Times 24350

Author   petebiddlecombePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 7:20

A fairly smooth run, with 6A and all three of its danglers solved on first sight. At least three stock wordplays here, and two of the three fooled me on first reading – someone who gets all of them straight off could be in for a very quick time. But overseas solvers get credit for dealing with the two UK place names. Those who think we get too much literature should note the absence of the Wilmslow boy at 1, and detective Cuff at 21. Solved without understanding full wordplay: 6D, 19, 20.

Across
1 WIL(MS.)LOW – MS = manuscript. If you go to your local choir’s Christmas concert, you can be fairly sure that their music folders contain a little list identifying the location of the songs – either something like “CFC1, p. 100” for the ones in Carols for Choirs, or “MS” for the ones on loose sheets
6 ES = “initially expect Superman”,CAPE (S=superman, as seen on his chest, works for the cryptic reading but isn’t yet in COED)
9 ADMINISTRATOR = (or dramatist in)* – an anagram that I should possibly have seen on first look, though “play” is a fairly novel anagram indicaor
10 BISTRO = (ribs to)* – a definite “screamer” anagram clue which old hands should wolf down instantly
11 A,P=piano,P=player’s first,RAISE=increase
13 IMPERI(a)L,LED – an imperial is a type of beard. If you think cramming in advance of Cheltenham helps, “beards” might be an entry to check in Bradford’s Cossword Solver’s Dictionary, along with carriages, fish, rivers and all the others. Personally I’d say that looking back at some old puzzles is more likely to help.
15 COLE – 2 defs, and a nod to Lewis Carroll’s The Walrus and the Carpenter (“The time has come,” the Walrus said / “To talk of many things: / Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax– / Of cabbages–and kings– / And why the sea is boiling hot– / And whether pigs have wings.”)
16 E,BR(i)O – here’s one of those rivers
18 P(L)EASANTRY – a stock wordplay which fooled me on first look despite writing L next to “learner”.
21 HAND,CUFF (vb.) = strike – I saw worker = HAND/ANT but left the rest for help from checkers
22 ST.(R) IVES(s) – nice confusion over whether the resort contains HR=(hard, run) or just R=run
23 CON=prisoner,DESCENDING=being sent down – not the Oxbridge “sent down” for once
25 STREET = “setter” – “Way in which common man is” is the artful def., referring to the “man in the street” (waiting for the Clapham omnibus, perhaps)
26 DEADEN,D,S – nice Dickensian bluff by the xwd ed, giving us this puzzle after yesterday’s Silas Wegg.
 
Down
2 I,MAG,IS,M – Imagism is a poetry movement – watch out for Objectivism and Vorticism (and maybe make a mental note about -ISM).
3 MUM’S (THE) WORD – word = news = intelligence
5 W(ASS)AIL – beginners: watch out for the verbal meaning of “keen”
6 EURIPIDES – reversal of (pi, rue), then ides=”date in Rome”. I just saw the playwright and IDES
7 CUT – 2 defs, and a noun/verb change for the prune
8 PERU=country,SAL=girl – another stock wordplay and one that old hands should have been writing straight in
12 AU CONTRAIRE = (a routine car)* – using imported phrases is an old ruse for making anagrams a bit harder
14 IMP((docto)R)UDENT – another stock wordplay, missed first time despite seeing the R
17 BEARCAT – another name for the binturong apparently – a case of “never heard of it, but it must be”
19 EFFACED = (DECAF,F(iv)E) reversed – I liked “four out of five” which I don’t think I’ve seen before
20 RAV(e),AGED – saw the old instantly, but not the “gathering of the young”
22 SENNA = reverse of Anne’s
24 NiEcE – “born” is the literal meaning of née as used with married ladies’ original surnames.

41 comments on “Times 24350”

  1. I raced through this in about 12 minutes. As Peter indicates there is a strong feeling of deja vu in parts of this puzzle and a lot of the checking letters are quite helpful. WILMSLOW and ST IVES straight after Headingley yesterday is a bit hard on overseas solvers as neither are particularly well known places.
  2. Hoping for a sub-10 today after lots of answers went in quickly — helped by the 4 straight anagrams. But, alas, not to be. 11 mins in the end.
    Liked 13ac best. The imperial mo was named after Napoleon III who certainly was “in danger”. Especially after Bismarck lured him into a Sedan.
  3. 18 minutes for me today, which is about as quick as I get. Saw WILMSLOW on first reading and went off like the clappers in the top half. Slowed a bit in the bottom half with EFFACED the last in and, like Peter, I don’t recall seeing the “four out of five” device previously.
  4. I initially pencilled in VIGO, knowing it was a town in Spain and assuming it was also a river. Constructed as follows…

    Energy -> VIS
    Vivacity -> GO
    Pluck “one S”
    leaves VIGO

    Voila!

    Mike O, Skiathos

    1. I think {one’s = one S} would be a bit too much of the old-fashioned “punctuation may mislead” style for present-day Times puzzles.
  5. I knew you would say this was easy, I just knew.

    Why aren’t you lot out there curing the common cold or something?

    Would not have progressed without searches for Cheshire towns and Spanish rivers. Here for expanations for IMPERILLED and the common man stuff in STREET. Thought IMPRUDENT was devilish (PB has “stock”) as was EFFACED which gets my COD for “four out of five”.

  6. Not as fast as jimbo today – 9 & 10 in fast and top half down in 5m but slowed in SW corner for 17m in all. Last in that French anagram but pleased to find reading PB that I had got all the wordplays. 6d & 22a particularly satisfying.
  7. Au contraire, I found this difficult. I must still be a learner amongst the peasantry. Or maybe the way I was confused by the setter was not up my street. My breakthrough was Au Contraire: reinforcing Peter’s comment, I often find that if an anagram is impossible the answer must be a foreign phrase. This gave me Pleasantry leading to the last in, Effaced. This was annoying because I have seen the “four out of five” construction before, only last weekend in fact, in one of the prize crosswords. I wish I could remember which. I remember thinking at the time that I was not likely to meet it again in a hurry.

    I think I knew bearcat from the close harmony group Stutz Bear Cats (sic) who used to feature on the Des O’Connor Show. Apparently Stutz Bearcat is the name of a vintage car. One across rock has to be Wilmslow Bearcat.

  8. One of the easiest puzzles in recent weeks, I thought, but plenty of stuff none the less. EBRO was particularly neat. Somewhere between 15 and 20 mins, which must be close to a PB (as a rule of thumb I usually reckon to be 5 to 10 minutes slower than Jimbo). I didn’t know that an “imperial” could be a beard, so didn’t fully understand IMPERILLED until reading Peter’s blog. Got EURIPIDES quickly, having correctly assumed that “ides” had to be in there somewhere and then restrospectively saw the “pi, rue” reversal, but was mystified as to why “pi” (normally short for “pious”)should be “constant”. On reflection, I take it the reference here was in fact to pi as the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, or am I still missing something? (Mental note to self: pi is also a letter in the Greek alphabet and has some significance in chemistry which I don’t understand. Tricky little word.)

  9. In complete contrast to yesterday, whizzed through this in 5 minutes dead – the difference a day makes, huh?

    I’d agree that overseas solvers may have struggled with Wilmslow but, in fairness to the setter, this leafily affluent Cheshire town tends to get a fair bit of publicity thanks to its concentration of footballers’ homes (as does nearby Alderley Edge).

    Not a spectacular puzzle in terms of wordplay but no weaknesses either. I really struggled to parse 6D until I realised I’d spelt it EURIPEDES, and I have nagging doubts about the grammatical validity of “not even” at 24D. “Four out of five” is very good though; just a shame the clue’s surface isn’t bang on for smoothness.

    Q-0 E-6 D-5 COD 23 CONDESCENDING (not least because it’s infinitely better than one I’d written some time ago).

  10. On the easier side for me at 35 minutes. WILMSLOW didn’t help, but neither did EFFACED. I’m another one for whom the “iv out of five” construction was new. I also didn’t know imperial was a beard or ebro was a river and completely missed the Lewis Carroll reference at 15. I particularly liked the anagrams at 12 and 17 in what was generally a very concisely clued puzzle.

    Having Googled Wilmslow, I find it is also famous for being the one time home of Alan Turing, recently the recipient of a public pardon.

    Mention of patronising (at 23) always brings to mind the monsignor at the New Norcia bakery whose stock “have a nice day” phrase was “thankyou for patronising us”.

  11. 14:10 .. the first few clues had me thinking this was going to be a toughie. It took a while to readjust once I realised I’d misjudged it. Last in EFFACED.

    Almost a tour de force along the bottom with ‘steet dead ends’. Talking of which:

    One Across Rock .. emo glum merchants Escape from Wilmslow, and their debut album Songs from a Dead End Bistro.

    1. I’ve just decided that from now on I shall refer to Rolex watches as Wilmslow handcuffs.
      1. That’s really very good. And rather deep. I think that gets you a Morrissey Award for ironic profundity.
  12. 27:17 – Although I had to go back and justify 13 & 19 afterwards. Would have been faster if I’d spotted 1a earlier. As it was, it was one of the last ones ine. Considering I live about 8 miles from Wilmslow, and worked there up until 2 years ago, that was a pretty criminal oversight on my part.

    Didn’t know COLE = cabbage, BEARCAT, IMPERIAL = beard, IMAGISM or EFFACED.

    All in all an enjoyable puzzle with some good wordplay. COD 19 for the four out of five construction.

  13. BISTRO made me laugh out loud – is that what’s meant by “screamer”, or is it just that it’s screamingly obvious?

    I’d never in a million years have known about The Imperial, but I’m glad I do now.

    1. Screamingly obvious, I’d say. I’d wondered if the anagram idea could have been improved by incorporating “spare ribs to…” but I couldn’t latch anything onto the end of it. Briefly toyed with “Spare ribs to NOT take away” but the def isn’t solid enough.
    2. I mean that it’s obvious. Like “lift and separate”, it’s a contribution to our local jargon from current times champ Mark Goodliffe.
      1. Since we get so much ‘French art’, ‘German art’ would have made a nice change: German art from inside restaurant (6) for BISTRO?

        About 20 mins, with interruptions. Pretty sure I’ve seen the ‘four out of five’ device before, but can’t place it.

        And well done indeed, Russel – lovely use of ‘contracted’

        Tom B.

        1. Nice idea – maybe “from inside French restaurant”? Extra credit for any reference to the load of old cobblers from Hans Sachs at the end of Meistersinger – “even if the Holy Roman Empire should dissolve in mist, for us there would yet remain holy German Art!”
  14. Well, there’d have been a few complaints if the setter HAD referred to The Wilmslow Boy because his name was Winslow!

    28 minutes steady solve. No queries.

  15. Definitely far easier than yesterday’s. One of my faster times -17 minutes with pauses for drink. I don’t often get below that. I thought 5, 14, 19 and 20 were nice clues. If 14 is standard stuff I didn’t recognise it as such. Only 13 had me stumped for the wordplay.
  16. 11 minutes, though an interesting journey – crossword wouldn’t load on firefox at about 1am UK time, kept bumping me back to the login page saying my session had expired. Opera is my backup, which loaded the crossword, but there’s something odd in the way Opera prints, so I ended up with a grid with the number vertical rather than side by side.

    But then everything was pretty straightforward. I liked the anagram for AU CONTRAIRE and the wordplay for EFFACED. COLE from one of the deifnitions, IMPERILLED also from definition without being 100% on the wordplay.

    I’ll probably put up a placeholder way early tonight, I have a show tonight, and I’m not sure if I’ll get the blog done when I get back or early tomorrow morning (my time), depends on what the arrangement is with the venue. If I get my pay + bar tab, it’ll be tomorrow, if I have to pay for my own drinks, it’ll definitely be tonight!

  17. 9:51 for me. It helped a lot that I got WILMSLOW and ESCAPE straight away. I didn’t understand the wordplay for IMPERILLED and EFFACED until I checked the blog. IMAGISM took a while, though it was gettable from the wordplay.

    Decaffeinated coffee makes as much sense to me as deoxygenated air.

    1. Since recent versions of COED, Collins and Chambers, if you’ve never come across it in real life. (I’m assuming this isn’t a “call that a drink?” comment)
      1. I’ve learned something today because I had always thought that “decaffeinated” is shortened to “decaff”, and indeed this is supported by Chambers without even offering “decaf” as an alternative. So my reasoning was “DECAFF” reversed + letter four of “fivE”. I can see now that this was not what the setter intended but at least it led me to the correct answer
        1. Chambers Dictionary 11th ed (the latest one) has both decaf and decaff, but that’s a nice alternative route!
  19. 13:20 so back on track after yesterday’s poor showing.

    I’m not sure it was as straightforward as some are suggesting. In addition to the unfamiliar bearcat and imagism and not altogether well-known Ebro there were some tricky word usages in the wordplay such as imperial, keen, class, intelligence, fresh and gathering of young. The fact these didn’t cause me any real problems is testament to the progress I’ve made since being pointed towards this site.

    No real COD contenders for me.

  20. 6.24 Pretty quick with a bit of thinking needed for the unfamiliar BEARCAT, until I got EBRO. WILMSLOW did prove a hold up for some but I know the county reasonably well so wasn’t a problem when the last W was got. For me it was a puzzle where one answer led to another pretty seamlessly.A bit of a confidence boost before Cheltenham. Last in was 20 which was entered on definition only – the wordplay raised a smile when I’d worked it out so that was my COD
    1. 6:02 for me (I wouldn’t want you to start getting over-confident before Cheltenham ;-).

      See you there.

  21. ps – Forgot to add that I also didn’t have a clue about the beard part of the wordplay for IMPERILLED so it was entered on basis of definition and LED part of wordplay
  22. Went through without any real difficulties in 10-15 minutes. First in IMAGISM, last HANDCUFF/EFFACED together. Didn’t know WILMSLOW or the Imperial, but got them easily enough from the wordplay (1A) and the def. plus the LED (13A). I had heard of St. Ives, no real holdup. COD: EFFACED, like others have said, for the ‘four out of five’ device. Regards everybody.
  23. 13:18 for me today. I got all the wordplay while solving except for IMPERILLED and had never heard of a BEARCAT, so it was pretty straightforward. Just as well I can’t make it to Cheltenham, this year – I’d be well down the field on this week’s efforts so far!
  24. Andrew K. It has been a while since a completion for me; must be my regular diet of AZEDs helping. I got WILMSLOW without understanding it, so thanks Peter for the ‘MS’ explaination.

    I liked ‘AU CONTRAIRE’ and ‘CONDESCENDING’.

    Now for a more difficult task: producing a decent clue for the AZED competition!

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