Times 24169 For Adults Only

Author   dorsetjimboPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time : 15 minutes

A puzzle for new solvers with little to comment upon apart from its mixture of witches and Fanny Hill come hither sandwiched between the upright Sir Galahad and the dissolute Shelley underpinned by a hip shaking Elvis. How to get into hot water indeed!

Across
1 RENOVATE – (tavern + oe=”one” gutted)*;
5 SHEARS – two meanings;
11 ERADICATES – ERA-DIC(t)ATES; “kills” is definition; ERA=time; dictates=orders and “kill” t=time;
13 ERIE – E(e)RIE; “e”=Excalibur initially;
17 ANOMALY – AN(OM-A-L)Y; OM=Order of Merit; L=Learner;
18 GET,OVER – hidden word (ur)GE TO VER(sify);
19 THE,PITS – two meanings; 1=where racing cars lose time 2=slang for a dreadful place;
21 LAYS – (p)LAYS; p=piano=soft; I can think of other clues that might suit this puzzle rather better;
22 COMPLIANCE – (comic panel)*; wonderful dig at the Bank of England, Financial Services Authority, etc;
25 HEARTBREAK,HOTEL – (the bloke + a rather)*; superb Elvis hit of my youth;
27 DESCRY – DE(S)CRY;
28 TEARAWAY – TEAR-AWAY; it’s a tough=a thug;
 
Down
1 REGRESS – REG-RE-SS; SS=Steam Ship;
2 NIT – (u)NIT;
3 VINDICTIVE – V-INDIC(a)TIVE;
4 THORA – T(HO)RA; HO=house; ART=sculptures and “erected”=reversal indicator; somewhat old fashioned woman’s name;
6 HAWK – H-AWK(ward);
7 ALTERCATION – ALTER(C)ATION; C=Conservative (party);
8 SORCERY – SOR(CE)RY; CE=Church of England;
9 COVENANT – COVEN-ANT; not all witches are nasty – mystic women would be better;
14 COME-HITHER – COME(H-I)T-HER; H=hearts; I=one; HER=a certain woman;
16 HARLOTRY – HAR(LOT)RY;
18 GALAHAD – GAL-A-HAD; famous knight in Arthurian legend;
20 SHELLEY – YELL-EH’S reversed; Percy Bysshe 1792-1822;
24 STIR – STIR(ling); University of Stirling founded 1967;
26 TOW – TO-W; to the West is away from the East

21 comments on “Times 24169 For Adults Only”

  1. All of 28 min, but I don’t quite know why it took so long. An excellent puzzle with no special knowlege clues, just a few teases. I agree with Jimbo. An good introductory puzzle.
  2. Somehow took 10:12 for this – partly because I managed to write COMPLAINCE for 22.

    Several stock wordplays, like (C in ALTERATION) and V,INDIC(a)TIVE, but puzzle as a whole is done well, with a solid set of surface meanings.

    Wondered about REGRESS as a noun, but COED has it.

  3. Struggled to get going with this this morning, but once I had a few in the speed picked up and I finished in about 18 mins. Last two in were DESCRY/STIR.
  4. 45 minutes when I ran out of time with 24 and 27 unsolved and 11 in doubt because I couldn’t see the wordplay. I was looking for double S in 27 to cover “small son”
  5. 15 minutes is a very good solving time, dorsetjimbo. I took over double that with 35 minutes, most hold-ups being in the bottom half. Until I got TEARAWAY I was working on a poet ending in HE for 20. A few minor niggles: ‘son’ = S, so “small son” suggests S + S; does ‘small’ = limited/abbreviated in the way ‘short’ might? I prefer elements to reflect some sort of reality in the cryptic reading, so ‘eh’s’ from ‘what’s’ jarred slightly, though that’s a very minor point, I admit. I did have an analogous clue rejected by an editor in one of my puzzles. Finally, I originally thought 13 was rather neat, but once I checked COD and Chambers I couldn’t find anything to confirm ’emergence’ as removal(even the Latin root doesn’t really suggest this).
    Still, plenty of other good clues with engaging surfaces (e.g 8, 11, 16).
    1. I agree that dorsetjimbo’s 15 mins is a very good time that makes the puzzle seem easier than it was, at any rate for me – just under 45 mins. The excellent and amusing 14dn was the last to go in. I think I can live with your niggles. “Small son” as an abbreviation indicator seems to me OK at 27ac (indeed pretty much par for the course), as does “eh’s” = “what’s” at 20ac, albeit that the latter is the kind of quirkiness one might expect to find in a Guardian puzzle rather than a Times one. I agree that “emergence” as a removal indicator at 13ac is stretching things a bit, and perhaps questionable, but if we take “emergence” to mean “the act/process of emerging”, Chambers gives one of the meanings of “to emerge” as “to issue or come forth”, which just about gets the setter off the hook.

      Michael H

      1. For me the problem with ’emergence’is that anything that ’emerges’ appears, rather than disappears. I agree that the term can be justified on the grounds that if X emerges from Y, X may no longer be in Y, though there are plenty of circumstances in which it is still partly in Y. Venus could emerge from the sea without completely leaving it. For that reason I still think ’emerge’ as an eliminator is questionable, though initially I didn’t question it.
  6. Sorry to let the side down, but I didn’t find it so easy. After a few quick gets in the top half I slowed to a crawl. Another one for whom DESCRY and STIR were last to fall. COD for me was SHELLEY. I’m not convinced a beginner would have gotten that one easily (or DESCRY for that matter). Still, as vinyl points out, if you go looking for difficulties you’ll certainly find them. Another good workout for me.
  7. With the championship heralded ones thoughts turn to the speed aspect again. Thought i try a ‘time it takes to drink a coffee’approach; with ‘things to do’ i didn’t warm up with the indie and or grauniad as has been my habit for a while now. When it comes down it the first 5 mins are always a imbecilic blank then get a couple clues and the flow going hopefully, a 10 min flourish optimistically, and another 5 to take care of loose ends. Disappeared into the Eliminates/Executives/Eradicates triangle for a while but once i told myself this ain’t so hard the momentum carried me to the last cold gulp.
    1. Anyone after speed tips should certainly read champion Mark Goodliffe’s report on the finals. My shorter equivalent is among the reports here. You’ll see that Mark spent very little time on the first look at each clue. You’ll also see that both of us put in some answers without full understanding of the clue – a potentially dangerous tactic but hard to avoid when you’re vying with the best.
  8. 14 minutes, held up mostly by 19 across and 24 down which I didn’t get the wordplay to.
  9. I seem to be having a hard time with The Times of late. An hour for today’s, and I struggled with yesterday’s as well, after a pretty dismal week last week. The long phrases especially I struggled to get. Perhaps it’s time to go and have a lie down!
  10. In my case, I may have to try a stronger brand of coffee. I didn’t finish this in 30 mins, failing to get COME-HITHER. Despite which, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

    Tom B.

  11. Just scraped in under 10 minutes but the last 3 or 4 of those were a desperate scramble to unravel the symmetrical pairings of 5A/6D and 27A/24D.

    No idea why 5A held me up – simple case of momentary word-blindness I think. And 6D, easy enough when you latch onto it, was sufficiently misleading (as in smooth) to cause befuddlement.

    24D, another case of brain failure, whereas 27A needed me to remember one of those words which you rarely hear in speech.

    For me this was an unusual mix of dead giveaways and some impressively intricate wordplay. A good nod to the setter, and my COD is the rather lovely 20D SHELLEY.

    Q-0 E-7 D-6

  12. Quite a slog despite a high number of compiler cliches. I struggled with The Pits and Come-hither and last in was Anomaly even though OM and AL are cliches.
    To my shame I had Nut for 2 down, reading it as a not very good double definition rather than a charade.
  13. I’m aligned with the ‘not too easy’ brigade today, needing about 45 minutes. My last entries were 24/27, like many others, but ERADICATES also eluded me for far too long, even with all the crossing letters in place. That wordplay had me tied in knots, thinking the def. was ‘kills time’. Knowledge of Scottich universities is not among my strong suits, and when crossing only the somewhat archaic DESCRY, STIR was really a guess. Regards all.
  14. A quick start, then a bit of a plod until Heartbreak Hotel openend its doors and finally a few minutes headscrtaching to get shears, Erie, and the commonly problematic descry/stir pairing. I also had anarchy pencilled in for 17 for a while but had my doubts. Any road up, it took 27 minutes so I, too, found it harder than Jimbo’s comments suggest it was.

    I’m with Koro and Anax in thinking the clue for Shelley was quite brilliant.

    Nice puzzle.

  15. The emergence cum disappearance of Excalibur from Lake Erie reminded me of Monty Python’s Holy Grail where some peasant points out to Arthur something like “just because some watery tart flings a sword at you it is no basis for government”. Quite so.

    There are 4 omissions from the blog:

    10a Bath visitor may well land up in trouble (3,4,3,5)
    GET INTO HOT WATER. Especially if the Lady of the Lake is lurking in the bubbles?

    15a Withdraw from match on account of injury (7)
    SCRATCH

    12d An attractive part of a mountainous journey in a difficult situation (1,6,4)
    A PRETTY PASS. Khyber, Honister or Wrynose? Take your pick.

    23d Tool in flat (5)
    PLANE

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