Times 24,163 – Starter for Ten

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
As always, mileages may vary, but I found this very straightforward and zipped through it in around ten minutes. A nice puzzle for the less experienced, less challenging for older hands, but certainly nothing to grumble about; and if more people are to become regular solvers, of course, the challenge shouldn’t always be a monumental one… Q0-E4-D3

Across
1 BOOK CLUBS – riddle based on the double meaning of ‘bound’.
6 FLAIL – the old-fashioned way of harvesting grain. And if you’re a farmer with an interest in martial arts, a much handier weapon than a combine harvester.
11 LISZT – =”list”, half of the Cockney rhyming slang duo, Brahms and Liszt.
12 SUNFLOWER – Van Gogh painted a lot of sunflowers.
13 SHEEN – H(usband) in SEEN. The eponymous Mr Sheen, of course, shines umpteen things clean.
17 ASPARAGUS – Asparagus comes in spears, and the dramatic cat is ‘Gus (short for Asparagus), the Theatre Cat created by T S Eliot.
18 BLOOM – Leopold Bloom is the central character of Ulysses.
19 PER CAPITA – nicely disguised definition (‘a head’) means the anagram of PIRATECAP doesn’t leap out.
24 RALEIGH – R(oyal)A(cademician)+LEIGH (Hunt) leads to Sir Walter, better known as navigator than author, I’d say, especially where potatoes are concerned.
26 DIXIE – the South is the southern US, the military vessel is a large cooking pot rather than a fighting ship; interestingly it is suggested that the two identical words are arrived at from two different languages.
 
Down
2 OVERSLEEP – One turns in when going to bed, and thus turns out when getting up…or not, as here.
3 CHASTENER – CHASER around TEN, which I suppose is quite a lot if it’s strong drink.
4 UNDISTINGUISHED – a long way of saying “the same”.
5 SPRINGER SPANIEL – RINGERS PAN in SPIEL. Today’s most talked about ringer would be the man who has caused Corpus Christi, Oxford to be stripped of their University Challenge title by staying in the team after he’d stopped being a student. I imagine he won’t be pilloried as if he’s the new Sir Fred Goodwin, but I think the word “University” in the title should have given him a clue as to whether it was a quiz for teams of trainee accountants or not.
7 ALLOW – ALL OW(e).
8 LITERATIM – LITER (American Litre) + A TIM; possibly the only non-everyday word (curious that verbatim is quite common but this isn’t), but I’m sure it can be worked out by non-Latinists, especially with the checking letters falling as they do. Bonus points for the boy being me for a change, when ED, TED or AL normally take the end-of-word honours.
13 SCARPERED – SCARRED round P(hys) E(d).
15 REBIDDING – (BE)rev in RIDDING; in contract bridge, once the bidding has started, you can pass or you can re-bid.
21 ALIVE – as in “the quick and the dead”.
23 SALAD – (DAL(l)AS)rev. Nice surface: I always thought of Texas as being cattle country, and peopled only by carnivores, but state capital Albany Austin is apparently the place to be if you’d rather meet cows than eat them; but I bet you’d get a more whole-hearted welcome in most restaurants if you were after the local steak…

28 comments on “Times 24,163 – Starter for Ten”

  1. 10 minutes here too. Is it just me, or is 11 missing a definition? LITERATIM from wordplay, SPRINGER SPANIEL and UNDISTINGUISHED went in from definitions. A very similar clue for SALAD appeared elsewhere recently.
  2. OK, 24 min is a bit sluggish, but it was sooooo much less demanding than yesterday’s shock. Have been out of town for a few days and have some catching up to do. Was briefly taken aback by 8 Dn when seriatim did not fit. A great crossword for the less experienced with a good selection of differing clue types and from easy to moderate. COD? 5 dn or 23 dn.
  3. 33mins here. About 10mins for the right half, and the rest mostly in the SW corner.

    19ac Tim is right that the anagram doesn’t leap out -I have to say that the “in” seems redundant and rather confusing, though I suppose it’s there just for the surface.

    The loathsome Skimpole in Bleak House was supposedly based on Leigh Hunt.

  4. Easy made difficult by idiocy. Stuck on 10ac (possibly easiest clue in puzzle) by working hypothesis of ANVIL (= shoemaker’s last!?) for 6d, which I wasn’t prepared to give up, even though I knew it to be highly implausible. Must have had Tynesidephobia after yesterday. Guessed LITERATOM for 8d (no classics scholar I). Last in DIXIE & RELAX, which were perhaps as difficult as it got. Liked the succinct clueing style of e.g. 25 & 26.

    Thought the “experts” in 5d was a reference to Click go the Shears where the ringer is the best shearer in the shed rather than a ring-in.

  5. About 15 minutes here. Thanks for the DIXIE explanation, topicaltim, because I thought it was ‘south in military’ as the def. for DIXIE, and the vessel reference was to the Dixie cup, an American term for a paper cup from the company that makes them. I hadn’t heard of the TS Eliot cat either in 17, didn’t understand that wordplay at all. George, isn’t ‘half drunk’ the definition for 11? I, like kurihan, breezed through the right side first before coming back to the left. COD: PER CAPITA. Overall, a walk in the park after yesterday’s struggle. Best to all.
  6. Off to a slow start, my first solved being 18A, but it soon came together and I completed it in 30 minutes.

    I think the clue to 11A is missing something, a reference to music or some sort of CRS indicator perhaps. I’m not sure that it’s entirely fair though it didn’t cause me any problems.

  7. 7:29 for this one – one of those that started well but slowed down a bit later, mainly from not getting either of the central 15s on first look, though did guess UN(11 letters)ED for 4, from the initial U. Also spent about a minute at the end flapping between thinking that L?S?T for 11 was impossible, so OVERSLEEP must be wrong, and trying to see a T?S?L reversal for ‘keel over’. I suspect a “CRS indicator” like “half drunk in Bow” would have made it into a giveaway.

    For at least one solver, “a head” combined with (3,6) was rather a giveaway. The dixie “vessel” and literatim were the new words for the day.

  8. Just under 20 minutes. In the main a straightforward puzzle. Those of us old enough to have had enforced dealings with the military should have had no problem with DIXIE.

    I’m debating 11A (my last in), which surely should have some reference to the man himself? We seem to have a homophone plus a weak cryptic but no real definition. I shudder because I recall the days when clues didn’t have definitions and possibly scent another small shift away from the established rules.

    1. Having thought about what Peter said I came back to make the point about the lack of a definition but I see you have already made it, Jimbo. As you say, it’s worrying if this signals a trend.
      1. This could end up as a re-run of old arguments, but: There’s a big difference between a “weak cryptic” and no definition at all. We still have two routes to the answer. We also have, if this is the last answer, L?S?T for which there’s only one word that fits. Spot that word quickly and the answer is a doddle, Jimbo’s taken close to 15 minutes instead of nearly 20, and the puzzle is on the verge of being too easy.

        This is one questionable clue in a set of 30. If you go back to the bad old days, you can find puzzles where half or more of the clues would get the red pen, even from Mr. Pragmatic here. (That’s based on 1/1/1959 from the 75th anniversary book, one of the two 1950s puzzles I finished. I suspect the others would do even worse.)

    2. I’m having a bit of trouble following this. In what way is “half drunk” not a proper definition of lizt, given that drunk = brahms & liszt?

      At least it was perfectly clear to me, when I though of the answer, that it was correct, which puts it one up on asparagus..

      1. I think the argument goes that if it’s a definition at all (and that’s questionable) it’s indirect, in that it’s meaningless without reference to a separate phrase or saying that the solver needs to be aware of in order to understand it.

        Another thought is that in CRS it is common pratice to use the first word of an expression and omit the second rhyming part, so “Brahms” means drunk with “and Liszt” understood. Would it be right to clue “Brahms” as “half-drunk” too?

        Peter’s point about the bad old days just go to show how things have improved and our expectations have been raised accordingly, so when a slightly odd one like this turns up it may give rise to some comment.

        I don’t think anyone has suggested it was particularly hard to solve but I wouldn’t have thought that negated any discussion about the quality or otherwise of this or any other clue.

        1. The “first half” method is very common in rhyming slang, but not universal. “Brahms and Liszt” = pissed, like “trouble and strife” = wife, always seems to be used in full, and the dictionary entries match, contrasting with (e.g.) barnet = hair from “Barnet fair”. So Brahms could also be “half-drunk”.
          1. So Brahms could also be “half-drunk”.

            .. of course. Personally, I think this whole issue is just a load of Alberts. 🙂

            1. For me this has nothing to do with how easy the clue is or the fact that there are no alternative answers. It’s all about the rules that supposedly govern the construction of clues.

              I’ve read all the contributions up to now and am not persuaded that half drunk=(Brahms and ) Liszt is a definition any more than half sister defines (skin and) blister. These are wordplay. I think Jack’s contribution says much about what is and is not a definition.

              The issue is important because all that is required for bad practice to flourish is that good men say nothing.

              1. The difference between “Brahms and Liszt” and “skin and blister” is that Brahms and Liszt are recognisable as two of the same thing – half of two composers (or names of composers) is one. Skin and blister not being recognisable as the same thing, I’ll forecast that the “half-sister” idea will never be used.
  9. About 15 minutes for me on the train this morning. That bothers me a bit, because this was quite an easy puzzle. When I used to commute regularly about 5 or 6 years ago I rarely took more than 10 minutes to solve it, even though it would take me 20-30 minutes at home. I used to think that trains improved my concentration or something, but after 4 days in my new job I can honestly say that it’s not working this time.
  10. Far more straightforward today (apart from 8). 35 minutes – I was a bit slow to get SPRINGER, CHASTENER, OVERSLEEP and LISZT. I didn’t know LITERATIM, but ‘American volume’ suggested LITER immediately, and TIM was a more likely ending (by analogy with ‘verbatim’)than TOM.
    Nicely deceptive definition in 19. I agree with the reservations above about 11; there is no definition, merely two separate bits of wordplay. I don’t think the question mark compensates.
    1. 20D: “King Albert climbing inside” is the whole wordplay, so surely “to have a hot bath, say” is the def? That at least makes it the right part of speech – as well as being def. by example with indication. (And another case where the checkers only allow one possible answer.)
  11. 11:26 .. Nice, breezy solve. Enjoyable puzzle.

    When Mr Kay, the University Challenge “student”, gets his qualifications, I’m hoping to retain his accountancy services with a view to having myself declared a registered charity. He would seem to have the right skill set.

  12. I found this one quite difficult – almost 50 minutes, especially the LHS which gave me no end of grief. I never did find the definition in 11ac… Last to fall was the SW corner, where my insistence on putting S into something military to get a vessel held me up for an age and a half. Lots of very clever stuff here, with some nice surface readings.
  13. A smidge under 35 minutes so no easier than yesterday’s for me, with SW rather than NE causing most bother. Like MM it took me ages to see that 26 didn’t necessarily have to include an S and for a while I toyed with overspend at 2, not being familiar enough with Eliot’s cat to get the P.

    The pirate cap clue had me grsping for a geographical head like Cap Formentor, but with cap in the fodder I eventually sussed that one.

    I liked the &lit at 6a so that gets my COD nod. Add me to the camp that couldn’t see the def at 11. Half drunk isn’t the same thing as half an expression meaning drunk.

  14. 18:37 – best time for over 4 weeks, so it must have been towards the easier end of the spectrum.

    Last to go in were REBIDDING and BLOOM. I remember using a DIXIE when cooking at Scout Camp years ago.

    Fairly steady progress from start to finish. I enjoyed the clues for PER CAPITA, ECONOMIST and LITERATIM although I hadn’t come across that last one before today. I didn’t think the clue LISZT was unfair as I considered ‘half-drunk’ to be the definition

  15. BTW the state capital of Texas is Austin. It is New York where the state capital is Albany.

    About 30 mins for me while also watching a TV programme. Wasted a bit of time on 13 down trying to justify stampeded and then scampered before the penny dropped.

    Got Liszt immediately, even though it was guess (I assumed CRS was “Franz Liszt” but it still halved just as well.

    1. Oops, don’t know why I wrote that, the link is definitely about Austin, not Albany. Can only think it set me off mentally rehearsing state capitals for potential use in crosswords, pub quizzes, University Challenge etc. and I wrote the wrong one down…
  16. Like jerrywh, I can’t see too much wrong with “half-drunk” as the definition for LISZT, particularly now that you have all explained the “brahms and liszt = pissed” reference, a piece of Cockney Rhyming Slang previously unknown to me. I arrived at the answer via the list/liszt homophone and because, as Peter says, once you had the cross-checking letters, no other word would fit. That said, I greatly enjoyed the discussion of the merits/demerits of the clue – just the kind of thing that makes this blog so entertaining. Consulting Google, I came upon the following CRS alternatives for “pissed” – Scotch Mist, Schindler’s List and Oliver Twist. The politer version of the same idea, apparently, is elephant’s trunk = drunk. http://www.phespirit.info/cockney/taboo_slang_to_english.htm

    Michael H

  17. As Tim said at the top, this was a nice puzzle for us less experienced folk. I was able to do most of it but still managed to come a cropper towards the end when I put LITERATED at 8D.

    On the Liszt issue, to my mind LISZT = half-drunk is no more a definition than BAN = half a yellow fruit!

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