Times 24372 – The airhead and the Dalmatian

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 31 minutes

Music: Vaughn Williams, Symphony #6, Boult/LPO.

When I first looked at this one, I was afraid I was in for a long night, reading through the clues for 10 minutes before entering an incorrect answer – 25 across, ‘seething’, not it at all. No, and not ‘Sardinia’ for 17 down either. Both quickly erased.

Then my solving instincts took over, and I started to fill in some short ones around the edges, and then some long ones. The only thing I wasn’t sure of was ‘spotted dog’, but I’m not up on those all those English deserts, although I do fancy a nice Trifle now and then. As it turned out, this was a high-quality puzzle of medium difficulty, with a few very witty clues.

Across
3 SPACE CADET, anagram of ACCEPTED AS. The literal is rather, er, literal. The slang sense has taken over in everyday speech, and might have provided a more of a challenge.
9 FINESSE, FINES + S + E. A wonderful clue. You are led to think the bridge partners part is a humdrum indicator for two letters, but the clue turns out to be bridge-themed &lit. If you rashly suppose that ‘in a way’ is calling for A RD or A ST, you won’t get anywhere.
11 PLUNDER, PL + UNDER. I was a little dense not to get this sooner, but obvious clues always confuse me.
12 PRESEASON, PRES(EA)S ON. I put this in from the cryptic, and thought it wasn’t a word at all. Then I realized it was – look what I found! I had expected ‘before play starts’ to have nothing to do with the theatre, and I was right.
14 FIELD MARSHAL, where MARSHAL sounds like MARTIAL.
14 YELLOWHAMMER, YELLOW + HAMMER. I was wondering what i.e. was doing here, then I saw you just have to take it literally.
22 BADMINTON, BAD + MINTON, where Minton refers to a brand of crockery. There was once a story in the Metro section of NY TImes where some lady called Macy’s and asked if they had badminton sets, and was put through to the domestics department!
24 MANDALA, MANDALA[y]. Not hard if you can remember both the city and the symbol – otherwise, hard.
25 SHEETED, anagram of THE SEED. Not a common usage for heavy rain, but in the dictionaries.
28 SPOTTED DOG, SPOTTED + DOG. A clue so simple, many solvers won’t see it. It would have helped to have heard of ‘spotted dog’, but I thought it likely because I had heard of ‘spotted Dick’.
 
Down
1 PUFF PUFF. The main problem here is how to treat ‘Thomas’, which seems likely to be the literal. Thanks and a tip of the hat to Oliver, age 2 1/2, who is really into choo-choos.
4 POETS, a cryptic definition, and a masterly one. Someone must be reading our complaints about capitalization in the clues. If you supply the missing capital, you will get Burns and Bridges, a pair of poets..
5 COPING SAW. I wanted to put in ‘SAW’ right away, but only later realized that ‘dated’ was pointing to it. I needed all the crossing letters before I saw ‘coping’.
6 COUNT PALATINE, COUNT + PAL + A + TINE. A Landgrave, a Margrave, a Count Palatine….they all seem to be very popular in these puzzles.
7 DODOES, DO + DOES. I suspected ‘do’ would be part of this, but wasn’t expecting it twice.
8 TIRADE, T(I)RADE. Not challenging, but apt.
10 SPEED MERCHANT, cryptic double definition. Probably a chestnut, but I don’t remember seeing it used before .
15 ALL ABOARD, A + LL + A + BOARD. Not hard, but smooth surface may deceive.
17 TRINIDAD, TRI(NID)AD, where DIN is backwards.
19 LAMMAS, LAM(M)AS. Very easy if you have heard of Lammas, otherwise may give trouble.
23 DISCO, D + IS + C.O. A bit tricky, since I wanted ‘party’ = ‘do’ and ‘in’ to be a containment indictor.

37 comments on “Times 24372 – The airhead and the Dalmatian”

  1. 28 min, but seemed much longer. First in AD HOC when just about in panic mode. Not sure about 27 ac. Is it PROD? … Ah yes indeed it is, just spotted it – one of the three R’s in POD … sneaky! In fact a rather sneaky puzzle all round, and should challenge those with a Monday hangover. POETS certainly got a double take, but for me COD was SPACE CADET. Not difficult, but neatly clued. Most enjoyable, so thank you Setter.
  2. Another one with a sting in the tail. I sailed through most of it in 28 minutes (a good day for me this far) but then ground to a halt with 4dn, 12ac, 16dn and 27ac unsolved and a very big question mark against SEETHED at 26 ac. Spent another 20 minutes sorting out the mess with eventual resort to aids.

    Not sure I have met SPOTTED DOG before, nor the alternative spelling of “dodos”.

  3. Could someone explain this please understand its mandalay without the y…why universal symbol..otherwise enjoyed this puzzle..COD was 4 down…neat!
    1. OED:
      a geometric figure representing the universe in Hindu and Buddhist symbolism.
      • Psychoanalysis such a symbol in a dream, representing the dreamer’s search for completeness and self-unity.
  4. A bit of a struggle but finished. Guesses for MANDALA, LAMMAS, COUNT PALATINE, AD HOC (special purpose), PROD (twigged the R from RRR but not POD for school) but all gettable (eventually)from cryptics. Love SPOTTED DICK but never heard of the canine version.
    COD to POETS.
  5. Didn’t really have a clue at 4d; except it could be POETS because Burns was one or PIERS because a bridge has some. Eventually left it blank. Toss-up between FINESSE & SPACE CADET for COD. An engaging and tricky Monday puzzle. Well done vinyl; glad I didn’t have to blog it.
  6. 1a&d in instantly – thought this would be a breeze, but slowed down as I read more clues to no avail till 21. Last in 12, 7 (forgot the plural has an e) and 4, the latter my COD now I see how clever it is, but liked a lot of the classic clue constructions. Had seethed and sheeted in as alternatives till 16d arrived from my internal anagprocessor. Half hour or so, did not time it.
  7. Pleasing puzzle, that I found not too difficult, 18 mins. COD FINESSE, IMITATOR was very good too. Last answer MANDALA.
  8. 10:44 .. Lots of smart cluing (cluing or clueing?). Only real hold-ups were FINESSE and POETS.

    COD 3a SPACE CADET – easy, but beautifully done.

    1. I’ve always put the e in, having seen both as allowable forms in a dictionary, but now I find this is the American Heritage Dictionary, so is probably incorrect in the UK. Collins only has cluing, and the Shorter Oxford seems to suggest clewing might be preferable, being closer to the original. Trouble is cluing looks too much like clung.

      1ac rock would have to be Marshal Pick and the Space Cadets, robot rockers from the 90’s, credited with the highest ever rock concert on record, when they chartered an ageing 707 and flew 120 avid fans from Luton to Stansted. Unfortunately none of their electronic equipment could be turned on during the flight and they just had to go “boing” repeatedly whilst in a holding pattern.

      1. Thank you. It’s one of those where, the moment you start thinking about it, every option looks wrong. Next time I’ll just write “clues”!
  9. 13:43 here, no real hold-ups apart from putting in SEETHED at 25A, but I quickly realised 16 ccouldn’t possibly have a H in it. Last one in was POETS, but it only held me up for about 3 seconds when I went back to it.
  10. 13:26, and a pleasure, in that those I didn’t know (COUNT PALATINE – only knew of the Elector – COPING SAW and MANDALA) were clued accurately enough that my answers didn’t feel like guesses, which happened a couple of times last week. And thought POETS was brilliant: baffling at first, then suddenly blinding in its clarity.
  11. 22 mins but failed again, this time putting in piers for 4 down. The only Bridgeses I know are footballer Michael and cook Mrs, so the lack of an and or comma after Burns really stuffed me.

    Did anybody else find “ie” in both 18 and 2 a bit odd?

    COD space cadet for me too.

  12. Indeed, and did we need popular before pet for dog? Perhaps I am missing something again. Superfluous bits in clues always make me think I am missing something.
    1. I thought the “popular” might belong to the “noticed”, in the sense that “spotted” is a bit informal, but I agree it is hardly necessary in that context either.
  13. This seemed a return to the usual Monday stroll after a short stretch of trickier ones, though I must admit that after entering PICK immediately, I got quite far through the clues before entering another answer (I found it easier moving on to the downs). One minor hold-up after entering LEARN for 13, quickly corrected. BADMINTON seems to be the standard 9-letter sport, so I hardly gave the clue any thought before entering it, though I did wonder whether BAD was really indicated by “second-rate”. I’m definitely a second-rate solver, but I don’t think I’m a bad solver. 22 minutes in the end.
    27 was a very neat clue. I’m less enthusiastic than vinyl1 about 4. I didn’t think the attempt to solve the punctuation problem really came off.
    1. I agree with you about 4d, dyste. In fact, I was going to make a comment to that effect but then got really confused about what my objection was, so abandoned the whole idea.
      1. I deliberately avoided being too specific because I also found it difficult to say precisely what I felt wrong with it. It’s a nice idea to link the two poets using a common idiom but it can be done only by breaking a cardinal rule (that punctuation should not be deceptive in the case of proper nouns) and then acknowledging that sin, which is what the setter has done. The problem here is that the surface is not all that great. Extra capital might be needed to build bridges, but not to burn them surely? One of the reasons I solved this fairly quickly was that the surface wasn’t deceptive, so I immediately thought of the two Roberts (though initially I thought the answer had something to do with the name coincidence).
  14. If I’m not too late, could someone give the answer and explain 2dn? I had convened, but not sure if it’s right and if so why. Sorry to be think!
    1. It is “catered” = provide food about “n” = noon. Clue meaning a way of running.
  17. A relatively easy start to the week. 20 minutes to solve and no particular problems. The burns/bridges construction has appeared before somewhere sometime. The 2 possible answers to the anagram at 25A need some care or perhaps patience.
  18. I immediately pencilled in Acme for 1A, no doubt thinking of the Acme tool company in the Roadrunner cartoons. Having got over this, I made rapid progress until I was left with just 24. I had no idea and was about to reach for the dictionary when I realised that the truncated city had to be Mandalay.
  19. Didn’t get POETS, put in PIERS suspecting there was more going on. Liked the rest of the wordplay.
  20. A high-quality puzzle that managed to be inventive and witty and also reasonably straightforward, or at anyrate in no way unfairly difficult. The absence of a comma – or non-indication of same – at 4 down didn’t particularly worry me, though I concede that the objectors have a point. An enjoyable start to the week after what I thought was an exceptionally meaty and satisfying Saturday cryptic.
  21. About 20 minutes here, first in PICK, last POETS. After I understood POETS, I like it, although I recognize the potential objections. Still pretty clever. Hadn’t heard of SPOTTED DOG before, and took quite a while to figure out 1D with ‘Thomas, say’ as a definition for a train. My thought process was that this must refer to the Thomas the Tank Engine character, who arrived in the US around 20 years ago or so, I think. Is this true? Regards to all.
    1. Yes, that’s right, Kevin. You might also need to know about ‘Postman Pat’ and ‘Bob the Builder’ for crossword purposes – I’m not sure if they’ve made it to the US. 16 mins for me, held up by 4D which I’ve got reservations about. Overall, however, I enjoyed it greatly.

      Tom B.

  22. We have Bob the Builder now, but I do not think Postman Pat has visited us yet. At least not as far as I’ve noticed. Thanks.
  23. Couldn’t the ‘ie’ have been dispensed with? ‘Ran, in a way, [having been] provided food around noon’
  24. I think the ‘i.e.’ is just to there to create (some) sense in the surface, i.e. it’s a ‘link’.

    Tom B.

  25. 8:23 in my post-holiday catch-up. I was intrigued to see from a couple of US heritage railway souvenir shops that Thomkas the Tank Engine is big in America.

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