Times 24344

Author   petebiddlecombePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 8:04

Another straightforward puzzle, slowed down here by taking about four goes to see the right author at 2, dimness at 29 after an early stab at TRESTLE, and failure to see the right word from MINI-?U?G?? at 14.

Across
1 V=five,A.M.=”in the morning”,PISH=bunk – as “pish” is an exclamation of impatience/contempt and bunk is nonsense, this doesn’t quite work for me. One to get with the V already in place.
5 WRITE-UP = “Right, up”
9 MAR(x)
10 PURP(LE,PR)OSE – PR from PoetasteR
11 ONE-TRACK = (actor Ken)*
12 RU(M.B.)LE
16 PERIODICAL – P, rev. of (acid in Loire)
18 RLEADERSHIP
19 BRIE from initial letters
22 BIKIN I G
23 B(UTTER)ED
25 RODE SHOTGUN = (he got rounds)*
27 BAR – 2 defs
28 A C CENTS = “a hundred cents” = a dollar
29 THE,AcToR sEt
 
Down
1 V=see,A,MOOSE (someone will ask, so: v = vide = see in Latin. My splendidly crusty old Latin teacher “Fanny” Taylor would have followed this up with “What word do we get from this?”. Video, miss, from “I see”.)
2 MURIEL SPARK = (likes Rampur)*
3 IMPART = (TRAP M.I.) reversed
4 HARD CHEESE – 2 defs, one referring to 19A
6 IMPOUNDS = “1 M POUNDS” with M=million, as first won by Judith Keppel
7 E,GO
8 PRES(s),ELL=45 inches
13 BUCK,RARE,BIT
14 MIN(I,BUDGE)T – MINT=lots of money – a nicely done &lit/all-in-one
17 TENNYSON – NY in sonnet*
18 LIBERIA – (I,BE,R) in AIL rev.
20 ENDORSE – hidden in vENDORS Everywhere – nice change of meaning for “sign”
21 A TON,C.E.
24 NO,U.S. – for younger readers, Dr No was the foe in the original Bond film
26 DOC – 2 meanings, one now only really familiar to those who insist on turning off Microsoft’s “Hide known file types” option as soon as any new computer is booted.

55 comments on “Times 24344”

  1. would have been a quick one today but for 14d – stared at it for ages assuming that it must be MINI- before wondering whether anything else could fit – MIDI, HIFI etc, part of the problem was assuming it must end ..GHT which didnt help. given that assumption, the U didnt quite work, so I had even half-convinced myself that 23 was BATTERED, as a double definition “I was so battered I had to go to bed” and the spread being the culinary battering. This gave me words such as NAUGHT and TAUGHT but still was no further on.

    The annoying thing is I even had MINT pencilled in for lots of money but with the “get in” part assumed it to be in the middle.

    I think the clue gets my COD just for the sheer annoyance it caused, and the fact that I spent about 50% of the time one it. Previously (it seems like ages ago) 28a had made me smile.

  2. 10 minutes here, taking longest to see the MINI-BUDGET / BUTTERED pair; also held up briefly by starting with INN instead of BAR; I’ve seen lawyers looking quite at home in both environments. Interesting to note that between them, 19 across and 4 down don’t actually mention cheese in any direct way in the clues, which struck me as a device much more redolent of the Guardian than the Times.
  3. Some will be unhappy but I for one am grateful for this string of straightforward, but enjoyable,
    puzzles as I have been out early all week, likewise tomorrow.

    Stupidly wrote RIGHT-UP instead of WRITE-UP which slowed me down for a while. Thought for a little while that the actor TREE was making a perverse appearance.

    COD – ACCENTS for its simplicity.

  4. An angst free 17 min. Nothing horrendous, and nothing outstanding. They don’t come much more accessible than this.
  5. Well, by contrast, I spent ages on this: 49 mins to be precise. Probably because I couldn’t (as I usually do) see the anagrams at 25ac, 2dn and 17dn straight off. I wondered if there’s something else going on at 18ac. “What editor gives” could be LEADERS and “those who see the Times” might be HIP. Not a likely parsing but there’s a vague possibility here of a double clueing??
    1. >”What editor gives” could be LEADERS and “those who see the Times” might be HIP. Not a likely parsing but there’s a vague possibility here of a double clueing??

      That would leave “after initial change of hands” flapping about uselessly in the wind somewhat and there’d be no definition.

      1. Indeed. Maybe I should have said “a hint” or some such. Never took the idea seriously for a moment.
  6. Strangely, I started with all the 3-letter words, which are usually the hardest. Then I made steady progress with similar hold-ups to Peter and others. For a long time I wanted Writer to be Marker Something. I finished with Mini-budget and Theatre. My run of success was within a whisker of coming to an end as I was about to write-in Trestle thinking, like Barry, that the wordplay was something to do with Herbert Beerbohm.

    I’ve been meaning to ask for some time about the “good for one” sort of substitution that we see at 22 today and probably most days. Is this a new weapon in the setters’ armoury? I don’t remember seeing it before this year and I’ve been doing crosswords off and on for about 40 years.

    1. I’ve just looked in the first puzzle I blogged here, 23763 in November 2007 and at 13A it had DALLY with one L being changed to an I to give the answer of DAILY. I was quite surprised by your comment.
  7. Another very straightforward puzzle in what is turning into quite a long run of such fare. This one is not so entertaining as others have been and I finished it in a mechanical 15 minutes.

    I solved VAMPISH on screen as the puzzle was printing from the definition and V-AM but also thought PISH=bunk was odd. Struggled a bit with M SPARK, my last in. Liked MINI BUDGET but thought almost immediately of move=BUDGE which led quickly to the answer.

    Are they trying to lull you Cheltenham Chaps into a false sense of security?

  8. 11:02 here. No real holdups, although I also thought of TRESTLE as the only thing that would fit 29A, until I remembered THEATRE. Never heard of BUCK RAREBIT, but what else could it have been? Last in was PERIODICAL, for which I didn’t even bother to figure out the wordplay.
  9. I made heavier weather of this than I should have, finishing in about 35 minutes. Like others, my last were MINI BUDGET and THEATRE and I too had not come across BUCK RAREBIT, but it was easy enough to guess.
  10. Anyone else having TCC login problems? I’m putting in correct email/password but keep getting prompted to re-enter.
    1. Hi Anax. I’ve just taken your name in vain on the last Mephisto blog. Have you tried removing cookies?
      1. Hi Jim
        Yep – tried that, still no joy. I’ve now emailed customer services to see if they can help (Oi! Stop laughing) but wanted to check here first just in case others were having problems.
        1. At the risk of raising your Grrr count still further, Anax, I’ve been unable to download the Race the Clock feature of the Concise for at least a month now (though I can still fill in the puzzle online by clicking on the PLAY button). No explanation or advice offered by customer services has been of the slightest use.
          1. ‘ll have to wait the usual “three working days” and see what happens, but I suspect “Grrr” may end up with further r extensions.
            Just to make matters worse, after deleting cookies (which I was going to do, Jimbo – you haven’t given me any wrong advice) I now find that Facebook knows nothing about me beyond my original entry in 2007; friends, groups, applications etc. – all gone.
    2. I have that happen all the time. But despite it repeatedly coming back to the login page I really am already logged in. So then I go to http://crosswordclub.timesonline.co.uk/crossword/print?type=1 an then I can print the crossword (or put “play” instead of “print” to solve online).

      Customer service failed to fix it and simply say it’s something to do with cookies, caching etc (which it probably is, I have no problem if I use Safari instead of Firefox).

      1. Yeh, some browsers just won’t do it. I’ve never been able to get in using Camino (weapon of choice) but I know others who have. Always have to switch to Safari to get puzzles, using the URL you mention as a tabbed bookmark.
  11. I thought it easier than yesterday but still took 40 minutes; held up in the end by the mini-budget and buttered. I think I’m always foiled by utter, in whatever guise it takes. I hadn’t heard of Muriel, but realise to my shame that I should have, having discovered she created Miss Jean Brodie. I must watch that movie someday. I liked IMPOUNDS but COD to the BUDGET.
  12. Agreed. Another straightforward one, though not as much fun as yesterday’s. 23 mins for me. One or two clues were almost absurdly easy – e.g. WELL at 5dn and BAR at 27ac where any hesitation was caused only by the few seconds spent wondering whether the solutions could really be that obvious.

    I understand the questioning by Peter B, Jimbo and no doubt others in due course of PISH = bunk in 1ac. I’d be prepared to defend it, partly because the surface reading and wordplay otherwise are so nice, on the grounds that although all dictionaries do indeed define “pish” as an exclamation of impatience/contempt/ridicule etc, I think it’s fair to say that in almost any context in which the word would be used (which can’t be often nowadays) the exclaimer would be expressing impatience etc with what he or she regarded as nonsense. In other words, it’s a shorthand way of saying: “I think you are talking a lot of rot/bunk/nonsense”.

  13. 23:23 .. I thoroughly enjoyed this one – lots of bright, witty surfaces and devices. I enjoyed Bond’s enemy (24a) and the vampish 1a.

    On the subject of 1a and the grammar of ‘pish’, isn’t it a noun meaning “nonsense” in a certain brand of coarse vernacular Scots? I’ll defer to anyone with a good dictionary or a Scottish heritage that they didn’t buy from a website, but I’m pretty sure it’s used that way.

    First in IMPART, last in THEATRE (after flirting with ‘trestle’). COD could be BUTTERED or NOUS, or VAMPISH or ACCENTS, but sometimes it’s just nice to see an underused and deserving word getting some PR, so I’ll give it to 1d VAMOOSE.

    1. You beat me too it on pish. I can’t find any dictionarial support, mind, but I’ve definitely heard Scots used it as a noun meaning nonsense or rubbish (often when watching the Bucharest Anteater Orchestra play at the Glasgow Empire).
      1. That must have been the time they were pelted off the stage with deep-fried Mars bars, to cries of “.. and Sting’s pish, too!”

        Best I can find is at the (very useful) Online Scots Dictionary at scots-online.org, who offer: pish [pɪʃ, pɪs] n. Urine. Something of no value, rubbish.

        1. …if not actually used by the man himself, was a popular vocal filler used when doing impersonations of Robert Robinson in his Ask The Family chairman role.
    2. “Pish” is defined as a noun meaning “Rubbish, nonsense” in both SOED and Chamber’s Dictionary of Slang. The latter also has it separately as a Scottish/Irish word meaning PIS*.
      1. Well researched, Jack. I think that clinches it for the “PISH = bunk is OK” faction, and confirms VAMPISH as my COD.
        1. I’m never quite sure which version of Oxford dictionary the Times uses as its source. I used to rely on the Concise but now I also have the Shorter Oxford in two volumes, and then again there’s the one-volume version that Susie Dent uses on Countdown, whatever that’s called. Perhaps Peter can throw some light on this?
          1. The xwd ed seems reluctant to make any official statements about his policies, but Tim Moorey’s book seems to have it about right – “The principal dictionaries used by Times setters are the latest versions of Collins English Dictionary and the Concise Oxford Dictionary.” This allows for the occasional variation which we observe from time to time. As long as the answer is clear, this is fine with me – solving should be done by thinking rather than dictionary checking, and the wordplay was clear once VAMPISH was considered as an answer. I’m pretty sure Susie Dent uses the Oxford Dictionary of English, which has a full set of encyclopaedic entries as Collins used to have. Just acquired one so I’ll be looking out to see how often proper nouns used in the puzzles are in it.

            Edited at 2009-09-30 11:01 pm (UTC)

  15. Late on parade today as there’s a new regime at work on personal access to the internet except at lunchtimes.

    25 minutes. A straightforward solve that flowed nicely. 18ac and 14dn were my last in

  16. 27:50 – a good time for me. Glad it was a quick one as I didn’t have much time today.

    Started quickly enough, although slowed down a bit by inventing MURIEL PARKS. As is so often the case, I spent 10 minutes on the last half dozen. Today it was 6, 12, 13, 14, 16 & 29 although I was pretty sure of 13 but hadn’t heard of it so I wanted a checking letter in BUCK before writing it in.

    Last in was THEATRE, and like several others, I had to restrain myself from going down the TRESTLE route.

  17. Similar experience to some others here, with all but 14 and 29 done in 20 minutes, then it took a while to get 14, the light dawning after I put the puzzle down, when I realised “lots of money” must be MINT. I also played with TRESTLE for 29. So easy overall with a MINI HOLD-UP.
  18. Like a lot of us, I spent about 15 mins on everything except mini-budget/buttered and then about 10 minutes on those two. That …g-t was just too tempting not to mentally put in an “h”. With “get” appearing in the clue, it seeemd unlikely to appear in the answer, but it did.
  19. 5 mins to fill in lh half then out till after lunch – now another 6 mins has cracked it (top downwards), similar experience to many with the mini-budget & theatre in last. Enjoyed the cheeses and the past tense in 25a but agree not the most exhiliarating solve.
  20. 14 minutes while eating with a fork so very straightforward. Last in were theatre and then mini-budget and also took a while to work out whether biking or bikini was the correct answer.

    COD vampish despite the reservations expressed above as it worked fine for me. I also thought acid in Loire reversed was a rather good discovery.

  21. I ummed for a while on whether ‘biking’ or ‘bikini’ fit better – it seemed that either could be justified, but I went with the latter in the end.

    Ended up without ‘periodical’ because for some reason I’d put ‘pre-send’, which doesn’t mean anything, in as the intersector.

    I enjoyed NOUS, BUTTERED and ACCENTS.

  22. 12.25. Would have been about 3 minutes quicker had i not had a real problem with my hazard at TRESTLE. Took a couple of minutes to see that it wasn’t really on and another minute to find THEATRE (which is a pretty poor show on my part).
    As a Scot I have to say that PISH is definitely not in polite usage (certainly not to be used in front of your parents/children or strangers)but is in ‘common’ use as an alternative to rubbish or ‘the other meaning’
  23. 11:52. I too thought at first it was TRESTLE, so I am comforted that I’m not the only one. And I too stared for ages and needed nearly all checking letters before spotting MURIEL SPARK, which should have been really easy. I got MINI-BUDGET from the wordplay, but it wasn’t a familiar phrase (though Chambers gives it, so that’s OK) and I think the &lit is a bit obscure.
    No problems with VAMPISH, which I solved straight away.
  24. Hmm – good point. I’ve definitely logged in with correct details because I reach my profile, the earliest entries posted etc etc; everything’s there for editing, adding to, whatever. It’s just that it all stops at Oct 2007.
  25. Is anyone else finding their loyalty to the crossword challenged by the repetitive and relentless slaughtering of Gordon Brown by the excellent draughtsman Peter Brookes, presumably on Rupert Murdoch’s orders. Or Is this comment out of order here.
    If so, apologies.
  26. About 20 minutes here, last entries being the MINIBUDGET/BUTTERED pair. COD to BUTTERED. However, I admit to musing for a while over BIKING/BIKINI, and I went with the atoll, so perhaps 1 wrong, although I also feel you can go either way. First entry was MAR, although I saw VAMPISH right away but hesitated due to unfamiliarity with PISH. ALso didn’t know RUMBLE as ‘discover’, or BUCK RAREBIT. I also liked VAMOOSE and the hidden ENDORSE. Regards to all.
    1. “At” tells you to put one next to the other. It’s up to the solver to work out which way round they go. You’ll find this happens a lot with at, with, by and so on.
  28. Why is it BIKING rather than BIKINI? I think it can be read either way. This is something I mentioned a few days ago for another similar clue.
  29. 1. The clue reads “cycling’s” meaning “cycling is [as follows]” – and biking (cycling) “is” bikini with g substituted for i. If the clue were “cycling trades good for one…,” then the answer would indeed be bikini. Admittedly, that’s a lot of analysis just to solve one letter!

    2. There have been many comments on mini-budget, but no explanation of how the clue relates to “mini-budget” as the answer. “One move” is “ibudge” which gets “in lots of money” (mint). I solved that, but I still do not see how “mini-budget” itself relates to the clue.

  30. Research on Google reveals that “mini-budget” appears to be a commonly-used term in certain countries (other than the US) for a governmental budget which, presumably, may include revenue-raising measures as well as spending proposals so that it is “one move to get in lots of moeny.” Have I answered my own question (in previous comment) correctly?
    1. Yes – as far as I can tell without checking the exact text of the clue – just off out.

Comments are closed.