Times 24201 – two countries, a bad hair day and a Jewish rite of passage

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time : 20 minutes – there were some words here that might stretch the old general knowledge. I got about two thirds of this and came to a grinding halt on both the bottom left and top right corners. Getting KAYAKED took care of the top part first, then the pun at 15 came clear and finished it all up.

Across
1 TO,BAG,0: I think I saw this wordplay somewhere else recently
4 JACK(=raise),BOO,T: liked this charade
10 ARIMATHEA: H in MATE in ARIA – answer came to mind while thinking of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”
11 YODEL: Is this just a cryptic definition?
12 FORWARD(as in a rugby lock forward),LOO,KING: KING as a powerful draught is a nice touch, in the US that would be a powerful checker
18 ESPLANADE: Well-concealed in nursES PLAN A DEmonstration
20 S,TEAM: steam drives the engine
21 PAGE-BOY HAIRCUT: I think this is meant to be a definition + cryptic definition of a haircut that turns one into a page-boy?
25 CUT I.T.
27 RED,CROSS: one of the few clues that came immediately
28 G.R. OUCH: G.R. is Georgius Rex
 
Down
1 TRAFFICKER: A,F,F in TRICKER
2 BRIAR: AIR reversed in BR (British Rail)
5 ALAMO(de): The Alamo was a mission, remember?
6 KAYAKED: A,YAK in KED(a sheep tick)
8 TILT: double definition
9 RHODES,IA: sounds like ROADS, then A1 reversed
13 BAT MITZVAH: BAT is the club, MITZ sounds like “mitts”, VA,H. BAR MITZVAH and BAT MITZVAH are both Jewish rites of passage, I’ve heard BAT used more for the female ceremony, but I believe both terms are applicable to each sex
15 ASP HALTED: I had the ASP in before figuring out the rest
17 OVERHEAR: sounds like OVER HERE
19 ABETTER: your elders are your betters
20 SPICIER: I.E. in (CRISP)*
23 COY,P,U: looks like a water wombat
24 SCAR: R,ACS all reversed

51 comments on “Times 24201 – two countries, a bad hair day and a Jewish rite of passage”

  1. I must be getting too old. 51 min, and even then only with online aids. The NE was the worst, not helped by trying to justify ANDES at 11 ac. Pleased to get BAT MITZVAH, and a small correction GL, the MITZ sounds like mitts = hands. 9 dn will cop some flak, with most of the world sounding the “e” in RHODESIA. After an initial double-take I like 17 dn OVERHEAR, with “broadcast” having a nicely floating quality in the clue. But COD has to be 15 dn ASPHALTED.
    2. Should not cop flak for this reason: as George indicates, the homophone element is Rhodes = “roads”.
      1. I still demur. Lanes sounds like roads. OK. Roads sounds like Rhodes. OK. But unless “heard” is somehow doing double duty, the text string “lanes” does not equate to the text string “rhodes”. And it needs a text string definition of “rhodes” to be able to accurately complete the construction. There again, the local sav blanc could be influencing my thinking.
        1. Hang on. Lanes don’t “sound like roads” – they are roads. So getting from lanes to roads doesn’t need the services of “heard”, which does the single duty of indicating that you need something that sounds like the synonym of “lanes”. This is exactly the same procedure as in ordinary homophone clues like 17D, except that we’re deriving part of the answer rather than the whole answer.
          1. I am with rosselliot on this one (apart from the sav blanc – I’m only drinking tea).
            I dislike homophones that only give you part of the answer in any case, but in a clue like this it is much worse. The ‘Rhodes’ part of ‘Rhodesia’ is not pronounced as ‘roads’, even if ‘Rhodes’ by itself is, and in my opinion that’s what’s important. The clue should indicate what (part of) the answer sounds like, not what it sounds like if it’s pronounced differently.
            I think the worst culprit I’ve seen was ‘Blitzkrieg’ that used a backwards ‘irkz’ sounding like ‘irks’ in the wordplay.
            1. This question arose in last month’s clue challenge (Berserk), for which Roger Phillips offered this:
              “Some clue used the partial homophones “bursar” and “burrs” for the BERSER and BERS parts of the answer respectively. Since these are not words themselves, they have no established pronunciation, so I compared the alleged homophones with the relevant part of BERSERK (in either of its two pronunciations).”

              Since RHODES is a word itself – Greek island – I think it’s acceptable to clue the first six letters of RHODESIA as a match to it. Ergo, “sounds like roads” I find to be acceptable. On the more general point, I tend to agree with you – as apparently does Roger. Your “blitzkrieg” example sounds execrable, I don’t like it any more than you did.

            2. We get anagrams of part-answers on a regular basis with no eyelids batted. A homophone of a part-answer is logically no different, just less common (but then homophones are less common than anagrams for whole answers). Unless you dislike all mixed indications of answer parts, or all homophones, disliking partial homophones makes no sense to me.

              Clues of other types play tricks based on the written appearance of clues all the time. When you see the point of 1A, “bag” doesn’t sound like the “bag” part of Tobago either, but no-one minds. Ditto the char in chary.

              [The BLITZKRIEG clue was in 23841 – q.v. if you want to relive the debate about that one.]

              1. I’m happy to admit that the partial homophones phobia doesn’t make a lot of sense; they just happen to annoy me. I think it’s probably something to do with maintaining their purity – the same idea that led Ximenes to detest partial anagrams, I guess.
                For me, making a partial homophone and then finishing off with some other kind of wordplay just feels a bit ugly.
                1. What Ximenes said he hated were indirect anagrams, not partiaL ones. His example: “Tough form of monster” for HARDY = (Hydra)*. He happily uses (TEN*,rev. of TOPER) to clue ENTREPOT. (pp. 51 and 124 of ‘Ximenes on the Art of the Crossword’)
                  1. You’re right (of course) – I must be thinking of a different book. I haven’t read enough crossword books to give much of a choice… perhaps Sandy Balfour?
          2. Oops, my thinking and my typing momentarily parted company. The ensuing discussion tidies things up for me. I had deduced RHODESIA from “country” and the checking letters and went into a pedantic pique while trying to justify the rest of the clue.
  2. Like Ross, I’m getting old. Two sessions and getting on for an hour all up I think.

    The main hold-ups were 21ac (which I still can’t understand to my satisfaction) and the NE corner. At 4ac I had the K and the O and thought perhaps soldiers traditionally marched at an early time such as COCK[crow] (to “cock” being to raise). Eventually got TILT and the rest fell into place.

    This was another one that I was just happy to finish unaided (though I had to guess KED and check it afterwards). I shall have to start coming to terms with incipient senility and temper my expectations.

  3. I found this very hard – 20:14, so it meets sotira’s schadenfreude spec.

    Only had 14, 16, 25 after first pass of acrosses, and only 2, 6, 7, 22 after completing a first look at the downs.

    Snowdonia was rather cheeky for “alpine”.

    1. Gasps from the gallery. My unworthy side is delighted, my nobler self dismayed (and neither in any position to feel remotely smug).
      1. If I’d watched the second hands, I’d have known if this was a rare PB (Peter Beater)
    2. Is “alpine” acceptable (if cheeky) for “mountainous” generally? I had grave qualms about SNOWDONIA being right as it’s patently not in the Alps.
  4. I finished all but the first word of 21a on the journey to work. I had HAIRCUT in place with BOY as the most likely candidate to precede it but PAGE-BOY didn’t come to mind though I know the expression well.

    On reading the blog I realised an error at 13d where I put BARMITZVAH. I had a query against it to go back and check the wordplay but never got round to it because of the time spent failing to complete 21a.

  5. That was a struggle from beginning to end, where the end involved using some aids. I never got on the wavelength of the setter in many of the clues and was seven clues short at my target time of 30 minutes.

    I liked SNOWDONIA and ESPLANADE (a well hidden word), but didn’t like PAGE-BOY HAIRCUT which I solved early on without really understanding it.

  6. 29:45 .. Not for the first time in my life, I was ill served by a PAGE BOY HAIRCUT. The clue, like my experiment with the haircut, feels like a nice idea that didn’t quite come off. ESPLANADE (bravo!) and REALITY TV (my brain couldn’t get past ‘variety’ in the letter mix) also gave me undue pause.

    No real grumbles – just some unusual clues that I was slow to see. CUT IT and ASPHALTED both raised a smile.

    Slight departure for One Across Rock into the world of film, and the upcoming ‘comedy of the year’ My Big Spicy Tobagan Bat Mitzvah.

  7. I also had difficulty with this, particularly in the NW corner. I couldn’t see the construction of JACKBOOT and TILT completely eluded me for ages. Getting KAYAKED was the breakthrough when I saw the required meaning of “rapid”. That gave me the Y for YODEL and the K for JACK. Guessed at TILT because I couldn’t see the “stab” meaning. I don’t understand the haircut clue, which I guessed once I had all the checking letters. There are a lot of clever clues and well hidden definitions. 40 minutes to solve.
    1. If you saw this kind of haircut on someone’s head, it could recall a page-boy = “youth to attend” in your imagination. You may think this is utter nonsense, but it’s the best I can do!

      Pageboy is one word in all the dictionaries, unless Collins has bucked the general “fewer hyphens” trend since my 1991 edition. I guess the clue’s (4-3,7) reflects a decision (possibly unconscious) by setter or editor that it should be hyphenated.

      1. Having just posted one explanation, I now think of another. If the skull required a young man’s attendance, it could give the order to make it so by saying “page Boy, haircut!”

        We’re off in the land of March Hares and Dormice, if that’s the correct reading of it.

      2. Collins also has “pageboy” as one word. Being essentially non-u I know little of these people or their haircuts but I accept your entirely reasonable explanation.
  8. I’m struggling with 14 & 23:

    14: I’ve chary. But how does CHAR=daily. I can see char=chare=chore (something done regularly/daily), but they’re different parts of speech.

    And, 23: how does (in) fur coat = U at the end?

    1. Char can refer to a charwoman, a daily

      I guess I didn’t elaborate on the wordplay to 23 – it’s not an insertion, it’s a charade
      Creature in fur coat = COYPU
      Feigning modesty = COY
      Quietly = P
      Accepted = U

      Probably a deliberate that it looks like it should be an insertion

  9. Time for me to stop lurking. I’m very grateful to this site .It’s helping me with my struggle to be able to finish the xword regularly.

    I’ve had a depressing week so far; finishing monday’s puzzle but only completing 1/2 on tuesday. 1/3 on wednesday and about 3/4 today.

    However I can give a little bit back .. I think

    daily help (about the house) = char lady (man)

    Thanks again for the blog, an invaluable resource for beginners like me

    John

    1. Welcome John. Don’t hesitate to ask for help – somebody will give you assistance – no question is too daft or anything like that. And let us know how you’re getting on.
    2. Welcome. Your comparative performances for these three puzzles intrigue me. They may prove that timings for old hands say absolutely nothing about relative difficulty for beginners. I had 8-something clockings for the first two, and 20-something today – my mistake on Tuesday’s puzzle was down to pure carelessness, not puzzle difficulty. Others (Jimbo, Duncan & Ross) found this the hardest of the three. But you solved nearly as many clues today as in the Tues and Weds puzzles put together. The most logical conclusion is that you’re learning very fast, and my next sub-10 will be your first completed puzzle. No pressure!
      1. As another less able solver, I too found this to be more accessible than some other puzzles that evidently caused you no difficulty.

        I suspect the apparent divergence in perception of difficulty comes partly as the novice and the expert measure the difficulty at a different point. For the novice, the difficulty of the puzzle is all about the beginning — if they get a few early clues, the crossing letters may help them to a few more before resorting to aids and then answers. For the expert, the difficulty is all about the end — the last clue in stops the clock — but what happens there is less relevant for the novice who probably didn’t even get that far!

  10. Another day, another balloon. Didn’t know BAT was a MITZVAH too. Thought BAR was some rank in the Brownies. Otherwise very slow. Another good workout, with some nice touches. Liked 18, 9, 19, 4 and COD 12 for its powerful draught & lock.
  11. Welcome and thanks thymallus, and thanks glheard. Now for my very last stupid question of the day. Does accepted = U as in U = up = accepted into university?
    1. No – it’s a vague extension of U as in U and non-U. U in this sense only really means “accepted” if you’re in the right social class and still think this stuff matters. But then the Times is supposed to be the top peoples’ paper, so let’s pretend we all have dailies and valets …

      Cryptic clues also use the film-certificate U=Universal, usually describing it by something like “for all to see”, but converting this to “accepted” seems an even bigger stretch.

      Edited at 2009-04-16 04:37 pm (UTC)

    2. File this one away, because it comes up pretty regularly… from Chambers

      U: (of words, behaviour, etc) as used by or found among the upper classes, hence socially-acceptable; upper-class, opposite to “non-U”

      As an old film rating, it can mean “for general consumption”.

      Good old U
      He’s element 92 (there’s my poem for the day)

      1. Thanks Peter and gl. Guess I’ve been outed on which side of the U / non-U divide I’m from 🙂
  12. Found this tough as was convinced that 27 across was Sun something…having realsied error…liked Asphalted! and Red cross. thougt jackboot and Tobago were cool clues
    bit too tough for me today
    struggling with tiredness and hangover!
  13. I do have the excuse that we’ve been out all day with friends and family, and therefore I never got to sit down for an uninterrupted stretch of concentration. Even so, the combined efforts of two parents and myself failed to get more than about half of the puzzle completed. None of us have ever heard of PAGE-BOY HAIRCUT, I don’t think I would ever have solved that since it would have seemed to me to be a gibberish answer, no better than “LARGE TREE” or similar. I know better now.

    ASPHALTED is hilarious. Pleased to find I was on the right lines (ASP stopped/avoided etc.) but I didn’t come up with it.

    1. I couldn’t get those two either – thought it must be ‘wide-boy haircut’ (no I don’t know what one of those is). Asplifted? Asprioted? Aspwilted? You decide.
  14. I too struggled with this and gave up with two clues unsolved (page-boy haircut and asphalt). On further reflection they weren’t so hard really and I should possibly have persisted, but I’d already spent around 40 minutes by which time my guilt at not doing something more productive with my time was becoming acute. bc
  15. Tough indeed, about 45 minutes all told for me. It’s one of those where I knew the answers were all correct, but couldn’t say why in many cases. I don’t get 21, still. It was a guess that fit the checking letters. Didn’t know why ‘lock’=’forward’, why ‘powerful draught’=’king’, ‘yak’=’rabbit'(even though Jimbo explained it to me earlier this week), ‘ked’=’tick’, or the COYPU. But like others, my real problem was in the NE. For me, thinking of TILT broke the logjam, even though it’s somewhat dicey, it was the only 4 letter word I could think of, even stretching, to get in there. That led to YODEL, the ‘y’ led to KAYAKED, and that led to JACKBOOT, my last entry. I fully agree with all the kudos for ASPHALTED, a clear COD. Regards to all.
    1. I do now get 21ac, since my partner (who freely admits she’s abysmally hopeless at Times Crosswords, and doesn’t even understand my explanation of clues most of the time) has heard of a page-boy haircut. Most of us probably know it far better as “the pudding-basin haircut,” and I’ve never had to endure it.

      I assume the name arises in reality, because of a time when page-boys all had to have it (much as the crew-cut recalls the Navy, or is it Army?) The wordplay is that it could equally well refer to a time when all messenger boys in offices (“page boys”) also had it. Most people nowadays are so familiarised to the existence of the telephone, they wouldn’t even think of page boys, let alone think about what kind of haircuts they might once have had. I don’t know whether a reference to them is even in the dictionaries any more – probably still in Chambers, which seems to eliminate words only if they have not been used for at least half a million years, and do not appear in any book that has ever been written. 😀

      I never would have got KING for powerful draught, without recourse to a dictionary. We used to call them crowns, on such rare occasions as I’ve actually played the game. I don’t like it.

  16. For me at least, the beginning matters a lot too. My expectation is that after I’ve read all the clues once, I’ll have something between one and two thirds of the answers filled in – 10-20 answers in round numbers. In this puzzle I had just 7. Even after all these years, that has an effect on my morale. The end sometimes matters a lot too, of course.
  17. Bat Mitzvah is the Jewish ceremony at age 13 for girls. For boys, it is Bar Mitzvah – the two are not used indiscriminately
  18. Count me in on those who thought that Club must, somehow, clue BAR as I had never heard of a BAT MITZVAH. As it was an unchecked letter then I had no way to tell. I wonder whether I’ll remember for next time?

    There are 6 “easies” omitted from the blog. Some are discussed above but here they are in one go:

    14a Daily encountering the unknown makes us cautious (5)
    CHAR Y. Where CHAR = daily (Char-lady) and unknown = Y, one of the usual XYZ unknowns in algebra.

    16a Wild woods in an alpine region (9)
    SNOWDONIA. Anagram of (WOODS IN AN). A bit naughty because this is “Alpine” sensu lato meaning mountainous and not sensu stricto meaning part of the Alps. Around 400 million years difference in age – probably too much information?

    26a Vary title on rearranging a certain type of programme (7,2)
    REALITY TV. Anagram of (VARY TITLE). No further comment.

    3d Elderly lady with a recently emptied breadbasket (7)
    GRAN A RY. Recently emptied = RY without the (ecentl).

    7d One Dane involved with Corn Law (9)
    ORD1NANCE. Anagram where the anagrist is ONE = 1 & DANE & CORN. The literal is LAW so you have to “lift and separate” CORN LAW as the first is part of the anagrist and the second is the literal.

    22d Poor grain’s missing the odd root (5)
    ORRIS. Take only the EVEN letters of Poor grain’s to get p O o R g R a I n S. Iris roots used for medicinal purposes. Alternatively a Roman Poet well beloved by Cockneys and ‘erefordians alike.

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