Times 24176

Author   petebiddlecombePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 9:00

If this time turns out to be a good one, it’s down to an old speed-solver’s trick – gambling on answers from wordplay the def. and checking letters, without full understanding of the wordplay. I think this happened on 10, 16, 24, 26, 3, 7, 8. The puzzle seemed a good mixture of easy clues with more challenging stuff, with a couple of new words/facts for me tucked into the wordplay. It also has a good collection of smooth surface readings – possibly not 1A/D where the def. / wordplay break is pretty obvious.

Across
1 GO OFF=begin to dislike,THE RAILS=some birds
9 VI(R)GO – Vigo is a port in Galicia, Spain
10 MISBEHAVE – crafty wordplay here – “Live on one’s own” is “(I’S),BE=live),HAVE=own. Quibblet: Not totally convinced by “mate begins” for M when “mate’s beginning” seems clearer without significant surface meaning damage.
11 UN,DER,WRITE=”right”
12 DEAL – 2 defs – ‘deal being “sawn wood of various coniferous trees” (Collins). Long ago I did wonder why I never heard about deal trees.
14 T.U.(S.,S.=sons),LES
16 OLOROSO – (O,rev. of O.R.) in rev. of OSLO – ‘drink’ and about three O’s was enough here.
17 E(U)RATO,M(istrust) – the European Atomic Energy Community. Researchers? – they seem more like promoters but it looks as if some research is in there somewhere.
20 HAND – 2 defs, one ref. “at hand”
21 AUTOST=(a stout)*,R,ADA – an Italian motorway
24 S(PAG)HE,TTI=”took to Idomeneo at first”. “Course” is the def. {Pag=opera} was used in 23542, where I said: The old standard double bill of Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci (a couple of Italian spellings to remember?) is known as “Cav and Pag”
25 HEATH – The PM who got us into 17, and a place for the ‘weird sisters’ (see 24160) in the Scottish play – Act 1 Scene 3. A heath near Forres. Thunder. Enter the three Witches
26 MASTER=overcome,MAR(I)NER – I didn’t know before today that George Eliot’s Silas Marner needs a ‘miser’ tag in my memory as well as ‘weaver’
 
Down
1 GIVE UP=lay off,THE GHOST=the spirit
2 (r)OARED – “prepared for a row” seems to be an xwd joke like wicked in “wicked thing”, but OARED has an adj. meaning in COED.
3 FLOOR=confound,C,LOTH=reluctant
4 HUMERUS – game = R.U. in Hume’s
5 R.I.(SOT),ToOk
6 I,B,EX
7 SCAPE=stalk,GOAT=”6 perhaps” = ibex perhaps – a scape is a kind of plant stalk in Collins. COED has an ‘insect antenna part’ def. from which the possibility of a ‘stalk’ def might be inferred
8 HE(LL),F(ORLE=role*)ATHER
13 COWCATCHER – cryptic def. using old favourite neat=cattle
15 STRONG-ARM – the jazz trumpeter is Satchmo
18 MO=instant,UNTIE=release – I’m sure I saw a very similar wordplay in a Jumbo or weekend barred grid puzzle recently, so slightly disappointed not to get this on first look
19 R.(H),ODIUM – rhodium is used to harden alloys.
22 AGA,IN – the old xwd option for aga here (Turkish chief), rather than the cooker
23 TH(e) U.S. – a nice concise clue to end.

35 comments on “Times 24176”

  1. The wordplay in 21 puzzled me. I’ve never come across “originally” as an anagrind before, and I can’t accept that the clue quite says what it means. It’s true that “autost” could have been “a stout” originally, but it could equally have been “sat out” or any of several hundred other combinations. What do you think? Am I missing something?
    Dafydd.
    2. I don’t see any problem here. Original=new surely, so its make a new formation for “a stout”
      1. Yeah but, yeah but … the clue uses “originally” which I don’t think equates to “newly”. At least I can’t think of a case where the two could be used interchangeably. Can anyone else?
        Dafydd.
        1. Replying to myself now. A synonym for “originally” in Chambers Thesaurus is “by derivation”, so I guess I can justify the clue on that basis.
          Dafydd.
        2. I would have said the same as Jimbo (hurrah!). But it’s tricky when an adj. has multiple meanings and the dictionary just has (e.g.) “originally, adv.”, even though there are cases like “instantly” which as far as I recall is never used with the “instant as in coffee” definition. The OED treats adverbs as separate words, and is with the setter on “originally”.

          For xwd purposes, where I’m always keen to emphasize that you do NOT need to consult huge dictionaries like the OED, I’m happy to accept any adverbial meaning, partly as it makes no less sense than accepted tricks like “flower=river” or “wicked = equipped with a wick”.

          Kudos to the first desktop dictionary to use something like (adv. sense 1 only) where appropriate.

          1. A bit of light Googling threw up:”The truth isn’t the truth until people believe you, and they can’t believe you if they don’t know what you’re saying, and they can’t know what you’re saying if they don’t listen to you, and they won’t listen to you if you’re not interesting, and you won’t be interesting unless you say things imaginatively, originally, freshly.” – Bill Bernbach, US advertising guru.

            Tom B.

  2. Got off to a very slow start today as none of the multi-word answers came to me for a while and my solved clues were dotted around the grid. I persevered and got there eventually in 50 minutes with no aids. I had one or two refences to check after completion as I didn’t know Silas Marner was a miser, nor that rhodium makes things harder.
  3. I thought at the start that this was going to be easy like Monday’s, but a number of the clues proved of sterner stuff – 18mins.

    Like Peter I put in several answers without really understanding them, and I needed the blog to see 24 and 26. Thanks Peter.

  4. 15 minutes again for me, which puts it at the same level as yesterday’s. I didn’t get any of the four long answers at first though, which probably slowed me down a bit. I used Peter’s trick of guessing answers on 10, 11, 16, 24, 26, 7 and 8 – but obviously I’m not as quick at it as he is!

    There was a barred puzzle (either the Spectator or EV, can’t remember which) earlier this year which had a theme of famous misers, and Silas Marner was among them. I recalled this when I went through the grid afterwards confirming the wordplay of the ones I’d guessed.

  5. I got 1A, 26A, 1D and 8D straight from the definitions and they were the first four clues I entered, which makes a big difference. 13D is a bit of an old chestnut but the rest of it was reasonably entertaining if straightforward. My only hold up was RHODIUM where I took a while to spot the “odium” part of the clue. I heard my daughter singing pag not long ago so that came easily. About 20 minutes in all.
  6. Like Peter, I slung in a few answers from definitions or letters in the grid without fully understanding the wordplay, and made smooth progress that way. But I did come to grief, very stupidly entering IBIS for 6 dn, which didn’t get corrected until I finally solved 10, which, for a long time, I thought was an anagram of MATE BEGINS. Quite a difficult clue to sort out with all the positional shifts (if you see what I mean). Didn’t know RHODIUM, but not hard to work out. I’ve seen “originally” as an anagram indicator often enough not to be worried about it. 35 minutes in all. That error cost me at least 5 minutes.
  7. A bit trickier for me today, but an enjoyable puzzle. Around 35 mins but I idiotically confused ibis with ibex and therefore couldn’t find an answer to fit 10 across, which was tricky enough without a wrong checking letter. So one wrong and one not completed. bc
  8. 23:17, helped by getting the two 1s immediately although the other two long answers took a bit more working out (I was thinking of like the something for 8d) and eventually went in without fully appreciating how the wordplay worked.

    Like others I threw in some other answers on a wing and a prayer (Euratom, scapegoat) but found plenty of clues to admire (the misdirection of live on one’s own and one working at this and the succinct but clever construction of Mountie and again, for instance).

    Q-0, E-7.5, D-5, COD again.

  9. My time of 8 minutes is faster than usual but, looking here, I seem to have joined the “unravel the wordplay later” club. Probably just as well as both components of 7d are ones I’d never have worked out.

    The four long answers went in fairly quickly although 26a needed some work.

    The story on Page 37 about Meghan McCain made 21a seem particularly apposite – given the long lead time for puzzles, it’s quite a remarkable coincidence.

    Nice wordplay tricks here and there, but nothing much in the COD department.

    Q-0 E-6 D-6

  10. 35 minutes here, so just above average for me, and definitely easier than yesterday’s! A few obscurities in there (1ac, 9ac, and 13d spring to mind, though nothing that couldn’t be looked up afterwards). And I’ve a feeling I’ve seen 17ac somewhere before, possibly The Times. I’m going to have to keep a handy list of The Muses round my desk somewhere! COD 25ac.
  11. A few tussles but I got there in the end. Several vague definitions made it harder than it should have been: course for spaghetti, drink for oloroso and the hardener definition for Rhodium.
    Like many others, I got 26 without being able to justify miser = marner.
    I was glad I got the DD for sawn wood immediately. Not being a DIY fan I always thought that deal was a type of wood that came from a deal tree. I sometimes wondered why I never saw any deals at the arboretum.
    1. This authoritative looking gentleman thinks “Deal is a pine tree of the northern group…”, which suggests you might find it in a nursery. I’ve always associated the term with any cheap timber (usually pine) used in the carcasses of furniture which is finished in something more splendid. Not to be confused with Cyathea Dealbata, the unofficial national emblem of New Zealand.
      1. So I may have been right all along. All the standard dictionaries define deal along the lines of a plank of softwood timber,usu, fir or pine. Wikipedia also has deal as scots pine or norway spruce but when you look a little further it is clear that it only becomes deal after it is chopped down. So defining deal as a tree is like defining beef as a cow.
      2. Hmm. I really would believe the dictionaries before a statement on some bloke’s website. Lenny’s “cow/beef” analogy is good – by the time it’s deal, the tree is felled, if not sawn up (there are defs like “easy to saw timber” on Onelook.)

        “looks authoratitive”: I’d better put a white DJ/Tux, bow tie and “spec string” on my avatar straightaway! – ironically I’ve just got my first pair of varifocals to get rid of the latter. We don’t know who bow-tie man is (if anyone), and whoever’s behind that site thinks it’s OK to serve up two dozen paras on a page without a sub-heading in sight. I think they just want you to click the ad links.

        1. Never underestimate the power of appearance. One year I decided to wear a suit to class to see if the students would take any more notice of me. It seemed to work a treat. I might try his ammonia trick to “age” new pine, but if his knowledge of deal is anything to go by success might not be guaranteed.
  12. 50 mins here. Got stuck thinking 26 must be an island. Last in was was THUS, and I needed all the checking letters. Thought THEUS was another character from Greek mythology. Anyway, escaped major embarassment today by a whisker. Toyed with MISTER MARINER (Neville?) for quite a while, thinking TERMARIN could be one of the Azores. The forced reading of Silas Marner as a teenager has obviously scarred my psyche (not to mention my eros & erato). I liked MOUNTIE. The last time we saw him (in the TIMES daily or JUMBO at least) he was restrained rather than at liberty.
    1. (Sir) Neville has a total of 3 Rs (Marriner) and is still alive and kicking at 85, so not yet available for Times cryptic employment.
        1. Makes for a variant on the old obit joke: every morning my butler brings me The Times and I do the crossword in bed. If I’m not in it, I get up.
          1. From one of the articles printed just before the championship was revived in 2006:

            Richard Browne, the crossword editor of The Times, treasures a letter from an elderly lady reader, who wrote: “I always do the crossword first thing in the morning to see if I’ve got enough marbles left to make it worth my while getting up.”

  13. 25:29. Still on course for a first week of all weekdays under 30 minutes. No doubt it will all go wrong tomorrow or Friday.

    The 1s fell quickly which obviously helped. All went well for 18 minutes followed by a pause before before the final five or six went in. Slowest quadrant was the SW which finally yielded after STRONG ARM went in.

    I liked FLOOR CLOTH, MISBEHAVE and HELL FOR LEATHER.

  14. At 32 min was a bit slow. Unfortunately the long ones did not leap out, although they should have, which probably added 10 min. Much more relaxing than yesterdays cold shower. NO outstanding COD but good overall.
  15. I had trouble with this one, and needed aids at the end for OLOROSO and AUTOSTRADA. About an hour altogether. I got 1D/1A right off, but the other long ones eluded me for a long while. I had no problem with Marner as miser, but I thought that meant the first word of the answer was ‘marine’, so that took me down the wrong path. COD: HELL FOR LEATHER. Regards.
  16. I was out of town last night and got in pretty late today, so took naughty peeks at the crossword this afternoon when I was meant to be doing other things. Dear setter – I enjoyed this one a LOT – totally on my wavelength, funny clues, particularly RHODIUM. SCAPEGOAT was my last one in.
  17. On reflection, I think I was too kind about Spaghetti = course. It is just plain wrong. The Italians usually have a first course, which is called il primo and it may or may not contain pasta which may or may not be spaghetti. To use an analogous British staple, Spaghetti = course is a bit like potatoes = course. I do not think that would be an acceptable crossword definition.
    1. A tricky area! In this country at least, spaghetti seems to get counted as the main ingredient in dishes in a way that rice or potatoes aren’t – so “I had spaghetti for supper” seems rather less bizarre than “I had rice for supper”. But I can’t promise you that a course of rice or potatoes won’t be served up in the Times xwd. This may be a case of “established xwd usage” (not something I like using as an excuse).
      1. Reminds me of the Royle Family:

        Barbara: Have you had you tea Denise?

        Denise: Yeah.

        Barbara: What did you have?

        Denise: Spaghetti.

        Barbara: Oooh. Bolognese?

        Denise: No, hoops.

  18. At 24a SPAGHETTI, where opera = PAG, I had no problem as I learned about it here in the very blog of 23542 that PB mentions above. Also no problem with the literal being “course”.

    Today’s omission is:

    19a Telling article subjected to editing (7)
    RECITAL. Anagram of (article).

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