Times 24611 – Miss Meeber’s Lover

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 43 minutes

Music:Holst, The Planets, Sargent/BBC Symphony

This should have been rather easy, but perhaps I was a little tired after three days of golf. There are one or two tricky answers, and some rather allusive literals to keep your interest, although in most cases it was evident how the clue worked.

I have followed the re-emphasized policy with regard to titles for the blogs. If you happen to glance at the title I have chosen and see an answer instantly, you richly deserve it.

Beginners are reminded that obvious clues are not blogged, although some bloggers give a few hints.

Across
1 BUCK, cryptic definition, where farming is presumably not a get-rich-quick enterprise.
3 ALPHABETIC, anagram of CHIP A TABLE, and a fair description of the letters in ‘a demo’.
10 An obvious one, a present from Santa Claus.
11 SPLIT, double definition, the Croatian port.
12 OVERDUE, O VERD[i] U[s]E. I did expect this to end in ‘mas’ for a bit before I spotted how it worked.
13 TROJAN, TR(OJ)A[i]N, where ‘Jo’ is just about the only two-letter girl ending in ‘o’.
15 LABOUR INTENSIVE, LABOUR INTENS(IV)E, where the small number is of the Roman sort.
18 STRETCH ONES LEGS, anagram of S[on} NEGLECTS OTHERS. I wanted to put ‘scratch’ as the first word for the longest time, causing delay.
21 HERBAL, HER LAB backwards.
23 IMPASTO, I’M PAST 0, a painting technique involving laying it on with a trowel, so to speak.
26 Deliberately omitted, he hears.
27 CONSONANT, double definition, because ‘I’ is a vowel.
28 PIRANDELLO P(IRAN)(DELL)O. I worked on this for quite a while trying to use ‘Peru’ as an enclosing country, before I saw it from the literal. It then took me further five minutes to see how the simple and obvious cryptic works.
29 Deliberately omitted, said to be uninteresting.
 
Down
1 BOTTOMLESS, double definition, one cryptic.
2 COPSE, COP(S)E, my first in, a present from the setter.
4 LICKERISH, LICKER IS H. A bit of 16th-century vocabulary for you, nothing terribly obscure, but some may not know it.
5 HURST, [Ben]HUR [Nevi]S T[o]. Rather obscure for non-UK solvers, I had vaguely heard of it and let the cryptic guide me. One of over 1000 public forests described in the Woodland Trust web site
6 BASSOON, BAS SOON. This instrument and its operator seem to have replaced Tiepolo as the stock answer found weekly in Times puzzles.
7 TALKATIVE, TAL(K VITA backwards)E. A Bloomsbury clue for you, spotted at once because ‘Vita’ backwards makes such a useful bit of many adjectives.
8 Deliberately omitted, you should have three out of four letters for this.
9 LANDAU, L[iberal] AND U A. I put this in at once from the definition, but tried to place Mr. Land for a bit before I saw how it works.
14 PEA SHOOTER, anagram of SO THE OPERA. It is the literal that has to be taken literal-mindedly here.
16 BARTENDER, BART ENDER, where ‘taking out’ is used to mean ‘bumping off’.
17 TENSIONAL, sounds like INTENTIONAL in the slurred speak of a drunk, but otherwise does not.
19 TIBETAN, TI(BE)TAN, an easy one for you beginners, if you remember ‘live’ often = ‘be’.
20 SIPHON, anagram of HOPS IN, strangely difficult for me.
22 LUCRE, [h]ERCUL[e] backwards. I was playing around with strange spellings of ‘ecru’ when I realized you have to chop off both ends. Voila!
24 Deliberately omitted, take a good look at the clue again.
25 GAWP, GA(W)P. A cartoonish surface, that may cause some to smile.

49 comments on “Times 24611 – Miss Meeber’s Lover”

  1. Mr Hurstwood?
    Spent 52m on this one and enjoyed it as a classic medium gauge puzzle, with some quite easy and some much harder. Not terribly fond of LICKER = “person flogging”. What’s “vocabaulary”?
    After JACK OF ALL TRADES the other Sunday, we now have BARTENDER. Could the setters be sneaking a peek at the Clue of the Month Comp?
    Obvious COD to LUCRE.
  2. Didn’t get a time on this, interrupted by a phone call, but I found the top half a lot trickier than the bottom half, and there were a lot that went in from definition without getting the wordplay – PIRANDELLO, BARTENDER, LICKERISH, TALKATIVE and only HURST going in from the wordplay without knowing the meaning.

    I think 17 is referring to if you add “IN” to “TENSIONAL” it sounds like INTENTIONAL, which it does when I say it.

    1. According to vinyl, you must be drunk. Heaven forfend! I wonder how the (obviously sober) vinyl would pronounce “intentional”.
  3. Regards. About 20 minutes, but had to look up PIRANDELLO, and don’t really understand the BARTENDER wordplay despite the explanantion. (Not that I have an explanation; I don’t.) Vinyl, minor points, I also think the HURST is a generic ‘wood’ or ‘wooded grove’, rather than any specific wood called ‘Hurst’. I think the T in HURST also derives from the initial letter of ‘this’, as opposed to ‘to’. Overall though, some tricky stuff, i.e. CONSONANT, enough to stretch the mind. Best to all.
    1. Oops, the previous was me. Forgot to sign in. Agree with you about hurst = wood = wooded area.
    2. Bart is the abreviation for Baronet, so if you “take out” an baronet, you are a bart ender! Regards to NY. I spent many a pleasant work stint there.
  4. About 35 minutes, although I had to invent PERINDELLO at 28 to complete the grid. I didn’t have a clue how 1ac worked so I did some googling and decided it could be a reference to Buckfast Tonic Wine, popular amongst the inhabitants of Cantril Farm, (aka Canny Farm) Liverpool, for example. Any other suggestions? Hurst was a guess from Normanhurst, a suburb of Sydney, which featured in my youth. My Pavlovian response to wood is copse, which I later found fitted quite nicely at 2d. Strange, as was the mix of the very easy and the impossible today – it must be Monday. COD to PEA-SHOOTER; it’s all about my youth today.
    1. To expand on Vinyl, “it takes a canny farmer to make this” a buck; “fast creature” (inverted) = buck.
      1. Sorry, but I prefer my explanation. Why the farmer? Are you sure there wasn’t a clever farmer Rogers in Beatrice Potter?
          1. Is it not part of Greater Manchester? Oh, and I’m reasonably certain Mr Rogers was the farmer in the dell.
      2. I thought the canny farmer was one who made a fast buck. But as long as all lines of thought lead to BUCK, it doesn’t matter much.
  5. An hour and a half and one wrong – ‘lecherish” for LICKERISH. Would be surprised if I were the only person to enter this. COD to CONSONANT.
    1. Yes, I had that too. Although it doesn’t appear to exist, with that as a possibility I’d never have come up with the correct answer as I simply didn’t know the word. Didn’t understand BUCK nor BARTENDER either. 35 minutes, which is not too bad for me.

  7. 10:16 – should possibly have been quicker, as27 took a while to crack despite being based on familiar Times xwd ideas. Also needed checkers for 18’s anagram, failing to try the old trick of seeing ONE’S as a very likely middle word and looking at what letters were left.

    Answers entered without full wordplay understanding: 12, 15, 28

  8. Fairly easy today, except that I carelessly put “lecherous” and then when I found it didn’t fit, altered it to “lecherish” without really thinking. V. irritating, I hate it when that happens..
  9. 12:16 here. Took a punt at LICKERISH to finish although I wasn’t 100% sure of it. No real sticking points anywhere else.
  10. Felt quite smug with a fast time of 8 mins until I read this blog and discovered LECHERISH isn’t a real word!
  11. 26 minutes. I just thought there were too many words in 1ac, and when left with no alternative put in BUCK because it went with fast. PIRANDELLO took ages because I initially had tensionED as a very reasonable answer to 17dn and wanted to fit in dean, somewhere along the row. I still think TENSIONAL is a made up word. BOAR was a go-through-the-alphabet answer, which sadly I had to do twice. HURST I took as a generic. CoD to BOTTOMLESS.
  12. 30 minutes. Started top left and worked clockwise, as I usually do: would probably have been much faster had I started top right and worked anticlockwise. Still, it was an enjoyable puzzle, with PEA SHOOTER giving me a smile to start the day. Didn’t get lost in the woods; maybe English poetry was my guide: there are a couple of other terms for wood beginning with h in

      this poem

    by A.E. Housman

  14. dnf as i had tahitan for 19d. top half went in quickly, except hurst. lower half lot more tricky. cod pea-shooter.
  15. This one went OK, 19 minutes. Despite the aptness of kororareka’s Canny Farm it seems too in-group; I’d guess the setter was thinking of a rabbit farm; but that seems a little odd too. It would be interesting if (s)he told us. A nice mix of gimmes and testers overall. Thanks john_from_lancs for the Housman file. His use of vocabulary is almost the antithesis of the crossword in the way it makes so much from so little. Enjoyed 14, for memory’s sake.
  16. Just under 18 minutes here, so fairly easy even with a couple of unknowns (HURST, LICKERISH).
    There are a few clues here that took me a while to unpick after putting the answer in without full understanding. I was unhappy with 17dn but have just realised that “in this” should be read (aloud) as “in tensional” which sounds exactly like intentional without any need for alcohol consumption.
    I didn’t understand 26ac so had to Google “adit” myself to find the definition “entrance to an underground mine”. Not quite a gimme in my view!
    I enjoyed ALPHABETIC and more particularly PEA SHOOTER. Fun puzzle.
  17. The wonderful definition of PEA-SHOOTER as “it sets the pulse racing” made this puzzle for me.

    Came within three letters of finishing unaided but just couldn’t see PIRANDELLO from P?R?NDELL? I’d not heard of him. There’s a dell on the 5th/14th at my golf club which it’s wise to avoid!

    Re LUCRE:
    Was I the only one to raise an eyebrow at “endlessly” meaning take both ends off (HERCULE) rather than take one end off?

  18. Please explain Miss Meeber! I looked her up on Google and all I got were references to this blog!!
    I also had lecherish and am pleased that I was not the only one to fall for this!
    Barry J
    1. I had to google too, and once I had eliminated Google revising Meeber to member got Caroline Meeber. George Hurstwood was apparently her lover. How recherché can you get?!
  19. Thank you z8b8d8k for explaining Caroline Meeber – much appreciated.
    I should add that I find this blog essential reading each morning even though I rarely post a comment. I doff my hat to all the bloggers for the uniform excellence of their analyses (usually posted before I open the paper!).
    Barry J
    1. In which vein, I seem to recall that back in the 80s somebody set up a crossword helpline you could phone to get the answers to clues from any of the major daily cryptics. I think it was staffed mainly by researchers in university labs working the night shift who would get the early editions and be ready to answer calls for help at all hours. Am I imagining this? Does anyone else remember it? Or perhaps someone here was actually involved.
  20. Not too difficult, apart from 28ac where I got stuck at the end. I didn’t help my cause by misspelling 22d (despite getting it from the cryptic!) Also had BARKEEPER entered for 16d for a while, which gave me lots of grief with 26ac.
  21. 15:34 .. I was close to writing in ‘lecherish’ then felt a tug from my “What Would Peter Do?” wristband which prompted me to reconsider.

    Nice Monday puzzle. PEA SHOOTER is great fun.

  22. A nice gentle intro to another week. Glad after the struggles of last week! About 20 mins.

    Some really good clues in this puzzle: my COD is ALPHABETIC which I thought was very clever!

  23. An easy 20 minute stroll with no particular problems along the way. Nice simple start to the week.

    As of a few moments ago Sunday’s Mephisto had still not been put into the Crossword Club site – hopeless level of service!

    1. The Mephisto still isn’t up – particularly frustrating for me with my beginner’s enthusiasm.
      As an alternative I followed your excellent advice and had a pop at 2602, which I managed about two thirds of yesterday evening and very nearly finished this. On checking your equally helpful blog I can see that of the two clues I failed to get, one was due to a silly anagram error (I wrote the wrong letters out in a circle – doh!) and the other (SEMPLE) I’d guessed but couldn’t find any evidence for on the internet. Chambers arrives tomorrow.
      So thanks again.
      1. Well done.

        I’ve just checked again this morning and 2606 still isn’t there. As usual they don’t reply to my prompting e-mails – as you say very frustrating.

  24. 9.42 including a 30 second hesitation over LICKERISH – LECHERISH but decided it couldn’t be the latter and I couldn’t come up with a better alternative. Liked ALPHABETIC clue and would definitely have struggled with the wordplay of 28 if I hadn’t heard of PIRANDELLO.
    Buckfast wine (Buckie) is a big seller in Glasgow and environs and gets the blame for many of the alcohol induced misbehaviour in that area.
  25. I completed the puzzle, but I’m never very fast — over two hours, interrupted by one phone call. I had no great trouble finding BUCK, having convinced myself that “It takes a canny farmer to make a fast buck” must be a well-known proverb or catch phrase, and am surprised to find that no one else has heard of it either and Googling it only leads to this blog. LICKERISH was my last in and required a dictionary look-up, since like so many other people I first had LECHERISH but was rather doubtful of that. When Chambers didn’t know it either I cycled through the alphabet for the uncrossed letters until LICKERISH came to my attention and was corroborated by Collins.
  26. Pea shooter for me too.

    I’m with Twain on golf I’m afraid; if ever there were a game that needed deinventing…

    1. A ‘pea shooter’ would be one of those very small guns they use to shoot veg, surely?

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