Times 24,486

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
24:47 here, so definitely on the tough side, unless it was just a case of me not being on the right wavelength for this setter. However, if it was hard, it was certainly hard but fair; not too many giveaways, but nothing wilfully obscure, either, so overall the puzzle fell slowly but steadily, starting with the NE corner and working outwards.

Across
1 SOLICITUDE – [C.1] in SOLITUDE.
6 ONUS – NOUS with the O “stepping backwards”.
9 CEREMONIAL – (C.E. + MAIN ROLE)*.
10 ABLE – AtBaLlEt.
12 DETHRONEMENT – [THRON(g) in DEEM] + (TEN)*; as was presumably intended, I was sure this was going to be some sort of evidence or submission, not the other sort of deposing.
15 IMPOSTURE – [O(ld) ST.] in IMPURE; not the most common word (legalistic rather than everyday) but it’s an obvious leap from the more common “impostor”.
17 RHONE – R. + HONE; one of those well-disguised definitions where at first reading the eye can’t help but see PERfect, when it’s actualy perFECT.
18 deliberately omitted
19 DISAPPEAR – [SAP in DIP] + EAR.
20 CHESTERFIELD – [(E(nergy)I FRETS) rev.] inside C(onservative) HELD. The deliberately bald and unhelpful definition of “seat” describes both sofas and chairs in the Chesterfield style (i.e. raised rounded arms and buttons studded into the back panel).
24 deliberately omitted
25 COLLATERAL – COL + LATER + A L(ine).
26 SASH – memberS AS Hard.
27 MELTING POT – TIN in (PLOT GEM)*; an older expression than I was expecting to find it to be, going back at least 100 years.
 
Down
1 SOCK – (‘COS) rev. + K.
2 LARK – L + ARK leads to a great surface in “pound chest”.
3 COMMENSURATE – COMMEN(t) + [RAT in SUE]; “sue” in the broader sense of “appeal, make representation” rather than simply “bring legal action”.
4 TENCH – N(ew) in TECH.; for non-UK solvers, a tech(nical) college would be one form of Further Education. It doesn’t seem to be current usage, though it’s difficult to tell from a quick web search (my brief time working in the sector taught me that government and managers like changing the name of things regularly as an effective substitute for actually doing anything to change the institutions). It may also apply to certain schools these days, it seems. In any case, if you’re my age at least, you’d know exactly what someone meant if they talked about “the tech.”
5 DEACONESS – (SON CEASED)*.
7 NOBLEWOMEN – NO + BLEW + OMEN.
8 SWEETHEART – [W(ife) in SEETHE] + ART.
11 METROPOLITAN – (TIME ON PATROL)*.
13 FISTICUFFS – (IF)rev. + [I/C in STUFFS] (edited to remove word blindness reagrding the nounal form of ‘if’ on my part).
14 APOTHEOSIS – [HE in A POT] + O.S. + IS.
16 UNDERGONE – ERG in UNDONE.
21 INLET – (rehearsa)L in “I NET”.
22 WRAP – W + RAP, as in “That’s a wrap”.
23 FLAT – FL(O)AT.

33 comments on “Times 24,486”

  1. 23:32 here. I think a lot of the difficulty was the proliferation of 11- and 12-letter words, which more often than not would be easy to get 2 or 3 word phrases. Some how all those long words are more daunting.
  2. Re 13, ‘if’ is being used in its nominal sense of ‘uncertain possibility’, as in ‘the future is full of ifs’.

    Took me an hour and a half plus to get all bar 19 and 20, then came back from a meeting and got FISTICUFFS and CHESTERFIELD immediately. Tough but fair – it’s always more satisfactory to do a puzzle with no recondite words, especially if there’s a suitable smattering of Britishisms to keep our trans-Atlantic cousins on their toes! COD to DEACONESS, in tribute to the ecclesiastical trans-sexing.

  3. I agree with Tim that this was pretty tough, and I was happy to finish in twice his time, 50 minutes. What made it hard, I think, was the shortage of phrases (just MELTING POT) and the abundance of 10 and 12 letter words.

    I finished with the cluster of long words in the NE corner, getting most of them from the wordplay. Nice to see a college other than Eton getting an outing.

  4. Yes, given no obscurities, no unknown words, hardly any general knowledge required, I wondered why I struggled so and needed some help to finish. Some lateral definitions, eg strike for SOCK, absolutely for FLAT, and most notably, deposition for DETHRONEMENT (although subsequently I see that COED has it as first definition). Also some tricky if not to say cumbersome wordplay eg CHESTFIELD, NOBLEWOMEN. I would have done better were I quicker at thinking of synonyms, eg IMPOSTURE, COLLATERAL, COMMENSURATE.
  5. 50 minutes with the last 20 struggling in the SW with 13dn, 14dn, 15ac, 20ac and 24ac. Once I solved FAST the rest fell into place immediately.

    If you think of IF in 13dn as a noun (as in Ifs and Buts)it works I think with no reason to quibble.

    1. I see ulaca got in first with that point. Amazing when I started writing my very short comment no-one else had commented yet I ended up fifth in the queue. Sometimes hours can pass without anything new going up.
      1. I agree – we must have been queuing up: When I started writing my comment, only one had been posted. Must start typing quicker (and with fewer mistakes, too!)
  6. Linxit’s right about the effect of single-word long answers (though the 11s are actually 10s). One of my first acrosses solved was 27 – there were only 6 done on first look, in groups of 3 at top and bottom – 6 9 10, 24 26 27. Last answers in were 25, 22, 23, and the ones entered without fullwordplay understanding were 20, 27, 3, 13.

    Two corrections: 27 is TIN inside (plot, gem)*, and 20 has another E (=energy) inside C,HELD.

    1. And your time after the sluggish start, Peter? (just so the rest of us know what we’re working towards).
  7. I liked this. Toughish without relying on recondite vocabulary or knowledge. Not enough elegance or wit to be a classic, but it could be a model for setters who think that the best way to offer a challenge is to throw in a few obscurities.
  8. 26 minutes – must get a stopwatch to go with my ticky one. a toughie, I thought, with some nice misdirections, and quite a few where I spent time working backwards to the wordplay, ONUS and CHESTERFIELD being examples. Didn’t help having SLAM for 1d – als (an old form of as) rev +M to start with, and had a hard time getting SPECULATE out of my mind for 15, because it nearly fitted but lacked definition – peculate being linked in my mind with sinful fraud. topicaltim, isn’t it the Nof nous that drops back to give ONUS – a minor quibble on an excellent blog. COD RHONE: I liked the fact that it could have gone either way.
  9. Re topicaltim’s comment, TECH is still in common use round here – my wife lectured at Loughborough Tech and it is still generally so called. Calling it a college would be confusing as we have one or two other colleges, as well as the uni, of course.

    From times so far, my 13 mins looks better than I’d expected, despite being slowed up by DETHRONEMENT, the last to go in.

  10. I’m a bit out of step here in finding this very straightforward. 20 minutes to solve with no hold ups, queries or quibbles. I started with SOLICITUDE and finished with FLAT. Had I been writing the blog I’d have described it as easy!! Funny old world.
    1. I can see two reasons for a difference in difficulty.

      First, getting 1A first time is always a confidence-booster and will give you considerable help with the first few downs – 5 of them in this case.

      Second, if you’re trying to solve really fast, you’re looking for ways into a clue that you can see in a few seconds, before moving on to the next clue. This can mean looking at some clues several times, when someone prepared to spend up to say 45 seconds on the first look might get most of them first time.

      1. It’s a while since we discussed different approaches to solving the puzzle. As is obvious Peter sets out to correctly fill the grid in the shortest possible time and to then go back and work out wordplay.

        I gave that up some years ago (because I couldn’t compete with the sort of times Peter turns in) and adopted a slower approach that looks to analyse and understand clues as I solve. I don’t really consider that I’ve finished the puzzle until I’ve not just got the answers but understand them all as well. This lends itself quite well to bar crosswords but will never win any prizes at Cheltenham.

        There’s no “correct” approach. It’s horses for courses one might say.

  11. This was quite a slog with lots of convoluted wordplay. I cannot say that I enjoyed it. The only clue that I put a tick by was the one for sweetheart. I was glad to get the two unflagged feminine endings fairly quickly; I have fallen foul of that in the past.

    I finished with tench and dethronement. I have a bit of a blind spot for college=tech and, like Tim, it took a long time for the correct definition of deposition to come to me

  12. I’m with Jimbo in finding this straightforward, atleast to the extent that I could complete it! Solved 24 of the 28 without aids (about my usual Tuesday average since last November) but needed help with the last four in the NE quadrant (ONUS, NOBLEWOMEN, SWEETHEART and DISAPPEAR).

    I liked the concise clues for the short words, especially SOCK (I don’t think I’ve met ‘COS for because before), RHONE, FLAT and FAST. Re 25: had UNILATERAL initially until I’d solved UNDERGONE. Got FISTICUFFS and CHESTERFIELD from the definitions. COD to RHONE.

  13. Pass the cap. Had it done in 67 minutes all bar SOCK. I couldn’t see the rev. of “cos” for the life of me and needed help from the Magus. There’s something about this grid, with all the 12s and 10s plus 8 x 4s, that makes it hard to get a fill. Still … agreed, after the fact, that it’s totally fair.
  14. A 55 minute hard slog for my vocabularily challenged brain. Most of the clues were a lesson in construction, for which thanks to the setter. I particularly liked SWEETHEART, DETHRONEMENT & FISTICUFFS to name but a few, but COD to NOBLEWOMEN. Sweet indeed.
  16. I was also a bit over 90 minutes but was able to complete it without aids. I enjoyed the steady slog. Some clues (8 and 3 for instance) were guessed at, then the wordplay worked out; others (like12) were built up from the wordplay. None of the famous Times wit unfortunately.
    1. I admit I prefer puzzles where a passing glance at the clues reveals there are phrases and sayings and possibly titles and specific references to things one may or may not know about, either in the surface reading or or the wordplay. That’s what I call a lively puzzle that holds my interest and I enjoy solving. Today’s puzzle was worthy and fair with no justifiable quibbles but I really didn’t care for it much.
  17. 18 minutes and felt that was as good it could have been so one of the tougher ones for sure. The long ones which gave me most problems were COMMENSURATE, FISTICUFFS (would have really struggled without the checking F) and APOTHEOSIS.
    By the way the shorter answers were on the difficult side too – last in for me was FLAT.
  18. DOn’t have a time due to interruptions, but it was a long time. A tougher puzzle, I agree. I also agree that there were no real obscurities, and as far as I can see no really UK centric terms to foul up the outsiders. Tech is a common label for certain colleges over here too. Finished with TUTOR. Regards.
  19. Skin of the teeth today, got a lot from one part or the other – SOLICITUDE, APOTHEOSIS from wordplay, and DETHRONEMENT, IMPOSTURE, CHESTERFIELD, COMMENSURATE from definition without seeing the wordplay at first. Didn’t get a time, but started it watching one TV show and finished it watching another, so probably 20 odd minutes.
  20. Found it very tough! wasnt on the same wavelength as the setter today and yes the 10s and 12s i found hard. took ages to see Solicitude which sa peter says is the key to the NW corner…also struggled to see Dethronement until late in the day

    a tough one for me!

  21. 18mins. I enjoyed this puzzle. I like harder clues with simple vocabulary.. using esoteric words few will have heard of, ala the ST cryptic, seems less fair to me, though I recognise that’s only a personal view.

    We seem to be on a longish run of more difficult grids.

    Re Jimbo’s comments on approaches to solving, I am with him in not considering a clue solved until I understand the wordplay. It takes a bit longer but I am uninterested in speed. I just like to appreciate the setter’s art.

  22. I got 3/4 on my own but had to resort to this blog to finish. The only UK-centric term for me today was COS. Don’t use it so I had a hard time on 1D.
  23. 18 mins, so I’m another who found this of only slightly above average difficulty. Some interesting abstract nouns among the answers, I was thrown by 12A DETHRONEMENT (last in) and make this my COD. A very enjoyable crossword.

    Tom B.

  24. Day in town so done on motorway – husband appreciated the 35 min. silence induced by satisfactory puzzle (with intervals looking up to avoid travel sickness). Started in SE corner, then 7, 8, 17, finishing with 13d & 2d.

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