Times 24467 – Not in my back yard!

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 44 minutes

Music: John Field, Noctures/Piano Concerto #2

Parts of this one seemed fairly difficult to me. There are a few clues where the literal is quite subtle – or wildly unfair, if you didn’t see it. I started off well enough, but after about 30 minutes was stuck for quite a while on my last three.

My music tonight is in response to Barry’s challenge – it’s a French Candide LP I picked up for fifty cents. I really should play some Ireland or Arne as well, if not Holst. The Field nocturnes are of some interest; I would be curious to hear what a top-rank Romantic pianist would make of them.

Newcomers are reminded that obvious answers are not blogged, so don’t be afraid to ask.

Across
1 FIESTA, FI(E)ST + A. For those who think duke is always ‘D’, a counterexample.
5 NIMBYISM, N(I M.B.)Y + IS + M. A fine clue, with a subtle literal, although I have never liked calling a Bachelor of Medicine a ‘doctor’, since that title should be reserved for a Doctor of Medicine.
9 ENHANCES, EN + [c]HANCES. Another tough but fair literal. The first part of the cryptic is obvious enough, but some thought is required for the second.
10 UNKIND. U[nited]N[ations] + KIND, cryptic not seen until called upon to blog it.
12 INTEGRAL, I(N)T + LARGE backwards. Definition is ‘basic’, not immediately obvious.
14 FIGURE SKATER, FIGURES + KATE + R. It figures!
17 MAGIC LANTERN, CLAN inside anagram of EMIGRANT. Another excellent clue.
20 TASHKENT, sounds like ‘TACHE KENT. Does ‘kenned’ really get a contracted weak preterite in Scottish dialect?
22 TESTON, NOT SET backwards. One of the toughies for me. For a long time I wanted to put in ‘pistol’ as a variant spelling of ‘pistole’, but it turns out to be a variant spelling of ‘testoon’.
23 MISFIT. MI + S(F[ulfilled]I[t])T. Cute.
25 PREVIOUS, P(REV)IOUS. The literal is a little shaky, shouldn’t it be ‘earlier conviction’, as in “doesn’t he have a previous?”.
26 BLIZZARD, B + sounds like LIZARD. I was tempted to put in ‘Penzance’ when I had only the ‘z’, but could not make it fit the clue.
27 TAHITI, T[h](A HIT)I[s]. I made really heavy going of this, but the literal is well-hidden. My difficulty was in seeing what to take the odd parts of. The Hamlet allusion should be well-known.
 
Down
3 STANDOFFISH, STAND OF FISH. A clever and compact clue. I vaguely remember having seen something like this before, but it took me a long time to solve it.
4 ARCHANGEL, [e]AR(CHANGE)L[y]. Many possible meanings to the cryptic, but not too many Russian ports that fit.
5 NASTIER, SAN backwards + TIER.
8 SUN-BAKED, anagram of DUNES around BA[n]K. The clue could just as well indicate a word meaning ‘ridge’ that is an anagram of ARID DU[n}ES, but there is no such word.
13 GRANNY SMITH, double cryptic definition. I had supposed that ‘forger’ referred to a specific individual, but it turns out to mean a metalworker at a forge.
15 SWEETMEAT, sounds like SUITE + MEET. The literal verges on unfair, since a ‘sucker’ implies some sort of hard candy, not what I would call a sweetmeat, which is more likely to be a candied fruit that is chewed and not sucked. Anyway, this was my last in.
16 MALARIAL, MAL(ARIA)L. Again, ‘mall’ defined by ‘precinct’ is a bit of a stretch to me.
18 NOTEPAD, N(O[ld]T[estament])E + PAD. Tyneside is, of course, in the Northeast.
21 EXTRA, EXTRA[ct]. A witty subtraction clue.
24 FEZ, FE(-W+Z). Perhaps a little weak, I never really liked the type of clue where there is no particular reason to substitute one letter for another.

26 comments on “Times 24467 – Not in my back yard!”

  1. > Does ‘kenned’ really get a contracted weak preterite in Scottish dialect?
    Yep, that seems to be OK. Mac OED has:
    verb (kenning |ˈkɛnɪŋ|; past and past part. kenned |kɛnd| or kent |kent| |kɛnt|) [trans.] Scottish & N. English.

    In several dictionaries, “teston” seems to be the routine form and “testoon” the variant. I didn’t know it either. Seems to be about a shilling.

    I found this one quite easy (13 mins). More cruciverbal synchronicity: horrible mosquito-borne diseases were being discussed on the radio as I pondered 16dn. And COD to NIMBYISM.

  2. Nicely blogged vinyl. I got through this in exactly 30 minutes, but without stopping to appreciate some of the wordplay – in particular the courtroom sense of PREVIOUS, which now becomes my COD. I think the wording of the clue is valid: the common use, from my experience, is “Has he got any previous?” which is police shorthand for “previous convictions”.

    I finished up, not very enthusiastically, with TESTON. I was worried about the repetition of ‘not’ and the word didn’t have a historic ring somehow. Couldn’t even find it in my dictionary, but it turned up on a Google search.

  3. 72 mins for me, with neither TESTON nor SWEETMEAT got, ‘tho I was kicking myself about the latter as I had scribbled it down as a possible. Have to confess I cheated on STANDOFFISH, having worked out that -FISH must be the ending. COD to NIMBYISM – something I abhor, but would, of course, be guilty of given the circumstances.
  4. 30 minutes to solve all but 15dn, 19dn, 22ac and 25ac then another 30 to crack them.

    I would have agreed with Vinyl’s comment about SWEETMEAT especially as these can include such things as pastries and cakes which one doesn’t usually suck unless one is toothless, but both COED and Chambers give very broad definitions which probably cover it.

    Never heard of TESTON before.

  5. Nicely blogged. 50 minutes here today
    COD a dead heat bewteen Nimbyism and previous
    well done setter!
  6. 30 min, but with one cheat. Made steady progress, then hit a brick wall with 12 13 and 22 to go. Was mortified to get GRANNY SMITH from One Look, as I had already considered GRAN as a possible contributor. Was then unhappy with INTEGRAL meaning the same as basic, but had to grudgingly concede a tenuous link. Overall a nice start to the week. COD to NIMBYISM.
  7. I liked this one, 22 mins to finish despite being held up by stupidly writing in “few” instead of fez at 24dn.
    Either I am missing something or 10ac is not a very good clue. Is “UN kind” being used in the sense of mankind? A bit laboured if so, seems to me.
    I get the impression that use of solving aids by some posters here is becoming steadily more common. I don’t have any objection of course – each to their own – but I do have a theory that if you stick at it and keep trying to solve clues without aids, eventually you will not need them at all.. but on the other hand, regular use will build a crutch that cannot easily be discarded. Just my 2p..
    1. I agree up to a point but there comes a time when I think it’s fair enough to admit defeat. Under normal circumstances I won’t use aids until an hour has elapsed and I really am out of ideas.
  8. After an encouraging weekend back to earth today. Didn’t know fist for duke, NIMBYISM or TESTON. Over worried about FEZ and took an age to figure out SWEETMEAT. “A hit, a very palpable hit” also new to me ashamed to say.
    Surely nothing other than STANDOFFISH for COD if only for the perfect acronym.
    For those with no turntable the Naxos John Field recordings of the solo works and concertos are splendid and cheap, but rather more than 50 cents.
  9. More difficult than one expects for a Monday. 30 minutes to solve with the bottom proving rather harder than the top.

    I can see that the setter found STAND-OF-FISH irresistible but if you know that Billingsgate was the old fish market it’s rather easy as is the Russian port. On the other hand “sucker” for SWEETMEAT is a bit of a stretch and “kent” for known is obscure as is TESTON.

    I liked NIMBYISM, a trait I fully support.

  10. I came up two short here, not getting SWEETMEAT or TESTON. Other than that it was about twenty minutes work. Until reading this blog I’d thought “convictions” was unnecessary padding in 25. I don’t know Hamlet and so the A HIT part of TAHITI passed me by.
    Have visited Lizard Point in Cornwall. It’s a rugged spot and the lighthouse there has a very loud foghorn.
    COD to NIMBYISM, a terrific clue.
  11. 24:06 .. tough one to get finished. Liked NIMBYISM, but I loved the idea of a devout cleric with “a bit of previous”.
  12. Just over 32 minutes with TESTON last in (from the wordplay as I had not come across the coin before)

    Got off to a good start then had a long pause from 10 to 20 minutes when I had a wonderful 5 minutes where everything else bar one fell into place. Finally a few minutes for TESTON as I worked through the alphabet.

    I thought NIMBYISM was excellent with TASHKENT and STANDOFFISH not far behind.

  13. 25m. Curiously filled it in rather randomly, ending with a chain NW-SE from fiesta then teston last (had to look in dic to confirm, knew testoon. Thought fez only chunk of cone, not conical, cf T Cooper. Agree sweetmeat iffy, enjoyed granny smith.
  14. I am surprised that no-one has commented about 24down. Surely a fez is not a cone. Rather it is a truncated cone or perhaps flat-topped cone but I can no reference to this in the clue. Am I wrong?
    I agree that my concept of a sweetmeat is not something that is sucked.
    Barry J
    1. I agree a fez is not cone-shaped, but frustrum shaped. Frustrum is a word I’ve never come across in any crossword – it’s methematical associations would probably please Jimbo.

      Nick M

  15. 20 minutes for me – and no mistakes! A few words I had never heard of before though. Tashkent and Teston. Not heard of Duke = fist before either. Nor did I know the Hamlet “palpable hit” quotation. COD: PREVIOUS.
  16. resorted to aids for sweetmeat (poor definition as others have commented) and teston, otherwise not too difficult ie c.40mins. i would defend the use of aids after a period of time, as i would rather finish that way than come here for the answers.
  17. About 25 minutes for me, finishing with SWEETMEAT/TESTON; got both from the cryptics only, not knowing both words. We’ve seen the Billingsgate reference before, which is why I got 3D, or I wouldn’t have known that either. I’m one of those who, as vinyl points out, were misled by trying the ‘arid du(n)es’ anagram at 8D before seeing how the clue really worked, so SUN-BAKED is my COD. Regards.
  18. Well blogged, vinyl.
    I think 5a may be somewhat UK-centric in that in Britain MB, along with ChB or BS, are the standard qualifications for a doctor of medicine.

    Nick M

  19. Regarding the use of props I would say that an average solver allow 30 minutes before resorting to internet/books. More satisfying surely to persevere as long as one is able rather than be aided into a third-rate completion.
  20. Liked Nimbyism, Standoffish. Did not like Unkind and Sweetmeat.

    The thrill of solving without aids is something that I have only really appreciated since using this site. Probably The Times crossword is most amenable to this approach because of its consistent standard and good editing. I respect the view that an hour is long enough to waste on any crossword. However, a puzzle that seems impossible at breakfast may suddenly become easy when one returns to it after lunch. Sometimes I do a crossword last thing at night in bed. I have lost count of the number of times that I have given up on an impossible clue only to find that the answer suddenly comes to me as I am putting the cats out.

  22. 8:17 so not too hard but not trivial. Agree with slight reservations about the fez. At 10, I guess “UN kind” is supposed to mean “a peace-keeping sort of person”.

    Edited at 2010-02-22 09:48 pm (UTC)

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