Times 24302

Author   petebiddlecombePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 12:38

Found this quite tricky, with a minute or so of mild panic before getting 19 to start the SE corner clean-up (followed by 27, 15, 25). Answers entered without full wordplay understanding were 5, 25, and 3 (I also missed the phone/tone rhyme in 17). I looked for clichés after solving and found 7: 9 loud=F, 10 record=EP, 20 family=KIN, South Africa = SA, 27 books=NT, 6 banker=river, 15 Oxford=shoe (other Oxford interpretations are possible but this seems the most common). My guess is that Jimbo will like this puzzle much more than yesterday’s, but as far as the cliché count affects his enjoyment, I reckon a smallish reduction (from 10 to 7) makes a big difference – and there are some other candidates noted at various places below. As ever, it’s not just the count of clichés or trivia snippets that matters, but what the setter does with them. Anyway, onto the clues …

Across
1 CAMP=affected,US(e) – I did wonder whether to count {affected=CAMP} as a recently-invented cliché
5 S(moke),LOW-DOWN=information=dope
9 F,ALL FLAT=”completely out of tune”
10 D(EP)ART – “the opposite” for reversing the apparent order of “A inside B” is another near-miss cliché candidate
11 CHARGE – 2 def’s – “protection” seems a bit of a stretch from COED’s “responsibility for care or control”, but Collins has “custody or guardianship” which seems closer
12 HARD CAS(h),E
14 MAID OF HONOUR = (uniform, a hood)* – the trick of using “with” to break up and disguise the wordplay is a cliché of a sort.
17 DING-DONG=ringing tone,BELL=inventor of phone – though there are other claims. Here’s the rhyme, complete with the darker “cryptic reading” that’s a nursery rhyme cliché
20 KIN=the family,S(HAS)A
22 PULL-UP – or “pull up” for the car-parking second def. After several comments I looked up “pull up” in the dictionaries and agree that it really just means “stop” – you can pull up at traffic lights as well as in a car park slot. With the distraction of “pull in” which might conceivably be some kind of exercise, perhaps this clue should have been reworked.
23 BART=Bartholomew,OK=fair – Béla Bartók wrote Bluebeard’s Castle, a one-act opera. Bartholomew Fair is either an old London fair or a play by Ben Jonson, not used by any opera composer as far as I know. “Bart” as an abbreviation for Bartholomew is in the Chambers “first names” list, as well as being fairly obvious from the hospital in the same part of town – the little area of St Bartholomews and Cloth Fair is, like Staple Inn, a little remnant of old London.
25 EMERGENT = (men (r)egret)*. I mistakenly toyed with both (f,m,regret)* and (en,regret)* before the penny dropped
26 S(e)T,AIRWAY – nicely done dual role for “flight” here
27 EXT(r)A,N.T. – time wasted here with INTACT as a possible answer, which I might have rejected quicker given more faith in the power of the cryptic crossword cliché {books = OT or NT}
 
Down
2 APATHY – cheeky unnecessary reversal of A P.A. = “a helpful employee” to get “upset” for the sake of the surface reading, then THY=your. Some may object to the unnecessary reversal, but I enjoyed the joke.
3 PILGRIMAGES – SLIP rev. = “trip up”, outside GR. IMAGE = “Greek icon” – a clever construction
4 SOLFERIN =(lines for)*,O(fficer) – the Battle of Solferino is now possibly best known for leading to the Geneva Convention and Red Cross.
5 SATCHMO = (Thomas, C)* – Satchmo, younger readers, was Louis Armstrong’s nickname. Rather than the obvious Wonderful World or Mack the Knife, here he is with Ella Fitzgerald.
6 O(R)DER – the river Oder is now part of the German-Polish border, but was a “German banker” on both sides when more of Silesia belonged to Prussia and then Germany.
8 WORKS = factory,OUT=on strike
13 CAN D(L)ELIGHT – I really liked “is able to give pleasure” for “can delight” in combination with the “heart of old flame”
15 HEEL,PIECE=”peace” – hopefully this homophone is bulletproof enough for everyone
16 MINIM=note,ART=paintings – “minimart” is labelled as “N Amer” in COED, hence the California in the clue.
18 GRAVELY – French musician Ravel replaces the U in GUY
19 TURN ON – two defs
21 ASKEW = wakes*
24 TWI – hidden in “ForT WIlliam” – Twi is “a member of the Akan-speaking people of Ghana” in COED, though Wikipedia seems to have the language and people named the other way round. Familiar to barred-grid solvers but the straightforward wordplay should make it findable for those who don’t know the word.

40 comments on “Times 24302”

  1. 18 mins over breakfast; so not too difficult. Bit of a chuckle at 5ac which I thought very well constructed. The anagram at 5dn was pretty nicely hidden too. From there a bit of a musical theme: Satchmo, Ravel, Bartok … and a 26 to Heaven? Couple of questions: is to “pull-up” strictly to park? (Thinking here of the difference between “No Parking” and “No Standing”.) Couldn’t find the R in SOLFERINO because I was looking at “of lines” rather than “lines for” as the main part of the anagram. Thanks to PB for putting me straight. That’s the difference between an amateur and a pro!
  2. What a difference a day makes. Here we have a puzzle that is still on the easy side of average by Times standards (20 minutes to complete) but is full of inventiveness and maintains the solvers interest to the end. You can tell that the setter has worked hard at his/her craft.

    As examples S-LOWDOWN; BART-OK (excellent); S(e)T-AIRWAY; SATCHMO; DIP (at 7D); CAN-D(L)ELIGHT (excellent); G(RAVEL)Y. These clues demonstrate just how poor yesterday’s puzzle was.

    As to clichés as Peter says it’s only partly how many there are, it’s also the way in which they are used. For example, at 15D the use of “Oxford” fits well into the surface reading and doesn’t jar in the way some of yesterday’s did.

    So, well done and thank you setter.

  3. Good morning. Hope everyone is bright and cheerful today.

    Marathon clocked at 2 1/2 hours but disqualified for cheating.

    Apart from perhaps SOLFERINO, nothing esoteric or obscure to solve, but getting there…

    Came here without understanding EXTANT and wondering what was cryptic about BARTOK(wiki has him writing a song called Bartholomew Fair). Much to admire but particularly liked CAMPUS and SLOWDOWN but the prize goes to the dazzling SATCHMO.

    Excellent puzzle, cheers to setter (Jim will have a ball with this).

    1. Are you sure about this? The wiki List of Compositions doesn’t include a “Bartholomew Fair” though I guess it could be the name of a song in one of the collections like “Four Hungarian Folksongs”.

      If there is such a work, it’s an even better clue.

      1. Sorry, think I’ve wasted your time here. Looked up as part of post-solve justifications and was certain I found it (as unlikely as it seems), but not a smell now. Perhaps a case of just wanting it to be so and going cross-eyed.
        Thanks for the blog (and not only the blog).
      2. I just googled “Bartok Bartholomew Fair” but the only sensible result I got referenced Peter’s comment above. Fast work Google. In future, anyone searching for Bartok’s lost opera “Bartholomew Fair” will probably be directed to this page.
  4. 10:50 for me (including a minute or so at the end to get MINIMART), so I found it quite a bit easier than yesterday’s. I found quite a lot of it went in from the definition, just figuring out the wordplay while reading the next clue. COD is a tie between SLOW DOWN and CANDLELIGHT.
  5. Like some others, I am unhappy with PULL UP = park. Surely PULL UP = stop. I think PULL IN is perhaps a better answer (the IN is in the clue) and PULL IN is certainly used for “park”, unlike, at least in my experience, PULL UP.

    Of course, I was then in trouble with 19D. SIGN ON fits the first part of the clue just as well as TURN ON, but I couldn’t see where “please” came in, and, of course, it doesn’t!

    I think 22A was a poor clue, and spoilt the puzzle to some extent.

    1. philipc,
      Funny isn’t? When you raise something here, it either creates a storm or gets totally ignored? There is one factor that seems to decide which, but I don’t want to create a storm; so I shall remain, as usual, ignored!
      mctext
      1. Pull-up did cause an amendment to the notes on 22 in the main report. As for the “one factor”, if you talk in riddles you will be ignored!
  6. probably the first and the last time i may ever record a better time than the legendary mr.B. although it’s a guess since it was about 12 minutes give or take.

    there were a lot here that just dropped in from checkers and definition, and therefore there is a huge element of luck that you havent put the wrong one in. I did stick in COME ON for 19d initially which works when you consider the extended, emphatic PLEASE as in “oh, p(ur)lease, you are having me on”. This was immediately changed with PULL UP, and I note a largeish number of small two word answers, TURN ON, PULL UP, WORKS OUT, SLOW DOWN, HARD CASE, FALL FLAT all of which came quickly.

    the only slow part was 4d (as i had RING DING BELL for a bit) and I also didnt know the battle so had to guess when I finally assured myself of the charge=protection part (on the guardian idea). Last in was 2D which I did without appreciating the word play – i think that is the second time recently that i have not picked up on PA as an employee – although I dont know whether it was a recent times XWD or one of the ones out of the books.

  7. This seemed harder than it really was as I plodded through it quite successfully. I greeted the cliches such as Banker and Oxford as old friends as they helped me to navigate some of the trickier wordplay. I ended in the NW, unsure whether I had spelt Solferino correctly because I too had used Of instead of For in the anagram fodder. I ended tentatively with the tenuously defined Charge.

    I loved 23: at the first reading the answer had to be Jonson or Bartok but it took me some moments to work out the clever wordplay

  8. Trickier than the past few. I thought “charge” worked in the sense of “the children were in his charge” = under his protection but it’s not an altogether comfortable fit I agree. No quibbles with “piece” as homophone for “peace” – I do think some homophones are universal for native speakers – but I was unconvinced by peace = still – different parts of speech, surely? bc
    1. “still” can be a noun – I thought of the same example as the COED lexicographer “the still of the night”.
    1. Except that “protection money” is a financial charge of sorts (and I’m sure that’s not what you meant), I can’t see how this works. If you mean something like loan interest being protection against the debt not being repaid, this seems like using “protection” to define “seat belt” – right in a way, but I hope too vague to be used in the Times xwd.
  10. After a promising start on the RH side I made heavy weather of this one and spent a good hour on it. I took far too long to spot the possibility of an anagram at 5d and with all but the first of the checking letters in place I was convinced I was looking for an obscure composer, possibly an Italian.

    The SW corener wasn’t helped by my not knowing KINSHASA which I now suppose most people have heard of with regard to a famous boxing match if not for any other reason, but I’m afraid I know less about boxing than I do about soccer and that’s not saying much. Also in that corner I didn’t know TWI and I was completely thrown by the inclusion of “California” in 16dn. MINIMART may originally have been an American word but we had businesses calling themselves minimarts in England back in the 1960s so the qualification was a distraction for me and I wasted time thinking about Cal. and L.A. and other matters specifically Californian.

    I thought of CAMPUS at 1ac very early in the proceedings but didn’t write it in as I’m not sure I knew that it could define higher education generally rather than the grounds of a college/university. I should have read the clue more carefully as “affected” cluing “camp” is a crossword favourite and I took ages to notice it sitting there.

    SOLFERINO was another unknown.

    Just to mention that I shall not be counting “cliches” when I blog on Friday. It takes me quite long enough to work out some of the difficult references without spending time thinking about the easy ones.

    1. Well I guess the use of undindicated def by example makes this work, but it still seems too vague for me – in yesterday’s “estate=>CAR” example, ‘car’ is one of only a few meanings for “estate”. I think “protection” offers too many choices for “protection (money) = charge” to be something a solver should be expected to think of. So I’m sticking to protection=custody/guardianship as what I reckon we were supposed to think of.
      1. I agree with you. The definition by example hadn’t occurred to me and very much take your point. Let’s not encourage them to spread the wretched net even wider than it is already.
  12. Good, very inventive puzzle, as everyone says. My only quibble was PULL UP at 22ac, which, as Philipc says above, is pretty loose as a definition of “to park” (a car). PULL IN fits the definition better, and like Philip, I initially entered PULL IN at 22ac and SIGN ON at 19dn, which fitted the definitions and the cross-checking letters perfectly, but, alas, could not be made to explain the wordplay references to “exercise” and “please”.

    I wonder whether it is fair to call all the setters’ devices listed by Peter B “clichés”. True, they are all standard and frequently occurring cryptic xword shorthand, a code that would-be solvers are supposed to know. But that seems to me to make them conventions rather than clichés. It is the ingenious and unexpected ways in which they are used that counts, as in this excellent puzzle.

    1. I’d say that loud=F, record=EP, South Africa=SA and books = OT/NT are used so often that for experienced solvers they’re very hard to disguise. But today’s setter probably succeeded with “originally” in 5D, which fitted the surface reading well enough for me not to see it as a cliché this time. “Record” in 10A fits just as well but the damage has already been done by years of overuse in various puzzles!

      The cliché mentions were not intended as criticism of today’s setter – just a demonstration that there are lots of frequently-used tricks which old hands recognise.

      Edited at 2009-08-12 12:04 pm (UTC)

      1. I don’t think we are really at odds here. We both agree that the skill shown in disguising the old chestnuts is important. I accept that some chestnuts are pretty hard to disguise effectively.
  13. 17:30 .. quite a few of these initially went in on a wing and a prayer.

    First in ORDER, last in SOLFERINO.

    COD 5a SLOW DOWN.

  14. I found most of this easy, completing all bar 3 clues in 20 minutes, but stared at 16, 23, and 26 (where I was trying to justify MOTORWAY)for 5 minutes before I got MINIMART then the other two. It wasn’t helped by being uncertain of TWI, which was new to me; I could gave done with a dictionary to hand for confirmation.

    I nearly made 2 careless errors, but corrected them at the last minute: SOLVERINO and EMERGING for 25.

    I thought the clues were better than yesterday’s, but I did find the unnecessary reversal of APA in 2 a tad irksome.

  15. 11.25 Top left took a while , not helped by misreading 4d clue for 5d on grid at first. The two long across entries however gave away 3 and 4 and this corner fell into place. I knew 15 would be HEEL—– but needed 22 and 25 to get it , and they took a minute or two. Last in was MINIMART where California misled me. It is pretty much an accepted UK usage now I would think.
    I thought 17 could have done without “of phone” as this rather gave the game away.
    I suppose I have to agree that 2 could as easily have been IN. Is PULL UP another Americanism?
    1. “pull up” isn’t marked as American in any of the dictionaries, and Collins actually marks the similar pull-up = roadside café as “Brit.”. I think it could probably have been marked “dated” too.
      1. I guess that pull up (and pull in) would have their origins in terms of horse-drawn carriages although a Heath Robinson interpretation of a horseless carriage which could do both would be interesting.
        So if we are going to bring these terms into the 20th (sic) century what should they be ,’stop’ and ‘turn in’?
        Let’s stick with the horses , Hi ho Silver… Away!!
    2. I agree ‘of phone’ makes 17A an easy solve, but I think it’s worth it to create a rhyme within the clue and improve the surface.

      16 mins, I enjoyed this one a lot and join others in choosing 5A SLOWDOWN as COD

      Tom B.

  17. I found this a lot of fun from first (SLOW DOWN) to last (crossers HEELPIECE and EXTANT), about 30 minuntes. I don’t think PULL UP is an Americanism; from the comments above, it seems the US and UK usages are pretty much the same, which means to me both UP and IN work, but PULL IN is a bit closer to ‘park’, while ‘exercise’ requires the use of UP. I didn’t know TWI, or the rhyme DING DONG BELL, but they weren’t hard to work out. There is some very clever stuff here, with wonderful surfaces, and I’ll nominate ASKEW, CAMPUS, CANDLELIGHT and SATCHMO for COD. They’re all very good, so I’ll call it a tie. Great puzzle, setter. Regards everyone.
    1. Thanks, Kevin, for explaining the Mendoza Line a couple of days ago. I never thought that I would need that information but it was a question in today’s Times quiz.
  18. Please PULL UP on the left behind the van. It’s fine. Bartók, Ravel and Satchmo is a lovely trio.
  19. If you don’t know your battles then SOLFERINO could just as easily have been SOLFENIRO, SOLNERIFO, SOLNEFIRO, SOLRENIFO, or SOLREFINO. I agree SOLFERINO seemed most likely. What was 15 down, by the way? Seems pretty obscure, even for a Brit like me.
    1. This was another one I’ve never heard of. Collins says it’s the part of a shoe, stocking etc designed to fit the heel. I always thought that was just called the heel. COED doesn’t list it. Chambers hyphenates it and says it’s a piece or cover for the heel.

      Going back to my earlier comment on MINIMART, Collins doesn’t list it and both COED and Chambers have it as North American, so perhaps the term has not been as widely used in the UK as I imagined, having had a store of that name in my locality (leafy Middlesex) in the 1960s.

  20. I didn’t get a chance to do this until late in the afternoon, but either I’m having a big brain day or this was on my wavelength, raced through in 8 minutes which is about as fast as I get. Did have to guess at SOLFERINO, and needed the wordplay to get HEELPIECE

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