Times 24,498 –

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
16 mins, so very middle of the road in terms of difficulty. That doesn’t mean I was familiar with all the vocabulary or knowledge required, but the wordplay on each occasion left me in little doubt about the fact that I was filling a gap correctly e.g. I could see that 19 across was an animal whose name I didn’t know, but having deduced it from the wordplay, I felt confident I’d got it right, even without having seen the word before.

Across
1 QUANTUM LEAP – [A N(orthern) TUM] in PLAQUE*. If I remember correctly, this meaning of “corporation” i.e. a pot belly, or a quite literally growing body, usually catches out lots of people who’ve never seen it before.
7 CAP – PAC(k)rev.
9 MATRICIDE – R.I. C.I.D. in MATE.
10 AGGRO – G(eorge)R(ex) in AGO.
11 INCENSE – double def. i.e. incense would incense a Low Church worshipper.
12 TARNISH – TARN IS H(ard).
13 LEMUR – LE + (RUM)rev.
15 deliberately omitted
17 ELDERSHIP – Tree= ELDER, bark = SHIP (always good to see the word “possibly” inserted to head off those of us who don’t like definition by example).
19 POTTO – POT + TO; as I said, I didn’t know this species of lemur, but the wordplay was pretty clear.
20 PITIFUL – IF in [PIT U(sefu)L].
22 ORCHARD – CHAR in [O(ld) RD].
24 REEVE – double def. Again, I didn’t know the secondary meaning – a female ruff bird – but with checking letters R_E_E and the other definition, that scarcely mattered.
25 SOB SISTER – B(oyfriend)S in (STORIES)*; I don’t think I’ve heard the expression before, but having seen what wordplay suggested it must be, I could see how it worked. I’m not sure who would be the archetypal sob sister, as most of the female columnists who come into my world seem to be far from sentimental, and much more of the Glenda Slagg persuasion. Arentchasickofem?
27 DIM – as in DIM SUM (I like a steamed dumpling as much as the next man, but I have always passed on the chicken feet).
28 HOORAY HENRY – HO(use) + [RAY in O. HENRY]. A fuller explanation of the nature of the Hooray Henry is provided, as ever, by a classic Monty Python sketch.
 
Down
1 QOM – Quartering Only Muslims.
2 AZTEC – z in A ‘TEC; not sure how London’s first and greatest consulting detective would have reacted to being referred to as “a ‘tec”; possibly by saying “You have been in the United States, I perceive”.
3 THINNER – double def.
4 MAIDENISH – MAIDEN + (HIS)*.
5 EVENT – VEN(erable) in E.T.; as I observed last time it occurred in one of my puzzles, the film may be an overused one, but to be fair, the setter probably isn’t going to get much mileage from trying to incorporate Those Magnificent men in Their Flying Machines into a word.
6 PRAIRIE – R(uns) in PAIR + I.E.
7 COGNISANT – (Religio)N in (AGNOSTIC)*.
8 PROPHETHOOD – PROP + (THE)* + HOOD.
11 ILL TEMPERED – double def., being the opposite of this sort of music.
14 deliberately omitted
16 EUPHORBIA – B. in EUPHORIA; even someone as botanically unskilled as I am can remember this one, if only from previous puzzles.
18 REFRESH – lots of abbreviations, REF. RE. S. H.
19 PECKISH – 1 in PECK‘S H(orse).
21 LASSO – LAS + SO.
23 ACTIN – ACTIN(g).
25 RAY – double def.: the electric version looks like this.

43 comments on “Times 24,498 –”

  1. Indeed, completion much reliant on wordplay with many post-solve confirmations. Too many to list.
  2. A rather ecumenical offering today, with several shades of churchmanship, a reluctant prophet, a Moslem community and even a confused agnostic gathered into one big happy family! A 15 minute solve with aggro (again?) only in the top left for me, despite QOM being first in. Nice to see Jonah without his great fish, which made it my COD. Thanks to TT for an excellent and informative blog.
  3. 7:32 – fairly smooth solve after a slowish start, slowed down a bit by a very optimistic punt on EYEBRIGHT at 16D (9-letter plant that begins with E and contains BR) – well done setter for good disguise of the stock “B in EUPHORIA” wordplay. Also missed the HOOD part of 8D on first look, despite Thomas H being second to Lewis Carroll in my mental list of people who might have been great setters if born early enough (for the ghastly puns in poems like Faithless Nelly Gray).
  4. A very easy puzzle that took less than 15 minutes. A lot of standard devices (Gregory=Peck) and easy, obvious to spot definitions (chinless wonder)

    I associate sob sister with the US and in particular people like Barbara Walters who anchored ABC News at the time of Princess Di’s death and was excruciating to my English ears.

  5. 18 minutes.
    Loved the &lit-ish qualities of 25ac. Seems to me that “bark” is OK for SHIP, so long as “possibly” is included thereafter. The problem DBE today is in 5dn: “relay” => EVENT.

    mctext’s rule for the DBE: The name of the set may be used to define the name of one of its members; but not vice versa unless suitably signalled.

    There will, no doubt, be comments on “breakthrough” => QUANTUM LEAP, with the sciento-literalists giving us mini-lectures on the magnitude of change involved.

    You can bypass this by reference to the Sinclair QL (anyone remember that?) which was, in important ways, a breakthrough. Pity the Mac arrived about a month later!

    1. Mctext’s rule for DBE is the rule used by strict Ximeneans – and the Times crossword before Richard Browne became its editor.

      I don’t think “bark” needs “possibly”, as the meaning of “bark” is simply “ship or boat”. It arguably needs an indication that bark is an archaic or poetic word, though “Tree bark once possibly held …” would look rather odd. I think the “possibly” in 17 is for “held by presbyter” indictating ELDERSHIP – I’m unsure whether a presbyter is necessarily an elder.

      1. After all your help in the past with matters religious I’m happy to return the compliment and confirm that a presbyter is an elder of, wait for it, the Presbyterian Church.

        Agree with you on “bark”

        1. … except that a bark is a particular type of ship, not just any ship. OED (US) has:
          “a sailing ship, typically with three masts, in which the foremast and mainmast are square-rigged and the mizzenmast is rigged fore-and-aft”.
  6. This was standard Times fare with seven religious references. I’m including primate in that number because you always have to decide whether it is a bishop or an ape. Qom, actin and potto were unknown to me but quite gettable. There were also some unlikely locutions: maidenish, eldership and prophethood.

    Last in was reeve, known only from the Canterbury Tales, although I was only guessing at the estate manager and bird DD.

    1. Maidenship is exceptionally uncommon, I would say; the other two much less so. For REEVE, I thought immediately of Christoper for the ‘flyer’ part!
  7. Easy one this, just under 15mins and done just after midnight, what’s more.
    I remember the QL, but more as a break down than a break through..
      1. To save many having to dive off into Google Linus Torvalds is a Finnish software expert who designed and championed something called LINUX. That’s enough IT rubbish – Ed
  8. Two questions, today.

    (1) Could someone please go into more detail on 4dn for me? I saw the answer, but was not sure how manoeuvres came into it?

    (2) What does it mean when the setter uses ellipses between two clues as in 4dn and 5dn today?

    As always, thanks.

    1. “manoeuvres” is the indication of the anagram (usually abbreviated to “anagrind”) of “his” (the “anagrist”)that comes after MAIDEN

      The dots at the end of the clue are a throw back to decades ago and these days can safely be ignored 999 times in a thousand. The two clues when read together should create a surface reading that sort of makes sense when each clue read individually makes little or no sense. Years ago they used to play all sorts of games with clues like this but that really no longer applies.

    2. (1) “manoeuvres” is the anagram indicator for “his”, producing the final ISH.

      (2) In this case it means that the surface reading is the two clues run together as single sentence or phrase. As far as the cryptic reading goes, you can ignore the ellipses and treat the two clues separately. This is the most common situation with ellipses, but other things are possible – one of the two cryptic readings may include material on the other side of the gap.

    3. “Modest over his manoeuvres”:

      Modest = the definition, i.e a synonym of ‘maidenish’
      over = the cricket term, requiring you to know that an over with no runs scored is a ‘maiden’
      his manoeuvres = anagram of ‘his’

      (Just for future reference, in these parts, you’ll sometimes find people referring to the word or words which are to be shuffled as the “anagrist” and the word indicating it’s an angram as the “anagrind”). As an anagrind, I’d say ‘manoeuvres’ is on the uncontentious side of things – just be on the look out for anything in a clue which suggests motion, or shuffling, or breaking up, and there’s every chance you’re dealing with a full or partial anagram.

      As for the ellipses, the simple answer (today at least) is that it doesn’t mean much at all, it’s simply to smooth out the surface reading of those two clues, because 4 down in particular doesn’t really have much surface on its own. Adding the ellipses makes them look more like a real sentence, for what that’s worth. Be aware it can mean that there is a literal connection, but that’s probably more likely to be the case in an Araucaria-type puzzle than this one.

      1. Nice to see everyone in such a helpful mood this morning, and virtually in unison!

        Despite feeling a little deflated at not getting anything in the top half in the first ‘across’ scan (funny how getting one early, especially a long one, helps with morale and speed) I managed to breeze through in six and a half minutes.

        Hold on hold on: faster than PB? For the first (and probably only) time ever. I need to go and lie down.

  9. About 75 minutes for this in several sessions culminating, appropriately enough, in yum cha. COD to QUANTUM LEAP. Guessed PATRA for 19ac, thinking – desperately hoping, actually – it might be a (sub) species of lemur, as I had cocked up 8dn by writing in PROPHETBARD, which does, surprisingly, seem to exist, but, unsurprisingly, only as a hyphenated word.
  10. I found this one difficult and needed help to finish it.

    First in QOM which I knew as the site of Iran’s secret uranium enrichment facility rather than as a destination for Muslim pilgrims.

    Should have got QUANTUM LEAP but couldn’t think beyond QUARTER ???? which I knew couldn’t be right because of the anagrist and how could it mean “breakthrough”?

    Several words were new to me: POTTO, PROPHETHOOD, REEVE, SOB SISTER, EUPHORBIA and MAIDENISH.

  11. I found this quite tough, and was pleased to finish unaided in just under 45 minutes.

    Six or seven went in without full understanding, and at least four others were unknown words deduced from the wordplay alone.

    All in all, quite glad to have been blogging yesterday’s and not today’s!

  12. I took far too long over this in four sessions on the move with lots of distractions. There were several guesses QOM, POTTO, REEVE (the meanings required here), SOB SISTER, EUPHORBIA, ACTIN, PROPHETHOOD and BARK for “ship which I have always thought was “barque” but I now know they are alternatives.

  13. A steady solve and, in common with others, a few half-forgotten words – ACTIN, REEVE and POTTO – emerging in more or less timely fashion from the murky sediment. For some reason wasn’t familiar with QOM as an alternative to QUM but from Google post-checking it seems the latter is more common, at least on the wub. 27 minutes, so on the fast side for me.
  14. Did this in bits in between various eye tests. Probably around the half hour mark with no significant problems.

    Only new word was SOB SISTER, but a few others I only meet in crosswords – POTTO, REEVE and ACTIN.

    Enjoyable puzzle that made me think a bit more than some puzzles.

    z8b8d8k asked if AGGRO had appeared before this year. Only just – 6th January.

  15. 20 minutes. I found this fairly easy and somewhat dull. The twee ‘corporation’ for TUM appears yet again; 11d is broken up uninterestingly into ILL and TEMPERED, and the surface of 28 is rather inelegant. I agree with mctext about the DBE in 5d.

    7d and 16d seemed the best in a rather mediocre bunch.

  16. Can I ask whether I have the right answer here, despite it apparently being too obvious to blog? I have ‘inelegant’ as an anagram of ‘in lane get’ but I don’t see how that means ‘cut up’. Or have I got it wrong?
    1. You do indeed have the right answer, you’ve just fallen victim to the (presumably deliberate) ambiguous use of two possible anagram indicators: “cut up” is the anagrind, and “awkward” is the definition, not the other way round…
  17. Did this in a bunch of breaks during rehearsal, I think it might have been better that way. AZTEC, HOORAY HENRY, INCENSE, ELDERSHIP REEVE in without seeing the full meaning (though I did later at HOORAY HENRY)
  18. Found this not too difficult, but as ever I was tripped up by cricket terminology (Maiden/Over). Doh!
  19. 15 mins for me.

    I liked Midstream; with current having a misleading meaning in the surface reading.

  20. About 40 minutes for me, ending with the AGGRO/PROPHETHOOD pair. AGGRO has appeared enough that I should know it by now, but clearly it takes a while for my mind to dredge it up. MAIDEN=’over’ never came to mind; I solved from the def. and checking letters. And, I certainly was looking for Jonah to be inside some kind of whale, so his position not being so described was doubly deceiving for me. There were a slew of other things I didn’t know, but, as pointed out, the wordplay led in the right direction. Regards.
    1. I also spent time looking for a whale enclosing something and thought I had found it when I noticed the first and last checking letters were P and D, so POD might fit the bill. Not that I remember the bible mentioning more than one whale. As things turned out POD was there but proved irrelevant.
  21. 20 fairly relaxed minutes, with the last 5 agonizing over REEVE. Finally went for it, and confirmed from the reference books. QUANTUM LEAP has unfortunately entered the mainstream, so has to be tolerated. Just to clarify, a quantum leap is an infinitesimally small change, but has the weird characteristic on not going through any intermediate state.
  22. Finally got to do this while watching CSI & having to discuss plot with grandchildren at same time. Too much RE for comfort but it was not a difficult day. Have met 10a & 3d’s ideas elsewhere recently – same setter? Liked 1a and last in 8d.
  23. There was what was to me an irritating mannerism from the setter: In 10ac and 12ac and possibly others that I have missed the setter puts an ‘a’ before the noun, totally unnecessarily. I know it isn’t actually wrong, because ‘a [noun]’ conventionally is equivalent to ‘[noun]’, but what is the point? The surface is just as good without the ‘a’, so what does it add? A degree of difficulty perhaps, but an increased inelegance in my opinion.

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