Times 24,456 Do I Get A Card From The Queen?

Author   dorsetjimboPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time 15 minutes

A very easy puzzle with no real talking points. The use of RETE is perhaps obscure but it is used from time to time.

As it’s such a bland puzzle, I think I’ll take the opportunity to thank the various organisations that have contacted me since I started doing these blogs. In particular: The Definition by Example Guild; Obscure Poets Appreciation Society; National Congress of Scientists and Mathematicians; Union of Tofu Manufacturers; and the Preservation of Dodgy Homophones Club. Whilst their sometimes eccentric comments have been welcome the off blog messages from solvers associated with my 57 dalies and 43 Mephisto are appreciated far more.

Across
1 deliberately omitted – ask if puzzled;
5 TEMPORAL – (port + meal)*; drunk is anagrind;
9 OVERTIME – OVERT-I-M-E;
10 MALLOW – M(ALL)OW; a whole collection of plants including the marsh mallow;
11 ALFRESCO – ALFRE(d)-SCO(nes); reference King Alfred’s cooking exploits;
12 CANADA – CAN-A(n)D(e)A(n); where my father was born;
13 BLACK,TIE – secure=TIE; jet=BLACK; habit=monkey suit;
15 deliberately omitted – ask if puzzled;
17 DEAR – three meanings; “ducks” is a slang term of endearment ;
19 RECORDER – RECORD-ER; ER=The Queen who records a Christmas message for the nation;
20 HIATUS – HI(A)T-US; A=leader in Afghanistan;
21 LOGICIAN – LOG-I(CIA)N;
22 RAISIN – RA-IS-IN;
23 DIAMETER – RETE-MAID all reversed; RETE=a network of nerves or blood vessels;
24 COMMENCE – trading=commerce then change “r=resistance” to “n=name”;
25 TENUTO – T(TUNE reversed)O; T from (Mozar)T; O from (concert)O; musical term for “sustained”;
 
Down
2 LAVA,LAMP – LAVA-(palm)*; one of those irritating decorative lights in which a substance writhes around in a fluid;
3 WARDROBE – DRAW reversed – ROBE(rt); Bob=Robert;
4 REINSTATE – REINS-TATE; a Hackney was a horse draw carriage;
5 TREE,OF,KNOWLEDGE – cryptic definition referring to the Adam and Eve soap opera;
6 PLACATE – P(LAC)ATE; “lac” from CLA(ss);
7 RELIABLE – RE-(BAIL reversed)-L-E; L=pound; E=musical note;
8 LAWMAKER – LA(WM-A-K)ER; serious=REAL; William=WM;
14 INDIGNANT – IN(DIG)N-ANT; grub=DIG (for truffles);
15 EUPHORIC – (heroic)* to include UP=visible in the sky;
16 ESCAPISM – (space)*-IS-M(atter);
17 deliberately omitted – ask if puzzled;
18 ADJACENT – A-D-J-A CENT; D=musical key; J=Judge; copper=cent;
19 ROUTINE – R-OUT-IN-E; R=Regina;

41 comments on “Times 24,456 Do I Get A Card From The Queen?”

  1. … and it must be easy, since I completed it and with no mistakes. My COD was 19 c, and I was briefly held up by 16dn by putting ESCAPING in instead of ESCAPISM.
  2. Completed in 30 minutes with one error at 10 where as my last one in I put SALLOW without much confidence as “sow” means the opposite of “harvest” though it might have meant “plant”. I had rather lost interest by then.

    The NW and SE went in easily except WARDROBE and BLACK TIE which delayed me a little, but the SW and NE proved a little more difficult. What is “expensive” doing in 13ac?

    1. On the basis that a DJ is more expensive than the stuff the average chav wears? Excluding the jewellery …
  3. Well done Jimbo.

    6:45 with one really silly mistake. One way of saving time is seeing words that fit and connecting them with your memory about the content of a clue – usually just the def. With R?L?A??E at 7, I remembered “trust” rather than “trusted” and put in RELIANCE. Others written in without full wordplay understanding (but with the right def.) were 11, 19, 23, 2, 3, 8, 17, 18.

    At 4D I think “hackney” is a horse rather than a carriage – this matches the verbal def. for “rein” in COED.

  4. The same time and the same mistake as jackkt. I knew SALLOW was wrong as I was writing it in, but forgot to go back to it at the end.

    After the tribulations of last week we seem to be in the doldrums at the moment. My biggest problem today came with HIATUS and ROUTINE, where I became preoccupied with looking for a foreign word for a queen at the start.

  5. 12 minutes. Easy apart from understanding RETE. Thanks Jimbo. On the eytmology of “hackney” (from the Mac OED):

    ORIGIN Middle English : probably from Hackney in East London, England, where horses were pastured. The term originally denoted an ordinary riding horse (as opposed to a warhorse or draft horse), esp. one available for hire: hence hackney carriage or coach, and the verb hackney meaning [use (a horse) for general purposes,] later [make commonplace by overuse] (see hackneyed ).

    1. Pairs of them with matched special high trotting gait were a much appreciated carriage class in the White City Horse Show I went to as a child.
    2. According to the website of the London Borough of Hackney:

      “The actual name ‘Hackney’ was first recorded in 1198 AD and is probably derived from an island or a raised place in a marsh (an ‘ey’) in the vicinity of the River Lea, together with the name of a Dane called Haca or Hacon, who owned it.”

      Hackney the horse comes (according to the online OED) from Old French “haquenee” which still appears in my French dictionary as a “palfrey”. It appears in English from 14C and would presumably be one of those French words used by the upper classes.

      Presumably the words converged at some point.

      (It’s a slow day on the crossword comments! )

  6. Best ever by a distance so something to celebrate I feel even on an easy puzzle. At times it almost felt like doing a quick crossword as I didn’t even read the wordplay for a couple (like 15d and 19a) until afterwards as I had lots of checkers and a definition. A novel sensation 🙂 No real COD for me.
  7. Obviously a dim day for me – 25m – because after getting going nicely 9a,21a,25a I read a lot of clues before the next fit of solving (could hardly believe I had overlooked 1a)dealt with the rh side and top. Last in 16d/20a, noticing pair of crossing “homes” as I got there.
  8. Jack – I thought “expensive” cos you would only wear black tie (if you possess such a thing) to an expensive do?
    This one genuinely was doable for beginners (and relative beginners like me) so encouraging, if bland for bloggers. Nice to finish one without any assistance or post-solve checks but I nearly blew it with SALLOW, but I had marked it for a re-think.
    1ac was worthy of omission by Jimbo but interesting to see a sort of reverse cruciverbal logic clue.
    1. Yes, I wasn’t sure whether “expensive” was supposed to apply to the party going or the habit or both. Whatever the intention I don’t see that it adds anything to the clue.
  9. One of those where you’re ashamed to comment. This took me 50 minutes. EPEE was my first in and should have been a warning that this was an easy one, but I obviusly didn’t heed it. Never got any speed up. I’m thinking it can’t have been all down to me, but now I see I’ve written OVVRTIME (something to do with boomerang flight in East London?), so I’m not so sure. That and trying to rhyme CANADA with GRENADA. I didn’t think it was that dull. I liked LOGICIAN but COD to ALFRESCO.
  10. I enjoyed this more than most other people today. The surfaces were smooth and the wordplay intricate. I even liked 1A as I took it as an ironic use of the crossword setters’ most hackneyed cliché.

    On the subject of hackney, I hope today’s discussion gets a wide circulation amongst prospective tourists to Britain. I have always thought that the sign in taxis should say “Taxi Fares” rather than “Charges for Hackney Carriages”. This sign appears to me to be designed deliberately to bamboozle speakers of English as a foreign language so that they will have no idea how much they should be charged. End of rant.

    1. I was involved in what could have been a nasty contretemps in Weymouth once, mistakenly thinking a taxi was a vehicle with “Taxi” written on it. The driver of the “taxi” that had been booked for our travelling party, rather than the the driver of the Hackney Carriage who pretended to be the one that had been booked, explained at length the differences between the two types of vehicle in the UK on the long day’s journey into night which followed, for which I was very grateful. I don’t know if Australians qualify as “speakers of English as a foreign language” but in light of my comments above, you’d have to say it was a fair cop.
    2. >The surfaces were smooth…

      That’s odd, I thought quite the opposite (with a handful of exceptions).

      20 minutes which is my par time but seemingly slow for this puzzle. I also fell into the same trap as Peter going for reliance at 7.

      I thought RETE was a public transport network somewhere – must have been thinking of something else.

      Congrats to Jimbo on the milestone.

  11. Still trying to figure what happened to all my emails to Jimbo as founder member of The Park Strolling Appreciation Society.
  12. 12:44 here, slower than I thought while I was solving it as I had no hold-ups and expected a sub-10. Nothing really stood out for me as COD-worthy.
  13. 21:28 – so has to be at the easy end of the range.

    Steady solve throughout. No clue really stood out, though I quite liked HIATUS for topicality and CANADA for misdirection (I thought I was looking for a preserve for a long time). Last in was ALFRESCO.

    Is there a prize for spotting that the first letters of Jimbo’s societies spell out TON-UP to celebrate his 57+43 blogs?

  14. All pretty straightforward, though as I was entering the answers I placed a ? against several clues that I didn’t immediately understand, leaving working out until the end. I suppose it was a trifle bland, though I liked 16d, where ‘actual’ appears to go with ‘space’ but is the end of the definition.

    The triple definition in 17 seemed to be really a double definition, with two related meanings for the second definition, ‘pet’ and ‘ducks’ being both terms of endearment.

    Time was 25 minutes, which was perhaps a bit long for such a straightforward puzzle.

  15. 41:30 – It probably should have been quicker, but I’ve not been finishing many lately, so quite pleased just to get to the end without aids or mistakes. Although I did verify TENUTO with a nearby colleague who plays the piano (does that count as an aid?)

    It all seemed pretty straightforward, with nothing really standing out.

  16. About 15 minutes here, no real issues until my last, RECORDER. We don’t call judges RECORDERS over here, and I didn’t really know the Queen gives you a Christmas blessing. But nothing else fit, so in it went. Regards.
      1. And to nit-pick Jimbo’s comment: according to royal protocol,the message to her subjects is Britishly Commonwealthy rather than just National.
  17. 26 minutes for me, with happily no mistakes. Did most in 12 minutes and was then stuck in the SE and on 11ac. Didn’t spot the wordplay for Alfresco. Never heard of Tenuto or Rete. Not come across dig=grub before either.

    COD 11ac Alfresco.

  18. A mushroom, onion & chilli omelette and a couple of glasses of wine and an hour later hey presto the crossword was complete!
  19. Did this in breaks during rehearsal last night but it seemed to come together pretty quickly. I smiled at BLACK TIE, winced at TREE OF KNOWLEDGE and sratched my head a few times at the wordplay of LAWMAKER.
  21. andrewjk

    My first ‘Times’ puzzle completed without any paper or electronic aids! Stuck at home with a bad cold and sinusitis clearly has an up side. COD has to be HIATUS as it was the last in, although I liked ALFRESCO and DEAR.

    My personal cruciverbal progress is:

    Started with ‘Everyman’ in December 2008, sometimes taking most of the week to do. Speeded up once a friend at work started doing the same puzzle in January 2009. Finishing that puzzle on a Sunday by February 2009. Introduced to AZED by a retired colleague in March 2009, and thought it impossible, but started completing ‘Plains’ by June 2009.

    Introduced to this site by my AZED guru in March last year, and started dabbling with ‘The Times’ puzzle at the end of June, comleting a puzzle for the first time in July, but with crossword solvers. I got a bit fed up in the summer when there was a long spell of hard puzzles, and concentrated on AZED. By August I was finishing most ‘plain’ puzzles using ‘C’ and ‘B’ only, and by September I was finishing AZED on a Sunday evening.

    Back to the Times again most days in October.

    I think Jimbo and PB’s advice about doing a regular barred puzzle has helped enormously.

    A great site, and I always like to see the Setter give a few comments at the end of the day.It would be nice if we could know who the setter was the following day.

    Richard Browne mentioned in the live blog chat that there were 14 setters currently. Could we have a list perhaps?

    1. Well done Andrew.
      And just to say how pleased I am that you have joined the site. When I started doing cryptics (April last year) I became a daily commenter almost immediately and before realising that there weren’t many, if any, mortal solvers contributing, and began worrying if my contributions were appropriate. Now I don’t concern myself with speed, or even getting everything right without resorting to the odd google trip or whatever, and just treat everyday as a learning experience (maximum 2 hours). On balance I think contributions from newcomers makes the site a bit more representative of the majority of those who attempt the puzzle each day, and may just encourage others to take up the challenge.
    2. Welcome and well done. Here’s the list of setters in the most recent book, adjusted for changes I know about, and listing other names and papers where known:

      Richard Browne (Times xwd editor)
      Joyce Cansfield (Machiavelli in Listeners)
      Dave Crosland (Dac in the Independent)
      Roy Dean
      Brian Greer (Virgilius/Independent, Brendan/Guardian, (anon)/Sunday Telegraph)
      John Grimshaw (Dimitry/Listener)
      Colin Gumbrell (Columba/various barred-grid puzzles, Beelzebub/Independent on Sunday (one in four)
      John Halpern (Mudd/FT, Punk/Independent, Paul/Guardian)
      Bob Hesketh
      Don Manley (Duck/Listener, Pasquale/Guardian, Quixote/Independent, Bradman/FT, Giovanni/Telegraph Toughies & (anon)/most Telegraph Fridays )
      Dean Mayer (Anax/Independent)
      Roger Phillips (Kea/Listener, Notabilis/DT Toughie, Nestor/Independent)
      Richard Rogan (Bannsider/Independent)
      Allan Scott (Ascot/Listener, Falcon/FT)
      Wadham Sutton

      Apart from the occasional setters who out themselves, I don’t pass on the information I sometimes get about setters of puzzles – if I did, I suspect I’d stop getting it!

      Edited at 2010-02-09 11:16 pm (UTC)

    3. Well done Andrew and a very interesting path through the puzzles. Mine was far more conventional I think (Telegraph aged about 12, Times at about 15, Ximenes (predecessor of AZED) and Mephisto at 20.

      I hope you’re going to contribute regularly because I very much agree with Barry. The thoughts and comments of the newish people and the overseas solvers all help to make this an interesting site.

  22. Some strange grammar today, eg ‘Places’ at the start of 13ac and the construction of 23ac (‘In for ‘). Also not keen on ‘but’ (2dn) or ‘of’ (19dn) as link words, the definition by example at 14dn (‘worker’ for ANT) or ‘for cooking’ in 16dn. On the plus side I liked 19ac (RECORDER).

    I also have to don the dunce’s cap for ‘sallow’ at 10ac.

  23. Thanks Barry. I will keep battling. I tend to do the puzzle in stages over the day during coffe, lunch etc, so I have no idea how long I took. I might try and finish reading Manjit Kumar’s fascinating book on the history of quatum theory now- absolutely fascinating for a non-physicist (well A-level 1980 only).

  24. Jimbo thanks. My colleague is going the DT route. We are doing a little trial to see who gets on with completing the Times on a regular basis.
    15 love to me! Mind you, failed miserably today.

    Andrew

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