Times 24,588 The Fogg Clears

Author   dorsetjimboPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time 25 minutes

A very entertaining puzzle with something for everybody ranging from Euclid to Nat King Cole. A lot of well crafted clues and a range of anagram indicators. I don’t think there’s anything really obscure here but some old fashioned references like tootle, ready-to-wear and wizard. Thank you setter.

Across
1 DAPPLE – DA(PP)LE;
5 PARODIST – PA-ROD-I-ST(iche);
9 PROTOCOL – PRO(p)-TO(o)-COL(d);
10 VAGARY – V(AG)ARY; AG=silver (chemistry);
11 MEDICI – MED-ICI; powerful family from the Republic of Florence who founded the academy that trained Leonardo da Vinci;
12 CONTRITE – CON-TRITE; criminal=CON short for convict;
14 OCEANOGRAPHY – O-(change or pay)*; study of the deep – geddit?
17 CONGENIALITY – C-(one align)*-ITY;
20 HORRIBLE – HO(R-RIB)LE; corner=HOLE; cramps=containment indicator; R=radius; nasty is the definition;
22 TOOTLE – (a)T(h)O(s) O(u)T (f)L(e)E; old fashioned word for the sort of motoring that is now almost impossible;
23 DISPEL – DI-SPEL(l); DI=Detective Inspector;
25 OMELETTE – O(n)-MELE(TT)E;
26 NEOPHYTE – NE-O-PHYTE; sounds like “knee” + O=ring + sounds like “fight”;
27 SORBET – SOR(BE)T; unfilled b(omb)e = BE;
 
Down
2 AGREED – A-GREED;
3 PETTIFOGGER – PETTI(FOGG)ER; your literature for today, Phileas Fogg from Jules Verne’s Around The World In Eighty Days;
4 EUCLIDEAN – (clue)*-IDEA-N; followed by a little maths – the study of triangles, cones, etc;
5 PELICAN – cryptic definition;
6 deliberately omitted – ask if you can’t see it;
7 DOG – DO-G; act=DO; G=good; to dog is to plague; no comment;
8 SCRATCHY – S-CR(ew)-(yacht)*; fixed is anagrind;
13 READY-TO-WEAR – RE-(today)*-WE-AR; people generally=WE; breed=REAR; cultivated is anagrind; in my youth “off the peg” suits were a touch infra dig which the cultivated would not own up to wearing;
15 GUILTLESS – GU-(till)*-ESS; squashed is the anagrind;
16 COLONISE – COL(ON-IS)E; ON IS from (M)ON(a) (L)IS(a); reference the unforgettable Nat King Cole 1919-1965 who of course sang Mona Lisa – cue Jack;
18 AWESOME – A-WE(SO-M)E; tiny=WEE; extremely=SO; minute (measure of time)=M; AWESOME is modern slang for “very good” whereas “wizard” is Billy Bunter for “very good”;
19 BLITHE – B-LITHE;
21 BELLY – perhaps “something like a bell” is BELLY;
24 PUP – PUP(a);

28 comments on “Times 24,588 The Fogg Clears”

  1. 9:22

    Nicely done puzzle with enough in it to slow you down a bit. Fell for some doubtless deliberate deception at 11, trying to recall a 3-letter Riviera resort in vain. Entered without full wordplay understanding: 9, 26, 13, 24 – and the two in the twenties were last in.

    Here’s the unforgettable singer.

  2. Clobbered by SW after tottling along quite cheerily. Then couldn’t find gear at all. Eventually emerged at 54 minutes. Several fine clues here and a delightful exercise in all. Think I’ll go for 21 as my COD as had seen and dismissed it: but that ‘perhaps’ makes it OK. It would have saved me half an hour.
  4. Spent far too long on this one (32m) and classed it as medium hard. The interesting thing for me was the relative ease of the 11- and 12-letter answers and the relatively difficulty of some (but not all) of the others. Thought it was brilliant of the setter to get the singer and the song together in 16dn. This solver, of course, didn’t! Next: the palindromic band and its palindromic hit song??
      1. Didn’t Dac use the ABBA/SOS idea in a clue for “palindrome” in the Indy a couple of years ago??
  5. 18 minutes for this, though I’ve discovered half an hour later I’d not put in SORBET. Do others doing the crossword to while away the journey into work find that concentration suffers a bit?
    I couldn’t work out the wordplay to 13, so thanks for that, Jimbo. The rest were a decent assortment of clues making for a pleasant diversion from the chatter of he Tube. Last in (apart from SORBET) was COLONISE, because my misaligned mental filing system wanted the crooner to be (Perry) Como, which didn’t work: I thought that was an ingenious clue once I’d twigged. I also liked BELLY, because it made me chuckle out loud, probably worrying my fellow passengers.
    1. >Do others doing the crossword to while away the journey into work find that concentration suffers a bit?
      Between the office and a houseful of small children my half-hour on the Central Line in the morning is the best (and sometimes only) opportunity for sustained concentration I ever get!
      1. Fair comment: I’ve reached that certain age when – if I’m not going in to work – I can relax in bed or study with the Times. It’s hard to tell whether completion under those conditions is quicker, there being still many variables. I’ll watch out for you on the Central!
        1. I usually find solving on the train quicker than in the peace and quiet of home. I have an hour on a Virgin Pendolino every morning though, and I can normally get a seat with a table. I usually read on the tube, if I’m lucky enough to get a seat.
  6. Just inside half an hour, SW corner slow to appear as did not know singer of 16 and last in neophyte. Enjoyed the way so many answers built up from segments. Thank you for full analysis, quite a few I waited till here to see the full picture.
  7. I got off to a very slow start this morning writing in only 7 answers in my first 20 minute session though some of these were long ones such as OCEANOGRAPHY and PETTIFOGGER which I spotted from the definition immediately on first reading the clue. The second 20 minutes whilst waiting for my train proved more fruitful leaving me with only 6 unsolved to occupy me whilst on the move. 60 minutes in all.

    I found this a somewhat tricky puzzle, but fair and it had some lively and entertaining clues. The one to AWESOME was just that.

    NEOPHYTE was my last in a full 5 minutes after the previous one.

    Jimbo, there’s a typo at 10ac.

  8. This was ingenious, entertaining and very demanding. I got stuck on the awesome/omelette intersection for a long time but I finished with dapple/agreed. This was because I had nipple for the spot (it’s “any nipple-like protuberance” in the dictionary) and I was mentally congratulating the setter for the originality of using the Nile Valley as opposed to the Nile River. Only the impossibility of 2D made me change my tack.

    I loved the Nat King Cole clue and also the Phileas Fogg. I also had a Belly laugh, although it may not be to everyone’s taste.

  9. Can’t remember a puzzle before where I ran out of room on the printout for my workings-out. Not too shabby a solve for all but SW corner (although took a while to work out TOOTLE) which took up most of the effort. Had scribbled at the side AWESOME (so meaning extremely was new to me), BELLY, NEOPHYTE (not convinced of the knee)and COLONISE (thought PP was gripping hearts).
    Challenging without being impossible, which is just as it should be.
    COD to COLONISE as per Mctext’s reasoning.
  10. a terrific puzzle and what i consider to be a respectable time of 40 minutes here

    COD Neophyte…liked it or Colonise. agree that the SW was the hardest corner…

  11. A very enjoyable puzzle which for some reason I found quite easy. It took me 16m, of which nearly half in the SW, which I had to stare at for some time before NEOPHYTE unlocked it. 21dn raised a half-groan-half-chuckle if not exactly a belly-laugh.
  12. 16:26 here. Quite tricky in places – took me a long time to put AWESOME together – but most of them fell into the “Why didn’t I see that at first glance?” category. My COD also goes to COLONISE, closely followed by AWESOME.
  13. A steady and very enjoyable 35 min solve, which I was quite chuffed with, given the aforementioned trickiness. COD to BELLY, but only by an H (that would be a short half head presumably). I didn’t have a clue how DOG worked, so thanks for the explanation Jimbo and your remarkable restraint.
  14. 22:04 .. with about 3 minutes at the end on NEOPHYTE.

    Really enjoyable puzzle, full of originality and novelty, even if a couple of clues earned exclamation marks.

    If I was still doing the One Across Rock thing I’d probably mention New York rapper P Dog Scratchy’s single “Dapple don’t fall far from da tree”, but I’m not so I won’t.

  15. I thought this was going to be another easy one, filling the first three-quarters fairly quickly, but I was slow to break into the SW corner. I finally got PUP, which also confirmed DOG for 7 down, where I’d been looking at the wrong end of the clue for the definition, likewise 20. The rest of the SW corner then took shape. 30 minutes altogether.

    I join in the praise for the inventive, and sometimes deceptive, clues. I particularly liked 16, 18 and 26.

  16. 30 minutes for this very enjoyable puzzle. I chuckled at BELLY, which reminded me of the “Uxbridge English Dictionary” round in “I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue.” Last night’s edition included “Monkey: A bit like a monk” and “Monogamy: Celebrating New Year in Scotland by yourself”.
  17. Not too much to add, except that I didn’t tootle very much: rather I lurched from one section to another until lurching completed in 40 minutes.

    Very nice puzzle: looking back, I can’t see where all the difficulty was. This must be the mark of a good crossword: thanks setter.

  18. Breezed through this one during breaks in rehearsal (unfortunately I had a long rehearsal last night and had already finished the Times and Granuiad which left time for boredom to set in). Liked the clue for AWESOME a lot, and it’s a word I’ve been told I overuse, so I’m trying to cut back.
  19. 14.05. Enjoyed this solve despite stupidly putting in GRAVE instead of RAVEN at 6. I also liked the AWESOME clue as well and had most problems in the SW corner. I was thinking COMO as the crooner and couldn’t drag up COLE quickly enough. Also took a while to work out DISPEL.
  20. Agree with most comments: very good puzzle, a few smiles, and the SW corner held me up badly. I know the Nat King Cole connection right away, but I never saw the ON IS part til reading the blog, so thanks Jimbo for that. Took me about an hour, ending with AWESOME. Regards to everyone, setter included.

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