Times 24575 – Still barking up the wrong Tree!

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 19 minutes

Music: Strauss, Bax, Symphony #7, Leppard/LSO

After the sequence of toughies this week, I was a little worried. What I got was a beginner’s puzzle – that is, if you are a beginner who knows a few of the usual tricks.

I should have broken 15 minutes, but I took time after solving each answer to figure out how the clue works. This is not the road to a competitive time, but I worry a bit when I put in something without complete understanding.

Newcomers are reminded that obvious answers are not blogged, so don’t be afraid to ask. I would expect that many more beginners will finish this one than before, but they may not understand some of the wordplay.

Across
1 HAG-RIDDEN, H(A GR)IDDEN. My first in, I like to start at the beginning if I can. Still had to think a bit.
6 IMPEL, IMPE[ri]L, where RI comes from [t]R[a]I[n]. A convoluted cryptic that few will bother with once the checkers are in place.
9 INAPTLY, I{NAP}T[a]LY, where ‘Nap’ is the card game also known as ‘Napoleon’.
10 BUFFOON, BUFF + O + ON. Naked with nothing on, might as well go to bed…..
13 DREAMBOAT, anagram of BAD MEAT OR, not a very flattering literal for a handsome fellow to be constructed from.
14 SONG CYCLE, double definition with an allusion to the 1890s popular hit.
18 TREE, double cryptic definition. Here he is again, immortalized forever by the more tradition-minded constructors.
19 UNSELFISH, UN + sounds like SELL FISH.
22 IMPOLITIC, anagram of LIMIT COP following I.
24 CLEAN, CL([comfortabl]E)AN. This one gave quite a bit of trouble, because I didn’t consider all the possibilities for the literal.
26 BECLOUD, BE (C) LOUD. Another one I should have seen quickly, but didn’t.
28 SASSY, SA + SS + Y[ear]. I admit, I don’t quite follow which military abbreviation is which here, but the answer is obvious enough.
29 STRIPLING, S(TRIP)LING, where a ‘sling’ is from the class of drinks exemplified by the ‘Singapore sling’. .
 
Down
1 HAIRDOS, HAIR + DOS. Definition by example, but the commonest solutions to ‘musical’ and ‘functions’ make this an instant fill-in.
3 INTERACT, IN + T(E)RACT.
4 DRYAD, DRY + AD. Maybe they should get Dryden to write it?
5 NOBLENESS, NOBLE(NE’S)S. It took me a few seconds to remember the noble, not exactly the first gold coin that comes to mind.
6 INFAMY, IN + F + AMY. A rather haphazard clue, where you take the elements mentioned and put them in a suitable order.
7 PROVOCATIVE, PRO + VOCATIVE, another defintiion by example, but another easy one.
8 LUNETTE, LU(NET)TE. This is the only one in this puzzle that might be said to involve somewhat recondite vocabulary, both for the cement and the fortification.
12 MINNEAPOLIS, M(INN)EAPOLIS, where the enclosing letters are an anagram of POLES AIM.
15 COUNTLESS, COUNT(L[ost])ESS. Another only mildly deceptive literal.
17 BLACKCAP, double definition. Both a bird and an item of attire for a judge pronouncing a death sentence. I had to think a bit for this, it was my last in.
20 HANGDOG, H(A + NG + D)OD. I wasted a lot of time trying to use Regan without a ‘g’, perhaps inspired by 21.
21 BLEARY, B(LEAR)Y.
23 CABER, cryptic definition. If you don’t know it, you’re in trouble.
27 OBI, [g]OBI. This is more usually spelt ‘obeah’, with ‘obi’ being used for the Japanese kimono sash.

33 comments on “Times 24575 – Still barking up the wrong Tree!”

  1. Most trouble in the LUNETTE quarter. Did the rest in 11 minutes then spent a good 20 or so to finish. So, apart from that(!), I’d agree that this is a nursery slopes puzzle. I liked the connection between SONG CYCLE and the un-blogged 16ac.
    1. Meant to mention this. The def is “Impertinent American” (the latter being a qualifier). Then S (soldier’s first) + Y for year; all after SAS (the specialist troops).
  2. An fairly unruffled start to the week in 18 min. A bit of a hiatus looking at L.N.E… for fortification, but the answer leapt to mind from goodness knows where, and was entered with some confidence. Then last in LAZE. For some reason I struggle with homophones. No stand-out COD, but rather liked the easy but smooth VILLAGE.
  3. Just on the hour for this one, gratefully received after the recent tough sequence (excluding Saturday’s).

    Last in LUNETTE, a feature, it appears, of both the Alamo and Borodino, though I don’t recall Tolstoy describing one in his magnum opus.

  4. About 30 minutes here, also finishing with the LUNETTE/LAZE pair. Most of the grid was entered quickly, but I had trouble seeing where the setter was going in the NE, so BUFFOON, PROVOCATIVE, and INFAMY also held me up a while. COD to INFAMY, for misleading me into thinking the girl had to be at the front, not the rear, of the answer ( IRMA.., IDA…?). Regards all. Nice blog, vinyl, and I’m glad you had a nice, quick solve on your blogging day.
  5. I started this after midnight but stopped after 20 productive minutes because there were a number of gaps in NW, SW and SE where the checkers were all in but no solutions would come to mind.

    On resumption this morning these gaps were filled without further delay but I still had most of the NE outstanding.

    I lost a lot of time here and eventually finished at 45 minutes after staring blankly at 8dn for fully 10 of these and then resorting to aids to get its unchecked letters. If I’ve ever heard of this fortification or the cement mix I must have forgotten them.

    The required meaning of SASSY came up very recently but without reference to America and caught me out so I was pleased to put that new knowledge to good use here.

    Not sure about ‘utterer of notes’ = bird, but I suppose it’s a change from ‘singer’ or some other such chestnut.

  6. 8dn wasn’t helped by the fact that it was not entirely clear to me whether 16ac was LAZE or LAYS.
  7. 28 minutes here of which fully a quarter at the end on lunette. Found 26 tricky as well – took me some time to see a word from the checkers. Otherwise in the nature of a painless trip to the dentist’s. COD 13.
  8. Well…sorry to be different but i struggled with this. Not sure why in retrospect…thought Imperil less ri to = Impel was neat…

    anyway tomorrow’s another day!

  9. 9:32, also finishing with 8D, where I knew the cement bit from barred-grid puzzles.

    16 is pretty clear-cut for me – “listening to ‘lays'”=LAZE makes much more sense than “‘lays’ listening to”=LAYS. If the wording was “listened to”, I’d agree that the clue was ambiguous.

    Minor confusion at 14 – if you know the song’s story (essentially a marriage proposal) and like your Wagner, RING CYCLE is tempting enough for me to write it in.

  10. Forgive the patriotic fervour following England’s triumph of yesterday over the old enemy.
    Aid to get LUNETTE, not surprising as not only did I not know the word but none of the wordplay either. Becalmed at BECLOUD but otherwise quick solve with guesses at OBI and BLACKCAP.
  11. Lunette seems to be everyone’s last bastion today. I was 99% certain that 6A had to be impel but, until I worked out that wordplay I could not be sure of that initial L. After that, it was just a question of choosing the most plausible Frenchy word. Apart from that, Buffoon amused my simple mind.
      1. I thought that was a Yorkshireman? But a bit of Googling also found Harvard man, country boy, German, Dutchman, Texan and Swede.
  12. 12 minutes – a nice easy restart after a Timesless interlude in Austria. Two stumbles today, with IMPRUDENT initially for 22, and a brief hiatus wondering whether there was a small community called a VILEAGE (very bad time?) at 25. IMPEL went in without full understanding, RI away from something, forgot to back check. Couldn’t decide whether CABER was my CoD or a rather weak clue.
  13. At 45 minutes, I didn’t find it particularly easy either. I got GOA instantly and then nothing much. It wasn’t until I hit TREE that I realised what wavelength I should be tuned too and I picked up speed, only to be becalmed if not beclouded in the NE. Last in the LUNETTE/LAZE pair; quelle surprise!
  14. I got completely bogged down in the NE corner, not helped by having convinced myself that ‘case’ was DATIVE in 7. Once I had PROVOCATIVE, the rest of that corner slowly fell into place.
    45 minutes, a dreadfully slow time for a puzzle that couldn’t be considered hard. I thought there were a number of nice clues (eg 1 and 6).
  15. Monday used often to be an easier puzzle, Saturday’s harder. Now there is no telling, but this was 17 m not trying to be speedy but deciding to try to get all the plays as I went along. Lunette got only from the fortification, but now it has been explained I remember “luter” is what the chef does to his terrine to seal it.
  16. 15:25, with the last 6 minutes spent staring sleepily at the NE corner.  Last in were IMPEL (6ac) and, yes, LUNETTE (8dn).  Unknowns: the Daisy/bicycle connection, NOBLE as a coin (5dn NOBLENESS), LUTE as cement, LUNETTE (8dn), and BLACKCAP (17dn).  I knew NAP (9ac INAPTLY) thanks to Thursday’s puzzle.

    HAG-RIDDEN (1ac) reminded me of Harry Potter’s friend Hagrid, and sure enough that’s where the name comes from.  (The fact that his first name is Rubeus suggests that she had someone rather more like this in mind.)

    I’m surprised no one has mentioned the indirectness of the clue for BUFFOON (10ac), where you might think (as vinyl1’s blog suggests) that you had to paraphrase “wearing nothing” as “with nothing on” before decoding the latter as “+ O ON”.  In the setter’s defence, you don’t need this degree of indirection to solve the clue, as “nothing on” will do on its own (cf. “cap in hand”).

  17. 14:43 here, a bit of a stop-start solve though. Took a while to see IMPEL at the top, but once I got PROVOCATIVE the rest of the NE corner fell into place. I didn’t know LUTE=cement but vaguely knew LUNETTE. 5 or 6 other clues I should have got at first sight required all the crossing letters, then suddenly seemed obvious. Should have been a lot quicker (but then I often find myself thinking that).
  18. Gentle Monday stroll in the park: all done apart from 6A and (inevitably!) 8d. Was certain I was looking at an anagram of “cement” plus something: then I got IMPEL and my fifteen-minute theory was smithereened.

    All up 30 minutes. COD to INFAMY as it amused me!

    1. That reminds me – I didn’t understand INFAMY when I wrote it in and I still don’t. Being think no doubt. What’s the “F” for?
      1. INFAMY: from memory, the F is from “following”, as in page numbers.
        1. Thanks. I was indeed being, er, think. In my mind I had “in” following “amy”, where in fact it is of course doing the opposite.
  19. Much the same as others. 20 minute stroll through some old chestnuts, yet another definition by example and a little bit of Mephisto for LUNETTE (which should have rung bells for bar crossword solvers). Nothing really outstanding in my view.
  20. This puzzle was very easy apart from the completely impossible bit. I didn’t know either “lute” or “lunette” so was defeated by 8dn. I hesitated a bit over LAYS/LAZE but in the end thought it was clear from wordplay.
  21. 14 minutes, last in LUNETTE, which I didn’t really understand but it couldn’t have been anything else. I liked HAG-RIDDEN and BUFFOON.
  22. Hi
    I am a beginner. the answer to 16 Across has not been given for crossword 24575

    John, Salford

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