Times 24578: Straddling the pond

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time : 19 minutes. I expect it would be shorter if I was solving it from a print-out, but I am on the road and using the online version (surprisingly good internet at this hotel). What struck me here was that there’s a bit of American (11, 19and 24) and a bit of British (3, 13, and 9 – at least I presume 9 is a British thing, they would be called tracksuits in Australia and track pants in the US). On top of all that, maybe for Jimbo’s pleasure, there’s some maths terms in 14 and 20, physics at 7, and a bit of the old rarely used chemistry at 19. Noticeablhy absent is literature, though there’s a double bible dip at 10. Something for everyone (except fans of Trollope, who could get their fix in yesterday’s Granduia). Definite thumbs up to the setter! And away we go…

Across
1 REAL,LOCATE: Shouldn’t have struggled with this as much as I did – pur RE in there and waited for inspiration
6 STEW: double def
10 JACOB: AC in JOB(the biblical character, bit of a giggle at him intersecting 3 down)
11 W,IS,CON,SIN: If you’re not pro sin, you’re agin sin
12 INSULATING TAPE: A in INSULTING, then TAPE
14 SCALENE: beautiful clue – A,L(shaped like a right angle, even more so when typed) in SCENE
15 GUNSHOT: N in (SOUGHT)* with WOUND being the anagrindicator
17 OPTICAL: TOPICAL with the T moved a few places back(or to the right)
19 SUBATOM: B,AT(towards),O in SUM. Not common parlance, more likely to use nucleon, or the longer “subatomic particle”
20 VULGAR FRACTION: V, then an anagram of (FLING,A,CURATOR). A fraction that could be simplified, so 1/8 is not (2/16 would be)
23 LYING(duplicity),DOWN(fuzz): another very nice clue
24 OM,AHA: Nebraska should narrow it down to Omaha(the largest city) and Lincoln(the capital)
25 deliberately omitted
26 AFTERS,HOCK: needed all the checking letters to get this and then kicked myself
 
Down
1 RAJA: AJAR reversed
2 ASCENDANT: END inside A, SCANT(little)
3 LABOUR,EXCHANGE
4 COWBANE: (BOW)* inside CANE – I guess its useful when your backyard is overrun by wild cows
5 TASTING: (ITS)* in TANG, &lit
7 deliberately omitted
8 WINTERTIME: put this in from the definition and had to come back to check the wordplay for the blog – it’s (MITRE,T) reversed in WINE(the sack, say)
9 JOGGING BOTTOMS: another one I had to come back to work out wordplay for – JOGGING(reminding), then S(son),MOTTO(saying),B(bye – as in cricket) all reversed
13 ASTON VILLA: although I dislike soccer, I liked this clue, AS(playing – such as Graham Norton stars AS Clement Attlee in “Whoops, where’s my gavel”),TON(fashion),VILLA(house)
16 HOT,POT,AT,O: O is the first letter in Olympics
18 LIFT-OFF: another excellent construction. I,L then T(end of count),O(zero) in FFF (forte fortissimo, also known as f***ing fortissimo at the Percy Grainger Conservatorium – they used to let me in there one)
19 SHAW,NEE: a midwestern tribe
21 LOIRE: hidden answer
22 LARK: double definition

34 comments on “Times 24578: Straddling the pond”

  1. George (9dn): down here “tracksuits” are the whole outfit, top and bottom. The bottoms are called “tracky daks” — I’m wearing some as I write! Tried to solve this by somehow thinking “bottoms up” (then pull [remove] the “up”). Most of the problems came with the STEW/WINTERTIME and the OMAHA/LARK intersections. 8dn needed a particularly tangled bit of construing. 44m and COD to the &lit in 5dn.
    1. hopefully the tracky daks are offset with ugg boots and a nice white singlet with a windcheater. Yes, I was born in Footscray.
  2. Made steady progress towards a 20 min solve, then total blankness with about 8 to go. Gave up after 10 minutes, and went to the aids to get LABOUR EXCHANGE. That UKism got me going again to finish in a disappointing 30 min. No complaints though, nice puzzle. COD to WISCONSIN or JOGGING BOTTOMS.
  3. Tricky stuff here, went the wrong way a few times. 41 minutes. Had to guess 7 and wasn’t aware of mitre as joint. The mix of words/phrases is often a pleasure in itself and today almost sparklingly so – dimly stirring the old cauldron.
  4. Needed help to sort the anagrist for TESLA and COWBANE (and the dictionary to confirm), never did figure the parsing for WINTERTIME and scratched head over AS for playing, AT for forwards and OM for a word of prayer. Carelessly and unaccountably stuck in HOT TOMATO quite early on when things were looking desperate and I was thinking that this setter should seriously be considering seeking counselling of some sort. Subsequently I wondered from where the phrase was dredged, perhaps a Frank Loesser lyric after Damon Runyan?
    COD between WISCONSIN and SCALENE (just for the L of it).
    Thanks setter. Terrific stuff.
  5. Thanks for an excellent blog. i think 19 minutes is an excellent time. Got rather stuck on this but actually once i had a couple of the longer ones things fell into place…about one hour for me regretfully
    I really think that Scalene is beautiful with L as the right angle in scene… never seen the FFF idea before either
    thought the word play in Jogging Bottoms was obsure as it was in wintertime
    Jimbo should be happy with maths and physics
    I think my clue of the day is scalene bbut i thought shawnee was deceptively clever too!
    good puzzle!
  6. This was one of those exquisite puzzles that you can flatter yourself by being able to finish. On the first read-through I only got Scalene and Aston Villa but I made steady progress, enjoying the mischievous wordplay on the way. The longer answers tended to be mundane phrases. Labour exchange was surprisingly difficult to summon up, probably because they have not been called that for many years, the current name being Jobcentre Plus. The only slight obscurities were tesla and cowbane and they were well telegraphed. Thanks, setter and thanks to George for an entertaining blog.
  7. I think this was about one notch up in difficulty from yesterday, taking 12:27 for me. Penfold was talking about 3 puzzles like yesterday’s leaving him one minute of thumb-twiddling in a preliminary round at Cheltenham. A prelim might have one like yesterday’s, one about halfway between yesterday’s and Tuesday’s, and one like today’s. If it does, the big question is whether the extra time taken today exceeds the time gained on the easier puzzle.

    This puzzle was also grist to the mill of the people who tell you to start at the bottom of the grid – after novel clues for relatively unusual words all the way to 20, the next two rows had stock wordplays or major contributions to wordplay (23 is a variation on the old ‘prone to deceit’ chestnut for ‘lying’). The downs all seem original stuff, so four easier clues is no bad thing.

    fff, it doesn’t really stand for anything. It’s usually the loudest marking you see, but some composers have gone further – Mahler uses it in Symphony No. 7, when the strings are supposed to pluck vigorously enough to make the string hit the fingerboard (7:45 in this clip (it doesn’t sound much but try other pizzicato), and there are apparently 6 and 7 f’s in a piece by Ligeti. To go with “f***ing fortissimo”, I offer the old joke about pp as heard from overenthusiastic choristers – “pretty powerful”.

    1. My choir enthusiastically converts bel canto into can belto. For anyone interested, we’re taking on the Verdi Requiem at Walthamstow Assembly Rooms on 10th July, when hopefully we’ll be demonstrating everything between fff and pppp.
  8. Agree with all of the above – as I solved I was delighted by the range of subjects, and even more delighted to find all the gk in my head. So a happy 13m and such a lovely blog. Fave clues 3, 8 & 23; last in 19.
  9. Cracking puzzle – what a joy to solve. 25 minutes of unalloyed pleasure.

    The inclusion of the maths and science is of course manna to me, I don’t recall ever seeing so many such references in a single Times puzzle, and all beautifully clued. Lots of other real gems as well – even down to A-HEM at 25A

    Thank you setter and well done George

  10. This was weird. 4 and a bit (TAPE) answers in during 15 minutes on the Central Line, then a skippy 5 minutes on the Overground (with a merciful seat) to do the rest. Perhaps all the answers were just stewing. I doubt starting at the bottom would have helped, as once I had 2d, the rest just flowed. I thought this was full of original and creative cluing, SCALENE having the best of pure not-seen-before novelty for me. CoD to AFTERSHOCK. Or LYING DOWN, both strangely relevant to completion of this one.
  11. Hmmm, this didn’t seem too difficult at all to me, 12:32 without really trying to hurry. I enjoyed AFTERSHOCK, as it’s also the name of a chilli-flavoured liqueur. If Jimbo’s specialities are maths and science, mine are literature and booze (although I’m fine with the maths and science too). Literature isn’t completely absent though – I’d count the top half of 19D.
  12. 43 minutes for this very enjoyable puzzle. I’m beginning to have some sympathy with those ancient judges who peer over their half-moon spectacles and enquire “What is a tee-shirt?” or “Who is Lady Gaga?” May I ask, “What are jogging bottoms?”
    1. Similar m’lud, to the Oxford Bags of your youth, but without shape, style or fashion sense. Meant to conceal one’s out of condition thighs and (ahem) bottom when affecting a half run, half lurch in a vain attempt to remedy either or both.
    2. Or indeed Mr Justice Popplewell’s enquiry in court as to the meaning of Linford Christie’s “lunchbox”.
  13. Off topic, I suppose, but is anyone else getting the “Advert blocked by Advert Angel” stuff at the top and bottom of the blog? It’s actually delaying loading for me (I’m using the usually immaculate Google Chrome), and I don’t think it’s software loaded on my machine, certainly not by me. It’s also not the sort of thing that I would ever click on!
    1. I am now – earier today I was getting page load delays while a message about the “Advert Angel server” or similar was displayed in the status bar. I think it’s a performance issue with the provider of the ads and therefore affects people using free LJ accounts (from memory, paid account holders don’t see the ads).
      1. Must somehow be interactive. I was looking at some sheet music for bass in another window and an ad came up on LJ (on return here) for a service providing just that.
  14. 100 minutes, but pleased to finish without errors or aids, with WINTERTIME third last in, enabling me to get STEW, which in turn caused me to change ‘lesta’ to TESLA. Is ‘deliberately omitted’, I wonder, the crossword equivalent of the commentator’s curse?

    Didn’t know ‘mitre’ for joint. Got 1ac quite early, but wasn’t sure about real = significant. Is this a statistical usage? Wasted time on ‘ascending’ and ‘ascension’ – just couldn’t see beyond them for another word from the same root. Got a bit clever in Nebraska, attempting to work around ‘eureka’, even though Omaha was first to mind. Liked the bottom line best: AHEM and AFTERSHOCK.

    1. Mitre: possibly easiest to remember from this bit of kit.

      I don’t think real=significant is statistical – it’s as in uses like “The new England manager made a real difference to the team’s performances”. ODE also has “real money” = “a significant amount of money” under “real”.

      1. Or, for the more technically minded, this bit of kit.

        It’s a pity statisticians have hijacked the word “significant”. Media commentators seem to hesitate before enunciating it, possibly because the almost universally mispronounced word “statistically” often precedes it, rather than out of knowledge that they are attaching some statistical import to a poll result where none actually exists. Shouldn’t that be “a significant (p < 0.01) amount of money”?

  15. Just under the hour for me too. I agree this was a very enjoyable solve. A puzzle where a lot of time went into sorting out the wordplay after the event. I thought REALLOCATE & AFTERSHOCK were excellent charades and have also ticks beside INSULATING TAPE & JOGGING BOTTOMS, which gets my COD. That’s not an exhaustive list, but will do for now.
  16. Somehwhere near an hour, but I ran out of time on the commute with 8dn and the two 19s unsolved. Unfortunately for once I had to buckle down to work immediately on arrival so I didn’t get another go at these.

    I thought WINTERTIME or just possibly WINTERTIDE at 8dn but couldn’t fully justify either so neither went in. I wish I’d had the courage to write in my first thought as having taken the answer from the blog and put it in the grid the correct answer to 19ac leapt out at me immediately. This gave me an S to start 19dn instead of the B that I’d been fixating on.

  17. Just recovered consciousness and looks like most are in agreement that this was a tricky, but excellent puzzle.

    I guess I thought that TESLA was better known or I would have written something and probably left out LARK

  18. 21:33 .. immensely satisfying puzzle.

    First in SCALENE, last in JOGGING BOTTOMS.

    I hadn’t realised there was a school of thought that encouraged solving from the bottom up, but I’m going to give it a concerted go for a while.

  19. I heard of this many moons ago. The theory is that the setter starts clueing at 1a in ther NW and finishes in the SE, by which time he has run out of puff and his ingenuity is almost exhausted. Hence the clues there are easier! I have tried this in the past: with extremely little success! Sotira, I wish you well.

    This was another lovely puzzle, but harder than yesterday. Are we in a progression, in which case look out for tomorrow or Saturday!

    40 minutes today. COD: J.BOTTOMS


    1. I’ve never been one to let dismally small chances of success stand in the way of a cunning plan. I shall not be deterred.

      “What do we want? Revolutionary non-linear solving. When do we want it? Yesterday.”

    2. It’s not a method that I’ve ever really believed in – I know that by no means all setters write clues in the order they’re printed, and even if they do, I’m not that convinced by the “run out of puff” argument.

      A disadvantage is that with this method you will only rarely get a checking letter at the beginning of a word. If you start at the top, you have a better chance of doing so.

  20. 32 minutes. Super puzzle. Similar solving experience to others, the phrases “something for everyone” and “Jimbo will be pleased” in my mind as I finished.
    I didn’t know “mitre” in this sense but otherwise I was only held up by nice clues rather than poor general knowledge, which makes a nice change.
  21. Excellent puzzle, as many have said already. Salute to the setter. About 35 minutes here, last in was INSULATING TAPE, which gets a vote for COD among many other very good ones, including LIFT OFF, WINTERTIME, TASTING, AFTERSHOCK. Regards.
  22. Couldn’t 17’s “current time put back” equally well be “current time put forward”? It depends which way you look at it, I suppose.
  23. Sorry to be commenting rather late in the day, but I came here hoping to find an explanation of VULGAR FRACTION. If I understand your explanation rightly, you’re saying that it’s a fraction that can be simplified, but that doesn’t correspond to any definition that I can find in any of the dictionaries I have access to. For example, Chambers (2003) defines it as: “a fraction written in the usual way (one number over another, separated by a line), opp to decimal fraction“, which would include both 1/8 and 2/16.

    It’s quite possible I’m missing something obvious here (particularly as no-one else has mentioned it), but I’d welcome some enlightenment if you (or Peter B) can spare the time. Apologies if I’m just being daft – it wouldn’t be the first time! (Sigh!)

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