Times 24545 – Really?

Author   kororarekaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving Time: 18 + 17 + 10 minutes

A typical Monday for me; mostly very easy with a few which had me stumped and one which I only got courtesy of some barely functional synapse deep inside my fish brain.

Across
1 THROW = THe + ROW
4 MEGA + MOBILE for phone = MEGAPHONE. Mobile is pretty much synonymous with phone these days; so the definition by example can be excused.
9 ON THIN ICE = (IN HOT)* + NICE, our favourite French city, or is it Italian?
10 LATER = LATE for behind + motheR. I quickly penned AFTER, but that would have made “close to mother” = “er”, which I put a big red line under to quibble about.
11 I’m leaving this one out, despite what I said following the CANASTA incident recently.
12 SANCTION, double definition
14 PLASTER SAINT = PL[ASTERS]AINT. One that held me up. I thought it was going to be a character from Dickens. The “may make” is a deconstruction instruction (“is made of” in reverse), since plaint is a noun; a legal term in this instance.
17 GAINSBOROUGH = GAINS BOROUGH. Thomas Gainsborough was a painter of no small acclaim, being mentioned in the same sentence as Titian, Rembrandt and Da Vinci (cue the Kinks. Oh, and well done Ray on making it to the 21st century). Interestingly, his brother Humphrey was an inventor, and possibly painted the first drill plough, although the colour is not recorded. As far as the clue is concerned, even though a borough was once a town sending representatives to parliament, it now is more an administrative district at council level (I’m making this up as I go along), but would still have elected representatives. Gainsborough is also a town, so I claim this is a double definition with cryptic interlude. Alternatively… Anyway, this was another one which held me up, since I thought I was looking solely for a UK town and that’s usually enough to give me conniptions.
20 (WORTHILY)* = HOLY WRIT
21 I + S for succeeded + OLD + E for European = ISOLDE, the Fair, wife of KIng Mark and lover of Tristan, who all lived and died in many and various Arthurian circumstances.
23 OBELI = O for old, B for bishop, ELI for priest. Obeli are daggers in the reference mark sense, although the ODE says they can be used to indicate a person is deceased, presumably because they look like crosses, rather than daggers.
24 HARDIHOOD = HARD for real + HOOD for Robin or otherwise an outlaw around I for one. I had ????IHOOD for far too long. Hard is real in the sense of solid or “hard evidence”.
25 INNER SET for secret society placed after reverenD = DINNER SET. Here’s one I’m thinking of buying.
26 GOFER = (FORGE)*

Down
1 TO[ROLL for wheel]P + E for English = Anthony TROLLOPE
2 RATIONAL = RATIONALe
3 WHITER THAN WHITE = (HEATHER, WITH TWIN)*
4 I’m leaving this one out.
5 GRETA GARBO = (GREAT)* + GARB for dress + Ocars. From Blue Boy to Blue Angel
6 PELICAN CROSSING = eadem.
7 OUTFIT, double definition.
8 ERRANT = E for eastern, R.R. for right reverend + ANT for social worker = ERRANT
13 BRANDISHES = BRAN DISHES. Another which held me up. I went looking for an anagram of “with muesli” and then “w muesli and” until it became apparent that it just meant “shakes”, and then I thought delirium tremens, tremors, and so on.
15 BULLY for Hector + OFF for left the stage = BULLY OFF, to start a game by means of a face off, as in hockey. In ice hockey they puck off, as opposed to Australian Rules Football where they ball up, and continue in that fashion throughout the game. Don’t worry about learning those rules; nobody cares what they are, least of all the umpires (yes there are several on the field simultaneously).
16 SH for quiet + RED for revolutionary + DER for the in German = SHREDDER
18 SHROUD, double definition. Another of my late gets.
19 ALLEYN = ALLEY for marble + N for name. No doubt some of you went there, but I didn’t have a clue about this one. Eventually dredged alley up from previous crossword experience; we had aggies or connie agates but no alleys (from alabaster; also called “reals”). There’s a list in here. They’re mostly all new to me.
22 BRAT = AraBian + RAT for desert. Let’s face it, all youngsters are brats these days.

48 comments on “Times 24545 – Really?”

  1. Nice blog Koro — and agreed, an easy start to the week. Must have been, because I have no workings-out on the page at all; just an arrow pointing to HOLY WRIT to remind me to enter it in my anagram file. 12 minutes and COD to BRAN-DISHES for a muffled titter over breakfast.
  2. 18 min, but had to cheat for two after being stuck for minutes. Couldn’t get PLASTER SAINT, even though I had all the checking letters, and had spotted plaint early in the piece. And ALLEYN was an ungettable mystery without assistance.
  3. 58 minutes here, after a slick start, with 13 & 15 dn my favourites. Last in ALLEYN, which I should have got sooner, as a) he’s always cropping up and b) Haileybury’s heaviest caning was against Dulwich (whose OBs are the Old Alleynians) back in ’75. Thanks to Koro for the full monty on PLASTER SAINT and ERRANT.
    1. I can’t recall ever coming across Alleyn before, but I’m full bottle on the school now, having read the Wiki page. They have a house called Browns, whose colour is green and a house whose colour is brown called Bradings. You’d think they might have thought that through, but I suppose learning how to confuse your opponent is all part of a good education.
      1. Yes, but if you follow the link in my reply earlier today you’ll see that they are parts of the same foundation.
  4. 26 minutes, held up by the little ones 7 and 19, and the conviction 14 had something to do with painted, as in painted sepulchre, that Conrad had an enjoyably savage time with as the hypocritical city of Brussels in Heart of Darkness. What one wouldn’t give for a salt-lashingly satirical novel now!
  5. Hell – maybe Conrad’s Brussels was a whited sepulchre. Trust a teacher to get it wrong.
  6. Dredged-up ALLEYN from somewhere and guesses for HARDIHOOD and PLASTER SAINT. Held up a bit by DINNER SET, OUTFIT and SANCTION to round out a pleasant enough hour. Agree that 4d is hardly worth a mention.
  7. I usually make a note of the point at which I hit the wall but didn’t record it today. From memory I think everything went quite well for the first 20-25 minutes then I was left with gaps at 7dn 8dn 10ac and 12ac in the NE and a whole chunk missing in the SW including the first four letters at 24ac.

    I completed the grid in exactly an hour with a little assistance at 19dn where I couldn’t remember the marble and to my shame I had never heard of the school. I say to my shame because I am aware of Edward Alleyn with reference to his theatrical activities in Shakespeare’s time.

    I didn’t know HARDIHOOD either.

  8. 10 minutes – the quickest for a long time – but I thought this was a nice set of clues with no real duds. Did I detect a slightly old fashioned feel? HOLY WRIT, PLASTER SAINT and HARDIHOOD have a 19th century, Trollopean ring to them, and my household hasn’t employed a MAID for ages, though I think there’s been another one around the crossword grids pretty recently. Back in the day, everyone doing the Times would have known of Alleyn’s School, either because they went there or played them at cricket.
    BRANDISHES was the favourite.
  9. A real Monday puzzle. I bet there are under-5 minutes for some here. Wish I had timed accurately as pb probable – under the 10 m thanks to the long downs and a very fast top left. Would have been ridiculously quick if Alleyn and rational had occurred to me earlier.
  10. 7:11 for this.

    Maybe old-fashioned in parts, but there’s also the mobile and gofer. Remembered Alleyn’s School but had help as it’s within 10 miles of the place where I spent most of my secondary school days, though no matches – my school was in sporting doldrums at the time. Some defence for the reference in Alleyn founding what are now various schools including Dulwich College, but widespread knowledge of British school foundations probably starts and stops with Henry VI and Eton. ALLEY and TAW seem to be the main two marble names to know, so that’s your best way in.

  11. When I solved 3Down, I immediately thought “How did the setter know about the Sarah/Andrew thingee and the NOTW expose?”

    Is this co-incidence or is this co-incidence?

  12. This was a tame affair with the clues for eg Errand and Obeli being just a string of clichés. I was irritated, as usual, by the See in 5 and the Shown in 19 but I am so used to these linking devices that they did not slow me down. Actually I was probably more grumpy that usual because I did this crossword while waiting to have two tyres replaced after hitting a pothole yesterday.

    I don’t think I have ever seen Isolde clued as a queen before but, as Koro says, she was married to King Mark so no complaints. I had to convince myself that hardihood was a word and dinner set was a valid phrase, then I finished with Shroud, having spent too long trying to think of an obscure animal skin.

    1. I hope that’s a typo, Lenny, or you have 8dn wrong despite it being a series of cliches.
      1. Yes, thanks for pointing out the typo Jack. I did have the correct answer in the grid.
  13. For me there were two categories of clue in this puzzle: the very easy and the totally impossible. I completed all but three in ten minutes, which for me is extraordinarily quick. The remaining three defeated me completely.
    PLASTER SAINT – never heard of it. Gettable from wordplay but plaint = accusation didn’t occur to me. I’m still not entirely convinced they’re synonymous.
    HARDIHOOD – I actually wrote this down but didn’t believe it was a word.
    ALLEYN – if like me you’ve never heard of either the school or the marble then you’re pretty stuffed on this one.
  14. I spent about 35 minutes on this. As others have said, a mixture of easy and trickier clues. I filled the left-hand side quickly, then slowed down to get the rest. PLASTER SAINT and ALLEYN were new to me, but the wordplay yielded these fairly readily once I had some letters in place.

    I thought the clues were also a bit of a mixture. 4ac (&lit, if you take ‘huge’ with a pinch of salt), 17 and 13 were rather good, as were some of the anagrams. 2 and 10 were far less satisfactory. ‘Rational’ and ‘rationale’ have the same root, and ‘later’ is simply the comparative of ‘late’. Wordplay such as this is poor practice and best avoided in my opinion.

  15. 14 minutes plus 5 to establish that I wasn’t going to get the school.

    Either you know your minor English public schools or you don’t. Apologies to Old Alleynians for the ‘minor’ slur, but when your Wiki alumni list includes the “back-up bassist for The Flaming Lips”, you know you’re struggling (credit where it’s due for Henry Cotton, CS Forester, and perhaps Mickey Stewart and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen – but points off for Kelvin MacKenzie). Come to think of it, I went to a minor public school myself, but mine was so minor no one’s ever heard of it and it no longer exists, which has a kudos all its own.

    Otherwise, enjoyable enough fare.

  16. 9:18 . Was racing through this until the last pair, PLASTER SAINT and BRANDISHES , which held me up for about 3 minutes. Like Koro I had also put in AFTER for 10 briefly until I got the easy 6. It does seem a fair enough alternative though , no?
    1. Fair enough logically, but I think the Times puzzle is pretty solid on “the close of …” or similar just meaning the last single letter.
  17. I’ve been reading this blog for a year or so now and find it excellent. For the record I’m generally in the PB*5 territory (bit slower today) and was around 45 mins plus 15 for Plaster Saint today.

    I got Alleyn quickly because I went to Dulwich College which is the larger and (I think) generally better known of the two schools attributed to Edward Alleyn. He originally founded the College of God’s Gift on the site of Dulwich College. This quickly became informally known as Dulwich College and then formally so in the late C19 when Alleyns school formally split away.

    Dominic

  18. An easy rather musty affair as others have noted. 15 minutes to solve. Nothing particularly good. As it happens I knew Alleyn because whilst attending the rather earthier Battersea Grammar I played cricket on Alleyn’s ground but its inclusion here is faintly ridiculous.
  19. Starting to get mildly annoyed with performances that go along the lines of X mins for most of it and then half X or two thirds X for the last 1/2/3 clues. The general conclusion is that it is a vocabulary issue, as in today with PLASTER SAINT. The only remedy I can see is to read more books, but this feels like a ten year plan, not a three month one!

    Can any of the experts recall going through this phase?

    1. Yes – part of the answer is just gradually picking up more knowledge, part is the confidence that comes from having the necessary knowledge more of the time. Seeing any one of ASTERS, PLAINT or the answer would probably have been enough here, but they’re all potentially tricky.
  20. Count me among those who couldn’t get that school and bunged in ALTERN on the off chance. Also had a question mark against HARDIHOOD in my grid, but that worked out OK. You win some, you lose most.
  21. putting in penguin crossing(!) and not rethinking it meant that i failed on the easy 10 and 12 across. alley as a marble was new, and i dont really feel that muesli = bran. pendrov
    1. Penguin would be very appropriate for this blog, since there are a few of us around in avatar form. I’m inclined to agree with you on the muesli; the brands which have a preponderance of those processed bran pellets in them are usually worth avoiding.
  22. 12:48 here. No problem with ALLEYN, as we used to play them at cricket every year (“we” being King Edward VI School in Southampton). Two that held me up for a bit were PLASTER SAINT (never heard of the term) and BRANDISHES (same though processes as kororareka). I also stuck in AFTER for 10A but quickly corrected it.
  23. About 40 minutes, but had to resort to aids for the school founder. Never heard of the PLASTER SAINT, the PELICAN CROSSING (where I had also to correct AFTER to LATER), or the BULLY OFF. Over here and in Canada too, the hockey game starts with a face-off, but if they ‘puck-off’ elsewhere, well, good for them. So not so easy for a Monday, though the rest of it all went in very fast. Regards.
    1. ‘Bout the same here in Toronto. Must be that we’re in the same time zone or something in the water. Also had some trouble with HARDIHOOD ’til I looked real hard at ‘er.
      Did this puzzle while watching a very early episode of INSPECTOR MORSE in which one of the murder victims was an Oxford don who set cryptics as DAEDELUS, Morse being a great fan.
      We did also call a marble an alley here in Canada.
      2. Forget mitochondrial DNA; I reckon the movement of homo sapiens out of Africa can probably be traced by what the local names for marbles are.
  24. Mainly the same comments as above…got to Plaster Saint from the word play!…alleyn was a new one for me…alley being short for alabaster per wikipedia! interesting!

  25. I also knew the schools because my nephew went to Dulwich College in the early eighties and I actually played in the Forest School Under 12 team against Alleyns in the early fifties!
      1. Well yes it’s probably in the dictionaries. But that’s not the point. All sorts of silly things are in the dictionaries, like you = me; no setter worth his salt makes use of such things. So far as I can see, hardihood and daring are quite different.
        1. I don’t understand how, from COED, Collins or Chambers, you conclude that any of them say that “you = me”. Must have missed something in those 6 look-ups.

          I don’t say that dictionary definitions are always right, but I’d like to know how both setters and solvers are supposed to reliably detect the same set of errors in the dictionaries and adjust for them. If this is not possible, then we have to go with the dictionary defs.

          That doesn’t mean I agree that there is an error in this case – but I use the word “hardihood” so little that I have to rely on what the dictionaries tell me.

          If you have convincing reasons why this definition is a “silly thing”, you can contact the OED staff by way of the AskOxford website and tell them. If you have a good case, they will listen.

  27. My thanks for this excellent website that really is helping me get better at this lark. Almost completed again today.

    I remain in awe of the solving times quoted here. Simply amazing.

    However… could somebody please put this dimwit out of his misery and tell who the ‘boy in deli one liked’ was?!

    2. Sorry for leaving out the one you couldn’t get, brewongle, but it’s brought you out of anonymity and into the hard light of the blog. Look forward to many more posts from you.

      The canasta incident I referred to was a hidden word that occurred recently that I couldn’t see for looking. The realisation that you’ve been staring at the answer for all the time you’ve been racking your brains is usually accompanied by an audible scream.

    3. When completely stuck on one last clue, your first question should probably be “have we had the hidden word yet?”. Times puzzles have a limit of one “pure” hidden word (essentially one that’s not reversed). Not all puzzles include one, but if you haven’t seen one it’s well worth looking!
      1. Thank you all for your encouraging and constructive comments – they really are very much appreciated.

        I shall return now to today’s puzzle – (my game-clock today is up to 16 minutes and I am yet to ‘trouble the scorers’….)

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