Times 24159: Hav I go word fo yo!

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time : With many distractions, about 25 minutes and I hope I get this blog in before the internet here dies or my laptop does. Some tricky subtraction clues in this one, so let’s take it away.

Across
1 W,HOOP
8 LA DONNA E MOBILE: The wordplay is LAD,ON then MEAN backwards and BILE. Tricky wordplay and I kind of knew the aria, but couldn’t put all the bits together confidently at first
10 TREATMENT: RE, ATM(Automatic Teller Machine) in TENT(shelter)
11 C,UPPA: second part is meant to sound like “upper”
14 REP,EATER: From wordplay, didn’t know this was a watch that struck every minute
17 LEA,SABLE: nice succinct wordplay
18 POT,EEN: Irish moonshine apparently, got this from wordplay too, anyone got first-hand experience?
20 N,A,BOB(=discarded coin): tickled by this wordplay
24 LIBRARY EDITION: sort of a crpytic definition?
26 TRES(pas)S
 
Down
2 (s)OLDIE(r): double deletion
3 PANATELLA: NAT in PAELLA – a type of cigar, so I presume bars in the UK are now non-smoking?
5 DEMITTED: MITT(hand) in DEED
6 RE,BEC(k): similar to a violin, 16th century instrument
9 PATRON SAINTS: (PARTISANS NOT)* – nice anagram
13 SHAM,BLING: har hat
15 ECOLOGIST: tricky wordplay – it’s GO reversed in E COLI, then ST(street)
16 PLACARDS: P,LADS around CAR
21 BURIN: I in BURN, and for my fellow countrymen, a cold chisel
23 TOILE(t): cute wordplay

27 comments on “Times 24159: Hav I go word fo yo!”

  1. A disappointing 27 min after a very fast start. Hi GL, a typo in 8 ac “donna”, not “donne”, but analysis correct. Got terribly knicker twisted with 5 dn, being convinced after the “d” and “m” appeared that the hidden hand was something to do with “dummy” in bridge.
    “cuppa” and “patron saints” completed my misery. On reflection, a very good puzzle. Sorry I couldn’t do it justice.
  2. And to really rub it in, I fouled up 23 Dn. T?I?E, and a clue ending in “a second time” just has to be “twice”. Well doesn’t it? I intend to sulk for a while.
  3. All of the top half and all round the edges completed in 25 minutes but I suffered over the rest of it and came in at 45 minutes with 15d unexplained and uncertain. I thought of ECOLOGIST but didn’t spot the E-COLI reference having taken “source of infection” as plain “I”. I thought there might be another type of scientist with an -ology that I wasn’t aware of.

    We’ve had a clue reference to oldies being “past it” at least once before, and I take exception to it even when accompanied by a question mark.

  4. Hi, I’m back. Quite a short sulk really. What might our resident dragonfly made of “lad on nae mobile”? Scots youth on a land-line perhaps?
    1. Sadly I don’t have today’s crossword but would like to see the clue if anyone could oblige.

      Scots youth on a landline number? (2,5,1,6)

      That would be brilliant, although I suspect more suited to the Grauniad. Sotira’s observation (below) may well have been the result of an idea such as yours being edited before publication.

  5. 10:43 here – found the aria title quickly so top half was easy (and a break from “one-letter words must be A or I”, but the second half of LIBRARY EDITION took much longer. Vaguely remembered that BURIN was some kind of implement, and TOILE was last in.

    At 5D, the combo of “activity” and the past tense of “gave up” should indicate that DE????ED is very probable.

  6. I take my hat off to those who finished this without using any references. Peter’s 11 minutes minus is incredible.
    I solved about half of it, including most long answers, quite quickly, but the remainder was very hard going. Method of solving included guessing that 15 ended in IST, and 9 in S, and working a few things out from there. The grid became speckled with small part-answers for a while.
    Some clues/answers needed the sort of vocabulary, analysis and knowledge that I associate with barred puzzles such as Azed and Mephisto; The complexity of the clue to 15 is a prime example; and REBEC, BURIN and NABOB had to be forced out of the barred-crossword part of the back of my mind.

    I’m not complaining (apart from UPPA = UPPER); I enjoyed it a lot. I can’t get the last line of the Rigoletto aria out of my brain, and keep yelling “Elephants’ Ears” all over the village.

    Switching note to new grindstone, Dafydd.

  8. About 25 minutes of not enjoying myself very much, and then putting in TWINE instead of TOILE, and BURAN (thinking of amperes). A number of clues in the lower half of the type that make my eyes glaze over.

    La Donna came up in a Saturday puzzle (24012) last September, clued as:

    1d .. Chap using cellphone rings up an English number (2,5,1,6)

  9. I made a right mess of this. I thought it was going to be so easy when I solved 4 across as the grid was being printed. It was uphill all the way after that. In the end, after an hour, I was left with 17, 20, 21 and 24. The only EDITION I could think of was LIMITED EDITION, which clashed with 16, and a wrongly guessed answer for 1 dn (WILL THE MEANS) made solving 17 an impossibility.
    Two clues I particularly liked were 3 and 18. I didn’t like “face of a” to indicate “a” in 20.
    1. I think “face of” works better if read as part of “on face of” = “on one side of” or similar, to get N next to A BOB
  10. I made a right hash of this, chucking in LIMITED EDITION for 24ac, even though I more than half suspected the correct answer. That kind of finished me off in the SW corner. That, plus getting 18ac and 23d wrong, put the tin lid on things! Ironically enough, I got the very difficult 8ac just fine!
    1. Like others I, too, opted for Limited Edition. Then I then spent ages trying to decide between slackers and slickers (16d) as being ‘boys hanging around saloon’ (sounds reasonable as a cryptic def?).
      Didn’t get the crossing 23/26 either. A very bad day for me: 2 errors and 3 not completed.

      Had fun with 3D where I immediately got the right idea but pencilled in CIGARETTE with GARET tucking into the slightly obscure stew known as as CITE…

  11. A pleasant 35 minute amble after golf. Nothing terribly difficult. I too object to OLDIE and “past it”. You’re as young as the woman you feel.

    I’ve drunk poteen George. My uncle was an Irishman from Waterford (wonderful golf course) and after a round he would take me to have supper with his mates and noggin or two. It’s strong but absolutely delicious. And yes, UK bars have been smoker free for over a year now.

    1. Thanks for the poteen skinny – in my “drinking my way around England” trip in 07 the most obscure find was scrumpy on tap (I think at the Duck and Drake at Leeds). There was no ban on smoking in pubs at the time, particularly at that place.
  12. I took about an hour last night finishing this, a long and hard labor, and find I have 3 wrong: ‘twice’ instead of TOILE, and ‘baton’ instead of BURIN. With the crossing ‘T’ in place of ‘B’ in 24, I opted for ‘history edition’, an interesting creation. Whew. I had thought of ‘toile’ except my mind was spelling it as ‘tuile’, so not getting anything connected with washing. I’m not an opera guy, so 8A took most of the checkers to solve also, from wordplay alone. So, I vote this one very high in difficulty. Alright, I’ll stop whining. I thought SHAMBLING and TRESS were excellent, co-COD’s.
    And, jimbo and gl, I sampled some poteen when visiting family in western Co. Clare in the late 70’s. A great uncle served me a sherry glass of it, which I could not for the life of me finish, despite being then of college age with a capacity to drink anything. There were tears rolling down my face and it smelled like turpentine. I wish he had jimbo’s uncle’s recipe. That uncle has since passed away, and the remaining kin in Clare have gravitated to store-bought intoxicants, so I haven’t had it since. Regards all.
  13. Shambling it is, for sure, but SCAM-BLING works which, for some reason, came to mind first.
  14. Although in Chambers, “scamble” isn’t in the Concise Oxford or Collins, so a really strict championship referee could rule it out. But it works so well that this would seem too strict.
  15. Another biffer of TWICE at 23d as my erroneous LOI. Pass the self kicking boot.

    There are 8 “easies” left out:

    4a Emergency organisation is ruddy furious (3,5)
    RED CROSS

    12a Like one sitting in cathedral comfortably (6)
    E AS 1 LY

    22a Type extremely good about to give backing tp prisoner associations (9)
    CON SORT 1A

    25a Gagged by Pentagon, is editor worried? (8)
    AGONISED. Hidden answer in words 2,3,4.

    1d Take steps to depart, waves being seen with regret (4,3,5)
    WALK THE PLANK

    4d Farm worker’s death (6)
    REAPER. Only a very serious farm worker though – the GRIM REAPER?

    7d Step later taken to dispose of chemical (9)
    SALTPETRE. Anagram of (step later). Another name for the mineral Nitre or Potassium Nitrate. One of it major uses is to make gunpowder. It occurs naturally in the ultra-arid region of the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. If you go to the museum in Antofagasta you can see that the 3 major importers of Saltpetre – in the height of production at the turn of the 20th century – were Germany, France & Great Britain. What a tragic misuse of resources that took place over Flanders Fields?

    19d I want to protect daughter for sure (6)
    I N D EED

Comments are closed.