Times 24,379

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Time 17:24, so not headscratchingly tough, but not entirely straightforward either: in particular I noticed that whenever I was stuck for an answer, the checking letters were invariably unhelpful ‘R’s, or ‘E’s or ‘S’s, so not many places where answers leapt off the page.

 
Down
1 EXEMPLAR – EX + (T)EMPLAR; nice lift and separate of “former model”, where only the last word is the definition.
5 USHANT – U + SHAN’T! – the island itself is small, if strategically significant, so getting it may depend on your knowledge of sea shanties, or naval history, or whether you’re familiar with the adventures of Mr. Hornblower.
10 BREACH OF PROMISE – (FORMER BASIC HOPE)*.
11 NEWBOLT – NEW + BOLT; Robert BOLT wrote A Man For All Seasons, while NEWBOLT is almost entirely remembered for Vitai Lampada, a.k.a. “There’s a breathless hush in the Close tonight”.
12 REGULAR – double def (regular as the opposite of “territorial”).
13 SIT TIGHT – I think these days only Boris Johnson would refer to someone who’d had a few drinks as being a bit tight, what?
15 DIVES – plural of DIVE, and Latin for Rich Man, most notably in the Biblical parable of Dives and Lazarus.
18 CASCA – opening letters of Cassius’ Allies Supporting Caesar’s Assassination, &lit.
20 EMAILING – (ME)* + AILING; at least one person I know will insist this should be (1,7) but the unhyphenated variant appears to be quite acceptable from a dictionary point of view.
23 DE FACTO – ACT in DEFO(e).
25 SOUTANE – OUT (“disallowed”) clothed by SANE; I found James Joyce springing to mind, which suggests, unsurprisingly, that he mentions this item of clerical clothing frequently in his work .
26 MICHAELMAS DAISY – MA’S in MICHAEL + DAISY; as always, I owe a lot more to wordplay than botanic instinct; they appear to look like this.
27 CHEOPS – H(ebrew) E(xodus) inside COPS; Cheops wasn’t the (nameless) Pharaoh who had dealings with Moses, of course, but it’s a nice surface all the same.
28 AGGRIEVE – =”A GREAVE“.
Across
1 EBBING – (BE)rev + BING (Crosby).
2 EDELWEISS – (SWEDESLIE)* and now I’m going to be earwormed by The Sound of Music for the rest of the day…
3 PICK OUT – I’m assuming the musical meaning of “play tentatively”. I did ask myself if a pick is really a tool which “hacks”? It suggests something with a blade to me, but it seems that the nounal form “hack” is a direct equivalent of “pick”, so that’s just me, then.
4 AFOOT – A + (metrical) FOOT.
6 SLOGGED – S(ong) + LOGGED.
7 ARIEL – the sign is ARIES, replace the S(outhern) with L(eft) and you get Shakepeare’s spirit.
8 THEORISE – OR I(n)S(afe) in THEE.
9 OPERETTA – (TOREPEAT)*.
14 GRENOBLE – G(uillotine) RE: NOBLE.
16 VANDALISE – (DAN)* in VALISE; purists might argue with “desperate” as the anagrind, but this amused me.
17 ACADEMIC – double def.
19 ARC LAMP – (ye)AR + CLAMP.
21 LAUNDER – L.A. + UNDER, another nice lift and separate: I was convinced it had to be something meaning “more dirty”, i.e. less than clean, until I broke the clue down properly.
22 RETYPE – hidden in “sureTY PErhaps”.
24 FICHE – FIE around C(apitol) H(ill); in the old days before we had computers and internets and what have you, I remember looking at library catalogues on microfiche. It was a simpler time, and perhaps a happier one…(cont’d p.94)
25 SLANG – N(ame) in SLAG – necessary to spot that it’s refuse (the noun), not refuse (the verb).

24 comments on “Times 24,379”

  1. 16:29 here, a mixture of fairly straightforward and racking my brains to think of the more obscure bits. I knew USHANT, worked out SOUTANE from the wordplay, knew NEWBOLT but took a while to remember his name as I’d never heard of Robert Bolt, and toyed with ABOUT before putting in AFOOT at the end.
  2. found it strange to come on here at 11:15, 90 mins after the blog and find no comments – i wonder if that is testament to how uninspiring the puzzle was !!?

    that said, i struggled badly and limped home in about an hour i guess. There was no reason for this, bar making assumptions that I was sure were right, only for this to hold up the process interminably. The first of those was thinking “SAGE” could be sensible in 25, since the clothing must end …AGE, only for SOFFAGE and SOUTAGE to keep popping into my mind when trying to get the answer. That said, I wouldnt really have had a better feel for SOUTANE itself, except that SANE is a far better version of sensible.

    The other notable one was being adamant that the case in 16 must be DATIVE (as it often is in a misleading way)… again because the answer “must” end ..ATIVE. DANDATIVE was the only possibility and that is definitely not a word.

    All in all a poor showing here, must do better tomorrow.

  3. 25 minutes with the SE corner giving me most problems. I made the mistake of not ignoring the (8) at the end of 20A thinking that e-mail should be hyphenated. I should know better. I thought DIVES and SOUTANE both rather obscure but liked LAUNDER and particularly VANDALISE once the penny dropped.

    I guessed NEWBOLT from checking letters and novel=NEW having vaguely heard of BOLT but I don’t like it as a clue. The rest of it is reasonable enough although REGULAR is a bit of a regular so to speak.

  4. What with NEWBOLT (hadn’t heard of either), DIVES, SOUTANE and greaves I was lucky to get home unscathed. I didn’t mind this one at all, despite the obscurities. I quite liked SIT TIGHT, maybe because of its Bertie Woosterishness. COD to LAUNDER, with EXEMPLAR a close second. As for Desperate Dan … take it away Ray
  5. About as boring a Times puzzle as I can remember, almost verging on self-parody as we return to an age of breach of promise suits, everyone knowing their Shakespeare, their bible, the dressing habits of clergyman, and people reading a bit of Newbolt before dressing for the operetta or the theatre. Redolent of public school, adventure stories for boys, Latin prep. I’m surprised the setter has heard of email.

    At 55 and I feel about 30 years too young for this. I’m from the university educated professional middle-class and feel I’m nowhere near posh enough for it. Not a difficult puzzle but I nearly gave up halfway through the oppressive fustiness of it. Surely The Times can do better than this!

    1. I was not going to join the discussion as I thought it was very “typical dear old Times” fare and took me 15 mins but you are right – I am old enough to feel quite at home with it and evidently have enough cultural heritage in common with the setter!
  6. I agree with the blogger’s comment that it was neither straightforward nor very tough. I was slow to get started, having only 5 or 6 entries after 10 minutes. However, I found it easier to fill from the bottom up, getting MICHAELMAS DAISY immediately with no letters in place to set me off. 3, 5 and 11 were the last entries. 35 minutes in all.
    I don’t agree with anonymous that the puzzle was especially boring. 1a, 2 (with it’s cryptic definition) and 10 were nice clues.
    1. I agree, I’m being unfair if you’re judging the puzzle by the quality of the construction of individual clues, in which case it’s fairly average. It’s the cumulative effect of clueing indicating a worldview arrested anywhere between 50 and 80 years ago, and with the social preoccupations of a very specific social group. The Times crossword is guilty of this generally, but this seems an extreme example.
  7. I enjoyed this puzzle, which I found on the easy side, 24 mins. Hoping ‘Anonymous’ above does not object too much if I name BREACH OF PROMISE as my COD, I also esp liked VANDALISE
  8. This was a tough one for me. After failing to complete it over breakfast I had to lie down in a darkened room for a couple of hours before coming back to finish it. I was pleased to drag Cheops from the darkest recesses of my memory and I had no problem with Robert Bolt. Last in was Ushant that I had never heard of. I was probably thinking of a similar-sounding Nigerian people when I deduced that Ushant must be where they speak Ushanti.
  9. Thank you to anon for a particularly entertaining summary. Perhaps puzzles should come with a ‘posh factor’ rating. I tackled this late last night and struggled to stay awake, but I assumed that was just me.

    I quite like a little fustiness in my Times puzzle, but this one, emailing aside, did feel as though it had slipped down the back of the editor’s desk in 1952.

    I was beaten by SOUTANE, despite having thought about ‘sane’ as an element, so I’m probably just bitter. And I’m moderately posh.

  10. 42 minutes with aids. Bloody hell. Made a right meal of this and found it extremely dry.

    Also got outwitted by the clergy and went for SCUTAGE (cut in sage) at 25. Turns out there is such a word but it’s something to do with money.

    Dives, Ushant, Bolt, Newbolt and soutane all unknown to me.

    Right, I’m off to launder my soutane. I think I’ve got some edelweiss and michaelmas daisy fabric conditioner somewhere.

  11. As Topicaltim says, mostly straightforward but with some difficulties. I thought it quite an enjoyable puzzle, albeit of the old school Times variety, which I guess (accurately) identifies me as a middle-class type educated at public school in the late 1950s. Even crosswords, it seems, cannot escape the baleful influence of the English class system! That said, I’m amazed that anyone should consider Robert Bolt or Sir Henry Newbolt particularly obscure. I had no problem with PICK=hacker. I associate picks with spikes – one of which, if I remember rightly, was driven into the head of Mr Trotsky – rather than blades. I did have a quibble about how PICK OUT could mean “play tentatively”, until being reminded by the blogger of the musical sense, which seems to me fine. I liked BREACH OF PROMISE and VANDALISE. About 30 mins.
  12. Found this hard. Using Robert Bolt to clue NEWBOLT was harsh, although it’s a decent clue (if you accept ‘or’ as a link word, which I’m undecided on). PICK OUT meaning ‘to play tentatively’ was new to me, as was SOUTANE; USHANT was sufficiently unfamiliar that I struggled on that and THEORISE, likewise ‘greave’ for AGGRIEVE/SLANG. I don’t think the Shakespeare reference (ARIEL) could be described as obscure, though, nor DIVES given how often he comes up.

    I had doubts over the singular ‘First’ for the initial letters at 18ac but liked 21dn (LAUNDER).

  13. 27.30. A real slog and shouldn’t have been so bad. Ok – I didn’t know SOUTANE and took too long to get EMAILING which doesn’t look right to me without a hyphen. But just completely bogged down by USHANT (which I knew from the song learnt at school),SLOGGED and,embarassingly, REGULAR which should have been automatic.I don’t want to be as critical as ‘Anonymous’ above but this puzzle could kindly be described as having an air of nostalgia about it! (except for the anachronistic emailing). Not one of the best.
  14. 20 mins, with three mistakes: NEWPORT for the doubly unknown NEWBOLT (11ac), ABOUT for AFOOT (4dn), and SOUTAGE for the unknown SOUTANE (25ac).  I spent the last 8 minutes on the 11ac/4dn crossing before deciding that I didn’t know the poet or the playwright.  USHANT (5ac) was also unknown.

    ABOUT was my own stupid fault – FOOT, of course! – but anyone who accepts definition by example and slightly off-key definitions (e.g. the editor) should find it an acceptable alternative.  SOUTAGE/SOUTANE would have been 50:50 for me if I’d spotted both possibilities.

    I’m glad others (except Mike) found NEWBOLT and BOLT an uncomfortably obscure pairing.  I’ve seen the film of A Man For All Seasons, and Bolt also wrote the screenplays for Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, so the bell was there to be rung; but surely he would be pretty far down any list of 20th-century playwrights.  As for Newbolt, I read the emetic Vitaï Lampada comparatively recently, but without knowing the author.

    I’m happy with ‘or’ as a link word myself – we’re given alternative routes to the answer, and ‘or’ is never exclusive – and if you read “First” in 18ac (CASCA) as an adjective rather than a noun, the question of number disappears.

    Clues of the Day: 25ac (SOUTANE), 27ac (CHEOPS).

    1. Whoops – I also had ‘about’ for AFOOT. As you say, it’s almost justifiable, but ‘bit of poetry’ for BOUT isn’t really good enough (I was thinking of one of those freestyle rapping contests, whatever they’re called).

      I’m probably being dull but I don’t think I understand your explanation of 18ac; can ‘First’ can be adjectival when followed by ‘of’?

  15. I also found this difficult. After an hour I decided to give up and use aids to finish off the last few: AGGRIEVE, SLANG, USHANT, ARIEL, NEWBOLT and AFOOT. I knew BOLT but I’m afraid his name didn’t come to mind when trying to think of a 4-letter dramatist. I didn’t know NEWBOLT, USHANT, SOUTANE or CHEOPS but worked out the last two from the wordplay.

    Oh and I wrote in PICK OUT without much confidence and didn’t understand it until I read the blog.

    1. Jack,

      You’ve probably come across Cheops before – the great pyramid at Giza is also known as the pyramid of Cheops.

      1. I suppose I ought to be ashamed as I’m afraid it’s completely outside my areas of knowledge and I wouldn’t have known Giza either. I do know a lot of other stuff though!
  16. About 30 minutes here, using aid afterward to confirm that there was a NEWBOLT. I agree that the BOLT/NEWBOLT link is too obscure, perhaps due to being from the US. The SOUTANE has appeared here before, so I recalled that, but the GREAVE was unknown. There the wordplay was pretty clear though. The ‘Desperate Dan’ trick is one I hadn’t seen before either. Everything else seemed pretty standard to me. I liked EBBING for COD, it made me laugh. Regards everyone.
  17. Away long before the blog arrived this morning and thought I wouldn’t bother to comment this late but on reading the comments I was shocked by the apparent “obscurity” of Robert Bolt, one of my first entries. OK, he was perhaps better known for screenplays than his stage plays (and for marrying the gorgeous Sarah Miles twice) but his screenplay for A Man for all Seasons was from his own stage play which in my very humble opinion is one of the finest of the 20C. Since of all the regulars on this site I am the most wanting in the area of general knowledge I thought I would for once get my own back.
    Tough puzzle for me but I did get through it without aids all except for USHANT. Didn’t know CHEOPS or DIVES but easy enough from wordplay.
  18. Like dorset jimbo found the SE corner tough. didnt really understand Dives…struggled to rememebr Soutane and Greave

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