’m just parsing 1d wrongly, but I just can’t read the words in the clue as a sentence and I think you should be able to.
  7. 9.15. This was the first puzzle I’ve done for ten days or so apart from the one I blogged. I agree that there were some pretty easy clues, and for me at least these were enough to open up access to the others.

    Happy New Year to everyone.

  8. 19:24 for me. I didn’t find it all that easy, having to wait until a few letters were in place before getting the Ravel work in 8D, and I put in STOPPER without understanding the wordplay. The rest went in slowly but surely, with only a couple going in straight away. Maybe I was just on the wrong wavelength today.
  9. 22:52 .. should have been much faster but I was bleary-eyed from an excess of work (yes, really – some festive season!).

    I’m on the fence on this puzzle. It would be nice to get spectacular puzzles on high days and holidays, but the Times rarely seems to aim for that. Perhaps it’s fair enough. The old guard commuter constituency probably takes a break from the puzzle during the season of egg-nog and leftover turkey.

    Nothing remarkable in this one, but MANGETOUT and PUNCHBOWL were both nicely done.

    A happy and prosperous new year to all.

  10. 9:00 roughly, with a short interruption. I’m a bit stunned by the low importance attached to surface meanings by some of you. The generally very high standard of surface meanings is one of the things that makes the Times puzzle good. John Grant, Times xwd ed 1983-95, had a nice quote which I’m sure I’ve used before: “The most damning thing you can say about a crossword clue is that it could only be a crossword clue.” I can’t find a way of getting 1D to make sense either, so I’d count it as a dud.

    Happy New Year to all.

    Edited at 2008-12-31 03:16 pm (UTC)

      1. And thirded. The ‘art that conceals art’ is what I enjoy most in a clue. A Happy New Year to all bloggers and contributors.

        Tom B.

  11. 1D – is “butcher” meant to be “butcher’s” ie rhyming slang for taking a look, with “preserve” meaning “to keep safe”? I guess “preserving butcher” could then – sort of – mean “to take a look in safety”.
    1. Isn’t “preserving butcher” the CURER in CUR(TAINT,WITCH)ER, with “snoop” as the definition?
  13. Regards to all and Happy New Year. About 40 minutes for this one, and had to look up MANGETOUT, a word you’d never encounter over here. I agree the surfaces are important to a good clue, but I don’t find 1D as objectionable as some of you do. To get such an offbeat term as CURTAIN-TWITCHER into a puzzle is entertaining enough, and possibly worth stretching the credulity of the surface to do so. Again, best for 2009.
  14. Finally home and able to print! 16 minutes, slow start but a fast finish for me. I see luck of the draw has me blogging tomorrow, hope nobody minds it being a trifle late.
  15. A somewhat lethargic effort both from me (30 min), and the setter. I go along with “curtain twitcher” being a fun answer poorly clued. Happy New Year to one and all from New Zealand.
  17. Maybe I have lower (moo) expectations than some others but I thought this was a good one. The convolute clue at 1d made me so pleased that I managed to unravel it that I missed noticing anything amiss with the surface.

    I did get one wrong, I notice, at 23d where I entered MOODY instead of MOONY. Of course I got the low (MOO) bit but I don’t know what US State I thought DY represents? North or South Dakoty perhaps??

    There are 7 “easies” omitted:

    1a Hybrid religious symbol (5)
    CROSS

    10a Floor, where tree remains (5)
    STUMP. I did not see this until I had 6d ARSENIC, 7d FRUITCAKE and 8d DAPHNIS AND CHLOE. Talking of Strictly I think SOME of the “idiots” on there dance really well and I would not be the one to cast the first stone at them, nor any of the others.

    16a Excellent form (5)
    CLASS

    27a Track through Hyde Park bringing awful dispute (6,3)
    ROTTEN ROW. A “street” in London that I had heard of but did not know where it was situated. I do now apparently.

    2d Eye finds nothing close to perfect in image (5)
    0 P T IC. I can’t see how EYE = OPTIC – am I missing something?

    4d Heading torn from off-white sheets (4)
    (C) REAM

    18d Issue celebrity brought up, worried (7)
    EMAN ATE. Celebrity = NAME upside-down with worried = ATE.

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