Times 24398

Author   daveperryPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 45 minutes.
Thankfully, for my first daily blog, there was nothing too tricky here, and no doubt there will be some fast times. I started quickly, but slowed down towards the end, finishing in the SE corner with 19, 15, 23 & 25.
There were no words I didn’t know, although DUOLOGUE had to dredged up from a fairly dusty corner of my brain.
cd = cryptic def., dd = double def., rev = reversal, homophones are written in quotes, anagrams as (–)*, and removals like this

Across
1 Straightforward cd
6 SOCK – dd. Member = limb
8 DAVIS CUP – cd
9 DRAWER = RAWER (less experienced) following D = old penny = earlier change. Put in without full understanding.
10 TOO + L
11 MAIN STREET – dd. A satirical novel by Sinclair Lewis. I’ve not come across this work before, but it was easily deduced from the checking letters.
12 AMSTERDAM – DAM after (STREAM)*
14 DARTS – dd. Not your traditional board game, but it certainly does require a board.
17 K(R)ILL
19 SE(QUEST)ER
22 AND SO FORTH = (SORT OF HAND)*
23 G + OWN
24 PAT + O + IS
25 DUOLOGUE = (r)OGUE after LOUD rev – Like a monologue, but for two.
26 O + KAY
27 (no)T HER MOST AT(tractive) – I can’t remember seeing such a long hidden word with such a natural surface reading before. My COD.
 
Down
1 SIDE + TRACK – One for those of us who still remember vinyl.
2 O + B + V + IOUS
3 IN CAMERA = (AMERICAN)* – Not an expression I was familiar with. It means kept private, not to be confused with ‘on camera’ which means the exact opposite!
4 DUPLICATE BRIDGE – A form of the card game bridge where several teams play the exact same hands to see who can get the best results from them.
5 W + ID EST
6 S(hor)T + AIRWAYS – flights being flights of stairs, of course. Something of an old chestnut.
7 CLEMENT – I spent several minutes trying to recall the name of Winston Smith’s nemesis in 1984 (it was O’Brien), before realizing it was the much more obvious Winston that was required here. Clement Atlee was leader of the Labour party during Churchill’s entire 15 year spell as Tory Leader.
13 TALL STORY = Another TORY. This one comes after L in (LAST)*
15 S(TRING)ENT
16 MUSH + ROOM
18 RAN + SACK
20 THOUGH + T
21 OFF + SET

34 comments on “Times 24398”

  1. A relaxed 15 min with no real holdups. The speed merchants will have fun. CLEMENT’s SOCK DRAWER was the last to be tidied up. COD: AND SO FORTH.
  2. A slow start and a slow end with sporadic progress in between. Couldn’t seem to see the obvious (like THERMOSTAT and DARTS). I too was mystified by the D in DRAWER, so thanks for the explanation, and immediately thought of 1984 at 7d. Lots of topical surfaces for an Australian audience – 9ac, 10ac & 13d for instance. COD to DRAWER.
  3. Well done Dave. Thank you for your effort, and your early post. About 20 minutes for me, much simpler than yesterdays, I found. First in was 1A, last entry SOCK, after I saw CLEMENT. It took til the end to see they wanted his given name. COD for me was THERMOSTAT, since I’m a sucker for the hiddens. This was one of those where I came all correct, and saw all the cryptics as well, in what is for me a relatively short time. Except for Tring, an unknown place, which I assume is a suburban UK town. Regards to all.
  4. So there I was on this train travelling from Leighton Buzzard to work, doing the Times crossword and trying to think of a UK commuter town, when I looked out of the window….

    Well not quite. I spotted the answer about 5 minutes after passing through the town in question.

    Expect Berkhamsted or Hemel Hempstead shortly, folks.

    Actually Tring comes up quite frequntly in crosswords as it’s a useful component of many possible words but I think usually there has been some other indication of its appoximate location, for instance that it’s in Hertfordshire or north of London.

    35 minutes today but with one wrong at 23ac where I pencilled in BOON before I had any checking letters, and later when the checking letters fitted this answer I didn’t go back and think about it again. I had hoped that BO might stand for “something formal” in which case the remainder of the clue sort of worked for me at the time.

    This is the third relatively easy puzzle this week so I’m already getting edgy about blogging Friday’s.

  5. All done, all correct, all understood (even for once id est) all’s well with the world.
    Bad COD DAVIS CUP, COD CLEMENT.
  6. Quite similar to Mon & Tues for me in terms of difficulty, ie not hard at all but entertaining with it. COD the impressive THERMOSTAT. Now I look at it there were a number of other neat clues, like KRILL, DARTS etc.. thanks, setter!
  7. 25 mins which would have been my fastest recorded time, except last one in was 6ac sack without thinking, so no cigar. cod 27ac as i hadn’t spotted the hidden til coming here.
  8. Yep, a fairly comfortable 11:18 for me. 1A and 4D both went straight in and from there I very quickly filled in the whole of the left hand side (probably about 3 mins). The right went in quite a bit slower but no real hold-ups. One of the last in was the cleverly hidden THERMOSTAT, although once you’ve seen it you wonder how you missed it first time round!
  9. Welcome to the daily blog Dave and well done.

    Much the same as everybody else. Easier than yesterday (20 minutes) – but then I was blogging yesterday and that always ups the tension (as Dave will no doubt discover).

    The LHS went in very quickly despite the technical mistake in 4D already mentioned. The RHS took a little longer even though it contains its fair share of chestnuts (should we start to count TRING as a chestnut). I also thought the hidden word excellent.

  10. A rare under 10m. LH half in as fast as I could write, then bobbled about with sock, mushroom & darts, last in Clement. Agree some lovely clues, my COD thermostat.
  11. 6:58, with the last two minutes on 6ac (SOCK) and 7dn (CLEMENT).  I too spent a long time trying (unsuccessfully) to remember O’Brien, and for some reason I managed to think of GLOVE without instantly making the leap to SOCK.  My only other hold-up was 25ac (the unfamiliar DUOLOGUE).  Many answers went in without full understanding, but afterwards my only unknowns were Main Street (11ac), DUPLICATE BRIDGE (4dn), and MUSH (16dn) meaning a face.  (An opportunity to recall Bunthorne’s famous clue, “Amundsen’s forwarding address”.)

    I’ll be using this nice and straightforward puzzle in our crossword class this afternoon.

    Clues of the Day: 27ac (THERMOSTAT), 3dn (IN CAMERA).

    1. Love the Bunthorne clue, Mark. Thanks for introducing me to it. On a par with “Die of cold” (3,4) by some legendary Times setter whose name escapes me.
  12. I was feeling very sleepy when I tackled this and ended up getting 23 wrong (like jackkt I entered BOON without being convinced and didn’t review it). Last entries were DARTS and CLEMENT. 35 minutes in all. I liked most of the clues, especially the one to SEQUESTER, but I don’t think the grammar of 13 really works – ‘resort’ needs to be ‘resorted’ for the cryptic grammar to work. I know some will say it’s OK because “last resort” means a resort of LAST, but that’s stretching meaning too far for me.
  13. A reasonably straightforward 40 mins solve for me. MUSHROOM last in. Agree with most of the comments above. I particularly liked SEQUESTER and the long hidden word THERMOSTAT. Can’t myself see anything wrong with the use of “resort” as a noun in 13dn. This is surely a very typical example of cryptic grammar. It would unreasonably cramp setters’ style if they were barred from resorting (sorry!) to such tricks.
  14. A gentle solve with a few moments at the end required to get patois, sock and Clement. I had the hidden word spar at 4A which is why it took me so long to get Clement and correct 4 to sock.

    I wonder why so many of us had difficulty getting Clement. Perhaps because it means merciful not fair.

    1. Clement has more than one meaning, as in the phrase ‘clement weather’ i.e. it is mild, pleasant or fair weather.
      1. I did consider the weather related meaning but I don’t think clement in its mild sense is synonymous with fair
        1. In the first-names bit of Chambers (7th ed.)the meaning offered is “mild, merciful” in that order.
    2. With the first two checkers in place I’m afraid my first thought was that the answer to “Fair opponent for Winston” might be CLEMMIE i.e. his wife.
  15. Like Lennyco I had spar at 4a but once I’d got thermostat knowing the rule about no more than one straightforward hidden got me out of that particular hole.

    About 20 minutes (timing vague due to interruptions).

  16. 10.23 Enjoyable puzzle. I was a bit slow on the uptake for DAVIS CUP, also 22 and 27 (which was a good hidden word). Tring is definitely an old Chesham , sorry chestnut, along with Ware and both are more fairly clued as Hertfordshire town.This is instantly recongnisable to old hands and can be worked out by the man on the Clapham omnibus , or Leighton Buzzard train. However , I think “commuter town” is stretching it a bit too far for the casual solver. No?
    Liked CLEMENT
    1. Yes, I think it’s a bit of a stretch. I imagine the setter was looking for something different to say about an otherwise anonymous place that so often appears in these puzzles. Is it actually a commuter town? It is I believe a railway town in the same way that Bournemouth is (didn’t exist before the railways created it).
      1. It’s nowhere near as bad as ‘on Watling Street’ as the definition for Crayford that was in the Graun recently.

        sidey

  17. Very entertaining puzzle, 26 mins. Like others, found the RHS harder. Was unfamiliar with DUPLICATE BRIDGE, but suspected the second part would be ‘bridge’. COD GOWN, also esp liked, AMSTERDAM, OKAY, WIDEST. Thanks for the great blog, Dave, and esp for explaining the D in DRAWER.
  18. I think the reference to the US novel is Main street USA by Jon dos passos…

    also thought clement was a double reference to clement atlee and his wife Clemmie…

    around 35 minutes at 5.35 this morning…late looking at the blog due to pressure of work

    COD In Camera for its simplicity

    thanks for clearing up the D in drawer which had me stumped too

    i agree with the sentiment expressed above that this means thursday and friday will be mighty tough!

  19. Didn’t get to this until lunch and solved it over the first half of a lunch break. A little heavy on the cryptic definitions so not exactly to my taste, did enjoy the hidden word at 27 and the wordplay in 19 across. DUOLOGUE from wordplay, STRINGENT from definition
  20. 7:30 – a third seven and a bit minutes puzzle in a row. Ignorant of the exact lit ref at 11A, and got 15 and 23 last. I guess the idea in 4D is that the packs are supposedly identical in the aspect that matters – the order of the cards as dealt, and therefore the 4 hands.
  21. Tring is probably best known for its branch of the Natural History museum. It has an extraordinary collection of stuffed animals and birds.

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