Times 24,142 – Mentioning The Unmentionable

Author   yfyapPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A very enjoyable weekday puzzle with some amusing clues which would surely produce a couple of sniggers. The Scottish connection extended to Puck in Guardian which introduced me to a nickname for Edinburgh.

ACROSS
1 HERODOTUS Cha of HERO (great man) DOT (hit as in verb transitive) US (American. Herodotus of Halicarnassus was a Greek historian who lived in the 5th century BC and is regarded as the “Father of History” in Western culture
6 GRASS Allusion to that familiar sign “Keep off the grass”
9 BAGPIPE Cha of BAG (secure) PIPE (cask) An instrument the Scottish play
10 IKEBANA Cha of IKE (President Eisenhower) BANA (l)
11 Hidden answer deliberately omitted
12 COGITATED CO (company or business) AGITATED minus A
13 SLIGO Ins of G (good) in SLIO (rev of oils, some art)
14 TIN OPENER *(print one e)
17 WAGNERIAN *(a Ring anew)
18 LEVER Rev of REVEL (to party)
19 OUT WITH IT OUT (striking) With it (trendy)
22 THROW THE minus E + ROW (bank)
24 TOPSAIL Ins of OP (work) S (second) in TAIL (end)
25 LOBBIES *(so Bible)
26 READY Looks like a triple def
27 YESTERDAY YE (you once) *(strayed)
DOWN
1 HABIT Cha of K (hot) A Bit (to some extent)
2 REGARDING Sounds like reguarding
3 DRIVE HOME Lovely dd … earlier on, I was tempted to put down CROSS WORD
4 THE SCOTTISH PLAY One of my life’s advantages was that I took the O Level English literature paper in 1964 for which the designated text included Macbeth. Macbeth is seldom called by its true name; it is often referred to as “The Scottish Play”, “The Unmentionable”, or simply “That Play” by actors and civilians alike. In theatrical circles, it is considered taboo to mention the name Macbeth in or near a theatre.
5 STINGING NETTLES Simple enough charade
6 GHENT Ins of H in Gent – allusion to Rovert Browning’s How They Brought The Good News From Ghent To Aix
I SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris, and he:
I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;
“Good speed!” cried the watch as the gate-bolts undrew;
“Speed” echoed the wall to us galloping through.
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,
And into the midnight we galloped abreast.
7 APART Cha of A P (a page) ART (pictures)
8 SLANDERER Cha of S (south) Lander (Germany (Deutschland) is a Federal Republic consisting of sixteen states, known in German as Länder (singular Land) ER (the Queen)
13 SAW DOCTOR Parse this silently and I bet you will let out a soft snicker
15 PALATABLE Simple enough cha
16 NEVER MIND Ins of Vermin (rats) in NED (Edward) Another amusing clue
20 TYPE A TYPE A a personality type
21 ITALY I tally minus L
23 WISPY Cha of W (western) I Spy (a game)

Key to abbreviations
dd = double definition
dud = duplicate definition
tichy = tongue-in-cheek type
cd = cryptic definition
rev = reversed or reversal
ins = insertion
cha = charade
ha = hidden answer
*(FODDER) = anagram

45 comments on “Times 24,142 – Mentioning The Unmentionable”

  1. 12:43 here – 6:40 to solve all but 1D/2/9; then 1D after about 2 minutes, and another four until a huge kick-self over 9A, followed quickly by 2D with its crafty def. Slightly surprised to see SAW DOCTOR only 18 puzzles after its last showing, but I guess it’ll stay in the toolbox until next year now.
    1. Peter, did you get a reply from the Times after drawing their attention to yesterday’s blog as evidence of trouble with the clue numbering and the solution proposed here? There appears to be no problems today.
      1. I’ve only had the usual machine-generated response so far. As you say, all seems well today. That could mean any of:

        * They’ve fixed the problem identified yesterday by Vinyl1
        * They’ve fixed a different problem
        * They’ve done nothing and they/we have been luckier today than yesterday

        If I get a human response, I’ll pass it on.

  2. 45 minutes with some confusion in the SW having put “TYPE I” at 20 thinking of “Type 1 error” which I’d heard of instead of “Type A personality” which I hadn’t. I couldn’t immediately reconcile my answer with “highly ambitious sort” of course, but I was hoping to deal with that later and I rather liked the idea of starting an autobiography by typing “I”. Fortunately having solved 26 I realised my error.

    I’ve vaguely heard of “hit” = “dot” (1a) but haven’t been able to find it in the usual references.

    We had 13d only a couple of weeks ago.

    1. Concise Oxford (10th ed) – def. 3 of dot1 is “Brit. informal hit (someone)”
  4. Another very pleasant outing with plenty to smile about. Thanks for explaining the Ghent allusion; I meant to Google it but forgot. I also liked NEVER MIND, WISPY & SLANDERER to name but a few. Was almost about to ink in BUGLIVE as some kind of obscure oenological term at 9 when the penny dropped. A brief moment of hilarity. I convinced myself dot was OK, even though I can’t recall it ever being used in my earshot.

    Speaking of Ghent, if you’re ever in the neighbourhood of St Bavo’s Cathedral and haven’t yet done so, drop in and have a look at the van Eyck alterpiece. Nothing can prepare you for it.

  5. 19 mins, with 10A last in (I didn’t know the word, got there via wordplay). Another very good one, I thought, with some cunningly concealed definitions and double definitions. Perhaps 22A as COD, an allusion to the ongoing rescue of banks?

    Tom B.

  6. A little harder today and a better, more amusing puzzle than of late. 25 minutes to solve.

    I had heard of TYPE,A personality but when I looked couldn’t find it in the dictionary. I thought 26A a good clue but had it as a double definition rather than triple: READY=prepare; READY=slang for money=(either)dough or bread. A lot of quirky definitions (a growing source of irritation, for example) but 17A is my favourite – a really excellent clue.

        1. Jim, I only have COED and Chambers – I’ll rely on you to fill in the gaps from Collins!
  7. An early morning and untimed solve for me, but I had 3 missing or wrong. I’d confidently written in REFERRING (sounds like Re-furring) which fits perfectly well with the clue. That made the excellent 9ac impossible. At 10a I’d seen IKEBANA before but it wouldn’t come to me (neither would BANAL) I think I’d better stick to my usual lunchtime solving in future!

    Excellent and amusing crossword today – I never mind being beaten by good clueing. I’ll give a big COD nod to BAGPIPES.

    1. The requirement for “fur” to mean “protect” should probably have been a warning sign. Likewise “about” = “referring” rather than “referring to”. But these are not necessarily warnings I’d have heard if ‘referring’ had occurred to me…
      1. I take your point about referring requiring “to” but I still maintain that “providing fresh protection” (against the cold) could be re-furring.
  8. 7:06 this morning, leaving a couple to be explained after the clock was stopped. In my experience dotting is a sort of hitting that can only be perpetrated on someone’s nose. Anyway I was happy to get 1A quickly. In one of the first Times Regional Finals I entered, as a teenager in the 1970s, I misspelled the historian as HERODITUS.
  10. 16:35 .. Witty, clever puzzle. I had a similar solving experience to Peter’s, only slower (what’s new?). I really liked the treble of fives at the end of the downs – TYPE-A, ITALY and WISPY.

    COD 23d WISPY

    1. They’ve found the missing 19d now, Paul. Must have fallen down the back of the editor’s desk.
  11. I found this another straightforward solve, helped by the fact that all the references were very familiar to me, though I trotted, rather than galloped, through the puzzle in 28 minutes. We seem to be having an easy week this week. Several delightful clues – 1a, 6a, 4d, 16, 21d for example. We’ve had the answer to 13d very recently, making it very easy to solve cold.
    1. Thought at first this was going to be very fast (for me) but then hit a few trickier ones and ended up taken a more average 25mins or so. ikebana was a guess. Some nice clues – I particularly like Wagnerian – I guess through Morse the idea of doing the Times crossword and liking Wagner are now linked in the popular imagination, although personally I only occasionally listen to Tristan these days – I have Solti’s Ring but doubt any of the discs have been out of their case in 3 years. I’ve never even bothered putting it on my iPod. bc
      1. Poor old Solti. I love the fact that with a bit of fiddling you can have Gotterdammerung as a single album on your iPod, or split it into acts rather than CDs.

        If restricted to one Wagner opera I guess it would have to be Tristan. Must get round to a Parsifal CD purchase – haven’t bought one since LPs which are in the loft, and still haven’t heard the Solti version.

  13. Look hard in Collins and you should find {out = out on strike = on strike = ‘striking’}. This is industrial relations “on strike” of course, not cricket “on strike” which is IN.
    1. Thanks again. I have it. I didn’t really think it was wrong but I hadn’t thought of the right context.
  14. 23 minutes while watching the cricket (sob). Made a meal of it by putting EYE DOCTOR in at 13 and it sat there until I figured SLIGO. Seems like everyone liked something different, I was in awe of 17, especially since I wrote out ARINGANEW and seeing the letters (and of course that I had an E at the start) and thinking “there’s no way that’s an anagram”.

    If Australia lose to bloody New Zealand again I’m calling up the Australian Cricket Board and asking for a refund on the satellite feed!

  15. Not often that I find the puzzle easy when quite a few others find it hard, or hardish. This was one of those rare occasions. It seemed to me one of the quickest Friday solves for some time. It’s all relative, of course. It still took me about 25 mins – but that is very fast for me. I’d have expected times of 5-6 mins for the premier league performers. The old wavelength factor again, I guess. For all that, there were lots of good, amusing and ingenious clues, all of which have been commended in comments above.

    Michael H

  16. Agreed Peter, I should at least put it on my iPod. I’ve had the Solti for probably 20 years now – it was a present from my wife when its cost in relation to our income made it an extravagance, so it’s a prized possession. But I’m guilty of buying music faster than I can listen to it and listening to a whole Wagner opera is such a commitment of time. My preference nowadays is for more modern music: when I used to listen to a lot of Wagner most of the stuff I listened to was older – now it’s almost all newer (by which I mean Mahler, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Strauss, Britten and so on – still not much from the past 50 years). bc.
  17. 24 min.I liked this one. Got held up with 8 Dn with a progression of “stutterer”? … “stammerer”? … “slanderer”! COD “wispy”. Nothing wrong with the cricket result that I could see.
  18. 20 minutes. Took too long to get the unmentionable and had a laugh when I finally realised how the 4 in 9 worked. Also had needles written in as second word of 5 and spend too long trying to justify stammerer for 8. Ghent for the Flemish is Gent of course and Gand for the French I think. A very nice city which I have the pleasure to visit quite regularly
    1. Lucky you! Also once known as Gaunt as in John of. I always thought it was because he was on the slender side.
  19. About 25 minutes, not very tough. Last one in was IKEBANA, hadn’t heard of that. See you next week.
  20. So it was just me who had a white space instead of a black square between 5d and 6d then? That was printing on Firefox instead of my customary IE, the upside being it all came out on one page so thanks to Peter for the tip.

    A very enjoyable puzzle solved at home after work in an armchair rather than at lunchtime at my desk which means I couldn’t be bothered to get up and check my answers (guessed at from wordplay) to 1a and 10. The upshot of this is that I got ikebana right but did a Richard at 1a and plumped for Heroditus, thinking a dit sounded more like a hit than any other d?t combo.

    I, too, loved the way 4 referenced 9, but my favourite clue was 3d, drive home, a very clever double def.

    A slowish 34 minutes, held up by the NW corner mostly, but also had the stammerer/stutterer debate at 8.

  21. Wow, I finally got round to finishing a puzzle on the day it was printed — I’ve found it a bit heavy going this week for some reason!

    To be honest, I’m not sure I fully understand 17ac. I picked out the anagram from the middle but I can’t work out how the clue works at either end — which bit’s the definition and which bit’s the anagrind?

    I think my favourite bit of the puzzle was the various uses of ‘THE SCOTTISH PLAY’: “Celtic and Rangers, say” was good, and the way it slotted into 9ac was even better!

    1. 17A is what we call an an &lit (or in Tim Moorey’s new book, an “All in one”). The defintion is the whole clue, and so is the wordplay. So a Wagnerian would be excited by producing “a Ring anew”, and prodcucing = anagramming “a Ring anew” gives you WAGNERIAN.
      1. Thanks Peter. I’d come across the &lit before, where the whole clue is both definition and wordplay, but I think I was thrown here by the whole clue being the definition but only the first part of it being the wordplay. Furthermore, “could get one excited” is the sort of phrase that sounds a lot like wordplay, but in fact it’s the one bit of the clue that isn’t used in that capacity!
  22. I’ve been tackling the crossword daily since buying Tim Moorey’s book for Christmas and although I have yet to complete one on the day, have gone from only getting about four clues a day to getting around a dozen. This one took me to nearly twenty! Started with 4d which I saw straight away then 5d came soon after so most of right side completed. Still measuring time in hours rather than minutes and having to restrict views of the blog at home: for some reason the work internet filter objects! COD 6a made me smile.
    1. Welcome Iain and well done. If you keep using this blog in no time you’ll be regularly doing whole crosswords. Next week we may get some harder ones (we’re in a run of fairly easy stuff at the moment) but don’t be dispirited (I think one learns more from the harder ones) and never hesitate to ask for help, explanation, and so on.
    2. Your challenge is: to complete your first puzzle by the end of March. You might do this easily, but there can be a nervy stage where you just can’t get that last clue or two. Some of us had that for years …
  23. I think it is, as Peter says, an &lit., with the whole clue serving as definition and wordplay. ‘Producing’ isn’t the anagram indicator in itself but needs to be taken together with ‘…could get…’; I’m not sure whether ‘excited’ is to be taken as referring to ARINGANEW or WAGNERIAN, but I think it works either way.

    Tom B.

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