Times 24351 – something tasty, something naughty and one old king

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time : 19 minutes, found this a struggle, though the words are not that unusual, I had a tough time justifying a few and held back on pulling the trigger a few times. At the end I’m left with 23 down, and an answer that makes perfect sense for the wordplay, but doesn’t seem to ring any bells. I wrote it in, couldn’t find it in Chambers or Bradfords, and then googled to find it, and I think I have the right answer, but I’m open to suggestions. I should add that the wordplay for 21 wasn’t obvious until I wrote the blog.

Across
1 SWEATSHIRT: anagram of (HAT,IS,TREWS) and a nicely-hidden definition of “top”
6 OPAL: O, then LAP (of luxury) reversed
9 D.I. PLOD,O,CUS: At least I think so, the disrespectful term being D(etective) I(nspector) PLOD
12 COWARDLY LION: Didn’t see this as being an anagram for a while, had LION in there before seeing the rest. Bottle = nerve from the “Wizard of Oz”
15 PEDAGOGUE: PE, then AGOG in DUE
17 LEGIT: double definition, one cryptic with LEG IT
19 O.D,D ONE OUT
20 BUTTERSCOTCH: UTTERS (comes out with),C in BOTCH – saw the answer from definition before wordplay Edit: I left out the C originally, sorry about that
25 EVALUATION: L for C in EVACUATION
26 EATS: First letters in Seaside Taking An Early reversed
27 TROTSKYIST: T then anagram of (TO,TRY,KISS) – I also toyed with an anagram of TIME TO TRY X, but that got me nowhere
 
Down
2 EX,P.O.: The P.O. part is Pilot Officer
3 THOR,OUGH(t),B,RED: now that is a charade
4 HOO(d),HA(t): nearly thrown by the “have” in the clue, but it’s just there as a link word for the surface
5 ROUND(=bullet),HEAD: Wouldn’t they go cross-eyed from the thing in the front of their helmets?
7 PEEPING,TOM: where TOM is M.O.T. reversed
8 LIE IN STATE: double definition, which always reminds me of this not safe for work Derek and Clive bit. It’s not a double definition is it, it’s LIE IN, STATE (say).
11 BY A LONG CHALK: I hadn’t heard of the expression, but easily gotten from the wordplay – anagram of G,BALCONY, then HAL,K
13 SPACEBORNE: my favorite charade – CAP in ENROBES, all reversed
14 ADJUSTMENT: JUST,MEN in (TAD)*
16 GLOSS OVER: double defintion, the first rather cryptic
21 OWLET: Warrant Officer reversed, then LET (cancelled serve from tennis)
22 MIDI: hidden reversed – between a MAXI and a MINI
23 C,NUT: at least I think so, found a reference but this was really a guess from wordplay.

36 comments on “Times 24351 – something tasty, something naughty and one old king”

  1. When I was at school he was known as King Canute, but I believe Cnut is the spelling he himself would have used.

    He is most famous for ordering the tide not to come in; which is often cited as an example of a regal stupidity, but in truth, was his demonstration to his sycophantic courtiers that he was only a king and not nearly as powerful and godlike as they made out. Phrases along the line of “you might as well tell the tide not to come in,” “trying to hold back the tide” etc. all relate to this instance.

    Unless English history lessons have seriously declined in recent years, I doubt that any English solvers would find this at all difficult. I must concede that it could be a serious puzzler for non-Brits. (Possibly even for non-English; the Scots, Welsh and Irish have their own list of Middle-Age kings to learn about…)

  2. 41:29 .. I found this insanely hard. And I’m still recovering.

    First in 18a CRUMB (which tells you something), last in TROTSKYIST.

  3. Bit harder again today: so 28 mins. 19ac was begging for OUT AND OUT (“Thoroughly”) at first sight but turned out to be a communist sprat. Note the slight headgear theme: two of ’em in 4dn and two hats in 1ac and 13dn. Thought this might extend to a “dress/es” theme via ENROBES at 13dn and DONE OUT (dressed up [as]) at 19: but not to be. Though there’s also a repeat of comfort(ably).
    COD to 9ac for a good laugh at DI PLOD!
    George: do you need to add the C for “cold” in the blog entry for 20ac?
      1. Strange you should say this. As a true devotee of The Method, I did indeed catch the flu at the time, to really get to the essence of the word.
  4. Found this quite a struggle – 14:09. Last few in were 13 (thought of earlier but rejected as too silly a word), 24, 23 – pesky four-letter words! CNUT is tough from ?N?T as both the C and the U can only occur in this word. I was driven to brief consideration of EVALUATING at 25A, which just about works.

    Quite a few entered without understanding full wordplay – 19, 3 and 7 for example.

    “Tough Cnut” pun not intended!

    Edited at 2009-10-08 07:44 am (UTC)

  5. This English solver stuck KNUT in 23dn.
    Not blogged as presumably too easy were:
    10ac – stuck in EERY but no idea really?
    1dn – stuck in SIDE, sounds like sighed – side for perspective?
    24ac – stuck in REEK (gas!)?
    Horrid. Going back to bed.
    1. 1 Dn Yes fine. As in my side of the argument.
      10 ac: fete. aFtErThE missing the odd chars = party
      24 ac = reel. Think winding in a fishing line, and reeling from a whack on the head.

      I was bamboozled, but eventually finished all but 23 dn. Once seeing a K(ing) for royal, followed by a head first ton (century) giving KNOT, I was utterly stranded.

    2. 10a FETE – remove odd letters from aFtErThE
      1d SIDE = perpective, from my side anyway
      24a REEL = wind as in turn, hit yourself about the head until reeling !
    3. Assuming your lie-in is now over, I can sympathise with LAY as an alternative to LIE in both wordplay and answer (which presumably gave you ?E?Y, tempting you into EERY).

      1. Just home after very long day. Thanks to Peter, Anon and Verbereus for enlightenment, and yes Peter, I had Lay instead of Lie. One of only 3 solved on initial run through, and was so relieved to get something at least that did not consider alternative (and then in too much of a hurry to reconsider).
        Of course I didn’t go back to bed. I seem to have become the local IT trainer to elderly branch members of the Neo-Luddite Movement. This involves getting the kit, setting kit up, getting on the internet etc. Today was day 1 of training for one of these people ie a 67 year old who has never used a keyboard, let alone a PC, a day which ended with us practically trading blows, and was one of the longest of my life. Tomorrow I have another early start with another person of similar experience. I hope the xwd is less of a monster than today’s.
  6. Like Sotira, found this very hard, a real slog. Didn’t help myself by having O-PEN at 2dn for a long time.
  7. This was the third difficult one in a row for me. At least most others are in agreement but I found it no harder than yesterday’s which people seemed to agree was a doddle. Important breakthroughs were the lift and separate of Top hat at 1 and getting the Wizard of Oz connection at 12. Thanks to George for the explanation of Owlet. Thanks to Barry for the alternative answer to 24 but I think the DD of Reel just pips his CD of Reek.

    It was King Canute at school for me too but I know that he had changed his name by at least 1970 when I was a schoolteacher. I remember my history colleague complaining to me how embarrassingly difficult it was teaching dyslexic children to spell his new name.

  8. Sorry to repeat:
    George, do you need to add the C for “cold” in the blog entry for 20ac?

    1. Yes, and now I’m back in the world of the awake, it shall be done, thanks for pointing it out.
  9. Stopped the clock at just over an hour with REEL and SPACEBORNE still to get. Another 10 minutes or so of serious brain activity gave me the latter and the former followed. It was a struggle from the outset, but one worth the effort. I don’t think they come much better than this. Can there be a COD amongst so many gems. I’ll nominate BUTTERSCOTCH.
  10. I’m with Sotira on this. Brain-scramblingly hard. Any times under 20 mins (e.g Peter B, George – brilliant blog in the circumstances) were outstandingly good for this puzzle in my book. Personally, I lost count of time, and only completed with resort to aids. Even then I had two wrong solutions, having carelessly entered TROTSKYITE instead of TROTSKYIST at 27ac, as a result of which I could come up with nothing better than the plainly unsatisfactory ONCE for 23dn. Still, I suppose we were due a tough’un after the string of relatively easy puzzles. There was nothing unfair, and lots of wonderfully ingenious wordplay and cryptic or well-disguised definitions – DIPLODOCUS, COWARDLY LION, BUTTERSCOTCH, SPACEBORNE and OWLET stood out for me, but there were plenty of others.
  11. My worst disaster for ages. I ran out of commuting time (roughly 45 minutes with a couple of short breaks getting on and off the train) with barely a quarter completed, all on the RH side apart from EATS at 26ac. Returning to it later I used a solver to unscramble the anagram at 1ac and get myself going, and I struggled on from there using aids to solve three or four others along the way. Gave up on 23dn as the Chambers solver didn’t offer anything feasible. I should have tried Word Matcher because Cnut is in there.

    Just couldn’t get into this one.

  12. I didn’t feel this was as hard as some above, but I did take 45 minutes to finish it. I had no real hold-ups until I got to the end, when I couldn’t see the answer to 23 from _ G _ T (yes, I’d put EVALUATING for 25 – see Peter’s comment above). Even when I corrected it I very nearly entered KNUT, but saw my error in time. The other problem was 5, the penultimate entry. I saw ROUNDHEAD, but it clashed with 19, for which I’d entered OUT AND OUT for “thoroughly”, bypassing the wordplay, which I didn’t follow, and moving on. My time allocation was over, so instead of rethinking the whole clue I altered the first OUT to OLD, even though OLD AND OUT didn’t ring any bells.
    Re the blog on 8, I don’t see it as a double definition. The wordplay is LIE IN (what late risers do)+ STATE (say). Apologies if someone has already said this. I rather liked this clue – my choice for COD, though there are plenty of others in contention. A good puzzle.
    1. I parsed 8 the same as you but read the blog too quickly to spot that George saw it differently.
      1. I must try blogging sober one of these days. It isn’t a double definition, is it – I was just too happy to see the Derek and Clive bit on youtube.
  13. I must have homed in on the setter’s wavelength early doors, Clive, as I polished this off in 20 minutes. Lots of lovely quirky stuff in here particularly plod and leg it, the latter getting my nod for COD.
  14. Perhaps half an hour, last in was 19A ODD ONE OUT. A refreshingly different and quirky crossword – appropriately so for a new grid. Hard to choose a COD, I think I’ll go for 26A EATS for a pleasingly smooth initial letters clue. In 4D, I assumed that ‘truncate’ could be used intransitively but can’t find support for this – so I’m not sure how to explain ‘have’ other than as a ‘dislocated link’.

    Tom B.

    1. I assumed that I would find an intransitive use if I bothered to check the dictionaries, but now that you’ve mentioned it I cannot find support for this either, so I don’t think the clue works.
    2. Fair point on truncated – I didn’t check this point but do remember mild surprise about it.

      This grid is anything but new – it’s number 1, so it’s one of the 25 designs by Edmund Akenhead back in 1965 – 13 of which are still in use. All new grids since then have been given numbers higher than any previously used, so the new ones are 93-99.

    3. The Oxford Shorter does support an intransitive use, but this seems to be from the realm of mathematics.
  15. 30 minutes on a very enjoyable puzzle that always required maximum concentration and detailed clue analysis. I also don’t like the “have” at 4D because with a leading H I kept trying to truncate “have” before I got the O in DIP… and then it had to be HOO(d).

    Lots of very good clues. Helping grandchildren with GCSE exams enabled me to get CNUT in his new shortened form.

  16. 20.30 Found this really tough and only got 3 answers on first reading. Pretty good fun and although George is right that the words are not unusual there are a few that we don’t see often in the Times – SPACEBORNE , COWARDLY LION , HOO HA and of course old king CNUT. Also found some of the simpler words clued in an ingenious way.
    One out of the top drawer for me
  17. About 45-50 minutes, but still had to go to the computer for assistance on OWLET and ODD ONE OUT, so stumped by the wordplays for those. Very clever puzzle that started out smoothly up top, but became much tougher across the whole bottom half. Well blogged George. I also was unfamiliar with LONG CHALK. I really liked a lot of this, too many to mention them all, but amoung the standouts are SWEATSHIRT, GLOSS OVER and EATS. Nice going, setter. Regards.
  18. I found this moderately hard, but evidently not as hard as some.

    Re 4dn, I took it, wrongly no doubt, as “hoods” and “have” truncated by 2 to make hoo-ha.

  19. Did it v. late last night and did not finish before dropping off, completed early am. and glad to find now I have done it, and time to look here now I have dealt with today’s easier offering, that it was hard!
  20. Had to hold this over till today for a variety of reasons. Agree it was really good, 44 mins. Favourites, PEDAGOGUE, CNUT and EATS.

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