Times 24,552 – A doddle for ze little grey cells

Author   dorsetjimboPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time 12 minutes

A very easy puzzle with few talking points. Even where there are possible quibbles the thing is so simple that they make no difference. The setter appears to prefer hot mustard which he deposits in his beard – the mind boggles.

Across
1 BIRDBRAIN – BIRD-BRA-IN; prison=BIRD (slang);
6 SCREW – two meanings 1=prison officer (more Scrubs slang), 2=trick;
9 ASTRIDE – (trade is)*;
10 MORELLO – MOREL-LO;
11 DEROGATORY – (GORED reversed)-A-TORY; Conservative=TORY (UK politics);
12 TABU – TAB-U;
14 MIDST – (DIM reversed)-ST;
15 MOTH-EATEN – MO(THE)A-TEN; MOA=extinct New Zealand ostrich;
16 LIMEWATER – L(I-MEW)ATER; calcium hydroxide solution;
18 DEBUT – DEB(U)T;
20 deliberately omitted – ask if you’re not fast on the uptake today;
21 CHINCHILLA – CHIN-CHILL-A; punch=CHIN (slang); a nip in the air is a CHILL;
25 OPALINE – O-PAL(IN)E;
26 CLUTTER – C(L)UTTER;
27 TODDY – T(ODD)Y; thirsty lips=T(hirst)Y – nice;
28 SCORE,DRAW – cryptic definition; netting=putting the ball in the net=scoring;
 
Down
1 BEARD – BEAR-D; are all bears huge? I have no experience of the trapped food (sounds disgusting);
2 RETIRED – two meanings;
3 BRIDGETOWN – BR(I’D-GET)OWN; capital of Barbados;
4 AGENT – A-GENT;
5 NUMERATOR – (amount)* surrounds ER=Queen + R=Rex=King; your maths for today;
6 SORT – two meanings 1=brand or mark=make; 2=arrange in order;
7 RELIANT – (NAILER reversed)-T;
8 WHODUNNIT – (on with)* surrounds DUN=a horse; Poirot to the rescue;
13 WENDY,HOUSE – (deny how)* – USE; a child’s play house (from Peter Pan);
14 MILK,FLOAT – MILK-FLOAT; use=MILK; sail=FLOAT; not many left now supermarkets sell milk;
15 MATCHLESS – two meanings, one whimsical;
17 MUSTARD – MU(STAR)D; MUD needn’t be dark; the best MUSTARD (Dijon, say) is tasty rather than hot;
19 BOLSTER – two meanings 1=prop up 2=a type of chisel;
22 NACHO – hidden (seductio)N-A-CHO(colate); a tortilla is today’s evidence of Biddlecomb’s Canon;
23 ARROW – (b)ARROW; reference King Harold, 1066 and all that;
24 TIDY – two meanings 1=large (a tidy sum); 2=clean up;

35 comments on “Times 24,552 – A doddle for ze little grey cells”

  1. Agreed, not too hard. 22m. I’d assumed the Wendy House was the more colloquial version rather than the literary one: a portable survival refuge. Also thought “white” as the def for OPALINE left much to be desired.
    1. Sorry I should explain. (1) The house that Peter and the Lost Boys made for Wendy was not “unsuitably cramped”; and neither are the play/cubby houses for children named after the literary original. However, portable survival shelters may well be so since they may have to accommodate adults. (2) “Opaline” and “white” are not synonymous. In fact, the (big) OED specifically includes forms of opaline glass that are “other than white”.
      1. I didn’t know about the survival shelters, so thanks for that. I just thought it was a kiddies play house (which would be cramped for adults) but prefer your explanation. Agree with you on OPALINE – much the same as MUSTARD I think – loose definition
  2. Looks as if there will be some faster times than mine today – a fairly pedestrian 10:07, probably caused by trying to make 1A into some place-name starting BRAIN- that might have a prison. The result was a blank area for 1A/9/11/1D/2/3 at the end.

    Also slightly surprised by the dark mud, and bolster=chisel was new for me.

    Going back to 1A, {bird = (time in) prison} is one of those bits of Cockney rhyming slang where the rhyme is often forgotten these days – birdlime = time.

    1. I remember old miners using birdlime to catch small birds. As its use was prohibited, they probably could have been imprisoned had they been discovered.
  3. Easy for you dorsetjimbo; not for this 1 ac. 31 minutes here, got stuck on the easies e.g. tidy. Re 5, I suppose ER and R are interchangeable as king and queen? Though the former’s OK as in situ now. Quite liked 14 down. My first job was trying to control one of them, at the age of 13. Lasted a morning.
    1. ER=Elizabeth Regina or Edward Rex, thus R=either Regina or Rex, so yes all interchangeable. Watch out for GR (George). Strangely CR (Charles) doesn’t appear much but may do following the next succession.
      1. We rarely get CR, do we? I’d always had a vague idea that he plans to be George VII, rather than Charles III, and the long run of ER/GR would continue, but a quick Google reveals that this is mere speculation. According to the official sources the choice will be made at the appropriate time (presumably to avoid the suggestion that the PoW is in any way anticipating his dear old mum’s death). I was even less aware that as far as his regnal name goes, not only might he not be Charles, he might not even be any of his given names of Charles Philip Arthur George, which means in theory we could be ruled by King Tim, or King Wayne, or King Jedward, though Charles or George are the two obvious favourites – presumably King Arthur sets the bar rather too high…

        Anyway, 15 minutes after getting stuck on MUSTARD / OPALINE (my brain kept trying to use SOL for “sun”, and push me towards OLIVINE, even though I was sure that was green, not white) and BOLSTER = “chisel”.

        PS I haven’t been clean-shaven for decades but I flatter myself that I manage to keep the food / beard interface to a minimum. I think some people who don’t have them like to imagine beards as concealing all manner of food, small birds, lost property etc.

  4. I knew it, I knew it. Another leafy perambulation for Jimbo. Looking over this I am mystified as to how I struggled so, taking best part of 2 hours. Didn’t of course know Limewater, BOLSTER as a chisel, BARROW as a grave, and took a while before confident enough to enter MIDST for thick, but otherwise nothing too difficult. Discarded WHODUNNIT early because of my lousy spelling and for the life of me couldn’t think of BIRD for prison even though I had B?R? (thought bird was just time served but Chambers disabuses me). By now “rely” for “bank” should be automatic. Pleased to finish unaided (happening with pleasing regularity now) but approached the blog with justified foreboding. COD to SCORE DRAW.
    PS
    Had marked DEBUT for post-solve dictionary look-up, mentally pronouncing it de-but. How thick is that.

  5. Well at least today provided a change from my usual current solving pattern as I had extreme difficulty getting started and had to read as far as NACHO at 22dn to find my first answer after 6 minutes. The following 10 minutes yielded only two more answers at 23dn and 27ac. I then had a break and got myself to the station where suddenly I found myself on the setter’s wavelength and the answers started to come steadily and for the first time for a while I was not left pondering one or two clues for ages at the very end.
      1. My six included 20A.
        I had: 6ac, 20ac, 2dn, 6dn, 19dn & 24dn.
        But your arithmetic is much better than mine — i.e., it actually exists!
  7. 63 minutes for this one. Wasted a bit of time in the Caribbean, where Georgetown (Guyana) detained me for a while before I realised my mistake. Once I’d sorted that out, BIRDBRAIN went in quickly, enabling me to crack the 1dn/9ac pair, with ASTRIDE last in, proving once again how easily fooled I am by a half decent anagrind.

    Talking of fools, MEW transported me to the Blackadder the Third “Macbeth” episode, where luvvies Keanrick and Mossop attempt to teach their craft to the Prince Regent (“I fear you mew it like a frightened tree”).

    COD to MIDST.

  8. Put me down as another who struggled around this one. Perhaps it was the double definitions; my least favourite clue form. If there was a wrong path to go down, down it I would go. So, a begrudging nod to the setter.

    And to top it all off, there was lips equating to edges! After I’d not long ago marked a clue down in DIY COW for using the very same device. Wouldn’t see that in The Times, said I. I still don’t see it. A lip is a rounded edge at best and usually around a hollow opening. Mumble, mumble.

    1. Don’t agree with you on “lips” K. Chambers defines “lip” as “the edge of …. (long list)” so “lips” for edges seems OK. I thought it one of the few interesting snippets in the whole puzzle.
      1. But the long list of things are all gaping holes …orifice, cavity, deep geological depression, vessel…. I’m happy to concede defeat, but for me the analogy doesn’t quite succeed.
  9. This looked like it was going to be easy with answers such as screw, tabu and arrow going straight in but I soon got bogged down in the dark matter. I liked the clue to wendy house apart from the word unsuitably. I also liked matchless and thought chinchilla was quite a good charade.

    My last two were limewater and mustard. I was dubious about limewater because I did not identify a mew as a querulous cry as my cats use it to express a whole gamut of emotions. Also, it is, apparently, a suspension and my chemistry teacher always emphasised the difference between a suspension and a solution.

    I thought, at first, that the definition of mustard was vague but then I decided that it is probably just “hot” as “He’s mustard”.

    1. I think you’re confusing LIMEWATER with milk of lime.

      You could be right about MUSTARD

      1. To be honest, I have never heard of limewater or milk of lime. I was relying on Chambers definition of limewater as a suspension of calcium hydroxide in water. It has the same definition for milk of lime.
        1. So it does. However by sight alone you would be hard pressed to distinguish LIMEWATER from tap water and as I recall it is a genuine solution. Milk of Lime looks like milk and is definitely a suspension.
          1. Anyway, Collins has “A clear colourless solution of calcium hydroxide in water…” so apologies to the setter. At least I’ve learnt some chemistry today. In completing the crossword I assumed that limewater was a lime juice cordial.
  10. Did this one between Loughton and Stratford on the Central Line on my way into a new job: SW corner finished on the brand new “London Overground” which reopened in full today – marvellous! I wasn’t happy with opaline OR pale = white, not least since there’s always a whiter shade of pale. Thirsty lips to give TY was quite original, I thought, but I could be wrong. CoD to SCOREDRAW, a smashingly devious definition.
  11. 8:38 for an unremarkable puzzle. I was slow to see that 7dn didn’t end in AGE, and never really got on the right wavelength, so it could certainly have been quicker. COD to 28ac for me too.
  12. I struggled a bit more than most on this, 18 minutes, last in BOLSTER. Didn’t see the wordplay for ARROW, WENDY HOUSE from wordplay (had HOUSE before WENDY), WHODUNNIT from definition, and I might have seen MATCHLESS faster if I’d done the Guardian first (it is in both cryptics today…)
  13. Boring. Did not take long, forgot to time. Agree about mustard, vague memory of limewater testing for somthing, Harold not killed by arrow according to some Bayeux specialists but cut down by knights, agree some bears quite small (even big ones not as big as shire horse) and most beard-owners very neat eaters. Liked the lips – new container; First in 6a, down rh side, across via toddy and mustard and so home, last in 6d, overlooked the little one again.
  14. 45 minutes for me, an unremarkable time but one I was quite pleased about. Perhaps that’s because I too have a brick bolster in my tool box.
  15. Enjoyable and educational visit to the site as always. Maybe the fact that I have a brick BOLSTER in my toolbox, and some of you probably haven’t, helps to explain why I need to come here so often for enlightenment.
  16. It’s not that uncommon to get the same clue answers in two different cryptic crosswords on the same day. However, today had the same answer (matchless) in both the Guardian and the Times in the same location (15 D) – although the grids (and clues) differed.
    1. It had to have been the same setter having a little joke, especially as the one thing the answers weren’t were “matchless”. Too much of a coinicidence otherwise.

      Andy B

  17. 16 mins, which I think may be slightly longer than my average, so I didn’t find it a doddle. Last in was 17D MUSTARD, where I had the same problems as others. BOLSTER=chisel was vaguely familiar – from crosswords, not DIY!

    Tom B.

  18. About 25 minutes for me, although I didn’t find it too difficult. Only real hold-ups were trying to solve WENDY HOUSE and MILK FLOAT, two terms unknown to me, but I got them from wordplay. I admit, though, that after I got them I did give them both long second looks, because they didn’t make a lot of sense to an American. Last in: SCORE DRAW. I go with OPALINE for its interesting construction, though I agree ‘white’ and ‘opaline’ aren’t precisely the same. Regards.
    1. I should have realised that MILK FLOAT would give you problems. In days of yaw it was common UK practice to have a milkman deliver fresh milk each morning using a horse-drawn cart (a favourite vehicle to hitch a ride on for revellers returning home in the early hours). Over time the horse and dray were replaced by awful battery driven specialist vehicles called MILK FLOATS that crawled around and caused traffic hold-ups if out later than they should have been. Today most people buy milk in the supermarket.
  19. Twenty minutes for this one after work in, unusally for me, one sitting. Solved clockwise from SCREW / MORELLO to BEARD / BIRDBRAIN.

    I liked the succinctness of many of the clues today (e.g. CLUTTER, TIDY and SCORE DRAW) and was surprised to see so many double definitions.

    Had a Mexican meal only on Saturday evening so my subconcious was primed to find NACHO!

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