Times 24308

Author   petebiddlecombePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 9:55

This was a mildly tricky puzzle. I’ll be interested to see how overseas solvers get on with the Test ground at 15D.  I liked the various outrageous stuff – VEEP, VATABLE and Doctor Ape.

Across
1 GATECRASH – the cryptic reading needs a little pause after “not asked”, so that this replaces the tempting plain def answer UNINVITED
6 AS=like,PIC=film – an &lit, as aspic is often a film of jelly
9 M,AGENT,A – Magenta was indeed a victory for the French
10 RID(DaLe)ER
11 PEEV=rev. of veep,E – COED has veep=Vice President (N Amer informal)
12 S,HELD,RAKE – yet another for your mental list of ducks
13 HOST,A – a favourite plant for English gardens as it likes rain
14 G,UTTERING – what candles are doing in draughts
17 DISMA(N.T.)L,E
18 G(ISM)O – ism = a system or ideological movement, which I guess matches practice=a way of doing something
19 BALL,PO(IN)T – informally, pot=pot belly
22 ARRAS – hidden in embarrassing – a tapestry hanging named after the French town where many were made
24 UNBOUND, as in Prometheus Unbound
25 V=vide (Lat.)=see,A,TABLE – “vatable or VATable” is in Chambers and possibly the full version of Collins
26 DR. APE is the “beast working in health centre”
27 ALLEND(e),SUP = “all ends up” = completely, when describing a sporting victory in the manner we expect of Usain Bolt in tonight’s 200m final. Salvador Allende was a socialist president of Chile until a US-backed coup brought Augusto Pinochet to power.
 
Down
1 GUM UP = mug – wordplay in the answer
2 T(IG=G.I. rev.)RESSES – not quite sure what kind of locks can be “ferocious” to fit the surface
3 CONNEMARA – (car one man) – cheeky use of “in” at the beginning so that the def is not at the beginning or end of the clue. I wonder whether “touring” is a slight improvement on “tours” for the anagram indicator? Connemara is a peninsula in western Ireland.
4 A PASSAGE TO INDIA – book by E M Forster, and nice CD using passage=journey in the surface meaning to make some of us recall the Beatles meeting up with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
5 HARVEST FESTIVAL – a gentle CD – for those not familiar with C of E practice, this celebrates the “plenty” of the annual harvest, though in urban churches, the harvest presented often features curiosities like tins of baked beans, or recalls the BBC’s spaghetti harvest spoof.
6 AIDED = (d,idea)*
8 COR(REG)GI,O – an artist and hence “drawer”
13 H(1,DEB)OUND – a clue slightly spoiled in the online version by the omission of the ellipsis at the beginning
15 EDG(e)=”false stroke”,B,AS,TON – with this possible treatment and EDG(e)+BA(S)T,ON the Brummie test match venue is crypting out for cryptic treatment
16 INSCRIBES – crib=translation (informal for a translation, esp. one used surreptitously), in sines*
20 LI(B)RA – poor solving here as I pondered born = N (née) and B, rather than just remembering the right one of twelve choices
21 P(R)UNE – Pune is the city the Brits called Poona
23 SWEE=”various directions”,P=start of Peter – Grimes is a chimney sweep in Oliver Twist Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies. Someone will doubtless object to the “various directions”, but I think the operatic surface is worth the vagueness.

39 comments on “Times 24308”

  1. For me one of the hardest for a while. finally finished in about 35 minutes, but spent a good 15-20 in the SW corner as good as stuck. My problem was the amount of unknown vocab, so a lot was guesswork. Much of the delay in the SW came from guessing MASSA instead of HOSTA and being adamant that the “very conventional” part must begin MEDIOCR… or MIDDLE… or MID.. Given the only dog I had was MUTT then I had the strange form of MID…UTT to fill! It was only when DRAPE came eventually, that HOUND jumped out and everything mended itself.

    Words that I did not really know today – MAGENTA (in the context), CORREGGIO, VEEP, HOSTA, ISM (itc), HIDEBOUND, ARRAS – so that probably explains the difficulty.

    I agree that for a non-cricket person, 15D may be very tricky.

  2. > Grimes is a chimney sweep in Oliver Twist.
    Isn’t he in the first chapter of Kingsley’s Water-Babies?
  3. A lot harder today than of late: so 36 minutes — my longest time in a long time! Guess I won’t be the only one to be stuffed about by “Correggio” as “drawer”; “ism” as “practice”; “go” as “operate” [“my car won’t operate”??]; “allend_” as “foreign head of state’s short”; “tigresses” as “that are ferocious”; “vatable”* as “what may be taxed”; and similar strange matches between clue- and answer-parts.
    And … all this started badly with a cryptic def [yuk!] at 1ac, followed by a look at the 15-letterers which were, I thought, “off” for similar reasons … slightly made up for by the &lit-ish quality of 15dn which has to be my COD.
    NB: the ellipsis at 13dn went astray again in the e-version. Can’t check the print version for reasons mentioned yesterday.

    * What’s wrong with François?

    1. > NB: the ellipsis at 13dn went astray again in the e-version.
      As Peter mentions. Sorry, missed that bit.
  4. Whether or not one likes this puzzle is going to be a matter of taste. I have a lot of question marks next to clues and no ticks. I think GATECRASH is poor, both the long down clues are weak, are “eats” and “bites” satisfactory containment indicators – maybe, and clues like LIBRA are very easy. EDGBASTON is very difficult for anybody who has no cricket knowledge – interesting to see what Kevin makes of it. 20 minutes to solve but left feeling vaguely unsatisfied by the experience.
    1. Well Jimbo, as you folks would say, I made a dog’s breakfast of it. See my comment/confession below.
  5. Oh dear, this was a bit of a disaster.

    After a very promising start with both the long Down clues written in on first reading and most of the RH side flowing along nicely, I ground to a halt RH with 8 & 15dn and 18ac still unsolved and also lacking the middle word in 27ac.

    After a while I risked CORREGGIO at 8 based on the wordplay but I’m afraid I’ve not heard of him. I had thought of GIZMO at 18 before I had the middle checking letter but I didn’t know there is an alternative with an S. I eventually bunged it in and hoped for the best. This gave me a better chance at 15 but I was convinced this ended with C for “century” so that led to a further hold up until the penny dropped, and then 27 also fell into place.

    But the worst was still to come and every single clue to the left of A PASSAGE TO INDIA was a struggle. I finished after about 70 minutes.

    Peter, VATABLE is not in my 2007 (9th edition) Collins.

    Other unknowns and distractions: Never heard of VEEP for “Vice President”, CONNEMARA being synonymous with “scenic coast”, PUNE being the modern name for “Poona” and I’m pretty sure that the expression ALL ENDS UP has never passed my lips when I meant “completely”. With A_H at the end of 1ac and “party” in the clue I wanted it to end with BASH and wasted forever trying to work that in. And 12ac beginning with S and “gardening tool” in the clue I wanted it to be SHOVELLER – there are two possible HOEs in there and we’ve had a few of those recently. Oh, and I wanted “tum” instead of POT in 19ac

    One possible quibble at 13ac, surely HOST = “large number” so “large numbers” = “hosts”?

    1. I forgot to mention that once again we have intersecting answers with a common component (HIDEBOUND and UNBOUND). I always think this is feeble. If the setter couldn’t find an alternative to one of them, why not make it more interesting by having a cross-reference in one of the clues?

  6. This was a cheeky little puzzle that I greatly enjoyed. This is possibly because, on checking today’s neologisms, Pune and Correggio I found that they both exist. I liked the references to Dr Allende and Dr Ape. At 18, I’m not so sure that go is synonymous with operate.

    I don’t know about American solvers but I only got Edgbaston because I lived there for twenty years. I did go to watch the cricket once but found it mind-numbingly slow. On reading the match report afterwards, I discovered that I had watched Rohan Kanhai score the second fastest 50 of all time. Maybe that is why I have trouble with The Times’ cricket references.

  7. 25:10 .. I never really worked out what manner of puzzle I was dealing with here, which perhaps makes it a clever, deceptive puzzle, but not (I’m with Jimbo) a very satisfying one for me.

    First in the Forster novel, last in PEEVE (I do like the ‘veep’).

  8. Gave up on this one with SW corner refusing to fall. Eventually cribbed BALLPOINT and the rest followed; I couldn’t get past balladist, but couldn’t see how dis=stomach or why BALL went first. Stll can’t see why BALL goes first. Was a bit disgruntled by GATECRASH & HARVEST FESTIVAL so failed to appreciate DRAPE. As far as I knew, GUTTERING is what directs rain water from the roof to the downpipes. I did get GIZMO straight off, but couldn’t justify it at the time. Some half hour later I revisited the clue and saw it was indeed GISMO. I hate it when that happens. In summation, a catastrophe.
  10. I didn’t have much time at my disposal (40 minutes) and this floored me, with 3, 11, 8, 15, 16 and 27 unsolved. I was trying to force something akin to PANORAMA into 3, and although I had CORGI as one of my options for dog (the other being CUR) I couldn’t get anything I recognised. I’m bound to fail on most cricketing clues. I have a psychological block there, the game being anathema to me.

    I didn’t really like the puzzle, and that has nothing to do with the fact that I didn’t finish. My dislike was evident early on when I was making good progress. 26 was just an awful pun; the indirect indication of A Passage to India wasn’t particularly apt; the surface of 2 was poor and I don’t think “that are ferocious” to indicate the plural form is particularly well-chosen. Was there anything other than a definition in 1ac?

    However, credit where it’s due. The definer (drawer)in 8 was a very nice piece of deception, as was ‘bug’ in 11, and there were some nice clues elsewhere.

  11. 18 minutes. Found this quite difficult although there were enough easier clues to help along the way. I worked out CORREGIO from the wordplay and just thought mmmm so as well as being a painter he gave his name to a piece of furniture! How thick is that?
    I think of GISMO as having a Z. This was a good clue and unusual to see VATABLE.
    GATECRASH has come up in a similar format before so this rang a bell.
    15 definitely a stinker for non cricketers. Last in was BALLPOINT where the wordplay had me bamboozled.
    Thought this was above average quality with some gems and chestnuts mixed together
    1. Sorry, I got carried away with the Bolt comparison – cue note now amended to explain.
  13. BT allowed me to print xwd at 6am (half an hour to print out) but then kaput so hopefully will post later.

    Later.

    The 2 long ones straight in but flattered to deceive. Only finished courtesy of intuition and the microchip. Some difficult clues in crucial places and setter not much help, plus my general knowledge found wanting.

    Gismo, Dr.ape (wow!),Prune,Sweep all stuck in more in hope than expectation. For an age wanted Vatican because of the See start. Good deception here and with the Grimes clue (particulary for us opera fans) so I suppose the puzzle had its good points.

    Hats off to all who knew GUTTERING was “threatening to go out” and not just what I have been doing all day round me Mum’s with temperature in the 80s.

    1. My knowledge of 1930s song lyrics secured this one for me:

      The party’s over now,
      The dawn is drawing very nigh,
      The candles gutter,
      The starlight leaves the sky.

      Noel Coward, from Words and Music


      1. And, of course, Trevor Nunn’s lyrics for Lloyd Webber’s Memory..

        Every street lamp
        Seems to beat a fatalistic warning
        Someone mutters
        And the streetlamp gutters
        And soon it will be morning

        OK, so he’s not Noël Coward. That “Someone mutters” has always struck me as spectacularly banal, but credit for getting the “gutters” in.

        2. Unless your street lamp is very old-fashioned, this is a poor bit of writing. There seem to be two verb meanings – to burn a gap in the edge of a candle so that the wax runs out, and (of the flame) to dip in a draught. Neither can apply to any streetlamp that I can think of.
          1. Maybe should have stuck with Tim Rice’s lyric, which I gather was rejected in favour of the Trevor Nunn.

        3. No, he’s not, is he, Sotira? The extract from Coward’s lyric is exquisite and charming, even when taken out of the context of the song; the other is contrived and ugly.
      2. Then there’s the Streisland song – Memory

        All alone in the moonlight
        I can dream of the old days
        Life was beautiful then
        I remember the time I knew what happiness was
        Let the memory live again
        Every street lamp seems to beat
        A fatalistic warning
        Someone mutters and the street lamp gutters
        And soon it will be morning

        1. I can just remember gas street lamps going out in the morning in a hesitant manner reminiscent of the guttering candle as it reaches the candlestick & runs out of air.
  14. Like Sotira and Jimbo, I found this vaguely unsatisfactory even though there were some excellent good clues. DR APE at 26ac was ingenious and chuckle-worthy. I proceeded through the puzzle fairly smoothly until foolishly entering VATICAN at 25ac, which seemed vaguely (okay, very vaguely) to meet the “tax” and “see” parts of the clue, but greatly complicated my search for solutions to 16 and 23dn. Once I’d hit on the possibility of VATABLE (a new word to me) it all fell into place quite quickly. I knew the alternative spelling of gizmo with an S at 18ac, but didn’t care for “practice” as a definition of ISM, which seemed to me rather loose. It’s a quibble, I know, but in my book ISM is shorthand for any ideology or belief system, whereas “practice” has a much broader connotation.
  15. Wow. This was difficult for me in many ways. An hour plus, and one mistake, not getting EDGBASTON. On that one I made up my own wordplay, definition, and and place: Emglaston, on the theory that I was to anagramize ‘false stroke’ (leg) and ‘almost’. I thought the answer would be some famous UK old age home, thus the ‘approaching century here’, and I don’t have any good explanation why ‘leg’ is a false stroke. Made no connection to cricket at all, not that it would have helped. I thought SWEEP referred to some rugby player named Grimes ( I am unsure if there is such a rugby position, though.) Also didn’t know: Pune for Poona, C of E Festival, GUTTERING, ALL ENDS UP, VATABLE. Yikes! I knew Connemara, hosta, Allende, although I was surprised to have him appear as merely ‘foreign head of state’, that seems too obscure, at least to me. COD: Dr. Ape. Toughest in a while, by a good deal, and I feel pleased to have only one wrong. Regards to everybody.
  17. i was delighted to finish in an hour. some brutal clues. agree with comments about 1 across. liked vatable. saaw Guttering quickly and slowly very slowly got the others. thought Drape was brilliant!

    Late post as busy at work
    finished at 0700

    why oh why do the onlines not have all the ellipses in?

  19. Almost forgot to comment today. After 17 mins. I had two left. I thought 26 had to be DRAPE but couldn’t see why, stuck it in anyway. Didn’t get PEEVE at all. Other difficulties aplenty – I started writing in UNINVITED at 1ac until I got to the T and realized 4 couldn’t possibly start with it! Hadn’t heard of CORREGGIO but was able to work him out from the wordplay; didn’t know Grimes was a sweep (but it’s a great name for one) so that counts as an educated guess; got 27 from the definition without figuring out the wordplay (although I did know who Allende was).
    1. That was me. How come I was suddenly logged out? This PC’s been auto-logged in for months!
  20. Edgbaston was impossible for me – never heard of it and it’s not in Webster’s Geographical Names section. I thought of “edg(e)” as a possible beginning for it, but only because catching an edge is a false move (not stroke) in skiing. I suppose “edge” also refers to a false stroke in cricket and “b” is used to signify “bowled,” again in cricket, but I don’t understand how “ton” is “approaching century.”
    1. Explaining from memory, “ton” is British slang for a hundred, not restricted to cricket. “approaching” is not part of the definition for “ton”, but information about the order of the bits of the charade – the EDGBAS part “approaches” the TON.

      For locations in British crosswords, Wikipedia is probably a better source than Webster.

      1. (and you’re exactly right about “edge” – roughly equivalent to a baseball “pop-up” as a catching opportunity – and b=bowled)

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