Times 24,409 A Touch of Violence

Author   dorsetjimboPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time – 20 minutes

A reasonable enough puzzle just on the easy side of average but with some entertaining stuff. I worked down top to bottom, left to right, first in TOMATO (which may have caused Dan Quayle some problems) and last in NEWTON, the Times’ overworked scientist (Edison, Geiger, Kelvin – sorry who?). There is minimal literary content today but we do have that touch of old English battleground history that we all love so much plus other violence in Star Wars through to Armageddon.

Across
1 TOMATO – TO(MA)TO; We’re off to see the wizard….;
4 STAR,WARS – (RAW RATS reversed)-S(paceship); may the Force be with you;
10 MARKETEER – MARKE(TEE)R; strictly selling is a subset of marketing but never mind;
11 PUREE – PURE-E;
12 STAMFORD,BRIDGE – (big forts made)* surrounds RD=road; where in Yorkshire King Harold defeated the Norwegians in 1066 before racing south to meet his destiny at Hastings (or a section of The Kings Road on a Saturday afternoon, see 13D);
14 deliberately omitted – ask if in doubt;
16 EGGBEATER – EG-G-B-EATER; say=EG; apple=EATER;
18 ATTRACTOR – A-T(TRACT)OR;
20 TESTA – TEST-A; your science for today – a seed coat;
21 CLOSE,TO,THE,BONE – two meanings; 1=dog eats bone 2=all the Tiger Woods jokes currently swirling around the world’s golf courses;
25 AVAIL – sounds like “a veil” (and it does!);
26 OVERBOARD – OVER-BOA-RD; way=road=RD;
27 PIEDMONT – (poet + mind)*;
28 NEWTON – NE((kne)W-T=temperature)ON; virtually the only scientist known to Times setters;
 
Down
1 TIME,SIGNAL – TIM-(a single)*;
2 MARIA – two meanings; 1=plural of mare, a plain on the moon 2=star of West Side Story;
3 TWELFTH – not very cryptic definition. There are 11 players in a cricket team. The twelfth man brings drinks onto the field for the other players;
5 THROB – T-(cas)H-ROB; the definition is “pound”;
6 REPTILE – REP-TILE (slang term for a hat, particularly a flat working man’s cap);
7 ARROGATES – (h)ARROGATES; more Yorkshire;
8 deliberately omitted – ask if in doubt;
9 MERRIEST – (times)* surrounds ERR;
13 ARMAGEDDON – (h)ARM-AGED-DON; Chelsea v Man U at Stamford Bridge;
15 RETALIATE – (treat a lie)*;
17 GAROTTED – G(A-R)OT-TED; R=Rex=King; TED=Teddy Boy, 1950’s devotee of the coffee bar jukebox;
19 ABSALOM – ABS-A-LO-M; the handsome well built son of David; excellent clue;
20 TREMBLE – TRE(M)BLE; chorister=TREBLE; mass=M (more science!);
22 THORN – THOR-N; reference “a thorn in one’s side”- see 24D;
23 OP,ART – O-PART;
24 CARP – CA(R)P; CAP=Common Agricultural Policy of EU, De Gaulle’s legacy thorn in our side;

34 comments on “Times 24,409 A Touch of Violence”

  1. Steady 35 minutes so quite fast for me. Last one in: marketeer. Shouldn’t 1d in your blog say “(a single)” in brackets? Apologies if I have misunderstood the convention. DCH
  2. I had a number of distractions on the way to work so wasn’t able to give this my undivided attention and finished it eventually in three sessions amounting to 45 minutes in all.

    I’ve never heard of a tradition of the 12th man bringing drinks onto the pitch for a cricket team. I always thought they took tea in the pavilion.

    I was completely baffled by 2dn. MARIA, MYRNA or other possibilities? In the end I put MARIA because of holidays spent in the region of Salzburg where there is a pilgrimage site called Maria Plain.

    2. Tea takes place in the pavilion, as does lunch, in between sessions; but in recent years it’s become standard to have a drinks break halfway through any given session. The 12th man is the guy who deals with that, or so goes the theory.
      1. Thanks, heyesey. I’ve absorbed a lot of stuff about cricket through having it forced on me at school, via crossword puzzles, and friends and family being fanatical about the sport, so I’m a bit surprised that the 12th man’s duties, having at least something to do with a brief respite from the tedium of the proceedings, have not come to my attention before today. I hope to remember this for future use.

  3. More haste, less speed.
    Having gleefully entered OP ART (a repeat of a recent answer?) into the wrong slot, misspelled GAROTTED and, unaccountably, ARMAGEDDON (despite correctly parsing the AGED bit) I got somewhat stuck.
    Guessed at GARTH & MARIA and couldn’t begin to get TESTA as I had an E at the end.
    Interested to see what Kevin etc make of TWELFTH. The twelfth man in cricket nowadays not only has to deliver drinks at predetermined times (as well as all the paraphernalia required by the prima donnas on the pitch such as shin guards, helmets, boxes, plasters etc), but at the fall of each wicket; and then he has to replace temporarily as a fielder those of his teammates requiring the facilities as a consequence of drinking too much.
  4. This puzzle came to you from the setter who gave you the scientist Appleton a few weeks back (and Shadwell the other Saturday!) — a physicist who would happily bring you Dirac and a host of others if the opportunity presented itself. I’m trying, Jimbo, I’m trying …!
    1. The same kind of search as I mention below shows that we have seen DIRAC as an answer once in the life of this blog. It just occurred to me that 5D is T plus an anagram of Niels BOHR.
    2. Keep going sir or madam and strength to your arm. All I would say is that NEWTON has become a cliché he’s appeared so many times. One sees “scientist” thinks NEWTON and reverse engineers!

      The less said about Shadwell (the poet as distinct from the underground station) the better but thanks for owning up!!

      1. But you told us you solved it last! I guess this doesn’t necessarily mean that you didn’t solve it on first look, though. If you didn’t, our anonymous setter got you for at least a while (he fooled me for a while by suggesting a possible T for “scientist at last”).
        1. Sorry, Peter – it was just the last clue I read. I saw ?E?T?N, read “scientist” and entered NEWTON. Didn’t look at the cryptic until writing the blog.

          I forgot to say well done to the setter for ABSALOM – great clue.

  5. Also done in several sessions in various places. No time recorded but I struggled from right to left, rejecting various answers because I couldn’t see how they worked and then finding they were in fact correct. I was also clueless at MARIA; in the end it was the only name that fitted and sounded vaguely plural – but of what? Thanks for the explanantion Jimbo, I would never have got there myself (I know, I know, I should do more barred crosswords). Nice to see Toto getting another outing. COD to the dog’s teeth amongst some slick and deceptive clues.
  6. 7:12 – I thought 2D was a nice mixture of science and Times xwd donnishness – know your moon-related terms AND your Latin plurals. As a popular scientist in the xwd, Tesla (or his unit) does quite well.

    Minor problem at 16A with “cooker” as another kind of apple, making GASCOOKER tempting with G=good and AS=?=say, but not written in.

  7. This was mainly easy provided you know the name of Dorothy’s dog and Captain Hook’s right hand man, so no problem for most regular solvers.

    Despite dabbling in the barred puzzles and having an O-level in Latin I did not know the plural of mare. By some convoluted logic, not being able to justify Maria, I entered Myrna so one wrong today.

  8. With a solving time of 35 minutes I took 5 minutes longer than yesterday, though I doubt that it was any harder. I should have got 1a immediately, but I always forget the name of Dorothy’s dog. I didn’t enter NEWTON at first because I was sure that it could not be the answer to a clue that had NEW in it (part of KNEW)and didn’t involve a hidden word.
    I agree that 19 is an excellent clue.
    1. That’s what the analysis in the report is meant to tell you, and isn’t disputed. The other stuff is about the rarity of other scientists as possible answers and a bit of wordplay that seemed possible to me before I saw the right answer.
      1. Using “rarity” in a comment on a clue involving a rare/noble gas was entirely unconscious punning.
  10. Just under 33 mins – a pretty good time for me.

    Both the top two across clues went straight in which is always a help. Then I seemed to work clockwise round from the NE corner to the NW. MARIA was last in without any idea of the construction – it just seemed the most likely girl’s name.

    I didn’t know GARTH or TESTA, I would have misspelt GAROTTED with two Rs, and I didn’t know Absalom was a king’s son, but it was all deducible from the wordplay. I remembered The Battle of Stamford Bridge from my school days, and I’ve watched enough Test matches to know what a twelfth man does.

  11. Chambers and ODE both allow either or both of the R and T to be doubled (but neither allows neither, if you see what I mean). Both mark GAROTTED, as used here, as a US variant.
  12. 13:30 so pretty quick for me.

    I guessed at Maria from M=more than one (quite a lot more on reflection) and aria, given my uncultured knowledge of opera, as possibly having something to do with plain song.

    As a Yorkshire-dweller Stamford Bridge and arrogate were gifts.

    I nearly went for harp at 24 but as I was trying to work out what H.A.P. might be the centime dropped.

    COD to Armageddon, fun puzzle.

  13. 14 minutes, thought I was in for a blinder, but I was held up by the cryptic definition at 3 down and unravelling that battle.

    From wordplay: GARTH, TESTA. From definition: CARP. From nowhere: MARIA.

    1. Probably – although it’s a nice bit of word invention, you’d have to see “most carefree” and “about” as two separate anagram indicators for the same thing, which would be very unusual. (I’m 99.99% certain that “about” would not pass muster as a wordplay/def link in the Times puzzle, though I can imagine some setters at one or two other papers managing to bully their editors into accepting it.)
    2. Just to add to what Peter has said I think every regular blogger on this site would have commented adversely on such a construction.
  15. 12:41 here, fairly steady solve throughout, top half slightly slower than the bottom half. Solved in two sessions, with about two-thirds taking 9:26 and the rest 3:15 after an interruption for a phone call.
  16. About 40 minutes for me, first in TOMATO right off, last MARIA, which I parsed corectly as a plural of ‘mare’ but had to use Amer. Her. dictionary to confirm. What I didn’t know today: TESTA, Ted, Cap, and the connection between TWELFTH and offering drinks to anyone. That last I got from having all the checking letters, a la vinyl. COD: ARMAGEDDON. Regards everyone.
  17. 14.50 today. NEWTON might be obvious ,but I was still looking for somebody beginning with W.
    I had TESTI at first so last in was ARMAGEDDON. Didn’t know MARIA as plural of mare, and had the wrong sense of ‘dirty’ in mind for 21 so that took a bit of time.
    Good mixture of clues today
  18. I’d like to throw in a plug for Puck’s crossword in the Guardian today. Puerile people like me will giggle a lot.
  19. To the setter:

    and hopefully MILLIKAN (my favourite A-level physics practical, as the experiment devised led to a Nobel prize.

Comments are closed.