Times 24551 – Fete sounds like… like…

Author   kororarekaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving Time: 45 minutes

No, I’m not getting ahead of myself. I’m standing in for vinyl1 this week. There was a goodly helping of anagrams to save my bacon in this one, followed by lashings of homophones to aid the digestion. Inevitably I was going to be held up by the 1ac/5d crossing and in trying to figure out how 26ac worked. But for those three, I would have been home in half an hour. And so to the puzzle.

Across
1 LACHESIS = LA for the in French (feminine) + CHES[I]S, was one of the Moirae, or Fates in Greek. My last in. If only I’d kept that list.
6 BAUBLE sounds like “boar bull”, or not as the case might be.
9 PENNY-FARTHING, a double definition, the first possibly tongue in cheek, since I can’t find any dictionary reference to it actually equating to cheap, but presumably it’s cheaper than penny-ha’penny, which is colloquially used to mean cheap, but also not within earshot of any dictionary compiler it seems. Anyway, here’s a pratfall.
10 MOBILE, another double definition. No, not that Mobile (named after a trailer park), this Mobile (named after a Native American tribe). Now do you see the benefit of keeping lists?
11 I’m leaving this anagram out. I couldn’t stomach it.
13 LENGTHWAYS = (WASH GENTLY)*. Anagram upon anagram.
15 STYX sounds like “sticks”, but possibly not in ancient Greece.
16 OSLO = gO SLOw. I tentatively invented Rial, but thought I better not pen it in.
18 (ODD AUNT NOW)* = DOWN AND OUT. Take it away, Carla, who would know exactly what it’s like.
21 GENEROUS = GEN for dope as in information, + ERO[U for United, Man or otherwise]S.
22 ANTLER = NighT inside ALE + R for right. You have to lift and separate “stag night”.
23 (SABOTEURS LEAP)* = PLEASURE BOATS. Is “into action, wrecking” the anagrind?
25 CR[IKE]Y = CRIKEY or goodness! An expression well known in Oz. I hastily penned CRI[P]ES, but that caused much grief at 24d and 14d.
26 LIKE reversed inside LIMN = LIMEKILN. Once I had all the checking letters, the answer was obvious, but why? Well, it turns out limn means “to paint”; it’s the texting version of “illuminate” (c. 1400) and nothing to do with limnology. Like is, like, you know, like.

Down
2 A + PP for very quiet, musically speaking + ROVE for stroll = APPROVE, OK?
3 HAND IN GLOVE = HANDING for passing, on top of LOVE for nothing.
4 STYLE sounds like “stile”. No objections here, surely?
5 ANIMATeS reversed = STAMINA. Wanting the “s” at the start, this looked like an unlikely word (??A?I?A) and set my head itching for some time.
6 BATTER for floury mixture + SEA for water = BATTERSEA, a park in London where you can see terrapins climbing trees! Technically, Battersea Park is a park.
7 I’m not putting this one up.
8 LEG for member + ALLY for partner = LEGALLY.
12 INSIDE TRACK = I + caN + SIDETRACK for create a distraction. My favourite today, I think.
14 (SHIELD YOU)* = HIDEOUSLY
17 SLEEPER, double definition, being the railway carriage and the lump of wood, or concrete these days.
19 WASTREL = aLERT for “not initially watchful” + SAW for observed, all reversed. Having thoroughly researched “profligate” for DIY COW last week, this went straight in.
20 UTENSIL = TEN into US + IL being crosswordese for 49, one before fifty. Maybe it should have been “49?” since, as we all had beaten into us, 49 = XLIX.
22 A + L for large + BUM for seat = ALBUM. Is The Times becoming more cheeky?
24 ELK = thE principaL booK. I completely failed to spot this on first reading, and then cripes at 25 camouflaged it even more.

27 comments on “Times 24551 – Fete sounds like… like…”

  1. Seemed rather heavy going, then found there was nothing left to do after 15 min! Banged LACHESIS straight in on a wing and a prayer. She must have marked my card. 6 ac will get them going, and would have expected 26 to be (4,4). COD shared between LENGTHWAYS and GENEROUS.
  2. 15 minutes: STYX held me up at the end only because I was looking for “bogged down” as a sound similar, ignoring “gets”, so something ending in d or n. Briefly wondered whether there was a river Skye and how that would fit. Perhaps with LACHESIS around, I should have been in a more classical frame of mind. Must revisit my list of Fates: “Kismet, Hardy”. Curious as to how transatlantic solvers coped with ALBUM. Lots of entries from definition and working backwards, sometimes, as with LIMEKILN, not bothering, so thanks for elucidation. CoD to the truly awful sands lake BAUBLE, just to annoy purists.
  3. Same time as Koro and same last two in, 5dn followed by 1ac. Thanks too for doing teh hard miles on LIMEKILN.
  4. A very uneven mixture of the very easy (most of it) and the obscure – LACHESIS, LIMN.

    I almost put in OUSE at 15 but luckily decided to wait for the checking letters.

  5. Much of this went in quite quickly for me but I was left with gaps in every quarter and these took ages to fill so it was 55 minutes before the last word, MOBILE, went in. As I’ve heard of the port and the literal is straightforward I’ve no idea why this one eluded me for so long.

    I got LACHESIS from the wordplay having wasted ages trying to make LACROSSE work. And I was unable to explain LIMEKILN until I looked up LIMN later, not expecting to find it existed.

    I don’t think there was a “hidden” today apart from inside the word clued by “industrial action” so following the discussion last week I wasted a lot of time looking for one whenever I got stuck.

    The SOED has PENNY-FARTHING as an adjective meaning “ineffective, insignificant” which I’m not sure corresponds exactly to “cheap” so perhaps the setter did not have that in mind.

    1. My tip on hiddens started: “When completely stuck on one last clue”. The idea is that if you have an answer with all or most checking letters, it is easy to see whether any patch of the clue text has the same checking letters. It’s then very easy to see whether the patch concerned is a word defined elsewhere in the clue. From the speed-solver’s point of view, it’s good to be able to identify or eliminate a clue-type quickly, and you also want to avoid the situation where your rivals who saw the hidden word gain a minute or two.

      If you’re stuck say halfway through a puzzle, a hidden word might help you get restarted, but statistically, you’re still better off looking for the charade and other ‘construction kit’ wordplays that make up most of a typical puzzle.

  6. 6:18, mostly very straightforward. Had CHESS in mind for the game in 1A from the start, but got diverted by DE LA = “of the French female” so needed all the checkers to remember the name. Other slower answers included 15, 21, and 12. 26 solved without seeing ‘limn’=paint.
  7. There were lots of friendly anagrams today and a couple of cities, Mobile and Oslo that get more than their fair share of crossword exposure. I finished with Styx and Lachesis. Styx gave me the confidence to go with the wordplay on Lachesis since it indicated a classically-inclined setter.

    I have added crikey to my list of synonyms for goodness to go with golly, gosh, cor, gee…

    1. And , of course, Oslo would be at the tip of everyone’s minds following the Eurovision Song Contest held there yesterday.
  8. Easy 15 minute stroll in the park with nothing taxing. Solved LIMEKILN from the definition.
  9. > Like is, like, you know, like.
    Are you trying to become an honorary Scouser?

    Seriously … this was the one I couldn’t parse for the life of me, but with L?M?K?L?, there wasn’t a lot of choice. So, ta whack for the retro, like.

    Lachesis? There’s always this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyULD181eC4

  10. DNF but purely by accident as I did not notice puzzle was incomplete before coming here (STYX). Last in was OSLO (COD) only once I got SLEEPER. Finishing seems to be my main problem now – it used to be starting, oh … and finishing, oh…and the bit in between – today having to wrestle with the wordplay for LACHESIS and LIMEKILN, the latter not understood until coming here. Same with a fairly easy RUFUS in the Guardian – possibly as a consequence of my rant to the XWD Club over the duplicate subscription withdrawal from my bank account, today I was given the bird (yellow of hue) – which I did while waiting. Left with just one, almost inevitably something to do with cards.
    Thanks Koro for the amusing blog. I needed cheering up.
  11. 34 minutes after being stuck on 1, 4 and 10. The meaningless filler of 26 is delightful. I must say I find 6 ac. pushy: the monosyllabic animals have far more presence as sounds than the syllables of the answer. The r-sound of ‘boar’ is lost and the vowel-sound’s virtually missing from ‘ble’. Iffiness level too high?
  12. just over 40 mins without aids. no unknown words but took a while to conjure up lachesis. last two in crikey and elk. thought 6ac was pretty poor.
  14. I’d love to be able to do this puzzle but I am just getting the stupid green box. Is it just me or has the Times site started to resume nomal service (ie bad) over the last few day?
    1. Yes, it’s the same for me. But it’s now around 3pm BST, so I guess the Crossword Club web site’s been unavailable for most of the day?
  15. Loved BAUBLE but not BATTERSEA. Didn’t get it – ‘park’ too vague for me.

    Posting these comments using my new iPhone!

  16. 5:49 for me, my quickest for some time. The only ones to give slight pause were STYX and GENEROUS, for some reason. I put the latter in without understanding the wordplay, only for EROS to pop into my head shortly afterwards to make sense of it. I certainly can’t go very much faster these days.

    Was helped by knowing the Limekilns, a gallop in Newmarket where thoroughbreds are put through their paces, so called because the soil is a porous, rapidly drying limestone.

  17. Finished in 30 minutes, with the obscure Lachesis last in. ‘Limn’ was also obscure, and Chambers tells me it’s archaic, so it seems rather out of place in the wordplay of a daily puzzle. I liked 21, 23 and a few others. Not at all keen on the second homophone in 6, nor the question mark after ‘Damaged?’, which interferes with the cryptic syntax. Like penfold 61, I also wonder what ‘up’ is doing in 24.
  18. 15:28 so pretty straightforward but fun along the way.

    Lachesis from wordplay, limekiln from def, what is “up” doing in 24? If it’s supposed to denote vertical positioning of the final letters shouldn’t it be ends down?

    A couple of months ago we passed a man riding a penny-farthing. My nine-year old asked what happened when you had to stop. Thanks to Koro’s link I now know.

    1. I took “ends up” to mean “finishes”, which may engender a new query as to whether that should be “finishers” or similar.
  19. 10 minutes, this was a rather fun start to the week. LIMEKILN and BAUBLE from definition
  20. 12 m, top down bar last in styx (small so left till end) and Lachesis (slow brain today). Agree heavy on the anagrams was helpful, agree 49 not IL in Roman-speak, but liked the sort of double meaning to the one before fifty. At least Battersea a well-known London park – there are several more obscure.
  21. Lots of nice classical references, which always puts me at an advantage; that, I’m afraid IL simply isn’t 49 in Roman numerals, whichever way you slice it.

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