Times 24290 – nature class

Author   petebiddlecombePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 14:58

Quite a tricky puzzle this, with one word which I’m sure many will not have known before today. My last few answers in order were 17, 9, 1D, 1A, 18, and 13. Answers written in without full wordplay understanding were 11, 18, 25.

This was a good tough challenge with plenty of tricky definitions and wordplay. My only real criticism is that the “single letter from one word” technique – face of stone, head of state, end of glove, etc. – was maybe used once or twice too often. Lots of plants and animals appear in wordplay and answers – not sure whether the setter did this deliberately or the puzzle just came out that way.

Across
1 MORE,L – a morel is an edible mushroom. “One has a cap” was a well-disguised def.
4 F(elon),LASH BACK – a flogging in “rum, sodomy and the lash” naval style, was “administered” to the victim’s back.
9 SIDE SALAD – cryptic def with “leaves” being the word to understand correctly.
10 RATE=value,L – the ratel or honey badger is a fearless creature with a taste for raiding beehives.
11 T(H)AMES,BAR,RI(v)ER – my incorrect guess was that the wordplay might involve runner=harrier. In this puzzle we get two of the crossword river clichés – “runner” in this clue.
14 EVEN(t)
15 MAIDEN NAME – possibly controversial CD with “address” really meaning something like “form of address”.
18 UNYIELDING – (hea)D in (guy in line)* – I doubt I’ll have been alone in trying vainly to make an anagram out of something else – (H, guy in line) in my case
19 FI(A)T
21 TRANSIT LOUNGE – CD with “landing” not being the area at the top of the stairs
24 CLYDE – “flower” is of course our second river cliché. We only needed “banker” for the full set. Bonnie and Clyde were outlaws, commenmorated by a film and various pop songs.
25 ALL I(n),GA(TO)R – watch out for the GAR as one of the popular xwd fish.
27 YO-HEAVE-HO = (hooey have)*
28 TOP-UP = “to pup”
 
Down
1 MISS THE CUT – 2 defs, one whimsical
2 RAD(a) – The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts is where luvvies learn their trade
3 (g)LISTEN
4 FULL,BOAR,D(ine)
5 ALDER – hidden in “local derby”. For baffled overseas solvers, Nottingham Forest are a football team, often just called “Forest”, who might compete in a local derby against Notts County, latest employer of former England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson
6 HERMI(t),ONE – the “statuesque” bit apprently refers to The Winter’s Tale, where a character called Hermione appears as a statue of herself for most of the play.
7 ALTER(C)ATION
8 KIL(l),N – another appearance for N=knight
12 ABERYSTWYTH = (why battery’s) – one for double Times champ Helen Ougham to enjoy – I’m pretty sure it’s where she lives.
13 WENT=moved,L,(glove)E,TRAP=catch – a wentletrap is a mollusc with a spiral shell – wentletrap is German/Dutch for “spiral staircase”. A rather splendid obscure word! Solved by seeing catch=TRAP, then the preceding LE, then looking for ?E?T=moved, and hoping that (a) WENTLETRAP was indeed more plausible than SENTLETRAP, and (b) I hadn’t missed any other ?E?T=moved choices
16 DONATE,LL=pounds,O – the person who noted that L can mean “pounds” a day or two ago may have smiled wryly at this one
17 DE VALERA – Irish leader who we had in the grid fairly recently. rev. of laved=washed, then era=time – solved from ?? ?A?ERA after thinking of ERA.
20 BOUGH,T(ree) – conventionally in a down clue, T is the “top” of tree rather than the beginning. But as the “tree” is horizontal in the clue rather than vertical in the grid, this has always seemed a questionable convention to me.
22 S(tone),PACE
23 S,CRY – to scry is “to divine, especially by crystal-gazing” (Collins)

28 comments on “Times 24290 – nature class”

  1. Yep quite tricky. 26mins here with the last ten spent in the SE corner trying to figure out SPACE, ALLIGATOR and BOUGHT and no idea what a WENTLETRAP might be. Two things bothered me:
    • Two instances of “one [has]” plus two of “I[may][‘m] (1ac, 10ac, 5dn, 8dn). Not fond of these kinds of constructions, especially when the I-types can’t speak (alders and kilns) — common as the device is in riddles.
    • The two cryptic defs (which I really don’t like) weren’t much good especially in the company of the limp double def in 1dn. If a TRANSIT LOUNGE is a “passing through room”, it at least needs the (surface-spoiling) hyphen.
    Still, not to complain as I very much enjoyed the rest and give COD to the neat anagram at 12dn — and also because the answer took me back to limerick territory.

  2. It’s strange how these puzzles lurch about. After a couple of really rather anodyne offerings we get this tricky but irritating puzzle. Most of it is very good and I enjoyed my 30 minute tussle and even got a laugh from TO-PUP.

    I don’t mind some obscurity but think that WENTLETRAP (which I guessed from wordplay), SCRY (ditto), RATEL (ditto), HERMIONE (ditto) all in one offering is OTT.

    I agree with Peter the “take the first letter” gimmick started to wear a bit thin and two of the cryptic definitions (MAIDEN NAME and TRANSIT LOUNGE) are really rather weak.

  3. Another flying start for me with the bulk of it completed within 20 minutes but there were some tricky clues in store and I eventually finished in 35 minutes with rather too many guesses based on wordplay for my liking, but at least, unlike yesterday, they all turned out to be correct.

    I never heard of WENTLETRAP, RATEL or SCRY. I believe I have met FIAT = “command” before but wasn’t absolutely sure and I didn’t know the statue reference re HERMIONE. THAMES BARRIER, ALLIGATOR and UNYIELDING (my last in) were all entered without any understanding of the wordplay and I took some time unravelling them later.

  4. Eventualy finished under the hour, not understanding HERMIONE or ever coming across WENTLETRAP previously (I shall make a point of working it into many a conversation in the future, though). Undid myself at 18ac by penning DA VALERA at 17, even though I well understood the LAVED bit, which made it an anagram of “hard guy in l”, obviously a Latin term for a king hit. But I liked it for all that, with COD ABERYSTWYTH for its unlikeliness.

    Apologies in advance for my dimwittedness, but I don’t get the TAMES bit of 11ac. After about? Semat?

    1. Yeah, forgot to mention in my comment. I thought the Tames bit was to break-in (as with a horse). It was the “after” bit I couldn’t figure. Another cumbersome clue. Apologies if someone has given a definitive answer while I was typing this.
      1. Oh, I see. I took the breaks in to be the inserticator when it’s really the about. Thanks for that, Barry.
  5. Oh Peter, having got the K from FLASHBACK I don’t know how long I sat there thinking “But Peter said that Knight is N?”, and yes, I didn’t know GAR for fish (and having seen the explanation have again decided I don’t like this cumbersome type of clue).

    As above comments, many answers got from wordplay eg MOREL, RATEL, SCRY, HERMIONE.

    Needed to plug in for WENTLETRAP so have to put this down as a failure, plus the fact that I had LUSTER for GLISTEN on the basis of LUST for wanting and ER for,er, er, I don’t know what. (Then sat grumbling about American spellings).

    Interested to see Mark’s reaction to DE VALERA. I think it was he who had a rant last time he appeared. Odds-on.

    Difficult I think for newcomers so I was pleased with my performance despite failure.

    1. I generally found this reasonabily straightforward, except I’d never heard of “wentletrap” and didn’t attempt a guess as several possibilities seemed equally (un)likely. I also held myself up by two careless mistakes, writing “aberystwith” and “ho heave ho”, which made the bottom left corner a struggle until I spotted the errors. I know The Winters Tale well so Hermione came quickly which no doubt helped. bc
    2. No one had a rant about De Valera the last time he appeared – which, as it happens, was on my birthday.  In any case, I usually only complain about obscurities when they’re indispensable for solving a clue, which wasn’t the case here.
      1. Welcome back Mark and sorry for the solecism. This site lacks much when you are not around. I hope the thesis doesn’t distract too much from the important things in life because I look forward to your daily contributions.

        Incidentally, I always imagine that avatar (Poe?) recurring in the nightmares of careless setters.

        Was frantic to see your reaction to Mctext’s amusing comment on the missing exclamation mark from Westward Ho! but alas that was the day before your return.

        1. Thanks – you are too kind!  I imagine the setters whose clues I complain about the most would see such complaints as unduly pedantic.  (Poe-faced?)

          Mctext’s comment about WESTWARD HO! was indeed amusing.  Most of us take it for granted – though I have a friend who finds it annoying – that diacritics are omitted from grid entries, because otherwise it would be hard for setters to include answers like “crème brûlée”; the rationale only works for diacritics in “checked” cells (where two answers cross), but it’s extended to the whole grid for consistency’s sake.  But punctuation marks are less controversial: I think it’s fair to say that everyone is happy with the convention that they are omitted in the grid (though whether they should be indicated in the numbering is another matter).  So I don’t think there’s a serious issue over whether we should have written “O!” in the last cell.

  6. I’m never happy when I have to guess a word and hope for the best. Into this category come SCRY and WENTLETRAP.
  7. Stopped the clock at 13:36, having spent 5 minutes staring at 13D. I went through the alphabet twice, but was convinced it was going to end in DROP (tricked by the cricket surface – to shell a catch is to drop it). Never heard of WENTLETRAP, and it seems such an unlikely word I would never have got it. In the end I just cheated and looked it up at quinapalus.com. Shame on me.
  8. I had to give up, after a quick start, but for once there was an advantage in being Dutch, even though we spell it wenteltrap.

    Isabel

  9. 16:00 .. Last in was the magnificent WENTLETRAP – my thanks to the setter for introducing me to this one – which sounds like one of Herr Flick’s torture devices: “Talk, or I shall have no choice but to use ze wentletrap.” Better yet, I gather a wentletrap is a predatory sea snail. “Run! A snail!” Not exactly Jaws, but terrifying if you’re a sea anemone.

    Really enjoyable puzzle for me. The more obscure stuff came easily from wordplay, and a number of the surfaces made me smile – CLYDE and TOP-UP especially.

    I once, along with several friends, got turfed out of a pub in Aberyswyth by a landlord who grimly drew our attention to the ‘No English’ sign on the door. I found it rather amusing, but one of my friends was most indignant – it seems that being thrown out of a pub and accused of being English was simply to much for a Scot.

  10. All but 4 (13,17,19,21) in about 40 mins, then resorted to aids for 13 after another 10 fruitless minutes. I got 19 with the extra checking letter, but failed to get the last two without aids. I kicked myself over both though, hadn’t spotted that 21 was a cd, and I remember when EAMON DE VALERA cropped up before (8th May) so I felt I should have remembered him.

    Like Barry, I fell into the ‘K must be knight’ trap at 8, despite being fully aware that K is King and N is knight. I saw KILN quite early on but dismissed it for this reason.

    New words to me were MOREL, RATEL & WENTLETRAP, and I only really know HERMIONE as a friend of Harry Potter, and DONATELLO as a ninja turtle!

    COD to 12 for the neat anagram.

  12. I got onto the setter’s wavelength straight away with this with the end result being my first ever solve faster than Peter, at 13:36.

    I recalled YO-heave-ho, fiat and De Valera from recent puzzles, got scry and wentletrap from wordplay, knew the mushroom and had a vague recollection of the honey badger having recently seen a youtube video of one killing a snake.

    Like others the barrier and ‘gator went in without full understanding of the WP.

    Enjoyed this a lot so thanks to the setter. COD Clyde for the clever use of bonnie in a Scottish clue.

  13. 35 minutes plus the time to find WENTLETRAP. In the end, the wordplay is very clear, but I wasn’t clever enough to spot it even although I was fairly sure about the TRAP at the end..

    A slow start then a surge then a slow finish in the SE corner with ALLIGATOR, and SPACE preceding the spiral shelled mollusc.

    I felt this was a much more challenging offering than Monday and Tuesday with some excellent clues. I liked SIDE SALAD with its use of ‘leaves’ and ABERYSTWYTH.

  14. Today was a disaster from square one, where I confidently inserted our friend Morse, the walrus with the extra long cap. I was never going to get Wentletrap because I was looking for an anagram of left. I notice that my spellchecker is telling me that it is not a word. I finished in a sulky mood with the aid of a dictionary.

    To change the subject briskly, I have just got back from Buxton where I saw Donizetti’s Lucretia Borgia. This is an opera that should be better known among cruciverbalists because the plot revolves around the hero removing the letter B from the evil one’s name to make Orgia.

  15. Like several others I couldn’t understand the wordplay for THAMES BARRIER, and, again like others, I think some clues were too complicated/obscure.
  16. it had to be Ratel but i hadnt heard of the honey badger until now and although it had to be wentletrap i hadnt heard of that mollusc either-so two new words for me. But i enjoyed it and finished in an hour

    happy in Napa Valley this week
    so wine may have slowed me down
    good crossword i thought

  17. A pretty tough 23 minutes, it must be said. RATEL and SCRY were familiar from the Listener, but WENTLETRAP was completely new to me, so pleased to get it right!
    Oli
  18. I found this a real challenge, about an hour. WENTLETRAP and RATEL were my last entries, from wordplay only, and I was pleasantly surprised to check their existence via google and find that both existed. Also new to me: SCRY (but what else could it be?) and ABERYSTWYTH. I got ALDER from the hidden, thinking that the ‘contribute to Forest’ part just meant it was the name of a tree, certainly not having the foggiest idea of all the things Peter explained above. Also spent a lot of time sifting through the anagram fodder for UNYIELDING, and the term TRANSIT LOUNGE is also new to me, we must call it something else. This is an example of a good and fairly difficult puzzle, that I am pleased to finish, with a good number of clever clues, my COD pick being MAIDEN NAME, for the elegant short surface. Regards to all.
  19. went to sleep last night without an answer for 6, 19 or 13, twigged 6 and 19 this morning and went for the hail mary on 13. Tricky.
  20. 23 min here, so tougher than the previous 2, but I still feel the presence of Damocles’ sword. Last in the unknown WENTLETRAP which was the only one I needed assistance for. SCRY was new, but knew descry which has a vaguely similar meaning, so in it went. COD: ABERYSTWYTH for its most unpromising pile of anagrist.
  21. Still a newbie at this so won’t publish time, but always improving. Recent holiday in Wales helped with 12d which went in early. No issues with SCRY or TRANSIT LOUNGE (quite liked that one). Struggled with 10a, 11a, 13d. COD would be 28a for making me smile.

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