Times 24521 – Cholesterol reduced? Yes and No.

Author   kororarekaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving Time: 26 minutes

Another sigh of relief as I find I’m dealt a straightforward one, with most of the time spent thinking “How does that work, then?”. The answer was invariably with some ingenuity. There’s not a lot of fat (i.e. padding) in any of these clues (cf 11ac). Needless to say, I enjoyed it immensely, as with any crossword I can finish under half an hour and still learn a thing or two.

Across
1 SAMARITAN = SA[M for married + A + RITA]N. San for sanitorium is a common abbreviation for hospital, although not as common as H (see 8d), which is perhaps more commonly short for husband (see 1d).
6 BID[E for last of the]S = BIDES or remains.
9 RUN-UP = RUN for career and UP for at university. A particular bête noire for me last week when it needed to be run-in. I’m pleased to see I was just being prescient and not stupid.
10 AUBERGINE = AUBERG[IN for popular]E. Auberge is a French word for inn, apparently, and you might know an aubergine as an eggplant. Mmmm… Baba ghanoush.
11 BUBBLES for a painting + QUE for in Paris(,) that + A + K for king in chess all around AND for with = BUBBLE AND SQUEAK, feature of a full English, to counter the purported cholesterol reducing properties of aubergines. The BBC series Desperate Romantics about the Pre-Raphs has just shown on ABC telly here. A bit soapy, I thought. With is more commonly contracted to W (see 15d), when it’s not simply indicating concatenation or an adjectival answer, and when it’s and it’s most confusing.
13 A + Thomas MORE + T.T. for Tourist Trophy (thanks again to Peter) + O for round = AMORETTO, a cupid.
14 BELTED, a double definition. I had no idea that an earl could be belted, but apparently they could be up and until the seventeenth century, and then they apparently preferred braces. Earl is from an old Viking word, from which we get Viscount, the number of Vikings in a long boat. Isn’t Google a wonderful thing.
16 C[L for large]INCH = CLINCH or seal the deal. Is L for large a portent of S for small, previously considered un-Timesian?
18 PLECTRUM = PLUM outside E[CT for court]R; the ER being, somewhat cheekily, the middle of tERm.
21 DIG ONE’S OWN GRAVE, a double definition, the second facetious. Given the Earls, could this have been clued “appreciate your minor nobility”?
23 CO for firm + GeNITIVE for case(,) out East = COGNITIVE.
25 Deliberately omitted. Ask if you can’t see it.
26 Y for unknown + MALTA = YALTA. I’ll add this to my list of unknown ports, subsection Crimean, cross-referenced Ukrainian.
27 GOLDENROD = G[OLD]ENeral for former(,) commander without + ROD for staff. “Without” is crosswordese for “around the outside of” rather than just “not inside”.

Down
1 SHRUB = S for singular + RUB for difficulty containing H for husband. I had no idea what kind of shrub Cordial was when solving, but it turns out to be almost any kind.
2 MIND-BLOWING, as in Dizzy didn’t!. A double definition, the second facetious.
3 REPULSE = RE for on + PULSE for general feeling, as in finger on the.
4 PARTY for Labour, say taken under TEA for char = TEA-PARTY, a social gathering or conservative groundswell in the US.
6 NOBODY = NO BODY. I found that filed under Books, Victorian subsection Humourous.
7 DAI = (I + AD for notice) reversed. I had always assumed Dai was just a diminutive of David, but perhaps David is the elongated version of Dai?
8 SHEIKHDOM = (H for hospital (cf 1ac) + KIDS’ HOME)*
12 ENTER for board, as in “all aboard” + TRAINER = ENTERTAINER
13 (CHURCHYARD – R for rook in chess)* = ARCHDUCHY, Franz being the one implicated in the commencement of WWI hostilities rather than the band.
15 FLY for make off + W for with (cf 11ac) + HEEL for list = FLYWHEEL
17 TIN for metal breaking into CANA = CANTINA or bar.
19 (A CLUE)* containing GO for turn = CAGOULE, a waterproof garment.
20 ASKING = A + SKIN for film + Goldfinger
22 ARE for live inside EnglanD = EARED, a type of seal unrelated to 16ac’s clinch seal.
24 GEL = (LEG for on, the side in cricket that isn’t off) reversed; that would be locks of hair.

42 comments on “Times 24521 – Cholesterol reduced? Yes and No.”

  1. Not only did I not know this word (used in both Italian and Spanish, I now see), but the cunning separation of ‘break’ and ‘metal’ in the clue did me no favours. Ended up with CANDIDA, as I could think of nothing else.

    Got BELTED, NOBODY and EARED from the wordplay, liked BUBBLE AND SQUEAK because I, well, like last night’s cabbage and potato fried up (thanks to Koro for unravelling), and COD to MIND BLOWING. 65 mins.

  2. On for a good time here, for me, except that didn’t trust my guesses for cognitive and cantina and wasted time on the rationales. Still 19 minutes. Left with an all-consuming desire for 11, preferably in a 13 down of one’s own (lovely word).
  3. 22 minutes to write in all the words; then another half hour working out why. Had no idea about shrub bing a drink* or Earls being belted (the more the better I say). And, um, do plectra actually pluck? The word is derived from the Greek “to strike”.
    *Jack: here’s one entry (Mac US Oxford:
    1 a drink made of sweetened fruit juice and liquor, typically rum or brandy.
    2 a slightly acid cordial made from fruit juice and water.
    1. plectrums/plectra: yes – COED has “pluck” defined as sound (a stringed musical instrument) with one’s finger or a plectrum. Though I suspect most people would describe violin pizzicato as plucking and the different action of typical guitar playing as strumming.
      1. Peter: indeed, one can strum (hit several strings at once so as to sound a chord) with a plectrum; but one can also pick out individual notes with it; and there’s also a technique known as flatpicking. I don’t think I’d be inclined to call any of these “plucking” as such. I associate the latter with, as you note, violin pizzicato and various harp-playing techniques.
        In the world of guitar playing (see the above site), the use of a plectrum is specifically contrasted with plucking (i.e., fingerstyle).
        1. A case of knowing too much! We all have to ignore subtleties of language as used in the fields we know about, and accept that for puzzle purposes, the broad brush definitions in the dictionaries are OK.
    2. Thanks for this. The mistake I made was looking up “cordial” expecting to find that it is a type of shrub instead looking up “shrub” and finding it is a cordial. This way round it seems to be in all the dictionaries.
  5. SHRUB, AMORETTO and EARED required post-solve justification. COD to GEL where I missed the beautifully disguised cricket term despite or because of spending the last 5 days watching the game.
  6. Sorry, that was me anonymously at 6.33, having been logged out for taking too long to compose my message, then making things worse in an attempt to make them better. Story of my life.
  7. Well this one did for me again. The third or fourth in a row that turned into a mighty struggle and went over an hour in the solving.

    I ended up with several answers pencilled in lightly that I was unable to explain. LEG I am ashamed of because I missed a cricketing reference that comes up nearly every week. I should also have spotted “genitive” as the “case” that’s the key to 23ac.

    I’m not so concerned about SHRUB because “cordial” is not defined as a plant of any sort in Chambers, COED, Collins, SOED or the OED as far as I can see nor can I find any specific support for BUBBLE AND SQUEAK as a breakfast dish though of course I accept that one might eat anything at any time of the day.

    And I was unable work out 17dn despite knowing the word which I probably first met in the song made famous in the 60s by Marty Robbins:

    Out in the West Texas town of El Paso
    I fell in love with a Mexican girl
    Nighttime would find me in Rosa’s cantina
    Music would play and Felina would whirl.

    1. One person’s easy is another’s hard slog, as I discovered to my chagrin most days last week. The ODE defines shrub as (N Amer) a slightly acid cordial made from fruit juice and water or a drink made of sweetened fruit juice and spirits. Cordial probably covers both eventualities. My comment in the blog covered my complete ignorance of this usage and the fact that almost any fruit can be used to concoct the sweet or acid concentrate (although I wouldn’t advise aubergines).
    2. Jack, I was inclined to agree with you about the authenticity of bubble and squeak as a specifically breakfast dish, but on further investigation there does seem to be sanction for its being a traditional ingredient in what is known as a Full English, the b-and-s bit being the mashed-together and then fried-up vegetables, potatoes etc left over from the previous night’s dinner. A heart attack on a plate by the sound and sight of it – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_and_squeak.

      A far from easy but very entertaining puzzle with much devious and ingenious wordplay, I thought.

  8. 12:10 so quite tricky for me. One reason was inventing a new speed-solver’s self-inflicted disaster at 21 – doing my own homophone of the end of words like homophone and somehow writing DIG ONES ONE GRAVE – in turn preventing an easy FLYWHEEL and its contribution to PLECTRUM. I also took ages to see on=LEG in 24, and where to put the QUE in 11A, looking for {AND something} = “with breakfast”, inside a king or (a, king), after QUE or similar, meaning a 6,3,6 painting. Q as the last letter of 1 should have eliminated this idea, but didn’t.

    Better moments – MORE in 13A seen straight off, AUBERGE in 10A – easy for anyone taken youth hostelling by their parents, as the “Auberge de jeunesses” or similar translation for ‘Youth Hostel’ was fairly prominent in the handbook and/or signage at the hostels. And the same trips taught me the word “cagoule” – today’s equivalent from Peter Storm looks fairly similar.

  9. For the blogger shrub is actually a cordial of fruit juice and vinegar according to the chambers dictionary and not the more expected definition of tree etc.
    1. The actual entry from Chambers:

      a mixed drink of lemon or other citrus fruit juice, sugar, spices and a spirit, esp rum; a cordial of fruit juice (eg raspberry) and vinegar (US).

      1. the oed has it as US: a cordial or syrup made from the juice of the raspberry, with vinegar and sugar.
        1. Just to be clear, this is one of two OED defs for a shrub that’s not a plant, the other being: A prepared drink made with the juice of orange or lemon (or other acid fruit), sugar, and rum (or other spirit).
            1. It’s not a cordial as in “lime cordial”, but COED’s def of the British version of ‘cordial’ is simply “a sweet fruit-flavoured drink”. This could indicate both the “lime cordial” version and something stronger. Their contrasting definition of “squash” (which mentions fruit juice and sugar as the ingredients) suggests to me that the vague def for cordial is deliberate rather than careless.
  10. No problems here, c18 enjoyable mins, though I have only just managed to understand SHRUB having also looked up cordial in the dictionary, rather than shrub.. but the wordplay was clear. Also Yalta took me a minute or two, having carelessly written ARCHDUCAL to start with. Most elderly Brits will have heard of Yalta, it being somewhere Churchill went during the war to commune with Roosevelt and Stalin. And divide up Europe, as you do..
    Nice links, Koro, v. cute seal!
    1. Glad you liked the seal. I picked it out especially for its cuteness. I must have heard of Yalta previously, having seen a TV series on the Churchill-Stalin-Roosevelt meetings, during and after the war. So many meetings to remember, so little time.
  11. 17 minutes, rather a lot of them trying to put a break in CANA to deliver an otherwise unknown metal bar. SHRUB has been filed away for future reference: it usually annoys me because of the huge range of minor trees that I’ve never heard of it can be, and now it’s a drink as well. Might try ordering one at the AUBERGE, but I’m not sure I fancy it. Loved BUBBLE etc for its excellent cluing. Having already got PLECTRUM and DIG ONES OWN GRAVE, and having driven a lot of diesels, GLOWPLUG was a first instinct for 15. Competition for clue most loaded with common indicators won hands down by SAMARITAN, where every word was but wasn’t really, if you see what I mean. CoD to MIND-BLOWING.
  12. I was on the setter’s wavelength today and worked steadily through this one in twenty minutes – a pleasing start to the week. First in GEL, then SAMARITAN and last in CANTINA. SHRUB, BUBBLE AND SQUEAK and CANTINA were all entered without full understanding. Made one error – had PELTED for BELTED from a mental picture of an earl wearing an ermine robe. Enjoyed MIND BLOWING and NOBODY. Didn’t know that an aubergine was a fruit!
  13. This was very entertaining and presented no real problems since I seemed to have all the necessary bits of GK. I finshed with cantina where Pat Boone, rather than Marty Robbins, rode to my assistance The lyrics of Speedy Gonzales often come to mind when I am looking for a word such as cantina, adobe, hacienda, tortilla, enchilada, tequila…

    I held off entering bubble and squeak for some time because I just could not imagine it as a feature of a full English.

    I noticed aubergine was defined as a fruit today whereas courgette was defined in yesterday’s Sunday Times blog as a vegetable, although one could put this down to ST vagueness. I thing the moral is that the seeded things that we usually regard as a vegetable side-dish can be defined as either fruits or vegetables for crossword purposes.

    1. I think we’ve discussed this before. In a nutshell or botanically speaking, the fruit is the seed and what we call the fruit is pseudocarp (Greek for just pretending to be fruit). This makes the fruit/vegetable dichotomy a bit superfluous; just a gastronomic convention which the setters may adhere to or not.
  14. I’ve just noticed that the three adverts at the bottom of this page all relate to words in kororareka’s write-up. Ingenious!
    1. I’d like to claim credit, but I had my adblocker on, so didn’t see them until now. I did check out Doonesbury today, though, and found it was about a tea-party and US conservative politics. Very spooky.
  15. 10:45 for this. Spent the last four minutes trying to put a break in CANA, like z8b8d8k, and failing miserably to spot the “on”-leg connection. Had to come here to find the Bubbles reference, which I’m ashamed to say was new to me.
    1. Older contributors such as myself may have first encountered this painting through its association with Pears soap. I don’t think our family ever used that particular brand but we always had plenty of reference books around the house including several editions of Pears’Cyclopaedia in which the famous painting was the frontispiece.

      The book is still available in a new edition each year but Millais’s Bubbles no longer appears. I found some glaring errors of fact in the 2009-2010 edition so I would not recommend buying it.

      1. I’m amazed they can keep it going, in the face of Google, which makes finding glaring errors of fact SO much easier these days.
      2. For years I had a large framed print of Bubbles, being something of a Pre-Raphaelite fan, especially the gaudy, photo-realistic efforts. TurnerJMW’s namesake was frequently recommended to the PR Brotherhood by Ruskin as an exemplar, but mostly without success.
  16. After an unusually good run last week I have been thoroughly brought back down to earth by Saturday’s and now this one. At least I finished without cheating on Saturday (eventually), but today the combination of FLYWHEEL and GOLDENROD defeated me. Neither a particularly difficult clue with hindsight, and although botany is always a weak spot for me I’ve no excuse for 15. And I didn’t do myself any favours by writing an N that looked like a W at the end of 1ac which made 5dn (W_B_D_) challenging until I spotted the error.
    Room for improvement.
  17. Breezed through but interrupted by a phone call so I didn’t get a time down. EARED and CAGOULE from wordplay, but I was pretty confident there wasn’t a garment called a COGLUAE, so minor sigh of relief.
  18. No brain-sapping sun on the swing seat today – 14 m and awful memories of gagging on compulsory b & s as child at breakfast, the smell and foul taste of charred cabbagey stuff, and the dry lumpy potato… Re the plectrum, if it does not pluck the string, what word do you use for how it shifts the string to make the sound? I was happy with it as a non-guitarist. Again I enjoyed the wide range of subjects covered today.
  19. A 1940’s puzzle with Dizzie Gillespie, Yalta, the too good to be true Pears Soap Bubbles Boy and the breakfast that saved food rationing coupons – bubble and squeak with cod liver oil – far tastier than dried egg powder I can tell you. A good start to the week, challenging without being a real brain twister – 20 minutes to solve.

Comments are closed.