Times 24595

Author   petebiddlecombePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 14:30

A nicely chewy puzzle which taught me a new word at 13. The grid is only a Q short of a pangram – not a good puzzle for imagining Q’s in unchecked spots just before U’s. Answers written without full wordplay understanding (all with the help of checking letters and a def that was finally clear): 29, 2, 8, 14. Last in: 13.

Feel free to say what you think about the links to the new Oxford Dictionary site as explanations of words that I expect to be familiar to experienced solvers but possibly not newer ones.

Across
1 VINE=plant,GARY=fellow – as well as “sharp and forthright”, acerbic is “sour or bitter”
5 SPRING – 2 defs, one describing the season. A crafty clue, as it’s phrased in a way that could imply container or charade wordplay
9 (do=party)ZEN – “medium for attaining truth” must be the def., but apart from “enlightenment” as a Buddhist objective, I can’t find a link to “truth”.
10 SOUP KITCHEN = (in tuck shop, E)* – the first answer I wrote in
12 EISTEDDFOD – (E=English,DD=Theologian), in (site of)*, all followed by D=key
13 C(hoking),ULM – culm is coal dust or slack. At first I thought Ems was a candidate for a 3-letter German city, but it turned out to be a river. Older readers may remember one cultural reference – Monty Python’s Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern-schplenden-schlitter-crasscrenbon-fried-digger-dingle-dangle-dongle-dungle-burstein-von-knacker-thrasher-apple-banger-horowitz-ticolensic-grander-knotty-spelltinkle-grandlich-grumblemeyer-spelterwasser-kurstlich-himbleeisen-bahnwagen-gutenabend-bitte-ein-nürnburger-bratwustle-gerspurten-mitz-weimache-luber-hundsfut-gumberaber-shönedanker-kalbsfleisch-mittler-aucher von Hautkopft of Ulm
15 BR(O=ring)OCH – details of the tower here
16 WEE=little,KEN=chap,D(oze) – another clue with a sneaky def – “not now having to work”
18 C(HE,ROO)T. I was slightly surprised by ‘Australian’ as a clue for ROO, and wonder how far this line of thought might be taken, but I guess the kangaroo is emblematic of Australia rather than just one of the many animals that only live there.
20 (b)ARRACK(s)
23 B(O)AT – a tramp being a cargo vessel, and “striker” meaning “something that strikes” rather than “someone who strikes”
24 MISS=girl,OUR IAN=”chap in this writer’s family” – see the third meaning of ‘our’ here if this seems odd
26 APPARATCHIK – (park, chapati)*
27 Today’s deliberate omission
28 DEE=river,JAY=bird – just in case this is a Britishism, deejay is to DJ=disc jockey as emcee is to MC=Master of Ceremonies
29 E,TERN=seabird,IT(a,l)Y
 
Down
1 VIZ.,I=current,ER
2 NO(NU)SE,R – non-user is one of those words I always have to look up
3 G(ASTER)O,POD=’plant husk’ – if you thought snails were gastropods, you were right – gasteropod is just an old spelling. As far as I can tell from Chambers and ODE searches, there are no other -opod words with eccentric old spellings to catch you out
4 ROUND THE TWIST = mad – an alternative to “round the bend”. Cryptic def using this dance.
6 (PUT = reversal of tup),T(railer)
7 IN-HOUSE – U = acceptable, in “IN HOSE” = fashionable stockings
8 GA(N=noon)Y MEDE – two old-fashioned references here: gay=cheerful, Mede=lawmaker
11 KNOW WHAT’S WHAT – which sounds like “Know Watt’s Watt” or “Know what’s Watt”, both of which fit the bill (unless you insist that “what” and “Watt” sound different to you)
14 SEER=prophet,SUCKER=”succour” – seersucker is a fabric
17 SCABBARD=cover – reversal of (DRAB=dull, BACS=method of payment)
19 EX- = past,A(M.P.)LE
21 CHIANTI – (I,an itch)*
22 A N.Y. WAY = “It could be Fifth Avenue” – umpteen US cities have 5th Avenues, but the NY one is one of Manhattan’s best-known thoroughfares
25 (m)ARIA – as far as I know, there are no operatic decapitations to go with the surface reading. (Donizetti’s Anna Bolena seems to be cut short just before AB is.)

43 comments on “Times 24595”

  1. 33 minutes. Took a while for the dog to see the rabbit, but once started, everything fell neatly into place. The mental image of gay Medes brightened this overcast morning.
  2. 32 minutes; held up in the top left. I too had to check NON-USER (the legal term) and fell for the old fiendish and cunning apostrophe-S trick: thus left scratching head over how “informer” could generate NOE. CULM was also a new word and, on look-up, I notice it has another meaning to boot.
  3. 25 minutes for a decent puzzle that was always interesting with some challenging clues.

    I also hadn’t come across CULM before and I suspect the usage of “our” at 24A will be unfamiliar to many. I think the old spelling of GASTEROPOD should be signalled in the clue. Doing bar crosswords I’m used to quirky spelling variations and having derived it from wordplay looked it up in Chambers before entering it in the grid. Also a pity that a chance to use a moon of Jupiter was missed in preference for the archaic meeting of GANYMEDE.

    Other than those comments all very good so thank you setter.

    1. Now that there are 63 of them (and counting, I daresay), “moon of Jupiter” isn’t much help. But in the event of S/2003 J 2 ever appearing in a crossword, you read it here first!
  4. This was a triumph for me in that I refused to guess on 23, my last in with B-A-, and took fully half my time of 37 minutes on it. All too often I throw something at the page and curse myself later for not sticking at it. Must have rejected Boat sveral times before seeing it. Regarding Isabel’s Dodd query it does leave ‘of’ out of it in the anagrammed section signalled by ‘new’; also Dodd probably isn’t fully on the GK shelf as it were. (All I remember is the initials E.R. but I think that was a classicist). I would have thought it’s Know What’s Watt rather than Watt’s. Surely enlightenment and truth are equivalents in a Zen context? Time to stop blathering.
    1. Curious coincidence on BOAT – and I really can’t work out what was so hard about it except that, in one of the oldest quibbles in the book, a tramp is not a boat, it’s a ship, be it never so mean. Usually followed by “steamer”, I think.
      1. For “boat”, COED has “a small vessel …” as the first definition but also has the meaning “a vessel of any size”, which seems to excuse boat=tramp or even boat=oil-tanker
        1. Not disagreeing (I’m not that much of a pedant!) but “Tramp boat” just doesn’t sound right. “Tramp ship” works okay, and the aforementioned “Tramp steamer” even better. I see from research that the Tramp Boat was proposed steam-powered flying boat out of the Bristol stable, which sadly never got off the drawing board. I think I’m right in citing the Navy definitions: a submarine is a boat, everything else is a ship.
  5. 21 minutes after a very slow start, a sudden middle surge, and an age to get, of all things, my last in BOAT. I thought this was one which really tested our spelling prowess – I really did put in VINIGARY before reading the clue properly. BROOCH always looks wrong. ARRACK has alternatives, EISTEDDFOD and GANYMEDE pitfalls, and GASTEROPOD needed an antique touch to fit. CULM was new to me, and I didn’t really get the “our” in MISSOURIAN (thanks Peter- like the references). CoD to SPRING.
  6. In 12a I thought the theologian was Dodd, the key F. Is that too far-fetched?
    Isabel
    1. I guess your theologian is this man. I didn’t know about him (and think he would be too obscure for Times xwd use), but if you start with the concluding DD(F)OD from these ideas, you should be able to eliminate it by cold logic – there’s nothing in the clue to indicate the reversal of Dodd, and I can’t see anything to indicate the theologian containing the key, either. You’d also have to find something to provide the EISTE at the beginning of the word.
  7. There was a lot of obscurity in this, most of which I was pleased to get: the legal meaning of non-user, the law-making meaning of Mede and the prehistoric tower. I was stuck for a long time in the NW and when I finally got Gasteropod I assumed that I had been misspelling it all my life, not that I often have to spell gasteropod. Sadly Culm was one level of obscurity too far for me as I have never heard of the dialect word for coal-dust or the German industrial city and there was no way I could get it from the wordplay so I had to resort to a dictionary for that one.

    I think the definition of Zen in Chambers covers Peter’s quibble.

  8. Got totally stuck in the NE after about 25 min. Finally had to go to the aids to get SPRING. All right, I know it is glaringly obvious, unless you are looking for some fiendish construction. This made GANYMEDE obvious, but then I needed more assistance to confirm CULM. So a clunky 36 min. Didn’t know this definition of NON-USER either, but chanced it. None too shabby a puzzle, thank you Setter.
  9. This started out as a fairly standard solve which should have seen me on track for a 40-45 minute job until I came to grief in the NW corner with the 1s, 2dn, 3dn and 9ac outstanding and no hope of working them out without assistance. I spent as long on these as on the rest of the puzzle put together and still couldn’t crack them. I have never met GASTERPOD and was working along the lines of starting with TASTER or TESTER when I gave up. Just a bit too much concentration of obscurity in one corner for my taste.

    The rest of it was a good mix and I was pleased to solve several such as CULM without actually knowing the word or its meaning. I must admit to being a bit thrown by ULM defined as an industrial city. It undoubtedly has a lot of industry, most cities do, but it’s quite beautiful in parts and known for many other things not least its cathedral. It’s certainly not some sort of industrial wasteland.

  10. Meant to add, unnecessarily, to my somewhat otiose comments above on pb’s (as always) fine blog, that his remarkable cultural reference at 13 compares unfavourably in my view to the Molesworthian humour provided by john_from_lancs yesterday. Never got my head round Python, never wanted to; always admired Molesworth and his unfailing need to tuough up his younger brother etc. Willans and Searle, Sellers and Yeatman, Wodehouse, Stella Gibbons, where are you now?
    1. Your list seems to suggest that humour ended in 1958 when Willans died. I think that’s an unnecessarily gloomy view. Python is as uneven as any weekly half-hour of comedy (Fawlty Towers is the exception that proves the rule, with just 12 episodes), but I’d take a punt that not all Wodehouse is as good as his best. With the exception of “I’ll cut your balls off”, this scene is pure Molesworth, right down to the tweaking of Brian’s hair.

      Pedant’s corner: Sellar and Yeatman, unless the Goons did a revamp.

      1. Thanks for clip; enjoyable; to me not pure Molesworth however; partly it’s the visual spelling of his solipsistic universe that’s lacking, partly it’s simply the little runt himself. Yes, Fawlty Towers shows there’s yet to smile at.
    2. Had to do some digging to find who Molesworth was. I see there were some books. Was there a TV series? I’m afraid he never migrated to NZ, unlike Monty Python who moved in and took over.
      1. No TV, no film (unlike St Trinians, originally from the same people). Just the books.
      2. Some one has painstakingly collected Ronald Searle’s Molesworth illustrations on this site . I hope you find them as delightful as I do.
  11. Peter, in your earlier post about the Oxford Dictionary site you described it as free. Your links above refer me to a ‘Subscribe Now’ page – no access without payment or a 30-day trial. Have I missed something?

    John

    1. I’m puzzled – I get a page which has a “subscribe now” link at the top but also has the word with definitions (in all four of the different web browsers available on this machine). I haven’t paid Oxford any money or joined any trials. Does anyone else get the same problem?
      1. Looking again, I see the definition now – after scrolling down way off the bottom of the page!

        Thanks Peter

        John

      2. Further to that…

        I must have declined a cookie in Firefox earlier as a very strangely displayed page now looks fine.

        John

  12. finished without aids in probably just under an hour. culm was new and last in, but ulm was known due to its cathedral having the highest steeple in the world. agree that there was plenty of opportunity for misspellings, i even erased brooch once as it didnt look right. cod 8d now i understand it fully.
  13. 23:51 .. beautifully pitched puzzle with easier footholds scattered here and there about the rock face.

    Last in CULM, which finally emerged through a mist of half-remembered geography and science lessons.

    Nice one, setter, innit.

  14. I forgot to mention that Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda seems to fit the bill for a literal reading of Aria.
  15. Definitely a tricky puzzle. I filled two-thirds fairly quickly, but the last third was an age to complete, taking me 45 minutes altogether, but with a wrong guess at 13 – WURM. Ulm is not unfamiliar so I should have worked out the correct answer.
  16. Abandoned this after a long time with 4 unsolved in the NW corner. With hindsight my failure all stems from not getting the straightforward VINEGARY in spite of seeing the Gary part, which is pretty dim. With the V I’m pretty sure I’d have got VIZIER, which would have given me ZEN (without the Z “dozen” for “group” is not immediately obvious). I had thought of NON-USER but wasn’t very happy with nose = informer and didn’t know the legal usage. However with all the checking letters I’m sure I would have chanced it.
    Until getting stuck I felt I was doing quite well in spite of a generous helping of unknowns: CULM, BROCH, ARRACK, MEDE.
    Very frustrating.
  17. Failed on culm, Ganymede and arrack.

    I remember my German teacher teaching us a tongue-twister: In Ulm, um Ulm und um Ulm herum, something like in Ulm, around Ulm and round about Ulm. I knew it would come in handy one day, shame I blew it.

    Jimbo will be pleased to hear that I only know Ganymede as a moon, although it stands to reason that it was named after something else, much like the aforementioned S/2003 J 2. Not knowing mede also contributed to my downfall here.

    Maybe it’s just sour grapes but there was a lot I didn’t like here. Plenty of people work weekends (shop assistants, bus drivers, zoo keepers, bouncers, roadies, nurses, newsreaders, (ok, I’ll stop)); I know plenty of ways that aren’t called 5th Avenue; dozen = group?

    As the title says, bah.

  18. Immediately on reading the clue for 14dn an image of blue seersucker came into my mind. It took me a few seconds to remember what this type of fabric was called, at which point I saw that it worked and put it in.
    Instantaneous subconscious solving or pure coincidence?
  19. Thought tht this was a very nice puzzle. Got CULM and ZEN easily enough but, incredibly, struggled with DEEJAY! 40 minutes in all.

    I have never seen ARRACK spelt like this: I have spent some time in the M.E. where the phonetic selling is ARAK. But it is obviously right!

    COD to 17d SCABBARD.

  20. Not quite right since i had a completed grid, only I have never heard of either CULM or ULM so was never going to get the answer. I figured the pangram was in the offing so plumped for QUEM being the city with SQUEM being the coal dust and “originally choking” being inventive for take the first letter off. All very random and very wrong.

    As an aside I had ROAM for 23 for a while before re-appraising when I got 17D. It seems fine as a stand alone with RAM as the striker and ROAM as a variant of TRAMP.

  21. Was my guess for 12A, so stumped today by EISTEDDFOD, which I found checking afterwards with aids. Never heard of it. I had parsed the clue correctly, and the above was the best I could come up with. I got through everything else despite not knowing of CULM, ‘mede’, this meaning of ‘our’, or the alternate spelling of gastropod. I had to correct myself for taking the wordplay too literally at 20A by first entering ‘ARRISO’ before realizing it didn’t mean anything. Regards to everyone, including the setter today.
      1. Thanks Jimbo, and PB as well. I was utterly unaware of the eisteddfod (can it be rendered in lower case?) thing, and am surprised at Peter’s link to the NY branch planning to convene in Kerhonksen NY, which, believe it or not, is nearby. I doubt I’ll attend, however, pre-engaged that date.
  22. This one took me 37 minutes. I usually take over an hour, so was encouraged to find that I am keeping up with the pack for once.
    Ganymede is described in “Brewers Dictionary of Phrase and Fable” as “Jove’s cupbearer; the most beautiful boy that was ever born”, so a suitable attendant for Jupiter.
    Strictly, a Mede was an inhabitant of Media (now NW Iran), subject to the immutable “laws of the Medes and the Persians”, and not necessarily a law-maker. Nice to see “gay” used in the old-fashioned sense, though

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