Times 24120

Author   foggywebPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Time: about 35 minutes
Not a lot to say – quite easy but it took me a while to get CORKSCREW, ASCEND and WAGNER at the end. Not sure why they would hold me up – others look slightly more difficult in retrospect.

Across

1 MATTRESS = MATT and TRESS with a shared T.
5 A+RMADA = A (centre of DRAKE)+RMADA(anagram of DRAMA).
10 CANA,LET,TO – Cana is the town where Jesus performed his first recorded miracle.
12 [t]HUMP – briefly considered BUMP because I would refer to a sleeping policeman as a speed bump, rather than a speed hump.
13 PERM,ANENT – I knew about football perms, so felt ok. I’d come across ANENT before, but didn’t know its meaning.
15 STALACTITE – way I remember difference between stalactite and stalagmite: tights come down.
19 RUDE = RUED with the last two letters switched.
20 S,LIP,STITCH – I thought of stitch straightaway, needed the other two letters before writing this in.
22 CORK’S CREW – oh dear, this took me far too long to spot.
24 NORM[a]
28 G,REEDY
29 GRA(DIE)NT

Down

1 MA(C)E
2 TONGUE AND GROOVE – this took me a while to unravel. Not heard of the term, but it makes sense.
3 R,O,L,EP,LAY – L=back of HALL
4 SET-UP – parts of UPSET in another arrangement.
8 APOSTROPHE – anagram of ‘perhaps too’
9 DOORSTEP = PETS,ROOD reversed.
14 OSTRICH EGG – soldiers are pieces of toast dipped in egg.
16 TO,LE,RANT
18 STAN’S,TED – Stan Laurel and Ted Heath.
21 AS,C,END – couldn’t see this until I had CORKSCREW. Even though I thought of C and END. Poor show.
23 WAG[n]ER
25 C(L)OT

50 comments on “Times 24120”

  1. A pretty undemanding start for the week, although for some reason it took me a while to see the NE corner. About 22 mins.

    The &lit at 5 is nice – it has the look of an old chestnut, though I’ve not seen it before. I thought some of the definitions were just a bit too obvious (1ac, 15ac and 22ac in particular).

    That being said I haven’t adequately explained 14dn or 13ac. I’m sure they are obvious, but I look forward to the blog.

    (Being first poster means I get the privilege of also being the first to admit my ignorance!)

    1. 13A – PERM + ANENT. PERM is from football pools. Instead of choosing 8 matches and paying 1d, it was possible to choose 10 and score for any of the permutations of 8 out of the 10, paying 3/9. I half-knew this, but just checked on Wikipedia.

      14D is just a cryptic def I think, playing on “soldiers”.

  2. A very easy start to the week – about 20 minutes to solve. I think 14D is a play on “soldiers”=pieces of bread dipped into the yolk of an egg. I also liked 5A even if it’s not original.
    1. egg, soldiers – d’oh!!

      I have no reason to think 5ac isn’t original – it just has a kind of classic look.

  3. A kinder start to the week than of late. It took me 24 minutes with five not fully explained on completion: 3, 4, 12, 13 and 14. Whilst working these out later I found I had BUMP for HUMP at 12.

    I’m very surprised I have never met “Anent” before.

    It took me while to spot the eggy soldiers reference at 14 and I wondered whether to be picky and query shell = egg.

  4. This took me about 30 minutes, with several minutes spent at the end getting 26 and 14. Several clues had me wondering about the wordplay. I knew ANENT is a word but didn’t know it’s meaning. I still don’t understand “miraculous wedding scene”/CANA in 10.
    I liked many of the clues, especially some of the indirect ones such as 14 and 22.
    1. Yes, thanks, kurihan. Not hard to see why Rowan Atkinson has led campaigns against sweeping bans on ‘religious discrimination’. He’d be out of a job!

      dyste – ‘strictly atheist’ is an arresting phrase. “.. and don’t forget not to say your prayers before you go to bed.”

      1. The late lamented Douglas Adams if asked if he believed in God always answered “Of course not,” and described himself as an “Aggressive Atheist.”
  6. 8:23 .. One of those where a lot of the answers came with a glance at the clue and I had to review it afterwards to appreciate some nice surfaces and inventive clues. Good warm-up for the week.

    COD .. 3d ROLE-PLAY

  7. Thanks very much that very funny link.

    My biblical knowledge has always been pitifully weak, having been brought up in a strictly atheist household.

  8. Just a tad under 15 minutes.

    Didn’t know anent and I still can’t explain 4d for which I have set-up so I await enlightenment. I don’t see what “just” is doing in 25.

    A few ticks (1d for the glassy-smooth surface, 11a for the well-disguised Disney ref and 22 for being appealingly corny) but I agree with Kurihan that some of the defs were a bit of a give-away.

    Q-0, E-6, D-4, COD 1d.

    1. “upset” with its bits switched, though a stray hyphen appearing from nowhere (another miracle).
  9. 7:45, one mistake

    I failed to practice what I preach, and put BUMP at 12 despite not seeing how it worked, when I should have been thinking “the answer must be something else then!”.

    Despite his “1d” hint, it took me a while to realise that Richards “3/9” was three shillings and ninepence = 45 old pence.

    It doesn’t make much sense, but shell->EGG bothers me less than loco->TRAIN, possibly because of the slang term ‘egg’ for a mine or bomb. In this case, we also have a ? attached to “biggest shell”, which can imply questionable usage.

    1. Are you old enough to remember Radio Luxembourg and Horace Bachelor of Keynsham with his sure fire way of winning the football pools for a few old pence?
        1. I just looked it up in Wilki. It was Infra Draw and his name was Batchelor (sorry Horace). Did Keynsham ever recover?
          1. Oh yes. I used to work in Keynsham, It’s where they made Fry’s 5 boy chocolate bars. The smell was wonderful.
            1. I’ve just realised that my last 3 comments have been about food ,not crosswords. Am I in the wrong blog?
      2. Not quite – by the time I was listening to my own radio, the glory days of pirate radio were over.
  10. I was so much in ignorance of anent that I was convinced the rest of the clue had been lost in the download; damned apostrophe again. As others have pointed out the definitions were too easy to stop me in my tracks. Liked 5, 11 and 9 and particularly 22. Had to look very carefully to justify some of my answers.

    If nobody has jumped in while I typed this: 4d up set swapped for set up.

  11. At half an hour, one of the easiest introductions to the week we’ve had of late, and an enjoyable one at that! Lots of good clues here I thought, favourites maybe 14d or 18d.
  12. 13 minutes, nothing too too tricky, but I didn’t understand OSTRICH EGG or PERMANENT and went from definition and checking letters.
  13. 7.31. A pretty straightforward puzzle.

    ANENT is one of those words whose meaning I am completely unable to remember no matter how many times I look it up, which I’ve certainly done three or four times at least by now. I can’t even remember what part of speech it is.

  14. Quite easy but still really enjoyable. I don’t think there’s a shell/egg issue as the clue says “a lot of soldiers might be required to empty this”, and it is the shell that is being emptied. 22a gets my COD nod – the biggest a-ha moment

  16. “it is the shell that is being emptied”

    Agreed, but an egg comprises more than a shell.

    1. Thanks to Peter for pointing out the “?” which I had overlooked and I accept this lets the setter off the hook.
  17. I gave the same answer as Peter, writing BUMP without thinking it out beyond “bump start” and “speed bump”.

    Apparently this answer is wrong. But I feel fantastic to be, for the first time, in the same boat as Peter!

  18. Is a “speed hump” a successful conclusion to a “speed date”?

    I’ll get my coat.

    Mike O, Skiathos.

  20. 7.21 Not held up by anything much. I did put bump in then changed it – only because it is a short word I looked at the wordplay to justify – my usual method is just to put in ‘obvious’ answers from checking letters and definition without checking the wordplay and can sometimes lead to mistakes but the longer the answer the less likely it is. The longer multiple word answers at 2,7 and 20 were all entered without fully working them out.
    JohnPMarshall
  23. I was hoping this one had proved difficult for others. It took me well over twice my average time, I just couldn’t get into it at all – and I wasn’t even slowed down by 12A. Oh well, must have had the sun in my eyes. Despite – or because of – my struggles, I thought it was a very enjoyable and inventive crossword; 8D is brilliant, my favourite clue of 2009.

    Tom B.

  24. About 15 minutes or so, an enjoyable romp. My last entry was HUMP, switched from ‘bump’ when I realized there was a bit more to it, but slightly bamboozled by they fact we have ‘speed bumps’ aplenty over here, but we don’t really use the term ‘speed hump’, at least in my experience. I also liked the very smooth surface of 8D, my COD. My only slight hold-up was due to not knowing ‘perm’ as a football pool term, but I knew ‘anent’ and the def. was clear, so in it went. Regards to all.
  25. Solved this in desultory fashion while eating lunch/watching the news/chatting to my wife then began to suspect I could have managed a very fast time (for me) had I taken it a bit more seriously and timed myself. As it was took about 20 mins but I think I might even have halfed that (my “record” is around 11 mins). Had I done so I would have been hugely frustrated, for I too had bump instead of hump. bc
  26. A little under 6 mins but didn’t understand PERMANENT until coming here – amazingly I hadn’t come across the term ‘perms’ with regard to football before. ‘Cana’ and ‘anent’ were new too.
  27. “Idiot’s just left in bed”: c(l)ot, fine, no problem to anyone I’m sure. But why ‘just’?
  28. I started tackling the Times cryptic for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and have been gradually improving (largely by logging on here and seeing how you clever folk finished it, I might add), until – at last – finished my first one tonight.

    Granted, it took me about three hours, as opposed to 20 minutes, but I’m still ‘Very pleased with the lamp indeed’ (9), so wanted to share with you all.

    Michael.

    1. I’m guessing that you’ve been doing other cryptics before – if not, two weeks is absurdly quick, even with the advantage of reading this blog.

      One point about the Times puzzle: although you’ll see arguably unnecessary words like ‘just’ in 25D, you’ll never get indeed = inside ‘deed’ or similar ‘in….’ tricks.

      1. No, honest injun, I’ve never touched a cryptic before (except to shake my head at it in bafflement). My brain is a lumber room of esoteric information though, which seems to help.

        I suspected two weeks was fast, as I’ve not managed to get further than half-way previously. I suspect I just lucked out with this one…

  29. Along with mrstorey – even though “indeed” shall not be used for this purpose!

    There are 6 “easies” that did not trouble our blogmeister:

    11a Dog star or other heavenly body (5)
    PLUTO. No longer considered to qualify as a planet. Well harsh!

    17a Ban a set of executive toys (4)
    VETO. Hidden in words 5-6.

    26a Make a running hitch? (5)
    ELOPE. Perhaps to Gretna after a Speed Hump following a Speed Date? Nice one Mike O – see above.

    27a Announced possible end to a joust when the light fails (9)
    (K) NIGHTFALL. Very dangerous that jousting in bad light. Get your light-meters out umps.

    6d Once more broadcast about fuel (6)
    RE PEAT

    7d Serving up cream tea with sundae – male kids might have fun here (9,6)
    AMUSEMENT ARCADE. Anagram of (cream tea sundae m(ale)). So before anyone complains, the “male” is part of the anagrist and kids of all genders might have fun.

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