Times 24589

Author   petebiddlecombePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: about 11 minutes – interrrupted for a spell that I couldn’t time exactly. I think there’s just enough tricky stuff in this one to get a fairly wide range of times – seeing 8 or 1D on first look might help some people to beat me today. A sign of the trickiness is the fact that I took only two punts on answers entered without full wordplay understanding – 3 and 7.

Three of the 5-letter words have clues which seem to bend the rules a bit, but as these are all common words (especially in xwd grids), it matters little to me. I suspect others may disagree.

Incidental bits and pieces: the Scrabble score for the 7 checked letters in the bottom row comes to 22, which seems impressive. And the fact that BORDELLO is accompanied by the first half of 4A and a word that can go with ‘Rhino’ to make the name of the world’s largest chain of “upscale gentlemen’s clubs” makes me wonder whether the setter was trying to slip some extra saucy material past the editor.

Across
1 BAS(I)S – I’m never quite sure how to justify {single = I} – just by way of “one”, or as the record for a single (one run) on a cricket scorecard? But if there are two ways which amount to the same thing, it doesn’t really matter
4 TART=bitter,RATE=consider – at least 5 E-numbers are for tartrates
8 YOU’RE TELLING ME = (timely rule gone)*
10 REDBREAST – BREAD=lolly=money, with last letter moved to the front, in REST=perch (verb, I think but maybe noun too) – Wikipedia lists three avian genera in which ‘redbreasts’ can be found
11 OSTIA – port of ancient Rome, and reverse hidden in “sea it’s only”
12 MAD=chaotic,RID(e)=”journey almost” – timely pictures of Madrid here
14 BORDELLO = (doorbell)* – very smooth surface reading (“Where one pays for the other doorbell to be fixed”) and a strong candidate for COD
17 N(e.g.=perhaps)ATION
18 S=second,CHOO(-choo),L
20 CHIN=to hit or punch on the chin,A
22 ST.,ALINI,ST. – (I,NIL,A = I love a), all reversed between two saints=holy people
24 WATCH THE BIRDIE – cryptic def. Trawling the internet for information about this puzzling old photographer’s line found this, which you may believe or not, as you wish (the site where it appeared is no longer with us):

“Watch the birdie!” The Museum at George Eastman House displays a little brass bird over a camera. The legend reads:
“Birdie, 1870s. Nineteenth-century photographers used many devices to try to get the attention of their subjects. This birdie not only tweeted, but also fluttered its tail when the photographer squeezed the air bulb attached to the slender pipe. The phrase ‘watch the birdie’ originated with this item.”
25 DYSTOPIA = (typo said)* – dystopia is the opposite of utopia, so it’s “where nothing is right”
26 Y-AXIS – (XI = side in soccer, cricket, (field) hockey and doutbless some others), in reversal of SAY = for example
 
Down
1 BAYERN MUNICH = (machine run by)* – a soccer team who have won the Champions League/European Cup 4 times and are therefore a “force in Europe”
2 SOUND – 2 defs
3 SPE(ARM,I)NT – “something with a joint” is nicely deceptive, suggesting one of those drug references that seem so common
4 TOE,RAG – heels and toerags are both detestable people
5 Today’s deliberate omission
6 (composer)R,ON,DO=perform – the last movement of a classical Sonata was often a rondo, but not always, so doubtless there will be some who would want “part of a sonata, possibly” or similar. For Mr. Pragmatic, the absence of other options for R?N?O excuses it (RONEO is out there, but is not a candidate as an answer to this clue)
7 TO,MA(TILL)O – I thought the red here was going to be TOMATO, but now see that “to” is part of the answer, not just an infinitive-maker in the clue, and the red is Mao. I nearly forgot – here is the plant
9 MAN OF LETTERS – CD (“postie” is Brit (and presumably Aussie) colloquial for “postman”)
13 DI(G,NIT=fool)ARY – the def being “notable” = notable person
15 DE(CLIV(e))ITY – here’s the general for those with weak British Empire history
16 HO(USE=exercise,TO)P – housetop is, as you’d expect, “the roof or ridge of a house” (COED)
19 CAM=river,ERA=time – ‘snapper’=camera – rather easy if solved from ???E?? after writing in ‘watch the birdie’
21 A,SCOT=Macbeth, say – it’s arguably a particular meeting that’s Royal, rather than the course, but like 6D this is a stock grid-filling word so I don’t mind mild rule-bending for a new clue.
23 (h)IND=”rear not opening”,EX=old – indexes and keys are both helpful lists – I can’t think of an example where both words could mean exactly the same thing, but … (see 6 and 21)

51 comments on “Times 24589”

  1. Well, I stopped timing after the hour; so onya Peter. Nothing much to complain about after the fact except to say that Bayern Munich (“German force …”) haven’t done much in Europe since their win in 2001, even if they were runners-up this year. COD to 22 for avoiding “red”, “Che” and O (for love).
  2. Did not get 1a & d at sight so tried the other longs – 9 and 24 obliged but it was slow work after that. Last in the SE group 26,23, 22, 16, 25m. Looking for a real force for 1d till saw anagram after getting 12. 25 m.
  3. Another of those days when my slow going on the Central Line was complemented by a rapid solving of remaining clues on the Overground, so somewhere over 20 minutes in total. Subliminal thinking time is obviously useful, though it’s difficult to see how that could work at Cheltenham.
    Last in was TOMATILLO, deceived by the tomato = red connection and believing that the setter had simply made a mistake (!) in counting one T twice, or that tomao was a rare shade.
    Recommended or not, CoD to BORDELLO, with DYSTOPIA a good second.
  4. 32:26 here, really struggled with this one. First in BORDELLO, followed by DYSTOPIA a couple of minutes later, and it was slow going from there.
      1. H’m. I counted three München’s to one Munich on the front page, and no Munich’s at all in the German version. Personally, I’m still peeved over the spelling of Mönchengladbach earlier this year.
  6. 32 minutes, jogged along. The blog is as good as the crossword, or at least an entirely apt concomitant; particularly impressed by pb’s knowledge of gentlemen’s clubs. Though I’d guess it’s all coincidence on the part of the setter. (A ‘rhino’ would have clinched it.) There’s an engaging olde-worlde aura about an area of ‘Times’ vocabulary; who says 24 now, or the recent tin for money etc., though maybe china as friend’s still around. Not a complaint – I rather like it. Personally OK with all the clues except a touch surprised by arm as joint.
    1. I think the arm is ‘something with a joint’ rather than the joint itself.
  7. This did for me. Give me 10 years or so. Bottom half complete at cut-off time and then went for assistance, but still struggled to finish, never understanding SPEARMINT. COD to BORDELLO as it produced the only smile of the morning.
  8. Another very entertaining puzzle and about the same 25 minutes as yesterday to solve. Well done setter.

    The only potential quibbles that occurred to me whilst solving were RONDO, but it’s so common a part of a sonata that I’m happy with it and “German force in Europe” to define (i) a football team and (ii) one that is not quite what it once was. As its an anagram and with B?Y to start it caused me no problems but I’ll be interested to hear what others thought.

    The rest is first class and BORDELLO made me laugh out loud. Will not comment on Peter’s very interesting extra-curricula knowledge.

      1. Yes, I saw what you had written but wondered if you might expand a little. Did the clue cause you a problem whilst solving and do you go along with “force in Europe” as a definition of a football team?
        1. Yeh, the clue caused me a problem. And I thought, having found the def., after working out the anag, that it was a bit strong in the light of BM’s achievements. BTW: they’re not just a team but a club. They also do chess, basketball, usw.
        2. As “in Europe” is common usage for “in Europe-wide tournaments” in TV and newspaper football coverage, “force in Europe” seems fine to me. As for “not quite what it once was”: OK, they haven’t won 3 succesive European Cups (now Champions Leagues) as they did in the mid-70s, but neither has anyone else – the last 10 wins are shared between 9 teams. Bayern stand 4th in the list of the clubs generating most revenue, and are one of just 5 teams (the others being the current English big 4) which have reached the quarter finals in 3 of the last 4 UEFA Champions League tournaments.
          1. “Force in Europe” fine with me, too. And a force on the rise again too, it would seem, along with the national team. As Sir Alex would say (but perhaps not in quite the same tone of voice) “That’s the Germans for you” 🙂
  9. I got off to a slow start until I got Bayern Munich but then everything fell into place. People often describe the sensation of looking back and wondering why they found a crossword so difficult. I think the reason is probably in the large number of charades with multiple possibilities to consider. My last one in, Housetop, is a case in point. It’s obvious once you have got it.

    Seeing the “Where one pays…” part of the bordello clue reminded me that tartrate is usually clued “What one pays…” I imagine that the setter originally had the Guardian in mind for this puzzle with 4A and 14 being linked.

  10. 47 very enjoyable minutes; I was almost sorry when I finished! The first clues I solved all ended with A or O, so I wondered if that was the theme; then I saw the TART-RATE at the BORDELLO and thought Oo-er Missus!
    I think we had TOMATILLO a while back, didn’t we?
  11. Done in two settings of about 30 minutes each, consisting of below the diagonal and then above. Some good and misleading constructions here. I liked MADRID too, but COD to STALINIST, just ahead of INDEX.
  12. Well well. I’ve had a good run of late so have been feeling a real sense of progress and increasing confidence. I was probably due a puzzle like this to bring me down a peg or two. It took well over an hour and on checking here I realise I’ve hurriedly put in TOMATELLO and DECLINITY. The latter is understandable because CLIN was a guess (Cline? Clint?) but the former obviously doesn’t make any sense.
    This is partly down poor form, because in at least 7 cases I struggled with clues that in retrospect are very easy. For instance I immediately got the wordplay for 18ac so was looking for a word meaning “train” fitting the pattern S????L. How I didn’t see the answer immediately I just don’t know.
    I also created a problem for myself in the NW by thinking 1dn would be FLYING MENACE (an elite division of the Luftwaffe, surely?) which made 1ac and 10ac impossible until I reconsidered.
    So all in all I made a right meal of this but am still glad to see that others at least found it tricky.
      1. Thank you for the link to TOMATELLO. I almost feel like there is a case to be had. I put it in using TELL for work as in “this pressure may tell in the second half”, but just assumed on coming in here that i was wrong since the whole word didnt exist.

        Would this pass muster as a query in competition ?

        1. In competition, you’d have to be able to find tomatello in a relevant dictionary. A good solver sitting next to me in a regional final once came up with MUSICMAN as an unintended alternative to MUSICIAN, the last 3 letters being “fellow” or similar. If he appealed he was unsuccessful (my guess is that after not finding it in the dictionaries on the editor’s desk, he didn’t bother to appeal.)
          1. I take your point on this, however there are surely many viable crossword answers that dont appear in a dictionary – ie BAYERN MUNICH or names of people, or geographical locations. I am never sure personally where a dictionary ends and an encyclopedia begins. Do the aforementioned dictionaries cover all strains of flora and fauna, and chemical compounds, or is there some notional cut-off point where this is deemed to be general knowledge rather than vocabulary ?
            1. Obviously the people, places, and other proper nouns have to be judged from some assessment of reasonable knowledge. But I would expect any name for a type of plant, animal or chemical that’s used in the crossword to be listed in one of the reference dictionaries. I can’t recall an answer of this kind that wasn’t.
              1. Glad to see I wasn’t alone here. I put the answer in based on tell = work but I wasn’t happy with it. I just forgot to go back, and I’m still not happy with the synonym. The weather might tell in the second half of a football match for instance, but unless the gods were taking a particular interest in the result it couldn’t be said to “work”.
                1. My definitive list of lists is the centre section of the Concise Oxford Thesaurus, which contains tomatillo under “Fruit”, but alas omits the humble tomatello. I recommend this list to all solvers; I’m currently trying to memorise its contents but haven’t got much beyond Animals: Amphibians: mud puppy. I await the appearance of xenopus with much anticipation.
  13. I found this an excellent example of cluing and difficulty level. For me this comes from something that is testing due to its complexity and not its obscurity, such that reading back you wonder why the concern. A veritable feast of D’oh moments.

    I had lunch with my elderly mother on Monday and she was bemoaning the “descent into Telegraph style cluing” in the last month or so. I think she may have been unlucky in the ones she had looked at, although this topic did come up on here a few weeks ago. I was very pleased to leave a message on her phone earlier telling her to have a look at this one.

    Unfortunately (notwithstanding an appeal – see above) I put in TOMATELLO so it wasnt a finish, however it was an enjoyable 45 mins or so. I actually did it almost as a clock, starting at 12am, proceeding through NE,SE,SW and NW in that order before finishing on 3 & 10. I took far too long on the two big anagrams, 1D and 8, and was slow on the uptake of some of the more obvious ones. All in all a big thumbs up to the setter.

  14. An even slower start than yesterday with only three answers entered during my first 20 minute session before leaving home and only another six whilst waiting at the station.

    Some sort of inspiration arrived with the train and I managed the bulk of what remained but I was left with four or five unsolved all in the SW corner apart from DECLIVITY when I ran out of time.

    I used a solver on arrival at work as I had a busy morning in prospect and did not want the puzzle hanging over me so to speak.

    Tough but all getable apart perhaps from 15 as I’m not sure I would have recognised DECLIVITY as a word even if I had happened to think of General Clive, which I didn’t. I had the DEITY part of it early on and wasted a lot of time trying to think of a General Prav_.

  15. 20:02 .. another good puzzle.

    Like it or not, it does seem that the old Times cricketing bent is giving way to a fascination with football. Thank heavens they don’t do multi-light solutions or we’d be looking out for Borussia Mönchengladbach.

    BORDELLO carries off the COD prize at a canter.

    1. We DID have Mönchengladbach back I think in January, spectacularly unclued: I know, because I suggested a clue on the Times bulletin board and spelt it wrong. I can’t check the date because the comments section of the bulletin board has disappeared: when did that happen?
      2. This disappeared when the old Times Online site was replaced by the new http://www.thetimes.co.uk one – the crossword club seems to be using the last remaining part of Times Online after the rest (including the old version of commenting) was removed. I have grumbled about this and it seems that commenting may return in the future. Exactly when and how, I’ll leave the Crossword Club to say.

        I’ve also grumbled about the silence from the Bulletin Board since 15 June – the usual monthly announcements about winners of competitions have gone by the board. I’ll mention it again when reminding them that today’s 4th qualifying puzzle is not mentioned on their pages about this year’s Crossword Championship.

  16. Lunchtime came to an end with 3d / 17ac / 16d blank, at which point I resorted to Chambers Word Wizard. In my defence, I had entered MADCAP for 12ac, which didn’t help matters. COD 1d.
  17. 13.52 so just a bit too slow to meet PB’s challenge. Also has a laugh at BORDELLO and the TART RATE – intentional or not. Took a bit too long on TOERAG as I didn’t get 4 for a while.
    Can’t argue with BAYERN still being a force in Europe (especially given the recent performance of Scottish teams). X marks the spot of my last pair of entries.
  18. Finished eventually in well over an hour with Y-AXIS which was a guess. This was an awful struggle although the clues were very fair and the solving itself was enjoyable. Just so slow!

    BORDELLO and MADRID today’s crackers: thank you, setter for an excellent puzzle.

  19. May I ask why the omissions? As I have mentioned before, English is my second language and as such I’m not much of an expert – hence why I find this community so helpful.
    1. Some reasons are given in the About this blog … page. Another is a bit of educational psychology – leaving just a few answers (1 today) that you have to work out yourself from checking letters and the clue. Often (but not today) we pick the “hidden word” clues. If you’re genuinely stuck on one of these or can’t understand how the clue works after solving it, a comment saying so will always get a response.
      1. Thank you 🙂 I do apologise for asking such a question – I’ve found a tremendous part of solving cryptic crosswords is getting use to the solver, the solvee (if that was only a word) and such.
        I do very much appreciate the time you pros may take to respond to amateurs such as myself!
  20. which one is correct…blog says tillo
    COD for me ws Bayern Munich–liked it when i finally clocked it
    48 Minutes and happy!
    well done setter
    (and blogger)
    1. TOMATILLO is right – as stated in previous comments, aside from TILL being a better fit than TELL for “work”, “tomatello” is not in any English dictionaries. (If comments show that a blog entry is wrong, we normally amend the blog to show that it was wrong and say what the right answer is.)
  21. 17 minutes for this, looks like most of what I found has been said, I thought I was in for a blinder with most of the acrosses going in on the first sweep, but ground to a halt until deciphering Bayern Munich
  22. Sorry for the late entry, but work intervened today. Thought this a very good and hard puzzle. I got held up for a long time in the NW, until I finally realized there was an anagram, and that opened things up. Last 3 entered were SPEARMINT, REDBREAST and TOERAG. The ‘lolly’, TOERAG and the football club were especially hard on the Americans. Regards to anyone who’s still here.
  23. Thanks Peter. I don’t think I’ll be holding my breath: every time I log on I still get the message
    “We have improved registration to Times Online and associated products. As part of the change, we’ll be asking you to log in using your e-mail address and password rather than your old username and password.”
    I think they’ve been running that “promise” for over a year.
  24. R from “Finally, composeR)

    DO from ‘perform’

    but why ON from “about” or “about to”?

    1. It’s ON from “about”. Example of this meaning of ‘on’: a book on history is a book about history.
      1. doh!
        Many thanks Peter, not only for this specific clarification but for all the others of yours I have read.
        jt

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