Times 24,345

Author   richardvgPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 15:23

Reasonably steady solve until after 10 minutes I had only three left (4 (SUBSTANCES), 6 (THE BEAR) and 7 (COMMA)). And they took another 5 minutes. Looking at them now I can’t exactly see why.

Elsewhere, the words that were least familiar to me (AMRITA, TINEA) were very clearly clued. And I can’t see anything else that is obscure.

Out of lots of good clues, I think my favourite is the anagram at 2 (LA DOLCE VITA)

Across

1 (i)SLAM
4 SUB(STANCE)S
9 A D(MITT)ANCE – “offering” is a lavish link-word
10 SMEE (initial letters) – Barrie’s Peter Pan’s Captain Hook’s sidekick
11 P(L)A’S MA
12 FEED BACK – because “maDE EFfort” contains FEED(rev)
14 METE – there are three notes ending E. I thought of the other eight possibilities (allowing repetitions) before getting to the right one
15 R + ETIREME + N.T. – the bit in the middle being (EREMITE)*
17 FIFTY-FIFTY – obvious from the definition. I guess it is a longer limited overs match because amateur games tend to be between 30 and 50 overs? According to Wikipedia, 50 is standard in internationals. This betrays my deep ignorance of cricket. Apparently Twenty20 is now very fashionable. Thanks to anon and Peter for pointing this out.
20 NO(v)EL – gets earlier every year
21 P(A TERN)AL – I started off looking for something contained in “GAOL” to mean “caged”, but it is just a containment indicator
23 AMR + I + TA, AMR being ARM* – unfamiliar word (at least to me), clued in the clearest way possible
25 ADRENA(LI)NE, the container being (DEAR ANNE)*
26 TEAM PLAYER – not sure whether to describe as a single cryptic definition, or as two definitions, the second cryptic. But the two meanings are not very different.
27 S.A.S. + H(ard)

Down

2 LA DOLCE VITA – (VOLATILE CAD)*
3 MA(IN + SHE)ET – the container being (TEAM)(rev)
5 BE + NEFIT OF CLERGY – the second part being (GLORY IN EFFECT)*
6 T(HEBE)AR
7 COMMA(nders)
8 SHEIK (=”shake”)
16 MAN DRILLS – despite my trying to justify “marmosets”
18 F(ANT)AIL – there are also ants in 13D
19 Y + EARNER – that’s the Arthur Daley sense of EARNER, generally being “nice” and “little”
21 PIC(O)T – my knowledge of this decoration is confined to crosswords
22 TINE + A – only vaguely knew this skin condition, but the clueing is straightforward

38 comments on “Times 24,345”

  1. So, an excellent week so far for relative beginners like me. Plenty of unknown words but generally deducible from wordplay. I fear for Friday’s blogger.
  2. Getting harder (13:12) but not a stinker. Enjoyed fifty-fifty as an alternative to “Twenty20”. Slow start with 10 and 17 the first two acrosses cracked. Last two answers were 22 and the neatly done 24.
  3. Anagram heaven, got in fast in the top half and bottom right hand corner (25a clue too laboured for my liking) and then had mental block over those old friends at 21a and 21d and same hesitation as blogger over the notes. Team player broke it free, 12m.
  4. Pleased to get this out in 16 mins — especially as there was only one full (and a couple of part-) anagrams. SHEIK: a great homophone (though I’m waiting to be corrected on this) and with a frisson for us Zappa fans. Didn’t know HEBE was a plant; just the usual cup-bearer meaning and the wonderful word for anti-paranoia, “hebephrenia”. Wonder if we’ll get that one day?
    Took for ever to find the DEEF in 12ac and kicked myself when I saw it. Quibble: what’s the “suitable” doing in 20ac?
    1. That’s a good quibble on 20A. I am pretty indulgent to words that are superfluous to the cryptic reading but help the surface, but “suitable” is difficult to fit in. Perhaps (though Chambers does not support) NOEL can be used as a nounal adjective in the way that “yule” (log) and “Christmas” (cracker) can be?
      1. If you think of “suitable for” as “fits” (after detaching the “very”) then no problem.
        1. I don’t quite follow. Do you mean that “fits” would be acceptable as a link-word, or that the verb phrase starting with “fits” can clue NOEL? I can see that either is just about arguable.
          1. Substitute “Is a way of clueing” for “suitable for” to catch my drift. Remembering that “Book not very” (NO(v)EL) stands on its own.
    2. I thought the opposite of paranoia was narapoia, as originally espoused by sci-fi writer Alan Nelson (aka Dr Manly J. Departure):

      “Well, for one thing, I keep thinking that I’m following someone.”

      “You mean you think someone is following, you, don’t you?” the doctor corrected.

      “No. No, I don’t! I mean that while I’m walking along the street, suddenly I have this feeling there is somebody just ahead of me. Somebody I’m after. Someone I’m following. Sometimes I even begin to run to catch up with him! Of course — there’s no one there. It’s inconvenient. Damned inconvenient. And I hate to run.”

      1. My source is Thomas Pynchon. It goes something like: a paranoid sees patterns where there aren’t any; a hebephrenic can’t see them even when they’re obviously there. I’m happily of the latter variety.
        1. My source is Douglas Adams, but it’s apparent that Marvin the Paranoid Android was a manic depressive rather than paranoid per se:

          Why should I want to make anything up? Life’s bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it.

  5. A few moments of panic, but all resolved in 21 min. COD: FEEDBACK. The few unknowns or doubtfuls (AMRITA,PICOT) were solidly clued, so quite gettable.
  6. Was pleased to finish this without aids in about 30 minutes.

    Entered PICOT, TINEA, AMRITA, SMEE and BENEFIT OF CLERGY from the wordplay. Thanks for explaining FEEDBACK – I put that in from the definition.

    Had thought SHEIK was only spelt SHEIKH until today!

    Re 17: I think ‘longer’ is in the clue because the most popular form of cricket these days is ‘Twenty20’ – twenty overs per side.

  7. 13:22 here, but the last two minutes of that were taken up with METE. Didn’t like the clue at all, as I think ME and TE are actually spelt MI and TI. But I’m sure if I checked the dictionary it would give both alternatives. I’ve seen LA DOLCE VITA a few times this year in various crosswords, each time clued as a different anagram. “Volatile Cad” has to be one of the better ones though!
    1. I think the spelling of the notes depends on what side of the Channel you come from, and possibly also whether they’re from the solfeggio or tonic solfa system (which you’d think would be the same things, but apparently not).
  8. 11 mins, despite starting badly by entering DA VINCI CODE without a thorough check of the anagram. BENEFIT OF CLERGY was a new phrase for me. I was also a bit unsure about SHEIK, which more commonly has an H on the end.
  9. Another 40 minute effort with no major holdups. I liked the volatile cad, too, but COD to FEEDBACK.
  10. 8.30 which seems a good time. 17 a bit tricky for non-cricket buffs.Vague idea of PICOT and AMRITA , and TINEA a definite unknown but as Richard says the cluing was clear and the checking letters left no doubt
    The trio of 6,7,8 could have caused a few problems for different reasons, but didn’t, which helped a lot.
    12 and 20 were my COD’s ,deceptive but easy to solve from the definitions and checking letters
  11. I’m impressed, and a tad depressed, that anyone can find this puzzle “as easy as they come”. I would agree with Peter B that it’s not a stinker, but it struck me as as being of above average difficulty, and certainly tougher than recent puzzles. The strong clues have already been mentioned. I had a similar experience to richardvg’s with 6dn, THE BEAR, which was the last to go in. COMMA went in at 7dn early on, as a guess, but I only worked out the wordplay sometime after completion. AMRITA and TINEA previously unknown to me, but eminently getable from the wordplay. Good work-out. No time kept, but getting on for an hour, I should think.
    1. Just more proof that difficulty can be very different for different people. The bottom half was much easier for me than the top, and I suspect about two more first-time solutions in the top would have reduced the time quite a bit, though not to a personal best time for me. It’s also possible that people prepared to spend 20-30 seconds pondering a clue on first sight might solve a different set first time than those who move on after about 5 seconds if nothing comes to mind.
      1. Yes, indeed. I’m struck by how often puzzles that I find easy or easyish others find difficult and, of course, vice versa. The wavelength thing must be part of the explanation. It also helps, I think, not to allow oneself to become mesmerised – like the proverbial rabbit transfixed by the oncoming headlights – by clues where solutions don’t immediately suggest themselves. These will often become clear quite suddenly when returned to later, particularly if the odd checking letter is by then available. It’s amazing how often the availability of just one letter will trigger a solution that had seemed totally out of reach.
  12. I don’t keep time but I thought this was about as easy as they come. I started with 1ac and worked straight through without hold-ups, as plenty of the answers were apparent from definition alone.
  13. Crawled in just under the hour at 58:45. There were lots of words that were new to me – AMRITA, PICOT, TINEA, HEBE, MAINSHEET & BENEFIT OF CLERGY. But I give myself full marks for doggedness for finishing it without resorting to aids.

    COD to FEEDBACK, closely followed by MAINSHEET.

  14. 22 minutes which must be approaching my PB but I’ve stopped keeping records.

    Words guesssed from wordplay were PICOT, TINEA and AMRITA and if I’ve met BENEFIT OF THE CLERGY before, I have forgotten it. I didn’t know MAINSHEET was a rope, nor the meaning of PLASMA required here. Also I was unable to explain FEEDBACK in the time available.

    1. A question along the lines of “in nautical terms what is a sheet?” came up on Who Wants to be a Millionaire once. Two of the alternatives were a sail and a rope. The contestant asked the audience and more than half thought it was a sail so he went with that and lost the money.
      1. “No one ever lost money underestimating the public”. Seems the reverse is also true.
      2. Hm, well I’d have disputed that one. “Sheet” can mean a sail. It’s in Chambers, SOED and at dictionary.com. How else would we have come by the expression “three sheets to/in the wind” meaning “drunk” which refers to a ship carrying three sails to the wind being top-heavy and therefore unstable?

        But I’m not disputing “mainsheet” as that apparently has a specific meaning.

        1. You may well be right, but most commentators nowadays seem to want “sheets” in “three sheets to the wind” still to mean ropes or cables rather than sails. They point out that the expression was originally “three sheets in the wind”, though I am not sure how that helps their case. See for example: Quinlon or phrases.org
          1. Yes, Chamber’s Slang has both “To” and “In” with reference to this saying but still with reference to “sails”.

            Can’t get away from three other dictionaries having “sheet” = “sail” though, albeit noted as “poetic”. I’d have sued!

  15. 23:08 .. seemed to get harder as I went along.

    I missed the generic sense of the clue to BENEFIT OF CLERGY and had to work out the anagram in painstaking detail – I was looking for an equivalent of Edict of Worms or some other place-specific proclamation.

    Last in THE BEAR, which I find a strange clue. COD has to be the ingenious FEEDBACK.

  16. I did most of this over my muesli but, as today is a walking day, I finished over coffee in a field near Hampton-in-Arden. I had a niggling worry about Feedback though and it was not until about ten minutes later, as I was walking down the lane that I twigged the deef reversal. I should have remembered my own axiom that, if a clue seems to be absolutely meaningless, look for the hidden word.

    Picot and Amrita were new to me and I thought Tinea was a hearing disorder. I have a bad feeling about tomorrow.

  17. Tricky puzzle, a tad under 20 minutes. Plenty of unfamiliar stuff but, as has been said, all very fairly clued.

    Picot, cone and tinea were last in.

  18. As you say, Peter, “difficulty can be very different for different people”. By far the most difficult clue for me was 14a, METE. Apart from that (at which I made a stupid guess, as I was trying to complete as quickly as possible), I took 10:23. The only word I didn’t actually know was AMRITA; I had guessed it and checking letters confirmed.
  19. Another straightforward one for me, just over 15 minutes. Worked left to right, top to bottom no hold ups no major queries no particular favourites. Yawn!
  20. Don’t have a time to report, as I had to continuously pick this up and put it down, but I also found it less than difficult. The bottom went in very quickly, then the top, but I confess I left 6D blank. I totally overlooked the (3,4) description, perhaps due to distractions, and wracked my brain trying for a 7-letter answer. I didn’t discover that I was in left field until coming here. Careless in the extreme, especially since T?E ?E?R and ‘from Russia’ together point pretty clearly where to go, and I had all the checking letters. So bad marks to me today, and regards to all of you more attentive people.

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