Times 24,337 A Stroll in Hyde Park

Author   dorsetjimboPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time : 15 minutes

Whilst this is easy it is also entertaining with a smattering of good surfaces and some good clues. There is only one slight obscurity, a mammal from the animal kingdom.

I think Rotten Row is fairly well known outside of London. I wonder how people would have reacted if the answer had been Rottenrow (one word, suitably clued), which is a famous street in Glasgow?

Across
1 ESTABLISH – (his stable)*; solved this on screen as puzzle was printing and thought we were in for another religious trip;
6 SCRUM – SC-RUM; SC=Special Constable (a copper not a painting);
9 PINBALL – PIN-B-ALL; PIN=using say a bishop to trap say a knight between it and the king thus preventing the knight from moving;
10 TRAINEE – T(RAIN)EE; TV’s first=T; broadcast=sounds like=TEE;
11 TRUCK – T-R(ice)-UCK; dessert=ice; TUCK=Bunterish slang for food;
12 ACROPOLIS – A-CROP-(SILO reversed); a Greek hill fort (= high security);
14 IDE – (as)IDE; privately=aside; the crossword fish;
15 WINDCHEATER – WIND-C-HEATER; nice construction;
17 INCINERATOR – IN-(certain)*-OR; IN=at home; OR=otherwise (edited following comment below)
20 MANHANDLE – MAN-HA(N=middle of channel)D-LE;
22 PARIS – PAR-IS;
24 TRIBUNE – TRIB(UN)E; Yasser Arafat perhaps;
26 OPINION – O-PINION;
28 ROTTEN,ROW – weak cryptic definition; a horse track in Hyde Park, London;
 
Down
1 EXPAT – EX-PAT;
2 TONSURE – TON-SURE; TON=fashion;
3 BLACK,SWAN – BLACKS-WAN; to black is trade union talk for refuse to handle;
4 ILL,MANNERED – (mill)*-ANNE-RED;
5 HIT – two meanings; 1=sock=hit; 2=hit or sky a ball into the air=a skier; nice clue;
6 SCAMP – SCAM-P;
7 RINGLET – RING-LET; lock=piece of hair;
13 ROCK,THE,BOAT – (ketch or)*-BOAT; nice construction;
14 IDIOMATIC – IDIO(MA)TIC;
16 EUROPHILE – (I hope rule)*; a word that has come to mean being in favour of greater political integration within the EU; great clue:
18 CONFIRM – CON-FIRM;
19 TARSIER – one who delays=tarrier then change one “r” to an “s”; a tree climbing mammal from the Philippines;
21 ADULT – AD-ULT; ULT=ultimately;
23 SINEW – (IS reversed)-NEW;

50 comments on “Times 24,337 A Stroll in Hyde Park”

  1. Should have been a stroll, but a hasty EXILE at 1D made a mess of the NW corner for a while, and it took about 4 minutes at the end to convince myself that 14A could only be IDE – even then, I saw the wordplay just after stopping the clock. I’d had this daft idea that ICE might show some evidence of eskimo-style fishing. 13:12 all in.
  2. Lovely title Jimbo. I needed cheering-up.
    Have seen Jack’s comment but will carry-on regardless.
    Top half stroll on a downhill gradient (done before the coffee brewed), bottom half a veritable route march.
    Tossed-up between tarrier and tardier, plumping for the former, of course without understanding the clue, a trick I thought I had mastered. Clearly not.
    And OK, so I assume 25dn is (H)EAR but I just can’t see why? Didn’t understand IDE or OPINION, the latter because I was obsessed with PIN for secure and thought NIO must be something to do with arms.
    Hopeless!
        1. Or even ‘is. But for me, “this” (i.e. the answer) is as clear as “his” – possibly assisted by seeing many clues phrased this way in Azed and similar puzzles.
  3. Well, having read Jimbo’s verdict I shall be interested to see if I’m the only contributor to have found some of this difficult. I took just over an hour and still had two unexplained when I came here.

    The top half was fairly easy though I didn’t write in IDE until I had both checking letters in place which actually made it my last in. Progress in the SE was hindered by the presence of TARSIER, a creature I have never heard of and the SW baffled me for ages, not helped by having MISHANDLE in mind for a long time at 20ac and also considering ENIGMATIC at 14dn.

    Apart from the animal already mentioned I didn’t know “pin” as a chess term despite having played the game quite a lot in my youth, “pat” meaning “opportunely” nor “par” as the face value of a share.

    The ones I couldn’t explain were IDE at 14ac and OPINION at 26ac where I saw “secure” as “pin” or possibly “pin on” and “about” either as indicating an insertion or possibly cluing “on” as in “with reference to”, all of which would have left “arms” unexplained in the clue and the second “I” unexplained in the answer. I’m not actually sure I knew “pinion” meaning “hold the arms of ” anyway.

    Where’s the dunce’s hat?

  4. What jackkt said, except I knew about tarsiers. Was looking for a clever pun at 28 like Upthed Rag; somewhere in Lincolnshire? (drag = main street in Oz), thought 25 could be “has” as in sounds like a cockney’s “as”, had several wrong ideas for ADULT, SINEW (sisal), OPINION (origins) which I couldn’t get past. Just clueless really. Finally sorted it in well over an hour. COD to ROCK THE BOAT.
  5. Splendidly blogged!
    Quite an easy one today except for TARSIER which I’ve never heard of. EAR raised a chuckle. I got IDE but couldn’t see the reason – brilliant – thank you.
    HIT defeated me. I would never have seen that meaning or pronunciation of “skier”. I put HAT, because as far as this non-skier is concerned, skiers wear socks on their heads. So I was let down by my ignorance of TWO sports, at both of which I am hopeless.
  6. finished clean in 40 mins. right hand side went in without much difficulty, tarsier known as an animal which helped. ide went on the dubious basis of i’d somehow meaning privately though there is nothing to indicate sounds like. cod 13d as i had totally missed the anagram or ketch before coming here.
  7. A little over the half hour at this end. Helped by some of the longer and obvious answers, but hindered by the short ones. Strange how 3- and 4-letter answers can hold up the most ardent solver. Good to see our state emblem appearing at 3dn. COD should go to TRUCK which I couldn’t see for a while; but I’m giving it to EUROPHILE for a very neat &lit.
  8. Was delighted with an unassisted 25 min, particularly to get the devious 3 letter answers, which consumed a disproportionate amount of attention. No COD, not because of lack of quality, but because of overall satisfaction.
  9. 16:02 here, fairly quick for most of it, but had trouble in the top left corner. EXPAT, TONSURE, TRUCK and IDE were the last to go in. All understood in the end, but must have wasted 4 or 5 minutes on them.
  10. Nope! Still doesn’t scan for me. Must be particularly thick today. Of course I see the dropped aitch (as someone who only started regulary using leading aitches in my 4th decade I ought to know).
    Considered (H)AIR for a while, ie for hairdo as “do” is in the clue, until I got TRIBUNE.
    As to Jack’s query on the location of the dunce’s hat, ’tis with me, pinioned.
  11. Any day when I manage to beat Peter is cause for celebration, and had it not been for wavering over TARSIER would have been under, instead of dead-on 10 minutes!
    Nice blog, by the way!
    Oli
  12. Clues such as EUROPHILE and EAR are the reason I do this crossword.
    Defeated by ADULT not knowing ult=ultimately.
    Crosswordisms already learnt fish=ide, alien=et.
    New assumptions pat=opportunely, ton=fashion, tonsure, tarsier.
  13. A similar experience to Jack’s. 25 minutes and left staring at A-U-T and T-R-I-R in the bottom half.

    ADULT went in just as we pulled into Paddington, and TARSIER only on a wordsearch once reaching work. So that counts for me as a “DNF”, but no hope of me (and, I suspect a few others) getting it any other way.

  14. 46:25 – marginally quicker than yesterday, but again glad to finish without aids. Although I did verify TONSURE & TARSIER in the dictionary before writing them in, but I was fairly confident of both.

    SW & NE corners went in quickly, but struggled with NW & SE. There were at least six that I didn’t fully understand before coming here, mainly due to unfamiliar definitions for PAR, PAT, BLACKS
    & PINION. Also didn’t understand the Skier reference, didn’t know Rotten Row was a horse track and didn’t get the wordplay in 14a.

    COD to WINDCHEATER I think, for the neat surface.

    1. On TARSIER, I thought of TARRIER quite early on but somehow missed the direction to substitute “S” for “R”.

      Just to please Jimbo, I first learned the word “tarry” as a child playing my grandfather’s record collection which contained a 78 of the Gracie Fields singing “Let him go, let him tarry, let him sink or let him swim, he doesn’t care for me and I don’t care for him…”

      1. My grandfather used to sing it to me as well. What do you make of our Gracie being top of the pops – a real trip down memory lane!!
  15. Excellent blog – but I still cannot work out 17 across. INCINERATOR is not an anagram of IN (CERTAIN TO)and cannot see how TO can become OR to give you the correct anagram.
    1. You are quite correct – I made a mistake writing the blog. I’ve changed it now and thanks for spotting the mistake.
  16. Agree with Jimbo’s comments – pretty easy (10:13) but still very good. My only gripe is ADULT. I can see the wordplay but where is the def? How can AD make one adult? Is it me?

    Also didn’t understand IDE, so cheers for that Jimbo.
    Never heard of TARSIER but the wordplay made it gettable.

    1. “anno domini” is slang for advancing old age, probably from the same era as “how goes the enemy?” for “what’s the time?”. It would certainly work better as a clue if “adult” meant 70+ rather than 18+
  17. I filled the NW corner as quickly as I could read the clues, but, as so often with me, I slowed down, finishing after 22 minutes. One minor hold-up was caused by carelessly reversing SILO to read ILOS. I agree with dorsetjimbo’s summary; although it was easy I had question marks against clues I didn’t fully understand – IDE, HIT, OPINION.
  18. Didn’t note down a time, but did it late last night. Nearly stumbled at the end – ROTTEN ROW was a guess (remember seeing it before somewhere and it fit) and TARSIER was a guess from wordplay. There’s some nice wordplay in here, I liked 23’s surface and the wordplay for MANHANDLE.
  19. About 13 mins; I don’t check seconds so can’t say whether this was a rare Peter-beater. Lots of excellent clues, I choose 1A ESTABLISH as COD – ‘after journeying’ is very clever. I’m slightly ‘sceptic’ about whether the definition quite works in 16D, but it’s good fun and quite solvable. 14A IDE shows another interesting use of ‘this’ – a ‘composite charade’?

    Tom B.

  20. 30:54 .. on a run of poor form and this was another battle, but more enjoyable than yesterday’s.

    Brows most thoroughly furrowed over EAR, where I was pondering ‘err’ and, for a while, even ‘vis’ [=’as’, and just about plausible as a regional pronunciation of ‘this’]. Another one where seeing the answer has me more ‘hm’ than ‘ah’.

    Favourites EUROPHILE and ILL-MANNERED.

  21. 22 minutes but with one wrong. Funny how Jimbo’s slow plod has beaten many of us today.

    Didn’t know the fashion meaning of ton and just assumed that pin must be a chess term. Guessed at Rotten Row based on checkers and thought I must be missing something wordplay wise (anagram of town + ?).

    Eventually I was left staring at 14a and 19d. I completely forgot that saint could be S as well as St and just wrote in tarrier in the wild hope that this was a “definition in the middle” clue.

    That left the fish. I went with ide as a guess but if you put i?e into Chambers Word Wizard you don’t get ice as a possibility!

    For all that an enjoyable puzzle with a high count of clever clues.

  22. Under 13 minutes – so a ‘Peter-beater’, but without understanding ROTTEN ROW or IDE. Still, woohoo.

    I don’t really like “(definition A) (substitute one letter for another) (definition B)” clues (similar to TARSIER), espeically when the substituted letter is unchecked, because it is possible to convince oneself that it is A that should be entered when B is correct (or vice versa). I suppose this was OK as it was (definition A)(definition B)(substitution), so clearly A was the answer.

    COD: EUROPHILE

    1. If you’re in the Times club, you can relive a knotty example in puzzle no. 23423 and read about it in a report from our current reigning champ at http://petebiddlecombe.livejournal.com/67891.html

      You should be able to rely on the Times setters and editors to make the choice clear to careful readers. Mistakes causing genuine ambiguities are very rare.

  23. The OED has the word TARRIER as archaic.

    Is it usual to use archaisms in The Times crossword? I noticed another one a couple of weeks ago.

    Paul S.

    1. COED labels tarrier as “rare”, and Collins has it with no comment at all. So going by the official references, there’s no need for the clue to say anything in this case. I don’t think all archaisms are recorded in the clue, but I don’t know how they decide when it’s necessary. I wouldn’t be too bothered in this case because tarrier is an obvious derivative of tarry (which sounds ancient but in turn is “chiefly literary” in COED and “archaic” only in some of the senses given in Collins).
  26. I didn’t find this very easy, about 45 minutes. My holdups were TARSIER, which I never heard of, ROTTEN ROW, which I have heard of but not in any way connected with riding horses, IDE, EAR and HIT. The WINDCHEATER must be akin to the US ‘windbreaker’, I suppose. I didn’t know the added sense of ‘hit into the sky’, so didn’t get that at all until now. Also didn’t know ‘blacks’, ‘ton=fashion, ‘com’= to search (not ‘comb’?), Dick Whittington, so it’s no wonder it took me a while. Some very nice clues here, though, I especially like PARIS. Regards to everyone.
  27. I feel I must be missing something in 5D. I don’t see how socking something into the air, i.e. a skier, adds anything much to simply socking something or someone.
    1. A skier (pronounced skyer) a ball hit high into the sky. In cricket (and baseball?), a big top-edge shot.
      1. And I forgot to add, an attempt to mislead with an allusion to those nice warm unscoured wool ski socks.
        1. Thanks for your reply. I did like the ski / sky wordplay, although your two definitions of “skier” seem pretty similar to me. I wondered if the blog meant to indicate “item of clothing” for the first meaning of sock. I guess “clobber” might do just as well.
          1. No, I meant hit=sock=bash with the fist. The clue is two definitions of “hit” not “skier”
  28. Well it seems that barrywldm still hasn’t had his question answered re 25dn, and I’d also like to know. Just seen it. A cockney ‘ears with his ear.
  29. I’m sure this was before even my time, but ult=last month inst=this month used to be part of business-letter formulae: ‘Yours of the 25th inst/ult received, and contents noted.’ That got me the ‘ult’ to add to AD.
    1. You’re correct about ult and inst in business letters. When I started work I had no idea what they meant and received a withering look plus a muttered “what are they teaching in schools these days” from my manager.

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