Times 24489 – All present and correct

Author   kororarekaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
It’s the double act again, as our star has been locked out of her dressing room, from the inside. What is going on in there?

Mctext says: Pretty straightforward puzzle which I did in 12 minutes.

Koro adds: About 35 minutes for me, with similar thoughts on difficulty. Strange occurrences of answers or part answers in the clues at 5d and 12 d. What can that mean?

Across
1 TUG-OF-WAR. Cryptic def.
9 ETERNITY. (d)ETER and (u)NITY.
10 LIVE. Double def., the second being “of current or continuing interest and importance”. Or possibly not. See comments below suggesting the second meaning has a short i, rather than a long one. Reasonably compelling, I would say.
11 REPERCUSSION. (prison rescue)*
13 S (CAMP) I
14 SPECIOUS. S for son; then delete the R from precious
15 REVENGE. Revenue with G replacing the U.
16 JACK A SS. Ketch being Jack Ketch the hangman. We both thought he was some kind of sailing boat until I googled him, despite having written his name on a piece of paper last time he occurred. If only I could remember where I put it.
20 DOGGEREL. Dogger is one of the designated areas of the North Sea, made famous by the shippng forecasts. Then reverse LE (“the” aux Français). NB: A dogger is also a sailboat but not a ketch.
22 BANTAM. Rev of “nab”, then “tame” (domesticated) minus the final E (short-tailed).
23 IN AUS PIC + IOUS. The last four letters are from “one (I) old (O) American (US)”. I remember that film. The Man from Snowy River wasn’t it?
25 PILL. Pillaged, minus “aged”.
26 NOMINATE. (mention a)*
27 NEAT + NESS. From “head of cattle”. I should add both NESS for head and NEAT for cattle are standard fare in crosswords. My criterion for judging whether a dictionary is worth buying is to look up “neat” and see if it has the cattle reference. Almost as failsafe as my criterion for judging whether a calculator is worth buying. Just go 1 plus 2 times 3 and if the answer’s 9, hurl it in the nearest bin. I’ll bear that in mind.

Down
2 UNICYCLE. Two defs, one metonymic, the other implausible. When did universities become unis? Probably about the same time they became late-teen amusement centres. There you go being cynical again. I liked it.
3 OBERAMMERGAU. Famous for its Passion Play. (Beer mug aroma)*. I plead total ignorance and am pleased I guessed correctly. Bavaria and beer mugs seem to go together though.
4 W[waR]APPING = WRAPPING or paper covering. Who thought “covering” was the containment indicator?
5 REPRISE. R for Queen, EP for record. Rise = “move up the chart”.
6 LEGUME. Gum (stick) inside lee (sheltered area).
7 MINI. Reverse of IN = wearing and I (one, again) M(inute). The Times’ favourite skirt, when it isn’t a car.
8 HYPNOSIS. What Svengali was famous for. (IS PHONY S)* The clue might have been neater with “subject’s head” for the S.
12 SPICK AND SPAN. S(econd) pick (=choice) + (panda’s N)*. There’s a theme emerging, or is it two?.
15 RED GIANT. Each is a panda; the whole is astronomically greater than the sum of its parts.
17 AMBROSIA. A doctor = A MB; “rosia” sounds like “rosier”. To some.
18 SHAMBLES. B(ritish) L(ibrary) inside “shames”.
19 SLACKEN. Lack inside SEN (State Enrolled Nurse).
21 RE + PEAT. Omit? No, it gave me a bit of trouble, actually. I was trying to take an “n” out of plan for a bit.
24 The one we left out. Ask the panel if stuck. Sotira should be able to sort it out, through her Wile E Coyote connection.

46 comments on “Times 24489 – All present and correct”

  1. 32 minutes so moderately easy by my standards. I didn’t understand ETERNITY and forgot to go back and think it through again. Also I now find I made a mistake at 20 spelling DOGGEREL with an A.
  2. I got Oberammergau at first glance but it was no help because I did not know how to spell it. I worked through the anagram and checked two Rs and two Ms so decided on Oberrammegau. It did not get corrected until I got the cross-checking scampi. Otherwise no problems.

    I thought 1A was a bit weak. All the tugs-of war (?) that I have witnessed have not been big crowd-pullers.

    1. The Australian Tug of War Association (ATOWA) tells me:
      “Tug of war is a team sport comprising of several weight divisions, commonly 560kg, 640kg, 680kg, 720kg, (eight members for a team and their combined weight must not exceed the nominated weight division)”.
      So, if two’s company, eight’s a crowd!
      Seriously, I think they mean “a big crowd” is a crowd (group) of big blokes.
      1. Interesting suggestion, which had not occurred to me, that it is the contestants who form the crowd. I cannot really buy it because I cannot see even 16 people in a straight line being defined as a crowd (Chambers: a number of people or things closely pressed together). So I still think that it is a feeble CD.
  3. About 30 minutes, NOMINATE last in. I wasn’t initially certain about LIVE, but it grew on me.
  4. 8:00 – had a bit of trouble getting into the Times site myself (cookie deletion did the trick eventually) and finished up printing the puzzle from my copy of the Opera web browser. Not a great success – grid and clues came out very small, and two digit numbers in the grid were printed on two rows.
  5. What with the neat pandas and the long clues (loved the beery 3d) this should have been quicker – 17m. Last in ambrosia, hypnosis (took the crossers to get it) pill and live.
  6. Defeated by HYPNOSIS and ACME (thanks for the Wile E Coyote hint!).

    “Oberammagour” surfaced from the deepest depths of my memory and I got the correct spelling after juggling the letters. Filled in LIVE, ETERNITY, JACKASS and BANTAM on a wing and a prayer based on the definitions – couldn’t decipher the wordplay. Ticks against AMBROSIA and REPERCUSSION.

    RED GIANT reminded me of the second episode of the brilliant Wonders of The Solar System that I watched last night. Anyone else tuning in? Brilliant stuff – the Beeb at its best!

  7. A leisurely 20 minutes over toast and coffee. Everything straightforward except the intersecting LIVE and UNICYCLE. Eventually clicked the “period of higher education” bit and groaned. Then it had to be LIVE – a difficult clue I think. Nice blog again.
  8. Same problem as yesterday (perhaps same as Sabine) in that I can get in to this site but Internet Explorer crashes when I try to enter comment.
    If this works??? Routine solve today with nothing much standing out although didn’t understand BANTAM, ETERNTY and JACKASS before coming here. Not too sure about TUG OF WAR either.
    1. No browser is perfect, but I’d recommend Firefox – I’ve been using it as my main one for a few years and can’t imagine going back to IE except when necessary.
    2. Sabine had problems with the Times site, not this one. She hopes the issue has now been resolved.

      On the subject of the Times site, I’m presuming you’ve all received the email about the upcoming changes:


      We’re about to reveal an exciting new online service from The Times and The Sunday Times that will replace timesonline.co.uk.

      It’s everything about The Times and The Sunday Times that you love – plus much more.

      Hmmm. That second paragraph sounds ominous.

  9. 16 mins for me: since I’m going to Oberammergau this year, I had less trouble with the spelling. Straightforward cluing led me to a 16 moment: RED DWARF was my first shot at 15d (the dwarf panda is much less common even than its big brother!), on the basis that any celestial object starting “red” is going to be populated by Rimmer, Lister and co. I did wonder whether the Times was still in Wapping, as its brand new printing plant is not far from me, but I see that it is. I thought this might be a very good crossword to introduce people to the genre, with nothing particularly arcane and lots of standard clues.
    I think the website crashing phenomenon is a Microsoft issue: currently, I copy my input to this page before submitting because there’s a 50% chance of a freeze.
  10. 32 mns here so pretty standard. Liked the low gk quotient but thought the clues were workmanlike rather than inspired. Or ‘tidy’ perhaps better given 12 and 27. COD to 16 for raising a half-smile.

    Regards to all.

  11. I was pleased to break the psychologically important 40-minute barrier, although I knew my effort at 10ac (BITE) was wrong. COD to UNICYCLE – made me smile.
  12. Completed in 35 mins which is a good time for me. I got hung up for several minutes on wanting 8d to be ‘hypnotism’ which would mean I would have had to write fairly small to fit it in! Once I figured the ‘s’, 14a was clear and last in. My kids always called ‘uni’ ‘uni’.

  13. How could I not post after a citation by the Flying Blogger Service as an authority on all things ACME?

    No thousand foot plunge to the canyon floor today, more a gentle 17 minute descent. But I still can’t catch that pesky road runner (that would be Peter B).

    Must fly as I’m immersed in a project (yes, I’m arbitrating a dispute in toon land over whether the Road Runner says ‘meep meep’ or beep beep’).

  14. As an experiment (see my earlier entry) I tried this out on my Missus, who usually does the Times 2. with the occasional nudge she worked through it quite happily, partly because most of the definitions were more or less out in the open, and it wasn’t too hard to work out the wordplay. Maybe a new convert to the cryptic way of life!
  15. A reasonably straightforward solve for a Friday puzzle, but LIVE and UNICYCLE held me up for some while, an experience which seems to have been shared by others. Overall, another enjoyable puzzle, with good surface readings and inventive wordplay.
  16. About 30 minutes here with interruptions, but I thought it a bit harder than others apparently did. I finished with the LIVE/UNICYCLE crossing pair as well, and wasn’t very sure about LIVE either. Didn’t know the Times was in Wapping, and knew of the Dogger Bank from WWI naval history, not weather reports. And, my initial attempts to spell 3D was Obergammerau, which held me up in the NE. Regards.
    1. Just consulted my notes and confirmed I also finished with LIVE and UNICYCLE in that order. I had convinced myself all along that 2dn was going to start with UP to account for “saddled” in the clue.
  17. Just over 15 minutes – nearly a PB for the year, so perhaps towards the easier end of the spectrum.

    Fairly steady throughout, finishing like many others on the LIVE/UNICYCLE intersection. First in was SCAMPI.

    Didn’t really understand JACKASS till I came here, so thanks for that.

    For a change the puzzle generally built up NW to SE (except for the final two). Usually I seem to work SE to NW having the checked letters at the end of words rather than the beginning.

  18. LIVE – i can see the shocking (electrical) potential, but I think that the second part of the clue refers to the phrase “to live in the memory” rather than being topical and thus potentially memorable, so we get the two different pronunciations of the word. Anyone else agree or am I out on my own?

    PS – I beat PB with 5:50 – just had to post that!

    1. Well done, and I think your “live” explanation was what occurred to me while solving too.
  19. OBERAMMERGAU was a bit of a gift for me, having been a Germanist in a past life. But UNICYCLE stumped me. So I came up with UNIVACHE, which seemed to have all the right elements, and is obviously a French cow, born as a conjoined twin, now separate, which is regularly saddled up for riding. It’s no more obscure a word than some I’ve seen in this puzzle.
  20. 5:50 Found this pretty easy as i got TUG OF WAR and all the long entries on first glance and only delay was in MINI where I was foxed by the wordplay – wearing = in – and guessed right simply because MIDI = Skirt definitely seemed impossible from the wordplay.
    1. Same remarks as to Simon, except that I did understand MINI’s wordplay on the route to eliminating MIDI which I thought of first.
  21. …oberammerwhatsit seems to be a no-brainer to most, yet I have never heard of it, and since I have yet to google it still dont know exactly what it is. I consider myself to be fairly well educated with a wide-ish general knowledge, and there are a whole clutch of words and/or concepts that I will recognise as existing without having a clue what they are, and yet here is something I can honestly say I have never come across in all my life in text nor in speech. The problem would be lessened a bit if others shared the same grief, but I am confronted by “my first in”‘s and other glib commentary. Do I have a problem here, or is this just one of those statistical things?
    1. I sympathise with you entirely. It seems to be one of those things you’re either completely familiar with or else you’ve never heard of it before in your life. The google link in the blog is very informative. It’s even part of a tongue-twister; a kind of German pickled pepper.
    2. It’s probably just unfortunate timing since it is only in the news once every ten years. It comes round again this summer so, by autumn, you will probably wish you had never heard of it.
    3. Whether you know a particular word like this is probably a “statistical thing”, yes. One point in defence of them using this particular word is that the Passion play for which the place is best known is performed once every 10 years, and 2010 is one of those years, so people are just a bit more likely to have seen it in the last year than they might have been in say 2005. I think I saw mentions of tours including this year’s performances in one or two holiday brochures last year.
  22. I’m in the same boat as Fathippy2. Never heard of it and it really affected the left side of the puzzle for me.
  23. First, finding this site has been a lifesaver and has really improved my puzzle ability. I am relatively new to cryptic, so am still learning a lot. While you are timing, I’m just looking forward to the day I finish one!

    I’m still not sure how the change of letter in revenge was shown. Forgive me, but I would appreciate some guidance. Many thanks.

    1. Clue in full: “Taxmen waiting at last for upper-class retaliation.”

      Taxmen is REVENUE – an informal name for the Inland Revenue, or rather “HM Revenue and Customs” as it’s now called.

      Then you convert “waitinG at last” to G, and upper-class to U, and finish up with “REVENUE, G for U” as the wordplay instructions (in telegraphese).

      (I’m explaining more than you probably need to guard against missing out the wrong bit & makng you ask again.)

  24. Broke my usual habit by doing this first thing in the morning and got through it pretty quickly, so perhaps there’s a lesson to be learned. 32 minutes, including a couple of early morning interruptions.

    JACKASS held me up for a few minutes at the end, this being my first encounter with Jack K. (and having just read about him on Wiki, he wasn’t a man you’d enjoy meeting). But in retrospect I think it was a rather good clue – the best of the day, I would say.

  25. 11 mins approximately here (no accurate time as I had to field a phone call and a ticket inspector and couldn’t stop the stopwatch – buggy phone app). Luckily the three 12-letter words were all easy to get, with two straight-in anagrams and a very clear charade. Luckily I’ve been to Oberammergau (although not in a Passion Play year). Liked the two adjacent panda clues – the first a lot better than the 1940 one we were served a few weeks ago!
  26. About 80 mins. (For me that’s good…)
    I did exactly as lennyco; the same mis-spelling of Oberammergau and scampi put me on the right road.
    Had an absent moment and entered ‘Red Dwarf’ (15d) and lost several minutes.
    Last in was Jackass and that was really a guess.
  27. Finally limped home this morning after giving up last night with 6 clues left- South African white wine affecting my synapses.

    Putting CREDIBLE instead of SPECIOUS at 14 mucked things up, and I had to look up Svengali in the dictionary.

    I’d never heard of NEAT for cattle, but Chambers’ 21st centur dictionary has it- is this a better dictionary for ‘The Times’ puzzle than Collins, I wonder?

    1. Think of neat’s foot oil, which is what it says. Collins will have the cattle meaning also, I’m sure. Chambers is good (indeed required) for Mephisto puzzles, which tend to use very obscure vocabulary and dialect words. For the daily either or both of Collins or the Concise Oxford English Dictionary should suffice. The slighter larger Oxford Dictionary of English is also good, the more so because it has people in it, like the Collins used to have.
      1. Thanks kororeka. I’ve got the big Chambers (which I use for AZED), and ‘Chambers 21st century dictionary’ (which my wife bought by mistake!). I find the latter has a more modern vocabulary.

        Great blog.

        1. Oh, I see I completely missed the drift of your question. I recently purchased the big Chambers and now I remember wondering at the time how the 21st Century one differed. I think I rejected it as sounding too facile, but if it has neat in it maybe I should reassess? There seems to be a bewildering array of niche marketed dictionaries to chose from and you have to wonder if it’s all just a ploy to get you to buy the same words in a different cover. That can’t be the rationale can it?
  28. Possibly is the rationale. Didn’t want to upset my Missis by returning it. But it has come in useful- saved me getting a Collins

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