Times 24563 – Awl’s well that ends well

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 45 minutes

Music: Delius, North Country Sketches, Groves/RPO

My time for this puzzle was embarrassing. I raced through most of it in about fifteen minutes, and then got stuck on the last six, all of which had at least half the letters. I had ideas about how the clues worked, and was not able to go on to the next idea when the first one didn’t work out.

Most of the clues in this puzzle are not new, so experienced solvers will just pencil in the answers at sight. At least most of the ones I got stuck on are somewhat novel.

Newcomers are reminded that obvious answers are not blogged, so don’t be afraid to ask.

Across
1 FANTASIA, FAN + T[our] + ASIA. An oft-used clue, spotted almost immediately.
6 PISCES, PI(SC[ilicet]ES. My last in, because I was sure ‘to wit’ was ‘i.e’., so was expecting something like ‘panies’ or ‘poties’. Whether one should clue the Latin ‘pisces’ simply as ‘fish’ is another story, but at least it’s a sign of the zodiac.
10 BELONGINGS, BE LONGING + S[ound]. After solving, it took me a long time to see the simple cryptic, because I was stuck on the idea that ‘itch’ = ‘long’, and couldn’t figure out why it is inside ‘being’.
11 ORNAMENTAL, OR(NAME + NT)AL. Rather straightforward, although I don’t recall seeing this before.
14 SALESMAN, merely a cryptic definition alluding to Arthur Miller’s ‘Death of a Salesman’. I had an elaborate theory involving Chaucer that did not pan out.
16 INFAMY, IN + FAM[il]Y, where ‘il’ = ‘at Caen, he’. Overly clever, the literal gives it to you.
18 SHRIEK, SHRIKE with the last two letters – the tail – turned.
20 ENTHRONE, E(NTH)R + ONE. I took a long time to get this, and a longer time to figure out how it works. It does contain an anagram of ‘north’, but that’s not it. Instead, we have the novel abbreviation ‘NTH’.
24 SCOTSWOMAN, SCOT + S[ettled] + W[estern] + OMAN. I got it into my head that ‘Queen Mary’ = ‘liner’, ‘SS’, or ‘boat’, and had all sorts of difficulties with this one. I was contemplating an anagram of ‘tax’ when the old phrase ‘scot and lot’ popped into my head, and I saw it in a flash.
26 VILLAINOUS, VILLA IN (O) US. I thought this one was quite clever, using whole synonymous phrases rather than just individual words – don’t lift, don’t separate!
27 BUOY, B([aq]U]arium])OY. Deceptive literal here. From a fishing website: “If the green marker has several pilings supporting it, it will be called a Dolphin”.
29 TURRET, RUT backwards + RE T[ime].
30 BULLSEYE, cryptic double definition. It’s also a kind of lantern, watch out for that.
 
Down
2 AFTERMATH, anagram of ‘AT THE FARM’, a rather well-known one. ‘Aftermath’ in its literal meaning refers to a second crop after the first is mown, so this is perhaps an unintentional &lit.
3 TONNAGE, TON(NAG)E.
6 PANELLIST, PANE + anagram of STILL.
7 SPIN OFF, where OFF is a cricket side and SPIN is a cricket delivery, or so this American supposes.
8 EIGHT E[nglish] + [l]IGHT. ‘Frivolous’ = ‘light’ is somewhat novel, but you can get the answer from the literal and work it out.
12 TANGELO, anagram of ‘GALE NOT’. Perhaps new, but not very difficult.
15 MAKESHIFT, MAKE SHIFT, a change from the usual sewing clue.
17 MANDATORY, [a]MANDA + TORY. I have seen this one before, and there are many similar clues.
19 INHALER, IN + HALER, where ‘fit’ = ‘hale’, so ‘fitter’ = ‘haler’.
21 RHOMBUS, R(HOM[e])BUS. The ‘vehicle’ part of the clue is a cliche and a giveaway.
23 HAIKU, sounds like HIGH COUP.
25 SISAL, S(ISA)L. The ‘ISA’ is UK-centric, but very useful to know. Here in the US, we have the IRA, which you are unlikely to see in a Times clue.
27 ORB, BRO backwards.

46 comments on “Times 24563 – Awl’s well that ends well”

  1. A similar experience to yours, with SCOTSWOMAN blowing my time well over the half hour. Ironically, I solved it by remembering a contribution of yours some time ago mentioning scot being a tax. I was similarly confused by BELONGINGS, which comes a close second for COD behind VILLAINOUS. I also liked MAKESHIFT. Another typical Monday puzzle then, with some dead giveaways and a handful of tricky clues to slow one to a crawl, or this one anyway.

    At 7d, a spin is a drive, as in “take the car for a spin” or “going for a spin in the country”, rather than the delivery.

  2. 8:40 – a similar experience, with some very easy clues, but 10 20 and 24 putting up a fight even with all checking letters in place. In the SW corner, 23, 26, 22, 19 and 28 put up some collective resistance.

    Not totally convinced by the def in 5 unless there is a def/wordplay overlap and it’s “everything a boring person needs”

    1. Not sure what your underlined everything represents – it may have got lost in html??

      Is it legal to split words like that ie (For listeners, every) = (thing a boring person needs). This would not be an overlap, but it may be considered “illegal”.

      1. The underline was meant to represent what I was counting as the overlap.

        I think most of the Times setters would count the word split as “illegal” but their editor seems more liberal than some of them, so might possibly have permitted it.

  3. I raced away on the LH side, writing in the answers immediately as I read the clues until coming to halt at 22/23. As my time at that stage was still under 15 minutes I abandoned them and went in search of solutions RH where I made very slow progress with only 6 clues solved in the next 15 minutes. Then suddenly I was off again and finished in a further 10. So 40 minutes in total.

    I seem to have gone through many of the same thought processes as others so far, especially at 24ac thinking of ships. I came here still not understanding 20 as I had not considered NTH as an abbreviation of North. There were just too many distractions trying to work this out. In addition to containing an anagram of North as Vinyl1 has noted, it also contains its reversal.

    So another disappointing solve to start my week after showing such early promise, but at least the struggle came in the middle today instead of at the end.It makes a change I suppose.

  4. Awl done in 35 minutes with Scotswoman and Pisces being last in. I rather liked Shah…
  5. Minor correction: “SPIN OFF” rather than “SPN OFF”.

    Bigger correction: In the cryptic reading, SPIN is nothing to do with cricket – it’s just an old-fashioned informal name for a drive in a car. I’m sure our Wodehouse parodist could write you something involving Bertie Wooster taking some young filly for a spin.

    (There’s plenty of potential confusion from other meanings here – “side” is used as shorthand for “sidespin” (or “english” to you in a cue sports context), so “side” could just about indicate “spin”. And a drive, possibly an “off drive”, is a batsman’s shot.)

  6. Has all been said. Had visions of some sub-3 minutes from the speedsters when even I had only half-a-dozen to get before finishing my first cup of tea.
    Would probably give COD to BELONGINGS (lifting and separating “sound effects” took some seeing) if I could only understand the BE bit? Oh… and could someone be so kind as to make me a sentence which includes the word scilicet?
    1. In English text, scilicet would be abbreviated to “sc.” The usage is extremely similar to “i.e.” and to be honest I can’t recall seeing “sc.” in print well enough to give you an example. My copy of Robert Burchfield’s revision of Fowler’s ‘Modern English Usage’ gives two examples:

      The policy of the NUT (sc. National Union of Teachers)
      The Holy Ghost as Paraclete (sc. advocate)

      viz. (which stands for ‘videlicet’ through some process involving a medieval ‘z’ as an abbreviation for ‘-et’) is similar but fortunately very difficult to work into wordplay.

    2. Barry, not sure if this is what you are after, but the surface ‘itch’ is a verb, thus the definition ‘be longing’.
      2. Whether the surface “itch” is a verb doesn’t really matter for the cryptic reading of the clue that leads to the answer. It just so happens in this case that the cryptic reading of “itch” is also the verb meaning.
  7. Held up by the Miller clue, where I was thinking first Chaucer then Arthur, but looking in vain for the name of his … um, salesman. In the end, had to come here to get that, which enabled MAKESHIFT to go in. Never got SCOTSWOMAN for all the reasons already outlined.
  8. (52 minutes) Took me a while to get the right Miller: kept thinking of Henry or Max. (Must have studied the wrong sort of literature as an adolescent.)
  9. A very similar experience to others here: about 40 minutes held up by the same clues. Several things I didn’t know (scot, dolphin, tangelo, sisal) made some of the clues tough going and I never got PISCES, which is irritating because it’s not that hard in retrospect.
    In what sense is a bullseye gold?
      1. Thanks. According to this they don’t call it the bullseye but everyone else would so I’m not going to quibble!
  10. 14 minutes continually interrupted by Central Line announcements. SALESMAN last in because that’s where I left it: I thought it looked a much more interesting clue than it turned out to be. No major quibbles except for the soundsabitlike HAIKU, and favourite (though it may be an old friend) VILLAINOUS
  11. Fairly catastrophic – 45 minutes including Balancings. I keep doing this, throwing in a loser at the end instead of thinking a tad more. A bit like Green in goal in slow motion. COD nevertheless to the delightfully simple Belongings.

  12. 19:11 .. quite a lengthy mopping up of unsolved clues with all the checkers in place. Some pretty contorted wordplay in here which, quite frankly, I couldn’t be bothered to work out.
  13. 16 m. Last in 14; slow to remember buoy=dolphin, ran through selection of Queens Mary before the light dawned, and quite a lot of the others fully worked out after writing in.
  14. A similar solving experience to that of others. Most done in 16 minutes, then stuck with 10, 20 and 24, all of which took another 6 minutes.

    I agree with Peter that the definition in 5 is suspect. In addition to the dubious ‘everything’ for ‘every thing’, it should end with ‘might need’ since there are plenty of boring operations for which an awl would be totally inappropriate. Perhaps that’s nitpicking, but there are editors who would object on those grounds.

  15. I, too, finished with a handful of 9 and 10 letter words where I had all the checkers. Not being a bird expert, I was pleased to get the tail-turned shrike that I only knew from a Thurber fable. High Coup should rile the homophonophobes.
  16. 22:35, much of it spent on villainous at the end. Once I’d worked out that I was looking for something meaning criminal (rather than American or American country or American country house) ending in -inous it still took an age to spot villa. Also had trouble with 6 where I though I was looking for a type of fish such as pasies or pisoes with ‘as’ or ‘so’ satisfying ‘to wit’.

    Can’t say I care much for dithering as an anagrind.

    1. I too was put off by “dithering”; but on looking it up in my old Chambers, I find “dither” as a transitive verb meaning to perturb or confuse. I shall expect it again.
  17. 25 minutes which included about 10 minutes for the last one PISCES. I could see the pies but couldn’t make the sc. /to wit connection. Eventually put it in as I couldn’t find another option. Didn’t know dolphin as a buoy. A good puzzle but always annoying to be left looking at the last answer for such a long time.
  18. 20 minutes with many going straight in but others, already highlighted, giving pause for thought.

    Don’t like AWL and don’t know if I like HAIKU or not since I don’t know how to pronounce it. Thought SALESMAN a bit weak but liked SCOTSWOMAN.

    1. As far as I can tell from a dictionary and my own prounciation of “high coup”, it’s an accurate sounds-like. Subject to a bit of Anglicisation, the Japanese lady here seems to agree.
    2. Jimbo doesn’t know
      How haiku should be pronounced
      Well, well, well, well, well.
        1. There was a young man from Japan
          Who wrote haikus that didn’t quite scan
          Though his import was fine
          And his wordplay divine,
          His counting of the number of syllables was strictly third dan
          1. My young son said to me once,
            Why is a crossword
            like a chessboard with switched squares?
    3. Hi! Coo!
      Moi? Hike? Ou?
      Brummy Hake and Cockney who
      haique queue
      Lots of possibilities to look out for in the future.
  19. Got through this pretty quickly, though those last few characters on SCOTSWOMAN didn’t come easily. I did this while two “friends” poked and prodded me on either side on the “how did you get THAT” line of questioning. On a random sideline, I really like this grid, doesn’t break the puzzle up into sections.
  20. 20 minutes, last in SCOTSWOMAN. Didn’t know that ‘scot’=tax, or BUOY as a dolphin. Everything else has been said, I believe, except a “Bravo!” to Sotira’s demonstration of multicultural short verse expertise. Well done! Regards all.
    1. The easiest way to remember that scot=tax is from “to get off scot-free” , which is nothing to do with the Scots.
  21. 11:07 here, which surprised me as it felt quicker than that. Last two in were BELONGINGS and VILLAINOUS, but they didn’t hold me up for long either.

Comments are closed.