Times 24,259 – He’s Not the Messiah, He’s a Very Naughty Boy

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A straightforward 15 minute solve for me, with some nice touches. Q0-E7-D4

Across
1 SHOPPING – S(ales) + HOP(P)ING.
6 ABJECT – AB + (C)irca in JET.
9 WARDOUR STREET – (DRAW)*+ OUR + (SETTER)*; the Times setter is our setter, of course; this thoroughfare is the traditional London base of the British film industry; for those who are innocent, or unfamiliar with London, the wider Soho area is the sort of place in which naughtiness of all sorts is traditionally prevalent. Excellent surface reading.
10 JOYOUS – YOU in JO’S; we seem to be getting the Little Women quite regularly just at the moment. Today, Jo.
11 LATITUDE – L(ake) + “attitude”.
13 HEARTSEASE – HEART + S(ingular) EASE; last one in for me: I always have trouble with botany, and for a long time I was still waiting for it to turn out to be a river rather than an actual flower.
15 IDLE – InDuLgE.
16 ABBA – two B(ishop)s in two As; the word used by Jesus to refer to God in the New Testament accounts.
18 OVERTAKING – OVER + (KIN in TAG).
21 GUIDE DOG – “guyed” (to guy is a somewhat antique word for to mock) + dog = ‘follow’; which means I suppose that the definition is simply “Animal”, which I think is insufficient for a very specific sort of animal. Possibly just me, possibly a widely held opinion.
22 ASTHMA – H(ead)M(aster) in A STA(y).
23 CONFLAGRATION – F(ire) in CON + LAG + RATION (helping).
25 GRUBBY – GRUB + B(o)Y, the stomach being the middle bit.
26 DITHERER – (THEDRIER)*.
 
Down
2 HOW COME – O(ld) WC inside HOME.
3 PARLOURMAID – A R(ight) LOUR in P(ost)M(ortem) + AID. LOUR is more common as LOWER in most circles, I think, which may make it trickier.
4 IRONS – mayfaIR ON Sunday, the surface providing misdirection away from the golf clubs which are the answer.
5 GORILLA – [R(eal) + ILL] in GOA; I was trying very hard to put an anagram of REAL in GOA at first, which wasn’t helpful.
6 ANTITHEFT – A N(ew) TITHE + F(oo)T.
7 JOE – especially for our solvers in the New World; GI Joe is the equivalent of Action Man in the UK (the gripping hands! the Eagle Eyes! – sorry, it’s Christmas Day 1974 all over again in my head); while a young kangaroo is a JOE(y).
8 CITADEL – IT inside CADE + L(ength); Jack Cade was a Kentish rebel who led a revolt against Henry VI (a Weak King).
12 THINKS TWICE – THIN + (WICKETS)*.
14 SWORDPLAY – WORD (ie promise) + PL(ace) inside SAY (= eg).
17 BOUNCER – double def: a bouncer (doorman) is a heavy and a bouncer (ball) is another cricket reference; though it may not have been in the mind of the setter (the clue doesn’t need another layer), commentators these days talk about cricketers who “bowl a heavy ball”, in the sense that there is more power in the delivery when it hits the bat than seems apparent when it is bowled; if that was an intentional part of the clue, then as a cricketer I thought it very clever, all conveyed in two words.
19 ENGAGED – (G[ood] + AGE) in END.
20 NOMINEE – N(ew) O(rder) of M(erit) IN E(urop)E.
22 ABAFT – A + BAFT(a); very neat – BAFTA award the most prestigious British screen acting awards; “abaft” refers to the Titanic as much as any ship.
24 NEB – double def, “nose” and “New English Bible”. I’d be interested to see who regards this as an obvious answer, based on geographical distribution; a Yorkshire friend of mine occasionally referred to “sticking your neb in”, which is the only time I’ve ever heard the expression, but a quick Google for clarification suggests that it’s a word peculiar to Pittsburgh as well…any Pennsylvania-based Yorkshire expats in today?

37 comments on “Times 24,259 – He’s Not the Messiah, He’s a Very Naughty Boy”

  1. Not that easy for me. Stranded with about a quarter to go, so went to the aids to get HEARTSEASE, which got me going again. Spluttered to the finish in 35 min with the ASTHMA/ABAFT pairing last in. Had never heard of either manifestation of NEB and got there the hard way – not that there are that many options for N?B. Not quite the pizazz of yesterdays clueing, but none too shabby either. COD for me JOE – not too often we get a natty three character clue.
  2. About 40 minutes for me. Nice blog Tim. Also ended with slogging through the alphabet for HEARTSEASE, and ABAFT. Sorry, hadn’t heard of BAFTA awards, just used the definition, which was nicely hidden to those of use who couldn’t understand the wordplay. NEB was a guess, based on ‘E’ ‘must mean English’, although I considered NIB and NUB also. WARDOUR STREET from wordplay alone. JOE held me up a long time, since it hadn’t occurred to me that the Brits had heard of GI Joe. I thought ‘ball’=’bouncer’ without any reference to cricket (hardly any wonder there). COD: ABJECT, very cleverly composed. Not as enjoyable as yesterday’s, but that’s not a complaint; still very good, but having to follow yesterday’s stunner is not an enviable position. Regards to all.
  3. Struggled with this – 15:32. 6A and 7 were last in, but I’d just completed gaps in every corner. Knew about neb=nose from barred grid puzzles.
  5. I liked it too, despite struggling. Favourites HEARTSEASE (my last in), LATITUDE, SWORDPLAY & THINK TWICE. COD to CONFLAGRATION. Slick surfaces throughout. Two excellent puzzzles to start the week.
  6. 1ac and 1dn in while printing (only 2 visible on screen) so very disappointed to be defeated by 2 (albeit Peter’s last 2), ie ABJECT (black & blue??) without which I had no chance of getting JOE (a concession for American and Australian solvers by way of balance for WARDOUR STREET?).
    Look-ups for HEARTSEASE, NEB (every vowell checked in dictionary, with the least likely “e” the last), and the very clever ABAFT, perhaps too clever, certainly for me. Completely suckered by Titanic.
    1. “black and blue” is a classic example of a phrase that seems to belong together but must be broken up – round here we’ve often called this “lift and separate”, ever since this report identified seven uses of this trick in one puzzle. In this case,
      black = JET (from that stuff they find around Whitby and make jewels from) – part of the wordplay, and is a wordplay/def. link, and blue(=miserable) is the definition.
      1. Thanks Peter. God, how stupid I can be. (Optional punctuation in that line).

        Another learning point is READ THE BLOG.

        See my reply to Jimbo coming-up.

    2. Faced with a clue like 6A if I can’t sort out the wordplay I list the words of the clue in a vertical column and enter “possible translations” next to them. For example:

      Sailor’s – tar, AB
      about – c, re
      to
      enter
      black – b, jet, sad
      and
      blue – colour, sad

      Then I ask myself”what is the definition”. Almost certainly either “sailor” or “blue”. I look at any checking letters (like the J for example), look at my potential translations and can see ABJECT. Try it next time you’re stuck.

      1. All very sound advice, though I guess you have to watch out for the case where “black and blue” means “bruised”. If you add the first or last two words to the def. possibilities, the odds are even better – today I counted 16 first or last word defs, and another 6 which were the first or last two words – a total of 22 out of the 28 clues. Yesterday there were 19 one-word defs and 7 two-word ones, leaving just four others.
      2. I like it.
        Must keep up with the morning mantra “Do not read clues as sentences” repeated 10 times.
        Amazing how one gets sucked into the same mistakes again and again.
  7. A very straightforward 20 minute solve. Clearly I was on the setter’s wavelength (though perhaps more Windmill Street than Wardour).

    I found it a pleasant puzzle throughout. I think HEART’S-EASE (the pansy) is usually hyphenated; I agree “animal” as the definition at 21A is a bit thin; also knew NEB from Mephisto/AZED. I wonder why the setter chose this obscurity over some more obvious alternatives? I thought ABAFT was nicely constructed.

  8. I completed most of this in 20 minutes but was left with 13, 14 and 18 unsolved and these took me another 15 minutes. My last in was HEARTSEASE and I must admit I used a thesaurus to look up “pluck”, otherwise I might still be trying to solve it.

    NEB for “nose” has cropped up before in the Cryptic puzzle so I didn’t need to think about it once I had the N in place.

    We had a WC clue in Saturday’s Jumbo.

  9. To back up the toy brand name (which I doubt would be enough for a Times def on its own), “GI Joe” is in Collins as an informal name for a US soldier – similar to “Tommy (Atkins)” for one of our squaddies.
  10. Not the hoped-for light relief after yesterday. I managed to finish but
    I fell for Nib using the same logic(?) as MMagnus. I obviously need to do more Mephistos. I also toyed with antitrust for a time as a measure designed to prevent crime but I realised it made the flower difficult.

    Two heavies in today’s puzzle, Gorilla and Bouncer. Round here we call them discharge facilitators.

    Its good to see Abba making an appearance today after yesterday’s Buddy Holly.

  11. 13:37 .. Last in the tricky (for me) pair at 22. COD – the GORILLA. It’s always the gorilla.
  12. 11:22, with one mistake: I dismissed the unknown NEB in favour of the plausible “nib”, as I knew there was a New International bible (actually abbreviated as NIV).  Like Jimbo, I was on the setter’s wavelength, and I’d have got a great time if I hadn’t had to spend the last four and a half minutes on the unknown HEARTSEASE (13ac).

    WARDOUR STREET (9ac) seems a bit parochial; I only know it because I lived in London for a couple of years.

    Clues of the Day: 17dn (BOUNCER), 22dn (ABAFT).

  13. Quite tricky, but at least I finished in one session with no need of references (40 minutes). Nice clues for HEARTSEASE, ABJECT, ABAFT. Abba meant only an awful pop group to me so I didn’t enter it despite the obvious wordplay until I had the crossing letters. The entries that held me up were 6a, 7 (which I had as ROO at first), 9 and 13.
    1. After a good start I struggled with this. One question: what’s the purpose of “we’re told” in 11A? For me, “Room with lake view” would have been sufficient.
        1. Thanks for the going to the effort to reply, Jimbo. I have a horrible feeling I’m going to make myself look like a right twit – but what’s “atitude”?
          1. There’s no such thing but it sounds like “attitude”=view (L=lake of course). No worry – we all get blind spots.
            1. Arrghh. Many thanks.

              Now I’ll have to complain that “attitude” (at-ti-tyood) doesn’t sound like “atitude” (at-i-tyood)… clutching at straws. 🙂

  14. Could not come up with HEARTSEASE and instead decided to invent a flower called HEARTSFACE, which has petals shaped like an actual heart, including the blood and distension.
  15. Nice surface meanings. About 17 minutes, getting stuck on NOMINEE/ABAFT/ASTHMA, thinking the ‘within’ in 20D was an instruction rather than part of the answer, and ‘end of Titanic’ was ‘C’, or possible ‘T’.

    For 21A I would have put ‘*Seeing* animal teased being told to follow’.

    Typical of the Times to have a clue for ABBA without referring to the main meaning that has been in existence since 1974.

    1. … is a common enough complaint, and I’m pleased to see more up-to-date material when it appears. But we had the pop meaning back on 4th Jan 2008 – I don’t know whether the word ABBA has been used since then. What I’d hope to see is that the Times might use the up-to-date version, or might not – if you could rely on consistent use of either modern or ancient meanings, that would be dull.
  16. Managed to finish this (with aids) despite a root canal this afternoon, so very pleased with myself. I didn’t find abba in my old Chambers distionary. ‘Gorilla’ seems to be getting popular – I’ve seen it recently with the same sort of definition. Asthma was my last one in.

    Mr Biddlecombe, in your first response to ‘Abject failure’, where can I find the clues and grid for the crossword you refer to, regarding binomials such as ‘black and blue’?

    1. If you’re in the Times Crossword Club, you can get the puzzle from their archive – using the puzzle number in the report. If not, you’ll have to wait a year or two until (if chosen) it appears in about book 15 of the Times xwd collections.

      Oh, and forget this “Mr Biddlecombe” nonsense. Call me Peter or Pete.

      Edited at 2009-06-23 05:10 pm (UTC)

  17. Setting four different crosswords in one day is (by some way) a record for me, but it had the affect of causing my brain to shut down in protest so I struggled with this. Just over … ahem, cough cough … an hour. Yes, really.

    But I was bamboozled by total fairness (OK, apart from the loose def at 21A although that wasn’t one that held me up) so no complaints.

    HEARTSEASE caused heartache even though I’d heard of it, I had ABJECT failure at 6A until spotting the ridiculously obvious JOE at 7D – it was the excellent 6D ANTITHEFT that held me up here – and I had a daft moment at ABAFT/ASTHMA.

    Delighted/amazed to have finished, and I thought this a superb crossword – biggest ticks to 18 OVERTAKING and 23 CONFLAGRATION.

    Now I’m going to let my bonce go completely comatose by watching more Top Gear reruns on Dave.

    Q-0 E-8 D-9 COD 18 OVERTAKING (as smooth as an oiled mirror with a great chat-up line)

  18. In the Channel Tunnel, completed in the underground bit with far too long getting abaft and asthma, just in time for the light at the end of the…. I will look out for abaft to be clued from bafta again using the last-letter-forward possiblity. I thought one group of clues a bit weak – 11a,15a,16a .
  19. 13.10 – Got the 2 long across entries quickly then a bit slow in the SW corner with 17,21,25 and 3 taking some time.
    NEB is familiar to me as a Scot but I found it hard to convince myself that it wasn’t going to be NIB as I wasn’t aware of the Bible version, so it was a (lucky) guess. Last in was HEARTSEASE.
    Good puzzle
  20. I thought this had nothing to do with cricket: a ball bounces, so you could call it a bouncer, and the fact that this is marginally tenuous is why there is a question mark.

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