Times 24435 – Bitter Orang(e) and Home Sweet Home

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
This one took 25 minutes which makes it one of the easiest ever on my blogging day so I hope I haven’t made any silly errors. There’s not really much to say about it as it’s all pretty standard stuff.

Across
1 BOOK,WORM – Job is today’s book of the Bible, followed by a computer nasty.
5 (f)IN ESSE – My last in. It  means in actual existence.
9 TRAMPLING – Two meanings, one being an invented diminutive of TRAMP.
11 MOO,CH – Ah, memories of Cab Calloway’s Minnie the Moocher! Hi De Hi De Hi De Hi!
12 ENGROSS – Anagram of Songs’re
13 O,ATM,EA,L
14 WITH A BAD GRACE
16 HOME SWEET HOME – Anagram of (theme somehow) and abode. This was an opportunity to remind myself that the famous song lyric was written by the American John Howard Payne with music added by the British composer Sir Henry Bishop in 1823. I had forgotten this and if pressed to name the composer I would have said it was by Stephen Foster.
20 Deliberately omitted. Please ask if baffled.
21 RA,IN,BOW – RA for Royal Academician or painter is standard crossword fare. BOW in the East End will be fresh in the minds of those who read the Cockney discussions in yesterday’s blog. Lots of opportunities here to mention old songs but for once I shall resist the temptation.
23 Deliberately omitted. Please ask if baffled.
24 TWO-TIMING
25 W,I’D,GET – W as the chemical symbol for Tungsten had not stuck in my mind from my science studies long ago. It stands for Wolframium, apparently.
26 A,N,C(EST)RY
 
Down
1 BIT(T)ER – The biter bites the tip of Tooth
2 ORANG(e) – Collins confirms “ORANG” without “-utan” is okay. I wondered if “orange” for “bright ginger” is a bit iffy but the dictionary definitions seem to cover it.
3 WIPEOUT – Sounds like “Why pout” apparently. Expect complaints from those who sound the aitch.
4 REIN,STATEMENT
6 NAME TAG – “Gate man” reversed.
7 STO(NEW,A)RE
8 (t)ETHE(L)RED – There was more than one King Ethelred; the one called The Unready may be the most famous. I wasted time trying to fit “Cole” in here.
10 GOO(D AFTER)N,gOON
14 WOMANKIND – Anagram of (maid known)
15 CH(EPST)OW – CHOW around an anagram of Pets. Not sure if  this Welsh town may cause some difficulty overseas.
17 Deliberately omitted. Please ask if baffled.
18 OR,IF,ICE – OR for Other Ranks or men is more standard crossword fare.  Happy memories of Rowan Atkinson as the Schoolmaster: “Nancyboy-Potter… Orifice…Plectrum…”
19 TWIG,GooglY
22 BU(IsraeL)T – The setter seems to have run out of steam here and used the same device in consecutive clues.

52 comments on “Times 24435 – Bitter Orang(e) and Home Sweet Home”

  1. Same as most everyone, done in 15 minutes, finishing in the NE corner with MOOCH and ETHELRED. I liked TRAMPLING and the as yet unmentioned PANCAKE. Hadn’t known IN ESSE before today. Not much else to say. Regards to all.
  2. Found this very easy but fun. Loved the wordplay for BOOKWORM, TWIGGY (laughed) and BITTER. Got CHEPSTOW from wordplay and was waiting to find there was a place called CHOPSTEW or CHOPESTW (you never know)!
  3. Saturday a.m. in UK but it seems to be impossible to get into the crossword club. I get a 404 page after logging in (and why can’t the crossword club keep you logged in for several days at least, instead of timing out after a few hours all the time).
    1. Paul,

      01:08 GMT and I’m not getting a 404, but a message saying the site is down whilst they upgrade their registration system. This suggests that the work was planned, in which case I don’t understand why they wouldn’t email subscribers and let them know in advance. It really is an appallingly conducted operation.

  4. ‘in esse’ (in reality) contrasts with ‘in posse’ (potentially); having the N & the S, and finally thinking to take ‘really’ as the definition, I got it fairly early on.
    Strictly speaking–too strictly, really– ‘why pout’ & ‘wipeout’ are pronounced differently even for those of us who don’t de-voice the W; the P of ‘pout’ is aspirated, the P of ‘wipeout’ isn’t. (Hold a lighted match close to your lips and pronounce the two.)
  5. Hello all,

    Here in NY, the Post syndicates the Times puzzle two weeks later, so I’m just getting to this one. But I thought I’d share some thoughts and questions, as I am completely new to all the British terms, even though I’ve been doing cryptic puzzles for years.

    I got hung up on OR = men and RA = painter. I suppose abbreviations like this will be my biggest obstacle. I thought I’d be smart and put CE for church, but in this case it was CH! (Easy enough to get though, and a great clue.)

    I missed RAINBOW because I had put in SNAGGY for 19d, which as far as I can tell is a completely legitimate answer (SNAGGY = having sharp protrusions, ie sticky, with ? indicating a pun; and SNAG = catch), except that it doesn’t fit with RAINBOW.

    I cannot believe that I didn’t see that WOMANKIND was an anagram… I reasoned like this: maid = WOMAN, known to = KIN, change = delta = D. Does this work for anyone else?

    Thanks in advance… I’m very excited that this was the first Times puzzle I did completely on my own, even getting the unknown-to-me CHEPSTOW from wordplay alone. My only two incompletes were ORIFICE and RAINBOW, and both has unfamiliar abbreviations. SNAGGY was incorrect, but as I said, it works!

    I know it was an easier than usual puzzle, but I’m glad I’m starting to get the hang of things!

    Jeremy

    +j

    1. Welcome! Abbreviations will be a pitfall for a while, but you’ll soon pick up the most common ones. Locations like the Bow in RAINBOW may be a longer-term issue, though again there are some stock ones, including Bow as a cockney/London location. Getting D from “change” is a two-step process which you should not need to use to get abbreviations, except for a few well-worn things like “partners” = NS/SN/WE/EW from bridge.

      Snaggy was a snaggy problem! You will occasionally find perfectly valid “red herring” answers like this if checking letters from other answers don’t save you.

      There’s a short guide to some British references here.

      1. Thanks so much! Actually ‘d’ = change is not really two steps, for example df/dx is pronounced “change in f over change in x”. I now question whether known to = KIN is legitimate. It’s a stretch at best.

        Anyway, you all have inspired me to sign up for the Times puzzle. I’ll spend another few weeks “behind the Times” to practice, and because I love doing crosswords on paper. But I’ll join y’all soon.

        +j

        1. Here, df/dx is “d y by d x”, or was when I was at school and university. But the dictionaries just have “denoting a small increment in a variable”, so “change” alone wouldn’t do for D. “small change” would be nicely misleading but pretty difficult. “delta” would be OK by way of the international radio/”phonetic” alphabet.

          As and when you join the crossword club, you can still solve on paper. You get a pretty decent print-out for the daily puzzles, with an option to save toner by having the grid in pale grey. Still my daily routine until the championships have a PC on every desk.

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