Times 24309 – surface tension

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I’m filling in for Richard today, but I have just gotten access to the puzzle, so going to work on it now, and will blog soon if I can get it in one shot, or early in the afternoon if I need two solving sessions. Early birds, discuss away!

32 minutes later, I have a completed grid. I found this one a real slog, not a lot of starter entries, but I think I’ve crawled my way to the finish. Let’s see what the result is. I did this online, so the report may take a while.

I didn’t find this easy, but the wordplay was fair, and there were some really terrific surfaces, so I hope this was an enjoyable ride.

Across
1 BEHIND, HAND: I think I’ve seen similar clues, but none with this succinct a surface
6 C(l)ASH: took a while for a subtraction
9 ON FIRE: FIR in ONE – my first entry
11 RECOUNTING: double definition, and a well hidden one, I was trying to get wordplay out of this for a while
12 DALMATIAN: D,(ANIMAL,AT)* – got this from the definition and checking letters
14 CRAM,P(icnic): easy clue, but I liked the sirface
17 LARNE: hidden in celLAR NEcessarily – a port I had not heard of
19 REGULATOR: T(he) Office in REGULAR
22 WHITE PAPER: cryptic definition – although I’ve never seen a copy, thanks to crosswords, I know the Financial Times is pink
23 MINI(m): a MINIM is a musical note, called a half note in the US
24 BREMEN: ME in BREN, which is the opposite of BREN in ME
26 LYON: ONLY, moving the LY to the front – wouldn’t have gotten this without the checking letters
27 DISINHERIT: got this from the definition (cut out), only now enjoying the wordplay – IN around DISH, then TIRE reversed
 
Down
1 BACK-PEDAL: because PEDAL can be found backward in wilL A DEPartment
2 HANDSEL: sounds like HANSEL
3 DENDRITE: (DIRT)* in DENE – funny, today I was talking to a colleague who does dendrite structures
5 D,ROGUE: a type of parachute
6 CAFETERIA?: I think – the wordplay seems to be indicating FETE in C,AIR, but that for me leaves an unexpected A. Edit: mctext pointed out in comments that the song is ARIA – boot meet head
7 SURINAM: UR (RU backwards) IN, in SAM. I thought this had an E on the end? In the comments, the case is made for this being RU in MAN,IS all reversed
15 PERT,IN,ENT: OK, surface make me giggle
16 AU GRTAIN: wordplay is AUG,RAT,IN
18 ASHTRAY: H in ASTRAY, another good surface
20 (breakfas)T,RIGGER: and a hi to my brother who works oil platforms off the Louisiana coast
21 OPENED: PEN in OED

45 comments on “Times 24309 – surface tension”

  1. 14 minutes today after yesterday’s shocker. Several odd things for me:
    1. Couldn’t quite parse 7dn at first because I was looking for the “fellow” to be SAM, before seeing MAN IS. Maybe a genuine Communist sprat?
    2. The &lit-quality of 12 was marred by the apostrophe-S necessary for the surface reading. Still, I liked this one as my daughter is parking her dog with me today for a week or so while she goes on holiday. So I had a slight synchronicity giggle.
    3. Got held up a bit on the (now) obvious “heads for the office” = TO. And with a vague theme starting at 1ac + 19ac, I assumed 22ac had to be a sort of official.
    4. After all this nice stuff, the anagrams at 25ac and 4dn looked a bit ordinary, especially given the co-incidence of “could be seen as” and “seen to be” as pointers in both.
    5. At 27ac, “get sick when it returns” (ERIT) looked a bit clunky.
  2. > HANDSEL: sounds like HANSEL
    Various sources say the good-luck gift can also be spelled HANDSEL, so the “said” may be redundant??

    > SURINAM: UR (RU backwards) IN, in SAM
    See my post above. I think it’s UR in MAN IS (reversed).

    > CAFETERIA?: I think
    The “air” is a song: ARIA.

    1. >> HANDSEL: sounds like HANSEL
      >>>Various sources say the good-luck gift can also be spelled HANDSEL, so the “said” may be redundant??

      I think that is what the blog meant – ie the answer HANDSEL (gift) sounds like the abandoned child (HANSEL)

      the only way the said would be redundant is if the abandoned child was also spelt HANDSEL

      1. Oops: should have said that the gift can also be spelled HANSEL. But you’re still right. There’s also a verb: to inaugurate something (esp. by being the first to try it). My thanks, but.
  3. 6 Cold air restricting summer gala? Enter this for refreshment (9)
    I think that there is a typo and should be
    6 Cold air restricting a summer gala? Enter this for refreshment (9)
    2. I don’t think that would work, as there would be nothing to indicate that AIR requires reversing.
          1. In this puzzle, I concede there is no typo and air = aria

            May I float another another construction if there were a typo and “a” was omitted? Thus ‘correct clue” is
            Cold air restricting a summer gala? Enter this for refreshment (9)
            C (cold) and AIR restricting A FETE; now C and AIR are like pincers restricting A-FETE from two directions, one from the north and the other from the south
            C -> A FETE <- RIA
            Plausible, don’t you think?

            1. No, I maintain that you would need something to indicate that the two elements were coming from opposing directions.
  4. Quite tricky today, because of smooth surfaces. 24a blocked me for ages, and even when I got it it took me another half-hour to see that no American state is involved. Fiendish.
  5. 12:50 for this – quite a struggle, especially in the bottom half, with inability to see the old joke at 13 delaying location of the right city at 26 and confirmation of 24 Bremen, which I can now see from Wikipedia is the smallest of Germany’s lander=states, but still comes in two separate parts.
  6. I enjoyed this puzzle. Six left unsolved after 30 minutes so finished with help of computer but still couldn’t get BREMEN. Thanks for explaining that one – cunning! Smiled at MINUTEMAN and WHITE PAPER and kicked myself for not getting BEHINDHAND (think I’ve seen this before) or CONVENTS. Couple of new words for me: HANDSEL and DROGUE.
  7. My disastrous run of puzzles continues with this one following a similar pattern to yesterday in that most of the RH went in steadily and then I became entrenched in sticky mud LH.

    The only real difference was that yesterday I had time to pursue it to the bitter end but today I am working so I gave up after 45 minutes with four unsolved and resorted to on-line assistance. So 50 minutes with some cheating.

    Of the ones I looked up it’s some consolation thatI never heard of HANDSEL, DENDRITE or DROGUE, but I should have got MINUTEMAN from the Tom Thumb reference alone.

    1. First one in a while to just comprehensibly beat me, all my problems being in the top left. Didn’t spot the backward pedal device at 1 down, didn’t know dendrite or drogue or handsel, and with virtually nothing in the way of checking letters I didn’t get behindhand either. bc
  8. 19:44 for this. Should have been a lot quicker, but I inexplicably wrote in DENTRIDE instead of DENDRITE, then didn’t notice when I was trying to solve 12A, so couldn’t get DROMEDARY out of my head and didn’t see the anagram fodder. I also didn’t know HANDSEL, which was the last one to go in.
  9. Pretty much identical experience to Jack. Solid start(with as per yesterday another long one straight in) but NW corner only completed with electronic help with DROGUE, DENDRITE and HANDSEL which gave me BEHINDHAND.
    DENDRITE upset me a bit with its difficult wordplay and obscure answer, that is until I read George’s blog.
    HANDSEL would have been my COD had I ever heard of the word.

    Crunch Day (for cricket people only).
    Having spent many contented, sleepy, drama-free days at the Oval this year, which visiting batsmen see as a not-to-be-missed opportunity to improve their averages, my prediction is that if Australia win the toss they will bat and will retain The Ashes.

  10. i needed on line help to finish off – drogue and bremen proving beyond me. had struggled with the wordplay of both surinam and cafeteria until mctext’s enlightenment. i thought this was an excellent puzzle with lots of good clueing. cod 1 down by a whisker.
    1. Thank you.
      I was wondering when someone would take a bit of notice! Don’t know what time-zone glheard is in — maybe he’s asleep? Perhaps we should post our local time-zone posting times. It’d fit nicely with the title of the blog!
      {5:52pm Western Australian Std Time}
  11. Similar to yesterday – north of 30 mins – again vocab issues, not knowing HANDSEL, DENDRITE, DROGUE and LARNE. Spent way too long on 7d since I was adamant that the def was a country fellow (ie SOMALI or SUDANI) which was the name of a game/some game inside IS all read up. No matter how I looked, I could not avoid this assumption, which only went when I solved 14A, and even then I was wondering whether this was wrong.

    It is funny when your mind picks out a path and then refuses to be dissuaded from it at all costs.

    1. My turn to answer this one.
      If you read “about this blog” linked at top of page you will see the reason why all answers are not given.
      The answer in case you are asking is ASSOCIATED PRESS, an anagram of “processes data is”.
      I wonder if it is not time to reconsider this method?
      1. I was going to suggest the opposite, Barry.

        The bloggers are doing a fantastic job, let’s get that straight from the outset, but there are occasions when only one or two clues are omitted. If we’re going to adhere to the principal reason (a fair one, I think) for not showing all answers, perhaps it would be better that at least two or three clues each from Across/Down should be left out, but on the understanding that visitors are quite welcome to ask about them.

        Maybe, even, bloggers could include all clue locations (5A, 14D etc etc) but simply write “ask if unsure” alongside numbers for which answers aren’t shown.

        1. The most important reason for leaving some clues out is simply the limited time available to some bloggers – writing a full report with correct wordplays and other explanations can take quite a while. Once people know that a question about a missing one will usually be answered promptly, they seem happy.
        2. Scrapping the practice might be inferred from my comment but isn’t actually there. What seems pointless is only leaving out what experts deem “gimmes”, hardly likely to mollify Times marketeers. Your supplemenary suggestion would at least pre-empt the oft-repeated question from those new to the site. I remember asking it myself.

          Regards your blog comment, 6 minutes is superhuman and you are much too modest.

  13. Quick for me, coming in at around 6 minutes, and I think I’ve identified why some puzzles seem to fly by; it’s the benefit of spending all of my time writing puzzles.

    It’s luck of course, but this one had several answers which I’ve either clued or tried to clue before. I hasten to add none of these clues was a case of “I’ve already written that one” – instead, I was able to latch onto familiar wordplay constructions for ON FIRE, CRAMP, ASHTRAY, OPENED, DROGUE and AU GRATIN. The distribution of these in the grid was a great help in getting a rapid finish.

    As many have remarked, I thought there were some gloriously smooth surfaces here – the sign of setter putting the effort in.

    Not really a quibble, but the exclamation mark at 16D seemed unnecessary – but this is far outweighed by the very good stuff.

    Rather difficult to choose between COD candidates but in the end I plumped for OPENED.

    Q-0 E-8 D-6 COD 21D OPENED

  14. Stopped the clock with DENDRITE unsolved (around 22 minutes), having a feeling of doom on that one. Ten minutes or so or staring at it didn’t help. I rather put the kibosh on myself by deciding the liquid dirt must be ‘dung’, which led me, more in hope than expectation, to Scotland’s impossibly picturesque Dungrath Valley.

    Annoying for me, because this was a stylish puzzle with lots of fine surfaces – and nothing makes me happier. COD nod from me to 21d OPENED for just that reason. Guilty pleasure nod to MINUTEMAN, which made me smile.

  15. Crawled to 52:30. Took a very long time to get going. I think I only had about 10 in after half an hour, but I sped up towards the end.

    HANDSEL was new to me, and I had to confirm it before writing it in (and I confess I looked up HANTSEL first, so I guess my time has to go down as ‘with aids’)

    As an ex-skydiver, I am quite familiar with drogue parachutes. Tandem instructors release them to slow their rate of descent, allowing the cameraman to keep pace.

    Didn’t spot the reverse hidden word in 1d, so put it in without full understanding.

    Last in were AU GRATIN & DISINHERIT.

  16. OK, I’m awake, but not able to check in much today – thanks for pointing out my wordplay shorcomings, mctext, edited the post.
  17. 12.20 which was not too bad considering DROGUE was a new one for me and not easily got from wordplay.In 25 years of Times, 20 of Mephisto and 4 of Listener plus XX years of life itself amazed that I had never come across this word. DENDRITE was vaguely known so not too bad. BREMEN craftily defined as a state rather than city which made it more difficult. Otherwise took much too long to see 1a despite having B-H early on.
  18. Found 13ac easy as been working my way through Tim Moorey’s book (I’m a novice I’m afraid) and a similar clue comes up (Tom Thumb is a fighter) – however, forgot that it came up in one of the puzzles there and thought it was in yesterdays puzzle so spent 10 minutes trying to justify why such a clue would make the Times crossword two days running…

    Jon

    1. >Found 13ac easy as been working my way through Tim Moorey’s book…

      So you haven’t reached the bit where he explains the difference between across and down yet then? 😉

      1. You beat me to the punch on the unworthily facetious comment, Penfold. I was going to say this if his book tells you how to solve clues that don’t exist, then it’s even better than its reputation. Mind you, if Peter B were to have a few large espressos before tackling the puzzle, he’d probably be solving the clues before the setter thought of them, which amounts to the same thing.
  19. “About” 20 minutes (bit of a cock-up on the timing front, Reggie) and like others I was impressed with the quality of the surface readings throughout. Cramp gets my COD nod on that score.

    I recalled Larne from an old radio show on which Dennis Norden and Frank Muir had to concoct a pun-filled tale leading to a “well-known phrase or saying”. On this particular occasion Frank Muir spun a yarn about being in a pub in County Antrim with the poet, WB Yeats, and insiting on paying for a round as he had to leave to attend a prior engagement for dinner in nearby Larne. Can you see it coming? The phrase was “My beer Yeats because I’m a Larne diner”. Ouch. And that was one of the good ones.

    I have to say I was surprised on returning from holiday not to find something in the papers about Jennifer Saunders or Jack Straw being questioned about the mysterious death of Sir Elton.

  20. A very enjoyable puzzle, 30 minutes to solve. Had to guess SURINAM from wordplay but other than that no new words. DALMATIAN was good I thought but nearly every clue is very well constructed. Thank you setter.
  21. Another ‘wow’ day, and today I confess to having to go to the aids for the last several, after an hour. I didn’t know/never heard of DROGUE, HANDSEL, DENDRITE, and to check BREMEN as a state, not merely a city. While after having such a mental workout it’s not easy to say this was fun, but many of the surfaces were very well put together and enjoyable, so I can’t pick a single COD. I liked REGULATOR, OPENED, ASHTRAY, TRIGGER, LYON. Was it just last week everyone was complaining about a run of easy puzzles? This week, not so much. Regards.
  22. Was I the only person totally convinced that this was a CD, and therefore desperately trying to think of some kind of insecticide?
  23. Thanks for all the feedback, especially from our appreciative Dorset friend who very much disliked what I had to say on a previous occasion a few months back! It’s amazing how many words there are in the most basic of dictionaries that many of us (myself included) don’t know, so I’m glad that this has been another vocabulary-stretching exercise. Always good to learn a few new things through cruciverbalism!
  24. Completed rest of this in 25 mins but took a further 15 mins to get 12ac and 2dn. Trouble was I was convinced that 12 ac had to start with “Drama….” We had “daughter” and “Animal” and “play” in the clue. Reading the comments it seems that I was the only one to fall for this misdirection. I’d never heard of Handsel but it was obvious from the wordplay once I’d got that final “l”. A frustrating solve.

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