Times 24,438 – that would be an ecumenical matter…

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
19:37, held up by my brain refusing to see the correct definition in a not especially tricky clue, and another solution which seemed so straightforward that I found myself looking for other possibilities that weren’t there. One religious query which only occurred to me when writing the blog, which suggests, of course, that it isn’t a problem, as it didn’t stop me solving the clue; however, it might be a clue which someone more theologically inclined than yours truly can illuminate.

ETA: confusion in my head caused by failure to spot correct wordplay, and nothing to do with religion, or, for that matter, double definitions of the same thing. Two clues amended as suggested by PB.

Across
1 CARIBBEAN – R(hode) I(sland) in CAB + BEAN (one for fans of definition by example, there).
6 APPLE – chAP PLEasure; apples are “cookers” or “eaters”, of course.
9 MELANIN – MELANI(E) + N.
10 UNDERGO – UND + ERGO; nice surface and disguised definitions i.e. “in German class ‘and'” + “‘therefore’ in Latin”.
11 LEI – aLgErIa
12 OPALESCENCE – [PALES + C.E.] in ONCE.
14 STRIKE – If you’re on strike, you’re “out”, except in cricketing-based clues, of course, when you’d be “in”.
15 SUBTOPIA – (BUS)rev + (PATIO)*; not a term I knew, but I guessed correctly that it must be a portmanteau word meaning suburban utopia.
17 UNSOUGHT – UN + “SORT”; Blakeney, of course, was the Scarlet Pimpernel, and was sought here, and indeed there.
19 PIMPLE – MP in PILE; for what seemed like an age I was desperately seeking something along the lines of SIMPTE that meant “excessive wealth”, when I should have been looking for the spot.
22 DOMINEERING – DOM + IN + “EARRING”. I can’t find a reference which suggests that “Domine” is a Catholic term; it seems to refer either to the Reformed Protestant Church, or (in the US) a clergyman of any description. As I didn’t know exactly what it was, but could see where it could come from linguistically, I didn’t give it much more thought when writing it in. Can anyone shed any light (assuming anyone thinks it worth shedding)? Applying Occam’s razor would have been an idea here: it’s DOM (as in Perignon or Anthony Sutch) + IN, and not DOMINE at all.
23 TAG – (GAT)rev.
25 INVALID – (VAIN)* + LID.
27 MADONNA – DO in MANNA; the most famous probably being the Madonna of the Rocks after its analysis by that noted art historian Mr Dan Brown.
28 EARLY – PEARLY; for non-Brits who are unfamiliar with them, here’s an explanation of Pearly Kings and Queens, gawd bless yer.
29 MISBEHAVE – M(ates) + 1S + BE + HAVE.
 
Down
1 CAMEL – ME(t) in CAL(ifornia); as in the colour of many overcoats.
2 RALLIER – double def.
3 BANNOCKBURN – (CON)rev in [BANK + BURN]; a glorious blow for freedom / treacherous rebellion (depending on which side of the border one stood).
4 ENNEAD – “ANY AD”; possibly tricky if you don’t know that ENNEA is the Greek for “nine”.
5 NAUSEOUS – [A(pplicant) USE] in NOUS.
6 AID – AID(A).
7 PARSNIP – PARS(O)N + 1P.
8 EXONERATE – ONE in EX RATE.
13 CUTTING EDGE – CUTTING ‘EDGE.
14 SOUNDBITE – IT in SOUND + BE.
16 CHIEFDOM – [(OF MEDIC) + H(ead)]*; I puzzled over this, mainly, I think, because the “chief” is defined both by the “top” of “top position”, then again by “head”, so it seemed to me that it was saying the same thing twice, and I was looking for another meaning that wasn’t there. Possibly this is just me. Just me, indeed.
18 SAMOVAR – V(ery) in SAMOA R(ex).
20 PETUNIA – P.E. + TUN(is)IA.
21 LITMUS – scarcely cryptic, really, if one ignores the intended surface.
24 GRACE – For those unfamiliar, the story of Grace Darling is here.
26 LAY – double def.

50 comments on “Times 24,438 – that would be an ecumenical matter…”

  1. 10:44 – a medium-difficulty puzzle with some tricky corners. I put in 1, 3 and 7 without full wordplay understanding. I have two wordplays differing from Tim’s version:

    22 I think the Catholic dignitary is “Dom” – as in Dom Perignon, the monk who supposedly invented champagne. Then IN = wearing, and the “earring”.

    16 I think this is just an anagram of “of medic” plus H = “beginning of head”, with “top postion” as the def.

  2. I found this a bit tedious and not very entertaining, but that may be just because I wasn’t in the mood.

    In 17ac I think DOM is the Catholic digitary, IN = wearing.

  3. No time as I was on the move and lost track of stop and starts. I did very well with all of the top half except 4dn and the SE except 29ac but struggled with most of the SW. That came together eventually but I arrived at work with 4dn and 29ac still outstanding and used a solver to polish them off. I was expecting to say that I had never heard of ENNEAD before but my work computer had held the pattern E?N?A?S in its memory, to which there is only one solution (ENNEADS) in the solver I use, so I have apparently looked it up before and promptly forgotten it.

    I think 22 is DOM,IN,EERING and DOM is the Catholic term.

  4. Another day of sporadic solving in medical waiting rooms. But I’m guessing over the hour. Problem was: I saw 1ac right away and then mis-wrote it as CARRIBEAN — thinking CAR not CAB for the vehicle. A little while later, I was left with I?N?O?K???? at 3dn. And pondered that for ages as a complete impossibility. Once that was corrected, I could only think of The Goodies’ Scottish Episode: “Just to the North of Ben Doon, lived wee Flora McKitchen, burning her bannocks and cocking her leekies”, etc.
    Liked much of the rest but. Especially the (possibly Scots?) CHIEFDOM where I handed over my old “Ragaman” identity card to the Kruciverbal Kops, having failed to see the obvious. Then returned to my own subtopia (15ac), licked more Scottish Presbyterian wounds and cut the ‘edge in 42º heat as penance.
    If there’s a Sotira-ish band here, it’s Parsnip The Pimple, a West Indian Mott The Hoople cover band who played Madonna covers in reggae tempo.
  5. Another alleged homonym that wasn’t one for me made this an exasperating puzzle. For me, sought does not sound like sort (nor does why sound like the beginning of wise, as assumed in another recent puzzle). The “some say” is not a valid justification unless all UK accents are to get a fair crack of the whip – in fact we only ever see RP and a weird kind of music hall cockney. The principle objection to this is fairness, pure and simple. It means clues that are straightforward for RP speakers are much less so for solvers with different accents. The Times these days is a UK national newspaper and surely the days when it was acceptable for its crosswords to be more difficult for readers with the “wrong” accent should be over.
    2. I’d have no objection to “for some” being applied to some other accents, but I’m not convinced that using Home Counties pronunciation is that much of a problem for Scots, nor that they pronounce every R in sight. Listen to this Scot (Times Crossword champ 1991) pronouncing “arbiter” (at 4:48 in the clip) – I can’t hear the first R.

      You get your own back in puzzles based on Chambers, with all those Scots words.

      Edited at 2010-01-19 01:15 pm (UTC)

      1. I’ve just received an e-mail from Paul MacKenna to the effect that Chambers went out of business over Christmas – bad news!
          1. Thanks for bringing that update to my attention. I think it would be a very great loss indeed if our bible (for barred-grid fare, at least) were allowed to slide into obscurity, and that possibility makes me feel a little sad every time I pick up the big red book. Do post an update on this blog if any substantial news emerges regarding the future of C.
      2. I can assure you Peter it makes a significant difference. I had to resort to aids to get “unsought” – I bet no Home Counties speaker did. It frequently happens that one of my last answers in is one of these not-one-for-me homophones which then escapes comment on this blog as being too obvious to be worth discussing. And my Scottish accent is fairly mild. We think of words sounding as we pronounce them and it often takes longer to recognise same-sound words if they don’t sound the same to you.

        My point is not that this makes the puzzles harder for Scots, but that it makes the puzzles harder for all non-RP speakers. Obviously the further from RP the greater the difficulty. There’s a huge variation of accents in Scotland and a minority, particularly those who went to public school, still speak in an accent not so very different from RP. I’m sure there are speakers with English regional accents who have the same problems as I do.

        1. The Scots/English divide over the post-vocalic /r/ isn’t new. 200 years ago, an Edinburgh magazine took John Keats to task for rhyming ‘shorter’ with ‘water’ and ‘thorns’ with ‘fawns’. However, the writer didn’t acknowledge these to be rhymes in the prevailing RP (perhaps wrongly) but termed them ‘Cockney rhymes’.

          Tom B.

          1. I’m not sure that there was RP in the same way then – I think it arose first from people travelling to public schools and universities, then from radio and TV.

            I guess some solvers in Scotland must cope simply by reckoning something supposed to sound like “sort” may have no R in it, and something supposed to sound like “sought” may have an R.

            1. Well you do a bit of that obviously but it doesn’t even things out. Homophone clues that are homophones to me remain very significantly easier to solve. And I’d guess that at least 50% of Times homophone clues are not homophones for me.
              1. Quite a few aren’t homophones for me, either – ‘Sack son’ and ‘Saxon’ stick in my memory from a year or two ago. My father had a strong Scottish accent and was a keen crossword solver; I think he just tried to muddle through on homophones.

                Tom B.

            2. Here’s where it gets sticky for some of us in the colonies though still a lot of fun.
              What, pray, is ‘RP’?
              It seems one has to put yet another note atop the grid as a reminder in the vein of
              “if you can’t see it, it must be a foreign word (or phrase).” Foreign word indeed.
  6. I was another solver hanging around medical waiting rooms today. The solving didn’t go very well.

    I had the wrong kind of shimmering effect at 12a for a long time which then messed up 3d with knock on effects.

    Still struggling after 40 minutes and finally finished in just over the hour.

    Liked CHIEFDOM, and CARIBBEAN when the penny finally dropped. I had spent too long trying to fit Usain or Bolt into 1a.

  7. Couldn’t even google my way to answers for 17 and 16 (Google seems uninterested in Blakeney unless you already know he is the Scarlet Pimpernel – as elusive as ever). Would have reached point of failure much quicker had I not gone down the McText route of figuring car for cab and thus misspelling 1ac.
  8. I did this whilst watching the tennis on tellie, which never makes for a satisfting solve, but I’m heartened to see that others struggled as well. Like jackkt, I found the SW more or less impenetrable, but I finally whittled it down to Blakeney and the medic. A few hours later I thought of UNSOUGHT(!?) and then saw, horror or horrors, that CHIEFDOM was an anagram, which gets my COD. ENNEAD was a lucky guess as far as the spelling went, so I’d have to say the setter won in a marathon five setter.

    Speaking of anagrams, I came across this gem in a place which shall remain nameless (nowhere mainstream I hasten to add): “Medieval branch of knowledge, confused and dark (6)” Lest you waste yor time trying to solve it, the answer is GLOOMY. Let’s have a rousing three cheers for the Times!

  9. Having got 1ac and 6ac whilst waiting for the printer I thought this would be another doddle, but it ended up longer then average at 25mins, with difficulties around the S and SW, esp. chiefdom and domineering. Seen ennead before, all nox. 1-9 in Greek & in Latin come in handy from time to time.

    I don’t agree with the homophone rant. I wince at the mockney h- dropping, eg in 13 dn, always sounds a bit Dick Van Dyke to me, but the rubbish homophones make me smile. Each to their own, I suppose, though I think Mr Anonymous should consider having his blood pressure checked.

    1. Apologies, and yes it will. Must be getting old or spending too much time around the house: I don’t yet do that comic staple of standing in a room thinking “What did I come in here for?”, but I do find myself saying “Goodness, has x come around already?” a lot, where x is something that happens on a regular basis.
  11. Most was solved in 25 minutes, then another 10 pondering 16 and 17. I’m not sure what the question mark is doing at the end of 16, unless it’s to indicate the ‘dodginess’ of the nounal anagrind (no comment please; I know I’m in a minority with this view). I liked 17 and couldn’t see much wrong with the homophone, though I realize that American solvers might object. The Shorter OED gives the same pronunciation for both words (sO:t). For me that’s justification enough, even if there are regional variations. “A Continental” had me fooled for some time, and was a refreshing change from “A French”. I thought 11 and 26 had fairly poor surfaces, but I did like the surface of 6.
    1. I did wonder about that question mark myself, and finally came to the same conclusion as you.

      I agree the surface of 26 is a bit mystifying, unless you’re familiar with the Sesame Street oeuvre. Personally, I’m waiting for a reference to “In the Night Garden”, some of Derek Jacobi’s finest work.

  12. Did most of this in a series of short breaks during a show last night, but didn’t get 16 or 17 until this morning. Also fell for CARRIBEAN. Liked the clues for PIMPLE and SAMOVAR.
  13. Thankfully harder than recent puzzles, 25 minutes to complete. No real highs or lows – just a nice steady solve.

    For those who are interested in such things the comments section of the recent blog to Mephisto 2576 contains some interesting information on the plural forms of Japanese words (the Japanese do not just add “s”) and how they should be depicted in English based crosswords.

  14. Oh, dear. Given my completion rate in 2010, it’s as well I’m not a racehorse.

    Sprinted through most of this in about 14 minutes and then found myself staring at 29a. I was absolutely convinced that this was defined by “Live on one’s own” and must start with an anagram of ‘mates’. This gave me the, at a glance, rather alarming template of MASTE_A_E, prompting a momentary misreading I just couldn’t get past despite several return visits to the puzzle. Another Did Not Finish. Shoot me now.

    1. “Live on one’s own” for (1’S,BE,HAVE) was a very good bit of deception. I think you could have eliminated (mates)* on grammatical grounds – in the cryptic reading, “mates” should be treated as singular as it’s one word – so you’d need “mates initially plays up”. This is like “I am in standard duo” being a dud clue for PA(I)R, because the cryptic reading is really “I is in standard duo”, so the setter has to use something like “I must be in standard duo” to make the grammar work in both readings.

      Edited at 2010-01-19 01:48 pm (UTC)

      1. I’m Salieri to your Mozart, Pete.

        That ability to analyse one’s way through an initial misreading may be one of the main differences between the best solvers and the rest. I don’t seem to have a ‘reset’ button.

  15. 24:25. I wish, like Peter, I’d put in 1 across without full wordplay understanding. Instead I ended up in the Mctext camp, carefully putting RI inside a vehicle (car) plus bean, totally ignoring the fact that you don’t spell it carribean (although some people seemingly do as it gets over 4 million hits on Google).

    That, of course, made Bannockburn harder than it should have been which in turn held me up on domineering, unsought and chiefdom (the latter of which I didn’t understand until coming here).

    Thanks to Tim for his customary top notch bloggage.

  16. 13:37 here. I thought it a bit strange that the cruciverbal cockney forgot to drop ‘is “ing” when ‘e was CUTTIN’ ‘is ‘EDGE, but never mind. Got off to a slow start, gradually speeding up as more checking letters appeared. No real hold-ups, but there were a few clues I had to keep going back to 3 or 4 times before seeing the answer.
  17. I had to resort to a dictionary for the unsought/chiefdom intersection. This was despite knowing the Blakeney’s identity. I was not able to make the jump from “They seek him here… “ to unsought Also I continued my recent irritating habit of misspelling homophone answers with Enniad.
  18. I didn’t have a clock on this one, but I would guess around 40-45 mins. Failed on 3, however. I didn’t know who Blakeney was so failed on 17. I’ve not come across ENNEAD before, so I failed on 4 too. Also I couldn’t get 12, although I really should have done.

    I wouldn’t have heard of Grace Darling, except for the fact that she cropped up in the very first clue of the New Year’s Day jumbo, which I wrote the blog for last week.

    COD to 29 for the ‘live on one’s own’ construction. Very neat.

  19. For me this was one of those tantalisingly enjoyable crosswords which push you to hang on in there until completion – about one hour and a quarter today. I found several clues with devious misdirection (well they at least fooled me for a fair while); notably 19 ac PIMPLE, 25 ac INVALID and 19 d PETUNIA. Liked the wordplay for 14 d SOUNDBITE. Didn’t understand until arriving here how CARIBBEAN, DOMINEERING nor PARSNIP were manipulated so thank you. Fawn = camel? was new.
  20. About 50 minutes here, much more on the difficult side than anything else offered in the last week. Not helped by entering an uncommonly high number of wrong answers that needed later correction: Carribean (yes, me too), overbearing (featuring the Over B(ishop)?!!), suburbia, evanescence. Also a few knowledge gaps: Grace Darling, camel=fawn, lay=song, and the Pimpernel’s name. My familiarity with “they seek him here, they seek him there” is limited to the Kinks. And over here, ‘sort’ rhymes with ‘port’, and ‘sought’ rhymes with ‘caught’, so the crossing UNSOUGHT and CHIEFDOM were my last entries. Happy to have finished. Some very clever stuff, esp. PIMPLE. Regards all.
  21. Definitely not a hard slog – I had all but the SW 1/4 done in 5 minutes (rapid shift from suburbia to subtopia) and then after early waited a bit for the old brain to find domineering after which it all fell nicely into place. Unsought did not trouble me as a homophone, it was just my last in because I could not remember the “seek him ” rhyme. Like vinyl I think Carib to get that right, and not all of my family think parsnip is edible so that amused me.
  22. oops on blackberry so didn’t notice that was the title box! Anyway struggled home in over an hour from misspelling Caribbean, not knowing blakeney or that pales=fence but felt evetthing to be fair game. Only quiblle that has not been mentioned is why the last three words in the clue for 13? Spoils it. Concise version would have been fine.
    1. I guess the reasoning was that “action of Cockney gardener” would be more likely to suggest (h)edge-cutting – if “boundary” is in the clue, the less obvious version is easier to see.
  23. Another guilty party, perhaps it’s time for a common mis-spellings thematic somewhere.

    sidey

  24. And omitted the likely glottal stop for that double t. I have no recollection of glottal stops appearing as part of a clue’s make-up, or the “v” sound for th I remember from my London youth.
  25. After yesterday’s embarrassing dredge through Times crosswords styles of yore – every other clue a literary reference, or so it felt. Today we have the even more cringe inducing Litmus clue.
    Has someone invoked a retro compiler option somewhere?

    Today’s even had a clue for Blakeney and Pimple on the same line. Bet someone thinks that’s funnyish….

  26. Since the setter took care to write “some say” I don’t think this objection is justified.

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