Times 24258 – There be pirates.

Author   kororarekaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: Don’t ask embarrassing questions

Saturday’s events presaged disaster for me on this one. I was wondering how I would know if this were really Monday’s puzzle and not Saturday’s finally appearing online on the wrong day. Such a circumstance is not without precedent in the syndicated version in Australia. Fortunately I was able to catch Angus’ act of mercy before wiser counsel prevailed and that particular fear was allayed. Nothing could forestall my disastrous attempt at solving this puzzle however, due to lack of knowledge and general stupidity. To the setter’s credit, there was some excellent subterfuge here. I limped home a chastened and beaten wreck.

Across
1 (NON GI’S)< for SIGN ON. Civilians aren’t military personnel. The Nongis are not the lost tribe of North America.
4 MIXED + (GAB)< for MIXED BAG or potpourri in the miscellany rather than scented sense.
10 DOONES + N.U.T. for DO ONES NUT. That would be Lorna’s mob and the National Union of Teachers (no relation to Blackbeard)
11 PLUMP; a double def. My last in, due in no small part to atrocious spelling at 7 and 8 (q.v.)
12 (HUDSON BAY MAILS)* for BUSMAN’S HOLIDAY, a break on which one does the same sort of thing one does at work; hence “break with continuity”. Nice one.
14 AS (= when starting) + COT(tage) for ASCOT, a racecourse. Clasps hands together eisteddfod style and intones The Eolian Harp by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
16 (Didero)T + ROUSSEAU for TROUSSEAU, a trunk full of high expectations of a future married life.
18 DAM + A SCENE for a DAMASCENE. or one from Damascus.
20 “Bred” for BREAD. Bloomers are D-shaped loaves with slashes across the top found in England, as this helpful article explains. I’ve been burnt by this one before.
21 SALT OF THE EARTH, a double definition. Halite is rock salt.
25 TEACH, another double definition. Edward Teach was Blackbeard the pirate. Well, shiver me timbers.
26 CHURCH + ILL for CHURCHILL, presumably John, 1st Duke of Marlborough, and not Marlborough. On solving I thought Churchill was probably somewhere in Marlborough.
27 “Analyst” for ANNALIST, or chronicler.
28 BA[RE + L]Y for BARELY or just. Five words with many possible interpretations.

Down
1 SIDEBOARDS, another double def. Facial hair also called sideburns. This about sums it up.
2 GROSS, another double def. A gross is 144, from memory. Cue Hamlet: “Things rank and gross in nature posses it merely”, speaking of his backyard.
3 OPERA + N’T for OPERANT or operating, producing effects or effective. A word not familiar to me.
6 E(uropean) + MP + TIES for EMPTIES, being empty alcoholic beverage bottles, called “dead men”, “dead soldiers” or “dead marines” colloquially, possibly because their spirits had left them. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.
7 (US BENEATH)* for BHUTANESE, from the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. The “h” is the second letter and not the third, or fourth, a fact which I realised late in proceedings, or not proceedings as it were.
8 (ni)G(ht) + APE for GAPE and not gawk. AWK is a beast of a programming language, but it isn’t an Auk or an ‘awk. “Midnight” = “g” seems to be acceptable and had nothing to do with my undoing.
9 (IT’S EATEN)* for ANISETTE, a liqueur in its own right and not a half-finger of anise.
13 BUDDY + (w)HOLLY for this singer. “If you haven’t heard of him, you must be the wrong age.” Love the frocks.
15 COME AGAIN, another double.
17 OVER + HAUL for fix up.
19 prize(S AT CHEL)sea for SATCHEL. Ahh! Well hidden.
20 (A SCRIBE) for BRESCIA in Lombardy, Italy. Known from this soccer (football) player.
22 F + ACTS for gen, information or dope. Dope about sums me up today. Faced with all the crossing letters, other apposite alternatives sprang to mind.
23 “Ray’s” or RAISE meaning to erect, the verb. I had LYRIC for a while, and there are indeed some CIRYL’s on Facebook, but I suspect many are either misprints or their parents are just as bad at spellings as I.
24 (ANTE)< for ETNA, a volcanic mountain in Sicily.

23 comments on “Times 24258 – There be pirates.”

  1. 10:10 here – held up by another wrong answer at 8D – GASP, which I should have seen would probably be “sound amazed” rather than “look amazed”. Saved by PLUMP at 11A. Didn’t know Teach at 25 or the precise Marlborough involved at 26. Should have been quicker to see T+ROUSSEAU at 16 – a wordplay chestnut. Anags at 12 and 7 both required a written jumbling of letters. Initially wrote SIGN UP for 1A but managed to correct it immediately.

    Puzzled by 24D: “mounts” seems a fairer reversal indicator and doesn’t damage the surface much.

    Edited at 2009-06-22 05:57 am (UTC)

  2. disgusted not to see operant faster at 3 down. some well crafted clues -particlularly liked the mount before mount…well done!
  3. 45 minutes. With about half the puzzle completed and unable to get properly started in the lower half I looked up “halite” in order to solve 21ac and kick-start the proceedings. I felt I was struggling all the way through this one.
  4. Ditto Jack re halite.
    Tricky but enjoyable with some lovely definitions eg dead men for empties, break with continuity for busmans holiday. Hats off to setter. Off to seaside for the day.
  5. echo previous comments about deft wording and acceptable levels of misleading. It always fascinates me to understand what makes a puzzle hard vs easy or even enjoyable vs boring, and whilst the simple general knowledge requirement (ie blackbeard) is one factor, the much more clever factor is the concept of wording well-known ideas in an illusory fashion. (high living, dead men, collection for union, break with continuity)

    I note also that there are no clues over two lines, so at a wild guess, the average wording may be 5 or less.

    thumbs up from me (after an annoying 45 mins odd)

  6. 22m today. 2 long ones in fast and first; liked wound as anagram indicator but solved after all crossings in. Churchill & raise took too long to see, final pair in. Enjoyment of wordplay certainly slows me up but I don’t care!
    1. Thanks for highlighting “wound”. I’ve only just realised it’s harm on the surface and past tense of wind in the cryptic. Another nice touch.
  7. 12:22 here. No major holdups, but the top right corner was the last to crack. In the end I put in BHUTANESE without even noticing the anagram.
  8. About 20 minutes – stopped the clock about a minute before getting 22dn (FACTS), where I’d tossed up between FOCUS and FACES and reluctantly plumped for FOCUS.  That plus a wrong guess at 25ac (COACH for TEACH) meant that the last 11 minutes were spent on four clues in the SW corner, the others being 27ac (ANNALIST) and the old chestnut 24dn (ETNA).

    I didn’t know COT (14ac), Edward TEACH (25ac), Marlborough/CHURCHILL (26ac), dead men (6dn EMPTIES), or ANISETTE (9dn), and wasn’t sure of the geography of BHUTAN (7dn) and BRESCIA (20dn).  BUDDY HOLLY (13dn) is still famous, and not just for having died so memorably – younger folk will know of him thanks to an extremely successful Weezer single from the mid-1990s.

    Clues of the Day: 1ac (SIGN ON), 12ac (BUSMAN’S HOLIDAY), 13dn (BUDDY HOLLY), 19dn (SATCHEL).

  9. I tackled this in two sessions, and lost track of the time. Certainly not the usual Monday stroll. I filled about three-quarters of the grid in half an hour, but was left with nothing in the SE corner. I thought halite was a rock, so didn’t get 21 until I had access to a dictionary. Once I had 21 I slowly filled the remaining gaps. As someone has said, plenty of subterfuge and an obscure reference in TEACH.
  10. t’was the bottom right corner that kept me crawling, eventually got there in 26 minutes and wasn’t sure about BREAD or BRESCIA but they were the only words I could make fit given the fodder. Some excellent clues, but a lot that was new to me.

    From wordplay: BUSMAN’S HOLIDAY, TROUSSEAU, BREAD, CHURCHILL (knew the word, but not how it related to Malborough), BRESCIA.

    13 for COD

  11. 28:57 .. hugely enjoyable Monday puzzle, challenging throughout. Last in MIXED BAG.
  12. I worked steadily through this one until I reached the SE corner at which point I think the earlier heat of battle on a very hot golf course caught up with me and I ground to a halt. After what seemed an eternity and a vague feeling of panic that I wasn’t going to finish it I saw sidekick=buddy, then lords house=church, realised 20D was an anagram and crawled across the line in 35 minutes. It’s a good puzzle but I think I made heavy weather of it.
    1. Like you, I set to work on this puzzle after a hot morning on the golf course, playing for Royal Wimbledon GC over-Sixties against the equivalent oldies from Surbiton GC! Flushed with victory in the first encounter, I made slower progress in the second. About 60 mins in the end. I might have been a bit nearer your time if I hadn’t been held up for about 15 mins, for no particularly good reason, on my last three solutions to go in: EMPTIES, BHUTANESE and BREAD. A tough work-out for a Monday, I thought, with some excellent deception. Peter B’s time of just over 10 mins seems to me astonishingly fast for this puzzle.
  13. It’s not Everyday you see a puzzle of this difficulty. I started Early In The Morning and immediately thought Oh, Boy, I’m never going to finish this but by lunchtime I thought Maybe Baby but I was living in a Fool’s Paradise. I had to Think It Over during the afternoon. Finally, with a pounding Heartbeat, I entered Facts and Churchill. In retrospect, It’s So Easy. Perhaps I’m Learnin’ The Game but I must not Rave On about it.

    Funnily enough I found the solution to 13 without difficulty

  14. About 45 minutes for me, and I enjoyed it immensely. The ‘people used to high living’ def is fabulous, as is ‘what return?’ for COME AGAIN. Also very amused by GAPE and BUDDY HOLLY. What I didn’t know today: OPERANT, DO ONES NUT, SIDEBOARDS, cot for cottage. Last entries were the crossing MIXED BAG and BHUTANESE. A round of applause from me for the setter for this one. Regards all.
  15. Didn’t time myself, but about 30 min. Slowish start, but never stalled. Rather surprised to find that it was all over. Last in: SIGN ON (COD) and PLUMP (I too had plumped for that damned ASP). A very enjoyable start to the week. Thank you setter.
  16. Brescia is more famous for a different footballer, Il Codino Divino, Robby Baggio.

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