Times 24388 – Don’t Knock It

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
This was a very lively puzzle that gave me some real problems most of which were of my own making. In several places (1 dn second word for example) I thought of the right answer but lacked the confidence to write it in because I couldn’t work out the reasoning so I wasted precious time trying to find an alternative. The standard of clues was generally very good indeed which made for an enjoyable solve and I was never bored for a moment. I don’t think any specialist knowledge is required to get the answers though maybe a little to fully explain some of them. Possibly 21ac could give trouble to someone who has never heard the expression but the anagrist and the checking letters would surely lead one to it eventually.

Across
1 DEBAG – ABED (rev) + G
4 CLAW,BACKS
9 COL,CAN(N)ON – According to my dictionaries this is an Irish or Scottish dish of potato and cabbage mashed together. I wouldn’t have known this a few years ago but it now appears in most supermarkets as an alternative to ready-mashed potato. I think the version I tried had spring onion in it too.
11 THE WIZARD OF OZ – Charles Darwin, Australia and all that
14 (g)REEK – The final letter of “ping” is removed to give a pong
15 SNAKE-DANCE – Hidden
18 IDIOT-(PRO,0),F
19 CHI,C – CHI is X in the Greek alphabet + C, the third letter of factor”. “Tony” = CHIC has come up many times before but not for a while, I think.
21 GROW LIKE TOPSY – Anagram of “silky pore got” around “w” for “with”. Apparently this is a reference to Uncle Tom’s Cabin in which Topsy was a slave girl who maintained she had neither father nor mother, her solution of her existence being “I ‘spect I grow’d”.
25 S(NOB, VAL)UE
27 NORWEGIAN – Anagram of “0” + “a winner” around “g” for “grand”.
28 S(QU)AD
Down
1 DICK, TUR,PIN – TUR being “rut” (rev)
2 BEL – Sounds like “belle”. This is some sort of measure of sound that’s not the same as a decibel apparently. Hope Jimbo enjoyed this one.
3 GRAVID – A(nswer) + V(ery) inside GRID. The word means pregnant.
5 AWNED – DoEsN‘t WrAp (rev). “Awn” is the covering growth on ears of cereal etc
6 BONA FIDE – FAN + O(ld) B(oy) (all rev) + IDE the fish
8 SA(N)G – “Numbers” meaning “songs” here. “Cuts” is the insertion indicator to put “N” for “new” inside
12 EVENING STAR – I wondered about “at times” here but a little research informed me that an evening star need not necessarily be Venus.
13 BE(ACHY, HE)AD – The headland in East Sussex
16 KNOCK-DOWN – Whilst solving I wrongly assumed that Down was the “Irish Airport” referenced in the clue but I have since discovered that is KNOCK, and DOWN is clued by “drink”.
17 A,(patien)T,R,OPINE – A type of Bella Donna obtained from deadly nightshade
20 ST (IV’E)’S – I’m sure we have had this clue or a very similar one before
23 STUN – NUT’S (rev)
26 LOU(d)

31 comments on “Times 24388 – Don’t Knock It”

  1. 11:10 for this – a very nice mixture of tricky clues and novel answers with enough easier stuff to give you a start.

    I seem to be good at finding near-miss answers at the moment – today’s was STOP VALUE at 25, seeing “top = head” and imagining this was a share price or similar at which a dealer who’d bought a share expecting it to rise would sell for a profit. No such thing of course.

    I think the idea in 12D may be that Venus can be the “morning star” as well – aparently its maximum brightness is just before sunrise or just after sunset.

    Good spot at 16D – Down is a county rather than town, but there’s still scope for a cross-border Irish geography clue.

    1. A slow, but steady, 16:08 for me, with a minute or two at the end working through the possibilities for 25A – and eventually coming up with SNOB VALUE.

      STOP VALUE (my first thought) would be a particularly agonising possibility to be faced with in a Championship, where you’re aware that Mark Goodliffe will know immediately whether it’s a genuine stock market term or not. These days when I have no chance of winning, I can afford to play for safety, but for contenders it’s a horrid choice as to whether or not to back what looks like a plausible answer.

      Still, I suppose these things even themselves out, and another time Mark will be left agonising over something (classical) musical :-).

  2. Finished, but even with aids not sure how. One wrong, but same as Peter so no shame in that. Lots of guesses and unexplained. One of those where the easy ones got lost in the fog eg LOU and SQUAD last in.
    Found nothing luminous here unlike yesterday’s which like George I found touched with greatness.
  3. This was a bit easier than the last couple of days but I really enjoyed it. It was witty and entertaining with impeccable wordplay and good surfaces. I enjoyed the clues for debag and reek among many others. On a personal level, I was pleased that I immediately separated phrases such as “Irish army officer” and “Grand National”. It shows I must be learning something by using this site.

    The Wizard of Oz was not too difficult after I got citizenship. There are not many 2-letter words ending in Z. I’m a bit troubled by the clue though. It seems to be too much information and it does not really hang together since Darwin is not in Victoria. “Picture Victorian genius perhaps?” would have been sufficient.

    I too had stop value on the first run through but had second thoughts when I realised that I was probably making it up.

  4. I agree an interesting, lively puzzle that demanded maximum attention to some clever wordplay.

    I can’t say that I really understand WIZARD…. I can see “picture” as the definition plus “Victorian (OZ state) genius” but what’s the Darwin (Northern Territories) bit about? I had no problem with BEL Jack – gasps all round.

    1. I think it’s just that “Victorian” and “Darwin’s” could both be seen as “of Oz”. I hope there isn’t a setter out there who thought “I’ll put in one about Darwin to keep Jimbo happy” ….
      1. I’ll second those thoughts.

        I don’t think the clue has anything to do with Charles D who as I recall visited Tasmania and Sydney. Darwin the town was named after him some time later by the captain of The Beagle (hope my increasingly questionable memory is not letting me down)

        Next week sees the 150th anniversary of the famous publication – will the Times notice?

  5. I found this pretty tough and was pleased to finish in 17 mins. Main delay was a conviction that I was looking for an obscure type of fungus for 21A, but light dawned eventually. Only a vague recollection of ever coming across COLCANNON, and only that after guessing the answer from the word play. More used to seeing that sort of vocab in the Listener.
  6. This stumped me for over an hour, after a good start in the NW. The only unknown was COLCANNON, which fortunately has eluded my taste buds thus far, although my confident penning of PLONK-DOWN at 16 held me up somewhat. I had been listening to a story of a miraculous sea landing and recovery near Norfolk Island on the radio, so maybe that swayed my judgement, although I can probably name several actual airports I would describe as plonk-downs. This was a tour-de-force of the setter’s art as far as I’m concerned (Darwin aside); so a final thank-you to the setter in what has been a very good week.
  7. Very enjoyable puzzle, 45 mins, might have been faster if I’d not put in the wrong enumeration for 11 ac. Once I corrected it, saw THE as a strong possibility and that gave me EVENING STAR. Wondered if ‘Darwin’s perhaps’ was added later to give extra help, because the three words might just have done on their own. COD LOU also esp liked BONA FIDE. SNOB VALUE was my last entry.
  8. I psychically leaned over Peter’s shoulder and copied his homework. Put me down as another for the well-known phrase STOP VALUE – a victory of expedience over intelligence on my part, and another scalp for the setter’s belt.

    Some good stuff in here in a week of good puzzles. NORWEGIAN, SANG, REEK and SQUAD all worth a mention.

    Last in AWNED.

    1. Put me down for the STOP VALUE club as well. Nice to be in such distinguished company. Where Peter B went to the stock market, I turned to the auction room for my definition, taking STOP VALUE to be akin to a “reserve price” or something of the sort. All complete nonsense , of course. What fun we’ve all had!

      I agree with Jimbo that Darwin at 11ac has nothing to do with the eponymous Charles, though the setter clearly intended to deceive us into thinking that it might have. I think the idea is simply that an Australian genius (Wizard of Oz) might have come from Darwin, the Australian town.

  10. Could i ask why Tony = Chic…i can see Chi = x and factors third etc?

    i just thought like Jimbo that wizard of Oz related to genius voctorian or from Darwin and nothing in fact to do with charles darwin…

    strange puzzle. lots went in easily…lots to get stuck on

    1. It comes from “tone” which produces “toney” or “tony” meaning “high-toned”, “fashionable”, “chic”
      1. I was glad the setter chose that meaning of “Tony” rather than “(obs sl) a simpleton” :-).
  11. Can’t post a definitive time (I must teach myself to eat with a fork with one hand whilst writing with the other) but I’d say about 30 minutes give or take.

    I managed to avoid the stop value trap purely because, having decided the first word was more than likely stop, I couldn’t come up with an answer for the second word I was happy with. The closest I got was stop valve which didn’t fit the def and I’ve never come across a girl called Sve before (short for Svenetta maybe?). Anyway, that led me to revisit stop and a qick whizz through the alphabet led me to snob and the penny dropped.

    Chic went in on wordplay alone and I’ve had colcannon (M&S probably).

    I’m with those who think this was another gem in a run of classy puzzles. COD to reek. great stuff.

  12. 28:19 today, but at least I didn’t fall into the STOP VALUE trap (which actually didn’t even occur to me). I must have spent about 10 minutes off and on just with the 21ac anagram. At first I miscounted and thought it was an anagram of “silky pore got”, and made no sense of it at all. The fact that I’d never heard of the expression GROW LIKE TOPSY didn’t help much either, nor did my conviction that I was looking for a particular species of mushroom, although that became less and less likely with every crossing letter that went in. When it was the only one left I wrote out the letters again and realized I’d been one short all along. Must add Uncle Tom’s Cabin to my reading list – I’m pretty sure I’ve got a copy of it somewhere.

  13. 22 minutes. Enjoyed this and almost put in Stop Value but saw my error.Just couldn’t see OZ early enough and only got CITIZENSHIP after some thought
  14. I’m at least the fifth to have to own up to STOP VALUE. Otherwise, an interrupted solve but probably 25-30 mins. Another in a series of excellent puzzles, greatly enjoyed. Like jackkt, I wouldn’t have known COLCANNON five years ago but am now a regular consumer thereof.

    Tom B.

    1. I considered STOP VALUE first too but wasn’t satisfied with the wordplay so continued looking for something better. I only bought colcannon once as I wasn’t very impressed with it.
    1. LASSI, some kind of yogurt based drink favored in India. I forgot to mention I didn’t know that ‘necks’=’drinks’ either. I learn a lot doing these puzzles.
  16. About 45 minutes here. Like others, I didn’t immediately cotton to the real meaning of ‘mushroom’; I needed most of the checking letters before it finally hit me over the head. Also held up by not knowing DEBAG, ‘pong’, or LASSI. On the other hand, I got “THE WIZARD ..” from “Picture ..” and (3,6,2,2)right off. First entry COLCANNON, last BEL. COD to me is SANG, but also liked NORWEGIAN, SQUAD, and STUN. Regards everybody.
  17. Heavens, the crosswords this week have been good, haven’t they? One of the best weeks for many years imho
  18. Another STOP VALUE person.

    I wondered if KNOCK DOWN was a triple definition, if Knock was in County Down, but it’s in Mayo.

  19. Venus can be a Morning or Evening Star because it is always near the sun in the sky and therefore is invisible during the day after the sun rises soon after Venus rises (Morning Star) or Venus sets soon after the sun (Evening Star). This is due to Venus being closer to the sun than the earth. It is the brightest night-time celestial object after the moon.

    There are 5 “easies” left out of the blog:

    10a Less than a century unacceptable (3,2)
    NO TON = NOT ON

    24a Sounds disapproving that one should follow African Tribe (5)
    TUTS 1. A tribe from the Rwanda/Burundi SE Congo area.

    4d Vessel crashing into crane (9)
    CONTAINER. Anag of (INTO CRANE).

    7d Being subject to change in pitch size (11)
    CITIZENSHIP. Anag of (IN PITCH SIZE).

    22d Girl one that Indian necks? (5)
    LASS 1. A yoghurty sort of drink that is very effective at neutralising the effect of a Vindaloo. Most of us prefer pints of Cobra or Kingfisher though?

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