Times 24,129

Author   richardvgPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 15:56

I seemed to be making heavy weather of this, but it was just general toughness rather than any major hold-up on an individual clue. It would have been better if I had got more of the long downs first time through. But it took a long time, and many crossing letters, before I could see that the Tale in 11D was by Beatrix Potter rather than Chaucer.

I also took too long on 21D. My excuse was going to be that I am not good at remembering names of new African countries, but I find that Burundi has been a country since I was four years old. Also, I was determined that “race” was going to be TT.

There are lots of clever and good clues today, but I think my favourite clue today is the relatively simple 27A (FINANCE). It is simple and has a smooth and convincing surface.

Across

1 BOMB + AY + DUCK – that’s BOMB = packet as in “costing a bomb/packet”
6 NARC (=”nark”)
9 CO(LICK)Y
10 AL(BUM)EN, ALEN being LANE* – the definition is “White [that] poacher does”
12 BRIDGET + OWN – annoying, as I thought of Bridget, as well as Grace (though she is alive), early on but the answer didn’t click
13 UZI (=”Oo’s ‘e?” = Who’s he?)
16 G.I. GA(BY)TE – and not MEGABYTE as I first entered, messing up 5D
20 WIBBLE – first letters
26 K + E.G. + BE E.R.
27 FI(N)ANCE
28 DA(Y)S – DAS being SAD (= down) reversed
29 DO A WAY + WITH – “through” overlaps in sense with “with” in phrases like “through the grace of God”

Down

1 B + A CH
2 ME + L + DREW
3 ACC(I.D)ENT + PRONE
4 DRY + DEN
5 C + HAM + O(NI)X – only after I had finished did I work this out, in particular “in” being the meat in the sandwich rather than part of the directions for making
7 ARMOUR + (brand)Y, ARMOUR being (A RUM OR)*
11 BENJAMIN B(UNN)Y, UNN being NUN*
14 DROP + KI(C(a)KE)D – clever stuff
17 DOC + TO(R.N.)O, DOC being a dwarf in an entirely different film starring Snow White
19 0 RANGE + Y – I guess this was just too obvious an answer for me to see quickly – I have ORANGEY filed as a definition of “marmalade” than a “sort of”
21 BU(RUN)D + 1
22 CUR + FEW, CUR being R(oyal) U(lster) C(onstabulary) reversed
25 BETH – reversed hidden

47 comments on “Times 24,129”

  1. a harder one for Thursday…found NE corner tough and whilst finished struggled to see word play immediately in 29 across.also some pretty lame dfintitions in my view.
    Harry
    (be interested in others experiences!)
    1. I think you have to look at the definition in the context of the whole clue and ask whether (a) a better definition could have been achieved without spoiling the surface meaning, and (b) whether the clue as a whole was unfairly difficult.

      I think most of the difficulty in this puzzle came from the use of words that we don’t see as often as the Shak plays I whinged about recently – a kind of difficulty I’d like to have.

  2. A rather tricky one. I ran out of time on the commute with about two-thirds completed and then used a solver to kick-start things so I could polish it off over a coffee at the office. I’d never have got UZI without assistance and I didn’t know NARC with that meaning or spelling (I know “nark”), and if the girl’s name at 23 is ICA I’ve never heard of that either.

    Does WIBBLE mean shake? I don’t have the books to hand to check, but dictionary.com doesn’t give that meaning though it does list it as a metasyntactic variable along with wobble, wubble and flob, attributed to Blackadder.

    1. Try Ida. An ad being a bill. I’m with you on wibble. Found some vague references to Blackadder. Narc is US derived for narcotic agent.
      1. Thanks,Ross. I considered IDA but didn’t spot ad = bill as a possibility. Where’s that boot? But ICA is genuine, derived from Greek and it means “Light”, apparently.
        1. If you found her on a site like http://www.babynamestory.com we should note that they have about 600 boy/girl names beginning with I. I don’t think the Times would use that many, and would expect most if not all of their names to be in the list at the back of Chambers.
    2. I just got home and have seen the Collins reference mentioned by Jimbo and have checked the COED. The first meaning in both has “wibble” meaning “wobble” so I now have no misgivings about it being defined as “shake” in today’s puzzle.
  3. 32 min (again), and another cracker. Had to use some on-line assistance to get Benjamin Bunny. Beatrix Potter was unheard of in NZ during my childhood, probably because rabbits were regarded as a detestable noxious pest at worst, and an acceptable stew at best. At the height of the plague in our area, the kill rate (from poison, shooting, or biological agent) was measured in tons, not individuals.
    1. Not to mention the stoats that were introduced to eat the rabbits, in true “There was an old lady…” style. Who could have foreseen their predilection for fat, slow moving flightless birds?
  4. Oh, and I forgot. COD 25 Dn. Had me mystified for some time, then the banging of head moment.
  5. 10:53 to solve. Lots of fun with novel answers, though the US solvers may not know about Victor Meldrew or the notorious Indian restaurant fish. Fingers crossed that they’ve seen one of the Bridget Jones films, possibly the one with i_am_Magoo as an extra (I’ve still yet to spot him). Last answer, and one of the best clues, was 22D.
  6. Struggled with this one. After some 15 mins I was staring at Bach, Dryden & Wibble; an unlikely threesome. And things didn’t improve much after that. Put it aside more than once. Judging by the number of Meldrew moments I had, the difficulty lay in the disguise of the definition. So, well done to the setter on that score. Last in were UZI (I’ve always pronounced that “ootsy” for no good reason, so was at a disadvantage) and NARC. Speaking of banging heads against walls or otherwise, this one felt great when it was finally over.

    I liked 1A & 17D, although having said the latter I’ve now got to go looking for another (6,2) film to prove it could have been something else. If anybody comes in under 10 minutes I’m hanging my pen up.

    1. P.S. Just seen Peter’s time. If he hadn’t spent those 53 seconds sharpening his pencil before he began in earnest, I’d be in trouble.
    2. I have now spent far too much time looking for another (6,2) film. Sadly there haven’t (yet) been films called “Mister Ed” or “Semper Fi”. In a Listener puzzle, one could have “Apollo 13”, but it wouldn’t work in the blocked puzzle. The only vaguely convincing one I have found is Choose me, apparently a film about “Laughter, tears and telephone calls” with Geneviève Bujold, but I hope the editor would not allow something so obscure.
      1. That’s pretty much as I expected. I could only think of Duckso Up, the well known misprint by the Marx Brothers. I thougt Daring Do might be a possibility but there only seem to be titles involving the phrase. I was sure Bailed Up was an early Australian classic, but it turns out I was thinking of the Tom Roberts’ painting. So, it is no surprise that I got the answer to this one relatively quickly. There’s obviously an opening out there for all film makers; make a (6,2) movie and be assured of some free publicity in the Times.
  7. As others have said there’s some unusual stuff in this one. Chambers 2008 has WIBBLE as to talk drivel, nothing about shaking. Collins has it as to wobble in the phrase wibble-wobble. Make what you will of that. My last in was 11D where looking at all the checking letters I suddenly twigged “poor nun stopping by”=BUNNY and stopped chuntering to myself about being expected to know some vague literary character, probably from Canterbury Tales. About 30 minutes to solve.
  8. It was another hot day in Sydney today, and I had a migraine in the morning, so I did this very slowly during the afternoon with lots of cups of tea and panadeine while watching the tennis. In the circumstances I was just happy to finish unaided, regardless of time.

    I though it was a great puzzle, with lots of unusual words and references which (for me at least) gave it some fun which I felt was lacking in yesterday’s, excellent though it was. 2dn was one of the last in, from the wordplay; I thought I had vaguely heard the name, but have no idea what the TV show is.

    20ac COED has WIBBLE as an informal alternative for “wobble”, and also with a second meaning of “to talk at length”. (Chambers has only the second meaning.) The origin of the first meaning is given as C19 independent use of the first part of “wibble-wobble”. The second meaning seems to be from “witter” + “dribble”. I must stop wibbling.

  9. I found this very tough, but enjoyable. I like WIBBLE, even if it’s a bit debatable. Took me a long time to get CURFEW. 22 mins.
  10. This took me two sittings to solve with CHAMONIX the last one in – rather a lot I had to get from wordplay: BOMBAY DUCK (weren’t some jokes about it made in Fawlty Towers?), MELDREW (kind of rang a bell), BENJAMIN BUNNY (also sounded familiar when it went in). There were some nice clues here, I liked 17, 3, 10 in particular.
  11. What a belter! Lots and lots of clever and novel stuff. “White poacher does” as a definition can only be described as genius and easily gets my COD nod. I didn’t time myself but it was probably between 15 and 20 minutes.
    Thanks and praise to the setter
  12. I think I got onto the setter’s wavelength straight away as I breezed (for me) through this in a tad under 17 minutes. Nothing too hard, nothing too easy, just 30 seconds or so on each clue to work out what was going on.

    I can forgive a few clumsy surface readings on the basis that there were so many interesting, original and quirky devices on show.

    Really enjoyable so thanks to the setter.

    Q-0, E-9, D-5, COD perm any from 13, 5, 19 & 22.

    Thw only place I’ve encountered “wibble” before other than in Blackadder is in Viz comic – it was Roger Irrelevant’s stock phrase. According to Wikipedia (so it must be true) “frisnit” and “z’goft” are two of Roger’s other favourite words.

    1. Is it me?

      Jelly on a plate,
      Jelly on a plate,
      Wibble, wobble, wibble, wobble,
      Jelly on a plate

      Now that’s a poem!

  13. 28:42 .. I found this tough but great fun. Congrats to any non-Brits who managed to crack the Scouse corner.

    Some brilliantly inventive clues – DROP-KICKED, BRIDGETOWN, ALBUMEN – and some of that accidental poetry you get in crosswords, like the lilting “Girl lifting light ebony boxes”.

    Quibble for WIBBLE, though it wasn’t hard to get. And a ‘hm’ for POOH-POOH, given that twins tend to share everything except a name. But all is forgiven for UZI.

    Q-1, E-9, D-8 .. COD 13 UZI

  14. Quite hard today, I thought, but very good. 55 minutes, including some time because I made a mess of 16ac (plumping for MEGABYTE…) The RHS fell into place within quarter of an hour, the other half, and especially the NW corner, were a long long process. 12ac, 13ac, and 2d I thought were excellent. Nice to see some contempory references!
  15. Excellent puzzle, 35 mins. Favourites CURFEW and ROWING, last answer UZI. Though I’d never heard of it WIBBLE was my first answer because of the easy clue, and I was even more pleased to see that the ‘I’ was crossed by a down entry.
  16. A bit over an hour today, but found WIBBLE easy having been named “Mr Wibbly” by the (now late) wife of a close friend.

    I also thought the clue for ALBUMEN was nothing short of genius.

  17. I was convinced that the sailors were tars in 17dn, so was seeking a film of the form _O_TAR SO.

    A bit odd to call Bach an organist? He was slightly more than that.

  18. On subsequent checking I see why I didn’t get Chamonix – I actually had Chamone? because I foolishly had megabyte not gigabyte. I vaguely thought me = my = “private”. Lame I know but the rest of the clue fitted so snugly I barely hesitated. bc
  19. After about an hour I was left with the crossing 1A and 2D, and had to resort to the computer to finish. The fish and the UK TV character were utter unknowns for non-natives, I’d suggest. Yes, we have received Ms. Jones over here, so that was recognizable, no quibble there. Beyond that, a lot of very clever stuff, esp. CURFEW, FINANCE, ALBUMEN, DROP-KICKED, COLICKY. Very well put together puzzle, enjoyed it very much. Regards to all.
  20. anyone got the answers for 15a, 18a 23a and 28a ya bunch of smart alecs. 2 hours and i’ve got about 6 of them!
    1. 15A ROWING Runs = R, outstanding = OWING
      18A POOH POOH – Twin bears
      23A IDA – One = I, bill = AD, rebuffed bill = DA
      28A DAYS – Down = SAD, back down = DAS, back down accepting years = DA(Y)S

    2. I guess I’d be a smart alec if I pointed out that 28A was already explained in Richard’s original posting?

      As you’ll have seen, missing answers are normally provided promptly if requested. (The reasons for not giving the lot from the start are explained at the ‘About this blog …’ link at the top of the page.)

  21. Let’s be honest, cryptic crosswords are often regarded as an esoteric pursuit for those with a high-brow general knowledge based in traditional academia. I always enjoy it, therefore, when the setter goes against the grain and throws in a more low-brow pop reference. There were plenty of those in today’s puzzle, all of which brought a smile to my face!
  22. They all walk the Wibbley,Wobbley walk
    They all talk the Wibbley, Wobbley talk
    And they all wear Wibbley,Wobbley ties
    And wink at all the pretty girls with Wibbley,Wobbley eyes!
    They all smile the Wibbley,Wobbley Smile
    And when the day is dawning
    They all through the Wibbley,Wobbley Walk
    Get a wibbley, wobbley feeling in the morning

    Regulars at the Players Theatre London (sadly now defunct) will remember this one. Happy days!

    1. (1) Dennis Wise has got Wibbley, Wobbley eyes.

      (2) Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.

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