Times 24437 – And so to bed

Author   kororarekaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 30mins

This was mostly a doddle (for which I am extremely grateful), done whilst watching tennis and cricket on TV, eating breakfast and discussing the weather (43 Celsius yesterday and similar forecast today. The official terminology is “eyeball searing”. It must be summer in Perth.). There’s a few references I didn’t understand when solving, the odd obscure literary chap and a few drinks in the mix, but nothing to frighten the horses. Except that now I see that I have one wrong. It doesn’t pay to get too cocky.

Across
1 SWITCH = S for singular + WITCH. Not the rabbit from a hat magician.
4 ASSASSIN = ASS times 2 + IN
10 A + VAL[rANCH]E = AVALANCHE
11 Kalevala + EATS = KEATS, a not obscure poet who wrote poetry on Grecian urns (Wanton vandalism!). The Kalevala is a seminal Finnish masterpiece, as you no doubt all know.
12 FOLLOW [ManlY] LEADER = FOLLOW-MY-LEADER. “Take in” = “follow” as in follow the drift.
14 UTTER a double definition. I don’t know why I have a blind spot for utter, but it catches me out every time.
16 TEST DRIVE = TEST + DRIVE. For those who don’t know, a drive is a cricket stroke, played with the bat in a vertical orientation. In its various guises it can end up almost anywhere in the field, including behind the batsman if well snicked. Whilst on the topic here’s a list of lists of UK rivers.
18 SWINBURNE = SWIN[BURNs]E. Although I couldn’t name any poem he wrote or recite a single line, I thought he was vaguely connected with the Pre-Raphs and indeed he was. He also invented the roundel, which was quite an achievement in its day.
20 CREE + L = CREEL, a wicker basket for catching fish, lobsters and the like.
21 LORD OF THE RINGS, a double definition, the second cryptic. Sauron was the archvillain in Tolkien’s work, apparently. The M. of Q. wrote the rules of boxing (Rule 1: There are no rules) when he wasn’t defaming Wilde.
25 INTRO = (TRIO)* around N for number. Funky is the anagrind; I’m not sure if it relates to dancing or panic.
26 MARGARITA = (A GRAM)rev + RITA a cocktail made from tequila and citrus juice.
27 TAPES + TRY = TAPESTRY
28 FRIEZE = “frees”

Down
1 STAFF + N for name + (SURE)* = STAFF NURSE. The ‘s is short for “has” in the cryptic reading.
2 Omitted. Ask if flummoxed.
3 (RUM + COLA)* = CLAMOUR
5 SWELL = aS WELL
6 A WK + WARD = AWKWARD. “At” is in adjacent to.
7 SNAKEBITE, a double definition. My last in.
8 Ask if you don’t know the answer.
9 SC[I MITt]AR = SCIMITAR
13 Omitted. Ask the forum if stuck.
15 THIN + ON + TOP for an expression relating to hair loss and the need of a cap to keep the sun from frying your brain (in Southern Hemisphere) or the snow from freezing it (in Northern Hemisphere). I forgot to mention that “leg” = “on” is another cricketing reference (fittingly). The on or leg side of the wicket is the side closest to your legs when you’re facing the bowler as a batter. If you wish to appear knowledgeable, the other side or off side is never called the arm side.
17 german SHEPHERD. Corydon is your generic shepherd, apparently. (There’s another short list in that Wiki reference of doubtful relevance.) The funniest thing I saw on Christmas telly was a manger attendee saying “Guten tag.” to the baby Jesus, explaining she’d come as a German shepherd; so this was an easy one for me.
19 BEDDOES = BED + DOES, a poet and dramatist so obscure that even Wiki can’t think of much to say about him. Have I got the right one? Anyway, I had the wrong one when solving, confidently penning Bedgoes.
20 CORSAIR = “coarse air”
22 FEMUR = F[EMU]R. “Father” not being “pa”.
23 NAIVE = NAtIVE
24 FI[A]T = FIAT, a formal authorisation

41 comments on “Times 24437 – And so to bed”

  1. 12 mins. Raced through the rum & colas, snakebites and maragaritas — as might be expected. Nice to see two crossing poets (which is probably what Beddoes Junior is most famous for) — wonder if Our Mutual Friend knows of his dad?
    Minor note to Koro: at 16, you need “its”, not “it’s”.
  2. 20 min. Took off like a rocket, but the second stage misfired and I crashed in the SW. The INTRO BEDDOES cross was the problem. Eventually cheated to get the latter, which confirmed the former. No stand out clues, but no gripes except perhaps the obscure bed fellow.
  3. Coincidentally, last night I read a review of a book about Beddoes’s more famous father; I didn’t think of that until now, but maybe it helped unconsciously. Same thing the other day, when I couldn’t think of any Sir Thomas other than Browne (‘Religio Medici’, ‘Urn Burial’): that night, ‘A Man for All Seasons’ was on TV.
  4. For many years my wife and I have done The Times Cryptic published daily in The Australian newspaper which is published between 30 and 38 days after the original, depending on the day of the week and the proximity of Easter and Christmas when the two papers get a bit “out of sync.”
    We really enjoy this blog, even if it has already been “dead” for around 5 weeks or so, and visit every day.
    Locating today’s (oz time) crossword is a bit tricky so I have used some of my immense store of leisure time to create a web-page to easily find any day’s blog and published it <a href = http://www.low.net.au/xwords/showlinks.html> here.</a>
    I thought I would share it with all those Times Cruciverbalists who have occasion to access this wonderful puzzle via Australia’s only truly national newspaper and who may wish to avail themselves of the wonderful wit and expertise of Peter, Jimbo, Barry, Mark, Sabine etcetera, etcetera, etcetera…..
    I would welcome any comments or suggestions for improvement.
    Regards roylow
    1. roylow: we had a post the other day from richnorth (Sydney) referring to his frustrations with the Times in the Oz. He ended up getting a sub to the online Club. This basically reflects my own experience of years of doing the puzzle in the Oz. At the time I had a basic rule: add 15,813 to the puzzle number in the Oz and look that up here. Don’t know if this still works but, if not, something like that will do the trick. The downside of getting a sub is that your $$ still go to one R. Murdoch who manifestly doesn’t give a stuff about the cruciverbalists among his (dwindling) print audience. And the online version has its problems too.
      1. Based on one test, the “+ 15813” system still works. I don’t know the cost of The Australian, but here, a Crossword Club sub costs about 10% of the cost of getting the paper every day – profit margins may differ from the paper version, but it should still be less $ or £ in the pockets of Murdoch if that’s important.
        1. The numbers work out similarly here Peter. The Oz is AUD1.50 a day, so AUD468 p.a. or about GBP270. And that’s for 6 days a week. Subscribing to the Club online for GBP25 p.a. is a no-brainer. The rest of the Oz you can read free online anyway.
    2. Roylow, thanks for the link. I’ve taken the liberty of posting it on the ACC website (www.crossword.org/deef) as I know there are other Aussies who also solve The Times from The Australian. I used too but am now into my second year of subscribing to The Times and haven’t looked back. However, the number 15813 will probably stay with me for some time.
    3. Roylow, congratulations on your ingenuity in working out the maths and creating the site, but i would certainly join the other Oz posters in recommending a subscription. If nothing else, there’s an instant backlog of thirty-odd puzzles to catch up on.
  5. I was on track for a personal best with all except BEDDOES (never heard of him) done in 9 minutes. But it took me 2 or 3 more to get him (despite realizing immediately it started BED, somehow WORKS made me think of other things).
  6. Snap once again, koro! 30 minutes with one error, though mine was at 28 where I carelessly wrote FREEZE because I didn’t stop to think about it. My mind must still have been on the snow of the last few weeks (now mercifully all thawed).

    My biggest hold-up was in the SE corner where I took ages to spot the SHEPHERD/MAGARITA intersection. It wasn’t helped by wondering what type of dog might be associated with Croydon!

    I’m not sure I have met “turkey” meaning a foolish person before, but anyway the answer at 4ac was obvious and indeed it was my first in.

    1. Now I know why in days of yore Word’s spellchecker always changed my town of residence into Corydon.
    2. Turkey as ass is common in Australia. I had always assumed it had reached these shores via US television shows which dominate commercial free-to-air channels here. The ODE seems to concur, giving a “mainly N. America” codicil. There was one of those ad hoc posters that admin staff post all over their walls which said “It’s difficult to soar with eagles when you work with turkeys” going round some years back.
  7. Huge rush again this morning so didn’t think I would make this blog today so great relief to complete top half with hardly a pause although bottom gave more trouble. Never heard of BEDDOES, pere or fils.
  8. 15 mins with no problems, though I had to check whether anyone called Beddoes actually existed. What with Fiat and Test Drive, and (real) Estate, I thought it must be Bedford, to start with 🙂
  9. 5:35 so little difficulty. Just enough vague memories of “corydon” at 20, and fortunately saw {works = does} promptly at 19. When the composers are “obscure”, I like to provide a link to a piece by the obscurity that lots of people will recognise. Any offers for the same from Beddoes? If not, I agree with what I can rely on Jimbo to say, especially when all 4 proper nouns among the answers are literary.

    I’ve looked at ODQ and recognised none of the 5 Beddoes quotes. But I did wonder whether an older Times puzzle would have done something really nasty with 24D and “I have a bit of FIAT in my soul, And can myself create my little world”. (His caps, not mine)

    1. Well spotted on the Fiat connection. (Was Beddoes an earlier English version of Monsieur Mange Tout? Mr Mange Tout can be seen in action here. No Fiats, but I seem to remember somebody did eat a car at some point.) I had similar trouble finding anything I even vaguely recognised. In fact I had more success with Bedgoes. The Wiki article implies he didn’t much like publishing his works (or his does for that matter).
  10. With the cricket references and the poets this was like a parody of a Times crossword. My only problem was how to spell Frieze. Fortunately I went back and changed my double E to the correct spelling. I never used to have this problem but I get it over and over again these days when there is a homophonic answer. Presumably it is connected to my over-reliance on a computer.
  11. 8 mins, with at least 1 min at the end to get 15D THIN ON TOP. Hadn’t heard of Beddoes, but was reasonably confident about it. Lots of nice surfaces, I’ll choose 16A as COD for nice use of ‘stroke’.

    Tom B.

  12. This was nice and easy – have abandoned timing but felt really quick. My only acquaintance with Beddoes is quotes from him as chapter headings in Dorothy Sayers books – without which I would certainly not have heard of him.
  13. oh dear on for a record time, then had a complete mental block over K?A?S, despite having got beddoes and read a lot of his keats’ poetry. thought it might be knags! used an aid to end up with my worst doh moment since discovering this site. cod 15d which kept me at bay for a while even when i had all the checking letters.
  14. A minor point, but i got to stroke=DRIVE via golf rather than cricket. it’s equally valid. I wonder if Jimbo will have the same experience? Thirtysomething minutes for this, with a couple of interruptions. Last in was the FRIEZE, CORSAIR, CREEL trio and the obscure playwright. Beddows was ringing a bell in my head and i wasted a couple of minutes trying to get it to work. One day, perhaps, I’ll learn to reject the impossible and consider the alternative.
    1. Golf was in my mind for ‘stroke’ as well. Cricket’s been temporarily expunged from my consciousness.

      Tom B.

  15. Mostly filled in 20 minutes, with 5 and 7 still to do. I entered SWELL without much conviction since I’ve always thought of a ‘swell’ as a dandy, someone who thinks he is of high social standing, but I see Chambers gives, “a member of the governing class”. I was completely stuck on 7 and ended up resorting to an aid.

    Some cultural references that were new to me: Kalevala, Corydon and Beddoes, though the last did ring a faint bell. Poetry and poets seemed to figure quite prominently in this puzzle

  16. Thanks for the most interesting exposé of solutions, koro.. a leisurely 45 minutes here albeit with a couple of guesses 28 ac MANDARITA seemed to work. Never knew a turkey was an ass. Can I presume 8d is NOSH? If so what is noh? Thought 1d STAFF fitted nicely until the obvious 12ac dropped into place.
    2. No/Noh is a crossword standby – a Japanese style of traditional drama. Watch out for “No plays are performed in this country (5)” – probably first used by Adrian Bell, c. 1933.
  17. 21:35 – My best time for quite a while, so it must have been pretty straightforward.

    There were several cultural references that I didn’t get while solving, but the only slight hold-up I had was trying to think of a dramatist B-D-OPS before the penny dropped.

    No problem getting SNAKEBITE – it was my staple drink during my late teens! Not sure I could drink one now, though.

  18. If you’ve been to a concert and read a biography of Sibelius or programme notes for his works, there’s a fair chance that you’ve seen the word Kalevala in print – the Kullervo symphony and Lemminkäinen suite are based on parts of it, and I suspect one or two others may be too.
  19. 13:42 with the unknown Beddoes, then shepherd (didn’t know Corydon) and finally margarita finishing things off (was thinking a reverasl of dram at the start to fit with the boozy theme).

    I was thinking golf for drive but you could add tennis to the list.

    I think a sign of the progress I’ve made in the last 2 years is chucking in fiat and no(s)h with barely a moment’s thought.

    15 COD for me too.

    1. I also thought of golf despite tennis being my favourite spectator sport and today being the first day of the 2010 Grand Slam tournaments.
  20. Dont know whether it is a statistical expectation, or more, but there seem to have been a string of easier puzzles over the last few weeks, then again, I seem to remember a string of fiendish ones prior to that so maybe it is a counterbalance.

    For the second time in a few days I was flirting with the ten minute mark, and I was looking at sub 9 which I have never done, but for the dreaded 19d which I entered several ways before getting the right one. BEDSOPS was one that I thought plausible (a plot containing multiple beds??) but was far happier with the singular bed, so I think the wordplay fully validates the slightly obscure definition.

    As I often try to work out why certain puzzles seem easier than others, I would say that this one was clearly a case of obvious definitions. A fair number of clues worked almost as a non-crytic, especially taking into account checkers, and all of 1A, 1D, 6D, 7D, 9D, 12A, 14A, 16A, 13D, 17D, 21A, 22D, 26A, and 27A came straight from definition.

  21. 9:01 here. Mostly very easy, never heard of BEDDOES but easy enough to get him from the wordplay. That SW corner was easily the trickiest, as I also took a while to think of THIN ON TOP and FIAT, but that probably only added a minute or so to my overall time. COD for 15D THIN ON TOP, made me think of Shane Warne’s hair transplant!
  22. Almost a doddle, apart from SNAKEBITE which held me up at the end even when I had all the checking letters. Can’t think why. Unlike Dave I didn’t spend my teenage years drinking the stuff, and indeed had never heard of it until relatively recently, but I’m pretty sure it has cropped up in previous cryptics. Was mildly chuffed to guess BEDDOES, a playwright hitherto unknown to me, from the wordplay. The Oxford Campanion to English Literature describes him as having had “an obsession with the macabre, the supernatural and bodily decay”
  23. 6.18 so almost everything went in quickly except 28 where the homophone indicator being plural had me writing an S in at the end , and 19 , but I had heard the name BEDDOES before although I wouldn’t have been able to say in what connection. A lot of familiar-ish clues
  24. My first round of golf this year (hurrah! – and yes thought of “drive” from golf) and then settled down to this very poor offering. Raced through it with barely a thought until left with, you’ve guessed it, B?D?O?S.

    Had just about heard of Thomas, the physician, but as I was already drowning in poets thought he must have written some limericks as well not realising he had an obscure offspring. Now tell me, if he feels compelled to use obscure people, why could this obsessed setter not have used the physician to form the clue around. He’s certainly no more obscure than the poet.

    I’m hoping for tougher and better fare tomorrow.

  25. Around 30 minutes here but distracted by watching US football while solving. I agree, somewhat on the easier side, despite not being familiar with the SNAKEBITE mixology. Last entry was THIN ON TOP where I didn’t understand what I took to be cricket-ese at the beginning of the clue. BEDDOES or BEDGOES was a toss up, but the former looked more like a real name than the latter. Regards.
  26. One of my fastest times at 8 minutes, nothing stood for very long. BEDDOES and FIAT from wordplay

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