Times 24569 – Vuvuzelas 1, Kororareka 0

Author   kororarekaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving Time: 65 minutes

I knew I shouldn’t have stayed up watching New Zealand play Italy, but when they scored the first goal, what was one to do? So it was with brain working at a rate of approximately 0.15 s.d. (startled ducks) that I tackled this and it showed. I could get no purchase in any corner for ages but eventually solved it SW, NE, NW and finally the impenetrable SE. And curse that Bad Decision Dinosaur!

Across
1 BUTTRESS, a double definition, the first jocular. And I was away with the speed of a 1000 s.d., only to come to a complete grinding halt.
5 MAStS + I for one + F for following = MASSIF as in Massif Central, which reminds me that the Tour de France starts soon; more late nights. Now there’s not too many people (including those who compile dictionaries) who know that a histogram gets its name from histos meaning mast; our first arcane mathematical fact of the day.
9 COP for gendarme + LICIT for allowed around M for Monsieur = COMPLICIT. I got the M straight away, but couldn’t get past let for allowed. Luckily I didn’t think of legal, or I’d still be solving.
11 TALe + ON for being broadcast = TALON. My first thought was tal, but then I got to thinking broadcast must mean its an anagram of STOR, and Bad Decision Dinosaur said “YESSS!”
12 AN ATOM reversed around N for new = MONTANA. Hmmm, let’s think now… small particle would be an atom, backwards, and there’s an n in there somewhere… Indiana fits. YESSS!
13 NIGHTLY, sounds like Mr George Knightley, our Jane Austen fix for the week. Hmmm, regularly means every second letter of something… YESSS!
14 PREOCCUPATION, another double definition which went straight in. When the double definitions are the easiest clues in the puzzle I know I’m in trouble.
16 (I WARN ATHLETE)* around H for hard = WHITE HART LANE, Tottenham Hotspur’s home ground, as if you didn’t know. Hmmm, to detour means anagram, but “I warn athlete h” only has 13 letters and I need 14, so it can’t be that. YESSS!
20 PATRIOT = TRIO for threesome inside PAT for soft touch.
21 ISOSPIN = IS OS for outsize + PIN for FIX, the “to” being “next to”. No, not isotopic spin, isobaric spin, a drive through the countryside with the day’s weather map programmed into your GPS rather than the street map; popular amongst off-road enthusiasts.
23 IMAGE = I.E. for id est around MAG for glossy
24 RITUALIST sounds like “writ you” + A LIST for a table, with that “to” again. A partial homophone to set the blog alight.
25 I’m sorry but I’m omitting this one. Egrets, I’ve had a few, but then again…
26 MOURn for endless regret inside A RED = ARMOURED. I couldn’t get beyond rue for regret.

Down
1 BECAME = the river CAM inside BEE. Hmmm, an insect starting with B, what could that be? (BDD said bug, but I ignored him.)
2 TIMON being what’s subtracted from ANTIMONY to have ANY remain. Timon was a philosopher and an eponymous character from Shakespeare, so that’s Arts & Literature 1, Vaguely Scientific 1.
3 I’ll let this one go.
4 SOCIAL CHAPTER = (PAROCHIAL SECT)*, a reference to the heady days of UK politics. Never such excitement again?
6 ANT for colonist + IGUA (sounds like “eager”) = ANTIGUA. That’s partial homophones 2, disgruntled solvers 6,387.
7 SOLITAIRE, another double definition, the second being “a diamond or other stone set in a piece of jewellery by itself” (clever little stone, that one), the question mark signifying definition by example?
8 FANCYING = FAN for supporter + CYclING for on bike minus cl for class.
10 TWISTER for cheat held down or otherwise depressed by TONGUE for part of Oxford, the shoe = TONGUE-TWISTER. When all is said and done, it’s a pheasant plucking life.
14 POINT LACE = (INTO)* inside PLACE. Mrs Beeton comes up trumps?
15 SWAPPING = roomS + WAPPING, the “at” meaning “next to” in some sense I can’t think of (at knifepoint?).
17 I should leave this one out, since the answer is EVIDENT = I’VE reversed on top of DENT for depression. More depression than watching Australia in the World Cup.
18 ‘AVOC for mayhem commonly + A DO for a party = AVOCADO, the fruit that’s mostly stone. There’s that “at” again. This was the only piece of inspired genius I displayed all puzzle. I just looked at the A for about ten minutes and thought “It can’t be avocado, can it? That begins with an A.” Up to that point, I was thinking alabaster, anthracite…
19 UNITED, another double definition. Aghhh! I took way too long to see this, and after all those football (i.e. soccer) analogies!
22 APRIl + OR = PRIOR. Hmmm, middle of April would be R, wouldn’t it? YESSS!

25 comments on “Times 24569 – Vuvuzelas 1, Kororareka 0”

  1. Thanks for explaining TIMON. I was lost on parsing this one and in the outer sections generally. After solving all four 13-letter answers with the massed guns of the little grey cells, the rest were left to the snipers and knocked out corner by painful corner. The last of these was in the SE with the fiendish ISOSPIN proving hardest. (A change to have obscure science instead of obscure humanities … Jimbo?) COD to the horny female goat for a nice twist on the old “butter” chestnut — though I think I’d have three syllables if referring to her in that way.
  2. Made heavy weather of this, and more than once was reaching for assistance when another chink appeared in the wall. Finally managed to finish unaided in 45 min. Relief more than satisfaction initially, but later a slightly warm glow, because (to me at least) this was no gimme. COD: BUTTRESS. (There is another warm glow here in NZ, but nothing to do with crosswords!)
  3. Good Morning gents. What was supposed to be a Sunday evening jaunt instead took an hour. The SE corner was especially head-scratching. Last 4 entered were UNITED, AVOCADO, ISOSPIN and RITUALIST. The long ones didn’t fall easily either, since I needed some crossing letters to deal with the anagrams for the football ground and the Maastricht reference, neither of which I know anything about. The other two went in straightaway. The only one I didn’t see the wordplay for was GREETS, so thanks for the musical clue, koro, it clicked right away when I read your blog. Regards to everyone.
  4. Just over the hour for this one, with the SE (“Valley”? – by analogy with White Hart Lane) corner being the last in. Diverted at 7 by thinking the word must end in –ICE. 2dn – never heard of Antimony – and 25ac entered without full wordplay. Not familiar with POINT LACE or ISOSPIN, but both guessable. Last in RITUALIST. COD to PRIOR.

    Minor quibble:‘massif’ is masculine.

  5. Ouch, 64 minutes, only excuse shattered after Father’s Day pub treat with son who capped it by taking twenty quid off me at poker, all preceded by equally alcoholic lunch party leaving do for member of staff, 21 seems to sum it up, now have to stumble in direction of classroom, why is life so hard?
  6. Another disaster here after an excellent start with all four long ones going in on first reading.

    Much of lower half followed on nicely but I couldn’t complete 14dn (I thought POINT covered the needlework and I was looking for a 4-letter word to make the whole an obscure fielding position) and GREETS also stumped me until I had resolved 14dn with reference to a dictionary.

    In the SE I was detained for ages by 21ac, 22dn and 26ac until I used a dictionary to confirm ISOSPIN is a real word.

    But if that was bad, worse was to come. By this stage I had nothing in the top half apart from SOCIAL, TONGUE and PREOCCUPATION and that’s the way it stayed for the next 20 minutes until I gave up in disgust and put it aside for a while.

    On the second attempt the clues started to fall very slowly and eventually I completed it with some further reference to aids.

    That’s three consecutive hard ones or four if one counts Saturday, but then I expect the prize puzzle to be more challenging than on a weekday. I need a confidence booster tomorrow.

  7. resorted to aids for se corner, where i failed to see united and so the science and high church left me in a spin. cod 16a an anagram which proved tricky despite an allegiance to the spurs.
  8. 9:51 – 11A was first in, 21A last – one of two new words with 14D. Seemed a nice balance between the old-style Times (Timon of Athens and Mr Knightley) and the new (ISOSPIN and some football), plus a bit of the eternal (Oxford=shoe, that’s = i.e.).
  9. Desperate; took me an hour-and-a-half! Thought I was doing well getting ISOSPIN and POINT LACE in early, but got stuck in the top right. Must make the tea stronger tomorrow.
  10. Challenging yet entertaining puzzle and equally good blog … thanks kororareka

    Some very creative and amusing definitions like TALON, a gripping one; colonist for ANT, made a change from the usual soldier or worker; part of Oxford for TONGUE ; one’s stoned for AVOCADO

    My COD 7Down for its thrust and its misdirection, “Bridge, anyone?”

  11. I had no great difficulty here, surprisingly, judging from the comments above. Perhaps it helped to get Social Chapter and White Hart Lane very quickly. I only got isospin and point lace from the wordplay. There was a slightly raised eyebrow for buttress although it did not hold me up. As McText suggests, I would have expected butteress, even with the question mark. I suppose you get buttress by analogy with tigress but a tiger is not something that tigs.
    1. I didn’t think of this while solving, but how about “wait => waiter => waitress” as a pattern for “but => butter => buttress”? “mister => mistress” also matches the second step.
  12. 25 m including dic check that isospin existed and had appropriate meaning. LH side fast, dithered over nightly, ritualist, rue in 25a, last in avocado (thank you for full explanation) and solitaire/massif because I was so preoccupied with SE corner. Favourite clue 2d just because I saw it quickly. I think we have had that buttress in the distant past somewhere.
  13. My tube ride wasn’t enough for this and then I dipped in and out over the course of the morning, so no time but I’d guess about an hour in all. Quite a toughie but nothing like Friday’s and enjoyable for me.
    I also struggled with blind alleys like regret = rue and allowed = let but got there in the end. ISOSPIN was new to me and a lucky guess.
  14. 16 minutes. Last three in were PRIOR then the unknown ISOSPIN , then about 5 minutes trying to get RETIARIST out of my head and find anything else that would fit at 24. Really felt like kicking myself when the penny finally dropped. Congrats to Koro and to NZ and all the other so-called “minnows” of world football who continue to make Mr Ladbroke roll out the red carpet every time I walk through his door.
  15. Wow… couldn’t wrap my brain around this last night, and still needed a few bleary-eyed minutes this morning but got there in the end. From definition only – MASSIF, COMPLICIT and from wordplay only SOCIAL CHAPTER, WHITE HART LANE. Tricky start to the week
  16. 11:27, which felt slow.  Last in 7dn (SOLITAIRE).  Unknowns: WHITE HART LANE (16ac), ISOSPIN (21ac), POINT LACE (14dn).  The SOCIAL CHAPTER (4dn), which just predates my political consciousness, was unfamiliar.

    Clue of the Day: 9ac (COMPLICIT).

  17. A tricky start to the week that took more concentration than I really wanted to devote after 18 holes in an oven

    Nice mixture, as others have said. Setters are getting bolder in using scientific terms, which I very much appreciate.

  18. At 34 minutes,this one took me longer than the Independent and Guardian put together,so no easy start to the week as used to be the case. Hadn’t heard of ISOSPIN, POINT LACE, or RITUALIST(last in). Tutted when finally saw WHITE HART LANE having thought answer had to end in PARK. Overall a pretty tough crossword with good surfaces and some excellent wordplay. COD to POINT LACE.
  19. Having spoken with Peter recently I thought I would endeavour to post here more often. I flew round three quarters of this in about 35 minutes – fine for me – and then hit a brick wall in the NE of all places. Crawled over the line after work but not without resort to a couple of answers here. Must try harder!
    1. Someone else got POINT LACE and ISOPIN early on when others struggled with them. That’s the opposite side of the same coin as “hit a brick wall in the NE of all places”. Just remember one or two of the points that stymied you, one or two answers usually being enough to get through a ‘brick wall’.
    2. I looked! And I bet you solved it quicker than I did though I’m not disclosing my time either.

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