Times 24507 – A Walk In The Park

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A very steady 30 minute solve which I imagine will prove extremely easy for the speed merchants. There’s very little if any specialist knowledge required and I doubt if anyone’s GK will be stretched by much. Regular readers may be delighted to know in advance that they will be spared references to any songs or lyrics today. Reading through the blog I’ve just written I seem to be nit-pickling over a few clues. These comments are not intended as major quibbles or a criticism of the puzzle in general but express genuine thoughts that occurred to me during the process.

Across
1 W(IS)EST – The wordplay is clear but I’m not sure I understand the definition. The Wisdom of Solomon (actually a book of the Apocrypha) is a well-known saying but why would the wisest be closest to him?
4 COVE,TED – Drainpipes are or were narrow-legged trousers worn, though not exclusively, by “Teddy” boys in the early days of rock n roll.
9 TWIST – Oliver famously wanted more. Twist is also a type of bread loaf apparently.
10 HONEYMOON – Just a cryptic definition, I think. I understand the romantic break of course but I’m not sure about the rest of the clue. Looking up “honeymoon” in the SOED I found the term originated as a reference to “a period of waning affection” which is fine if applied to new governments etc but rather sad in terms of romance. On edit: Many thanks to Anon. for pointing out it’s HONEY,MO,ON  (precious, little time, available). I completely missed the point of this one.
11 HELD, FORT, EdinburgH
12 GRIM,M – Only one of the usually inseparable brothers is referred to today.
13 Deliberately omitted. Please ask if baffled.
14 MOTHER,WELL – A Scottish town I probably first heard of when sitting through interminable football results whilst waiting for children’s TV to start in the 1950s. When they reached the Scottish leagues it was always a welcome sign that the torture was nearing its end.
18 EXPER(IMEN)T – IMEN from MINE*
20 SKINt
23 (WOR)RY – WOR from ROW reversed.
24 JAM(BORE)ES
25 LAG BEHIND – It’s an anagram of “IDLE HANG” and the “B” from the beginning of “back”. Some of the words seem to be doing double duty as definition here so it seems an odd construction to me but easy enough to solve.
26 QUOTAtions
27 HO(NEST)Y – A hoy is a single-masted sailing vessel.
28 Deliberately omitted. Please ask if baffled.
 
Down
1 WATCHABLE – With, A, then CH inside TABLE. CH stands for Companion of Honour but I’m not sure it’s valid to indicate this merely by the word “companion”. Table meaning food may not be familiar to some but it’s used in expressions such as “she keeps a good table”.
2 S(KILL)ET
3 Deliberately omitted. Please ask if baffled.
4 Coney,INCH – An extremely easy task. The definition in the clue will be familiar to regular readers of Jimbo’s contributions.
5 VO(YAG,ER)S – This is a reversal of RE GAY inside VOSges. VOS being the northern half apparently. I’m not sure this works reading from left to right as it appears in the clue, only when actually placed in the grid. And voyagers defined as holidaymakers? I haven’t been able to find it.
6 T(W,O T)IME – TO Wife inside EMIT all reversed.
7 D(EN)IM – EN from greENish.
8 KHARTOUM – Sounds like “car tomb”. My very last in.
15 HANDMADE – Sounds like “handmaid”, a female servant or helper.
16 LANDS,CAP, famE – CAP as an international award puzzled me for a moment before I remembered its sporting connotations.
17 GREYNESS – Anagram of ENERGY then SeriouS.
19 P,A,RAG,ON
21 KEE,P OUT – “Expression of alarm” is EEK which is reversed before a fish I’ve never heard of.
22 MOS(QU)Es
23 Deliberately omitted. Please ask if baffled.
24 JUICY – Double definition

40 comments on “Times 24507 – A Walk In The Park”

  1. 26 minutes with a few clue rationales left in abeyance though none baffling when checked jackkt’s blog. I think Solomon as the epitome of wisdom is OK; and voyagers can well be holiday-makers. Words doing double duty in clues (25) is surely within the setter’s convention? As is the VOS in 5 reading down once answered and written in. Good honest fare – no COD. Khartoum last for me also.
  2. 7:59 – maybe not quite as fast as Jack expected. Minor delay from SET OUT as first go for 3D, and 7 and 21 were entered without full wordplay understanding – 7 on the basis that D?N?M can only be one thing, so “material” was more than enough. So was 25A on reflection.

    Agree about “northern” in 5D, which requiress you to pretend that the clue is written downwards.

    I think 25A is intended to be an &lit, with the whole clue serving as both def and wordplay. But when “hang back” is a perfect definition on its own, it’s easy not to notice.

  3. Guessed POUT was a fish and HOY was a boat, otherwise straightforward solve but carelessly stuck in HOLD FORTH once I got the H. First day of cricket season at the Oval so hoping for easyish puzzles on cricket days. If not you won’t hear from me.
  4. Average time today, 16mins, but carelessly entered two wrong initially, having put “off air” and “jammy” for set off and juicy, and this took time to correct.
  5. Khartoom seems to be an acceptable way of spelling Khartoum especially by the people that live there so being poor and defenceless they can be easily ignored. Adjudicate that.
    2. In the days of Beijing, Kolkarta, Kyiv and other respelled placenames, there’s little to stop the locals spelling it any way they like and getting the rest of the world to follow suit. And the Arabic name seems to be most often given as “Al Khartum”. So for an 8-letter spelling, I think I’d stick to Khartoum with a U, and to be honest, I’d be surprised if anyone wrote anything different.

      I guess poor and defenceless natives may not have access to the internet, but I can’t find anyone there arguing for ‘Khartoom’.

  6. re 10 ac. it’s precious for honey, mo for little time and on for available (as in is the roast beef on?)
  7. 16m for me today, a steady solve that generally worked from SE to NW, as MOTHERWELL was first in. 1ac felt slightly odd, since if Solomon is the epitome of wisdom, arguably no-one else can be wisest, but I suppose someone could be the wisest of his/her generation, so closest to the best. Favourite today was LANDSCAPE, for its lovely surface.
  8. I didn’t find it easy either, getting stuck in the SE & NW. I put it down to distraction and exhaustion rather than inherent stupidity, but I could be in denial. BETA was my last in, in fact, with an audible groan. I had a tick beside LAG BEHIND; I’m a sucker for an &lit.
  9. 14:05, which was very disappointing. I struggled over the SE corner, and took ages to justify KEEP OUT and see MOSQUE. I didn’t immediately see JUICY, either. A poor effort on a pleasantly straightforward puzzle.
  10. I found this anything but a walk in the park, taking 100 minutes and cheating on MOTHERWELL of all things, even though a) I know all the Scottish football teams and b) I construed dam as mother (more to the point as ‘mare’ with my horseracing interests). Even more gallingly, the one I think I managed not to get is one of the ones “Deliberately Omitted”: 13 ac – I put in BETA because it fitted, having started with BOOK, before getting SKILLET. Someone, please put me out of my misery.

    Liked TWO-TIME best.

      1. Funny how the two that should have been easiest for me tripped me up. I actually studied Greek up to a reasonable level …

        Getting a touch of the Jimbos, I fear – unable to get the simple ones because of a Craving for the Challenge.

  11. 17 mins, I didn’t find it particularly easy and was held up by 27A HONESTY and 21D KEEP OUT. I rather liked the reference to the Great Vowel Shift in 23D WELSH and 24A JAMBOREES. My quibble would be with 7D, where I’d take ‘greenish on the inside’ as wordplay for REENIS, not EN.

    Tom B.

    1. I’d be happy to interpret “greenish on the inside” as any of EN, EENI or REENIS. There is a convention in the Times and other puzzles that “in the middle” has to be precise, and this is often extended to other ideas like “inside”, so that you don’t have to consider all the consecutive sets of letters somewhere inside GREENISH.

      There’s also another convention that if terms like “extremes” or “outside” are used, only single letters at the ends of words are indicated. But I don’t think this means that “on the inside” has to mean everything that is not the “outside”.

  12. What else can I say but a 15 minute stroll in the park. Sadly a number of silly little niggles that have all been mentioned (I think “en” clued as “greenish on the inside” and “northern half” of VOSGES jarred most). My last in was BETA because I was looking for something clever and I don’t trust four letter words. There are some nice surface readings, for example MOTHERWELL, LANDSCAPE and GREYNESS
  13. While I was doing this one, I took JUICY to be a homophone for d’ you see? At the time, I could associate that with provoking interest, and it seems a shame that the real explanation is so much more prosaic!
  14. And guess the surname of the moron who, for the second time in 18 months, could not fathom ELIOT as a poet.
    1. Haha, me too, I felt such a fool especially as I thought of toiled for laboured aswell.

      I did a similar thing today with twist, it just didn’t click & was my last in.
      Guessed hoy was boat, pout was fish, mother was dam, settle was furniture & cove was fellow.
      Now, the question is will I remember them?

      1. If you have to choose, I’d remember the last three. Alternatively, I’ll predict that you will remember them because they’ll soon be back.
  15. I enjoyed this and found some of the wordplay quite entertaining. I must be in a good mood because none of the niggles that Jack and others have mentioned occurred to me while I was solving. I finished with Twist and Khartoum. On the first read through I thought of Oliver but it did not fit so I discarded it without thinking of his surname. Khartoum was last in because I have an Achilles heel over spelling in homophone clues and I had to decide whether it was toum or toom.

  16. Relieved 2 days deprived did not cause loss of ability – 18 m, and rather enjoyed it. Started in the middle with 11, last in 1a because like others I was slow to see the wordplay. The other quibbles did not delay me.
  17. 12:26 Failed to spot the wordplay in 1a as I just read it as Solomon Islands = SI, but after getting 1d at least found the right answer. The pairing of 22 and 26 held me up at the end. Mental note to self – queen is not always ER or R , consider Q and QU immediately as well. All in all a fairly standard puzzle (which is not being disparaging as the Times “standard” is excellent in my opinion)
  18. (GRE)EN(ISH) raised an eyebrow, but not “Northern half of Vosges”.. I don’t agree that it requires one to read the clue vertically, any more than would “southern tip of Vosges” for S, (or indeed VOY “on” AGERS). They can be read vertically in the answer, as if, say, part had been removed from there first. Using this device in an across clue of course would be iffy as there would be no particular reason to consider a vertical alignment.
    1. No problem with (VOY on AGERS) – that’s indisputably there in the grid. Much less convinced by the “southern half” because you can do the deletion or part selection while VOSGES is still horizontal, and VOS is the Western half.
  19. A rather sluggish 20 minutes. Like many others Khartoum was last in. One day I’ll tell you about the concert I was involved in to raise money for clean water projects in Khartoum, for which only two tickets were sold.

    I also struggled with most of the NW corner until I got watchable, and I didn’t really understand how wisest worked, failing to lift and separate Solomon Islands. Kudos to the setter for lulling me into the “the Scottish town must be an anagram” trap by using the word supply.

    Right, I’m off for a spot of pout fishing on my hoy.

    1. RE = concerning = on, GAY = happy = sunny – and “on sunny climb” means that ‘on’ and ‘sunny’ (or their synonyms) are written upwards.
  21. Took 30 minutes here, finishing with the crossing QUOTA/MOSQUE pairing. Not particularly easy due to a few knowledge gaps: Hoy, cove, teddy boys, CAP. But all were gettable from definition (i.e. COVETED) or wordplay. The pout, though, is a common fish over here, no problem on that. I liked KHARTOUM. Regards.
  22. Took 30 minutes here, finishing with the crossing QUOTA/MOSQUE pairing. Not particularly easy due to a few knowledge gaps: Hoy, cove, teddy boys, CAP. But all were gettable from definition (i.e. COVETED) or wordplay. The pout, though, is a common fish over here, no problem on that. I liked KHARTOUM. Regards.
  23. Sorry for the repeat comment, Live Journal told me it hadn’t been posted.
  24. minor quibble, but in a world of possibilities for words, geography, works of art and literature and their authors, composers, even at a stretch greek and latin, i do not like having to solve slang, e.g cove today and pix yesterday. that and the mysterious cockney h loss are my crossword bugbears.
    1. The general rule as I understand it is that if a word is in one or other of the Concise Oxford or Collins dictionaries then it’s okay to have it in the puzzle.

      I don’t particuilarly like PIX though I accept it, but COVE dates back to the 16th century and is apparently of Romany origin. Crosswords would be very dull if they didn’t reflect the rich variety of the English language.

      I note your list of possibilities for words makes no mention of the worlds of sport or science. There’s too much of one for some of us around here and too little of the other for others. The gallant setters can’t please everyone but mostly I think they do a very good job.

  25. I fell 4 short on this one. WISEST, BETA, TWIST (which I thought of but dismissed) and WATCHABLE.

    I was pleased to get KHARTOUM though.

    I share the thoughts and criticisms about the VOYAGER clue

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