Times 24315

Author   richardvgPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 12:04

Less culture today, and – as ever – concentrated in the South-East, where there are two French authors (J-P Sartre & Anatole France) and “gangsta rap”. “Gangsta” has made it into Chambers as a type of rap, though the phrase does not yet make it.

Nothing too difficult. ACHIEVER at 2D was the only one I filled in this morning without having worked out the wordplay.

Quite a few fun clues. I especially liked MOPHEADS (27) and CLEAR AS MUD (4). But 9 (MARQUESS) is my favourite for its amazing neatness.

Across

1 VALENCI + A – first part being (CAN LIVE)*
9 MARQUE + S, S
11 A(DOLE)SCENT – i.e. unemployment benefit in rise
12 EVEN – two meanings. I like “like half the numbers” for even, though I do remember the proof that there are the same number of even numbers and integers
13 ALL(E.G.)IANCE
16 S(MILER)P – ie [MILER in S(tarting) P(rice)](all rev). The preliminary matter of a book is a new meaning of “prelims” for me – I knew them only as exams
17 A(N.A.T.O.)LE
22 CAN + (sever)E
23 MOR(TAD)E + LLA – ie TAD (bit) in MORE (extra) followed by ALL(rev)
25 RITUAL – hidden
27 MOPHEADS – (SHAMPO(o)ED)* – SHAMPOOED loses one of its ends of gusto.

Down

2 A(CHIE(f))VER
3 E + A + ST ANG + LIA – after E(xpect), that is [AIL (trouble) + GNATS + A(re)](all rev)
4 CLEAR AS MUD – (DRAMA + CLUES)*
5 A + M + POULE (=”pool”)
6 T(a)R(g)E(t)E(d)
7 DE(ME)AN
8 A SIT(WE + R)E
14 GANG + STAR + A P – nice clear wordplay for a new-ish phrase
15 (s)ART(SCENT)RE
16 PARA + MOUR(n)
18 LO(N)G + HAND
19 REAL(IS)M
21 GAR + DE + N – ie [N(ew) ED + RAG](all rev)
24 DATE – two meanings

36 comments on “Times 24315”

  1. 10:18, which is a couple of minutes quicker than it felt. 2, 3 and 10 were the last in.
  2. A 12 minute technical (“Cheltenham”) solve, but infinity on the “Genuine Jimbo” scale, as I couldn’t parse 2dn. Not giving away too many answers here because this is a reply to Richard’s “Placeholder” — great for what he calls his “early birds” — and I haven’t seen his blog yet. Said parsing required a mail out to “a friend” who was equally at a loss and had to contact “a friend of a friend”. (Sorry to be cryptic!)
    Quibbles: didn’t like the Apostrope-S in the clue to 22ac. A colon would have been neater perhaps? And do we have the dreaded “are” = A at 3dn? Plus what “a friend” calls “the nugatory A” in 2dn?
    COD to 27ac for a neatly hidden anagram-minus-one-letter.
      1. jackkt: No I wasn’t … I was reading it as “is” … until now. So thanks for the correction.
  3. Can’t see what is nugatory adout the A? No trouble with 2dn (which usually means I have misunderstood it), just the other 27 clues.
    One of those puzzles where once finished you wonder why you had so much trouble. MORTADELLA the only new word to me. Have found all 4 so far this week hard work (hence the Munch) but whereas, I think it was Monday’s, was rich in reward the others have just been a chore.
        1. I read it as: “to be” is the linkword and the def is [a] success. So the A is indeed nugatory. PB will know when this started to be allowed in the Times. It used not to be in my experience.
          1. The addition of “a” in the def to describe an answer is fine. In fact if you look up a noun in most dictionaries it will be used: “Freighter n. a vessel which…”
  4. 35 minutes. Mostly straightforward but I was caught out by G_N_STA at 14 as the only word I could see that fitted was the plant “genista”. Unlikely that it would be paired with RAP to give a type of music but who knows? In a world of which one knows nothing whatsoever anything might be possible. As it happens, I have heard the required term but had no idea it is spelled as it apparently is.

    Also new to me today was PRELIMS with reference to books. I knew its other meaning.

    1. I was also going to mention 3dn which went in early but without understanding it until I eventually spotted the land measure “are” = “a”. I keep forgetting to look for this.
  5. 25 minutes here today without any particular problems, other than the spelling of GANGSTA as mention above.
  6. 8 mins which felt like a quick time for this one. Confidently wrote in GANGSTER RAP only to arrive at the end with nowhere for the P – showing my age, I guess. Didn’t understand ACHIEVER – thanks for the explanation.
  7. I found this another toughie, needing aids to solve half of it. In 11 how does ‘the opposite for this youngster’ relate to the answer ADOLESCENT? Thanks
    1. It doesn’t. ADOLESCENT is simply “this youngster”. The rest of the clue is “Rise in UB? The opposite”, indicating UB (=DOLE) in rise (=ASCENT).
  8. This was a middle-of-the-road puzzle of moderate difficulty and moderate interest. Like Barry, I wondered why it took me so long. Last in were Mortadella and Gangsta Rap. Mortadella because I thought it was a cheese not a sausage, Gangsta Rap because I could not spell Allegiance so had an impossible initial letter.

    Prelims was the only new word for me. I also had a question mark over chaste = restrained but I see that it scrapes into Chambers as the fourth definition.

  9. My first attempt at the Times for a few days, having been away. I had printouts of 5 crosswords, including yestertday’s, for solving on the plane coming back, but got brutally bamboozled by Enigmatist in the Guardian.

    Some brain cells survived and today’s puzzle put up resistance for about 15 minutes. I can see that inexperienced solvers may have struggled a bit with this – a very generous number of clues with beautifully smooth surfaces that would be hard to break down.

    For us “old hands” I’m guessing most of these will have felt familiar (no less lovely for that) so I found it harder to choose a COD simply because I was looking for something that felt like a new take.

    No problems – all entertaining, fair stuff.

    Q-0 E-7 D-6 COD 8D AS IT WERE – good, convincing surface, which I suspect may have fooled some into looking for perhaps a cryptic def.

  11. 12 minutes, things fell in pretty readily, I had something else instead of ANATOLE originally at 17. MARQUE had caught me out once before so I was ready. Big smile when I saw GANGSTA RAP, and with PRELIMS referring to books being common on this side of the pond, maybe the setter has a U.S. bent? COD 27 for the surface (used to be one, now I’m almost at the other end of the spectrum).
  12. A straightforward 25-minute solve. I made a false start with 1, trying to think of a Spanish city beginning TIN… I thought of PRELIMS from the wordplay long before I had the confidence to write it in: the definition was completely unfamiliar to me. Good surfaces and some nice bits of deception (eg, ‘keen’ for MOURN in 16d).
  13. Another fairly breezy 30min solve. I too liked MOPHEADS and the thought of mutant mosquitoes terrorising EAST ANGLIA. For one horrible moment I thought “the ultimate” was “e” at 22, before I saw the truth of the situation and retired to the conservatory in my slippers knowing all was still well with the world. COD to 7d DEMEAN for managing an oblique reference to the Rolling Stones, almost completing the Gansta Rap circle.
  14. I really enjoyed this puzzle which took a smidge under 20 minutes.

    I liked the wordplay for mortadella and East Anglia but give COD to mopheads for a rather good spot by the setter.

    I’m off to the Leeds Festival for the next 3 days (not camping thankfully). No gangsta rap hopefully but some quirkily named bands that may come up in 1 across rock in the future: Bombay bicycle club, airborne toxic event, vampire weekend, arctic monkeys, gaslight anthem, soft toy emergency…

    1. Don’t miss Jessica Delfino!!!! She’s buried way way way way down in the lineup. She was kind enough to write “you suck” on my copy of “Dirty Folk Music”. Have fun!
    2. And look out for Spanish punk revivalists Mopheads of Valencia playing their anthemic Paramour, Regardless (from the album More Chaste, Less Weed).
      1. There will be some Spanish (or at least Mexican) punk – Mariachi El Bronx, first up on the main stage tomorrow.
      2. Presumably later in the weekend they’ll change the album title to More Weed, Less Chaste.
        1. Absolutely! Which really is rather a terrific name for an album. Obviously a respectable fellow like Penfold wouldn’t know anything about that (but it might help when he’s listening to Mariachi punk (the mind boggles).
  15. 23:49 .. About ten minutes of that was spent staring at M_R____L_A and __T_ before DATE finally clicked.

    Like Richard, I really admired MARQUESS for its economy.

  16. 15 minutes. I had AMPULLA for 5 originally which made 11 a real problem so a few minutes to sort out.
    Like Richard I only knew prelims as exams and , like many of you, achiever was entered because it fitted and as success seemed the likely definition.
    Nice to see Anatole France and Gangsta Rap as crossing entries. I bet it’s the first time they’ve been seen in the same sentence!
  17. There seemed a preponderance of As today, and I wondered if every answer was going to have one, but TREE, EVEN and PRELIMS didn’t quite make it. Could have had BRAE, OBAN and PABLUMS (with ALHAMBRA instead of ACHIEVER) although that last is a bit obscure.
  18. About 45 mins. Nice puzzle with some excellent clues, all highlighted above. I’ve no doubt that Richardvg’s explanation of 16 ac (PRELIMS)is the right one, though I arrived at the same answer by a quirkier route. Not being a racing man, I’d never head of SP=starting price, and took the reversal indicator “brought back” to refer only to “runner”, reading the P and S of PRELIMS as standing for “postscript”, which I figured could at a pinch be a definition of “latest odds”, in the sense of “latest information”. I rather like this reading, though clearly not the one intended. I’d heard of “gangster rap” but was unfamiliar with the spelling required here, and was moderately chuffed to be able to work out what it had to be from the wordplay.

  19. An amiable 25 minute stroll in the park after golf. The parsing for ACHIEVER is excellent. I had to work out GANGSTA RAP from the wordplay and checking letters. Happily I have never heard said phenomena. Some well constructed clues all round.
  20. A bit less than 20 minutes for me, so I didn’t find it too difficult. I’m with those who didn’t recognize the PRELIMS definition, nor the ‘sp’ as ‘starting price’, solved from the checking letters and the rev. ‘miler’ inside. I also didn’t know ‘marque’ as a brand name, so I had to infer it when choosing between MARQUESS and ‘baroness’, and it was clear the ‘barone=make’ wasn’t going to cut it. I had to adopt UK-spelling mode for AMPOULE, which is ‘ampule’ in the US. First in: VALENCIA, last: LONGHAND, since I thought it would end in ‘AID’ for the ‘assistance’. Despite my comment re: marque, MARQUESS is my COD; succinct, clean surface. Regards everyone.
  21. really liked this clue…liked the puzzle and finished in a tad under 25 minutes,,,was very pleased…

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